Chapter 58 - Clear Objections and Noble Intentions
Draco walked down the middle aisle and saw her as he got closer to the front row. He had on him as perplexed a look as she probably had. The gash on his cheek was now gone and it appeared like the Healers at the Toronto Hospital had fixed his dislocated shoulder too.
It happened very fast. One second they were chatting, waiting for Harry and Andy to finish the interrogation and the next second, someone had crashed head first into the mirror in front of them. As she helped the fallen MLE, Draco ran off wandless into the fight. The physical jostle that ensued was hard to observe from where she was. Draco was no match. Then she witnessed the last bit of torture Harry endured while already semi-conscious and watched Neville's composure whittled away by the fact that Harry would not break. Neville was muttering to himself like a madman, debating whether to kill or not until finally deciding to, raising his arm and pointing a finger at Harry's still figure. Hermione screamed in horror as Neville said the incantation and a faint green light struck Harry. Thankfully the spell did not work as intended and Neville became even more livid that he had to use his wand to finish the deed.
She tried to talk to him but he ignored her. The double take and the distraction did give Draco the opening to tackle Neville down just as the latter was about to conjure another Killing Curse. Reinforcements trickled in. Outnumbered and showing signs that his artificial magical ability was waning, Neville left.
"What are you doing here?" she asked Draco after he set down his briefcase on the desk where Ron was at, the waist-high bar separating them, both oblivious to the murderous expression on the ghost's face.
"Working. What are you doing here?" Draco replied smiling, pleasantly surprised at the sight of a friendly face.
"I invited her. Who invited you and why is your stuff on my table?!" Ron demanded, arms crossed across his chest, his transparent body straddling the wooden partition.
That quickly erased the jovial atmosphere.
"Weasley. Jake asked me to help," Draco answered calmly as if expecting the hostility, referring to the balding man who had walked in with him.
"Why didn't you tell me you brought Malfoy in on the case?!" Ron confronted his lawyer.
"I asked you. You said you didn't care who but to get the best there was," Jake the lawyer reasoned.
"And he's the best?" Ron scoffed, "I'm losing confidence here!"
"The Council of Ghosts wants him on the case too," his lawyer added.
"Weasley, look," Draco got his attention, "I'm here to help."
"You must think I'm an idiot if you expect me to believe that."
Inasmuch as Hermione wanted to, she knew it wasn't her place to intervene. This was Ron's call.
Draco appealed to Ron's wafer thin common sense, "These regulations should be abolished and we have a good chance of winning this class action suit if we work together."
"Us? Work together? I'll have some of that stuff you're tripping on. Did you really expect me to let you do this?"
"Yes I did," Draco answered him straight, "What happened was a long time ago and this isn't all about you, Weasley. You'll work with me for the ten thousand others listed on the motion with you."
Draco motioned to the green binder on the desk as he said this. Ron did not seem to have a reply to that and he was simmering from the fact that Draco had a point.
"Whoa...cunning and manipulative. I think he's got you there, Ghost," Andy pointed out the obvious.
"Blondie, you have so little faith. I'll make you a believer before this is all over."
The other lawyer asked Ron, "So, are we okay to go on?"
"For now," Ron replied frostily and then turned to Draco, "But I'm onto you, Malfoy. You're a snake and I'm onto you."
"Healer Granger, Jake VanNeusen," the man held out his hand and she took it, slightly taken aback that he knew her. "A pleasure. It's great that you could come here today and show support."
She nodded and introduced Andy.
The older man continued, "I've worked with Draco before and he always performed best with his woman behind him."
Hermione started to protest more against the general notion of her being someone's anything just as Ron and Draco did.
"I'm not..." she sputtered.
"Jake, she's not..." Draco stammered.
Ron's more expressive query drowned their voices, "What do you mean she's his woman?!"
"We're just friends," Draco tried to tell Ron.
"Friends?! That's even worse!"
Hermione knew enough about Ron to know that one word from her would only fuel his tantrum.
Jake the lawyer was embarrassed too, "I'm so sorry, Draco. I assumed because the paper said you're going to Mexico with her..."
Yup. Perfect timing for Mexico.
"What? I die, you make friends with the ferret and you're going to Mexico with him?! Tell me this isn't true!"
All their faces were red, even Andy's who was trying to suppress the amusement she was getting from Hermione's predicament.
"I am so glad I'm here to see this," Hermione heard her say to no one in particular.
Recognizing the more personal nature of the conversation and the damage he had done, Jake the lawyer wisely stepped back and busied himself with something else.
"We were but we're not going to Mexico anymore," Draco answered.
"Hah! So it is true!"
"Was true," she clarified.
"Whatever!"
"But so what if we were. You're dead, Ron. I was trying to move on."
"Obviously you weren't trying hard enough! How can you move on with this git? Geez, no wonder I can't crossover!" Ron concluded which she thought was preposterous, "Does Harry know about this? That you went from me to traitorous bastard to pure evil?"
"He knows about you and Potter?"
"You told him about Harry?!" Ron shrieked, "Don't tell me this git knows you broke off our engagement because you were sleeping with him!"
Andy must have noted the astonishment on Draco's face, answering Ron for her, "If he didn't before then he definitely knows now."
Draco was speechless from the awkward state; Ron from rage. Feeling faint, Hermione sat back on the front row pew, her head spinning. This could not get any worse.
That observation was immediately dispelled by Andy who leaned sideways and said so only she could hear, "Look on the bright side. Imagine Harry being here for all of this."
She could imagine it indeed. Taking a step away, she chuckled at the hilarity of the complicated relationships she managed to get herself into, annoying Ron even more. The ghost occupied the seat beside her, armed and prepared for an argument.
"We have to talk."
"Not about this, we don't," she replied, still laughing at herself.
A door behind the bench swung inward and five people came through it one after the other.
"All rise!" the bailiff announced.
They all obediently stood up. Hermione saw the human lawyers for the defense for the first time as Draco and Ron took their places at the plaintiff's desk with Jake and the bailiff rattled off the names of the five-member Magical Being Regulations Review Committee. There were four wizards and a witch. The wizard who sat in the middle of the bench was a man with long silvery white hair and a matching beard. He was the head of the review panel.
"This review is now in session!" bellowed the bailiff, signaling them to take their seats.
The head wizard spoke in a soft voice, "We're here to determine whether the Ghost regulations of house designation and crossover deadlines are in fact an infringement of magical being rights. Are the plaintiffs ready?"
Draco got on his feet.
"Draco Malfoy and Jacob VanNeusen representing the plaintiffs, Roonil Waslib and ten thousand, five hundred fifty five other ghosts from the northeastern US and Canada..."
Ron suddenly bolted from his seat, his feet hovering a few inches above ground.
"Your Honours, I object!"
Huh?
A collective gasp and rumbling from the crowd filled the room.
"Identify yourself," the head wizard commanded.
"My name is Roonil Waslib, the principal plaintiff."
There was wild applause, cheering as if they were watching a Cannon game, some chanting the Weasley song. Most of the ghosts knew who Roonil Waslib really was.
One of the wizards on the bench recognized him, "You're Ron Weasley, that Cannon keeper who died last year!"
Ron acknowledged faking bashfulness, "Guilty as charged, although I'd really appreciate it if the fact that I'm a ghost doesn't reach my family. That's why I used the alias."
The galley was becoming rambunctious.
"Order...order!" the head wizard pounded the gavel, "You had an objection?"
"Yes, yes," Ron almost forgot, "I object to er...um…this git Mr. Malfoy representing me."
The head wizard's heavy brows met and became one. They obviously didn't know Ron and was taking his objection seriously.
"You want to fire him?"
"That depends. Is he really the best?"
The witch on the right replied, "Mr. Malfoy is internationally known as a champion of magical beings. He is the best at what he does."
"Damn! Pardon me. Then I don't want to fire him. I'm just um…objecting to him representing me…um…in principle and I want that on the record," Ron said proudly to sparse applause, identifying diehard Weasley fans in the gathering.
"Okay...duly noted," the Head wizard struggled with the idea, tentatively nodded at the court clerk and conferred with his fellow reviewers who all shrugged at the off the wall request. "The Defense is ready? Yes. Nothing to add to this er...motion? Okay. Can Mr. Malfoy proceed with his opening statement, Mr. Waslib?"
Ron waved his hand dismissively and Draco continued, trying to regain his broken stride.
"The numbers are astounding. More than ten thousand affected souls in Northeastern US and Canada alone."
Ron inched from the plaintiff's chair slowly back across the bar and hovered beside her.
"So, tell me about this friendship with the ferret," he persisted, tone heavy with sarcasm.
"We will prove without a doubt that not only are these regulations oppressive..."
"No," she replied in a whisper, holding her ground, straining to listen to what Draco was saying.
"...they were passed with the required two thirds approval of the affected magical community only because they were misrepresented as being by ghosts and for ghosts."
"Malfoy's an asshole. How on earth did you end up being friends with him?"
"Sssh!"
"I've pointed out many times before and not to mean disrespect to the members of this review panel..."
"Why won't you talk about him?"
"Magical beings continue to be unrepresented in committees that make important decisions involving them. This has to change."
"I've had this conversation way too many times. I'm tired of it."
"Mr. Roonil Waslib wants to crossover but something is holding him back..."
"Embarrassed about it?"
"Of course not!"
"Why must he be condemned to an eternity walking the earth as a ghost, holding him prisoner by limiting where he can go, when he clearly does not wish to do so? And there are thousands who are in the same boat he is."
"What the...?! Why is he looking at you like that?!"
She rolled her eyes up.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with how he's looking at me."
"Nothing? He's undressing you, peeling you one layer at a time, and you're just letting him!"
Not again.
"Your Honours, I object!"
"Mr. Waslib..."
"He's leering at my fiancée!"
Ex-fiancée.
"Tell him to stop doing that."
The head of the review committee answered, weary of the interruptions, "Mr. Waslib, I should tell you objections are not usually permitted during opening statements and unheard of from someone on the same team. But perhaps Mr. Malfoy would be kind enough to indulge the court and refrain from looking down that way."
"I'll try, Sir," Draco was showing signs of righteous annoyance as well.
"You're being childish, Ron," Hermione had to tell him as soon as he settled back beside her, "Let the man do his job."
"You actually like him!"
"Keep your voice down. Just give him a chance."
"What? To stab me and thousands others in the back!? Wait a sec. You're nice to him. You're his 'woman'. You were going to Mexico with him. Has he had any of his appendages poking in and around places they shouldn't be?!"
She groaned. Some ghosts behind them were taking notice. Ron went off firing questions and non questions without giving her the chance to answer.
"Not the double backed monster! Does he know you in the biblical sense?! Have you and he...? Why aren't you denying all this?! I think I'm going to be sick…," Ron floated up close to the ceiling and now had everyone's attention.
"Another objection, Mr. Waslib?" the head wizard inquired.
"A most definite objection, your Honours," Ron was turning pale. "Can we take a break?"
"You mean a recess."
"Break, recess, tea time whatever."
"We just started."
"I don't feel too good. I can't get this sordid image off my mind. I need an Obliviator," Ron feigned nausea.
Hermione was about to suggest tranquilizer. She was tempted and so close to using the hex Harry used the night before to shut him up.
"I beg someone to take these revolting thoughts away!" Ron screamed holding his head with both hands.
"Ronald! This is ridiculous! Stop being so melodramatic!"
As she said that his chest started heaving. Ron pursed his lips together and his cheeks puffed out. She caught a naughty glint in his eyes just before he opened his mouth and let go of one long most disgusting, foul smelling belch that immediately dispersed throughout the room.
The effect was instantaneous. A few weak stomached poltergeists vomited the wet and physical version of what Ron just released, causing a domino effect throughout the galley. There was more retching all over. Three panel members, the bailiff, the court reporter, old Jake and the lawyers for the defense were turning green. Andy wasn't looking well either and motioned that she was going out.
The lead wizard pinched his nose as he banged the gavel so hard it flew off and hit him on the head. He must have finally called for a recess and the committee left the bench. Most of the ghosts departed through the walls, floors and ceilings and Ron had floated back to her with a grin on his face.
"Get my point?"
"Yes. Happy now?" she snapped, casting an odour repelling charm on her olfactory senses.
"Most satisfied," he admitted. "Where is that git? I'm going to freeze his marbles for jiggling them near you and crossing the line."
Ron was dead serious. They both scanned the room and found Draco fighting the transparent crowd for space trying to move down the right aisle. He was a few feet from the courtroom entrance going past and partially through ghosts as he was obviously in a hurry. Hermione followed the direction of his gaze and saw a petite woman, a ghost with long flowing blonde hair, a stark contrast to the dark blue robes she wore. The phantom was standing at the corner and seemed to be one of the few not in a hurry to leave. She was watching Draco approach with a mix of tenderness and regret in her eyes.
Then as Draco drew closer the ghost took a hold of her hood, covered her head and face, stepped back and dissolved into the room's wooden panels. Draco reached the spot and touched the wall where her face disappeared into, his shoulders slumped down, visibly disappointed realizing that she was gone. Hermione looked away, feeling sadness for Draco and guilt that she had witnessed something deeply personal of his.
"Who was that?" Ron asked.
"I don't know," she answered quickly, although her gut told her that the ghost Draco had been trying to reach was Mia.
XXXXXXXXXX
It was almost midnight. Harry took a very short cab ride from the hospital and paid the driver as he got off in front of Hermione's hotel. The use of the cab was more for show. Walking gingerly past reception and down where the elevators were, he thought about how he woke up somewhat recovered from the ordeal of the morning then convinced Dean and Ginny to leave him not twenty minutes ago, getting into a taxi, promising them he would go home, turn his alarms on and get some rest. He had every intention of keeping his word but not just yet. Harry had to see her tonight.
As the lift ascended to twenty four, he called Andy to tell her he was on his way. She was not happy to hear from him but knew there was nothing she could do to keep him away. He gave her a choice; allow them to be in her room unwatched and trust him to alert them next door if needed or he would take Hermione back to his more unsecure house. It was late, they were all tired and Andy did not even put up a fight.
Hermione was still awake, Andy said to him. He knew that because she was expecting him. She called just moments before after Dean ratted on him that he was leaving the hospital against healer advice and guessed he would. Harry had not seen her all day, not since the interview with Malfoy. Having spent most of it drugged and unconscious, he had not spoken with her either until the brief call minutes ago.
Harry refused to ingest the numbing and muscle strengthening potions at the hospital and deliberately 'forgot' to take with him the prescription he received from his Healer. He woke up still sore and weak and this trek up to her room was draining. It was too late to back out on that decision now but it was for good reason that he wanted to heal as naturally as possible. He wanted to be as potion-clean as he could be.
There was no hesitation to go straight to her. She opened after half a knock and gently pulled him in by the hand, closing the door behind him.
"How do you feel?" she asked, slowly helping him off his coat, setting it on a chair.
"Better already."
That was the truth.
"You should be in the hospital," she said to him frankly. "They can take care of the pain better."
"The pain's not so bad."
That wasn't.
"You discharged yourself from care against Healer advice."
"My Healer was a quack anyway," he jibed, hearing about Hermione's run in with her.
"She was but refusing to take the strengthening and numbing potion?" she raised a brow, questioning his decision.
"Can't feel a thing while I'm on it."
"That's the point."
"I don't want to feel numb," he took a step closer, leaned in and kissed her, confirming that his decision not to take the potion was the right one.
Recognizing her hesitation to touch him, he reassured her, "I'm fine, really."
He pulled her closer and kissed her more deeply until she was convinced and she softened into him, her arms coming up around his neck, kissing him back with the same longing he had.
"You're in no condition to be out of bed," the Healer in her told him as they pulled away.
He managed a weak grin, "No arguments here."
"You're in no condition to think what you're thinking either," she smirked, warming his heart.
"Thinking about what I'm thinking is easy. It's the doing part that's going to be difficult," he admitted then added half jokingly, "Maybe I should have taken that muscle strengthening potion after all."
She laughed with him as he kissed her again. In no time they had the lights off and he slipped into bed beside her in his boxers and white t-shirt. It was not hard to convince her that Andy and Leo were not watching, understood and would be discreet.
Aware of his depleted physical state, Hermione wanted no part in encouraging his thoughts any further and prudently kept her light blue silk pajamas on. They held each other in the dark, eyes shut, bodies entwined and warm under the covers, lulling them that for that moment in time everything was okay. It was a glimpse of possible normalcy, what it could be when all this was over.
Sleep was slow in coming. The events of the day only stressed the uncertainties facing them. His confidence to keep her safe was at an all time low and every second with her that night seemed like borrowed time, that it was running out.
"Are you still awake," he spoke softly.
She was.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing," he said at first then sighed, "Almost everything."
"Neville and Waterman."
"Neville's magic. Kingsley."
"Lestrange, Umber and the Bruins."
Not knowing where their conversation was going, he took his wand and Impertubed their surroundings, uncomfortable about something unedited making it onto official Auror documents even if Andy said they were shutting down all audio and video feeds from within the room.
"I feel somewhat responsible for Neville," he said to her.
"I do, too and so does Ginny. How could we, his supposed friends, not have seen that he was in trouble?" Hermione replied. "It still seems surreal."
Harry told her how he froze and made the mistake not to take Neville down when he had the opportunity.
"I'm still unsure if I would curse him to oblivion the next time we meet," he confessed.
"Even after what he did to you?''
"Something's seriously wrong with me, I know. There could have been less deaths today..."
"You don't know that for a fact so don't second guess yourself," she interrupted, planting a kiss on his cheek, "And there's nothing wrong with you."
He embraced her tighter, "You saw what he can do."
Even as he left the thought hanging she understood what he meant.
"You'll find a way, Harry."
"If he gets to you…"
"Don't worry. Neville would never hurt me."
Harry bit his lip, thinking about Kingsley, hoping she was right but if possible would rather not put that theory to the test.
"Have you given more thought about how you can help improve the potion?" he asked and when Hermione did not answer right away, he chuckled, "I should have known the answer to that."
"It's kind of obvious really."
"Of course it is."
"I should have thought of it before," she said displeased that she hadn't. "What's the one aspect of this potion that's absolutely horrifying?"
"Aside from its hideous colour, I guess that would be what it takes to make it."
"Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to go hunting for magical creatures to create magic enabling potion?"
Harry got her point. Hermione's latest successes were in using substitute potion ingredients.
"Do you think he's found replacements?"
"I don't know but part of me hopes that he has. If Neville's idea of potion improvement is to find other substrates I'm finding myself rooting for the bad guy."
He gave her another tight hug and she returned in kind, snuggling closer. They both wished the lines were less ill-defined. It was easier fighting against someone totally black like Voldemort and Lestrange.
"Try not to be too brilliant too fast about this, okay? Maybe Neville has less than noble intentions," he said to her, "Speaking of less than noble intentions…"
He had lost the battle against the effects of her proximity, her scent and her touch. His fingers had acquired minds of their own, one set unlatching the front buttons of her top as the other lightly grazed gradually uncovered skin.
"Mr. Potter, are you sure this thing you're starting is something you can finish?" he felt her soft lips nipping and leaving burning of the pleasant kind along his neck up towards his chin.
"No promises," he turned his head down and met her kiss, deep and languid, as he slipped her pajamas off her shoulders, "But I trust…you…to make sure…I follow through…"
"I might hurt you more," she said, still concerned about provoking his aches and pains.
"I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt more if we don't," his hands pressed and wandered down her bare back, sliding them in the fringe of her lace underwear and tracing them to the front.
"You know," she said as she took his shirt off, "I've read somewhere…that physical contact does help lessen the…aftereffects of the Cruciatus."
He tugged on her pajama cords, loosening it, helping her out of it and out of her knickers, smiling at what she said as they continued to make out.
"Is that right?" his voice trailed off.
She rid him of his boxers, an impish grin forming on her face.
"Totally made that one up."
Harry felt every inch of her nakedness press on his highly sensitized body, warm, soft and gentle. Her concern that her touch would provoke disagreeable memories of earlier that day was unfounded. They made love, and the euphoric emotions that he felt then were nothing like the painful ones that he endured earlier. In fact, right after as he held her in his arms, he could swear that there was some truth to Hermione's made up theory about physical intimacy and the torture curse.