Chapter 2: Weighing the Past as the Present

Author's Note: Story depicted may be unpalatable to sensitive readers for its portrayal of Hermione and Ron's relationship. Hermione may also not be likeable to readers. Some readers might consider the characters a little OOC. Some organisations and Ministry of Magic departments are made-up.

It would help readers following the story to view it as a 'cinematic' experience whereby there are shifts in perspectives, as well as shifts between flashbacks, the past, the present, dreams and reality within the space of one chapter.

Footnotes follow chapter.

Emphasises are italicised and book titles are underlined.

From the Blood of the Gorgon

Chapter 2 – Weighing the Past as the Present

Hermione's office at Chiswell Chambers was a comfortable place. As with most corner rooms of refurbished old-fashioned houses, her office was a largish and homely (if somewhat untidy) place with shelves of books, a fireplace, a tea table in the corner near the door with stacks of books piled haphazardly next to it, and thick curtains framing the windows. An enormous desk sat in the centre of the room and sagged a little at the weight of the books, papers, notes and other paraphernalia. She opened a cabinet by the wall and added her Pensieve to the pile on the desk, causing it to creak, as if groaning under the additional weight. "Et tu?" she said quietly with a tiny smile at her desk. "You're not the only thing with tons weighing down on you."

Well, she had better get it over and done with, she thought, lightly running her finger along the rim of the Pensieve. However, on reaching for the bottle, she hesitated. It was not due to a lack of courage on her part. Hermione Granger was the sort of woman who was cognisant enough of the causes of her fear to talk herself out of them. No, she was uncertain of the after-effects of that which she was about to do. A quick mental calculation of the Arithmantic probability of the memory yielding any new information told her that she would not likely uncover anything of worth. But (she reasoned with herself) if she went through the memory, she would at least know whether it was viable means of unravelling her nightmares. While mentally debating the merits of reviewing Harry's memory, her fingers stretched out for the bottle again. Deciding at last that she would go through with the plan, she covered the neck of the bottle with her fingers and poured it into the Pensieve. She told herself – it was better to know than not to do; it was better to find out something than to live in ignorance; it was better to act and repent than not to act and regret. After all, she did have much to fear. She feared that her mind would potentially go unhinged from the nightmares. Since her mind was her best asset (or so she considered), it was only just that she did everything she could do preserve it in a functioning state. Very well then, she decided as she looked into the swirling silver-grey cloud of Harry's memory. She would go ahead and delve into it. Thus, pursing her lips in grim determination, she fell headfirst into the pool of images.

She landed, remarkably enough, feet first on the ground as she watched younger versions of Harry, Ron and herself wriggle through the tunnel under the Whomping Willow until they came to an underground hatch directly below the Shrieking Shack. Harry, who was as impulsive then as he was now as head of the Auror department, would have gone out of the tunnel had her younger self not reminded him that it would behove him to don the Invisibility Cloak. She watched in amusement as the Trio crouched behind several large old crates with their backs to the wall and their faces only centimetres away from dusty crates. Harry, being Harry (reflected Hermione wryly), always found a way to espy on situations which were none of his business. So it was that on this occasion, Harry managed to have the good fortune to find a gap in the crates where he could survey whatever that lay before him.

The room, panelled with very old and creaky looking wooden boards, was dimly lit. Nagini, the serpent, was coiling and uncoiling herself in a sphere that floated in the air above the table. The long white hand of Voldemort stretched out, playing with a wand in his hand while he conversed with Severus Snape. The former Potions Master insisted on leaving the Shack and finding Harry so as to placate his Lord. He must have badly wanted to escape from Voldemort's presence for he offered to bring Harry to the snake-like creature four times. Each offer was rebuffed with increasing anger as Voldemort rambled on and on about the Elder Wand failing to work for him. Hermione, who was observing everything with rapt attention, rolled her eyes at his vanity. Truly, reflected she, he was merely a more egregious form of Gilderoy Lockhart. Within this memory alone, the former Tom Riddle had called himself extraordinary, spoken as if he possessed infinite wisdom and knowledge.

Bah! From the way he spoke, it was as if he considered his attempts at unifying and cleansing the wizarding world as inferior only to the blessings of his power. A shudder was suppressed when Voldemort, who united these gifts, went on about his intimate acquaintance with the character traits of Harry Potter in a manner that clearly displayed the fact that he was the constant object of his own warmest respect and devotion. No wonder Severus Snape wanted to escape, mused Hermione from her vantage point as omniscient observer. Such a narcissistic affection for himself only resulted in high-handedness and it was a matter of time before Snape felt the brunt of it. True enough, Voldemort soon hissed in what seemed to Hermione to be a carefully modulated voice expressly for the purpose of masking anger. "The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."

Severus paled momentarily before answering with a raised wand, "My Lord!"

"It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last," said Voldemort. His last injunction was followed by a hiss. This caused the sphere containing Nagini to move towards Severus. With one bite, Nagini effectively incapacitated the former Potions Master, and he fell sideways to the wooden floor, blood gushing from his jugular.

As soon as Voldemort swept away with his snake, the younger Hermione spoke, bringing Harry back to his senses, and lucid enough to move the crates out of the way so that they could enter the Shack proper. Once there, Hermione, as omniscient observer, saw the dying Severus. At the sight, she let out an almost imperceptible gasp. It was exactly like her nightmare, down to the very detail of him fumbling for something in his pocket, to the very outline of his fist clenched over something in his pocket, and the way in which his memories poured fourth from his mouth, nose, ears and eyes. However, as the memories were leaking from his body, Snape struggled to speak, and while doing so, his eyes darted significantly to the younger Hermione. The adult Hermione interpreted the glance at her younger self as a form of thanks, for she had provided Harry with a bottle in which he could store the memory. From his blank expression, it was plain to see that Harry had no idea as to what he should do with the gushing memories, and had she not provided him with a receptacle, they would not have exculpated Severus Snape before the British Wizarding War Crimes Tribunal in the aftermath of the war. But, now that she was observing the scene again, Hermione realised that it was likely Severus was speaking as much to Harry as he was to her.

Indeed, as the mortally wounded Severus gurgled, "Take it... Take it..." His eyes were searching for that of the younger Hermione. Her younger self had looked away at the moment, undoubtedly loath to see her former teacher dying an undignified death. He would not be denied however and spoke again. This time, he insisted, "Look at me..." As he was holding onto Harry's robes, Hermione had thought at the time that it was a mark of forgiveness to Harry. But now that she was witnessing the scene again, she noticed that his words of "Look at me" were possibly directed at her younger self because Severus's eyes were looking in her direction. When the younger Hermione finally managed to look up in his direction, the half-blood wizard had already expired, with his hand still in his pocket. If she stared at the hand in his pocket to which her attention was drawn, she could swear that it was clenched and still faintly trembling. But before she could ascertain whether it was a figment of her over-active imagination or a real movement of the corpse as it gave up on life, everything faded to black.

When Hermione came to, she found that she had fallen back into her chair in her office. She rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled by what she had so lately seen. In a way, the review of the memory had been a success, for she had uncovered the link to her nightmares. On the other hand, it perturbed her to find that she had been dreaming of Severus Snape's death in vivid detail, glorious Technicolor and surround sound, right down to the details of the little hut in the middle of nowhere. No wonder the hut in her dreams looked so familiar! It was a replica of the Shrieking Shack. Everything in that miserable hut was exactly like it was in the Shrieking Shack, down to the creaking floorboards. Was the reproduction of the hut in her nightmare a figment of her imagination? If it was, how could have reproduced Severus's death in such detail? She did not witness the events leading up to the death. It was Harry who had seen everything, and even though he later told her about it, it was not in such detail as her nightmare. What was the significance of the Shrieking Shack then? Did it mean something? Did Severus Snape leave some kind of clue there hinting as to where his body was dragged away to? Even if he did indeed leave something in the Shrieking Shack, why did her nightmares feature the Shack in a desolate wasteland in the middle of nowhere? Did that landscape mean anything? Hermione sighed and rubbed her brow in thought. She enjoyed a good puzzle, for its benefits in exercising her mind. But this particular puzzle was infuriating. Instead of shedding light on her nightmares, it was raising more questions to which she did not have the answer.

"Was Professor Snape really trying to tell me something?" she asked herself. "What does it all mean? Or am I simply reading too much into it? If so, how do I know the details of his death when Harry had only told me the barest details? This is most perplexing." She spun her chair around to face the window and sighed, "Why am I harping on a man long dead? Even if he wasn't dead, the fact that he has been missing for all these years would mean the courts would declare he is presumed dead. That ought to be the end of it. Why am I having nightmares of his death? And just what in the world was Shrieking Shack in the middle of nowhere? Every time I get that dream, I try to save him, and all he tells me is to look at him and that the memories were meant for me. Those memories are Harry's exclusive property. I do not have right to ask him to hand them over to me." She paused with a hollow laugh as she imagined herself asking her long-time friend for the memories of Severus Snape. "I can see it now – 'Harry, would you be a dear and loan me the memories Professor Snape passed you shortly before he died? I dreamt he said they were for me.' I can picture that going swimmingly well! Was it the memories he was referring to or was it something else? What could he mean by telling me that 'it' was meant for me? What does this 'it' refer to? Was he really trying to tell me something, or is it my wishful thinking in hoping that I could have changed his fate?"

Hermione laughed bitterly at herself at the thought. Who was she that she dared to think of herself as playing God? Changing another's fate indeed! The only fate she should be changing is her own. Perhaps she needed distraction from her humdrum life, she mused. Perhaps she was bored of life with Ron. Perhaps a part of her felt that she could have done better.

She and Ron did not meet on any level, but she opted to marry him because he was the only one who had seen her as a desirable female and not just a walking repository of information. While Viktor Krum had certainly seen her as a female, his attentions towards her stemmed from mere brotherly affection. Oh yes, Hermione knew that she had thrown herself into marriage for a stupid reason. Her father was right – marriage with an unequal partner was most trying. Perhaps this need to discover the causes of her nightmares has its roots in her desire to change her fate, or at least, have a respite from the fate she had chosen for herself. Hermione was not one to shirk off her responsibilities, and since she had already chosen marriage to Ron, she would stick with it. However, she acknowledged that a part of her wished she had kept her options open. In that respect, she reflected dryly, she and Severus Snape were alike. They both wanted to change their fates after experiencing the attendant pains of their past choices – he from joining the Death Eater camp, and she from marrying Ronald Weasley. However, they both felt it was their responsibility to stick by their original decisions while doing everything they could to alleviate the weight of that responsibility. He had done so by turning to Dumbledore and serving the Order of the Phoenix; she did so by immersing herself in her career.

Curling her lips into a smirk of self-deprecation at that realisation, she wondered about the concept of changing one's fate. Indeed, most people assume human beings can change their fate. This view is very apparent in the works of the Renaissance and even in the world today. Why is it this well attested? Look at the world today; everything that has benefited us exists by virtue of modern science and technology, and of course the prevalence of magic in the Wizarding world. In Muggle Britain, there was great emphasis on people looking to do research in the life sciences and biotechnology, in the hope that the principles of the new sciences will ultimately overcome human mortality. The Wizarding World was no different. Where people in the Muggle world sought to replace body parts to live longer, Wizards sought to render themselves invincible through magical spells, life-lengthening elixirs, the philosopher's stone, and of course, horcruxes.

The neat irony of it all, as Hermione saw it, was that science fiction and fantasy fiction had become very real. In the Muggle world, human beings learnt of the benefits of biotechnology. They believed that if biology and technology were successfully merged, then maybe human beings would not require physical bodies anymore. The so-called benefits envisioned by Muggles were based on the belief that once they did not have bodies, they would not degenerate; and because they would not degenerate, they could potentially live forever. The Wizarding community was similar in that the existence of potions, spells, charms and horcruxes would obviate the need for a body and would, in theory, bring everlasting life. Regardless as to whether one was a Muggle or a Wizard, it is believed that once the ability to live forever is acquired, one can do so in a happy and blissful state without the hassle of a human body. All this desire to live forever is just a manifestation of controlling fate, and a belief that in changing oneself, one can change the world. But can we change the world when we cannot even can our own fate? Science, technology and magic claim that they will help us to change our fate, but is not the modern understanding of the man's ability to change his fate predicated on science and technology for Muggles and the ability to manipulate magic for Wizards? In turn, is the understanding on science, technology, and magic not predicated on the presupposition that humans are independently able to understand, master and control nature? How can Muggles claim to be able to understand, master and control nature when all they do is destroy it in their search for technological progress? How can Wizards claim to be able to understand, master and control nature if all they do is use magic to distort nature's true qualities?

"Are we wrong then, in wanting to change our fates?" mused Hermione with a final sigh. Before she could dwell any further on the issue, her senior clerk walked in and informed her that her husband had arrived.

Without waiting for his wife's invitation to enter, he burst into her office. "Hello, love," he greeted and pulled her into an embrace. "Are you ready to go?"

She placed a perfunctory peck on his cheek and raised a brow. "Go where?"

"You came to see me at work today! So I have something special. Dinner tonight with me. ... Unless you don't want to," he replied despondently. "We have reservations at the Moroccan restaurant in Diagon Alley. You did say you wanted Moroccan food two months ago."

She pursed her lips thinly at herself and stifled a sigh. It was typical of her husband to make these sorts of decisions without telling her. She had once mentioned in passing she wanted to try Malaysian cuisine. How he could mix up Malaysian for Moroccan, she had no idea. Despite her mild annoyance, she managed to keep herself in check and took up her coat and handbag. It would be no use to waste a perfectly good dinner reservation, and coming to points with him would only lead to a pointless quarrel where everything she said would fly over his head again. So it was with an artificial smile pasted on her lips that she answered, "In that case, let's go."

"So how was your day?" Ron ventured at last once they Apparated to the Charing Cross Road.

"I told you in the afternoon," Hermione said with a forced smile when they entered the Leakey Cauldron and proceeded to make their way into Diagon Alley proper. "My crup got off. It will not be put to sleep. You know what's strange?"

"What?"

"I do not see why Cho Chang took up the case. What joy is there in prosecuting? It's as if Cho gets off while going against me in court. It's been the seventh case since I faced her at Inner London Crown Court for Wizards. I mean, she and I are equal in all respects – we have had the same career paths. She's even head of her Chambers at Graftonleigh Circle."

"Uh-huh," nodded Ron absentmindedly, as they walked past the thoroughfare past several used bookshops. "So, what happened to your crup? Did it get put to sleep?"

Hermione stopped in tracks and stared disbelievingly at her husband. Was he even paying attention to her? She had just told him that the outcome of her case and here he was posing a question that would not have been asked if he had listened to her. "No," she said in a deceptively smooth voice so as to mask her desire to thwack him severely or worse. "It would be good publicity for Chambers though. It demonstrates that the barristers at Chiswell Square care about the common wizard and takes all sorts of cases. What I don't get is why Cho is always taking up the same cases as me. I lay it on the fact that we share the same solicitor. I have a theory. Maybe she's feeling competitive because we're both up for..." She paused and did not finish her sentence because she was staring at the windows of a used bookshop. "Oh!" she squealed with her hands on her cheeks in joy, stopping dead in her tracks before Tamsiq Books. "The new edition of International Wizarding Laws! Look Dear, it takes into account the latest changes in Muggle Laws and how it has affected Wizarding Laws and how it will affect interpretation of Wizarding Common Law."

"No, not more books, 'Mione!" groaned Ron in protest, watching his wife stand so close to the window display of the Tamsiq second hand bookshop that her nose was almost pressed to it. "Books won't fill the stomach and certain cannot make you the feel the way I can in bed..."

"I'll just pick up a few books," she explained ignoring his last words. Then as another set of books caught her eye, she continued, "Look, Dear, books on the industrial revolution's impact on the Wizarding world and European Wizarding history! The children would love those."

"Books, books, books. They won't make me happy or put food on the table," grumbled the Auror. "Why do you keep buying so many?"

His wife however did not hear him as she had entered the bookshop to purchase the books. On her part, Hermione was less concerned with food than with finding hidden gems in old, musty bookshops. Diagon Alley had improved a vast deal since her time as a student at Hogwarts. The district had undergone much development over the years and was now a viable commercial hub for Wizarding London. Businesses of all kinds flourished and everything one could possibly imagine from the far-flung corners of the world could be found in the modern Diagon Alley.

Hermione was animatedly considering these improvements to the development of infrastructure and economic policies in Wizarding London whilst happily bustling between the shelves near the glass display of the shop when she giggled to herself. Her husband had apparently slouched over in disappointment and was leaning on the glass, waiting for her in resignation.

"Now, there's a good boy," she thought with another mirthful laugh as she added the three volumes of a set of books simply entitled Curses by Cotefredus Agilolfing to the growing stack of tomes she wished to purchase that day. Poor Ron, always left to wait for his wife whilst she made her book purchases.

She stood by the glass watching him until her attention was arrested by two men (who looked much younger than her, possibly in their early twenties) across the street. They appeared to have just emerged from Rotten Row Books, another second hand bookshop. One appeared to be lanky dark-haired chap with a neat crop side-parting on the left, an unremarkable complexion and a hooked, aquiline nose. The other, in sharp contrast to his companion, had long dirty blond hair in a ponytail, a ruddy appearance, and was cheerfully rotund. He seemed to be talking with much verve, as evinced by his wide hand gestures. In particular, it was the dark-haired fellow clutching several books to his chest who caught Hermione's attention. There was something about him she found vaguely familiar and unsettling.

Was she drawn by the way in which he looked askance at his friend, who was pointing at something on her side of the street? Or was she drawn by the way he seemed to move so elegantly? Hermione did not know because her attention was immediately captured by the object of his plump friend's animation. Only her sister-in-law, Fleur Delacour-Weasley, could excite such a reaction from heterosexual males, she shook her head sympathetically as Fleur and her husband, Bill, walked past the bookshop and exchanged greetings with Ron. Sensing trouble as the plump man dashed across the street in an attempt to chat up the beauty, Hermione quickly paid for her books and went outside.

The moment she stepped out on the cobblestones she heard the dark-haired man of her observations shout out in German, "Heinrich, do not be a fool! She is a Veela!"

Undeterred by his friend's cautionary remark, the unfortunate Heinrich raced over to their end of the street and stammered foolishly upon offering Fleur the carnation from his buttonhole. His dark-haired companion quickly dashed across the street and tried to pull him away only to knock both Hermione and himself down, thereby strewing his and Hermione's books all over the pavement.

Thankfully, Fleur and Bill were much amused by the reaction of the man, and Fleur even graciously accepted the flower. Ron, on the other hand, was gaping like a fish wondering what he ought to do. When it finally struck him that he should help his wife pick up her books, he stooped down only to realise he could not tell which books were hers and which were the other gentleman's. In any case, it was Hermione and Bill who had put things to right by sorting out the books and helping the two fallen people up. At that moment, when Hermione returned the books to the dark-haired wizard, their eyes met. Curiously enough, as they did so, they both inexplicably started a little.

"Tut es hier weh?" she asked the gentleman in German, indicating the elbow that he had come into contact with her stack of books. As she did so, she could not help noticing the faint curling of his lips in disdain at his friend.

"Yes, quite," he replied in heavily German accented English. Then turning to Fleur and Bill whom he immediately recognised as a married couple, he apologised profusely on behalf of his friend who had so lately made a fool of himself. "Excuse my friend, Herr und Frau. In Bavaria, we do not have women as beautiful as you. It was not my friend's intention to outrage the beautiful Frau's modesty."

Bill only laughed. "It happens all the time, no harm done. The important thing is that you are all right; you took quite a fall there, bumping into my sister-in-law and her books."

"Oui, you must take more care of yourself and not only of your friend," chimed in Fleur with a smile. Then addressing the very smitten Heinrich, she continued, "Merci, monsieur for zee flower."

"Now if you will excuse me, my wife and I have to meet our friends. Night, Ron, Hermione!" said Bill as he and Fleur walked off, leaving a gaping Ron and Heinrich in their wake.

Hermione only shook her head at her husband and bent down to gather the rest of the dark-haired fellow's books. On handing him his books, their fingers touched lightly, causing both party's eyes to fly up in shock as they levelled their gazes at one another.

"Danke sehr schön," he muttered lowly, his eyes still locked on hers.

She swallowed hard. She could see steely intellect in those eyes as well as acute sense of self-understanding. Just who was he? Why did she find him so familiar? She knew no one from Germany and was certainly not acquainted with anyone who resembled him. Why then did she find herself drawn to this stranger? Apparently, he must have felt something familiar about her too; otherwise, he would not be maintaining eye contact with her. Good Merlin! They had been holding each other's gaze for more than was commonly polite. At last, she cleared her throat and replied, "Keine Ursache."

"Nein. Vielen Dank für Ihre Bemühungen," he insisted in a light purr.

She smiled at him and released her grip on his books. In response, he clutched them closer to his chest as if they could protect him against the external forces of someone running into him again. "Bitte sehr," she answered, still maintaining eye contact with him.

As Hermione and this young man were trying to uncover a reason as to why they were alternatively shocked and drawn to the sight of each other, Ron was slowly recovering from his rapt admiration of Fleur. Once he returned to the land of the semi-lucid, he realised that his wife was staring at a young man, who was staring back at her. Wondering what was going on, he looked to his wife and then to the young man, and back at his wife again. When it finally occurred to him that staring at strangers was not the thing in society, Ron was very displeased. He would have spoken out against the young man had not his wife requested that he pick her stack of books for her.

This allowed her the opportunity to slap off some dust from the young man's suit. "Alles Gute und Gute Nacht," she said by way of parting and took her husband's arm, leaving the dark-haired wizard and his companion staring after her.

"I didn't know you speak Russian," commented Ron when they had moved a few steps forward. "Learnt it from Krum, eh?"

"I don't speak Russian. It was German," she explained. "And Viktor is Bulgarian."

"Okay then. I didn't know you speak German."

"You never asked."

"My wife is truly the smartest witch in our time, knowing things that I don't even know she knows," Ron spat with a hint of a sour note in his voice. "Why were you staring at him like that? Do you know him?"

"He struck me as familiar; that's all," Hermione equivocated. She could not confide in Ron that she had an odd sense of déjà vu on coming into contact with the young wizard. He would only accuse her of taking an interest in men other than his worthy self. It was, truth be told, one of Ron's failings. His insecurity always meant that he immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion whenever Hermione expressed admiration for any male other than his fine self. She had learnt to work around it now, by keeping her thoughts on other specimens of manhood to herself. It was too much to hope that her husband would understand that her appreciation of another male's looks and qualities did not extend to any desire on her part to sample their wares. But Ron had always been an insecure sort and nothing she did could change that. Instead, she smiled reassuringly at him and continued, "I thought I recognised him as one of the solicitors at Strauss and Leibniz. I was mistaken. He's much too young to be with Gottfried and Johann's Chambers. You must own that he does bear more than a passing resemblance to Johann Leibniz."

"I don't know any of these people, 'Mione," sighed Ron. "I wish you wouldn't talk to me about work all the time. Even when I ask you a simple question like whether you knew that bloke, you had to bring in work and other lawyers. Wait till we sit down! I will tell you again about what happened to me at the Auror field training division!"

Though she was inwardly seething at his failure to appreciate her sharing of her friends and her workday when he was so ebulliently wanted share his, she contained herself. Losing her temper would not resolve anything. She chose instead to smile and lean her head on his shoulder in a bid to placate him. "Are you jealous that the poor boy was staring at me?"

"Yes," he confessed with a faint blush, evidently displeased with himself for not trusting his wife.

She tossed her head back in a laugh and snuggled closer to comfort him. "Don't worry, Ron. He was just struck down by the impact of running into me, that's all. The chances of any of us meeting him again are so slim that they are negligible."

FOOTNOTES:

The Gorgon in the title refers to Nagini. I know she is not a 'real' Gorgon'. However, I believe her role in the books position her as a kind of symbolic Gorgon. There is another reason for dubbing Nagini the Gorgon, and that will be more apparent in subsequent chapters.

There are double entendres in the title (of the literary kind not the sexual kind as my prelim reader thought). Make what you will of them.

All references to characters are from Rowling's Harry Potter universe unless otherwise stated.

Facts about Wizarding Law and Wizarding Politics are made up.

Facts about the improvements of any Wizarding and/or Muggle object, governing body, and facility are made up.

Facts about other Harry Potter universe characters in the post-Voldemort years are also made up.

My beta alerted me to the fact that my use of "Enquire" as opposed to "Inquiry" may throw some readers off. In the way I was taught:

"Inquiry" is to investigate something. Example: The auditors launched an inquiry into the state of the company's financial situation.

"Enquire" is to ask (a question). Example: May I enquire whether room 17 is available?

Legal references are to British Law. American readers, please bear with me. My beta also made the suggestion that readers unaccustomed to the legal jargon herein pretend you are watching "Rumpole of the Bailey" or "Sherlock Holmes".

Chambers refers to the rooms used by a barrister or group of barristers, especially in the Inns of Court. Barristers are not employed in a law firm but associate fraternally with each other, sharing out the burden of costs, in a set of chambers. They are each legally considered self-employed. Chambers are administered by law clerks, who receive cases from Solicitors, agreeing on behalf of their barristers on fees and suchlike. Barristers are then given details of their cases by the Clerks. Because they are self-employed, Barristers may either base themselves in chambers or otherwise

The Head of Chambers, usually a King's Counsel or Queen's Counsel or a 'senior junior', may exercise a powerful influence on the members (and the Head Clerk who finds all the work) of Chambers. In Chambers, all members will offer informal help and guidance to each other. However they are not liable for each other's business (as partners are), and members of the same set of chambers may indeed appear on opposite sides in the same case. Each barrister remains an independent practitioner, being solely responsible for the conduct of their own practice and keeping what they earn rather than drawing a salary. A barrister in independent practice will be instructed by a number of different solicitors (professional clients) to act for various different individuals, agencies or companies (lay clients).

Prior to having her own Chambers, Hermione was an 'employed' barrister, meaning a barrister who works as an employee within a larger organisation either in the public or private sector such as government departments or ministries like the Ministry of Magic. 'Employed' barristers will typically be paid a salary, and in most circumstances may only do work on behalf of their employer, rather than accepting instructions on behalf of third parties (such as their employers' customers).

A barrister is the lawyer who represents litigants as their advocate before the courts of that jurisdiction. A barrister will usually have rights of audience in the higher courts, whereas other legal professionals will have more limited access, or will need to take additional qualifications to do so. In this regard, the profession of barrister corresponds to that part of the role of legal professionals found in the civil law jurisdictions relating to appearing in trials or pleading cases before the courts.

A solicitor is a lawyer who has more direct contact with the clients, whereas barristers often only become involved in a case in order to provide any advocacy needed by the client. Barristers are also engaged by solicitors to provide specialist advice on points of law. Barristers are rarely, if ever, instructed by clients directly. Instead, the client's solicitors will instruct a barrister on behalf of the client when appropriate.

Tamsiq is qismat spelt backwards. Qismat is the English transliteration of the Persian word for fate or destiny, frequently romanised as Kismet. I have opted to keep as true to the original word as possible and so transliterated it as Qismat.

Cotefredus Agilolfing, the author of the fictional Curses series is the Latinised version of Gottfried (died 709AD), one of the Merovingian Dukes of Alamannia. The Agilolfings were a family of Frankish or Bavarian nobility that ruled the historical territory of Bavaria on behalf of their Frankish overlords ca. 550-788AD.

'Tut es hier weh' is German for 'Does it hurt here?'

'Danke sehr schön' is German for 'Thank you very much'.

'Keine Ursache' is German for 'Don't mention it' (as in a response to 'thank you'.)

'Nein. Vielen Dank für Ihre Bemühungen' is German for 'No. Thank you very much for all your trouble'.

In this context, 'Bitte sehr' is German for 'You're welcome'.

'Alles Gute und Gute Nacht' is German for 'All the best and good night'.

I know that Fleur is not 100% Veela, but she still has enough Veela blood in her to have 'that' effect on men. The unnamed dark-haired chap who warned his friend belatedly that Fleur is a Veela can feel 'that' power she exudes over men to make such a pronouncement on her heritage.

A Crup, according to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, resembles a Jack Russell terrier with a forked tail. It is a wizard-created dog that is loyal to wizards and ferocious towards humans. Crup licences must be obtained from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.