DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns most of the characters and settings here—I own the rest.
Again, thank you to all who have reviewed/followed/favorited so far. Please feel free to drop a review in the box at the end of this chapter. There is a lot more to come!
NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
Chapter 6 - Dough and Sympathy
Walden sat down at the table next to her and glanced at the bottle. "I'd say it's a bit early for that sort o' thing, but...that's never stopped me."
"Today it's appropriate. Seems I've got to go to my bloody apartment and pick up a bunch of mail." She scowled and poured another measure of whisky into her teacup.
"Aye, I need to send Binkus over to the castle and see if any's arrived for me," and with that, Walden picked up the bottle and took a drink, himself. "I should probably have some breakfast."
"Sorry, I rather started without you, I was quite ravenous after last night," Hermione said. "Do you think I can convince Binkus to pick up my mail, as well?"
"Aye. I'll catch up quickly, lass, but I'd appreciate it if ye'd stay in here with me."
"I don't want to be alone right now, either...but if you don't mind, I may be a bit quiet." He reached over and touched her hand briefly. "Doona mind."
A couple of very leisurely hours later (after Walden had finished his food, Hermione Transfigured the wooden kitchen chairs into comfortable chintz armchairs), several things happened at once. Binkus arrived with 2 large packets of mail, Pigwidgeon tapped at the window, and the fire flared up, indicating an incoming call.
Walden groaned as he looked at the fireplace. "Da...could ye possibly give us a wee bit more privacy?"
"What do ye mean, 'us', son? Are ye saying what that rag printed was true?" Gavin Macnair poked his head out of the flames and glanced quickly around the kitchen, immediately spotting Hermione, who was still engrossed in a book.
"For once," Walden said. "As ye're already seein' for yerself, so if ye doona mind?"
"Bring her to the castle for supper," Gavin abruptly said, after a rather long pause. "Nae need to dress up, but put somethin' else on other than yer bed clothes, and doona let that Sassenach invite himself." Before waiting for an answer, he vanished.
"So, what time is supper?" Hermione said, as she reluctantly closed her book. "We have five hours left," Walden replied, as he stood up, stretched, and glanced at the clock ticking away on the wall, "...more generous than he usually is, but he likes ye."
"Enough time to sort through this rubbish, then," and Hermione stood up as well and started leafing through her pile of envelopes; several anonymous Howlers and suspiciously large unmarked envelopes went straight into the fire, leaving a rather small stack of mail, as well as the letter that Pig had left. "So, what did you get?"
"The usual shite," Walden grunted. "Only ones I'm gonna read are these three...one's from Rowle, another's from one of me cousins, and..." he let his voice trail off as he held up the last envelope, which was stamped all over with postmarks, the unmistakable sign of an overseas letter that had gone through the Owl Relay Service.
"You actually aren't required to tell me who's sending you mail now as I'm no longer your defence counsel," Hermione said in a slightly officious tone, to break the silence in the room as she started to open the letter from Ron.
"Am I gonna have to be yer defense from that one, though, lass?"
"I wouldn't think so." The letter merely read, "I'm sorry, 'Mione, please forgive me! -Ron". She sent it straight to the fire. "He's got plenty else to distract him."
"Aye, seems he's been messin' round with one of the Macfarlanes," Walden said, looking up from one of his letters. "Me auntie isna happy."
"Haven't read that in Witch Weekly," Hermione mused. "But I did stop my subscription coming. I'll never be used to how bloody small this community is. Maybe I'll stay in Australia," and with that, she picked up the letter from the Embassy, which had been at the top of the packet. "Oh! Jolly good! I can fill out a visa application when I get there!"
"Aye, o' course. The Portkey Office arranged mine, but they made me fill out papers for five hours, and I had to get that Weasley bloke to sign them and then he made me wait for another hour, the one you work with, I mean, sorry..."
"Percy," Hermione automatically interjected, as she picked up the next letter. "Oh...I didn't expect this." After reading the rather short note inside, she stared out the window at the unexciting landscape yet again, but her mind was filled with images from long-ago afternoons spent drinking tea, choking down inedible rock cakes, and trying to avoid dog slobber or dragon droppings. "I haven't even heard from him in years..."
Hermione,
You're too smart to make this kind of mistake.
Your Friend, Always,
Hagrid
"Bloody hell," she said, finally. She had to leave the room, she just had to, and, dropping the letter in place, she ran from the room, not saying anything, because she didn't want Walden to see her cry.
"Lass?" he yelled after her. "Where are ye..." and then he got up and sprinted after her. "Are ye all right?" He was very fast, and caught up to her in several easy strides.
She turned, then, and paused at the foot of the stairs. "I have to go home. I'm sorry." With three very rapidly intoned spells, her beaded bag had repacked itself and appeared on her wrist, and then she turned on the spot and Apparated.
"Damn me thrice-damned life! Fuck!" Walden yelled, at the empty air and waved his wand, trying to explode something, but nothing happened; the strictures on anger management clearly extended to his magic, as well. "And damn this piece of shite stick, too!"
"So...let me get this straight," Ginny Weasley said, "Skeeter's story was actually true?"
"For once," Hermione said. "Like half of a stopped clock, or something," and she scooped more chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream out of the container and stuffed it in her mouth. "I've really missed this," she said, after she finished savoring it.
"I'm sure you have, the Ministry cafe insists on stocking the same boring flavours," Ginny said, with a smile.
"I meant talking with you, but that's true as well." She sat down the ice cream and pulled her woolen Gryffindor blanket over her feet. They were both ensconced on the overstuffed sofa in the living room that was Hermione's one concession to comfort. There was a black-and-white Muggle film playing on the telly with the sound down; they'd pretended to watch it for an hour or so before Ginny produced the ice cream, and Hermione had finally explained to her friend that she'd called her over straightaway after leaving Walden's house.
To Ginny's credit, the only startled response she made to that revelation was a slightly raised eyebrow when Hermione referred to him by his first name.
"Anyhow...yes. Walden came to my office the other evening to thank me for my services on his behalf, and we went to a Muggle pub after. He's a lot different than you would think," Hermione said. "Most of them are."
"Always figured that, seeing as how I have a little insight into how their boss operated."
"Indeed. I'm not saying that they're all shining examples of wizarding...that Avery is a perfectly wretched piece of work, as dreadful, or worse, than those Carrows, as you are very aware..."
Ginny made a face. "Yeah, they're better off in Azkaban, even if there are no more dementors to sweeten the deal. But I've talked to that Thorfinn Rowle, one time, he wasn't so bad," Ginny said. "He played Quidditch at school, you know, rather well...I'd heard the Bats had been looking at adding him to their roster, but of course he had other, er, snakes to fry. He said he regretted all that, it was really his family that talked him into it."
"When did you see him?" Hermione recalled that one of the owls Walden received that day had been from Rowle. During the trial, his assigned barrister had been Orla Quirke, thus she didn't know many details of his testimony.
"At one of the trials, we actually both ended up in line at the cafe during a recess, and he congratulated me on one of my plays from that season. It's so odd, isn't it? Seeing any of them as human."
"It took me about three bottles of whisky to get to that point...that was the part that Skeeter didn't know about, thank God...but once I got there...well..." She couldn't look at her friend, and Ginny decided to not press her for further specifics, but to keep the conversation moving along. "You were at his house? Where does he live?"
"What he calls a hunting lodge, somewhere in the Highlands-it looked like a country house to me, but I'm hardly an expert on Pureblood dwellings. He actually hasn't been living there for quite some time-he was under conditional house arrest with his parents after Azkaban. Said he hated it, said they treated him like a child, stripped him of his title and all...not that he didn't deserve it!"
"Wasn't he the one that...wait...You-Know-Who killed his wife, right? I was there during that testimony, Perce was doing it, I think you were out for some reason...anyway, it was a bit embarrassing, they had to call for a recess, because Macnair broke down in the courtroom, couldn't speak..."
"I had the flu, came back to work, Percy left me a note with a summary of the testimony, but I never read the whole thing. Said he believed Walden was genuinely repentant."
"Oh, he convinced me," Ginny said. "It was a pretty horrid story really, most of us in the room were actually feeling sorry for Macnair once it was all over. Moldyshorts killed his wife in front of him because she wouldn't...well...shag him, and then made him...well...he cast Imperius and made him go off with that rotten Lestrange woman, you know..."
"I did hear that last part," Hermione said. "Remind me to send your mum a Mother's Day card and flowers this year, again, would you?" That was why the Dark Lord had killed Walden's wife? she thought. No wonder he never wanted to talk about it, and no wonder he'd never wanted to go home.
"She's rather hoping you'll come to dinner tomorrow night," Ginny said. "I promise you, my feckless brother will not be there."
"Not sure if I'm ready for that, yet," Hermione said, "But would you please tell her that I'll be glad to take her up on it once I get back from Australia?"
"Oh, no worries. So, er, when are you leaving, exactly?"
"Well...er...I had rather been planning to share Walden's Portkey next week," she said, turning bright red. "But...well..."
"He's going there, too? Is he doing that emigration program? I just read about that," Ginny said.
"No, he's...well, his son is there, his second son, by the wife that You-Know-Who killed, he got sent there by Lucius...and..." Hermione was still blushing and she trailed off after admitting a further familiarity.
"Did you just say 'Lucius'-as in Malfoy?" Ginny inquired, leaving her mouth open in shock once she was done.
Hermione nodded and reached for the ice cream yet again. Before she took a bite, she mumbled. "They've been friends for years, Hagrid was right about that."
"Hermione, I have to ask you something very serious here," Ginny said, looking her straight in the eye. "Did you, well...did you actually shag either...or possibly both of them, or are you Transfiguring into a tomato for laughs?"
"I shagged Walden," Hermione said. "That night at his hotel, and then again at his house, last night and this morning, and it was pretty damn incredible. Lucius tried to have it on with us, but, er, well, his wand wouldn't cooperate."
Ginny burst into laughter, "I'm sorry...but, er...which one?"
"The wooden one," Hermione said, and she started laughing, too. "You know, they both were given those restricted ones...25 percent chance of spell failure built right in, plus a whole booklet full of proscribed spells..."
"Which rather put a damper on their...well, Harry told me about how they all used to have those sex parties...They were called Revels, or something, weren't they?"
"Yes. Well, Walden wasn't impaired at all in that way, but Lucius tried...well, he tried Devestire, and it was a pretty spectacular failure, he looked a lot like a drunk Morris dancer, so I just sent him home..."
"Really? My dad would be proud," Ginny said. "Of course I'm not going to tell him or anyone else about any of this...but..." she paused for a moment. "What was it like? Sorry! I mean, well, he is rather good-looking. Actually I've always thought they both were...as well as that Rowle and a couple of the others...and you'd better keep my secret, too!"
"... it was rather mind-blowing, he's massive...he did this charm that he didn't even really need...and...well, he knew exactly what to do, we didn't stop for hours...last night before he fell asleep, I think he told me that he adored me, but it was in Gaelic and I could have gotten the translation wrong..." Hermione said.
"In short, the opposite of my brother," Ginny said. "And we know for a fact he's capable of serious commitment, because there is no doubt he loved his wife. Of course, there's the little problem of his former affiliation, but...well, rather sounds to me like he recanted..."
"I think he did, in the end," Hermione said. "He told me once, during one of the depositions, that he'd joined up in order to protect the wizarding world, and things got very wrong and very out of everyone's control once You-Know-Who came back. Because he, the Dark Lord, that is, had a way of reaching into their minds, as you are no doubt perfectly aware, finding out what their very darkest desires were, plucking them out and then satisfying them...and he just wasn't strong enough to resist that, Walden said. Not until he killed his wife."
"So-why did you leave, then? Why didn't you stay with him and go to Australia? At least if something happens over there, he'd be a lot better able to protect you than...well...my brother would. After all these years, don't you deserve to do something just for yourself?"
"But that's the problem, you see. No matter what I do, someone else is always involved or affected in some way. I've been in the public eye for so long that many people think that they know me. Walden even had an opinion on my relationship with Ron, and I'm not sure how that happened...Unless we both change our names or perform a lot of Memory Charms-and that would have to be me, he can't do them for at least another five years-no matter how I feel about him, we're stuck as portraits on the wall in a rogues' gallery...or as Chocolate Frog cards..."
"I know exactly what you mean," Ginny said. "I'm not sure how Harry deals with it, but you'd be amazed at the number of owls we get on a daily basis wanting advice from 'The Chosen One,' as if he's some sort of...you know...deity. He's got a form letter he sends out, it's very compassionate."
"Hagrid bloody wrote me," Hermione said, abruptly. "Said I was too smart to make this kind of mistake."
"Oh, 'Mione," Ginny said. As her friend began to cry, she hugged her. "I'm so sorry..."
At precisely 6 P.M., Walden stepped through the fireplace and emerged in the castle's dining room. His mum and da were already seated at the table, but his da stood up when he arrived, an anticipatory look on his face.
"Ye can sit down, Da, it's just me, then," Walden muttered.