AN: Well, low and behold I had time to edit today and have another one ready. I'm actually kind of shocked. Got some good development on the next couple of chapters too. I am really excited about a direction one of the plotlines is about to be headed in. Fun things coming stay tuned.

Chapter 15: A Review

Augusta Longbottom had never wanted to be viewed as a formidable political opponent. She had never planned on being the leading matriarch to her husband's family, but since Frank was indisposed and Neville had only been one at the time, she had to take the mantra up for the House of Longbottom.

Admittedly, she enjoyed politics more than she should. There was nothing like intimidating someone while wearing a fashionable hat—though Neville thought her signature vulture hat was scary.

It was frightening as it should be and the height of wizarding fashion—though wizarding fashion may have been a century or two out of date. Not that Augusta knew, she had never kept up muggle trends. She wasn't one of those vain purebloods like Narcissa Malfoy. She saw how the wench had cut off her hair recently—the scandal!

The past few months though were way too much for her old bones. And now she had heard rumors that Lucius Malfoy of all things had visited the Lestrange bitch in Azkaban.

And her sources mentioned that he was there as her attorney—that would not do. Not do at all.

Augusta could still remember that awful day when she was called to St. Mungo's. She could still see her son's body twitching. Her daughter in-law staring blankly in space.

Shells of their former selves.

They hadn't left St. Mungo's since.

Their son only remembered them as they were now. And what had that loon done the day of her trial—laughed and boasted about cursing them.

She had pushed for the kiss back then, but since neither Frank nor Alice had died and were expected to survive a life sentence was the maximum sentence that could be allowed. It wasn't enough.

Not one look of guilt on that bitch's face.

She knew there were three others involved with the attack—the bitch's pounce of a husband, his brother, and Bartimus's rotten boy, but the bitch made her blood boil the most.

The laughing, the taunting. It was incorrigible. And to think she had the audacity to get Lucius involved in her case, or Narcissa did.

Augusta inwardly rolled her eyes thinking of Lucius's vapid wife. She had seen her at several of the functions she had to attend. How her name wasn't stained by what that bitch did flummoxed Augusta's mind. Much how Lucius avoided prison.

She could only hope he wouldn't be able to do the same for the loon. But there really was no point in reviewing said case, Augusta thought, the evidence spoke for itself.

Bellatrix even laughed about how long she held her poor daughter in-law with that atrocious spell without even the use of truth serum.

Why was he even reviewing that case?

She had half a thought of confronting Lucius at today's board meeting if she got a chance. They were reviewing the latest issues that were going on at the school. Mainly, staffing issues.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts position was always an ongoing headache. With Quirrell leaving at the end of last semester, they had been thrust with Fudge's lacky in the position, and she was trying to muscle whatever power she had at the school while her teaching was just awful.

They had received numerous complaints from parents inquiring about her credentials. Which they had found out weren't great.

She didn't even have an A on the subject matter on her OWLS. So, she was pretty much unqualified. Of course, that was only one of many problems they had. Snape—bastard he was—decided to take emergency leave with little to no warning and now the other professors were overstretched substituting for him. And then there was poor Minerva.

Lucius was wanting her removed, "If we're proactive, the lawsuit against the school will go better."

What a load of dragon dung.

"You can't be serious," she said. "Minerva is one of the best transfiguration specialists in the world."

Lucius rolled his eyes obviously not impressed with Minerva's credentials. She wasn't surprised. If Minerva had been a Slytherin it would've been all the difference. He never seemed to complain about Severus shoes teaching had been detrimental to Hogwarts' Potion's OWL scores.

"Ah, yes, she transfigures the best buttons from beetles. I am not talking about her credentials though; she was blatantly negligent to the Granger girl. Even you have to admit as much, Augusta."

The facts did seem bad, she had seen the lawsuit that had been filed against the school and all the evidence. She had even been there the day Weasley and Waller were arraigned.

She still didn't understand how Neville didn't intervene.

Then again, if she had suspected her eleven-year-old grandson intervened then Minerva should've done more than she did.

She knew it was because of James Potter.

Minerva had loved that boy like a son. Having his son hurt like that—taken that way—had played havoc with her mind.

"Lucius, we all make mistakes." Albus said taking over the conversation.

Bless him.

She might not agree with everything Albus said or did, but she agreed with him more than Lucius.

"Oh yes, mistakes that involve a student almost being murdered and possibly losing her state of being because Minerva couldn't control her lions. Someone is going to have to pay, Albus."

"The boys who perpetrated the attack have been arrested and are awaiting trial," Augusta pointed out.

Lucius rolled his eyes and said, "If the boys who perpetrated the crime were watched closely, Ms. Granger would be attending classes instead of gorging on corn in St. Mungo's like a common rodent."

"Lucius."

"I'm just pointing out what my brother in-law is going to say if this case goes to trial. It's going to be bad. People are going to have to be found accountable. And Minerva was the adult in charge of Gryffindor house at the time."

Albus sighed, "There's no need to continue, Lucius. Minerva handed me her resignation from head of house position this morning and well as the deputy headmistress position. However, I do not believe this should impact her position as Transfiguration professor especially since we are having staffing issues at the moment."

Lucius glared at him, but the subject was dropped. For now.


At the end of the meeting, she cornered the blonde.

"A word, Lucius."

"Oh, please don't chastise me about, Minerva, Augusta. She is clearly a liability for the school." He snapped.

"This isn't about Minerva," she said. "I heard you were visiting that loon."

"There are lots of loons, Augusta." He said, "Be more specific."

"The Lestrange loon," She snapped. "You will not be helping her. I don't care who your wife is."

Lucius laughed. "I'm sorry."

"You heard me," Augusta said. "That bitch stays in jail for what she did to my son and his wife."

"Last I heard, you're not head of the DMLE or a court appointed official," Lucius snapped. "Besides, I don't even know why we are having this asinine conversation, I don't represent a Lestrange."

"And you better not," Augusta said.

She was not done with this matter; she was not letting go. She was contacting Amelia because there was no way that bitch was going to get out of jail.


Bern, Switzerland

Today was his first day to go outside of the wellness center. He wanted to go shopping. He had a gift in mind to send his son.

His son.

Just saying that felt so weird, but for the past few weeks he and Harry had been corresponding back and forth.

He had learned a lot about the boy that he had thought was his godson—the boy she stole.

He was still trying to come to terms with the anger and betrayal he felt towards Lily. It just didn't make sense to him, why she stole his son.

Then again, there were things in his memory now that stuck out a lot more than they had all those years ago.

Like Lily's sudden interests in his and Bella's fertility issues, volunteering herself as a surrogate when he hadn't even asked such a thing, he wondered now if she had planned this all along.

He'd never get to ask or confront her about it. Instead, like Cissy, he was trying to piece together what she did. So far all he could come up with she had somehow managed to transfer Harry from Bella's womb into her own and then did some sort of ritual or what not to make him her own.

It did not make sense, much like everything else in this world.

He even had wondered if James knew. He hoped he didn't. He couldn't see his best friend doing that to him. Even with Peter….well, if he had been in his right mind he wouldn't even have been talking to Peter.

Bella hated him. Even more than she hated Lily and Sirius could see why.

He frowned thinking the last time he saw the rat. The look of glee on his face.

"You think you're so smart. All of you think you're so smart. Well, I showed you all."

He wondered what the rodent may have done to Remus. Not that he had been particularly close to the werewolf after graduating, but he didn't have any ill will towards him either.

The last time he had spoken to Remus felt like a lifetime ago like most everything else in his life. Even walking in a shopping district like he was today seemed like a distant memory.

The healers said he needed to get used to being in public again, hence one of the reasons for this trip and he just wanted to buy his own things and get a couple of presents for his son. Owl ordering wasn't the same as buying something in person.

From Harry's letters and from what Cissy had told him, the boy hadn't really had much in terms of his own things growing up.

No, he was abused just as he and Bella were. Except worse, he was treated like a house elf.

Sirius frowned as he thought about what the boy mentioned about cooking for Petunia.

Horrid woman. He was glad she was rotting in Azkaban, or he might've been tempted to do something that would've landed him in Azkaban again himself. What he had read in the Prophet alone had made his blood boil.

Bella would've killed them; he thought.

He could only help that Lucius was as efficient as a solicitor with Bella's case as he was with his. Then again, he really didn't have to do much with his case since Peter had pretty much appeared out of nowhere—well, not exactly out of nowhere.

He cringed when Cissy had told him about what happened to that girl, Hermione Granger. Some of the shit that girl had experienced was the same sort of shit he and the Marauders would've done to their classmates back in the day.

He still regretted what happened to Snape back in fifth year. That was such a dick move on his part, to Remus more than Snape really. It took him years to realize just how awful he was.

He was amazed he wasn't expelled for that shit.

He tried to clear his thoughts as he entered the store hoping that he could find something akin to those mirrors he and James had charmed all those years back.

The idea had came to him when exchanging letters to his son. Letter writing wasn't exactly the fastest form of communication, and Narcissa really thought Harry was not well enough to travel internationally. Neither was he really.

He also worried he'd scare his son.

While most of the time he was able to restrain himself and remain lucid, he still had his moments. There was a reason Switzerland was probably going to be his home for the next few months.

At least with the mirrors he'd be able to talk to him and then end the conversation if he felt the madness taking over him.

"May, I help you?" A familiar voice said breaking Sirius out of his thoughts.

"Moony?"


She hadn't had a real thought in such a long time. Not since that night.

She remembered going back into the common room and fading. She thought…there was a couple of times she thought she might've felt Mummy but then she was gone again.

She had a vague recollection of waking up and being so cold, Mummy was there but she was so scared. And then she was gone again.

She didn't know where she went, she just floated away and just let the rat be a rat.

It wasn't her.

But it was.

Then somehow the floating stopped. She found herself gradually coming down and realizing that the rat was her.

She was so scared at first. She heard herself squawk. She wanted to change back, but she couldn't she didn't understand…she didn't know what had happened to her.

She saw she was in some sort of a cage with a pile of corn in front of her. She gradually remembered just wanting to eat the corn, still wanting to eat it and making herself feel sick at how much corn she was eating. Lord, she wouldn't be able to fit in her robes at this rate. So much for losing fifteen pounds...

She started panicking and then oddly she felt calm. It wasn't like the floating feeling, but it was something else. She was still there.

She didn't know how long. It seemed like days it may have been weeks, but then she felt her body contrasting and she felt so cold…

"Mummy," She cried when she noticed she could finally see her mother in front of her.

"Oh, Hermione," Her mother said looking at her.

"I'm…I'm cold." She said grimacing at the fact as she realized she was naked.

She was quickly given a robe. The robe she had loved so much at home that she hadn't taken to that, that, place. The mere thought of that place wanted to make her go away. And she couldn't.

She couldn't go away.

Not again.

"What…what happened to me?" She finally asked her mother.

Her mother looked at someone in the room. Oddly enough, she didn't notice that there were other people in the room. Her hospital room.

"Hermione, I'm Healer Tonks," one of the women said. "It's good to see you. How are you feeling?"

"Weird," She said. "I…I thought I was a rat."

She notice Healer Tonks shot a look at the other people in the room. One was a woman that looked similar whose hair was cut a little shorter. The other one, who spoke was a tall looking man of Asian descent, "I'm Healer Chang, Hermione. There was an incident. But you are safe now. You do not need to worry."

"What…what happened?" She could feel herself wanting to change but she couldn't.

Wanting to change?

"Deep breaths," Healer Chang said. "Why don't you talk to your mum. Try not to think about anything else."

"But…" Hermione said as she noticed Chang motioned something and she felt instantly calmer.

"Breathe…" He said, "It will be okay."

But it was not. Why was her body fighting her? Why was she wanting to go back into the abyss? Going back to being a rat.


Chapter 16 Preview: Amelia and Lucius have a chat as well as Sirius and Remus. We get a musing from a certain deviant.