Recommendation: This chapter's recommended fic is "Faery Heroes" by SilentlyWatches. First mentioned back in chapter 24, this story is a response to Paladeus's "Champions of Lilith" challenge. Harry, Hermione, and Luna are sent back in time (sort of) to win a war that had gone very, very badly for them. Lunar Harmony.
Chapter 41 - The Times They Are A-Changin'
Sunday, February 28, 1995, Morning.
Hermione and Jasmine were making their way to their training room because they had received a most welcome letter the night before. Fleur wanted to meet this morning, and while they'd had several meetings with the French champion so far, this was the first time she'd sent an owl late at night, which suggested it was important.
That was fine with them — they were anxious for answers to questions that Hermione had raised the day before. She had been the first to recognize the changes in her feelings towards Fleur and her sister, but as soon as she mentioned it, Jasmine realized that it was true about herself as well. She wasn't bothered quite as much as Hermione, but she was no less interested in finding out why it had happened.
When Hermione saw the look on Fleur's face, however, she guessed she was going to be disappointed by this meeting just like she had been in many others. I'm really starting to get annoyed by veela, Hermione thought sourly.
After they had sat down and served themselves some of the food and drink which always appeared whenever they met, Hermione jumped right in and said, "I'm glad you asked for this meeting, Fleur, because I've got some questions for you about what happened at the end of the second task."
"Oh?" Fleur asked, genuinely surprised. "I wanted to ask you about zat as well. But first, 'ow are you two doing?"
Jasmine sighed heavily. "I'm... getting better, I guess. When we first got out of the lake, I was frankly torn between staying close to Hermione and attacking Dumbledore. It was a near thing, too."
Hermione reached out and squeezed Jasmine's shoulder before saying, "And don't think I haven't noticed how angry you still get sometimes when you see him or when he's mentioned."
Jasmine nodded. "Yeah, I won't deny it. I'm no longer fighting the urge to strangle him with his own beard, but I'm still really angry with him — at least as angry as I've noticed you are, Hermione."
"Nor should you necessarily stop being angry," Fleur said. "What 'e did was 'orrible, but I am glad zat ze anger is diminishing. Too much anger will 'urt you in ze long run." Turning to Hermione, she said, "Now, what were your questions?"
"Well," Hermione said, not doing much to mask the annoyance she felt, "somehow, for some reason, our feelings towards you and your sister have changed. Before, she was a stranger, and you were becoming a friend. Now, though… I'm not really sure how to describe it. You're more familiar. We're more comfortable in your presence. Merlin, Gabrielle was sitting in Jasmine's lap when the two of us needed to comfort each other, and I didn't care! What is going on?"
Hermione's voice had risen steadily throughout, and while she didn't end with shouting, she came close. Fleur looked thoroughly embarrassed, which somehow didn't surprise either of the other two witches.
"Ironically," the French witch responded, "I was going to ask you if you had experienced anything at ze end of ze task. So zat answers my question. As to why... well, I 'ave been wondering zat very zing myself. Our feelings 'ave changed as well. At least, mine 'ave. I zink Gabrielle's 'ave as well, but I 'aven't asked her for details. I don't want to trouble her until I know what is 'appening. I, too, feel more comfortable around you. I also feel very protective of you for some reason. Something 'as changed 'ere, but I don't know what."
"Ugh!" Hermione cried, throwing up her hands while Jasmine crossed her arms as she leaned back in her chair with a frown. "I'm getting tired of not being able to get straight answers. I suppose it helps that you are in the same boat as us instead of knowing but refusing to tell, but honestly, right now it's hard to see it as a very big improvement."
Jasmine's expression softened, and she put her hand on Hermione's arm. "Actually, that's a good point, Hermione. They are in the same boat. Whether this is good or bad, something's changed for them, and they didn't volunteer. It's not fair to take it out on them."
Hermione aimed her scowl at Jasmine for a moment, then exhaled heavily and slumped a bit in her seat. "I'm sorry, Fleur," she said as she turned back to the French witch. "Jasmine's right, I shouldn't be berating you when you didn't do anything and are as caught up in this as we are. I'm just... just so frustrated right now with people not telling us things and people doing things to us without our permission. I'm feeling really, really disenchanted with the magical world right now."
Fleur reached out her own hand to put it on one of Hermione's. "I understand, 'ermione, and I sympathize. Zis isn't easy for any of us. Zat is why we need to stick together. Whatever 'as 'appened to us, we need to face it together."
Jasmine moved her hand to cover Fleur's and said, "And we will."
Fleur was tempted to tell them that she expected to hear more from her family soon, but she knew that it would probably do more harm than good. They'd already experienced her family holding back information from them, and however worthy the cause, she knew that it wasn't fun to be on the receiving end of such treatment.
No, she'd just keep quiet about her family until she finally found out what was going on and what she was allowed to share. Although, she realized, given the way I feel right now, I'm not sure if I'd be able to keep myself from telling them.
That was a disturbing realization to the young veela witch, and she had no idea what to do about it.
"Is Dobby seeing that?" Winky asked in awe and wonder.
"Dobby be seeing, but Dobby not be believing," he answered.
Winky shook her head, "That not supposed to be happening. They's can't all be bonded!"
"They's not all being bonded the same," Dobby pointed out. "The bond with Frenchie witch is not being the same as bond between our mistresses."
"You's being sure?" Winky asked, giving him a skeptical look.
Dobby nodded vigorously. "Yes, Dobby being sure! They's all bonded, but not all bonded the same. Frenchie witch being different — not same as witchy witches, not same as us."
Winky looked concerned for a moment before asking, "Is this being because of the food we be putting out for them all the time?"
Dobby shrugged and said, "Dobby not be knowing."
"Maybe..." Winky said hesitantly, "maybe we being too creative?"
Dobby looked at Winky as if she had just grown a second head. "That being silly talk!" And he popped away.
Winky huffed and scowled at the spot that Dobby used to occupy. We is going to have to talk, she thought before she, too, popped away.
One ginger twin watched as his brother cast yet another listening charm at the closed and sealed door. "Anything yet, brother of mine?" he asked.
"Nothing," the second twin said as he dropped his arms to his sides in resignation. "Not a single spell we've tried has been able to get through."
"Pretty impressive protective spellwork for a couple of fourth-years," the first observed, his admiration clear in his voice.
"It might have been the veela chick," the other pointed out, not happy at the prospect of having been outwitted by two fourth-year witches, even if they were the Girl Who Lived and the Brightest Witch of Her Age.
"Maybe," conceded the first twin, "but our two little lionesses have been doing a lot of training this past year. And you know Hermione devours knowledge the way Ron devours dinner."
"Too true," the second twin said, nodding his head in agreement. "We really shouldn't underestimate either of them."
"Maybe we should go back and review those introductory curse breaking books that our eldest brother sent us?"
"Capital idea! A change in approach is definitely called for here," the second twin said. "We'll get this problem licked yet!"
Sunday, February 28, 1995, Afternoon.
The first thing Minerva McGonagall did when she let Hermione and Jasmine into her office for that Sunday's tea was to apologize to them. "I know I said it before, but I wanted to say it again here in a more private setting. I'm so, so sorry about what the Headmaster did to you, Hermione, and what that put you through, Jasmine. It was far too late by the time I found anything out, and he acted contrary to the advice I gave him."
"That's alright, Professor," Hermione said as she sat down, "we don't blame you."
"Yeah," Jasmine added, "we place most of the blame with Dumbledore. He's the one we're both really angry with. As suspicious of him as we were before, we hardly have any trust for him now."
"And we also blame the rest of the tournament organizers for coming up with such an awful task in the first place," Hermione added.
"Thank you," Minerva said, "but I still feel bad about it. I wish I could say that I was surprised at what he did, but I wasn't. Even when I first raised the issue of getting permission from parents and guardians, I had doubts that he would do the right thing. I did want to give him the chance, though."
"That's what makes me the most upset," Hermione said. "I went to the trouble of asking my parents, and he not only ignored that, he didn't even bother to ask me. It's like my opinion doesn't count at all, as far as he's concerned. Like... like I'm some sort of tool for him to use for his own purposes, and to hell with whatever I want."
Jasmine reached out and put a hand on her girlfriend's arm in an attempt to calm her down. Ever since the end of the second task, Hermione's emotions had been even more volatile than her own. Is this some side effect of whatever happened between us and Fleur and her sister, Jasmine wondered, or is Hermione finally as fed up with authority figures as I am?
"I wish I could dispute that conclusion," Minerva said, "but right now I cannot, because it certainly looks that way. What do you plan on telling your parents?"
"Nothing if I can help it," Hermione said regretfully, shaking her head. "If they knew about even half of the dangerous stuff I get involved in here, I'm afraid they'd withdraw me from Hogwarts entirely."
"Neville wrote to his gran asking if she had any advice," Jasmine said. "Her response arrived this morning. Unfortunately, she said that there was nothing that could be done. Hermione here apparently doesn't matter enough legally, politically, or financially."
"That, too, is something I wish I could dispute," Minerva said with a sigh.
"Can you tell us more about the state of the magical government?" Jasmine asked while her girlfriend practically quivered in rage in the chair next to her. "We already understand the basic structure: the Minister is elected and appoints people to head departments in the Ministry, while the Wizengamot is an unelected body of representatives — mostly wizards — of old, wealthy families. But what's it like on a practical level?"
Minerva considered while she sipped her tea, trying to decide how best to answer that before finally saying, "Well, there isn't much good that can be said, I'm afraid. The Minister, Cornelius Fudge, is not an evil man, but he's also not especially admirable, either. As best as I can tell, he only cares about money, power, and popularity. He'll do anything to look good to the voters and to stay in the good graces of those who give him money — with Lucius Malfoy being the most prominent."
"Yeah," Jasmine said darkly, "Malfoy was with Fudge when the Minister came to arrest Hagrid in our second year. And I remember him saying that he needed to be seen doing something — not that there was evidence against Hagrid, and he certainly didn't get a trial. He was simply arrested and chucked into Azkaban so Fudge could look good."
"And perhaps because it served the interests of Mr. Malfoy," Minerva added. "The people he appoints are often similar to him, though not all. Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, is one of the most honest and trustworthy people in the Ministry. She was a Hufflepuff and one of the best students of her year. Arthur Weasley is another good person, as you two well know. Sadly, they are more the exceptions than the rule in our Ministry."
"Is the Wizengamot the same?" Hermione asked, her thirst for knowledge finally winning out over her desire to throttle someone.
"If anything, it's probably worse," Minerva responded. "As bad as Cornelius is, he is at least answerable to the voters occasionally. He can be persuaded to take certain actions by pointing out how those actions will affect his popularity. The Wizengamot, in contrast, doesn't care at all about what's popular or not. They make the laws and sit in judgment in trials without much regard for the citizenry. Just so long as they maintain the Statute of Secrecy and don't oppress people too much, they know they will stay in power. "
"Have there ever been any attempts to reform the Wizengamot?" Hermione asked, aghast at what she was hearing. She knew they were unelected, but she had assumed that they were more benign than that.
"At various times people have called for reform and change," Minerva answered, "but those calls have never gone anywhere."
Soon thereafter the two young witches left, feeling more pessimistic than ever about Britain's magical government.
Neville and Ginny were enjoying themselves in a pool created by the Room of Requirement, and the highlight of their afternoon was using fifteen minutes of leftover gillyweed from the second task. Jasmine had said that their help had been invaluable and since she had extra, it was only right that the two of them be able to enjoy it. It was the first time either of them had ever had a chance to use the slimy plant, and both had reactions similar to Jasmine when she first tried it.
"How do you feel about training with Jasmine and Hermione?" Ginny asked, raising a question that had been bothering her for several days.
Neville sighed as he leaned back against the side of the pool and laid his head back on the edge. "I'm really conflicted. I think I'll learn a lot by practicing with them, but I think they are already so far ahead of me that I'll just end up holding them back, no matter what they say."
"I was actually talking about the darker or greyer spells they are learning," Ginny said. "Are you okay with that?"
Neville pursed his lips. "I'm not comfortable with learning them myself just yet, but I understand why they feel they need to. You know some of the things they've had to deal with."
Ginny nodded and sighed softly. "I guess you're right. It's just that my mother is always banging on about dark spells and using magic for evil purposes. Learning spells that only exist to hurt people... it just feels wrong."
"It's not nice," Neville agreed, "but some people need to be hurt in order to stop them. And some people... some people deserve to be hurt." Neville's face darkened when he said this, and it was clear that he had someone in particular in mind. "It really comes down to when you use those spells and with whom, doesn't it?"
"I guess so," Ginny responded. After a few minutes, she tried changing the subject by asking, "Why do you suppose Hermione and Jasmine didn't want to use the gillyweed with us?"
"I'm pretty sure they wanted to try out their own leftover gillyweed with just the two of them present," Neville answered with a shrug.
Ginny didn't understand what he meant at first, but when she figured it out she started blushing and shuddered slightly at the thought. Neville didn't notice her reaction and continued, "It was really generous of them to share with us like that. I doubt that I'd have ever spent the money necessary to try it myself."
"Really?" Ginny asked. "Wait... how much does that stuff cost, anyway?"
"Oh, the fifteen-minute size that we used would probably cost around 50 galleons," Neville answered, "especially if you got it fresh from a reputable grower like she did."
"What?" Ginny almost shouted, incredulous that such a small sample of such a nasty plant could cost so much. "That's... that's... four or five new wands from Ollivander's! That's new clothes and books for me for Hogwarts for several years!"
She couldn't believe that Jasmine would give her something so valuable, and all out of friendship. Now she felt even worse than she had before about her negative reaction to their relationship. It seemed that no matter how hard she tried, she still couldn't manage to be as good of a friend to them as they were to her.
Ginny bit her lip — it was just too much. "I'm sorry, I can't do this," she mumbled as she practically leapt out of the pool. Neville could only watch in bewilderment as she quickly grabbed her Hogwarts robe and ran out of the Room of Requirement — he didn't even have time to call her name before she was gone.
What in Merlin's name was that all about? Neville wondered. Did I say something wrong? Looking around, he realized that spending time in the pool alone wouldn't be nearly as much fun as it had been with Ginny, so he decided to try to track her down and find out what was going on.
Sunday, February 28, 1995, Evening.
"Wormtail!" came the call from the other room. Slowly getting up from his half-eaten dinner, Peter Pettigrew made his way to the bassinet where the Baby Mort thing spent all of its time.
"Yes, Master?" he asked.
"Wormtail, it looks like there will have to be a change in plans. We command you to seek out Lucius Malfoy and bring him here before Us. He will help Us devise a new plan to snatch the Potter girl early so we can perform the ritual as soon as possible."
"Yes, Master," Peter responded, but before he could retreat from the room, the thing in the bassinet spoke again.
"Not yet! First you must milk Nagini and create enough of the potion to last Us for a couple of days! Only once you have completed that can you leave!"
"Yes, Master," Peter replied, leaving the room so he could find Nagini, who was probably outside hunting now. Peter wasn't sure if this was a good development or a bad one. If the plan had to be changed that radically, then that wasn't a good sign; but if he could stop being forced to care for that tiny homunculus that much sooner, then so much the better. The presence of another Death Eater meant that he wouldn't get all of the credit for helping his Master, which was disappointing; but it also meant another target for his Master's torture curses, a burden he was only too happy to share.
All of this thinking made Peter's brain hurt.
Draco Malfoy was sitting in his bed down in the Slytherin fourth-year dorms making plans. For too long, Jasmine Potter had been allowed to strut around Hogwarts like she owned the place, looking down on others as though they were beneath her, breaking all the rules, spitting on magical heritage, and ignoring wizarding traditions. She was a half-blood. She had been raised by muggles. Her mother was a mudblood. She was a witch. On every count, she was inferior and unworthy of leadership or respect, yet she had the staff and the rest of the student body practically eating out of her hand.
Well, that was going to change. Today he had been walking out by the greenhouses with his min... er... allies, Crabbe and Goyle, when they were suddenly confronted by none other than Rita Skeeter. The famous reporter wanted to talk to him, of all people — not his father, but him! She wanted inside information about the school, the students, the tournament, the champions — anything, really. Apparently the success she had achieved with her recent article had left her hungry for more.
Draco knew exactly how he was going to use this opportunity... well, maybe not exactly. He knew what he wanted to do, he just hadn't figured out the details yet. He was going to use this to ruin Jasmine Potter and her friends, especially her pet mudblood Granger. He was going to cultivate Skeeter as a contact and possible ally — it was always good to have friends in the press. He was going to show his parents that he was cunning enough to create and execute plans like this. He was going to show the rest of Slytherin how a real leader operated.
I'm going to show them all, Draco thought, and they'll all be sorry that they didn't acknowledge my greatness sooner!
How, though… that was the million galleon question. Obviously he needed to feed Skeeter a story that would at least start to achieve some of those goals.
What kind of story, though? And about whom? This will require the utmost in cunning and intelligence, he concluded. Good thing I'm up to the job...
Sunday, February 28, 1995, Night.
As it turned out, it took three days for Walburga to talk to all of the portraits in the house, including the one of Phineas. It was a tedious and annoying task trying to get them all to understand what was needed from them and how important their jobs would be, but they heeded her advice and were getting prepared.
Of course, the reason why she found it all so tedious and annoying was probably because she wasn't really a portrait herself. At least, not entirely.
She had started out as a magical portrait, to be sure, and like all magical portraits she was supposed to have the memories and personality of the original subject. But that was all — no real creativity, intuition, emotion, or any of the other hallmarks of sentient life. They could learn new facts, but not make new discoveries; they could accept changed circumstances, but not actually change themselves. Magical portraits mimicked life, but were not alive.
Walburga Black had wanted her portrait to be different. In one of the family's darkest books, she located a ritual that she thought would not only create the perfect magical portrait, but would also ensure her a long, long life: she was going to turn her portrait into a horcrux.
Unfortunately for Walburga Black, being a devotee of the Dark Arts didn't mean that she was necessarily skilled at them. The portrait didn't know what went wrong, exactly, whether it was an error in the long, involved ritual needed to prepare the intended vessel, or perhaps some conflict between the magic already imbued in the portrait and the dark power needed to sustain a horcrux. Unfortunately, the magic behind these portraits wasn't something she had ever bothered studying, even after choosing to use one for such a difficult ritual. That had probably been a mistake.
Whatever the reason, something caused the final spell to backfire, killing not only the muggle sacrifice Walburga had kidnapped, but also Walburga herself. When the portrait woke up several days later, she found to her eternal dismay that the better part of Walburga Black's soul had been completely stripped from her body and permanently embedded in the portrait.
Moreover, the "better part" didn't just mean most of her soul, but also the best and most moral parts — well, less evil parts, at any rate. The portrait retained all of the knowledge, cunning, and insight, as well as most of the beliefs and personality of the original Walburga Black; however, the careless disregard for the harm caused by those beliefs was mostly eliminated. She still didn't approve of mudbloods and blood traitors, but she also didn't particularly want them dead, for some strange reason. She suspected that it was a function of having one of the worst Dark Arts rituals backfire on her — a price exacted by Magic itself, perhaps. She couldn't be sure, though. And whom could she ask?
So here she was, trapped in a portrait and treated like a portrait. For all intents and purposes, though, she was still Walburga Black — it was why Kreacher still obeyed her orders so devoutly. At least, she was pretty sure she was still Walburga Black. There were times that she felt incomplete, as if there were something missing, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was or what it might mean.
When Sirius had finally arrived after all these years alone, only to ignore her completely — well, it was more than she could bear. She also suspected that she might have been starting to go a bit mad, because round-the-clock screaming had seemed an entirely sensible reaction at the time. Once he had provided her with a purpose, however, she latched onto it with a passion. She had told the truth about Dorea, and that she wanted to help Miss Potter because of the connection to her beloved aunt; but Walburga wasn't prepared to explain to Sirius why she needed more than just the vacuous, aimless existence of a portrait. He hated the original Walburga, and with good reason. He hated the Dark Arts, too, so she'd be doubly despised.
But that didn't mean that she wouldn't assist him. She would do whatever she could — for Jasmine Dorea, if for no other reason, but a part of her felt that she owed Sirius something for all the grief and misery that the original Walburga had put him through. She didn't understand it because, like the original Walburga, she, too, disliked his blood-traitor tendencies. She found it all very confusing; but regardless of why she felt as though she owed him, she was going to act on it because without him, she'd still be alone and falling into insanity.
And that was why she needed to do something about his drinking. He might think that the alcohol helps, she lamented, but it's only making things worse. In the long run, it will make him unfit to act as Jasmine Dorea's guardian. Our enemies will use it against him, and she will end up resenting him. He's going to have to make some significant changes to how he lives.
"Kreacher!" she called out.
"Yes, Mistress?" the old house elf said when he popped in front of her.
"Where is Sirius?" she asked.
"Passed out in his bed from firewhiskey, Mistress," Kreacher spat with a disgusted look on his face.
"Why am I not surprised?" she asked, rolling her eyes. "Fine — hide all the alcohol in the house. We'll let him sleep this one off because I'll need him coherent for our next conversation. Make sure that hangover and headache potions are ready."
"Yes, Mistress," he said before popping away to carry out his duties.
Walburga sighed. To help Dorea's namesake, she was going to have to rebuild the Black family power and prestige, yet that was starting to look like an impossible task. Sirius had always been such a disappointment as a son, but right now he was the only son she had left. Indeed, he was the only Black left. What was the magical world coming to when Sirius Orion Black became the last, best hope for the Black family?
Well, there was Andromeda, but she had been disowned. She could be brought back into the family, but Walburga wasn't sure how reliable she would be. She had a daughter, but that witch was a complete unknown. There was Bellatrix, but she was in Azkaban and apparently insane. There was also Narcissa, who had married well and become a Malfoy; but that tied her to the Dark Lord, and Walburga wasn't sure that he was such a good bet anymore.
So that just leaves Sirius, she concluded reluctantly. Except... A small smile crept onto her face as she came to an intriguing realization. The Black family may have always favored pureblood supremacy, but they didn't do so at the expense of the family's survival. And Sirius wasn't necessarily the last, best hope for the Black family after all. It might require a bit of maneuvering to fit within the inheritance rules, but if it could be worked out, then... There is another.