FAIR RAVENCLAW
Disclaimer: This sequel to "Who Lives in Disguise" is a non-profit tribute to the works of JK Rowling who created and, together with her publishers and licensees, owns the characters and settings elaborated herein.
Warning: HBP-spoilers. Thanks to my reviewers and especially to my previewers, Bellegeste and Cecelle.
Ron hung over Hermione as she read The Prophet; Special Edition, having ceded it to her at his first glimpse of the front page, which was full of official jargon. Waiting for her to interpret was still quicker than puzzling through it himself. Beside them, Harry was leaning back in his chair and half-heartedly thumbing through one of Regulus Black's Dark Arts books from the pile Kreacher had sullenly given them.
"So? What's it say?" Ron asked.
"Give me a moment. I have to read it first," Hermione said. "Cognisant of the absence of evil intent … negligence in imposition of security mechanisms … catastrophic failure …"
She looked up, grinning, and Harry's head jerked up in tandem.
"It's all right! The twins haven't been too badly burned. They might not think so, though," she cautioned, as Ron punched his fist into the air and Harry smiled for the first time in days. "A 300-galleon fine and regular Ministry supervision. Oh, and a requirement for the Ministry to have first refusal on all their products at a half-price discount."
"What?" Ron yelped. "Not too badly burned? They've been robbed!"
Harry closed his book, marking the place with his finger.
"No, she's right," he said. "With Scrimgeour as Minister, they were lucky not to end in Azkaban."
The man had risen to the top on a deserved reputation of severity allied with grim rectitude; that was why silly Stan Shunpike was still in prison. The only mystery was how Draco Malfoy had got off so lightly now his family's money in the Minister's pocket was no longer a factor.
"It wasn't their fault the slimeball used it. They didn't even know it was him they sold it to!" Ron said instantly, but the other two returned to their reading. They'd had that argument before. "I should have turned him back into a giant slug and pushed him under the Express! I should have Petrified him and fed him Puking Pastilles till his eyeballs popped out! I should have –"
"Oh! Oh, no!" Hermione said, her face so white they could have counted all thirteen of her freckles.
"What? Is it the twins, Hermione? Are they in worse trouble than you thought?" Ron demanded.
She shook her head, her eyes scanning and re-scanning the pages.
"Remus?" Harry asked, his green eyes darkening.
"Worse," she said. "Listen. Pursuant to the events of the fatal night, it is the considered opinion of the Dark Creatures Advisory Board that the provisions of the Werewolf Act provide insufficient protection to the general public. Supervisory and regulatory aspects will be reviewed, with particular reference to the questionable applicability and possible removal of clauses dependent on the previously-designated times of non-transmissibility …"
The two boys stared at her.
"What does that mean?" Ron said, when it became clear she thought no further explanation necessary.
She didn't lift her eyes from the page.
"Submissions to be accepted … the determination to be prioritised … in the space of seven days …"
"What, Hermione?" Harry insisted.
She looked up then and blinked at their furrowed brows and puckered mouths.
"It means they're reclassifying Bill as a werewolf." She licked her lips and took a few quick, shallow breaths. "Effective next week."
"WHAT?" Ron's face was as red as one of his mum's maroon jumpers.
"It doesn't say that!" Harry said, dropping his book.
Hermione chewed on her lip, her eyes half-closed. She gulped and gulped again.
"It does, if you've read the Werewolf Act," she whispered. "That phrase about 'times of non-transmissibility' is part of the defining line between who is and who isn't a werewolf. Previously, anyone bitten during the times of non-transmissibility, which was any time other than full moon and the two days immediately before and after it, was exempted from the provisions of the Werewolf Act, upon completion of a full medical examination conducted during the next full moon. Now they're saying that they can't – that they can't guarantee that lycanthropic transmission won't be – won't be merely delayed for an – an indeterminate time –"
"But Bill's innocent," Ron protested, as she groped for a hanky. "He didn't do anything wrong. Why would they be getting him in trouble?"
Hermione blew her nose savagely.
"He got himself bitten by a werewolf," she quavered. "And under the new Ministry guidelines – never mind what time of the month it is! – that makes him one too."
"But he's not a ruddy werewolf! He hasn't changed at all except for liking his steaks rare now."
Harry picked up his book again only to slam it down on the table.
"Tell that to the Ministry," he hissed. "What did they ever care about being fair?"
Ron spat out a stream of swear words Hermione hadn't previously realised he knew. Judging from the look on Harry's face, he hadn't known them all either. She waited patiently till Ron slowed down to a string of lesser B-words before asking whether he wanted them to come along or would his family prefer to be alone.
""Of course you're coming," he said. "You're part of the family now, aren't you?"
Harry looked from one blushing face to another and his fury lightened the tiniest little bit. At least there was one thing that seemed to be going right.
o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o
Bill's wedding was three days later. Bill had suggested moving the wedding to France, but Fleur had surprised everyone again.
"Ze Ministry can say what zey like," she'd announced, sounding more French than ever, "but Bill is Eenglish and he will remain so, long after zis foolish Ministry is gone and forgotten. We will not run away or 'ide in a corner, as if we were ashamed. We will get married immediately and ze Ministry can go 'ang zemselves!"
"But the dresses! Your family!" Molly sputtered disbelievingly.
"What do I care if ze dresses aren't ready? I am beautiful enough if I wed in a muddy sack, I theenk!" Fleur said. Hermione and Ginny exchanged involuntary glances, wondering if it was a costume she'd ever tried. "My family can be 'ere in two days. We get married zen, and after, we face ze Ministry togezzer as man and wife."
Ginny bowed her head, her cheeks heating to the colour of her hair, and jumped up as she finished speaking.
"You're absolutely right," she said. "We'll show the world what Weasleys and Delacours can do under pressure. I'll wear whatever you like." She took a deep breath for the ultimate concession and added, "Fleur."
Fleur smiled graciously on her.
"Zank you, Ginny. My family will help, but I am all Weasley now."
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Sometimes, family came above wider considerations. Abandoning Horcruxes for the moment – since, after all, they'd already managed to find and destroy the first one, which set them way ahead of any schedule they'd ever imagined – Ron, Harry and Hermione entered the preparations with as much zest as anyone, de-gnoming the garden, fetching, carrying, cleaning and helping in the kitchen, whether under Molly's supervision or Fleur's.
Arthur, meanwhile, was taking the diplomatic route, making representations to his colleagues and even repeatedly visiting Scrimgeour himself. Standing in front of an unresponsive Percy for the fourth time in two and a half days, he threw caution to the winds.
"Your brother's getting married tomorrow."
Percy picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and started leafing through them.
"Indeed," he said. "Pray convey my congratulations and felicitations. I met Miss Delacour when she competed in the Triwizard Tournament and I believe her to be a young woman of as much integrity as beauty."
"Convey them yourself," his father replied. "Are you refusing to come to your own brother's wedding?"
Percy counted three papers and set them aside, then returned to riffling through the sheaf.
"You'll have to excuse me, I'm afraid. I don't go where I'm not wanted, and my last visit to your home showed what welcome I could expect there." He folded his lips as if there was something he wanted to keep himself from saying.
Arthur's chest swelled with an old ache.
"I can't believe you!" he accused. "Would you shun your own brother to satisfy a Ministry directive that hasn't even been passed yet? It seems I never knew you at all!"
He blinked as blue eyes blazed momentarily into his, or had he imagined it? Percy's face was as politely blank as ever.
"No, you didn't," Percy murmured, turning away to hunt through a crowded drawer. "If that was all, the Minister will see you now."
o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o-O-o
Hermione looked around at the Burrow's garden and reflected with proprietary satisfaction on what Weasleys could produce under pressure.
We'll show them, she thought. The Ministry and anyone else who underestimates the worth and strength of Weasley women.
Unbidden, a certain hook-nosed face, curtained by greasy black hair, came to mind. He hadn't mocked her as a Weasley woman, but he'd continually mocked her chosen Weasley mate, so she supposed that counted by extension. She shook all thoughts of him out of her head. This was a time for rejoicing. She doubted he even knew how.
The garden was hung with Weasley's Everlasting Fireflowers, a new product that was guaranteed to bloom all day and glow in ever-changing colours through the night. George had smuggled them out, along with Cloud Cushions –"so fluffy they float" – and S'dreamers – "Ribbons of Dreams" – seconds before the Ministry investigators had arrived, while Fred had been adjusting their self-updating books to show the previous day's sale date. More Fireflowers ringed the little clearing where the bridal couple would stand, with an arch marking the entrance.
The tables were laden with the products of Mrs Weasley's kitchen - roasts, puddings and tarts. The Delacour ladies had rolled up their sleeves on arrival and baked a competing array of pastries, petits four and a towering French wedding cake of choux pastry and spun sugar for afters.
The bridesmaids wore unadorned turquoise, a compromise colour Fleur had eventually settled on after realising that "Eet ees impossible to 'ave a colour that suits both of you, but thees ees pale enough for Gabrielle and almost green enough for Ginny. Eet will 'ave to do." Hermione looked down at her own periwinkle robes and thanked her good fortune she hadn't had to wear a colour of Fleur's choosing.
Neither had Luna. She was wearing her silver robes again, the ones she'd worn at Slughorn's party that almost matched her eyes, but accessorised with nothing more alarming than a spray of cherry-coloured Pygmy Puffs in her hair. Hermione did her best to ignore her as she expounded on the Chocolate Frog card that Ginny had just presented to Harry, after having unearthed it from deep inside the sofa that morning. Apparently, the wizard's claim to fame was his giant Patronus that could vanquish a hundred Dementors in one go, and Luna was rather improbably telling the boys that it had been his wand in Ollivanders' front window.
"Just what we need, eh, Harry?" said Ron. "Imagine a wand that could scare away that many Dementors!"
"He doesn't have to," Hermione said impatiently. "He did that himself in third year, the night we met Sirius." It was funny how Harry seemed to attract Dementors; just as well his Patronus was so strong.
"Did he? I don't remember that."
"You'd remember it, if you'd seen it, believe me!" she said. "It was when Harry and I went back. You were asleep, but I told you when you woke up."
Suddenly, she missed Hogwarts so strongly her chest hurt. It would re-open in September – almost the only good news to come from that wretched inquiry – but she wouldn't be returning.
Luna smiled.
"Phoenix-core wands produce the strongest Patronuses," she said, stroking a Pygmy Puff with one skinny finger that she then trailed down her straggly hair, "because they are self-renewing."
"The Patronuses or the phoenixes?" Ron asked sceptically.
Luna blinked at him.
"The wizards, of course."
Hermione rolled her eyes and ruthlessly changed the subject.
"Luna, I've been wondering if Ravenclaws have any historical legends that they pass down about the history of the school. The founders, for instance; have you ever heard any stories about them, their interests, perhaps, or the subjects they taught?"
Not that she expected anything, really, but she might as well ask. They needed a Ravenclaw artefact, after all, and Luna was the Ravenclaw they knew best. At worst, she might give them an idea of where not to look.
"Bold Gryffindor from wild moor,
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,
Shrewd Slytherin, from fen," quoted Luna vaguely.
Hermione's lips pursed and her brow furrowed. That had been the Sorting Hat's song in fourth year. Perhaps it held a clue. Bold Gryffindor had left a sword and sweet Hufflepuff a cup. Yes, both of those might fit, perhaps, if Helga's cup had been used to hold mulled wine or sweet ale or something. But Slytherin had left a ring and a locket. That seemed odd … unless it was a poison ring, like the Borgias had had. And a locket was also something that signified hiding, which was close enough to shrewdness, hidden thoughts and hidden secrets ... Right, so in that case, fair Ravenclaw …
"A mirror!" she exclaimed. "I wonder where the Mirror of Erised is now?" Probably still in Hogwarts. Her heart lifted at the possibility of having an excuse to go back.
The boys looked at her, their eyes brightening, but then Ron shook his head.
"Couldn't be," he said. "Surely Dumbledore would have known if that was the Ravenclaw one, after he had it in his hands and all."
Harry was less sure.
"But that was first year. He wasn't looking for – for You-Know-What then."
No good, thought Hermione glumly. An embedded Horcrux would have given Quirrell a way to bypass the Mirror's defences. He didn't have one so that means it can't be what we're looking for.
"If you're not going to explain, perhaps you'd better not talk about it in front of us," Ginny said sharply. "Just in case we go hunting for the nearest Death Eater to blab all your secrets too!" She pushed past them, her back very straight and her eyes suspiciously bright.
"Wonder what's eating her," Ron said.
Harry stared at the ground and scuffed the grass with his foot, but it was Luna who spoke.
"It's worse being a fifth leg to a Tripodial Spattlepot than a Crup," she said. "You feel so much more unnecessary." She smiled amiably round at them and followed Ginny.
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Hermione looked up at the familiar black scowl and wondered if it was blacker and bleaker than she remembered or if it was just the night that was darker?
"I was hoping you'd have some ideas of what to look for, Professor. We're going to Godric's Hollow after Harry's birthday. It can't be before because Harry thinks it might invalidate the Blood protection if we leave for good before then. There might be a founder's artefact there, if the Dark Lord was planning to use Harry's death that way, but what do we look out for?" Something old, of course, but that wasn't much to go on.
Snape looked her over until she couldn't look back.
"What do you have so far?"
"The ring and the locket and the diary have all been destroyed, so there's still the Hufflepuff cup, Nagini, if Dumbledore was right about her, and at least one other thing that's probably connected with the founders somehow. The first time we discussed it, you suggested his wand as a possible Gryffindor item and you said you didn't think it would turn out to be Harry. I hope you're right." She took a deep breath. "I did have a thought yesterday at the wedding, but it's probably wrong. It couldn't be the Mirror of Erised, could it?"
Both eyebrows raised and both eyes widened, as black and impenetrable as ever.
"I believe not, but I imagine you had a reason for thinking of it."
"It was something Luna said, Luna Lovegood," she said defensively.
His lip curled.
"There's no need to remind me of her identity. I suppose you were looking for a Ravenclaw to consult and she was the most convenient. And?"
"She quoted one of the Sorting Hat's songs that mentioned 'fair Ravenclaw' and, well, it was just a sudden thought." She grimaced. "I should have known better than to listen, though, especially after that rigmarole she was talking about the wand in Ollivander's window."
He regarded her narrowly.
"What about the wand?"
"She said she knew who it belonged to." Hermione shrugged apologetically. "But it was probably just one of her stories."
His next words made her jaw drop.
I should imagine she would know, if anyone did."
"I beg your pardon?" she breathed.
"Her great-grandmother was an Ollivander. Surely someone so eagle-eyed as yourself would have noticed the family resemblance," he sniped. "Silver-grey eyes are not very common, even in the wizarding world."
"You're joking!"
"I am not accustomed to joking, Miss Granger."
"You used to be," she said before she could stop herself.
His eyes narrowed to slits.
"Perhaps you'd like to explain yourself?"
"You know exactly what I mean, Mr Half-Blood Prince! Your Potions book; the one Harry was using all year. He told me you said it was yours, just before you, um, left." She glanced at him sidelong. "I thought you had a rather nasty sense of humour as a boy."
He smirked.
"Your disapproval couldn't possibly have been attributed to jealousy, of course," he said.
She bit her lip. She knew now why he'd always scorned her book-knowledge and it hadn't been anti-Gryffindor bias at all. She'd tailored other people's spells to her needs, but she'd never thought of making up her own and when she compared his experimental approach to Potions with her stubborn insistence on following instructions, it brought hot blood rushing to her cheeks.
"I kept it," she admitted. "Harry hid it in the Room of Requirement and he was too upset to go back for it, but I did, our last night at Hogwarts. It was exactly where he'd said it was. I almost didn't find it, but he'd marked the place, you see. They don't know I took it." And she was babbling. Why was she babbling?
"I suppose you've been studying it every night after they fall asleep, ready to take credit for the spells he didn't reach. Or don't you know which they are?"
"No, I don't, and I wouldn't do that anyway! I never take credit for other people's work and you should know that about me at least!" She found she was trembling with rage and turned away hastily so he wouldn't see, but she could feel his eyes on her back. She needed to change the subject fast.
"Did you mean that about Luna? She's an Ollivander? How do you know?" she asked.
"I was in school with her mother. She had a very open, very questioning mind. Luna resembles her greatly."
"Luna?" She turned back to him in time to see the softness of memory in his eyes. It reminded her of the way he used to look at Draco in class. "You like Luna?" Why did that make her chest burn and her throat ache? She pressed forward, her hands clenched tight as her teeth. "Why did you choose me as your liaison if she's your favourite student? Why put me in the middle when you could have had her?"
He sneered down at her.
"Is that vaunted memory failing you already? You asked if there was no one I trusted more than you and you were told it had to be someone in Potter's confidence. Luna might be Evanna Lynch's daughter, but she's not in Potter's inner circle!"
She didn't want to look at him. She didn't want him looking at her. Finding the aspidistra bush at hand, she pulled off a leaf and then another. And then a cold hand was on hers, forbidding her from reaching for a third.
"What is this obsession you have with ripping up your parents' shrubbery?" he asked.
"What do you care?" she muttered.
"For the shrubbery, not at all, but for the chance that your parents become suspicious of activity in their backyard and try to catch the culprits a great deal."
She wrenched herself away and scrubbed fiercely at her face, her back turned to him. She didn't understand herself why she was so angry. She didn't even like him much. She liked Ron. Loved Ron.
"I'm sorry," she said, casting around for something to explain away her temper. "I'm just feeling the pressure at the moment. I heard Mr Weasley telling Bill he'd invited Percy and I was so afraid there'd be a Death Eater attack during the wedding."
"A rather wild assumption," he told her.
She frowned, her hands twisting in her jumper.
"He isn't a Death Eater, then? We wondered."
He snorted and shook his head at her folly.
"That boy a Death Eater! He's the straightest die in the family. Why, what on earth do you think the Dark Lord could offer him? Or threaten him with?"
Her hands twisted tighter.
"I don't understand," she ventured.
He looked down his long, large nose at her and explained as to a particularly dunderheaded first year.
"He's too competent to need help in his career, too straight to blackmail, too personally brave to intimidate, and too separated from his family and Miss Clearwater for it to be worth using them against him."
She stared slack-jawed at his earnestness.
"Do you think – Is that why he walked out on them?" she wondered aloud.
He shrugged, one interrogative eyebrow raised.
"How should I know? I'm not in the boy's confidence, but I don't imagine he was in yours either. Did he have any reason to know Potter wasn't making it all up?"
Her hands went to her hips and her chin thrust pugnaciously forward.
"He knew Harry! He should have known he wouldn't lie!"
He tilted his head, his voice low and silky.
"Indeed? He habitually lied to me and I can only imagine that he'd be as ready to deceive a prefect as a teacher. But we've wasted enough time on Percy Weasley. Was there anything else?"
Her head reared back to regard him narrowly.
"You mean you'd trust him?" she demanded.
"Idiot girl! I trust no one." He turned to leave and paused. "Luna has a way of catching what the rest of us miss, though she doesn't always know herself what she's seen. It occurs to me that she may have meant something else by that reference to the Sorting Hat's song. Something that was so obvious even Dumbledore missed it."
Hermione scowled. Luna Lovegood catch something Dumbledore had missed? She didn't believe it.
"Not the words, Miss Granger," he continued, "but the speaker. The medium is the message, in this case. Who more likely to know the shape and style of the founder's artefacts than the one that was there in the founders' time? The Sorting Hat itself."
The tight, hard knot that was Hermione unclenched. She could only stare, open-mouthed.
"Then – then we'll have to go back to Hogwarts," she said at last, her chest so hollow she felt each breath. That was good news, wasn't it? Wasn't it? "You already suggested talking to Hagrid and Moaning Myrtle last time and then there's the Chamber of Secrets and the Room of Requirement and – and maybe some of the other teachers, but – Wouldn't Dumbledore have thought of the Hat already? I mean, it was in his office," (she'd seen it the day he recruited her for these meetings) "he used to see it every day, how could he miss that?"
His words echoed behind him long after he left.
"He never claimed to be infallible, Miss Granger. Nor was he. I've told you that before."
A/N Canon mentions a Werewolf Code of Conduct and a Werewolf Register, but not a Werewolf Act. I've chosen to assume there is one and that it defines both the others.
Fireflowers, Cloud Cushions and S'dreamers are not canon.
Andros the Invincible, the Ancient Greek wizard with the giant-sized Patronus, is not book-canon, but is a JK-produced Famous Wizard Card from the Chamber of Secrets game. No exact date is given for him, but the date from which Ollivanders began making fine wands, 382 BC, is consistent with the Ancient Greek Empire.
Tripodial (ie three-legged) Spattlepots are not canon, but no sillier than other mythical creatures mentioned by Luna at various times. (I've used them as a magical alternative to tricycles, for Luna to make a "fifth wheel" analogy about Ginny and the trio.)
Both Luna and Mr Ollivander have round, protuberant eyes of the same distinctive colour in canon and both have a certain detachment; clue or coincidence?
Evanna Lynch is, of course, the true name of the actor who plays Luna in the movie and it seemed so perfect for Luna's mother that I couldn't resist borrowing it, but no resemblance to the actor herself is intended.
"The medium is the message" was famously first said by Marshall McLuhan in the 60s.
Anyone interested in a more comprehensive look at my views on Percy and his estrangement may like to see my Percy-centric SSHG fic, "Reunion".