Review Responses:
hydraspit – Glad you liked Thornfield, personally I'm loving writing her! Thanks for the review!
ElavielBlack – I'm glad you liked the last chapter so much. As for the writing making you like characters you hadn't thought you would it's probably because I like them and it comes across in the way I see and portray them. I love Thornfield, she's great fun to write and I do feel I know her extremely well, I've thought through more about her than will probably ever be useful but character planning's never really useless I suppose. As to getting emotional over a book being sad, well I do it too – a heck of a lot actually! I think it's the mark of a good book if it can make you emotional. Not too upset James and Sirius are gone though, I wasn't their biggest fans. I liked Sirius and I kind of miss him but I'm afraid I hate James Potter's guts! Forgive me, he hurt my Snape. If you would like to discuss HBP feel free to e-mail me about it if you like. The link's in my profile if you want to use it. Thanks for reviewing!
Dark-Lady-Devinity – Romance? Maybe. You will indeed though have to wait and see. :o) Thanks for the review!
Golden Lass – oh, I'm so pleased you liked Percy in this. I still can't believe what she did to him in book five! Book six was indeed awesome. Thanks for the review!
A Subtle ChangeEmphasis
Chapter 4
A few days after their first encounter, Remus arrived at the ministry of magic offices early in the morning to meet with Percy's boss. The woman was waiting for him in her office with the door open and gestured him in impatiently while signalling to him to sit down and be quiet as she finished writing a memo and gave it a prod with her wand, sending it to someone in the department of mysteries.
Eventually she looked up at him and smiled, "Good morning, Remus, it's so good of you to agree to this."
"Oh that's no problem, Druscilla. Where did you want to start?"
"Well, traditionally we start at the beginning. The beginning in this case was around the time when Fudge finally acknowledged Voldemort's return to the mortal plane and therefore instantly cast around for something else to focus the attention of both himself and the rest of the wizarding world on, in hopes that by the time he turned his attention back to Voldemort he'd just have gone away."
Remus couldn't quite hide a smile at her comment, "Still he wasn't the only one who didn't acknowledge Voldemort's return," he pointed out.
Druscilla was too quick to let that slip by, "Are you talking about me?"
"I suppose so."
"I knew he was back. You had nothing to gain by lying about it and much as Dumbledore can seem a trifle demented he's not out to depose Fudge, after all that's my job."
Remus chose to ignore the last part of her comment, "If you knew he was back then why did you never say so, why did you never try to convince Fudge or anyone else?"
She shrugged, "I didn't see the benefit."
"You didn't see the benefit in the wizarding world knowing that Voldemort had returned?" he asked sceptically.
"No," she said, "I didn't see the benefit to me."
Remus was still trying to take this in when she began talking again.
"Anyway we're not here to talk about everyone's favourite Dark Lord, we're here because Fudge wants to magically tag werewolves which is the first step on a slippery slope which leads to the complete erosion of their rights. I want to check some facts about what you're like with the aid of the wolfsbane potion. What's the difference? And keep it in layman's terms, I need Cornelius to at least be able to look like he understands it."
"With the aid of the wolfsbane, I retain my sense of self. Instead of becoming something different inside it's just the outside that changes. I don't hurt other people or myself."
An expression of morbid curiosity spread across her face, "You hurt yourself without the potion?"
"Yes," he replied matter of factly, "I've still got the scars."
"So if you're hurt as a werewolf you retain those wounds when you change back and you keep the scars?"
"Yes," he nodded.
"Can I have a look?" she asked suddenly.
"Well…" Remus was about to decline when she stood and crossed the room and began, without so much as a by your leave, to unbutton his shirt. He was slightly shocked and irritated by the woman's forwardness but didn't fight her, guessing that she was not someone who was accustomed to taking no for an answer.
Druscilla finished unbuttoning the shirt and pulled it open. Her eyes were instantly drawn to a long pale scar that spanned in a slightly broken diagonal across the man's chest. She ran her eyes admiringly over him; he certainly was attractive. She reached out a hand only to have him step back suddenly.
Remus was growing increasingly uncomfortable with her giving his half naked body such critical looks and as she extended a hand as though to touch him he pulled away from her. "You look with your eyes, not your hands," he mumbled sharply.
She smirked at him, "Sorry, got a bit carried away."
Remus quickly began to re-button his shirt. "Was there anything else you wanted?"
She raised an eyebrow at this comment.
Before Remus could respond, the door to the office swung open and Percy Weasley walked in brandishing a piece of parchment and a quill which was dripping violet ink. "Professor…" Percy trailed off taking in the scene around him. Remus Lupin was hastily buttoning up his shirt, a faint blush adorning his cheeks and his power crazed employer was looking at the werewolf with undisguised enjoyment and amusement. Percy immediately blushed and dropped his quill.
Druscilla began to laugh at the two very flustered men as Percy retrieved his quill from the floor and beat a very hasty retreat, never explaining what had been so important as to make him barge into the office unannounced in the first place. Druscilla couldn't help but feel slightly bad about embarrassing Remus in such a way, the man was really quite endearing in the way he blushed.
She grinned and said, "Ah well, at least he won't be barging in here without knocking again in a hurry!"
Remus seemed to miss the humorous side of the situation. "Well if you've got all the information you need perhaps I should be getting on."
"You could stay for a cup of tea if you like?"
"Oh no, I really should get going," Remus insisted, retreating swiftly before anything more could be done to embarrass him.
XXXXXXX
The first week at Hogwarts had passed relatively quietly, a new and rather boring DADA teacher had been introduced, the sixth years had signed up for their NEWTs classes, Ron and Hermione had had two fairly serious arguments about deeply trivial things, Seamus and Neville had both avoided unnecessary conservation, Parvati had returned, deeply subdued and not at all her usual bubbly, gossiping self, and Luna had firmly attached herself to Ron and his friends. There had also been the obligatory Malfoy/Potter on going grudge match that most people were fast losing interest in and had already culminated in the two ending up in the hospital wing. All in all it was turning into a fairly average year, all that was needed was the fighting for their lives, Ron thought dryly.
The Gryffindors were sat in the common room with Hermione trying to get Ron to make an early start on his homework but having little success as he was far more interested in keeping a close eye on where Dean Thomas had an arm around Ginny whilst playing chess with Seamus.
Harry shook his head at his two best friends; there was something reassuring in their bickering, as though nothing had really changed in the world when of course everything had changed. He felt distanced from them, he had a destiny to fulfil that they had no part in and that pulled him from them.
Ron and Hermione were distracted from their squabbling however by the appearance of an owl at the window. Recognising Hermes, Ron jumped up and let his brother's owl fly in.
"Hello Hermes," he took the letter from the owl's leg and him fly away. "Hey Gin, it's for both of us," Ron called his sister over.
Ginny left her boyfriend's side to sit on the sofa with her brother and Hermione. After jostling each other to see the parchment Ron decided to read it out.
"Dear Ron and Ginny,
How are you both getting on? All's well at home, we're back at the Burrow now and it feels good to be back. Fred and George are staying at Grimmauld Place with Remus so that they can establish their shop easier in Diagon Alley.
Things are very busy at the ministry, though I get the impression that some people are simply busy extricating themselves from the political mess that we got ourselves into. My boss however still seems to be finding the time to create scandal, something I have found she excels at!
Not two days ago I walked into her office to find Remus Lupin rather hastily putting his shirt back on! I mean I'm very pleased to see him getting out of the house and having fun, which he very much deserves after his recent loss, but really in a ministry office! Also Druscilla Thornfield has a reputation for eating men for breakfast, I just hope he knows what he's getting involved with. She has a ward for those suffering stress induced breakdowns named after her at St. Mungo's and they say it's because she felt guilty about some of the things she'd done and felt she should make a contribution to helping the people she's driven there! Goodness knows whether that's true but it wouldn't quite surprise me if it were!
Anyway, I don't know that I should be telling you this, Thornfield can cause a public outcry all by herself without me spreading the news of her latest indiscretions!
Do write and tell me what's going on at Hogwarts, I hope you're both well and having an enjoyable year and working hard in your lessons.
Love Percy"
Ron and Harry instantly fell about laughing, "Lupin and Percy's boss!"
"I think it's sweet!" Hermione insisted causing Ron to roll his eyes.
"Have you met Thornfield, Hermione? She's a bit…well, she's got a reputation for walking over everyone and for being more than a little crazy at times!"
Hermione glared at the redhead, "You haven't a romantic bone in your body, Ronald Weasley!"
Deciding that though their arguing was reassuring it was also annoying Harry changed the subject, "Did you know it's the first quidditch team practice tomorrow?"
"Yeah, I heard," Ron said, "We're keeping the beaters who played in the twins' places last year and Katie's got that fourth year who was a reserve as the third chaser."
"Third chaser, who's the second? We've only got Katie left." Harry asked.
"Hem, hem!" Ginny cleared her throat, "I know you've never found me that noticeable, Harry, but that other chaser would be me, remember! I told you I was going to try out for the position! You wished me luck yesterday!"
"Oh, sorry, I'd forgotten." Harry had found himself forgetting more and more of the little things his friends got up to, his mind was constantly occupied with less pleasant but more important things. "So you got the position? I couldn't get to the try outs, what with being in the hospital wing because of Malfoy!"
"Harry, technically you hexed him first!" Hermione pointed out, looking up from the essay she'd turned her attention to at the mention of quidditch.
"Only after he and Parkinson managed to splash their hair growth potion at me!" Harry protested.
Ron had to suppress a laugh at the memory of his best friend covered in hair and unable to speak while Malfoy had grown a forked tail which really summed up quite a lot about his personality in Ron's opinion.
XXXXXXX
Ron made his way to the quidditch pitch feeling pleased at the idea of flying again, he'd missed quidditch over the summer and he knew Harry had too. Ginny was obviously excited at the idea of being a chaser so they were all in good spirits as Katie came across to talk to them.
"Hello everyone, welcome back after summer. I'm guessing the first question everyone's wanting the answer to is who's the new captain?"
Everyone nodded.
"Well McGonagall asked me to be team captain this morning but with the whole Head Girl thing and my NEWTs at the end of the year, I don't think that's going to happen, I won't have time. We chatted for a while and we came up with a solution. I'll captain the team through to the end of our first match of the season, we've drawn to play first anyway. After that the team captain will be whoever performs best in that game. Should give you all a motivation to kick Slytherin's arses! Oh yeah, that's the other thing, we're playing Slytherin and apparently Malfoy's their new captain. Now I haven't a clue how good he's going to be at that but don't underestimate the Slytherins, if we lose this match we'll have a tough fight on our hands for the cup."
A murmur ran through the other team members, all except Harry. "Malfoy's Slytherin quidditch captain!" he blurted out.
"Yes, he is," Katie responded as though it wasn't that important.
Harry snorted disdainfully, "Wonder how his father managed to bribe people from behind bars."
"Hey, no underestimating him. I know you've never lost to him, Harry, but he's a pretty good seeker and the last thing we all need to do is get over confident and start making sloppy mistakes!" Katie had apparently trained at the Oliver Wood school of quidditch captaining.
"Now we've got a lot of new people here but Umbridge's actions last year mean that almost all of us have experience of a real quidditch match and, excepting Harry and David, our new chaser, we've all flown as a team. Harry you're not much of an issue in that area since you don't really need to work with the rest of us, you've got your own job to do. David, Ginny and I are going to have some practice sessions on our own because we've never flown together as chasers before. Other than that we'll have the usual weekly quidditch practices to start off with but if things don't go according to plan I might up the number of them if I can fit them around everything else I'm doing."
"How are we going to judge who's best in the match?" Ginny asked, "Do we vote on it or will you choose or what?"
"Well I thought we could try and agree informally and if we can't decide we'll put it to a vote. Any other questions or are we ready to start practice?"
There were no other questions and so Katie led the team out onto the pitch and sent Harry and Ron to fetch the practice balls.
XXXXXXX
Ron and Harry returned to Gryffindor tower later that evening to find Hermione engrossed in her homework. Ginny left them to go and sit with Dean and the other team members dispersed around the common room, or in Katie's case ran up the dormitory stairs to catch up on homework in a quieter environment. If there was one thing you could say for a Fred and George free Gryffindor tower though, it was a lot quieter than it had been at any point in the previous seven years.
"How was quidditch practice?" Hermione looked up as Ron and Harry sat down, "Did you find out who the new captain was?" she looked meaningfully at Harry, clearly expecting that it would have been offered to him.
"Katie's doing it temporarily," Harry answered her, "But she doesn't want the job so the new captain's going to be whoever performs best in the first match of the season. We've found out we're playing Slytherin and Malfoy's their new captain."
"Doesn't surprise me," Hermione said, returning to her work, "Who else were they going to choose? Those brooms his father bought really were a good investment it seems. Anyway I'm sure you'll get it Harry…I mean…" she looked up at Ron suddenly, as though she had forgotten that he too was on the team, "Not that, well, I just meant that Harry you've been on the team longer than anyone other than Katie so I just thought…" she trailed off, "Sorry Ron."
Ron smiled humourlessly, "Think nothing of it Hermione, I know exactly what you mean." He stood up suddenly, "You know what, I'm exhausted," he yawned, "Time for an early night, see you guys in the morning."
As she watched him leave Hermione grimaced, "I shouldn't have said that in front of him."
Harry frowned at her, "No you shouldn't but he shouldn't be so sensitive about everything."
XXXXXXX
When Ron reached the dormitory it was in semi darkness, the heavy drapes had been drawn against the last of the light and just a single candle was burning by Seamus' unmade bed. Seamus himself was sat hunched over with his head on his knees and did not seem to notice Ron's entrance.
Ron stood awkwardly in the doorway and was about to retreat when it suddenly hit him that maybe Seamus did want to be alone but that didn't necessarily mean being alone was doing him any good.
"Seamus?" The boy sat bolt upright in surprise.
"Oh hiya Ron, you gave me a fright. Didn't hear you come in."
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Just wanted to get away from the common room for a bit. You doing the same?"
Seamus looked intensely grateful that Ron had enough tact not to mention the tear tracks on his cheeks. He smiled weakly, "Yeah, I'm sure Dean's going all soppy over your sister right about now."
Ron frowned, "Yeah well he better watch it with her."
Seamus laughed a little, "You know he's terrified he'll wake up with you trying to kill him or something! He wouldn't hurt her, he really cares for her."
"I know," Ron said grudgingly, "But she's my little sister! I'm allowed to worry." He walked across and sat on Neville's bed next to Seamus'. "You're not feeling like a third wheel or anything are you mate?"
Seamus shook his head, "Nah, not really. Your sister's great but I just don't want to be with the two of them at the moment. They look so happy and then Dean remembers I'm there and starts looking guilty. He shouldn't, it's not his fault and I shouldn't be annoyed with them just for being happy together."
Ron looked at the floor, "You miss her a lot?"
Seamus didn't answer, simply pulled a photograph out from under his pillow and handed it to Ron, it was him and Lavender at the Yule Ball in their fourth year. "She really was very pretty," Ron smiled, "Never could work out what she was doing with you!"
Seamus tried to smile, "Must have been my Irish charm."
"Must have been." Ron passed the photograph back. "Seamus, are you going to be alright?"
"That's a different one, most people ask if I am alright."
"Of course you're not alright, you're a long way from alright, but I just want to know if you're handling things. I mean, if we can help we're all here for you, we just don't know what to do."
"That's ok, I will be alright eventually I suppose; it just doesn't feel like it sometimes." He sighed, "I feel awful moping around like this and worrying people, Neville's just getting on with things like he always does!"
Ron smiled, "Neville's not the type to want to bring attention to himself."
"Yeah but he's been through more than I have, I had no clue his parents were like that. He shouldn't have to deal with that, none of us should have to deal with this."
"No," Ron hesitated, "Harry's got so much to deal with and I do sympathise with him but I wish he'd stand back every once in a while to see that he's not alone."
"Harry's never going to do that, as far as he's concerned he has to do it all." Seamus shrugged, "But for heaven's sakes can we talk about something else for a while? I'm going to be bawling over that photograph again if we carry on like this!"
Ron laughed, "Can't have that. What do you want to talk about?"
"I dunno," he shrugged. "Oh, did they make you quidditch captain? With your head for strategy I'd have thought you'd have been a cert! Got five galleons riding on you actually!"
"You might want to withdraw your bet! The captain will be whoever performs best at the first match, so as Hermione kindly pointed out Harry's going to get it. But I don't mind, not sure I want it that much anyway."
Seamus snorted, "Liar!"
"I don't!" Ron insisted.
"Yeah, you do. Just think, you'd get to boss the head girl around! And quidditch captains get all the girls! Hermione won't remember Harry's name once she sees you holding the quidditch cup!"
"Shut up, Seamus!" Ron threw Neville's pillow at the laughing Irish boy, but he had to admit he'd put up with a lot to see the other boy laugh again.
XXXXXXX
A/N: sorry for the long waits between updates but I assure you it's all necessary at the moment. Hope you can stick with me. The next update won't be for at least the next two weeks because I'm going on holiday without an internet connection. It'd be great to come back to a load of reviews though, hint hint. :o)
Hope you enjoyed.