So I made my first major change to my original outline. I was supposed to write two more chapters set in spring 1998 (Draco at Malfoy Manor over Easter and Ginny seeing Harry for the first time just before the battle). I’ve decided to scrap those. I’ve given out all of the clues I have wanted to give out during the earlier time period, and I think it would be an annoying distraction from the investigation. So, as much as I hate to alter my carefully planned structure, those chapters were non-essentials and must go.
Also, I did my own small scale NaNoWriMo during the month of November, where I wrote the first draft of the remaining 17,000 words of this story, so from here, I will merely be revising the chapters before I post.
And so we begin the third and final part of this story. From here, the chapters will all be chronological.
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Category: Post-DH/AB Characters:None Genres: Action/Adventure, Romance Warnings: Dark Fiction, Death, Extreme Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Rape Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 193 Summary: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter is training to be an Auror, and he is finally back together with Ginny Weasley. But when a young woman dies of poisoning at the Ministry’s Midsummer Ball, Harry is the first suspect, and he can only uncover the true murderer by working with his childhood rival, Draco Malfoy. Hitcount: Story Total: 56238; Chapter Total: 1233 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: |
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Part 3 Chapter 26: The Diary of Romilda Vane June 30, 1998, 3:00 p.m. Ministry of Magic, Auror Headquarters Harry entered the conference room cautiously. Kelly had let him know that he was officially back on the investigation, but he still half expected to be ordered back to the Hall of Records to die among the 1992 Animagus records. “Ah, there you are, Potter,” Gawain said. “It will be nice for you to get information directly and not secondhand from Weasley and Proudfoot.” When Kelly gave him a startled look, he added, “I know you, Proudfoot. I trained you personally.” He turned to Daniel. “Please continue with your report, Savage.” Harry settled in his seat, feeling watched as he did so. Clearly, Gawain had a similar understanding of the activities of the Auror department as Albus Dumbledore once had of Hogwarts. Like with Dumbledore, it was comforting and unsettling all at once. Daniel cleared his throat. “Romilda’s diary will require careful study over the next few days, but even from the preliminary review, it appears that Romilda’s memories were attacked on more than one occasion. Our previous theory that Romilda had been both memory charmed and placed under the Fidelius last October still appears to be very probable, and there seems to be a possibility that a second memory charm was placed on her in the spring, around the time she would have conceived, and possibly the Imperius Curse as well.” Harry’s eyes widened. He thought of Bertha Jorkins, memory charmed into forgetfulness by Barty Crouch. Romilda had been violated in both mind and body multiple times in one year. If she had lived, would she have been as damaged as Bertha? Of course, Bertha had not lived a long life either. “Team Blue and Team Green will be staying late this evening. We have made multiple copies of the corrected diary, and we will prepare a report for tomorrow’s meeting.” Ron sent a memo to Arthur letting him know they would be staying late at the office and to tell the others not to wait for them before starting dinner. A couple of the Blue Team wizards returned to the office with hot pizzas and Muggle soft drinks. Harry settled at the conference table with a heaping plate of pepperoni and mushroom pizza, a can of Pepsi, and a copy of Romilda’s diary that he charmed to resist stains. After studying the previous version, he felt that the corrected copy should come as a relief. Instead, he found that he was afraid of learning exactly what had happened to Romilda Vane. February 27 Yesterday I __________________ February 28 I don’t know what _______________ March 1 Why? Why? Why? Can’t I ______________ March 2 I don’t know what’s happening. I never thought it would be such a relief to write “I don’t know,” but I am literally crying with relief. Luckily, the dormitory is empty, so no one can see me all curled up, with mascara running down my face like some tragic raccoon. What the hell kind of spell has been put on me that I can’t even write about it in my own diary? After days of simply trying to complete a sentence, it occurred to me that the Praesidium Charm the D.A. girls taught me to put on my clothes could work on my diary as well. And voila! I can write. But where to start? It started last Friday, I suppose. The girls and I were in the dormitory in our pyjamas, trying out the latest Witch Weekly hairstyles. Rachael’s mum had sent her sweets from home. I ate a Chocolate Frog and immediately felt guilty, even though I had unintentionally lost 12 lbs since the school year began. At some point, I told the girls I had left something in the Common Room and went down the staircase. I don’t know what I was thinking. My nightie was so short, and I didn’t even grab a dressing robe. And did I actually leave something in the Common Room? I have no idea. I remember the Common Room was empty. It was well after midnight. Then I went out the portrait hole. And the next thing I remember is waking in my own bed the next morning. My entire body ached. Alarmingly, I was sore between my legs, and I had no idea what I had done the night before. At breakfast, I couldn’t eat. The girls were chattering away, while I was realizing for the first time in my life that eggs smell disgusting. Eventually Raven turned to me. “So what happened to you last night?” I knocked over a pot of honey. “Come on,” Rosemarie added. “You weren’t subtle. You disappeared in that sexy little nightie, didn’t come back for two hours, then returned with a wink and went to bed without saying a word.” I did what? I wanted to ask them if we could talk somewhere private. I felt a need to spill everything. I was even willing to risk the possibility that I might cry in front of them. I just needed to tear this question out of my chest and put it out in the open where it would have less power. I didn’t do that. I couldn’t do that. Instead I leaned forward and words that didn’t match my own thoughts, words I didn’t plan poured out. “Can you keep a secret?” March 3 I have a plan. It isn’t a good plan. But it is the only thing I can come up with. I can’t speak of anything that has happened to me lately. I tried with my friends, but instead I told them I had been meeting Harry Potter in the Astronomy Tower and trying out sexual positions I have never even heard of. I have no idea what I have been doing, but it seems unlikely I’ve been doing Harry Potter, who may or may not be still alive at this point. I even tried to talk to Madam Pomfrey, thinking she might have some idea of what was happening to me, but what came out of my mouth was, “Are there any pain potions? I have the most crippling cramps.” Then I sat down on the nearest bed as if it pained me to stand. So I am not going to tell her anything. I am going to ask her questions. Process of elimination is, at least, something. March 5 So that was terrible. I caught Ginny Weasley’s eye during the meeting and hoped that she had not heard that I had been telling everyone that I had been having rather gymnastic sex with her boyfriend under the night sky. Her expression was curious, but not angry, so I supposed the gossip had not spread that far. It has spread though. Rosemarie has never been able to keep her mouth shut. It’s only a matter of time before it gets to Ginny. I figured I could ask one of two of things: “Have you heard from Harry?” “Do you know if Harry has been in the castle?” Weird, yes, but theoretically safe questions given the limitations placed on me. I was wrong though. My limitations were much stronger than I had expected. Instead of asking either of these, I felt words–mean words–forming in my mouth: “I fucked your boyfriend, and he said he doesn’t miss you at all.” It took everything in me not to say those words out loud. I don't know where–or from whom–they had come from, but my need to say it and my desperation to not say it were equally strong. I wasn’t sure whose will was stronger–mine or the unknown male who had cursed me. While I was standing there, looking like an idiot who had swallowed her own tongue, I was aware of Ginny softly asking me questions. I can’t remember exactly what she said now, but eventually she understood that I could not speak due to magic. It was such a relief. This girl I barely knew understood something my closest friends had not figured out. But this only addressed part of the problem. Even with my limitations identified, I still could not communicate anything. Ginny pulled me into a hug, and I have never loved or hated anyone more than I did her in that moment. I loved her for seeing what no one else could see. I loved her for hugging me. Even my own mother and sisters have treated me like glass since the rape. Even Emilia, who is too young to understand any of it, has been loath to touch me. This was my first hug since leaving my parents at the Hogwarts Express on September 1st. But I hated her as much as I loved her. I hated her because she could go to class or eat in the Great Hall without wondering which of the boys around her were her rapists. I hated her for having an uncomplicated past with Harry Potter, while I had what was most likely a fictional relationship with him. I hated her because I wished I had fucked her boyfriend. Which probably makes me a terrible person and definitely makes me a bad friend, but having romantic rendezvous around Hogwarts is far less horrible than walking to a rape that you can’t even remember. Most of all, I hated her for being whole. I hate everyone who still is whole. It’s luck, nothing more, who is whole and who is broken. I want someone else’s luck. I’ve had enough of mine. March 6 Is it possible for a person to explode??????? Harry kept reading. He read about a Romilda who tried to fill the holes in her memories, and who distanced herself from the D.A. because she worried that she might be used to leak information about the group to their enemies. Who went home after the war to find her mother was delighted with her weight loss and acquired a lucrative modeling contract for her. He sensed her delight in this new start, and then her despair when she realized she was pregnant with an unknown man’s baby. He read as Romilda got ready for the ball with a combination of excitement and dread, the diary ending as abruptly as Romilda’s life had. Harry looked around. Ron and Neville were still reading, but Harry met Susan’s eyes and she looked as ill as he felt. “So, we’re back to the Slytherin boys, aren’t we?” she asked him. “It does always seem to return to them. But the diary is still a mystery,” he said. “How did he alter a protected diary that was hidden in Romilda’s house?” He still felt certain the murderer was an Animagus, so that made access simple. But how had he known that there was a diary and where to find it? “That,” Savage said behind them, “is the biggest question. There is no doubt that what we have now is Romilda’s own writing, but how and when it was altered is a mystery. Either our killer is known–and trusted–by the Vane family or else he is getting help from a specific member of the Vane family.” Harry pondered that possibility. This time, he discounted Sharon Vane. Could it be Mortimer? Perhaps the killer had blackmail on Romilda’s father. Or even Sara? She was young and had seemed innocent to Harry, but it couldn’t have been easy growing up in Romilda’s shadow. Could she have possibly jumped on the chance for revenge? Or maybe she had been fooled by a charming boy who used her to get to Romilda? But, if he was right about the killer being an Animagus, an ally inside the home would be helpful but not essential. “What if the killer simply had access to the home?” Harry asked. “Like the Vane servants?” Daniel asked. “Actually, I was thinking possibly an Animagus.” “Harry, do you still think the killer is an owl?” Kelly joined them, a piece of veggie pizza in her hand. Daniel blinked. “An owl?” “A few weeks ago, a tawny owl delivered some cryptic notes to me. It wasn’t the Ministry owl that brings pre-screened mail to the Burrow, and it was not one of the half dozen approved owls that can get through the Burrow’s wards. I thought that it was a joke, a weird one but a joke, so I ignored it. “It wasn’t until I began working with the Animagi records that I realized that owls are a fairly common Animagus form. Owls can go anywhere in the wizarding world. They get into the Ministry even when security levels are high. They can get into wizarding homes.” Kelly started looking more thoughtful. “It’s a decent theory, Potter, but Animagi are rare. It takes a strong flair for Transfiguration and an obsessiveness to become an Animagus. You don’t just pick it up because you are plotting murder. It takes years.” “Am I the only one who needs to back up here?” Daniel asked. “Potter, are you telling us you’ve been receiving owl post from the murderer?” “I think so, yes. He wasn’t a murderer yet, because Romilda was still alive at the time, but I am pretty sure they are from him.” Daniel looked stern. “Okay, Potter. You are going to tell us the full story from beginning to end. Do not leave anything out.” Harry’s story took about twenty minutes. He talked about the notes he’d received, the visits to Draco and Blaise. He omitted the visit to Astoria as he knew the Greengrass family didn’t want her talents to be known to the Ministry and he didn’t want his mentor to know that he had literally paid for information. In the end, Daniel and Kelly were furious with Harry for not bringing his information to them earlier, Susan and Neville looked baffled at the weirdness of Harry’s life, and Ron looked like it was just another Tuesday at the office, which of course it was. “I cannot believe you didn’t bring those notes to our attention!” Kelly said. “They were evidence. You wouldn’t believe what Daniel and I went through to get that diary copy to you. And Neville! He was the one to sneak it out.” “I’m sorry!” Harry said. “I was kicked off the case, I thought I was going to be sacked, and I had in my possession a bunch of odd notes that made me look guilty. Surely you can see why I wouldn’t want to bring it to Gawain.” “How about bringing it to me and letting me handle Gawain?” Kelly demanded. Harry shifted in his chair. The combined anger of the two senior Aurors was intimidating. Daniel had a muscular build that any of the gym rats in Team Red would be proud of, and he hated to disappoint his mentor, Kelly. “Well, what’s done is done,” Daniel said, but he didn’t look any happier with Harry. “Do you still have the notes?” Harry nodded. “Should I bring them in tomorrow? Or owl Ginny to send them here now? She knows where they are.” An hour passed before the Ministry owl returned with the notes. In that time, the Aurors continued their study of Romilda’s diaries, occasionally tossing theories around, and Ron polished off an entire sausage pizza on his own. When the owl landed on the desk Harry was working from, both the Blue and Green teams gathered around. “Damn, I wish Alison were still here,” Kelly said. “She’s the handwriting expert.” The notes were passed around until Susan voiced an opinion. “These notes are forged. It looks like Romilda’s writing, but look at the L’s. Romilda’s are loopier, girlier.” The next morning, Alison the DMLE librarian confirmed Susan’s statement on the handwriting, and Harry found himself wishing that Kelly and Daniel’s anger had been the worst of it as he found himself ordered into Gawain’s office. He had only been in Gawain’s office once before, on the day he learned he had been kicked off the Vane case. The senior Aurors were in and out all of the time, but it was rare for a trainee to be invited in, and Harry wished he was there for a happier circumstance. The office had a luxury that was absent in the Auror cubicles. Gawain had a wall of windows, a wall of books, and a gleaming desk bigger than the dining room table at the Burrow. On the desk were a line of family photos, confirming Harry’s guess that Gawain was a family man. On the wall behind the desk were various medals and certificates that had been bestowed upon Gawain over his career. In the chair opposite Gawain’s, Harry tried not to shift like a guilty schoolboy. As a boy, Harry had always found Dumbledore’s disappointment inspired more guilt than Snape’s worst temper. Kelly and Daniel were no Snape, but disappointing Gawain inspired a familiar shame in Harry. “Do you know why I hired you, Harry?” Harry had never pondered the matter, having been under the impression that he was in the Auror Department because Kingsley wanted him there. “No, sir.” “You’re here because Dumbledore once told me he had never had a student with a stronger instinct for justice or truth. When Scrimgeour was promoted to Minister, and I inherited this department, I remembered those words. You were still a boy of sixteen and hiring you was out of the question, but at that time, I thought that was what I wanted for my department. A steadfastness that did not bend to the whims of politics. “Tell me, Harry, was Dumbledore right about you?” Harry gulped. He understood he was being asked a multi-faceted question in the form of a simple question. “Sir, I don’t have Dumbledore’s wisdom, and I am sorry about what occurred. At the time, I received the notes, I had no idea there was a criminal element. It was simply a small mystery, and I had other things on my mind. By the time I realized otherwise, I had lost credibility here, and I didn’t feel like coming forward was an option anymore.” “Ah, but that’s part of my problem. Your presence here today is as much my fault as yours.” Harry simply stared at him. “You were never in danger of losing your job. I thought Kelly would help you understand that, but I forgot a key thing about Auror Proudfoot. She enjoys a good intrigue. She was at her best during the war, sneaking information out of the Ministry to the resistance. Instead of assuring you that you were keeping a low profile for the optics, she turned it into her own quest for justice. “And so here, we are delayed in our investigation because we haven’t been playing on the same team.” He broke off as Dawlish opened the door and poked his head in. “John, I’m in the middle of something as you can see.” “I beg your pardon, sir,” John said, making no attempt to move. “I wouldn’t intrude if it wasn’t urgent. Evelyn Gillespie is here, demanding to see you.” If Gawain had been an eye roller, Harry felt certain he would have done so. “That’s your urgent news? The Department of Magical Transportation can wait. I’ve already told them those flying carpets in Kent aren’t our responsibility. Magical Law Enforcement is more than qualified to provide them with the appropriate back up.” “It’s not about the carpets, sir. She’s here because of the photos of the ball that were printed in the Prophet.” “I hope you told her that we don’t dictate what the Prophet can or can’t print.” John shook his head. “That’s not it, either.” He entered and placed a paper in front of Gawain. “Here is a photo of Evelyn.” “Yes, I do know her, John.” “She’s telling me that she wasn’t at the ball.” Gawain looked exasperated. “Obviously, she was.” “She told me that she was in Belgium that day, visiting a factory that makes Floo powder. I checked the Hall of Records. She had a Portkey to Antwerp three hours before the ball, and she returned to London two days later, also by Portkey. The distance is too far for Apparition. I also checked with the concierge of the hotel where Evelyn stayed, and he confirmed her check in time, which was shortly before Romilda’s murder.” “But Polyjuice doesn’t work in the Ministry,” Gawain said. “Exactly,” John said. Evelyn Gillespie was taken directly to Gawain’s office rather than to the interrogation room. “Would you like me to leave, sir?” Harry asked. “You may stay, Potter.” Gawain turned to John. “Bring in Savage, Proudfoot, and Williamson in as well.” The Head Auror conjured up five more chairs. “Have a seat, Evelyn.” As she sat, Harry marveled at how vividly he remembered this woman from the ball. At the ball, she (or someone who had looked just like her) had been wearing ivory and black dress robes and had her hair up in a topknot that emphasized her high cheekbones. Harry remembered that she had reminded him strongly of someone. In her work attire, she was still incredibly beautiful and without the type of effort that the Witch Weekly staff seemed to put into their appearances. Had he met this woman before? She was from Magical Transportation, so it’s possible that she could have been around on the day Harry took his Apparition test. Or maybe they simply took the lift at the same times in the morning. Or did she resemble someone he knew? The other Aurors joined them and sat at Gawain’s request. Harry felt uneasy–and more than a little pleased–at being the only person not a Senior Auror in the room. It helped make up for all of the meetings he had been excluded from. “Evelyn, I hope you don’t mind if my trainee stays,” Gawain said. “No, of course not. Mr. Potter is welcome.” Harry had the feeling the elegant woman would say that, whether or not she objected to his presence. “Excellent, excellent. Now, Dawlish tells me you were in Antwerp when this photo was taken?” Gawain held up the copy of the Daily Prophet. “Yes, I was supposed to be at the Ball like everyone else, but there had been strange mishaps with Floo powder in the days preceding, so I was sent to Antwerp to meet with some factory officials. It turned out to be a matter of supplies. Some thrifty buyer had ordered knockoff unicorn hair, which rendered thousands of orders ineffective.” “And you did not take a Portkey back for the ball that evening?” Gawain asked. “I did not. I had one Portkey to Antwerp and one Portkey back. I have never made or purchased an unauthorized Portkey. I do not have access to a Time Turner, and to the best of my knowledge, no one has access to my hairbrush. That woman in the photograph is not me, but I don’t doubt that she could fool my mother.” “And you are willing to sign a legal document testifying to that effect?” Gawain asked. “That’s why I’m here,” Evelyn said. “Gawain? There is one more odd thing.” Gawain raised his eyebrows. “Only one?” “I had dress robes custom made for the Ball. Dress robes identical to those in the pictures.” Gawain looked as though he had the beginnings of a headache. Harry didn’t blame him. He studied the woman, searching for signs of a lie. She was worried, but calm, and . . . “Potter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Harry’s eyes snapped back to Gawain. “May I ask a question?” “You may.” “Ms. Gillespie, do you have a sister who resembles you?” |
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