Last time...

"Is it weird that he looks like David Tennant?" Tony asks, absentmindedly.

"I don't know who that is, Tony." Hera pointed out, and he looked askance.

"But he's you're countryman!" Tony insisted, as if insulted.

"We don't all know each other." She snorted. "Is he supposed to be famous?"

"Is he supposed to be famous, she asks." Tony mumbled, in mock offense. "We are watching so much BBC later."

"Come along, Potter." Professor McGonagall nudged, helping her up. "Let's get you to the hospital wing for real this time."

"No, Minerva. She needs to understand what's happened." Dumbledore insisted, even as he opened the trunk. "Only with understanding can there be acceptance, and with acceptance recovery."

"Not that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do, Professor, but I'm not going to understand anything as I am." Hera replied, leaning slightly into the 'Get Help' persona, though not much of that was pretend anymore. "Understanding can come after sleep, and enough food to feed an army…and maybe some pumpkin juice, and some chocolate. Is it possible to eat while I'm sleeping? That would be great. Someone should get to work on that. Tony, you're an inventor, right? Might want to get started."

Chapter 37

"What on earth could they be arguing about now?"

"They're going to wake her at this rate."

"That ship's sailed already, I'm afraid." Hera interjected with a groan as she slowly sits up, shocking the others around her. "How long have I been out?"

"Not nearly long enough, Potter, eat this." Professor Snape answered, handing her a bit of chocolate. She sniffed at it, the memory of 'Moody' drugging her too clear in her mind to push away just yet, before nibbling at it. "If you are ready, Fudge would like to question you. Your brother and myself will stay by you, should you need us, along with Madam Pomfrey."

"What happened to impostor Moody?" Hera asked, just as Minister Fudge came storming into the room. He was followed by Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall.

What followed was a careful interrogation. Minister Fudge had seen the 'memory', and believed it's validity as Hera guessed that he would. Dumbledore was smarter, trying to get her to confess to what really happened, but she'd expected that too. She'd been hoping that he would see the wisdom of her decision, and decide to follow it. That wasn't what he did, instead choosing to argue with Fudge about Voldemort's return.

Hera insisted she only saw masks and robes, Pettigrew mumbling fanatically. She always had a terrible reaction to portkeys. It was no wonder Pettigrew got the drop on her using one. It was well known by now what they did to her. In the end, Fudge believed her, but he still went to bat against Dumbledore, who was trying desperately to get Fudge to believe that Voldemort had returned. She'd been trying to avoid that, but it seemed the two were set to go against each other regardless.

"We were trying not to cause a panic." Fudge admitted, somewhat flustered, when Hera asked him again why they'd not told the public about Pettigrew. "With all the fuss over Sirius Black, well…we didn't want to cause a panic."

"And the imposter Moody?" Hera inquired. "What happened to him?"

Cue more arguing. She wishes she hadn't asked.

...

"Hera!" Cedric shouted, bursting into the infirmary.

"Oh dear." Hera muttered, flushing in embarrassment.

"What is it with everyone in the Wizarding World looking like they're movie stars?" She hears Tony asking under his breath. "He looks like he just stepped off a fucking Runway, and I swear your Professor Snape looks like Alan Rickman. Even Professor McGonagall over there looks like Margaret Natalie Smith!"

"I don't know who those people are, Tony." She reminded him.

"I've decided your godfather looks like Gary Oldman; which is cool as shit, by the way." Tony continued, seemingly ignoring her comment for the moment. "I'll work out who Lupin looks like later, but I know I've seen him somewhere; Broadway, probably. Did I tell you I tried to hit on Sirius in a bar when I first met him?"

"Tony!" She groaned, and by this point Cedric had made it to them.

"Are you alright? What happened?" Cedric asked, filled with concern. "If I had known the portkey lead to somewhere other than the front of the maze, I would never have tricked you into grabbing the trophy! When I got out of there, people were shouting, and the Aurors were sweeping the place. It's a madhouse!"

"If you hadn't tricked me, you'd have just ended up dead in a graveyard, Cedric, so we're good." Hera pointed out. "I mean, you saw that guy I brought back, right? That rat man Pettigrew?"

"You tricked her into grabbing the trophy?" Fudge asked, looking like he'd sucked on a lemon.

"Yeah." Cedric nodded. "Seemed only fair. She did rescue me from that Acromantula just before we saw the trophy, after all. Kind of regretting that now that I know it took her to some graveyard, and that rat man. What did he even want with you anyway, Hera?"

"I'll tell you later." Hera sighed quietly. "There's an investigation. It's a whole thing."

"Don't worry about it, Miss Potter." Dumbledore insisted genially. "I'll be making an announcement about it at the Leaving Feast."

"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Professor." Hera grimaced.

"Listen to the girl, Albus! All this Nonsense about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named needs to stop." Fudge demanded, and then sort of waffled. "He…He can't be back, Albus…He just can't…"

"He isn't!" Hera insisted, exasperated, before taking pity on the man. "Minister, I think the Headmaster just wants you to prepare, because if one man was willing to do what Pettigrew did tonight, there's bound to be someone else who will try something similar. He isn't back,…but that doesn't mean he won't ever be, that there isn't magic foul enough to make that possible."

"What…What are you saying?" Fudge asked, pleadingly. "That you think…you think someone will manage to successfully bring him back?!"

"…Yes." Hera admitted, shrinking in on herself, hoping that he will see a scared little girl where there wasn't one. "I might be wrong, Minister, and I hope I am, but…I've read the trial transcripts of the Death Eaters that were put away. All of them insisted that their Dark Lord had ways of returning, and even if they are just the ravings of madmen, there are enough of them that it will cause problems if we don't take the threat they present seriously. It's said that there's no safer place than Hogwarts, and yet one of those madmen was able to kidnap me away from here in the hopes they could bring him back. That's threat enough to listen to, isn't it?"

"I understand what you're saying…" Fudge trembled, looking at her with sympathy, before drawing himself up a little. What a hell of a time for the man to grow a spine, Hera can't help but think. ", but I can't let Albus go on as he is. He's going to cause a panic, and I won't have it!"

and with that, the man stalked out of the room.

"Hera, is what he's saying true?" Cedric asked quietly. "I know he doesn't want to believe it, but did You-Know-Who really come back?"

"He did, but I was able to reverse it, so he's not now." Hera sighed. "He'll work out how to come back again sooner or later, and with my luck it will be sooner. That being said, I want you to quietly talk to those you know about updating the wards on their homes, wartime wards if they can manage it. Tell them the portkey incident made you paranoid or something. Get them to talk to their friends and families. If the Girl-Who-Lived can be taken from the safest place in all of Wizarding Britain with a simple portkey, we've got problems."

He nodded in understanding, and left the infirmary.

"Headmaster, I could have talked him into everything you wanted him to do, if you hadn't been so bloody bullheaded about it." Hera commented dryly, turning to Dumbledore.

"Miss Potter!" Professor McGonagall scolded softly.

"It needed to be said." Hera shrugged at her, unrepentant, before turning back to Dumbledore. "You saw that your approach wasn't working. Mine was, at least until you butted in."

"You would have had him believe a lie." Dumbledore answered in stern disapproval.

"I would have coaxed him towards the truth." Hera corrected, surprising those around her. "By the time I was done, he would have thought all those security measures you'd wanted were his idea, but you ruined any chance of that succeeding by digging your heels in as you did, and not yielding when you should have, and all because you wanted him to acknowledge that you were right and he was wrong. That man is a toddler with a hammer, and a toddler with a hammer can still cause damage. So I hope you're prepared for whatever stunt he's going to pull to 'deal' with you, because I'm certainly not going to help you."

...

Dumbledore sighed and nodded, turning to leave, but before he could take more than a few steps, Hera stopped him.

"Where are the bones, Professor?"

"What?" He asked, uncertain, as he turned back around.

"Where are the bones, Professor?" She repeated, unsettling him.

"I have no idea what you-"

"Don't think you can play me for a fool, Headmaster." The girl snorted, before glaring at him. "I can not be the only one you have treated this way, to whom you have allowed things to happen. If I dig deep enough, I imagine I'll find others you've used and manipulated in a similar manner over the years. How many others have you tried to manipulated into doing what you wanted? How many others have had home lives like mine that you ignored when they begged you for help? How much of it was for the 'Greater Good'? I will ask you again. Where are the bones, Professor?"

He paled, as he observed the girl in front of him. Albus considered himself a powerful wizard, knew it to be true. He'd defeated Grindelwald, though it had cost him dearly. He knew that Voldemort feared him even now, and yet…The girl before him now is nothing but a waif of a being; wounded, shaking, injured as she is, and yet…She stares him down with a determination that is absolute, her eyes hinting at the red he'd seen in them previously, and the power he could feel from her gives him pause. The prophecy stated that the one born to defeat the Dark Lord would have powers he knew not, but it said nothing about whether or not they would be for good or evil.

"Either you tell me, or I go looking; and Professor, I should warn you." Hera declared as her eyes narrowed at him. "If I have to go looking, I will use everything I find to destroy you."

"Miss Potter!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed in alarm, only to be quelled by the glare sent her way.

"Don't! Don't you dare enable him! He has endangered students, most of them your students, and he deserves everything that's going to happen to him." Hera warned, before turning her attention back to the Headmaster. "I saw what he became, you know, and I have to wonder just how much of a hand you had in that. Was he like me? Did he also beg to be taken away from people that refused to love him? Did you sacrifice him for your 'Greater Good'? If I go looking, what will I find, Headmaster? Where are the bones? Are his among them? Tell me, and I will show you mercy. Don't, and I will slowly destroy everything that you are."

Albus swallowed nervously, and turned to leave. Her threat was real, he could feel it in the power around her. He knew that she would dismantle everything that he had built if he left her to her own devices, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to admit his own faults. He'd worked too hard to make up for them, that acknowledging them now felt like failure, and that…that he couldn't accept. Her voice followed after him, sending chills down his spine.

"…So be it…"