Okay, so I lied about there only being two chapters left.
I thought I would fit it all in but I really couldn't, so now it's looking like one more longish chapter after this and an epilogue.
Hermione didn't notice it happen but suddenly she was falling, only to be quickly caught by strong familiar hands.
"Are you alright Hermione? What's wrong?" Lucius asked with thinly disguised urgency.
"It's okay, I think I'm fine." She reassured him, taking her weight back from him and straightening up. "I had a thought that shocked me a bit and I think I just lost myself for a second there, that's all."
Hermione turned to Astrid who also looked concerned. "Sorry about that, I don't think this heat is helping too much either, my body clearly doesn't do well in anything other than England's comforting grey skies." She tried to joke. "Thank you so much for your help Astrid, you've told me something that I think could lead to the solving of this mystery."
"Well I'm glad I could be of help, promise me you'll let me know when you've resolved it."
"Of course." Hermione smiled. "And don't worry about your safety, I'm sure the perpetrator won't have reason to come looking for you and I'll get someone to watch them whilst I try to find evidence to prove them guilty."
Astrid thanked them both for coming to talk to her and wished them on their way, knowing they didn't have time to stick around. Hermione would have liked to stay longer, it really was beautiful here, but she had far more pressing matters to attend to. A storm was coming and she needed to be ready for it.
He waited until they had walked just far enough from the village that no one could hear them until he started to question her.
"Something is seriously wrong Hermione, I can tell it is, and I need you to talk to me about it."
Lucius' tone was demanding, an order almost, but Hermione could tell it was because he was concerned and he was dealing with it the only way he knew how.
Hermione came to a halt on the dusty road. She was almost scared to say it out loud. Knew that saying it out loud would make it so much more real, but knew she had to tell him, knew she would need his help to get justice.
"Lucius, did you ever consider that the curse put on the museum door wasn't meant for you?"
He frowned in confusion, his eyes widening as comprehension dawned on him, filling with a terrifying rage as the reality set in.
"Why would someone try to do that to you? What possible reason could they have?"
His voice sounded calm on the surface, but below Hermione could hear the man Lucius could be in battle, the wizard so many feared.
Hermione explained her reasoning behind thinking it was Ginny that had placed the curse and how she had gained access to the Records Department but couldn't quite explain why she had done it.
"I think that somehow she has decided that I had something to do with your short sentence, but her reaction seems so extreme, I don't understand why she would want to hurt me like that…"
Hermione was bewildered. Her answer seemed to make so much sense and yet none at all at the same time.
Lucius' mind was clearly racing to try and find answers, his face full of concentration, before seeming to come to some sort of conclusion.
"Once the war was over, many people, I suppose understandably, wanted those of us who had been part of Voldemort's forces to be not only trialled and punished, but also rejected from society, any wealth we had taken from us and our status wiped away."
"In many cases, punishment occurred, just as everyone wanted and the criminals deserved, but the old families, such as my own, who participated in the war still managed to hold on to some strange form of respect. We kept a lot of our wealth, the term 'pureblood' still maintained some meaning, not of course as Voldemort's cause wished, that it was somehow superior, no, but important in an interesting historical way I suppose, as a rarity.
"It would not surprise me if Ginerva thought this way. Her hatred for people like me is strong and well founded, and her hatred for my family in particular is no doubt intense. As you say, she was furious about my sentencing and, like Blaise suggested to Draco, she felt that someone must have stepped in and tampered with my trial. Just like Draco, she knew it wasn't Harry Potter who had done it, so who?"
"Then back at Hogwarts she see's you being a close friend to Draco. You, the war hero, accepting this, in her eyes, boy who deserves nothing from any of them, especially not kindness or forgiveness."
"She starts to suspect you, the war hero with influence at the Ministry trying to help the father of the new friend she's made, a traitor in her eyes, but she has nothing concrete, her suspicions perhaps subsiding over the years. Then you're seen spending a lot of time with none other than Ezra Godtro, the man who was known to provide key evidence for many of the death eater trials and perhaps the suspicions she once had returned. Were you friends with Ezra back then? Did you manage to get him to withhold evidence somehow?"
"Then the final straw comes. She hears from Ronald about none other than Lucius Malfoy standing up for you. Why would he do that? She asks herself. Why else other than if you had played a part in his short sentencing?"
"That's when she decides to take action. She thinks it will be easy for her, maybe feels that she is even above the law in her noble cause to find out the truth. Her plan builds quickly, perhaps frantically. She knows she will need to polyjuice herself into someone who could access the Records Department without a problem and, what luck, look who she spies across the room, a judge with the highest security clearance, the very judge who made the sentence that led to all this. It's easy to get a hair in such a crowded place and she does it without a problem."
"Now polyjuice these days is hard to come by and takes time to make, so she needs to get it from somewhere and fast. Then she recalls what her Auror boyfriend Harry Potter has told her, that the security department keeps a large stock of the improved polyjuice formula at the Ministry. She uses the invisibility cloak you told me about, all too easy to get ahold of, and simple waits for someone to follow who can remove all of the security measures for her."
"Once transformed into Astrid the next step is easy. Pansy takes her to the room with the case files without a single suspicion, it makes perfect sense for one of the judges who presided over many of the war trials needing access to those records. She finds my file, sees the lack of incriminating evidence, confirming her suspicion that my trial was tampered with. She goes to sign out and that's when maybe she even sees your name in the log book. You have clearance too, you could easily have altered things."
"Her next actions seem strange though, even to me who knows her far less well than you. Why decide to try to kill you? Why not confront you or try to bring what she thought to the authorities? How does attacking you make more sense than going for me instead, the object of her hatred. It just doesn't make sense…"
"Regardless of her unknown motives, the next step would probably not be that hard either. She knows you well, through Harry at least I assume, so is aware that you are usually at Hogwarts on the weekends, or at least not at the Ministry, and thus not in your department. She goes in early and asks one of your employees if they know your schedule for the day. It arises no suspicions, as far as your co-workers are aware she is a friend of yours."
"She's short for time, you're scheduled to go to the museum in barely any time at all and she may not have another opportunity like this. She hurries there and plants the curse on the entrance, knowing it's a Sunday and that the place isn't open to the public, she doubts anyone else will touch it, or perhaps she hasn't even considered the possibility in her deranged mental state. She's unaware that you are already inside, which in my opinion was rather idiotic considering your reputation for over-punctuality, and then she sees Ezra approach. I doubt she knew how to remove the curse but even if she did, perhaps she didn't want to. To her she probably suspects that Ezra has played a part too in this injustice, somehow she convinces herself that it doesn't matter if the curse hits him instead."
"Why not attack again you may ask? Simply wait for us to leave and get you then. Perhaps she planned to but we apparated from within the building, not giving her the chance, but who knows, maybe she panicked and fled."
He paused, his eyes creasing as he searched his mind for something he had forgotten but appeared to find nothing.
Hermione stood there in a numb sort of shock. Everything Lucius said seemed plausible, more than plausible even, it was as if he'd been reading what had actually happened out in court. He was right though, Ginny's final actions of using the curse seemed so extreme, there must be something they were missing.
"So what's our next step?" Asked Lucius, breaking Hermione from her thoughts.
"I think everything you've said is right and I see two steps that we need to take. The first is to gather Severus, Draco and Blaise at the Manor this evening and-"
Hermione stopped short, an unpleasant thought having popped into her head.
"Make that three steps." She continued. "If I was the target it would make sense to have tried to attack me again. Whilst I'm working in the Ministry it would be too risky to come after me. There are a lot of people there and finding out my movements would be far more difficult whilst I'm in the office. That leads me to believe that she might have gone to my house. I haven't been back since I started staying at the Manor and only left up my usual security charms, which mind you are pretty powerful considering that I always thought the possibility of a loose Voldemort supporter deciding to have a go at attacking were pretty high, so I think it might be a good idea to check that out, with caution of course."
"Anyway, as I was saying; Severus, Draco and Blaise should come to the Manor tonight to discuss what we've learnt, and then my last step will be finding the hard evidence we need which I'm sure can be found in Ginny's house with Harry."
Lucius' demeanour shifted at her words from supportive to protective. "It could be too dangerous to go there." He protested firmly. "We don't know what could happen to you, particularly since this Weasley girl seems to be rather unstable and volatile."
"Don't worry so much Lucius." She said trying to hide a small smile at his concern for her. "Do you doubt that I haven't already thought of a plan for that?" She added, mimicking Draco's tone from earlier that morning.
Lucius looked thoroughly unamused but seemed to concede as he started to follow her back up the hill towards the portkey, the two of them leaving Tuscany behind for now, hoping that the next time they visited it would be with better intentions.
Hermione sent out owls as soon as they were back at the Manor, requesting everyone's presence that evening. She also asked Severus to bring something from Hogwarts and for Draco to explain to Blaise, leaving out as much as he could, that Lucius was in fact Ezra and how his working with Hermione had been a test for his release from house arrest, and about the attack at the museum, sure Blaise would understand the need for extreme discretion, feeling that they could trust him.
All the people invited agreed to come, Hermione relieved when they received an owl from Draco informing them that his talk with Blaise had gone well.
As they waited Lucius and Hermione spent the time meticulously detailing their movements over the past few weeks and set out a plan of what they needed to do next.
Hermione knew that any investigating or acquiring of evidence would need to be done formally and within the law if they ever had a chance of convincing people that it was true, let alone getting justice. That was why she had invited Blaise. If they could convince him that there was enough cause for official interviews and a search warrant she knew he could arrange it. This could also eliminate Hermione having to put herself in potentially vulnerable and dangerous situations by being at the Ministry or going into Grimmauld place alone to get evidence, something that Lucius would not have been happy about at all.
The time went by quickly and soon enough Hermione was pacing in front of the fireplace waiting for everyone to arrive.
"I think if you live here long enough I'm going to have to replace the floorboards." Lucius joked.
"Sorry." Hermione apologised, sitting down but still looking far from relaxed as it seemed that only the minimum amount of her body required to be touching the chair to call it sitting was doing so.
"You know that they are all punctual people and will arrive on time." Lucius reassured her just as the floo roared to life, Severus Snape emerging from it, dusting ash off his shoulder.
Lucius sent Hermione an 'I told you so' look of smugness which she chose to ignore.
Before anyone got the chance to greet the other, Draco apparated into the room with a crack and Blaise was led through the door by Raxel.
"Thank you all for coming at such short notice." Said Hermione, springing from the chair and leaping into action straight away. "I am in need of help and advise from all of you, but before I can ask for it we've got a lot of explaining to do."
They all went to the library and sat around a large table in the middle where the house-elves had laid out some food and firewhiskey, clearly anticipating that they could all be there for quite some time.
"Father, what's this all about? Is everything alright?" Questioned Draco.
"Exactly what I was going to ask." Concurred Severus. "I know all to well when you're uneasy about something Hermione and I can see it all over your face."
Blaise sat in silence, taking everything in, analysing the situation before he spoke, clearly cautious as he was not as well informed as the others.
Lucius took the lead and started to explain.
"As many of you are aware, to varying degrees, Hermione has been investigating both the stealing of polyjuice from the Ministry on Blaise's behalf and the attack on myself at the museum, all of which I have been assisting her with."
Hermione continued. "I believed that the two incidents were connected and after some investigating I think I have confirmed that to be the case. The evidence that confirmed this led us to question somebody who has possibly provided us with the culprit. The problem is that we do not yet fully understand the motive and need to find some hard evidence, which is where you all come in.'
"Lucius will explain it all to you and if you don't mind, Severus, could I please look at what I asked you to bring?"
"Of course" Snape agreed as he pulled a tome from his bag. "But I must admit Hermione, I'm at a slight loss as to why you want it."
He passed the book across the table to her and she opened in eagerly. "Ah yes, this is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you so much Severus." She smiled, momentarily forgetting her nerves, something only a book seemed to be able to do, well, and Lucius.
"You see, once you told me that the curse was unusual and that the caster did not seem to understand it's mechanics very well I concluded that it must have been mentioned in a book that would probably not be considered dangerous and therefore, if it was not a privately owned book, could be accessible at the public part of the Ministry Library or even at Hogwarts." She explained. "So I looked through the withdrawals of books leading up to the attack but nothing seemed to stick out. However, now that we have a potential suspect, it occurred to me that this book may have been taken out, or technically stolen perhaps, at a different time, perhaps from Hogwarts during the Death Eater occupation during the war, and thus could be listed in this book - 'Hogwarts Library Missing or Destroyed Books Catalogue'."
Severus paused, his brows furrowed. "But that would suggest that whoever took it could have been one of those hiding out in the Room of Requirement…" He seemed to mumble to himself, perhaps the truth of the situation beginning to dawn on him too.
After pouring a glass of firewhiskey, Lucius began to tell the others everything they knew and how they had discovered it whilst Hermione started to look through the library catalogue, sure she would find something useful in it's pages.
She almost blocked out the others as she scanned through the lists, not even paying attention when the others interrupted Lucius to ask various questions. If her hunch was correct, which regrettably they seemed always to be of late, she was looking for a book that the student resistance in Hogwarts may have taken from the library in an attempt to learn ways to defend themselves or fight back when the time for battle came. It wouldn't have been signed out on the official log so would likely have been assumed missing after the war or destroyed during it when very unfortunately a giant had tripped over backwards and fallen through the library roof.
The list of missing books was regrettably numerous, both for the sanity of Hermione's mind, but also the knowledge and history which was lost. Several titles looked like they could be the book the spell was in but Hermione herself had read them and knew that they weren't what she was looking for. It was not until Lucius had just reached the part of his explanation where they had managed to locate Astrid that she finally found something that looked right, a book called 'Ancient Spells, Curses and Charms - Origins, Uses and History'.
Hermione jumped up from her chair and shot over to the Manor's own library catalogue, hoping that somewhere amongst the thousands of books it held that there would be a copy.
"I take it you've found something." Lucius drawled with an edge of amusement.
"Maybe!" She shouted back excitedly. "You carry on, I'll let you know if it's what we could be looking for."
"If you say so." He chuckled, briefly breaking from his serious tone.
Hermione nearly jumped for joy when she found it, unable to stop a tiny little squeal of excitement. She disappeared between the shelves, running through the labyrinth of books until finally, there it was, right at eye level, not even a ladder required. It was about time she had a bit of good luck.
She would have run back with the book but it was rather old and fragile so she decided to take her time and be careful.
By the time she returned Lucius had just finished their idea about what had occurred leading up to the attack. The others sat around the table in various states of bewilderment.
"That's we think happened." Lucius concluded. "But we can't seem to work out why she would go to such extreme measures and will need assistance to get evidence legally."
Severus and Draco both made to speak at once, the younger Malfoy conceding to his god-father.
"It may not be relevant but I perhaps have something to offer on that front." He explained, his voice containing more concern than Hermione was comfortable with, her attention drawn away from the book.
"After Ginerva's experience with Tom Riddle's diary and the Chamber of Secrets, she was understandably deeply unsettled."
Lucius bowed his head slightly, clearly ashamed, but Severus gave him no time to dwell on it, knowing all to well how hard it could be to live with your actions.
"Possession can do strange things to people, especially when it happens to someone who is relatively young and naive. They can start to believe that they played some part in the actions they were controlled into performing, that they are evil themselves. Ginerva was one such person and she started to show signs of feeling this way. So, to keep her stable, I suggested giving her a potion which would help to keep those thoughts away. She took it for a long time, unaware of course that it was me who had prescribed and produced it, even throughout the war as far as I am aware."
"However, after the war one of the ingredients become very hard to come by due to my, perhaps somewhat unsavoury, supplier being arrested. When told that she may have to miss a dose she said that she felt she no longer needed it anyway so has not been taking it since. It is possible that over time these thoughts returned and she became somewhat unstable just as I had initially feared, especially if she became fixated on something, especially something to do with her trauma, which in this case could be the sentencing of Lucius, the man who, perhaps in her eyes, was the one who caused her to 'become evil'."
"In a few cases I've read that in order to try and feel that they themselves are not in fact evil, they may try to find it in others, or even try to do some great act of good which may have somehow influenced her behaviour and decision to attack. It is just a thought, but I do not think it would explain her trying to hurt you so severely Hermione unless her state is far worse than I had anticipated."
Hermione would say that she was in shock, but after the day she'd been having, it seemed it was pretty hard to shock her now. All this time and she'd had no idea that Ginny had been taking that potion, and maybe no one other than her parents did either. She had always thought it a little strange though, how well Ginny seemed to have handled what had happened to her, and now it all made sense. It hurt Hermione though, to know that Lucius' actions had had such an effect on the girl, but she knew that she'd already accepted him, and that included the terrible things he had done in his life.
Draco took his chance to speak in the silence of everyone taking in what they had heard. "I might be able to add something to that too."
"During sixth year I was constantly worried and paranoid, suspicious of everyone, even my friends who I should have been able to trust. The only good thing that came out of it really was that I became very observant. I often used to watch Harry, Ron and you, and sometimes Harry would watch me back, but then I started to notice that there was always someone other than me watching the three of you, and that person was Ginny. I knew she had a crush on him, everyone did, but the look on her face told me that this was not some romantic daydreaming. I was curious, it was something to take my thoughts away from what constantly badgered them, so I paid close attention to her, I'd even occasionally cast spells so I could hear what she was saying. From what I could gather, she was jealous of you, quick to criticise your actions, almost seeming to think that she should take your place in your golden trio, that it would make more sense for it to be her, sister to one of them and lover to the other."
"I didn't have long to focus on it though…" He said looking ashamed. "So just like Severus, I suppose it doesn't explain her extreme actions but might offer some insight into why she thought it was you who was the 'traitor', because maybe she wanted it to be you and forced the facts to fit."
Now that Hermione thought about it, she supposed that Ginny was always a little frosty when Hermione was around, especially when it was to see Harry, and had seemed positively pleased when she and Ron had broken up.
The others started to discuss the new information but Hermione was suddenly distracted. She had just turned to a page of the book that made her heart rate pick up.
The Izanami curse, and a rune translation that could be the key to solving one of the biggest parts of this mystery.
Did I get carried away? Maybe
Is this believable? I'd like to think so
Does my brain feel like it might explode after having to bring everything together in these last two chapters? Yes. Yes it does.