Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Biff believed he could write a little intrigue before replenishing his wellsprings with those intriguing ladies at The Pole and the Feather.

It was a Saturday morning, and Adolf was amused by how carefully he was dressing. As he combed his hair one last time, it occurred to him that he would be disappointed if Hermione were not waiting for him in the Music Room. She wasn't. No matter, it was better this way. He could read undisturbed by her or her cat. He poured the cup of coffee he had brought for her down the drain. There was no reason to have a painful reminder that she wasn't interested in his company.

After half an hour of reading the first page of a research paper over and over without comprehending anything, he told himself he was being ridiculous. She was merely busy elsewhere. Her absence meant nothing. He decided to go for a walk to get away from an empty room.

He met her half way down the stairs.

"Are you leaving?" she asked.

"Taking a break for some fresh air," he said.

"Are you coming back, I mean, Crookshanks and I could wait for you if you are. Everything's going wrong this morning. Are you going to walk far? Crookshanks could use some exercise if it's not too far, I mean, if you're going for a walk, if it's not too far, if you don't mind if we walk too, or I could wait for you. Are you coming back?"

They decided they could walk down to the lake while keeping an eye on Crookshanks. They were sitting on some rocks by the water when he noticed she was shivering. He said the wind was cool and waved his wand for his cloak. He liked seeing her in it. They walked back to the warm room where he procured coffee and sticky buns. An idea came to him. He approached it slowly.

As she listened to him talk about the Black estate, she realized that he did not know she had been the one to warn them of the raid. Professor Flitwick had kept her secret. Even so, a pang went through her. She could have caused the death or injury of her friends. She told herself, as she had many times before, that she had believed that Andromeda Tonks would merely use the warning to conceal family valuables. She told herself that the authorities had dealt with that entity before, and they should have known to be more careful.

She learned that they had lured the heart of the monster away from the house and they planned to sever it, hoping the part remaining in the house would die or be easily killed.

"Why are you telling me this, sir?" she asked.

"In a way, I shouldn't be," he said.

"Because you've broken about fifty regulations and are about to break fifty more?" she asked.

"There is that," he admitted, "but the real reason for hesitating is that I don't want to raise false hopes."

"False hopes for me?" she asked.

Andy and Cissy knew the Black estate had been headquarters and stronghold for the opposition forces, and they expected, although they were not certain, that valuables had been stored there for safekeeping with that entity being part of the guard. They expected a lot had been stored there, and Andromeda planned to secretly auction them for needed cash. They needed someone to help sort and appraise what they found.

"I see," said Hermione. "You want to make me an offer, a job of sorting and appraising, but you're afraid it's premature since there may be no treasure at all or none worth bothering with."

"Yes," he said. "I'm taking the risk because it's a job requiring intelligence, and if you do it well, the Malfoys and others can vouch for your skill and discretion. You can become a freelance professional."

Hermione sighed. Did everyone know her secret, her shame: she was not employable in the wizard world? On the other hand, Adolf Galland was making a real effort on her behalf. She was beginning to think he was a caring individual. She told herself not to let gratitude overwhelm common sense.

The editor had been toning her writing muscles by doing calisthenics with 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' in one hand and 'A Farewell to Arms' in the other. She was pumped.

There was a crack as air rushed in to fill a hole 150 meters long, 50 meters deep, and 1 meter wide.

Lightning flashed through the gouge in the earth, searing any plant tendrils trying to reconnect.

The ground between the trench and the bog heaved.

Birds fell out of the trees.

The house shook, but remained intact.

Those assembled were jubilant.

By now, I have it down to a standard procedure, thought the editor. I express my thoughts in a natural, literary manner and turn it into Biff-speak.

Who would know what's in the hearts of the self-possessed must wait for them to speak, and when they do speak, it will most likely escape notice since heretofore they have not asked for any attention, and hence, upon the occasion they do try to connect, their effort will be lost in the noise of the daily bustle because anyone present will not be attuned to this unexpected plea for comradeship, this reaching out for another soul in the universe, from a person who seemed to need no such thing, but how wrong one would be, for underneath, are we all not more alike than different, and considering this, it is amazing how easily we accept the isolation of another.

Time to be crude, thought the editor.

"Wow, that was incredible. That was brilliant."

Draco and Luna were back at the castle after severing the entity. Draco was jubilant. To cap it off, Luna was standing at the window with the twilight bringing out those features that struck Draco to the core. He wanted to hold her, he wanted to hear her talk to him, but when he reached out to her, she stood like a monolithic stone. He started to sit on the couch, but changed his mind and settled into a solitary chair. If she was going to go cold on him after all he had done to be her friend, then nuts to her.

He sat there, thinking he should leave. Being in the same room with an aloof Luna was too painful. He sat there, puzzled at why he wasn't leaving. He decided he was angry, and he was waiting for a chance to rage at her when she deigned to notice him.

A sad Luna turned to him and said, "It's over, isn't it?"

"Are you saying we're finished?" asked Draco. "That's sudden. That's heartless. What a callous person you are. What were you doing, tagging along with me because you wanted a little adventure in your life, and now that the adventure is over, it's 'Toodle-oo, Draco, been nice knowing you'?"

Luna looked puzzled. "Are you saying you want me to leave?" she asked. "I can understand if you do."

"No, you idiot, I was saying you wanted to leave me."

She shook her head. "I don't want to." She took a deep breath. "But if you think I'm an idiot, I will."

It was Draco's turn to take a deep breath. "No, I don't think that. I was angry."

"At me?" she asked.

"I was in a good mood. I wanted to celebrate it with you, but you were stone cold," he said.

"I'm sorry, Draco. I was thinking about Theo and Padma and your mum and Andromeda and the professors, about working with them, and now, it's over, and I won't be with them anymore."

Draco was taking Luna by the hand and leading her to the sofa. "They may travel, and we may not see them for a while," he said, "but they'll always be part of our lives."

I think I have one more small vignette in me, thought the editor.

"There're five people outside the family that we should reward," said Cissy. "Padma, Luna, Theo, Filius, and Adolf."

"I know," said Andy, "but all I can offer them at the moment is an IOU."

"I can lend it," said Cissy. "It's best done immediately. Once we have the estate functioning, you can easily repay it."

"What about Alain?" asked Andy.

"I talked to him," said Cissy. "He refuses to take payment for anything besides using his Crystals. I'm starting to believe his relationship with them is mystical. At any rate, I was thinking 2,000 Galleons each. Do you think that's too much?"

"They did risk life and limb," said Andy.

The editor couldn't find Biff and concluded he was at his usual spot looking for inspiration. Well, she was on a roll, and it was an opportunity to write some adventure with feminine sensibility.

I can't pull this off. I don't even know if I want to pull this off, thought Hermione.

After the entity had been severed, Andy and Cissy had been exploring the upper stories of the house where they had discovered a safe which they had dismantled and had found keys to bank vaults. They had researched the names attached to the keys and had identified twenty-seven prospects. They were people who were in prison, exile, or deceased; they were people with no family or family that wanted to forget them; and they were people of at least moderate wealth. Andy and Cissy had decided that the bank vaults of these people could be safely raided, and they had concluded that the identification papers for these people could probably be found in the official law-enforcement files. They had even pinpointed the person most likely to succeed in this endeavor.

Thus it was that Hermione was on her way to visit her old friends.

It took several visits to bring up the files in the evidence room in a natural manner. Her friends were baffled why she wanted to see such obscure items.

"Don't you think it's part of the history of the school, of the history of wizardry?" she asked.

"That's daft," said Ron.

"You're getting desperate," said Harry. "What have you done, memorized all the books in the library?"

It was several visits before she dared mention the topic again. She couldn't appear too eager. She didn't want to evince such strong interest that they remembered her inquiries. She was already pondering her own behavior. She braced herself for each trip by visiting Professor Galland. He held her hand and convinced her that she was doing it perfectly. That slowly and carefully was best. As she sat closer and closer to him for each session, he also listened to her talk about her feelings of betrayal. He agreed it was morally ambiguous, and he told her that if she felt uncomfortable, everyone would understand if she decided against proceeding. She finally told him that she had decided to proceed. If she did it deftly, no one would be hurt, and otherwise, the money would lie unused in a bank vault.

Two weeks later, Ron and Harry agreed to show her the evidence room. They greeted the guard on duty who asked who she was.

"Just an old friend from school who's visiting us," said Ron.

The guard, who had the walls of his office covered with photos of famous athletes, turned to her and said, "It must have been pretty exciting to see these two play. I wish I had been there."

This stiffened her resolve. Since she wasn't an athletic star, society didn't care about her, and she was on her own. Good came with the bad. The three were lost in a discussion of their favorite topic and paid no attention to Hermione wandering through the evidence room. She and Professor Galland had prepared for this moment. The spells placed on paper concealed in her cloak automatically copied and replaced the real identity papers on file. She would leave with the real documents, having replaced them with forgeries. They were confident these files would never be examined again, but they were taking the added precaution anyway.

Suddenly, the guard appeared. Her heart stopped. Had he noticed anything?

"There you are," he said. "I can't let anyone prowl around in here even if they're a friend of Ron and Harry."

Just a harmless friend of Ron and Harry, she beamed at him.

He was escorting her out when he said, "I have pictures from the newspaper of those two and their team, you know, some of them signed. I still envy you. You were there to see Ron and Harry in action."

"Yes, I was very lucky," said Hermione.

"You must be a good friend to take time off from your studies to drop by to see them," said the guard. "They appreciate it."

The moment she stepped outside the law-enforcement office, a nondescript wizard matched her stride.

The secret service. Her heart fell to the floor. I'm caught. Prison, here I come.

"Glad for your safe return," said Professor Galland.

"Don't tell me you were ready to dash in and rescue me," she whispered.

"Your past life has given you a taste for the melodramatic," was the reply.