Chapter Twenty-Four
Reformation
There was a part of Hogwarts that, aside from its purpose for education, lent itself for quiet contemplation no matter the time of day or night. Generations of Hogwarts attendees knew about the little glade on the other side of the grounds from the Forbidden Forest. Most had figured out that there was some kind of magic that let someone with a troubled soul rest and reflect upon whatever they needed to. Very few of them – and that didn't include Albus Dumbledore or most of the staff, for all their collective wisdom – knew that the Castle would accept the supplicant and cloak them in privacy for several hours while protecting them from being disturbed. Those that needed it didn't wonder why no one bothered them.
The Auror watching over Sirius Black knew this information, and sat outside the boundaries as his charge stewed over the things that he'd either seen or learned recently.
Not that he could blame the man. Considering the things that he'd been let into knowing about Black, the Auror couldn't say that he wouldn't be stark raving mad in the same situation even without Dementors in the mix. How Sirius Black had withstood the Dementor exposure as long as he had without going cuckoo more than he had amazed the Auror.
Still, Master Auror Grint knew what was going on. After all, the Castle recognized what he was there for and granted him a way to see what Sirius was doing. He could see the man pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The distance was the exact size of an Azkaban cell from front to back, and he could see that Black seemed to duck around obstacles that weren't there while going in one direction and around the same obstacles but in reverse when he switched directions.
There was obviously something that he was talking out loud about to himself, but what, the Master Auror couldn't tell. He didn't look like he was too happy about whatever it was.
The man grunted to himself. He wouldn't be either.
He leaned back against a conveniently placed tree and watched the agitated pacing continue.
|:-:|
Perreh looked back over his mental notes and sighed. Dahne had agreed that it would be a better idea if he argued for the defense. Not for the first time, he wondered if Dahne just liked being argumentative, but when he stopped to think about the expression on the younger dragon's face when they all heard about the case he reconsidered. There was something wrong about the whole thing other than the human aspects and they all knew it.
He heard a whistle over to one side and looked to see that the odd goblin was waving at him. Well, they all looked odd to him but this goblin more so. The older ones among this group looked like they had been enduring a good deal of rough treatment for a while, and this one was no exception. What was his name?
Perreh couldn't remember, but waved the odd being over anyway. He shifted himself around to make room. It really was a nice area to be in and he didn't want to knock over a tree or something. There had been enough damage from the fight that he could still see. That was something else that didn't make any sense to him. He'd heard about it happening and seeing the results just brought up more and more questions that probably wouldn't have suitable answers.
The goblin bowed to the Ironbelly, and the dragon returned the courtesy.
"Might I help you?"
The goblin grinned. He had a pack of some size slung around his shoulder, which he dropped to the ground.
"Possibly. I understand that you're taking on the job of defending Sirius Black."
"Yes. Why do you ask?"
"Good! I have something here that you might be very interested in seeing before you decide on a strategy."
|:-:|
For his part, Dahne was finding out that bureaucracies were all slow, no matter where they existed. His requests for information routed through the Dragonborne Treaties and Treatises Department, were either stonewalled or slow rolled. It didn't help one bit that some of the more piquant of the group were people that screamed about the beasts getting above their station and should be corralled.
That really got him hot under the scales.
Finally, after talking to Mister McClermont and Mister Reed, he was given a thin folder. Mister Reed seemed to be bemused at being the messenger boy and decided to read out the evidence collected as the Horntail couldn't be expected to hold the relatively tiny folder.
It didn't take long.
"That's it?" The question was directed at Philo McClermont.
"That's it."
"And your criminal justice program convicts on such slim evidence?"
Philo hemmed and hawed for a moment, trying to think of a way to answer that.
"Never mind, Philo. That's really not your department. Literally."
"Well, no."
The Horntail peered at him.
"I wouldn't request a transfer either, if I were you."
"I don't think I will. I'm too close to retirement as it is."
The dragon mumbled, "I don't blame you," even as he thought about what he'd been told before sighing.
"I should have switched roles with Perreh. He's going to be insufferable."
Philo pretended that he didn't hear that.
|:-:|
Jonah Whitelock heard the cell door rattle open and sat up slowly. Breakfast had been less than satisfying, but at least there had been plenty of it. He'd choked down the mystery possibly-not-meat and runny eggs – or what he was fairly sure was eggs – and managed to get the toast down, all with the one hand he had left. It had the consistency of glued-together sand, but the small magically-refilling tumbler of water helped in that regard. It didn't help in identification of the meat, which could have once been an underfed turkey but for the tiny spots of green.
He didn't want to think about that, but he was starving. The Pureblood tried not to think about the appropriations committees he'd been a part of that partially defunded the DMLE as he tried to pick those green spots off. The beat-up tray had been shoved to the side as soon as he finished and he tried not to retch.
Wait, was that one spot glowing? And in a steady pattern?
"Good breakfast there, prisoner? Everyone got the same thing and it's better than my wife can do most of the time."
That didn't sound like a sterling reference, said prisoner thought but didn't let pass his lips. He did look up at the other man, who was simply huge.
The Auror stood seven feet tall. He wasn't over-muscled like some Whitelock had seen, but his height and the Auror conditioning program had made the man look like a rock. The uniform robes that the Auror wore hid any body development, but a glance at the neck and hands showed that if a prisoner gave this man any problems, he wouldn't need a wand to snap bones.
"Stand up, prisoner. I wouldn't have answered the question about breakfast either, but we have to take what we can get with what we have under the budget."
Jonah Whitelock had come to that conclusion already.
"We're taking a little walk."
"Er… walk?" That didn't sound too reassuring.
"Don't worry," the huge man rumbled.
That also didn't sound too reassuring and didn't prevent him from starting to do just that. It especially didn't help when he saw the Auror wave his wand in circular motions, with a few twists of his huge wrists, and shackles bound Whitelock's ankles and single wrist. There was a chain that slithered up one leg, around his waist, and along his torso to link to the chains that joined his wrist and the now-formed belly chain from the chain joining his ankles. The jingling sound of the links rattling around his body unnerved him, as it put into his mind the thoughts of a malicious snake waiting to strike. He looked down to see that several links swung free and jerked his eyes back up before seeing if there really were fangs in the last link.
Since his hands were restrained near where his belt would be, Whitelock didn't want to think about the possibilities of where any fangs could bury themselves.
The Auror went on, ignoring the man's sudden paleness of skin.
"You'll be back in your cell by tonight, unless you'd rather spend all day in there?"
Whitelock knew that he wasn't being given a choice.
"Where are we going?" he asked, with some hesitance in his voice.
"Madam Bones wants to see you. However, you're in luck."
"Luck?"
"Since Madam Bones was involved with that little disagreement you had at Hogwarts, she won't be the one asking questions. In fact, you're not seeing her at all. She's got to remain apart from anything to do with you, unless it's an emergency situation, of course."
"That's… that's good. Right?"
He tried to wrap himself in the air of a disinterested pureblood aristocrat, but it wasn't working particularly well.
"Depends on your point of view. Believe me, she wanted to ask the questions whether you wanted to answer them or not. However, we do have to do things by the book and we managed to get somebody else assigned to do the job. The one asking questions has been on medical leave for a while and recently returned, although on light duty for now. Things happen, right?"
Jonah Whitelock was wondering why the man was being so chatty. Weren't Aurors supposed to be taciturn and close-mouthed about what they did on the job?
"I… suppose so."
"So since he can't go out in the field – too senior for that, anyway – he'll be in charge of your interview today and any others for that matter. Should be interesting for all involved, I'd think."
The man's voice was musing, and Whitelock looked up, mentally cursing their height differences.
"Interesting?"
"Well, yeah. Ask questions, get answers. It's amazing the things that you learn when you ask questions. A word of caution, don't make your interviewer mad."
"Why?"
Whitelock knew that he really should shut up, but the burning curiosity to know things he'd been born with was not helping him right now.
"Remember what I said about 'interesting?' Well, make him mad and it would stop being 'interesting' for you. I'm just trying to help you out here."
"What would it be, if not 'interesting?'"
The man's brown eyes looked down at him and the shovel-sized hand on his arm tightened just a big.
"Wellllll… the word 'awful' comes to mind, and frankly that's just too insignificant a word for what I'm trying to express. He trained me, you see, and there's some parts of me that still ache just thinking about it."
The shorter man was quiet.
"You haven't told me who I'm going to see."
"I haven't? Oh, dear me. I'm very sorry. And he was anticipating seeing you, too. How rude of me."
The large Auror didn't sound particularly remorseful, but continued.
"You're going to be see Alastor Moody."
|:-:|
Jack trudged over to the hairy one's cave. Calling it a 'cave' wasn't quite right, since it wasn't made of any kind of stone, but it was the closest word he had in his rapidly-expanding vocabulary. It had been a long day, and some of the reactions to the things that had happened lately had only added to that vocabulary. He was getting very amused at the things some of these younglings said.
How he'd lived his long life without encountering the very useful word 'wanker' was beyond him. Now that he'd found it, well, he was going to make up for lost time when he had to deal with someone, something, or some situation that called for it. Considering some of the wankers he'd found walking around so far, he was going to have plenty of examples.
Come to think about it, there were plenty of wankers in dragon academia, too. Now he had something to call them to their faces that they might not know. That made it even better to him. Considering what that prime example Rayce did with what he called engineering, well, it would fit just fine. In fact, he was looking forward to calling him that. Bloody wanker.
"Jack! Wait for me!"
The call came from his blind side, interrupting his thoughts. He turned his head, grimacing at the crick in his neck and trying not to think about his increasing age. Jack had been putting off going to see Domir about it, but the wee stern lass in charge of this school had noticed. The Hebridean Black had never thought that he would encounter a human that had such an impressive glare. He felt like he was in trouble for something, really. Jack decided that he would go see Domir before he saw her again just to be safe.
He put the thoughts aside as he finally saw who had called his name. It was the three-headed Russian dragon everyone called Pavel.
That in itself confused Jack. How in blazes did those three heads decide what to do and who was in charge?
He put that new thought aside, realizing that he now had a headache.
"Aye, Pavel? What brings ye here?"
"I was wondering if you was going to Hagrid's hut?"
Jack wondered about the singular address. Did he not have three heads that acted independently? His headache increased and he grimaced.
"Aye, but now I'm wondering if I should. I've got a wee bit of a headache."
The three heads stopped and regarded him. For a moment, Jack felt like he was being dissected, with a different part of his body being assigned to a different head on the Zmei.
"Nay moget byt. Well, come with me. I'm sure that between Hagrid and us, we can handle that headache. Domir's got enough on his talons to worry about a mere headache. Simple thing to fix. You'll see – I've got just the idea."
Jack followed, wondering a couple of things. One was about whatever the Zmei was doing and the other was if he was going to regret this.
|:-:|
Some distance away, Snorre was working on things while Tessaies slept. She was very efficient, he saw. There really wasn't much that had to be dealt with, aside from some odds and ends related to her charge. He left that for her, and finished up the few bits that he could do. Procurements, allocations of rations, schedules for the guest lecturers, air patrol schedules for the recently arrived security dragons, and several other things that needed doing even though she was down. That he handled for her.
Snorre looked around, finding the Treaty binder. As he was not up-to-date on what it pertained and Tessaies was snoring peacefully, he took a little while to read it. The administrative dragon committed it to memory, reading it slowly to make sure that he had everything and taking note of the names contained within. He would make time to talk to all of those names while he was here.
There was a folded parchment with handwritten notes tucked into the back cover and Snorre had to squint. He puffed a bit of flame at a fat candle that one of the humans had left and waited for it to settle into a steady burn. The light that it gave helped him to see what he was looking at, and he was glad that the mother dragon was asleep in her nest. Snorre didn't want to admit that he wasn't quite as young as he used to be.
The Ridgeback carefully unfolded the parchment and looked at it. It didn't look to him like it really had anything to do with the Treaty. Just a name, or series of names, actually. Some thing else he didn't recognize, and a town name that he did recognize. He didn't know the name 'Dursley.' Snorre decided to ask Tessaies about this Dursley person tomorrow. It had to be important for her to keep this information in the Treaty binder, so he folded it back up and made sure it was secure where she'd left it.
"Say, what's this?"
There was a curious roll of something tied with a ribbon, next to the Treaty binder. He had to be delicate since the parchment that the humans used was quite flimsy to a dragon, but he was finally able to unroll it to look at it. Snorre put a rock on the top edge of it to hold it down and used his left foretalon to hold the bottom.
A Yule Ball?
"Hmmph," he grunted after looking over it. "That sounds like some of the olden dragon fetes. Bunch of younger females looking pretty or trying to for the younger males that had no clue what they were doing. Been there, done that. I still don't have a clue. What's this 'dancing' thing?"
He squinted at it, thinking about some of the human customs that he'd brushed up on before coming here. There were so many and he wasn't sure he was thinking of the right thing. Was that the one where they ran around without those coverings they called scales or the one where they pretended to be something else in front of a group of others that just watched?
He shook his head. Maybe it was the one where they sat around a fire and roasted meat on sticks. He could get behind that. That sounded pretty interesting, but he wasn't too sure if that was it or not. Besides, even if that happened at a dragon fete, that didn't mean it happened at whatever this Yule Ball was. What a shame. It sounded like a good idea to him.
"What was a Yule supposed to be, anyway?" he mumbled as he scratched an itch behind his ear. Well, he could ask when she woke up. She was out for the count and Snorre suspected Domir had slipped her a stronger dose than he normally would prescribe so she would stay quiet.
|:-:|
"Are you…"
Perreh cut himself off before he could say something that demeaned his position and the image that he tried to uphold. The goblin was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, but hadn't said anything after reading out to the dragon one of the things he'd been carrying in his pack.
"I'm not even here. I'm over there," Steelarse motioned vaguely toward the Dragon's Lectern in the distance, "and the last you knew I was trying to find out if there were any dragons interested in lecturing about accounting. There may be a few visitors other than students here at the next one."
Perreh raised an eyebrow.
"Really. I was. I was told to find out and report back today."
The Ironbelly thought for a moment.
"I think Snorre would be the best one to ask that question, but you'll have to wait for him to finish his work in the Mother Eminence's Quarters. He usually goes to the Lectern to talk about sailing."
This brought the goblin up short and he squinted at the dragon.
"A dragon? Sailing?"
"Well, not so much the actual act of sailing a boat as the singing. He collects all kinds of sea shanties. Listen the next time you see him working on something and you'll hear him humming something. It's probably one of those."
"What is a sea shanty?"
Steelarse didn't sound too ignorant of what it was, but Perreh missed it and answered anyway.
"It's a song."
Perreh's eyes went wide as he made a mental connection to what he'd told Steelarse and he reared back enough to almost trip over his own tail.
"Not another one! What is it about Short-Snouts?"
"Afraid so, and I don't have a clue."
Perreh looked around quickly before asking his next question in a lowered voice.
"Has anyone told Annika about this yet?"
"Not that I know of."
"Good! Let's hope she doesn't find out."
The look on the dragon's face was a mix of relieved and worried. The two looked at each other in agreement before the dragon sighed.
"So this Will was found recently?"
"We've always had it."
The dragon frowned.
"What? Then why wasn't it executed?"
"The person in charge ignored it and made it looked like the Potters died without a will. Due to Ministry rules under treaty, we couldn't reveal that fact or the existence of the will to any wizard or witch."
"Any wizard or witch…" the dragon mused. Steelarse smirked at the tone coming through the translation charm.
"And we adhere to the rules set out in treaty. We have not revealed this knowledge to any wizard or witch not named in the will as beneficiary."
"Witnesses to the will?"
"Only a few, but most of those are incapacitated. When the will was written, it was during a time of war and well… it wasn't easy to get witnesses together suitable to the family and trusted enough to be included anyway."
"What about using goblins? They were part of the process, since you obviously have it in your hands."
"Unfortunately, goblins are not considered suitable to hold the role of 'witness' to an important legal document such as this," Steelarse sneered.
Perreh sighed. What stupidity.
"But… you know the contents anyway. How is that?"
The sneer turned into a grin.
"I just happen to be the dherlec shakhacis for the Potter account."
Perreh choked on his own steam. It took a few minutes of coughing and the goblin dodging dragon smoke and fiery spit before he could gasp, "What?"
"Sure enough."
"Then that means that you have access to just about everything. Has the Account Manager given you any specific instructions?"
"Better. The Account Holder has instructed the Account Manager – within my hearing – to use all means at his disposal to correct this discrepancy."
"You've had a meeting?"
"Aye, and not with just him and just at Gringotts, either. I can't decide who's more frightening, 'Lady Potter' or her mother. I spent some time with them at their home and work to get the lay of the areas just mentioned and overheard some things."
"Things?"
"Did you know that her mother and father have people pay them to drill holes in their teeth and cut them out with sharp blades? Blood apparently doesn't bother them. They have these pointed little things they call needles, which they poke people in the jaws with beforehand. They're sharper than your talons' points. If they can't cut something out with their blades, then they yank it out, roots and all."
Perreh felt a bit queasy.
"Let's skip over that part," he muttered, but Steelarse could hear his voice shake and grinned to himself.
"As you wish. The witnesses were Sirius Black, Frank and Alice Longbottom, and Bruce Williamson."
"I recognize Sirius Black. He's in the castle waiting to be represented by yours truly. Isn't he the young Speaker's godfather?"
"Aye, and thanks to the circumstances, he was unable to bear witness."
"What about the others?"
"The Longbottoms suffered a major magical attack and their bodies live but their minds are snapped. There is no way left to heal them, especially after this long. The last report said that their prognosis to see the middle of next year are little to none."
"Going downhill?"
"Fast. Very fast."
There was a moment of silence, which the dragon broke.
"Who was the last person?"
"That was one of the paralegals in the law office that handled the will, as part of the service provided in drafting the will. The war went badly for him. He was found bitten by a werewolf and infected. He lost his job and any legal standing as a wizard – such as bearing witness."
"What?"
Perreh shook his head. Werewolves didn't bother dragons, since their blood was too different. No dragon suffered from lycanthropy. It was an odd thought. He listened as the goblin continued.
"The Ministry will not accept his testimony for anything now that he is classified as a magical creature. Any contract of any type that he signed as a wizard was rendered void – home, job, Floo… or wills. Whether his will or someone else's."
"...Such as any client wills like the Potters."
"Right. And with no job, such as the law firm, he lost access to the files."
"So he couldn't prove what he had to witness."
"No. It still shows magically, but the Ministry doesn't accept that anymore and works to the laws that it put in place."
"He still lives?"
"We don't know. We don't think so, since his Gringotts account hasn't been touched in over a year and he didn't set up a lifestone before he was bitten. As you may be aware, lycanthropy interferes with the creation of a lifestone thanks to the magical presence of the wolf. Had he done so before becoming infected, we would still be able to tell as his native magic would still have a link. It would have changed a bit, but it would still be valid – at least for our purposes."
Perreh glanced at the will and the signatures at the bottom. They glimmered in the daylight.
"Just as the will still does, listing his imprint. Does that show if he is still alive?"
"No, just that his unique magic was used as a signature to show that he was a witness. We have many wills on file from centuries past that still show a magical signature imprint and those people are long dead. Verifiably so."
"Well, then, forget that idea," Perreh grumped.
"You wanted to call him as a witness?"
"If he could be found, yes, but that doesn't look like it's possible in the next few days."
Steelarse thought about it for a moment, and shook his head.
"No, I don't think so either."
"So no one else could testify about the contents of the will?"
"No, not even Albus Dumbledore."
"So, when he put that boy in that home, he had no knowledge of the contents of the will, you think?"
"He couldn't have, not unless he bribed someone in that office that had access to a copy."
The dragon thought. "That's a possibility. Something to think about."
The goblin arose and stretched a bit.
"Well, that's all I had. I have to go catch Snorre before he leaves. There's still a good deal of parchmentwork waiting for me before I can say the day is done."
So saying, he nodded at the dragon and cut his eyes meaningfully to the pack sitting open on the ground leaning against the rock. Steelarse wandered off, whistling one of the sea shanties a bit off-tune. Perreh grimaced to hear it, but waited impatiently for the goblin to disappear into the distance.
Once Steelarse was far enough away, Perreh grabbed the pack by its strap and took to the air to find a private place away from the translation charm's area of effect. He had a will to look over.
"And I forgot to ask who was the executor, but I can read the will to find out," he mumbled to himself.
It didn't take long for there to be streams of angry fire blasting from the quiet corner of the grounds. In addition to the will, he found that the wily goblin had enclosed a healer's observations of the Potter lad, taken surreptitiously. Even without an in-depth examination, it spoke of many things that goblin magic was able to discern just from looking at him.
He made a note to ask Domir to have a look at the boy. Quietly, of course.
The next thing was a financial report. It wasn't something that Perreh was adept at, since he was a law dragon and not an accountant, but he knew someone that could help. It would be tight but if he had the message sent out now there would be time for her to get here and be working. He knew enough to know he needed to have another set of eyes on this.
He made another note for that and burped as another flame found its way out. He'd been too upset to remember to breathe in completely to regulate his flame chamber.
Perreh made a third note to ask Domir for something for that discomfort, too.
The third item he found was something that he couldn't for the life of himself figure out how the goblins had found. He was looking at the employment file of Vernon Dursley from Grunnings. This contained the salary he collected and all bonuses due to him from the job he did.
Whoever this Vernon Dursley was, he didn't know, but obviously the goblins thought it was important. He looked at the sheet that detailed what this Grunnings was, and noticed the word 'drill.'
"There's that word again. What exactly is a drill?"
Perreh carefully flipped the pages and found something that described a wide variety of drills that this Grunnings produced and what they did, with magical photos. He thought back to what Steelarse had told him the Grangers did with their drills, and hurriedly closed the folder. It sunk down into the ground a bit with the pressure of his paw and a couple of his talons sunk deeper into the dirt.
He tried not to retch and was successful, if barely.
Perreh resolved not to open that section of the files the goblin had sneaked to him unless he absolutely had to. He went back to the financial section and realized that even with his limited understanding, there should have been much more at the bottom of the sheet than there was.
He went back to his note about his accountant acquaintance and underlined it twice before going back to the will.
So Sirius Black was supposed to raise the boy, since he was his godfather and the woman… what was her name… Alice Longbottom was his godmother, but she and her husband was severely injured. Obviously, they were incapable of the job. Why had Black been placed in the prison in the first place?
He went back to the pack and found what he'd originally thought was padding for several vials of something smoky. Those he carefully set aside, knowing that Steelarse wouldn't have included them without good reason and cursing the slick surface of the vials. The padding turned out to be newspapers, but from a variety of dates. Some newer and some older.
This 'Quibbler' one was decidedly odd, but he read them. There were some creatures that Perreh recognized in the feature articles and some that he had no clue about. It took him a bit to read through the theories about the politicians in the Ministry and some of their… proclivities? He felt his eyes crossing as he read the last one and decided that he needed a drink of something before starting the Daily Prophet copies.
His assistant found him clutching his head and moaning two and a half hours later.
"Perreh! What happened? Do I need to get Domir?" The younger Ironbelly was concerned.
"No, Pohl. I just need to take a break from this foolishness."
The assistant looked at the notes and the papers for a moment and grimaced.
"Why are you looking at these? Most are old."
Perreh squinted at Pohl.
"You read newspapers enough to know that?"
"Considering the things you send me out to find out, I have to. I remember things like dates, right there at the top."
Perreh grunted and waved at the things that he wanted Pohl to look into. The younger Ironbelly nodded, accepting the assignments, then peered closer at the will.
"This is really messed up. No nestmother we know would have left things undone like this."
"No, she wouldn't," Perreh sighed. "Something is very wrong here and it's tied to Sirius Black's problems."
"Does the Mother Eminence know about this?"
"Not yet."
"Somebody's got to tell her when she wakes up, I'm sure. I'm too junior for that task for something this important. She's going to be majorly upset when she hears and it needs to come from someone with more standing."
Perreh froze and cursed the fact that the goblin had escaped hours earlier.
|:-:|
The door to the interview room looked like any other door in this place, but without a small window cutout. It did look a bit more sturdy, but Whitelock was past observing other small details by the time he'd gotten to about ten feet of the door. His mind was too preoccupied with what the large Auror had let drop just a moment ago.
Of course, he didn't know which door it was in the hallway. There were other doors, two to a side. The hallway was lit with a few overhead lamps, just sparingly enough that people could see where they walked and not run into the wall. It wasn't bright, like many of the other places one might go in the Ministry, and Jonah Whitelock wondered if that was intentional.
The hand on his arm that guided him now felt like stone. He wasn't going to run anywhere anyway, not with the shackles on his feet. Whitelock watched as the big Auror knocked on one of the doors and opened it after waiting a beat or two. He was led in – swept in, really – and saw that several people were waiting for him in the room.
The room was brighter than the hallway had been, if just a bit. It was enough to make everyone look a bit lined, especially since the linked lumos runes were losing their charge. As a result, there was a subtle flicker that made some motions look a bit stuttered. He noticed that the table was a metal construction that was bolted to the floor, but even with that obvious fixed nature it was quite sturdy.
There was an Auror there that he didn't recognize. A bit younger, with red hair that had already started to thin out. He was fiddling with something with Whitelock recognized after a quick moment as a linked Dictaquill. It sent out whatever was said to another location in addition to what it wrote here. The young Auror finished whatever he was doing and sat back even as his co-worker closed the door.
There was another Auror off to the side, leaning against the wall and watching what was happening in the room. Slim, wiry, and with a look to his eye that Whitelock frankly didn't like. The man looked vicious, like a mongoose with a snake. That didn't make the shackled man feel much better about his situation. Mongoose, as he was already being thought of in the prisoner's mind didn't move a muscle, but regarded him in a flat, unblinking stare that creeped him out.
At the table sat Alastor Moody. The scars on his face stood out in the failing light, and every twist of his gnarled face as he spoke made the scars ripple. The missing chunk of his nose was more noticeable in this room than every time Jonah Whitelock had ever seen the man. The bits of missing hair that the Death Eater had taken for Polyjuice before the Castle had enough of his presence revealed a scalp with its own scars. Normally the hair would have mostly covered those, but now the stark paths those scars traced told Whitelock that this Moody was most likely not going to put up with much.
"Sit down."
Whitelock jumped slightly when the gravelly voice rapped out the command. There was no reaction from the others in the room, but that didn't mean anything. The prisoner sat down in the lone chair and for want of anything else to do, put his elbows up on the table. Moody eyed him for a moment, then grunted something to himself and leaned forward to tap his wand on the chain connecting the wrist shackle. The chain melded itself with a thick iron ring embedded in the table that he hadn't yet seen, trapping Whitelock into his position and keeping him from moving his hand very far.
"What's all this about? As if the terrible food, the awful lodgings I shouldn't have to endure, and the lack of newspapers was bad enough, you've chained me up like an animal! How dare you?"
He took a breath and started to say something else, but Moody interrupted.
"We don't have time for your whining. Dictaquill is running. I am Master Auror Alastor Moody, known as 'Mad-Eye,' Badge number 322, Department of Magical Law Enforcement. With me is…"
The wiry Auror spoke up.
"Senior Auror Greyson Carter. Badge number 1244."
"Auror Richard Dawson. Badge number 1932."
That was the Auror handling the Dictaquill, who was watching as it wrote and made minor adjustments. Moody waited for them to complete their self-identifications and continued.
"The time is thirty-two minutes past eleven o'clock AM, 2 December, 1994. Quill, confirm date and time."
The quill jumped up and wiggled before writing out the date and time.
"I am interviewing Mister Jonah Elias Whitelock about events surrounding a magical attack upon draconic guests at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on 1 December, 1994 at six forty-five PM, in the evening. Mister Whitelock, do you understand that this interview is being recorded?"
Whitelock nodded.
"I need a verbal answer."
"Uh, yes. I do." It was sullen, but clearly spoken.
"Good. Listen up. I have questions. You have answers. I will have answers. If I don't like the answers, you won't like the results."
"But that's… I'm a pureblood!"
Moody grinned, the flicker in the room making his teeth look practically vampirish somehow.
"And? Doesn't matter, in your case. You attacked beings that have diplomatic standing on top of Ministry personnel."
"Beings? Diplomatic?"
Whitelock looked confused, so Moody helpfully explained.
"Dragons, Whitelock. Normally, dragons don't carry diplomatic status, but these dragons… since they're at Hogwarts and the Dragon Quarters have activated under treaty effects, by law and magic they're considered diplomats."
"But that's…"
"...the way it is. Now I get to ask questions, with Veritaserum. All thanks to that diplomatic status."
The prisoner was outraged.
"No! I am a pureblood and exempt from Veritaserum questioning!"
"Sure you are… if you hadn't attacked several diplomats. Hungarian, Chinese, Swedish, and Welsh diplomats. All of whom are here in support, either singularly or together, of the Boy-Who-Lived."
"I refuse. And I don't believe you."
Whitelock clamped his jaw shut. Moody raised an eyebrow.
"Don't believe me, you say?"
Whitelock shook his head.
"Don't think I could induce you to take the Veritaserum?"
Whitelock again shook his head, and Moody shrugged.
"Have it your way, then. I'd hate to tell the dragons you're not cooperating."
Before Whitelock could wonder about what he meant by that, Moody slammed the clawed foot of his wooden leg into the instep of the foot closest to him just below the hinge of the ankle shackle, then kicked the bent knee of the opposite leg. Whitelock screamed in pain, and Carter dropped the Veritaserum into the open mouth under the tongue. It absorbed into the tissues of Whitelock's mouth almost instantly.
Carter moved back to the wall as Moody said to the quill, "Veritaserum administered at thirty-four minutes past eleven o'clock. Interviewee is displaying classical signs of successful dosing."
He waited for a moment until the man's eyes clouded a bit.
"What's your name?"
"Jonah Elias Whitelock."
"And what do you do?"
"I'm trained in the law, but I spend more time as a politician instead of a barrister or solicitor."
The Aurors rolled their eyes at each other.
"Why were you at Hogwarts at the time of the attack?"
There was an obvious attempt to evade the question, but the dose had too firmly settled.
"I was there to kill the dragons and take Harry Potter hostage."
"Were you alone in that attempt?"
"No."
"Who else was there?"
"There were several others of a like mind and temperament, that was to assist me in killing the dragons. We had special weapons that was supposed to destroy them."
Another question revealed the names and locations and Carter passed a note to Moody, who nodded and passed the note back to him.
"Where there any Ministry personnel involved that were or were not at the scene of this attack?"
"Tim MacDonald. Raya West. Dolores Umbridge."
The Aurors managed not to react to the last name. Moody had the best poker face of the group. He continued the questions, switching subjects to throw Whitelock off. Even under Veritaserum, there could be resistance.
"Was there a specific reason the dragons were to be attacked and what were you to receive in return?"
"The dragons are beasts and shouldn't be treated as intelligent pets. They should be put down and harvested for their parts. I have a controlling interest in a company that specializes in that, also that wasn't the reason."
Moody eyed the sweat starting to pop up on the man's head.
"What was the reason?"
"The agreement was to deal with the dragons in return for preferential prices on various Whitelock family enterprises."
Moody was unamused, but didn't show it.
"Like what?"
"Whitelock construction companies took Ministry payments to build fictitious schools and took Ministry money for legal advice for other projects to be built instead of holding bids."
"Who was your contact?"
"Tim MacDonald, in General Accounting."
"Not Umbridge?"
"No."
"What was MacDonald's role?"
"We needed plausible access to Hogwarts, so I set up fake schools with a name, location, staff bank accounts, and everything and registered them with an ICW contact that I had. He works with a cousin on my mother's side. With their help with creative documentation, I was able to set it up."
"Who's the cousin?"
"Connor Burton."
There was a pause as the wiry Auror wrote that down in his notepad.
"What were the schools' purpose? Just access to Hogwarts?"
The sweat got a little thicker.
"No, I used it to get funding from the Department for Magical Education, too, with people looking out for that and acting in that role. They were supposedly observers for educational practices for a couple of newly-established schools, but they really were cell leaders. They were garrisoned deep in the Forbidden Forest away from Hagrid's usual runs."
"Where?"
That answer was given, and Moody decided to be quiet for a while until the sweat dried a bit. He shot a look at Carter, who made another note to check that area.
"Who is Raya West?"
"One of the cell leaders."
"What else were you to get for carrying out this attack?"
"Preferential treatment on certain contracts to generate revenue to be laundered by Whitelock family lawyers. That was to be used for black projects that the Ministry as a whole doesn't know about."
"Who oversaw that?"
There was a distinct struggle with the answer, but the chains restricted the movement of the prisoner. Finally, he sighed out his answer, having exhausted himself somewhat.
"Dolores Umbridge."
There was a pause as Moody waited for the junior Auror to check the Dictaquill's operation. He wanted to make sure that the quill had recorded that.
"And what is Umbridge overseeing?"
"I don't know. She never mentioned anything like that in my presence as a security measure."
"Hmph. Constant Vigilance," Moody muttered, but Whitelock heard and answered anyway.
"Yes. She wants to remove Harry Potter in any way possible, I think. If she can use the dragons to do it, she can take control of Hogwarts by claiming Dumbledore makes criminally bad decisions."
"How much money is laundered?"
"Six digit figures. I don't remember the exact amount. I oversaw all the Whitelock family things, but I don't remember all the details."
"What were the weapons and where did you get them?"
They could see that the Veritaserum was starting to work through Whitelock's body and start to lose effect, so there were only a few other questions that could be asked. Whitelock answered, not knowing what the three Aurors were thinking.
"The weapons were Dwarven thaumaturgic foci, drawing on the user's magic and supplemented by the leylines that Hogwarts had been built upon. I don't know why the dragons didn't explode, since I saw some were hit. They were supposed to also activate a cursed potion that I gave everyone without their knowledge, but it didn't happen."
"How do you know?"
"They didn't fall over, foaming at the mouth and dying."
There was another moment of silent, broken by a couple of coughs from the prisoner. Moody knew he had to hurry.
"Was Umbridge in overall charge?"
"Yes, but I didn't have direct access."
Carter made a note of that for later follow-up.
"Where did you get the people in your action cells?"
"They're the people I dosed that was supposed to die. I got them from want ads in the Daily Prophet, word-of-mouth, and some that worked in the Ministry that was unsatisfied with the way things were going."
Moody gauged the prisoner's level of influence under the Veritaserum, and judged that questioning was over.
"Hmmph. There's more that I want to ask – and will, later – but I think you've had enough. We have you for quite a bit as it is. Administer the antidote."
This was done quickly, and Whitelock sat blinking as Moody closed out the interview.
"Interview of Jonah Elias Whitelock concluded at forty-eight minutes after noon, 2 December 1994. Master Auror Alastor Moody, conducting. End interview."
The quill quivered for a moment, placing a dot-dot-dot at the end of the parchment.
"Get him back to his cell and fed. I've got to get this upstairs."
As the man was lead out of the room to be put back in his cell with steps shuffling from the aftereffects of the Veritaserum, Moody grunted to himself.
"Looks like there's going to be a lot ducking when the shite starts flying."
Madam Bones was not going to be amused.
|:-:|
Jack woke up to the sound of Hagrid whistling as he got ready for his day. The sun was just under the mountains and would peek over the tops in just a few minutes, if the look of the clouds meant anything. His head felt like a rock had been pulverized inside while overheated and his blood was steaming over the pieces in pulses that slammed against the walls of his cranium. He groaned to himself.
Pavel was still snoring away, his talons still on a barrel of Hagrid's special blend. Jack could hear the diminished contents sloshing away as the other dragon snored in three-part harmony.
That reminded him of the events of last night. They had gotten rid of the headache by drinking it away. Hagrid had made some suggestions about the work-related issues that Jack had to deal with here at Hogwarts, which had made sense, and they had started toasting some of the odd things that happened over the years. There was a lot of laughter.
That was the last thing that the Hebridean Black remembered.
Jack looked at the other dragon, who slumbered peacefully a short distance away. His mouth was dry.
"Hagrid?" he finally managed to say. His mouth felt like he'd flamed a forest to ashes and all of them was coating his tongue.
"Aye?"
"What happened?"
The half-giant chuckled to himself.
"You had a bit much to drink."
"You don't say…" the dragon mumbled to himself. Hagrid went on as he pointed toward the mountains.
"It's a nice morning, but yeh'd be wise not to look that way until the sun comes up a bit."
Jack wondered why, as Hagrid excused himself to get to work. He looked up over the mountains just as the sun came up. The morning's light stabbed into his lone eyeball and he moaned loud enough to wake up Pavel.
"Huh- whuzzat? Jack? You okay?"
"Nay, tha thu a 'gealltainn bastannd Ruiseanach!"
The Zmei looked at how the Black was holding his paw over his good eye and moaning.
"Huh… I thought we got rid of that headache last night."
He tipped the barrel toward his friend.
"Want more? I think it'll help. I mean, you do seem to have another headache."
Thankfully for the ears of any of the younger students that might be awake at this early hour, Jack had leaned just outside the translation charm's area of effect. From the amount and ferocity of hisses coming from him, it wasn't suitable for their ears.
Pavel shrugged and cuddled the barrel closer, unconcerned. He was faster than the old fart any day of the week and in any condition. One of the secondary heads was completely silent and the other was just looking around, possibly for more barrels.
"Oh well, more for me."
He got up and staggered off more or less in a straight line, leaving the hungover dragon to bemoan the worse headache he'd ever had.
Author Notes:
I apologize for the lead times between chapters. I've been suffering from the heat and humidity here at home and it has really knocked me for a loop. I get too hot and I can't think straight and things hurt. Yay for musculoskeletal problems. It's going to be a bad summer, is all I'm going to say.
Current stats at time of posting, if you happen to be interested: FFN – 1,151 followers and 724 favorites, while AO3 has 553 kudos and 152 bookmarks. The stats are not precisely analogous, of course, but they give the reader and myself some idea of the popularity of this story. For that, I say "thank you."
I have been debating with myself about putting this and my other stories on other fanfiction sites in addition to FFN and AO3, but I have not come to any real conclusions. I defer to those who may read more fanfictions than I do to suggest other sites where usability, popularity, and so on are concerned.
My FFN concerns have to do with the Captcha interactions and huuuuuge ads, and while that first part might not apply to someone reading the stories while in a web browser and not accessing the pages in quick sequential order as with a downloader, not everyone fits that profile. I don't, and I prefer to download my favorites to read offline in something that isn't so stark to my eyes. The only exception is if I'm waiting in a doctor's office or something and I catch up on a currently-reading story on mobile.
I understand about deflecting DDOS attacks, but after a certain point, it becomes unsustainable. At that point, the DDOS attack purposes win anyway. The joy of fanfiction is tarnished a bit, thanks to the actions that led up to this response.
