FIC - Consequentially Yours (OW/HG, R)
Title: Consequentially Yours
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Oliver Wood / Hermione Granger
Rating: R
Words: ~2,800
Beta: HogwartsDuchess
20
A Series of Epilogues
2 - The Powerful and Most Cunning House of Malfoy
***
The trial was held before the Wizengamot a week later. It wasn’t a publicity stunt, and it wasn’t even particularly flattering to the Ministry, and in the end it left the participants with the feelings of being not quite resolved, but unlike the practices of his predecessors, Percy threw open the doors and made it very public, and somehow, everyone left feeling just a little more unburdened and with the beginnings of hope.
Thirteen witches and Wizards were indicted by the testimony of the participants, and fully eleven of them were brought in, to stand before the court in chains and take their turn in the heavy chair of judgment before their peers.
None of them were acquitted.
The Malfoys’ involvement was not mentioned, of course. Though Oliver informed Percy of everything that had happened he was disappointed when his friend agreed with Hermione, saying that they could hardly bring them up on charges for trying to help rid the community of the Dark Lord, no matter what their real motivations may be. When he considered the likely public reaction to that, Oliver was forced to concede, but at least they weren’t getting any public credit for their actions, either.
Oliver found her waiting in the Atrium, trying to avoid the pushing and shoving of the crowds by standing in the rather dubious protection of the large pillars. Though nether of their involvements had become public, the apprehension of the Death Eaters being credited to the small force of Aurors, Hermione had avoided attending the trials, preferring, she said, to let someone else deal with it this time around.
“How was it?”
He shrugged, noncommittally. “They were found guilty at any rate. Though, they kept going on about that illusion thingie they’d done-”
“The Chamber of Secrets. It was Sympathetic Magic.”
At his confused look, Hermione tried to explain. “Objects that have certain physical characteristics are believed to be magically representative of other objects. Such as the herb Eyesbright is thought to be exceedingly useful in any magic or ritual meant to affect the eyes, because the berries produced by the plant were believed to look like eyes. Or there are certain toadstools that are considered useful in, ah…reproductive magic, because of the shapes of some of the...” she flushed. “In Herbology, it’s referred to as the Doctrine of Signatures, and is thought of to be nature’s way of painting signposts, letting you know how things are supposed to be used. Voodoo dolls, and other forms of golem magic are another example-”
“An’ all this relates to Voldemort, how?” he interrupted gently, knowing full well how long this could take if she got going.
“It works a little differently, from discipline to discipline, but that’s the general idea. Back in our second year, Harry encountered a diary; Voldemort had succeeded in imprinting a simulacrum of himself into its pages, as a sort of insurance policy, I guess. That image-”
“Was essentially a golem!” Oliver groaned, catching on.
“Exactly. The diary was ruined later that year, but I guess they were hoping to still pull and echo of Voldemort from it. They probably thought that by using the Chamber, where he had cast the original spell, would strengthen it. Or perhaps they thought to pull an echo of him from the Chamber itself. By using the principals of Sympathetic Magic, whatever was done to the simulacrum, would affect the original.”
Oliver looked out over the crowd for a long moment, digesting this.
“They found the boy was missing from Schaveninger. No body this time; jus’… missing. You were right, we were looking for something else, we jus’ dinnae realise it.”
“How old?”
“In and aroun’ the same age as the other victims,” he stopped, hesitating.
“They didn’t find his body in the wreckage at the cabin, did they?” Hermione guessed sadly.
He shook his head. “No. Is it really possible tha’ they would try programming Voldemort directly into a child?”
“Possible. They were desperate, and it’s the only way I can see around what the Malfoys did.”
“What about around what you did?”
“I don’t know, Oliver. I did the best I could, but I couldn’t test it before hand; it was all theory.” She sighed, turning to look out over the crowd, trying not to flinch at all the hopeful faces. “Is Voldemort really back then?” Hermione asked, and her voice was almost childishly wistful at the thought of losing all they had gained since his defeat.
Oliver gently tugged her into his chest, so he could circle her in his arms, a reassuring barrier against the thoughts that clouded her owlish eyes. Resting his chin on her shoulder, Hermione could feel his deep voice rumbling in his chest against her back as he answered her. “I don’t know that we’ll ever know. They’ve got the best Legelmentalist working on what’s left of Williams, but he’s so far gone, I don’t think they’ll ever get anything useful out of him. His mind is beyond shattered.” She took comfort from the unthinking resolution in his voice that said louder than words that they were going to be okay.
“I still think those blond prats could hae been charged wit’ something. Seeing one o’ them bound in that ruddy chair-”
Hermione twisted uncomfortably in his arms. When she caught sight of her husband’s expression, she winced. “Oliver-”
“I mean, the foul shites were trying-” he continued, oblivious to Hermione’s attempt at a soothing injunction. Her next statement stopped him cold, though.
“Oliver, Draco has the Blood Sickness.”
The news hit him like a lead cauldron. He honestly didn't know how to react, and it wasn't until he could feel the sort of dry sucking of his lungs as they struggled, and he realised he’d forgotten to breathe. Slowly, he took in a deep breath, and then released it through his nose, not sure, after everything the foul shite had put him through, how he felt; or even how he should feel. Dimly, he noted that he wasn't surprised that for all their cunning, they couldn't keep the secret from his Mouse.
Seeing his expression, Hermione hurried on to explain, “There isn’t much Lucius Malfoy wouldn’t do for his son, and Austria brags one of the best medical research facilities in Europe. With their increasingly barbaric Muggle laws in place, they’ve opened up the way for …questionable testing.”
“All this, just so that one young man can grow up and have kids?” Oliver could feel his anger slipping into his voice, despite his efforts to keep it neutral.
Hermione looked away, staring into the sea of oblivious people that still streamed through the Atrium in the wake of the trial. Sunlight from the charmed skylights glinted off the gold Fountain of Magical Brethren, throwing glinting galleons of light on passing witches and wizards. Reluctantly, she spoke, but still didn't look away from the laughing, chattering mob.
“That’s if he’s lucky, Oliver. Many of the Blood Sicknesses kill. Quite slowly.”
***
The quality of the silence changed, though Percy didn’t turn from his quiet vigil at the window. For long minutes, he continued staring out into the streets; far below, like people slowly awakening from a long slumber, witches and wizards moved through the streets. Hesitantly, pockets of threes and fours formed, and everywhere there was the subtle evidence of years of fear being dusted off and exposed to the truth of daylight. A smile ghosted across his pale face, hidden from the room at large as he resolutely ignored the office behind him, and the presence it concealed.
He could feel the air shift, almost imperceptibly as his un-invited guest waited patiently, allowing him his silent savouring of all he had striven for finally coming to fruition; really, as epitaphs go, this was not a bad way to go at all, he acknowledged. With a final, absorbing stare, he shifted his weight, and it was with that one, small movement that he acknowledged the shadows, even as he refused to legitimize the presence by turning around.
“We’re very much alike, you and I. Aren’t we, Mr. Weasley?”
His voice was a soft murmur; coldly curious, and yet with a hint of respect, as one addressing an ally, or an equal.
Of course, in a sense they were allies, as adversaries who had grown comfortable with one another, aloof from others, the lines blurring occasionally like a spy and his subject; and Lucius was right, they were very, very much alike. Percy smiled again, and knew that though the dark window carried no reflection back the other man, it didn’t need to.
“So, in the end, you turn on your own master,” Percy observed softly.
There was a brief pause, as though he hadn’t really been expected to speak. “Master? My dear boy, Voldemort was, after all, just a jumped-up Muggle. Tell me, do you really see me falling in line with a Wizard who lacks even enough consistency to understand that he is, in fact, trying to eliminate himself? He was a means to an end. He was charismatic enough to rally the fanatics, and the less intelligent, but he was never really more than a figure head. He just never realized it.” Lucius laughed once, a short sound without any real humour.
Percy allowed his own lips to quirk at the irony. He’d suspected, of course, and what he hadn’t suspected, he’d learned over his time in office. Malfoy and the people he worked for had a very long view of the future, indeed. In every society, there were malcontents and those who could be preyed upon by their stronger, more determined peers. Lucius had just stood back and allowed Tom Riddle to gather them all for him; one neat, nice little package. “Those fanatics certainly threw enough kinks in your plan when they assisted the Dark Lord in rising again,” he remarked blandly.
“An inconvenience,” he acknowledged. “Why do you think we all waited for thirteen long years without making any move to further our plan? Loose ends. We knew he was still out there, and that he would be back. Why jeopardize everything we had done for the sake of a few years? The man was a loose cannon - far better to have him where we could see him, than to have him working against us from the shadows,” he paused. “It’s all about calculated risks.”
“You mean, you couldn’t control what you lot had created,” Percy corrected, still bland, and still keeping his back to the door, as if he were merely having a conversation with his own reflection., “And so you dumped him on an unsuspecting public, hoping Harry’d take care of the problem you’d created, you bastard,” the tone of the expletive didn’t change, and yet still managed to convey a great deal of anger.
“Now, now Minister, what kind of language is that?” Lucius asked, mockingly.
Percy ignored him, instead asking his one of his few nagging questions. “What’s in Austria?”
He could see, for one moment, as the ghostly image in the glass lost its smirking veneer, sighing almost inaudibly in the silent office. For a long moment, Percy didn’t honestly think he was going to get an answer. “Lebelung’s Centre for Magical Research.”
Suddenly the silence was deafening, as Percy ruthlessly contained his shock. It was several moments before he spoke again to the shadows behind him.
“I see. You really were playing a long game. Hermione would have never made it to the Goyles, would she?”
“What do you mean were?” Lucius’s voice was filled with cold amusement once more. “In the present circumstances, I see no impediment. The Austrian Ministry have been encouraged to take a less democratic view of the current blood crisis, and they’re prepared to overlook certain testing… irregularities that may forward a solution. With the research notes provided by Mrs. Wood and my late unfortunate associates, I imagine a potion or treatment can be devised in short order. Though it’s true, I’ve no doubt it would have been sooner, if Mrs. Wood had been under our …protection since the duel.”
“And you’re suddenly concerned with altruism? Somehow that doesn’t sound like you, Malfoy.”
Percy was confused with the pale face in the window tightened painfully, before smoothing out once more. His voice, however, betrayed nothing. “I expect to make a tidy profit out of all this. Imagine what people would pay for such a cure, when it’s their sons and daughters who are afflicted, and suddenly the succession of their line is facing a grinding halt.”
“All this - for galleons?” The Acting-Minister barely kept his fury in check, though he knew his quiet voice still shook.
“Nothing as crass as money, Minister. They would pay with things far more dear than their family fortunes.”
Something in his tight voice as he said this caught Percy’s attention, and suddenly he knew. Standing behind him, wrapped in shadows was proof against all the school-aged speculation that Lucius Malfoy lacked any real sense of compassion or feeling at all, even for his own family.
Obviously for his son, he was willing to risk a great deal.
“And what have you gained, allowing all of your Pure-blooded cronies to be rounded up and sent to Azkaban?”
He could imagine the smirk on the other man’s face from the tone of his wintery voice. “You’ve just rather conveniently gotten rid of all their parents, leaving those poor young men and women in control of old, politically well-connected Pureblood families, and in some cases, fortunes.” Lucius leered mockingly at these words. “Young men and women, who, thanks to Draco’s patient work, belong to me.”
Percy nodded once, not really surprised, but a price he still considered more than fair, under the circumstances. He let out a deep breath, done with waiting, and with Malfoy’s gloating. “Is it to be something painful, then?”
Lucius gave another short laugh, this one honestly amused. “I considered it, you know. Being rid of you, but I think in the end, I’d rather work against you, then say, someone like Fudge. At least it gives one a sense of accomplishment.”
“I think I could almost take that as a compliment, if it came from someone slightly less reprehensible.”
There was silence in the room for a moment, and Percy took the opportunity to take in the hopeful atmosphere on the street so far below.
It really was worth it, of course.
“Obliviate.” Lucius’s voice was strangely gentle as it came out of the shadows; and the rest, was darkness.
Author's Note:
To me, this is the real end of the story, with all the loose ends tied up; or at least as many as I intend to tie up *lol*. I know some of you will be disappointed that there wasn't more Oliver/Hermione in this bit, but I promise to be back to them with the next post - though all that's left is a bit of fluffy indulgence :-)
Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews - I really, really tried hard to have this out yesterday for you guys, but life got in the way, so I hope one day earlier than planned is still a treat :-)
Love,
Ny(ruserra)
Previous
Next
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Oliver Wood / Hermione Granger
Rating: R
Words: ~2,800
Beta: HogwartsDuchess
20
A Series of Epilogues
2 - The Powerful and Most Cunning House of Malfoy
***
The trial was held before the Wizengamot a week later. It wasn’t a publicity stunt, and it wasn’t even particularly flattering to the Ministry, and in the end it left the participants with the feelings of being not quite resolved, but unlike the practices of his predecessors, Percy threw open the doors and made it very public, and somehow, everyone left feeling just a little more unburdened and with the beginnings of hope.
Thirteen witches and Wizards were indicted by the testimony of the participants, and fully eleven of them were brought in, to stand before the court in chains and take their turn in the heavy chair of judgment before their peers.
None of them were acquitted.
The Malfoys’ involvement was not mentioned, of course. Though Oliver informed Percy of everything that had happened he was disappointed when his friend agreed with Hermione, saying that they could hardly bring them up on charges for trying to help rid the community of the Dark Lord, no matter what their real motivations may be. When he considered the likely public reaction to that, Oliver was forced to concede, but at least they weren’t getting any public credit for their actions, either.
Oliver found her waiting in the Atrium, trying to avoid the pushing and shoving of the crowds by standing in the rather dubious protection of the large pillars. Though nether of their involvements had become public, the apprehension of the Death Eaters being credited to the small force of Aurors, Hermione had avoided attending the trials, preferring, she said, to let someone else deal with it this time around.
“How was it?”
He shrugged, noncommittally. “They were found guilty at any rate. Though, they kept going on about that illusion thingie they’d done-”
“The Chamber of Secrets. It was Sympathetic Magic.”
At his confused look, Hermione tried to explain. “Objects that have certain physical characteristics are believed to be magically representative of other objects. Such as the herb Eyesbright is thought to be exceedingly useful in any magic or ritual meant to affect the eyes, because the berries produced by the plant were believed to look like eyes. Or there are certain toadstools that are considered useful in, ah…reproductive magic, because of the shapes of some of the...” she flushed. “In Herbology, it’s referred to as the Doctrine of Signatures, and is thought of to be nature’s way of painting signposts, letting you know how things are supposed to be used. Voodoo dolls, and other forms of golem magic are another example-”
“An’ all this relates to Voldemort, how?” he interrupted gently, knowing full well how long this could take if she got going.
“It works a little differently, from discipline to discipline, but that’s the general idea. Back in our second year, Harry encountered a diary; Voldemort had succeeded in imprinting a simulacrum of himself into its pages, as a sort of insurance policy, I guess. That image-”
“Was essentially a golem!” Oliver groaned, catching on.
“Exactly. The diary was ruined later that year, but I guess they were hoping to still pull and echo of Voldemort from it. They probably thought that by using the Chamber, where he had cast the original spell, would strengthen it. Or perhaps they thought to pull an echo of him from the Chamber itself. By using the principals of Sympathetic Magic, whatever was done to the simulacrum, would affect the original.”
Oliver looked out over the crowd for a long moment, digesting this.
“They found the boy was missing from Schaveninger. No body this time; jus’… missing. You were right, we were looking for something else, we jus’ dinnae realise it.”
“How old?”
“In and aroun’ the same age as the other victims,” he stopped, hesitating.
“They didn’t find his body in the wreckage at the cabin, did they?” Hermione guessed sadly.
He shook his head. “No. Is it really possible tha’ they would try programming Voldemort directly into a child?”
“Possible. They were desperate, and it’s the only way I can see around what the Malfoys did.”
“What about around what you did?”
“I don’t know, Oliver. I did the best I could, but I couldn’t test it before hand; it was all theory.” She sighed, turning to look out over the crowd, trying not to flinch at all the hopeful faces. “Is Voldemort really back then?” Hermione asked, and her voice was almost childishly wistful at the thought of losing all they had gained since his defeat.
Oliver gently tugged her into his chest, so he could circle her in his arms, a reassuring barrier against the thoughts that clouded her owlish eyes. Resting his chin on her shoulder, Hermione could feel his deep voice rumbling in his chest against her back as he answered her. “I don’t know that we’ll ever know. They’ve got the best Legelmentalist working on what’s left of Williams, but he’s so far gone, I don’t think they’ll ever get anything useful out of him. His mind is beyond shattered.” She took comfort from the unthinking resolution in his voice that said louder than words that they were going to be okay.
“I still think those blond prats could hae been charged wit’ something. Seeing one o’ them bound in that ruddy chair-”
Hermione twisted uncomfortably in his arms. When she caught sight of her husband’s expression, she winced. “Oliver-”
“I mean, the foul shites were trying-” he continued, oblivious to Hermione’s attempt at a soothing injunction. Her next statement stopped him cold, though.
“Oliver, Draco has the Blood Sickness.”
The news hit him like a lead cauldron. He honestly didn't know how to react, and it wasn't until he could feel the sort of dry sucking of his lungs as they struggled, and he realised he’d forgotten to breathe. Slowly, he took in a deep breath, and then released it through his nose, not sure, after everything the foul shite had put him through, how he felt; or even how he should feel. Dimly, he noted that he wasn't surprised that for all their cunning, they couldn't keep the secret from his Mouse.
Seeing his expression, Hermione hurried on to explain, “There isn’t much Lucius Malfoy wouldn’t do for his son, and Austria brags one of the best medical research facilities in Europe. With their increasingly barbaric Muggle laws in place, they’ve opened up the way for …questionable testing.”
“All this, just so that one young man can grow up and have kids?” Oliver could feel his anger slipping into his voice, despite his efforts to keep it neutral.
Hermione looked away, staring into the sea of oblivious people that still streamed through the Atrium in the wake of the trial. Sunlight from the charmed skylights glinted off the gold Fountain of Magical Brethren, throwing glinting galleons of light on passing witches and wizards. Reluctantly, she spoke, but still didn't look away from the laughing, chattering mob.
“That’s if he’s lucky, Oliver. Many of the Blood Sicknesses kill. Quite slowly.”
***
The quality of the silence changed, though Percy didn’t turn from his quiet vigil at the window. For long minutes, he continued staring out into the streets; far below, like people slowly awakening from a long slumber, witches and wizards moved through the streets. Hesitantly, pockets of threes and fours formed, and everywhere there was the subtle evidence of years of fear being dusted off and exposed to the truth of daylight. A smile ghosted across his pale face, hidden from the room at large as he resolutely ignored the office behind him, and the presence it concealed.
He could feel the air shift, almost imperceptibly as his un-invited guest waited patiently, allowing him his silent savouring of all he had striven for finally coming to fruition; really, as epitaphs go, this was not a bad way to go at all, he acknowledged. With a final, absorbing stare, he shifted his weight, and it was with that one, small movement that he acknowledged the shadows, even as he refused to legitimize the presence by turning around.
“We’re very much alike, you and I. Aren’t we, Mr. Weasley?”
His voice was a soft murmur; coldly curious, and yet with a hint of respect, as one addressing an ally, or an equal.
Of course, in a sense they were allies, as adversaries who had grown comfortable with one another, aloof from others, the lines blurring occasionally like a spy and his subject; and Lucius was right, they were very, very much alike. Percy smiled again, and knew that though the dark window carried no reflection back the other man, it didn’t need to.
“So, in the end, you turn on your own master,” Percy observed softly.
There was a brief pause, as though he hadn’t really been expected to speak. “Master? My dear boy, Voldemort was, after all, just a jumped-up Muggle. Tell me, do you really see me falling in line with a Wizard who lacks even enough consistency to understand that he is, in fact, trying to eliminate himself? He was a means to an end. He was charismatic enough to rally the fanatics, and the less intelligent, but he was never really more than a figure head. He just never realized it.” Lucius laughed once, a short sound without any real humour.
Percy allowed his own lips to quirk at the irony. He’d suspected, of course, and what he hadn’t suspected, he’d learned over his time in office. Malfoy and the people he worked for had a very long view of the future, indeed. In every society, there were malcontents and those who could be preyed upon by their stronger, more determined peers. Lucius had just stood back and allowed Tom Riddle to gather them all for him; one neat, nice little package. “Those fanatics certainly threw enough kinks in your plan when they assisted the Dark Lord in rising again,” he remarked blandly.
“An inconvenience,” he acknowledged. “Why do you think we all waited for thirteen long years without making any move to further our plan? Loose ends. We knew he was still out there, and that he would be back. Why jeopardize everything we had done for the sake of a few years? The man was a loose cannon - far better to have him where we could see him, than to have him working against us from the shadows,” he paused. “It’s all about calculated risks.”
“You mean, you couldn’t control what you lot had created,” Percy corrected, still bland, and still keeping his back to the door, as if he were merely having a conversation with his own reflection., “And so you dumped him on an unsuspecting public, hoping Harry’d take care of the problem you’d created, you bastard,” the tone of the expletive didn’t change, and yet still managed to convey a great deal of anger.
“Now, now Minister, what kind of language is that?” Lucius asked, mockingly.
Percy ignored him, instead asking his one of his few nagging questions. “What’s in Austria?”
He could see, for one moment, as the ghostly image in the glass lost its smirking veneer, sighing almost inaudibly in the silent office. For a long moment, Percy didn’t honestly think he was going to get an answer. “Lebelung’s Centre for Magical Research.”
Suddenly the silence was deafening, as Percy ruthlessly contained his shock. It was several moments before he spoke again to the shadows behind him.
“I see. You really were playing a long game. Hermione would have never made it to the Goyles, would she?”
“What do you mean were?” Lucius’s voice was filled with cold amusement once more. “In the present circumstances, I see no impediment. The Austrian Ministry have been encouraged to take a less democratic view of the current blood crisis, and they’re prepared to overlook certain testing… irregularities that may forward a solution. With the research notes provided by Mrs. Wood and my late unfortunate associates, I imagine a potion or treatment can be devised in short order. Though it’s true, I’ve no doubt it would have been sooner, if Mrs. Wood had been under our …protection since the duel.”
“And you’re suddenly concerned with altruism? Somehow that doesn’t sound like you, Malfoy.”
Percy was confused with the pale face in the window tightened painfully, before smoothing out once more. His voice, however, betrayed nothing. “I expect to make a tidy profit out of all this. Imagine what people would pay for such a cure, when it’s their sons and daughters who are afflicted, and suddenly the succession of their line is facing a grinding halt.”
“All this - for galleons?” The Acting-Minister barely kept his fury in check, though he knew his quiet voice still shook.
“Nothing as crass as money, Minister. They would pay with things far more dear than their family fortunes.”
Something in his tight voice as he said this caught Percy’s attention, and suddenly he knew. Standing behind him, wrapped in shadows was proof against all the school-aged speculation that Lucius Malfoy lacked any real sense of compassion or feeling at all, even for his own family.
Obviously for his son, he was willing to risk a great deal.
“And what have you gained, allowing all of your Pure-blooded cronies to be rounded up and sent to Azkaban?”
He could imagine the smirk on the other man’s face from the tone of his wintery voice. “You’ve just rather conveniently gotten rid of all their parents, leaving those poor young men and women in control of old, politically well-connected Pureblood families, and in some cases, fortunes.” Lucius leered mockingly at these words. “Young men and women, who, thanks to Draco’s patient work, belong to me.”
Percy nodded once, not really surprised, but a price he still considered more than fair, under the circumstances. He let out a deep breath, done with waiting, and with Malfoy’s gloating. “Is it to be something painful, then?”
Lucius gave another short laugh, this one honestly amused. “I considered it, you know. Being rid of you, but I think in the end, I’d rather work against you, then say, someone like Fudge. At least it gives one a sense of accomplishment.”
“I think I could almost take that as a compliment, if it came from someone slightly less reprehensible.”
There was silence in the room for a moment, and Percy took the opportunity to take in the hopeful atmosphere on the street so far below.
It really was worth it, of course.
“Obliviate.” Lucius’s voice was strangely gentle as it came out of the shadows; and the rest, was darkness.
Author's Note:
To me, this is the real end of the story, with all the loose ends tied up; or at least as many as I intend to tie up *lol*. I know some of you will be disappointed that there wasn't more Oliver/Hermione in this bit, but I promise to be back to them with the next post - though all that's left is a bit of fluffy indulgence :-)
Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews - I really, really tried hard to have this out yesterday for you guys, but life got in the way, so I hope one day earlier than planned is still a treat :-)
Love,
Ny(ruserra)
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