Chapter 1 – Veritas odit moras

A/N: A response to the Potter Place Post-Deathly-Hallows Prompt Challenge using prompts 3, 10 and 18. Some might consider the characters a little OOC. Some organisations and Ministry of Magic departments are made-up.

For the Benefit of the Unforgiven

Chapter 1 – Veritas odit moras

Had both the documents delivered that morning arrived together, I would have been hard put to decide what to do about them. As it was, however, the two disagreeable parchments arrived in quick succession, so making a decision was not so difficult.

I had just stepped into my office at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, or rather rushed in somewhat dishevelled, with a paper bag from Boots with my breakfast. I was all ready to break my fast sparingly with a dodgy looking sandwich and a bruised apple when a peon from the internal Ministry of Magic Postal and Memo Service arrived delivering the post for my office. I never understood the red tape behind the receipt of memos and messages from other colleagues within the Ministry. Once upon a time, there used to be flying memos that would come speeding down the corridors and flapping into one's in-tray. Now all that has been left behind in favour of the 'modernisation' project whereby a peon sorts the memos in the postal and memo office of the Ministry, and another peon brings it down to the heads of the departments and their staff. While I can see that doing so creates jobs for the wizarding population within the Ministry, I find it rather sad that the Ministry has retrogressed to this extent. The messenger always dispatched with the post and memos to my department seemed to think it a punishment to come downstairs for the post, and who could blame him? His legs are not as strong as they once were.

Poor Finchley Figg, Mrs Figg's brother-in-law, relied on a walking stick and yet the Ministry put him to work as a messenger. Yes, I understand that it is important to keep the aging wizarding population mentally, physically and magically active, but making the infirm and elderly wizards work as peons and messengers – that is a little too 'unethical' for my liking. As it was, poor Mr Figg, who looked as though his legs would give out on him at any moment, was demoted from his previous position as Ministry of Magic security guard to sweeping the floors and running errands till he would shrivel up and so expire and so no longer be of any use to anyone. Bah! There was something very rotten in the new Ministry of Magic if one must always strive to be useful in a way that is visible in the wizarding community. What about silent contributions? Do not they count for something? Was it not more honourable to do what one could for society quietly? Did one really have to hang a placard around one's neck and announce all the deeds one was doing to be deemed ostensibly contributing to the rebuilding of the so-called 'New Wizarding Britain'? Does rebuilding the infrastructure of wizarding Britain require the deployment of aged wizards in tasks that are ill-suited to them? It was all very dodgy to me, and I made a mental note to speak to Administrative and Policy Division later on the issue.

Of course the problem was whether the Administrative and Policy Division would take me seriously. I was born into a Muggle family, and though necessity (and by that I mean the nascent display of magical abilities and my desire for more learning) had forced me to leave the safety of everything to which I was accustomed and seek a precarious living in wizarding London as a privileged employee of the Ministry of Magic. Why privileged? Simply because I was one of Harry-Hero-of-our-times-Potter's merry troupe and thus was given my position. I tell myself that it is due to my abilities, however a part of me seriously thinks that I am where I am because the higher-ups at the Ministry (and by that I mean the policymakers - not the Minister – the policymakers are the ones with the real power) do not quite know what to do with me and my penchant for what they deem to be lost causes. In this case, the lost cause would be actually regulating the ownership and licensing of magical creatures be they crups or house elves. "Why regulate?" they often say, "House elves are like Muggle maids-of-all-works. So long as one can afford it, no license or certificate is necessary." These fools, or as I call them in my head – elite wizarding wankers – still treat house elves as secondary things meant to be bartered and sold rather than creatures with feelings. These confounded policymakers fail to see that I do not advocate the licensing of house elves; I am more concerned with strengthening their House Elves Union where they can voice their discontent and go on strike if they have to. But of course, as with most visionaries, my ideas appear to be too progressive for this present time. So, after once arguing myself hoarse with the old farts in charge of the Administrative and Policy Division over my platform, we reached an impasse. They settled for granting me autonomy in the way I ran my Department, and they would debate my policy proposals with the Minister of Magic instead of tossing out all my suggestions as they usually do with anything coming from my department. Given that I spend most of my time in my office hiding behind the impassive mask of carefully cultivated gravity, hardly anyone dares come down to my department to bother me – unless it was Mr Figg with the memos or post.

Until that day – that fateful day when those two documents were brought to my attention, it had not occurred to me that I might fall on the rough steps of this precarious existence of straddling both the wizarding and Muggle worlds. Oh yes, here I was Head of the Department of for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures doing work that ought rightly to belong to a clerk.

It is true that many of the other heads of departments within the Ministry (who are wizards born and bred) frequently use their authority to 'allocate,' shall we say, unpleasant tasks away from themselves to their subordinates. This allows them the luxury of time to dabble in various new-fangled bourgeois pastimes such as golf. While the idea of skiving from work to hit pock-marked little balls with a variety of sticks had never appealed to me, I must own my thorough amazement at their time management skills to waltz into the office at eleven, leave for lunch at half-past noon and never come back to the office until the next day. How the heads of these other departments manage to get any work done let alone organise and keep their staff in hand, I do not know. I only know that I should not adopt such practices. Thus, I found myself reduced to the status of a clerk even though I am head of a Department. The memo from the Economic Review of House Elf Affairs Committee (ERHEAC) invited me to use my erudition to make improvements as I saw fit to a proposed bill on 'improving the lot of house elves'. That annoyed me. While the invitation expressed such a humble request, it was clear that my primary task was to make a fair copy of the scrawled parchment, and in particular make separate copies of the main parts for perusal of the board heading the Administrative and Policy Division. It would seem that my usual scribe was ill. Either that or that nephew of Mundungus Fletcher was somewhere malingering – again.

The bill lacked even a definite title. It was unclear whether the proposal sought to arrange for the maintenance of elderly house-elves, or to give house-elves some form of standardised remuneration, or to provide some kind of insurance scheme for house-elves should they be injured or worse in the service of their employers. I gave old Mr Figg my sandwich as I began my perusal of it. I could not help but laugh when I reached the section on how the proposed bill would help improve the lives of the house-elves. At that juncture in the proposal, a mysterious clause claimed to know for a fact that the house-elves' magical ability would be enhanced by the passage of this strangely illogical bill. I knew nothing of house-elves' magical powers, nor do I pretend to, but I own myself fascinated to learn that the fellow drafting this proposal claimed to know that the house-elves' magical abilities stemmed from their worship of some demons, and these demons somehow or the other allow the house-elves to learn their ways and acquire their powers. I had good reason to ponder the veracity of this piece of dodgy research, and was in the process of deleting the whole section and relegating this nonsensical proposal to the rubbish bin when I was interrupted.

I was interrupted by the arrival of another messenger or peon, call him what you will. In sharp contrast to Mr Figg, this newcomer was fat and surly, and wore a very large bowler hat and a short, ill-fitting, pinstriped waistcoat, reminiscent of the kinds favoured by aspiring American criminals in the late 1920s. As he pushed his way forward into my office, I was struck by the very noisiness of his gait, or it might have been the noisiness of his creaky pinstriped waistcoat. In any case, it is often very difficult to tell apart the clumsiness of a person with wild, desperate eyes, and the very closely aligned stripes on his waistcoat, which as you undoubtedly know is the noisiest stripe of all. "Miss Granger? That is, Miss Hermione Granger, one of the golden trio that brought down Voldy-thingy and member of the Wizengamot?"

"Miss Granger will do," I politely said upon receiving the letter he brought me. When will these people learn that though the Ministry of Magic offered positions in the Wizengamot to Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville, Ginny and me, none of us accepted the offers? I hardly think we were qualified enough or wise enough to preside over wizarding matters when we barely understood all the twists and turns of wizarding traditions and laws. I shook at my head at the messenger's encomium and turned my attention to the letter. It was thankfully brief. It came from Wiltshire under the direction of Draco Malfoy, Malfoy Manor where my former schoolmate with his full load of emotional and psychological chips on his shoulders had been residing. It stated that he was very grateful for my assistance in placing his father in an isolated room within the Janus Thickey ward at St Mungo's instead of publicly trying him and incarcerating him in Azkaban. Though Draco expressed his realisation that his father was something of a moral lunatic, he politely thanked me for all I had done to ensure his father was offered the best possible treatment. He continued to earnestly claim that my intervention had saved the family's face and standing in society, and he knew that if it were not for my intercession, St Mungo's and the Ministry of Magic would have no compunctions unleashing his unfortunate father into the community as a sturdy beggar without a license to carry a wand. He ended by thanking me once again for arranging for the release of his father to his residence earlier that day, and asked if he and I could meet for tea sometime.

Why did Draco Malfoy bother to thank me for such a simple task? The wand carrying license law had only been recently implemented and that had nothing to do with me or my so-called intervention. It was implemented for the purpose of keeping an eye on the magical community, and though I was opposed to the law on the grounds that it was policing the magical usage of one's citizenry, I could not prevent its passage. Furthermore, my 'intercession,' as Draco had called it, was nothing more than my personal objection to treating others cruelly. At that time, there was a widespread outcry to publicly try all former Death Eaters, and despite Harry's testimony that Narcissa Malfoy had aided him in bringing down Voldemort, the newly established Wizarding War Crimes Tribunal would not countenance anything less than incarceration at Azkaban for all Death Eaters. On my part, I was aware that Lucius Malfoy's actions under the service of Voldemort are deemed as war crimes against wizarding Britain under the Internal Security of Wizarding United Kingdom Act. Certainly, I was aware that Lucius Malfoy is very much the wizarding equivalent of an educated, reasonable-sounding racist. But that did not give either the Aurors or the Wizarding War Crimes Tribunal permission to use them cruelly and torture them. I do not condone senseless violence. I did for Lucius Malfoy the exact same thing I did for every other soul-diseased wizard who was on the side of Voldemort and who had clearly repented for their past deeds – I strongly put my foot down on rough interrogation techniques and came down harshly on proponents who wanted to put the whole lot of Death Eaters and their families to death. When I was captured and shoved very rudely into the Malfoy dudgeons, I distinctively recalled Lucius Malfoy looking very apologetic, like a wounded animal trapped in a corner desirous of helping others but which had to – out of necessity – lick its own wounds first. Moreover, I had heard from Harry Potter after the great battle at Hogwarts that Narcissa Malfoy was also suitably contrite. Who could blame Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy when all they wanted to do was protect their child? Was it not natural to love their own – in this case their son? I know this sort of love for one's own tends towards nepotism, but I cannot find it in myself to fault parents for wanting to protect their children. What could Lucius and Narcissa have done given that their home was practically like a headquarters of sorts to that deranged, corrupted and deluded fellow we call Voldemort?

Though the thought of Lucius Malfoy as a sturdy beggar was fairly entertaining and I secretly applauded Draco's linguistic flair for daring to write of his father in such a manner, I wondered how I ought to respond to him. I considered, briefly, doing nothing. However, so doing would only mean I would have no choice but to go through the rest of the ghastly proposal I had been hitherto perusing. Very well then, I would pen a reply to Draco in the politest of terms declining his offer of tea. His fiancée was a notoriously possessive witch; as such, I had no wish to create any misunderstanding between himself and Pansy Parkinson if we were seen having a tête-à-tête at one of the cafés near the British Museum or Diagon Alley. So, I set about replying to Draco's epistle. Before the second messenger, who was undoubtedly in the employ of the Malfoys, left, I donned my best societal disposition, and wrote a response to his young master. I stated that it was very kind of him to remember me, that I was quite recovered from all the horrors of the war, and that I was only serving my principles in seeing to his father's rehabilitation. Additionally, Harry Potter ought to be the correct recipient of his thanks for it was Harry who had vouched for them in a backhanded display of appreciation for that which Narcissa Malfoy had done for him in the Forbidden Forest after Voldemort had cast the killing curse on him. If anything, Draco should be more appreciative of his parents' love for him.

Once the parchment was crossed, sealed and handed to the fat, burly manservant, I dismissed both him and Mr Figg and concentrated my efforts on the ridiculous proposal one of my lesser subordinates had the gall to forward to me. It was an erratically drafted proposal, a sequel to the establishment of the House Elves Union we had enacted. However, there was no visible follow-up to link it to the earlier Union Act, and the fascinating claims as to the source of house-elves' powers were left unsubstantiated.

Having had quite enough of it, I took myself off to Diagon Alley and went to one of the second-hand bookshops where tomes on wizarding history and on magical creatures could be acquired cheaply. I selected one volume claiming to detail a close magical, biological, and historical account of house-elves, and repaired to a café, where I sat at my usual place by the window reading and enjoying my first decent meal of the day. Then I made my way back to the office.

Once back in the confines of Ministry of Magic, I stepped into my office only to be greeted by a very harassed looking Mr Figg, whose beard appeared more unkempt than it had been in the morning, and an equally harassed looking Harry Potter, his hair looking remarkably thinner than it had the previous day.

"Hermione," began Harry, cutting to the chase. "Where have you been?"

"Out," I answered vaguely, flopping into my seat and watching the ballerina in the snow-globe at desk shrug sympathetically at me. Quickly opening my mouth before he could reproach me for not attending Ginny's Quidditch match with the Harpies, I continued nonchalantly, "To what do I owe the pleasure? I was under the impression that today was your practical field examination for your Auror training programme. You should be out in the wilds of the Isle of Man or Burma or somewhere."

Harry was very pleased that I remembered his schedule and whatnot, but had little time to praise my presence of mind for reminding him that he really ought to rejoin his team before the examination began. "Finchley here hobbled into the Auror Department informing me that there's been a strange letter for you."

"Strange? In what sense?" I asked, extending my hand to the nervously twitching old wizard. "My department is celebrated for its strangeness. Why look at me!"

As Mr Figg handed me the errant letter accused for its alleged oddity, I spotted the neat curlicue hand on the top that read:

Miss Hermione Granger

United Kingdom

Mr Figg, who was shifting his weight nervously from one shaky foot to the next, spoke. "I couldn't trace it, Miss Granger. There's a charm placed on it. It's untrackable. We couldn't even track the owl that delivered it. It just swooped into the Postal and Memo service office and dropped it in the post basket for your department."

"Could it be," I replied with a long suffering sigh, "that this is a private correspondence between myself and one of the house-elves? There are some house-elves who fear recrimination if their employers get wind that they are writing for assistance from the Ministry." I turned the dove-grey envelope around so that I could better examine the seal. It was not from any wizarding family I knew of. Perhaps it's a commemorative one or a newly commissioned one.

It was Harry's turn to make a show of exasperation as he thumped my desk, frightening the ballerina in my snow-globe. "Then why is it vibrating with magical energy? It's not house-elf magic, but wizarding magic. I checked. Finchley worried that it was an unauthorised letter and came to the Auror Department. As you know, it is protocol to check the Ministry post; you never know, we might be having a bomb scare on our hands."

"Should I be flattered someone wants to explode me?" I questioned tartly. "Or are you about to reveal that you tried opening my private correspondence?"

He nodded and had the good grace to look abashed. "Moody always counselled Constant Vigilance when he was around. And besides, Dumbledore would say it is better to be safe than sorry. If someone tried to blow you up, the Ministry might be blown up as well. We have enough threats from rogue wizards claiming to be Voldemort without having to deal with internal threats to the Ministry as well."

I rolled my eyes and gently cut open the seal on the envelope. Harry was beginning to annoy me with his 'Big Brother' ways. "Dumbledore is not the saint you paint him out to be. For heaven's sake, sit down Mr Figg before your legs give way. As I was saying, Mr Auror-to-be, Dumbledore bent the wizarding laws and the rules at Hogwarts beyond the point to where many would have said they were broken. He died a relatively easy death by arranging for Professor Snape to kill him instead of allowing the curse on his withered hand to finish him off. You might even say he died unpunished. Why are you following the example of such a wizard? Doesn't Dumbledore's presumptuous habits act as a cautionary example to you?"

My former schoolmate and sometime friend gave me a look as if to say my own interpretation of the events in that fateful year where we defeated Voldemort was terribly flawed. "I am only looking out for you."

"Apparently," I smirked on removing the crisp black sheet from the envelope, "the sender of this missive knew you would have done what you did. Otherwise, he or she would not have placed a repelling ward on it preventing anyone but the recipient from opening it and reading its contents. Such a ward only yields when it comes into direct contact the magical energy of the recipient. That in itself should tell you the sender must be acquainted with me. You're worrying over nothing."

"Then why is the paper black?" challenged Harry, looking to Mr Figg for support.

"Your unease is unnecessary," I said smoothly, flicking my eyes up at him. "It is merely a social invitation from an acquaintance. If you will excuse me, I have work to do. You had better return to work Mr Figg, before the people upstairs start wondering about your whereabouts, and you, Harry, had better go before your examiner decides to fail you, and poof – no certificate to verify that you have completed the Auror's Course."

With that injunction, the two men muttered something under their breaths and left me to my own devices.

"What am I to make of you," I murmured to myself as I lent back into my seat, tapping the black sheet lightly on my nose. It smelled like cedar wood and bergamot. From an old moneyed family no doubt, otherwise it would not have the faint smell of musty books. Why would someone send me such a missive? Well, to be honest, it could not be called a missive, for it was short and concise. In a sense, I had not been prevaricating when I told Harry it was a social invitation. The black sheet was an undated, unsigned letter with no return address. "Very curious," I said on rereading it. The very elegant silver writing contrasted with the ebony of the invitation card with these words:

Dear Miss Granger,

I have followed your private work on behalf of creatures regarded as less than human with admiration. You are cordially invited to dine at seven o'clock this evening to assist me in an intimate matter of some urgency. To arrive at the destination, remove the silver crest portkey attached to the end of this card. I shall be expecting you. To convince you that I have no intent towards you, I have written this in Veritum ink, which is incapable of forming falsehoods on paper.

One who has followed your career

Once again, I wondered as to what I should make of the note. Who had sent it? What was his or her purpose? Was it part of some elaborate entrapment plan? Why else would the writer use veritum ink? The ink of truth, as some call it, will blot out lies if they are written, and from the blot, the writer's true intent will be revealed. Indeed, a quick investigative charm on the silver ink of the paper did not reveal any malicious intent. If anything, it let slip that the writer was weighed down with heavy thoughts and strangely enough, deeply distressed. The seal, which I was to use to arrive at my destination, fascinated me. It was a heraldic emblem with a pair of lions looking up at a crown and an old-fashioned cursive letter emblazoned underneath the crown – the shield of a noble family. Judging from the craftsmanship, I would place it in Tudor times. This was getting more interesting by the minute. There were one or two wizarding families who descended from the nobility of England, Scotland and Ireland. I did not know enough genealogy to say this with certainty, but I suspect it to be coat of arms of the Earls of Huntingdon because I could just make out the faint tiny words of the motto underneath the silver lions. 'In veritate victoria' it stated, as if urging me to trust the sender. Although commonsense bade me ignore the invitation and its unknown sender, my curiosity was piqued. As with most people when intrigued by something, I began thinking about what I could do to unravel this mystery. While thinking along those lines, my mind wandered to considering how should I go about protecting myself if I decided to accept this invitation. I stopped myself in mid-thought with a frown. Was I insane? I had no bleeding idea as to the identity of my mysterious correspondent and here I was contemplating actually accepting the invitation!

The only thing I knew – which was next to nothing – was that I hardly knew what to make of it. An invitation to dine with a scion of one of the noble families in the land, albeit removed for many generations, was nothing to be taken lightly. If I was right and it was from the descendent of one of the early Earls of Huntingdon – which was possible given that Maud, Countess of Huntingdon under first creation had a daughter with magical powers – then I had to think twice before ignoring the invitation. The earls of Huntingdon were not for nothing, arguably the most famous men in wizarding Britain. If memory served me correctly, I remember Professor Binn lecturing about Maud of Huntingdon in his history lessons on the wizards who had shaped Britain. This Maud married Simon of St Liz, the first Earl of Northampton, and her daughter from that marriage, also named Maud, was gifted with magical powers. She was persecuted by her brothers for her abilities. Declining their wise decision to enter a nunnery, she went into hiding, in a place known only to her closest friends. Her brothers were enraged. They threatened death upon her friends and even sought to offer bribes. None of her friends would betray her. It was not until she met her first husband that she came out of hiding. I remembered being impressed with Maud's friends at the time of Professor Binn's lecture. A part of me was still very impressed by Maud's friends. A human being can usually rely on one's enemies to be constant – as Maud's brothers were constant in their desire for her to either enter a nunnery or die. But to find the same constancy in friends, Maud must have been a very blessed witch. I know this because I speak from experience. When Harry and I were wandering in the wilderness (as I call it) during the time when we were hunting for horcruxes, Ron for reasons best known to himself ran off and left us in the lurch. The Death Eaters were always right behind us, constant in their pursuit of us. Ron however was vacillating between his own feelings of inadequacy and guilt at leaving us behind. Ron's behaviour was most certainly not a display of constancy. To own the truth, I still have some doubts as to Ron's ability to be constant. He had not only abandoned Harry and me in the wilderness, but he has also consistently abandoned me whenever I make plans for us to go the ballet, opera, theatre, or spend a quiet day at the museums. Yet I am expected to automatically make time for him to accompany him to the Quidditch games of his favourite team, and humour his tastes. If I were not fond of him, I would not have bothered with him. After all, why should a female pay any heed to a male who refuses to participate in the activities she enjoys but assume she will make time for his favoured activities? Perhaps I am nitpicking where Ronald Weasley is concerned. He claims he cares for me, and it is not like I will be getting any other offer, so I might as well make do. If one wanted constancy in the wizarding world – one should look at Severus Snape. Now there was a man who was constant to the memory of the woman he loved, and who was constant in his word. He had always kept his word to Albus Dumbledore, and yet some sectors of society still persisted in viewing him as a vicious character without conscience or morals. They should really wake up and see him for what he is – a fiercely loyal person to those whom he considered friends with a penchant for doomed causes. Men like him were as extinct as dinosaurs. That was one of the reasons why modern witches like myself are left with men like Ronald Weasley. I harrumphed at the irony of my situation. Where this lucky Maud de St Liz had the constancy of her friends, my boyfriend was the sort of fellow who would run away from a task he found distasteful.

As I am not one to run away from things I disliked or feared, I then resolved upon accepting the strange invitation. I say that because Mr Figg hobbled down to my office yet again; this time with a memo from Ron informing me that he would not be attending that evening's BBC Proms concert with me as he earlier claimed he would because the boys wanted to go drinking in celebration of finally becoming full fledged Aurors. Yes, Ronald Weasley was that sort of a man. No matter, I would accept the dinner offer of this nameless host and have a fine time trying to outwit him. It would definitely be more amusing than trying to explain the Tannhauser opera to Ron on a Friday night.

NOTES:

'Veritas odit moras' is Latin for 'truth hates delay', and is a quote from Seneca.

Boots also sells food and titbits the last time I was in London. American readers may like to think of it as a British CVS.

Ministry of Magic Postal and Memo Service is a made-up wizarding department in the Ministry of Magic.

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Author's notes:

Written for the Potter Place/Petulant Poetess Post-Deathly-Hallows Prompt Challenge. Some might consider the characters a little OOC. This non-fluffy story depicting the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Magic and Hermione's thoughts are based on the following Potter Place Post-DH Prompts:

3. Snape had the anti-venom for Nagini's bite on him. Only he's too weak to give it to himself... Who finds Snape and helps him?

10. It has been two years after the war. Hermione is Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She also receives an odd letter and a Portkey, requesting to see her: no name, no address. Who sent it and why?

18. Draco finally realises how much the trio has done for him, and he contacts one of them to express his gratitude. What happens is truly unexpected... yet not unwanted.