Author's Note:
Life's a hassle and that's nothing new. Thanks for all the reviews, though. It does help me pull through.
'-
52 The Interview
Situations with uncertain outcomes. Hermione is somewhere else. Tom Riddle rolls the dice. Hermione may be caged, but she is not helpless nor desperate. The heroine schemes with the extra time she has. An unexpected fragment of a memory surfaces.
'-
The Auror had a wide smile. It was not one that she trusted easily as his eyes had the cagey look of the hunted.
"And you are…?" Hermione asked.
"Orestes Blakeshaw, Auror. You must be Hermione Curie." He said.
"Yes, that would be me."
The Ravenclaw could see his momentary surprise when he saw that she hadn't come alone. Behind his bland smile, Tom had quickly introduced himself as well, oblivious to the side-glance the Auror gave him.
"Miss Curie, I have a few questions about Hogsmeade, shouldn't take too long."
"Certainly." She nodded.
"You have received permission from the headmaster, then?" Tom cut in before she could say anything else.
"The DMLE will coordinate with the headmaster's office." Blakeshaw said. "If Miss Curie will follow me…"
That wasn't an outright yes, Hermione sharply noted, but she didn't let her expression change. It was why she made no comment when Tom kept abreast of her steps.
"Mr. Riddle, we'll contact you later for your interview." The Auror said.
"I'll be waiting for it."
"Right now, we only need to confirm some details with Miss Curie."
Tom nodded. "Of course. Which classroom would you be using for the interview? I'm sure I can show you the way."
Subtly or not, he was giving the Auror a hint that he was not about to be sent away that easily.
"This may come as a surprise to you, but I was a Hogwarts student too, once." The Auror remarked coolly.
"Ah, then this visit must've brought many good memories back." The Slytherin replied.
When Auror Blakeshaw turned towards them, his imitation of friendliness was as convincing as a plate of rotting leftovers and just as palatable. Hermione stood up straighter because she refused to be intimidated. Tom hardly even blinked.
"You might say that." He clasped his hands together for a moment. "As pleasant as this could be, we have places to go to. Mr. Riddle."
He strode away, this time with a firm hand on her upper arm that was less of a suggestion and more of a nonverbal order. Hermione went because she didn't see anything too bad with it—she was innocent of any crime and this will not take long. What she hadn't expected was for Tom to narrow his eyes and take a step was faster and farther than one would expect casually, oh-so-accidentally getting in the Auror's way.
"And where would you be going, Mr. Blakeshaw?"
"Official Auror business, which has nothing to do with you, boy."
The Auror sidestepped him with Hermione pulled alongside merely because she wasn't resisting.
"We'll be going to the DMLE, then?" She asked. Tom wasn't the only one curious.
"Yes." The slight curl of his lips turned his smile into a smirk, and for all of Hermione's trust in the DMLE (well, Harry), a part of her tensed.
"Why? Is it about the Hogsmeade attack?"
He did not answer but for a glance, yet she could see that her question was close.
"I'll be fine, Tom."
A sceptical glance told her of his opinion. She had to admit, she'd barely convinced herself, much less someone with a keener ear like him.
"I'll see you off to the Headmaster's office, then, Mr. Blakeshaw." Tom said instead.
"My pleasure."
The twitch of Tom's jaw muscle was visible from where she stood, as clear as a clenched fist in anyone else, but they walked on without a pause. Tom stepped aside for the Auror at the gargoyle to the headmaster's office politely – if he'd expected the Blakeshaw to knock and wait for Dippet's permission to go up, that did not happen.
"Praeparationem."
The gargoyle stepped aside. From the flash of incredulity that she saw from a corner of her eyes, she knew Tom was cursing Dippet in his mind for telling the password to the Auror. It might be slightly disloyal of her to the Auror force, to Harry and Ron, but she found herself wondering about the wisdom of the same thing—Dippet really needed to distrust people more. Up they went before finally reaching the headmaster's office.
The office was unexpectedly empty. It was a slight shock to Hermione to see the place not only neat and tidy, but with scarce any personal touches. The portraits of various headmaster and headmistresses were mostly asleep.
Auror Blakeshaw's hand pulled Hermione's arm towards the fireplace.
"I'll see you soon, Mr. Riddle."
There was a dark undercurrent to the Auror's promise.
"I'll hold you to that."
Tom's politeness was as thin as ice sheets cracking underfoot right before the splash, his voice had an Arctic bite to it even as he smiled.
Blakeshaw threw the floo powder into the fire and pushed Hermione ahead of him.
'-
The blaze of green fizzled down to something smaller before the colouring faded away entirely into more mundane fire of oranges and yellows; the figure of the Auror and Hermione had already been gone even before the flame lost its green hue. That was not the reason he was still here.
Focusing on it helped him even his breathing back.
Tom Riddle had never been so tempted to Crucio someone in public as Auror Blakeshaw. He could ignore the incivility, for it was the simple hallmark of the ignorant and stupid. No. What he could not ignore was the wizard's presumption that he could easily take something that belonged to Tom without so much as a by-your-leave.
Hermione was his, and he was determined to make Blakeshaw pay.
The Ravenclaw witch may not seem to be too concerned by the sudden 'request' at all but Tom chalked it up to her naïveté. For all her wariness of him, she still gave the authorities a little too much trust. The same could be said of the headmaster, he dryly mused. If Dippet had been an underling of his, he would've been thrashing in pain on the floor right now, bright red blood pooling on the floor from his mouth from a bitten tongue. He had one job, Tom thought, as frustration began to seep back into his mind: to uphold Hogwarts' integrity against internal and external disturbances and apparently, he couldn't even manage that.
(Ever since he practised the charm to connect severed tongue back to its base, he didn't bother to lock the tongue of anyone's mouth with a spell before applying the maximum burn of a full-body Cruciatus. It was a convenient additional pain to add. Not that he used it often since most people wasn't worth the added bother of reconnecting their tongues.)
Tom strode down the stairs, wand firmly in his hand.
It was not a simple matter of Hermione being a witness. If that was the case, they could've just interviewed her here, using one of Hogwarts' empty classrooms. It would suffice to have a professor inform Hermione that some Aurors had some questions they needed to ask to her.
The way Hermione had been called away raised his hackles.
It's because she's an orphan, isn't it?
He held no illusions. If either he or Hermione had been from an old wizarding house, no Auror would even dare to try talking to them in relation to a case without explicit approval from their family. Some well-dressed gentlemen congregating on the pavement on hot summer nights were merely 'chatting', even when the pub was nearby and more than half of them were drunk. Several day labourers doing the same was going to get a visit from a passing policeman. Someone might have even gone to a police box and reported them sooner if they were 'rowdy' (talking too loudly) and were Irish. Another scene he remembered were parents immediately pulling their children away from other kids with industrial school uniforms, even when said kids was doing nothing more than playing hopscotch.
He'd know. He'd seen similar events play out as he was going on an errand or another for Mrs. Cole.
He would not trust the Aurors with his snake, much less with Hermione.
At one point, Tom had to pause and lean back against the nearest wall. He closed his eyes as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. The faint tingling at his fingertips told him that he was a blink away from a wandless Cruciatus. The younger students he'd passed had immediately hugged the opposite wall, and even the older ones took a couple of steps back.
'Social' was the last word anyone would describe him right now and it was not a state he could leave alone. He was planning to persuade someone and that required him being on his best appearance. This was why he was methodically slowing his breathing down to normalise his heartbeat (it had been hammering in his ears for a while).
The thought of Slughorn came and went in a flash, earning only an internal scoff from him. As useful as his Head of House could be, he also knew too well that the older wizard did not like conflict of any form. He was the last person Tom would go to if he needed a decisive strike. The clock was ticking. Every minute lost was every minute that she was pulled farther from his reach.
No, it had to be someone else.
As Tom ran through myriad possibilities and quickly discard the more outlandish ones, he started walking. The one he had in mind right now was a gamble.
Audentes Fortuna iuvat.
Then again, a peaceful life would bore him to death. Tom picked up his pace, the prospect of a challenge caused a smirk to illuminate his face, even if only for a fleeting moment. Well, why not?
'-
When he swung the door open, the student on the other side was certainly the last person he imagined would knock on his doors. He sighed inwardly. And here he was expecting a relaxing Saturday filled with reading the draft of a paper that Agnethe Tordenfeldt sent him, perhaps with the added bonus of a little experimentation to go with it.
"Mr. Riddle, is there something I can help you with?"
"Yes, there is, Professor."
Tom Riddle looked up. Unusually enough, his expression did not have the charming smile that made people gave him their favour so easily, one that actually raised his guard most of the time. He blinked and held back the urge to clean his glasses to ensure he wasn't seeing things.
"I know you don't like me," The Slytherin raised a hand to forestall further words. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that I know you think well of Hermione, since she's the one that needs your help right now and I'd rather not waste time."
"Really?"
Tom inhaled sharply. "An Auror took her out of Hogwarts."
He remembered several interviews he had after that fateful Hogsmeade weekend with Aurors trying to record all the pertinent facts and details from practically everyone involved.
"It's probably only routine work, Mr. Riddle."
"Technically, no one can take a minor from Hogwarts without permission from one of the professors. This is an abnormality." The student pointed out.
Knowing that no one can enter Hogwarts without either passing the front gates or through several highly regulated spots, he wasn't concerned. He couldn't imagine a single wizard to be crazy enough to frontally assault Hogwarts in broad daylight, and no teacher worth their salt would carelessly allow unknown people through their fireplace.
"And where exactly did they leave Hogwarts from?" He stepped inside into his quarters as it seemed that their conversation would last for a while. Tom followed suit.
"…the fireplace at the headmaster's office." The admission was grudging.
"Then the headmaster knows exactly what's going on," was his answer to the prefect.
It felt slightly surreal that he even had the opportunity to assure the usually calm and collected fifth-year. He made his way to the comfortable couches, gesturing to the prefect to take a seat. Even with what he knew of Tom, the sardonic chuckle still surprised him a little. It wasn't the behaviour of the dependable and sympathetic prefect the Slytherin wanted people to know him to be.
"Professor Dumbledore, I'll be frank with you. With all due respect, I still wouldn't trust Headmaster to carry 200 galleons from one end of Knockturn Alley to the other without losing at least half of it."
"Mr. Riddle," Dumbledore warned, but Tom was not concerned in the least.
The Transfigurations Professor could easily recognise the cold gleam in his eyes to be the same one that he had once spied in Wool's Orphanage. They belonged to a young boy who had strangled his friend's rabbit with his bare hands and hung it from the rafters while humming a ditty. The same boy had then walked out and easily chatted with said friend as if he hadn't done anything wrong.
"You do know that she's a muggleborn orphan, don't you?" Riddle's tone was unexpectedly biting.
"I don't see how that has anything to do with—"
"Professor, the Prophet had recently insinuated that muggleborns are using muggle catspaw to attack Hogsmeade. If you think that Hermione is actually safe in the hands of the DMLE thugs—"
He cut himself off before Albus could even do so, the professor taken aback by the actual disgust and distrust he'd shown of the Aurors to actually say anything immediately. Tom Riddle had always excelled at demonstrating how perfectly able he was in following and obeying authority figures, that he was not only intelligent but also dependable.
To see him break away from that…
"Why didn't you ask Professor Slughorn's help?"
The question flowed from his tongue without a thought, but as blunt as it was, Dumbledore didn't regret it. It was highly curious. Now that he'd begun with the question, he might as well finish it.
"He thinks the world of you. There is nothing he wouldn't have done as the Head of your House." Albus added.
Whatever reaction he had expected, the cynical huff wasn't among them.
"Professor Slughorn will be convinced that this is all just a grand misunderstanding. That if we speak nicely and patiently with the authorities involve, we could somehow straighten everything out. Everyone is suddenly jolly good friends with everyone else. As if any harm and hurt suffered can be undone easily with a few mild words and concessions."
His smile was just as cutting as his words and as strange to Dumbledore.
"There. Are you going to try to convince me otherwise, Professor? Tell me that I've been unkind to my own Head of House?"
Tom's tone was belligerent, almost a challenge towards him to rebuke the student.
It was too obvious a bait that the Transfigurations Master didn't take it. Albus rubbed his auburn beard instead, further watching this creature who had worn the skin of a responsible leader and student very well. This was an unexpected opportunity—in their years of knowing each other formally (guardedly) it was the first time that Tom Riddle had loosened the mask of humanity he'd always wore around other people. If Albus' nonchalance caused the Slytherin student to narrow his eyes in wariness, Albus himself was not bothered in the least.
This time, the transfigurations professor faced the human-shaped monster instead of the disguise. He didn't know when he'd have the same opportunity again—he could not let it slip away so easily.
"You could be a bit nicer to Horace, you know." Albus said in mild rebuke.
"Technically, I could. Yet technically, all this doesn't need to happen at all either."
He shrugged and left it at that without feeling the urge to explain further or even the slightest case of guilt.
Albus Dumbledore tilted his head a little. It was odd—this was the first time he did not think that Tom was coldly unaffected from the warmth of the human interaction around him, or that the only emotion he knew very well was his own wrath.
Oh, there was still wrath in the young wizard's eyes, of course, and in such volume and strength that his dark blue eyes were windows to a raging storm. Pity the person who had to cross him right now. Yet tucked in the corner of that was a fragment of actual worry. Now, he could not look at Tom in the same cautious way he always did before, to his own irritation.
"Hmmm," Albus murmured.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I don't always wake easily in the mornings during the weekend, Mr. Riddle. Pay the nattering of an old wizard no mind. I am certain I'd make better sense after fortifying myself with good tea." His answer was friendly as he rose up to put the kettle on.
Tom had too good a control over his expression or it to be easily readable, but Albus didn't miss the annoyed twitch of his eyebrow even as gave a polite nod in return.
Any actual concern he has might only be an afterthought, of course, Albus reminded himself. It was the same way that a dark wizard who had just butchered and sacrificed a whole family in a blood magic ritual might still take pity on a litter of orphaned kittens that he picked all of them up on the way home to raise and take care.
It shouldn't surprise him, really, as people are almost never so absolutely good or evil. Yet the fact that it did was a clue that his own character sketch of young Mr. Riddle was flawed.
Hermione Curie. It all comes down to Hermione again, isn't it? Why is she even involved with him? Why is he even involved with her?
He took two mismatched mugs, one cheerfully orange and the other luminescent blue-green and began to make tea.
She is neither shallow nor insecure enough to desperately wish for his interest and favour to vindicate her self-worth. If it was merely studying partners, she can easily find five others or so that together can assist her better than Tom can as an individual. If he merely wishes to have Hermione present once more, then Slughorn can certainly provide him the assistance he needed to help her out, as he'll manage it sooner or later. That way, there would be no need to be here and provide me with even more evidence that there is something a bit wrong with him.
Why the rush? It doesn't make sense. Something doesn't add up.
He placed the mugs of tea on the table, along with the sugar bowl and cream pitcher. Tom took his wordless offer silently and picked up the bright bluish mug without even blinking.
The prefect hadn't even noticed how garish it was when it usually would've earned an annoyed twitch or a frown that he repressed—it became yet another point of observation in Albus' mind, one that annoyed him yet again.
He is distracted for real.
Dumbledore sat on his couch once more, pulling at the threads of his thoughts with a slight frown. The last thing he needed was to be sympathetic towards the Slytherin when Albus knew the teen left a trail of traumatised victims behind him. A wolf does not change its nature just because it did not happen to be hunting right now. Neither of them seemed inclined to put on a more normal façade and make small talk at this point.
The professor still could not consider that his assessment was somehow flawed. His impressions on people were never wrong, not the least because it was always backed by not a little scrying.
Riddle rubbed his forehead slowly. He shook his head. Dumbledore might not wish to be able to see the slight tension of his jaw, but he saw it all the same since his gaze had returned often to the young wizard's features.
"I don't know why I even thought of coming here. Well, at least it has been interesting."
It was not the mild disappointment in his tone that prompted Dumbledore to move, it was the complete lack of surprise in it, that dry nihilistic humour that coloured a passing grin.
"Tom—"
"I'm sorry for bothering you, Professor. I'm sure you have other things you were planning to do today. I have just remembered that I have other things to do too." His voice was polite once more, with a slight smile perfectly balanced between embarrassed and grateful. It would not be out of place on a student that just happened to drop in to ask questions about his class or homework.
Albus felt an unexpected pang of disappointment when he saw it; ah, the mask is up again.
"Don't be reckless." He said, instead of anything more non-committal.
"I have no idea what you mean, Professor, but I'll keep your words in mind." Tom said.
Dumbledore sighed.
"It's probably only a routine interview."
"I'm sure you're right, Professor." Tom's reply had all the politeness it always had, but Albus was certain he did not imagine the sardonic undertones this time.
"Tom, wait. Please."
The plea caught him because it had been unexpected.
Albus had a feeling that he might regret this as he still considered Tom Riddle to be a catastrophe waiting to happen. It was a sense of foreboding even worse than what he felt when he read of that infamous case of the wizard who ate three elephants transfigured into strawberries to prove a (stupid and absolutely wrong) technical point on transfiguration*.
"Professor?"
(*When the elephants returned to their original volume—hideously torn as they'd been chewed up as strawberries, the man exploded from the sudden increase of volume of his stomach contents. Passer-by still had bits of him or dead elephants dropping on them from the nearby trees up to three weeks later. The stench of dead elephants never did quite disappear from that particular spot on the lane for a good chunk of a year.)
The professor met his gaze. He disliked being hasty in his conclusion, but it was getting harder to deny.
"You are worried."
Tom blinked slowly. "And you don't think it's real. Who knows? Perhaps it was mere indigestion that I have successfully passed as something else to you. As fun as this had been, I don't have the time to waste by repeatedly stating the obvious."
His tone was unchanged from his usual smooth one, his emotions under perfect regulation. It disturbed Albus more than he'd admit.
"If that was true, wouldn't it be a mistake to tell me?" Albus asked back.
"Perhaps it was a double bluff." Tom replied with a careless air.
A beat passed. His actions were too effortless to be true. Dumbledore still could not ignore his gut instinct that told him that in front of him was a civilised monster. Tom briskly nodded as he stood up.
"Good day, Professor."
He's not only worried, he's impatient, Albus noted with some surprise.
"One hour." Dumbledore finally said. The prefect stopped at the doorway before he turned back slightly.
"Excuse me?"
He sighed. He might regret this, but he had to admit that he was now worried for Hermione too.
"If she's not back by one hour, you can find me again and we'll do something about it."
"If it's only to file a complaint to the headmaster, I'd have to respectfully decline the offer." He said coolly. Albus had to hold back from huffing at the cheek of the boy.
"Of course not. That wouldn't be enough. We'll find her, of course."
The silence stretched longer. That was the only sign that Riddle was surprised.
"One hour, then," he nodded, before striding away without further ado.
'-
"Please give us your wand for weighing and registration."
It was not the clerk by the front lobby that asked her that. They were at a different check point, one that she knew was rather deep inside the Ministry. Hermione surrendered her wand without a complaint to the bored-faced desk wizard.
"Let's see…10 ¼ inches of, hmm, cherry wood. Not too common here. Dragon heartstring core."
What?
The clerk was twisting it in his hands, noting down distinctive marks as he muttered those further details while doing his work, but she wasn't paying attention to him anymore.
For the first time in weeks, Hermione actually stared at her wand. Like vine wood, it was also light coloured, and in length it was close to her old one that the differences were barely noticeable. It might come as a surprise to non-magical people, but a well-trained wizard or witch don't actually need to see their wand much. Even grasping for it while half-awake, Hermione knew that the wand she was holding was hers (as opposed to someone else's) from the warmth that seemed to glow from her chest to her arm as it resonated strongly with her magic. No random wand would feel so alive in her hands as her own would.
It was another reminder to her that Hermione Curie was not exactly the same as Hermione Granger, another piece to the puzzle of her current identity. She can feel Blakeshaw pulling her arm again, but she held her ground, shelving her current confounded thoughts back in her mind to be examined later.
The Auror's annoyance was almost palpable. "Miss Curie."
She hadn't turned to him.
"I'd like my wand back, thank you."
The clerk had already picked up her wand when Blakeshaw's order cut the air. "No need. She can pick it up later on the way out."
"I suppose I can, but I'd really like my wand back. Right now." She countered.
If the Auror thought she came with him because she was obedient, he had another thing coming.
"Your wand would be secure here." He said.
"Well, I'm sure that your wand is just as secure in the lockers here, but I don't think you'd part with it anytime soon, will you, Auror Blakeshaw?" She turned to him with the blandest smile she could manage and meet his gaze head on.
The clerk glanced between the two of them.
"Umm, should I store this or—"
"Keep it for later." He stated to the clerk.
"Belay that." Hermione interrupted. She glanced at the clerk's nametag. Her right palm was open in a wordless request to him and she stared him down without blinking. "I'm sure a guest here is allowed to carry their wand inside. Isn't that right, Mr. Sutton?"
As she expected, it did not take long before the clerk folded.
"Ah, yes. Here's your wand, Miss…"
"Curie. Hermione Curie."
She took it and raised an eyebrow at Blakeshaw, waiting for him to say something about it. When he shrugged and simply gestured for her to follow, she did so after slipping her wand back up to its forearm holster. Well, at least she hadn't had to bring up the Wizengamot Act of 1806 (right in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, that), as it gave the right of known 'honourable' enemy combatants who had given their parole to another wizard be allowed to carry their wands.
Considering that she wasn't even an enemy anything, she would dare anyone to try to argue how they had the right to deprive her of her wand.
'-
Instead of being led to one of the more run-of-the-mill interview rooms, Hermione found herself pulled deeper into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
It was certainly not a good sign when she saw that the path they took did not pass the Aurors' offices but through the secured corridors she recognised as the route that all Aurors take when they were escorting a risky prisoner. She knew it, because she'd accompanied Harry twice down the same set of corridors when Ron couldn't make it and none of the more senior (and capable) members of Harry's team could make it either.
They stopped in front of a thick door. Next to it was a giant hourglass affixed to the wall, as great as the door itself and filled with green sands—and Hermione took a sharp breath in recognition. Orestes Blakeshaw casually made a small cut on his left hand, smeared his blood on a white square on the hourglass' frame. He can turn it easily once the blood was absorbed and he was recognised. If she had any remaining thought that this was an entirely innocent interview, his last act would have shattered it completely.
A time-dilated room. She thought as he went through the motions. Usually used to gain lengthened interrogation time on a suspect in time-sensitive cases. It was a more primitive artefact than a time-turner as it did not involve going backwards in time and only affected one suite (she could hear the gears supporting the giant hourglass grinding as it was turned upside-down). Yet the dilation hourglass was easier to make and very useful in assisting Aurors in their job.
It was too bad that she realised the hourglass' size meant that one day outside would be equal to around ten days inside.
Well, I know they can't possibly starve me, she thought dryly, and stepped in as he prompted her. He followed suit and closed the door behind them, the deep and echoing thud rather ominous. They were in a small room with only one table and two chairs, though she knew there were at least one other hidden door on the walls that would lead to a small bathroom. A bell pull existed to the side of the door. He gestured for her to take a seat and she sat down at the same time that he did.
"I'm sure you know why you're here, Miss Curie." He said knowingly.
"I don't, actually."
The small window opened into some inner courtyard, but Hermione did not think it was an actual window than an illusory one, since that was what most rooms in the DMLE were actually like. Blakeshaw was staring at her from across the table. Hermione stared back.
"The prefects of Hogwarts have compiled all our experiences during the Hogsmeade attack in one document, which we've passed on to the Auror in charge of the investigation." She stated.
"Your statement is not entirely truthful."
"Ah, you were talking about the second attacker we took down, I take it? Well, Tom said that if we made the knowledge of the sniper public, the fact that a muggle had a range of attack that can easily cover half a street's length will only induce more panic among the public. We did inform the authorities of our experience, though—we've been interviewed by the Auror in charge for the details, one Alastor Moody."
"Have you?"
"Yes, I have. So, unless you were going to ask about something different, I'd prefer to get back to Hogwarts right now." She said.
Hermione did not put it as a request, only a statement. Neither did she made to move as she kept her eyes on him, her posture straight but relaxed in her seat. She was almost sure that Blakeshaw narrowed his eyes for a split-second before his face turned stone-like and unreadable again.
The silence stretched on for a while. The Auror finally spoke up when he realised that Hermione was not going to say anything else, nor was she the slightest bit disturbed by being wordlessly stared at.
"There are certain, shall we say, holes, in your story that proves to be very critical, Miss Curie." His tone was grave.
"Are there?"
"Yes. I'm afraid we don't look kindly on deliberate obfuscation of your muggle connections."
It was not hard to catch the undercurrents of his message, the implicit warning. If he meant to be unnerving, then most Hogwarts students in her position would have been worried. It was just that Hermione had watched her share of interviews and interrogations in the DMLE from the other side to be unsettled just by sitting there, and she was more confused by what he was actually trying to say.
"Muggle connections? I never hid the fact that my parents are both muggleborn."
"Ah, yes. Muggleborn. How simple that word seems." He mused, too casual by a half. She did not trust the way he said it.
Her forehead creased slightly but she had nothing else to say.
"I'm sure you are aware that many muggleborns have problems with the purebloods and even halfbloods. They cannot accept the natural order of the universe and wishes to upend it completely, resulting in chaos. The breakdown of society. Anarchy. But then again, anything to allow them to climb up over their betters is fair game, isn't it? All for the sake of their bottomless greed." Blakeshaw's words were pointed. His insinuation grated on her nerves.
"What are you talking about?"
"Muggleborns bringing muggle thoughts and ideologies to destroy the wizarding world." He shook his head. "Mr. Flint—Wulfstan Flint, head of the DMLE—had a point when he said that maybe it's better if we don't allow muggleborn into our society at all for our own safety."
She frowned. "What on earth—"
"Which you would know, because your father had associated with members of the muggleborn 'social' group Anomie. Like his associates, he has a long-term plan to tear our social foundations, and after his death, he has passed them down to you. Isn't that right, Miss Curie?"
Hermione was startled when he slapped his hands on the table, the coldness of his expression all too clear. She had to force her hands to open from the clenched fists she formed by reflex, felt her wand comfortably warm against her inner forearm, even within its holster.
Her reason surmised that nothing she'd read on Martin Curie gave the impression that the man was delusional enough to be such a violent revolutionist—she was pretty sure that neither Pendleton nor Ves would be remiss in their research on her background to fail to notice any dangerous factoid about either of her parents. Her gut feeling convinced her that no version of her father was going to be that stupid or desperate.
Odds are, he merely had a rather unfortunate choice in friends apart from being of the opinion that it was about time for the wizarding world to experience some social change, she determined.
"You're nuts, Mr. Blakeshaw, and I don't have to listen to this." Hermione snapped.
"But you do, because it has everything to do with the Hogsmeade Attack, isn't it? I hear that you have built the perfect cover of being such a diligent student. Nobody would expect you to actually be a second-generation anarchist. It is just your bad luck that I'm always looking out for anything potentially related to the muggleborn conspiracy to destroy purebloods."
His statement had more than a touch of condescending victory in its tone.
Perhaps it would have been more comforting if she could say that his eyes were red-rimmed and crazy as he leaned forward too far into her personal space, but she could not. Blakeshaw was too sane, even as he spouted his opinions with conviction—he was merely a believer. His wand was already in his hands and pointed at her, a discomfiting development and Hermione had to consciously hold herself from drawing hers by reflex.
She wouldn't give him an easy excuse to attack her.
"You found the muggles who hated magic and ensured they would attack Hogwarts and you took some of them down and came out a heroine because of it. I know how your kind think. You may have been able to fool some people, but you can't fool me. It would be in your best interest to confess your guilt to have your sentence lightened."
"You know, I might really have just taken the attacker down." The brunette noted after she'd just finished watching him go through the whole motion of outrage.
"He's just one person. Same with the other one. I wasn't alone either—Tom had my back. Why is this so hard for you to accept?"
"Impossible."
The answer was too quick, too sharp.
It wouldn't exactly help her case, she knew, but she couldn't contain her first burst of laughter. "You came into this case with preconceptions instead of evidence! Why, I'm sure your captain would be glad to hear that."
She didn't miss the twitch of his hand even as he replied to her quickly.
"We're talking about an actual attacker with anti-magic ability and a muggle exploding stick. Even a professional will find them difficult."
"I'm actually familiar with the capabilities of said exploding stick." She noted. "Or, are we talking about my being a muggleborn?"
His nod was firm. "Clearly."
She scoffed loudly. "Clearly?"
"It would be impossible for you to have managed so well when the other, pureblood prefects of Hogwarts did not manage to do as far. This is your mistake in trying to fake your heroism. You tried too far with unbelievable acts—you should've toned it down."
Hermione stared at him in disbelief, holding back the urge to denounce him as a first-rank idiot. When she next spoke up, she didn't bother to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
"Well, if you feel like you already have all the proof required to make up your mind, why don't you just try me, then? Bring me to court. Charge me in front of the Wizengamot. I might as well not say anything if it would be useless against your oh-so-extensive evidence."
Clearly, her defiance was not what he expected. She could hear his growl and she refused to back away from his attempt at intimidating her.
"Your lack of remorse would not only send you to Azkaban—it will earn you the Kiss." He warned.
"Why should I care for such punishment when I know in my heart of hearts that I am innocent?" She asked back. He had sat properly on his seat once more when he saw that she would not be easily cowed. It was rather tempting to pull her wand out and start hexing the man, but she wouldn't do it; that would just give him an excuse to attack her. She could still stretch her patience further.
"Just because you think you're innocent does not mean that the Wizengamot would be unable to prove your guilt. Repent, confess, and your months in Azkaban would pass in a blink."
She let out a dismissive snort.
"I'd rather die having spoken in my manner, than to speak in your manner and live."
If looks could kill, she'd be strangled to death by now. Hermione did not flinch the slightest and she matched him glare for glare.
The brunette witch did not know how long it took before he spoke up again. A feeling of vindication rose inside her as she saw that he was vexed with things not going the way he expected them to.
"You will regret your stubbornness, Miss Curie."
"I doubt I will, Mr. Blakeshaw."
'-
Hermione was locked in the room and she still had her wand.
Oh, she knew trying to cast spells from the inside was not the greatest of ideas. This was an interrogation chamber she was kept in, designed for important suspects as well as witnesses. It was pretty much well-warded to absorb any spell she might try to throw at it. She was left with a paper, a quill and a bottle of ink she was quite sure was not only charmed to be unbreakable, but practically glue to the table.
The first thing she did after he left was actually murmur Hamlet's monologue softly under her breath. She'd tried recording it more than once, back in her Shakespeare phase during the summer holidays, just to see how she fared (the fact that it coincided with the time that she began crushing hard on Ron was something she pushed deep that even she herself had almost forgotten that bit of factoid until now). Well, she wasn't going to pass the audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company anytime soon, but she did come out of it with a good appreciation for the Bard and a good knowledge of how long it would take for her to recite or act out a particular segment.
Her take on Hamlet's monologue took around three minutes.
It was a useful to know because as Hermione finished reciting it the first time around, she made a single mark on the scroll. Soon enough, four more marks joined the first.
Hermione wasn't sure how reliable the Tempus spell was in an environment with accelerated time, so she had decided to try tracking the passage of time in other ways. She didn't continuously try to say the monologue—she had no intention of driving herself mad. She took a break once in a while to think, like how on earth she suddenly had a blinkered Auror on her tail, convinced that she was out to destroy the wizarding world. She only started reading the monologue aloud again when she had hit a wall and couldn't think of anything else to do.
"To be or not to be: that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler for the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of trouble
And by opposing, thus end them? …
Another three marks later and Hermione stood up from the desk, stretching her back. She decided to sit with her legs outstretched in front of her on the floor, on the room's far corner, quill and scroll carried with her. Changing position helped her from feeling cramped.
She sighed. There really wasn't much she could do at this point but wait, trusting that the Hogwarts staff was going to wonder of her absence sooner or later.
Even if she was optimistic that they'd be able to find and get her out within an hour (and she wasn't), that still meant that she would be stuck here for at least ten hours.
Hermione leaned against the wall in her boredom and drifted off to a light nap.
'-
Wakefulness retrieved her from unconsciousness with ease.
She had no idea how long her nap had taken—it could be anything between a bit less than half an hour to around two hours. Hermione noted that on her parchment with a small symbol of a crescent moon and time estimates in brackets. There was no guarantee that she'd get another parchment. Better not waste the one she had with more details than necessary.
It was hard not to wonder at her predicament.
The brunette witch did know that not all Aurors were the most stellar representatives of sane and well-adjusted individuals.
The fact that most of the senior ranks had to fight through Voldemort's Second Rise and the subsequent clean-up of his remaining followers all the way to an acrimonious guerrilla warfare did not help any. Future Moody's paranoia had caused more than one junior Auror to trip into his traps, suffering some harm (how for all of Tonks' clumsiness she was never one of them was one Hermione still hadn't managed to wrap her head around). There were always those who were overzealous. The right cold case tugging the heartstrings could draw in even the most laidback of people into obsessing over it.
But the post-war Auror corps were strapped of skilled people and as long as most of them were functional, it was fine. If a group of them chose to drown their sorrows in drinks at weekends and puke their guts out on Sunday mornings, then the regular health check-up (with discreet liver and kidney rejuvenation-slash-maintenance obviously included) could safeguard them against the effects somewhat.
Yet the Hogsmeade attack was not even a week ago.
She can accept that someone might have handed Blakeshaw the files on Hogsmeade attack, subtly edited to guide his credulous mind to their wished-for conclusion. But there wasn't even enough time to collect and condense all the information around it into a comprehensive file yet, much less for anyone to read and pore through it continuously to be able to develop an obsession.
The timing was impossible for mere obsession to be the only factor—it happened too quickly.
That someone was feeding Blakeshaw inside information of the event, she had no doubt. Obviously, there had to be a Hogwarts link. It wasn't as if people outside Hogwarts were truly aware of her existence or considered her as someone worth watching. Oh, sure, there was that Prophet article that Tom somehow engineered, but in the same way that her pureblood friends can look at it as having another purpose due to their family background and education, she was sure that others in wizarding London of similar background can do the same (like those from old, well-established pureblooded families). They might even err on the conservative side too much and consider that she was just a mildly more talented Hogwarts student than usual, merely with a very strong supporter at her back to shine light on her so-called 'talent'.
Whoever raised the alarm had to have been at Hogwarts—someone who was able to watch her directly for a while and decide for themselves what her actual threat level to them would be. That the alarm was heard immediately and with such consequences for Hermione implied that the person was not without influence, if not outright power altogether.
The odds dictate that it was highly likely a student, one with connections.
She easily eliminated the usually-passive contingent of muggleborns in Hogwarts. (She did not miss the irony that she was more involved with purebloods right now than muggleborns).
What purpose would they have in getting her apprehended? What would they gain from it? As one of the most prominent muggleborns anything that would slander her character would also indirectly mar the reputations of people who came from non-magical backgrounds in general. No, the probability of that occurring was too minuscule.
If it was a mere intra-house competition in Hogwarts, she didn't think the Ravenclaws involved would use such outsized force as involving the Aurors in it. The same applied to any possible academic rivalry that Lakshmi had mentioned once, even if it involved members of other houses (like say, Slytherin).
To somehow report her to the Aurors on charges of aiding terrorism was escalating the conflict too fast and too far.
There was a high chance that the entire plan would run away from them as it involved circumstances and people beyond the control of most Hogwarts students. Such competition could scarcely have bred enough emotional resentment or hate that someone considered the disproportional misfortune falling on Hermione to be an adequate response.
That would only make sense if she killed someone's family or tortured them to insanity. Last time she checked, she wasn't an insane and power-mad Voldemort and the only person she knew that could turn into him was still rather sane, thank you very much. Not to mention that Tom much preferred to keep her by his side and leverage her abilities for his own purposes.
(She cared for him, but it didn't mean she was delusional to think he loved her, or that he was interested in her for no practical reason).
The suggestion that one of the teachers of Hogwarts were behind it was laughable.
She knew it wasn't impossible, considering how Quirrell hosted a fragment of Voldemort while he was a teacher at Hogwarts and he certainly did his best to kill Harry then. To extend the analogy further, it would mean that one of them had been secretly spying for Grindelwald…and as much as she wanted to consider most possibilities, she wasn't going to follow Blakeshaw's courtship with fantasies and go straight to conspiracy theories.
There was no evidence so far. She shook her head, wondering why she even went on such a strange tangent in the first place. If I were a spy for Grindelwald who'd somehow managed to gain a post as a Hogwarts professor…well, I'd suggest that he attack Hogwarts directly instead of Hogsmeade, with me opening access for him and his men from the inside.
It would be a cold and brutal decision to attack children, yet her experience with ascending dark lords (and ladies) showed that some of them were even more loopy than Voldemort—they would not hesitate to strike at vulnerable members of society if they could. Such individual might not even realise or care that it opened themselves to risks of dissatisfaction from their followers once said followers found out that their offspring were threatened. It was not as if anyone could ever think that Dippet was the head of the resistance against Grindelwald and might be subtly brainwashing the students in that direction, unlike Dumbledore's position in her old time. Even if his leadership of the Order of Phoenix was a secret, it was not as if people outside it did not have their own suspicions. (To Grindelwald's credit, he would be less loopy even if he did attack Hogwarts if most of his followers weren't actually from the British wizarding community).
That such an attack didn't happen neatly eliminated the possibility of Grindelwald's spy among Hogwarts' staff. There was either no spy, or whoever the spy was, he or she was highly incompetent. Hardly something to consider as an important threat at the moment.
But why would another Hogwarts student be prepared to do something so extreme to bring her down?
Currently out of ideas and without managing to narrow down the suspects and motivations much, Hermione leaned back against the wall with a sigh.
'-
A part of Hermione wished she knew by heart some longer piece of work, like, say, Poe's the Raven or even parts of the Aeneid. Reciting Hamlet's monologue was getting too repetitive after a while. She had napped twice now, the second without her even realising it, simply because she was bored and her body had apparently decided to just rest for now without consulting her.
Hunger came. She ignored it with ease begotten by long practice.
She'd missed a meal or two when she was working on something too fascinating in the Department of Mystery, sometimes only remembering to eat when her friends checked up on her. Just because she knew the Aurors had rules against starving the people in their custody didn't mean she would receive a meal when she wanted it. To only give her food when they deigned to do so was to demonstrate that she was powerless here and many things are beyond her control.
It was basic psychological manipulation to soften prisoners. Just because she disagreed with the methods (she didn't think they were more effective in gleaning information than building a rapport with the interviewee) didn't mean she wouldn't study them.
The door opened. She picked herself up from the floor.
"Auror Blakeshaw."
"Ms. Curie."
She took her previous seat without a second thought, hair already frizzier from the neater curls they were in this morning, but she didn't care. He had paused by the table without sitting down.
"Are you ready to tell your story?"
"Everything I needed to say has been said, either in the account of events compiled by the prefects of Hogwarts or in the latter interview I had with Auror Alastor Moody." A sprightly Moody with both eyes intact surprised her when she first met him post Hogsmeade attack, but he was just as gruff and straightforward as he'd always been that soon she didn't really notice the difference as they talked.
"They have no idea of your involvement with pro-muggleborn anarchic groups."
Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's because I'm not involved in any of them."
"Denying it wouldn't make it any less true."
"Your wishing for it wouldn't make it any truer either. I don't grant wishes—I'm not a genie in a bottle." She returned with a jab that was just as sharp. Merlin help her, she couldn't help smiling viciously back. He needed to know that she was not a simple Hogwarts student, even if she was nothing like his accusations.
For every outlandish allegation he made, she denied it easily, mockingly, firmly.
The Auror left the first time around in frustration, while Hermione was left to deal with recurring hunger pangs. Her stubbornness might not be what the average student could manage when they were detained by law enforcement the first time around, but she didn't know how to not be herself. The second time he came again, she simply asked him outright where the door to the bathroom was in the room.
Blakeshaw said that he wouldn't tell her until they finished their round of interview. Hermione simply crossed her arms in front of her and stared him down. The young witch did not reply to his questions, nor did she say anything else. She didn't care about his accusations—he could say anything he wanted and she wouldn't budge.
He stated that since they'd been here for hours, clearly the school hadn't interfered because they knew how guilty she was and that her friends didn't want to be associated with someone so dangerous.
Hermione gave him a lopsided smile at that and laughed. She still said nothing.
The Auror started insinuating that they were going to be very comprehensive in trying to capture the group she was clearly leader of, by bringing her friends in one by one to be interviewed as well. A different member of her cabal might crack first and confess, and this would cause Hermione to get a heavier punishment for being uncooperative and the clear ring-leader of them all.
The brunette witch let her smile grew wider.
She had observed a hundred and one of Tom's smiles, from the charming to the downright creepy. Objectively speaking, the breadth of his repertoire was interesting, and Hermione was nothing if not a diligent student. Now, she did her best to copy the smile Tom gave Ves right before he beat the stuffing out of his minion.
The Auror's words and explanation stopped after some time and silence spread.
Her expression hadn't changed. Neither had her pose. It was a stare off.
A minute passed between them.
"The door is that way. Tap the thirteenth brick from the corner, at the height of the door's handle." He finally pointed with his left hand.
"Why, thank you, Auror Blakeshaw. We can certainly talk after I've returned."
'-
They talked again, but his questions did not vary much beyond the initial outlandish questions. It was no surprise, then, that her answers were still what she'd given before.
"You're not cooperating at all." Blakeshaw's tone was dark.
"If you keep asking the same questions, of course you'd get the same answers." She rolled her eyes, one hand holding up her temples. She was feeling a little tired, but it was nothing major.
"Stop denying your involvement. I can do this indefinitely and it would only look worse for you the longer you stay stubborn."
"It only looks like a denial to you because you already have the answer you want in your head. What you wanted me to do was not answer your questions. You only want me to repeat your own opinions to you." She leaned back.
"If you need someone to do that, buy a parrot."
Hermione idly massaged her head, ignoring the black look caused by her last words. How long has it been already? Several hours, she knew. Late afternoon or early evening, by her reckoning. Not that it would match the time outside.
The meeting was as unproductive as the previous one.
'-
Food will have to come sometime soon, right? Hermione thought to herself.
She lost any shred of respect still remaining for Blakeshaw when there was still no food. There was a jug of water and a glass, and she can refill that through the tap, but she can't subsist on water alone. It didn't help that when she napped again out of tiredness and hunger, he just had to come in and try to talk to her there and then when she was still bleary-eyed. Hermione answered half his questions at random and outright ignored the other half.
"Ask me again when I'm not sleepy." She had said.
"Are you being uncooperative, Ms. Curie?"
"I'm being tired. But I'm sure you don't really care, right? You'll just write whatever you want to write, so I'll just sleep here while you make up some tale or another. Don't expect me to sign whatever made-up confession you just wrote, though."
'-
Hermione remembered belatedly the regulation that stated an 'interviewee' of the DMLE must be fed at least twice in one 24-hour span, but it didn't state when it was supposed to occur. With her luck, the first one was going to come around only after she was here for 11 hours and 50 minutes. On the other hand, she had frustrated Blakeshaw enough that he hadn't been back for a while now.
Good, maybe she can get some peace.
The Ravenclaw pulled her robes off to make a pillow out of them and placed her uniform jacket over her face to block out the lights. She didn't care how ridiculous it looked like to anyone entering at the doors—she was going to get some proper sleep around here whatever it takes.
It felt as if she'd scarcely closed her eyes when she heard the heavy door swung open again. Groaning, Hermione picked herself up.
That was when the bitter chill blew past, the cold deep enough to sink into her bones.
Her wand was in her hand. Instinct told her instantly that it was magical in origins.
She staggered as an intense migraine hit the left side of her head like a jackhammer. As she swayed, for a moment she wasn't in a sealed room inside the DMLE—she was in a decaying city centre at night. The northern town was ravaged; less by magical fights and more by the economic ruin of dead industries culled by Margaret Thatcher. The magical destruction probably didn't help the place look any better.
There was the distinct iron tang of blood. The stench of rot from the darkest of hexes.
I can't feel my left hand? What?
Harry had gone on first with everyone else, because he needed to defend someplace else. She had a slight limp. Ron was saying goodbye. Cold. So cold
His face was a blur, her memory unclear. Yet his eyes were the clearest they'd been in the last few years.
"I know I'm bollocks at understanding you, 'Mione. I'm probably your most insensitive ex, right?" He spoke with uncharacteristic clarity and self-deprecating humour. She didn't know how he gained that understanding of himself and yet made peace with it—this wasn't the Ron she remembered, far from it. Ron had always been a bit sensitive to criticism—it came from feeling that he was sorely lacking when compared to his stellar brothers, even after he'd become one of the heroes of the wizarding world.
"Ron—"
"Well. At least I can still protect you. Go."
The distance was filled with slowly-coalescing crown of dark forms, many of whom she doubted were humans. The old Unspeakable Hermione shook her head.
"No, you can't face them alone!"
He shrugged. "Ten people can't face them either. Someone has to slow them down, but it makes no difference if you're here. Go!"
"No!"
He seems to be muttering something to himself, probably cursing her stubbornness again.
"Well, catch this, then."
Ron threw a galleon towards her and she raised her arm without thinking. The tug at her navel told Hermione that the coin she'd caught was a portkey.
No!
'-
In the isolated room at the DMLE, Orestes Blakeshaw had just stepped in, shivering. Behind him was a dementor, with its own guard close by.
Hermione Curie had fallen all of a sudden to her knees and let out an ear-piercing scream.
She whipped out her wand in high speed, her eyes not quite here. "Expecto Patronum!"
The owl was large, its stretched wingspan covered the entire width of the room. The creature's light was blinding, and yet it soothed instead of burned. The ineffable peace it brought echoed the taste of ambrosia, or the richness of wine poured from the grail, or the fragment of David's lost final song. Faced with such an adversary, there was no other direction to go for it but to retreat. Even the guard has never seen a dementor flee so fast.
'-
The moment she saw the dementor, she cast by reflex. She might have been thinking of the glorious day they knew they won the war, but underneath that were still the grief and anger from an old wound reopened. Her patronus was massively overpowered.
Hermione still hadn't eaten.
Her limbs lost their remaining strength and dizziness sets in. Darkness closed in around her and she knew nothing more.
'-
.
.
.
Tirra lirra , tirra lirra ... well, apparently I've developed a taste for cliffhangers. Never you mind. It probably wouldn't last long.
'-
End Notes:
List of Stuff One Might Try to Look Up:
Anomie: (Sociology) a state of individuals or society characterized by the non-existence, decay or destruction of social norms and values. First defined and precisely constructed by Émile Durkheim.
Audentes Fortuna iuvat: (Latin) Fortune favours the bold. There are several variations of the Latin verse due to a smattering of little details. The bold in this form, for example, is plural—as in, bold people and not bold person.
Industrial School: The 19th and 20th century UK's answer to minor juvenile delinquency and things like child beggars and vagrancy. A highly regimented place that also happen to teach trade, the uniforms are severe and depressing.
Parole: (Meaning 2) (Military) the promise, usually written, of a prisoner of war, that if released he or she either will return to custody at a specified time or will not again take up arms against his or her captors.
(Meaning 3) word of honour given or pledged. (Source: )
'-
Additional Notes:
I'd rather die having spoken in my manner, than to speak in your manner and live: An English take of Socrates' last bits in this long sentence "Sed neque antea putabam periculi metu faciendum esse quicquam inhonestum, nec me nunc poenitet causam ita dixisse, itaque dicentem multo me emori malo quam isto modo vivere." From Socrates' Final Defence as written and told by Plato (Platonis Apologia Socratis).
Which is Socrates politely saying the jurors of Athens to respectfully fuck off when given the opportunity to defend himself against their charges (he already figured out that his guilt is more-or-less pre-determined and it was a kangaroo court than anything).
'-