Resolutions
By Neurotica
Fifteen
Buzzing.
Constant, infernal buzzing that wouldn't allow her to concentrate on the report she was reading about Apparition wards on private homes. The noise had been filling her office for hours now, and she knew that if it went on any longer, her co-workers would probably have send her to St. Mungo's for a mental evaluation when she finally lost her mind. She'd searched every inch of her office four times and couldn't find the source of the buzzing anywhere. She'd even called in her husband to check the place—when he hadn't found anything either, he told her in that infuriatingly calm tone he used to just ignore the noise.
Easy for him to say, she thought irritably. He's not the one who has to sit and listen to it all bloody day. And it probably wasn't helping one bit that her pregnancy was amplifying her moods.
She'd been so frustrated when he'd come into her office that she hadn't noticed the level of the buzzing's volume had dropped a few notches. This was probably because right when he left, the sound was just as loud and annoying as it had been before.
She held her quill with both hands, trying to stop herself from shaking from the vexatious sound—this only resulted in her snapping the quill in half. She glared at the two halves for a moment before slamming them on the desk. Her eyes shifted to a corner of her office as they caught the slightest of movements. She narrowed her eyes at the green spot that stood out brightly on the white walls.
Without taking her eyes off the spot, she carefully reached over and grabbed her copy of the Daily Prophet, which, incidentally, had a front page headline written by Rita Skeeter about the incompetence of Minister Bones' administration, rolled it up tightly in her hand, and stood. As stealthily as she could, she snuck up on the green spot—a fat beetle, she now realized—and before it could fly off, she whacked it as hard as she could with her newspaper. Emmeline smiled in satisfaction as she listened for the sound—it was finally gone—before going back to her desk to finish her work.
Harry was finally released from Madam Pomfrey's care three days after the new Hogwarts term began. He'd been ready two days before when he'd first woken up, but due to the doubled paranoia of the school nurse and Remus, who'd spent all his free time at Harry's side, he'd been stuck there. The morning he'd finally been set free, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny met him at the hospital wing with his school robes and book bag to walk him to the Great Hall for breakfast. Before leaving the wing, Hermione made sure to pin the Head Boy badge on his robes—he covertly rolled his eyes at his grinning girlfriend.
"So what's been going on while I've been stuck in Pomfrey's talons?" Harry asked as they made their way down the corridors.
He'd asked Ron, hoping for some sort of response, but after a few silent moments, Hermione answered instead. "Well, lessons have been rather dull," she said in obvious disappointment. "But they're supposed to pick up on Monday, when the students at St. Mungo's are finally released. Professor Dumbledore made an announcement first night that no students are allowed out on the grounds after dinner unless at least two professors are out there to supervise. Aurors are all over the grounds and outside the gates, and there've even been a few patrolling the halls at night."
"Going to be a fun year, I reckon," Harry muttered sarcastically, thinking about how sneaking around late at night under his Invisibility Cloak was probably out of the question that year.
Hermione nodded grimly, though probably not for the same reasons as Harry. "Fifth year Prefects patrol from eight to nine every night, sixth years from nine to ten, seventh years from ten to eleven, and you and I, Harry, patrol from eleven to midnight with the teachers while they check the wards—all other students are to be in their common rooms by eight o'clock."
"What about Quidditch?"
"Madam Hooch and the team's head of house will oversee every practice—Slughorn's Slytherin's head since Snape was a no show," Ginny replied
Harry nodded. "Fair enough." He was just relieved Quidditch wasn't being cancelled for the year. "Have we gotten a new Defense professor yet?"
Hermione and Ginny exchanged confused, yet amused glances. "You haven't heard?" Hermione asked. Harry furrowed his brow and shook his head. "This will be an interesting breakfast..."
Bemused, Harry didn't have the chance to find out what his best friend was talking about as they reached the Great Hall. His eyes immediately found the staff table and scanned it for any new faces. The two faces he found weren't at all new to him, but he'd never seen either of them sitting among the other professors. "What are they doing here?" he asked, turning to his friends with wide eyes.
"Looks like they're eating." Ginny grinned. Harry glared half-heartedly at both her and Hermione as they sniggered at him—Ron didn't seem to have heard any of the conversation. He turned from them and walked at a quick pace to the staff table.
Sirius and Naomi, both of whom were in a conversation with McGonagall—the Deputy Headmistress seemed to be trying not to laugh, but her lips were twitching over something Sirius said—looked up when they found Harry's eyes on them. "Morning, Harry," Sirius said cheerfully. "Feeling better?"
"You're the new Defense professor?" the Head Boy asked, ignoring his godfather's question.
Sirius snorted. "Now do you really think McGonagall would agree to letting me come and teach impressionable students?" he asked with a mischievous grin to the Transfiguration professor.
"Over my dead body," McGonagall muttered under her breath, her lips still twitching.
Naomi laughed.
"No, Harry, I am not the new Defense professor," Sirius replied, rolling his eyes. "I'm just here for food and moral support—mostly food, though."
Harry looked at Naomi who raised her eyebrows at her husband. "You?" he asked. She nodded. "But isn't that a bit... dangerous?" he asked in a slightly uncomfortable whisper.
"See," Sirius said thickly through his toast, pointing his fork at Naomi. "Even Harry agrees with me."
Naomi rolled her eyes this time. "I'll be fine," she said to both of them "I needed out of Number Twelve anyway, and Dumbledore asked me to help out for a while."
"What about Mira?" Harry asked.
"Molly's offered to watch her during the day until Emmeline goes on maternity leave from the Ministry, and at night, when Sirius gets off work, he'll bring her here," she explained.
"I'm helping with guard duty around the castle," Sirius said. "So I'll be staying here every night and leaving for the Ministry in the mornings." He glanced at his watch. "Speaking of which, I should be going—I've got a busy day... I'll see you tonight, love. Be good, Harry." He kissed Naomi quickly, winked at Harry, and left the Great Hall.
"I didn't know you wanted to teach," Harry said, turning back to Naomi.
She chuckled. "Nor did I," she said with a grin. "I don't know, it should be fun."
Harry nodded. They talked for a few more minutes before Harry said, "Well, I should go eat. Madam Pomfrey hasn't let me have any solid foods in days..."
Naomi smiled. "All right, I'll see you in class, then."
Harry waved, turned away from the staff table, and went to join his fellow Gryffindors.
Finally, Sirius was getting the chance to question the man he'd been hunting above all the other Death Eaters for eleven years. Four other Aurors were in the interrogation room with Sirius and Lucius Malfoy—supposedly, it was to keep Malfoy from attempting to escape, but Sirius was convinced it was so he wouldn't be able to attack Malfoy if things got too heated.
Well, there's always wandless magic, the Head Auror thought mischievously. But that isn't nearly as fun...
"So, Lucy," Sirius began casually, leaning back in his chair. One of the other Aurors quickly turned a laugh into a cough. "Let's start from the beginning, shall we?" He nodded to the Ministry witch who'd been sent along to document the interrogation. She dipped her quill in a bottle of ink and nodded back stiffly to Sirius, signaling she was ready for the questioning to begin.
"I've got a list of questions a mile long for you, so why don't we begin at the top. When did you become a Death Eater?"
As expected, Malfoy ignored the question and examined his fingernails. Sirius wasn't the least bit phased by this; in fact, he was positively thrilled at the Death Eater's attitude. "Next question," he said brightly, receiving an odd look from Proudfoot. "Did you have a part in bringing Lord Voldemort back to power?" Everyone but Sirius shivered in reaction to the name. Again, Malfoy didn't respond. Sirius continued. "Were you involved in the kidnapping of Harry Potter eleven years ago?"
Sirius' excitement was fading at every word he spoke of the question—the hatred he held for the man sitting across from him had suddenly hit a whole new height. This was the man he'd seen drag Harry down a staircase—the man who broke into the cottage and kidnapped Remus. He was the man who put Naomi through mental and physical hell for god knows how long—she would never tell him the exact time it had begun or to what extent it had been done.
"I know you were, Lucius, I was there." Sirius sighed irritably as Malfoy sustained his silence. "Look," he went on, leaning against the table. He reached over, snatched the quill from the blonde witch's hand and slammed it on the table. "I've got enough on you just from what I've personally seen to put you away for eight lifetimes. There is no chance, whether you talk right now or not, to get out of here—and I wouldn't count on your master coming for you, either. The only reason I'm here is because the Minister wants answers. Tell me, Lucius, how did Ginny Weasley get Tom Riddle's diary five years ago?"
As the silence went on, Sirius was growing more frustrated. Just as he was prepared to send Malfoy back to his cell, he heard a short, growled response. "Nott," Malfoy said.
"Sorry?" Sirius responded with raised eyebrow.
"Patroclus Nott," Malfoy said only a bit louder, "slipped the diary in with the Weasley brat's school books."
Sirius nodded, passing the witch her quill again. "Now we're getting somewhere. Where did Nott get the diary?"
"It was placed in his possession many years ago."
"By...?"
But whatever caused Malfoy's loose lips seemed to have gone away—the Death Eater clenched his left fist to the point that Sirius could see his knuckles turn white, and his teeth were clenched so tightly that Sirius was sure they would crack. After fifteen minutes of glaring at Lucius Malfoy, Sirius was desperate for a change in scenery. "Get him out of my sight," Sirius said to the Aurors surrounding them. "Reinforce all wards on his cell and get the goblins back there."
The four wizards nodded and moved forward to disarm the chains wrapping around Malfoy's arms, legs, and waist. They were far from gentle as they forced their prisoner to stand and leave the room. The witch documenting the interrogation finished her notes, rolled up the parchment, and looked down her nose at Sirius. "Are we finished here?" she asked snobbishly.
"Yes," Sirius said crisply, standing himself. He led the way out of the stone room, not looking over his shoulder once to see if the witch was following him. He could hear the woman's shoes clicking against the prison floor and resisted an eye roll. Honestly, what kind of person wears high heels to Azkaban? he wondered.
The ride across the sea was silent between Sirius and the witch—he never really had enjoyed her company. When they arrived on the other shore, Sirius said stiffly, "See you 'round, Jensen," before Apparating back to Grimmauld Place.
Due to the lack of Death Eater activity, the Order of the Phoenix hadn't been meeting regularly in the last few months. But after the attack on the Hogwarts Express, Dumbledore asked the majority of them to come to Number Twelve to discuss their next set of tactics in the war.
The meeting had been scheduled late into the night so that those at Hogwarts (Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid, and Naomi) could finish their patrols of the castle and could be certain the school was under control for the night. An hour of the meeting, towards the end, had drifted to a discussion about the latest articles in the Daily Prophet and their placing blame on the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore, and half of the Ministry department heads (including Sirius, Remus, and Emmeline) for the train attack. Dedalus Diggle half-jokingly suggested overthrowing the Prophet and making The Quibbler the wizarding world's primary source for its news. "It'd be more accurate," Dedalus said over the laughter his comment had resulted in.
"If we could just get Rita Skeeter out of the way, the rest of those blood-sucking parasites that call themselves reporters would back off," Sturgis Podmore said. "She's the one who started all this rubbish."
Sirius suddenly grinned in a way that made those who knew him well very wary. "You lot haven't heard?" he said, thoroughly delighted over something. "Dear Rita's in St. Mungo's with a concussion and a bunch of broken bones. She told the Healers she was attacked, but when we sent out a DMLE officer to take her statement, she claimed she couldn't remember anything."
"Did she not see her attacker?" Emmeline asked with a frown.
"Either that," Remus began, "or she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, and if she admitted it, it would mean a lot of trouble for her."
Sirius snorted. "But unfortunately, last I checked (and I check often), being a nosy hag with no fashion sense isn't against the law..."
"But if she was snooping around the Ministry, that's definitely against the law," Elphias Doge said.
"For one, no one knows where she was when she was attacked, do they? She's certainly not telling. Two, she can't get into the Ministry without someone spotting her, and what're the chances of her getting further than the Atrium?" Charlie asked.
"You know, I wonder how she gets the information she does," Sirius said. "I mean, honestly, she's written things about me that I've not told anybody but my family. And I don't hand out personal information to just anybody..."
"No," Remus agreed. "But you do talk loudly enough for the entire Ministry to hear what you're saying."
"Not about Naomi, I haven't," Sirius argued. "But Rita's been dropping hints for weeks that she somehow knows something about her."
"You say that like you're ashamed of me," Naomi commented in a mock-hurt voice.
Sirius looked at her with wide eyes, prepared to argue against any such thing, but he saw her lips twitching. "That's not it at all," he said firmly. "But now that you're out in the public again, it wouldn't be a good thing for the entire wizarding world to know that you were a... well, a Death Eater..."
Naomi only shrugged. "I'm not worried about it," she said carelessly. It was the same reaction she had every time Sirius brought up what the outside world would think of her former role in the war. "All that matters to me is what my friends and family think."
"And we think you are quite commendable," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling a little. Naomi beamed at him. "Now, back to business, if none of you object—the subject of Rita Skeeter is a disturbing one to my old, senile mind, as she put it so aptly in today's paper... Sirius, how was your interrogation of Lucius Malfoy?"
"Just as I expected it would be: a waste of my time," the Head Auror replied. "The only bit of worthy information I got was that, according to Malfoy, Nott was the one who sneaked that diary into Ginny Weasley's school books a few years back... The one that opened the Chamber of Secrets…"
"Have you had the chance to question Nott?"
Sirius shook his head. "Not yet, sir. I sent a few Aurors out to his place, but his wife told them he wasn't there, and she wouldn't let us search the premises without a Ministry warrant. Incidentally, we're supposed to be getting a warrant to search the Nott family manor tomorrow."
"Excellent," Dumbledore said approvingly. "Well, I suppose that will conclude this evening's meeting, or should I say very early morning... Any of you who wish to volunteer to help patrol Hogwarts, please remain behind so we can arrange a schedule. As always, I thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be here. Good night."
Number Twelve's kitchen filled with the noise of chairs scraping across the floor as Order members stood to either speak with Dumbledore or say good night to the others and go home. The women of the Order (including Molly, Naomi, Emmeline, McGonagall, Nymphadora Tonks, and her mother, who'd began coming to meetings a few months back along with her husband) were busy fussing over Mira. The baby had slept through the entire meeting (which had lasted a total of three hours). Remus mused that he'd never seen a baby sleep as much as Mira did. Harry had always been well-behaved when Lily and James had had to bring to meetings, but there'd been a few incidents — mostly when Harry and Neville Longbottom were put together—when both children had to be taken out of the meetings by their mothers. It seemed the Marauder gene in Harry's DNA had kicked in at an early age...
Remus spotted McGonagall's face when Mira was handed off to her, and he couldn't ever remember seeing such a look on the Deputy Headmistress. It was much like the time many years ago, when Sirius had been released from Azkaban, when McGonagall had actually hugged the released prisoner. She would have made a good mother... Remus found himself thinking randomly. This turned him to thoughts of his own wife and their unborn sons. Emmeline must have sensed his eyes on her—she turned and returned the smile that was surely on his face. She mouthed 'I love you', and he returned it before she turned back to the other witches.
While the women were fawning over his daughter, and Remus was musing about life with his own children, Sirius went to have a private word with Dumbledore. Something had been left out of the meeting, whether on purpose or not—knowing Dumbledore, it'd been the former—but Sirius didn't understand why the rest of the Order couldn't know about this rather important bit of information.
"Because I do not believe he was acting under his own will," the headmaster said simply, or as simply as he ever said anything. "I understand, Sirius, that you do not trust him, and I've accepted that long ago, but—"
"But nothing!" Sirius whispered loudly. "He had my godson under the Cruciatus Curse, Dumbledore! It's not exactly a secret that he despises not only Harry, but Remus and me as well—probably Naomi too. Emmeline's the only one he never sneered or glared at..."
"What is it you would like for me to do, Sirius?" Dumbledore asked quietly. "Would you like me to inform the rest of the Order that Severus Snape had a part in the attack on the Hogwarts Express, perhaps start manhunt until we find him, and throw him into Azkaban? You must understand, Sirius, that jumping to conclusions in the midst of a war could be nothing but harmful in the long run—I believed you of all people would have learned that long ago."
Sirius was torn between wanting to argue with Dumbledore about keeping Snape's role in the train attack a secret and feeling like a naughty schoolboy caught out of bed after curfew, a feeling Dumbledore was quite experienced in giving Sirius. "I just think the others should be aware, sir, but do what you feel is best," he muttered.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "Thank you, Sirius."
Sirius nodded and left Dumbledore to finish collecting his notes from the meeting. The younger wizard never understood why the Headmaster held so much trust for Severus Snape, even after the way the Order's spy just disappeared at the end of the last Hogwarts term with no word to anybody. There were many things that Sirius didn't understand about Dumbledore, he reflected, and he probably never would. And he was sure that one day, he may actually come to accept that.
Remus and Sirius had been given a task by Dumbledore that left both wizards completely dumbfounded—why the Headmaster had chosen the two of them of all the people who could have done this was beyond them. Sirius believed Dumbledore was getting some sort of twisted amusement out of it; Remus said Dumbledore just trusted them to complete the task, and that they should be honored to help out the Order. But inside his own mind, Remus thought the exact same as his best friend, though the worst form of torture would never get him to admit it.
So on a Saturday morning at the beginning of October, the two best friends Apparated to a bare stretch of land in the British countryside. In their pockets, each carried bags and bags of shrunken groceries and other household items. They exchanged a glance, each thinking about the slip of parchment Dumbledore had given them at Number Twelve that morning. Before their eyes, a small cabin appeared. Anybody would think, just by looking at the place, that the people who lived there would be the warm, friendly sort. The two wizards, however, knew the complete opposite to be true.
This was where Draco Malfoy had been placed, for his own safety, after his attack on the Ministry. His mother, Narcissa, had also been relocated here not long after her son—Sirius had been the lucky bloke to give his cousin the news on where her only son was and he'd received a black eye for his trouble. Once a month, supplies had to be delivered to the Malfoys—McGonagall, who was their Secret-Keeper, usually made the trip, but she was supervising a Gryffindor team Quidditch practice, and she could "positively not get away," Dumbledore had told Sirius and Remus regretfully, his eyes twinkling in that annoying manner.
"Do we really have to do this?" Sirius muttered to his best friend as they walked up the dirt walkway to the front door. He'd tried to keep the whine out of his voice, but could tell that some of it had gotten through.
"We can't let them starve, Sirius," Remus said. Sirius thought he was trying to convince himself that they needed to do this more than he was trying to convince his best friend.
"Whatever happened to your concern for Draco Malfoy being less than zero after what he did?"
Remus glared at him. "I don't have any concern for him, but I also don't want his or his mother's death by starvation on my conscience."
"You wouldn't have it on your conscience. I'm the one who threw him off the boat on the way to Azkaban, remember?"
"You know what I mean, Sirius. We don't have to stay long—we deliver the supplies, find out if they need anything, and we leave."
"You left out the part where Narcissa verbally abuses us by calling you a dirty werewolf, and me a nasty blood-traitor and Mudblood-lover."
Remus snorted a laugh as they reached the front door. Seeing that Sirius wasn't going to alert the Malfoys of their arrival, Remus raised a fist to knock on the door. They waited a good two minutes before the door was opened by a house-elf with large green eyes. "Mistress and young Master has been expecting sirs," the elf greeted them. "Dobby will show sirs to the kitchen... Would sirs care for a cup of tea?"
"Er, that won't be necessary... Dobby, is it? We're not staying long," Remus said kindly. "Thank you for the offer, though."
Dobby seemed quite startled at the polite tone Remus used with him. Sirius wasn't surprised by the reaction one bit; he vaguely recalled seeing Lucius Malfoy kick the house-elf years ago at Hogwarts. "Sirs will make themselves at home. Dobby will fetch Mistress Narcissa and young Master Draco." The elf bowed himself out of the kitchen, and Sirius looked at Remus, silently pleading for permission to make a run for it before his cousins arrived.
"You're not leaving," Remus said in the same amused tone Dumbledore had used when he'd told the two of them what he wanted them to do that day. "If I have to stay, so do you."
Sirius rolled his eyes, sighed, and began unloading all the tiny bags in his pockets. Remus did the same, and by the time Dobby had returned to the room ten minutes later, all the bags had been restored to their full size.
At first glance, Sirius thought Dobby had made a mistake in retrieving the witch. But when he looked a bit closer, he could see his youngest cousin's grey eyes. Narcissa had obviously seen no reason to make herself up for Remus and Sirius' visit—that in itself was odd, considering Narcissa had been obsessed with her looks from age ten, and used her good Black family genes to try and intimidate others.
But Narcissa now had wrinkles and bags under her eyes. Her hair, usually perfectly in place, was sticking up in some places, and it was obvious she'd only run a brush through it quickly when her house-elf had come to tell her the wizards had arrived. The thing that surprised Sirius the most, though, was that instead of her specially made designer robes, she was wearing Muggle clothes—a simple shirt and slacks.
"Hello, Narcissa," Remus said a bit coolly. "How are you?"
Sirius was almost relieved to see that Narcissa's holier-than-thou attitude was still present. She looked down her pointed nose at Remus, and instead addressed Sirius. "You've brought our supplies, then?" she asked haughtily.
"We have," Sirius answered in the same tone. "And we have a letter for you from Dumbledore." He took the sealed envelope from his robe pocket and passed it over to his cousin. He didn't miss her shaking hands. "You'll find that everything you've requested has been purchased," he gestured to the countertops where the bags of supplies sat. "Should you require anything more, Dumbledore says to send your house-elf to Hogwarts."
Narcissa seemed to be ignoring him as she read the letter from the headmaster. "It says he wishes to assign Draco a tutor so he can finish his seventh year at Hogwarts. Who?"
This was news to Sirius. "Couldn't tell you," he said, glancing at Remus—the other wizard's expression was blank. God, I hope he didn't volunteer to tutor Draco... he thought. "If there's nothing else we can do..."
"Before you take your leave, I hear word you have a daughter, cousin," Narcissa said. "Is it true that the Black family line has been furthered?"
"It is," Sirius said stiffly.
"What is the child's name?"
"Mira Elizabeth Black."
"And Naomi Watts is the mother?"
"What do you care?" Sirius asked.
"Mere curiosity, Sirius," she said loftily. "I suppose you know by now that your wife was asked to look after my son?"
"From what she's told me, she did her job to the best of her ability," he said, defending his wife. "Naomi does not break a promise easily."
Narcissa glanced at Remus and Sirius saw the shadow of a smirk grace her face. "I never implied that Naomi did not do what I asked of her. I'm only asking you to give her my word of thanks. Had it not been for her, Draco tells me he would have been in a more perilous position much earlier than he was."
Sirius tried to hide his surprise at both the fact that Narcissa was thanking anybody and this news—he'd thought Naomi had tried to stay as far from Draco Malfoy as she could—but his raised eyebrow probably gave away the fact that his wife hadn't told him any of this. Before he had a chance to comment, however, Draco entered the kitchen—the confident strut passed to him by his father seemed to have been lost during his time in hiding. He studied the two guests in his kitchen with immense loathing. Both wizards returned the look.
"Where are your manners, Draco?" Narcissa said, placing a pale, bony hand on her son's shoulder. "We have guests."
Draco nodded stiffly at the wizards. Sirius noticed the boy's face was a bit pale, as though he'd been losing sleep. Good, Sirius thought. Maybe his conscience has finally caught up to him...
"If there's nothing else, Narcissa..." Sirius said again.
"Of course, you've other things to attend to," the witch said. "Dobby, show our guests to the door."
Dobby, who'd been standing in a corner of the kitchen the whole time, bowed to his mistress, and led Sirius and Remus to the front door. "Dobby hopes sirs will come again soon. It is quite lonesome without visitors..." Sirius' brow furrowed at the elf's sudden startled expression that suggested he never should have expressed a wish for Sirius and Remus to come again. The house-elf opened the door and bowed low to the ground as the two wizards left.
"Odd little bugger," Sirius said as they walked off the property. He looked over his shoulder as the Malfoys' cabin disappeared. "You'd think all that time living with Narcissa would have made him turn out like Kreacher."
"There's always the odd house-elf who turns out unlike his masters, just like wizards. You're the perfect example of that, I think."
Sirius stopped and looked at his best friend oddly. "Did you just compare me to a house-elf?" he asked dubiously.
Remus laughed. "If that's the way you want to take it, then yes, I compared you to a house-elf. Now, let's get back to Number Twelve. I've got to have a word with Dumbledore about something..."
Before Sirius could inquire as to what Remus needed to speak with Dumbledore about, the other wizard Disapparated. With one last look at the bare area around him, Sirius followed his best friend.