In Which Murder Will Out

Magistra Granger spent much of the following day in conversation with her fellow witches. Some time away from Magister Snape was warranted, she decided, and there were things she wanted to find out that could not be had for the asking if said wizard was looming behind her and glowering at everything that offended him, including grown witches, small children, and invisible dust motes. Her first port of call was at Harry's house in Shropshire. He had...wisely in her opinion, and, in fact, in her advice at the time...sold both Godric's Hollow and Grimmauld Place in order to purchase houses that did not possess recent memories of violent deaths or long-standing memories of insane fanaticism. He had not actually been required to sell, given the state of his finances, but, as he confessed to Hermione, doing so had liberated him from much of the weight of the war. Hermione thought privately that his razing Grimmauld Place to the ground had done rather more for his psyche than the sale of the land, but she saw no reason to express this to him, particularly as she agreed with the act. The house at Sheep's Fall, on the other hand, was large enough to house Harry and Ginny's growing family as well as any number of relatives and friends...even some acquaintances, if people were willing to budge up a bit. Tucked up against a hill and constructed before modern enthusiasms for such things as concrete and drywall, it reminded Hermione just a little bit of a Hobbit hole. It was something of a disappointment every time the head in the garden turned out to be Harry rather than Samwise Gamgee, but she told herself philosophically that the existence of magic was quite extraordinary enough without asking for things like Hobbits and Tolkien-esque Elves to be real.

Harry did pop up out of the garden, which was one of his particular hobbies, despite being half-rubbish at the art, and upon inquiry revealed that Ginny was actually in the kitchen this morning, being plagued by young Jims, Albie, and Lily. "She's been on the broom so much lately," he said, rubbing dirt from his hands into his trousers, "with the Harpies, that I can't feel guilty for handing all three of them over at once. Even with the London matches, she's been staying overnight. Barely see her sometimes, though Molly's offered to take the kids tonight, so we can work on producing her namesake."

Aware of the likelihood of an eavesdropping wife, Hermione edged closer to her old friend. "Everything all right, Harry? With you two?" After all those years of near-certain death looming over him, he deserved to be happy, and if he wasn't, she was prepared to do something about it.

He shrugged, dislodging some sort of creeping greenery from his shoulder. "She's been a bit moody, is all. Might be Molly, Jr. is already on the way." He grinned, and Hermione grinned back, though she forbore from congratulating him. There would be time enough for that if it was true.

"I'll go through, then, and send the kids out to make your life miserable for a bit," she said, and suited actions to words.

Ginny was very much as she had always been: slim, athletic, and intense, all of which made her an excellent Quidditch player. The tea she gave Hermione was reheated rather than freshly brewed, but with three children, Hermione refrained from being verbally critical. The younger woman cast a quick cleaning spell over her robes...green linen over cream, pretty and practical...and joined Hermione at the table.

They exchanged the customary pleasantries concerning work and family and children, though neither mentioned Snape; the Potters had not yet determined if they approved. Hermione expressed a reasonable amount of enthusiasm about the children...she was, after all, one of their godparents, and expected to do a certain amount of feminine gushing...and listened patiently to Ginny's recounting of the Quidditch season to date. "There's been some talk of expanding the league to include the old Empire teams," she told Hermione, "but I'm not sure. If we extend the season and the travel, I may have to quit altogether. Harry's marvellous, of course, as is Mum, but children and away matches aren't particularly compatible."

"You might take them all with you," Hermione suggested. "I think the kids would love Australia, at least, and you know the Aurory wouldn't mind anything Harry suggested. He could be an Auror ambassador, or a liaison officer, or something like that. It would be a shame for you to quit when you enjoy it so much and you're so good at it."

Ginny expression became vaguely disapproving. "One makes sacrifices for family," she said, and Hermione felt the criticism. While little had ever been said, Ginny had never been accepting of the split between her brother and Hermione, blaming the other witch for not, as she saw it, accommodating Ron's wishes and tastes. It didn't seem to help that, of all the witches of their generation, Hermione was the only one left unspoken for; Ginny seemed to resent it, for some reason. "I'll consider it," she added grudgingly, "if it happens."

There were a few more exchanges, bland and feather-smoothing, before Hermione felt able to broach the subject she had come about. "I'm looking into Dennis Creevey's case, and I was hoping you could help."

Ginny went lemon-sour in an instant. "What do you expect me to know, Hermione?" she asked. "I have nothing to do with Dennis anymore."

Magistra Granger blinked, startled into brief silence. She hadn't expected Ginny to still... "I was hoping," she said carefully, "that you might have some insight about Dennis himself. He still hasn't been cleared, you know. And maybe something about Mme. delaCour, or Lavender. You knew them better than I did."

"Apolline was a cow," Ginny said rudely, "no better than Phlegm. And I haven't dated Dennis for nearly a decade, now. What do you expect me to know about him now?" She stood abruptly and dumped her tea into the sink. "As for Lavender? My brother was planning to marry her.

"Another romance of his gone."

Hermione was silent. Eventually, Ginny sighed. "Fine. I'll tell you what I know."

Magister Snape glared at two phials. Slightly different processes, same results. Two crabbed, antique sources...one Italian, one Welsh...for the same potion. So far, no discernable differences. The magister began to clean up his equipment, mentally cataloguing all the tests he would be required to do to determine precisely what difference had resulted from the different instructions. Bloody foreign potioneers, he thought, fully aware of the irrationality of it, but requiring some vent to his feelings, always thinking of something to bollix up a perfectly straightforward process. He paused and looked at two identical, carmine red potions.

"Umber!" he roared. The Brownie appeared, as usual, with nary a sound and a respectful bow. "Notify Minerva." Magister Snape rushed through the clean-up, ignoring Umber's nod. "Tell her I'm coming over to bloody Hogwarts and that she'd better have tea ready. And that bloody Scotch of hers. I've got questions, and I'm not leaving until I damn well have the answers."

"Yes, Magister."

Why, Hermione asked herself whimsically, do Weasleys all feel this urge to populate the world in their own image? She had been glad to escape the Potters, for Ginny's ill grace had been followed by the children's demands to be thrown about like small trolls and allowed to climb upon their 'Auntie Mione' in the guise of miniature knights vanquishing a bushy-haired dragon. It wouldn't have been so difficult to refuse the children, except that Harry had looked at her with the expression that many parents possess, one that expresses not a shred of doubt at another adult's indulgence of childish whims because, naturally, their children are adorable, and all people are simply yearning for the opportunity to play with said moppets. Bloody Harry. But three small Potters were succeeded by five...six?...small Weasleys of Bill-and-Fleur extraction. They rampaged, expressing themselves in an obscure pidgin of French and English and Romanian and Merlin-knew-what-else. Fleur, still enviably beautiful, entirely Gallic in her serenity punctuated with outbursts of shouting and admonishing, and quite obviously pregnant again, was settled upon a chaise longue. A negligent French command produced a house-elf with coffee, tea, and juice, and Hermione found herself installed along a similar chaise.

The accent that had been so pronounced back in their school days had eroded into a slight foreign lilt to her words. "You are here because of my mother," she stated.

"Yes." It was not difficult to determine, and of no purpose to deny; Hermione had little in common with Bill or Fleur and normally only met them at Weasley family functions, as she was still considered an honorary member. "There's too much we don't know. I hoped that you might have something to tell me."

"The Aurors, they have already spoken to me." For the first time, Hermione could see the grief behind the woman's eyes and felt sympathy. "I do not know what I can tell you that I have not told to them."

"I don't know," she said frankly. "Perhaps there isn't anything. But there isn't much to go on, magically speaking. I'm hoping that somebody can tell me something that would help."

The blonde sighed. "I will say everything again." A smile blazed across her face and vanished. "I have great faith in your abilities, me." Fleur recounted slowly the last afternoon; it had been a happy one. Her mother had been thrilled at her pregnancy; Veelas were not normally very fertile, and Apolline had teased her about her husband's dominant genes. The French witch had only come for a short visit, which was her custom, as she had little use for Britain on the whole, except as the country that had produced her daughter's husband. She disdained London's 'provincial,' little shops, and any sights, Muggle or Magical, held no interest for her. Apolline would not even visit an English beauty-witch. "She kissed my cheeks," Fleur told Hermione, "as we do, and said to me that she was going to visit my pretty little sister. She was unquiet about something. She wished to discuss it with Gabrielle herself. The children, they made their farewells. There was much confusion. The twins, they were falling ill and made a great deal of noise."

Hermione frowned; something in that niggled at her. "And Gabrielle never met her? Never expected to see her that day?"

Fleur shook her head. "She said to me that she had no idea what Maman wished to say."

"What exactly did your mother say?" Hermione asked. She could see that Fleur was startled by her sudden intensity. "Was it in French or English?"

"In English," Fleur answered slowly, considering her memory. "She often...would often...speak to me in English when she visited. She said that it helped her to practice. The English, they do not learn French, so she must speak English here. To switch back and forth, French to English to French, it made her English worse and she became self-conscious. That day, she said to me, 'Now, I will visit your pretty little sister. There is something wrong there. But Maman will sort it all out, eh, ma belle? Then I go to little Dennis, who makes me the most beautiful in silver.' She laughed."

Hermione mulled over the words, turning them over and around in her mind, seeking the ground that her mental signal flag was planted in. When she found it, she blanched. Was it possible? Logically, she knew it was; everything made sense...horrible, horrible sense. Distracted, she brushed off Fleur's inquiries and excused herself. She had to think this through, had to be absolutely certain before she took her findings to Kingsley. As much as she admired him, he might take the opportunity to have the case closed before the Aurory ended up with more egg on its face and accept her conclusions without properly investigating them. It wasn't as though the Ministry hadn't done so before.

She needed to think. Magistra Hermione apparated to the one place where she could do so clearly.

The day had been a productive one. Magister Snape had discovered a theory, shared it, and proceeded to test it with the one person who was decidedly above suspicion in this affair. Minerva, initially a touch crotchety upon having her clockwork day interrupted, was nevertheless intrigued by the idea and, by virtue of her character, determined to prove whether or not the theory was a valid one. She called in Professor Flitwick, cavalierly handing over supervision of his classes to one of the assistants she had hired over the past several years, and the three settled in for a morning and afternoon of experimentation. They had called in students, cast spells and run tests, and Magister Snape had been decidedly cheered by the results. His theory was correct, and the field of suspects substantially narrowed.

So cheered was he that he actually took pains to thank Minerva and Flitwick for their help and promised them bottles of the next liqueur he planned to concoct. (Magical gin made of various intoxicants was in great demand these days and provided Magister Snape with quite a tidy income.) Flummoxed, they could do no more than stammer their gratitude before he descended to the kitchens to collect Umber. The Brownie was found perched upon a stool, surrounded by a horde of elves who were eying him in the nervous manner of peasants suddenly finding a king among them...one who may or may not choose to have their heads for simply breathing in the wrong fashion. With that same regal dignity, Umber stood, handed his teacup over to some anonymous elf, and bowed. "Do we take our leave now, Magister?" The formal phrase was uninflected, but Snape fancied he detected a touch of pleased relief.

"We do indeed, Umber." The thinnest touch of a smile creased his long face. "And further, we shall take ourselves to Magistra Granger, to inform her that we now have only a handful of suspects, rather than several hundred."

"Excellent news, Magister," Umber said. "I imagine Magistra Granger will be exceedingly pleased by the information."

This brought Magister Snape up short, his victory over Granger paling in the face of her likely reaction. She was an intelligent, logical woman, and would eventually accept his findings, but she was highly unlikely to be pleased. Magister Snape scowled, and several phrases more appropriate to the travelling companions of Owain Tardif blistered the air.

He found the younger woman pacing the pavement in front of his house (he had never given her...or anyone...the key) and a quick look at her face told him that she had come to a similar conclusion to his own.

"I know who did it," she whispered.

"And I can prove it," he replied, addressing the air above her head.

It was a sombre collection of witches and wizards who assembled in the morning room of the Aurory-Under-Tower and drank the individual cups of tea surreptitiously supplied by the excellent, unseen Umber. Harry Potter sat with his head in his hands, and the three children huddled around him, miserable and confused, until a Auror house-elf escorted them to another room; no one would want them to hear the ensuing discussion. Molly Weasley and Arthur were pale and silent, their hands gripping each other's tightly. Their sons scattered themselves about the room. Auror Shacklebolt occupied the large chair Magisters Snape and Granger had seen him in previously. Hermione herself sat nervously fingering a lace dangling from her sleeve. Snape very carefully approached the Weasley matriarch.

"I'm sorry, Molly," he said gravely. "I'm sorry, Arthur." He retreated, backing up with the silent footsteps of a cat, until he rejoined Hermione and allowed her to still her fingers by interlacing them with his.

"This was," she began, "an attempt to help Dennis Creevey. I felt certain that he could not have been behind the disappearances of three people, in spite of the evidence." The magistra spoke deliberately, each word standing alone with the sharp clarity of a recently cut epitaph.

"Hermione the Crusader," Harry murmured, a wan smile ghosting over his face.

"I think we all felt that way, Hermione," Kingsley rumbled. "You're not to blame for her actions."

"No, I'm not," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean I can't be sorry for the effects of her being found out."

"There was an astonishing display of misdirection." Magister Snape picked up the thread of the narrative and ploughed forward. "Misdirection that Um... that someone indicated to us was entirely unnecessary. Wizards do not need to leave forensic evidence lying about like toys children have forgotten to pick up; a flick of the wand or a dash of a potion, and the problem is solved. There are always annoying little questions of where this person or that has gone, but if you can distance yourself from the actual disappearance, there is no reason why the Aurors should look at you any more closely than anyone else."

"Before the, um, the 'bodies' were found," Hermione continued, "there was that doubt as to Dennis's involvement. New magical processes are always suspect of Dark Magic and it would not have been unthinkable. But there the bodies were, and they were not the real bodies. It was almost absurd to think of Dennis not just leaving evidence for the Aurors to find but manufacturing it as well."

Kingsley lifted a hand to interrupt. "I asked her what had happened to the original bodies; she said that they had all been Banished to the depths of Mount Etna." Ron Weasley, leaning against the fireplace, flung himself away from the flames in disgust.

"We discovered that the bodies had been reproduced using a certain spell." Snape glanced over at Molly. "One that has traditionally been passed down from mother to daughter. This indicated a female perpetrator, but did not exclude the male...at least, not until I had a chance to talk to Headmistress McGonagall and conduct some inquiries into the subtle differences of the duplicating spell. It happens that this spell...the so-called Medea Spell...has slight idiosyncrasies that have developed over the millennia and are unique to the teacher and her pupils. When Magistra Granger demonstrated the spell to Kingsley and myself, the results the magical signatures...were identical to the ones found on the false corpses. We assumed this to merely be the spell's own signatures. As it turns out, these signatures were the same because the casters had learned the spell from the same witch...from Molly Weasley. Further, Minerva, Professor Flitwick, and I discovered that while men can cast the spell quite successfully, their signatures will differ in one or two places from those of his fellow female students.

"And our list of suspects thereby dropped to a handful: Molly Weasley, Hermione Granger... and Ginny Weasley."

"While Magister Snape was following this line of enquiry, I went to talk to Ginny first, then Fleur. I had no inkling of Ginny's involvement, Molly, Harry. I went to take advantage of her extensive network of gossip; she might have heard something over the years that could indicate who might want to frame Dennis or kill the others." There was a plea in her voice that a mostly-deaf wizard of one hundred and twenty could have heard.

"Of course not, dear." Molly managed a tiny smile. Harry echoed the statement a little more forcefully, and startled little Lily Luna.

Braced, Hermione pushed on. "Ginny's vitriol against Dennis startled me a bit, but I didn't think much more of it, any more than I really took her dislike of Mme. delaCour or Lavender seriously. After all, we all have people we don't like. It was only after I talked to Fleur that I began to piece it together. Mme. delaCour had told her that she was going to see her 'pretty sister,' but Gabrielle had seen nothing of her, knew nothing of an intended visit. But Mme. delaCour was not a comfortable English speaker, and it is not uncommon for non-native speakers to translate words and phrases literally, thinking they mean the same thing, particularly if they're not paying as much attention as they usually do."

"Belle-sœur." Comprehension dawned on Bill's face. "Belle-sœur, 'sister-in-law.' It would mean 'pretty sister' if reversed."

"Just so," Hermione agreed. "And I took another look at the statements in the Auror files. Mr. Fudge was at a Quidditch game on the day he disappeared...a Holyhead Harpies game. She was at home on the day Mme. delaCour vanished, and unusually alone."

"I took the kids into town for some new robes," Harry said. "She was baking something, but she never mentioned any visitors."

"And on the night Lavender vanished, she was away with the Harpies. It wouldn't have been difficult to slip out and not be missed from a group of women celebrating their latest victory."

Ron Weasley's fist banged against the wall, making the room jump. "But why?" he demanded. "Why would Ginny, of all people, do this?"

"Hatred, Mr. Weasley," Magister Snape replied. His eyes were steady in meeting the younger man's own. "Long-standing, festering hatred."

"She has admitted, under Veritaserum," Auror Shacklebolt confirmed, "that it was pure anger when she killed Fudge. Anger that a man who'd bollixed up so badly while in office would have the audacity to attempt to be put in power again...she saw him canvassing the crowd after her game. It was later, when she'd cooled down, that she considered using the duplication spell."

"You remember she'd dated Dennis years ago, though it was very brief," Hermione said gently. "I never got the details from her, but she seemed to think that he had treated her very badly. Naturally, she knew from the papers what he was up to, and it seemed like a Founders-blessed endeavour to use her crime to frame Dennis and destroy his life."

"I don't understand any of this," Harry cried. His glasses were pushed askew, and he stared unseeingly at the carpet. "I married Ginny Weasley; I don't even recognise this woman you're describing to me."

Hermione gently set aside Snape's hand and crossed the room to support her friend. "I don't, either, Harry. This is a side of her she's never let any of us see."

"You've explained Dennis. And I can understand Fudge." Charlie smiled wryly. "But the others? What possessed her to keep killing?"

"Opportunity was a primary factor..." Kingsley began.

"She's yelled at me before, 'bout Lavender." Ron took a swig of his tea in the same manner that Hermione had seen him take a swig of Bogsfoot ale, and she winced in sympathy with Umber to see his talents treated so cavalierly. "Gin always said she was making a fool of me, what with our fights and back-and-forth and what-not. She didn't understand that we liked it that way, that we were always having fun, no matter what we were fighting about. She was always on about me dumping her before Lav had a chance to, before she made a 'real' fool of me by finding someone else. I thought she'd dropped it when I told her I was going to propose. Never said another word to me."

"...and she's never liked Fleur, I'm afraid, Bill." Harry had calmed, and Magistra Granger took advantage of the lull to return to the side of Magister Snape, who made no demur about taking her hand again in full view of the company. "I think she considered this one of the best ways of hurting her without depriving your children of a mother, and in an odd way, I think she blamed Apolline for... well, for producing Fleur in the first place."

Arthur sighed. "So many grudges and we never knew. We always knew she had a temper. She was so fierce, so determined to prove herself. But we always believed she let fly and then let go. How could all of us miss such a thing?"

"She learned to keep such things to herself, Arthur." Magister Snape was calm yet, though no one could miss the infusion of sympathy in his words. "But, like all of us, she despised feeling helpless in the face of them. What is more destructive than the need...however misguided...to set things right and be rendered powerless to do so, particularly by the seeming obstinacy of those one loves?"

"Kingsley," Molly wavered, "what will happen to her?"

Auror Shacklebolt breathed a heavy sigh. "She's killed three people, Molly, and deliberately used their deaths to indirectly kill or imprison another. There's little chance of this turning out well for her, I'm afraid. At best, it's the secure ward of St. Mungo's, and it may simply be kinder to..." He trailed off uncomfortably, leaving the obvious unspoken. "We've tried to keep it as discreet as possible," he said, the words booming in his haste, "but it will get out in the papers; it has to, once we let Dennis out. You might consider taking the kids on a long vacation, Harry."

The man looked bleakly at his old friend and superior. "I'll think about it. I don't know how we're going to balance what's best for Gin and what's best for them. How do you tell children that their mother's a murderer?"

"There's no easy way to do it, Potter," Snape said. "But when all is said and done, it is better that you tell them before the vultures and the hyenas do."

It was a rare occurrence, and Hermione wished she had the emotional reserves to fully appreciate Severus seeing her home. They had apparated to a quiet spot by the river and were walking slowly along to the next bridge. The late hour had sent nearly everyone, resident and tourist, to their beds, and the sounds were the quieter ones of the water flowing within its banks and the variety of small wildlife chirping or rustling as they went about their own business.

"I still feel guilty."

"And you will for a while yet," he said. "Though you should try to remember who actually committed the crime."

"Do you? Feel guilty, I mean?"

"I feel sorry for them, Arthur and Molly, even Potter and Weasley." He paused on the small bridge that crossed a canal spun out softly from the main waterway and looked at the lock gates, painted white against the greenery and earth. "I do not feel guilty. I have many other things that I have felt guilty for in the past, whether or not that guilt was deserved. Here, now, I think of what might have happened if she had not been stopped."

The moonlight did not help in her attempt to decipher the expression hidden behind the hawk's beak of a nose, the thin, tight mouth, and hooded eyes. "What do you think would have happened?"

"Those who kill feel the power of it, the near divine force of being able to cut off someone's destiny in a second. She would have killed again, found new ways, new reasons. She despises people who makes fools of her family." He turned and looked full into Hermione's face. "How long would it have been before she focused on you?"

"Me?" Hermione was startled and tried to digest this leap of logic. Ginny had never been a friend of the heart, but...

"You are the one who turned down Weasley's proposal all those years ago. You left him free to pursue Miss Brown, and, in her eyes, make a fool of himself. I do not claim to share her logic, but she may very well have considered that an inexcusable slight. And that is without mentioning that you turned your attentions to an object far less... worthy."

Magistra Granger looked stricken, then indignant. "You are not 'less worthy!'"

"I am well aware of that," he said imperturbably, and watched her side-long, a tiny smirk playing about his lips. She laughed, her rich, honey-bright laugh, and they continued along the path. "And I am... aware that you are very able to take care of yourself, Magistra Hermione Granger, but Mrs. Potter would have surely found some unguarded moment; she had your full trust. I think of that, of what might have been, and I do not feel pity for her, nor guilt at my part in this play. I am merely grateful that we may continue on as we have been."

"Exactly as we have been?" Hermione could not help but ask, though she knew the answer. She knew that he liked his privacy, that he was content to have a companion who dropped by, well announced, and was happy to pass the time in ways he enjoyed himself; that was the man he was, the one who had captured her attention, intrigued her mind, and sent her heart beating fit to break free.

"Perhaps... Perhaps not entirely as we have been." Her breath stopped, choked into place. "I am a solitary man, certainly, but you, Magistra Granger, require someone to look after you, to keep you from being poisoned or bludgeoned or hexed by those whom you choose to pursue in your righteous causes. I... I glimpsed that possible future when I found you on the pavement in front of my house, having come from a murderess's. I found the possibility unbearably bleak.

"Hermione Granger, will you marry me?"

He had left his face open for once, and Hermione gazed at all of the emotions in it and wondered how calculated they were. He was a master of persuasion and manipulation when he desired something.

"On one condition," she said, and watched him shutter away his feelings again.

"And that would be?"

"That you say yes the next time I ask you," she replied. "It wouldn't do not to let Umber have his fun as well. I have a feeling we'll have an occasion cooked up by... tomorrow."

"I shall prepare myself," he said, "and have ready an affirmative answer." And he grinned. He only stopped grinning when she kissed him, and even then, once they had finished, both wore the same silly grin.

Umber, sitting in his kitchen with his ear cocked, began concocting a list of ingredients...beginning with the champagne.