.o0O0o.
The rules of the game seem to have changed since Dumbledore had been ousted as a player and Lucius didn't particularly like what replaced them. He liked his rigged system, he liked writing all the rules, he liked being able to stymie any opposition by controlling what it was people thought was possible in the first place. If the goblins refused to play – or worse, were playing their own game – then how could they be brought to heel?
Images of rampaging dragons and goblin armies had so effectively evoked the famed "goblin rebellions" of the past that even he had been taken in by it for a time. The truth of things was remarkably different. It had been the Ministry with its mishandling of the situation that made Gringotts seem more powerful and warlike than they really were, and so, what they truly wanted had seemed completely foreign to them.
Once you stripped away what shouldn't have been there in the first place and returned to the proper mindset, everything became clear. They had taken the island and fortified it with dragons and spells for the same reason he'd had the Ministry do the same with Hogwarts and Dumbledore: the goblins wanted to negotiate so they could further their own self interests. And furthermore, they'd taken the Hit Wizards Dolores had so cowardly left behind in order to force the Ministry to come to them.
Contrary to popular belief, difficult things weren't inherently impossible to get done; they were simply more difficult than you'd like them to be. While threats, bribes, and intimidation had their place as means to an end, they were not the only means to get to those ends. Debate, negotiation, and compromise were messier methods to employ since they strayed from the ideological purity that gave surety of purpose, but it's what had to be done from time to time. They could always take back what they'd been forced to trade away later on.
The move and counter-move of informal negotiations like this – the pre-negotiation negotiations, if you will – was a time full of subtleties, feints, and supposed mistakes made to seem like weaknesses the other side could exploit, when in reality it was all there to set up something else entirely. At least that's the way Lucius had envisioned this time as being, the reality was again somewhat different. He didn't know if it was the Auror siege of the bank which had prompted this but something had changed on the goblin side of things so rather than dealing with the Ministry directly they had gone through the press, and the press was eating it up.
'Nothing boosts sales like conflict,' their editor had said when he paid the man a polite social call under the guise of looking up on the surprising pro-goblin tone and what it might mean for investors. 'And nothing boosts the Prophet's profits like our staying out of the fight while showing both sides. We're not referees at a Quidditch match, Mr. Malfoy. We're the announcers, here to broadcast the play-by-play to the people at home. If you want referees, get those international types to do it.'
As far as referees went though the I.C.W. was far from his first choice since everything he'd learned of them since Dumbledore's fall had made him like the organization less and less. Hundreds of years ago they may have had a properly wizarding-centric view of the world but while the wizards of Britain had cloistered themselves away and preferred to look inward towards their own affairs and properly oppress those who were different, many of the "internationals" had embraced what they called 'a culture of inclusion, cooperation, and equality.'
It was a distasteful and inelegant way of looking at the world he certainly didn't want imported to this country. Where was their wizarding pride? The so-called Dark Lord who still haunted the world may have been insane when it came to needing absolute control over every aspect of what they were doing and killing purebloods who disagreed with him, but at least he saw the need to keep themselves apart from such degrading influences for the sake of society.
What kind of civilization would they be if they recognized creatures like wood nymphs, veela, and trolls as part of a wider 'magical public'? It would be the end of everything. Their traditions and great wizarding institutions would collapse and they'd be overrun by a writhing swarm of filth. While it may be just as unrefined to openly espouse getting rid of them entirely, and such sentiment only serve to let them linger on so a final solution would need to be reached at some point, keeping the filth under your boot was better than nothing.
To get these goblins back into their proper place though would require forcing them to go through the Ministry, where the proper way of viewing things held sway, rather than the I.C.W. To do that meant undermining the perceived value of what they hoped to gain, a difficult enough proposition when they were free to evaluate it on their own, or to undercut the strength of their position in claiming the island in the first place. But while the Ministry unequivocally rejected their supposed ownership, unless they found a way to make the goblins come to them their denials accomplished nothing.
"Are you sure your man can do this?" Mockridge asked, as if any of his ideas on how to handle the situation in the last week had produced any results. "No offense, Mr. Malfoy, I'm glad you've stepped forward to help, but we don't even know this man. How could he get the goblins to drop this when we can't?"
Lucius tried not to sigh but he was beginning to think he'd been cursed to have to deal with the most short-sighted people imaginable. The thought was far too hopeful though since if it was a curse then he could remove it; removing such people was more problematic when they otherwise served their function reasonably well and didn't have to be constantly monitored. He'd had few dealings with the man before this since his vote had been so reliable, and the affairs of goblins were beneath notice, but while Mockridge might be competent enough to serve in some capacity he'd certainly failed in the realm of goblin intermediaries.
"If you're looking to me to detail who this person is and what they're attempting to do then you're going to be disappointed," Lucius said from the Minister's other visitor's chair.
"Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean anything by that," Cornelius was quick to interject. "The last thing we want is to give those blood-thirsty goblins someone else to take hostage. I think he's just wanting to know a bit more about what they hoped to accomplish in a – a little less general way," the Minister said in the way he had when he had no idea what was going on.
"It's called wielding influence," he said with a patronizing smile to Mockridge. "While the long-term goal is to separate the goblins from anything on the island – and I'll leave it to the best minds of the Ministry to determine how best to do it," he lied. "What my contact is attempting to do is to get the goblins to change the conversation."
"What conversation?" the laboriously dull-witted though suitably pure-blooded Mockridge asked. "They haven't been talking to us; they've been talking to the Prophet."
"And to the public," Lucius interjected. "Going through the Prophet put their story into every wizarding home in the country, and whatever we may think of them, it was a clever move to make," he said grudgingly, disliking the taste of that unfortunate reality. "We saw how well it worked in raising Diagon Alley against us."
"Well then, why don't we do that?" the Minister asked eagerly.
"But Minister," Mockridge said, "how do we get the shopkeepers to turn against the bank when they've just publicly turned against us? Surely we wouldn't be able to persuade them to do anything, and trying would only make us look worse."
That glimmer of insight made Lucius reevaluate the man; perhaps he wasn't so hopeless after all.
"What made the shopkeepers such a powerful voice was that it came from an unexpected and sympathetic source," he said as if to a child, "the innocent victims of the Ministry's blunder whose livelihood was now threatened by our continued mishandling of the situation. Getting them to go after Gringotts now would be too big of a precedent though; the last thing we need is to give them a political platform. We do happen to have a similar group of victims near at hand though: the families of the Hit Wizards themselves."
"We can't use them, can we?" Cornelius asked. "Merlin knows what they'd say. It's been all we can do to keep them quiet."
"–To allay their fears while the Ministry uses the best methods we have to get their loved ones back from the goblins," Lucius selectively rephrased matters. "If, however, we were to tell them now that we believed the best way to get their loved ones to come home would be to tell the stories of the hardships they've endured – how they've missed their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons and what great people they are – and how they cried over the thought of never seeing them again…"
"The public would turn against the goblins in a heartbeat," Mockridge said sounding suitably amazed at the prospect of things ending so well for them. "There may well be riots against the bank. If there's one thing that'd show the I.C.W. that the goblins weren't to be trusted and to bring commerce back to Diagon Alley at the same time, it's a good two or three day long anti-goblin demonstration down there."
"I like the sound of that," the Minister said.
"And normally I'd agree," Lucius added. "Let's not forget the last time Diagon Alley had such a disturbance though. One lone lunatic deciding to go off on their own and things can spiral so far out of control we may well have a real goblin war on our hands, at best. At worst… If that dragon is still in their lobby, I'd hate to see what the Prophet made of things the day after."
Silence greeted that revelation. Mockridge looked uncertain; the Minister, sick.
"I've instructed my contact to bring this potential public turn against them to the goblins' attention," Lucius said after a moment. "He'll suggest the wisest course for them to take will be to release the hostages before the Prophet gets the idea to go chasing after their personal stories."
"Yes," Mockridge nodded. "It really is the only way out for them, isn't it? No doubt they'd think we'd take it as a sign of good faith so we can move on to other issues," the man added.
"Do you really think it'll work?" Cornelius asked, desperately trying not to look desperate.
"There are no guarantees, of course," Lucius acknowledged with a dismissive gesture, "but I really see no alternative. Either the goblins will capitulate or they'll have day after day of bad press, while the Ministry works with the I.C.W. and tries to sway them to our side."
"What do we have left to work with the I.C.W. on?" Mockridge asked, not privy to the deeper secrets of the Ministry's affairs. "I thought they already agreed Dumbledore was ours to prosecute."
"They're letting us deal with Harry Potter's case against him, but if they think they're getting him afterwards they're gravely mistaken," the Minister said like a well-trained lap dog without the slightest bit of prompting. "I'll use every way I have to keep him here. Dumbledore is ours to deal with."
"Here here," Lucius agreed, tapping his cane as if it were the Chief Warlock's gavel in a show of support. "To get that agreement though we had to guarantee them the opportunity to interview Dumbledore, the rest of the Hogwarts staff, and permission to search the castle and grounds," he informed Mockridge. "What they hope to achieve is beyond me," he went on to say. "It's not like Dumbledore would be foolish enough to do any illegal activities there when any child could stumble across them. The other Governors and I have placed an inordinate amount of trust in the man through the years though so Merlin knows what he's gotten up to."
"Not even Dumbledore would put children at risk, surely," Mockridge said, though the look on his face said he wasn't so sure at all.
"It would take a truly unscrupulous person to do that," Lucius agreed.
A series of quick knocks cut off that line of conversation as the Minister's door opened and they turned to see his unremarkable secretary scoot into the office.
"Sorry to disturb you, Minister," she said with all the deference of one of the squib maids he'd been thinking of hiring to look after his household. Narcissa had very particular views on who she thought was fit to serve her but he wasn't about to dole out enough money to retain such a person; she'd accept her squib or she'd have nothing at all. "There's a Dirk Cresswell, of the Goblin Liaison Office, here to see Mr. Mockridge."
"Sorry for interrupting," the blade-thin Dirk said as he sliced his way into the office. "This just came from Gringotts," he announced as he presented Mockridge a letter. "They said they've issued the same directly to the Daily Prophet, so I knew you'd want to see it straight away."
"Thank you, Cresswell," the other man said with a dismissive wave as he began to read. "You may go."
Cornelius's secretary showed the man out with a look fit to curdle milk.
Lucius wanted to snatch the letter out of the man's hands and read it first. He was far more important than the other man and infinitely more involved in the Ministry's affairs to be passed over like this but he was far too refined to lash out in such an undignified way. If the man was too blind to see that it should have been given to him first then something would have to be done to impress upon the man exactly how far below him he was.
"Well!" the Minister said happily. "It looks like your man was very quick."
"Your man has failed," Mockridge announced. "And worse, the only thing he succeeded in doing is having the goblins become more entrenched than ever," the man moved to hand the dispatch to Cornelius but Lucius got there first. "We were better off the way we were."
'With the cessation of investigatory activities on the Isle of Gringotts by the International Confederation of Wizards,' the dispatch read in the goblins' natural legalistic jargon, 'the Goblin Nation is pleased to announce the formation of the–'
"Impossible," Lucius said as his mind reeled from the goblins overturning the game board once again. "They can't possibly think the Wizengamot will allow them to do that. The very idea is preposterous."
"The whole thing is preposterous," Mockridge agreed. "It's like every goblin in the country has suddenly gone mad."
"Wha– What's going on?" Cornelius asked, completely at a loss.
Mockridge informed the Minister of what happened while Lucius read on, finally hitting on a change in the goblins' demands regarding their Hit Wizard hostages. That got him to thinking. It was a substantial change from what they've been demanding for the past week, and one that was a much more reasonable demand to make under the circumstances, though one the Ministry wouldn't like making. No wonder Mockridge was trying to kill it in its crib.
"Agreed, the goblin announcement is completely unacceptable," he said to something the Minister blathered on about. "But we can't overlook the opening they've given us."
"Yes," the Minister cried with one of those stupid table pounds that he'd taken a liking to. "If there's one thing that'll rile up the people against them it's this. Combined with getting the Prophet to do stories on those families we'll–"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Lucius cut in. "Different stories will be hitting the Prophet soon, if my guess is correct."
"What do you mean?" Cornelius asked.
"He means his plan was a spectacular failure," Mockridge interjected. "By telling them what we were going to do, it allowed them to think of a way around it. Their demands are as ridiculous as ever for their release but now they'll be allowing the families to visit the hostages until we give in. They're trying to turn the entire wizarding public against us."
"Not against us," Lucius corrected, "against you."
"Against him?" the Minister asked. "What do they have against him?"
"He's the head of the Goblin Liaison Office," he reminded the Minister. "Regulating the goblins is his job, so naturally they blame him for everything wrong with their lives. That's why they're demanding he resign," Lucius said as he handed over the dispatch to Cornelius.
"As I said, Minister, it's lunacy," Mockridge scoffed.
"It's not lunacy," he countered, "it's negotiation. What other language do goblins know besides transactions? It's clear someone at Gringotts is being very clever about it."
"How?" the man in the other chair asked. "They know they won't get anything they want."
"And believe it or not, that's precisely what they're after," Lucius informed him.
It really was a very clever plan when he thought about it. There must be a race-traitoring human over there advising them; Marsh would know who it is.
"As hard as it may be for us to believe," he continued, "dismissing everything the goblins say they want is precisely what they want. It makes them seem to be the calm and rational ones in this. Take a look at what the press release actually says," Lucius instructed the Minister. "They start off by slipping in the fact that the I.C.W. is finished with Flamel's Island, with no mention of the Stone whatsoever – which is the reason the I.C.W. is here in the first place. They then make that ridiculous announcement about what their plans are for the island, plans that most of the wizarding public won't think twice about."
"But we can't have goblins–"
"Of course we can't," Lucius said with a dismissive wave. "You know we can't, I know we can't, anyone with any sense within the Ministry knows we can't, but the rest of the wizarding public won't see why it's important to keep them from doing it. The goblins actually want us to fight them on this and forget about the Hit Wizard issue; that's why they've softened their stance on it.
"If the Ministry charges off and fights them on the island issue then we will be the one facing day after day of the Prophet running stories against them," he explained to the man. "I'm sure the goblins are already arranging for the prisoners to impress upon their families how well they've been treated, and those families will repeat it to the Prophet along with how they loved seeing their loved ones again and how unfortunate it is the bad old Ministry is prolonging things by refusing to speak with the goblins."
"They're the ones refusing to speak to us by insisting on these ridiculous demands," Mockridge insisted.
"The truth is irrelevant," Lucius said. "What we're talking about is what people will believe. Their demands are not so ridiculous in the public's eyes and present us with opportunities of our own."
"You're not suggesting we fire Mockridge, are you?" Cornelius asked. "Who would be in charge of the goblins?"
"With the goblins running amok, can you really say Mockridge has been in charge of anything lately?" he countered. "When the Wizengamot meets again you'll have to have someone to blame, so why not him? And let us not forget, he's the one responsible for the goblins getting the jump on us. Had he not advised you to wait until Monday to release a statement about what happened on Flamel's Island this would have been a very different week."
"That's absolutely right," the Minister agreed, pointing at Mockridge. "All of this is your fault."
"Umbridge was the one responsible for all that," Mockridge declared, which only compounded his mistake by blaming the person who was actually at fault. "She was the one who failed on the island, she ordered the attack on the bank, she's the one who's made the goblins such a pain to deal with, not me. Fire her."
Part of Lucius desperately wanted to laugh at the man's impotent attempt to save his job. Trying to fight perception with the truth? It was a child's tactic and no one older than seven would try it unless their name was Draco. Didn't the man know that to blame Umbridge for what she was responsible for was to force the Minister to have to take responsibility for sending her there in the first place? True, it had been Lucius's idea to send her, but politically it was still Cornelius's fault for listening to him.
The Minister looked over to him for what he should do.
"Come now, Mockridge, do try to face things with a little dignity; it's not personal," he said disdainfully. "The goblins want her to go as well but you know a Senior Undersecretary is far too close of a position to the Minister to allow the goblins to dictate who comes or goes from it. If anyone is to resign though they should do so for reasons the Ministry says they should, and right now the Minister's said you've handled the goblin situation badly."
"Absolutely," Cornelius said obediently. "I'm sorry, Mockridge, but you've got to go. As Lucius said, it's not personal, it's politics."
The condemned man looked at the Minister as if he'd been Confunded and unable to recall his own name.
"Mr. Mockridge has served the Ministry for many years though, Minister, so perhaps not placing all the blame for the goblin affair on him would be more appropriate," Lucius said, deciding to be magnanimous to the man now that it suited his long term goals and the man himself looked from the Minister to him and back as if just now piecing together where true power lied within the Ministry of Magic. "We can't let the goblins think they're getting their way, even when we're giving them what they want."
"Most certainly not," Cornelius said, "but what would you suggest?"
"I'd suggest that Mr. Mockridge come down with a previously undisclosed health concern," he said simply with a falsely apologetic look to the man in question. "To be sure, he will have suffered from this for quite some time but it's never made his work suffer… until now. With the intensity of the goblin issue, and with it dragging on for so long, Mr. Mockridge has tried to suffer through it but – alas – now he's forced to conclude the Ministry needs someone who can devote their full time and effort into making matters right with the goblins and get our boys back home."
"I don't have a health concern and no one who knows me will believe it," Mockridge protested.
"We're not discussing what people will believe; we're talking about what they would prefer to think," Lucius said. "Your family will know we're lying but should have the good sense to stay quiet since it saves your reputation; the same goes for your friends and others who know you. The goblins will believe we're lying in order to placate them without admitting it, and some of the public will as well, but neither will know enough to say for sure one way or the other."
"Yes, well," the Minister dithered, "as long as it gets us one step closer to getting the situation under control what does it matter what people think?"
"But what about Dolores?" Mockridge asked. "We won't be getting anything under control as long as they're calling for her resignation too."
"You just work on your resignation," Lucius told the man with a smile. "I'm sure the Minister has something very special in mind for Dolores Umbridge. We can't let the goblins have everything they want, now can we?"
.o0O0o.
Shifting around on the hard bench seat of the booth, Lester had to conclude he had a really bony butt. It was either that or becoming an old man had wasted away all of the cushion he'd stored up back there and he never noticed, and, looking around, all the other old people in the bar didn't seem to be having the same problem. Luckily he didn't have to wait long before the harpy he'd come to see came swooping down on him.
"You're late," Rita said as she scooted along into her own bench on her well-padded behind, the ash of her arrival still lingering on her shoulders.
"Says the woman who just got here," Lichfield replied.
"Yes, well, I'm late too," she admitted as she dug into her crocodile-skinned handbag for her quill. "That woman does love to hear herself talk doesn't she? I swear it's like she thinks she's Merlin's gift to motherhood. The way you're sitting though says nervous anticipation, which means you haven't been waiting long, and you should've been here an hour ago."
"You can't judge anything by the way I sit; I've got a bony butt," Lester said, drawing a peculiar look from the waspy woman. "Besides, you have any idea how long it takes for an owl to get from London to Norwich?" he asked with a look.
"No, and I don't care," Rita said with a smile as she put her quill to parchment. "Now, tell me all about these Dirtleys."
"How did you find out about them?" Lichfield asked instead.
"Oh, no, that's not how this works, remember?" she said with a predatory smile. "You give me information – truthful, scandalous, untwisted information – and I write the stories I see fit to tell from it, without any additional twisting to make it sell."
"And you stay away from the boy, remember?"
"I haven't gone anywhere near him," Rita said with a look so falsely innocent she'd be sent to Azkaban to be Sirius Black's cellmate bed-warmer just for looking guilty. "Not yet, that is. But you've been holding out on me; you promised me the true story of Harry Potter. What's to stop me from getting this information from him if you won't hold up your end?"
"Only the fact you'd be in violation of our agreement," he retorted.
"Correction, we'd both be in violation," she said with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Me for contacting the boy at the hidey hole you've got him renting a room at and you for not being forthcoming, which would be worse you, I think. I would just be stuck writing my stories as I've always been; you, however, would be magically bound to tell me everything my little heart desired. Merlin knows what kind of Potter-related dirt I could get out of you then."
"It would take more than a little evasiveness to get that pushed though," Lester replied.
"More, perhaps," Rita agreed, "but not too much more. Now, tell me about these Dirtleys."
"The Dursleys," he corrected her. "And boy's story doesn't begin or end with the Dursleys. It's so much bigger–"
"–And I'm sure we'll get around to all of it," she said with a dismissive wave, determined not to give him an inch. "I'm on a deadline today, and I've still got these Durts–?"
"–Dursleys."
"–Dursleys to nab a picture of, but I've got all next week of front-page news to make with the goodies you'll be giving me, I just know it," Rita said with a feral grin. "Now no more stalling. Tell me about the Dursleys or I go traipsing off to the D.M.L.E.'s Contract Enforcement Office."
It was a foul-tasting tincture but one that had to be swallowed. It was one thing to know the story would be coming out and another thing entirely for it to come out like this. Still, he supposed he could see some upside in this. After all, what was the most natural follow-up to getting people riled up about the Dursleys than to reveal that Dumbledore was the one to put him there?
Still, how Rita knew what she knew was troubling. The woman had made her living uncovering scandals long before he'd come along though and you don't do that without being able to find out what other people wanted to keep quiet. In the end he didn't suppose it mattered how she found out; it was going to come out anyway because the Ministry leaked like a sieve. For all he knew she could've gotten it from Amelia Bones herself.
"I first met the Dursleys at the tail end of– '76, I think it was," Lester said finally as Rita's blue quill skated across the parchment. "Petunia, Harry's aunt, was still an Evans at the time…"
.o0O0o.
The warm summer sun had cooled a bit as the day lengthened on, helped out, a bit, by the gentle breeze blowing over the lake to reach them in the shade of the gazebo. He'd chosen to meet Marsh outside on the manor grounds rather than in his home because he hadn't wanted to display its disorderliness to the other man. Strangely, people seemed to take a walk on the grounds to denote a deeper connection than actually being accepted into their home but he was glad to make use of the misconception.
It was unfortunate that being so far removed from the house also removed them from any refreshment though for Lucius could certainly use a glass of wine right about now. Even the young batch of elf-made wine would do but he wasn't about to Summon it himself. It'd be a breach of proper protocol to do so in another's company, and then Marsh might want some too and the man had failed and thus deserved no such courtesy from him. It was remarkable to think how much more comfortable having a filthy little creature like a house-elf wait on you could make your life but at least he was adjusting well enough.
Narcissa and Draco were nearly identical in their haughty attitude at losing the thing and far be it for them to ever consider ever doing anything for themselves. Both seemed determined to take a stand on similarly ridiculous notions of what he should do for them as a penance, as if they were in any position to demand anything from him. Still, if Narcissa thought she'd get her delicate little maid, or Draco an entire fleet of new brooms, they were gravely mistaken.
If there was one witch he'd consider capitulating to Narcissa's demands with it would have been her late aunt. She'd been said to have an almost hag-like personality and would've been sure to serve as a constant irritation to both her and Draco. Then again, with tendencies like that they likely would've assaulted him together, so perhaps it was best she was dead or he may have been forced to kill her.
Still, living with a half-hag half-harpy haranguing him in his own house may have been better than the prospect he was facing: a new player on the scene in the form of a goblin with delusions of grandeur. And it was worse since it seemed to have a mind of its own. Marsh had went so far as to say that until recently this Barchoke character hadn't even been worth noticing and was without influential friends of which to report, which was astonishing considering he was supposedly in charge of supervising the bank's Hereditary accounts, so he should have at least heard about him before if that was the case.
With wizards such a precipitous rise was unheard of but it seemed to be common place with goblins. They had no reverence for bloodlines or continuity at all, according to Marsh, though that man's lineage was scarcely four hundred years old, which was nothing compared to the Malfoys' nine hundred and twenty six year history. He had every hope to live to see it but whether he did or not, a millennium of Malfoy would give rise to a Malfoy Millennium, a thousand years of wizarding history capped off with a thousand year reign of the perfect pureblood society, with their family firmly in control.
Lucius certainly wasn't about to let some grubby little banker stand in his way or attempt to rip the country apart before he had a chance to properly rule anything. Still, with everything the goblin's done to shake up the established order he's worked so hard to arrange to his liking, it'd be easier to believe this sort of change had come about from some influence he wasn't yet aware of. Not even the most unTraditionalist of families would further the goblin cause though – or would they?
He seemed to have some vague memory of someone once attempting to sway the goblins to the Ministry's side during the war by gifting them a small house on a tract of land somewhere near… Nottingham, Lucius thought. He'd have to have his friends in the Wizengamot look into it and the legalities around such a thing because the two circumstances were too similar to ignore. There was no so-called Dark Lord to take care of the issue this time around though and the spells the I.C.W. and the bank had on the island kept the Ministry from even finding it.
Still, as murky as those issues were they paled in comparison to chaotic nature of the goblin way of running a bank. They'd always been described as 'beings of near-human intelligence' and from what Marsh said of the sudden changes being made that description was too flattering by half. What the man described was more like energetic children making things up as they went along and lighting the rule book on fire just to see the pretty flames glow.
Lucius had never cared for children or their childish games even when he was one, but even he knew you couldn't win a game where the rules were constantly being rewritten. To combat what was happening though he had to know what was going on, and to do that he had to ask what may be the most repulsive question he could think of.
"So what precisely does that mean?"
"It means I've essentially been demoted," Marsh grumbled. "They've stripped almost all of the Overseers' powers away, renamed the position, created a new position above it and called that an Overseer, only to then appoint themselves to fill the positions. I'm nothing but an – a taskmaster now. Taskmaster Marsh, it's insulting, but I should have expected as much from him."
"What does it mean for your position?" Lucius clarified. "You won't have one of those goblins looking over your shoulder and riffling through your things, will you? How at risk is the Hogwarts Board of Governors at having their privacy and control wrenched away like they threatened?"
"That is yet to be seen," the man said petulantly. "I overheard Bankor – the mousy one who's always dealt with the Ministry – describe it as 'a change in governmental structure' more than bank management but suffice it to say I'll be watched. The new 'Grand Overseer' even went so far as to send his bully-boy, Gutripper, to say so explicitly when he took the barbaric ceremonial knife from me – not that it's ever done anyone any good.
"As it is, I think they're relishing the opportunity to hold that dagger over my head to make me squirm, wondering when it'll fall," Marsh sneered. "The only bright spot I see – and I mean the only one in a sea of black – is that if they truly are seeing this as a governmental shift rather than managerial one then the relative autonomy of me and my department should still be intact – provided I don't do anything they dislike, of course."
He had always thought the phrase 'goblin nation' was a fig leaf the Ministry used to continue to dismiss the goblins' call for closer ties and representation. It had long been Ministry policy to keep the goblins within the bounds of their bank and to tell them they had to take care of themselves on their own, and naturally the goblins always resented it. Now this new goblin had overturned everything by taking them at their word and forcing them to contend with the full implications of it.
Lucius bid the man to walk small, stay safe, and to leave the goblins to him before sending Marsh on his way and turning to make the solitary journey through the gardens and back up to the house. Yes, what Lucius had found himself in was a very different game than the one he'd played against Dumbledore. This was a drastic, dramatic, aggressive game full of surprise movements and quick changes that actually had him missing the refined ruses, subtle subversions, and tenuous turns of the old way.
Against such a bizarre and unique player though what was he to do? Surely the creature wouldn't be so foolish as to be caught in public when it could stay safely ensconced in its bank with its guards all around it. The rough and simplistic moves made him wonder what it was the goblin really wanted, or if what it wanted was actually what it said it wanted in the first place.
'If it is, at this rate they'll declare themselves a sovereign and independent country sometime next week and magically move the entire bank onto that island,' Lucius thought to himself. 'One thing is clear,' he mused as he tried to take the long view of things again. 'As loathsome as they are, we can't allow them to go off on their own.
'If we do, who'd be next? Would Diagon Alley declare themselves independent and shut themselves off from the Ministry? Would Hogsmeade, despite the fact their allegiance is supposed to be to Hogwarts itself? Magical society would shatter apart,' he concluded.
The prospect left him with only one real move he could make. What he'd done with Mockridge had been a necessary first step; a sign of progress being made so the other side wouldn't retreat from the game and take everything they had with them. The bit with Umbridge may prove equally useful, given time.
In order to start countering the goblins' influence though something more had to be done; as much as Lucius had grown to detest the organization, he'd have to turn the I.C.W. to their cause. And further, though he hated having to become involved, Dumbledore's decline left a hole for someone to fill, and as he'd become so painfully aware, the only person he could rely upon to do things with the proper delicacy was himself. At least it would get him out of the house for a few hours.
.o0O0o.
She tried to tell herself the last trip she'd taken to muggle lands had prepared her for this but the truth was it really hadn't. Everything was the same as everything else; each house nearly identical. Any oddity giving so much as a hint as to what might be going on inside – the newspaper left on the lawn, the stray toy left out by a child, or the dog peeking over the back fence – seemed to shout, "Look at me, please! I'm different from everybody else!" only to then shrink back and cowardly whisper, "But I'm not too different. I still want people to like me."
How could anyone be comfortable enough with that eerie similarity to call this place a home? Was it just a muggle thing wizards lacked which let them live together in such large groups? Her father was a muggleborn and it'd never occurred to her that he would've been brought up surrounded by it. He'd always said it was odd to live in the middle of nowhere with no one else around but he'd always used a more colorful phrase referencing Egypt for it.
Either way, 'My-name-is-not-Pinky' Tonks may have wanted friends when she was younger but she was glad not to have been brought up here. The sheer madness-inducing feel of people being so close they could be watching you from any window probably would've made her as paranoid as Mad-Eye had been before his retirement. True, the official reason was a personally requested transfer rather than a forced retirement due to age but she wouldn't rule out him being stuck in a special room at Saint Mungo's until she'd checked every one of them herself, especially after being dressed down by the head of her department for doing less than her best.
Unfortunately for her, her best seemed to be in short supply for this mission. If the Ministry'd had a sense of humor she would've said it seemed the punishment for knowing too much was to put you in a position where you knew too little, but that'd be giving them too much credit. For that to happen they'd need more knowledgeable and experienced aurors hiding nearby just in case she ran into trouble, and they were busy on all the work they'd been letting pile up for the last week when they'd had to deal with the goblin situation.
If the Ministry had sent her there to attack, rescue, or apprehend a witch or wizard then things would be very different but very little of what she'd been exposed to had prepared her to do something like this. She'd said these people would be torn apart but she hadn't expected to be the one assigned to make sure it didn't happen. How were you supposed to protect muggles from pissed off people who could do magic?
Every one of the procedures she'd been taught to do during her short time as an auror seemed to have two or three big reasons why it'd be either ineffective or in some way harmful to what her task was while trying to reverse everything and apply it to keep someone safe wasn't working at all. Finally she had to conclude the simplest solution was probably the best she'd be able to come up with and surrounded number four with charms to let her know if anyone magical showed up. It'd require her to be close enough to immediately respond if she was ever alerted but that shouldn't be too hard.
Unfortunately the eerie normalcy of the muggle world seemed to be legally enforced and they took less kindly to strangers this time around. Twice a man in a white carriage with a red stripe and blue flashy lights on top had stopped her to ask what she was doing in the area and seemed to find it odd when she'd told him she was just walking around. Obliviating him to forget her hadn't worked since he only came back a few minutes later to ask the same questions, so eventually she Confunded him to make something up so he'd believe everything was fine and then put a Muggle-Repelling Charm on herself.
It still seemed a prudent idea to wander about and familiarize herself with the area, and not least because the last thing she'd wanted to do was knock on the door and tell people who already had reason not to like her that she was inviting herself in for their protection. The situation went from bad to worse though when she found herself one of those long street lengths away from the house when alarm bells went off in her head and she had to scramble back as fast as she could.
The house came into sight just in time for her to see the tiny troll of a man join his wife as she confronted a blue-clothed blonde witch and a camera-carrying wizard on their doorstep. Time seemed to slow down as the puce-faced man got very belligerent and threateningly raised a long metal pipe with a wooden handle and she knew if that was some kind of muggle wand things then could get very bad indeed. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day as everything went bad at once.
The camera flashed, she screamed a spell, something exploded out of the muggle wand, the man roared, and a woman screamed.
"Expecto nuntium!" Tonks cried as ran towards them, for once not caring that it was a shaggy sheepdog that shot out of her wand to trot beside her. "Auror Dispatch: Send mediwizard and back up to Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey," she told the dog, "and hurry!"
.o0O0o.
Mrs. Weasley had been acting strangely all day. She seemed preoccupied during breakfast, dressed up around lunch, disappeared for hours after Amelia Bones had left, fumed and furiously cleaned her already spotless house when she'd returned that everyone thought it best to leave her alone for a while, and even once she'd calmed down and dressed normally again she'd break off whatever she was doing to come over and give him a hug, tell him he was a good boy, or how good it was to have him here whenever he happened to wander through.
Harry didn't know what to think but thankfully she stopped when Fred reminded her that he already had a girlfriend because it was definitely getting weird. After that she returned to making dinner while Dobby went around the living room moving things around slightly. Ginny took Luna to her room while Harry started reviewing the next section of the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 that Hermione would want to go over tomorrow and the twins worked to vent Ron's Quidditch frustration with a game of Exploding Snap.
After the raucous first game he skipped out on studying to join them, and after the second game came chess. The twins' pawns were a lot more paranoid about being sacrificed, which made for an interesting game when he tried to use them himself. After holding his own for quite a while Harry managed to stumble his way into a losing strategy, much to the disappointment of his army, though they did say they'd been through worse.
The sun was dropping lower in the sky when studying came back into play. Ron finally seemed to notice how soon they'd be back at Hogwarts – only about ten days away – so Harry felt no guilt at all about pointing out roughly where he'd gotten his answers from. It was hardly cheating, in his opinion, since he was only pointing out a page in the book though there seemed to be silent agreement not to mention it to Hermione, just in case.
It was actually dark and dinner was being laid out by the time a weary Mr. Weasley made his way home. Though he always had a smile for everyone – or at least tried to – he particularly brightened when he saw his wife.
"So?" he prompted cheerily as Harry and Ron put their books away. "How'd it go?"
"I'll tell you about it later," Mrs. Weasley said darkly as she brought out the silverware, "but as far as bad things go it went alright, I think."
"Well that's… good, I guess," Mr. Weasley said uncertainly.
"Boys," she said turning to them, "be dears and tell the others supper's ready, will you? It looks like we may have to start without Bill again."
"It's got to be Great-Aunt Muriel," Ron said as they had trudged upstairs. "Dad's always tried to get Mum to get on better with her, but the woman's awful. We used to have to spend every Christmas with her. The best thing Fred and George ever did was set off a dungbomb under her chair because we haven't been back since," he smiled.
"Does she go over there often?" Harry asked as they hit his room to stow their books, curious about this unpleasant Weasley relative.
"No, that's the thing," Ron said with a furrowed brow. "I don't see why she would unless– Oh," he finished quickly, the tips of his ears going pink.
"What?"
"Great-Aunt Muriel's got money," he said as if embarrassed about it. "She's always been really stingy with it and never let us forget it. Mum probably went over to tell her about what you did for Ginny and – Well, no matter what she said she would've had some really not nice things to say about it. Probably blamed Mum for needing it in the first place."
"That's awful," Harry agreed.
"That's Great-Aunt Muriel."
.o0O0o.
The Saturday morning light poured through the window as Hermione smiled into the mirror. That Marjorie girl was right, the Sleekeazy's hair potion-shampoo combination was fantastic! Gone was the frizzy, kinky mane that'd break combs, battle brushes, and only become worse the more you fought it and in its place was something she actually liked.
It'd taken several days of careful addition to get her hair to come out exactly how she wanted it – soft and smooth without being severely straight, with gentle waves and a hint of curl to inform what she could do with it – but now that it was she couldn't imagine having to go back. She knew she should try to restrain herself lest she become just as shallow and superficial as Lavender but it was hard when her hair looked good for the first time in her life.
'Lavender lets fashion and beauty define her,' Hermione thought as she tried to figure out where to draw the line. 'That doesn't mean it's inherently wrong to care about your appearance. A person should be free to cultivate their appearance so they can express themselves and who they wish to be without being picked apart for it.'
She broke off as an image of Draco Malfoy strutting through Hogwarts like a Napoleon that'd just crowned himself flashed into her mind. There had to be a better guideline since that one would let the most arrogant and delusional people do anything in the world while being immune to criticism. But if it was acceptable to criticize others for thinking too much of themselves – and a case could be made that it should be – then where do you draw the line between valid criticism and hurtful nitpicking when what you're talking about is an external expression of an internal self-image when the perceived mismatch is comparatively small?
Rather than catty bickering based on one person's internal view of themselves and another person's criticisms of the external expression of that internal view there had to be some broader based principles and rules governing this sort of thing. She was brought up short again though when she realized what she was arguing for: the value and role of a cultural norm.
'Cultural norms are irrational appeals to popular opinion that have no basis in the individual freedoms inherent to everyone,' Hermione reminded herself. 'They only serve to promote outdated modes of behavior, stifle free expression, and maintain regressive gender roles. They should be in no way binding on anyone and fighting against them is a valid way to express oneself and progress the culture forward in the right direction.
'Still,' she thought to herself, 'there would be a difference between dressing in a way fitting your self-image – even when that self-image conflicted with cultural norms – and intentionally and overtly going against such norms as a political act. That kind of act would invite public evaluation and critique – indeed some would say it required it – in order to determine if what that act proposed would indeed be helpful or hurtful for a society to normalize.
'And again,' Hermione thought, going back to her original flawed proposition, 'the last thing a culture should do is normalize an immunity to criticism. No matter what the justification for it is, it stifles both the critical evaluation and the free expression of ideas that we should be upholding,' she concluded. 'Ideas rise or fall on their own merits, not on any metric applied to the person offering those ideas, so if there is a difference between what I'm doing and what Lavender does it should be addressed on those terms and those terms alone.'
Confronted with that particular brick wall she left the mirror to find something else to occupy herself with while she thought about it. This only brought her right back to where she was when what she'd unconsciously chosen to occupy herself with was going back into her closet to see if there was something better she could wear.
'Oh! I hate this!' Hermione said to herself as she walked out of the closet, refusing to consider changing what she wore. 'I may be involved with Harry now but that's no reason to throw my brain out the window and become such a… such a girl!'
The silly face of Einstein on her wall was having a good joke at her expense, as if the governing laws of the universe were conspiring against her.
"That's not funny," she scowled at it before starting to pace back and forth across the room. "Whatever instinct is driving this," Hermione said poking herself in the forehead as if to reprimand her brain, "you get out of there right now."
A quick tap at the window signaled her deliverance and the arrival of the second best non-academic thing she'd gotten from the magical world – discounting Mipsy, of course, because friendship wasn't ownership. Since so much of what was going on in the magical world was chaos caused by what she and Harry did last year it'd seemed like a good idea to get a subscription to the Daily Prophet for herself. Little did she expect what she saw below the fold.
'Isle of Gringotts Gains All-Goblin Settlement,' the story read, to which Hermione could only reply, 'Good for them,' as she sat at her desk. Of course her second thought was, 'Maybe if they're all on one island they'll learn it's wrong to kill people.'
The story beside it though made her doubt if the Ministry had any intentions of ending the goblin standoff at all. The picture showed the same frog-faced lady she remembered berating the bank's management in Diagon Alley next to the headline, 'Ministry Shakeup: Dolores Umbridge, New Chief Warlock.' Flipping the paper right side up, nothing could've prepared her for what she saw.
'Harry Potter's Monster Muggle Relatives,' it advertised and as explosive as the headline was the picture was worse. The angry-faced man – who could only be Harry's uncle – actually pulled out a shotgun and fired! Again and again the picture looped as she skimmed the article and of one thing Hermione became absolutely sure: she had no idea how Harry would react to this.
She picked up her school bag and was about to call for Mipsy when there was a knock on her door and her dad stuck his head inside.
"Oh! Good, I caught you," the frizzy-haired dentist said with a smile not far from laughter. "I went out for something to munch on and saw this," he said producing one of his favorite tabloids. "Didn't you say this woman was Harry's aunt?"
Stunned as she was Hermione had to give them credit, the wizarding world simply couldn't compare to muggle tabloids when it came to outlandish titles.
'Goblin Lady of Surrey: Witches Shot My Husband!'
.o0O0o.
AN: Come now, Rita Skeeter may be a foul and despicable woman but did you really think that I was going to shoot her? XD She hasn't done enough to deserve that, at least not yet.
As always, thanks for reading.