"Because you're a lot like Dad - and I say it as a good thing," he hastened to add. "If Mum ever died, you know he'd be devastated," Bill explained. "But five years down the line, ten years down, whenever it was he got involved with a woman again, you also know he'd appreciate every single moment with her that much more because now he knows how quickly it can be snatched away."
"Yeah, I guess that's true," Charlie said after a while. "How does a Snitch who's never remained caught learn something like that?"
"Just because I fly from flower to flower doesn't mean I miss the fact some people like having just the one," Bill replied smoothly. "You deserve to be cautiously happy rather than constantly miserable though. I don't even want to think what that would do to a guy after a while."
"Maybe; it doesn't feel like today's the day for it though," his brother said, finishing the last of his butterbeer. "You're starting to talk like a guy whose turn is right around the corner though," Charlie said, finally with a bit of a smile.
"Don't curse me like that," he said with a perturbed look. "I was going to keep an eye out for a special little flower for you, but since you said that, you can forget it." Bill said with a smile, much preferring a happy brother to a woebegone one.
"And speaking of special little flowers-," he said, taking out his wand and spinning it in a bit of a circle. A single chrysanthemum in full bloom burst forth from his wand. Palely pink with a yellow center, Bill thought it was a fine choice for a mother. "-It's time to see Mum."
...
It was a plainer and much more subdued Rita Skeeter that Lichfield followed through the Ministry's corridors, clutching her quill-and-ink set and little notebook as if they were a shield against whatever lurked in the sparsely lit gloom. Gone were the tight blonde ringlets and bejeweled spectacles she normally wore - though he supposed he was wrong in saying so. In truth, when these events occurred the woman had yet to adopt the signature look.
Just in sight behind her was Bartemius Crouch, then the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, crisply dressed, hair tightly controlled, and briefcase present even at this early hour. A man with a fighter's mentality and a vicious hatred of the Dark Arts, all he understood was attack - attack - attack! Lester tried to recall precisely how long the man had left at this time before his career, his whole life, crumbled around him when his namesake son had been exposed as a Death Eater - a few days, a week at most; everyone had been blindsided by that bit of scandal.
It was another scandal he was interested in though and as Rita turned and entered the Office of Wartime Child Placement and Care - a Ministry department which wouldn't last the day - he saw the focus of his interest already sitting to one side of a modestly sized table in front of a room full of empty chairs. Albus Dumbledore never left his contemplative state as Rita tucked into a chair and seemed to blend into it like a mouse in a corner. It hardly seemed the scene for one - if not two - of the biggest miscarriages of justice ever known. In his experience though politicians could do far more lasting damage than any group of criminals ever could, and more often than not they got away with it too.
"Dumbledore," Crouch said quickly as he entered the room in what passed as a greeting from him. "Who was it this time?" he asked, getting down to business. "Are there any witnesses?"
"Ah, I think we should wait for the Minister to arrive," Dumbledore said in his grandfatherly way. "That way we do not need to repeat ourselves."
"Then wait no longer," a short, somewhat portly woman in curlers pronounced as she made her entrance. "I, Millicent Bagnold, Minister of Magic, do hereby open these emergency proceedings regarding the surviving child or children of um… ," the woman looked to Dumbledore for information as she took her seat between Crouch and Dumbledore.
Looking over, Lester saw Rita hurriedly scratching away with her quill; these people had just taken it for granted she was ready, or was even there in all likelihood. The sympathy he had for some of the victims of her libelous literary liturgy slipped a bit when he saw that.
"How many of her first targets had actually had it coming?" he wondered, taking the privacy of the pensieve as license to actually speak his thoughts out loud.
"James and Lily Evans Potter," Dumbledore said, almost overriding him.
'Perhaps keeping my thoughts to myself would be better after all, ' he thought. After all, he couldn't listen to what he couldn't hear for all his gabbing.
"While it's a sad day when any of our countrymen die, sadder still is the loss of those we value most highly," Minister Bagnold said with kind words that were belied by the tone telling them she was saying it now by rote. "The Wizengamot mourns the passing of such a distinguished member."
Lester shook his head at that. The boy had never sat in his father's seat, something he was determined to change this time around. If James had been born with even half of Charlus's temperance he never would've gotten involved with Dumbledore's little band, never drawn the attention of You-Know-Who, and would likely still be alive today.
'But if wishes were wings, pigs would fly, ' Lichfield reminded himself.
"I've gotten reports," Crouch interjected while withdrawing a parchment from his briefcase. "Of 'an abnormally large man' riding a flying motorbike from the ruins of a house in Godric's Hollow. Does that have anything to do with this?"
"That would be our gameskeeper, Hagrid, though I cannot say for certain where the motorbike came from," Dumbledore replied with a smile like this was all a bright, sunny day. "He was there, on my orders, to take charge of the situation."
"Two muggle law enforcement officers and a dozen onlookers had to be Obliviated," Crouch said tersely. "Even now we have men tracking down who sent them, where those reports are, and how they are kept, all to try to keep this breach of Secrecy under control. The Ministry would be better served by having our forces deployed elsewhere. Is that what you call 'taking charge'?"
.....
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