Thirteen: France
When Hermione came to the Ministry the next day, she was met with news that had a twist of both bad and good.
The good part was that she was finally going to be sent on her first assignment as the ambassador of the British Ministry of Magic. Even better was that she was going to France, which she’d thought was an immensely interesting place when she’d last gone in her third year, and which she still thought was a neat country to visit.
However, Percy had not looked eager to send her there when he told her the news. Hermione found out why with his next words.
"Minister Alain Gautier has been assassinated," said Percy. Hermione dropped into his chair in surprise. They were in Percy’s office, and Percy was pacing impatiently.
Percy went on, "The French Ministry’s in an uproar about it, and its not surprising. The Dark Mark was above Gautier’s house."
Hermione’s knuckles paled as she gripped the arms of the chair. "You –you’re not serious?" she asked. Percy shook his head gravely.
"I don’t know if it was a renegade or if it was the real thing… but it’s obviously not very good. Worse yet, the Daily Prophet’s going to get wind of it somehow. Even with that Skeeter woman gone, there’s going to be some form of inaccurate reporting that gets everyone all in a fuss over this," said Percy. He sighed. "Not that they shouldn’t be." Pause. "Do you think he could be back, Hermione?"
"No," said Hermione, trying to reassure her boss, who at the moment was more of a friend than anything else. There was a definite distinction between the two. Just like professor and lover.
Stop it.
To tell the truth, despite her attempts to reassure Percy, she actually wasn’t sure what she thought. Most of the Death Eaters had gone to Azkaban or been executed –gruesome though that was. There were only one or two that had escaped punishment, and they were probably too meek to do anything like this. But then, Hermione had seen Voldemort die with her very own eyes. It couldn’t have been him. It had to be a renegade Death Eater.
However, there were a lot of reasons why it wouldn’t be either a Death Eater or Voldemort himself. It could be someone’s twisted idea of a prank, someone who didn’t have anything to do with Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Like a crazed murderer or something. How would they know ‘Morsmordre,’ though, if they’d never been associated with the Dark Lord? They would have had to if they were to conjure the Dark Mark.
Indeed, every sign pointed to Voldemort, indirect though his involvement may have been. He was still dead as a sun-dried bug –Hermione knew that from having witnessed his death personally –but his following lived on, even if it was weakened greatly.
"Why am I going?" asked Hermione finally, as the thought suddenly came to her that it was rather pointless for the Ministry to send her over to France, especially when it was so dangerous.
Percy hummed exasperatedly through his nose. "The French officials are convinced that it has something to do with our ministry being inept at disposing of menaces, or some rubbish of the sort. Seems they’re more than a little pissed off. We need you to sort things out," he explained.
"Ah." Hermione couldn’t say anything else, shocked partially that Percy had used the word "pissed" but also a little irritated. Annoying that this had to come now, after she’d already told Severus the news and he was not-so-secretly worried sick about her. There was no way that he would approve of her going to France, especially with what was going on there.
"When do I leave?" Hermione asked.
Percy looked grim. "Next Tuesday," he said. That gave her four days to prepare any speech that she might give. Hermione frowned, but Percy continued before she could complain. "They’re expecting an apology, and I for one am willing to apologise if it will shut them up. Fudge didn’t agree at first, but now he does. He’s had some sense talked into him."
"By whom?" asked Hermione.
"His son," said Percy.
"His son?" asked Hermione. Cornelius Fudge had children? The fact that he had children at all was strange. Who’d marry that git?
"Yes. Daniel’s his name. He’s a nice kid. Just finished school, actually," said Percy perfunctorily. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Anyway, you ought to have an apology ready by at least Monday.
"I’ll give you the details once I have all of them, which probably will be this afternoon. At any rate, make sure to flatter whoever’s in charge when you’re apologising. It will put us in their favour, which will be incredibly helpful. You’ll learn, Hermione, that politics between wizards is more like the social games of high society. It’s more who says and does what than who’s smart or good and who’s not."
"Mais oui," Hermione remarked. Percy failed to pick up on the humour, which was unsurprising, as it was nearly non-existent anyway, and weakly delivered. Percy’s humour-detecting senses weren’t exactly very keen.
"You’d better get to work then," remarked Percy, all at once her boss again. Hermione nodded, and went to her office, to being what shell of a rough draft that she could with the information she had. And to debate whether she would tell Snape.
Currently, she was leaning towards not.
"Something troubling you, Severus? You look out of sorts."
Minerva stood over him almost imperiously, looking down with what Snape was determined to label as false concern. He shook his head, and, refusing to look at the elder professor, took another sip of tea to save himself from answering verbally. McGonagall didn’t get the message, though. Instead of leaving, she sat down beside him.
"I’ve known you for quite a bit of time," she said. "Don’t think you can lie about your mood to me, when it’s quite obvious, anyway."
Snape ignored her words. "You Gryffindors are insufferable," he said simply.
Are not, a little voice mocked him. One of them isn’t.
"Maybe," said Minerva speculatively. "But so are you lot."
"People are insufferable," Severus remarked emptily, staring at the tea dregs. Minerva chuckled.
"Probably," she said. "People are wrapped up in themselves. Most people, anyway. And people like that are quite insufferable."
Snape didn’t say anything. He continued staring into his cup.
"Oh, please, do not pull a Trelawney on me," Minerva said irritably. "Come now. What’s wrong?"
"Nothing," said Snape bitterly. He paused. Then, "Go catch a mouse."
Minerva sniffed pompously. "Well!" she said very snootily, and then she stood and strode away, apparently giving up on Snape. ("You should talk about being insufferable!").
She had just gotten to the door of the staff room when she ran into an entering Professor Sprout, with whom she exchanged a low conversation. Upon hearing the words "ass hole" it was apparent to Snape that they were talking about him, but he didn’t look up. Why bother? He was trying to concentrate, anyway.
He was a father. Good Lord. A father. That could not possibly be a good thing. But it was supposed to be good, wasn’t it? Not under these circumstances, though. It was not good at all. How would they raise a child, with two completely different lives? Perhaps she didn’t even want his help. It wouldn’t have been surprising. But still, he had enough money, being from a strictly pureblood family, to help her, if she needed help. And he would help her even if she didn’t accept his help, if only to satisfy his overactive conscience.
Or at least, that was his excuse. The real reason was one that he didn’t want to admit, because it was so scary and so suddenly clear to him that he didn’t even want to think about it.
He loved her.
A shudder went through him at the mere thought. He’d almost told her several times, too. He shouldn’t, though, not just yet. If something happened to her, or if she didn’t answer with a declaration of her own… he’d seen enough pain for one lifetime. That, and he was selfish. But that had never really bothered him before, and it shouldn’t bother him now. Yet in this situation it seemed to cause a little more guilt than it would have usually. Didn’t she have the right to know?
No. No one had to know. In fact, it was better if no one knew, because it wouldn’t ruin reputations, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone, and everything would stay peaceful and the same.
He sighed. His parents had always said that he was too conservative, and they’d been right. He was indeed opposed to change, especially when it came to something so unpredictable as emotions. Particularly a woman’s emotions; they seemed to change far more frequently and drastically than a man’s. Women could never make up their minds, which was precisely the reason why he had avoided them for so long.
Although, it was sometimes amusing to fantasise that he’d avoided them because some strange, prophetic part of him had known that this woman was the right one for him. It had known that if he gave his heart away beforehand –which wasn’t extremely easy for him to do anyway –he’d miss this chance now. And it had somehow known that he’d fall hopelessly in love.
For what else could it be called? Here he was, silently ranting to himself like a madman, about how he was in love with her because he was ranting to himself. People always do crazy things when they’re in love. He felt like he was trapped in a cheesy pop song –more than likely one by that Muggle group… the Space Girls?
But Merlin’s gonads, this, this… love thing was frightening. It was like teetering on the edge of a great chasm, so deep he couldn’t see the bottom. If he said aloud what he knew to be true, he would fall endlessly into that great black abyss until he lost the chance of escape.
Maybe he was already falling, though. Maybe she already knew. Maybe there really was such a thing as woman’s intuition. In which case, his job would be a lot easier. But it probably wasn’t going to happen. In the meantime, he had to quit wasting time wallowing in self-pity over what he was too afraid to do.
He sighed. ‘I need a hobby.’
"Mademoiselle?"
Hermione looked up. She had been sitting on a slatted wooden bench on a long corridor outside of the office of Olivier Pierre, the head of the French Ministry’s Department of International Magical Co-operation.
She had been directed here by the attendant in the lobby of the large, pretentious building cleverly disguised as an apartment building and located smack dab in the middle of Paris. She had been sitting here for about five minutes.
The man standing over her was quite tall, and obviously young and a little inexperienced with professionalism, judging by a slightly untidy shock of dark hair that fell into his light blue eyes. He looked uncomfortable in a grey suit, which strained slightly against his broad shoulders.
He seemed a little too big for the jacket, which was actually kind of cute, in a way. He couldn’t have been much older than herself. Hermione assumed that this was Olivier Pierre, but she wasn’t going to assume out loud yet.
"Bonjour monsieur, je m'appelle Hermione Granger et je suis une représentante du ministère de la Magie en Angleterre."
"Ah, oui," the young man interrupted. "You ‘ave come because of ze attack, non?"
"Yes," said Hermione, thankful that he knew English, which was probably going to be true, anyway. Still, had he not known English, things would have gotten very difficult very quickly. French was not her best language, and she had to admit that she was a little rusty.
"Bien. You must be looking for Olivier Pierre. I am ‘is assistant, Jacques Bouchard. Unfortunately, Monsieur Pierre is not currently here, due to a family emergency –I believe zat ‘is mother is ill. It is ‘e who would ‘ave taken you to ze ‘otel where you will be staying, but as ‘e cannot, ‘e ‘as sent me to do so in ‘is place," said Jacques.
Hermione nodded. So, she had been wrong. Oh, well. "When does the committee meet?"
"Ze committee meets… jeudi, je crois. Oui, c’est jeudi. Ah. Forgive me, I do not know much English, and do not often speak to people in it," said Jacques.
"It’s all right. C'est difficile d'apprendre une autre langue... Moi-même je ne parle pas très bien le français," said Hermione, wondering why she felt she had to show off to this man, which was what she was doing, speaking French so obviously. Perhaps it was to prove that the English were not totally ignorant.
"But you ‘ave a very good accent," Jacques replied, smiling.
"Merci," said Hermione, smiling back.
"Come. I will show you to where you are staying," said Jaques.
They walked down the hallway, the walls of which were half dark mahogany and half bright yellow paint, the latter of which bore the sign ‘Wet Paint,’ which would have already been apparent by the strong smell of paint fumes. Apparently they were remodelling.
Hermione had to almost trot to keep up with this lanky fellow’s long stride, and when he took one step, she took two. It was especially hard to walk in a skirt with her round-toed high-heels, though. Jacques first paused at the front desk and told the attractive, blond young woman there –the same woman who had directed Hermione to Pierre’s office –to call for a Ministry car.
He then led her back to the huge, marble, shining mahogany, high-ceilinged lobby and out through the gold-framed revolving doors, which through magic constantly whirled in a slow circle. They emerged on the busy street, which teemed with pure life.
Chatter and automobile noise filled the air, mingling with cigarette smoke, mopeds zoomed noisily by, babies cried, people laughed, lovers kissed on street corners and vendors of glace and crêpe advertised loudly to groups of tourists wandering around with their water bottles and backpacks, gawking at things and peering at maps.
Hermione waited patiently in this controlled chaos with Jacques for the car, but they didn’t wait long; the car was obviously magical, and had the added ability of disappearing and reappearing, an ability that most Mazdas didn’t have.
For some reason, Hermione perceived that it seemed that muggles and wizards mingled a lot more here in France, and she wondered how she hadn’t noticed when she’d come with her parents. Perhaps that was because she had been travelling with her parents –her muggle parents –then. Obviously there wouldn’t have been much interaction with wizards then.
Or was there? Hermione had to wonder as she glanced, with raised eyebrows, at a waitress across the street in a café who had furtively whipped out what was unmistakably a wand and whisked away a soda spill that otherwise would have taken a while to clean up. Hermione stared for a second. Was she really the only one who had noticed that? Hadn’t anyone else? Were there many wizards and witches in Paris who worked Muggle jobs?
"Et voilà." Jacques’ voice brought Hermione out of her thoughts quickly. The sleek black car had arrived.
Jacques held the door open for her –truly gentlemanly, Hermione thought –and then got in beside her.
"Soixante-cinquième rue, sil vous plaît," said Jaques. The driver nodded, and sped off. Hermione sat back in her seat, clutching her handbag, needing something to hold onto. She felt suddenly alienated, despite Jacques’ handsome manners and attempts to make conversation. She remembered what she was here for, and remembered what Percy had told her just before she left.
"Fudge may not think so, but you’re not just there to apologise. Keep your eyes open, Hermione. Something’s going on, and I intend to find out what it is."
Maybe the French weren’t the real reason she was here. Percy was right. Someone had been killed, and the Dark Mark had appeared. That wasn’t something that happened every day, at least not any more. Something was up.
They reached a street somewhere that wasn’t too far from the Ministry’s building, judging by the incredibly short distance that they had gone. Of course, with magical cars, you could never really tell, because you always jumped to the head of the line at traffic lights, and they always miraculously turned so that you could go whenever you came to one. Still, she couldn’t be too far away, because even for a magical car, it had been a short distance.
They stepped out of the car onto an avenue lined with some sufficiently odd buildings, and with still more people walking down the street, but for once, mobile phones and Prada backpacks were absent. It was immediately obvious, if not by the architecture and lack of Muggle-ness, then by the attire of the people on this street, that this was strictly a wizarding zone. Everyone was in robes, and many of them were wearing wizards’ hats.
They walked up the steps of a nearby building as the car drove away, and entered through an ostentatiously carved green door. Jacques smiled at the doorman, an elderly fellow in a tailcoat who smiled in return. Apparently they knew one another.
"Jean-Luc, voici la représentante du ministère de la Magie en Angleterre. Pouvez-vous me donner la clé de l'appartement réservé aux invités de marque s'il vous plaît. ; Jacques said.
The doorman nodded, and produced a key, handing it to Jacques.
"Bienvenue, mademoiselle," he added, nodding to Hermione with a polite smile. Hermione nodded back.
"Merci, monsieur," she replied.
"Ze key is for your apartment," explained Jacques, glancing at Hermione’s confused face as they climbed the winding staircase that went crookedly up through the apartment, a building that seemed a lot smaller from the outside than it was inside.
Jaques went on, "Zere is an apartment zat visitors to ze French Ministry stay in. Ze nearest wizarding ‘otel is ‘ardly very near to ze Ministry building, so it is easier for visitors to stay in zis apartment, even if zey are only ‘ere for a short time." He handed her the key.
"Oh." It was all Hermione could seem to manage. They reached a landing with a door. A doorknob was in the centre of the door, and there was also a large number "6" on it. Jacques nodded, and Hermione, realising that this was her cue, unlocked the door with the ancient-looking silver key that she had been given. Jaques ushered her in, but did not step in himself.
"Before I leave, zere are some details zat I forgot to mention and must now. Zere is a dinner zis evening at seven o’clock at which you are expected to appear, as Monsieur Pierre will ‘opefully be zere, as well as, and more importantly, Marianne Gautier, ze late Minister’s daughter who is temporarily in charge of ze Ministry," said Jaques. "Aside from zat, zere is only ze ‘earing on Thursday. You ‘ave tomorrow free, and I am sure you will wish to do a little sightseeing." Jacques grinned.
"Certainly," Hermione nodded.
"Au revoir, mademoiselle," said Jacques.
"Good afternoon." Hermione hesitated to close the door until Jaques was on the staircase. Then, she closed the door, hearing the latch click, and then turned to survey her temporary residence. Her eyebrows shot up.
There was just one word for this place. Wow.
The walls were a pale lavender that was nearly white, gracefully curving up to the ceiling, which was adorned with fancy gold fixtures. The floors were glistening hardwood, joining the walls at white baseboards.
There was a small living area to her left, with large, opaque-curtained windows that let in soft light. Also, there was a chic, curvaceous white sofa and a furry white rug set in front of a white marble hearth that magically lit when a person entered the room.
To her right was a little kitchen area, complete with coffee machine –thank God for people who understood that muggle technology was absolutely necessary at some times. Before her, there was a very short length of hallway that led to a closed door. Hermione, curious, went to the door and opened it.
The door opened into a bedroom, similarly lavender and cosmopolitan to the rest of the apartment. Hermione took her suitcase out of her pocket and placed an engorgement charm on it, to set it back to normal size. Then she put both it and her suitcase down.
Hermione decided that she should get in a little sleep, if she was going to be facing the daughter of the late Alain Gautier, who was likely to be in quite a bad mood. And the bed looked so inviting, all downy soft and with a snugly, white down comforter included. Might as well take in a nap before dinner.
***
Translations:
Bonjour monsieur, je m'appelle Hermione Granger et je suis une représentante du ministère de la Magie en Angleterre.- Good day, sir. My name is Hermione Granger, and I am a representative from the Ministry of Magic in England.
Jeudi, je crois. Oui, c’est jeudi.– Thursday, I believe. Yes, it’s Thursday.
C'est difficile d'apprendre une autre langue... Moi-même je ne parle pas très bien le français–It’s difficult, to learn another language. Me, I don’t speak very good french. (or something to that effect)
*Hope Hermione knows she’s not the only one!*
Soixante-cinquième rue, sil vous plaît –Sixty-fifth street, please. (or something to that effect)
Jean-Luc, voici la représentante du ministère de la Magie en Angleterre. Pouvez-vous me donner la clé de l'appartement réservé aux invités de marque s'il vous plaît. –Jean-Luc, she is the representative from the Ministry of Magic in England. Please give me the key for the appartment for guests.
Merci –thank you
Mais oui –but of course!
Bienvenue –welcome
Au revoir –goodbye
Mademoiselle –miss
Monsieur –sir
Et voilà –okay; here we are; something similar to that.