Vane

Harry walked over to the boat, where he still had the impostor secured. He noticed that Rose and Scorpius were headed in the same direction. That was good, then they could get Sam out of the hole without Scorpius seeing him.

"Don't kill him," was all Harry said. They both nodded, though Scorpius did it rather reluctantly. Harry noticed that Rose had not given him his wand back. 

Harry opened the door to the small cabin in the back where he had left the impostor. At first, he thought it had to be a mistake. The person on the other side was not at all who he thought it was going to be.

It was a woman. She seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he knew her from. Rose was bewildered as well. 

"Who on earth is that?" she asked. Harry was tempted to ask the same.

Ginny and Hermione came in right behind them. They both gave a start as they saw the woman behind the shield. She could not see them, so her bored expression didn't change.

"That's Romilda Vane!" Ginny said. "She's the one behind all this?"

Romilda Vane? Harry vaguely remembered her from school. He looked at her more closely. It could be. He hadn't interacted with her since he left Hogwarts.

"Who's Romilda Vane?" Rose asked.

"She was obsessed with Harry in our fifth year, his sixth, about the same time as we started dating. She even tried to give him a Love Potion once, though that backfired, and Ron ended up taking it instead."

"In a strange sort of way, this makes a lot more sense now," Hermione said. Harry looked at her, surprised. None of this made any sense to him.

"If we assume that Vane is still obsessed with you, which based on what she said earlier, she absolutely is, then she wants to get rid of everyone that might pose a danger to you, and then insert herself where she thinks she should be. I don't know why she went for Scorpius before Ginny, but maybe that was mainly ease of access or convenience. Only she can answer that."

"I think you're right," Scorpius said. "She only came down to my cell once, but from what I gathered she saw me as a danger to the Potters and wanted to remove me from them. She probably saw James as the same. And Ginny was in the way of her getting the man she wanted." 

"You're probably right." Rose said. "But who are all those other women?"

"Her friends. Some of them may have realised what she was doing, or she may have told them, and their reaction was not what she expected. So, she needed to isolate them as well."

"How long was she expecting to get away with this?" Rose asked. 

"I don't think you can expect her to have thought about this rationally. From what you describe, she was in the process of making a dummy looking like Scorpius for us to find. I expect she would then make dummies for James and Ginny as well. As for the others here, I don't know." Hermione said.

"Okay, so do we interrogate her first, or hear what Sam has to say?" Harry asked.

"I think we should start with Sam and Marietta first. That may give us a starting point in what to ask to break through to her," Hermione said. "Besides, if she continues the same way as she did on the way here, she's not going to tell us anything voluntarily. We may have to wait until we are back on shore, and I can get us some Veritaserum."

Harry sighed. Using Veritaserum was a nightmare situation legally. He would have to do a mountain of paperwork defending the usage of it, if this was ever something that went to court. Most likely, this person would end up in a hospital, not a prison. 

"Let's go interview the guards first," Harry said. "I suspect we may get more out of them than her."

***

Scorpius had still not let go of Rose's hand, but as they got close to the main building he hesitated. Rose realised the problem at once. She wasn't sure she wanted to see Sam right now either. She had called him a friend, now she wasn't so sure. And she knew that Scorpius really shouldn't have to hear his defence of his actions right now anyway. 

"We'll stay out here," she said. Harry nodded. He agreed that it was a good idea to keep Scorpius away from Sam. He had hoped to keep James away as well, but he seemed just as determined to be present as Scorpius was determined to stay away. Ginny had already strategically placed herself between her sons and Sam. 

The young man looked defeated and terrified. Harry wished to have sympathy for him, but he had been the one to keep members of his family down in a literal hole in the ground. Maybe it would be better if not everyone was present when he questioned him. He looked over at the other one. She didn't seem to notice that she was tied up. She just sat and stared out to the sea, not even looking at any of them.

"Has she said anything?" he asked.

"Nothing," Albus replied. "She tried to get up to make food, but then just stopped trying about 5 minutes later."

Hermione started examining Marietta. She frowned. Harry didn't like what he felt from her either.

"It's like there's nothing left there," Hermione said. "Like she's been replaced with an automation that only looks like her but isn't her anymore."

Harry turned to Sam. "Has she said anything to you?"

"No. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she just looked at me and didn't reply. She just sits like that, unless Dawson is present. She eats something if I place it in front of her, otherwise she just handles the food for the prisoners, as Dawson told her to do. I showed her how to do that once, then she did it without comment the rest of the time. I think Dawson had to specify that she had to put food down two cells when he was here yesterday. Though she talked normally to the other women, before they were taken to their cells. I don't think she has talked to them afterwards though."

Hermione nodded. "This is probably a form of Confunding, maybe a more complete version of what the Death Eaters tried to do to Scorpius. I dare not try to remove this here, we need to get her to St. Mungo's."

"Is there a rush to get her there?" 

"No, whatever damage has been done is done, I don't think an hour more or less will make a difference in her case. But we should check and see if the other prisoners have been subjected to something similar."

Sam spoke up again, still sounding terrified. "They… they may have been. When they arrived, Dawson had absolute control over them, he made them feel a headache, so they wanted to go to bed, and they thought the cells were nice hotel rooms. They gave up their wands to him without question."

"What is it they think they have done?" Hermione asked.

"They think they have been arrested for breaking the Statutes of Secrecy. Something about an epic drunk battle in Edinburgh Castle. I don't know if it is true, but they seem to think so."

"It sounds like you have quite a lot of explaining to do. Do you know who the prisoners are?" Hermione asked.

"Only… only some of those that were down the hole. I know it probably won't matter, but I'm sorry. I never knew this was going to happen, I thought I was working for the Ministry. By the time I realised I was not, it was already too late. Dawson had arrested my brother, he threatened to put him in top-security in Azkaban. I couldn't let that happen. He claims to have released him now, but I don't know. Please, he had nothing to do with any of this, can you help him?"

"I think you should be more worried about yourself than your brother. But we will try to find him. We have caught the person you thought was Dawson. It was a person pretending to be him, for at least three months. You don't have to worry about him anymore." Harry said. Sam seemed very relieved at that. 

"Please, I'll tell you anything you want to know, just please don't let my brother suffer for it."

"We are not in the habit of punishing people for what others have done." Harry said. "If your brother really is in Azkaban, or taken somewhere, we will find him."

"I'll start getting the others out of the cells and back on the boat," Hermione said. "And check to see if there is any sign of Confunding on them as well. Do you have the keys?" she asked Sam.

"No, it was Dawson that locked up the cells. I don't think there are keys to the cells at all. Alohomora won't work, not unless you have his wand specifically, or maybe with mine. I don't know where my wand is right now though."

"I got it," James said. "I'll go and see if it works."

"I have the impostor's wand," Albus said. The two of them left with Hermione to release the women in the cells.