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The Opposing Movement | ||||||
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Category: Pre-OotP, Alternate Universe Characters:Harry/Ginny, Other, Sirius Black Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama Warnings: Death, Disturbing Imagery, Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Sexual Situations, Violence, Violence/Physical Abuse Rating: R Reviews: 86 Summary: Christmas, 1993. Harry Potter is spotted in the company of wanted fugitive Sirius Black, and is forced on a dark, treacherous path. Pursued from all directions by a Ministry intent on capturing him, and the ever-persistent threat of a seemingly immortal Voldemort on the horizon, the road ahead will be dangerous, and the toll will be higher than ever before… Hitcount: Story Total: 30925; Chapter Total: 2259 |
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That evening, Melchior told a bit more about himself, as he did so often during supper. He started with the confrontation between him and his parents after he'd graduated and returned from Hogwarts. "They wanted me to help them on the farm, but I didn’t want that, of course. I just turned eighteen at the time and I was confident, distant from my parents after all those years of growing up away from them, and I was ready to see the world. It was foolish of them to think I would stay there and work for them." The second week of the summer holidays, he packed a few of his belongings and took a ferry to Rotterdam. After staying there a couple of weeks, unsuccessfully trying to find some of his old friends from before he moved to England, he'd had enough and moved on from the city and into the rest of Europe. It was a long, hot, and serene summer evening when he met a girl in Naples, named Caterina Guistina Sasserath. It was love at first sight, and Melchior spoke wistfully of many lazy afternoons spent chasing each other through the narrow, paved alleys of the city, stealing kisses as they fell in love under the Mediterranean sun. Then, one day, she invited him to her home, and Melchior told them he'd never been as shocked as when he entered that palace of a house. Her widower father, Sig. Sasserath, was the proud, insanely rich inventor of the safety pin, and utterly devoted to his only daughter. "Now don't think she was a stupid little brat who loved horses," Melchior said to his audience. "She was sly, let me tell you. Knew exactly what she wanted and how to achieve it, be it by making calf-eyes at her father, or bribing and threatening that shopkeeper into silence when he'd caught us behind his shop with my face between her legs. I've never met a stronger will than hers." They spent the remainder of the summer at Sig. Sasserath's house and in Naples, and when the children in the city had to return to school, Melchior and Caterina decided to travel the world. Happily funded by Sig. Sasserath, who was nonetheless sad to be all alone in his house after Caterina and Melchior left, they took a ferry along the Mediterranean. They eventually got off in Morocco and started making plans to travel to South Africa there. "In the end, we travelled for about seven blissful years, and we've visited a list of places that would have made Ibn Battuta proud. We married in Ceylon in 1962 and spent our honeymoon on Bali, before heading back to Yemen to travel through Arabia." He took a sip from his drink. "But, like everything, it couldn't last. Sig. Sasserath was dying, you see, so we had to go back to Europe. Besides, I hadn't seen my parents in seven years, so we would have gone back either way." Four months after the couple returned to Italy, Sig. Sasserath died, leaving Caterina behind a wealth of money, a palace of a house and many other things they didn't know what to do with. In the end, they sold the house, opened several accounts in various countries, using Sasserath’s many international contacts, and they headed back to England among the wealthiest people alive at the time. They didn't stay for long, though. "My parents were Calvinists, and my wife was the complete opposite. Believe me when I say it didn’t click between them. My parents were critical of everything about us. Our wealth, the way she dressed, the way we acted, my father in particular hated Caterina's accent-" "Ah-e, bonjorno di pizza pie-e!" Harry exclaimed happily. A furious look from Melchior shut him and a guffawing Ginny up. "…Anyway, it didn't work. So we moved in with some old friends in South Africa for two and a half years." "What happened after that?" Sirius asked, still trying to stop smiling. "Trouble started brewing in Britain," Melchior answered. Seeing no way of captivating his audience anymore, he let the dishes clean themselves up and then retreated to his sofa to read a book, scowling all the while. Harry grew more and more frustrated with him every day. Ever since he and Ginny found out he was doing something secret underneath the kitchen during their first exam in sneaking around, he wanted to know what exactly Melchior kept hidden. He tried surreptitiously listening in on him while he was in the kitchen but he got nowhere with that. He tried to get Selene to tell him, or at least give him a few hints, but she was almost more tight-lipped than Ginny could be. Seeing no other possibility, Harry decided to wait until everyone was in bed before sneaking down to find out what was under the kitchen himself. He was waiting for a night where Sirius and Melchior drank a lot, figuring they would be less watchful when they got drunk before going to bed. Harry was confident that tonight would be one of those nights. He thought back to a conversation with Selene. "So how often does Melchior drink?" Harry asked her. He, Selene and Ginny were out on one of their usual walks. This time she opted to edge along the cliffs a bit more. The views were certainly worth it, but even Harry was nervous at the heights he saw below their feet. Those snowy rocks they were walking across did not look safe. "Melchior? Drink? Don't be ridiculous!" Selene laughed. "But to tell you the truth, he drinks more than he should. I've been telling him to slow it down a bit more, but he doesn't listen." She helped them over a slippery crevasse and they continued their trek. "Oh wow, this is so much more fun now that you two are here as well! Look, there in the distance is the forest where I fell out of the tree when I was six, remember?" "Has he always been drinking this much, then?" Ginny pressed. "Yeah, ever since I can remember. Remember, he fled a war zone when he came here, and he hasn't left in all the years that he’s lived here. That sort of thing leaves its mark, you know." She turned around and wagged a finger at him and Ginny. "And no, I won't tell anything more about that, before you ask. I'm not asking you for your inner secrets either." "That's because you already know them," Ginny grumbled. If Selene heard her, she gave no indication of it. Instead, she maintained her steady pace and further ahead. Harry saw Ginny lose her grip on the snowy slope behind him. He turned around, extended his hand, and helped Ginny over a couple large boulders. They shared a smile and then hurried to catch up with Selene, who was waiting for them further ahead. "How was it like, then?" Harry asked carefully as they continued their trek. "Growing up here. It mustn't have been easy." Harry couldn't see her face, since she was walking ahead of him, but he did see her shoulders tense slightly. And the way her bum swayed in those tight jeans of her as she walked. She was quite thin, but her curves were definitely there. But then he thought of Daphne looking at him in disapproval, and he quickly averted his gaze. "It was alright," she said eventually, grabbing Harry's attention again. "I mean, I grew up without any other girls around, and I could never invite any friends I might've had to my house, but I'm not unhappy. Melchior can be very strange, but he's nice. I did learn not to cross him, though." "Why not?" "He'd ground me, for one. And I fucking hate that, let me tell you. And he'll drink if he's angry, and, well, if he doesn’t fall asleep first, he’ll get a bit… rash." Well, looking at their crooked host's face, he certainly was angry. His frown was a bit more present than usual and his normally impassive face now showed a slight scowl. That was probably as much anger as Melchior would show. Harry caught Ginny’s gaze. They shared a knowing look, and Harry felt himself grow excited. He and Ginny were getting more and more proficient at sneaking around, and it was time to put it to good use. {}---{}---{} While his heart pounded in his chest, Harry slipped his Invisibility Cloak over himself. Sirius never noticed anything, and still snored as loudly as ever. He whispered "non testes" while pointing his wand at his feet and again while pointing his wand in his face. No one would hear his footsteps or his breath. He looked at his watch. 2:30. He quietly rapped his knuckles over the wall next to his bed and heard Ginny do the same from her side moments later. He counted to thirty before getting out of his room. The door didn't creak, thanks to a nifty lubrication charm the Marauders had invented in their time. He saw Ginny slip out of her room quietly at the same time, and make her way towards him. He tried not to react too much when Ginny fumbled around, unsuccessfully trying to find a way to get under his cloak with him. In the end, he did it for her. Wordlessly they walked downstairs. Harry sighed in relief when no stairs creaked, and he felt incredibly giddy when they crossed the living room soundlessly and entered the kitchen without a hitch. They closed the door behind themselves. Harry threw the cloak off and stuffed it inside his pyjamas, and they immediately started exploring the cupboards, drawers, walls, and everything else they could see. "I can't see anything here," Ginny whispered, closing the cutlery drawer without a sound. "Me neither," Harry whispered back. "I thought there would be a lever or a button somewhere, but there’s nothing here." "How did you even get that idea?" "I read books, you know? And I sometimes watched the telly at the Dursleys. Whenever you had a secret room, there was always a secret button or a lever that opened the door to it! I just assumed if there was a way to open this floor, it would be with some sort of mechanism like that." "Let's try something else, then," Ginny said, pulling out her wand. She pointed it at the floor. "Alohomora!" Nothing happened. “Open sesame?” Harry suggested. “Let’s keep looking,” Ginny sighed. Harry dropped to his knees to examine the floorboards again. He put his nails between the seams, strained his ears for any hollow sounds as he knocked on various parts of the floor and looked for any loose boards. But nothing. He heard Ginny let out a frustrated sigh behind him. "This is bloody pointless," she said. "Come on, Harry, let's…" She trailed off. "Let's what?" He asked, looking behind him. Ginny walked slowly towards a corner and grabbed something from behind the cupboards. It clinked when she turned around to face him. "What… Whiskey? Ginny, do you want to drink firewhiskey?" "Why not?" She asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I've always wondered how it tastes. And no one's here to see us anyway!" "Yeah, but what if-" "Oh I knew it. You're scared, aren't you?" "No, I'm not!" He protested. He sprang to his feet. "You Slytherins are all the same, you know? All chickens, every last one of them," she taunted, waving the bottle of liquor about. “No, we’re not!” “Prove it, then!” Ginny said, grinning at him. “Look, if you want to chicken out and go to bed, that’s fine. But I might just tell Melchior and Sirius that you conned poor old me into drinking whiskey! Shame on you, Harry!” Harry didn't respond. Instead, he opened a cupboard above their heads, grabbed two small glasses and put them on the counter. Ginny smirked at him as she unscrewed the cap. “You are evil, you know that, Ginny?” If it wasn’t so dark, Harry would have noticed her wince at that statement. She poured them both a carefully measured amount and then put the bottle down. Harry took his drink in his hand and sniffed it carefully, but he immediately regretted doing that. His eyes watered and an awful feeling of light-headedness overwhelmed him. He quickly held the glass as far away from his nose as possible. "Ready?" Ginny asked. She sounded quite nervous and she eyed her drink doubtfully. "I guess," Harry said reluctantly. "Well… cheers, then!" "Cheers." They both brought their glasses to their mouths and Harry took the tiniest of sips. If he didn't scowl like he'd swallowed a lemon, he would have probably laughed at the face Ginny made, but he was too caught up in the burning sensation of whiskey sliding down his throat to be able to concentrate on anything else. "Bloody hell," Ginny managed to utter. A couch escaped Harry’s throat, but he fought down the urge quickly. It wouldn't do to wake the whole house, not now that they had liquor in their hands. "Why do people even drink this stuff?" Ginny asked, still grimacing. "That was horrible!" "Dunno," Harry brought out. He let out a shaky breath. They shared a look. "Want to try again?" She asked. "Do you?" She eyed her drink nervously and then took a bigger sip than her last one. Immediately she put the glass away and pulled the most comical face Harry had ever seen on her. He snorted, but at least he managed not to laugh out loud. "Oh shut up!" Ginny spluttered and slapped his shoulder once she’d recovered. "If it's so funny, why don't you do it again too?" Not wanting to be called a coward again, Harry reluctantly took another swig. Now it was Ginny's turn to laugh at him. A few dares and challenges later, Harry definitely began feeling strange and quite unsteady. "Are we drunk?" He asked Ginny. "You are; I'm not," she replied, giggling. "Seriously, this stuff is hea-vy!" "Why are we even here again? For some secret chamber under the kitchen? What in the bloody hell were we thinking?" "Mum would kill me if she saw us now," Ginny said. Then she started giggling again. "Sirius would probably join us, wouldn't he?” Harry said. “And Melchior… What would he do?" Ginny stuck her head forward and arched her back in a convincing attempt to appear hunchbacked. "I am very disappointed in you two," she declared in a grave voice, her lips turned down in a perfect arch. She tucked a stray lock behind her ear and Harry burst out laughing. "Don't laugh at me, Harry, and eat your mashed potatoes!" She continued, still in that same tone. Harry had to grab on to the counter to support himself and he clutched his stomach, aching with laughter. He opened his eyes again to say something to Ginny, but stopped laughing when he saw someone standing behind her. "Wha..?" Ginny asked, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Tut tut, what do we have here?" Selene said, crossing her arms. "Nothing," Harry said. He stepped in front of the bottle of whiskey. "We couldn't sleep, so we headed down here, and-" "Oh, save your excuses, Harry. I can see the fucking bottle sticking out above your head," Selene said amusedly. She reached around Ginny and grabbed the bottle and looked at the content. "Firewhiskey? Are you two mental?" She then proceeded to take an impressive swig straight from the bottle, grimacing slightly as it went down. "What?" She asked, seeing Harry and Ginny stare at her. "You get used to it, honestly!" "I didn't know you drank alcohol," Ginny finally said. "Well, I usually don't, but what else is there to do in this shithole? You two hardly lasted a month without resorting to it, so imagine living here for sixteen years!" She took another swig and looked at the two children. "So, still looking for the fabled Chamber of Secrets underneath the kitchen, then?" "Maybe," Harry said. "How old were you when you started drinking?" "Fourteen," Selene replied. She smiled. "And I was drunk out of my mind the first time, you know. Ended up running around outside in the winter, completely starkers! My nipples could cut have through glass then, it was so cold!" Harry's mouth fell open, and Ginny burst out laughing. “What?” Selene asked indignantly. “What did I do wrong?” "You broke Harry," she replied, gasping between guffaws. “Yeah, I can see that, but why?” The longer Ginny laughed, the angrier Selene got. "Ahem," someone said from the doorway, and Harry stopped staring at Selene. He felt fear knot his stomach when he saw Melchior standing there, wearing dark green silk pyjamas that fitted his hunched form perfectly. "Hi Mel," Selene said cheerfully. "Couldn't sleep with these two roaring the whole house together?" "No, I couldn't," he replied. "And I am very disappointed in you three." He looked mildly surprised when Harry and Ginny started sniggering again. "Sorry," Selene said, hanging her head. Melchior pursed his lips, grabbed the bottle of liquor from her hand and stowed it away again. Then, without further comment, he took Harry and Ginny by the collar of their pyjamas and dragged them through the living room. He took them both in one hand for a moment to open the front door, and then he roughly shoved the two kids outside, into the snow. Harry landed face-first in it and the searing cold instantly forced him to clarity. Apparently it was hard to remain drunk when everything inside him screamed for warmth. Ginny let out a stream of excessively vile curses next to him, and it was probably for the best that her voice was muffled by the snow and the wind. Harry pushed himself to his knees and looked back at the house to see Melchior standing in the doorway. It could have been the bright moonlight, but he actually looked quite amused at the sight. Harry stood up and offered his hand to Ginny, but she slapped it away. She scrambled to her feet and stomped past Melchior without further comment. Harry followed her inside, and he saw her make her way up the last few stairs, but Melchior stopped him from following her upstairs. "No, not yet. Sit down," he said. It was a command, but still he pushed Harry onto the couch by the dying fire. He jabbed his wand at the fireplace, and the fire sprung back to life immediately. Harry felt the warmth seep through his soaked pyjamas almost immediately. It seemed only a moment later when Melchior interrupted Harry from staring at the stone hearth by placing a large cup of tea on the coffee table in front of him. "You're not the first drunk, freezing teenager to have sat on that couch," he said. He sank into his sofa. Harry glanced over his shoulder, but didn't see Selene anywhere. She must've gone upstairs as well. "Anyway,” Melchior continued, “I'm glad you're still fully clothed, though." "I'm sorry," Harry blurted out. "You will be, tomorrow," Melchior replied, showing him a rare, but humourless grin. "So, still obsessed with my kitchen? I thought you would have given up on it by now, but clearly I underestimated you." Harry said nothing. He refused to look at the man now, and gripped his cup with both hands while he examined the masonry of the hearth again. "I want you to promise me, Harry, look at me," Harry looked away from the fireplace and into Melchior’s eyes. He saw the light of the flames dance in them. "I want you to promise me not to snoop around for whatever secret room you think there is. You have much more important things to focus on, and sneaking around here in the dead of the night isn't helping anyone. Trust me when I say that you will never find what you're looking for anyway, so it's all just a waste of time.” Harry nodded tersely. Do you promise me?” "Yes," Harry replied. "Good." They sat there in silence. There was the occasional pop and crack from the fire, but nothing else. Harry felt his energy slip away from him as he sipped his tea, and his eyelids were drooping by the time he'd finished his drink. "Come on, let’s get you into bed," Melchior said. He took Harry by the elbow, helped him to his feet, and Harry let himself be led up the stairs. He thought he saw light shining behind the door to Selene and Ginny’s room, but they continued into the next bedroom before he could think about it properly. "How he slept through that ruckus, I will never know," Melchior said softly when they opened the door and were greeted by Sirius' loud snoring. He guided Harry towards his bed and drew back the blanket back for him. He felt slightly embarrassed, but was otherwise too tired to be bothered by Melchior tucking him in. "Goodnight," the man whispered to him. Harry mumbled something in reply, and, looking back on it, he was probably already asleep by the time Melchior closed the door behind him. {}---{}---{} Harry kept his promise to Melchior and tried to put the secret room underneath the kitchen out of his mind. He had a moment of surprise two weeks later, when he found out he hadn't been thinking about it for quite some time anymore, but the matter didn't really bother him anymore like it did before. Life went on. After a very rough morning, Harry and Ginny decided together not to drink alcohol anymore in the foreseeable future. Melchior had eventually given in to their pleas and handed them both a hangover potion but it still didn't take the throbbing headache away completely. Harry didn’t know whether the man had given them the potion out of kindness, or because he was irritated that Harry and Ginny were unable to follow their lessons due to their hangover. Either way, Harry was thankful for the potion. Ginny’s ever-present scowl that day showed quite clearly that she didn’t share his gratitude. Sirius had laughed at their plight all the while. He seemed to find the fact that Harry and Ginny had drank firewhiskey extremely funny, and teased them a lot about it. But, just like Harry, he simply forgot about it after a while. Life simply went on. But no matter how much time passed, Harry simply couldn’t forget about Daphne. Though no one ever talked about her, Harry still thought about her every day, and she appeared in his dreams just as often. Thank god Sirius was always still asleep when Harry woke up. And thank god for cleaning charms. Often enough a long, hot shower prevented him from brooding too much about it, but the sharp ache that he felt when he thought of her only worsened as the weeks progressed. So often he wondered how she was now. How her days looked like, what kind of things she was learning at Hogwarts, but especially how she was treated. She was not really hated by anyone other than for being a Slytherin, and she had never been without friends, but Harry still worried about whether or not their relationship had become public. He remembered what happened to Ginny when she became friends with him in the aftermath of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, and he didn't wish the gossip and outright bullying she’d received upon anyone, let alone his girlfriend. And what was Malfoy doing? Harry hoped he would continue being too busy cosying up to Pansy Parkinson and goading Ron Weasley and other Gryffindors into fights to bother Daphne. That train of thought led him to another point: the betrothal. Try as he might, he could not find a solution to their problem, other than to sneak into Hogwarts to retrieve Daphne, then sneak into Malfoy Manor to kidnap Lucius Malfoy, then sneak into Greengrass Manor to kidnap Marcus Greengrass, and then sneak into the Ministry and somehow force the two men to cancel the contract. And then flee with Daphne. It was utterly hopeless. Knowing Sirius' knowledge about the customs and traditions of the Wizarding World, Harry eventually stepped over his reluctance and told him about the betrothal. He would simply have to accept Ginny’s smugness later. Sirius had been a bit upset at first that Harry didn't tell him, but he was sympathetic to his plight nonetheless, and explained to him as much as possible about how betrothals worked. The contract could be set up by either involved family, but knowing the male-centred culture of the Wizarding World, it was always the family of the man who set up and proposed the contract. The other family then had to sign their agreement, and then the man and the woman had to sign the contract as well to seal the deal. It was possible to break the contract, but you needed another signed document for that, with the signatures of the patriarchs of both involved families. Harry didn't know Marcus Greengrass, but, knowing that the man most likely accepted the contract only to remain neutral if Voldemort would rise again, Harry had little hope of his cooperation. Lucius Malfoy was beyond reasoning. Another reason for cancelling a betrothal was the death of one of the two to-be-married, but Harry refused to allow his thoughts to wander off in that direction. He hadn’t forgotten about that strange, exhilarating urge he felt when he hurt Professor Lupin back in the cave. The quite busy daily routine of life at Melchior’s house kept him from thinking too much about it, anyway. The days were getting gradually longer, and by mid-February it was almost still light when it was time for supper. This meant that most of their lessons could finally be conducted in daylight, and only now did Harry notice the effect the incredibly short days had had on him. He felt very glad there weren't any days without any sunlight at all anymore. He felt more energized as the weeks continued, and that helped him and Ginny through a couple of very frustrating weeks. The past few months Melchior spent most of their time teaching Harry and Ginny offensive spells, and more specifically to teach them how to cast those spells as quietly as possible. Harry had read about silent spell-casting in Hogwarts' library, but it was another thing to attempt to do it himself. Melchior kept hammering on and on about how magic was closely tied to your emotions and that you needed to use that, but Harry just couldn't make any sense of it, and neither could Ginny. Melchior, though, was patient and calm as always and didn't get angry at them for their lack of progress. That proved to be a good thing too, Harry thought, since Ginny had been very short and put-out with the man ever since he'd thrown her and Harry into the snow that night they got drunk. Ginny had a temper that rivalled Harry's at times, and he knew she would not take it well if Melchior started berating her. In the end, though, even Melchior ran out of patience. They had to give up learning silent casting and settling for whispered spells instead. They would simply have to hope that their talent for sneaking around would be enough to make up for this. As February came to a close and March rolled in, Melchior's tales started becoming exciting. Whereas they previously succeeded in making Harry tired enough to go to bed right after dinner, like that one time he told them about how he renovated the attic of one of the barns on his parents’ farm, now he felt himself slightly disappointed every time the man found it enough for the day and retreated to his sofa to read a book or play a game of cards with the others. After his and Caterina’s fight with Melchior’s parents, they quickly moved out of Britain, and bought a house in in an old miner's town in South Africa. They lived there for two and a half years and led a quiet life. But then Melchior received a letter from the British Ministry for Magic. "They must have contacted my parents, because I can't see another way how they could’ve gotten my address. But the letter drew a very intriguing problem, too intriguing to just pass off. That was the whole point of the letter of course, but seeing as I was bitterly regretting the way my parents and we parted, I just couldn't refuse. It was written by the head of the Auror office, you see. So that was very special in itself. And he wrote about a series of mysterious happenings all over Britain that might be connected. I’ll get into more detail on that, don’t worry. What’s important is that they’d managed to grab my curiosity, and Caterina and I booked a trip back to Britain not long after. “It was November by the time we returned. I already mentioned that in South Africa the seasons are the other way around, so we went from a bright spring, with trees full of buds and the air still crisp from the winter, to the British weather we all know and love. It was almost depressing enough to make us cancel our plans and never return to Britain anymore. I know that if Caterina had the final word as she usually did, we would have done so anyway. But we didn't. We stayed, and that changed everything. I had a few meetings in the first few weeks after we'd arrived. First I had a conversation with Dumbledore, who explained some very interesting things to me about the state of the British Ministry. Then I had a meeting with my to-be assistants the next day. They were some quite illuminating talks. There were a bunch of odd things happening, you see, and a lot of it had to do with a group of people who all happened to have been Slytherins at Hogwarts. The Ministry would have just tossed the case aside if it weren't for Albus Dumbledore personally requesting an investigation. That's where I come into play. You remember all those parties Slughorn threw with his Slug Club, right? Well, seeing as I was present at quite a lot of them before I left Britain, Dumbledore thought me the right person for the case. The fact that my wife and I were insanely rich must've helped him make his decision, too. “But back to those meetings. They were quite important, you see. I already said it was illuminating, but it wasn't so much that it made me understand the case, it was more the fact that it showed me a very important and equally incompetent side of the Ministry. “The case had gone up and down quite a big staircase of bureaucracy. One of the Aurors I spoke to, a certain Alastor Moody-" "Mad-Eye? You know Mad-Eye?" Sirius asked. "Of course I do. Everyone who's experienced the War knows him, and I'm still wondering when you're finally going to stop interrupting me." His tone became snappier with every word. He took a calming breath, and then continued. "Moody was quite concerned at the disappearances, and he and that strange eye of his saw a connection that tied it all together. All the crimes, think of vandalism, burglary, and some petty crimes, were all targeted at non-purebloods, and even though there was plenty of evidence pointing towards those ex-Slytherins I talked about earlier, not one of them was ever convicted for anything. “Moody shared his suspicions with his boss, Head Auror Howard Pearce, and Pearce then talked to his superiors, the heads of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Of course, Orwell Hughes was the big boss, but he had a group of advisors and glorified secretaries working beneath him to relieve his workload a bit. “So Pearce talked to one of them, who then held ordered a meeting among the advisors for the DMLE. That went nowhere, as Hughes' underlings were divided as for what to do about it. They couldn’t make a decision. So took it to Hughes again, but he dismissed the case. Now, the train would have ended there, but Dumbledore stepped in at that point and demanded a full investigation into it. “So Hughes handed the case to his secretaries, who gave it back to Pearce, who passed it on to Moody, with clear instructions not to investigate it himself. The man had a busy schedule already and they needed him in other cases for the Ministry, so they couldn’t afford having him sit behind his desk too much and spend time on an unimportant case. So Moody handed it to one of his Aurors, I don't even remember the name of the lazy bastard, and he finally decided he wasn’t going to put any effort onto the case, and he gave it to me and two Hit Wizards. “Carson and Lewis. I have never met two more incompetent sods. Both failed as Aurors and neither had an inch of ambition in them. I spoke to Dumbledore about it soon after, and we both agreed to involve those two as little as possible. And that is how I, someone who didn't really work for the Ministry, handled an official Auror investigation." The more stories Melchior told, the less Harry liked the Ministry. Of course, his opinion of it wasn’t positive in the first place. The Ministry were actively hunting him, Sirius and Ginny down, and they were fully intent on giving Sirius the Dementor's Kiss and throwing Harry into Azkaban for a very long time. But Melchior's stories fully reinforced Harry's resentment towards the Ministry. He was certain that Sirius and Ginny felt exactly the same. "In the meantime, Caterina and I were looking for a house," Melchior said during supper early on in March. The sun had set about an hour ago, and Harry was getting quite sick of eating mashed potatoes so often. But he was just so incredibly hungry lately that he didn't protest. Harry thought he had a black hole for a stomach. Ginny was convinced he was slowly turning into a Weasley. "We briefly lived with my parents after mending our relationship somewhat, but that just wasn't working. We were allowed to live on the old farm only if we interfered as little as possible with my parents' lives. In fact, while we lived on the same address, we hardly ever saw them, as we lived in a separate building, with our own kitchen and bathroom. So we bought one of those tiny, cramped English homes near Bournemouth. They'd just demolished all the slums there and smacked down a few suburbs in their place, so our neighbourhood was still quite new. “We hated it there. The house was too small, the city just wasn't fun, there was no room anywhere at all… In the end we decided to just build our own home somewhere else. “Of course, that's where Caterina's wealthy upbringing came into play again. She wasn't going to accept just any house, you see. In the end, after several very long months and many long nights on the couch, we finally had a plan for the house. It was going to be a sort of copy of Villa Sasserath, though a bit smaller and more suited for the harsher climate in Britain. We bought a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland and went in search of an architect willing to accept such a project. And that was hard, let me tell you. “In the end, we had to contact the same architect who designed Villa Sasserath, an Italian man named Rafaello. Of course, he was very old by the time we came into contact, but he was nonetheless quite willing to help us." He took a bite out of his share of the bass that Selene had caught during her walk with Ginny and Harry. Sirius had come too, but grew bored of waiting for the fish to bite and decided to liven things up by changing into Padfoot, sneaking up on Selene and throwing her into the snow. He'd payed dearly for that, and the wild chase quickly grew into a full-fledged snowball fight. They returned to the house covered in snow, but also with one decently sized bass. "I think the man was quite ready for his life to end. An old man like him overseeing a project like ours was not such a good idea in hindsight. “Much of the building was made out of marble, you see. And we both agreed that we needed the same kind of marble that was used to build Villa Sasserath. And that type of marble came from Italy, so we had to ship it in from there. From Italy, it went through all of Britain via trucks before it had to be shipped onto our island, and only then could it be used to build the house. Then there were the never-ending issues with the windows: some weren't cut right, others broke en route, and so on. More delays. In the end, it took three years to complete the house, and we still got lucky that it didn't take longer. “Rafaello in the meantime was running on his last legs, and finally, after yet another shortage of marble, a miscalculation regarding one of the support beams, and a broken down ferry which meant that the builders couldn't get off the island, his heart just stopped, the poor man. Died on the A87 in his Austin. Can't imagine a worse fate. “Caterina was incredibly stubborn, and that pushed us through. We hired a new team of architects who asked an obscene amount of money before they accepted the job, we finally received the last shipment of marble and before we knew it, our house was done." "And you're not going to tell us why you don't live there anymore, or course," Sirius said sarcastically. He had never really grown the patience for Melchior's tales. "Your wife cheat on you, is that it?" For a moment, it looked like Melchior was going to explode. Harry didn't know how, but it almost felt like someone had opened all the windows at once. A spike of cold wind touched his face, and he swore he saw the flames in the hearth dance wildly as if a strong gust of wind ran through it. But only a blink of an eye later, it was over. Melchior's grip on his fork and knife lessened and he stopped glaring at Sirius. Harry suspected Selene's calming hand on his shoulder helped a lot. "No," he finally bit out. He sighed and all tension left the man’s face. "I'm sorry. It's…" "It's a bit of a sore spot for him. For us," Selene said helpfully. She cast a glance across the table, daring Harry, Ginny and Sirius to respond to that. The table could just as easily have been a ravine at that moment. "That's all right," Sirius replied, still eyeing Melchior wearily. "We've all got our traumas from the war." "Indeed," Melchior said. For a moment no one said anything. Selene still looked around the table like she was ready to fight anyone who dared to talk any more about it, and Melchior didn't look up from his plate for once. "Do you have any more fish?" Ginny asked, probably only to break the silence. "Certainly," Melchior said. He coughed and passed the dish to her. Not much was said anymore. |
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