Disclaimer: I am not JKR. If I was I would have a lot more dedication to my work.


Notes: The title of this chapter was very nearly a thousand apologies; I couldn't possibly apologise enough for the huge delay in posting. To say life got in the way just feels like a feeble excuse, so I won't sport as such with your intelligence. Only know I'll try my best from here on in to update at least once a week. This fic is not abandoned, this particular chapter simply refused to come together. I hope it's long enough to make up for the wait, and I hope, most fervently, that there are at least some of you still willing to read it. Thank you all for your comments and reviews of the last chapter, it still does mean the world to me. Also: You all have Tara to thank for giving me the swift kick up the arse that made me continue as I have.


A man's errors are his portals of discovery.

James Joyce


Severus had lost his touch.

He'd barged into the patents office, flinging the door open as he stormed in, robes flaring dramatically behind him. It was an entrance he'd perfected over the years. Or so he thought. The short portly man had looked up from his carefully ordered desk, and without batting an eye sent him a tight smile.

"With you in a minute sir, if you could kindly take a number?"

The office was completely empty but for Severus and the older, plumper wizard. A row of four standard, stiff waiting room chairs were lined against the far wall, facing the small but diligently organised office.

Severus didn't move from the doorway. He had glared. He had glowered. He had frowned.

The man never looked up from his carefully stacked forms. The only sound in the room was the click of a clock on the wall and a flutter as a small cut of parchment floated up from the desk, neatly pressing itself against Severus's chest. Picking the errant paper off his robes, he looked down to see the number 394 clearly typed.

Severus looked up at the odd man at the desk once more, entirely speechless.

Does this moron have any idea who I am?

Today had been Severus' first public foray into the magical world since the defeat of the dark lord. He had once again adopted his teaching robes that morning, fiercely occluding his mind and adopting the fearsome Professor Snape persona to make this day more bearable. As he had long ago learnt, people who feared you did not bother you.

Naturally, it had worked. Stepping out of a fireplace in the Ministry's Atrium had almost been comical. His long paces, stern expression and billowing robes did what four-armed security trolls would have never achieved. The crowd actually parted. The room was awash with the hiss of barely concealed whispers. Severus couldn't give a damn. So long as they were kept in a state of shock, too overcome with surprise to react, or form a lynch mob, then Severus was happy. Even the clerk at the security desk was too busy starring, mouth completely agape, to even contemplate his role. Severus merely took a badge from the desk, sliding into his robe pockets disdainfully before walking off, wand in tow. There was no way Severus was forfeiting his wand to anyone.

He'd timed the event perfectly. As the death trap they called an elevator rocketed away, the pandemonium was only just abandoning the pretence of whispering. He only wondered how long it would take before a mob of journalists had assembled in the atrium waiting for him. Severus had considered the use of Polyjuice, in his initial hung-over state, but in the end it was not the tedious waste of time and ingredients, but the notion of using Potter's hair-brained infiltration scheme that deterred him. He would survive the press. Worst-case scenario he'd make tomorrow's paper. Best-case; He got attacked and would have the chance to show the Wizarding world that his powers were just as formidable as always.

Then again, the injustice waiting for this moron could be considered provocation enough.

So keen to get some more blood on your sleeves? Is your soul not coated enough, bastard?

Just the thought of slinging another curse subdued Severus' irritation. He gazed down at the chubby bureaucrat once more. It was an odd feeling, to be treated as any other citizen after all this time. To be in the same room with another and not have any attention directed towards you. To be number 394 rather than a double-crossing ex-death eater traitor spy-cum-war hero and Order of Merlin first class.

Severus took a seat, eyebrow wryly raised as he examined the wizard now bent judiciously over the form in front of him. Head lowered as it was, the wizards dark shoulder length grey hair almost reached the table-top. The man's suit was impeccably pressed and only served to match the room's extreme fastidiousness.

"Right then!" the man finally exclaimed. The bastard then made a point of checking the list of numbers in front of him before turning to the all but empty room.

"Number 394 then?" The wizard's smile didn't falter a bit on examining the unimpressed scowl of Severus Snape. Either the man had never heard of him, or he had failed to recognise him entirely.

"And how are you today sir? Step over here if you would, yes thank you, do take a seat." He gestured unnecessarily at the empty leather chair facing the desk.

"I'm Wilfred Finkle, chief patents officer. How can the ministry help you today?"


Hermione had spent the entire morning primping. It most assuredly wasn't part of her everyday routine. Generally, she spared no thought for the clothes worn under her lime green robes. Logically she knew today should be the same, that she should endeavour to keep things as normal as possible. But still she couldn't quite help but check in the mirror. Fixing her collar. Scrutinising her expression, the tiny details of her robes. As if the whole ruse could be seen clearly on her face.

Again, she knew logically that it couldn't. That St Mungo's staff and the ministry wizards could have no idea that she knew what she knew. She told herself again and again that she was just another employee that had taken a personal day. She reasoned that most of the staff would have heard by now of her distraught appearance on level four after Ron had been checked in. Harry and Ginny had assured her last night that playing up Ron's injury was the best cover she could get.

All Hermione had to do was walk into work and keep her mouth shut. Looking critically at the worried face staring back at her from the mirror, Hermione felt the faintest vestiges of doubt. What if she couldn't act any better as an ignorant Hermione granger than she had a belligerent Bellatrix Lestrange?

Hermione firmly shook her head. She was overcomplicating the issue at hand. No one was asking her to rob a bank.


George had only put the advert up five bloody minutes ago.

CASUAL VACANCY: Enquire within.

The line ran all the way to Florish and Blotts. Honestly. George sipped his tea, standing at the shop's upstairs window staring down at the crowd. Verity had come in early and stood behind him. She didn't look much happier.

"All due respect Mr Weasley, but I ain't interviewing all that lot." She folded her arms and sat on the step by the window.

"George." He mumbled into his mug.

"All due respect George, I still ain't interviewing all that lot."

George only sighed. He did not want Verity out of sorts. He'd learnt his lesson some time ago; if Verity was happy Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was happy.

"We'll have to stay closed today. Pop the sign to 'Go Away' and send about thirty of them in. Then you can nip home if you like. Take the day off."

The sound of a huff as Verity stalked off was only a mild improvement. Apparently WWW wasn't happy today after all.


Hermione ended up at St Mungo's a whole half hour early. She supposed that had she really taken a personal day, she'd feel guilty and no doubt want to make it up to Sullivan. Well maybe not to Sullivan, but make it up to her own higher expectations. Making coffee in the small staff room to the left of the research lab, Hermione started as the door was flung open.

"You skiving bitch." Lucy stormed into the room, ignoring Hermione's swiftly drawn wand and stiff demeanour, and plopping herself unceremoniously on the kitchen counter.

"Opps. I've startled you again haven't I? Sorry." Lucy apologised, finally taking in Hermione's shaken countenance. Hermione kicked herself for her extreme reaction.

"Don't be sorry. One day I'll remember no-ones after me."

Actually, they are sort of after you again Granger. But you don't know that yet, so shut up.

"One day you'll warn your mates before skiving off. It was bloody miserable without you. Sullivan was a right bloody pain."

"I'm sorry, and I wasn't skiving off. I had to take a personal day." Hermione corrected her friend.

"Mhm. Betting pool on level four is that you put the redheaded menace in there yourself." Lucy whispered conspiratorially while summoning an empty coffee cup from the opposite bench.

"What?" Hermione gasped, flabbergasted. "Who could honestly think I'd put Ron in hospital? You're barmy. He put himself in hospital" Hermione sniffed, affronted. She couldn't help but wonder what utter nonsense was probably being spread around the hospital this very minute. But she supposed it provided some sort of cover. It didn't take a lot to fool the ministry after all.

"Mhm. I may have a flutter then, you know, if you're telling the truth the odds are in my favour."

"Do you have any ethical stipulations whatsoever?" Hermione asked, grimly stirring the dregs of her coffee.

"Not when it comes to robbing Stacey Campbell of a few Galleons. Serve the cow right for spreading tales about you won't it?" Lucy nodded, only the glint in her eye giving away her jest.

"Oh so you're acting in the service of a friend. In that case, I'm flattered." Hermione added glibly.

"You should be, especially after you abandoned me like that." Lucy went on in a long-suffering voice.

"Come on, it can't have been that bad, what actually happened?"

"There were double the amount of ministry clerks rushing around after Sullivan, which put his mood right off. There were about a dozen on the floor altogether, then this right smarmy bloke who went around and talked to everyone, while they were trying to get work done. Sullivan just about had a stroke."

Hermione could imagine her boss' reaction; he was unbearable if he caught Lucy and her so much as whispering.

"Did he tell the man off?" Hermione wondered, trying to weigh up exactly where Sullivan's power over the ward now rested.

"Not a chance. He went white as a sheet and bit his tongue. It's a wonder he wasn't dripping blood at the mouth." Lucy sniggered.

"Must have been someone important then" Hermione mused, more to herself than anything. Lucy eagerly nodded.

"He seemed a nice bloke though. Charming and a dead-looker, you know the type. He was by my desk chatting for a good half hour." Lucy's smile was more than a little coy here.

"Your mum will be pleased." Hermione laughed half-heartedly. It was a long running joke between them that Lucy's pureblood widowed mother had only consented to her daughter's career choice in the fervent hope she would one day snag a handsome healer.

"No I'm afraid it's a fully trained Healer or the wedding's doomed." Her friend sniggered.

Hermione tried to laugh along but her smile was muted at the mere mention of a wedding. Perhaps Lucy would finally take home a handsome muggle-born healer courtesy of the ministry's new law. Hermione drained the last of her cup, eager to hide her weary face. Every thing was about to change.


"What do you mean, I need to fill in a form to look at another form?" Severus' voice was barely above a whisper as he stared incredulously at the man across the desk. It was the closest his voice had come to his earlier silky hues since the accident, but even it wasn't enough to shake the sickly smile off the contrary man's face.

"Rules are rules I'm afraid sir, you understand. I don't make them and all that." He paused here, still smiling as he shuffled through the forms on his desk. "Well actually I did make a few of them myself, but all in the name of productivity mind you."

If the man saw Severus' expression he gave no indication of it. Severus was sure anyone else on the receiving end of his current glare would have turned over stone cold.

"I don't want to check out the patent, I don't want to make an alterations. I just want to physically look at the patent for the revised concentration of Dittany." Severus struggled to keep his tone reasonable. He had no desire to make this more difficult than it was already proving to be.

The man looked up his smile shattered. "Well that's an entirely different form! Why didn't you say to start with?"

Severus couldn't remember the last time someone had chastised him. He had to make a concerted effort to close his mouth as he literally gaped at the odd man in front of him.

"You cannot be serious sir. I will not be filling out any forms." Severus growled lowly at the man.

"I'm afraid it's policy sir. Anyone wishing to observe confidential paperwork must fill out a form." The man's no-nonsense tone took no notice of Severus' growl, putting him firmly in mind for a moment, of Poppy Pomfrey's bedside manner.

"The patent is under my name. I see no issue broaching confidentiality." Severus continued stiffly.

The man once again looked up and before Severus was sure what he was actually witnessing, he had let out an impatient sigh and rolled his eyes. Severus was all but thunderstruck.

"Well why didn't you say man! I've no time to be mess around." Even in his impatience, the odd man still kept his thin lips tucked into a small grin, clearly delighting in the tedious bureaucracy. Tottering to his feet, the wizard reached the tall filing cabinets that lined the back wall of his office.

"Registered name?" He asked while rifling through his keys, making a show of unlocking the highly confidential case files. Severus sneered, wondering if the man's odd, yet undiscriminating treatment of him was about to come to an end.

"Snape." He answered tight-lipped, waiting for the man to turn his head in either shock or disgust. The plump man did neither, bending instead to pull a weighty file from one of the bottom-most drawers. Either the man was a social recluse, or an imbecile. Snape was not the most common of names after-all.

"Standard file access permits the client thirty minutes with the file, to extend the limit you must fill in a standard extension request, to view the file unsupervised you need a signed certificate of authorisation from at least three ministry officials. Single client patents are marked in green; dual-client and collaboration patents are filed in magenta and blue respectively. The papers are not to be marked, folded, creased or damaged in any way and any resulting impairment requires a ledge of responsibility to be filled out by both the offending party and a witness to the event." The man rattled off this speech with the self-satisfied air of someone who had taken great pains to memorise a piece of information, and no call to do so for some length of time. Clearly Snape's identity, indeed his very presence was but a subsidiary reason for the man to perform his bafflingly prized role.

Severus was not complaining. Nodding, bemused, as he flicked his way to the only magenta file in the weighty folder. So it was there after all.

She hasn't lied once. Damn her.


Lucy had been quite disappointed, when they finally entered the slowly filling lab that morning, on being unable to point out her charming new ministry target. As she and Hermione settled into the quietest corner of the lab awaiting orders, Hermione had watched her friends eyes flick determinedly around the room, then creasing in confusion. Had Hermione not had other things on her mind, she might have found the silent pantomime amusing, but as it was, her own eyes were anxiously flitting around the crowd of new researchers and silent ministry officials. Had they noticed her arrival today? Had they all scrutinized her absence yesterday? Was she giving herself away?

Why was acting naturally suddenly the most unnatural thing in the world?

Hermione shifted, suddenly all to aware of the way she was standing, her body language and positioning. Was this how she usually held her hands? She only barely kept herself from fidgeting as Sullivan swept into the room with the remainder of the research assistants filling in behind him.

It's all in your head. No one's looking at you.

No matter how firmly she told herself this, her hands still felt unnatural, as though artificially arranged.

"Ahh Granger. Decided to come in today then!" Sullivan boomed across the room upon spotting her hidden in the back row.

Oh yeah, no one will notice.

Hermione flushed a thousand shades of red, and opened her mouth automatically to retort when Lucy quietly nudged her with her leg.

Now is not the time for outrage Granger, you're meant to be blending in.

"I am sorry sir. It was my first ever absence though." She replied with a patience she didn't quite feel.

Sullivan seemed all too smug at the opportunity of bringing the great Hermione Granger down a peg, and his smile was beyond condescending.

"Just see that it doesn't happen again." He replied imperiously before turning his attention elsewhere, not waiting for a reply. Granted, on any other day Hermione would have stiffly argued her case, but with the press of ministry officials observing, and her own anxious efforts to appear normal and unobtrusive, it was all she could do to nod. She could feel Lucy let out a relieved sigh beside her.

"Though you were about to get on your high horse then." The witch whispered conspiratorially, ignoring the droning Sullivan who once again was directing the legion of researchers to their allotted positions. Hermione only sniffed angrily before muttering back.

"There's a long day ahead."


"Ladies and Gentlemen, prospective employees, welcome to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes." George stood upon the top of the staircase, leaning against the rail and looking down at the sea of faces below him. Some were obviously anxious while a few cocksure grins managed to shine out of the crowd. Donning his most mischievous grin, George continued to address the silent, jam-packed room. "Now, I'm not much for technicalities, but if you can all just sign these quickly, we can get straight into it."

Flicking his wand, two neatly stacked piles of parchment floated downwards and dispersed itself through out the massing crowd while a collection of silver quills rose out of thin air to fill the empty hands of the confused patrons.

George grinned down from the railing as the sounds of quills quietly scratching filled the room. It really was amazing how quick people were to trust him now he was a 'war hero'. Amazing and perhaps slightly pitiful.


Stalking deftly down the length of Diagon Alley, Severus could all but feel the glares of the crowd pressing against his billowing robes. His pace was just so swift as to bring the ordeal to a hasty end, but not enough to display any signs of reluctance or guilt. He was after all, at perfect liberty, to simply walk down the street. Turning the corner to reach Grignotts he was partially taken aback by the tremendous line of people queuing at the Weasley's purple monstrosity of a façade. Keeping his face carefully impassive, he swallowed down an appreciative smirk. While the ginger twins had made his teaching career all the more miserable for their raucous efforts, he had to admit a small part of him respected their magical flair, and went so far as to laud their efforts under the reign of Umbridge.

Just as he passed the shop front, ignoring the whispers that followed him down the line, a large crash emanated from inside, followed by an uproar of muffled cries and screams.

Severus only rolled his eyes as he continued down the cobbled road, no longer the focus of the line's scrutiny.


Hermione guiltily glanced at the clock as it hit twelve. Around her the lab was abuzz with activity, and Hermione couldn't help but wonder what scared her more. The ruthless ferocity with which the junior researchers tore through their work, brutally discarding and reshaping theories, or their unthinking determination to find a cure, with no conscious awareness of what it was they were working towards. Perhaps they both filled her with an irrational fear as to the well-oiled machine that she would soon be fighting against. But more than that, it filled her with an undeniable sense of shame. That only two days earlier, she had shared their determined abandon. She had thrown herself in wholeheartedly with little concern to the purpose of her research.

This sickening sense of shame would not abandon her, and doubled as she dutifully recorded today's results. It didn't seem to make a difference that she did the work in subterfuge, that it meant her protection until Kingsley could locate a safe house, until her security could be assured. The neat list of her observations seemed to mock her, physical evidence of her betrayal. For that's what it was. With every insight she shared on the ministries work, she was inching them closer and closer to a means of harming not only herself, but also all those soon to be persecuted by the law.

While she couldn't ignore her own guilt, she saw no signs that it had been observed by anyone else. She felt under no more scrutiny than any other healer bent over their station. There seemed no evidence that any of the ministry officials suspected her knowledge. She did wonder what they meant to do in four days time; whether they had deluded themselves so far as to believe she would willingly work for such a cause, married or not. It was far more likely, she presumed, that Sullivan didn't care either way. This somewhat paradoxically, only strengthened her resolve to skirt the law. The law threatened her position, her internship and her future career. She would sooner run than see it fade away without a fight.

Glancing up again to stealthily observe the room, she noted the ministry official's whispering to one and other restlessly. Sure enough, the shorty dumpy wizard Hermione recognised from the other day looked down at his wristwatch before announcing to the room that they were all free to go to lunch. Hermione saw the faint quirk of irritation that passed over Sullivan's face like a roaming shadow, before briskly left the room. Clearly her mentor wasn't enjoying the ministries interference in the least. Setting aside her quill and the slim notepad the Ministry had charmed against leaving the lab's vicinity, Hermione filed out of the room with the rest of the green clad staff, quickly catching up with Lucy out on the stair well.

"Hey" Lucy greeted simply as they made their way down the stairs to the muggle food court across the street. The food in the coffee shop was bland and over priced, and luckily there was a muggle university of medicine not so far away that their robes could be mistaken for muggle hospital scrubs. Hermione couldn't help but note her friends limp tone, so devoid of its usual animation.

"Hey yourself." She smiled back. "I do hope your not moping over our missing ministry man?" Hermione was not one who generally teased, but it was all part of their fledging friendship's dynamic. Had she poured her true concern for her friend's mood into words, the witch proved swift to change the subject entirely. No, in befriending Lucy, Hermione had had to adopt this unfamiliar slytherin communication.

"Oh no, not at all. I'm sure he's had to keep himself away for fear of falling head over heels for me, that's all." Lucy replied in an easy banter.

"Ah, naturally. Perhaps he somehow heard of your mother's stipulations?" Hermione quipped quietly, earning her a drawn out snigger from the girl.

"I did want to ask though, what happened to the research into colour changing ink? They scrapped it?" Hermione adopted a tone of mere curiosity, concealing the fact she need as much useful information from Lucy as she could subtly gather.

Lucy apparently didn't find the question all too out of a character, Hermione supposed her reputation as a nosy know-it-all was finally working to her advantage.

"No I think they got it to work. A drop of a patient's blood into the mixture, with a few alterations of course, and the colour shifts according to the various blood work changes. I still reckon it's a bit barmy. What we've got now works just fine." Lucy puzzled out, while Hermione simply muttered her agreement.

Just as Hermione was about to needle more information out of her, Lucy began chatting away of her own accord as to the other developments Hermione had missed. Hermione felt a slight pang of guilt, using her friends as a source of information, but reasoned the inkling away. After all, she hadn't actually posed Lucy the question; someone who knew her character all to well had just correctly apprehended her intentions.

"There's only three interns still working with the Faerie wings. I think they mean to scrap that one altogether. The results were solid enough but there's been such a shortage in the last fifty years or so that any feasible product of the research would be ridiculously expensive. To be honest I'd only ever heard it used in girding potions. You know, old time endurance potions."

Hermione nodded, doing her best not to blurt out the other illicit use of the potion to her friend. Not out of fear for her own cause, but because Hermione now genuinely believed that the less anyone knew of the Ministries intentions the better: It would only take a few whispers to circulate, and the ministry might move their plan forward immediately. Hermione couldn't help but wonder how many people might actually connect the potion with the illegal contraceptives of antiquity. Not many surely.

"So the interns they had working on Faerie Wings have been moved along to help with the Caligula research." Lucy continued unbidden. "They've left the same people working with the Nightshade of course, but I think that one will take them a while longer. You know, I can't remember learning anything on it at Hogwarts." Lucy confided, her brow drawn.

"Me either." Hermione agreed, adopting her friend's puzzled tone. Far better Lucy assume its omission was due to Professor Snape's oversight than a deliberate exclusion from the curriculum. How anyone could assume their Professor could forget to include anything was beyond Hermione, but if Lucy didn't question it, she wouldn't bring it up.

After all, the man had done nothing to deserve her praise of his intelligence, even as an aside. Not to mention it was particularly un-Gryffindor.

Just as they reached the ground floor and entered into the bustling waiting room, a swarm of people erupted from the floo with muffled cries as they bent forward, clutching desperately at huge mounds of flesh that seemed to clutch onto their faces. It took Hermione a confused moment as she surveyed the wailing crowd to realise the mounds of flesh were in fact engorged noses, with most of the afflicted persons grasping at them only in an attempt to help their necks support the massive weight.

Knowing it was vastly inappropriate to laugh, Hermione couldn't help but stare with her mouth open at the thirty or so people, still making their way through the large fire grate. One accident with a swelling solution was understandable, but for more than two dozen patients to show the exact same symptoms in the exact same place, all streaming in from the same place; those were not the signs of an accident.

Hermione swiftly kicked herself into action, following the crowd of people to the stressed welcome witch and attempting to make some sense of the scenario. Grasping firmly onto the arm of a tall slender man not much older than herself, Hermione calmly asked after the particulars of the incident, only to have the man stare back at her, eyes wide with shock as his lips tightened dramatically. If Hermione thought the reaction odd, it was nothing to the sounds of his mumbled cries through his tightly pursed lips.

Frowning at the wizard's reaction, she turned again and sought out another afflicted patient, this time a robust man in brightly coloured robes. Again the only response to her questions were the muffled anxious squeals as the man, almost comically, abandoned the support of his enormous nose and attempted to mime out his answer; quite unsuccessfully. Hermione let out a frustrated sigh before she realised what it was the man was waving in her face.

Taking the scrunched up wad of paper off him, she flattened out the creases and instantly recognised the Weasley Wizard's Wheezes symbol. It looked to be an advert torn from the page of this mornings prophet and Hermione only had to make out the words 'Casual Vacancy' before she was able to piece the evidence together. Making her way towards the now near hysterical waiting witch, Hermione schooled her face into a grim expression. George would definitely be hearing from her later.


It was the most gold Severus had ever seen amassed in his family vault. It had be all but empty on his first trip to Diagon Alley, his mother sweeping far into the grand family vault's shadowed corners to muster enough for his school things. His salary from Hogwarts had been modest, but with the school providing board, meals, and most significantly potion's ingredients, he had slowly amassed a comfortable nest of savings. Until of course, his megalomaniac dark master had solicited war funds from his loyal servants. On his only visit since his recovery, he had deposited a small stack of galleons to the otherwise empty vault; it was all that remained from the insurance pay out after he had bought his new house and assembled his lab.

There was no longer a mere single stack of gold.

Severus would love to believe it was all the result of his potion labours, that he simply had underestimated the profits of his small mail order business. Admittedly some of it was entirely down to that. Some of it was no doubt due to his own earlier patents, which had probably amassed quite slowly as a product of his own modest lifestyle.

But there was no denying the evidence of his own eyes; Deposited in a separate pile to the left of the large vault was a far from modest mound of gold and silver. Severus stalked across the damp echoing stone floor to better survey the heap. He wasn't quite sure how he could resent an inanimate pile of coins. But he did.

Staring down as the flickering vault light made the coins glitter dimly, Severus glowered dispassionately. This was what he'd stormed through the burrow for. This is what he'd reduced Granger to tears over; this small, innocuous heap of coins that he suddenly found so intensely distasteful. For a fleeting moment he considered collecting up the pile and depositing it into Granger's vault, but his pride quickly smothered the notion. He would not surrender his last vestiges of dignity. To go back to the Burrow, to admit his ignorance and disgrace, it was frankly insupportable. Sweeping his cloak behind him, Severus stalked out of the vault without a second glance. The weight of his coin bag at his hip, although collected from the vault's primary pile, still niggled at his conscience: a physical manifestation of the guilt weighing him down.


George sipped his tea, staring down out of the window at the empty street below. It hadn't taken that long to clear the queue after all. Admittedly his methods had been of the lateral variety, but surely no one could deny his results.

Except of course for the fact he had failed to fill the position. Every single applicant had lied when asked to complete a seemingly simple aptitude test; in turn triggering the latent swelling jinx contained in the magical contracts each had willingly signed. George accepted on some level there would be later complications to deal with, but the fact was, every person who had signed that form, had signed not only a non-disclosure agreement, but also a magical oath to tell the truth. They had not been forced to sign anything and could naturally leave at any point in the proceedings. Legally he knew he was beyond fault. So long as his mam never learnt of today's proceedings he was in the clear.

And, if she did, well, he'd still done worse.

Smirking down once more at the empty street, George couldn't help but feel a niggling emptiness on his side. It still felt chilling, sharing these moments of victory with a ghost upon his shoulder rather than a brother at his side.

Before he became truly maudlin, the bell jangled from downstairs and George was torn from his darker thoughts.

"Applications have closed for the day." He called down the stairs wearily, not bothering to look down at the identity of the applicant. Nothing more than a silence met his words for a long moment, before a defeated murmur of ascent drifted up the stairs. The bell jangled once more, seemingly dimmed by the empty echoing room.

George pressed his forehead against the second storey window, following the wake of a hunched over figure. It didn't occur to him to match the mumble of defeat to the stranger he now watched amble down the street. There was something else that captured George's attention to the hunched over youth, some niggling of familiarity.

George sipped his tea once more, trying to follow the elusive trail of recollection, before another sandy haired youth came to the forefront of his mind. George quickly abandoned his half empty cup, launching himself down the stairs and out of the shops front door before the bell had the faintest chance of ringing. Jogging swiftly down the cobblestone alley, George soon caught up with the slight sandy haired youth.

There was definitely no mistaking him now. True, the face George remembered had been full of laughter and undisguised delight at even the simplest magic. It had lit up easily at every joke shop product, at even the slightest of successes during those long ago DA meetings.

"Dennis!" George called out before the boy- no, man- slipped through the crowd of pedestrians.

Dennis Creevey still had all the vestiges of youth in his face, but the eye that now meet George's were those of an old soul, full of suffering. This didn't stop him adopting a grin of welcome that George forced himself to mirror.

"How about that job then?" George burst out without further small talk. It was worth it to see just the briefest flicker of life light up the younger wizard's face.

"Just like that?" Dennis asked incredulously, doubt creeping through his voice. George supposed that was reasonable, considering the five or so times he'd turned the boy into a large malting canary.

"Come have a cupper, and we'll talk it over." George grinned, shepherding him through the street and back into his shop. It was nice, for both of them he thought, to have someone fill the emptiness by their side once more.


Note: For something that took me so long to put together, it doesn't seem all that long now. Thank you all for your patience, and please don't hate me!