Roman Holiday

Chapter Sixty-Five

Rita Skeeter’s trial didn’t last long.

Barely twenty minutes after Hermione had peeled herself off the alcove floor, reapplied her lipstick, messed about with an AntiRed cosmetic charm on her eyes, and reclaimed her pre-panic-attack chair, Dumbledore’s door swung open and Rita re-emerged, flanked by her Auror guards. Hermione turned instinctively away, but she needn’t have worried. Unlike her dramatic entrance, Rita’s exit was subdued - she was weeping softly into her hands, and the Aurors seemed to be supporting, more than restraining, her.

Draco was next, an unreadable expression on his handsome, set face - followed by Harry, Ron and Ginny, in a whispering little clump of suppressed excitement. “Good news,” Harry mouthed in Hermione’s direction, and she felt herself go limp with relief.

“How long?” she asked, and Ron sat down next to her.

“Six months,” he murmured, shooting a wary glance toward the still-open door. “For Unlawful Impersonation with Intent to Harm. And she’s not allowed to write any more - they tore up her press badge. Right in front of her. Can you believe it?”

“And the quill,” Ginny interjected under her breath. “They snapped her Quick-Quotes Quill in half and threw the pieces into the fire.” She swallowed hard. “She cried and cried, poor thing.”

“Poor thing?” Ron echoed, incredulous. “Ginny, don’t be such a sap. She deserved every bit of that and more.”

But Ginny looked rather trembly - Hermione happened to know that even the Tom Riddle incident back in her first year hadn’t cured Ginny of her diary habit. She was a good writer, too - Hermione had proofread some of her term papers for her, and even they had a quick, light, readable style that was immediately distinguishable. If Ginny didn’t decide to start writing novels instead, Hermione rather suspected that they might have another future journalist in their midst.

Good thing Harry had gotten over being an idiot and was holding her hand. He could do with a little good press, for a change.

She noticed also that Harry had draped his cloak over Ginny’s shoulders - took you long enough, didn’t it, boyo? - and that he looked angry, but calm. “What’s the matter?” she asked, and he smiled thinly.

“Fudge wouldn’t admit my testimony as valid,” he said quietly. “Told me I had a ‘conflict of interest’, since Rita wrote all that rubbish about me two years ago. But when he turned away to talk to the panel, I heard him use the word ‘unreliable’.”

“Bastard,” Ron muttered. Draco, who had been leaning against the wall a little way away - presumably, Hermione thought, waiting for Snape - raised one blond eyebrow.

“You know it’s nothing to do with you,” he told Harry unexpectedly, and frowned as they all looked at him, surprised. “He’s in a pissing contest with Dumbledore, that’s all. Angry that he even has to bring my father up on charges.”

Hermione felt her stomach lurch. Draco, apparently giving up on Snape, turned to go and lifted one spare shoulder in a shrug.

“Good luck, Hermione,” he said softly, and looked as if he wanted to say something more, but thought better of it. They all stared after his retreating figure, nonplussed.

“He misses you,” Ginny said dreamily, and looked startled when Hermione snorted.

“He’s got a funny way of showing it, then, doesn’t he?”

**

They hovered for another few minutes until Hermione finally couldn’t stand it anymore - “I’m fine, I’ll be fine!” - and sent them away.

She had to think, and she couldn’t do it in the middle of a racket.

Six months in Azkaban, and her press privileges revoked. Hermione was with Ginny on this one; poor thing, indeed. But after all, Rita hadn’t made any friends with that poison pen - and the Ministry, that is to say the Minister, had been her target more often than not. No doubt Fudge felt himself well-rid of her.

A logical person might conclude that Lucius Malfoy would get the same six months plus some, since he was guilty of the same crime. Hermione was afraid she knew better.

Disposing of a troublesome journalist was one thing; sending your longtime associate to Azkaban was quite another. And Cornelius Fudge had already proven to them, time and again, that he wasn’t held by any code of honour.

Hermione sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees as the muffled conversation in the next room died away to silence and was replaced by purposeful rustling - someone was coming to fetch her, no doubt. She dropped her head briefly on her knees and tried for one more moment to regain the sense of absolute security she’d had just half an hour ago, wrapped in Snape’s arms.

For someone who seemed so determined to be unpleasant, he could be amazingly comforting. She brought her head up resolutely.

What was it he’d said?

Just go into that room and tell them the truth, and they can’t possibly do a thing to you.

Head high, she unfolded herself from the chair and gave the Auror in the doorway the bravest smile she could muster.

Dumbledore’s desk had been Transfigured into something higher and longer and less cluttered, behind which sat Fudge, three other Ministry officials Hermione didn’t know, and Professor Dumbledore himself. In the far corner, where the Order of the Phoenix had once stood waiting for her copyright to be signed, lurked yet another band of Aurors.

There was no witness stand, but there were two low tables in front of the desk. At one sat Professor McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey, and Professor Snape - Hermione supposed that was her side. The other table, as yet, was empty.

And then the fire glowed green, and spat still more Aurors out of it. And Lucius Malfoy was with them.

Obviously, he hadn’t been in Azkaban - he was wearing his own clean robes, and he didn’t have the same mad, unkempt look Hermione had seen in Rita, in Sirius, or - on occasion, when he was unusually tired, or had been startled - in Hagrid. Even so, he walked like a man who had been confined, and blinked his pale, red-rimmed eyes in a rabbity way that suggested he was unused to this much light. Hermione expected glares from him, expected imperiousness, but he seemed uncharacteristically vague and focussed inward, as if he was holding himself erect only with great care. Once in the chair at the opposite table, he looked visibly relieved.

Hermione saw McGonagall tip her head toward Snape inquiringly, then roll her eyes in mingled amusement and disdain at what he whispered in her ear.

Ha. No wonder Snape had been making himself scarce, as of late.

She acknowledged the wizards at the desk with a grave little nod and seated herself in the empty chair beside Snape, suddenly feeling much better about the whole situation. After all, she was surrounded by friends and protectors.

And Lucius Malfoy was surrounded only by guards.

“Shall we begin?” asked Fudge, and she let out a shaky breath.

Showtime.

**

It had never occurred to Hermione that Fudge might be uneasy at the thought of administering Veritaserum in this particular case, but so it seemed.

“No, no, won’t be necessary,” he said tersely, waving aside Snape’s proffered bottle. “That Skeeter woman’s one thing - you know what she’s like as well as I do, Albus; she hasn’t said or written a syllable of truth in the ten years she’s been at the Daily Prophet - but for these two?”

He fixed Hermione with what was undoubtedly intended to be a grandfatherly look. “No - won’t need it - absolutely trustworthy - longtime personal friend - I’m sure you’ll vouch for the young lady here, Minerva -“

“Indeed,” said Professor McGonagall frostily. “But you know as well as I do, Cornelius, that unless there’s a barometer of the witnesses’ veracity present at this hearing, the entire proceeding can be declared legally void, in the case of an appeal.”

Oho, thought Hermione, who hadn’t known that. Fudge looked taken aback.

He recovered equilibrium quickly, however - a born politician, that one, muttered Madam Pomfrey to Snape - and sent McGonagall a weak smile that she didn’t even acknowledge, let alone return.

“Quite, quite,” he said heartily, adjusting the collar of his official’s robes with one pudgy moist hand. “Still - Veritaserum - bit harsh, especially on a young stomach -“ here, another false smile in Hermione’s direction - “I know just the thing - here we go -“

As he spoke, he had been rummaging in a monogrammed leather bag; now, he held aloft a gold-plated Sneakoscope engraved with his initials, as triumphantly as if it was the Quidditch Cup. “Right, then,” he said. “This should do it, eh?”

He was adjusting his pince-nez with an air of immense relief when Snape stood up suddenly, brushed past Hermione, and stepped forward.

“No need to use your personal model, Minister,” he said in his silkiest tones, eyeing Fudge’s Sneakoscope as if it was one of Neville’s more thoroughly-botched attempts at a Swelling Solution. “I’m sure the Headmaster has a school-owned instrument suitable for the occasion - don’t you, Headmaster?”

“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, nodding cheerfully. He held up one hand, nodded toward the far corner of the room, and deftly caught the fist-sized object that came flying toward him, causing the Ministry officials to duck for cover and making a definite sideswipe in the direction of Fudge’s right ear before thunking solidly into Dumbledore’s outstretched palm. Fudge eyed the object skeptically - and for once, Hermione didn’t blame him.

The Sneakoscope, if indeed it was one, was shaped like one of those hula-dancer figurines one could find in certain vacation shops - a small graceful woman with her plasticine arms over her head, a tiny flowered lei nestled between bare, prominently-nippled plasticine breasts, and a plastic grass-skirt that fell to her otherwise bare knees. Next to Fudge’s corporate gold-plate, it looked like a mail-order souvenir mistakenly dropped off on the Tiffany’s counter.

“My name,” Dumbledore said seriously to the little dancer, “is Cornelius Fudge” - and immediately, the grass skirt began to swivel in a parody of the hula.

The Ministry officials immediately became very interested in the contents of the parchment in front of them. Professor McGonagall went into a coughing fit; Madam Pomfrey laughed out loud, and Hermione saw out of the corner of her eye that even Snape was smirking. Only Dumbledore and Malfoy were unaffected - Dumbledore was playing Santa as if he was up for the Academy Award, and Malfoy was still staring at his hands.

Fudge, for his part, looked annoyed. “Albus, this is a serious legal proceeding,” he hissed, and Dumbledore turned up the twinkle a notch higher. If he kept it up, Hermione thought, someone was going to take him home next Christmas and put him on their lawn.

“All the more reason to have a working Sneakoscope,” he said, and deftly picked up Fudge’s sedately-monogrammed one to examine the underside. “If you’ll notice, Cornelius, yours didn’t go off when I gave it the wrong name. It’d be a terrible thing to send an innocent man to Azkaban, on the say-so of some faulty machinery.”

The room went suddenly very quiet. Fudge’s collar, Hermione noticed, seemed to be a bit tight.

“Fine,” he spat, very red in the face. “Let’s begin. Miss Granger, we’ll start with you, if you please.”

Hermione stood up and looked him straight in his piggy little eyes.

You’re a cheat and a liar, she thought - and suddenly, wasn’t nervous at all.

**

She told her story from the beginning, starting with her budding relationship with Draco, the chase through the Muggle hotel in Rome when he’d been flinging Stunning Spells at them and she’d felled him with her Petrificus, their discovery of the Fils du Couteau shortly before Halloween, their subsequent work on the Protection Potion, and their encounter with Malfoy in Dumbledore’s office at the beginning of Christmas vacation. Hermione still hadn’t forgotten his words: you conniving, filthy little tramp; you’ll get yours, too, I promise you.

She must have gotten the quote exactly right, because the grass skirt didn’t so much as quiver.

She left out any mention of the Initiates altogether - better to say nothing than to risk a lie in front of the Hula Dancer of Truth - and skipped over to her encounter with him in Hogsmeade. Leaving Draco at the door of Quality Quidditch. Coming out of Madam Malkin’s to see him disappearing into the snow, calling her name. Following him, kissing him, realising his identity the instant after he’d stolen her wand.

And then, on to the deserted old house in God-knows-where, reliving that terrible hour wherein he’d chained her feet to the floor, tied her hands, cut off her clothes. On her left, Professor McGonagall was white-faced and Madam Pomfrey gasping; Fudge looked sullen, Dumbledore grim. Malfoy was still staring at the table - through the whole recital, he hadn’t looked at her once.

“He put his knife next to my face,” she said, her throat suddenly very dry, and remembering, felt her knees quiver. “I’d drunk the Protection Potion, so he couldn’t cut me - but he tried - and then he sent the others away, and he put his hands on me … and then Voldemort came in …”

Nausea swirled through her at the memory.

She had to stop. She couldn’t go on.

The whole room was holding its breath. Fudge looked, for the first time, genuinely frightened. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?” he prompted, his tone disbelieving. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Hermione said, swallowing hard. “I knew who he was. I called him Tom Riddle, and it made him angry.” She had to get this out fast; no way was she going to cry in front of Fudge and his cronies. “He had a glamour on - he looked like a man, and then he didn’t, and he wanted to know how Professor Snape lost his Dark Mark, and I wouldn’t tell him - I said, “I’m no Peter Pettigrew” -“

Her lips began to tremble. On hearing Pettigrew’s name, Fudge’s eyes had darted immediately to the hula-dancer, but she didn’t so much as twitch. “And he said Pettigrew was smarter than me - he said -“ She closed her eyes. “It is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. And then he cast the Cruciatus on me.”

The room erupted in angry whispers; Hermione heard Professor McGonagall stifle a cry. Next to her, Madam Pomfrey was trembling.

“And -“ She cleared her throat, held onto the table with both hands. Why wouldn’t her stomach stop pitching? “And it bounced off, and went back to him, but he ducked. And then he cast it again, and it bounced again, but I knew the Protection Potion wouldn’t last, because the hour was up. And I’d been trying to get to the Keyhole -“

“The Keyhole?” Fudge asked, nonplussed. Hermione looked appealingly at Dumbledore.

“Study compartment in the library, Cornelius,” Dumbledore explained. “A book and a key. You had one yourself, as I recall.”

Fudge fidgeted with his collar again. “Ah. Ah, yes.”

“It was on my bracelet,” Hermione said tiredly. Her head was beginning to spin. “Charm bracelet. Draco. Gave it to me for Christmas.” She held one arm up in explanation. “Wand on it. Miniature. Like the book. For a penlight. Twisted the bracelet. Got it in my hand.”

She really couldn’t stand up any longer. She started to sink back to her chair, then felt a strong arm slide around her shoulders.

Snape.

“Just a minute more,” he murmured in her ear, and obediently Hermione took a deep shuddering breath.

“Aimed it. Trapped him. In the sapphire. Malfoy came in. Cast Imperius.”

“Malfoy did?” Fudge asked, disbelievingly. Hermione shook her head.

“No. Me. On him. Had to get down.”

She sagged into the warm iron support that was Snape’s arm. “Tied him up. Used the Keyhole. Came home.”

She could feel her face dissolving. Blindly, she turned it into Snape’s shoulder and held onto him. Somewhere behind her, Fudge was muttering - “Unforgivables - Dark magic - further questions - very unusual -“ but then Dumbledore’s voice cut through clear as a bell: “Cornelius, she’s told you everything she can.”

“Tired,” she mumbled, and Snape’s arm tightened.

“Headmaster?” he said inquiringly, and Dumbledore must have nodded.

“By all means. Thank you, Severus.”

He swept her up in his arms, and she gratefully let her vision fade to black.

Black.

Right now, it was the most comforting colour she knew.

**