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Terezi woke up.
It is said that being released of the Imperius Curse feels like waking up after a long trance. Any pain the pleasant mind fog negates returns, along with any other pain one had suffered for the duration of the spell. You were cursed. It's normal to feel depressed when you're free. Delusional.
Years and years ago Vriska had earnestly declared in front of a flaring fire that Terezi was too head strong, too strong willed to be ever taken in by it. It had been easy to believe in her esteem. Do you believe her now? You don't.
Terezi squinted her eyes against the picture and the following head ache. By now the shrilling clock was running loops through her living room, knocking over paper heaps, self-cooking take-away boxes and bottles.
Who had thought it was a good idea to enchant the clock into transfiguring into a waddling honk after pressing the snooze button a third time? Probably Past Terezi. Karkat always brought her up like she was Terezi’s conjoined twin, who was unfortunately stuck with her.
Terezi woke up again three hours later, having stupor'd the clock into a smoking scorch on the carpet. She could take the day off. Many Ministry employees did these days, although it made their collogues gossip about them falling victim to the early tides of the war. Or worse, not supporting the war efforts enough on either side.
She could apparate to the dragon stables instead. This time of the year the magi maple took on its third, brilliant pink foliage.
Terezi sniffed and reached for her favourite red cape hanging across the sofa. She avoided looking at the bedroom door.
As breakfast she swallowed some creamy butter bear to flush the sour taste from her mouth. The place would have looked better if she had dared to conjure scourgify, but that been their spell. Terezi gave herself a mugglelick instead and took the floo network to the Ministry. She probably would have lost her head if she had tried to apparate.
Terezi squared her shoulders and marched through the Atrium. For the blink of a moment she thought she saw Gamzee Makara standing on the glittering fountain, but surely others would have noticed him standing there. He was a prominent face on the Ministry’s wanted posters nowadays.
Nobody stopped to chat. Rob, Willy, Patty and however these people were called, barely met each other’s gaze, as if eye contact alone put a jinx on you. Then again nobody expected her to have eye sight behind her entchanted blindfold.
Aradia Megido had always met Vriska’s gaze steadily.
Weird, why was Terezi thinking of that old story now?
She took the lift to the second level.
Aradia Megido had demanded a duel from Vriska on a quidditch field in Somerset over poor, sweet, innocent, doormat Tavros Nitram's murder.
Why had she killed him? It puzzled her sometimes. Rationally she knew that everything fit with Vriska, the culprit, and Tavros, the victim. The night. The Grand Staircase. But something didn't feel right, something was missing from the circumstances of the crime.
Lately these thoughts intruded on her unprompted, circumventing even her Occlumency exercises of clearing her mind.
She couldn't help but go through what happened again and again, feeling like she always wound forward through the decisive part.
Terezi had been Vriska's Second, like Sollux Captor had been Aradia's. The formal rules of dueling said that the Second, a trusted alley, will act as a replacement for the duelist when necessary. Then Vriska had turned Sollux against Aradia with her trade mark curse: Imperio.
Afterwards Terezi had turned against Vriska. A consequent retribution. Maybe it was even justice.
What counted was that it had suited her at the moment. You missing her shows that she still controls you.
And it had suited Dumbledore. The password of his office had been "cherry syrup" back then. It seemed laughable in hindsight, to have been Dumbledore’s pet for the day, to feel honoured by his personal interest. She later could see the similarities between them.
Terezi had followed the tabloid press reveal of Dumbledores private relationship to Grindelwald with more sympathy than the gleeful smear campaign against him and Potter. Then again Dumbledor hadn't briefed her to imprison Vriska Serket in her personal estate. Like he had with his lover boy. But he hadn't mentioned that she should kill her "for the greater good" either.
Why didn't they give her over to the authoritives? She didn't know. Maybe she hadn't cared enough to ask the question back then.
Terezi drew her hood over her face before opening the door.
She came just late enough for the first interrogation to avoid unwanted questions from Karkat. Some sod from Belfast had tried to fudge the new squib pass. He was already broken down from Karkat’s coaxing screaming. She just had to sit down across him to make him shudder. Let the guy do the traitorous thinking under the pretense of the negligible questions she posed while he squirmed on the hot seat.
Terezi had always been a gifted Legilimens. It had helped her quite a bit when she had lost her vision. Now she felt it was the other way round: through Legilimency a part of her blind vision returned.
Lies and concealed memories tasted like muted colours, while the truth shone brilliantly clear. Terezi hadn’t lost her sense of smell, it was just hard to see her way with her vision restored. Lately everything tasted dirty.
The questions she asked had changed beneath Fudge’s and then Scrimgeour‘s legislation, but that hardly mattered. People still lied for the same reasons- to get away with it. It was just less challenging now, because they were afraid of her.
"Are you planning to leave or change your residence in the near future?"
"I- no, no, I mean, the holidays are coming. Maybe we wanted to spend them- in the mountains, m'am."
He smelled pale of deceit. What he was really thinking of was ochre and blue. Terezi sniffed dramatically, once, twice. What he felt was the hot chair heating up, burning his arse for omitting the truth. He soaked in the simmering red of squib shame, despite the thick cord jeans his partner had picked out for him.
"Fine, you're obliged to report to your local registry office every week. Don't disappoint us with another cocky scheme. If we catch you another time, you'll go on North Sea holidays in Azkaban," Terezi ended slug-brained. He nodded relieved.
Terezi dismissed him and noted down his thoughts. She left out his little escape scheme to Gibralta. She tried to remember what the death eater’s protocol on squibs was who lived among muggles now. Kill and shun them? Keep them away from other muggles? Breed them? Oh well. She didn't know any squibs.
---
She passed her time until after hour drinks with Rose Lalonde at her desk, staring out of the entchanted window. It showed a disgustingly sunny afternoon. She wished Magical Maintenance had kept up the hurricane weather even after their pay raise.
"If you look purposeful out of the window like that," Aranea stage whispered. "You're going to betray your restored eye sight." She had stepped behind her. The appearance of Aranea, who was considered dead, might have astonished many of her colleagues in the Ministry. Terezi's door was actually entchanted to keep out unwanted intruders. She wasn't sure if her spell had failed or not.
"It is generally known that your vision was blighted by the use of black magic by my cousin Vriska Serket, which is restorable by no ordinary means. I think it's wiser to save this reveal for a dramatic moment, although I myself am prone to disclosing exciting turning points early on in summaries. A harmless enough habit as long as it pertains fiction. This is anything but."
Terezi looked down at her swishing skirt. She could hear her excitement and the restraint thereof.
Aranea rested her hands on the back of Terezi's office chair. Terezi frowned.
"Excuse me. Where are my manners? Just because this situation is out of the ordinary shouldn't mean I can skip over important parts of this conservation just to give you a well meant reminder. Although you'll probably grant me that I'm more aware of other people's feelings than most. How are you feeling, Terezi?"
"Did you have time to think my proposal over?" Aranea continued more impatiently after Terezi didn't answer. "I hope you don't mind if I reassure you of my trust and high regard at this point, while possibly "pestering" you more than I would normally consider conductive. However I really think we would make a great team. Time is of essence if we wish to seize the opportunity."
"I reckon we can order muggle pizza later," Terezi answered finally.
---
"So?" asked Rose, whirling the tiny shiny umbrella between her fingers. It looked tastier than the drinks Rose had taken to. At least muggle alcohol, while tacky, weren't considered particular strong.
"Has he, as I believe is the term, gone over?"
This was just gossip, although thankfully not about Dave. The real exchanges of confidential information didn't play out in muggle bars with the sole protection of a muffliato spell.
"Who?” said Terezi after a while. She was musing about the lacking special effects of her drink. Fire whiskey was a great base for any fun barkeeper trick. It would have warmed her up as well.
“I’m talking about Pius Thhick. Fuckenesse. Ha.“
Terezi granted her the pun with a forced grin, before she leaned back to size Rose up.
"Please, Rose! I thought you of all people would come up with more pressing questions," she said, while keeping her head perfectly still.
Pius Thicknesse was Terezi's superior, succeeding the vanished (correction: murdered) Amalia Bones as the head of the Magical Law Enforcement department. It was the biggest Ministry department, which the others had to answer to- aside from Unspeakables like Rose. She could have asked one of her newer …acquaintances there instead, but she liked Rose.
“Scrimgeour wouldn’t have let him become the head of Law Enforcement if his background wasn’t cleared.”
“Oh, there is no doubt about that,” Rose laughed.
“He had Occlumency training to shield himself, dummy. There are very few Legilimens who can bust him now.”
Terezi knew who would target old Thickhead next, but Rose didn't ask further. No use getting her involved if she didn't even suspect that much.
Meanwhile Rose tried to sympathize and ordered a third round- third at least by Terezi’s count. Rose related the topic of Vriska delicately, like one delicately introduced a knife into an old cheese, or into a soft brain. She mentioned generously that it hadn't been Terezi's fault.
“You see. She has been overdosing on Felix Felicis… anyway,” Rose said gravely, giving already her final verdict. Terezi frowned, trying not to show how much she hated every syllable of the condolence Rose was preparing.
“Shut up. Have you actually looked into her apparition?”
“For her to come back as ghost… she would have to repent before her death,” said Rose, resting her heavy head on her palm. “Murder is, like, the super duper transgression that renders the soul unable to come back. It rips it apart. However you think she appeared as something else?”
Terezi felt cold. “Yes! It was like a phantom, less substantial than a ghost. What if something was... split from her? Don't you guys research that stuff?"
"It's not my apart- departmment. Death is, as far as we know, as irreversible in the magical world as outside of it, thooough the wall separating death and life might be more porous due to magical effects," Rose half quoted.
"Are you sure there’s a magicl reason and not a psychological thing involved? A substantial memory seems... likely, but they're more sordid than ghosts. Solid. Oops."
Terezi snorted. Nothing she didn't know already would come out of this. "Your psy-ology is unfit for this! Your folderol might help with muggle born's whining tantrums because they're used to it. But this is about hard magical high jinx rooted in actual thaumaturgy."
Rose quirked her mouth into a smile.
"Aw yeah, who am I trying to fool here? Muggle medicine's realness attribut-es is more than questionable. What good can it possibly do when no amphibian gland is involved as remedy? Psy-ology is fake as bollocks."
"No, keep believing it. If you believe in it hard enough it'll maybe become less fake." Terezi grinned back.
---
The next day Terezi met Thicknesse and Aranea waiting in front of the lift. Thicknesse cleared his throat, glancing from her to Aranea, who was sporting the visage of a muggle pizza delivery guy called “Jake”. At least according to the name tag on his corpse. Thicknesse gave Terezi, his loyal subordinate, a nod to reassure himself and stepped in before them. She caught the feeling of uneasiness he pushed away when he noticed they were alone in the lift. For an uncalled moment Terezi realized that she respected him.
Terezi made it easy for his will to crack. She bested his Occlumency as Legilimens by miles. Terezi empathically implemented the knowledge of having given in to Aranea’s curse. Failure. You, Sir, did all you could and understandably failed. The floor of the lift gave out. You're lying smashed on the ground of the lift shaft... she trailed off into the feeling of hopelessness, before focusing on her task again. You always knew you were too weak. Your resistance crumbled against Aranea's Imperius curse.
There was no need to smooth over the edges of this false memory, but she didn't tear his memory down either. Thicknesse stumbled, grasping for the walls of the lift. Aranea lost no time. She held her wand to his temple and shouted "Imperio" like a bludger. Terezi drew back and still felt her forcefully trample into the parlour of his mind. She took out Thicknesse’s confused resistance with no problems.
Vriska probably wouldn’t have done it any quicker.
When the lift stopped, Thicknesse stepped out into the hallway. He stroked his robe, smiling to himself.
"As your new Minister for Magic," he would later say. "I promise to restore this temple of tolerance to its former glory. Therefore, beginning today, each employee will submit themselves… for evaluation. But know this: you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide."
A smooth and silent coup followed on August the first.
Terezi wasn’t present. She had taken a room with a defunct fire place in a small hostel in Kent, which she didn't leave for three days.
Usually she would have been too proud to wait for somebody’s orders. She detested herself a little for it. He just wanted to wear her down. But the bed smelled fresh and comfortable and the room service was nice. And she knew that she was being watched through the cloudy mirror.
There were milky schemes walking behind it, huddling together to discuss her. Judging her for her betrayal.
In the second night a shadowy figure pressed themselves close enough to the mirror that she could make out their frizzly long hair and gaunt frame. Terezi hid under the covers, frozen in dread and yearning. She told herself it had to be Bellatrix Lestrange, but listened for Vriska's step instead.
If it had been her, something must have put her off, because Terezi woke up without her.
On this morning, dripping letters appeared on the ceiling, surely mocking her bedriddenness.
“Miss Pyrope proceeds to her office as usual”
And she did. She couldn’t help but feel satisfaction about reading the news that day. Things hadn’t been going well for a while now. It was time that everybody acknowledged it. It was time that the Magical Maintenance broke down. It was time for hurricanes twentyfour hours a day.
That afternoon Terezi got a ghost repellant and amulets in the Knockturn Alley.
She put the amulets on her bedroom door and sprayed the repellant over her sleeping couch until it smelled like toad crap.