The Ransom of Albus Dumbledore

14. Dnc at BW & FDs wddng...

A bell jangles. Eyes magnified behind bottle-bottom lenses peer around a bright red door. A vague, dreamy voice murmurs, "Those hats--I'm sure I wore one... yes... in another life... around 1895, it was... yes... yes..."

She totters towards the lavish display, almost tripping over her pale, gauzy neck-scarves, and seizes a hat with great florid Fwooper feathers that almost overwhelm its generous brim. She tries it on in front of a full-length mirror, stops, grimaces in pain. "What--what's happening? oh... ow... My neck--" Her head has been wrenched 180 degrees around so that she can see the door she came through, and if she should glance downward, her scrawny, gabardine-clad derriere.

A voice snorts, "Looks like she won't be seeing the future anymore--only the past!"

Another, similar in tenor, adds: "Yep, the Headless Hats were fun, George, but that Tit-for-Tat Cocked Hat is your greatest invention yet...."

...

The crowd roars. High overhead, two Seekers, one dark-haired, the other silvery blond, grapple for the Snitch. A slender, graceful man, impeccably attired in gray robes lined with red satin, points a wand at the pair. The dark-haired Seeker jerks his head back, his face a rictus of pain.

A young, feminine voice cries: "No, NO--you great bully! Leave him alone...."

The red-haired dynamo jumps up, pointing her own wand. Suddenly the man is himself jerked out of the stands and suspended upside-down in mid-air, his head engulfed in great, pulsating, yellow-green globs of some noxious nasal exudate. His screams defeat even the crowd's volume....

...

A pinpoint of light illuminates two figures in the dark alley.

"Got them cauldrons for yeh, Will" a man's voice mutters, "if yer got the gelt...." The light shows him to be a short, stubby man, whose robes have seen better days.

The second figure, a mere shadow at first, draws itself up to a more substantial height and girth.

The man draws back. "Arf a mo'... You're not Will.... Just 'oo are you?"

A wand-tip flares with a spell that also illumines a face, normally motherly and kind, but, at the moment, distorted to the ferocity of a saber-toothed tiger.

"Molly?"

She doesn't answer, but points her wand at him and his metal burden.

"Wha'? This a joke?"cries the man.

The tall stack of cauldrons he is balancing begins to ooze a dark steaming jelly. It pours out over his head and arms. When he is completely covered--a boiling viscid mass--the witch dances about maniacally, poking at him with her wand, and screeches in triumph: "Serves you right! You'll not be selling any more illegal potion ingredients to my boys now, will you, Mundungus Fletcher..."

...

Greenhouse number thirteen: before class, Justin Finch-Fletchley is, as usual, flattering and glad-handing every classmate of any distinction at all. He makes snide comments about some Gryffindors, notably Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Suddenly, his body lurches, twists, arches and does a double somersault face-first into a pile of rancid dragon-dung...

...

Her white-blonde cascade of hair swaying seductively, the veela-girl sashays past a host of gaping admirers at the Yule Ball: Harry... Cedric Diggory... Roger Davies... Bill Weasley... Viktor Krum... She stops at last at a gangling young wizard who has a dreamy look on his face... She turns to him... smiling.... He takes her in his arms...

...

"No...oh no...NOOOO..."

Wake up, Hermione. We have a job to do.

"Mmm--wha? James? Oh--what a horrible dream."

What was it about?

Hermione sat up and stretched. "I don't remember the particulars, but it seemed to be about nasty people getting their just desserts. The last bit had that stuck-up Fleur Delacour trying to--oh darn--she was just about to walk off with...."

Bill Weasley?

"Nooo...If you must know, it was Ron. And I didn't get to see what her punishment was going to be! Ecch, she'd probably sweet-talk her way out of it anyway."

Hmm...you're not going to much care this next assignment then.

"What is it?"

It's not exactly on Dumbledore's list. Well, it is, sort of. The item reads, 'Dance at Bill and Fleur's wedding, and have a big slice of cake.'

"Oh good, a nice one for a change, and it sounds like the professor. Well, I'm going to do just that--but not until August first."

If what I just heard is true, you won't be able to--unless we act quickly.

"What do you mean?"

Fleur's been arrested.

"For what? Let me guess. Soliciting."

Now, now.... It seems she's being held by their Ministry....

"I know; I shouldn't be such a cat about it, James. I mean she's going to marry Bill... and he'll take her away, and Ron'll be safe from her wiles. Omigosh, she's going to marry Bill! But she won't be able to if... oh no, this is terrible...."

Steady now, Hermione.

She tore her blanket off and leapt to her feet. "Like as not, Ron'll think he has to go rescue her himself. Well, where are his parents in all this? Why hasn't Mr. Weasley intervened?"

I don't think they know about it yet, and I don't know if he could, anyway. Things are a bit touchy between the French and English Ministries just now....

"Wait a minute! I remember something Bill said. Fleur was invited on a trip abroad with some of the girls in her class. A kind of rolling bachelorette party, I think. She wasn't going to go, what with his injuries and all, but he recovered pretty quickly... so he told her she should. I think the person who issued the invitation was the daughter of some government bigwig...."

Well, something must have happened on the trip because she's being held on charges of treasonous activities. I went over to Paris to have a look. She's in solitary, and under constant observation.

"So I have to get her out."

That's what the list says... well... ah... implies.

She pulled on some clothes and brushed her hair. "I don't even know where the French Ministry is."

That's all right. I'll get you there. I even have a pass to get in to see her.... Bogus of course, but Lily's French is impeccable.

"You have been doing some legwork while I was sleeping, haven't you?"

Well, yes. You see, the Weasley spirits came after us as soon as they got wind of her arrest. They're so eager for Bill to get married. Great aunt Florilda thinks he'll never get another girl now that he's so scarred up.

"I guess I can see that," Hermione said as she tucked in her blouse and crammed a bit of leftover muffin in her mouth.

I'll explain the rest on the way. You speak French, don't you?

"Un petit peu."

Oon petty poo? What's that mean?

"A very little bit," she translated with false modesty.

~*~

Hermione entered Le Ministère de la Magie. It was much better decorated than the British Ministry. The ceilings were low, and there was no grandiose statuary to dwarf the visitor, just tasteful portraits of what she supposed were past heads of government hung against beige satin wallpaper. And they did not move at all.

She approached the magistrate's desk. "Pardon, M'sieur," she said confidently. "Puis-je visiter mon amie, Fleur Delacour? J'ai l'autorisation du Préfet...un laissez-passer...."

The wizard took her pass and studied it carefully. "Voyons. C'est en ordre." He handed it to another wizard and made explanations.

The other wizard barked curtly, "Suivez-moi, s'il vous plait." Hermione followed him through a series of closed doors which he commanded to open in the universal wizarding tongue.

~*~

"Qui êtes vous?" Fleur was curled up on a lumpy pallet. She looked much the worse for her stay in this narrow cell. There were no mirrors here for her to examine her flaws in, no cushy bed, no magical potions to disguise the sleepless circles under her eyes, no Glamours to mask cheeks, white and drawn.

"Can we speak English, please?" Hermione said. "I'm from Hogwarts...."

"Oh, Air-miney Granger, of course." She drew herself up into a sitting position, brandishing long, straight, perfect legs. "You ‘ave a message? From Beel, pair'aps? Or Meestair Weasley? Or Ron?"

"NO! No...actually...I'm trying to get you out of here. Can you tell me what the charges are? And cut it with the phony accent, okay? I'm not one of your--entourage."

"Eef...if...you insist." Fleur straightened up a bit more and ran her fingers through her hair, which was still lustrous, if a bit tangled.

Hermione tutted. Fleur could obviously speak clear English when she put her mind to it.

"They say I tried to seduce Beel--Bill--, that our engagement is all an act to allow me to penetrate the Gringotts defense system...for his Dark Lordship, how do you call him? The Flight of Death."

"'Flight of Death'? What's that?"

"Not what. Who. Lord Vol-de-Mort. It is how his name is rendered into English, n'est-ce pas?"

"Oh. I never thought of that. Seems appropriate though. Go on."

"Also, that I ensorcelled the Goblet of Fire to choose me as the Champion for Beauxbatons. That rumor was put about by the Prefet's daughter..."

"Let me guess, she's the one who burst out crying when she wasn't chosen for the Tournament."

"Yes,...Louise...she is une peu jalouse."

"Was she also the one who invited you on that trip abroad?"

"Oui, I know now that it was all a dirty little trick to get me out of England so she could have me arrested, And one of the other girls said that I deliberately did not rescue my sister from the lake during the Tournament because--moi--I was jealous of her!" Anger brought some color into her cheeks.

"Anything else?"

"Something about conspiring to keep your--ugh--caretaker and my directrice from an important meeting--with some giants, they said. Impossible!"

"Oh no--it did happen--the meeting, that is."

"I tried to tell them I am innocent, but they will not listen."

"Well, I'd like to talk to le procureur general and tell him your side of the story."

"Peu de chance. I already did that. No one believed me."

"Not even with all your veela-charm going full blast?"

"The Procureur is a woman."

"That explains it," remarked Hermione, nastily.

Fleur made the typical Gallic shrug. "I do not see how you can do any better."

Hermione bridled at this. "Well, if you'd like to just stay here...."

"No, no, I do not mean that; I just don't wish you to be disappointed." She crossed her milk-white arms and stared at Hermione out of impossibly intense blue eyes. "You do not much like me, do you?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Your attitude. It is just like Bill's mother, and his sister Ginny. You think I cannot possibly love Bill. You think I am only a flirt, a mata hari perhaps."

"Well... you certainly had all the boys at Hogwarts wrapped around your little finger...."

"That was not my fault. It is the Veela in me. I cannot help what it does to other people. Anyway, the effect will be much lessened, once I am married."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, it is the virginal Veela who has the greatest effect on a susceptible male, and once I have had my first baby, the charm will be pffft!"

"Oh. That's goo--I mean--well--whatever."

"Oui, it is good. It is very good." She leaned forward and clasped her hands together. "You do not know how I long for that day, 'ermione. Not only because I want to have Bill's children." She sighed. "But because it is such a burden, being beautiful."

Hermione snorted. "I can think of a few girls who would disagree with you there."

"But it is. Imagine not being able to know if a person pays attention to you because he thinks you have good ideas, or if he just wants to look at you... and imagine what color panties you are wearing."

"I see."

"Anyway, if I can't get out of here, it will not matter what they think. Please, do help me, 'ermione. I would be most grateful."

Hermione nodded and summoned the guard.

~*~

The slender, stylish witch looked up from her writing and motioned Hermione to a seat. "What can I do for you, Mademoiselle Granger?"

Hermione came right the point. "Please, Madame la Procureur, I am here to speak for Fleur Delacour."

"The Veela. What have you to say?"

Hermione took a deep breath, "I believe that the charges against her are mainly due to jealousy."

"Jealousy?"

"Yes, as you may know, Fleur took part in the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts and was chosen Champion for her school, Beauxbatons."

"Yes, this is all in the dossier."

"Well, I'd like to submit that her accusers are all disgruntled also-rans from her class."

"You are calling the daughter of the Prefet a 'grumbling also-run'?"

"Something like that. She did take on quite a bit when she was not chosen."

"Hmm... you are taking quite a chance telling me this."

"Why?"

"You do not know that I may be one of the Prefet's best friends, perhaps even godmother to his children."

Hermione gulped. "No, I don't know that. Are you?"

The Procureur chuckled. "Hardly. But that is unimportant. We are investigating the charges, which are grave, and until she is cleared, Mademoiselle Delacour will remain in prison."

"I think that if you will contact her Headmistress, Madame Maxime..."

"That is one of our problems. We have not been able locate the incomparable Olympe. She is soon to receive our highest award, La Sorcière de L'Année, but is nowhere to be found. We suspect Mademoiselle Delacour may have--how do you say it?--done her in."

"Oh no, that's couldn't be true. Madame Maxime is likely on a--erm--vacation--with a... friend from Hogwarts. If you will owl my Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, I'm sure she will confirm this, and will vouch for Fleur as well."

"Ah, we know of Madam McGonagall. She was very active as a courier between our two countries during the last Muggle war."

"Really!"

"Oui, I myself was her contact for a time. Her code name was 'Athene'. But I cannot promise anything for this Veela. Her ancestors came from the east, like the vampires and werewolves. Sentiment in the general populace has always run against them."

"That's just unthinking prejudice, I'm sure. Veelas are nothing like vampires--"

"But did you know that they can turn into something like the Greek harpy when angered? Hideous, winged creatures, throwing fire from their fingertips. I myself have witnessed this at the last World Cup--"

"I did as well," said Hermione, "but do you not think that Fleur, who was schooled at one of the finest schools of magic on the continent--"

"--the finest school of magic--" the Procureur corrected her.

"Yes, of course, the finest school of magic. Don't you think she would have been taught to control such a power? After all, Madame Maxime chose her as a finalist for the Tournament. That must say something for her."

"That is true, but it is said that your Dark Lord has promised all such mutants--Veelas, Erklings, Lycans--a place in his army."

"Including the giants, I believe."

"Yes, and it has made our Ministry very angry with your Ministry."

"Why is that?"

"Because they did not stamp out this menace from the very beginning. And now he threatens our own country!"

"I'm sorry about that. But, to get back to the subject: does not Madame Maxime herself have giant blood in her?"

"What is this you say?"

"Madame Maxime. She's so--erm--huge--"

"I never thought of that." The Procureur laughed. "I always thought she was just big-boned. But it does make sense--"

Hermione pressed her case. "And if she is part giant, or ogre, or whatever, would you have the right to detain her on a suspicion, just because of her ancestry, and the fact that others of her kind have joined Voldemort? Would it not, in a way, be giving in to the fear he is trying to spread?"

"No, you are right. I would certainly never try to detain La Sorcière de L'Année on suspicion of anything. You are a very intelligent girl, Mademoiselle Granger. Have you thought of becoming an attorney?"

Hermione shook her head, blushing.

The Procureur continued, "But have you nothing to say in favor of this Fleur Delacour yourself? As a Hogwarts student, I'm sure you had the opportunity to observe her during the Triwizard Tournament."

Hermione meditated on Fleur's behavior during the tasks. "She's bright, talented, competitive, and resourceful. She loves her family and is proud to be a Frenchwoman. I can't imagine her betraying her country."

"Thank you, Miss Granger. Your viewpoint is important to me."

"How so? I'm only a student--"

"But a bright and observant one. And I have a confession to make. We monitored your visit with Madmoiselle Delacour. It was obvious that you do not like her, yet, just now, you made a dispassionate and favorable analysis of her character. Your frankness counts for much with us. If Madame McGonagall will vouch for her, I am sure we will be able to release her."

And I will dance with Ron at her wedding, thought Hermone happily.