The Heiress

I woke up the next morning with my cheek stuck to my desk by a mixture of spilt liquor and dried spit. Getting free took some doing and sitting up was even tougher. I wasn't hung over, but I still had a headache and my neck and back were making me feel every hour of the time I'd spent sprawled across my desk.

The office smelled like damp socks and sour alcohol. Quills, rolls of parchment, files, were scattered everywhere. Daphne always said I was a wild sleeper, but I was a little surprised that I'd been able to move about enough to make such a mess of things.

I looked at the clock, a little stunned to see that it was nearly 10 in the morning. It took me a minute to get my legs under me, but I managed to stumble out without hitting my head on any low-hanging structures. But as soon as I'd stepped out the front doors, I was almost pushed right back in. It was blowing its arse off outside and the streets were empty because of it. The sun was out for a change, though, and the crisp air chippered me up better than any hangover potion I'd ever tried.

I thought about going back to my flat to get something to eat, finally. I reckoned I probably needed a shower, too, but there wasn't anyone around who could speak to that - which was probably a good thing. I didn't need a mirror to know that I looked like shite.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense for me to do a bit of research before going ahead with what I was planning to do. And since at that point I really didn't know what exactly I was going to do, I was afraid that if I went home I'd just kip on the couch and sleep until next century or something. So after thinking for a few seconds more, I made up my mind and took a long, slow walk to Flourish and Botts.

Flourish and Botts was one of the few shop in Diagon Alley that hadn't gotten cabbaged during the war. Just about every other place had to be reinforced or rebuilt or reconsidered. The only mark on the place was a long smudge on the door that looked like a smeared chocoball. Inside, it was as dark and dull as it had ever been, and walking in I was reminded of why I'd never really fancied the place. It smelled like new parchment, quill ink and stale sweat, but that last part was probably me.

The bloke sitting at the counter was all stomach in a set of purple robes, and his hair reminded me a bit of Gilderoy Lockhart's. He was reading a copy of The Daily Prophet and had the same look on his face I usually did when reading about the newest way the Cannons found to lose. He looked up, stared at me for a minute, and then went back to reading.

"And what do you need?"

I thought about taking the piss, but my head was hurting too much to come up with something funny. "Happen to have a copy of the Compendium?"

"Of course," he said, turning a page of his newspaper. "I do hope you know a strong levitating charm. It's grown seventy pages just since last month."

I told him I'd be all right since I'd be Apparating, and then had to repeat myself before he heaved himself up and stumped off to the back. He mucked around for a bit and then came back with a purple-covered book trailing along behind him. I took one look and understood why he asked me about the charm. When he sat down, the book dropped on the floor and the whole shop trembled.

"That'll be five galleons, three sickles."

Apparating when trying to maintain a charm was something I didn't try to do often, and after struggling to get that bloody book to come along with me, I pretty much decided I wouldn't do it again. It settled on the floor near my couch and I flopped down to read.

The Compendium was a book I'd tried to ignore ever since Scrimgeour and his arse-kissers had come up with the idea of listing all the wizards who'd fought for the Light in both wars. The idea itself was fine, but then it came out that because there weren't enough lackeys at the Ministry to compile everything, Scrimgeour was letting some of the ones who were still alive write their own accounts of what they'd done in the wars, which ... caused problems, to say the least.

A bit of exaggeration had been expected, but to read the bloody thing, you'd think 15 or 16 blokes had been with Harry at Spinner's End, facing down Voldemort. The book was self-updating, too, and people were constantly adding more and more to their stories as they "remembered" more details.

The thing was as thick as a man's thigh and even as I thumbed through it, I could feel new pages popping up toward the end. I skipped through until I got to the "W" section, flipped through and found what I was looking for in the middle of the left-hand page.

Whetwistle, Edward B. Sr.

(b. Oct. 15, 1943 d. - March 12, 2005)

Order of Merlin, Third Class. Awarded June 1982

Golden Houndstooth for Special Services to the Ministry. Awarded April 2004

Married Agatha Renwick (June 7, 1947 - disappeared Dec. 5, 1972) in June 1963

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Either Whetwistle's entry had been handled by one of the Ministry's piss boys, or he'd been a man of pretty few words. Still, I was able to piece a few things together from what was there: He'd been involved in both wars, had been decorated - though the Golden Houndstooth award was a little suspect since Scrimgeour had never made public what constituted "special services to the Ministry." It was interesting, though not really all that surprising or uncommon, that a bloke who'd fought for the Light had turned out a son who had been in Voldemort's camp.

There were two things that I found odd, though. First, the bit about his wife. There were no other mentions of Whetwistles, and flipping through to the "R's," I didn't find any "Renwicks." The bit said that she "disappeared," and looking at the date, I wondered if that was a soft way of saying that she'd been killed by Voldemort. It would have fit - the first war was hitting its stride then, and it would make sense that Whetwistle would join the Light if he thought that his wife's "disappearance" had been caused by Voldemort.

The second thing that caught my eye was that Whetwistle's rubbish son hadn't been listed. Anyone in the Compendium who'd had children or family who'd died before they did had a listing of them, even if those people had been Death-Eaters. Under Sirius Black's entry, for example, everyone was down there, even the Malfoys, and they had been as much up Voldemort's arse as you could get. Same with Tonks and her entry. To make matters even more confusing, Whetwistle's son and the other ones that Kingsley and his lot had snuffed out, weren't even listed as Death-Eaters anywhere - but rather "Wizards of Interest," which was almost the same thing, but meant that it had never been proven that they'd been Death-Eaters or that they'd gotten a reprieve after the war. So it really made no sense at all that there's be no mention of him.

I wondered Whetwistle had pulled a "Black" and burned off his "undesirables" off his family tree. Or maybe he had been so ashamed of what his son had done, he'd wanted it to look like he'd never had a son at all. If that were true, then the bribery angle Warren had mentioned didn't wash - but it still didn't explain why Whetwistle would've left Hermione all his Galleons.

I thought about that as I read parts of the book. I came across my own entry and ignored it. Saw Percy's and read it through, tearing up a little at the part Mum had added about Perce becoming "reconciled with his estranged family shortly before his death." I went backward to Harry's. His was almost shorter than Whetwistle's, and I laughed at the thought of how Scrimgeour must've looked when he saw how his stupid "let them write their own histories" blew up in his face there. I stopped myself from reading Hermione's entry, shut the book and dragged my arse up and off to bed.

Before I tumbled in, I dashed off a note to Wren cancelling our date for tonight. I probably didn't say the right things, but blaming it on being tired and half-pissed probably wouldn't have endeared me to her anyway.

I spun out some rot about a "family emergency" and apologised about three or four dozen times. I wished I'd had something to send along with it - flowers, maybe, or something from Honeydukes - but the only thing I had around were scattered Galleons from Daphne's visit. I reckoned that it might give Wren the wrong idea if I sent something like that along, so I ended it there and sent Pig on his way.

I flopped onto my bed and set my wand to go off in four hours. I took my usual position - on my back, staring up at the ceiling - and it was a long, long time before I was able to get to sleep.

~*~

Five hours later, it was still cold and not-rainy. But on the plus side, I was not-drunk and shaved, in warm Muggle clothes and walking relatively steadily up a quiet street to Harry and Ginny's flat.

Harry and Ginny lived in Dartmouth right along the river. The area was pretty much all-Muggle, which was the way Harry had wanted it. He'd said that it had taken some convincing to get Ginny to go along with living among Muggles and cutting back on how often they used magic, but Gin seemed to adapt to it well since it meant that fewer people could reach them.

Harry wasn't being pulled in a million directions the way he had been right after the war, but there were nutters still trying to get him to sign their copies of the Compendium or who wanted him to come to a birthday party or run Quidditch camps or something. They didn't have a Floo, had wards that kept everyone out - no exceptions - and used the fellytone for just about everything. Harry had his owls redirected to the Ministry, but they accepted owls from me, my Mum and Dad, and other people in our family.

Harry had said the best part was that the wizarding press couldn't get at him, though a few times I'd visited, I'd noticed a mangy dog with brown fur hanging about. It could have been nothing, but I remembered thinking that it might be an Animagus looking to catch Harry taking a pee against his building or something. I'd mentioned it to Harry, but he hadn't been too concerned, and then I didn't see the dog anymore.

I turned off the main street and on to a footpath that skirted the river. Getting close to their building, I saw the first obstacle. There was some Muggle thing that you pressed and then the voice of the person you'd rung would come out of the box, and then you'd have to answer them to prove that you were someone they knew or someone they wanted to see, and so on. Then there'd be a long buzz and the doors would unlock. I knew that if I went through all that, I might not be let in since Harry and Ginny weren't expecting me, and they might not trust me to be civil around Hermione. I didn't want to resort to using my wand, because it could be a tricky business and it'd be dangerous, too, considering how many Muggles were larking about.

I was thinking about how best to go about it when I caught a break. A man and woman were letting themselves into the building with a key. I hurried to catch up and managed to squeeze in just before the door closed. I saw the lift doors about to shut and pretty much threw myself between them, nearly getting my neck snapped off in the process. The Muggles looked annoyed when I crowded in, but didn't say anything to me. The bloke was fiddling with his belt buckle, and by the time the lift reached Ginny and Harry's floor and I stepped out, the woman was helping him with whatever problem he was having in his trousers.

I went down the hall, made one turn, then another, and I was knocking on a door that looked just about like every other door. I held my breath and braced myself.

The door opened. Almost immediately, it closed - or tried to. I wedged what I could in the doorway to keep it from slamming in my face, and ended up really regretting doing that.

"Bloody hell, Ginny! That's my foot!"

I saw the doorway open just a crack, and a sliver of a face appear in the narrow opening.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm in Muggle clothes. I have a bottle of sparkling pumpkin juice in my hands. What do you think I'm doing here?"

"Getting on every nerve that I have."

Ginny opened the door wider, but not wide enough for me to slide in. She looked as if she were still cooking, because her face was red and sweaty and there were spots of sauce on her jumper.

"You can't be here."

"Why not?"

She rolled her eyes toward the inside of the flat. "I know Harry talked to you and explained ... things."

"He said I was welcome if I could behave," I said. "I need to talk to her."

"She's been in a state all week -" She broke off and looked at me in suspicion. "Talk to her? About what?"

"Business."

"Ron, I swear if you don't stop acting like a git ..."

"I'm serious," I said. "Hermione was in Gringotts yesterday because she was having a problem, uh, with a vault. I'm just following up."

"On a Saturday evening? What lovely customer service. I can barely get someone to talk to me when I'm in Gringotts."

The door started closing again. "Unless you're going to tell me what you really want -"

Suddenly, I was looking at the back of her head. "... What did you say?"

I pressed closer to the door and heard another voice close by. "Let him in, Ginny. It's all right."

The crack in the door widened. I looked over Ginny's head and saw Harry standing behind her. Ginny's head whipped back around, and I made sure to keep my face on. I knew that if I so much as twitched my nose, nothing Harry could say would get me in.

"You say one word to upset her and you're out on your arse."

I walked in, handing Ginny the bottle. "Is that fish and chips I smell, or did you set your curtains on fire again?"

Ginny rushed to the kitchen, yelling something about turnips. Harry had once told me that between the two of them, Ginny was the better cook, but sometimes I found that hard to believe.

"Didn't expect you, mate," said Harry. "Ginny's right: Hermione's not been herself the past day or so. She came in yesterday, went to her room and we've barely seen her since. You know what's going on?"

"Don't you? She didn't tell you that she came to Gringotts yesterday?"

Harry shook his head. "Why was she there? Did you see her then?"

I watched his face for a second and didn't see anything shifty or evasive there. He was being serious. She hadn't told him anything - not about the vault or the letter or -

"Right," I muttered. "I need to see her. Now."

He looked uncertain, but led me down the hall to the guest room. He held up his hand for me to be quiet and knocked on the door.

"Hermione? Can you come out for a minute?"

Neither of us heard anything for a long while. Harry gave me a look and went to knock again, but just then we heard something unlatching and the door opening.

Hermione stuck her head out. "Yes, Harry? What is it?"

Her hair was a bit wilder than usual and her face had that soft, heavy look of someone who'd been woken up before she'd expected to be. When she turned her head a little, I could see how red and puffy her eyes were. She'd been crying and hadn't gotten enough rest to hide the evidence of that. She jumped a little when she caught sight of me, but didn't look all that shocked that I was there.

"Ron says he needs to talk to you about something."

"Oh."

They both looked at me. "I've been checking into some things about what we talked about yesterday," I said. "I just need to ask you a couple of questions. It won't take long."

"I see. Well ... I suppose it's all right." She blinked a few times, and then moved so that I could get by.

I went in, and Harry stood standing in the doorway, looking just like a bloke who'd been looking forward to listening to Quidditch on the Wireless and had realised he'd promised his wife that he'd spend the afternoon degnoming the garden.

"Uh, do you guys need me for anything?"

"No -"

"- Maybe," I said. "Stay within screaming distance, mate."

Harry didn't look too happy to hear that, but he shrugged and went off. I stuck my head out to watch him go. When he got to the end of the hall, I saw him look over his shoulder. I gave him a quick nod just before I closed the door.

The room was dark, warm, narrow and neat. The mussed sheets on the bed were the only sign that anyone had ever been in that room. Well, that, and a dress that was laid out on the back of chair and some bottles that were on an end-table. Actually, there were clothes on the bed, too, in heaps - right next to a long, brown valise that was already half-full of stuff.

"What's all this?"

"I'm leaving," Hermione said. "It was foolish to come back here. I've rung my school, and they've engaged a substitute for the next three weeks but said I was welcome to start teaching again after that."

"What about the vault? All that money?"

She sat down heavily on the bed, her chin dipping to her chest. "It's not mine. I don't care what the documents say. I don't care what you say. I can't and won't accept that money."

"Does this have to do with the letter?" I asked. "Which, I noticed, you haven't mentioned to Harry like you said that you were going to."

"It doesn't matter now. The person was right," she said. "The money isn't mine, and I'm washing my hands of the entire situation. I'm very sorry I got you involved."

I walked over to the window and looked out. The room had a wicked view of the river and it looked calm and peaceful outside, except that the wind was kicking up the water a little and blowing garbage along the bank.

"I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest," I said, keeping my back to her. "Were you or anyone else in the Ministry bribed?"

"What?"

I turned around so that she could see my face while I was asking her this. I reckoned that much was fair.

"Is this money some sort of payoff that you got in exchange for pushing forward with the amnesty programme?"

I didn't see her move. The light was low in the room, but not that bad, so the only thing I could figure was that she'd moved faster than my eye had been able to keep track of, because the next minute she was right in front of me and her hand shot out and landed with a loud smack on my cheek.

"How - how dare you! How could you even think that I would do something so ... so ..."

She was breathing heavily and had gone so red, I thought she might start giving off sparks. My face felt like a dozen doxies were under my skin trying to get out and my eyes were watering, but strangely enough, I was able to see better after that.

"I could've used a bit of that this morning," I muttered, working my jaw a little. "Other than the lot at The Quibbler, d'you think anyone else might've believed you were?"

Hermione looked about to go for the other side of my face. "I'm sure all sorts of silly allegations were made! Amnesty wasn't exactly a very popular idea at first. The Minister had been about to rubbish it, but he changed his mind."

I frowned. I'd never heard that. It always seemed that Scrimgeour was for amnesty at the start.

"Did he ever say why he went ahead with it, then?"

"He simply decided that he couldn't let the wizarding world remain fractured. He knew that some sort of gesture had to be made and he had to be the one to make it."

"And you don't think he might've gotten a few Galleons to help him make up his mind?"

"Honestly, Ron, you are so ... Merlin!" She stormed away from me and started throwing things into her suitcase. "No, Minister Scrimgeour was not bribed, nor was I! I've no idea what Mr. Whetwistle was about, but whatever the money is for, it wasn't that!"

I decided we'd gotten our fill of that subject, so I went on to another. "Whetwistle's in the Compendium. Did you know that?"

She tossed a few more things into her bag. "I don't know anything about the man. We met for less than five minutes and I truly haven't thought about him since that day."

"You met him?" I asked. "Was this before or after the trial?"

"After. Directly after." Hermione stopped throwing things about and sat on the bed again. "It was right after the Wizengamot read the verdict. I was shown out a back chamber to avoid the crowds and to be taken to a point where I could Apparate straight to the room where the Ministry had me staying in ..."

She shuddered, and that made me wonder. During the whole business, Hermione had been hidden away by the Ministry to avoid her getting cold feet about giving evidence. I'd heard that she'd been put up in some luxury Muggle hotel with fellytision and everything, but by the look on her face, she didn't seem to be remembering any sort of fun time.

"When we went out, there were four men there," she said. "All of them quite old and wearing rather rich robes. I remember thinking that those men probably should not have been there, and I was a little concerned about having been led to an area where people obviously were able to get in. I was being guarded by Aurors, after all, and I thought they had ample reason to lead me into a trap. I found out later that they had taken Unbreakable Vows to do me no harm, but I didn't know that at first."

She may not have realized it, but I had known that. Even though Hermione and I had been over by that point, I wouldn't have let her be alone with a bunch of hacked-off Aurors if I hadn't known that they would all die if they tried to hurt her.

In that vein, I wondered if Hermione knew that because of the "Shacklebolt Affair" - which was what it was officially called, like it had been some bloody tea party - all Aurors had to take Unbreakable Vows before undertaking any sort of mission where they were expected to arrest or interrogate someone.

I shook thoughts of the past out of my head and tried to re-focus. "Did you recognise any of the old blokes?"

"No. And none of them spoke to me except a rather stooped man with white hair and yellowing eyes," she said. "He looked very sick and he coughed a great deal. He introduced himself as Edward Whetwistle. I think I started to mention something about ... being sorry about the circumstances of his son's death, but he didn't let me talk very much about that. He simply said that he knew that I must have fought against my conscience to tell the truth, and that his son would have done well knowing someone like me. He also said that he admired my ... pluck."

"Pluck?"

"Pluck." She nodded. "He said that he'd hoped that his son could be rehabilitated, but that all things considered, what had happened to him was probably for the best ..." She shuddered again. "I couldn't believe that someone could say that about his own son."

I could, considering Whetwistle's history, but I let it go. "What else did he tell you? He didn't mention anything about money?"

"Not a word. But what difference does it make? I'm leaving, and the money can rot for all I care. I never wanted it anyway, and I certainly don't want it now. What would it look like, being the beneficiary of a man whose son was a ..."

She stopped and sighed. "I know it's silly, but I do still care about the shred of reputation I have in the wizarding world here, even though I am still universally despised by all Aurors - except Harry - and god knows who else! This is all such a mess and I simply want to be done with it."

"It could get messier," I said. "You're barking if you think whoever wrote you that letter is going to care that you don't want the money. That person wants it, sure enough, and you're the only one who can get at it."

"Whoever it is can have it! I should take out an advertisement in The Prophet: Dear person who wrote me a poorly punctuated owl concerning eight-hundred thousand Galleons: You're welcome to it. Enquire at Gringotts."

She made a gesture with her hand that would have made my mum's eyes go out of her head. "Oh, why couldn't Mr. Whetwistle have done something else with his property? Endow Hogwarts or set up vaults for children whose parents died in the war or - or thrown it all into the Thames! Anything would have been better than this!"

"I don't know about that. If it wasn't stolen or for a bribe, then why not keep it? The bloke was on the level. He got an Order of Merlin in the first war and a commendation in the second. He didn't have any family. And he thought you had ... pluck."

Hermione made a face at me and shut her suitcase with a bang. "I'm not sure what any of that that has to do with anything."

"My point is that he probably thought what you're thinking," I said. "Who'd want to touch the Galleons of a bloke whose son had been on the other side? Maybe he left his money to you because he thought you'd do good with it. Maybe establish some sort of fund in his name, build a home for war orphans with a statue of him outside it, or something."

She looked at me for a long time. "How did you know that he was in the Compendium? I thought he had such an odd name, even for a wizard. I'd never heard of his family before the trial."

"Lucky guess, really," I said. "But I really didn't find out much, because there wasn't too much there. Anyway, since he died not long after the trial, maybe he wasn't thinking about what he could do with all his money. He remembered you and maybe he figured you could take care of it. Or maybe he just wanted you to have it for yourself. Like the Lotto."

"Yes, but I never asked to enter Mr Whetwistle's game."

"I reckon that doesn't matter now - not to Whetwistle or to the person who wrote you that letter," I said, putting a bit of space between us. "Whether you want to keep the money or not is your choice, but I'm not letting this letter business go. I want Harry to look into it. Maybe whoever wrote it knows a little more what Whetwistle was about."

"You think Harry will be able to find out who wrote it?"

"If anyone can, it'll be Harry and his blokes. And I think that you should stay here while he investigates," I said, trying to keep my voice casual. "It'll be better to have you here in the same country as the money than if you were across the ocean."

She looked at her suitcase, then back at me, her face scrunched up in thought. "All right. I suppose under the circumstances, Harry should know."

Before I could say anything, she was in front of me again and her hand was on my cheek again - stroking it this time. "Did I hurt you?"

I flinched, but I couldn't back away any farther because I'd managed to back up until I was pressed nearly flush against the window.

"I'd forgotten that slapping blokes was your specialty."

"I didn't mean to hit you so hard." Her fingers trailed down to my chin. "I just couldn't believe that you would think that I would -"

"I didn't. But I had to know for sure." I reached up and took her hand off my face, keeping hold of her fingers. "And uh, speaking of books" - never mind that we weren't at the moment - "That book of yours - I thought it was a chronicle of the ... trial, and everything."

"You haven't read it?" She sounded a little disappointed, but not very surprised. "It talks about all that, yes, but I see it more as a memoir. At least, that's what I was going for. Why? Was there something you wanted to know?"

I thought about Warren and how he knew about what had gone on with Hermione and me after Spinner's End. I remembered that he mentioned that there was more where that had come from, but I didn't think that a dark, warm, too-small bedroom was the place to go into it. Just as I was chewing over that, I realised I hadn't let go of her hand, and her fingers were twining with mine.

There was a knock on the door and we sprung away from each other. Ginny poked her head in and told us that dinner was ready in a way that sounded like a threat.

Hermione and I walked out after her, avoiding each other's eyes as we moved along.