Challenge Fic: The Accounting (Regulus and Hermione, G)
Title: The Accounting
Author Name: gehayi
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,980
Spoilers: HBP. Written after Half-Blood Prince.
Genre: Drama, General
Main Character(s): Regulus and Hermione.
Summary: Bad things don't become better when good people do them. Done for the "Conversations" Challenge at hp_literotica.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
***
"...I have to say, you lot aren't exactly what I expected when I used the Time-Turner."
"What were you expecting?"
An indistinguishable mumble.
"What was that?"
"People less like the ones I'd left behind, I said!"
"Don't be insulting. We're NOTHING like them."
"I beg to differ."
"We're not."
"If you say so."
"I do say so."
"Fine. Well, that settles everything, then, doesn't it?"
"Wait a minute. You're not serious, are you? And don't you dare say 'No, I'm Regulus.'"
"Wouldn't dream of it. That got old when I was about two."
"You can't honestly expect me to think that you look at people like McGonagall and Lupin and see Death Eaters!"
"No, of course I don't. But then, you're not all like them."
"If you think that any of us are servants of--"
A heavy sigh. "Why do you keep asking me for an explanation and then getting angry when I give you one?"
"All right. All right. I'll be calm about this--"
"Oh, that'd be a first."
"You think one of us is a Death Eater."
"I didn't say that. I said there's not much difference between you and the people on the other side."
"That's not true!"
"Really. And here I could have sworn that I heard Mad-Eye Moody talking tonight about how Death Eaters deserve to be hunted down and killed, evil, soulless things that they are--"
"He didn't mean you."
"That's not what bothers me."
"...then what does?"
"The fact that the entire speech could have been lifted from my cousin Araminta Melliflua's statement to the Wizengamot about why the hunting of Muggles should be legalised."
"That's different."
"Why? 'Hath not a Death Eater eyes? Hath not a Death Eater hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as an Order member is?' "
"It's not the same thing! We're fighting for our lives!"
"And I'm sure that if you asked my cousin Bellatrix, she'd tell you, in an intense whisper, that she was fighting to preserve the traditions of the wizarding world, and to save that world and the people she loves from corruption and death."
"Bellatrix is mad."
"Whereas the twenty to thirty of us who dare to oppose the Dark Lord and his thousands of followers are the epitome of sanity."
"If you think it's so mad, you could leave."
"Oh, I don't think so. Anyway, you wouldn't want someone knocking about the world that knew more than you do about Horcruxes. You've barely managed to ask me a pin's worth of detail about them. You couldn't live with that kind of frustration."
"...I hate it when you're right."
"Yes. I know." A pause. "Anyway, Moody doesn't strike me as being the only person who's a touch Dark."
"Who else does? Harry?"
"He does seem to keep using the Cruciatus Curse with astonishing frequency, doesn't he? But no. I'm willing to chalk that up to simple stupidity."
"You don't honestly think that Harry is stupid!"
"I would dread to see what would happen if you weren't there to do his thinking for him. Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine it, do I? Dumbledore died."
"That wasn't Harry's fault! Snape killed him!"
"Ultimately. But he was already dying of poison when Snape cast the Killing Curse. And Harry was the one who fed him the poison, instead of trying to find a better way of emptying the basin in which the Horcrux lay, or grabbing the basin and Dumbledore and Apparating them both, and himself, back to Hogsmeade. Hell, I'm not dying, am I? That's because I had enough sense to conjure a cup, fill it, put it down, conjure another cup, and repeat. And it wasn't that hard to figure out. If someone wants you to drink poison, you try to find a way around it. You don't drink the bloody poison."
"Dumbledore told him to obey his orders, no matter what--"
"Ah, yes. The Grindelwald defence. Sorry. Not impressed."
"You make it sound as if Harry's a murderer!"
"He's not. I would say, however, that Dumbledore's death was voluntary manslaughter. Force-feeding a headmaster probable poison brewed by the Dark Lord doesn't sound like a way to encourage sterling good health, and any rational person would know that."
"Well, fortunately, that's never going to happen again."
"Of course not. Dumbledore's dead now. It would be hard for him to die a second time."
"Very funny."
"I only wish it were."
"So. You think that Moody is a dangerous zealot and that Harry is stupid. Fine. Who else do you think is potentially dark?"
"Why should I tell you? You really don't want to hear it."
"Tell. Me."
"I think that you have a good chance of going permanently Dark. An excellent chance, in fact."
"I would NEVER serve Voldemort!"
"I didn't say you would. But that doesn't mean you couldn't turn Dark. The world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters, you know."
A pause. "Sirius said that once."
"Really? I'm amazed my brother had that much sense."
"Go on," a touch defensively. "What makes you think that I'd become a Dark witch?"
"Well, it's not so much a question of becoming one as staying one. You've already done a few things that are questionable, you know."
"Such as?" In the grimmest of tones.
"The Confundus Curse you put on McLaggen. Harry told me about that. He seemed to think it was rather clever."
"Oh, for heaven's sake! That's not dark!"
"It's a curse. By definition, it's Dark magic."
"Look, all I did was hit Cormac with a mild--a mild--Confundus curse. It was nothing. He just got confused for a moment and went haring off in the wrong direction. It didn't last."
"Hermione. You tampered with his perceptions, his mind and his will. And you caused him to do something he wouldn't normally have done in a million years. Tell me, how's that different from the Imperius Curse?"
"You're being very self-righteous for a Death Eater!"
"Former Death Eater. I'm not sitting here in the Order headquarters because I'm still passionately in love with the Dark Lord's agenda."
"You were fine with it until you were ordered to kill your brother!"
"No. That was just the last straw. The first straw was seeing what the Dark Lord and his allies did to my friend Peter."
"I don't care what happened to Peter Pettigrew. He's vile."
"Now. And yet he was once a courageous Gryffindor, just like you and your friends. Shows you what can happen."
"I'm NOT going to turn traitor just because I cast the Confundus Curse once. Don't be idiotic."
"I don't think you're going to turn traitor, no. But that's hardly the only Dark thing you've done."
"It wasn't that Dark. And it was for a good cause."
"Oh, yes, and the ends justify the means. You wanted your boyfriend--"
"He's NOT my boyfriend."
"He would be if you told him you liked him, instead of playing games."
"He knows already. He just doesn't care."
"Seventeen-year-old boys can be incredibly thick. I should know. Two years ago, I was one. Anyway, you wanted your boyfriend to be Keeper. You didn't care how it happened. You just wanted it to happen. What's one little bit of cheating, eh? What's one little curse?"
"Exactly!"
"I can't imagine how you avoided being Sorted into Slytherin."
"Is that all? One very minor instance of...helping Ron out?"
"Want to ask Ron how minor it was? But no. There are other things."
"Like what?"
"The Attack of the Killer Canaries. Wounding the boy you like. What a wonderful way to say 'I love you.'"
"I was angry. I was jealous. Haven't you ever been?"
"Yes. But I didn't stab the girl I loved. And I didn't have a flock of insane birds stab her, either. Or my rival, come to that. There are plenty of non-magical ways to connive at the destruction of a rival. But you didn't do that. You conjured up some surrogates, and ordered them to attack Ron."
"I wasn't thinking!"
"Hermione Granger not thinking? Oh, I doubt that very much. Anyway, conjuring up the birds and then using the correct spell--that took a degree of clear-headed-ness. You just wanted control over the situation. And you were mad clean through. So you hurt Ron. Badly enough to leave wounds that took well over a month to heal."
"It was only a joke. Ron didn't take it that seriously."
"Oh, and if the victim doesn't object, that makes it all right. I see. Planning a career as a dominatrix, are you?"
"That's not funny."
"No. It's not."
"Glad to see we agree on something. What else?"
"...Harry told me about Umbridge and the centaurs."
"Well, so what! She was holding us prisoner! She was going to torture Harry!"
"You had the sense to trick her into leaving the room with you and Harry. Two kids, one witch with a wand. You could have both gone for her at the same time. She couldn't have attacked the two of you simultaneously. But no, you had to take her into a forest that's the habitat of some very territorial and extremely proud centaurs. You had to know that they wouldn't take invasion by humans well. And you had to know that Umbridge would go out of her way to offend them."
Sulkily. "So?"
"So you knew they'd get angry. You counted on it. And--"
"And what?"
"I think you knew about the other possibility as well."
"What 'other possibility'?"
"The one in every mythology book. All the stories about centaurs abducting and violating adult human females. And don't tell me you didn't know. Not a bookworm like you. I read about a centaur trying to violate the wife of Hercules when I was nine!"
'...I'd read about it. But I didn't know if anything would happen. Not for sure."
"But you decided to try it anyway. After all, it was only someone you didn't like, so what difference did it make if your actions got her into a situation where she was beaten up or raped?"
"She was going to Crucio Harry!"
"Forgive me if I'm not all that sympathetic toward Little-Sir-Crucio-Anyone-In-A-Fight. And you have a brain. Why not outsmart her, instead of hurting her?"
"Harry said Sirius was in danger--"
"He said you didn't believe that, though. And you don't strike me as much of a one for believing in visions and prophecies, honestly. Too irrational. I think--I think you actually wanted to get even with her for catching you. You didn't like being outsmarted. It made you mad. You wanted to get even. So you did."
"There's nothing wrong with getting even."
"I'm sure that Bellatrix would agree with you. Though I'm not so sure about the Longbottoms."
"That's not fair! And I haven't done anything even close to what Death Eaters do!"
"I didn't say you had. I said that you had done some things that are Dark, and you have. And I'm pretty sure you knew when you did them that they were wrong. I mean, you didn't grow up in a lunatic asylum like this house."
"I think you're being a bit overly scrupulous, don't you?"
"Not at all. I'm just judging you as you would judge, say, a Slytherin."
"And you can't win a war by fighting by the rules. Death Eaters don't even HAVE any rules!"
"Oh, I agree."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Feel any regrets? Have any second thoughts?"
"Of course not! McLaggen, Umbridge...even Ron--they were all horrible! They deserved everything they got and more!"
A sigh. "Then so do you, Hermione. So do you."
Author Name: gehayi
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,980
Spoilers: HBP. Written after Half-Blood Prince.
Genre: Drama, General
Main Character(s): Regulus and Hermione.
Summary: Bad things don't become better when good people do them. Done for the "Conversations" Challenge at hp_literotica.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
***
"...I have to say, you lot aren't exactly what I expected when I used the Time-Turner."
"What were you expecting?"
An indistinguishable mumble.
"What was that?"
"People less like the ones I'd left behind, I said!"
"Don't be insulting. We're NOTHING like them."
"I beg to differ."
"We're not."
"If you say so."
"I do say so."
"Fine. Well, that settles everything, then, doesn't it?"
"Wait a minute. You're not serious, are you? And don't you dare say 'No, I'm Regulus.'"
"Wouldn't dream of it. That got old when I was about two."
"You can't honestly expect me to think that you look at people like McGonagall and Lupin and see Death Eaters!"
"No, of course I don't. But then, you're not all like them."
"If you think that any of us are servants of--"
A heavy sigh. "Why do you keep asking me for an explanation and then getting angry when I give you one?"
"All right. All right. I'll be calm about this--"
"Oh, that'd be a first."
"You think one of us is a Death Eater."
"I didn't say that. I said there's not much difference between you and the people on the other side."
"That's not true!"
"Really. And here I could have sworn that I heard Mad-Eye Moody talking tonight about how Death Eaters deserve to be hunted down and killed, evil, soulless things that they are--"
"He didn't mean you."
"That's not what bothers me."
"...then what does?"
"The fact that the entire speech could have been lifted from my cousin Araminta Melliflua's statement to the Wizengamot about why the hunting of Muggles should be legalised."
"That's different."
"Why? 'Hath not a Death Eater eyes? Hath not a Death Eater hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as an Order member is?' "
"It's not the same thing! We're fighting for our lives!"
"And I'm sure that if you asked my cousin Bellatrix, she'd tell you, in an intense whisper, that she was fighting to preserve the traditions of the wizarding world, and to save that world and the people she loves from corruption and death."
"Bellatrix is mad."
"Whereas the twenty to thirty of us who dare to oppose the Dark Lord and his thousands of followers are the epitome of sanity."
"If you think it's so mad, you could leave."
"Oh, I don't think so. Anyway, you wouldn't want someone knocking about the world that knew more than you do about Horcruxes. You've barely managed to ask me a pin's worth of detail about them. You couldn't live with that kind of frustration."
"...I hate it when you're right."
"Yes. I know." A pause. "Anyway, Moody doesn't strike me as being the only person who's a touch Dark."
"Who else does? Harry?"
"He does seem to keep using the Cruciatus Curse with astonishing frequency, doesn't he? But no. I'm willing to chalk that up to simple stupidity."
"You don't honestly think that Harry is stupid!"
"I would dread to see what would happen if you weren't there to do his thinking for him. Oh, wait. I don't have to imagine it, do I? Dumbledore died."
"That wasn't Harry's fault! Snape killed him!"
"Ultimately. But he was already dying of poison when Snape cast the Killing Curse. And Harry was the one who fed him the poison, instead of trying to find a better way of emptying the basin in which the Horcrux lay, or grabbing the basin and Dumbledore and Apparating them both, and himself, back to Hogsmeade. Hell, I'm not dying, am I? That's because I had enough sense to conjure a cup, fill it, put it down, conjure another cup, and repeat. And it wasn't that hard to figure out. If someone wants you to drink poison, you try to find a way around it. You don't drink the bloody poison."
"Dumbledore told him to obey his orders, no matter what--"
"Ah, yes. The Grindelwald defence. Sorry. Not impressed."
"You make it sound as if Harry's a murderer!"
"He's not. I would say, however, that Dumbledore's death was voluntary manslaughter. Force-feeding a headmaster probable poison brewed by the Dark Lord doesn't sound like a way to encourage sterling good health, and any rational person would know that."
"Well, fortunately, that's never going to happen again."
"Of course not. Dumbledore's dead now. It would be hard for him to die a second time."
"Very funny."
"I only wish it were."
"So. You think that Moody is a dangerous zealot and that Harry is stupid. Fine. Who else do you think is potentially dark?"
"Why should I tell you? You really don't want to hear it."
"Tell. Me."
"I think that you have a good chance of going permanently Dark. An excellent chance, in fact."
"I would NEVER serve Voldemort!"
"I didn't say you would. But that doesn't mean you couldn't turn Dark. The world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters, you know."
A pause. "Sirius said that once."
"Really? I'm amazed my brother had that much sense."
"Go on," a touch defensively. "What makes you think that I'd become a Dark witch?"
"Well, it's not so much a question of becoming one as staying one. You've already done a few things that are questionable, you know."
"Such as?" In the grimmest of tones.
"The Confundus Curse you put on McLaggen. Harry told me about that. He seemed to think it was rather clever."
"Oh, for heaven's sake! That's not dark!"
"It's a curse. By definition, it's Dark magic."
"Look, all I did was hit Cormac with a mild--a mild--Confundus curse. It was nothing. He just got confused for a moment and went haring off in the wrong direction. It didn't last."
"Hermione. You tampered with his perceptions, his mind and his will. And you caused him to do something he wouldn't normally have done in a million years. Tell me, how's that different from the Imperius Curse?"
"You're being very self-righteous for a Death Eater!"
"Former Death Eater. I'm not sitting here in the Order headquarters because I'm still passionately in love with the Dark Lord's agenda."
"You were fine with it until you were ordered to kill your brother!"
"No. That was just the last straw. The first straw was seeing what the Dark Lord and his allies did to my friend Peter."
"I don't care what happened to Peter Pettigrew. He's vile."
"Now. And yet he was once a courageous Gryffindor, just like you and your friends. Shows you what can happen."
"I'm NOT going to turn traitor just because I cast the Confundus Curse once. Don't be idiotic."
"I don't think you're going to turn traitor, no. But that's hardly the only Dark thing you've done."
"It wasn't that Dark. And it was for a good cause."
"Oh, yes, and the ends justify the means. You wanted your boyfriend--"
"He's NOT my boyfriend."
"He would be if you told him you liked him, instead of playing games."
"He knows already. He just doesn't care."
"Seventeen-year-old boys can be incredibly thick. I should know. Two years ago, I was one. Anyway, you wanted your boyfriend to be Keeper. You didn't care how it happened. You just wanted it to happen. What's one little bit of cheating, eh? What's one little curse?"
"Exactly!"
"I can't imagine how you avoided being Sorted into Slytherin."
"Is that all? One very minor instance of...helping Ron out?"
"Want to ask Ron how minor it was? But no. There are other things."
"Like what?"
"The Attack of the Killer Canaries. Wounding the boy you like. What a wonderful way to say 'I love you.'"
"I was angry. I was jealous. Haven't you ever been?"
"Yes. But I didn't stab the girl I loved. And I didn't have a flock of insane birds stab her, either. Or my rival, come to that. There are plenty of non-magical ways to connive at the destruction of a rival. But you didn't do that. You conjured up some surrogates, and ordered them to attack Ron."
"I wasn't thinking!"
"Hermione Granger not thinking? Oh, I doubt that very much. Anyway, conjuring up the birds and then using the correct spell--that took a degree of clear-headed-ness. You just wanted control over the situation. And you were mad clean through. So you hurt Ron. Badly enough to leave wounds that took well over a month to heal."
"It was only a joke. Ron didn't take it that seriously."
"Oh, and if the victim doesn't object, that makes it all right. I see. Planning a career as a dominatrix, are you?"
"That's not funny."
"No. It's not."
"Glad to see we agree on something. What else?"
"...Harry told me about Umbridge and the centaurs."
"Well, so what! She was holding us prisoner! She was going to torture Harry!"
"You had the sense to trick her into leaving the room with you and Harry. Two kids, one witch with a wand. You could have both gone for her at the same time. She couldn't have attacked the two of you simultaneously. But no, you had to take her into a forest that's the habitat of some very territorial and extremely proud centaurs. You had to know that they wouldn't take invasion by humans well. And you had to know that Umbridge would go out of her way to offend them."
Sulkily. "So?"
"So you knew they'd get angry. You counted on it. And--"
"And what?"
"I think you knew about the other possibility as well."
"What 'other possibility'?"
"The one in every mythology book. All the stories about centaurs abducting and violating adult human females. And don't tell me you didn't know. Not a bookworm like you. I read about a centaur trying to violate the wife of Hercules when I was nine!"
'...I'd read about it. But I didn't know if anything would happen. Not for sure."
"But you decided to try it anyway. After all, it was only someone you didn't like, so what difference did it make if your actions got her into a situation where she was beaten up or raped?"
"She was going to Crucio Harry!"
"Forgive me if I'm not all that sympathetic toward Little-Sir-Crucio-Anyone-In-A-Fight. And you have a brain. Why not outsmart her, instead of hurting her?"
"Harry said Sirius was in danger--"
"He said you didn't believe that, though. And you don't strike me as much of a one for believing in visions and prophecies, honestly. Too irrational. I think--I think you actually wanted to get even with her for catching you. You didn't like being outsmarted. It made you mad. You wanted to get even. So you did."
"There's nothing wrong with getting even."
"I'm sure that Bellatrix would agree with you. Though I'm not so sure about the Longbottoms."
"That's not fair! And I haven't done anything even close to what Death Eaters do!"
"I didn't say you had. I said that you had done some things that are Dark, and you have. And I'm pretty sure you knew when you did them that they were wrong. I mean, you didn't grow up in a lunatic asylum like this house."
"I think you're being a bit overly scrupulous, don't you?"
"Not at all. I'm just judging you as you would judge, say, a Slytherin."
"And you can't win a war by fighting by the rules. Death Eaters don't even HAVE any rules!"
"Oh, I agree."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Feel any regrets? Have any second thoughts?"
"Of course not! McLaggen, Umbridge...even Ron--they were all horrible! They deserved everything they got and more!"
A sigh. "Then so do you, Hermione. So do you."