Just a Spoonful of Truth

Michael sat in his study, holding the two glistening vials of thought threads that he'd uncovered in the Ministry prior to Gideon Pierce's dramatic departure. For such small things, these weighed heavily on him. They had been well hidden, deep in a hidden safe in the Minister's outer office. Stupid place for Pierce to hide anything--especially with Michael in the building. It had been childsplay for Michael to access the safe, but when he'd found the thought threads, it raides Michael's suspicions. And so he had taken them.

He knew he should have taken them straight to Kate to have her read them. Knew he should have brought their existence to Robert's attention. He hadn't done it. He'd read up on the process for reading the threads, borrowing a book from the Hogwarts library. Then he'd "borrowed" one of Kate's pensieves and read the threads for himself.

Now, as they glowed with an eerie green light in the vials, they haunted Michael. He was drinking scotch--at 8 in the morning. It wasn't early morning drinking. Not really. It was belated nighttime drinking. Scotch leftover from a drink he'd poured last night. Now that he'd managed to read the threads, he needed the scotch.

He hadn't liked Pierce before, but he certainly didn't like him any more now. Michael wasn't a man easily given over to hate. Wasn't a man of violence. It was looking very different in the cold hard light of a gray wintery looking morning--and in the light of the vials in his hand.

Gideon Pierce definitely needed eliminating. And, Michael was believing that killing wasn't good enough. He wanted Pierce to spend the rest of his years entrusted to the very special care of unrelenting dementors in the deepest darkest hole Azkaban had.

It was a beautiful morning, the sun shining and glistening off of the snow, the birds who haven't gone south for the winter yet singing. Thaor loved days like this, that is, when he isn't woken up before 8 am on a Sunday.

Sunday's were his days to sleep in, and relax. But when he got Michael's owl he knew it had to be serious. Thaor was slightly regretting taking up the position as an unspeakable, and Robert's undersecretary for that matter. But the feeling passed quickly as he drank his coffee, and prepared to head out to Michael's house in Hogsmeade.

When he arrived he knocked on the door three times, paused, and knocked twice more, letting Michael know it was him. He sighed as he realized his plans for a relaxing day, spent reading, and lounging around his house, were now inevitably canceled.

Michael heard the knock on the door, but he almost simultaneously heard his hat rack, Snidely, race to the door to fling it open for company.

"Don't steal anything from him, you matchstick," Michael called to the hat rack. Wait, he thought, why am I starting with Junior? He didn't have a good answer for why he had bypassed Robert, who truthfully should have known by now.

Michael set the vials down on the desk, and got up, finishing his scotch in one large gulp. Seemed rude to still have a drink on his desk. He headed out of the study towards the front door, where the hat rack was in the process of motioning Junior inside.

"Come in," Michael said. "Thank you for coming. Come into the kitchen and help yourself to coffee or tea. They're both on. We need to talk, and this definitely falls into that 'classified' category of business that I am not ready for anyone else to know. Not quite yet."

He went into the kitchen and set out two large stoneware mugs. He poured tea into one for himself, motioning for Junior to help himself to either fresh tea or fresh coffee.

Thaor couldn't help but let out a chuckle as he heard Michael yell at his hat rack. It had been a while since Thaor had been in Michael's home, and he had forgotten how eccentric Michael's furniture could be.

He stepped inside and allowed the hat rack to take his cloak before he followed Michael into the kitchen. Thaor frowned as Michael spoke, generally, when Michael had something 'classified' and you're the first he tells about it, it's something horrible, and life changing, and you weren't likely to sleep very much for the next couple of days.

So this stays between us, per usual, I am at your service. He said, as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Generally he added cream and sugar, but he had a distinct feeling he would need all the energy he could get, and took his coffee black this morning.

"I can't keep this from Robert," Michael sighed. "I'm merely buying a little time. He's got enough on his plate. I do not want him to come unglued by this. And--I owe it to him and to your father to make sure you're one of the first ones that know."

He took his tea mug and motioned Junior to follow him out of the kitchen and into the study. He motioned him to sit, and Michael sat back down at the desk.

"I presume you might have seen vials like these before. They're memories. Threads of thought, to be more precise. These are threads Robert does not know to exist. I found them hidden in the Ministry just a few days before Pierce's press conference. I was planning to have Kate read them but I didn't get the chance. But I read them during the night last night."

He paused for a moment and looked at the young man who was a dyed-in-the-wool clone of Thaor. "These have everything to do with what's happened in the last three or four years. Everything to do with Robert. And everything to do with your father."

Thaor followed Michael into the study and sat down. He let out a sigh when he realized just how big of an impact these threads would have on his relaxed Sunday. No reading, no tea, no homemade dinner. But he wasn't too angry or upset, afterall, if these threads are what Michael says they are, they are the answers he has been searching for all around the world the last couple of years.

Lets begin straight away then. I think we can both agree the Lupin family has enough going on right now that they will understand us starting in on this without them. He said, giving Michael a reassuring look.

"I saw, clearly, who designed the spell that cursed your father. I watched him design it. I watched him use it to test it on someone else." He didn't want Junior to see what he'd seen in the thread. "I've never seen that level of dark magic. Never. Not like that."

He sipped on his tea before continuing. "And in the other thread, I saw him lure your father out of his office, into the Department of Mysteries. I saw the person fire on your father from behind. Thaor never saw it coming. But--there was a reflection in the marble.

"The spell was designed to be a sort of magical parasite. It was designed to strip him of his control of his mind, and thereby control his magic and turn him into a pure weapon against anyone he ever cared about, but, more specifically, against Robert."

"Are you sure, really sure, that you want to know who cursed your father? Be sure. Because if I tell you, there's no going back from it unless I obliterate it from you."

Thaor thought for a second after Michael told him what the threads contained. It was as he suspected, the answer to the mystery he has been trying to solve. He however didn't feel as he predicted he would. He wasn't filled with vengeance, he wasn't going to be out for blood. He knew what had to be done, and how.

I wish to see these threads. Not just for my own personal knowledge, but as a newly appointed Wizengamot Member, I'll see them during a trial anyway when they're used as evidence, I may as well see them now. he said, pausing to take a drink of his coffee before continuing.

I will not seek vengeance against this person, I won't stoop to that level. I will work with you, and Robert, and the other Unspeakables to apprehend this person, and see to it that they go to trial. He said, looking into Michael's eyes so he knew he wasn't lying.

I will however, seek the death penalty.

Michael considered Junior's words. There was a lot of "old Thaor" in him--the honorable part of Thaor that they'd all loved so much.

"Alright," Michael said slowly, still having some reservations about it. "You have every right to want him dead. I do too, but I'm not to want it to be easy or painless for him. Too many have suffered at his hands. I want him to waste away, for as much time as we can prolong his life for, in the bowels of Azkaban, being very well cared for by every dementor we can find. Simply opting out of it all is far too good for him."

He got out the bowl he'd "borrowed" from Kate. He presumed he would tell her about that and return it. Eventually. He got a pitcher of water from the kitchen and poured the water into the silver bowl.

He picked up the vials and picked up both of them and poured them into the water. He figured he'd plucked the soggy thought threads out of the water before, so he probably could do it again. Or at least he hoped it wasn't a one trick pony.

"Go ahead," he told him. "Just be prepared. Your father was caught offguard and used. He was a pawn to this man's game. We will do what we need to do to stop him. Of that, I am quite certain."

Thaor paused for a moment before he entered the pensive. What he was about to watch could be life changing. What he was about to watch would show him who was responsible for his fathers death.

A small part of him was afraid. Afraid that he wouldn't be able to contain his anger, that his dark side would come out, and that he would be like his father.

My father had a list of rules to live by, Rule 15 comes to mind right about now. "Always work as a team." He said, before looking into the pensive.

Do you have any cigarettes? I know you kept some for my father when he ran out. He asked when he finished watching the threads. Thaor didn't smoke, but now, was an exception, he also didn't drink in the mornings, but he would need a drink now.