Rating:
PG-13
House:
Schnoogle
Characters:
Original Female Witch Original Male Wizard
Genres:
Drama Wizarding Society
Era:
The Harry Potter at Hogwarts Years
Spoilers:
Order of the Phoenix
Stats:
Published: 01/27/2007
Updated: 01/27/2007
Words: 4,425
Chapters: 1
Hits: 176

A Bitter Harvest of a Dying Bloom

Chris Graham

Story Summary:
Two investigative reporters from The Daily Prophet newspaper take on various disguises and infiltrate St. Mungo's Hospital to unravel the mysterious details in an arrest of one of its Healers. The trail of evidence leads them into the heart of the Ministry of Magic itself!

Chapter 01 - Secrets and Suppositions

Chapter Summary:
In the opening chapter, we meet two investigative reporters for The Daily Prohphet who are charged with writing a story about a Healer from St. Mungo's Hospital who has been secretly arrested by Aurors.
Posted:
01/27/2007
Hits:
170


A BITTER HARVEST OF A DYING BLOOM

** Chapter 1 **

Secrets and Suppositions

The increasing sound of footfalls from the hallway outside of his office, told Alistair Holdsworth that they were finally coming for him. He wiped the sweat from his brow and hastily unpacked some files from his old brown satchel. The noise from the approaching crowd stopped suddenly outside of his office door and was quickly replaced by the pounding of a fist upon the thick oak door.

"Mr. Holdsworth!" the voice from outside shouted. "Open the door, sir! It's rather urgent that I speak with you! There are men here, sir! Some men from The Ministry that wish to see you!"

The voice behind the door belonged to Alistair's assistant, Malcolm Garwood, who until recently would not have had to knock to gain entrance to Alistair's office. Garwood would have traditionally Apparated into the office if he was on another floor of the Hospital, or he would have just simply opened the door in case Alistair had begun some haphazard experiment set up in the middle of the room, which could make appearing out of thin air dangerous. All of this was before Garwood discovered that an anti-Apparition ring had been placed on his mentor's office, not to mention that Holdsworth's behavior toward Garwood had changed dramatically. The change in Alistair's behavior had grown stranger by each passing day until it eventually forced Malcolm to take precautions when confronting Alistair about his suspicions. Garwood had armed himself with some "Men from The Ministry" by his side in case of any real trouble with his Master.

Alistair took out the last batch of files left in his satchel and placed them on top of his desk. On the very top of the stack, there was a thick file wrapped in twine that Alistair began gently caressing while he softly whispered, "All my work...all my work." The banging continued, almost violently now, and Garwood's tone of voice darkened.

"We know you are in there! You might as well spare yourself some embarrassment and open this door or we are coming in after you!"

At this, Holdsworth blinked a tear away and thrust his hand into his lime-green robe for his wand. "Go away!" Alistair commanded. "I am not feeling well at all! I am afraid I can't see anyone today!"

He knew they didn't believe him, nor would they care if he really were ill. They were coming inside regardless, on this he did not doubt. He touched the tip of his wand to the twine and it began to unravel. He opened the file and removed the old diary he kept inside that had made the file so bulky, and then placed it on the desk next to the folder. He examined the picture attached to the left inside of the folder one last time. Then he flipped through his notes that were scribbled on the parchment attached to the right side of the folder. These notes contained his theories, his findings, his diagnosis, and the many signatures on the copies of the visit registries and the release forms.

"It truly is a shame," he whispered, knowing full well of what he knew he was going to have to do. The pounding on the door did not let up, and Alistair quickly scrambled over to the bookcase on the wall. He thumbed through the spines of the books on the third shelf that contained the Muggle books he fancied--not because he felt they held any real value in his field of study mind you--he just loved to read what Muggle interpretations of magic were. He stopped between the hardbound copy of "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage" translated by Mathers, and the collected graphic novel, "The Books of Magic" by Gaiman. In between these sacred tomes, one of his favorite books sat waiting for him: "The Book of Marvelous Magic" by Mentzer and Gygax, which had become a source book on magical items and their meanings for some kind of game about "Mazes and Monsters" or some other such Muggle nonsense.

Holdsworth grabbed this book and pulled it halfway out of the bookcase and then put it back into its place. This action triggered a portion of the corner of the office floor to begin glowing a bright orange and finally to disappear entirely. Through the hole it left, a large liquid-filled stone basin with intricate markings around the rim, and perched atop a one meter high, solid marble column rose up out of the floor and floated briefly above the hole. The space beneath the column reappeared, and the orange glow subsided as the column slowly lowered itself back to the ground. The Healer then turned back to his desk and the pounding on the door finally ceased. Holdsworth heard more voices outside of his office, and he knew that now was the time to do what had to be done.

"They will never find you," he said to the diary, clinging to it like a lost lover.

Holdsworth placed the diary back into the folder and dropped the file, notes and all, into the basin of the swirling liquid. He raised his wand and muttered, "Incendio." A blue flame sparked on the top of the liquid just as the door to his office was shattered into pieces.

"STUPEFY!" A streaming jet of red light hit Holdsworth square in the back and knocked him forward into the column. The bowl of flaming liquid fell to the ground and upon impact, tossed blue flames onto the curtains and the sofa. The liquid had all but vanished. Alistair Holdsworth lie unconscious, crumbled in the corner, while the marble column was still tilting back and forth as if it were still fighting to keep its balance.

*************************************************

Thomas Lamprey, an expert investigative reporter for the wizarding world's premiere newspaper, The Daily Prophet, was sitting in his usual spot behind his desk on the third floor of the newspaper's headquarters. Lamprey had his feet propped up on the top of his desk and was leaning back in his chair while reading yesterday's edition of The Quibbler magazine, a scandalous and sometimes hilarious version of current events, organized in magazine form and the opposite of The Daily Prophet in almost every way. He sat humming happily to himself; there was nothing he liked better than to indulge in the ridiculous tripe that passed for news contained within its pages. Thomas' partner, Vena Honeybourne, was sitting only a desk away dictating to her enchanted quill, which had been meticulously crafting every word she was saying.

"...so once again and for the very last time, The Ministry promises that any disturbances witnessed recently in Hogsmeade couldn't possibly have been the work of You-Know-Who or any of his followers because as any sensible witch or wizard knows, he has not returned."

Vena paused, looked up at the ceiling and moved her head slightly from side-to-side as if she were contemplating some difficult arithmetic problem, and then nodding, she continued on. "Scratch that last part," she said to the quill. "Add this: he has not, nor will he ever return." Satisfied with her amendment to the article, she shooed the quill back into its ink reservoir and turned her attention to Thomas.

"Now this is news," she proudly proclaimed pointing at the rapidly drying parchment she had been writing, "not like that rubbish you insist on reading."

As the parchment dried, it began folding itself up and then it gently floated into the air and out above the heads of the other reporters. The story headed down the hall towards the Editor's office.

"Rubbish?" Thomas answered, without taking his face from behind the magazine. "If it weren't for this rubbish people wouldn't believe the stuff that we print. We need this outlandish drivel so that our outlandish drivel seems believable. What we write is the real rubbish." He lowered the magazine just enough for his eyes to meet hers and added, "And may I say my dear, I can't quite compliment you enough on how well you craft the news."

"That again?" Vena protested. "You know good and well that what we do is not create the news, we report the news! We tell the public about the facts."

"The facts as The Ministry see fit to report them you mean," Thomas interjected. "I know you haven't been with us very long Miss Honeybourne, but you should have learned at least that by now. It is a commonly held preconception that The Daily Prophet is the propaganda machine of The Minister of Magic himself! What we do is tell the public exactly what he wants them to know. And quite frankly, I am getting sick and tired of it." Thomas raised the magazine back to his face, while Vena pondered his words.

"So why have you been here so long then? How many partners has it been? If you believe so profoundly in this--this idea of us being propaganda machinists--than why do you stick through it? What keeps a man like you here anyway, Tom?"

Lamprey lowered the magazine to his lap and stared for a few moments into Vena's light hazel eyes. "You know I like to see my name in the papers, now don't you? Call me shallow, but I like the recognition."

"Recognition?" she spat with disbelief. "If you want recognition why don't you write a novel or something?" Lamprey's eyes began to roll to the left in their sockets. "I'm serious. You are a writer and a bloody good one too, not to mention a decent wizard at that. You could write some kind of adventure novel or mystery or something."

"No thanks," Thomas waved away the suggestion. "We already had one Gilderoy Lockhart. I don't think the world needs another. And I am not that vain."

"Bullocks!" Vena exclaimed. "If you were any more vain, you would be perched atop this building and moving around in circles every time the weather changed directions."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Thomas asked, not catching the reference. "Is this some more of your Muggle-talk?"

"Never mind about that. But I am serious, Tom. You could be a novelist and you would be good you know?"

"I am already good."

Thomas picked up the magazine again and the smile returned to his face as he was back in the world of The Quibbler.

"What you are--is impossible!" Vena added, as she rose from her chair to stretch.

"Impossibly good," Thomas threw her way, still buried in the magazine. "And you forgot to call me shallow. I told you to call me that."

A grin chased away the frustration from Vena's face and she shook her head with both respect and disbelief at the same time. "I don't know how your wife puts up with you. I really don't."

"What can I say, she has great taste," Lamprey added just as a young mail-clerk carrying a rather large sack over his shoulder appeared in front of Vena and Thomas' desk and greeted the duo in his usual way.

"Hello, Vena," the young man said, trying hard not to stare at Vena. "The owls keep bringing them in and I keep counting them." He held up the sack for Vena's consideration.

"Hello, Ian," Vena replied with a measure of disappointment, not directed at Ian, but at the bag she knew contained the many letters that she had been promising her Editor she would get to for over a week now.

"And it's Mr. Lamprey, isn't it?" Ian asked with a smirk.

"So Ian," Thomas began, carefully dipping each word in sarcasm, "how's London's hardest working--mail boy?"

"A bit more condescending next time if you please," Ian retorted sharply. "It appears as if you are slipping a bit." Ian dropped the bag onto Thomas' desk and turned on his heel without a goodbye.

"Why do you do that to him, Tom? He's such a nice boy," Vena said, as she reached over to his desk and opened the mailbag. She began digging through the pounds of envelopes consisting of fan letters and hate mail. She grabbed a handful and sat back down at her desk.

"Do what? Oh, go on, Miss Honeybourne, he enjoys it! It's part of this little thing we have."

"Well, you better be careful, Tom. Someday that little thing of yours is going to get you into trouble."

"Which little thing are we talking about now?" Lamprey coolly inserted, not missing a beat.

"That's hardly funny now, is it?" Vena hissed back, throwing Tom a dirty look and a couple of letters addressed to him.

"Sorry. But don't worry about me; I will be fine whatever trouble I might get into. And speaking of trouble..." Tom leaned forward in his chair as if to whisper a secret to Vena. "That nice boy of yours has had some rather un-nice thoughts about you, I might say."

"Oh come on!" Vena pulled back, mostly from embarrassment because its possible that she has had the same un-nice thoughts run across her mind a time or two about Ian. "He's just a kid. He couldn't be a year or two fresh out of Hogwarts, now can he?"

"He's older than you think actually," Lamprey replied. "In fact, I'd gather he's probably closer to your age than you realize. His youthful appearance is probably God's way of making up for the fact that the poor chap wasn't able to even attend Hogwarts. He's a Squib, you see."

Vena recoiled even farther back. "Oh. Oh my...I didn't know that."

"Don't feel too bad for him. Lots of people go through life being robbed of our marvelous gift of magical powers," Thomas contemplated as he sorted through the letters, stopping to smell a few and tossing the rest back into the bag. "After all, we can't all be wizards and witches, you know. The world needs those...those other people too."

Vena sat upright in her chair as if ready for a scrap. "Other people! Why Mr. Lamprey, on top of being shallow, don't tell me you are prejudiced too?"

"Most shallow people are," he replied. "That's what makes us shallow in the first place. But to answer your question, I am not really prejudiced. I am in fact a realist. I mean, how many wizards would actually be happy if they lost their magical powers and became like our 'nice-boy' over there?"

Vena put both of her hands on her waist and leaned over in her chair in defiance. "I know plenty of non-magic people in this world who are very happy being who they are."


"Really," Tom answered, in utter disbelief. "Name one of them. And not that poor sod, because there is no way I will believe that Ian is happy. I mean, look at him!"

Vena had looked at Ian enough times since she began working in this department to know that he wasn't truly happy. Perhaps the feelings she had towards him were really pity, and possibly misinterpreted as something else by her heart.

"I can name one," Vena said, turning her attention back to Thomas. "My Grandmother on my Mother's side. She's a Muggle and I know for a fact that she is very happy."

"Is she now? Well, to spare everyone here from a very long and pointless conversation, let me just ask you a few questions. Do you think that she would be as happy as you claim she is, if she hadn't married a wizard and bore him magical children? What if she had married an ordinary Muggle man, and they had ordinary Muggle children, and those children had married ordinary Muggle children, and you yourself were just an ordinary Muggle woman? Would your Grandmother still be happy? Would your parents? Would you? Think about that. Think really hard. And I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't keep you up at night."

Vena's eyes began to water slightly. Thomas didn't know if they were tears of pain, or embarrassment, but he knew Vena had not stopped to think about it, and if she ever had, she was probably too frightened of the thought.

"Well, Miss Honeybourne," he continued, "I'm sorry to say that we will never truly know the answer to that question, now will we? Because you see my dear, you are who you are not only because of your beliefs, and what you were taught growing up, but you are who you are because of the way God made you. And He made you a witch."

Vena swallowed hard and fought back the only way she knew how. "Well what about you then? Would you be happy?"

"Me? Well, quite frankly no. I wouldn't be happy if you were a Muggle at all. In fact I wouldn't have anything to do with you."

This made Vena chuckle briefly as Thomas' sense of humor had once again gotten the best of her. "You know that's not what I meant. I meant if you were a--" Vena trailed off and her face turned sour at realizing what a backhanded comment that truly was. "Wait a minute! Just what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, anyway? I thought you told me you weren't prejudiced."

"I'm not! I don't care about mixed heritages, and I never use the "M" word, unless I happen to be quoting some pureblooded moron. It's just...if you were a Muggle and I was still me...what would we talk about? What could we possibly have in common?"

Vena rose from her chair again but this time her eyes had turned to fire. "You are quite possibly the textbook definition of a chauvinist!"

Vena's shouting caused some of the other reporters to stop and look up from their work and over to Thomas' corner of the office. Thinking quickly, Thomas once again injected some levity.

"Isn't that a term for someone who drives someone else around in one of those Muggle cars?" He made a motion with both hands of grasping a wheel and moving from side to side. He tipped an imaginary hat to Vena to try to calm her down. His humor worked as it usually did in situations like this. She let out the breath she had been holding.

"That is a chauffer." A smile crept its way across her face. "You know something, you really are as much of a bastard as you make people think you are."

The partners settled down a little bit as Vena sat back down in her chair and the other reporters in the office turned their heads back to their work.

"And you know something," Thomas began as he once again leaned in close, "you are a lot smarter than us bastards give you credit for."

"Not bad for a quarter-Muggle, is she?" Vena said, giving Tom a quick glance. The mood was violently broken by a familiar voice they neither wanted nor expected.

"If the two of you don't mind taking a break from your Mutual-Admiration-Society Workshop, I would like a few words!"

The voice came from the head of Barnabas Cuffe, Editor of The Daily Prophet. His head was floating in the green fire that had just sparked to life in the inter-office fireplace on the wall behind Lamprey and Honeybourne's desks. These fireplaces were used for communication between offices and between floors in The Daily Prophet building, not for Floo travel. They served many purposes actually, but primarily they were used by Mr. Cuffe to sneak up on someone and yell at them from behind their back. The two reporters turned around in their chairs to face him. Now according to Thomas Lamprey, the site of Barnabas' real head would frighten most children away from sin, and into the Clergy. With that in mind, imagine the sight of it green and on fire.

"I have just received an anonymous owl. It appears that a few hours ago, a Healer at St. Mungo's Hospital was taken into custody by Aurors and brought to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at The Ministry. Miss Honeybourne, I can see by the look on your face you are no doubt going to ask some questions I don't have the answers to, so save them. Ask your questions to someone who was there and who might have seen what was going on. Now I want you two to go to St. Mungo's and get the story. Get the story, Lamprey! Do whatever it takes! I don't care how you do it, just do it!" Barnabas' eyes moved from the two reporters' faces to the copy of The Quibbler and then back to Lamprey. "If Lovegood and that infernal dustbin of a magazine scoop us on this, it will be your jobs, understood? Good. Oh, and by the way Vena, re-write that story you just did on Hogsmeade, I'm not buying it. Now get moving!"

The head disappeared as abruptly as it had come and the two reporters looked at each other in astonishment.

"Rewrite?" Vena said softly to herself.

"Get used to that my dear," Thomas returned, trying to make her feel better. "Happens to the best of us."

"I have never seen Mr. Cuffe so...so disrupted."

"He's rattled, alright. He used the word 'infernal'. This Healer he was going on about was taken to The Ministry and Barnabas wants us there as damage control. I guess we are going to have to find out what's really going on then, don't we?" Thomas said as he got up from his chair.

"And what if we can't find out what's really going on, Tom?" Vena replied, following suit and rising from her desk. "What do we do then?"

"What else? We make it up."

Both reporters gathered their things for the trip, which included Vena's enchanted quill and ink, which she plunged into her straw bag, and Lamprey grabbed his black leather briefcase. He then reached into the top drawer of his desk and grabbed his wand and tucked it neatly into the inside pocket of his coat. Vena shook off her disappointment at Cuffe's closing statement, and the two reporters pushed in their chairs and started for the exit door, leaving the unanswered letters in a pile on Thomas' desks.

"I guess it's off to the old Floo Room for us again then?" Vena asked, even though she already knew the answer to that question.

"Are you on about that again?" Thomas said, obviously annoyed.

"Not at all. You don't like traveling by Apparating. You made that clear when we were paired together."

"Look, Apparating is just not my preference. And besides, St. Mungo's is too far to Apparate to from here anyway."

"Yeah, this time. But what about last week when--"

"Drop it, Miss Honeybourne!"

"Okay, okay," Vena finally conceded grinning from ear to ear. "And I suppose traveling by broom is out of the question then?"

"As a matter of fact, it is."

Vena stood her ground as Thomas ranted on, and then she met his gaze once more. She enjoyed it when Thomas became uncomfortable enough to express how uncomfortable he really was. She also liked it when a man showed his honesty by lying.

"It is almost seven o' clock my dear, and traveling by broom would take entirely too long. I want to wrap this thing up and get back here for tea. And Floo travel is the safest and quickest way to accomplish that."

"Since when do you drink tea?" Vena sneered, as she threw her bag over her shoulder.

"I told you to drop it."

"Okay, but someday I am going to get you to tell me why you refuse to Apparate," Vena sang as she started past Thomas and headed toward the exit.

"Not bloody likely," he mumbled and then he quickly caught up to her.

They walked single-file past the rows and rows of desks, each equipped with a small fireplace inside the busy newspaper office. Mr. Cuffe's head was appearing and disappearing in those fireplaces the same as it had in theirs, and he was barking orders to his reporters and threatening jobs left and right. Lamprey reached the door to the Floo Network Room first and held it open for Vena. As she walked through it, she paused and touched him on the shoulder.

"If you won't tell me about why you won't Apparate, then tell me something else."

"Go on."

"What keeps you up at night Tom?" she asked, echoing their earlier conversation.

"Well, Miss Honeybourne, if you must know--"

"I must."

Thomas took a deep breath and sighed. "I guess it's the fact that people believe in some books and papers and stories so blindly that they forsake everything else and have absolutely no faith in other ideas."

"The Quibbler again, is it?"

"Precisely. Mr. Lovegood, the publisher of this...rag-azine if you will, believes what he prints so strongly, yet almost no one else agrees with him. But for some reason they believe us. Who's to say that what we print is anymore reliable than what he chooses to print? And some of the people out there believe us so blindly! Why is that? They don't even know us," Thomas argued while Vena nodded in agreement. "Just because you believe in something doesn't make it true, it's just something someone wrote down." He finished in a huff, and then quickly calmed down. "What about you then? What really does it for you?"

"Honestly?" Vena thought about it for a second as Thomas motioned her inside. "I think it's the fact that some of the things that are printed in The Quibbler could actually be true. I think that's what really frightens me."

"For instance?"

"I don't know, nothing in there specifically. There are things in there that sound too fantastic, and not in a good way. What if some of the things we have been hearing are true? What if...what if You-Know-Who really has returned?"

Thomas studied Vena's eyes and her fear reflected back to him and settled in his heart.

"That's not possible," he assured her as they both stepped inside.

"What makes you so certain," Vena asked as a large smirk grew on Lamprey's face.

"Because I would have read about it in The Daily Prophet. And the last thing I heard was that he has not, nor will ever return." Thomas winked at her and shut the door to the Floo Room behind them.