Chapter Three: The Ministry Man Comes Again

All that Cadwallader Perkins was thinking was whether he should put in for the Unfortunate Wizard of the Year award. He had never been exactly lucky – that much was clear from the name his mother had thought a good idea – but this affair rather took the biscuit.

He had only been transferred from Misuse of Muggle Artefacts a few months ago, on the promise of some 'majorly exciting changes' in this corner of the Ministry. While it was certainly a 'change', his Head being suspended and a Wizengamot investigation into the whole department was on the wrong side of 'exciting' in his book. It struck him as grossly unfair, when he hadn't done anything. In fact, he was still so green in the department that they wouldn't let him have his own Muggleborn files. How was he supposed to have violated their rights, then? Of course, they promised 'fair dealing' for the junior members of staff, but he knew people in Law Enforcement, and this wasn't their style at all. He was going to get his arse dragged through the courts to be tutted at by the holier-than-thou, I-got-a-scar-fighting-you-know-who, sanctimonious, saints among mere mortals that the Auror office was made of these days. He might even get a few months in jail – all the Death Eater trials had made the Office a bit shackle- happy, from what he had heard.

In fact, the whole Muggle Relations malarkey was a mistake. He'd only forgotten to cross it off his NEWTs options by accident, and then it was too rude to cancel on a class that was already only four students strong (and Professor Burbage's rather 'hands on' tutoring didn't hurt), so he carried on with it, accidentally scoring top in the process. It was just his luck that the Ministry took him for a serious Mugglephile, fit to send in to be desk mates with the likes of Arthur Weasley.

To tell the truth, terrible as it was to say in peacetime, the best it got was during the War. At least the work was more than cleaning up exploding toilets and silencing singing candlesticks. He invented some decent stuff under wartime protocol: the Fiendfyre Hand Dryer, which was a convenient, transportable device for fast cookery and self defence that even Squibs could wield with confidence; the Self-Directed Surgical Implements, which were preset for 10 common Muggle operations and, admittedly, might have spent a few more weeks in development; and, best of all, the Imperative Early Learning Aids, which were children's textbooks imbued with a mild, mostly harmless dose of Imperius to decrease anti-Wizard inclinations amongst Muggle students. Of course, a few of these prototypes were later used by unscrupulous and, as it turned out, rather crooked people.

By contrast, Domestic and Marital had been run by a well-connected wallflower and a man who thought Top of the Pops was 'hip' and 'trendy' Muggle culture, and where all they did all day was check that people were bonking properly. And now it was only Pops left. Only Pops and the fornication inspectors, left the ride this completely gutted wreck to the watery, prisony depths.

It was all distinctly unfair. He could have been a Mediwizard if he had replaced the soft subject with something more useful, like Herbology. Alright, perhaps not a Mediwizard, but he might have worked in Tradeable Goods, or the International Office. He noticed that none of those guys were being inquisitioned, not even the ones that probably were deserved it. Some of them were bent as bent could be.

As the glacé cherry of misfortune on this whole thing, Pops had sent him to do Snape.

"Typical," he muttered as floo'd into Diagon Alley. "Typical, typical, typical."

One glance around was enough to tell him that the sorry saga was far from over. The alley was three times as busy as usual at this time of afternoon, the air ringing with scandalous and scandalized mutterings as the story of the year was picked over endlessly by those who those who didn't have a clue, nor a stake in any of it. Here and there, groups of three or four had their teas and scones over copies of the Prophet or the Tattler, hissing ill-informed indictments or else shaking their heads in some sort of second-hand emotion. Some smart arse had enlarged a copy of today's front page and strung it up between two lamp posts so that he was treated to Pops's massive face grimacing nervously down . ACTING HEAD REMAINS SILENT ON MARRIAGE LAW DISSOLUTION, screamed the towering headline. Something told him that they weren't exactly getting more popular as the days dragged by.

He pulled his scarf tighter about his face, hoping not to be recognised as he weaved his way through the crowd.

An unusually large throng in front of Flourish and Blotts caught his attention. He gave the display a glance and regretted it immediately. A huge acid green poster covered the entire window, showing a familiar bottle blonde head. Sure enough, Rita Skeeter had another instant bestseller on the way, to be out by the end of the month. Time was, in the early cretaceous, when she was in with Pops and Professor Burbage. "Friend to the cause, if not to me personally," Pops called her. He wondered what would come out in her next doorstopper, and just how wide the splatter zone was going to be. He had been interviewed by her once, years ago, about the surgical instruments fiasco; he doubted very much that she had forgotten.

"Good thing I'm for it, then," he muttered, to no one. "Doubt they'll stock that in the prison library."

"Yes, she is quite horrid, isn't she?"

He had not expected anyone to hear, much less for an airy voice to reply, seemingly disembodied, from somewhere behind his right ear.

He twisted around, rather panicked, and found himself facing a young blonde with a pretty face but the most scatterbrained looking expression he'd ever seen. She was holding a small pink tin which she rattled quite loudly under his nose.

"I'm collecting for the Marriage Law victims," she said, in an unconcerned, colourless tone that seemed to have nothing to do with what she was actually saying. "Muggleborns who have had their wizarding rights violated, women who have been abused, or unwanted children who need to be placed. Would you like to make a donation?"

"Er," said Perkins, who was thinking of just how much legal representation would cost him. "If it's all the same with you, love –"

But she rattled the tin again, louder and closer to his face.

"It is for a good cause," she insisted, as if he had simply not understood.

"Yeah, alright," replied Perkins. He searched his pockets and scraped up the loose shrapnel. "Here's a few knuts, if you want it."

"That's very generous of you," she said, even though it wasn't. And then she was gone, slipped away into another crowd, shaking her little tin.

He would have gaped after her for quite a while longer, feeling odd and uncomfortable, if his watch had not beeped.

"Get on with it, Perkins! Tempus neminem manet! Tempus Fugit! Tempus! Tempus! Tempus!" it squeaked at its most annoying setting.

It was perfectly right - he had to get a move on, if he wanted to catch Snape at his shop, and he much preferred to meet Snape in public, even in Knockturn Alley, than at his home, alone.

He pushed past the long queue at Fortescue's, the window browsers at the Quidditch shop, the reverent mass at the foot of the Peace Phoenix, and made the turn into Knockturn.

Such was the power of the Marriage Law scandal that even Knockturn was decently populated, though there was a distinctly different atmosphere. It was dodgier, and not just the usual kind of Knockturn dodgy. Besides the drab, dreary and sinister regulars, the street was dotted here and there with crisper robes and shinier boots. They gathered at the fronts of shops, but they were not discussing newspaper articles. Instead, they were peering in with dirty looks and whispering ominous things under their breath.

"He should be ashamed of himself –" one was saying as he walked past an antiques dealer.

"I swear, if I get him alone –" hissed another at the secondhand book store.

But quite the largest gathering was at Shop 41, The Apocryphal Apothecary. This was where the infamous Severus Snape had finally settled, after all the allegations had cleared, or at least cleared as much as they ever would. It was a narrow, tall building with an ancient, peeling grey front wedged between the much more inviting Hansel's Herbs on the right and an abandoned house on the left. There were a good six or seven witches and wizards huddled in front of it, looking like a middle class lynching.

A feeling of impending dread seemed to grow coldly in Perkins's chest. He wasn't sure who he was more worried for –the mob or the ex-Death Eater. Actually, probably himself.

"Excuse me, please," he said, making an attempt for the blocked doorway. It didn't work in the slightest.

"Ministry Official, please make way." He tried again, a little louder, and pushed forward with a bit more elbow.

"Oi!" shouted the man he had unwitting jostled.

Heads turned and stared.

Perkins coughed in what he hoped was an authoritative, reassuring manner.

"Ministry official. Please clear the doorway."

They didn't.

"Are you going to arrest him, then?" asked the man he had pushed. There was loathing etched into every hard line of his ugly, contorted face. "You should, you know. I don't care what anyone says. The nundu don't change his spots - once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."

There were mutterings of agreement at this. Encouraged, the man grew louder and more zealous, like any drunk at the third pint.

"What's to say he was ever on our side at all? What's to say he wasn't working for them all along and just switched over when we were winning? What's to say he didn't hoodwink Harry Potter along with the rest of them? That was a hinkypunk trial if I ever saw one."

More murmurs of support from his friends at this aggravated use of cheap rhetoric. Perkins fought the urge to say something unhelpful like just what it was he thought he had done during the war to warrant the use of 'we' which seemed to include him with the Potters, Shacklebolts, Weasleys and other saints. Or what precisely he objected to during the trial of Severus Snape and why he hadn't bothered lodging his evidence during its very lengthy and well publicised proceedings. But none of this was exactly helpful.

"Yeah, alright. I need to get past, so –"

"And he's a pervert, too, to marry his own student. It's sick. We should never have allowed it in the first place. Who knows how many others he abused when he was posturing as Headmaster - "

"I need to get past," said Perkins. "Now, if you don't mind."

He was wearing thin on both patience and courage, but managed to bring up his last reserves of both. He drew himself up to his full, pathetically average height, and tried to sound calming and politic, like ministry officials were meant to.

"This isn't really helping anyone, you lot crowding around like this. I have to ask you all to calm down and step away from the door. You've made your point, and I see where you're coming from. Really, I do. I'm here to find out the truth and make sure justice is done. Just like the rest of you, I'm sure."

He wasn't, actually. Put people in groups like this and shady concepts like the truth stopped mattering entirely. The Auror office was proof of that.

"If you let me past," he continued, soothingly. "I can start the process of investigation. If there is strong evidence of any wrongdoing, justice will be - "

" So you will arrest him then."

"Well, no, that's not what I said. It's more a process of –"

A babble of disapproval broke out and he found himself suddenly almost shouting just to be heard over it.

"It's the law," he pressed on. "It's just- the law, you know. There's a process that has to be followed. He's innocent until proven guilty, like anyone. If you let me past -"

"Innocent until he's fled the country, you mean?" sneered a tall wizard towards the back.

He took a deep, calming breath and tried to remember the training that Pops had foisted on them all that morning for precisely these situations. 'Responses like this were often than not caused by ignorance and uncertainty'. 'Inform as clearly and precisely as possible to avoid escalations'. It was easier said than done.

"There is little risk of escape," he replied. "There is an embargo on long distance travel for all parties involved with the Marriage Law until their case is fully resolved. As you might have heard, all apparition borders and Floo networks have been put back under surveillance for precisely this purpose. Any attempt to flee will result in a maximum sentence of six months in prison –"

"In Azkaban?" It was the cantankerous, jostled man again, with a glint of something in his eye that Perkins did not like the look of one bit.

"Not quite. As this is a civil matter, time would be served in the civil prison. But this is very much a marginal scenario. The Department is confident –"

"Your Department couldn't find its own nose," said one of the witches.

"We are trying our best, madam!"

Perkins winced at what had come out of his mouth. It was true enough, but that didn't stop it sounding absolutely pathetic.

"It's not good enough!"

Perkins made the mistake of meeting the witch's gaze. Beneath the demented anger and the hungry vengeance, there was a hollow, sad look in her eye. Was the same look, in fact, in almost all the faces of the crowd. He looked away and wondered what to say. The problem was, she was right – it wasn't good enough. But they were doing the best they can under the circumstances. Highman had put everyone on double shifts already just to keep the filing under control, not to mention all the extra work that Dorian's sudden departure created. For it to be anywhere near 'good enough', they would need to magic up about a dozen extra juniors, but people weren't exactly queuing up to lend a hand.

He was considering asking them all to 'please move' again when something else captured the crowd's attention – and his.

A black shape had moved up to the dirty window and was peering out with its blurred, ghost-white face.

"Snape!" called the tall wizard, actually knocking his fist against the glass.

"O, Merlin..."

Perkins felt like the floor of his stomach had suddenly fallen by a foot or two. He slipped his wand out of its holder, although he didn't know what he was hoping to do with it. It would be seven angry civilians against one former Death Eater. He didn't even know where he should point it. He might point it skyward with an alarm for the patrol Auror in Diagon, but whether help would come would be a different matter.

Snape had moved behind the door, and a moment later there came the click of a key in a lock. This simple action had the most amazing effect on the mob. The pathway cleared instantly as everyone took an involuntary step backwards.

Perkins took his chance. He pushed past Mr Tall and Mr Cantankerous just as the door eased open. A black eye peered unblinkingly out from the narrow gap.

"Prof – Mr Snape? Would you let me in? It's the Ministry, here about your marriage. Well, annulment. You know."

The eye disappeared into the shadows. Then there was the noise of chains and bolts sliding before the door flew open, suddenly enough to make Perkins actually jump, to his shame. It revealed Severus Snape exactly as he remembered: greasy, pale and scowling. It was not exactly an endearing combination, though in the circumstances Perkins could understand the scowling.

It was a narrow doorway and he squeezed past rather gingerly, very aware of the ridiculous volume of Snape's robes and the many, many shelves full of Potion-making stuff teetering all around him in the tiny shop.

"Er, you might want to close that door quick, Professor."

But Snape was already there. He slammed it with a deliberate gesture, setting many chains and bolts in place again with neat wand wave. The mutinous muttering outside had begun again and with another swift movement Snape reduced that to a dead silence.

Perkins unwrapped his scarf to let some air in. He was suddenly feeling hot under his necktie, even though he wasn't wearing one.

"Professor – Mr Snape."

He offered his hand, but it was not taken. Instead, Snape simply stared. The unblinkingly, direct look he was giving Perkins down the significant length of his nose was deeply forbidding, and deeply familiar. He felt like he was in detention again. Then he remembered that he was a ministry official, abeit from a ridiculous department, and he wasn't the one who was more likely than not going to be in jail at the end of all this mess.

"Right," said Perkins, trying to look respectful, polite and officially neutral.

He let Snape have the spiel.

"My name is Cadwallader Perkins, from the Department of Domestic and Marital Affairs. First of all, let me say how sorry I am for the circumstances of this visit. The Department would like to stress that, despite what you, er, might have heard, there will be no unfair assumptions or dispositions towards or against either party, based on any previous convictions of either civil or criminal offenses. The purpose of this investigation is simply to establish the facts as accurately as we can in regard to the true circumstances of your marriage to Hermione Snape née Granger. If your marriage is deemed to be clear of all offenses, such as spousal abuse, use of manipulation to induce marriage, illegal use of fertility or contraceptive potions, or any other offenses which are listed in the information booklet, then you will be free to remarry once proceedings are over. The primary objective of this visit is simply to establish that you understand what is about to take place, and that proper initiatives have been taken as advised."

Perkins looked for some sort of acknowledgement from Snape, but there was none. He had barely blinked during all of this. Perkins decided not to be bothered by it, even though it was very disconcerting.

"Can you give your verbal confirmation that you have ceased cohabitation with your former wife?"

"Yes."

The answer came in one impatient, rather vicious snap. Perkins sighed inwardly - this would be a long, uncomfortable visit – but ploughed on.

"Very good. Can you also confirm that you are no longer in contact with her in any form, such as owl mail, floo calling or any other methods of communication? "

"Yes." Again, the response came like a puff of highly pressurised air.

"Sorry," said Perkins. "Is that 'yes', you're still in contact – "

"Yes, I can confirm compliance."

"Ah, Good. Of course, once your forms have been processed and subject to the nature of your marriage, it may be possible for you to resume contact with the former Mrs Snape. We do request that you make no attempt to contact or visit her, just for now."

"That would not be necessary."

Although it was impossible to miss the bitterness and even viciousness in Snape's voice, Perkins found this reply deeply reassuring. It implied that Snape at least was not going to challenge the annulment, like certain other people. It also meant that the department was right, about this couple at least. Although it did also suggest that the forms would be less than happy reading.

"Have you filled in your Marriage Details Form, Mr Snape?"

A trussed up pile of parchment was produced from the many folds of Snape's black robes and pressed unceremoniously into his hands. Perkins thumbed through the corners, counting off the pages, and trying to ignore the alarming phrases which jumped at him from the mass of spiky black letters.

"Excellent. Just a reminder that this form constitutes a truthful declaration under wizarding law, punishable by –"

"- up to seven years imprisonment. I know the law."

"Yes, well, I suppose it only remains to tell you that the first appointment has been made for you with your Act Enforcement Officer, who will Mr Augustus Highman, acting Head of department, so you will be in good hands. It's set for next Wednesday, 10am. Will that be convenient? It is during business hours, I'm afraid"

Perkins glanced around at the shop and noticed, for the first time, just how dusty many of the bottles of oddities were.

Snape sneered.

"I think I'll manage."

"Good. At this appointment you may have to provide evidence in relation to 'issues' highlighted in the Marriage Details Form. This evidence will have to be legally incontrovertible, taking one of three forms: Grade 2 Veritaserum, Vow of truth or Pensieve. You don't have to decide –"

"Pensieve," said Snape, in a tone that seemed to leave no room for argument.

"You are aware that this is a very intrusive method? Your memories will have to viewed by the Officer and may also be cited during the Appraisal Hearing."

"I am quite certain."

Perkins thought suddenly of Pops going through Snape's sordid memories for hours on end. He should have felt some semblance of pity, but instead he felt a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth and fought it down with some difficulty.

"Very well, Mr Snape. That concludes my business here. We'll see you at the Department on Wednesday, then."

Snape gave his wand another sharp flourish, sending the door flying open.

Perkins stepped through and managed not to jump as it slammed shut again behind him.

"So?" asked the cantankerous wizard.

"So what?" said Perkins, tugging his scarf tight around his face again.

"So are you going to put him where he belongs?"

Perkins hesitated.

"Not sure," he said, truthfully. "You'll have to see. We'll all have to see. That's why it's an invesigation, you see."

He pushed through the crowd, ignoring their mutinous mutterings, and headed back down Knockturn Alley.

A patrol Auror was trying to move the loiterers on from the secondhand book shop, with little success. There was a lot of shouting, rude gestures and more than one drawn wand.

Perkins hurried on. Although he could not have spent more than twenty minutes with Snape, the day seemed to have grown a lot darker, or perhaps that was just the clouds which seemed to have come in out of nowhere.

He wanted nothing more than a pint or two at the Cauldron before going home with a large bundle of fish and chips under his arm. Of course, he couldn't. Like everyone else in their sorry department, he had a night of paperwork to look forward to, just like the night before and just like all the nights to come. He wondered if he should quit.

-0-

Author's notes:

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! As always, please drop a line and tell me what you think.

Wartime often breeds interesting inventions. I wonder if they teach tinkering about with Muggle inventions in Muggle Studies, sort of like Mr Weasley's pimp'd out muggle car or Sirius's enhanced motor. They really should. It would be an awesomer world if they did.

The Ministry Men chapters have been a bit SS/HG light, but we will be getting the first of the Pensieve sessions next chapter, so stick around!

-Zhangers