Dramatis Personae

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Chapter 8

By Diocletian

* * * * *

Zacharias closed his eyes, rubbed a bandaged hand over them a few times while counting to ten and opened them again. He blinked a few times, just to get back into focus, then re-read the letter he had in his hand.

'What kind of mood-swinging maniac wrote this?' Zacharias wondered, wide-eyed. Then his brow furrowed as a new thought occurred to him. 'Ron isn't going to like this. Not one bit. Why am I the one who always has to deliver stuff he's not going to like?'

He had never met the Junior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, the person who had written the bizarre letter he held in his hands, but her assistant Anthony had been at Hogwarts with him. When Anthony had spotted Zacharias in the Atrium that morning, he'd made a beeline straight towards him and asked if Zacharias was stopping by St. Mungo's.

Zacharias had hesitated. He had actually been planning on it, mainly to see if Weasley was alright, though he'd never admit that that was the reason. After a minute, he reluctantly admitted where he was going. Anthony had given a sigh of relief, passed him the letter and then told him to give it to Ron as soon as humanly possible.

"And don't let anybody read this message," Zacharias recalled him adding. "This is top-secret information, this is."

Zacharias had waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, Tony. I'll keep your message safe. Now, you go back to your business, you have better things to be doing than playing postman." Anthony had nodded in an exhausted sort of thanks and scurried away. The blonde had waited until he was out of sight before he tore open the seal on the message, pulled it out and skimmed the contents.

He shook his head in disbelief one final time, stuffed the letter into his pocket and joined the line-up for the floo fireplaces.

When he finally reached St. Mungo's a few minutes later, he wasn't pleased to find that the waiting area he arrived in didn't seem any less crowded than it had been the night before, when he'd come in because of the second degree burns he'd gotten across his hands and forearms. Though now a lot more people were wearing bandages and such, he noted, and fewer were bleeding all over the floor. That had to be an improvement.

"Smith!" A voice called out to him from across the room. Before Zacharias realized who was yelling at him, a hand clamped lightly onto his left forearm. Harry Potter used the grip he had on him to pull himself past several members of the crowd and stand beside him. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Zacharias wrinkled his nose and shrugged Potter's hand off of his arm. "Looking for Weasley," he replied. "I'm being used as a bloody owl again."

Ignoring his fellow Auror's irritation, Harry raised an eyebrow. "Which one are you trying to find? Ron or Ginny?"

Opening his mouth to send out a snarky retort, Zacharias paused for a second. "Ginny?" He didn't know Ginny had been hurt. Oh, what the hell, he thought. We work together sometimes; I'm allowed to be curious. I may as well ask. "How is she doing? Was she badly hurt?"

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, kind of. The healers said she'd be fine in a day or two, as long as she isn't straining herself or anything. She still hasn't woken up, though." He sighed and rubbed at his temples. "She had a broken arm, a couple nasty scrapes and burns. Concussion and smoke inhalation. Her parents took her to the Burrow to recuperate, free up a bed for someone else here."

Zacharias nodded. "That's good. So, uh, is Ron okay?" he asked after a few minutes. "Did they take him home, too?"

Harry rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "If only," he muttered. "No. No, Ron's fine now, but he wouldn't go home. He's camped out by the door of Hermione's room. She..." Harry paused and closed his eyes while he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Hermione took a pretty bad beating in the explosion. Colin Creevey tried to shield her, or so I'm told, but with her being pregnant and all..." He trailed off again before quietly adding, "Neither she or Colin are doing very well."

Zacharias's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Harry dragged his fellow Auror over to a pair of extra chairs and sat down. He leaned forward and replied quietly. "Colin's spine is broken. His head was nearly crushed and one of his numerous broken ribs punctured his left lung. He's in critical condition." He closed his eyes and brought a hand up once again to massage his temple. "The Healers say they're not sure if he's going to make it. But even if he does, he'll be crippled for the rest of his life." His eyes opened again and he shook his head desperately. "God, I don't know how we're going to break this to Ginny."

Zacharias sat silently for a while, allowing this information to sink in. Colin Creevey had always been...well, an oddity, certainly, but a friendly one. Before they had been in the DA together, Zacharias had always thought of him as just another younger, annoying Gryffindor, but a good-natured one at least. It was difficult to even contemplate that the miniscule young man might be dying. It just didn't seem possible. His personality seemed too bright and lively for it to come to such an abrupt, untimely halt.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 'He'll be okay,' Zacharias told himself. 'He has to be. He wouldn't be the Colin Creevey I know and am frequently irritated by if he didn't bounce back from something like this.' He opened his eyes and focused once more on Harry. "And what about Granger?" he asked after a few moments. "How's she?"

* * *

Ron was staring unseeingly at the blank white wall of the corridor when Harry went to check on him some time later. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, foregoing any of the more comfortable chairs that were sparsely lining the hallway. He had his legs crossed underneath him and his arms were propped up on his knees, but he didn't so much as glance over when Harry came closer and sat down slowly beside him.

Both of the young men remained silent for a couple of minutes, staring at the wall, before Harry let out a sigh. "Is she going to be alright?" he asked at last.

Ron finally tore his eyes away from the wall and looked over at his best friend. Harry could see the swollen red rims and tell-tale moistness to his eyes that betrayed the fact that Ron had been crying. But he didn't comment on it. He knew that it wasn't something Ron would want to talk about.

The redhead cleared his throat several times, but even so his voice still came out sounding scratchy and hoarse. "Yeah," he replied quietly. "Hermione will be okay. With time. She can't go to work for a while and I'm supposed to do everything I can to keep her relaxed and healthy when she's allowed to go home..." He suppressed an anxious gulp and closed his eyes tightly, as though trying to fight a thought out of his head. He clenched his right hand into a fist and banged it softly against the tile floor.

Had Harry not been listening so intently, he would have completely missed the next words that were forced out of his friend's mouth. "She lost the baby, Harry..."

Harry closed his eyes and tilted his head away, rubbing his forehead with the flat of his clenched hand. He heard Ron take a deep, shuddering breath before attempting to continue. "The Healer who was talking to me said that there was nothing they could have done to save it. It was already a lost cause before Hermione even arrived here. But they..." he took another deep breath, visibly calming himself down. "They said they were able to help 'Mione. They tell me that she should still be able to have children... That they managed to fix her up all good and proper."

Hearing the tremble in his oldest friend's voice, Harry opened his eyes and looked at him. The look of helplessness on Ron's face nearly broke his heart. It was the look of a man who desperately wants to do something about the situation, to fix it, to make it right again, but knows that there's nothing he can do. Harry put an arm around his shoulder. "Ron..."

Within seconds, almost too fast for either man to really process what they were doing, Ron was pressed against Harry's shoulder, his hands convulsively clutching his friend's shirt sleeve as he struggled not to let out what he was really feeling while Harry had wrapped both of his arms around the trembling redhead. He was very disturbed to see Ron so distraught, because he remembered the only previous time he had ever seen Ron in this kind of state.

It had been when Ron's brother Charlie was killed during Christmas vacation in the boys' seventh year at school. It had been a complicated situation and during the fight that had resulted in Charlie's death, Percy had finally revealed that his true loyalties lay not with his family, or even (to much surprise) with the Ministry, but with the power he had been promised by Lord Voldemort.

Ron, who had hesitantly reconciled with Percy the previous summer, and had been writing to him occasionally, blamed himself for leading Percy to them, for Charlie's death and for the pain everybody had suffered as a result of it. After struggling with the overwhelming guilt for weeks and failing in his attempts to handle it, it had caused him to leave school for almost four months.

He had returned just before the end of the school-year because he knew the final battle between Harry and Voldemort was fast approaching now that Harry would no longer be returning to the protection of the Dursleys' house. He had wanted to spend time with Harry, Hermione and everyone else before that happened--"just in case." He had very nearly missed being allowed to take his NEWTs and even then, it was only because Hermione had insisted on copying her notes and owling them to where he was staying in France every week that he had managed to pass.

Harry didn't want to see something like that happen again. The situation with Percy had torn Ron to bits, and Hermione was going to need his support now. "It'll be okay, mate," Harry told him gently. "I'll stick around so you don't get left alone and then you'll see Hermione before you know it. Alright?" Ron sniffed quietly and nodded, pulling away.

He closed his eyes, took a few more deep breaths and sighed. Then he opened his eyes and glanced back over at Harry, taking in the rustled, slightly damp state of his shirt and wrinkling his nose in self-disgust. "I'm sorry for blubbering all over you, man," he said.

Harry smiled and waved his hand dismissively. He was right. Ron would be okay, with time. Things were going to work out fine.

He stretched his arms out above his head and felt paper crinkle in his pants pocket. He reached into it and pulled out a bent and folded envelope. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot," he said, brow furrowing slightly as he handed over the letter. "Smith stopped by. Said the Ministry sent this for you to read. ASAP."

Ron read his name on the front, flipped it over and saw the broken seal. "Did you read this?" he asked. Harry shook his head. Ron sighed, mildly exasperated. "That Smith's a nosy bastard, isn't he?" He pulled the letter out of the envelope. "He's always got to know everything, for the sole purpose of rubbing it in other people's faces." Harry shrugged noncommittally and Ron scanned the first few lines of his letter. He frowned suddenly and re-read them before continuing through the rest of the message.

After reading it twice more, he set it down and ran a hand through his tangled red hair. "Bloody hell," he muttered to himself.

"What is it?" Harry asked curiously.

Ron shook his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Darcie and Richards are dead."

Harry's eyes widened. "What, both of them? Are you serious?" Ron nodded, still mildly dumbfounded. "Well then, who's in charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement now?"

A funny look crossed Ron's face and he tucked his letter slowly back into its envelope. "I am."

"WHAT?"

Ron shook his head bemusedly. "I've just been promoted to Head of the Department."

"Didn't you once say that you would rather be slowly flogged to death with pink and purple shoelaces than become a Head of Department?"

"Yes. Probably more than once."

Harry snatched the envelope out of Ron's hands and tore the letter out of it. His eyes hurriedly scanned the message within, while Ron stood up and walked over to the window at the end of the hall, checking to make sure there weren't any pigs flying by.

~

August 24, 2005

Ronald B. Weasley

547 Maybury Hill Road

Brighton, East Sussex

Dear Mr. Weasley,

We regret to inform you that your co-workers, Mr. Hank Z. Richards and Ms. Darcie Bethel of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, were both killed in yesterday's tragedy. We are very sorry for your loss, but with Mr. Richards and Ms. Bethel's passing, you are now the senior-most person currently working in your department.

By order of the Minister for Magic, the Honourable Wagman Shoal, you are to be officially appointed as the new Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as of 2 p.m. today, unless you or a family member can provide reasonable grounds for us to proceed differently. Please respond ASAP with your reply and report personally to Minister Shoal's office at your earliest convenience.

Congratulations!

Yours sincerely,

Mildred Morraine

Junior Undersecretary to the Minister

~

Harry goggled for a few moments before shaking his head in mild disbelief. He passed the scrap of paper back to Ron, who stuffed it carelessly into his back pocket and sat back down. "That letter was messed up," he said after a while. "Who starts a letter with 'we regret to inform you,' and ends it with 'congratulations'?"

"No one's ever accused any of the Ministry Undersecretaries of being normal," Ron countered absently. "Remember that Umbitch woman? She was a right peach, that one. She sent Dementors after her targets. I suppose I'm lucky all they had in store for me was a promotion."

Harry raised an eyebrow concernedly. "You okay, Ron? You seem a bit...off." Harry trailed off, but gave his friend a questioning look. Ron sighed.

"I'm fine. Just wondering if my laziness yesterday morning saved my life or not."

Though it seemed to be nothing more than a casual comment with no apparent deeper meaning at the time it was spoken, in days to come both young men would hear that phrase replay in their heads over and over again, and would wonder at the secret truth it may have held. But at that particular moment in time, Ron was busying tapping his fingernails against the linoleum on the floor. "Hermione won't be awake for at least a few hours," he said at last. "I should go send an owl to Shoal, ask if 'I really don't wanna,' counts as a reasonable excuse."

Ron pulled himself up off the floor again. He paused and sent Harry an imploring look. "Could you by any chance look in on Colin for me? The Healers said he helped save Hermione's life, trying to shield her and all." He shuffled his feet awkwardly. "I heard that he wasn't doing very well. Could you just drop in, check on him?"

Harry nodded. "'Course. Besides if Ginny found out I didn't, she'd have my head on a pike in about four seconds flat." Ron smiled slightly.

"That is true. Have you heard if she's been awake yet?" he asked. Harry shook his head.

"Dunno."

Ron sighed again. "Oh, well. She'll be okay. She's too fucking stubborn not to be."

* * * * *

August 25, 2005:

The morning sunlight streamed through the window into Ron's home office, settling gently, and unnoticed, against the wood-paneled wall. The redhead himself ignored the intrusion and guzzled another cup of lukewarm coffee before continuing to immerse himself in the files and papers on his desk. He had been at it all night, going over these reports from work. He couldn't sleep and his--he held back a shudder--new job came with a LOT new responsibilities. And this was not an easy time to be in charge of the DMLE. Aside from the routine, everyday incidents that were considered normal for the Department, they were also leading an investigation into the cause and/or perpetrators of the Summit bombing. Then there were the victims, families of the victims, and the--oh, God--ambassadors' home countries, who were all demanding compensation and some kind of an explanation. Ron was now in charge of dealing with all of these problems, not to mention the mountain of paperwork that went with them.

And then, of course, there were the employee records. Ron couldn't forget about looking through those. Now that Richards and Darcie were dead and he was in charge, albeit reluctantly, the positions of Junior and Senior Deputy Heads of the Department were open and had to be filled immediately. Ron was not looking forward to it. Minister Shoal, looking extremely harassed when Ron had gone to see him the day before, had had his hands full with trying to prevent an international incident from occurring. He had told Ron that he "didn't give a flaming shite" who he hired as long as they knew something about Defence Against the Dark Arts and Magical Law and they were willing to start NOW.

Ron had a vague idea for the Junior Deputy, but he was lost on figuring out a candidate for the Senior, and he had been through just about every employee file in the DMLE. Nobody had enough management experience--hell, HE barely had any and now he was in charge, for Merlin's sake. The guy he had in mind for JD, a well-connected fellow named Francis Xavier, who had been Head Boy during Ron's fourth year at school, had some knowledge about the whole thing, but not so much in administration. What Ron was looking for was someone like...like...like Lupin or something. Someone who didn't need an atlas to find his own arse amidst a wad of paperwork, but who still understood how the law was supposed to work throughout it all and who was willing to leave the post they were currently at.

Maybe I can ship someone out and ask Lupin to train them for a couple of weeks, he thought. He'd teach them to do it properly. Lupin's good at that sort of thing.

Ron paused for a moment before the idea that had been swimming right in front of his face finally succeeded in smacking him upside the head. He practically launched himself out of his seat and at his bookshelf, skimming over the titles of a series of very thick tomes near the bottom.

Finding the one he was looking for, Ron haltingly managed to pull it out from the shelf. He hefted it painfully onto his knee before he was able to get a firm enough grip on it to hold it up on its own. The gold-gilt title along the spine glittered in the early morning light, reading "An Encyclopedic Study of Magical Law (By Topic): T-W". He carried it a few feet and dropped it loudly on top of his desk. It sent many of the sheets that had previously been scattered upon the dark wood surface spinning madly to the floor, but Ron paid them little mind.

He flipped the book open and began tearing through the pages to find the entry he was looking for. "Time-travelling," he muttered to himself, continuing to flop dozens of pages over at a time. "Under-aged wizardry, Vampires, Voodoo--Aha! Werewolves."

He placed his finger down on the page and ran it downwards slowly. "Not permitted to give birth to or sire children... keep restrained and/or under influence of Wolfsbane potion on days of full moon... cannot be employed in a regular part-time or full-time position unless employer is fully aware of the victim's affliction, and restrictions that said affliction implies."

Ron tapped the last sentence and bit his lip while he thought it over. After a while, he got up and went into the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee.

Ron was halfway through it before he made up his mind. He glanced at the clock on the wall and finished his coffee before heading to the bathroom to take a shower. It's high time, he thought to himself, that I paid a visit to my favourite former DADA professor.

* * * * *