LAST TANGO IN PARIS
Chapter Forty-Four

"Are you completely insane?" Hermione hissed. Joséphine just grinned at her.

"Probably."

"Merlin's jock strap, Joséphine. You can't just go around casting Unforgivable Curses on people! We're at Hogwarts!"

"For a good cause, isn't it?" Joséphine pocketed her wand calmly and folded herself into a chair. "And calm down. If Albus was going to come rushing in on us for casting a little Imperius Curse, he'd have done it six minutes ago while I was still thinking about it. That man's got a positively eerie sense of prescience."

Hermione ran both hands through her hair, gave Joséphine a fulminating stare, and dropped her face into her palms. She suddenly had a headache. "But it's illegal."

"Seems to me you've done a fair bit of that yourself, in your day," Joséphine said, and had the effrontery to wink. "You wanna bake a cake, chérie, you've got to break a few eggs first. N'est-ce-pas?"

Hermione was far from mollified. "That doesn't make it right," she said, wishing she didn't sound so much like the self-righteous little first-year she'd once been. How many times had she had this same conversation with Harry and Ron? And even back then she'd been able to see their logic, that was the hell of it - that however honorable it was to hold to the rules, there were always a million excellent reasons not to. "Plus," she said, raising a triumphant finger at this new thought. "We don't even know what Imperio does to the brain. It could skew the results."

"Maybe," Joséphine said. "But I doubt it." She nodded toward the stack of books at the end of the table next to Hermione. "I read the same stuff you did, last night. Memory loss points to damage in the hypothalamus, right? Free will's a little trickier - far as I could tell, the Muggles haven't figured out which lobe to tickle to take away your personal autonomy. Seems to me that where the Imperius is concerned, we're looking at a little less physiology and a little more rock 'n' roll." She shot Hermione a sly look. "There is still such a thing as just pure magic, you know. All multi-million-dollar indications to the contrary."

Hermione wasn't sure she bought this line of reasoning wholesale, but the clock was ticking and Neville would be back in less than half an hour. "Well," she said, "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

"That's the spirit." Joséphine unfolded herself from the chair and walked over to where Frank was sitting. "Hey, Dad," she said, and smoothed a wisp of flyaway grey hair back from his face. The look on her face made the tight lump in Hermione's chest ease a bit; flippant words aside, this woman was all tenderness now. "Bet you're feeling pretty good now, aren't you?"

Frank Longbottom nodded. Joséphine smiled at him.

"Good," she said. "Now I want you to do something for me, all right? Relax."

"All right," Frank said. His voice had that hollow, slightly forced tone that Hermione remembered hearing from the late Lucius Malfoy half a lifetime ago, but his face looked strangely young and unlined, freed from the assortment of tics and twitches that generally plagued him. Looking at him, one got a glimpse of the Auror he'd been as a young man - but for the blankness of his stare - handsomer, younger, more like Neville around the mouth. Hermione thought of Bellatrix Lestrange, of what might have been If Only, and had to swallow a bitter rush of anger and regret as she moved forward. When she spoke, she didn't recognise her own voice.

"What would have happened, do you think," she said, "if you simply asked him to remember?"

Joséphine shrugged.

"First thing they tried at the Ministry, I imagine," she said. "Once they figured out they were dealing with Crucio and not a botched Obliviate." She straightened Frank's collar with fond, deft fingers. "In retrospect, I suppose it's a good thing that they couldn't make him talk."

Hermione blinked. "Why?"

"Because if he had," Joséphine said, her dark eyes fixed and distant as she stroked Frank Longbottom's thinnning grey hair, "he'd have been dead years ago." She shook herself, caught Hermione's eye, and shrugged again. "Anyway. Are you ready?"

Hermione hesitated, then nodded. "I'm ready."

*****

"Severus? Severus, where the Hades are you?"

Sal emerged from the outside cabin wall into Severus' study headfirst, looking - for a man who theoretically couldn't be out of breath because he didn't have any breath to begin with - remarkably harried. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?" he wanted to know. Then, taking a closer look: "Oh. Nice rock."

"Thank you," Severus said. Sal ignored his tone of Heavy Irony.

"Now - put it away, will you? We have to talk."

Severus pocketed the ring, sucking his teeth with impatience. "Oh, we do, do we? And why is that?"

"Because," Sal said. "I've figured out where de Fondant's final voyage ended."

"Really."

"Yes, really." Sal flicked his wand in the direction of the corner lamp to turn it on. In its brighter glow, Severus noticed for the first time that Sal had been carrying a stack of Perluceoed ledgers, which now tangibilised with a pop and thudded heavily to the desk, missing his elbow by a scant half-inch. "I knew it was Scotland from the ship's log," Sal continued. "But the rest of it's due to hard work or blind luck, I'm not sure which."

"Luck," Severus murmured. Sal wagged a ghostly finger at him.

"Don't be so sure. I've been halfway around the globe and back today for interviews. Cashing in favours with my fellow spirits, mostly."

Severus smirked. "Whoever said 'dead men tell no tales' obviously didn't have your contacts."

"Obviously," Sal said, and hovered expectantly above the desk in front of the stack of ledgers. "Well, go on then," he said, fairly vibrating with impatience. "Read!"

Severus sighed.

"You know you just want to tell me," he said. "So why don't you save me the eyestrain and put yourself out of your misery?"

"But-"

"Sal. Spill it."

The old ghost looked sulky. "Spoilsport."

"Now, Sal."

"All right, all right." A dramatic pause. "It's just an educated guess, of course."

"While I'm young, would you?"

"Hush," Sal said. He was positively glowing, Severus thought - nothing illuminated Salazar Slytherin like the delivery of previously-withheld information. "From what I found out today, I'm fairly certain that the treasure is buried under - get this - Rosslyn Chapel."

Severus blinked, surprised despite himself. "Really."

"Would I lie to you?" Sal preened and settled himself in the middle of the desk. "It makes so much sense," he said. "And if we'd had any doubt about the Templars being up to their eyeteeth in the whole mess, this sort of clinches it, doesn't it?"

"Mm. Looks like, doesn't it?" Severus, unable to resist any longer, flipped the top ledger open. It smelled like smoke, old paper, and the memory of mice. Lovely stuff. He peered for a moment at the tiny script, then pushed it aside in favour of conversation - this really was big news. "Well, then," he said. "You've been around longer than anybody else I can think of, and this is right up your alley. Who do we know who's connected to the Earl of Roslin and that ingenious little curse?"

"That," said Sal, "is the thousand-rupee question." He was fidgeting with his wand, which was emitting tiny sparks of pale-grey energy. "I've been thinking about that most of the afternoon. Haven't come up with anything. Food might help - I'm starving."

Severus lifted an eyebrow. "Is that possible?"

Sal ignored him. "Is there any carrot cake left?"

"No. I had the last of it for tea." Severus thought for a moment. "But if it's sweets you want, there are still some of those sugared pecans in the refrigerator."

Sal made a face. "Sorry," he said. "Alain de Fondant's all the candied nut I need for one day, thanks ever so."

Severus chuckled appreciatively at the pun, then froze. "Wait a minute."

"What?" Sal, halfway out of the study, turned back at the doorway. "What is it?" he asked again. "You've gone dead white."

"Candied nuts," Severus said slowly. Sal shrugged.

"My little joke," he said. "You know - 'fondant.' It's Frog for 'candy'."

"I know that," Severus snapped. "I'm way ahead of you - you're slowing down in your old age."

"Hey."

"Think about it, Sal." He pushed back his chair, pounded a fist on the desk with such force that his quill jumped in its holder. "Think about it. We're idiots, both of us - we should have seen this months ago. Who do we know with a surname that's a synonym for 'candy'?"

"Merlin's balls," Sal said, and turned even paler than usual. "It's Fudge, isn't it?"