E Pluribus Unum

Chapter 50 – An Angel in the Garden

Minuet sat between Hermione and Harry and wondered if she herself was as obvious as Hermione was. Gabriel Leblanc, who seemed nice – but certainly wasn’t as wonderful as Harry – was seated opposite them and Hermione’s eyes followed him as a cat follows a bird. Minuet kept waiting for her to chitter and then pounce on the poor guy. Well, he was cute enough -- tall slender, dark haired and eyed -- Minuet could approve all those things but he was also so very… earnest. Perfect for a Gryffindor, she thought with a sigh.

The Room of Requirement was a cozy parlor today, done in muted greens and golds with a crackling fire and soft rugs underfoot. Tea services appeared and vanished as they were needed and if you reached out a hand for something you invariably found it beneath your questing fingers. Minuet wondered if the room had a mind of its own or if it was her desires being made manifest through some sort of Legilimancy, like the legendary mirror of Erised. It was hard to tell.

He was telling them a story about Professor Leblanc from when she was an Auror and the intelligence was useful but listening to him expound, all wide-eyed and sweet, was tough for a Slytherin girl. Her dorm mates would eat him alive, she thought with a tiny snicker. Harry had wrapped his arms around her, not because he was jealous but just because it was one of those rare occasions when he could be publicly affectionate. Well, if the inner circle of Dumbledore’s Army could be called public.

“Of course then she got recruited to be an Agent and we didn’t see as much of each other anymore.” The Auror finished with a wistful note in his voice. He was so easy to read that it was almost exasperating.

“That’s sad for you but great for us because if she hadn’t have been an Agent we would all be dead several times over.” Minuet interjected with asperity, thinking in particular about a certain muddy Hogsmeade evening.

The young man looked at her in surprise and she tensed waiting for a sharp reply but Harry’s soft chuckle in her ear relaxed her.

“Gabriel, you have to understand that we’ve been fighting a war here for nearly twenty years; a covert war, by the way. Professor Leblanc’s training is perfect for this type of sneaking conflict. In fact, I am one of the people who would have died and not that long ago if she and Snape hadn’t done the spy thing and saved my butt.” Harry’s voice was much kinder and gentler than Min’s had been but the tone of command was not that of a teenaged boy but of a man who had fought in that war since he was eleven years old. Gabriel subsided and looked at them with speculation.

“I never meant it to sound as though I was disparaging her choices, just that I miss her and that where once we were so close we could almost read each other’s thoughts, now I don’t understand half of what she is talking about.” He had dropped the earnestness for a moment and been just honest and Minuet wondered if the “earnest young Auror” wasn’t as much an act for Gabriel as the “strict no-nonsense teacher” was for Professor Leblanc. Maybe he wasn’t so easy to read after all.

“She has two doctorates and it’s the spy stuff you don’t understand?” Hermione was eyeing Gabriel like he was a box of Honeyduke’s finest and Minuet was trying not to giggle.

“Oh well, I admit some of her theoretical arithmantic propositions are a trifle beyond me, but I do understand the equations that she has worked out. I am not up to her weight in genius but I am hardly stupid.” Gabriel waved a hand in the airy way that really smart people have when they think something is easy. Harry ground his teeth quietly beside her. He had never grasped arithmancy, at least not on the levels that Minuet and Hermione routinely worked at. For the young Auror to just wave off higher-level math as something obvious was irritating to him.

“Anyway, you were saying something about the attack on Granger. What is this Rite of Purity that Voldemort was trying to do?” Draco interrupted impatiently. Minuet nodded in agreement; there were more important things to talk about right now.

“I am not entirely certain, just the description of the rite is proscribed information.” He shrugged and Malfoy looked thoughtful. Minuet shivered; anything so dark that you couldn’t even describe it was chilling. Hermione had paled at his words and looked rather shaken.
Minuet speculated that her way of dodging the thoughts about her possible fate that day had been to concentrate on Gabriel Leblanc. Her little spurt of denial had fallen apart in one sentence.

Draco saw her distress and casually rose from his chair, sauntered across the room and dropped onto the couch beside her.

“Well, lucky for you Snape was there.” He drawled lazily and dropped an arm across the back of the chair. Hermione leaned into him seeking comfort and Draco pretended that he didn’t notice. Minuet mentally applauded the entire scene. Few people knew how deeply Draco felt things but Minuet knew the truth. She knew that he had come to feel a brotherly affection for Hermione Granger and that it was something that he would vigorously deny till his dying breath. His father had made absolutely certain that Draco would never openly display any affection to others. The lesson had stuck: love something where Lucius Malfoy could see it and you would watch it die, slowly and painfully.

“Professor Snape did have a little help.” Gabriel commented wryly.

“Oh yeah, Miss Mangle too.” Draco added with a nonchalant air and the Auror grimaced. “Did we mention that she helped Fauna when the other demon was invading her dreams?” The blonde haired boy added with his eyes firmly on the older man.

“I’m getting the impression that you are all concerned that I might kill the demon if you don’t hammer me over the head with how she has reformed.” Gabriel had a twitch to his lips that might have been him trying to suppress a smile or it could have been a display of anger. Minuet watched him in fascination. There was actually more to him than met the eye.

“Something like that.” Draco agreed.

“Well, don’t worry. I can’t kill a demon; you need a special blade to do that and I don’t have one.” Minuet thought of how Uncle Severus had killed the demon in Hogsmeade. Harry had described the scene to her in detail and certain thoughts occurred to her.

“Where did Uncle Severus get one?” She hadn’t meant to ask it out loud, but all the heads swiveled towards her and Neville frowned.

“That blade I picked up…” Since that night, Neville had changed. No longer the quiet unsure boy, he was a sadder but wiser man. He moved with greater strength and confidence but also he seemed more at peace. Killing the woman who had tortured his parents had been satisfying for him but it still hadn’t brought his parents back from madness.

“Snape made a point of getting it back from you before the Aurors could see it.” Harry murmured thoughtfully. Minuet twisted in his embrace and looked into his green eyes, they had gone distant in thought and she sighed. She might be good at Arithmancy and sneaky Slytherin politics, but Harry had the mind of a strategist. He saw battle formations in his mind, ran through scenarios and analyzed data with a rapidity that surprised people who didn’t know him well. Wherever he went when he was doing this, she could not follow and she stayed quiet to let him think. She yearned for a day when he didn’t have to think about fighting and tactics, though.

“Kathryn has a friend in Japan. He comes from a line of Demon hunters; if anyone would have a blade to kill them with…” Gabriel murmured and then let the words trail off suggestively. He cocked an eyebrow in a surprisingly Snape-like manner as he spoke. The small group exchanged knowing glances.

“So, you think Uncle Severus is going to go after the other demon.” Minuet voiced the thought aloud, hearing the slight trembling in her own voice. She wasn’t sure what she would do if she lost Uncle Severus as well.

“Him or Thumiel.” Gabriel replied. “Angels come fully equipped with flaming swords which are remarkably efficient for whacking demons.” There was that twitch again, a touch of humor or perhaps concern. Minuet was studying him with interest now. There were some interesting subtleties underneath the façade of simpleminded openness. He seemed so open and aboveboard that Minuet began to wonder how often he was underestimated and how many people survived that misjudgment.

“Handy that.” Harry had that distant tone still, so Minuet knew that he was thinking hard. “We will have to talk to the angel about it.”

“He said he’d be in the greenhouses with Professor Sprout.” Hermione chimed in, her lip was caught between her teeth and she was frowning from the effort of her own thoughts.

Gabriel, Minuet noticed, seemed rather fascinated by the girl’s mouth. Minuet watched Gabriel watching Hermione and wanted to laugh. She didn’t, of course; no Slytherin would ever be so obvious.

After classes the next day they ran the angel to ground. Gabriel, Hermione, Harry, Minuet and Draco wandered into Greenhouse 3, looking casual and as though they had all arrived separately on different errands. After all, most people thought the two Slytherins were Harry’s mortal enemies and they wanted to maintain that illusion.

Thumiel was up to his elbows in dirt, repotting iris bulbs with Madam Sprout, who was smiling beatifically up at him.

Around people like Uncle Severus, Thumiel seemed of average height but beside Madam Sprout he seemed a giant, towering over the short, plump herbology professor. There was something about him -- an aura of gentle compassion that eased Minuet’s heart as she got closer to the angel. His hair was so pale a blonde that it was nearly white and his eyes were the crystal blue of sapphires. His features were so perfect and regular that even if you hadn’t known he was an angel you would have thought him inhuman anyway. He was wearing simple jeans and a white t-shirt, now dirt spattered, but there was a regal quality that transcended his clothes. Thumiel could no more look shabby than Minuet could fly without a broom.

He turned that crystal gaze on them and smiled with surpassing sweetness.

“I’m almost finished here then perhaps you would be kind enough to give me a tour of the grounds.” He had a soft voice, as though he were too shy to speak loudly yet the notes were almost musical and carried without trouble to where they all stood clustered out of the reach of the Venomous Taranticula which hovered beside the repotted bulbs.

“Sure.” Draco shrugged nonchalantly, as though he had no stake in it and they waited quietly, watching the angel as he tenderly tucked the bulbs into the soil, as though he were putting small children to bed. He was working right next to the vicious plant and it made no move to snap at him, even going so far as to purr gently as he approached it. A quick wash up and brief consultation with Madam Sprout later and they were following along behind the angel as he meandered through the Hogwarts grounds.

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Thumiel asked them with a smile.

“It’s about Miss Mangle and Fenchurch.” Minuet started off the conversation.

“Ah, the easy questions.” Thumiel chuckled.

“Can Miss Mangle be saved?” Harry asked bluntly.

“Anyone can be saved, if they choose to be.” There was a quality of sorrow in the angel’s voice that spoke of great loss.

“If they choose to be?” Draco had a way of pouncing on the heart of every problem.

“Free will, ever heard of it?” Harry ribbed Draco who stuck out his tongue at him.

“It’s more than that. Redemption is a tricky thing. First you have to believe yourself capable of it and then you have to believe yourself worthy of it. Hell is filled with people who think they belong there.” The gentle sadness of the angel was heartbreaking to hear.

“So, somehow we have to convince a demon that she is worthy of redemption?” Hermione musstilstill chewing on her lip.

“No, somehow Professor Snape has to.” Thumiel paused and smiled at the group of young warriors. “Though honestly, I think he’s already halfway there.”

Minuet hoped so; she honestly did, for Uncle Severus’ sake more than anything else. She couldn’t imagine how he would feel if he had to kill Miss Mangle.