Chapter Eighteen: The Long Way Round
"Gone?" Ron Weasley echoed, "what d'you mean gone?"
Daphne couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes as the question broke the stunned silence of Andromeda Tonks' front room. Beside him sat Andromeda, her eyes were hard and her lips tight as she stared at Daphne. The light from the fireplace danced and flickered reflecting in them as they pierced Daphne's. She was silently wishing that she had taken Hermione up on her offer to tell them the news, but Daphne knew that it had to be her. It was her fault after all. No-one had forced her to accept his offer. It had been her choice and now she was living with the consequences.
"We've tried everything we can," Daphne heard herself reply, she was only dimly aware of saying them. It was almost as if someone else was talking for her. The world felt dull. Part of her hadn't wanted to believe it. Had she not been there, not seen it, then maybe she wouldn't. But she had. He had vanished, just like he should have done. But then the minute had passed. And another. And another. Realisation had been slow to take hold as Daphne had stared and hoped. But her hope had long since died, replaced with the unwanted truth. He was gone. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" Ron repeated, the dullness edging out of his voice as anger took its place. "He trusted you and all you've got is sorry?"
"What else is there?" Daphne retorted fiercely, her own temper flaring at his words. Did he really think that she wanted this? It was everything that Daphne had dreaded, the one eventuality that she had hoped would never come to pass. Yet here they were. He was angry, she understood that, but she'd be damned if she was going to let him think that he was the only one who'd been affected. "I mean you think what exactly? That I'd just give up on him?"
"He shouldn't have been in there in the first place!" Ron snapped back, glowering at Daphne as his voice rose. "Did you even think what might happen? Nah, it wasn't not important what happened to Harry, was it? Just as long as your little experiment had a test subject you didn't care!"
"You don't know the first thing about me," Daphne seethed, glaring at the youngest male Weasley. He didn't have a single clue about Daphne, nor how she lived her life. Yet there he was, ready to pass judgement without knowing a thing about her.
"I know you were stupid enough to put him in there in the first place!"
"He volunteered you moron!"
"Course he did, it's Harry! What did you expect?" Ron raged, he was on his feet now his anger apparently limited by the confines of the sofa. "I bet that was all part of your plan, wasn't it? Make him think he was the only one that could help. You lot never change."
"My lot?"
"Slytherins! You're all the bloody same! Bunch of scheming nutters who only care about themselves." Ron ranted with the age old ignorance that Daphne recognised all too well. She heard herself laugh, but there was no humour in it, simply disbelief that he was actually spouting that nonsense.
"You seriously believe that?" Daphne asked, not quite able to believe her ears as she stared at Ron. "None of that matters, you pillock. In case you hadn't noticed Ron, this isn't all part of some great big scheme to off Harry. We're not all Death Eaters and you certainly don't have any kind of monopoly on missing him. It was an accident. That's it, alright? So don't you dare think for one second that I wanted this, this is last thing that I wanted."
"Then why did you even risk it?" Ron demanded. "If you actually cared about him you wouldn't have."
"It wasn't meant to go wrong," Daphne said slowly as if she was speaking to a child. She was sick of trying to be nice. He wasn't going to understand. He wanted someone to blame and he wasn't going to see that there was no-one who could fill those shoes. "As far as I knew it was safe. Do you understand what that means or do I need to explain it to you?"
Ron stared, his ears practically glowing they were so red, he huffed angrily, spluttering a little as words and retaliations tried desperately to form but died on the difficult journey from his brain to his mouth.
"I'll take that as a yes," Daphne continued scathingly. "Safe, Ron, means that I thought that Harry was in no danger. We did everything we could. Tests on animals, a medical on Harry, background checks to see if he'd used a time turner before. Everything."
"Why would that matter?" Ron asked quickly, his voice suddenly a lot quieter and tinged something else. Panic? "I mean it wouldn't make that much of a difference, would it?"
"It could make all the difference," Daphne began to explain but then she stopped, her brain catching up with exactly what Ron was getting at. "Wait – you're not saying he's used one before, are you?"
"Well yeah, kind of." Ron wilted a little under Daphne's gaze. "What does it matter, it was just one time."
"Have you not been listening? I mean, were you always this stupid or is this just a recent thing?" She knew she was being mean but her temper, which had been at breaking point all day, had finally snapped. "Of course it bloody matters! The time-turner we used today wasn't calibrated to factor in previous trips, the residual temporal energy alone could have caused all sorts of complications that we hadn't prepared for."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't time-turners always been used to go backwards. Why would that be a problem now?" Andromeda Tonks asked speaking for the first time since Daphne had arrived. Her voice was level and calm, a drastic change from the abject fury of Ron. Had Daphne been paying more attention she might have noticed the steely glint in Andromeda's eye or the way that her jaw had up until that moment been clamped tightly shut. Instead Daphne's brain was too busy reeling from the revelation that Ron had dropped only seconds earlier and so she noticed nothing.
"Yes, but we haven't tested that yet." Daphne explained quickly as her brain raced at the implications of Harry having used a time-turner before. "We knew we could do that, so after we realised the range was always going to be small we didn't bother testing it again. We'd have factored previous trips in at a later point, of course, but because the regulation of time-turners is so strict anyway and because Harry never had one it never occurred to us that it would be an issue."
Daphne sighed, the pieces of the puzzle that had been driving her insane finally coming together. As defiant as she had been to Ron's accusations a part of her had blamed herself, she had assumed that she had missed something, a miscalculation or that it hadn't been fit for a human subject. But this, this could actually explain it. By the same token it could also be completely irrelevant, a coincidence which threatened to provide false hope in the absence to certainty. As much as Daphne wholeheartedly wanted to believe that the previous use of a time-turner was at the heart of this, it would have naïve of her to do so. Any sense of relief that she may have felt was soon quashed as her guilt returned.
"Where did he even get one from in the first place?" Daphne asked the room at large in an attempt to focus her mind on something other than the reason for his disappearance. But she didn't really need to ask Andromeda. There was one person alone in the room who would know. Her gaze fell on Ron and stayed there.
"Hermione," Ron answered a little sheepishly almost like a child who had been caught in a lie. "In third year, she'd been using it so she could go to all her classes." Of course she did, Daphne thought glumly. A time-turner was an incredibly delicate and dangerous magical object that almost everyone agreed could cause catastrophic universe imploding damage in the wrong hands, and what did she use it for? Attending classes. "Then when the Ministry got hold of Sirius her and Harry went back to save him."
"So that's how he escaped," Daphne muttered, not being a part of Harry's tiny circle of friends at school she had been on the outside of his little adventures along with everyone else so had been party only to rumour and speculation.
"Look, what does this matter?" Ron demanded his anger, which had been suppressed by the sudden implication of Harry's past, returning.
"It matters because we might know why he disappeared."
"No," Ron snapped, shaking his head as he did so. "I know why he disappeared and it's not because of some stupid time-turner."
"Oh, then by all means, enlighten me." Daphne bit back, her own fury returning.
"You!" Ron roared, spittle flying from his mouth as he raged at Daphne. "This is your fault! Harry would never have been there if it wasn't for you! You put him there, you're the one that put him at risk and you're the one that lost him!"
"That's enough, Ron." Andromeda said coldly getting to her feet so as she was on eye-level with him. Andromeda had never struck Daphne as an intimidating woman, the only time they had met before she had seemed kind and warm. But that woman was gone and Daphne was left to watch as in the Black surfaced in Andromeda Tonks.
"But it's true!" Ron retorted. Daphne wanted to shout, to tell him that he was wrong. But she couldn't. The words wouldn't come because as much as she wanted to deny it, Ron was right. This was her fault. Accident or not she had been the one who had been the one who had allowed him to be in that position. So she had done every test they could and taken every precaution; so what? In the end none of that had mattered. All that mattered was that he was gone and that she had been the one responsible for it.
"I said that's enough."
"You can't be serious, you're not taking her side?"
"I'm not taking anyone's side," Andromeda told him in that same calm voice that she had used earlier, it was only now that Daphne could hear the quiet fury that lay underneath it. "But she's right Ron, you're not the only one that's going to miss Harry. So you either need to calm down or you get out of my house."
Ron was silent for a moment, staring incredulously at Andromeda as if waiting for her resolve to waver. When it did not Ron turned angrily on his heel and stalked from the room, a second later Daphne heard the front door slam. They stood there in an awkward silence. Andromeda breathed a sigh, her shoulders sagging slightly and suddenly she looked every bit the old woman that the years had made her.
"I told him it was dangerous," Andromeda said. She wasn't looking at Daphne, instead she was staring out of the window watching as Ron stormed away from her house. The sadness in her voice was practically tangible. "He knew the risk and he took it anyway."
"Why?" Daphne asked. At this point she wasn't even sure herself. If he had known it was dangerous why would he do it? Daphne had done it simply because she had been so confident that it would work. The risk had only seemed a danger to her because of who was taking it, not because she genuinely thought that it would happen.
"He must have thought it was worth it," Andromeda answered simply. Daphne didn't say anything. There was nothing she could say. The only reason that Harry had thought like that was because of her. He wouldn't have viewed the risk worthwhile if it had been anyone else. Would he even think that anymore? If or when he finally got home and saw the devastation his departure had caused would he take that same risk again; or would he regret his decision to help her? That was, of course, if he even came back at all.
"I'd better go and tell Hermione where Ron's gone," Andromeda said breaking the silence. "Merlin only knows what I'm going to tell Teddy."
"I could -"
"No," Andromeda interrupted quickly still refusing to look at Daphne. "You've done enough." Her words were scathing and harsh betraying the grief that was tearing at her heart. But then she sighed, finally turning her head to Daphne. Her dark eyes glistened slightly in the warmth of the firelight, the pain that she had been hiding threatening to break free. "Just go, please."
And with that Andromeda turned away and walked from the room leaving Daphne alone. Despite the warmth of the reds and oranges of the room the world appeared inescapably dull to Daphne, as if it had lost its vibrancy. Her heart heavy with regret and guilt Daphne headed for the fireplace, her hand reaching for the jar of floo powder which she knew rested above the fireplace. But as her hand reached for it her eyes wandered to the rest of the mantel. On it were pictures, framed slices of happiness, of a life before Daphne had met Harry. Teddy, Andromeda and Harry; a family. Happy. Content. Destroyed in a moment.
The hand which had been reaching for the floo powder went to the nearest photo, her finger gently tracing the moving image of Harry smiling and laughing as he and his godson played on the beach. It would be Teddy, Daphne knew, who would miss Harry the most. How could Andromeda even explain it to him? No-one knew if Harry was even going to come home. Was it even possible? If it was how long would he be gone? A month? A year? A decade? How long would that little boy have to go without his godfather?
Daphne forced herself to look away, she couldn't face that particular train of thought. There was only so much guilt she could pile on herself for one day. Not that she didn't deserve it. Ron was right, this was her fault. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and tried to block those thoughts from her mind. Clear your mind. Her father had taught her that a long time ago…
The sound of creaking floorboards and descending footsteps broke Daphne from her reverie. Not wanting to have to face Hermione Granger on top of everyone else Daphne hurriedly took a handful of floo powder, so much so that some sifted through her fingers before she threw the rest into the fire place and vanished from sight.
She had been expecting her living room to be empty when she arrived. No, Daphne corrected herself, that was a lie. She had hoped it would be. Instead of the welcoming embrace of darkness and peace Daphne had longed for she was instead greeted by her sister. No doubt Astoria had had a good day, a fun day, and a day where she wasn't responsible for the loss of the one of the Wizarding World's most famous heroes. But that was just a guess.
"You're back late," Astoria commented as she flicked her wand at the record player halting the song mid-beat.
"Well-spotted," Daphne muttered darkly glowering at her sister. It wasn't Tori's fault, she just happened to be there. "Last I checked it wasn't a crime."
"What's got your wand in a knot?" Astoria asked hotly.
Part of Daphne wanted to lie, wanted to tell her sister that it was nothing and storm off so as she could finally be free to be alone for the first time that day. She was sick of the same conversation, explaining what happened and having to deal with the consequences, usually either pity or anger. Neither was very appealing. Anger just made her guilt intensify and if Daphne was honest with herself she had pity pretty well covered on her own. The memory of her argument with Harry swam to the surface of her mind. Just like him Astoria was only trying to help and for once Daphne wasn't going to let her pride get in the way of that.
"Harry's gone," she said flatly, her voice dull. "The experiment… something went wrong."
"Are you okay?" Astoria asked. "Actually, no. Don't answer that. Of course you're not okay. That was a stupid question." She paused, chewing at her lip and looking helplessly up at her sister. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"What is there to talk about?" Daphne shrugged in a small attempt to try and avoid the conversation as a part of her, the part that just wanted to be alone, began to regret not lying to Astoria. It was a stupid part, a selfish part, but it was there nonetheless.
"Everything. I know how much he meant to you," Astoria said softly. Meant. He'd only been gone less than a day and already there it was. The past tense. It crept in, slowly but surely, like a thief in the middle of the night.
"Means," Daphne corrected through gritted teeth. It shouldn't have gotten to her but felt like the first signal of giving up. "How much he means to me, Tori."
"I thought you said he was gone?"
"He is, it's complicated. We don't know what caused it. Until we do it's impossible to say if we just sent him further than we meant to or if…" She trailed off but Astoria knew exactly what she meant. "I should never have let him volunteer."
"You didn't know this was going to happen," Astoria told her. "You can't think like that, Daph."
"How else am I supposed to think? Harry would never have been there if not for me."
"You can't blame yourself," Astoria tried but Daphne remained unconvinced.
"Why not? Everyone else is going to." Astoria opened her mouth to speak but Daphne cut across her, "don't deny it, Tori. It's true. Weasley already does. They're all going to when they find out and you know what? They're right. I should've seen something like this coming. I should've known it was dangerous."
"Stop this, stop it now!" Astoria shouted.
"Why?" Daphne demanded indignantly. "It's the truth."
"No, it isn't. You wouldn't be feeling like this if it was anyone else. You've had tests go wrong before and you've never been like this."
"They were different," Daphne protested. There had been times where tests had gone wrong before. One man had developed a rather nasty rash thanks to a potion Daphne had been tinkering with for instance. Another woman had taken on the personality of an Arabian monk due a translation spell that Daphne had been attempting to design. But they were different, none of them could have potentially have been fatal. Sure, Aretha may not have taken too kindly to being a monk for the rest of her life but that still wasn't the same.
"Yeah, because they weren't him." Astoria countered. "This isn't about the test, it's about you."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're blaming yourself because this time it wasn't a stranger that got hurt, it was Harry." Astoria argued. "He knew the risks, just like they all did. It was an accident. There was nothing you could've done. You covered everything, just like you always do. You think it's your fault for letting him be in that position but Daph that was never your decision to make. The only person who could was Harry."
"I didn't cover everything," Daphne said in a small voice when her sister had stopped speaking. While Astoria may well be right, and Daphne still wasn't so sure, that Harry was the only person responsible for him being there; she was wrong about Daphne having 'covered everything'. "I missed something. He'd used a time-turner before but when we did the background checks it never came up that he'd been loaned one. So I assumed that he hadn't. I didn't actually bother to stop and ask him, if I had this might never have happened."
"Neither did anyone else," Astoria pointed out. "You weren't the only one there. That wasn't your fault. If that's really why all this happened then you can't blame yourself for missing that Daph. Anyone else would've done exactly the same. I would've. You know how hard those things are to get hold of, in fact I don't know anyone apart from you who's ever seen one let alone used one."
"Well, I guess you do now," Daphne remarked darkly.
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be," Daphne replied exasperatedly, rubbing her eyes. She was tired and not just physically; sure, that was a problem too but it wasn't the main one. Primarily, Daphne was tired of this having conversation again and again: explaining what had happened, dealing with the reaction and either being blamed or told it wasn't her fault. There was only so much of it she could take. Right now all she wanted was to go to bed, at least there she might find some peace. "Sorry, it's just… it's been a long day. I'm going to try go get some sleep."
"You know where I am if you need me," Astoria said. "Seriously anytime, even if you've got to wake me up, okay?"
"Sure," Daphne nodded knowing full well that she would never actually take her sister up on that particular offer. Not at the moment anyway. All Daphne wanted was to be left alone. Forcing a smile she turned and walked away, heading upstairs and silently thanking Merlin that she didn't bump into her father. She didn't think she could cope seeing the pity on his face. It was one thing seeing it etched on Astoria's, it would be quite another seeing it on his.
Her room was dark when she entered, the moonlight filtering in through the window provided the only source of light as Daphne threw her robes to the floor and dropped onto her bed. It only took her a few seconds to realise that she had been wrong. This wasn't better. Without the voices bombarding her brain, the many questions and the struggle of explaining Daphne's mind was free to wonder and fixate on just what had gone wrong. As much as she wanted Astoria to be right, Daphne couldn't escape the feeling that this was on her. Yes, there had been others who could have asked, but none of them were his friend, none of them should've known better and none of them had been the ones who had brought him there.
Ron was right. Without Daphne there would have been no accident. Without her Harry would still be with his family, the people that needed him. The shining and happy face of Teddy Lupin swam to the surface of her mind. What was that little boy going to do now? Did he even know? Were they going to tell him, or would they lie? Whatever they told him he would still have to live without his godfather for Merlin only knew how long.
That was if Harry even came back at all. It was an idea that Daphne had been trying to bury in the back of her mind, but in the silence of her room it came to her again. What if he never actually came back? It was possible, of course it was. If it wasn't the time-turner he had used before at the root of all of this then it had to be something else, a rejection of the human subject, temporal displacement or it simply could have taken him out of time and never put him back. It could be anything. Normally Daphne would've conducted tests on whatever went wrong to find the root of the problem, but there was nothing to test, just a Harry shaped hole where he should be.
No. He had to come back. But even in her head that sounded hollow, like the lies people had tried to tell her all those years ago about how her mother had died. Everyone had thought she was too young to take it. They had said that she had gone to sleep, moved on, anything, everything to avoid the truth. Everyone except her father. He had been the only one to be honest with her. If she was honest with herself, just like he had been all those years ago, then she knew that there was every possibility that Harry wasn't going to come back from this.
Unsurprisingly, Daphne barely got any sleep that night. Possibilities of what had happened to Harry and the complete acceptance of blame made for terrible company. By the time the sun had risen and the day had begun Daphne had been through everything and come to the same conclusion over and over again. She hated it. Despised it. But it was inescapable. There was nothing she could do. If Harry was going to come back at all, then he would come back when whatever went wrong decided to let him.
Her musings were interrupted by the quick and rather impatient sound of tapping on her window. Frowning, Daphne pulled herself up and saw a tawny owl tapping frantically on her window, a letter strapped to its leg. Cursing, Daphne leant across her bed and opened the window. The owl hovered for a moment before coming to rest on the sill and sticking out a leg. Daphne took the letter and tore it open before yanking the window shut and denying the owl the tip it had been trained to expect. The letter was short and blunt, but Daphne had known it would be. It simply read:
My office. Now.
Daphne groaned. She had been expecting it, of course she had, but that didn't make it any easier. Dragging herself out of bed she retrieved her wand from her robes, with a hurried movement and a murmured spell her robes were suddenly a lot cleaner than they had been. After a quick change of clothes, a splash of water over her face in an effort to make herself look less like a corpse and a brush of her teeth Daphne found herself taking the familiar floo journey to the Atrium.
It took all of a second for the chaos to start. One moment Daphne was about to join the throng of workers headed for the lift and the next there was a shout.
"It's her, over there!"
A gaggle of men and women who had all been congregated at the fountain turned at the voice, their eyes scanning for where the finger of the moustached man who had shouted was pointing. Then they saw her and all hell broke loose. It was like being at the centre of an avalanche, only without the comforting knowledge that death was only seconds away. Bulbs flashed. People ran and in an instant Daphne was swamped.
"Lady Greengrass!"
"Is it true your department is behind Harry Potter's disappearance?" demanded one reporter, who was busy shoving another man out of the way so as he could get closer to Daphne.
"What are you doing to bring Mister Potter back?" asked another, who was apparently more up to date with the story than his colleague.
"Are you going to resign?"
Doing her best not to even look at them, Daphne fought her way through the crowd of reporters and silent bystanders. None of them came to her aid. Everyone simply watched, enjoying the free piece of theatre. They all probably wanted her to answer anyway. Some of them wouldn't want to be seen her helping her. Whatever their reasons, they left Daphne alone fighting against the tide of men and women who were all shouting at her, many demanding that she resign. It took all she had not to curse the lot of them; bunch of nosey lowlifes with nothing better to do than snoop about other people's business. It was times like these that made Daphne realise why so many people went to Azkaban despite the threat of the Dementors.
No-one joined her in the lift and it was only when she was sure that it had sunk out of sight that she let her head hit the wall and the sigh escape her lips. She'd be damned if she was going to let them see that they had gotten to her. So much for keeping it a secret, Daphne thought glumly as the lift slowly descended. She was dimly aware of some people getting on and off, one or two muttered and cast furtive glances her way. The only reason that Daphne held her tongue was that it would help no-one if she reacted, least of all herself. It was all a part of the game. She had been in the limelight once before for her association with Harry, now she was infamous for his absence.
It took her another few minutes to get to Luidhard's office. There was no press this far down, so her progress through its practically empty halls was unimpeded. The Department of Mysteries wasn't exactly the kind of place where just anyone could waltz in.
"Finally. So glad you could make the time to join us." Luidhard said gruffly when Daphne opened the door and stepped into his office. In all her time as an unspeakable she had only ever been in once before. Unspeakables were generally left to their own devices, it worked better like that. The shelves which lined the walls were lined with thick books, some Daphne recognised as rare and precious volumes that many collectors would die to get their hands on. An ornate desk sat at the end of the room, behind it sat Luidhard and before him stood two other men: Miller and Civet. Civet was noticeably sweating but Miller, for his part, just looked bored. His eyes, which had been scanning the shelves, flitted to Daphne as she entered the room. If she hadn't known better she would've thought that, for the briefest of moments, a flicker sympathy shone in their depths.
"I came as soon as I could," Daphne told him, her tone hard. "Maybe if you learnt how to do a patronous you wouldn't have these delays."
His face notably twitched, but instead of reacting like Daphne had thought he would, he reached down, opened a drawer in his desk and threw down a copy of the Daily Prophet onto the desk. The headline read: Harry Potter Missing, below it was a stock picture of Harry from some function or other that Daphne didn't recognise. Daphne felt her heart sink.
"Who do I blame?" Luidhard thundered, his voice hard and the veins in his temple pulsating. "Tell me, which one of you is at fault for all of this?"
"Me," Daphne admitted quietly, her eyes never straying from the moving image of Harry. "It's my fault and I take full responsibility.
"Oh, you do, do you? That'd be very noble of you if I wasn't blaming you anyway," Luidhard snapped. "This was supposed to be a routine test. You assured me that everything would work as it was supposed to. Now I'm fielding all sorts of questions from the press, not to mention the fact that I've got to personally explain to the head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department why one of his aurors has gone missing. Can I ask what in Merlin's name possessed you to pick a celebrity to take part in your work?"
"He volunteered," Daphne said stiffly, dragging her eyes from the paper and focusing her gaze instead on the raging Luidhard. She had never seen him like this, but then he had never been under so much pressure before. Daphne didn't care. All he was concerned about was himself, his job and his department. He probably hadn't even given a moment's thought to the man that had actually been caught up in the middle of it all.
"And that was a good enough reason, was it?" Luidhard demanded furiously. "I'm sure you didn't even think of the chance that anything could go wrong."
"The tests were showing positive results, I was well within my rights to think –"
"Think? You didn't think! Your arrogance may have blinded you, Greengrass but it has certainly let the rest of the world see exactly what we are doing. We are unspeakables! Do you know what that means? It means that what we do is unspeakable, no-one is meant to know about it! And yet you were perfectly willing to risk that eventuality coming true." He paused, a hand going to his face and rubbing in an effort to calm himself down. "Do you even know why it happened?"
"Nothing was wrong with the device itself," Miller answered, taking the pressure off of Daphne but more than likely intending to prove that his work wasn't at fault, his ego wouldn't allow that to be believed. "All of the data we collected matched the previous results. Civet and I," he gestured to the young man who paled at the idea of being the subject of any of Luidhard's blame, "have examined all twelve sets thoroughly. There were no irregularities. It performed precisely as it was supposed to."
"Then you must have missed something," Luidhard bristled, "because in case you hadn't noticed it didn't work."
"By all means, feel free to assess my findings thoroughly. I assure that you will come to exactly the same conclusion that I have," Miller said calmly, apparently unperturbed by the fact he was treating his superior like he was beneath him. "The device was not the issue, which suggests that there were outside and unknown factors which altered its performance."
"Harry used a time-turner," Daphne butted in quickly before Luidhard had chance to start raging again. If what Miller said was right, and fortunately for Daphne it almost always was, then it was looking more and more likely that the problem lay in Harry's past. "It didn't show up on our checks because he got it off of a friend, but that could have seriously affected it, couldn't it?"
It wasn't a question, not really. Daphne already knew the answer. But with all of the theories and ideas about why Harry had ended up wherever – no, whenever – the hell he was which had run around her head the night before Daphne was in need of some confirmation. If it was just the time-turner then Harry wasn't lost. The shadow of a smile pulled at her lips.
"Most definitely," Miller nodded, the bored look suddenly vanishing from his face. "How many times did he use it?"
"Just the once apparently," Daphne replied, remembering the shouting match that she and Ron had had the night before and doing her best to ignore the guilt which came along with it. "It can't have been a very long trip either, a few hours at most."
"Does this mean," Luidhard interrupted with all the social grace of kneazle, "that you can start on a solution to all of this?"
"Not a solution, the time-tuner we made will have sent him further forwards than anticipated." Miller answered, cause Daphne's heart to sink a little. Although she had known it would have been a long shot, a part of her had hoped that they would be able to do something. "But we could begin estimating when he will return, it would simply be a matter of –"
"No, I want no more time wasted on this than is necessary." Luidhard snapped sharply. Wasted? Daphne stared at him disbelievingly and not entirely sure that she had heard him correctly. This was Harry's life they were talking about. If they could even whittle it down to a few days that would something to give the people he'd left behind. No, not something. Daphne knew exactly what it would give them. Hope. "If you can't bring him back then we'll just have to wait. Now, I want a private word with Greengrass, I will be dealing with you two later. Shut the door on your way out."
Civet, all too eager to get out of their while he still had a job, scuttled away. Miller, on the other hand, took a little longer to turn to the door. His fingers beat an irregular rhythm on the palm of his hand and his face twitched a little, the corners of the mouth moving slightly as the internal debate as to whether or not to argue raged in his mind. But then that movement stopped and he simply nodded, casting a quick glance at Daphne before turning on his heel and heading out of the door and letting it swing shut behind him.
"It's not a waste of time," Daphne said as soon as they were alone. She knew that she shouldn't, Luidhard was just looking for an excuse to sack her, but she couldn't help it. Andromeda, Hermione, Teddy and even Ron deserved to know when they were going to see Harry again. Even a rough idea. Something, anything that could give them a point to look forward to rather than just aimlessly waiting with the hope that one day Harry might come back.
"I think you're forgetting which one of us makes the decisions around here," Luidhard growled in his best attempt at intimidation. It might have worked if it came out of almost anyone else's mouth, but Luidhard was about as scary as a pigmy-puff. "It isn't an efficient use of our time or resources."
"Not to you, but I think his family would disagree."
"And yet they are not the ones who make the decision," Luidhard retorted, "and neither are you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know exactly what it means," Luidhard bit out bitterly, his gaze returning to the paper. He reached out and pulled it towards him. A long bony finger tapped against it, drumming a thoughtful beat against the moving image of Harry's monochrome face. "They want us to sack you, you know that? And to be honest I'm having a hard time coming up with reasons why I shouldn't."
"We followed procedure," Daphne answered simply, doing all she could to block the anger from her voice as she spoke. "Harry volunteered, there was nothing in his background to suggest that this would happen and all the previous results were positive. Might I remind you, Sir, that it was you who pressured us into finding a suitable subject as soon as we could. That's the whole reason he put himself forwards. So, if you're looking for someone to blame may I suggest a mirror?"
"This is not my fault!" Luidhard shouted, his temper shattering at the implication of Daphne's words. A scornful laugh escaped her lips. All he was worried about was himself. Not the test, not the future of the time-turner and certainly not Harry. None of it. Typical. He was pathetic.
"Oh really? So you blocked this? You knew that it was going to go wrong and you took appropriate measures to stop it?" Daphne asked her voice completely level and calm, or as level and calm as she could manage to keep it, while she watched the little weasel squirm, stuttering and spluttering in an attempt to get invalid arguments out. "Wait, no, that never happened. You thought it was going to work and now it hasn't it's time for some distance between you and something which you fully believed would work. Well, sorry to break this you, but that's not going to happen."
"I did nothing wrong," Luidhard tried, but his voice was weak, just like his spine.
"Nor did we," Daphne replied simply, glowering at him as she did so. She wanted to say how if he tried anything she would personally make sure that the papers found out it was really Luidhard who had signed off on all of this, how he had never once objected to it and was only now distancing himself because it had blown up in his stupid face. She wanted to say how much she hated this, how he was wrong to stop her from doing anything about it and how it was a travesty that anyone had ever thought that it would be a good idea to put him in a position of power.
But Daphne didn't say any of that. What was the point, what good would it do? She'd just be left having a shouting match with a man she had long since come to realise she hated and who had equally passionate feelings of dislike towards her. A fight would just confirm what they already knew. No, there was no point in arguing. Any words she used would just be wasted. If he was going to sack her would've done and in front of everyone. He was fooling nobody with this little charade, except perhaps himself and that was only because he had the IQ of a dead iguana.
"I can't be seen to do nothing," Luidhard said quietly, his fingers still drumming against the paper as his eye flicked back to it. "While you may not be fully responsible," Daphne snorted derisively but said nothing. "As I was saying, while you aren't totally at fault for all this it was your experiment. I may have been… a little over eager in my efforts to ensure that you had a subject, but budget cuts are happening everyone, it's not just you that's been affected."
He sighed, his gaze still fixed on the story that had brought Daphne to his office. Daphne remained silent, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of begging for her job. She'd sooner quit.
"You'll take a leave of absence," Luidhard decided finally, "starting now. You'll still be paid but I don't want you setting foot in this department until I say otherwise. I can't have you coming in here every day like nothing has happened. We'll tell the press that you've been suspended pending an inquiry."
"I thought you said you didn't want any more time wasted on this?" Daphne pointed out, unable to stop herself.
"And it won't be, but if it's only a matter of time until Potter comes back then we won't need one. As soon as he returns we'll release an official statement explaining that it was simply an accident and that you did nothing wrong. We won't, of course, be telling them it was because Potter illegally got his hands on a time-turner. Even if it was a decade ago time-turners are meant to be strictly regulated, no-one wins if it comes out that a thirteen year-old boy was able to get past those regulations."
"So what will you tell them?"
"That it was an accident, unforeseen circumstances, that kind of thing. But we won't be continuing with your modifications."
"What?" No, this couldn't be happening. Not after everything that she had done, not after everything that had happened.
"It's too toxic, we'll use whatever research you've done on the original design and produce those instead."
"But that's not fair, it works –"
"You've got no proof of that," Luidhard said quickly, cutting across her. There was something different about how he spoke though. He was almost sympathetic. "The only human test you've conducted failed. For whatever reason that it did we can't be seen to be going ahead with the time-turner which caused Harry Potter to go missing. I know you've worked hard on this and despite what you might think I am the last person who wants it to fail. After all the money we put into you I want this to work, but with everything that has happened I can't condone any continuation of your research."
"So, what do I do now?" Daphne asked after a long moment of silence.
"Go home, do whatever you want, I don't care. Just stay away from here until Potter gets back."
Daphne nodded, not trusting her voice as she turned away. In the space of a day she had lost her work, she had almost lost her job but above all she had lost her friend for nothing. Harry had risked his life for a project that was never going to happen. But Daphne understood exactly where Luidhard was coming from. The time-turner she had created would be seen by everyone and anyone as dangerous. Nobody was going to fund her research now and certainly they weren't going to want to make her time-turners. But Daphne didn't care about that because of her vanity or pride, it was the fact that Harry was missing for nothing.
For the first time Daphne wished that she had never met him, that their paths had never crossed and that she had gone to that stupid ball and suffered through it relative silence like she always did. If she had then he would never have agreed to all of this.
And maybe she wouldn't be feeling the pain of losing someone all over again.
