A/N: Okay, continuing the apology for taking so long last time, here's another one. And also another Latin title, but these titles are hard to come by. Anyway, welcome aboard Aftermath Transit for another, though shorter trip into the Department of Back-story. While we're at that, I should mention that this story seems to be spreading itself ever closer to twenty chapters no matter what I do. Oh well.
Hoping to get next chapter up soon, and maybe next time with less of an author's note. It's vastly tempting to give out information in these.
Disclaimer: Seeing that I like this chapter more than the last, the plot is mine, JKR can keep the other stuff.
*****
Excessum ut Proditor
Three hours later and they were all seated in the tiny living room of the small, dingy flat of Aaron McCullough, the sole survivor of the attack of the Ministry of Magic. They had managed a quick breakfast, with Hermione noticeably forcing down her own, and then after reassuring Lupin that nothing out of the ordinary would happen to the gentleman, set out to the East London home. Thankfully, Aaron had been in that morning, though he really had nowhere else to go nowadays, and was rather surprised to have visitors. It was needless to say too though, that he was also none too pleased.
"L-look, I… I gave my statement to the Ministry, twice, okay, twice! I didn't give much to the press, I kept mostly to myself since that night and I haven't had one visit from anyone else who was there… not that they could visit if they wanted to… w-what could you possibly need from me now?" he demanded while hurrying about gathering up various trash in the room.
He had been doing that since he answered the door and found them standing there waiting to be let in. Clearly he was nervous, his wand was sticking out of his back pocket and he forgot all about it in favour of manually cleaning up the room. Strangely, in his movements he reminded Harry of Horace Slughorn, their one-time Potions instructor in Sixth Year, though a slender, taller version of him. In the poor lighting of the flat too, so bad that one could barely tell that it was an overcast morning without, he looked worn and distinctly dishevelled. He looked very much like someone who had not had a good night's sleep in weeks.
Someone had taken a threat to heart.
Ginny, clearly bored, waited until a silence descended where they just watched him clean and then lazily flicked her wand and let the room clean up itself. Aaron was actually startled by this, until he remembered, "Oh yeah… magic…" and took a tentative seat at the window, if the thin shaft could be called that, before them.
Harry gave him a smile and then asked seriously, "We know that you did all that, but we were hoping you would speak to us now."
"Why? I've told all that I need to tell, I've described Death Eaters, I've signed statements to ensure the secrecy of people I don't even know, or met mind you, I've been living in this hell-hole for weeks just to keep myself out of trouble… what reason would I have for speaking to you? You might be Harry Potter… the "Man-Who-Triumphed" as they like to call you… b-but I'm not afraid of you!" declared Aaron from his seat.
The effect would have been greater had he not stammered at the end and visibly shifted in his seat when he said Harry's name. Harry smiled again and Aaron shrank away from them further.
"Consider this," Harry began, "there's a child missing. She's only nine years old, she's Muggle and she's the sister of my friend here."
He indicated Hermione, who was absently staring out another "window" and turned at Harry's mention. Aaron nodded at her and she turned back out the window.
Harry stared at her with a furrowed brow a little then.
He had in fact been watching her even more closely since the incident that morning with Ginny. He wanted to apologise so much more than he had already, she should not have seen that. More than that, there shouldn't have been something to see in the first place. Ginny had the most god-awful timing for making moves on him; he was still struggling with a way to begin that promised conversation with Hermione that wouldn't sound like a rejection.
He wasn't planning on rejecting her, not at all, but he wasn't sure that he was ready to deal with what she told him either. The very idea that she possessed such feelings for him… that she would go to such lengths because of them… he didn't know if he should be mad that she didn't say anything before or be afraid.
And then still, since that morning he had been thinking of an addendum to what she had said about Percy and Ron. He also wanted to tell her that no one should ever have to lose their sibling like this. Not a soul, ever.
Remembering where they were though, he turned his attention back to their "host".
"Now, whatever you can tell may just be able to bring her back. She doesn't understand any of this and it's not fair that she should have to in the first place… so, what were Arthur Weasley and his son arguing about before the Death Eaters stormed the place that night?" asked Harry in his best, business-like voice.
Aaron though, looked unconvinced.
"Listen… I understand that it must be hard for you to lose the child but…" he began but Harry cut him off abruptly.
"If that sentence ends in "I can't help you" I'll help you out the window." Harry said steely.
Aaron's eyes widened, "I-is that a t-threat?"
Harry gave a cold smile worthy of Snape, "I don't make threats. I give warnings."
Aaron tried to reason, "Listen, all I was supposed to do that day was to photograph the interview of the aide to the Minister of Magic… not run into an argument between the Head of the "Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects" and his son. I certainly didn't expect the massacre after either… I'm sorry about this little girl… but I have to think about my…"
He stopped speaking when he suddenly found himself hanging upside down like a bat in the middle of the room with Harry glowering up at him while Ginny, and Hermione, though noticeably feebler, tried to get him down.
"Harry! Put him down, you can't just shake information out of people!"
"Harry, this isn't a good idea… Lupin only allowed us on courtesy…"
"Harry!"
Harry ignored them though, and said, "I'll only say this once and then you're going out the window, and I don't care if it's broad daylight, I'm the Man-Who-Defeated-The-Man-With-Bad-Conjunctivitis, do you actually think the Ministry would dare lock me up?"
Aaron shook his head vigorously, his face turning redder by the second no doubt from the blood rushing south and his embarrassment.
"Good… now what did you see, and be quick about it my hands are getting antsy," Harry told him and then twitched a bit to show that he was serious.
Aaron took a moment more to weigh the odds and then said, "P-put me down, I'll tell you what happened…"
Harry dropped him in a second so that he fell heavily unto the carpet at their feet. There was actually a mild stirring of dust and he coughed. Hermione reproached Harry at once.
"Harry, that wasn't necessary!"
"Yes it was… he didn't want to talk, I had to make him…" he protested.
Hermione rolled her eyes, "You can't just go around flipping people upside down to get them to tell you what you want! How would you like it if someone did that to you?"
"Hermione just let it alone will you? The man's not hurt and he's going to talk!" Ginny snapped.
Hermione immediately made to retort but Harry cut her off, addressing Aaron who was now settling himself again into his armchair at the window, "Mr McCullough, tell us everything that happened, we want to know all of it, every last second."
Aaron looked up at him wearily, "Are you sure?"
"Very," said Harry.
"Fine then, have a seat, it's going to be long," he told them.
Squared off against each other, one finally could appreciate the similarities and differences that defined Arthur and Percy Weasley as father and son.
The senior Mr Weasley, a tall, lean man with a balding head of red hair, bright blue-green eyes and wearing shabby but nevertheless presentable dark green work robes, stood at his desk in his cluttered office, glowering at the petulant youth he had raised with love. In turn, the younger Mr Weasley, tall, thin and red-haired like his father, but wearing wear-shorn-rimmed glasses before his brown eyes, and newer, more expensive robes of navy, glared right back. It was a veritable battle of wills so to speak, infamous even in the animal kingdom, and considering that man himself is no more than an animal, was infinitely inevitable.
Walking into this kind of argument was most unpleasant and unfavourable for anyone unfortunate enough to. It certainly wasn't something any one at the Ministry wanted to and they were glad that the two rarely saw each other. Today though, it would seem, everyone's luck ran out.
The two reporters and the photographer on assignment for the Daily Prophet had just arrived for their scheduled interview with Mr Percy Weasley when the door to his father's office flew open and the sound of the raised voices within filtered out. Setting up his tripod in the hall, Aaron started at the sudden sound and nearly dropped his camera. A nearby employee laughed.
"I see no one told you about Mr Weasley and his son then?" he asked.
Aaron shook his head, one reporter immediately asked, "What is going on between Mr Weasley and his son?"
"You didn't hear this from me…" began the employee, a short, plump man in pinstripe robes, "but they have been at odds for the past three years now… another of Arthur's sons, Ronald, the youngest boy, is friends with Harry Potter, the Chosen One of all people! Better still, the daughter, only girl Ginevra, had been his girlfriend at school, lucky family!"
The lack of reaction that greeted this announcement told this was nothing new. It was well-known that Harry and two friends, and scandalously, one of them a girl, had not returned to school the year before as they were supposed to. They had vanished as matter of fact.
That alone had brought on enough attention for the news despite the war raging. Whatever life Harry thought he had private, clearly he had been deluding himself about.
Unfazed by this though, the man continued, "Anyway, the last Minister of Magic, Mr Fudge, had actually put the Chosen One on trial and Percy in there made the mistake of agreeing with him. When the rest of the family didn't agree though, he had to cut ties with them altogether. Father's been upset about it since, and on the rare occasions that they do meet… well, this happens…"
Aaron dared to ask a question then, neither reporter had made a move to it, too busy scribbling what the man had said and rechecking it. Fixing his camera on the stand he asked, "Today's argument about the Chosen One?"
The man's face darkened a bit and he shook his head. "Nope, something new… boy came in here striding tall as usual… Minister sent him on some errand down here no doubt… and started up in his usual manner with his father. Arthur's in no mood for it though, he may be soft with them but there's only so much anyone can stand. Plus the boy's been acting strange for days now… looks sickly sometimes, and then… well, whatever it is you can hear it now…"
The man allowed his voice to trail off and sure enough Arthur's and Percy's voices filled the hall again.
"… Why did you go there? Haven't I taught you reason? Or common sense, Percy? What did you do to yourself? What happened to my son?"
"Your son grew up and realised that his family was keeping him down! I would never be where I am today if I hadn't left you all, and especially when it came to Harry. Mum should have seen that that boy would bring trouble!"
"Trouble, what trouble? Harry's saved us more times than we can count! Myself, your sister, Ron! We all owe him our lives, very soon the entire Wizarding world will! Where will you be then when the men you choose to serve are proven wrong Percy? Where will you be when they come back and You-Know-Who's gone?"
"I'll be here at the Ministry making sure that the ones who did the real hard work are duly rewarded. Harry Potter's on a suicide mission and he's taken Ron with him. What are you going to tell Mum if he returns without Ron? How are you going to face her?"
"I have every confidence that Ron will return alive! And Hermione, and Harry! But you Percy… you've changed completely… blind ambition is a dangerous thing, it corrupts, and it changes people… look where it led you… you should not have gone to that place!"
"Why not, why shouldn't I, because Harry Potter said so? Because others claim that he's the Chosen One so that he and his friends are allowed to get away with breaking into the Ministry? But I suppose I should thank him for that. His little escapade led me there. And going there opened my eyes to things… helped me find my way in all this… in no time at all I can have what I want and without all the hassle that comes with being the Minister's lackey!"
"There are Dark things studied there! The Darkest of all things so far seen being one of them and you are following dangerously close in his footsteps! Do you have any idea of what you've done to yourself?"
"I've done nothing but open my eyes! It's what I've always done and it's gotten me ahead so far, and from what I've seen, the things…"
"Tell me you didn't allow yourself to be corrupted by those things… tell me that you didn't do what I fear… tell me Percy, please tell me that you didn't!"
"That I didn't what? That I didn't take on the opportunity of a lifetime? That I allowed the best chance I shall ever have of achieving my goals slip away? No! I took that chance, I took that opportunity! You have no idea of the power… of the will… of the clarity with which I see things now!"
"No, you're right, I don't! And I don't want to either! That is evil, purest evil and you allowed yourself to slip into it! You've become one of them!"
"I am not one of them!"
"No… you're much worse. I feared it, I didn't want to believe it, but it's true… my son Percy… what have you done to yourself? You've changed… you've allowed yourself to be corrupted…. You're almost him!"
Aaron would have listened further to their argument but was interrupted just then by one reporter asking, "Aaron, could you get me some coffee?"
She was new, just out of Hogwarts in fact, but already she treated him like her personal page boy. No self-respecting, experienced photographer like himself would stand for it; clearly she had been watching too many Muggle movies. And if it wasn't for the fact that he wasn't up to it today he would have told her a point blank "No" and then gone into the finer points of his job description until her head spun.
Instead though, he finished setting the film in the camera, checked the imaging one last time and then casually strolled away. He would talk to her later.
The next time he would hear her voice though, she would be pleading in vain for her life.
As a matter of fact, the last he would ever hear of the arguing men in the room too, was when the father would say, moments before he died, "I'm sorry Percy… I can't let you do this…"
After that were the cruel, shrieking voice of a woman, and the dreaded words of the Killing Curse, "Avada Kedavra!"
*****
Lupin, Mrs Weasley, Bill, Charlie, Tonks and Mad Eye Moody, when finally Harry's recount of their visit to Aaron McCullough was finished, simply sat there in the fire-lit kitchen in stunned silence. Ironically, Harry couldn't help but think that this was no different from their reaction earlier. But who wouldn't be stunned silent after that?
What it implied… what it meant… it sounded… and that last line of Mr Weasley's specifically, as if the rumours were true. Though they doubted Arthur would have let in the Death Eaters… he didn't fight them either. It was almost that he allowed them to kill him and his son in the office that day.
Harry kept his eyes trained on Mrs Weasley for a reaction, but surprisingly, there was none. She didn't cry, or sniffle or even pale, she just sat there with the others waiting for someone else to speak.
He turned to Ginny for explanation but she was not looking his way. She had been rather quiet since they left Aaron's flat.
Charlie and Bill were troubled, their faces clearly displaying their inner turmoil at this news. Tonks seemed indifferent, as did Moody, but Lupin, the ever sharp mind at work, broke the silence first and asked, "Is that all he told you?"
"Yes," Harry said, "he said that he went away to get the reporter some coffee, after telling her that he needed to go to the bathroom anyway, and then heard the noise on his way back. He found a hiding place in an empty office and listened to the rest. The next thing he knew the building was falling down around him. When he rushed out to see if he could help anyone, he saw Percy's and Mr Weasley's… bodies in the hall… they'd been dragged out of the office… and they were dead, everyone, all of them…"
He cut his story short quickly, the looks on Charlie and Bill's faces were worsening and Mrs Weasley finally began to lose some of her colour.
Lupin pressed on, "Did he know anything else about what Percy and Arthur were arguing about…? Where… where Percy could have gone that would cause… something like this…?"
Harry took a moment to consider this and then replied cautiously, "No… but… from what he told us… it had to be the Department of Mysteries…. Before you all came for us… the things we had seen… Professor Dumbledore had mentioned that there were things studied there that…. Percy must have been there and gotten involved in something… something that must have changed him to… to this…"
The silence in the kitchen then was so acute that Harry could hear the groaning of the house all the way up the third floor. Some creature scurried in the shadows nearby and a voice in a painting, which sounded rather much like Phineas Nigellus Black, filtered down to them, deep in a conversation that mentioned the word "Mudblood". Harry made a mental note then to "speak" with him about it later.
"What is "this"… how he got to this… what does it have to do with Hermione?" asked Lupin then, finally breaking the silence again.
"Hermione," he made a point of turning to her then, "this morning said that "this", that what he's like now… it has something to do with him being like Voldemort… something in the Department of Mysteries must have made him like Voldemort…."
He paused, it was getting difficult to explain without really repeating the name, and though they no longer flinched at it, it cleared up nothing. Hermione though, took over.
"I thought… I think… that something he saw or dealt with down there changed him somehow. Before, when Voldemort was trying to become immortal, probably thinking that Horcruxes were not enough, he did a lot of things… experiments with magic and… well, they brought him to what he was, a thing, a shadow of a man already dead before that night when he attacked Godric's Hollow. The Department of Mysteries then must have condensed all that, made it something different, or they were studying it, and when Percy went down there, he may have accidentally…"
"Accidentally my foot! How did Percy describe it, "an opportunity", he willingly interfered or let himself get into it, whatever that was down there!" suddenly declared Bill.
The intensity with which he said that shocked all around him. But they could not be forced to disagree.
Harry glanced at Hermione and continued for her. She was looking rather distressed at the thought that no one else believed Percy didn't know what happened to him. She reminded him of Dumbledore.
Where there was blind ambition there could also be blind faith…
"When Percy went down there, he… interfered… with something and this is what we have to deal with now. It kept him alive after the Killing Curse struck, but then the Department of Mysteries was destroyed so he may not know what it was that really did it. And as for what he might want with Hermione… well, since you mentioned it just now, and considering what we have… and that he killed Ron for it… I think he might want her to find out what it was, to know what saved him… or maybe… to duplicate it… keep him alive… forever…"
As he said it he was struck by what it meant.
"Hadn't we ended this war?"
Wasn't this what it all came down to in the end? Percy, so ambitious in his quest to power, to become Minister of Magic, that he blindly interfered with something he should not, now wanted to live forever. That's all it was, that's all it ever was.
Ever since Harry had first met him Percy had been ambitious. That book he had been reading about school prefects and their careers afterwards. The pride, with which he took on his position as Head Boy, to the point that he, was the butt of his brothers' jokes. The dedication he put into his career at the Ministry of Magic so that he had no life beyond it. Or rather, one he documented so that they knew about. The fact that he had been so quick to disown his family in favour of a corrupt, incompetent politician and take up with another when the first was proven wrong. He wanted power, he wanted the prestige, and this was where it had taken him, a dead man walking, a murderer with one victim as his own brother, a kidnapper, and as soon as Harry found him, dust. They should have seen it coming.
But they hadn't had they? Not he, or Hermione, or the Order, or Dumbledore or even Voldemort himself too tied up in his own affairs. Maybe he killed Voldemort too early; he could have let it alone for a while and waited for the outcome of two "immortal" Dark Wizards trying to claim power over the Wizarding world. It would have been quite a match.
Ron would have personally paid his only Galleon to see it happen.
But then, they couldn't either now could they?
"And no one should ever have to see that. No one, ever…"
Lupin spoke up again, "Does he have a Horcrux… if he is like Voldemort?"
"We don't know," Hermione said, once again entering the conversation, "maybe he does, it could have been created when he was at the Department of Mysteries, without… or with… (She looked at the others.) his knowledge. It could be in the Department… or the ruins of it… or somewhere else, and somehow or the other, it got into his body when the half, I don't even want to think "part", already in him was killed by Bellatrix. He's not dead, but he isn't alive."
"And he has Emmeline…" said Mrs Weasley suddenly then, finally speaking.
Hermione swallowed painfully and looked down at the table, "Yes… and he has Emmeline…"
Harry looked at her and willed her to turn to him. He wanted her to see in his eyes the constant repetition of the promise that he would bring her sister back. He wanted to see the determination with which he would make sure she was safe and happy instead of sad all the time. He wanted her to know that he loved her and would take care of her now that he and Emmeline were all she had left in the world.
But she didn't. Just as she had been doing for the past two days since her declaration, she ignored his gaze though he knew she could feel it.
Wait a minute… what? What was that last thought?
They would have to talk, and soon. And probably before they went after Percy and Emmeline, they really had to talk soon.
Mrs Weasley speaking again brought him back to the matter at hand. Her eyes were filling with tears though her face showed no emotion as she said, "Then you know what you have to do. His father tried and failed… and if what you say was true, then my son has been dead for a long time before that day…. Before he… even met Ron again…."
Harry dreaded what she was going to say next. He didn't know why but it made him afraid.
"When you see Percy again, whatever part of him is still alive, I want you to tell him that I love him, and that I forgive him," she continued, "and then I want you to kill him."
Harry didn't wait for an awkward silence to fall again before he began to speak up, asking, "Where do we begin?"
Looking between him and Mrs Weasley then, the others were not sure of their answer. What could one say when a mother had just given permission to the murder of her son?
Hermione knew though, "Where it all began, the Department of Mysteries."
*****
The first thing she noticed as she came out of the darkness this time was that it was silent. Usually by now she would have become aware of his incessant pacing, the continuous flipping of pages, the ceaseless, almost frenzied muttering… but instead all she was faced with was silence. Nothing, no footsteps on what she guessed were wooden floors, no flipping pages of books so ancient they didn't crinkle as they turned, no heavy, rasping breathing as if he was constantly angry and no conversations with himself that made her wish she could kill him. And then she knew why and almost couldn't and was afraid to believe it at the same time.
He wasn't there; he had gone somewhere and left her behind.
Lifting her heavy lids slightly to make sure of it, Emmeline was struck by how frightening… quiet… wherever they were had become.
She hadn't seen much of it, due to earlier delirium and this sleeping sickness that had overtaken her, but she was quite sure that it was usually noisier than this.
Surely the first night here she had caught the sounds of water, or a cricket, a gate… fire? Surely she had smelt something like the ancient pine of wood or the rock of a cave perhaps? Surely she had known more than this dying golden light of evening that now poured from somewhere nearby unto her still form wrapped in the soft folds of her crimson robes?
But now there was nothing. It was as if he had gone and taken it with him. And now she didn't know if she should be glad for it, or simply afraid.
For two days now he had been her sole companion. She had slept so much that she wasn't sure of time until he had told her that morning. He was always there, and now, tonight, he wasn't.
Sickly smile, wild hair, old black robes, and look of death itself… he was gone.
It took her only a few moments more then, to realise that this was an opportunity. Even if she felt restricted, weak, trapped in her own body wherever it was she lay, she had to take this chance to find a way out. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know when he would come back, but she did know that she had to leave here. She had to go home, to Hermione, where she was safe, and Harry, who made them feel that way. She just had to get out of here.
Thinking this, knowing this though… did little or nothing to change the fact that she couldn't move. If he thought she slept too much she would have him know that she was very awake now and simply couldn't. Of course, he could have used magic too, to restrain her, and since she wasn't a witch it was making her sleep.
That actually sounded like a logical thought, Hermione would have been proud.
Seeing that she couldn't move altogether though, small steps would have to do for the moment. She focused on her left hand, taking a few moments to locate it for her brain seemed unable to determine properly, she tried to form a fist. It would be a small step for a girl, but a giant leap for freedom. All she had to do was close the already curled-in fingers into a tight fist like a boxer. If she moved that, she could work on other things, grander things, like escape.
A low, intrusive rumbling then and the slightly hollow feeling in her stomach region reminded her of something else. While she was escaping, she had to find something to eat. She doubted he had magically fed her while she slept.
She lay there for a few tense moments then, eyes still barely open but her mind actively focusing on making that fist. It was mind over matter. If she thought about it enough she could make it happen.
Mind over matter… form the fist… mind over matter… form the fist and then move the hand… mind over matter….
Then suddenly there was the sound of a door swinging open and she knew that he was back. Even if she could have moved completely he would have caught her immediately.
And he brought all the things he had taken away with him then too. His footsteps, his breathing, his muttering, all came in with him with a sharpness that forced wider open her eyes.
This, and had he not been looking her way then he would have missed it, surprised them both. He actually exclaimed, "Well… waking up are we? Slept well I'm sure."
Emmeline closed her eyes and then opened them; almost marvelling at the fact that she could do it, before turning to him. He was unchanged from the ghastly figure she had met in the hallway that night two nights ago. Still wild-haired, still sickly smiling, still speaking pleasantly, it was absolutely revolting.
He approached her just then and smiled down, "Wonderful, we're making progress… and not yourself alone… I've discovered that your sister went out of that house today. A pity I didn't catch her… but it seems she's finally paying attention to my message. You should be glad; soon you'll be going home!"
There was that sickly smile again, though now a sickly grin that made her shut her eyes tight under them. She didn't open them again until he was gone, walking away to deal with whatever he had brought, but by that time she also had another reason too.
It must have been her fright, for otherwise it would have been shockingly too soon or a coincidence, but sometime while her eyes were closed she noticed something.
Her hand was curled into a tight, knuckle-whitening fist.
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