Sunday 1 November 2020

In which the narrator is reconciled with his legal counsel.

I came to slowly, groggily. My mouth was dry and my tongue was swollen. My arm hurt. I did not know how much time had passed, although it appeared to be daytime, mid-morning or early afternoon to judge from the light. Remembering, I reached for my forearm but found that I could not move. Panicking, I tried to move some part, any part of my body, but my arms and legs were snapped together, frozen in place. I'm dead, I thought, rigor mortis. I tried to shout but couldn't. My body was too heavy to move, deposited on the old mattress, inert as a decaying log. I rolled my eyes round but could only see the ceiling. I tried again to yell, to attract some kind of attention, and at last succeeded in making a weird gurgling hum. Williamson loomed into view above me. Maybe I wasn't dead after all.

"That was bloody stupid," he said. "You scared me half to death."

"Gnnh," I said faintly.

"I put the Full Body Bind on you," he said. "You're not offing yourself on my watch."

"Mnnah."

"Always the drama queen, aren't you?"

I rolled my eyes crossly and tried to speak again. I really wanted to get up.

"I like you better this way," he continued. "No trouble at all, are you? And no smart answer to everything."

I glowered at him.

"You need to lie quietly for a bit."

I needed to take a leak, and fairly soon. The Auror would not prefer me like this for long. I tried to speak again.

"All right, all right," he said, flicking his wand. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

My limbs were still bound right to my rigid body, but I found I could speak.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself," I said.

"Horrible mess," he said. "I had to clear it up, you know."

"Well, there's going to be another mess for you if you don't let me up soon," I said. He got my drift and took the Body Bind fully off, although he did not make to leave the cell.

"Go on, then."

I contemplated asking him to leave, but I was certain he would refuse and I figured that this would be more humiliating than just not asking at all. After relieving myself I turned back to the mattress and sat down rather heavily on it. What I really wanted to know was whether Potter and Granger had come back from their journey back in time unscathed, and whether they'd succeeded in defeating the deluded witch who thought she was the Dark Lord's heir, but I didn't dare ask. Absent-mindedly I reached my right hand over to my left forearm, feeling out the damage I'd done to it.

"Oi!" The Auror shouted. "Can't stop watching you for a second, can we?" He waved his wand at me again and my hand flew away from my forearm as though repelled. "Now, are you going to behave yourself or am I going to have to put the Full Body Bind back on you?"

"I'm not going to hurt myself again," I said. "I didn't mean to before, I just got a bit, um, carried away. It's never been that bad before."

"That's a pretty disgusting habit you've got." I hunched my shoulders; this was fair, although the fact that I was normally alone let me ignore this. My house elves hated it when I picked at my scar, so I never did it in front of them.

"Just stop it," my ex had ordered me, but it wasn't that simple. I'd been doing it, off and on, for twenty-five years, but it had got really bad in Azkaban.

"That used to be a curse scar, didn't it? Why would you do that to it?"

I mumbled something indistinct. I didn't want to talk about it; I found the subject embarrassing and shameful.

"I remember you," he said. "From Azkaban."

I said nothing. I did not remember him at all. The fact that he knew me from that time was a revelation to me.

"I'd have thought it'd be more of a deterrent," the Auror continued. "Didn't it make you think twice about breaking the law?"

I turned away.

"Come on, talk to me. Do you remember it?" he asked. "Azkaban?"

"What do you mean? Of course I remember it."

"You weren't lucid, most of the time. I thought you'd end up in St Mungo's after we released you, didn't see how you'd survive on your own."

"Without your expert neglect?" I sneered.

"Why would you risk going back to that?"

I shrugged and made a non-committal noise. I had not really considered the risk at all. My father had done whatever magic he pleased, without fear of punishment and as for me, I only obeyed my own conscience.

"It's no life," he said. "Even guarding the place is miserable."

"They say it's easy time, now that the Dementors are gone."

"Nobody wants to go out there, you know," Williamson said. "People will do anything to get out of their rotation. There's never enough people to run things properly."

"Huh," I said. "So that's how I ended up catatonic and covered in my own filth. Fantastic."

"Was it really worth it?"

"Well, yeah. It was the worst day of my life every single day for ten whole years, but I just couldn't live with that secret."

"I meant, was making the Time-Turner really worth it?"

"Do you really think I'm going to answer that, Williamson?"

"I suppose not. Give it a few months, when you're back there."

I shuddered. "You think I'll be in a fit state to answer? I'll probably be too out of it to even notice you. Is this what you kept me alive for?"

He sighed. "Sometimes I don't know why we're keeping you alive. You do make it hard for us."

"Not a very rewarding assignment, am I?"

"Want some breakfast?"

"Yes," I said. "Please," I added quickly.

He chuckled, but it was a much more kindly laugh than I remembered.

My left arm still hurt too much to move, but my right hand was the dominant one and as the breakfast he conjured for me was just a few slices of rubbery white bread spread with some crap margarine (one of the Muggles' more dubious innovations – I wondered in passing how they came to have it here) I was perfectly capable of grabbing it one-handed and shovelling it down. Remembering the food I'd been given in Azkaban I was glad to get anything that wasn't festering watery gruel.

There was a knock at the door. Williamson let Ms Mbewe in.

I swallowed my mouthful of bread. "Oh, it's you." I wasn't sure what else to say. I didn't know whether she was back because she had forgiven me, because she wanted to get more money out of me (I vaguely remembered reading something in the contract about out-of-hours supplemental rates) or because she had decided that she no longer wanted me as a client and was quitting in person.

"Mr Nott."

"Hello," I said.

"I was sorry to hear about your attempted-"

"Accident," I cut in. "It was an accident."

"I hope you're feeling better now."

"I am. He found me." I jerked my head at the Auror. "Patched me up, I guess."

"How fortunate," said Ms Mbewe politely.

"I'll reserve judgement on that for the time being," I said.

"I have some information that may be relevant." She turned to Williamson. "If I may speak to my client in private."

"Of course." Williamson backed out of the cell, eying me shrewdly.

"It was destroyed."

"What?"

"Your Time-Turner, it was destroyed." Her smile was wide and knowing. "They'll have no case left now."

Ms Mbewe did not know what I'd told Potter and Granger. There was no way she would be smiling like that if she did. An anxious knot tightened in my stomach; maybe I had blown my only chance at freedom.

"How?" I asked.

"It was broken. Kicked to bits."

"Deliberately? Who did it?"

"The witch, the one who kidnapped the boys."

"Who is she?" I asked. "Anyone I'm likely to know?"

"I doubt it," Ms Mbewe said. "I had not heard of her."

"Try me."

"Delphini Riddle?"

"Riddle... as in... Him?" I said incredulously.

"So she says," Ms Mbewe said. "She claims to be the daughter of the Dark Lord. That's why she was after the Time-Turner, restore him to power."

"Merlin's beard," I said. "Is she actually his daughter?"

"That has not yet been verified," Ms Mbewe said. "Certainly she believes she is, but whether it's true is another matter. I do not think we are likely to find that out for sure."

"Hmm," I said. "How come she destroyed my Time-Turner?" I was a little miffed at this. Even though I knew I should be thanking Delphini Riddle for getting rid of the most incriminating piece of evidence the Ministry of Magic had on me, that prototype Time-Turner had been one of my most treasured possessions, more important even than the finished gold version I'd sold to Lucius Malfoy. It had been the final milestone before reaching the goal I'd set myself years ago, the culmination of all my ideas, near enough that I'd known exactly what tweaks I'd needed to make to get it all the way there and paradoxically all the more perfect for being incomplete.

"To go back in time, and stay there."

"Bloody hell," I said, my head in my hands. My left arm throbbed with pain. "What happened?"

"It worked."

"What?" I said.

"It worked, I tell you. Even after the Time-Turner was destroyed, Potter's son, the Malfoy boy and the witch all stayed in the past." So Potter had been right about what would happen if the Time-Turner was destroyed in the past; that was fortunate. My time-reversal charm had held up even outside its casing, which meant that it was a lot stronger and more stable than I'd assumed. But Potter hadn't come back to me to tell me how he'd found his kid in time or ask for help in getting to him. I resented that: I did know more than he did about this stuff, after all. But Granger did, I realised. She wanted to understand what she was dealing with before she went back in time.

"Where in the past?" I asked.

"1981."

"But Albus Potter got back, without having to wait for the next forty years to play out? How?"

"His father managed to get hold of your finished Time-Turner – was likely given it by Draco Malfoy. They used it to go back and find the kids. Together. Hermione Granger joined them," (I gave an involuntary start at this) "but also two more civilians, Ginny and Ron Weasley."

"They all used it?" I asked incredulously. I felt faint; I knew what could have happened, but I doubted they did or they wouldn't have taken such a risk. "All five of them? Together?"

"Indeed," Ms Mbewe said. "I never thought I would see such recklessness in our Ministry officials, but I am told that their actions did prevent a resurgence of the Dark Lord... well, no, more that it prevented a kind of retroactive strengthening, as if the witch's plan had succeeded, the Dark Lord would never have been weakened and killed in the first place... but those who know about their actions widely believe that what happened was for the best."

"Surely they've got something on me?" I said.

"Not really. Their main piece of evidence is gone, and now so too are the more minor dark objects."

"Your fixer got rid of them?"

Ms Mbewe's smile grew wider still, but she did not answer my question.

"I thought you'd had enough of me."

"Mr Nott," Ms Mbewe said sternly. "I am a professional. I have been working tirelessly on your behalf. I fully expect you to be at liberty within the next forty-eight hours."

"Really?"

"Yes, indeed."

I took a deep breath, hesitating. "I have to tell you something."

"Go on."

"I... while you were... I mean after you left and I, um, I wasn't sure if you were coming back, Potter came to see me. He told me that someone had died. At Hogwarts. Because of my Time-Turner. Is that true?"

"The witch calling herself Delphini Riddle did kill a boy at Hogwarts, yes."

I slumped down onto the mattress, defeated.

"But I can't say whether that was a direct result of you creating the Time-Turner; I doubt anyone can."

"It was a lot to take in," I said. "I'm still struggling with some things I did a long time ago. I guess Potter knew that because he... well, I guess he knows where I'm weak."

"You confessed?" said Ms Mbewe sharply.

"No, not as such," I said. "He asked me for my help, if his son was lost in time, how would he find him, and I felt bad so I told him what I would do, to look for signs. He said he wouldn't use it against me."

"Of course he did."

"I didn't tell him anything he didn't already know," I said. "Draco Malfoy told him about me already. And he gave him the gold Time-Turner. They're best friends now or something."

"Well, look," Ms Mbewe said. "All the hard evidence that's is directly connected to you is gone. Now it will come down to witness testimony only. And here the prosecution have a problem, and they know it. Harry Potter's son broke into the Ministry and stole your prototype Time-Turner and used it to go back years, not just once but three separate times. There is physical evidence to support this: diaries, the blanket. But evidence that you changed time? Nothing. I think they will need to come round to the fact that they will be releasing you without charge."

"Granger came to see me as well. Fed me some kind of truth potion. I think I told her more than I meant to."

"I will deal with that if I have to," said Ms Mbewe serenely. "But the Minister should know that evidence obtained through use of potions cannot be considered, a fact compounded by you not having a lawyer present. She brought in that law herself."

"I bet she regrets that now."

"Perhaps," said Ms Mbewe. "But maybe she and Potter don't really want to see you rot away in Azkaban either."

"What makes you say that?"

"Just a feeling I have."

"What did they do to her?" I asked suddenly.

"Who?"

"Delphini Riddle."

"Oh, she was captured and sent to Azkaban. There has been no trial."

"Has it been in the papers at all?"

"No."

"Could that happen to me?" I said bluntly. "If Potter's putting people away without trial, and gagging the press?"

"I will ensure that it doesn't," Ms Mbewe said. "The Ministry's case against you is very weak and if they try to imprison you now, I will make sure that this becomes public knowledge. The crimes that they can lay at your feet pale into insignificance when compared to the actions of Potter's son. If they had to, they could prove possession of the Time-Turner in your case, but use? No. And they cannot show that you made the Time-Turner either, because they no longer have it to examine it."

"But what about the finished Time-Turner, the gold one?" I asked, still with a heavy sensation of dread in my stomach. "They still have that, don't they?"

"Well, we might have had to worry about the other Time-Turner had the Minister for Magic and the Head of Magical Law Enforcement not been so rash," Ms Mbewe said. "But what happened there is just incredible. If they decide to use this Time-Turner as evidence against you, we will make sure that their actions come to light. The disregard of protocol, the level of trust they placed in an unknown and illegal artefact... it is quite extraordinary. Made public, it would cost Granger and Potter their jobs, perhaps even send them to Azkaban."

"So all's well that ends well?"

"Something like that," Ms Mbewe said. "You are extremely lucky, Mr Nott. We all are."

"Have they kept the finished Time-Turner, or destroyed that one as well?"

"My source could not tell me about that," Ms Mbewe said. "So we must hope that if they have preserved it, this one will be suitably secured."

A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews so far! Please do keep them coming as I love hearing what you think. Just one more chapter to go now...