Bab 38: C038 - Fallout & Consequences
My name was cleared pretty quickly and openly by McGonagall, who apologized for thinking so lowly of me when they asked me about Isobel, which resulted in Malfoy getting ostracized even further at lunch. The Weasley twins kept openly mocking him because they didn't mind kicking a dead horse. It was kind of on brand for them, actually.
The survival club was cancelled through a notification on the bullet board before breakfast even started, so I spent this Sunday rather leisurely.
Flitwick, Snape, and the headmaster were missing from lunch, not that it was entirely unusual, but the headmaster wasn't at breakfast either. I didn't like that he spent even more time scheming something as opposed to wasting a few hours each day to watch us eat.
"Follow me," a melodious voice ordered as I exited the Great Hall with the intention to spend some time in the library with some of the Ravenclaw girls.
I looked at the owner of the voice and frowned. That was a new experience for the young woman I reckoned after seeing her lift an eyebrow. I motioned for the girls to go ahead without me and walked to a secluded corner that was still in view of other people.
"Why would I follow you? So that instead of selling me out, you can lure me into the trap personally?" I asked with an impassive expression entirely different from my first and actually last conversation with her.
"How would you know I sold you out?" She asked but didn't deny my accusation.
"Please. Despite being able to change your entire appearence, your guilt was written on your face for a whole week, no matter what shape it came in. I'd be an idiot if I didn't see that."
"... I thought they'd just mess with you a little."
"Yeah, well, they didn't."
"I focused my pranks on all of them these past months."
"And what good does that do me? If you're looking for absolution or something, I won't give it to you. There was only one thing you could have done at that time; report what happened to the aurors."
Tonks once more looked guilty.
"I couldn't. Pranks are already a black mark on my record. I want to be an auror after school and being involved in an attack where an unforgivable curse was used to torture a first year... I don't think they would have taken me after that..."
"Wow, with aurors like you on duty, I'll feel so much more safe," I answered in a monotone voice with an unimpressed look. "Why are we talking here?"
She took a deep breath and said, "Look, I'm sorry, okay? In any case, I'm here to tell you it was Snape who tipped off the aurors. I'm an auror in training since Christmas and overheard them talk when they discussed the case before lunch."
"You mean when Snape lied and accused me of something I didn't do?" I asked with a confused frown.
"Whatever," she said, clearly unconvinced that I wasn't guilty. "You gave sufficient evidence, and they won't bother you again with this case."
"Nice. Let's pretend I hadn't figured it out already. Now I know it was Snape who tried to frame me, which I can do nothing about since he's a professor at this school as well as my potions professor who could fail me in a core subject for whatever inane reason he cooks up if I so much as mention it to him and I know I am no longer a suspect in a case... which I would have found out the moment Auror Jenkins was done reporting to the head auror..."
I let that stew for a moment before I sarcastically asked, "Am I supposed to feel grateful for your help or something?"
With a sigh, Tonks walked away, and I observed that her status in my eagle vision went from barely green back to white. Whatever nice impression I had of her in canon and whatever hormone driven urge I had to befriend the gorgeous witch had died the moment she had shown that guilty look after the attack on me.
As one of the last people to know where I was that night since she was with me in the kitchens just before it happened, it wasn't hard to figure out that it was her who told my attackers exactly where I was. Sure, they could have found me anyway, but then Tonks would have no reason to look at me like that.
-----
I didn't expose my knowledge of Snape's involvement but he didn't likely care and deducted points for me looking at him the wrong way and another for not paying attention when I kept my eyes on the parchment instead of him... or, well, anywhere. Despite there being actual benefits other than house pride for getting the cup, I didn't care much more about the points.
Only two games in, I had ensured we win the Quidditch Cup, and I already got Ravenclaw almost 250 house points in total this school year alone. It was an unheard of amount, but Sprout, McGonagall, and Flitwick kept giving them to me for not only excelling in their classes but also helping out my classmates freely and thoroughly. Our hourglass that measures the awarded points per house was ahead of the other houses by over 150 points compared to Gryffindor in second place and, honestly, it would take a 'Harry Potter kills the dark lord again and Dumbledore awards his best mate 500 points for a chess match' incident for Ravenclaw to not win the cup even with Snape taking a few points from me for breathing wrong.
Malfoy, atleast, had finally stopped mouthing off against me and simply silently brooded with his two cronies.
Patrick, however, informed me that the Macnair home was thoroughly devastated by several wizards in death eater robes on Wednesday. So the older Malfoy didn't take this incident lying down.
Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, was informed of the crime by my elf as we had discussed it beforehand, and an official investigation was started. I was also formally introduced to Patrick on Friday after he gave sufficient testimony, and I could finally stop pretending I didn't know I had a house elf - so I counted this as a win. All valuables had been taken from the home already, so they merely burned down stone and wood. Well, and a greenhouse infrastructure, but I had Sprout on my side to eventually install something better in the future.
Irregardless of anything else, the attackers would still pay for it since it was my stone and wood, but that was more on principal.
Patrick was tasked with keeping up with the investigation as I was particularly interested to see if the magical signatures captured on scene would result in any arrests, but after an 'incident', the results first came back as inconclusive and later it showed that it was the dead Walden Macnair who supposedly rose from his grave to burn down his ancestral home and it was ruled my house elf had his memories altered to see something that wasn't there.
Aunt Amelia had been burning with hatred at that, and from what Patrick could see during the court session, Minister Fudge knew he was treading thin ice when he ruled in favor of a blatant lie.
Which meant Fudge was paid off. Which meant that the moment I gained sufficient power, I would take care of him. Simply tipping of Rita Skeeter to some gossip wasn't enough for this.
Saturday morning, after Quidditch practice, I found myself walking back alone from the pitch and was stopped by Malfoy and his two fat shadows in a suspiciously empty courtyard.
"I heard your orphan self became even more penniless," Malfoy mocked, and I had to give it to him. He finally learned and confronted me alone as opposed to in the middle of the great hall.
"Oh yeah? Did your daddy sent you pictures of my ancestral home he set on fire for you to wank off to?"
The boy was immediately flustered by my off-handed and disgusting remark and didn't know what to say.
"He didn't need to send me pictures and certainly not for something so filthy!"
"Glad you didn't refute your father's presence during the destruction of Macnair manor. We both aren't idiots like all those clowns your dad is paying off, so there's no need to waste air..."
Smartly, Malfoy kept quiet - it seemed he actually learned - and instead shifted off to another topic, "I'm here to buy that broom of yours so you don't starve to death this summer. You don't deserve the same broom the pros are flying. I'm willing to pay you 200 galleons on account of you having touched it for so long."
"Excuse me, are you mental?" I asked with an incredulous expression.
'I take it back. He learned nothing.'
"Why? You think your filthy touch doesn't warrant a discount?" Malfoy imperiously asked with his head held high.
"No of course it doesn't. You must be delusional to think that I would not rather eat roots for a summer and burn my broom instead of giving it to you even for its actual worth. If you're having trouble getting your daddy to buy you an actual Firebolt, go steal it from Irish National team or something. You must be a real nutter, mate."
Malfoy desperately wanted to curse me in the back for that if his gritted teeth were anything to go by, but he couldn't. This had been a setup and Professor Snape was just around the corner to give me months long detention for when I got out my wand and cast a spell. I had seen him with eagle vision through the wall, listening in on our conversation. Making it so I was the one to instigate the fight even when Draco cast the first spell was possible, but this was still Hogwarts and Snape was on thin ice with Flitwick after accusing me as the culprit of the Hogsmeade attack.
Lying about who shot the first spell - since I had shown to have no scruples with investigations - was a surefire way for Snape to get in the crosshairs of the auror department. He had likely told Malfoy about this countless times and impressed on him the importance of not being the first to attack.
-----
Hogsmeade weekends had been cancelled for a whole month, but it was now time for my assassin training in Crawley. It was Friday night, and I had already given Flitwick an appropriate excuse for my absence this weekend by telling him about having to work on my remaining family assets and meeting with my great aunt to discuss this matter - something he would keep quiet about.
He likely knew I wanted to do something else, but he was proud of me being proactive in such an impossible situation.
I just left Gringotts having sold off the plot of land with the brothel on it in Knockturn Alley that I never visited and concluded the matter about my family finances - it wouldn't do to have lied to Flitwick about something like this despite having ulterior motives.
The goblins had been pretty happy to facilitate the sale and quietly to boot, because shopspaces in Diagon Alley and its surrounding streets very rarely got into the market. Since it was the seedy part of town with no reputable magicals willing to buy it, the plot was sold for 3500 galleons.
I knew for sure the goblins stiffed me for a significant portion of the plot, but I didn't care much. The goblins didn't care for me and my paltry sums of money either. The plot of land could have been used to tarnish my reputation now that it was obvious I knew about my family's estate and I didn't want to leave such an obvious line of attack open for Malfoy. And according to the goblins, the lease of the John who ran the brothel was extended for another decade.
It wasn't lost on me that the date of the signature on the lease they had shown me was a month after Walden Macnair, the last Macnair other than me, died. But the goblins had a whole nation behind them and I was just an orphan. I would need to take it for the time being. And they would suffer for it all the more in the future. Or I simply let it go. I didn't care for the money, it was the forged signature on the lease that riled me up. Someone would have to pay for it. If it wasn't goblinkind, it would be the one who had the most to gain, that brothel's owner.
As I walked outside of the Leaky Cauldron, I noticed someone following me and I wanted to scoff at the fact that someone actually wanted to attack me right after Fudge ruled my elf made a group of death eaters up. I walked down one store and held up my wand to call the Knight Bus instead of calling for Patrick and fleeing.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this night," the uniformed wizard said as he stepped off the purple triple decker.
"Yeah, hi Stan. You don't need to give me the full sales pitch every time. Dorking, south of Surrey. Can you get me there?"
"Sure thing, buddy-o. Get on board, that will be 7 sickles," Stan said after giving me the space to step onboard and held out his hand. "Also I like saying it. It's kinda poetry, no?"
I fished out a galleon and pocketed the change as I watched two people step on board, too. They had heard where I wanted to go and decided to go to Horsham, a smaller city further south from Dorking, my destination.
I chose Dorking because it was close enough for Patrick to jump me over to Crawley since Crawley, too, was south of London. Just like Surrey was a whole area to the south-west of London. The only reason I know a small city like Dorking, however, was because of its ridiculous name that I had noticed when I studied the map of London and its surroundings.
A very eventful ride on the Knight Bus later, I stepped off the bus at the very edge of town. The two wizards who were following me likely wanted to step off, too, but didn't want to draw too much attention. I didn't yet know when they would get off of the bus, I ran into the woods from where I was and started donning my gear.
The wristblade I got from Jacob Frye. The knives I got from my family vault. The Kopis sword I needed to get reworked by a blacksmith after I put too much magic into killing the troll with it.
... I didn't get out my wand. We were too close to muggles and the trace would go off most likely. I couldn't risk that.
In the dead of night, I ran through the dark forest eastwards and called for Patrick without stopping.
"Ready some spells. Two wizards following me. I might need your help," I whisper-shouted to my invisible elf and ran past him deeper into the woods.
Over half an hour later, I was in my combat gear, hidden behind a huge wooden log of a felled tree.
"Damnit, Jugson! I told you we should have simply got off at the same stop as him!"
"I told you that would be too suspicious. He didn't pay us enough to kill everyone on the Knight Bus as well and I'm not going to Azkaban for this!"
"Likely story. Who would miss the brat?"
"I don't care, Gibbon. Malfoy didn't give us the whole story, I know it," one of the men said in a heated whisper and suddenly stopped in his tracks. "He's close. Get ready."
"Come out, brat! And we might just let you off with a quick death! We'll mutilate your corpse instead of you when you are still breathing to satisfy our employer."
"Likely story. Malfoy would rather kill you than let me off without torture," I answered but not with my own voice. No, I used a muggle walkie-talkie to make it sound like my voice came from a different tree.
I counted on the fact that these two were purebloods with no idea how or what a walkie-talkie was and while they will stop working the moment some spells were cast near it, I only needed the distraction the muggle item would bring.
The two took the bait and walked over to where my voice came from. It helped that I turned up the volume on the other walkie-talkie to its max, which meant they didn't hear my whisper.
It was raining quite heavily just before and it was currently still drizzling, so the ground was very wet. It meant that stepping on fallen branches and twigs didn't make a big sound because the wood was wet and bendy, but it also meant that footsteps into puddles and sludgy mud made loud squelching sounds.
I had to choose my steps with all of my heightened levels of concentration as I stepped only when they did and on spots that would make the least amount of sound. I was cold, I was wet... and I told myself over and over that I was ready to take my first life.
With the Kopis drawn and a throwing knife in my other hand, I watched one of them cast a 'Bombarda' at the tree where the walkie-talkie was, but they cast it on the crown - likely to scare me out.
They didn't even bother to cast another 'Homenum Revelio' to reveal my presence to them. I used the moment of the explosion to cast my first throwing knife at the outstretched wand hand of who I suspected to be the one the other called Jugson.
"Fuck! Fucking splinter hit me in my fucking arm!" He screamed when the knife connected and I threw another as I started sprinting.
"You IMBECILE!" The other one, likely called Gibbon, shouted. "Are you too stupid to aim or something!?"
This Gibbon fellow squirmed and clutched his own hand that was pointed to the ground before when I aimed at it.
"Damnit! Come OUT, brat! 'INCENDIO!'" Jugson screamed and cast the firemaking charm at the splintered tree and immediately engulfed it in fire. Had I stood behind it, I would have been lit up completely.
I threw a stone I picked up mid sprint and threw it as hard as I could at a tree near them to distract them for the final stretch of my sprint and jumped up the moment they snapped their heads into the direction of the stone hitting the tree.
A downward swing of the sword in my hand with my full strength buried the sword in Jugson's head, cleaving it in half all the way down to his chest. My first ever kill of another human being and it had no finesse like all the murders I witnessed in my dreams.
And I was caught offguard, because I tried to pull the sword out, but because of the blade's slight downward angle I didn't pull out the sword and instead pulled the body toward me to allow it to drench me in the last blood Jugson's heart would ever pump through his veins.
I decisively let go of the sword and angled myself to stand behind the corpse from Gibbon's view. The man had already turned his head toward me and a spell was on the tip of his tongue.
In another gamble to distract the man, I held up both of my hands, palms facing him, to show I was unarmed. It sadly didn't distract him as he cast a nasty bone splintering curse that thankfully hit the corpse still falling down.
More blood sprayed into the air when it did. And another sound was heard that didn't belong to either of us. Gibbon turned around halfway because there was the sound of someone heavy walking behind him.
I used that chance and used the pistol mechanism on top of the hidden blade wristguard to shoot the man. My aim was slightly off and I merely knicked his neck. At this close a distance it actually took a bit off flesh with it, but with the right magical medical attention, this wound was far from lethal.
Gibbon once more spun around after finding out he was duped again - this time by my elf - and was ready to cast another spell, but I had managed to sidestep Jugson's corpse and closed the distance after that shot.
With all my strength, I shoved my arm forward, wishing it could grow a little to end this fellow's life a little faster and activated the mechanism of the hidden blade.
The pointed weapon shot forward and together with my momentum it pierced right through the mask Gibbon had donned for this task and into his face.
With his last strength, the man in front of me cast another silent 'Bombarda' near the ground behind me and though it pushed the blade deeper into him, sealing his fate, it also caught me offguard and sent me flying.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Nuclide
Nuclide https://www.buymeacoffee.com/nuclide
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone