Madam Bones arrived at Hogwarts two days later with what seemed like an army of aurors (it was only four), a St. Mungo's healer, and Lord Gareth Greengrass who was there in his official capacities of Chief Warlock, Head of the Department of Mysteries, and concerned father.
Throughout the morning the nearly two dozen students who had ended up in detention with Umbridge were interviewed by an auror or Madam Bones and the St. Mungo's healer, along with Madam Pomfrey, collected the medical evidence of the use of Blood Quills. According to a book Hermione found in the library, the injury from use of a Blood Quill would show up on any standard medical scan.
Thankfully, no one had lasting damage from the Blood Quill. According to the same book, prolonged use of a Blood Quill would lead to scarring and the possibility of blood poisoning.
Someone, of course, told the press and The Daily Prophet quite happily printed a front-page article detailing the case against Umbridge, how the 'poor headmaster' had simply been trying to show the ministry that Hogwarts had nothing to hide, and how the minister and Umbridge conspired to use their power in nefarious ways and how the Board of Governors had to step in and help. There was a detailed history lesson about when the Board last hired a professor on behalf of the Head of School, telling how the then headmistress of the school, a pureblood witch named Katarina Puddlesmith, had been against the creation of the Muggle Studies program and had told the Board that if they insisted on having such a program at Hogwarts then they were in charge of procuring the professor as she would have no part in supporting the teaching of 'barbarian ways' to the 'civilized students of Hogwarts'.
Of course, the press lauded Lucius Malfoy and the Board for their quick action to protect the children of Hogwarts and lambasted Minister Fudge's choice in DADA professors (Umbridge didn't even have a mastery in anything!). This, of course, boosted a bit of Dumbledore's reputation as the press was quite sympathetic towards him (for once), but they still continued to run smaller articles about how Dumbledore was a warmonger so Aria was not sure how long this would last and how badly this would hurt Minister Fudge in the long run.
While the aurors were talking to the detention victims, Aria found herself pulled into an interview with Madam Bones and Lord Greengrass. Snape, as her Head of House, sat in on the interview and Remus, being one of her guardians, joined.
"You're not in trouble," Madam Bones said first. Aria chuckled. "But while we're here, we wanted to have a discussion as part of our investigation into the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Lord Greengrass is the Head of the Department of Mysteries. Do you know much about that department?"
"That it's mysterious?" Aria guessed. Lord Greengrass snorted.
"I can see why Daphne likes you," he said. "The Department Mysteries does a lot. Some I cannot speak of except with other workers within the department."
"Those are called Unspeakables right?" Aria asked. Lord Greengrass nodded.
"So are you an Unspeakable?"
"Yes."
"Cool." Aria grinned. That sounded super fascinating. She would have to ask Professor Snape about it. As much as she enjoyed potions, she wasn't sure that was what she wanted to do full time once she was out of Hogwarts.
"Now, we are here because in Mr. Diggory and Mr. Potter said in their statements that you had given them protection amulets," Madam Bones said, rifling through some notes she had with her. She produced a photo of Cedric's protection amulet. Aria felt the familiar nauseous twist of her belly as she looked at the picture of the twisted metal, the red of the amulet having turned black when it was hit by the Killing Curse. The brass had twisted and warped into a nearly unrecognizable shape. She recalled what Professor Moody had said about it. There was no protection magic left on the object.
"How familiar are you with the Unforgivable Curses?" Lord Greengrass asked.
"Professor Moody did a lesson on them last year," Aria answered, still staring at the photo. "With Auror Scrimgeour. He had permission to demonstrate the curses."
"Then you're aware that there are no known protections against any of the three," Lord Greengrass said. "A strong Shield Charm may protect you for some seconds from the Cruciatus, but it will shatter the shield. The Imperious and Killing Curse will simply fly through a Shield Charm like it wasn't even there."
Aria nodded.
Lord Greengrass leaned forward, tapping the protection amulet.
"Except now there is a way to protect against the Unforgivables. Lord Black has been kind enough to allow me to study Mr. Potter's amulet which has just enough protection magic left in it to protect him from a Tickle Charm. According to his interview with Madam Bones, the resurrected Dark Lord put him under the Imperious and he, a fourteen-year-old child, was able to throw it off like he had auror training. I have, unfortunately, not been able to study Miss Delacour's or Mr. Krum's amulets. Though I assume neither of theirs are warped or destroyed because neither of them came in contact with an Unforgiveable."
Aria could not help him with that. She could not remember if she had seen Fleur and Viktor's amulets after the Third Task. A lot of things from that night were a blur.
"What do you want to know?" Aria asked. She had an inkling Lord Greengrass was going to ask her the same thing Dumbledore asked her. However, unlike with the headmaster, no alarm bells were going off in her head. She did not feel ill-at-ease around either Madam Pomfrey or Lord Greengrass. It was clear that both of them were curious and desperate for answers, but in a professional way. She did not feel intimidated by them.
"How did you create the amulets?" Lord Greengrass asked. "I want to know if it's something the Unspeakables could replicate."
Aria winced a little.
"I made them using the instructions in my Ancient Runes textbook," she told him. "And . . ." she took a deep breath and held out her hand which had the Flamel heir ring on it. ". . . Nicholas Flamel left me more than just money."
It took a long moment before understanding dawned on Madam Bones and Lord Greengrass' faces.
"He left you the Philosopher's Stone," Madam Bones said.
"And the recipe for the Elixir of Life," Aria added. "You can't make the elixir without the stone. I dipped the amulets into the elixir. Some of his alchemy notes hypothesized that the properties of the elixir could be transferred onto objects to heighten their magical powers. So, I took a chance."
Lord Greengrass shook his head in amazement.
"But why create the amulets in the first place?" he asked.
"I had to do more tarot card readings for homework," Aria said with a slight scowl. "And I read Cedric's cards and had a horrifying vision of him being killed. So, I thought . . . I thought I'd try to stop it from happening."
Madam Bones scribbled away in her notes. Lord Greengrass looked torn between multiple emotions though Aria could see he was trying to play it cool like the Slytherin he was.
"Vision?" he settled on saying. "You can See?"
Aria nodded. "I can't control it," she told him. "It just . . . happens. I also see Shadows."
"Shadows?"
"Well, I call them Shadows. Like Shadows of the Past? Hogwarts likes to show me things that happened here. I've seen Professor McGonagall with her boyfriend Tom Riddle, and I've also seen Barty Crouch Jr. and Frank Longbottom."
She heard Madam Bones mutter 'boyfriend' and a smile twitched at both the mouths of the adults as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
"So, you created normal protection amulets," Lord Greengrass said, going back to the topic at hand, "and dipped them all into the Elixir of Life? That you brewed on your own? Did Professor Snape help you?"
"No. He'd have told me not to do it because if anyone had found out I had the recipe at Hogwarts then someone probably would've tried to steal it. But the recipe is easy if you're a competent brewer and have access to all the ingredients. It won't work without the Philosopher's Stone."
Lord Greengrass sighed.
"And I suppose it's too much to expect you to share the recipe with the Department of Mysteries?" he asked.
"I've only got one stone," Aria said. "And I don't know how to create one. That, as far as I'm aware, Flamel took to his grave. He also entrusted it and the recipe to me. Could you guarantee that no one in the Department of Mysteries wouldn't steal the recipe or the Stone?"
Lord Greengrass was, unfortunately, silent.
"A lot of people could be saved should the Death Eaters rise," Madam Bones said diplomatically.
"I know," Aria replied. "Dumbledore said the same thing."
"Dumbledore?" Lord Greengrass questioned.
"He wanted to know how I made the amulets too," Aria answered.
"Did you tell him?"
"I told him I made it the way the textbook told me to."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Why?" Madam Bones asked. "You told us but not him?" Aria studied the woman for a moment. Madam Bones had proven to be a moral witch with a strong character and was someone Aria never felt uncomfortable around. Lord Greengrass was much like Daphne. He had his beliefs and he stuck to them, and he didn't give off weird vibes like Lord Malfoy did or even his wife, Lady Greengrass.
"I like your magic," Aria settled on saying, as that was the closes way to describe why she chose to tell them and not Dumbledore. "I don't . . . you and your magic . . . feels safe. I mean . . . even if he hadn't drugged me and stuck me under the Black Lake last year, I still wouldn't have told him. He let Sirius rot in Azkaban for twelve years and left Harry at the Dursleys when he had the power to make sure he was somewhere safe. Why'd I trust a man like that with the fact that I have access to the Philosopher's Stone?"
Not to mention, Aria thought, she was certain Dumbledore knew she had held onto the stone in first year and returned it to Nicholas Flamel. She doubted the man had forgotten that.
Leaning forward, Lord Greengrass' gaze became sharp, calculating, clearly intrigued by her. She knew Daphne had told her father about her; her friend seemed close to her dad. What must this man think of her? Aria met his gaze, refusing to be intimidated, though she got the feeling the man wasn't trying to intimidate her, just understand her.
"What is your lineage?" the lord suddenly asked. Aria frowned as did Madam Bones.
"My what?" Aria cried.
"Your lineage," Lord Greengrass repeated. "You're Muggleborn, I know that, but who're your ancestors? Your family in the Muggle world?"
"Oh . . . um . . . well my dad's family, the Bournes, have been working class since before the Norman Conquest. We've never left the area of England we're from. Um . . . there were a few magistrates. I don't know much about my Mum's side. We don't talk to my grandparents. They weren't happy at her choice of husband and prefer to pretend Dad and I don't exist. I haven't seen them since her funeral. Their names are Lawrence and Gloria Black, and they live up in the Lakes District now. Retired and all that."
"Black you say?"
"It's a pretty common Muggle surname," Aria pointed out. "But I like to tease Walburga Black's painting at Grimmauld Place about it. I call her Grandma and everything. It makes her screech!" She giggled at the confession.
"Good thing she's dead," Madam Bones muttered.
"I think she'd crawl out of the portrait if she could," Aria admitted. "She says awful things to me and Dad, but we just pull the curtain over her and that keeps her quiet. We haven't figured out how to remove the portrait. Sirius would like to burn the painting, but obviously since it's stuck on the wall, we can't do that."
"So, you've never had a Lineage Test done?"
Aria shook her head.
"I didn't even know that was a thing until I saw Barty's trial," she answered. "And why would I do that anyway? It's not going to say anything I don't already know. Mum was a Muggle and so is Dad. As their parents are and were and so on and so forth. Even if the test showed that a squib or wizard married into the family at some point it wouldn't make any difference to that fact. Nor would it change how people see me. I could be descended from Merlin himself and people like Lord Malfoy would still dislike me because my parents are Muggles."
"People like Lord Malfoy will die before they accept that there are wixen greater than they," Lord Greengrass muttered. He studied Aria for another moment. "Are you going to be a Potions Mistress?"
"Well, I think that's the plan," Aria said. "Because I want to find the cure for lycanthropy, and Professor Snape believes it'll lend my research credibility . . . depending on how long it takes me to find the cure of course. But I don't think I want to make it my whole career."
"Whenever you're ready then," Lord Greengrass said, nodding to Madam Bones and the two of them rose to their feet. "Send me a letter and we'll . . . discuss . . . the endless possibilities that the Department of Mysteries offers."
There were plenty of opinion pieces in The Daily Prophet about Remus' appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts post. In the two weeks following Umbridge's firing, the paper had been printing all the opinions that had flooded their office about the situation. There were a great many people very concerned about a werewolf at Hogwarts, even if some of the people concerned had been classmates of Remus when he had been at Hogwarts. There were, however, an equal amount of opinion pieces in favor of Remus taking up the post. Some were people who remembered Remus from their own schooldays, while others were of the political persuasion that Britain needed to follow the rest of Europe in the more progressive treatment of werewolves.
The Board of Governors had issued a public statement that The Daily Prophet had printed, and according to a letter from Percy to Ron and Ginny, Lady Longbottom and Lucius Malfoy had been chosen to give a joint interview on the Wizarding Wireless. Lady Longbottom, while still not a fan of werewolves, admitted in the interview that Remus Lupin had always had her admiration as well as her son and daughter-in-law's long before she knew he was a werewolf, and that the discovery of his condition (and the fact that she wasn't subject to Compulsion Charms anymore) was making her rethink what she knew and thought about werewolves in general. Lucius Malfoy had come at the interview from a practical standpoint. The students needed a good teacher, Lupin had shown that he was a good teacher, and there had been no incidents while he was a student or teacher that put anyone in danger. With Professor Snape making the Wolfsbane, and with Lupin leaving campus on the nights of the full moon, there was no danger to the students.
Of course, Aria thought after hearing Percy's letter, that was a bit of a lie because she was certain something had happened with Remus while he was at school that involved him, Sirius, and Snape somehow and that was why Professor Snape only tolerated Sirius and Remus.
Frank Longbottom had even written an opinion piece all the way from Switzerland, lauding Remus and blasting anyone who said anything bad about him and other werewolves who were law-abiding citizens.
The best thing that came out of all this, was that The Daily Prophet actually did a small highlight of Aria's research. They had pulled a picture taken while she was at the YEP Symposium and within a few days, Aria was receiving more donations for her research than she could have ever anticipated. Snape was quite pleased and helped her write a report for the British Guild.
With Umbridge gone, some of the tension that had hovered over Hogwarts and the students was also gone. The 5th year Slytherins were able to go back to being one large friendship group, though they made sure to curb how much they hung out while outside the Slytherin common room to continue the illusion that there was a fracture, but they spent a lot of time in the 5th year girls' dormitory eating sweets and studying. After Umbridge had been ousted, Aria and Draco had met up in the Restricted Section for a celebratory snog.
And while the students were glad that Remus was back, they only barely kept their complaining to themselves when he sent full throttle on ensuring they caught up on one month of material in the first two weeks of him teaching while also teaching them new material. Still, it was better than Umbridge.
"What books do you have that would tell me about the Department of Mysteries?"
Madam Pince looked up from whatever she was working on to peer at Aria over her reading spectacles. Aria smiled innocently at her.
"I tremble to think why you want to know about the Department of Mysteries," Madam Pince said, putting her quill down and pulling out a book that held all the titles of the current Hogwarts catalog.
"For academic and professional purposes of course," Aria assured her. "Lord Greengrass mentioned that I should look into it, and I wanted a little more information since the career talks don't happen until later this term."
"Interesting," Madam Pince murmured as she flipped through the catalog. "The Department generally doesn't recruit so young."
Aria shrugged.
"Though you have proven to be an interesting witch," the librarian continued. "Trolls and basilisks and lycanthropy research." She began writing down titles and reference numbers, handing Aria a slip of paper with three titles on it. "Start with those."
"Thanks!" Aria skipped off into the stacks.
The first book, A History of the British Ministry was just a history book that talked about when the Department of Mysteries was first founded. The department, like the Wizengamot, pre-dated the formal formation of the British Ministry of Magic in 1707. The department even predated the formation of the Wizengamot. The Wizengamot, Aria learned, had been created in 1526 to replace the Wizards' Council due to the growing magical population of the British Isles. The Department of Mysteries, in its "pre-department days" had gone by several names: the Cunning Folk, the Guardians, People of the Hills, or the Grove Children.
From another book, Communities of Magic, there was a whole section about the wixen community prior to the Christianization of the British Isles and Ireland. Aria was certain that there were Muggle historians who would give an arm and a leg, if not outright kill someone, for the information in this book.
In Communities of Magic, there were more in depth descriptions of what became known as the Department of Mysteries. Apparently, according to the book, the different regions of the British Isles and Ireland had within their magical communities a set group whose purpose was to gather, retain, study, and teach the knowledge of magic to people. That's where the names the Cunning Folk, the Guardians, People of the Hills, and the Grove Children came from. When Hogwarts was started and the British Isles and Ireland began coming together into the more modern day countries, these groups gathered together and eventually, through the centuries, morphed into the Department of Mysteries.
The last book, Understanding the British Ministry for Dummies, explained that the Department of Mysteries was the one department within the ministry with very little oversight from the Minister or the Wizengamot. It had some oversight, of course, but much of what happened within the department was only known by a select few. The Minister knew some, but not all, as did the Chief Warlock and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The Department of Mysteries had strict rules and a strict clearance hierarchy. One could work in the department and still not know everything that went on in the department. The highest-ranking member in the Department of Mysteries was, of course, the Head of the Department, who was chosen by secret vote by the Unspeakables, which was the group of department workers with the highest clearance. The post was for life, or at least until retirement, and not everyone knew who was an Unspeakable and who wasn't.
That was all good, Aria thought, hours later once she was done reading. But it still didn't tell her what happened in the department. Did they sit around drinking tea? Solving mysteries?
For a moment she distracted herself with the idea of a British crime drama following the life of an Unspeakable solving the mysteries of the wizarding world. She pictured Lord Greengrass acting like some kind of Hercule Poirot.
"Light reading?"
Aria jerked her head up, startled. She had taken the books to the prefect lounge so that she would have more time to read instead of traversing Hogwarts and losing reading time. She had been alone when she had arrived and now the room was filling with prefects. Cedric stood over her with a grin, his Head Boy badge gleaming in the light.
"Just . . . doing some research," Aria replied.
"You and your research. Are you already starting a new project?" Cedric grabbed the book from her hands. "Looking into a political career?"
"Gods no!" Aria cried. "But when I spoke to Madam Bones and Lord Greengrass last, Lord Greengrass mentioned that I might want to talk with him later about the endless possibilities of the Department of Mysteries. So, I'm trying to figure out what the endless possibilities of the department are. But that itself seems to be a bit of a mystery. So far, I've learned the history of the department and how it functions, but not what it does. Or at least, nothing concrete."
"I didn't think the Department of Mysteries recruited so early," Adrian Pucey commented, butting into the conversation.
"Madam Pince made a similar comment," Aria admitted.
"I can tell you a little bit about the department," Cedric said, "only because Dad's given me a tour of the ministry and he was allowed to take me to the . . . well . . . not the publically accessible area of the department, but what normal plebian ministry workers such as himself are able to access."
"Isn't he the head of a department?" Aria asked.
"Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures," Cedric replied. "Anyway, the Department of Mysteries does a lot of research. One thing they study is the future. They're in charge of guarding and keeping track of the Hall of Prophecies."
"The Hall of Prophecies?"
"Whenever a Seer gives a prophetic word, it's automatically recorded in the Department of Mysteries. Their job is to determine who the prophecy might be talking about."
Aria stared wide-eyed at Cedric. How was that possible? Did they know every witch and wizard in the wizarding world? In Britain? The world? That was . . . she shook her head. She couldn't wrap her mind around it.
"I'm not surprised that the Department of Mysteries is trying to get their hands on Bourne so early," Adrien stated to Cedric. "I mean would you want to let the next Merlin slip through your fingers?"
"Oh, come off it!" Aria cried, taking the book back and hitting Adrian with it.
"Sorry. Morgana le Fay."
Aria hit him again.