Wednesday 2 September 2020
In which the narrator learns of the Ministry's purpose in apprehending him and relates the circumstances under which the ownership of his anachronometrical masterpiece was transferred.
"I have a few pieces of news," Ms Mbewe said. "None of it good, unfortunately. Firstly, Potter will be pressing charges relating to the Time-Turner. They did indeed retrieve it from your residence during their raid. It had been my hope that they had only the photograph." It was the day after my second interrogation and Ms Mbewe had come to my cell for a debrief.
"I thought that was unlikely," I said.
"My contact tells me that Potter had to be all but forcibly held back from trying it out there and then in your home, although I scarcely believe that the Head of Magical Law Enforcement would be so rash."
"It's of a piece with the Potter I know," I said. "Act first, think later. He always was an incorrigible hothead."
"Perhaps it is true, then. The next thing I learned was that Harry Potter's son has gone missing."
"Missing?" I said blankly. "What's that got to do with me?"
"Nothing, I would hope," Ms Mbewe said. "But please do tell me if you had any involvement as it will have some bearing on your case. No? Splendid. Well, I'm telling you because Potter was planning on interviewing you further, and this means that you may be detained for some time, waiting for this business with his son to be resolved. It's quite a big deal, actually – they've put out a special Daily Prophet bulletin and even notified the Muggle Prime Minister."
"So I'm old news?" I asked.
"Interestingly enough, the raid on your home never made the news."
"Really?" I said. "There have been plenty of people coming by to have their eyeful."
"There have been rumours circulating; that is true. But someone must have sat on the Prophet to keep them quiet about your arrest, sat on them hard."
"Is that a good or a bad thing?" I asked.
"It can be either," Ms Mbewe said. "There are no limits to how long the Ministry can detain you, and if they're gagging the press and refusing to admit that they are holding you, it will be almost impossible to lobby for your release. On the other hand, no charges have been filed against you, so if we are able to... come to an understanding with the Ministry, it will be much easier for them to back away gracefully. My final piece of news is that the Ministry plans to interview your house elves."
"What's so bad about that?" I asked. "My elves are loyal. They wouldn't say a word against me."
"No," Ms Mbewe said. "But they won't ask them to say a word against you. What they will do is send someone who doesn't look like they're Ministry, who says they can help you, who will innocently mention how clever they have heard Mister Theodore is, and who will keep pushing the elf to know more about your brilliance until they've got something."
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. "That might work," I said.
"It's an increasingly common technique," Ms Mbewe said. "How much do your elves know about your work?"
"Well," I said. "I certainly didn't explain any of it to them, but they do know some things."
"What sort of things?"
"Well, um, I might have... I kind of needed to test something."
"Mr Nott."
"I knew the Time-Turner could transport one person," I said. "I tested it just on myself first off. But I was ambitious. I wanted to see if it could do multiple people. I'd done some calculations and in theory I knew it worked, but I had to put it to the test."
"So you used your elves?"
"I couldn't have trusted anyone else."
"Do you think that was wise?"
"Well, look, there's no telling what they might have seen when they were bringing me cups of tea in my study, or cleaning up after me," I said defensively. "This way I didn't have to bring anyone else in. So the elves know about it, but maybe they did anyway."
"Well, nothing can be done about it now, in any case. And forewarned is forearmed. It might be time to start thinking about... retirement."
It was a few seconds before I properly understood what she meant.
"Oh... no."
"Mr Nott, this is no time for sentimentality. These are just elves."
"No... I can't." She gazed at me steadily. "I killed someone once and it messed me up pretty badly," I said. "I really can't do that."
"Your hands would be clean," she said. "We would take care of it."
"Is that under your hourly rate?" I asked, feeling nauseated.
"No, flat fee per elf."
"Do you, um, do it yourself?"
Ms Mbewe looked highly affronted. "Of course not."
"I'm not interested," I said. "I think the Ministry would probably suspect something, and I've heard that the new Minister is a bit obsessed with house-elves. Besides, it's unethical."
"I will let you think it over," she said. "But you may regret not taking this opportunity. Apart from your elves, is there anyone else who might know about your Time-Turner?"
"Not this particular one; only I knew about the prototype," I said. "But the key thing for you to know is that Potter was right. There is actually another Time-Turner, a sibling to this one. Not still in my possession though." I added hopefully.
"There's another one? Why didn't you tell me this?" Ms Mbewe shook her head. "So the other one is out there, could surface at any moment and could be traced back to you and linked to the Time-Turner that was found in your possession? And Potter has already guessed of its existence, and may even have tracked it down already? This is no good, Mr Nott, no good at all. Do you have any idea where this second Time-Turner ended up?"
"I sold it," I said. "That one was the finished product, same range but made out of decent materials so it's not got the five minute issue the other one has. I knew I could get quite a lot for it – I'd heard an old Ministry one hour Time-Turner had gone for several hundred thousand galleons. So Borgin told me, anyway. I usually sell through Borgin and Burkes. Not retail for this kind of stuff though – as you probably know they do private sales and when I wanted to sell the finished Time-Turner Borgin contacted a number of different collectors for me. This type of sale usually goes through anonymously – that's the whole point of using a broker like Borgin. They take an enormous cut, but it saves a lot of trouble, and risk. But Lucius Malfoy suspected that the work was mine and approached me directly; he offered me five times what Borgin had and still seemed to think he was getting a bargain."
"Lucius Malfoy?"
"Yeah."
"Strange."
"How come?"
"Potter's son went missing with a Malfoy boy – Scorpius Malfoy."
"Scorpius," I said. "He's Lucius Malfoy's grandson. Draco Malfoy's son. I was at school with Draco. Same year. Both of us in Slytherin, obviously."
"How did Lucius Malfoy know it was you that created the Time-Turner?"
"I don't know, exactly. I don't think he was certain, but he was confident enough to approach me. I've known him a long time, though, and I practically grew up with his son Draco, so he knows my style of magic very well. Borgin wasn't happy about being cut out and losing his commission, so maybe that's how the rumours connecting me with the Time-Turner got out. Lucius Malfoy died not long afterwards, it was a few years ago, so I assume Draco has the Time-Turner now. I don't think he's likely to sell it on or turn it in – there were some cruel rumours circulating about his son which I know he is desperate to disprove that would appear all the more true if the Time-Turner surfaced."
"But if they search Malfoy Manor and find it, do you think Draco Malfoy is likely to implicate you? Would he know that the Time-Turner was your work?"
"I'm sure Lucius would have told him," I said. "And probably asked why he hadn't made one first, and how come Theodore Nott can spend ten years in Azkaban and still accomplish more than his worthless son. So if the Time-Turner is found in his possession we can safely assume that Draco would land me in it. I don't think he's ever really liked me that much. He's never let me meet his son, you know."
"Have you had much contact with Draco Malfoy since your incarceration?"
"No, none," I said. "It's funny, because I thought he was avoiding me after Azkaban because he thought I'd sold out my family and the rest of the purebloods when I confessed to killing that Muggle, or because he was embarrassed by the fact that I'd lost my magic. Anyway, I sent him an owl after his wife Astoria died because I thought... I don't know, with Scorpius growing up without a mother he might want to talk to someone who's been through the same thing. But he owled me back and said that he knew the sort of magic I did and to please stay away from him and his son."
"That sounds like he definitely did know about the Time-Turner, then."
"It was a bit less clear cut than that," I said, trying and mostly succeeding in keeping my voice steady. The memory of that unexpected owl was actually quite painful. "The wording was unclear as to whether he objected to magic I'd done in the past or was still actively performing. There are enough things I've done that I've already been punished for that nobody will let me forget. I mean, how many parents want their kids to hang out with a murderer?"
"You sound upset," Ms Mbewe said neutrally.
"Well, yeah," I said. "Draco was my oldest friend. Maybe 'friend' isn't the right word, exactly, but we've known each other for a long time and we were always kind of on each other's sides. I thought he of all people would understand what it's like to be pushed into doing something awful and then having to live with it for ever. I mean, we both know what it's like to be shunned in polite society and still be disappointments to our Death Eater fathers. And yes, maybe I did always outshine him academically, but that was never good enough because bloody Hermione Granger always did better than me. I might have been forgiven for that had I any aptitude or at the very least an appetite for the things that my father thought would make me indispensable to the Dark Lord. But I had no stomach for torture, or murder, and my own father thought the worse of me for it."
"Be that as it may," Ms Mbewe said, after an awkward pause. "We now know about two people who could give evidence to the Wizengamot that you created a Time-Turner, neither of whom seem particularly fond of you. I am concerned."
"But neither of them are likely to come forward, are they? Draco would never want to be associated with a Time-Turner, and Borgin... I still sell him bits and pieces. He wouldn't want to lose me as a supplier, and if he ratted me out, nobody would ever do any business with him again. Trust is everything, in our world."
"You'd stake the rest of your life on that, would you?"
I thought of the last five years, eating good food, doing interesting magic, curling up with a Firewhisky of an evening and sleeping long and late in the mornings. I then thought of the preceding ten years in Azkaban, being constantly watched, unable to eat or sleep or clean myself properly, my mind and body atrophying, reeking of piss and old sweat.
"No, I wouldn't bet the rest of my life on it," I said meekly.
"You should negotiate a price for Borgin's loyalty," Ms Mbewe said.
I flinched. "That could be more than I made on the Time-Turner in the first place."
"If that's what it took to keep you out of Azkaban, it would be cheap at the price, would it not? I know it seems unnecessary at this stage, but wait and you may lose the opportunity. My team will make the arrangements."
"I assume that this will be on the invoice?" I said testily.
"Mr Nott, you may not like how much this is costing you, but your case is a serious one and unless you start treating it as such, you will be going to prison for a long time."
"Fine," I said wearily. "It's fine. I'll pay whatever it takes."
"For now, there is little we can do about Draco Malfoy," Ms Mbewe said. "If he comes forward, there are many ways to discredit him as a witness, but I hope that it will not have to come to that. Still, the connection between the other Time-Turner and the missing boy is curious. We must hope that it is merely coincidence. We will be fighting from an extremely weak position, if the case progresses to the point where Draco Malfoy becomes more deeply involved."