Divided and Entwined (Harry Potter AU) (Complete)

Chapter 59: Escalation

‘It is telling that in the midst of an international crisis, with Britain under close scrutiny by the International Confederation of Wizards and Jamaica all but threatening war, the radical muggleborns still refused to present a united front to the foreign forces. Instead of closing ranks with the Ministry, they hunted down pureblood families who had gone into hiding months previously. Not only did they put the entire country at risk, but they also had nothing to show for their efforts. For as it turned out, those they caught had not hidden in preparation to strike at the muggleborns, but to save their lives during the height of the Second Blood War. And while some of my colleagues might consider the fact that the captured purebloods were handed over to the Ministry as a desire for reconciliation, I refute that opinion. The victims of this ‘witch hunt’ were handed over to the Ministry for the sole purpose of further dividing the Ministry’s meagre forces and weakening those who still opposed Black and his allies in the Wizengamot.’
- Excerpt from ‘Wizarding Britain in the 20th Century’ by Albert Runcorn

*****​

Kent, Greengrass Manor, April 3rd, 1997

Daphne Greengrass felt like vomiting when she regained her balance inside her home. Not because she had just been transported by Side-Along-Apparition - that was unpleasant, but she had been taught to endure it as a child. No, but to re-enact the murder of her parents, on the order of those responsible… She wanted to scream, to cry, to curse the monster who had forced her through that ordeal.

But she couldn’t. If she did, she’d doom her remaining family. Herself and her sister. Instead, she forced herself to remain calm and smoothed out her robe with a flick of her wand.

Tracey wasn’t quite as composed, however, and was muttering curses under her breath while she took deep breaths, trembling - with rage or horror, or both. Daphne couldn’t tell.

“Are you alright?” The werewolf asked, with fake concern. “The force of the explosion shouldn’t have reached us behind the hill, although I confess to a lack of personal experience in that area.”

Daphne reached out and wrapped an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “We are alright, considering the circumstances,” she said through clenched teeth. She wanted the monster gone from her home, from her life. She wanted to stop hurting, to stop fearing, to stop feeling. She wanted to be free of all this.

Tracey wiped her eyes - with her hand, not her wand, and slowly nodded. She wasn’t raising her head, though, and stared at the ground.

Daphne heard the beast gasp and mutter: “Merlin’s staff! I didn’t realise… no one did… I’m sorry.”

She didn’t look at it. If the creature pitied her, instead of hating her, then that would be even worse. She could deal with hatred, but to have sunk so low that her enemies took pity on her? That would be a disgrace. So she shook her head, and fell back on the manners her parents had taught her. “It is late. I think we should retire for the night,” she said, not quite managing to sound as polite as she wanted.

It seemed to be enough, though - the werewolf straightened up and nodded. “Of course. Good night, Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis.”

“Good night,” Tracey mumbled and Daphne could feel her friend’s breathing slowing down as the creature left them.

Once the door closed behind it, she clenched her eyes shut and tried to ignore the tears running down her cheeks.

*****​

Cadwallader Cottage, Shropshire, Britain, April 3rd, 1997

Amelia Bones drew a hissing breath through clenched teeth when she saw the devastation wrought upon the Cadwalladers’ estate . Where their house had stood, only burned out ruins remained. The destruction was as complete as that of Malfoy Manor.

She noticed differences as well, though, as she walked towards the northern part of the ruins, where she spotted Pius and Dawlish. There were no bodies lined up, and there was no smell of burned flesh permeating the air. And on closer inspection the ruins were different as well, though she couldn’t say exactly how they differed.

“Report!” she barked as soon as she was close enough to talk to her underlings.

Pius straightened up. “Good morning, Amelia,” he said.

She ignored the reprimand implicit in his polite greeting. She wanted answers, not empty courtesies. “What have you found out so far?”

Pius glanced at Dawlish, and the Head Auror took a deep breath. “We were alerted by the Obliviators at four in the morning that there was an explosion in this area, and that they had handled the muggle authorities who had been about to investigate. An Auror patrol quickly spotted the, at the time, still burning ruins, and alerted the Department. We deployed the reserve force and secured the area, in case it was an ambush, then put the fire out.”

Amelia made a mental note that it hadn’t been Fiendfyre. She nodded at Dawlish. “Go on.”

“We searched the ruins, but the destruction and the fire had not left much in a recognisable state. As far as we can tell, the wards were destroyed with a muggle bomb, as was the house, and the ruins were then set on fire using large amounts of petrol.”

She frowned. “Petrol? Refined?” She did recall that the Resistance had not used regular petrol, but she couldn’t recall the correct name for their mixture.

Pius shook his head. “No. Not like the kind used against Malfoy Manor.”

“And there were two bombs, not one,” Dawlish added.

“One to take care of the wards, and one to destroy the house. Peculiar,” Pius said.

“Indeed.” Amelia narrowed her eyes. It could be the Resistance’s work. Or the work of someone trying to frame them. Or the result of the Resistance trying to make her think they were being framed. “Did you find the Cadwalladers?”

Dawlish shook his head. “No. We haven’t found any bodies so far. They might not have been at home when the attack took place, but they haven’t contacted us so far.”

“I doubt they would,” Pius said, “After such an attack, most would stay hidden.”

“They might have been kidnapped,” Dawlish speculated. “One bomb to breach the wards, another to hide the kidnapping.”

Amelia nodded. “Possible. But that doesn’t narrow down the range of suspects.” The remnants of Malfoy and Runcorn’s faction saw the Cadwalladers as traitors, and Amelia was certain that many muggleborns hadn’t forgiven them for supporting Malfoy, even though they had switched sides. She sighed. “Go through the entire area. If there’s a single finger bone left, I want it found. And contact the Department of Mysteries, and have them investigate the explosives and spells used. We need to know who did this, before things escalate.”

“Of course,” Pius said, inclining his head. Dawlish nodded.

But Amelia knew that neither of the two believed that they would achieve that goal.

She didn’t believe it either, but they had to try.

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 3rd, 1997

Bess Cox kept looking around while she walked next to Randall towards ‘Winston’s’. The bar had been reopened for the second time, in defiance of the attack a month ago, and Bess was certain that the purebloods would attempt to attack it again, since it had become a symbol for the muggleborns. That wasn’t the only reason for Bess’s nervousness, though.

As if he had read her thoughts, Randall whispered: “Relax, we’re safe. As safe as you can be as a muggleborn in Diagon Alley.”

She snorted, and answered in a low voice: “I’m still a wanted witch.”

“No Ministry thug would dare try anything here,” her friend retorted. “It’d start a riot.”

“Unless they are working with the Resistance.” Bess knew that that wasn’t impossible - the Ministry had co-operated with the Resistance before, during the war. And Granger was stuck on working within the system.

“Well, that’s not…” Randall trailed off and stared at a wizard who was reading a newspaper. “An evening issue of the Prophet?”

Bess tensed. That only happened if...

The other wizard looked up. “You haven’t heard? Someone blew up the Cadwallader manor!”

The name didn’t mean anything to Bess, and a glance told her that Randall was at a loss too. “Who’s that?” she snapped.

“A Wizengamot member.”

A pureblood then, and from an Old Family. “Who did it?”

“They don’t know yet. But according to the Prophet the Resistance deny that they had anything to do with the attack.”

“A mysterious new group did this?” Randall sounded sceptical.

Bess glanced at him. “It’s possible. The Resistance weren’t the only group fighting during the war.” Her friends had fought as well!

“Whoever they are, they’re more radical,” the unknown muggleborn pointed at a paragraph on the front page. “Cadwallader just joined Black’s faction in the Wizengamot - after he had voted for the bigots for months.”

“No loss then,” Randall said, craning his neck to peer at the article. “That looks like Malfoy Manor. But… they didn’t find the bodies?”

“So the Prophet claims.” The man snorted. “But you know how incompetent the Aurors are.”

After everyone had had a laugh about that, Randall asked if he could copy the issue.

A Doubling Charm later, Randall and Bess continued towards ‘Winston’s’.

“Do you think they kidnapped them?” Bess asked. “And keep your eyes on the street! We can read the newspaper in detail once we’re safe.”

Randall glared at her, then nodded and folded the newspaper. “It’s possible. And it would explain why no one has claimed responsibility. If the corpses turn up in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley we’ll know.”

Bess knew that her friends also hadn’t planned to claim responsibility for their fatal attack on Hogsmeade, but they had been fools. Unlike this new group - they had levelled the entire house. “Maybe it’s the Resistance. They’re putting up a nice front, but are taking the scum out one by one.”

Randall shook his head. “I doubt that. If Granger wanted to do that, she’d have continued the war against the Ministry right after the Battle of Diagon Alley. It could be a splinter group of the Resistance, though.”

“Huh?”

He shrugged. “Not everyone in the Resistance might be content to follow Granger’s orders while she reaps all the benefits. She’s famous, has an Order of Merlin, a seat in the Wizengamot, and Black probably pays her a fortune for her support.”

That made a lot of sense to Bess. That was how it usually worked out, didn’t it? A few people getting rich and powerful while the rest were left behind. “Sell-out,” she mumbled.

“Exactly.”

They reached the bar and Bess was glad to notice that half a dozen people were spread out, wand in hand. Guards. She was even more glad, though, when she entered the bar and the protection of its wards.

Inside, it was loud and crowded. “Pretty brave of them, to gather here,” she said to Randall while they pressed through to the bar.

“Pretty brave of us,” he shot back with a grin.

Bess shook her head. Compared to actually going out and fighting purebloods and Death Eaters, showing up at a well-protected bar didn’t take much courage, at least in her opinion. On the other hand… Her eyes widened and she patted Randall on the back until he turned to look at her. “Get me a beer! I’ll get us a table!” she yelled into his ear. He nodded, and she pushed towards the back.

She was lucky - a couple got up just when she passed their table, and they didn’t leave their coats. She slid on to the bench and smirked at another witch who had been just a bit too slow.

It took her friend five more minutes to reach her. “Finally!” she exclaimed when he set down a glass in front of her.

“You must be really thirsty.” He shook his head with that grin of his.

“Not really. I just had a thought.” She grinned at him. “We should start our own group and recruit people!”

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 3rd, 1997

“... once more the muggleborns show their true colours! Not content with driving pureblood families out of Wizarding Britain, they now are hunting down those poor people who are hiding among muggles! The message is clear: No pureblood is safe, not even if they abandon magic! The muggleborns want to kill us all!

“And not even those who abandon their blood and heritage and join the blood traitors are safe! Glyn Cadwallader recently joined Sirius Black’s alliance - and yesterday, his manor suffered the same fate as Malfoy Manor at the hands of muggleborn criminals!

“And once again, the Ministry has been revealed as powerless. What Aurors are left aren’t being sent to protect the persecuted purebloods, but rather to prosecute innocent purebloods!

“This has to stop! We all have to band together before it’s too late. In the Wizengamot, in the Ministry, on the streets of Hogsmeade and in Diagon Alley, we need to make a stand! We need to fight for our traditions, for our families, for our very lives, or we will perish at the hands of the muggleborns!

“Remember our history! Remember our traditions! Do not let the muggleborns win! It’s better to die fighting than live as slaves!

“This is the Pureblood Voice!”

The nerve of those people! Amelia Bones refrained from blasting the wireless receiver in her office. Instead, she calmly flicked it off and turned to Pius. “After hearing that, I don’t think I need to ask whether or not your attempts to stop these broadcasts have made any progress.”

“We’re still working on ways to track them,” he replied.

She snorted. “And meanwhile, they are doing their best to incite another war in Britain.”

“That was to be expected,” he told her. “An obvious reaction by the radical elements.”

“Obvious in more than one sense,” she said. “I would be lying if I claimed that they were entirely wrong about the current state of Wizarding Britain.”

He frowned for a moment. “The muggleborns are not indiscriminately hunting purebloods, apart from suspected Death Eaters and sympathisers. Black and many of his friends are purebloods, and allied with the Muggleborn Resistance.”

“The Resistance themselves might refrain” - personally, Amelia doubted that - “but they don’t control all of the muggleborns. The recently captured ‘suspects’ were not exactly members of the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle.”

“We’re preparing to prosecute the Fleaweathers. They did support the Dark Lord, if not as combatants. But their gold contributed.” Pius sounded slightly defensive.

“And the Roviers?” Amelia was already aware of the results of that investigation, but she liked seeing Pius squirm. As much as the usually unflappable wizard actually did, of course.

“The girl didn’t do anything illegal, although she has a quite poor opinion of muggleborns.”

“In other words, she might turn terrorist herself in a few years.” Amelia snorted.

“Interrogation under Veritaserum has not revealed any such plans.” Pius briefly pressed his lips together.

“She and her brother haven’t been released yet, though.” Amelia rested her chin on her steepled fingers.

“They are currently being held in the Ministry for their own protection.”

“We wouldn’t want to have them suffer Nott’s fate, would we? Or the Cadwalladers’,” she said. “But the longer we hold them, the more guilty they will appear.”

“We’re looking into measures to protect them after their release.”

“Can we spare the wands for that?” She knew they couldn’t, as did he.

“Not until the latest Hit-Wizard recruits finish their training.” Pius shrugged in an almost French way as if this wasn’t their biggest problem.

“Start using them for actual tasks instead of training missions.” As the war had shown, even half-trained wizards and witches could be used effectively.

“That could put them, and others, at risk. They’re not ready for deployment, especially not in the current, slightly tense situation. They are currently at the stage where they are overly confident.” Pius pursed his lips. “The odds that a confrontation with the muggleborns would occur are quite high, in my opinion. And if such an incident were to escalate…”

Amelia scoffed. “Use them for safe tasks where they don’t have to deal with muggleborns. It’ll free up our more experienced people.” Who, unfortunately, were not really that experienced either. But experienced enough not to start trouble with the Resistance, at least.

“I don’t think that there are many missions where they wouldn’t have to deal with muggleborns sooner or later,” Pius pointed out.

“As long as it’s later rather than sooner.” Every little thing would help with increasing the Ministry’s effective manpower. “What did you find out about the attack on the Cadwalladers?”

As usual, Pius showed no reaction to the change of topic. “Preliminary analyses by the Department of Mysteries claim that the explosive used in the attack was different from the one used by the Resistance. Less effective as well. The same applies to the fluid used to start the fire.”

Both could have been planned to obscure the identity of the attackers, of course. She nodded anyway, prompting him to go on.

“They used one explosion to breach the wards, and another to destroy the building. Again, different from the attack on Malfoy Manor last year.”

“Not too different, though - the Resistance dropped a petrol mixture on the Manor after the explosion,” Amelia corrected him.

He acknowledged the point with a small nod. “We haven’t found any remains. The Unspeakables claim that they have more precises methods to find even traces of a body, but haven’t had any success so far either.”

“That would point towards a kidnapping.”

“It is possible,” he admitted. “If that is true then we can expect a statement from the culprits soon enough, which should give us more insight into their identity and aims.”

“Or the corpses of the Cadwalladers dropped in the middle of Hogsmeade.” Which would likely offer more insight as well.

Amelia shook her head. “Bombs and kidnappings… this is looking more and more as if we are back in the war.”

Pius didn’t say anything in response.

*****​

London, Hampstead, April 3rd, 1997

“How are they doing?” Hermione Granger asked, stepping into the guarded room in the safe house that served as an infirmary - and holding cell. Glyn and Patricia Cadwallader were lying on two conjured cots.

“We haven’t woken them up,” Sally-Anne answered. “They’re not hurt, though at their age, they shouldn’t be kept unconscious for too long.”

Hermione nodded. “We’ll be interrogating them soon.”

“Aren’t they our allies, technically at least?” the other witch asked.

She scoffed. They had gone over this before. “Cadwallader only abandoned Malfoy when he realised that we would win. Until then he supported any and all anti-muggleborn proposals in the Wizengamot. This is a good opportunity to find out if they have done more than just vote for Voldemort.”

Sally-Anne slowly nodded.

Hermione shrugged. “Though if our interrogation reveals that they can be trusted, we won’t use the Draught of Living Death.” She would be shocked if that was the case, though.

“And if they have done more? If they murdered people?”

Hermione pressed her lips together. If they killed the Cadwalladers - executed them - then Greengrass and Davis would have a more solid cover. But if they later revealed the deception… Meting out vigilante justice would send a clear message to both purebloods and muggleborns: that the Resistance was acting as judge, jury and executioner, just as they had during the war. That would encourage more muggleborns to take the law into their own hands, weaken the Ministry further and scare more purebloods into thinking that even if they switched sides they wouldn’t be safe. In short, it would make rebuilding Wizarding Britain into a functioning country far more difficult. She sighed. “We’ll deliver them to the Ministry to be tried - but if all goes well we’ll be in control by then.”

Sally-Anne frowned. “Or at war.” She sighed. “Sorry… it’s just… we beat the Dark Lord, we beat the Ministry, but we just have more problems. The French, the houngans, the remaining bigots…”

Hermione was tempted to respond with a platitude like ‘that’s life for you’. Instead, she said: “We’ll solve those problems, and any others that crop up.”

Her friend nodded, though she didn’t seem to be convinced. “I just wish we could spend more time together, without worrying about all of this.” She sighed again.

“Yes.” Hermione knew who Sally-Anne wanted to spend more time together with. Just like Hermione did. “And we will.”

As soon as they were done with the current crisis.

*****​

“Huh… what... you!”

Hermione saw Cadwallader’s eyes widen when he recognised her. “Yes, me.” She nodded.

“Why did you attack us? Patricia! What did you do with her?”

“Stunned her, like you.” She stood up and walked closer to the wizard while he struggled against the bonds that kept him tied to his chair.

“We’re allies! Black said so!”

He was starting to breathe heavily. Not hyperventilating, though. And since Sally-Anne wasn’t stepping in he shouldn’t be in any danger of suffering a heart attack.

Hermione nodded slowly. “Yes. You switched sides.” She waited a moment before continuing. “Malfoy didn’t like that, and arranged to have you killed.”

“You’re working for Malfoy?”

She stared at him. He must have been more affected by the Stunner than she had thought, to blurt out that kind of inane nonsense. “No. We attacked you to fake your death, and make him think his plot succeeded so we can gather proof of his crimes.”

“Ah.” He was starting to smile, then stopped. “But…” He pulled on the bonds again, then stared at her.

She nodded, and pulled out a vial of Veritaserum from her pocket. “Yes. We decided that this was also a good opportunity to find out if you can be trusted.”

Judging by the way the man paled and started to tremble, Hermione was already certain of the answer to that question.

*****​

“...she agreed.”

Hermione glanced at the parchment where the Dictaquill was writing down the transcript of Cadwallader’s interrogation, then looked at the drugged wizard. “Why did you decide to join Black?”

“To be safe.”

“Was that the only reason?”

“No.”

“What other reasons did you have?” Not for the first time, Hermione wished Veritaserum worked a bit differently - having to pull out answers like this was tedious.

“I hoped to be rewarded.”

Typical. “By Black?”

“Yes.”

“Would you betray Black if you had the opportunity to do so safely and be rewarded?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t come as a surprise. She shook her head. “Would you prefer that the muggleborns were gone from WIzarding Britain?”

“Yes,” the man droned.

“Would you have killed muggleborns if you had had the opportunity?”

“No.”

That surprised her. “Why not?”

“I don’t like killing.”

“But you supported the Dark Lord!” Sally-Anne exclaimed, then bit her lip. “Sorry.”

Hermione glanced at her friend, then turned back to their prisoner. “Do you mind if others kill muggleborns?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want the muggleborns gone, but not dead?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish for the muggleborns to serve the purebloods?”

“No.”

The man wasn’t really making sense, she thought. “Why not?”

“They’re too dangerous.”

Ah. Hermione smiled grimly. It was time to wrap this up. “Would you support a war against the Ministry and Wizengamot, if they were controlled by muggleborns and Black?”

“No.”

“Would you do it if you were certain you wouldn’t suffer for it?”

“Yes.”

She had his measure now. “Sally-Anne? Do you have any questions?”

Her friend shook her head. “No. I’ll fetch the Draught of Living Death.”

“Please.” They couldn’t trust Cadwallader, as expected. Hermione pointed her wand at the man’s head.

“Obliviate.”

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 3rd, 1997

“... they’re currently under the influence of Draught of Living Death since they’d switch sides again if they were given the opportunity.”

Ron Weasley snorted after hearing Hermione’s summary. “They won’t be happy to have been used as bait.”

“They’ll be even less happy once they’re being prosecuted for supporting Voldemort,” Harry added.

“Will they actually be prosecuted?” Ron asked. “You just said that they didn’t do anything other than voting for the Dark Lord’s proposals.”

“Those laws and bills started the whole war,” Harry replied with a scoff.

“If we were to prosecute them for voting for the Muggleborn Laws we should also prosecute over half the Wizengamot,” Hermione said. “Such a course of action would not only provide fuel for pureblood propaganda, but it would also set a precedent of the Ministry’s authority over the Wizengamot, since the DMLE would then be able to influence the political process by prosecuting members of the Wizengamot for their politics. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

“I thought you wanted more checks and balances,” Ron said. “So the Wizengamot couldn’t pass laws that violated human rights.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But only in the form of a special court composed of judges under oath that could repeal such laws. Prosecuting the Wizengamot members for their votes goes too far. It’s one step from prosecuting people for their opinions.”

“Certain opinions should be illegal,” Ron said. Like bigots’ and Death Eaters’. If they were allowed to spread their views, Britain would never be free of their ideology. Neither Hermione nor Harry seemed to share his opinion, though.

“That’s not a good idea,” Harry said. “Freedom of speech is a basic human right.”

“We don’t have to go as far as the United States go, though,” Hermione added. Ron snorted - the Magical Americas were anything but united. “Britain and many European nations are more restrictive, especially when it comes to hatemongering.”

He shrugged. “I’d prefer it if they couldn’t spread their poison any more, no matter how they word it.”

“We all would,” Hermione said. “But human rights are universal, not tied to the colour of your skin or your opinions on blood. We have to grant them to our enemies too, or we’ve already taken the first step towards losing them ourselves.” She sighed. “But that aside, if we do prosecute everyone who voted against muggleborns, we’d only drive more purebloods into the arms of Malfoy and his ilk, and even our allies would assume that if they opposed us they’d risk being prosecuted themselves. Even if we didn’t have another war on our hands as a result, the Wizengamot would soon turn into a mass of sycophants who wouldn’t dare to point out any mistakes in the government’s proposals and policies. Which would mean such mistakes would not be corrected, but implemented.”

“Ah.” Ron was starting to see the problem.

“Not to mention that the Wizengamot is supposed to control the Ministry. If the Head of the DMLE can put a Wizengamot member in prison for their political beliefs, that’s no longer the case. A strong Minister could dominate the Wizengamot - to the point of removing any opposition. The bureaucracy is powerful enough without also giving them the power to arrest Parliament.”

“Which means,” Harry said with a sneer, “that the Cadwalladers will escape punishment.” He shook his head. “I don’t think many muggleborns will be happy about that.”

“I know they won’t be happy. But we need to draw the line there, or we’ll lose any chance of rebuilding Wizarding Britain into a better country,” Hermione said. “We can’t give in to the desire for vengeance; it’ll start another cycle of violence.”

“Dumbledore’s message warned us about that too,” Ron added.

“We have more urgent problems to worry about, though,” Harry said. “Like Sirius’s mission.”

“And Greengrass and Davis’s,” Hermione added. “And I really need to research that evaporator spell. But I don’t have the time to focus on that.”

“Did you ask the twins to help?” Ron asked. “They should be done with rebuilding their shop.”

Hermione blinked at him, then closed her eyes and grimaced.

“I’m so stupid!”

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 3rd, 1997

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been rebuilt better than before, as the sign over the window claimed, Harry Potter had to admit after entering the shop. The main room was brighter, and it didn’t feel cramped any more either, with fewer shelves and displays taking up floor space. And there was no rubber-chicken hiding near the entrance trying to peck his face off as soon as he cleared the Thief's Downfall.

He kept an eye on the half a dozen customers browsing the wares, just in case, as he made his way to the counter in the back.

“How may I… Harry!” Probably-George greeted him. “Haven’t seen you in a while! Do you need a few items to prank our little brother? Or something to get back at your godfather?”

Harry shook his head reflexively, then reconsidered, then decided against it. “Not at the moment.” Once this bloody crisis was over, maybe. “I need to talk to you in private.”

“Ah.” Probably-George nodded at the door behind him, then tapped a bell on the counter with his wand. “Let me call Clarice.”

A minute later, a pretty young witch entered through a side door, adjusting the colourful robes that the twins used as the staff’s uniform. Dumbledore would have approved of the style, Harry thought. He also caught a glimpse of jeans underneath, so she was probably a muggleborn.

“Clarice, take over for a bit, Fred and I need to discuss business with our partner,” George said, already opening the door. Harry smiled at the girl and followed the wizard.

The workroom hadn’t really changed, he noticed. It was still a mess of weird items, cauldrons, jars and boxes, and a heap of what looked like the remains of experiments. ‘Destructive testing’, Hermione had called it once.

“Fred! We’ve got a visitor!” George announced when his brother looked up from the cauldron he was observing. “Important business,” he added.

Fred nodded, then sighed and vanished the contents of the cauldron. “Hi, Harry!” he said, wiping his hands on his apron.

Harry winced. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Fred dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t anything important or expensive. Just a new flavour for our Skiving Snackbox line.”

“Ah.” That made him feel better.

“So,” George said, brushing away some clucking animated chickens miniatures from the closest counter so he could sit on it, “What do you need?”

“If it’s about the money we owe you, don’t worry - Sirius’s compensated us in full for the damages incurred in fighting the Dark Lord, and the added publicity brought us more business as well,” Fred cut in before Harry could say anything.

“All the muggleborns shop here and not at Zonko’s anyway,” George added, “but we got more pureblood customers too.”

“Ah.” Harry nodded. “No, I’m here because of the current crisis.”

The twins grew serious at once. “What do you need?”

“Hermione discovered a recipe for a Rapid-Bone-Dissolving Potion,” Harry said, looking around for a safe spot to sit down. The twins winced in unison, so he quickly added: “It works by touch, and only on exposed bone. It’s meant to deal with houngan conjurations.”

“Ah. And she needs a lot of that brewed?” Fred asked.

“Yes. But even more importantly, she needs a way to aerosolise it, so it can be used effectively in the field.”

“Like Ron’s Evaporator,” Fred said, nodding.

“Exactly.”

“I think we can adapt our Sneezing Sparklers for that.” George was already making notes on a piece of parchment he had grabbed from a veritable mound of it. “We just need to tweak the spells so they produce a much finer spray.”

“A mist.” Fred had walked over and was now peering at George’s notes. “We need to adjust the duration and spread too.”

George nodded, then looked up at Harry. “We can do it. You’ll have your ‘Bone Busters’ in a week.”

“We’ll have a better name then too.” Fred grinned. “He’s still hopeless at naming things.”

Harry thought it was a pretty good name, and that if anyone shouldn’t be allowed to name anything, it was Hermione, but he simply nodded. “Good. I hope we won’t need them, but…” he trailed off, shrugging.

“With Dumbledore gone, the houngans will stir up trouble again,” George said.

“They already did,” Fred corrected his brother.

Harry clenched his teeth - remembering that particular failure still stung. If only he had been a bit quicker, a bit less stupid, he could have saved the woman. Probably. He slowly let out his breath. “Here’s the recipe for the potion,” he said, pulling out a roll of parchment from his enchanted pocket. “Hermione said it’s harmless unless you pour it over bone, but she hasn’t tested it extensively.”

The twins perked up. “We should do that, then. Do you have some captured Death Eaters available to serve as test subjects?” Fred asked.

He glared at them. He hoped they were just making tasteless jokes, and weren’t fishing for information about the Cadwalladers. Or serious.

George chuckled. “Just kidding. We use conjured animals for testing.”

“For the first stages, at least,” Fred added. “Since this won’t be a product for the shop, we don’t need more than that.”

“Good.” Harry nodded.

“Speaking of Death Eaters… how are our two spying snakes doing?” George asked.

Fred scowled, Harry noticed. “They’ve been useful,” he said.

“I knew that already. I was wondering how they are handling the whole thing.”

“As far as I’m aware, they’re handling it well. The bigots do not seem to suspect them.” Remus would have told them otherwise.

“Why should they? The two fit right in among the Death Eaters,” Fred muttered.

This time George scowled at his brother. “I just want to know if we can trust them.”

“We are trusting them,” Harry said. “Within reason, of course.”

Fred scoffed in response. George nodded. “Well, if that’s all, we should start working on your order.”

“Thank you,” Harry said.

“Anything for our partner, and war hero,” Fred said, though his cheer sounded a bit forced to Harry, and George certainly didn’t look cheerful.

Harry wasn’t about to pry into their affairs, though. He had already too many things to worry about.

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 3rd, 1997

“I’m so stupid!” Hermione Granger said, shaking her head.

“No, you’re not.” Ron, sitting next to her on Sirius’s couch, sighed.

“I should have thought of the twins right away!” Potions were their speciality, after all. They had reverse-engineered the Thief’s Downfall for Dumbledore! She had been too arrogant, too short-sighted, too focused on keeping their secrets, to see the obvious!

“We all should have. We didn’t.”

She jumped up, out of his embrace, and started to pace. “So much time lost!”

“A few days, at most.”

She whirled around to stare at him. “They could be crucial! We’re stretched thin as it is.”

“They won’t be. We’ll manage. Nobody’s perfect.” He stood up and walked over to her, wrapping her in his arms. “Relax. Blaming yourself for it won’t help anyone. What’s done is done.”

She hissed. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

He didn’t answer, simply started to rub her back.

Closing her eyes, she finally sighed. “There’s just so much we need to do. Politics, reforms, recruiting, training, planning, plotting...” It had been easier during the war. She had been focused on fighting the Death Eaters, then.

“We don’t have to do everything.”

There was enough they had to, though. If only to keep it secret. If their enemies were aware of their plans…

“You know, there are a lot of people we can trust. Family, for one. And friends,” Ron whispered into her ear.

She took a deep breath. He was still rubbing her back. Holding her. She forced herself to relax. It wasn’t as difficult as she had thought. “One traitor, one prisoner, could ruin us.”

“That could happen to us as well. You, me, Harry, Sirius, Remus…”

She didn’t want to consider that. But she couldn’t help it. “We all know Occlumency. And there’s the contract for the Resistance.”

“Neither is foolproof.”

“But even so… the more people who know a secret, the greater the danger of it being revealed.”

“Better to risk exposure than failure.”

That was often one and the same, especially in politics. But she knew what he meant. They hadn’t done as well as they could have, should have, lately.

And they needed to change that.

*****​

Marseille, Quartier Magique, France, April 4th, 1997

Sirius Black stood up and bowed right before Dubois reached his table. “Isabelle,” he said with a wide smile, then grasped her hand to kiss it. She was wearing red robes, daringly cut - slit up to the hip on both sides, and with a neckline that plunged halfway to her navel. A ruby dangling from a gold necklace accentuated her cleavage.

“Bonsoir, Michael.” The French witch let her fingers trail over his hand for just a second as she withdrew her own.

He held her chair as she sat down, then resumed his own seat.

“How gallant of you,” she commented.

“I aim to please,” he responded. “And I wish to fit into your country.” Sirius hoped he hadn’t overdone it - Anderson wouldn’t have had courtesy and manners beaten into him as Sirius had, but he would have started to adapt by now.

“Even if it means losing your American charm?”

He gave her his best roguish grin. “That won’t happen. It’ll just be refined - seasoned, you might say.”

Dubois laughed. It wasn’t her polite laugh, the kind with which she responded to the usual clever word games, but a more honest-sounding one. “I can believe that,” she said, reaching over the table to pat his hand. Once more she let her fingers slide over his skin when she withdrew. “You’re refreshingly different.”

“Compared to the French wizards?” he asked, then signalled the waiter with his wand.

She nodded. “More open. More honest.”

He smiled - the unintentional irony helped with that. “You make it sound as if French wizards routinely lie.”

“They do.” She laughed again, less honest, this time. “But so do we French witches.”

The waiter arrived and took their order. Sirius used the short break in conversation to glance around. They were in the ‘Elysée’, the best restaurant in the Quartier Magique. The safest, too. He spotted her bodyguard as well, sitting alone at a table. She was good, and her disguise - Polyjuice, unless he was mistaken - was almost perfect, but she was paying too much attention to Sirius and Isabelle. Dubois. And after several such evenings, he was familiar with her mannerisms, too - the way she fidgeted with her wand. It was an old trick for keeping it ready to cast at a moment’s notice without appearing to do so.

“Have you considered moving to France for good?” Dubois asked once the waiter left their table.

Sirius nodded. “Yes. Although finding a good home will take some time. A wizard’s home has to meet the strictest standards, or his love life will suffer,” he added with another grin.

“I can help you there.” Once more she held his hand.

“I know.” He patted hers with his free hand. “And I will certainly ask you for advice - once I have found a suitable location.”

“Are you looking for a spot that reminds you of your old home, or something radically different?”

The waiter returned, and filled their glasses.

“Something new, but not too different. Those who cut off their roots wither and die, but those who shy away from anything new do not fare any better in the long run.”

“A wise view. Moderation is not as valued as it should be.”

Was that a wistful tone in Isabelle’s voice? He wasn’t entirely certain. “My home’s fate taught me to value it. Radicals destroyed it.”

“France has been spared that,” she said, smiling faintly.

“To France!” He raised his glass.

“To France.” Dubois followed his example.

It was an excellent vintage, as he had expected - he knew Isabelle well enough by now. And judging by the way she kept touching him, he might end up knowing her a bit too well later this evening.

*****​

“Welcome to my home,” Isabelle said two hours later as they stepped out of the fireplace.

Sirius kept smiling, making the appropriate sounds while he looked around. Behind him, the bodyguard arrived and quickly moved to the wall. He didn’t see anyone else, but that didn’t mean anything. Not that he planned to attack Dubois by himself in her own home.

Dubois nodded at the witch. “We’ll be retiring for the evening.” The bodyguard nodded in acknowledgement while she took Sirius’s arm. “My bedroom opens to the south,” she whispered.

He tensed in response, although not - only - for the reasons she would expect. He had hoped - while knowing it was unlikely - that it wouldn’t come to this. Vivienne had told him she didn’t mind, but she had been lying.

But too much was at stake. He had to earn Dubois’s trust. So he smiled, and walked with her, past the portraits of her ancestors. He had his arm wrapped around her waist when they arrived at her bedroom, with her leaning against him.

Once they were inside, she stepped away from him. A flick of her wand closed the door. Another made her robes drop to the floor.

Sirius drew a hissing breath. She was beautiful. She wasn’t Vivienne. And he was playing a role.

He told himself that he was doing this for his family, and his love, while he slipped out of his own robes.

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 4th, 1997

“... Stand up and fight! Fight for your family, for your country, for your very lives!

“This is the Pureblood Voice!”

Bess Cox wasn’t the only one in Freddie’s Fish’n’Chips who was glaring at the wireless receiver. In fact, the only one who wasn’t glaring or cursing was the cook, as far as she could tell. And Randall, who was at most staring.

“Fuckin’ Death Eaters!” she said, loud enough to carry through the room.

Others nodded in agreement. “They should track down those bastards and kill ’em!” a burly wizard said.

Randall spoke up at once. “The Resistance seems too busy playing at politics to get anything done.”

“They caught some Death Eaters,” the other wizard protested.

“And handed them over to the Ministry!” A witch with dyed hair yelled. “So they can be released again!”

“No, they disappeared,” the first wizard said.

“They were blown up, not disappeared.”

“That’s pureblood propaganda!”

Randall raised his voice again. “The Resistance Radio tells us to do nothing, but the purebloods spread their lies unhindered. Doesn’t anyone else think that that’s wrong?”

“They won the war!” the burly one all but yelled.

“And they’re losing the peace,” Bess said. “They should have kept fighting until the Ministry was crushed.”

The witch glared at her. “My boyfriend’s in the Ministry! He fought the Death Eaters too! His father was cursed by the Dark Lord!”

“You’ve got a pureblood boyfriend?” Bess asked before she could reconsider.

“Half-blood,” the witch spat. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Bess had a problem with that, and she was about to tell the witch so, when Randall took her arm. “No, of course not,” he said. “We’re just sick of waiting and doing nothing while the Resistance plays games with the Old Families in the Wizengamot and the purebloods gather their forces again.”

A number of the other guests started to nod in agreement, but the dumb witch just had to speak up again. “They’re not playing games. My boyfriend told me that the Wizengamot’s about to come over to our side. Black just needs a few more members to join him.”

“Your boyfriend says a lot, doesn’t he?” Bess shot back, ignoring Randall’s grip on her arm.

“He also fought the Death Eaters at the Battle of the Ministry!” The stupid witch glared at her. “As did the Resistance! What did you do during the war?”

Bess grit her teeth. She couldn’t tell the truth about her actions during the war. She would have to be vague, but… the others were already nodding in agreement with the witch.

“Besides, what could you do about the damn Pureblood Voice anyway? I don’t know a thing about the wireless.” The burly wizard shrugged. “Let them handle it, I say.”

Bess glanced at Randall, who was subtly shaking his head. This was not going according to plan. Not at all. And Randall seemed to blame her.

*****​

West of Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica, April 4th, 1997

Augustus Rookwood felt the urge to wipe the sweat from his brow. He wasn’t actually sweating - his charms handled the humid heat of this wretched island just fine, so he didn’t suffer from it - but after hours of hard work, he felt as if he were.

And he wasn’t done. Not by a long way, yet. The wards of the mansion down in the valley were old and twisted, and he had to work from a far greater distance than was optimal. If he could have used a tunnel to get closer… but the houngans would expect that, after the battle at Williams Manor, or whatever the savages called it.

Taking a deep breath, and a sip from his Ever-Filling Flask, he closed his eyes for a moment. He could continue for another couple hours before he would need to rest. A few more days until he could pass through the wards without alerting anyone. Provided he found out just what the latest spell woven into the mansion’s defenses actually did, of course.

He snorted. Some of his former colleagues would love this. Analysing, manipulating unknown spells was a popular task in the Department. Not as dangerous as dealing with cursed artifacts, but as rewarding. Usually. Not as rewarding as tomb raiding, of course.

He chuckled. He hadn’t been allowed into that field. Croaker, the old bastard, had denied all his requests. Had kept him stuck in Analysis. Merely out of jealousy and spite, in Augustus’s opinion - if Croaker had suspected anything, Augustus would have found himself dosed to the gills with Veritaserum in a heartbeat. Not many knew just how efficient the Department was in policing its members. Or hunting them down, if needed.

He was very fortunate that the Department would never co-operate with the houngans, or he wouldn’t be able to stay for days at the same place without being found by their spells.

Chuckling, he resumed his work. He had wards to bend.

*****​

Département du Var, north of Toulon, France, April 6th, 1997

“You have found a location to build a house?” Isabelle - Dubois - sounded happy. She looked happy as well, Sirius Black noticed, when she moved to hug him. And kiss him.

“I have found a potential location,” he corrected her, after breaking the kiss. “I’m not quite certain yet that it’s suitable, but it’s far from any muggle settlements, and close to a beautiful little lake in the Massif Central.”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “For a new house, I think the Côte d’Azur is a bit too exposed to raiders from the Barbary Coast.”

“Ah.” She nodded.

“I know that they prefer to raid Veela enclaves, but I do not think that they’d pass on the opportunity to rob a manor with weaker wards.” Any new wards would take a long time to grow powerful enough to deter such attacks. “But as I said, I’m not yet set on the location.”

“You’re being cautious?” Her smile turned the question into gentle teasing.

“I’m quite forward when it comes to love, but I have found, to my regret, that when it comes to building a home, one cannot be too cautious.” Sirius had no trouble letting his smile slip a bit. Over the last two days, most of their time together had been spent in bed. Vivienne…

“I see. Hidden depths? Or layers?”

“Not as many as you, my love.” He bent down to kiss her again. He wasn’t lying - the witch had proven to be both charming and witty. If not for her actions and views on blood purity she would be a nice woman, even. But then, bigots could and often were nice to those they liked.

“So, when do I get to see it?”

He managed not to tense up. This could be the opportunity he had been waiting for. He shrugged. “I’m planning to look for a few more locations. There’s no need to bother checking it out if I’m likely to find another I like more.” He couldn’t appear too eager to take her out of her wards.

“If I saw it, I might be able to point out more similar locations.”

He tilted his head to the side. “That’s a good argument, actually.”

She snorted and patted his cheek. “It won’t take us long either.”

“Hm.” He grinned. “We might take longer than expected. The weather is nice, and the fields there looked… comfortable.”

Her smile grew more mischievous. “I see.”

“Not yet.”

She laughed, and went to change into robes suitable for the trip.

*****​

“C’est magnifique!” Isabelle - Dubois, he reminded himself - exclaimed, upon seeing the small mountain lake below them.

He nodded. “Clean air, no muggles nearby, and the view is… almost as beautiful as you,” he added, slipping his arms around her waist from behind her. “A modest manor, here… a boathouse below. Maybe a vineyard… though I think that would need a lot of care at this altitude.”

“It would. But it’s possible. I know a specialist for the spells you’d need.”

“Perfect!” he exclaimed, then nipped at her earlobe.

She giggled, and twisted in his arms until she was facing him. “You mentioned the fields being comfortable…”

He kissed her before answering. “Oh, yes. Let me demonstrate!” He drew his wand and cast a Cushioning Charm on the ground behind him, then let himself fall, dragging her down on top of him.

Her bodyguard was about twenty yards away. If the grass were taller they’d be hidden from view. As it was, Isabelle - Dubois - was blocking the witch’s view of his wand arm. Sirius reached up to her face with his left hand, caressing her cheek, then gently pulled her head towards him.

And cast a silent Stunner point-blank at her, right before he activated his Portkey.

*****​

South Downs National Park, Hampshire, Britain, April 6th, 1997

Daphne Greengrass forced herself to appear calm and collected as she entered Malfoy’s home. It wouldn’t do for the whole plot to fail just as she and Tracey were about to succeed in their mission. “Mister Malfoy.” She nodded towards him.

“Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis.” He bowed as usual, Daphne noted. “Thank you for coming. Tea will be served in the salon.”

There were no other guests present, Daphne noted as a house-elf placed three cups on the low table. Tracey was already seated, and looking over the selection of snacks. Probably a way to deal with her own nervousness, Daphne assumed. If all went well, then they would be done with the whole thing after this. Done with the Resistance, too. Done with the damn war.

“I assume you have heard about the attack on Cadwallader,” Malfoy said once their cups had been filled.

“Yeah.” Tracey took a sip, then nodded in appreciation. “Terrible. The mudbloods are showing their true colours.”

“Exactly.” Malfoy smiled. “Though they haven’t found the bodies, yet.”

Daphne shrugged. “The whole building went up in fires so hot, everything was turned to ash. Or so I heard,” she added, with a smirk. ‘Be vague’, the werewolf had told them. As if she’d admit to anything to Malfoy!

“Rumours are running wild,” Tracey cut in. “But only the mudbloods know exactly what happened. Maybe they used Fiendfyre, or some muggle concoction that has a similar effect.”

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, but Daphne and her friend simply kept smiling. “It’s a terrible tragedy, but maybe now the purebloods will realise just what the mudbloods are planning,” she said.

“Indeed, they do. I have been talking to several of our ‘undecided’ colleagues, and they are coming around.” He was smiling now. “I almost feel as if I should thank those mudbloods.”

Daphne forced herself to chuckle. “So, things are turning around, then?”

Malfoy’s smile vanished. “Not quite. Black’s coup has been delayed, but between his gold, Potter’s fame and the threat Granger represents, they are still going to win the struggle for control of the Wizengamot.”

Did he expect them to attack another Wizengamot member? Daphne frowned slightly and said: “Maybe the mudbloods will launch another attack.”

The wizard nodded. “It would be ironic if they attacked the Wizengamot, and managed to kill Black and his cohort by mistake.”

*****​

 

Chapter 60: Coup de Grace

‘In hindsight, many may wonder why, given how prevalent the use of the Imperius Curse was during the the two Blood Wars, news of attacks by muggleborns or purebloods still had such an impact on Wizarding Britain when everyone had to be aware that false-flag operations were common on both sides. In my opinion, this only proves how set in their ways all factions were; the average wizard or witch didn’t much care about the truth, or reasonable doubt, but instead filtered any news through their own prejudices and preconceptions - an attitude which had been significantly helped along for decades by the Ministry using the Daily Prophet and the Wizarding Wireless to influence the masses. It should come as no surprise that this, too, contributed to the enormous problems faced by Wizarding Britain at the end of the Second Blood War.’
- Excerpt from ‘The Second Blood War’ by Hyacinth Selwyn

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 6th, 1997

“Sirius!” Harry hugged Sirius Black, clearly happy to see him back.

“I’ve got the Veritaserum.” Hermione was more focused on the task at hand, but she smiled at him as well.

“I’ll get her ready for interrogation,” Ron said, relieving him of the bound and stunned Dubois.

And Vivienne was at his side, her arms around him. He was home.

He had every reason to be proud and happy. And yet… he was neither. What had he done, really? Seduced a witch, gained her trust, then lured her into a trap. He snorted. “How did things go with the Cadwalladers?” he asked Harry, more to find something else to think about than because he wanted to know.

“It went smoothly. No one was hurt and the DMLE seems to be clueless so far,” his godson said. “The pureblood propaganda is running wild with it, but we were prepared for that. We don’t think it’ll sway many from our side.”

“Good to hear.”

“We also interrogated them. They weren’t Death Eaters, but they wanted the muggleborns gone from Britain, and they didn’t much care how that would be achieved,” Harry added.

Sirius didn’t have to force himself to smile after hearing that. “Good.”

“I’ll help Ron set up the interrogation,” Harry said. “We’ll start as soon as you’re ready, alright?”

Sirius nodded and his godson left for the basement. Or the dungeon, as his family used to call it before his time. He sighed.

“Don’t feel bad, chéri,” Vivienne whispered. “You did what you ’ad to, for your family.”

She had noticed his mood, of course. “I know, just… I feel dirty for seducing her.” And for ambushing her, but he didn’t say that.

“I can understand that,” she said, hugging him more tightly. “But she did seduce a lot of men to gain power and influence. Even the Duc ’imself. It’s fitting that she should be brought low by ’er own methods.”

He nodded. “Do you think I should get myself checked at St Mungo’s?” he asked, mostly as a joke.

She seemed to take the question seriously, though, and wrinkled her nose for a moment before nodding. “I think you should add a question about that to ’er interrogation.”

He chuckled, and she smiled. He was still feeling guilty, though, as they made their way to the cellar.

*****​

“Rennervate.”

Dubois woke up with a groan and blinked. “Quoi…” She gasped, tugging on the bonds that tied her to the chair, and glanced down before looking up. When she saw him sitting across from her, straddling a chair with his arms on the backrest, she hissed. “You!”

He hadn’t heard more venom in a single word since his mother had learned about his Sorting. “Yes, me.” He inclined his head. “Sirius Black.”

She gasped again. Did she pale a little as well? He couldn’t tell.

“How? My guards check everyone for disguises!”

He shrugged. “It’s a muggle disguise.”

An expression of disgust appeared on her face, but was gone in an instant. “I see.” After a moment, she raised her chin slightly. “The Duc will not let this go.”

“He doesn’t even know that we have you.”

“He will soon find out.”

“By that time, it’ll be too late.” The Gendarmes would be investigating his cover by now, but, even with their best efforts, it would hold for at least a few days. Plenty of time to handle this affair.

Her eyes widened briefly. She had remarkable self-control. “So you plan to kill me.”

“Depending on the results of your interrogation, we plan to have you testify against your ‘allies’ in Britain.” He shouldn’t be telling her this, but he didn’t care. She deserved at least this much honesty after their… affair.

“Kidnapping a member of the Court of France and parading her around in front of your rabble… The Duc will go to war over this,” she hissed with a sneer.

“I doubt that.”

Dubois whipped her head around when Vivienne stepped forward from behind the captured witch. “You!”

The Veela snorted. “Did you forget that ’e’s my lover?” She stepped past the witch and to his side, putting a hand on his shoulder. He reached up and covered it with his.

“That explains it… another man led around by a half-breed siren.” Dubois glared at her.

Vivienne scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that. You brought this upon yourself when you decided to meddle in Britain’s politics.”

“You and your family started this!”

“My family was attacked by the Dark Lord. We took our revenge, with the Duc’s permission.”

“Do you think I acted without his approval?” Dubois sneered. “He is well aware of the risk the mudbloods pose for France. Haven’t you heard their broadcasts? Read their leaflets? They will not stop at taking over Britain!”

She wasn’t wrong about that, Sirius thought. He was betting Galleons to Knuts that Hermione had plans to do something about the muggleborns in other countries - eventually.

“I think the Duc will deny having had any knowledge of your actions, once you are exposed,” Vivienne said.

Judging by her expression, Dubois thought the same.

Sirius spoke up. “Was that why you wanted to start another war in Britain? To crush the muggleborns here?”

“Crush, weaken, keep them busy - the exact results don’t matter, as long as the rot is kept from spreading.”

“‘The rot’, huh?” He shook his head. “I guess you’re not really different from the Death Eaters, then.”

“I’m simply doing what is best for my country.”

“What about the French muggleborns?” he asked.

She pressed her lips together and didn’t answer.

It was time for the Veritaserum.

*****​

“Did you plan to restart the civil war in Wizarding Britain?” Hermione asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you work with British wizards and witches towards that goal?”

“Yes.”

“Did you contact them or did they contact you?”

“I contacted them, after I heard they were looking for help.”

Under the effect of Veritaserum, Dubois’s voice sounded much less attractive. She was answering in a dull tone, devoid of any emotion - so unlike the witch Sirius had, if briefly, known. It made listening to the interrogation easier.

“Who did you contact?” Hermione’s voice lacked emotion as well, he noticed.

“Augustus Malfoy and Theodore Nott.”

Sirius hissed through teeth clenched in a feral grin. They had the bastard now!

“Were they working together?”

“No.”

“Did you work with both?”

“Yes.”

“Did Malfoy know that?”

“Yes.”

“Did Nott know that?”

“No.”

Nott had been a useful idiot, then, Sirius thought.

The rest of the interrogation went as expected, with Hermione asking question after question while her Dictaquill wrote down the answers on an Endless Scroll.

Dubois had been acting on her own, technically, but it was clear that the Duc had been aware of her plans. She had supported Nott with potions, gold and directions, including when and how to attack - apparently, she didn’t know who had attacked the first muggleborn rally in February, but they had already known that from Nott’s memories. Dubois hadn’t been working with Beaumont either, though she suspected the Duc had been directing the other witch in response to her efforts.

But most importantly, they knew Malfoy was planning to restart the war, and had been promised support from France. Enough for a long war that would exhaust all factions, until Magical Europe could step in and take control of the remnants of Britain. Malfoy, of course, hadn’t been informed of that.

And all because Dubois and her allies feared a French muggleborn revolution. Or a second Grindelwald. He shook his head. Fools. Bigoted fools. They were reaping what they had sown. Or would be.

“Did your plans involve other countries as well? Prussia?”

“No.”

Hermione was still interrogating the witch, even though she hadn’t heard anything more than speculation and negative answers for the last five minutes. Well, they had confirmation that Dubois hadn’t had any contact with muggleborns. Sirius cleared his throat. “I think we’re done now.”

“One more question,” Hermione said. She didn’t wait for his answer, and turned her attention back to the French witch. “What are you planning to do about the French muggleborns?”

Dubois told them.

Sirius didn’t feel guilty for deceiving her any more. He felt dirty, though.

*****​

“The French are planning to preemptively kill ‘the most dangerous’ of their muggleborns.” Hermione was pacing in Sirius’s living room, angrier than he had ever seen her. Or that he remembered.

“Not the French. Dubois and ’er allies.” Vivienne, sitting on the armrest of Sirius’s seat, barely flinched when Hermione turned to glare at her. Sirius had known his lover was brave, but this proved it. He could feel her tense, though.

“With the approval of the Duc,” the muggleborn witch snarled. Sirius saw Ron purse his lips, then stand up and join her.

“She only thinks that she ’as ’is approval. The Duc wouldn’t condone this,” Vivienne retorted.

“He condones her actions in Britain,” Harry cut in while Ron put his hand on Hermione’s shoulder.

“That’s not the same as murdering ’is own subjects.” Vivienne shook her head. “’E knows what that would lead to - the revolution Dubois and others fear.”

“Dubois should know that as well,” Harry said.

“She wants to preserve her country, her world from changing,” Sirius cut in, patting Vivienne’s hand. “But she doesn’t see, or rather, she doesn’t want to see, that France needs to change to prevent a revolution in the not-so-distant future.” He didn’t mention that, in his opinion, the threat of revealing such plans to the public would convince the Duc to condemn them even if the French ruler had no problem with such murders. Which Sirius didn’t doubt.

“Causing what you fear by the very actions you are taking to prevent it.“ Hermione snorted. “That’s straight out of a classical tragedy.”

“Or comedy,” added Sirius, “depending on whose side you are.” That earned him glares from everyone. He would have added another tasteless quip, to uphold his facade, if not for Vivienne’s look. He sighed instead and said: “If this information is revealed, there will be a revolution in France.”

“Another,” Hermione said. He frowned - no one called Grindelwald’s War a revolution, but he guessed it could be seen as one. The witch was already continuing: “But it will not be successful, not if launched without any preparation, or any support from the establishment. It will be a bloody massacre, and the French muggleborn will drag us into it while we’re still dealing with the aftermath of our own war.”

“Which means we can’t make this public,” Harry cut to the conclusion.

Vivienne spoke up. “The Duc must know about this! And ’e must know that we know.” Sirius smiled proudly. Brave and cunning.

“I think a public trial for Malfoy and his accomplices will be enough to discredit their faction and we can do that without revealing Dubois,” Sirius suggested. “We’ll have to deal with her ourselves, though - handing her over to the Ministry would pretty much cause all the problems we want to avoid.” The obvious solution was clear to him, of course. And he could see Hermione understood it as well.

“Give ’er to my family! If she disappears, ’er friends will use that to ’urt my family. Once we ’ave Malfoy arrested they’ll know that it was us. And she needs to be alive to… influence the Duc so ’e’ll put a stop to this madness. Afterwards… She is a proud witch. Realising that she will not be able to take revenge might very well push ’er to take ’er own life to escape the shame and ’umiliation. That will solve all those problems,” Vivienne said with a feral smile.

Brave, cunning, and cruel, Sirius thought. She could have been born a Black.

*****​

South Downs National Park, Hampshire, Britain, April 6th, 1997

“The Ministry’s security measures are not perfect - I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence, of course; it would be a catastrophe if any violent mudblood were to learn of this!” Malfoy was leaning forward and had lowered his voice.

Daphne Greengrass hated the man’s theatrics, but she couldn’t help following his example and leaning forward as well. “I thought the wards and other protective measures were redone after the Battle of the Ministry.”

“They were, but - as with so much else after that tragic day - the wizards tasked with restoring the defences rushed their work ... to its detriment.”

“One would expect that they would at least have taken care to guard against bombs, though.” Tracey narrowed her eyes at the wizard. “Those are the most common mudblood weapon.”

“They did - to a point. The danger of Imperiused attackers is greatly reduced by the Thief’s Downfall installed in the Atrium and at the entrance to the Wizengamot’s floor, and any blast of sufficient power to break through the defences would do so much damage that the Ministry would be exposed to muggles, which the Obliviators would prevent since it endangered them as well. But if a mudblood managed to sneak a bomb into the Wizengamot Chamber…”

Daphne snorted. “The only mudblood allowed access to the chamber is Granger, and I doubt that she’d do that.”

“And said hypothetical mudblood would have to sacrifice their own life to ensure that the bomb goes off,” Tracey added.

Daphne nodded - Malfoy couldn’t expect them to commit suicide to achieve his goals, could he? There were few people allowed to enter the chamber, other than the members themselves.

The wizard frowned. “But the muggles are able to use their bombs from a distance - or have them explode after a certain time has passed.”

Daphne nodded.

“They can’t detonate a bomb from a distance through wards,” Tracey said. “So I’ve heard.”

“But a timer would be possible. If the hypothetical mudblood could gain access to the chamber, set the bomb, timed for the start of the session, and then leave…” Malfoy spread his hands.

“There is still the issue of the sheer volume of the hypothetical bomb needed for such a task,” Daphne said. Though given what she had seen at the Cadwalladers’, if combined with a Gemino Curse, even a small amount of muggle explosive could be rapidly expanded, and the force of the explosion… It was possible, she realised.

“Such a bomb would kill everyone inside the Wizengamot. And anyone lucky enough to be late would be under suspicion of being behind the attack, no matter who did it,” Tracey said. “And if all his opponents are missing, Black might suspect a trap and leave.”

“Indeed. Although the mudbloods might attack the more prominent opponents of Black in their homes at the same time as well, to ensure their deaths. That would, of course, explain the survivors being late.”

Daphne’s eyes widened. Did Malfoy actually plan to sacrifice most of his allies? That would cover his tracks - if the mudbloods were blamed for it. And the heirs of the dead members would certainly be ill-disposed towards the mudbloods. That had been the case after Malfoy Manor as well. She felt the pain of losing her parents again, then forced herself to consider the issue. Yes, she decided, Malfoy would sacrifice them all. It would leave him with a Wizengamot full of inexperienced members, easily manipulated while they were grieving. She slowly nodded, hoping that her face didn’t betray her shock at the realisation. “Indeed, that would throw a wrench in the mudbloods’ plans.”

Tracey nodded. She didn’t say anything, though, for which Daphne was glad. Her friend’s temper could betray them both.

“Provided, of course,” Malfoy said, “that the mudbloods could find a way to sneak such a bomb into the Wizengamot Chamber.”

“That… might be possible,” Daphne said. She saw Tracey stifle a gasp and glance at her, but she focused on Malfoy. “But whoever did this would need some time to prepare.”

“Of course. But in the meantime, the mudbloods and their blood traitor allies encroach even more on the very heart of Britain. The window of opportunity for such a blunder by them is shrinking.” Malfoy sighed, almost theatrically.

“We can but hope that we will be as fortunate as we were with the Cadwalladers,” Daphne replied.

*****​

On the way to the fireplace of Malfoy Manor, Daphne made idle conversation while her thoughts raced. They could do this, she knew. They could avenge her and Tracey’s parents. They could kill all the blood traitors in the Wizengamot. If they could blame the mudbloods for the attack it would even work out - between the blood traitor’s heirs blaming the mudbloods, and the mudbloods blaming each other, Malfoy could take control of the Wizengamot and the Ministry. With the Resistance and the Order leaderless, the Ministry had a decent chance of winning the war, too. And even if that didn’t work out… the country would be so weakened by all the chaos, she and Astoria, and Tracey, would be able to disappear from Britain without risking being sent back by another country to placate the Ministry.

She clenched her teeth as she stepped up to the fireplace. She could avenge her family and - possibly - prevent the mudbloods’ takeover of Britain. She could be free of Black, too. Safe.

And all she had to do was to kill dozens of people, and plunge Britain into another war.

She glanced at Tracey, but she couldn’t tell what her friend was thinking.

She could do it. Show them all. Kill Black, Granger, Potter and Weasley. People who had ruined her life. Murdered her parents and friends.

As long as she was willing to risk it all as well. And see countless more people die in another war.

They reached the fireplace. If she wanted to do this, she needed to talk to Tracey before they reached her home, where the werewolf was waiting. If they were to do this, they needed to work together and plan ahead. They couldn’t head straight back to her home.

If she wanted to do this.

She grabbed a handful of Floo powder.

Did she want to do this?

She hesitated, just for a second, long enough for Tracey to glance at her, then threw the powder into the fire.

“Greengrass Manor.”

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 7th, 1997

Amelia Bones didn’t want to see Sirius Black. The wizard flouted any law that might hinder him and openly scorned the Ministry. But he was also the most influential member of the Wizengamot - Doge was but a figurehead - and he wouldn’t falsely claim that he had important information just to rile her up. Amelia herself would certainly never neglect her duty and play power games for petty reasons. Even though she hated that, once again, the Ministry was being sidelined or blindsided.

But that he was bringing Granger with him… She clenched her teeth and forced herself to calm down so she wouldn’t lose her temper when facing the mass-murdering muggleborn.

“Good morning, Sirius,” she said with the barest hint of a nod when he entered his office. “Miss Granger.”

Black simply nodded back at her. Granger didn’t show any reaction to Amelia not addressing her as ‘Madam Granger’, as befitted a member of the Wizengamot. Even if the girl had failed her Wizarding Customs O.W.L. exam, she would be aware of that.

“Sirius.” Pius, of course, was all too courteous. “Madam Granger.” He even bowed to the girl - could he be more obvious in his attempts to curry favour?

“Mister Thicknesse.”

“What brings you to my office this early in the morning?” Amelia said as soon as the two visitors had sat down.

Black leaned forward, grinning widely but without any humour that she could detect. “Proof that Augustus Malfoy is conspiring with foreign purebloods and plans to murder the entire Wizengamot.”

Amelia froze, hissing through suddenly clenched teeth. Even Pius seemed shocked. “What did you do?”

Black chuckled. “We’ve been investigating Malfoy for some time. Last night we finally found proof that he wants to blow up the Wizengamot - with him absent, of course - and frame the muggleborns for it.”

“What kind of proof do you have?” Amelia asked. They hadn’t heard anything about this from the Ministry’s spy. Had Black gone so far as to kidnap Malfoy? A glance told her that Pius didn’t know anything more either.

“Testimonies. Observations. Enough to arrest him, and his co-conspirators and interrogate them with Veritaserum.” Black leaned back, looking far too smug for Amelia’s taste. If this was true, then this affair was far too serious for his attitude.

She set her jaw. “I’m not about to arrest a member of the Wizengamot on the say so of his chief political rival.”

“I would never expect you to, of course.” Black was still grinning.

Granger reached inside her robes and pulled out three vials. “Here are the memories of Malfoy planning his attack, as well as the memory of him ordering the attack on the Cadwalladers. They are alive and well,” she added with a grin that showed too many teeth.

“So you were the ones who attacked them,” Amelia said. And they had lied about it.

Black shrugged. “It was needed to gain Malfoy’s trust. No one died.”

He hadn’t said that the Cadwalladers had been working with them, Amelia noted. Which told her enough. “You kidnapped them.”

Black’s grin widened. “A necessary ruse. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to find out about Malfoy’s plans for the Wizengamot.”

“I’m certain that even your political enemies will understand the necessity of this course of action,” Pius said.

Amelia briefly glared at him. She knew as well as Pius that the Wizengamot would never condemn Black, not after he just saved all of their lives. If his claims were true. Which, she knew, they almost certainly were. But who… she narrowed her eyes. Of course. “Greengrass or Davis, or both, are working for you.”

Black chuckled. “Right on the mark, Amelia.”

“Some might suspect entrapment.” Not that too many Wizengamot members would care about the legal details in a case like this.

“The testimonies and his interrogation will show that he was the one to instigate everything. All that the two snakes did was accept his invitations and proposals.” Black spread his hands.

“We need to plan his arrest carefully,” Pius said.

“Their arrest,” Granger cut in. “Everyone who attended those clandestine meetings has to be arrested at the same time, or they will escape. They might not all be privy to his plans, certainly not those who would have died with the rest of us should he have succeeded, but they certainly were willing to resort to criminal acts to take control of Wizarding Britain.”

Amelia clenched her teeth. To hear the girl condemn others for the same crimes she and Black had committed…

“Of course,” Pius agreed, as if he weren’t aware of the hypocrisy of Granger’s statement. She glared at him, but he ignored her.

“He might have traitors among the Aurors as well,” Granger continued. “And among the Ministry’s staff. The Resistance will be ready to intervene, should they attempt a coup. As we did before.”

“We have enough trusted Aurors and Hit-Wizards to manage,” Amelia spat.

“You better be dead certain of their loyalty.” Black was staring at her.

She bristled at the implication. The Ministry hadn’t fallen so low as to need help from Black and Granger to arrest a bunch of traitors.

Once more, Pius stepped in. “I believe I know who we can trust in this matter.” His smile turned what should have been a rebuke into a conciliatory remark.

She controlled herself with some effort. “We’ll watch the memories. Depending on the results, we’ll arrest him before today’s session.”

She wouldn’t let anyone, not even herself, keep her from doing her duty.

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 7th, 1997

“You know, I think this is the first time we’re not going to be early for a session,” Harry Potter said as he and his friends stepped out of the fireplace in the Ministry’s Atrium and through the Thief’s Downfall set up there.

Ron chuckled. “And the first time Hermione’s not nagging us about being late.”

The witch in question huffed, but didn’t comment. She huffed again when Ron reached over and ruffled her hair, but didn’t pull away, Harry noticed. He was glad for the distraction - after Remus had told them about Malfoy’s plan, Hermione had confirmed that it would be possible, in her opinion. Harry had worried about the possibility of Malfoy going ahead without Greengrass and Davis’s help ever since. He couldn’t, and shouldn’t, personally check every nook and cranny in the Ministry, not without tipping Malfoy off about the fact that they knew about his plans, but he couldn’t help glancing around, worrying about possible ambushes.

The Ministry was still full of purebloods, and while there couldn’t be many of Voldemort’s supporters left after the Battle of the Ministry and the following purge, there were bound to be a few. And Malfoy’s propaganda might have turned a few more Ministry employees, especially among those who had been active in the hunt for the Muggleborn Resistance during the war.

Thicknesse had said that they could trust the Auror and Hit-Wizard guards on shift today, and they were not planning to let Malfoy get close to the Wizengamot Chamber, but… He shook his head.

“Smile, Harry,” Sirius whispered, “we don’t want people to suspect anything, do we?”

His godfather had cast a privacy spell beforehand, but Harry still glared at him. If Thicknesse was a traitor, then this would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of not just the leaders of the Order and the Resistance, but also of the Aurors most supportive of them. Tonks had messaged them that Thicknesse had passed through the Thief’s Downfall, which ruled out Polyjuice, but what if Bones wanted to betray them? Or if Dawlish was a traitor? Or someone else, someone also able to prepare an ambush without any guards noticing? Or if anyone had managed to sabotage the Thief’s Downfall? Harry really didn’t trust anyone in the Ministry, other than Tonks, Arthur and Percy. And all three would also be present for the occasion.

When the fireplace flared up behind them, he glanced over his shoulder, his wand in hand, but it was just a clerk.

At least there were a few members of the Resistance present - Harry saw Tania and Seamus acting as if they were studying the fountain and flirting with each other - and the rest of them were ready to storm the Ministry, but if there was an ambush they’d take some time to arrive through the lift shaft. Although the threat of swift vengeance might serve to keep Bones and Thicknesse honest. But even that was no guarantee.

Or, Harry thought, Moody’s lessons might have been a bit too good.

“Looks clear,” Hermione whispered, looking as if she was talking about the bills to be discussed this session while she twirled her wand in her hand.

“Haven’t noticed anything either,” Ron said, glancing at the lift on the other side of the Atrium. Tonks was walking towards them, smiling, though she looked quite tense.

“Hey there!” She waved, as if she was meeting them by chance.

“Nymphadora!” Sirius exclaimed. “How is my favourite cousin doing?” He ignored her scowl and muttered “Tonks!” while he recast his privacy spell to include her.

“Everything’s ready,” she said, her tone not matching the glare she aimed at Sirius. “Runcorn’s already inside the chamber. He’ll be arrested there.”

Sirius was, as usual, utterly unimpressed by any expression of disapproval not accompanied by at least hexes. “Ah! Please ask your mother for a memory of that so I can watch and enjoy it later.”

The fireplace flared up again, but it wasn’t Malfoy, just a few more members of the Wizengamot Harry didn’t know by name. Backbenchers, Hermione called them.

Harry glanced at Thicknesse, who was chatting with half a dozen Aurors near the lift. He was envious of the man’s composure - there was no sign on his face that he was about to make one of the most important arrests of his career.

The Minister stepping out of the lift drew some attention from the Ministry employees in the Atrium, though no one approached her - Bones’s stern expression must have scared them off, Harry thought with some amusement.

Just then, Malfoy stepped out of the fireplace. The wizard was through the Thief’s Downfall before he suddenly stopped walking, staring first at Bones, then at Thicknesse, who was walking straight towards him.

Malfoy turned, as if to leave, but the fireplaces had gone out already, as planned. Harry saw a sneer appear on the man’s face, before a thin smile replaced it as Malfoy turned to face Thicknesse.

Everyone in the Atrium was now staring at Malfoy and Thicknesse. If any traitors were among the crowd, they wouldn’t be easy to spot.

Harry had his wand out, as did his friends, and kept glancing around for any threat. Any danger.

Thicknesse stopped a few yards in front of Malfoy. “Augustus Malfoy, you are under arrest for treason.” His voice carried far through the Atrium, even though it didn’t sound as if he had cast an Amplifying Charm.

“Treason?” Malfoy scoffed. “Has the Ministry fallen so low that it has become a tool to be wielded against political opponents?” He stood stiff and straight, but hadn’t drawn his wand. That was a good sign, in Harry’s opinion - it probably meant that Malfoy didn’t have enough traitors around to fight it out.

“Hardly,” Thicknesse responded. “We know about your plan to bomb the Wizengamot.” Two Aurors stepped forward to flank Malfoy as the crowd observing the scene gasped upon hearing this.

The man flinched. “Preposterous! This is an obvious attempt to discredit and frame me!” He took a step back, though. “You cannot arrest a member of the Wizengamot! This is treason!”

“You are a traitor!” Thicknesse retorted. “Take him!”

Malfoy tried to draw his wand, but the Aurors stunned him right away, and the wand clattered as it fell to the ground.

Harry kept an eye on the crowd, his wand pointed at the ground, but ready to cast. Some looked as if they were ready to start a fight, either to to help or kill Malfoy, but no one actually made any threatening moves while he was taken down to the DMLE’s cells.

Harry didn’t relax his guard, though, not even when he and his friends were on their way up to the Wizengamot. He knew it would be some time until he would feel safe again inside the Ministry.

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 7th, 1997

“... Malfoy was arrested on the way to the Wizengamot. Philius Runcorn, the most senior member of the Wizengamot and close friend of Augustus Malfoy, was arrested in the Wizengamot Chamber, together with several of their acquaintances.”

Bess Cox wasn’t the only one listening to the Resistance Radio in Freddie’s Fish’n’Chips who whistled in response to the news. Rumours had spread since the early afternoon of a shake-up at the Ministry and had grown wilder with each passing hour. The Resistance storming the building, capturing the Wizengamot, Malfoy launching a coup, Bones forming a dictatorship, the ICW intervening… the rumours had been piling up, and her and Randall’s attempts to find more people willing to take the fight to the purebloods in hiding had not fared well when everyone had been discussing the latest ‘news’.

“The arrests happened after the Order of the Phoenix and the Muggleborn Resistance discovered that Mister Malfoy was planning to blow up the Wizengamot in the middle of a session, murdering everyone but those absent - namely, himself and a few of his cronies - and framing muggleborn extremists for the attack.”

The whistles turned to yells and shouts of anger. Bess ground her teeth. If she got her hands on Malfoy…

Someone turned up the volume on the wireless receiver, and the voice of the Resistance Radio’s announcer rose above the angry cries of the audience.

“... presented with such evidence, the Ministry arrested the culprits. While Mister Malfoy’s exact plans are not yet known, it’s clear, both from sources close to the case as well as his public statements, that Mister Malfoy wanted to stop Wizarding Britain from becoming a democracy where everyone has equal rights no matter their blood status, and that he didn’t care how much death and destruction would be caused by his futile efforts.”

Once more the yells drowned out the wireless broadcast, but this time, the repeated shouts to settle down and listen from various guests, including Bess herself, didn’t have any effect. Cursing, she sat down and huffed.

Randall, who had stayed sitting, pointed at the door. “Let’s go outside!”

She dropped a few coins on the table to pay for her meal - she didn’t want him to pay for both of them - and followed him out on to the street. “Those bastards!”

He nodded. “Although if this is true, then Malfoy just ruined the Old Families. Trying to murder all of them just so he can kill Granger, Black and Potter as well? No one will want to support anything he supported for a while.”

“‘If this is true’?” Bess narrowed her eyes at him.

A flick of his wand cast a privacy spell around the two of them. “It seems almost too convenient for Malfoy to try something like this - and for Black and the Resistance to find out about it in time to stop it.”

Bess blinked. “Do you mean they set him up?”

Randall shrugged. “Maybe. It has certainly removed the biggest obstacle to reforming the Wizengamot and the Ministry, and pulled the rug out from under any other pureblood supremacists still holding out.”

It made a lot of sense to Bess. She slowly nodded, then shrugged. “I don’t care either way, as long as this means that we can finally replace the purebloods in the Wizengamot.”

He chuckled as they walked towards the main street of the Alley. “Yes. Whether this was a set-up, or a lucky break, the Resistance better not miss this opportunity.”

Bess nodded. They had lost enough time playing nice with the purebloods. Then she grinned. “At least the Wizengamot won’t let him go. Not when he had planned to kill ’em all.”

“You’re right,” he said. “The only question will be: Veil or Kiss?”

She grinned. It didn’t matter, not really - Malfoy deserved both.

*****​

Kent, Greengrass Manor, April 7th, 1997

“...the latest example of stubborn bigotry. Malfoy was willing to murder dozens, including his so-called friends, just so he could keep the Old Families in power! But he failed, just as everyone else trying to follow his example will fail!

“We’re fighting for the rights of every wizard and witch in Britain, no matter their blood! We will win for all of us! We will have democracy! We will have equality! Blood doesn’t matter!”

Daphne Greengrass, sitting on her bed in her room, sighed and flicked her wand to turn the wireless receiver off, then slumped slightly. It was done. Malfoy and Runcorn and their cronies had been arrested. Thanks to herself and her friend. Who was currently shaking her head at Daphne.

“They didn’t mention us.” Tracey, seated sideways on Daphne’s favourite chair, arms draped over the backrest, mock-pouted.

“They didn’t have to. Our involvement will be obvious soon enough,” Daphne said. “Once it becomes known that we’ve not been arrested.” They hadn’t been at the session, after all.

Her friend snorted. “That information will already have spread. It’s a miracle that the DMLE managed to keep the whole thing a secret until the arrest.”

Daphne shrugged. “Our fates have been tied to Black’s ever since we decided to turn on Theo.”

Tracey narrowed her eyes at her. “You sound bitter about that. Having second thoughts?”

“It was the best course of action for us and our families.” That didn’t mean that she liked it.

“You thought about Malfoy’s plan, though.”

Her best friend knew her, of course. “As did you.”

“Of course,” Tracey said. “It would have been stupid not to carefully consider all available options in our situation.”

Daphne hesitated a moment, then leaned forward. “So… why did you decide to stick with Black?”

“Only a fool would trust a leader who sacrifices his allies like Malfoy was planning to.” Tracey’s sneer seemed forced to Daphne. “He’d have sacrificed us as well, either to cut a deal, or as a diversion for another of his plans.” She huffed. “And he treated us like little girls.”

“The werewolf does the same,” Daphne pointed out.

Her friend chuckled. “He tries to. But I’m wearing him down.” Daphne rolled her eyes, and Tracey pouted. “Don’t spoil my fun.”

Daphne shivered. To flirt with a werewolf, even if it wasn’t serious…

“So, why didn’t you join Malfoy?”

“Same reason as you,” Daphne said.

After a moment, her friend tilted her head to the side. “Sick of the war, then?”

Daphne looked out of the window, at the top of the trees of the garden outside. “Like you.”

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Then Tracey broke the silence. “Did you talk to Astoria yet?”

Daphne winced. She wasn’t looking forward to that talk.

“Ah.” Tracey sighed. “Aren’t you afraid that she’ll run off to curse some muggleborns?”

“I convinced her that Granger can keep track of her, as the Gryffindors did in Hogwarts, and would hunt her down and kill her if she left the house.” She didn’t like lying to her sister, but if it kept her from getting herself - and their family - killed...

Tracey chuckled. “That’s a good one! And she fell for it?”

Daphne frowned. Tracey was her best friend, but Astoria was her sister. She shrugged. “Lupin has been living here for weeks now. Are you certain that they can’t track us?”

Tracey’s smirk vanished and she muttered a few rather colourful words under her her breath.

Daphne nodded. Even if tracking them at Hogwarts had been Dumbledore’s doing, the Headmaster might very well have shared that with Potter and his friends before his death. “We can’t know for certain, but…” She shrugged.

“...it would be foolish to think we’re safe,” Tracey finished for her, clenching her teeth.

“As long as we’re not acting against them, we should be safe, actually,” Daphne said, “We’re now firmly established as their allies.” At least as far as the public was concerned. And Malfoy’s cronies.

“Unless they plan to use our deaths to frame another of their enemies,” Tracey added with a cynical smile.

Daphne glared at her friend. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

*****​

Cumbria, Britain, April 7th, 1997

“Thank you, sir.” Hermione Granger smiled at the mercenary as she pushed a small bag over the folding table. “Here’s the rest of your payment, as agreed. And a bonus, for your excellent work.”

The Major nodded at her, then opened the bag and checked the money and gold inside. The sun was about to set, but they didn’t need lamps yet.

The Sergeant scoffed. “We’d have done better if some of the recruits hadn’t been missing half the time.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Or all of them for your ‘field trip’.”

She smiled wryly. “They needed to relax.”

He slowly shook his head. “There was nothing in the news, yet once they were back they acted as if they had been in combat.”

“Just a field trip.” She shrugged.

“Most of them are older than you, but they follow you. And they don’t resent Potter and Weasley, even though those two get special treatment all the time.”

“Quit fishing for information, Mick,” the Major said. “Our clients paid for their privacy.”

“Right.” The Sergeant looked at her for a moment, then glanced at the Major. “Payment checks out?”

“Yes.”

The Sergeant grunted and stood up. “I’ll get the Land Rover then.”

Once the burly mercenary had left the folding table, the Major said in a low voice: “He doesn’t like mysteries.”

“I understand the feeling.” She really did - in their place, she’d have gone crazy trying to figure out what was really going on.

“I bet you do. But do you understand not being able to figure something out?”

She just smiled. She couldn’t answer that.

“Thought so.” He inclined his head, then stood up and held out his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.” She rose as well and shook it. “Will there be another contract in the future?”

Hermione hesitated a moment, then nodded. “That is likely.” The war had proven that the Ministry’s organisation wasn’t up to the task of fighting a war. Aurors were meant for police work, even those hunting dark wizards, and the Hit-Wizards’ numbers could not expand quickly enough during war time. And the majority of them were glorified guards, not trained soldiers.

“Maybe I’ll find out what, exactly, you need soldiers for.” He nodded at her.

“Maybe.” Some muggles were told about magic, after all, even without being related to a wizard or witch.

“Until then, ma’am.” He saluted her.

“Sir.” She returned the salute.

*****​

Hermione Granger looked at the camp. Tents were packing themselves up, firepits and latrines - not that those had really been used, with wizarding tents available - were being filled with earth, and litter was being vanished left and right. With the Major and the Sergeant gone, there was no longer any need to hide magic, and the latest members of the Resistance were using their wands to clean up Justin’s family’s woods.

She turned around and stepped inside her own tent. Justin, Sally-Anne, John, Tania, Louise and Seamus were arrayed around a conjured table in the centre of the living room.

She nodded at them. “Alright. You all know what happened today.”

“We let the Ministry arrest Malfoy and Runcorn.” Seamus’s tone clearly indicated that he didn’t like that. She refrained from rolling her eyes.

“We just saw the death of the Death Eater faction in the Wizengamot. The bigots just lost whatever support they still had among the other members.” She stood straight, hands crossed behind her back. “We’ll be able to push the Wizengamot Reform Act through as soon as the dust from the arrests has settled.” With a toothy smile, she added: “We did it. We’ve won the war.”

Sally-Anne was the first to cheer and she hugged a smiling Justin. Tania grinned widely and elbowed Seamus, who glanced at her in response. Louise yelled “Yes!” and John nodded. Soon everyone was yelling.

Hermione watched her friends - even stubborn, bloodthirsty Seamus - cheer with a wide smile of her own. After over a year of struggling, they had beaten the bigots. In the field, and in the Wizengamot. They had won. She sighed. They had paid a heavy price, though.

“What do we do now?” Sally-Anne’s question broke her out of her reminiscing. The witch was shifting her weight from one leg to the other and back. “We won the war, and now it’s all politics. That’s... “ She shrugged. “I’m not a politician. And we’re an army, not a political party.” Her eyes traveled to the tent’s exit. “They just finished training, too.”

Hermione nodded. “The Resistance is still needed. We’ve seen that the Ministry wasn’t ready for a war. They didn’t have an army, just some Aurors and guards. More importantly, they had no plan to create an army. They had no reserves. No plan for a mobilisation or conscription.” Which had been a very good thing for the Resistance during the war. “And we know that even with the bigots utterly discredited, we have enemies - the Jamaican houngans. Possibly the French.” If Sirius’s next mission failed.

“Are we going to merge with the Hit-Wizards?” Louise asked.

Hermione shook her head. “I think we should take them over. Train them as we have trained. Keep a small cadre for guard duties, and the rest of us as reserves who can be called up in a very short time if needed.”

“Like a militia?” Justin had his arm around Sally-Anne’s shoulders.

“Sort of,” she said. “It’s more like the militaries on the continent that use conscription. Like the Swiss.”

“So, we’ll be in control of Wizarding Britain’s military.” Seamus grinned.

“We’ll be in control of the entire Ministry,” Hermione said. “Once we have a majority in the Wizengamot.” But having control of the military would ensure that there wouldn’t be another set of muggleborn laws. Never again.

She took a deep breath. “And as much as I hate to say it just as we won the struggle in Britain, we have another battle in front of us.” Most of them looked puzzled, but Justin and Louise nodded. “We need to find a cure for the Withering Curse.”

And Hermione didn’t think that the houngans would give it to them without a fight.

*****​

West of Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica, April 7th, 1997

Augustus Rookwood took a deep breath, inhaling the cool air of the Jamaican night. He had done it - he had bent the wards of the mansion below him. They wouldn’t stop or hinder him any more.

But wards were not all the manor’s defences. He already knew that the mambo had zombies as servants. Even if they were muggles they would present an obstacle. Or a distraction. He had seen kennels in a side building of the manor as well - there would be dogs, at the least. Maybe magical animals. Nothing that could fly, though - the kennels had no roof.

He scoffed. He could deal with mere animals. Nor was he much bothered by the prospect of dealing with spelled furniture and cursed objects. A skilled wizard’s home was a death trap for an unwary intruder. Or should be, at least - but Augustus was neither unwary nor inexperienced.

No, the real trouble was the mambo inside the manor. He had to take her alive to get her knowledge. And that would be difficult. Even for a wizard as skilled as himself.

Fortunately, he was prepared. He reached into his enchanted pocket and pulled out a small case containing several vials. He took a sip from one of them, ignoring its vile taste. That would remove his scent, rendering the dogs useless.

Another vial he drank in its entirety - he could take no chances with this one, even if he could feel his stomach already growing unsettled. Not with at least two apprentices inside the manor as well, according to the memories he had taken from ‘Ricky’.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then pointed his wand at his face. A complicated transfiguration later, the night’s darkness faded from his view, and he saw the manor on the small hill below as an owl would see it at night.

He cast a Disillusionment Charm and started to carefully make his way downslope from the ridge on which he had been staying. It took him twenty minutes to reach the wardline, mostly because he didn’t follow any of the paths in the woods and fields - those would be covered with detection spells or even traps.

Despite his confidence in his work, he held his breath when he reached out with his arm - his left arm, of course, never his wand arm. While unlikely, he might have missed a defence. But while his skin tingled when he pushed his hand through the wards, he encountered no resistance nor was he pushed back or struck down. Releasing his breath, he stepped inside the wards.

A path ahead of him led towards the manor’s side entrance, but he didn’t take it. Nor did he walk over the lawn. Instead, he pulled out his broom and unshrank it, then looked at the balcony on the south side. Zombies generally couldn’t fly, so the defences on the ground were likely to be more powerful.

He fought down a sudden bout of nausea, flew up to the first floor and eyed the balcony, then shook his head. Too obvious. Too vulnerable. He flew on, towards a small window near the balcony. He could see a corridor behind it. Perfect.

He aimed his wand at it and cast a privacy charm on it to mask any sound his entrance might cause, followed by an Unlocking Charm. He slipped inside, not touching either pane or frame. Now he just had to find the mambo.

Although the three markers moving toward his position that his Human-presence-revealing Spell showed him might indicate that he had found her already. Or she him.

*****​

 

Chapter 61: Foreign Solutions

‘Augustus Malfoy’s failed plot to blow up the Wizengamot spelled the end of what has come to be known as the ‘traditionalist pureblood movement’ in Wizarding Britain. By planning to murder not just his enemies, but his allies, even his own kin, Malfoy betrayed the very ideals - blood, honour, tradition - for which he claimed to be fighting. His actions did not just discredit his entire faction, but also allowed Sirius Black to portray his own movement as the only reasonable alternative to a complete takeover by the muggleborns. Such a portrayal would have otherwise been very difficult for any member of the Black family, even more so for a wizard with Black’s radical history. It is quite ironic that the very attempt to prevent Black’s takeover of the Wizengamot instead greatly facilitated it. This is one of the reasons some of my colleagues consider the Malfoy bomb plot as the end of the Second Blood War - especially if they consider the bombing of Malfoy Manor to be its start - despite the fact that this requires one to ignore several significant events which are undoubtedly part of that conflict.’
- Excerpt from ‘Wizarding Britain in the 20th Century’ by Albert Runcorn

*****​

West of Savanna-la-Mar, Jamaica, April 7th, 1997

For a moment, Augustus Rookwood considered retreating. It was obvious that he had lost the element of surprise. But if he did, he would lose more than a week’s work - some of the ingredients for the potions he had used were nigh-impossible to come by as a civilian unless one had lavish funds. And while money could be acquired, contacts who were unscrupulous enough to deal with Britain’s most wanted wizard without betraying him to the authorities were another thing. Further, he wouldn’t be able to repeat the same tactic again. So he pressed his lips together and dismounted, sticking the broom to the wall outside. He could do this - he was prepared and had a plan.

One of the markers was coming at him from behind, two from ahead. A flick of his wand transfigured the planter in the alcove in front of him into a vaguely humanoid figure while he stepped into another alcove on the other side of the corridor. With a twist of his wand he conjured a giant snake behind him. A Disillusionment Charm hid it from view as it slithered to cover his back.

Just before the two markers in front reached the corner ahead, he opened a vial in his pocket. The slight hissing noise was drowned out by an explosion that blew a large hole in the transfigured planter. An amateur’s mistake. And he hadn’t seen a spell - that had been a vial of Exploding Fluid.

The first marker would be the apprentice then, Augustus concluded - the mambo wouldn’t make such a mistake, nor would she use a vial instead of a spell. Which meant he didn’t need to take that one alive. The apprentice - a boy, Augustus noticed - turned the corner, his wand covering the row of alcoves, but he hesitated, not wanting to repeat his mistake, just long enough for Augustus to strike.

A Reductor Curse blew a hole in the floor just behind the boy, causing him to stumble - straight into Augustus’s Fire Whip. The boy - or maybe girl; the spell illuminated their face long enough to show they were younger than Augustus had expected, barely of an age to attend Hogwarts - couldn’t even scream before their head was torn off.

Augustus took a step back, taking cover in the alcove as he cast a Shield Charm. The second marker was about to turn the corner behind him - and the third in front of him. That one would be the mambo, which meant his disillusioned snake should be able to take care of the second apprentice.

He heard a yell, cut short, behind him, and glanced back. A figure seemed to be struggling with an invisible snake, then it went limp. Grinning, he turned his attention to the front. A bout of nausea hit him, but he fought it down. Not now, not so close to victory.

The third marker was right at the corner, hiding out of sight - but not out of range of his detection spell. A Blasting Curse would wreck the corner and shower her with splinters…

He hesitated. This was too easy. No experienced witch would fight like this. Not in her own home. His stomach tried to rebel again, and he bent over, panting. He shook his head. No matter; she was a threat.

He blew the corner to smithereens and heard her cry out in pain, then saw her body collapse in a shower of blood, shredded by the stone shards. Not even a Shield Charm? And he hadn’t encountered any of the defenses and curses he had expected. Gasping, he once again retreated into the alcove and pointed his wand at the limp body behind him.

“Accio wand!” he whispered.

Nothing.

He pointed his wand at the headless apprentice in front of him.

“Accio wand!” Louder this time.

Nothing flew or leapt towards him. But he had seen the wand in the boy’s hand… the vial! The mistakes!

Those had been zombies! Decoys! He had to escape!

“Accio broom!” he shouted, his spell overpowering the weak charm with which he had stuck the broom to the wall outside. He saw the broom flew towards him. His Human-presence-revealing Spell showed no enemies nearby. He reached out to grab the shaft…

… and skeletal arms tore through the walls, floor and ceiling, smashing into his shield, battering it down and forcing him back into the alcove, where more bone limbs grasped at him.

A Blasting Curse blew a hole in the phalanx of bone limbs, opening an escape route - but the blast had been too close, and the force of the explosion also shattered his Shield Charm. Before he could recast it or take more than one step towards his broom - held by other skeletal hands, he now saw - dozens of the limbs descended on him, smashing him to the ground.

His wand arm erupted in pain, broken - or even shattered. He screamed, desperately struggling, trying to escape despite the pain, despite his wand being lost, but his efforts were futile. The convenient cover the alcoves had provided, the hasty reaction - it had all been a trap, he realised.

Immobilised by dozens of skeletal hands, he felt his stomach rise again.

*****​

He was panting, trying not to smell the stench of his own bile and snot as it formed a puddle right next to his head, when he heard laughter. Looking up, hissing at the pain the movement caused his hurt body, he saw a dark-skinned woman wearing thin, white and scandalously short robes, approach.

She flicked her wand, and he saw his own wand fly towards her. She caught it with her left hand. She stepped closer, forcing him to crane his neck further so he could keep her face in view.

“Are you the one who murdered Markus?” She had a heavy accent. A native mambo, then. Not a mudblood raised as one.

“Who?” He played dumb.

She snorted and waved her wand. At once, the skeletal hands gripping his broken wand arm tightened, and he screamed. It felt as if shards of his own bones were being driven into his flesh and through his skin.

“Are you?”

“Markus Williams? I killed him, yes,” he spat. He gulped down air, the smell of blood mingling with the stench of bile despite his nose running. He felt his stomach rise again, and dry-retched several times.

“Disgusting.”

He glanced up and saw a faint shimmer around the mambo’s head. A Bubble-Head Charm. Behind her, he saw a young man turn the broken figure back into a planter. That would be her apprentice. He didn’t say anything, just continued to breathe heavily. If she noticed the slight hissing sound…

“Who are you?”

“You don’t know me?” His forced laugh turned into a cough that wracked his body with pain each time his chest moved. He just had to endure this a little longer. But if she hurt him any worse… “Rookwood. Augustus Rookwood,” he quickly said. “I’d bow, but…” His grimace might be called a smile if one were blind and squinted.

The mambo’s own smile reminded him of Lestrange’s. “You’re the last British Death Eater.”

“Not quite,” he said. How much longer did he have to endure this?

She frowned. He saw her apprentice step up behind her. “Mistress?” he asked in the same accent. “The three decoys are dead. Too damaged to serve further.”

Augustus saw a frown appear on the mambo’s face. “Dispose of them!” She spoke without turning her head to look at the man, her attention focused on himself.

“As you co…” the man bowed, then staggered, trailing off. Augustus saw him blink, his lips moving, without saying a word.

This time, the mambo turned around, just in time to see her apprentice collapse. She whirled back, not bothering to check on the man, and time seemed to slow down for Augustus while he watched her wand swing to point at him. If she…

But she didn’t cast. Instead, she shivered, then pulled something out of a pocket of her robes, swallowing it. A bezoar, as expected. But that would only treat the symptoms.

Once more her wand moved towards him, and once more her expression reminded him of Lestrange. And then her face went slack and she collapsed.

He let out a relieved breath, before another coughing fit shook his body. He didn’t have much time left. And he was badly hurt, and still held in the vice-like grip of these skeletal hands. He moved his left hand.

“Accio wand!”

Wandless magic had never been his forte, but failure was not an option - his spare wand had been crushed along with his right forearm.

He saw the wand, his wand, twitch and roll an inch across the stone floor.

“Accio wand!”

Another inch.

“Accio wand!” he yelled as loudly as he could, putting everything he had into the spell.

The wand rolled towards him, bumping against a bone shard, then rolling over it, closer and closer, until the fingers of his left hand closed around it. Even exhausted and in agony from his wounds, he smiled.

“Evanesco. Evanesco. Evanesco.”

It took a dozen Vanishing Charms to free him from his bony bonds. His arm sent waves of excruciating pain through his body when released, flopping down on the stone floor before he could numb it.

Sweat ran down his brow, and his vision started to dim. Grinding his teeth, he closed the vial in his pocket. He couldn’t afford even more poison spreading, even though there couldn’t be much left anyway. A repurposed household charm blew the poisoned air around him away with a steady breeze. Retching, he pulled out his potion case, opening it with a flick of his wand, then fumbled for the blue vial. When the cork seemed stuck he cursed with frustration, then ripped it out with his teeth before gulping down the liquid inside. He had to purge his body of the antidote to the airborne poison before it damaged him further.

For a minute, he simply rested on the floor, shivering, until he could see clearly again and didn’t feel like puking his guts out any more. He vanished the blood-soaked right sleeve of his robes and winced at the sight of mangled flesh pierced with bone. The Bone-Mending Charm wouldn’t be enough to fix it.

He could deal with it later. He hadn’t much time left; reinforcements could arrive at any minute - the missing second apprentice might be off seeking help. He muttered a few curses. If he had the time to loot the manor… but he wouldn’t even be able to restock the potions he had used, and would use to recover from this.

Ah, well… he told himself that he wouldn’t have been able to use the same trick twice anyway, even if he had another pair of vials of the poison and antidote left. A flick of his wand stripped the mambo of her robes and sandals, and anything else - he wouldn’t make her mistake, and leave her with the tools to escape. A few spells later she was bound, wrapped in ropes, blindfolded and silenced.

A Killing Curse followed by a Vanishing Charm took care of the apprentice, before he levitated his captive and mounted his broom. The skeletal hands had scratched the shaft, but it seemed otherwise undamaged. Which was a good thing, seeing as he had to fly it one handed.

He landed at the wardline and shrank the broom, stashing it inside his robes, then turned around to stare at the manor. For a moment, he hesitated. He knew that there were rare books inside, exotic knowledge to be had, unique spells to be found.

Augustus shook his head. He pointed his wand, and cursed green fire sprang up behind the broken windows of the first floor.

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 7th, 1997

Sirius Black looked up from the amber liquid in his glass when the door to his living room opened. When he saw Vivienne entering, he smiled. “How did it go?”

“We can meet my family tomorrow, as planned,” she said, walking towards him. “With our ‘guest’.”

He nodded and put the glass down. It was too late to drink liquor anyway. “Do they expect any trouble?” His cover should have held, but the French Gendarmes might have caught a lucky break.

“No.” She shook her head then sat down on the armrest of his chair. “The Gendarmes might suspect us, of course - we’re known to be Dubois’s main rivals at the Court, together with the Delacours - but they lack any proof.”

“And the Delacours?” They had facilitated his cover story with carefully forged documentation.

“I trust that they will ’ave covered their tracks. They certainly have the influence and experience to stall an investigation for a few more days.” She shrugged, and Sirius couldn’t help thinking that the d’Aigles and Delacours might not be as close as he had thought.

“And the audience?” he asked, wrapping his arm around her waist. He had to meet the Duc in person in order to take the man’s measure. And to impress upon him the folly of further meddling in British politics.

“Arranged for the evening. Although the Duc insisted on receiving you in the Chateau.” She winced. “’E refused to meet you on my family’s estate.”

Sirius took a deep breath through clenched teeth. “A private audience - a secret one. He could easily make me disappear.”

“’E wouldn’t do that.” Vivienne shook her head almost violently. “It would be dishonourable.”

“As dishonourable as me seducing Dubois to kidnap her?”

He saw her flinch in response, before she raised her chin. “It was justified. She wanted to plunge Britain into another war. And ’er plans for the French muggleborns…”

“The Duc might think a small betrayal justified as well, in response to my actions against Dubois. Or to exchange me for her.” If Dubois had been the Duc’s lover, as some rumours claimed, then the leader of Magical France might very well decide to hold Sirius hostage to ensure Dubois’s survival, no matter the diplomatic consequences.

“If she survives she’ll do all she can to take revenge,” Vivienne said. “And if the Duc would go to such lengths to save ’er…”

“...then she has his ear. And probably his heart too,” Sirius finished for her.

“No. The Duc is not that sentimental. If she was ’is mistress, maybe. But a former lover? Who was kidnapped by ’er current lover? No.” Vivienne shook her head. “’E would appear not just weak, but foolish to risk a war for such a witch.”

“Are you certain?” Sirius was a Gryffindor, so his bravery was not in question, but if the Duc took him hostage, Harry and his friends might react in a rash and violent manner.

“Yes. While we do not elect our leader, a Duc who loses the respect of the Court and the aristocracy cannot ’old on to ’is position for long.”

It seemed French politics were even worse than British ones, Sirius thought. They hadn’t had two civil wars since Grindelwald’s war, though. He nodded. “Alright. So, will he sacrifice Dubois then?”

“Yes.” After a moment, she added: “That is the opinion of my family as well.”

He’d have to trust their opinion, Sirius knew - he wasn’t an expert on French politics. He sighed. He eyed the glass again, then vanished its contents with a flick of his wand. “You know, I didn’t want to, didn’t like seducing her. I still don’t like it.”

“She’s a ’orrible witch.” Vivienne nodded.

“It’s not that.” He noticed a flicker of doubt, and maybe hurt, on her face, and took a deep breath. “It felt as if I was cheating on you.” Well, according to pretty much everyone he could think of, sleeping with another witch was cheating on your lover.

She didn’t answer right away. And when she did, she wasn’t looking at him. “I knew what you were doing. What you ’ad to do. It was my idea.”

He didn’t say anything, just held her closer. He could feel how tense she was.

In a whisper, she went on: “I ’ated it, though. To know you would be in ’er arms, making love to ’er…” She was clenching her teeth, her whispers gaining a screeching undertone. “I ’ate her even more because of this!”

He put his right hand on her thigh, squeezing gently. She was close to transforming, or so he thought. There were no feathers sprouting yet, though. He was tempted to change into Padfoot - that usually broke any tension. Or at least redirected it. But she deserved better than him making light of this. “I won’t do it again.”

She didn’t answer, but she slid into his lap and held him, and he could feel how she slowly grew less tense as he rubbed her back.

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 8th, 1997

Ron Weasley ducked when he entered the twins’ shop, but no rubber chicken tried to attack him, nor did anything else dreamed up by his brothers hit him while he stepped through the fast-drying Thief’s Downfall installed at the entrance.

“Ah, we trained him well!”

Ron shot the chuckling Fred a glare. “Better safe than sorry.” Growing up with the twins certainly had taught him that. He glanced around reflexively. To one side, a customer, a young wizard, was talking with the clerk the twins had hired. Or trying to flirt with her, Ron couldn’t tell. He kept an eye on them anyway.

“Bah! Where’s the fun in that?” Fred shook his head. “Safe!” He scoffed. “Are you a Gryffindor or not?”

“He’s been with Hermione for too long; he’s starting to think like her!” George, standing in the doorway to the back room, added. “Soon he’ll read real books instead of Quidditch magazines!”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”

Fred grinned. “We do our best. Or worst.”

“Definitely your worst,” Ron said. When his brother opened his mouth again, he held up his hand. “Let’s go into your workroom.”

Fred closed his mouth and nodded, then turned his head and yelled “Clarice! Take over the counter!”

The witch looked over at them and nodded. “Alright, boss.”

“Is she calling you boss because she can’t tell you apart?” Ron asked as he followed his brothers to their workroom. “Or are you actually becoming respectable business owners?”

“That was definitely your worst attempt at a joke,” Fred shot back.

“Respectable? Us?” George shook his head.

Then the door closed, and the twins grew more serious. Fred leaned against a work bench filled with all sorts of knick-knacks and cast a privacy spell.

“I guess you want to know how far along the ‘Bone Busters’ are,” George said.

Ron nodded. He also hadn’t seen the twins for some time, but that wasn’t something that he’d admit to anyone.

“We’re about to finish testing, add a few tweaks, then start production.” George picked up what looked like a Bludger. “And we’ve improved on the concept.” He grinned. “This will seek out your enemies, trying to ram them like a normal Bludger. Just without the Cushioning Charms.” His grin widened. “It would kill someone if it hit their head.”

“And while the target is dodging the Bone Buster - or shielding - it will release the potion into the air as an almost invisible mist,” Fred added, looking smug.

Ron nodded. “So… you adapted one of your inventions, and put it into a Bludger with the safety charms removed.” It was devious. Skeletons and bone walls wouldn’t try to dodge, and houngans would have to worry about getting smashed by the things. And should their limbs break, and their bones become exposed...

Fred pouted. “It wasn’t quite that simple. We had to adapt the spells a lot so it would only attack enemies.”

“And how does that work?” Ron wanted to know. He didn’t want to get hit by one of them.

“A charmed pin will keep it away,” Fred said. “The charm can be cast as well, but a General Counter-Spell would put an end to it.”

And the Bludger would probably put an end to them soon afterwards, Ron thought. “We’ll still want to learn the spell too. We might lose a pin, or there might be other people in the area of effect whom we don’t want to get hurt.”

“You can also command it to stop,” George said. “We tweaked those spells too, though. If someone tries the usual Quidditch spells on them…” He bared his teeth. “Let’s just say they’ll receive a surprise.”

“What kind of surprise?” Ron stared at them. He’d rather not discover what the thing did in the middle of a battle.

Fred frowned. “Now you sound like Hermione too. If that’s the result of your special Resistance training, then I’m glad we didn’t get to go.”

“What does it do?”

“It makes the Bone Buster focus on the caster of the spell,” George answered. “After slowing down for a moment, to make them think they succeeded.”

“Ah.” Ron nodded. He didn’t think that would be very useful, but it was a nice addition. “Good work. We can definitely use that.”

Fred narrowed his eyes. “So… does that mean you’re planning to fight houngans?”

“We want to be ready for the next time we encounter Reid or his friends,” Ron said. “I hope he doesn’t return to Britain, though - we’re still dealing with Malfoy and Runcorn’s arrests.”

“That shook up the Wizengamot,” Fred remarked with a chuckle. “Their honourable and generous friend planning to kill them all!”

“Greengrass and Davis revealed that, right?” George asked.

Ron nodded. “Yes. They managed to completely fool Malfoy until after he told them his plan.” He saw that Fred was glaring at George, who in turn was frowning at his brother. Ron didn’t know what was going on there, and he didn’t think he wanted to know.

*****​

Outside Paris, Château d’Orléans, France, April 8th, 1997

Sirius Black didn’t let any lingering nervousness - he was a Gryffindor; he wasn’t afraid - show as he stepped out of the fireplace in the entrance hall of the seat of the Duc d’Orléans. He was an emissary of Wizarding Britain, on a diplomatic mission officially sanctioned by the Chief Warlock. It would be a breach of protocol unheard of in recent times should he be detained, or worse.

Unheard of, but not entirely impossible, he told himself as he cleaned the soot from his robes. He glanced briefly at the guards in the hall, then turned and held out his hand when the fireplace flashed behind him. Vivienne stepped out and took his hand in hers with practised ease while she smiled at him. Her mother, Marie, was next, followed by Fleur’s father. Antoine Delacour didn’t show any sign of his close brush with death four months ago in the catacombs of the Bastille.

As was customary, the chamberlain waited to greet them until all had removed the soot from their clothes. “Welcome to the Château d’Orléans,” the elderly wizard said in French, bowing deeply. “The Duc awaits you in the western salon.”

They nodded in response and followed the man through a corridor decked out in marble. Sirius had to restrain himself from glancing at every decorative pillar or curtain-covered alcove they passed - half an army could be hidden there. He had yet to release Vivienne’s hand.

The western salon was a rather large room for a private audience - the largest room in Sirius’s home could have fit twice into it. The windows were covered with thick curtains. The furniture, though, had been chosen with care for the meeting, he thought - there were two couches facing a single seat, separated by a low table. Almost intimate, even, Sirius thought, for a meeting with the Duc. He couldn’t spot the guards he knew had to be around - probably hidden behind fake walls and curtains.

The Duc himself was standing when they entered, dressed in dark robes with purple trim. He was about ten years older than Sirius, tall and slim, and with an immaculate mustache and goatee - much like Sirius’s own style. And, judging by the Duc’s faint smirk, he had not missed the resemblance.

“Welcome, Marie, Antoine, Mademoiselle d’Aigle, Monsieur Black.” The Duc inclined his head in greeting. Apparently, Sirius didn’t need an introduction.

In response, everyone in his group bowed deeply.

“Please sit down.” The Duc gestured at the two couches.

A house-elf brought some refreshments as they took their seats. The little creature had stepped out from behind one of the curtains, and Sirius made a mental note of the location - there would be a passage for the elves behind there. In a pinch, Padfoot could fit through one as well.

Marie and Antoine made some idle chat while the elf served wine - a good vintage, Sirius noted. He refrained from testing for poison; if the Duc wanted to harm him he’d have too many other opportunities, and without breaking protocol.

“You asked for a private meeting,” the Duc finally said. “With a foreign envoy.” He glanced at Sirius as he spoke, but addressed Marie and Antoine.

“Yes, we did. Sirius has informed us of a grave matter which could have a severe impact on relations between France and Britain.” Marie nodded at Sirius.

The Duc raised an eyebrow, though Sirius couldn’t tell if the man was surprised at the quick deflection or not. He cleared his throat. “Indeed, Monsieur le duc. You might be aware that there have recently been several attacks against civilians in Wizarding Britain.” The Duc nodded, and Sirius went on. “We have discovered that those attacks were instigated by a member of your court, in an attempt to destabilise my country.”

The Duc took a short, hissing breath, but didn’t show any other reaction. “I assume you speak of Isabelle Dubois.”

“Yes.”

“And you have taken her into your custody.”

“Not officially,” Sirius clarified.

“Ah.” The Duc slowly nodded. “Not yet, you mean.” He looked at Marie and Antoine.

Vivienne’s mother nodded. “We thought it best that this delicate situation be resolved with some discretion.”

“Otherwise Isabelle’s actions could have grave consequences, given the volatile situation in Britain,” Antoine added.

“Isabelle was kidnapped by her current lover - an American in exile, or rather, a man posing as an American in exile.” The Duc was staring at Sirius, and his tone left no doubt that he knew who had been posing as Isabelle’s lover. “Such an act might have grave consequences. The French do not suffer foreigners kidnapping members of the Court.”

He hadn’t denied the accusations against Dubois, Sirius noticed. He shrugged. “She brought it on herself. If she hadn’t been trying to plunge Britain into another civil war, she wouldn’t have been taken into custody.” He leaned forward. “And should her plans for the French muggleborns be revealed, I gather that a great deal of violent unrest might result here in France.”

He saw the Duc’s eyes widen in apparent surprise at that. Either he hadn’t known about that or he was an excellent actor. “What plans?”

“She planned to murder the best and brightest of the French muggleborns, to curb a hypothetical rebellion before it could start,” Sirius explained. With a feral grin, he added: “Should this become known I fear that it would cause the very rebellion she feared.”

The Duc had been clenching his teeth while Sirius had been speaking. “Others might take that threat as proof that Isabelle’s apparent fears were not groundless.”

Sirius leaned forward. “Which fears? That the French muggleborns might demand equal rights? And an end to discrimination? And that they might look to Britain for support?”

“Yes.”

He scoffed. “We just fought a bloody war - the second war in less than twenty years. We have no desire for another one.”

“Some might think that currently you’re simply too weak to fight another war.” The Duc was focused on Sirius.

“They would be wrong. Dead wrong.” Sirius met the man’s eyes and bared his teeth. “The Ministry’s losses were terrible. The Death Eaters and their supporters were all but wiped out. But the Order of the Phoenix and the Muggleborn Resistance? We’re actually stronger than before.” It wasn’t quite true - while the Muggleborn Resistance had recruited more than they had lost, the new members were not yet trained to the level of the veterans and the Order hadn’t replaced its losses. But Sirius had no doubt that should it come to war with France, recruiting more Order members would be far easier than recruiting more Aurors. “Any country so foolish as to attack us would find out very quickly that we’re ready for war.”

“A muggleborn-ruled Britain would be facing the entirety of Europe united against them.”

He snorted. “And do you think the European muggleborns will sit out such a conflict? They flocked to Grindelwald in the past and he was the aggressor. Should Europe go to war for pureblood supremacy, the muggleborns will rise and you’ll find yourself besieged by your own people. People who will have learned from the Resistance’s example.”

“So you have plans, then.” The Duc’s face was no longer expressionless; he was baring his own teeth now, his anger plain to see.

“Of course we have plans - we’d be fools not to be prepared for that - but we have no intention of starting a war.” Sirius shook his head. “We know how terrible it is, and we do not wish it on anyone.” Not on anyone sensible, at least. “We went to war because the Death Eaters wanted to oppress and murder all muggleborns.” And if anyone else tried the same, they’d go to war again - covertly, or overtly. He lowered his voice. “Stop trying to meddle in Britain, don’t murder your own muggleborns and there’ll be no war, and no scandal.”

“I cannot ignore Isabelle’s kidnapping. She has too many friends at Court.”

Marie put down her own glass, a slight sneer appearing on her face. “No one would be surprised if her plots and affairs caught up with her. A scorned lover hiring an assassin to take revenge on her would be plausible enough to deflect suspicion away from us.”

The Duc turned towards the Veela. “And you would arrange that?”

“Not directly,” she answered, tilting her head slightly.

“A few words to the correct people, a few hints at what danger Isabelle has been courting with her foolish course of action…” Antoine spread his hands, the large ring on his hand catching the light from the chandelier. “She has overstepped her bounds, assumed she was acting with support you never gave her. A lesson others would do well to learn as well.”

The Duc looked from the Veela to the wizard and back, then glanced at Sirius. “Are you trying to push me into following his example?”

His tone had changed, and he had grown rigid, Sirius thought. He saw the two French nobles stiffen as well.

“We’re not the ones who tried to create a fait accompli and drag France into a war no one wanted but them,” Antoine said. “We’re not the ones who tried to hide their actions from you, assuming you would condone them after the fact - when you’d have no other choice.” He shook his head. “You know me, us, better than that, Louis.”

“I thought I knew Isabelle better than that as well,” the Duc retorted, and Sirius couldn’t help but think that the Duc wasn’t entirely convinced of Dubois’s guilt.

He felt Vivienne, who hadn’t said anything yet, tense up. “We have a memory of her confession, Monsieur le duc.”

The leader of Magical France glanced at her and Sirius, then shook his head. “She was, according to your own words, acting out of fear of a muggleborn rebellion. And you are using the same threat in an attempt to dictate policy to me - while working with a foreigner allied to muggleborns.”

“Dubois was working with foreigners as well - with purebloods willing to murder the entire Wizengamot, the heads of all the Old Families, to further their own goals.” Sirius smiled thinly. “Purebloods who still follow the orders of the Dark Lord - the foreigner who dared to lay a trap in the Bastille and corrupt your people. Neither I nor my allies have done anything against France.”

“You kidnapped a member of my court.”

“In response to her orchestrating attacks on my country.” Sirius glared at the Duc.

“What is more important, the fate of a witch, or the fate of our country?” Antoine cut in. “We are on the brink of war - a situation Dubois brought upon us. Supporting her means condoning her actions against Britain.”

The Duc pressed his lips together for a moment, before he answered. “I do not condone her actions, and I do not wish to go to war.” Sirius clenched his teeth and squeezed Vivienne’s hand. “But neither do I wish to let foreigners dictate to me how I rule my country. Or members of my court. France’s internal affairs are no one else’s concern.”

“The muggleborns disagree,” Sirius said. He ignored the glances from Marie and Antoine. “There are lines that, if crossed, will cause them to react. During the time of Grindelwald’s War, the muggles fought a great war as well.”

“I’m aware of that. Muggle France fell to the Prussians. Some took it as an omen of things to come when facing Grindelwald’s army.” The Duc sneered. “They were proven wrong.”

“The British and French muggles fought a regime of criminals who murdered millions of people for no other reason than their blood,” Sirius went on. “Ever since then, muggles have considered similar actions to be a crime so severe it merits an intervention by the international community.”

“What do you wish to say?”

“I’m saying that should you start murdering your muggleborns, the British muggleborns will consider you a criminal of the worst sort. And they wouldn’t be the only ones in Europe,” Sirius explained.

“You threaten me with war, then, should I not bow to muggleborns?”

Sirius wanted to tell the Duc that that was exactly what he was doing, but Antoine spoke up before he lost his temper. “He’s warning us that mass murder is not the solution. It didn’t work for the British, and it will not work for us. Quite the contrary.”

“Appeasement didn’t work for the British either,” the Duc retorted.

“No amount of appeasement other than unconditional surrender would have satisfied the Dark Lord,” Sirius said. “The muggleborns, by and large, simply want the same rights as purebloods.” Which implied democracy, but he didn’t want to open that can of Flobberworms. “Why do you think that Dumbledore pushed for muggleborn rights in Britain after he had defeated Grindelwald? He knew that that was the only way to avoid another war.”

“And yet Britain suffered two Blood Wars, whereas France has remained at peace.”

“Those wars were the result of the Dark Lord’s desire to take over Britain. The muggleborns were just a convenient scapegoat. If circumstances had been different he would have followed Grindelwald’s example and recruited muggleborns.” Sirius had his doubts - Voldemort must have known that such a course of action could have brought most of Europe down on his head.

“You demand that France stays out of your internal affairs, yet do not offer the same courtesy.” The Duc glared at him.

“Our courtesy ends where mass murder begins.” Sirius met the Duc’s eyes without flinching.

“No one is planning such a crime,” Marie cut in. “No one but Dubois, at least.”

“The purpose of this meeting was to defuse the crisis Dubois created. I think we are all in agreement that war has to be avoided, and that Dubois’s actions are not supported by France.” Antoine smiled. “We are also now aware of the views of the future government of Britain as far as muggleborns are concerned, which will have to be considered by the Duc.”

“Indeed,” Marie added, “we can deal with the other issues at a later date.”

Sirius nodded. The main goal was to avoid a war right now. “If you stop your people from stirring up trouble in Britain in the future we’ll consider Dubois’s actions unsanctioned by France and let you handle the matter discreetly.”

The Duc scowled, but nodded slowly. “I can agree to that.”

Sirius smiled as they shook hands, but he had a feeling that the Duc wasn’t entirely convinced that he couldn’t mess with Britain in the future. Or that he couldn’t oppress the French muggleborns.

He wasn’t too worried, though - they could do something about that once they had handled the current crisis and taken over Britain.

*****​

Near Spanish Town, Jamaica, April 8th, 1997

Augustus Rookwood, sitting in the living room of his tent, watched his captive stir on the carpet. The poison he had used had finally been metabolised enough for her to regain consciousness. If only he had had more of the antidote left, to speed up the process… He shook his head. Such thoughts did nothing but distract him. He had to focus on the task at hand.

The mambo opened her eyes and blinked rapidly. She would still have trouble focusing her gaze, he knew. She tugged against the bonds that held her, but not for long - she knew that she wouldn’t be able to break them.

“Good evening, Madam.” He smirked at her expression. If not for the gag, she’d be swearing at him. “I have a few questions for you.” He pulled out his vial of Veritaserum. Her eyes widened, then hardened - that wasn’t the reaction he had expected.

Frowning, he cast a full Body-Bind Curse, then vanished the gag in her mouth. But then he hesitated as he was about to let three drops fall into her open mouth, still thinking of her curious reaction. What if she had taken precautions to prevent the use of Veritaserum? Something that reacted with the potion to kill her? He had heard of such projects when he had been working at the Department.

Sighing, he stashed the vial again - and watched her eyes track it. Was that relief, or regret? With her face frozen, it was hard to tell. No matter, there were alternatives. He pointed his wand at her.

“Imperio!”

Paralysed, she showed no sign of struggling, other than a glint in her eyes that might have been his imagination. But when he ended the Body-Bind Curse, she didn’t do anything except stare at the ground - as victims of his curse were wont to do without orders.

“Tell me your name.”

“Ezola Grant.”

“Tell me the truth. Are you a member of the island’s ruling council?”

“Yes.”

So he had the right kind of witch. He allowed himself to smile, before continuing the interrogation. “Did you expect me to attack you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Ricky had disappeared.”

The thug’s death had not gone unnoticed. Augustus had been sloppy. “Who else knew about this?”

“My apprentices.”

“How many did you have?”

“Two.”

Which meant one was left. “Can the surviving apprentice track you?”

“No.”

That was good news. “Can anyone else track you?”

“No.”

Even better, though he had expected that - what kind of wizard or witch would allow others to gain the power to track them? That clause in his contract had been the worst drawback to becoming an Unspeakable. That left another weakness, though. “Can you track the skulls of the Library of Souls?”

“Yes.”

He hissed with sudden fear. “How?”

She started to explain the spell - the ritual. Sacrifices, duration, range… why hadn’t they found him? A few dead muggles would cover the entire island. “Did you search the island already?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“When we discovered that a skull was missing, and after the attack on Williams.”

He blinked. He hadn’t left the island after that attack, so… Of course! The Dark Lord would have taken steps to prevent the houngans from finding the skull he had taken from them. He sighed with relief. “Are you cooperating with the British?”

“No.”

“Will you let them on the island?”

“No.”

He relaxed. The Department could track him - but not from Britain. He was safe. Relatively, at least.

“Tell me all you know about the Library of Souls.”

*****​

Augustus leaned back in his seat and took a deep breath. The thug ‘Ricky’ had been surprisingly resistant to interrogation, but his current captive was worse. Trying to break into her mind left him feeling as if he had headbutted a stone wall.

But he had no choice - the information she had been forced to reveal while under his spell had been spotty and purely verbal. If he had access to a Pensieve, he could have forced her to donate her memories, but as things were… if he wanted to study the layout and defences of the Library of Souls before actually venturing there, he needed to see it in her memories. He couldn’t even potion her to reduce her wits, since that would render her memory unreliable. And ordering her to open her mind hadn’t worked.

So he was forced to match his mind against hers as he tried to overpower her defences. A thoroughly exhausting and painful process - he hadn’t suffered such a headache since his own Occlumency training.

He shifted in his seat, reaching for the cup of tea he had prepared in advance. Taking a sip from it, he glanced at the skull resting on a low table nearby. If only he had the time to study the skull properly - one of the enchantments on it had to have been added by the Dark Lord to prevent the houngans from tracking it. If he could analyse it, he might be able to counter the hold the Department had over him.

He might not even need to find a cure for the Withering Curse to be safe… He shook his head. He had already come too far to give up now. And he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in hiding; he wanted a pardon.

And he wanted the knowledge from the Library of Souls.

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 9th, 1997

“Jamaica has accused us of attacking another of their houngans?” Amelia Bones frowned as she dropped the most recent missive from the ICW on her desk and looked at Fawley. “Do they offer any proof for their accusations?”

Britain’s delegate at the ICW shook his head. “No, Madam, they haven’t. All they are claiming is that since another houngan has been attacked in her manor, it has to be the work of the same culprit as the earlier attack. They have not offered any detailed description of the attack either.“

“Which means it wasn’t done with muggle explosives.” Amelia shook her head. “It doesn’t mean the culprit wasn’t the same, of course. But I wouldn’t put it past the houngans to settle some rivalries and blame us.”

Fawley nodded, then cleared his throat. “Ah… do we know who was behind the attacks?”

She was certain it was Rookwood, but she had no proof a court would accept. And she didn’t trust Fawley not to leak the information to others. So she shook her head. “There’s only conjuncture, nothing solid.”

He remained silent for a moment, before speaking up again: “What about the muggleborns? Could they be behind the attacks?”

Amelia wouldn’t put such an operation beyond the Resistance’s capabilities, but she doubted that they’d be able to launch such attacks without their leader, and Granger hadn’t left Britain long enough to lead such a mission. And if Fawley spread such rumours, Britain’s trouble with a number of foreign countries would grow much, much worse. So she shook his head. “No. All the muggleborn suspects able to do such a thing are accounted for.”

“Oh.” The wizard sounded disappointed. “I’ve been told - in private, of course - that a number of countries approved of our efforts to continue Dumbledore’s policy towards Jamaica.”

Of course they would. For decades, Dumbledore had been the reason Jamaica had been playing nice with its neighbours. “We haven’t, so far, changed that policy. You can tell them that. But don’t claim that we are behind these attacks.”

Once the wizard had left, she closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. Rookwood was still working on getting a cure for the Withering Curse, she was certain. A cure that would cost a pardon for one of the worst murderers she knew. The same sort of pardon another mass murderer had received thanks to Dumbledore’s influence.

She shook her head. She would be damned if she let a Death Eater escape.

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 11th, 1997

“The chair recognises Mister Avery.”

“Honoured members of the Wizengamot! While the accusations leveled against Augustus Malfoy and Philius Runcorn are shocking - although we have yet to see and judge for ourselves the evidence for said accusations - it would be a grave mistake to condemn all of the goals the two stood for in reaction. If the worst of dark wizards thinks children shouldn’t be hurt, does that mean such a sentiment is wrong just because he shares it? No! I say our traditions are not tainted by a desperate man’s folly...”

Hermione Granger rolled her eyes as she listened to Avery’s doomed attempts to stop the Wizengamot from burying the bigots’ agenda. Since the majority of the Wizengamot members cared about themselves first, their families second, and the rest of Wizarding Britain a distant third, they had taken Malfoy’s plans personally. Very personally. Who would have thought that the very reason the Wizengamot was so corrupt and easily misled would turn out to provide the impetus for the last push needed to reform it?

“What an idiot,” she heard Ron whisper next to her. “I’ve got a mind to hex him.” She glanced at him, and he grinned. “Just joking.”

She scowled. This was serious. They were about to make history! She was about to point that out to him when he touched her thigh.

“Relax. You heard Sirius and Doge - it’s a done deal. This is just posturing.”

She sighed and nodded, putting her hand on his. They were so close, though, and she longed to shut the idiot up. She wasn’t the only one - other members were jeering and shouting, and even waving their wands. No one hexed him, though - that wasn’t done.

Finally, Avery sat down again, head held high, but teeth grinding, and Sirius raised his wand.

“The chair recognises Mister Black.”

“Honoured members of the Wizengamot! You have heard what Mister Avery said. Even faced with proof of how corrupt his ideology is, he cannot bear the truth. And why is that? Because he’s afraid. Afraid of muggleborns. Afraid of losing his position. Afraid of any change at all.

“But Britain needs to change. The current system is not working. A country where the majority of the people have no voice in government is a doomed country. Why should people listen to a government that doesn’t listen to them? To a Wizengamot that excludes them?

“It’s not as if the Wizengamot has proven to be particularly wise. The Muggleborn Laws were passed despite Dumbledore arguing against them - a mistake caused by fear. And we all know the results of those laws. War and death.

“We cannot allow this to happen again! No longer can we let a few families have the power to decide our country’s fate! If Britain is to prosper, we need everyone working together - and that requires everyone to have a stake in the country.

“The proposed changes to the Wizengamot in the Reform Act will achieve this. Instead of representing themselves and their families, members will represent far more people - people whose support is shown by their votes.

“Some claim this is ‘muggle nonsense’. Something against all our traditions. To those I say: That is a lie. For what I propose - elections - are how we have chosen the Minister for Magic for centuries. Like the Wizengamot elects a minister, the people will elect the Wizengamot.”

Hermione rolled her eyes again when she saw how that rather absurd argument was actually swaying some of the more conservative members. But as long as the needed majority was gained, she wouldn’t complain. She raised her wand as well.

“The chair recognises Madam Granger.”

“Honoured members of the Wizengamot! I fully support my esteemed colleague’s proposal!” She had written most of it, after all. Judging by some grins, people knew it as well. “And I dare say that every muggleborn supports, no, expects and demands, it as well. Muggleborns, half-bloods, purebloods - we all fought for our country during the war. And yet people would claim that we have fewer rights than the Old Families? We bled and died the same as them, as everyone who fought in the war will know.” That should make the others realise that there was more at stake than old privileges. “Hogwarts, the oldest and finest School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has been open to any student no matter their blood ever since it was founded. All of us were students there. By what right should we then be treated as lesser once we graduate? It is past time to right this wrong, before we are dragged into another war. I ask every one of you to vote for the Reform Act.”

She sat down again. A few of the Wizengamot members were staring at her with blatant fear. Others - fewer - scowled. She didn’t care, as long as they won the vote.

“The chair recognises Madam Myerscough.”

Another witch rose, middle-aged. Hermione tuned her out as soon as it was clear that she supported the Reform Act. She hoped that there wouldn’t be too many other speakers until the vote.

*****​

“The ayes have it. Mister Black’s proposal, the Reform Act, has been passed.”

Hermione wasn’t the only one who cheered at the results. She shot up from her seat, her fists balled in triumph, and turned to hug Ron. They had done it. The first general election in the history of Wizarding Britain would be held on August 1st, 1997.

Plenty of time to plan a visit to Jamaica and handle the houngan problem.

*****​

 

Chapter 62: Gearing Up

‘The main reason why the houngans were so feared by European and American wizards was their particular brand of magic - their ability to strike victims with a curse from afar, without the need to see their targets. Shields and cover did not protect against the houngans’ sympathetic magic, and tales of wizards found dead in their bedrooms, their wards untouched and the doors still locked, were widespread. The fact that Jamaica successfully rebelled against Wizarding Britain and repelled several invasions in the following decades is often attributed to the sheer terror wrought by such warfare, helped along by a carefully cultivated image of houngans as masters of the darkest arts - not unlike the Dark Lord himself. As a result, the island dominated its neighbours for centuries, going as far as kidnapping magical children from other shores to raise as their own. It took Dumbledore visiting the island in 1957 and personally killing some of the most infamous houngans without suffering a curse in return to curb such excesses. Many wizards and witches therefore feared the worst when Dumbledore died - particularly given Jamaican claims that he had succumbed to a houngan curse.’
- Excerpt from ‘The Second Blood War’ by Hyacinth Selwyn

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 11th, 1997

“You want us to invade Jamaica?”

Harry Potter wouldn’t have put it like that, but his first thought upon hearing Hermione’s plan was quite similar to Ron’s outburst.

The witch in question pursed her lips. “It won’t be an invasion. At worst, it could be called a raid. We’ll enter the country, find Rookwood, capture or kill him and secure the skull the houngans want. Then we either trade it for a cure for the Withering Curse, or use it to find that cure ourselves.”

“I’m not certain that the houngans will appreciate the difference,” Harry said. “Or if they can even see it.”

“And who exactly would take part in this ‘raid’?” Ron asked.

“All of us here,” Hermione’s gesture encompassed the three of them, Sirius, Remus and Vivienne, “most of the Resistance veterans, a few volunteers from the Order…” She shrugged. “We’ll need to be able to deal with any houngans that try to interfere.”

“That’s an invasion!” Ron exclaimed again.

Sirius chuckled. “We’re not going to stay there, so it’s a punitive expedition. Teach the houngans that they cannot mess with Britain.”

Harry shot a glance at his godfather. Was he serious?

Remus spoke up. “You intend to use this as a demonstration of Britain’s power.”

Hermione shook her head. “The main objective is to secure a cure for the victims of the Withering Curse. Ideally, we’ll be out of the country before they even notice us. But should we encounter houngans, then we won’t let them stop us. And in that case, we’ll use the opportunity to teach them and, through that, others that we won’t tolerate anyone interfering with our affairs.”

“The ICW will have a fit,” Remus pointed out, though he sounded resigned.

“The ICW didn’t do anything to Dumbledore when he visited the island in 1957 and slaughtered half a dozen houngans,” Sirius retorted. “And Dumbledore had even less of a pretext than we have given Reid’s crimes. If we cull some houngans, the ICW will side with us.”

“‘If we cull some houngans’,” Ron said. “What are our chances?”

“Quite good in my opinion,” Hermione answered. “If Rookwood can attack and kill two houngans in their manors, then it stands to reason that the houngans are not quite as dangerous as they have been made out to be.”

“We don’t know if the mysterious attacker is Rookwood,” Remus said.

“Who else could it be?” Sirius asked. “He offered a cure to Bones; the muggle explosives used in Jamaica and in Britain by imperiused attackers were the same… there aren’t that many wizards who can do that.”

“It could be a muggleborn,” Remus said.

“Theoretically,” Hermione cut in. “But such a person would have done more in the Blood War. And only a Death Eater would have the skull stolen by the Dark Lord.”

Harry had to agree with her reasoning there. “But if the houngans can’t find him in their own country, how can we find him?”

“With the help of the Unspeakables!” Sirius said with a broad grin. “They have ways to find deserters.”

“They didn’t manage to find him during the war,” Harry retorted.

“He was aware of their efforts,” Sirius explained. “And there was the danger of the Dark Lord setting up an ambush for anyone coming after Rookwood. They might also have been too concerned with the threat of other traitors within their ranks.” With a cynical smile, he added: “And there was the possibility that Voldemort would prevail, so the department might not have been too motivated to capture one of the Dark Lord’s inner circle.”

“And we’re supposed to trust them?” Ron scoffed.

“We won,” Sirius said.

“Besides, we will search for both the skull and him. We can use the houngans’ ritual, and whatever means the Unspeakables use to find Rookwood. Probably a similar ritual, maybe even one which also has a sacrificial component,” Hermione explained.

“Not maybe, almost certainly,” Sirius corrected her. “The Department of Mysteries goes back centuries, and they’ve been dealing with the Dark Arts for as long. They claim to keep magic too dangerous to be used, or even known about, sealed in their vaults, but there are too many rumours about their own experiments for them not to have delved into the Dark Arts themselves.”

“Are we taking one of them with us?” Harry asked. That sounded like asking Reid to come with them. He forced away the memory of the poor woman being murdered in front of him.

“Only if we can’t get them to teach us their ritual,” Sirius replied.

“Which means ‘yes’,” Ron added. “Dad told me about their secrecy. And they’ll spy on us as well.”

“That can’t be helped,” Hermione said, sighing. “We need the cure, and we need to stop Rookwood.”

“And stopping the houngans from returning to their evil ways is a good thing to aim for as well.” Sirius showed his teeth in a feral grin.

“It’ll be dangerous, though.” Remus slightly shook his head.

“Less dangerous than having every pureblood government thinking that we’re too weak to retaliate against another attack.” Sirius waved his friend’s concerns away.

“Yes. Dubois would never ’ave dared to meddle in Britain if Dumbledore were still alive,” Vivienne spoke up.

Harry patted his enchanted pocket, where Dumbledore’s wand was holstered. They had talked about this before. He was no Dumbledore, far from it, but he’d do his best to fake it if it meant his family and friends would be safe. And, he added silently to himself, so would everyone else present.

“Well, at least we won’t have to go back to school for a little while longer,” Ron said. “We’ll need to train together with everyone who’s coming with us. And beating houngans should at least give us an ‘O’ in Defence,” he added with a grin.

Harry saw Hermione shake her head, but she was smiling at his friend. As was Harry himself.

*****​

London, East End, April 12th, 1997

“Make sure that the Silencing Charms have been cast,” Hermione Granger told Tania as she levitated a keg of beer into the kitchen. “I’d rather not have the police show up because someone reported an illegal party.” She opened the fridge and sighed. As she had suspected, someone had stuffed it full of beer and soda bottles. Sighing, she put the keg down and levitated the bottles out. “The drinks go into the expanded ice box, not the fridge!” she yelled into the living room, where the furniture was being rearranged and transfigured to turn it into a party room.

At least the food was coming along on schedule - Sally-Anne had all the samples they had planned for ready to be heated and multiplied, as Hermione’s inspection revealed.

The other witch chuckled. “It’s just a party, not a battle.”

Hermione pursed her lips. Everything went better if it was planned and prepared for carefully. “This marks the end of our war in Britain. It should be properly and memorably celebrated.”

“Oh, I think Seamus will ensure that it’ll be a memorable party,” Sally-Anne said.

“What?” She whipped her head round. “What’s he planning?” If he brought down the police or the Obliviators on them...

“Huh? Nothing. But he usually is quite funny when drunk, right?”

Hermione frowned. Seamus did tend to go overboard when partying. But she couldn’t begrudge him that, not during the war, and not on this occasion.

“Speaking of war, did you decide on how to acquire a cure for the Withering Curse?” Justin asked, leaning against the kitchen’s door frame.

She glanced around, then cast a privacy spell. “Yes.”

“Does that mean you’re planning another war?” he asked.

She heard Sally-Anne gasp behind her, and felt a stab of guilt. If this ruined the party for her friends… but they deserved her honesty. “Not a war. But we need to stop Rookwood, who’s running rampant in Jamaica, before he starts a war. And I’m certain that the skull he has is the key to finding said cure.” They might need more than that - Rookwood was in Jamaica for a reason - but then again, between the Order, the Resistance and the Ministry, they had far more resources than a single Death Eater on the run.

Sally-Anne gasped again, but Justin simply nodded. “And the cure for the Withering Curse will help a lot with the election.”

“Yes. It’ll help us get the votes from half-bloods and purebloods.” The only muggleborns struck by the Withering Curse had been the Creeveys, after all - and only Dennis was still alive.

“We’ll be working with the Order then.” Justin was sharp.

“Part of it,” she corrected. “Harry, Ron, Sirius, Aberforth if he agrees, a few others maybe.” But the Resistance would provide the main strength for the raid.

“Is it really necessary?” Sally-Anne said. When Hermione and Justin turned to look at her, she flinched but held their gazes. “I don’t want to leave Dennis in a coma, but… we lost so many in the war, and now we’re going to fight houngans?”

“We’re not planning to fight houngans,” Hermione said. Technically, it was true. “But we’ll be ready for them, should they get in our way.” She knew it would be dangerous, and she didn't like risking her friends' lives again, but they needed to do this so they'd be able to rebuild and reform Britain in peace.

Justin nodded. “What’s the timetable?”

“A week or two, I think - this needs careful planning.” And they still needed to negotiate with the Unspeakables. “We need to familiarise ourselves with a piece of gear to to deal with skeletons and bone walls.”

“And get used to fighting together,” Justin added. “How will we get to Jamaica?”

Hermione grinned. “Muggle means.”

*****​

“So, this is your secret base,” Ron Weasley said, looking around the hallway.

“Safe house. Or headquarters,” Hermione corrected him. “‘Secret base’ has too many associations with Bond villains.”

He didn’t know exactly what a ‘Bond villain’ was, but nodded anyway. Harry, standing next to him, chuckled. “You’d have to charm Crookshanks’s fur white for that.”

Hermione huffed. “We’re not going to mutilate my cat for a joke.” Shaking her head, she pointed at the stairs. “Let’s go up to the living room. The others have already started. We’ve expanded it, of course, so everyone could fit inside without stepping on each other’s toes. Everyone except for those on guard duty,” she added.

They followed her up the stairs and encountered Seamus in the hallway. “Hey! You made it!” he said with a wide grin - he looked slightly tipsy to Ron. “We’ve gone through another keg, so I’ll fetch the next.”

Hermione blinked. “You already finished the entire keg?”

“Of course!” the Irish wizard said, laughing, then passed them, slapping their backs as he did so. “I’ll be back!”

Hermione sighed, then opened the door to the living room. “The disco lighting wasn’t my idea,” she said, before ushering them in.

Ron found himself in a dimly lit room filled with music loud enough to make his ears hurt. Half a dozen people were dancing in the middle of the room while others were lounging on what looked like beanbags and couches. Justin, sitting on a couch with Sally-Anne on his lap, waved at them as Hermione steered them to a free couch. As soon as they got close, the music seemed to get quieter and the witch sighed. “I bet the music does more damage to their ears than all the marksmanship training in boot camp.”

Ron shrugged - a few spells would take care of that; he had experience of that himself, given the twins’ tendency to make things blow up - and sat down on the couch. Harry flung himself into a beanbag chair and Hermione joined him on the couch. A flick of her wand had a few soft drinks floating towards them. “If you want beer we can get some once Seamus gets back,” she explained.

“I’m good,” Ron said. He’d rather not get drunk, or at least not too drunk - Harry and he had trained with the Resistance, and fought at their side, but he still felt like an outsider. He didn’t get all of the jokes and didn’t recognise most of the songs and singers. But, he added to himself as he wrapped an arm around Hermione’s waist, that hadn’t stopped Hermione from enjoying Hogwarts, and it wouldn’t stop him from enjoying the party with her.

He opened his bottle - Coca-Cola - and raised it to the others. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

Sometime later, he found himself with Hermione in her room. He would have remarked on the lack of bookshelves - relative lack, for her - but his mind was on other things. As was hers.

*****​

London, East End, April 12th, 1997

“... and then I told her that I could do magic!”

Harry Potter tuned out Seamus’s drunk rambling about a probably fictitious one-night stand while he watched his two best friends slip out of the living room, masking his frown with another sip from his beer. He shouldn’t feel jealous, he told himself. And he wasn’t. Not really, at least. Not any more. But seeing Ron and Hermione together, sneaking away to have… Well, it reminded him of the fact that he was alone. Alone in a room full of people. That sounded like the lyrics of a song.

“... and then we went to her flat, and…”

Seamus was too drunk to notice that Harry wasn’t even listening. He sighed and took another sip. He should be enjoying himself. This was a party, after all. And a pretty good one, all things considered - certainly on a par with the parties in the Gryffindor dorms after a Quidditch victory. Which was, he realised, not exactly a gold standard. But the music was loud, and the drinks were fine, and there was no danger of McGonagall arriving to tell them to go to bed.

And, after the month spent training in Cumbria, he knew most of the Resistance members drinking and dancing here as well as or better than his fellow Gryffindors. Even, or especially, if they were former Gryffindors themselves. Which, seeing as Seamus was currently trying to talk his ear off, had some drawbacks as well.

He looked around. Justin had taken over one of the beanbag chairs with Sally-Anne. They’d probably sneak off soon too. He couldn’t see John, and Tania was… probably checking the guard. He glanced at his watch. Midnight - they’d be changing shifts now.

He wasn’t entirely certain that a guard was necessary. Wards would provide enough protection for them to react to an attack. But Hermione had insisted that there should be at least one sober guard keeping an eye out. Probably to keep an eye on the rest of them as well. He smirked - Hermione would have been a rather strict prefect for Gryffindor. Not as strict as Percy, though.

He saw a witch moving towards him and turned to face her before he recognised her. Emily. Emily Brown. She had taken a nasty fall in boot camp, and the rest of the Resistance hadn’t let her forget it for two weeks. She wasn’t wearing a muddy uniform now, though, but some jeans and a T-shirt.

“Hey!” She smiled at him and waved with the hand holding a beer bottle, spilling some on the floor.

“Hey!” Harry nodded at her, raising his own almost empty bottle in response.

“Hey!” Seamus said. He tried to drink from his bottle, taking a moment to realise that it was empty. After glaring at it, he went to the bar. Presumably to get another one.

“How do you like the party?” Emily asked. She was wearing high-heels, he noticed - usually, she was a bit too short to look him in the eye.

Harry shrugged, then forced himself to smile - he shouldn’t ruin her mood because he felt a bit gloomy. “It’s good.”

“Oh, yes! It’s great!” Emily nodded several times with a wide smile and he realised that she was also rather drunk. “We’ve won the war!”

“Yes, we did.” This wasn’t the time to tell her that they weren’t yet done with fighting.

“And you killed the Dark Lord!”

“I had a lot of help,” he answered. He noticed that Seamus had stayed at the bar, talking to Tania.

“Modest. And cute.” Emily leaned forward, still smiling widely and cocked her head to the side, making a humming noise.

He froze for a moment. She was drunker than he had thought. And she was flirting with him - or trying to. “Thanks,” he answered. “You look nice, too.”

“Want to dance?” she asked, nodding towards the middle of the room. Someone had transfigured the floor there into a shiny dance floor.

He had barely nodded when she took his arm and started to pull him along. “Let’s go!”

A few others were dancing too, but there was enough room for them - even counting Emily’s drunken need for a bit more space. She bumped into him a few times, too, but by accident, as far as he could tell.

And then the music changed to a slow song, and Harry found himself with Emily in his arms, swaying mostly in time with the music. He could smell a faint whiff of perfume when she rested her chin on his shoulder, and felt her chest pressing into his while her hands wandered over his back seemingly at random.

When she nibbled on his ear, giggling, he realised that if he ‘played his cards right’, as Sirius called it, he could spend the night with her. He knew from training that she was nice, she was cute too, and, apparently, she liked him. At least when she was drunk.

Which was a problem. If he even wanted to sleep with her in the first place. Which, if he was honest with himself, was a tempting fantasy. But he didn’t know if she really wanted him, or was simply too drunk to realise what she was doing. She was twenty-one years old, after all. She had been in her sixth year when he had arrived at Hogwarts! And she hadn’t shown any such interest in him before. He didn’t want to wake up to find her regretting the whole thing or cursing him. Or, worse, belittling him for his lack of experience. He still remembered Sirius’s story about how he and Harry’s father had tried to ask out a witch four years their senior. He wanted something more, too. Something like his friends had.

And he didn’t want to take advantage of a drunk girl… He shook his head, foiling Emily’s next attempt to nip at his earlobe. Well, he could enjoy the dancing, at least.

But he’d better not drink any more alcohol.

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 13th, 1997

Harry Potter was eating breakfast in the kitchen when Ron returned from the Resistance’s base.

“Hi, mate!” His friend nodded and took a seat across him, reaching for the Daily Prophet.

Harry didn’t pull out his watch to check the time, that would have made him look like Percy, but it was past nine in the morning since that was when he had got up. He didn’t comment on Ron having had a long night, either. “Already ate?” he asked instead.

Ron nodded. “Yes… though I wouldn’t mind another cup of tea, actually.”

Kreacher quickly served him, and both Harry and Ron ignored the house-elf’s mutters about purebloods soiling themselves with mudbloods. For a while, neither said anything. Ron was reading the Prophet and Harry was buttering some toast before spreading honey all over it.

“Nothing new,” Ron said, putting the Prophet down. “Just regurgitated stuff they already published last week.”

Harry nodded. He didn’t ask if Ron had picked up that word from Hermione. Or what they had done during the night. “What’s Hermione doing?”

“She’s doing some reading on Jamaica. Muggle Jamaica,” Ron said. He shrugged. “Planning how to enter the country covertly. Nothing I could help with,” he added.

Harry nodded. He wasn’t too experienced with muggle travel either. He finished his toast, then cleared his throat. Ron looked up from where he was studying the tea cup for leaves to read.

“Emily was drunk at the party,” Harry started.

“Most of the Resistance were drunk,” Ron cut in, chuckling. “Seamus didn’t make it to his room - we found him snoring in the middle of the living room, hugging an empty keg.”

Harry frowned. “She was rather… affectionate.”

“Oh?” Ron’s eyes widened. “Did you and her…?”

He shook his head. “No. She was drunk.”

“Ah.” His friend nodded. He didn’t have to sound so understanding, Harry thought. As if the only reason a girl would be flirting with him was because she was drunk.

“So, we didn’t. I didn’t.” he continued.

“Are you going to talk to her when she’s sober?”

Harry sighed. “I doubt she wants to be reminded of what she said while drunk.” And did.

Ron shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“She’s also twenty-one. She was a sixth year when we were firsties.” Harry winced.

“Ah…” Ron grimaced.

“Yeah. I don’t think she would have been interested in nibbling my earlobe if she hadn’t been drunk and I wasn’t the Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, mate.” Ron didn’t sound like he meant it, though. And Harry didn’t want to mention his fear of disappointing an older witch, if they ended up in bed. Not to Ron, who had just spent the night with Hermione, and not for the first time either.

“I’m just being realistic.” Moody would have agreed.

“Not every witch is after the Boy-Who-Lived. I mean, not every witch who is interested in you is. Ah… you know what I mean.” Ron had Kreacher refill his cup.

“I can’t exactly read the mind of every witch who flirts with me,” he retorted.

“Well… you could. Theoretically, I mean.”

Yes, he could. Dumbledore’s training had ensured that. But he wouldn’t. He shook his head. “That would be…” Pathetic. “... wrong.”

“Well, you know girls who aren’t like that,” Ron said after a moment.

Harry did. And the one he knew best was with his best friend. He didn’t say that, but judging by the way Ron flinched, his expression might have betrayed Harry. “That’s because they’re not interested in me.”

Ron was frowning now, for some reason. “Are you certain?”

Harry narrowed his eyes. He was missing something. “What do you mean?” His friend hesitated. Harry leaned forward. “Spit it out!”

“Look…” Ron drew a hissing breath through clenched teeth. “All I’m saying is that you might be wrong.”

“‘Might be wrong’?” Harry was certain now that Ron knew more than he was saying. But how would he know, and why wouldn’t he… “Ginny.”

Ron muttered a curse under his breath.

Harry frowned. Ginny hadn’t said anything to him. And she wasn’t the little girl who blushed and put her elbow in the butter dish any more. She was rather forward, instead. A firebrand, even. “Is that new?”

“What?” Ron glared at him. “Harry, I’m not going to spill my sister’s secrets to you! Not that I know many of her secrets anyway.”

“Well, you spilled one,” Harry shot back.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“How can I talk to her, now that I know? ‘Hey, Ginny, Ron said you liked me’?” He scoffed.

“Don’t! She’ll hex me!”

Harry thought Ron deserved to be hexed. At least a little. He sighed. He was glad they weren’t returning to Hogwarts yet. Maybe he could figure out how to deal with this with a little more time.

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 14th, 1997

Amelia Bones was in a good mood. Today, the ICW delegation - more precisely, the two members who were left after Reid’s flight - would finally leave Britain, their inspection officially over. One less problem to plague the country.

She dropped the memo she had been working on - an approval of Pius’s schedule for Malfoy and Runcorn’s trial, the ‘Traitors’ Trial’, as the Prophet had dubbed it - on her secretary’s desk and took the lift down to the Atrium.

Sabine Beaumont, Herbert Steiner and their entourages were already waiting near the fireplaces. Aurors and Hit-Wizards were present too, of course, as were a few members of the Wizengamot. “Madam Beaumont, Mister Steiner.” She nodded at them.

“Madam Bones.” The French witch was more than a little curt, and Amelia doubted that the lack of an official reception to celebrate the end of the ICW’s inspection was the only reason for that.

“Good morning, Madam Bones.” Steiner bowed. “A fine day for travelling, isn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed,” Amelia agreed. Any day she got rid of the two delegates was a fine day.

“Amelia! Good morning! Mister Steiner, Mademoiselle Beaumont - good morning!”

“Good morning, Sirius.” And her good mood was already fading. She forced herself to smile. Black was far too cheerful for the occasion, but then, he had been instrumental in forcing the French to back down - or so he claimed. By the glare Beaumont shot him, he might even have told her the truth. Not that he said anything about how he had managed it. She forced herself not to glare as well. Foreign policy fell within the purview of the Minister for Magic, not the Wizengamot. No matter what the Chief Warlock said, it took a bill to change that. But she couldn’t do anything about it. Black now controlled the Wizengamot, and Pius wouldn’t back her if she wanted the matter brought up anyway. That wizard cared far too much about results instead of the law.

She would fire him, if he wouldn’t be reinstated as soon as Black got rid of her. But for now, she was still the Minister, and she’d do her duty.

She cleared her throat. “Madam Beaumont, Mister Steiner, the British Ministry of Magic is proud to note that your inspection was concluded successfully and that you found that there is no danger of Britain not fulfilling her duties towards the International Confederation of Wizards.”

“Thank you, Madam Minister,” Steiner said, bowing again. “We’ve only done our duty.”

That was the official line, but everyone with experience in politics knew better, of course. The delegation had stayed for over a month, far longer than announced beforehand, and one of the delegates had been revealed as a murderer and dark wizard trying to attack Hogwarts. The only inspection that had come close to that in recent memory had been the one sent to California to deal with goblin involvement in the so-called ‘gold rush’. An entire delegation on the take… At least both France and Prussia had lost face for their involvement in this farce.

“Indeed. We’re happy to note that things in Britain are not as bad as we had feared in the beginning.” Beaumont, of course, couldn’t leave without a parting hex.

Amelia refrained from answering. Black, however, did not. “You’re too kind. And please, be assured that we all hope that Isabelle Dubois will soon be found. Her kidnapping is a tragedy.”

Beaumont stiffened, and turned away without another word. She didn’t even glance at the honour formation presenting their wands as she outpaced Steiner. Amelia waited until the last of the Feldjäger had left, then turned to Black. “What did you mean by that?” Had he been behind that kidnapping? Was that how they had forced France to back down?

Black blinked as if he didn’t know what she meant. “What? I just expressed my sympathy for the loss France has suffered.”

She glared at him, but his insufferable grin didn’t change. Nodding curtly, she left him to return to her work.

If things continued like this, or grew even worse, then Amelia was looking forward to her retirement.

*****​

London, Diagon Alley, April 15th, 1997

Bess Cox sighed, soaking the last chip of her meal in vinegar at her and Randall’s usual table in Freddie’s Fish’n’Chips. “You know, it’s sort of a let down,” she said.

“What is a let down?” Randall asked, putting the Daily Prophet he had been skimming down.

“We’ve won, but we’ve not done much,” Bess said. When he looked puzzled, she explained: “The Wizengamot will be elected in a few months. The Old Families are done for. And all we did was capture some purebloods in hiding.” And were almost killed twice, she thought. At least she had been.

“We’ve done more than most.” Randall frowned. “We put our lives on the line, unlike so many others.” He glanced at the other regulars in the shop.

“That’s not a high bar.” Bess sighed again. She should be happy that the Old Families had lost their stranglehold on the Wizengamot. That the bigots had been thoroughly discredited. And she was happy. After the Wizengamot had passed the Reform Act, she had celebrated all night. But now… “What do we do now?” She wasn’t the smartest witch, her grades at Hogwarts proved that. She had been lucky to survive the war, too. And she was still a wanted witch. Probably. She hadn’t many prospects. Unlike Randall. He was smart. And not wanted for attacking Hogsmeade.

“The war’s over, but the election is far from being a done deal. The Old Families still have more gold than the rest of Wizarding Britain combined,” her friend said.

“What? Are you certain?”

“Well, I don’t have exact numbers, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark with my estimate. We had a hereditary ruling class with almost complete control over the legislative and executive branches, which means they could control the economy as well, and prevent others from amassing enough wealth to threaten them…” He spread his hands. “The Ministry presented the best option to improve your station, so most talented and ambitious wizards chose that career, instead of, say, business.”

Bess nodded. His explanation sounded logical. “What does that mean, then?”

“It means that if we get complacent, they can buy the election. Plaster the purebloods and half-bloods with propaganda and get themselves elected.” He looked rather grim. “The Ministry arrested the ones responsible for the Pureblood Voice, but the Old Families can simply buy more air time - or entire shows.”

She clenched her teeth. “I’m not going to let them win.”

“We’re not going to let them win,” Randall said. “We’re going to ensure that we’ll win the election. We’re going to form a party!”

*****​

Cumbria, Britain, April 15th, 1997

Ron Weasley threw himself to the muddy ground when he spotted the floating marker clearing the trees ahead of him. A Stunner passed over his head, and another narrowly missed him as he rolled into cover behind a tree trunk. He waited a moment, then jumped back out, sprinting towards a large rock while sending a volley of Stinging Hexes at the disillusioned enemy. Another Stunner hit the ground near his leg, then he was behind the rock.

He checked that he was still disillusioned, then rose to peek over the top - only to drop down again when another Stunner flew towards him. Cursing, he waved his wand.

“Avis!”

A flock of birds appeared and shot towards the trees ahead. That should create a distraction. A flick of his wrist created a shallow trench crossing the clearing next to him. If he managed to reach the other side…

“I got him!” he heard Harry say over the radio.

Ron took a deep breath and pushed the button of his own radio. “About time!” Still, he remained cautious when he left his cover until he saw Harry standing over the stunned form of Eric.

“I had to circle around outside the range of his Human-presence-revealing Spell before I could flank him, or he’d have seen my marker,” Harry defended himself. “He was the last one, too.”

Ron nodded and pointed his wand at Eric. “Rennervate.”

The muggleborn wizard blinked as he woke up with a groan. “There were two of you?”

“Of course,” Harry said. “You need to keep an eye out for flankers.”

“And you need to cast more than just Stunners,” Ron added.

“We’re not allowed to cast lethal curses,” Eric said.

“I meant, you need to cast more than just curses. Use Conjuration and Transfiguration,” Ron explained. “If your enemy takes cover, do something about it.”

“But if I had had a rifle, you’d have been shot before you saw me.”

Ron shook his head. “Only if someone had spotted me ahead of you and dispelled my Disillusionment Charm.”

“You can’t count on having a line of sight at that range,” Harry cut in. “Not in a jungle.”

Eric frowned. “Can’t count on not having it either. Why did we spend a month training with guns if we’re not allowed to use them?”

Ron refrained from sighing. The other wizard wasn’t the best loser. “You still need more training with your wand. You can’t rely on guns all the time.” Guns had their place, but a wand was still crucial. He swished his and cleared his fatigues of mud and dirt as they started to walk back towards their camp.

*****​

“Just a week ago, I thought we’d be shot of this place,” Ron Weasley said an hour later, sitting down at the campfire next to Harry with his mess kit.

“Suck it up,” Harry said. “Where else would we train for the next mission?”

“Somewhere warmer?” Ron asked, before taking a bite.

“Justin’s family doesn’t own a Caribbean resort. And we should give France a wide berth for now,” Harry retorted. “Besides, trees are trees.”

Ron nodded, then focused on eating. It had been a tiring day. And they had more training to look forward to.

“Do you think Eric listened to what we said?” Harry asked after a minute.

“If he keeps whining we can always use some of Moody’s methods.”

“That might upset them.”

Ron shrugged. Hermione had told them to train the new members in magical combat, and she knew who had trained Harry and Ron. “As long as it works.”

As Moody had been fond of saying: ‘Better to get hurt in training than in a fight.’

*****​

London, Ministry of Magic, April 18th, 1997

“You have heard the accused’s testimony. You know what he planned - the murder of everyone in this room, including those who thought him a friend. You know why he did it - because he wanted to take over Britain and mould it as the Dark Lord would have. Such a terrible crime deserves only one punishment: the Veil!”

Daphne Greengrass suppressed a snort as Thicknesse bowed curtly and left the floor after his address to the Wizengamot. Showing amusement at the trial of Augustus Malfoy wouldn’t be a good idea. Not even when she had been crucial to uncovering Malfoy’s crimes. Instead, she shook her head in what she hoped was a suitably grave manner. It didn’t matter much, anyway - the trial’s outcome had been set in stone from the start.

A member yelled: “The kiss! The kiss!” A few others joined in. Daphne rolled her eyes - didn’t they know that the Dementors hadn’t returned to the Ministry’s service? That they might end up as residents in Azkaban’s cells, instead of their guards, once the Unspeakables had finished cornering and corralling them? Maybe the Reform Act wasn’t that bad, if it meant the Wizengamot would lose such idiots.

She sighed while Malfoy rose for his own address to his former peers. She certainly wouldn’t be a member in the new, elected Wizengamot. Not with her past. And she wouldn’t miss it, either, she added to herself while stealing a glance at Granger, who was sitting next to Black. To see the murderer of her parents every session, to hear her speak every day, to nod and smile at her whenever they met… she shook her head again, clenching her teeth.

“... what I did and planned had only one goal, a noble goal: to save Britain from its ruin at the hands of the mudbloods. A goal worth any sacrifice! Who among us would not sacrifice their life for their children?”

Most of the members wouldn’t, Daphne thought cynically as her esteemed peers booed and yelled, their outrage drowning out the accused’s last words. They showed no decorum. Her father would have been shocked and ashamed at this display. But her father had been a member of the Wizengamot before it had been gutted by the attack on Malfoy Manor. Before dozens of members had been replaced by their inexperienced heirs, all at the same time. Before the Battle of the Ministry had caused even more deaths.

The Wizengamot her father had been part of, she realised, as she raised her wand to judge the accused guilty, had not survived the war. The muggleborns would only replace a twitching corpse.

Doge passed the sentence. “Augustus Malfoy, the Wizengamot finds you guilty of treason, conspiracy to treason, murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and rebellion. As punishment, you will be sent through the Veil. The sentence will be carried out immediately.”

Malfoy’s protests were cut off by a Silencing Charm, Daphne noted.

“For a man ready to die for his cause, he certainly is struggling a lot,” Tracey commented as the Hit-Wizards dragged the condemned wizard away.

Daphne nodded. Another sign of how far the Old Families had fallen. She hoped the man would recover his composure when he was facing the Veil later. It would make attending his execution easier.

After all, her parents had taught her that she had better watch a mortal enemy die so she could be certain of their demise.

*****​

Astoria was waiting for her when Daphne and Tracey returned to Greengrass Manor hours later. “Daphne!” her sister spat, glaring at her.

Daphne heard Tracey mumble a curse before grabbing a pinch of Floo powder. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” her friend excused herself and left for her own home, leaving the two sisters to face each other.

“Astoria.” She nodded at her little sister.

Her sister scowled. “They murdered them! They tried to kill the mudbloods and blood traitors, and the Wizengamot murdered them! I just heard it on the wireless!”

“Since Malfoy planned to murder all of them, that was to be expected.”

“They also said that you betrayed him. That you were a spy for Black and the mudbloods!” Astoria crossed her arms and pressed her lips together. It would have looked adorable if not for her expression.

“I told you that already.” Daphne had. Astoria had avoided her afterwards. Until now.

“Why did you turn traitor?”

Daphne saw tears glittering in her sister’s eyes. She felt guilty, but forced herself to ignore them. This was for Astoria’s own good. “Malfoy and Runcorn betrayed our country. They betrayed their own allies. They were willing to murder the entire Wizengamot for their plans.”

“They tried to avenge our parents! They would have killed Granger, if you hadn’t betrayed them!” Astoria shook with each word she yelled.

“And at what cost? Would you murder so many to kill Granger?”

“They’re just blood traitors! They murdered our parents! They want to murder us!”

Daphne wanted to hex her, but controlled herself. “Would you have murdered me to kill Granger?”

“What?” Astoria looked confused.

“Don’t you realise what would have happened if we had followed Malfoy’s plan? We would have restarted the war. And we would have died in it. Both of us.” Daphne pressed out through clenched teeth.

“What?” Her sister took a step back, her arms falling to her side.

“Didn’t you pay attention at all? How many people died in the war? Most of the Wizengamot! Most of the Ministry! What do you think would happen if we killed Granger, huh?”

“But… but…”

“I’ll tell you what would have happened if we had blown up Granger and the ‘blood traitors’: The mudbloods would have massacred us. You, me, and any purebloods they could find.” She stepped up to her sister. “Merlin’s beard, Astoria! We have lost! Our parents are dead. Tracey’s parents are dead. Draco’s family is dead. Theo’s family is dead. Pansy’s family is dead. All killed by mudbloods! The Ministry is a shell, what Aurors and Hit-Wizards they have left are barely older than us! We have lost the war!”

Astoria was crying now, shaking her head. Daphne felt tears run down her cheeks as well, but ignored them. “So many of us, the Old Families, have been killed already, and yet, Malfoy wanted to murder even more! Even if we managed to somehow win the next war, which of us would be left? What would be left of Britain?”

She took a deep breath. “Do you think I like seeing Granger in the Wizengamot? Hearing her talk? I don’t! She murdered our parents! But there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing that wouldn’t cause even more death and destruction. Nothing that wouldn’t kill you as well!

“We lost, Astoria. We pushed the mudbloods too far, and they crushed us. And if we don’t accept it, if we try to fight them, then they’ll kill us all.” She wiped the tears from her face. “That’s why I went to Black. That’s why I betrayed Malfoy. Because I want to live. Because I want you to live!”

“But… but our parents!”

Daphne shook her head. “Our parents wouldn’t want us to die. Not for them, not for Malfoy, not for anyone. They would want us to live, and we will live.”

She gathered her sister in her arms, and held her until she stopped sobbing.

*****​

London, No. 12 Grimmauld Place, April 18th, 1997

Hermione Granger found Sirius in his living room. To her surprise, he was alone.

“Vivienne’s visiting her family,” he said - he must have caught her glancing around. “Can I offer you a drink?” He pointed at the bottle on the low table.

She shook her head, then brushed a stray lock out of her face. She might have to cut her hair again, she idly noted - unless she wanted to let it grow out once more.

“We should be celebrating Malfoy and Runcorn’s deaths!”

“We already celebrated their defeat.” She had no wish to celebrate their executions.

He huffed, and refilled his own glass. “Where’s Harry?”

“He’s running another exercise with Ron and the new Resistance recruits.” New Resistance members, she silently corrected herself as she sat down in a seat herself. “He’ll be here for dinner.”

“Working them hard, huh?” His grin implied another meaning.

She ignored it. His whole attitude seemed a bit forced. Exaggerated. “Our recruits have finished training with muggle weapons, but they lack experience with magical combat. Harry and Ron were taught by Moody, and can teach others what they know.” Part of it, at least - nothing could really replace combat experience.

“Ah! Preparing for our invasion of Jamaica?”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t correct him. “Of course. The better we prepare, the less trouble we’ll have.” And the fewer casualties they would suffer. “Speaking of preparation… did you talk to the Department of Mysteries?”

She saw him wince. “I did. But the Unspeakables are living up to their name. Or they would be, if they were called the ‘Unmovables’. They categorically refused to teach anyone outside the Department how to track their members.”

Hermione nodded. She had expected that - in their place, she wouldn’t allow it either. And Sirius knew that, too. “So…?”

He frowned at her. “They offered to send one of them along, but I had to tell the Head Unspeakable about our plans.”

She nodded. She would have preferred not to tell anyone outside their group, but that couldn’t be avoided. At least Dumbledore had trusted Saul Croaker. To some degree, at least.

“So, we’ll have a spy coming along who will report on our tactics and talents to his superiors,” Sirius said.

There was an obvious solution to that problem, but it would create more problems with the Unspeakables. She sighed. “We don’t have any choice. And I’m certain that they already know a lot about us.”

“Some things they don’t know, though. Like Harry’s wand. If they find out just what he is wielding…”

She nodded. The Department of Mysteries was known to collect all sorts of artefacts and dark items. If they realised Harry had the Elder Wand - and they would, should Harry have to wield it where the spy could see it - they’d try anything to get it. And she knew Sirius would kill to protect Harry. “There are alternatives to killing.”

“We’re not going to hand it over. Harry needs it to protect himself. Especially if everyone sees him as Dumbledore’s successor. And Obliviation might not work. The Unspeakables have warped minds.” He chuckled.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

He shrugged. “They’ll expect such things - since they would use the same tactics - so we can assume they’ve taken measures against Obliviation. Maybe they’ll set up some memory delivery service or whatever.”

“That might make killing him useless as well,” she pointed out.

“Only if they have somehow managed to make it all work without actually drawing out the memory and storing it in a vial. Which isn’t impossible, of course.” Sirius shrugged.

“We might make him sign a contract.” Though that could be broken by a skilled Curse-Breaker. “But the best plan would be to ‘keep him safe’.” And, of course, be ready to deal with him at the first sign of betrayal.

Sirius chuckled. “Good idea. Keep him away from any fighting, for his own safety, of course.” He grew serious again. “Speaking of staying safe…”

She met his eyes. “Yes?”

“You know you shouldn’t go, right? You’re too important to risk your life like that. You’re the leader for the muggleborns.”

“As the leader of the majority of the Wizengamot, you would know all about that,” she retorted. He was right, of course - she shouldn’t go. But she wouldn’t let Harry and Ron risk their lives without her.

“Touché.” Sirius smiled rather sadly. He wouldn’t let Harry risk his life alone either. “But we need the boost to our reputation finding a cure for the Withering Curse will give us. Or fighting houngans and winning.”

A good excuse, she thought as she nodded. Neither of them said anything for a while. Finally, she broke the silence. “Did you talk to Aberforth yet?”

He winced. “Yes. It was harder than I thought, since, apparently, as I’ve sort of inherited Dumbledore’s Order and gained control over the Wizengamot, I don’t need his help any more.” He sighed. “You should have talked to him.”

She shrugged. She had been very busy. As long as Aberforth was on board, it didn’t matter; the old wizard wouldn’t have agreed to help them if he didn’t want to. “He might like to persuade the Unspeakable that they’d be safest far from the fighting.”

Sirius laughed. “I’m rather certain he’d like that.”

She was rather certain too. And looking forward to it.

*****​

Near Spanish Town, Jamaica, April 18th, 1997

A wizard of lesser intellect would have identity issues after ten days of breaking into the mambo’s mind and experiencing countless memories as if they were his own, of this Augustus Rookwood was certain. He glanced at the drooling witch on the floor of his tent. It had taken him five days to break her resistance - but unfortunately, doing so had broken her mind as well, and he had spent the next five days trying to find the memories he wanted among the chaotic torrent of other, useless memories which filled her mind.

He had made progress, of course - a wizard of his skill would not be stymied by such a task. He knew where the Library of Souls was located. He knew what knowledge was contained by a number of the skulls inside it, although not yet the knowledge he sought. But the defences of the Library still eluded him for the most part.

He was aware that after the break-in a few months ago, the houngans had increased the LIbrary’s security. They had taken measures to ensure that the method used then - using a houngan under the Imperius to lead the thief inside, past the traps and defences - wouldn’t work any more. To think Dumbledore had used an Unforgivable… if only he had any proof of that.

But he had to focus on the older defences… He hadn’t found much about them, yet. And he needed to know about them in order to find a way to bypass them. Frowning, he shook his head. The mambo had the knowledge he needed; all he had to do was find it.

He stood up and walked over to his captive. A flick of his wand summoned a carafe of water, which he made the witch drink, and a few chocolate frogs which he fed her. He had tried to weaken her by withholding food and water, but, while it had helped to break her resistance, it had made it harder to find the memories he needed afterwards because her broken mind focused on food and water if she was hungry. While she was still licking her lips after devouring the chocolate, he pointed his wand at her.

“Legilimens!”

*****​

 

Chapter 63: Incursion

‘Whether or not the incursion into Jamaica in April 1997 by the Order of the Phoenix and the Muggleborn Resistance was an invasion or a raid is as contested among my colleagues as another, related, question - whether or not it was part of the Second Blood War or a continuation of the centuries-old conflict between Wizarding Britain and Jamaica. In my opinion, these questions cannot be answered without first determining the objectives of the incursion. And while, according to the British records, the stated objective was to secure a cure for the Withering Curse, as well as to apprehend the fugitive Death Eater Augustus Rookwood, it is obvious that the endeavour was also, perhaps even primarily, planned to punish Jamaica for the actions taken by their delegate, John Reid, during the ICW’s inspection of Wizarding Britain. And since that was the direct result of the devastation wrought by the Second Blood War, the attack on Jamaica should be considered part of that war. This is further supported by the fact that, at the time, Wizarding Britain no longer had any territorial ambitions with regards to Jamaica. Even Dumbledore’s visit in 1957 had been motivated by the abhorrent practices of the houngans rather than by any desire to retake the island.’
- Excerpt from ‘Wizarding Britain in the 20th Century’ by Albert Runcorn

*****​

London, Newham, April 25th, 1997

Hermione Granger caught herself copying the Major’s usual ‘inspection pose’ and forced herself to slowly relax a little as she observed the Resistance members present in the expanded living room of the hitherto unused safe house in Newham. They were getting ready for the trip to Jamaica, or rather, they were making last-minute adjustments to their kit in order to keep busy until their departure. Most of them, at least. Some, like Seamus, were actually cramming more gear into their pockets.

“If muggle scans can detect explosives in magically sealed pockets we’ll be in big trouble,” Harry mumbled next to her.

“They can’t,” she whispered back. “And we’re bypassing the checks anyway.”

“Why is he stuffing so many explosives into his pockets anyway?” Ron asked from her other side. “He can take a small sample, and use the Doubling Charm to get whatever quantity he needs.”

Hermione sighed. “He wants to be ready at a moment’s notice, or so he claims.” Privately, she thought Seamus simply liked explosives (and explosions) a bit too much. “And to be fair, it is safer to pull explosives out of your pockets as you need them, instead of creating a heap of them in front of you.”

“I’m not convinced that Seamus carrying so many explosives with him is in any way safe to begin with,” Harry grumbled. “Least of all in a plane.”

“He knows his way around explosives,” she retorted.

“That’s not reassuring,” Ron added. “Quite the contrary.”

She was about to tell the two boys to cut it out when she felt the communication mirror in her pocket vibrate. Pulling it out and tapping it revealed the smiling face of Sirius.

“We’re about to arrive, tell your people not to shoot us!”

“They won’t.” She raised her voice. “Sinclair, Emily - the Order’s about to arrive!”

The two Resistance members on guard duty called out an acknowledgement and Hermione walked towards the door, followed by Harry and Ron.

Despite the call ahead by Sirius, Hermione checked through a spyglass and with a Human-presence-revealing spell before opening the door. Sirius was the first in, with a wide grin on his face.

“Hello, everyone!”

“Sirius, what are you wearing?” Harry voiced what Hermione was thinking.

“A muggle outfit suitable for the jungle, as requested!” the older wizard cheerfully announced, tapping his pith helmet. “Stylish too!”

While Harry berated his godfather, Hermione greeted the rest of the Order group. At least most of them were wearing more sensible and, especially, more up to date muggle clothes instead of an outfit Dr Livingstone would have worn. More sensible didn’t mean that much, of course - while Remus and Bill were wearing sturdy travelling clothes, probably drawing on the latter’s experience in Egypt - Vivienne, Fleur and Tonks were dressed as if they were headed to a tropical beach and were probably using warming charms.

Aberforth was wearing his usual robes. “I’ll transfigure my robes when I need to, not a minute before,” the old wizard grumbled as he entered. “I’m too old to dress like a fool.”

“I shall follow his example,” the figure wearing a hooded cloak next to him said. “I’m Brown. John Brown,” the Unspeakable added, nodding to her.

“Welcome to the Resistance,” Hermione said. “I assume you know how to behave among muggles.”

“Yes.” The man’s voice didn’t seem to have been magically altered, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Good. We’ll be taking a muggle aeroplane to travel to the Caribbean, and passing through muggle airports.”

“I’m looking forward to the experience.”

*****​

“Listen up!” Hermione snapped “We’re leaving for the airport in five minutes. Is everyone ready? Justin?”

“Yes.” She hadn’t expected anything else - he had organised the trip with her, after all.

“Sally-Anne?”

“Yes.” The witch was already wearing her backpack.

“Seamus?”

“I was born ready!” He patted his pockets for emphasis.

She didn’t bother to glare at him. “Tania?”

“Yes.” Tania gave her a short nod.

“Mary-Jane?”

“Yes.” The survivor of the Avengers’ attempt to capture the Resistance even sounded eager.

Eric, Emily, Anna, Gary, Celia, Sinclair and Timothy were ready as well, though they didn’t manage to hide their nervousness as well as the more experienced members.

“Alright. Let’s go!” The plane wouldn’t leave without them, but Hermione hated to be late. It wouldn’t be a good start to the mission if they couldn’t keep to their schedule from the start.

*****​

Heathrow Airport, London, April 25th, 1997

Standing inside the muggle hall - the hangar, they called it - Ron Weasley eyed the muggle aeroplane with both interest and a bit of apprehension while the Resistance were climbing inside it. It was just too damn big in his opinion - how could something that size fly without magic? He clenched his teeth and drew a hissing breath. Muggles flew in aeroplanes all the time. There was no reason to worry.

“Don’t worry, Ron,” Hermione said in a low voice next to him, “Aeroplanes are among the safest ways to travel. Far more people die in traffic accidents than in aeroplanes.”

He forced himself to smile at her, even though her comment was not exactly reassuring. Quite the opposite, actually. “It’s just the first time I’m flying on a plane.”

“Mine too,” Harry said. “My relatives weren’t much for foreign vacations.”

Ron nodded. That was normal for him - the only time he and his family had left Britain on vacation had been the trip to Egypt in 1993, and that had only been possible since Dad had won the Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw that year. Which reminded him… “How much does this trip cost anyway?”

“It’s actually not that much more expensive than buying tickets for a regular flight at short notice for everyone, and much more convenient for our mission,” Hermione explained.

“Ah.” He still had no idea how much gold Sirius and maybe Justin were spending on the plane, but if it was what muggles paid for a vacation, then that was probably not too expensive. To change the topic, he glanced at the Unspeakable, who was standing apart from everyone else. “Do you think he’s a muggleborn? He doesn’t look nervous.”

“He might be. He certainly managed to transfigure his robes into decent muggle clothes for passing through security,” Hermione said.

“That might just be what he wants us to think,” Harry retorted. “Claiming to be muggleborn out of the blue would be too blatant, but letting us come to that conclusion would be more subtle.”

Ron nodded in agreement. “He could simply have copied the clothes from a muggle, so we lower our guard around him.”

Hermione mumbled something - probably ‘Moody’ - but didn’t contradict them. “Alright, I’ll see you inside,” she said, and walked over to where the last of the Resistance were entering the plane.

“The other Order members are rather nervous,” Harry said after a moment.

Ron frowned and turned his head to look at them. They were nervous, he realised, even Bill, who was normally unflappable. Fleur and Vivienne were eyeing the plane with open apprehension, even. Only Aberforth was scowling as usual.

Oddly, seeing others show their fear made him feel less nervous. “Let’s show them how it’s done!” He slung his bag over his shoulder and started walking towards the stairs leading up to the door of the plane.

*****​

Half an hour after ‘take-off’, Ron had come to the conclusion that flying the muggle way was boring. Even less interesting than taking the Hogwarts Express since Hermione had stressed very firmly that they weren’t allowed to do any magic inside the plane. And as they were not sitting in compartments, but all in the same room, you couldn’t even have some privacy for whatever.

At least everyone seemed to have taken the order to abstain from using magic to heart. It might be going a bit too far - most spells wouldn’t do anything to the plane - but it would only take one mishap, or unintended effect, to cause a catastrophe. And the Order members were nervous enough already. If the twins had been allowed to come along… but they didn’t have enough combat experience and training with the Resistance compared to the others, or at least that had been the official reason.

He leaned back, fiddling with his seat while waiting for his friends to return to theirs. Hermione was walking down the aisles and checking with the rest of the Resistance and Harry was a few rows over, talking to Sirius (and Vivienne, who seemed to have permanently attached herself to the wizard’s arm for the flight’s duration).

He wished the in-flight movie Hermione had been talking about would start soon.

*****​

Lynden Pindling International Airport, Nassau, Bahamas, April 25th, 1997

“Yes! At last, we have escaped this contraption!”

Harry Potter, passing the flight attendant seeing them off at the door, shook his head at Sirius’s antics, even though he shared the sentiment - he wouldn’t miss being stuck inside a plane either. After flying on a broom for years, being a passenger on a plane just wasn’t anything special. Though he wasn’t about to rush out of the plane and kiss the ground.

He heard a giggle behind him, and a glance over his shoulder revealed the flight attendant trying to hide her smile. “He doesn’t fly very often,” Harry said.

“I noticed,” she answered. “There were quite a few first-timers today, right?”

“Yes.” Harry confirmed, before joining his godfather and Vivienne on the tarmac while the rest of their group started to follow him down. The air wasn’t as hot as he had expected, a bit over twenty degrees. Jamaica would be hotter but less humid, he thought.

“Ah, Harry! We’re finally free again!” Sirius spread his arms wide and beamed at him. He sounded honestly relieved, Harry noticed, and didn’t seem to putting on an act. But why… Azkaban, he suddenly realised. His godfather had spent over ten years in a cell there. Of course he would have issues with being confined to his seat for hours!

And in a few hours, they’d have to board the next charter plane - a cargo plane this time. Harry winced when Sirius turned around to embrace Vivienne. He knew that his godfather was only here because of Harry. He sighed and slung his backpack over his shoulder as the others filed down the gangway.

*****​

North of Jamaica, April 25th, 1997

“We’re approaching Jamaica and will enter the island’s air space in fifteen minutes.”

Harry Potter checked the time when he heard the pilot’s announcement. A quarter to midnight - they were right on schedule. He stashed his watch inside his pocket again. When Hermione stood up and stepped into the middle of the compartment, between the cargo pallets fixed there, he shifted his weight around on the fold-out chair that served as a seat to look at the rest of their group. Everyone was wearing dark fatigues and harnesses, straight out of an action movie.

“Alright! Everyone, get ready!” the witch said.

“Please put your seat in the upright position and fasten your seatbelts,” Harry heard Seamus whisper, which prompted a chuckle from the other Resistance members near the Irish wizard, and a glare from Hermione.

“Check your gear again - we’re not getting back on the plane if you forgot something!”

“Yes, Mum!” another quipped, though the humour sounded a little forced to Harry. He let his gaze wander and noticed that, in contrast to the flight to the Bahamas, the Resistance members seemed to be more nervous than the Order members. Understandable, of course - they were about to enter the houngans’ country.

“Ah, finally!” Ron said in a low voice next to him. “I can’t wait to leave the plane! There wasn’t even a movie or a snack bar this time!” He looked honestly eager, too.

“No cute flight attendant either,” Sirius chimed in from his other side. Vivienne, next to him, rolled her eyes.

“And we’re about to jump out of a perfectly good plane,” Harry said. No one laughed. Instead they nodded.

“Good,” Ron said. “Hermione told me that the take-off and landing were the most dangerous parts of a muggle flight. I’d rather ride my broom.”

Harry could agree with that.

“I prefer to fly myself,” Vivienne cut in. The Veela looked rather smug.

“Ten minutes to drop location,” the pilot announced.

“Won’t the muggles wonder about this?” Remus asked, nodding towards the cockpit. He was still looking a bit worn from the full moon a few days ago.

“No. They think we’re muggle mercenaries doing a parachute drop,” Ron said. “Hermione hired them through the Major.”

“What’s a parachute?” Sirius asked.

“A muggle invention to safely fall from great heights,” Harry started to explain.

“Imagine a giant umbrella,” Ron cut his explanation short.

“Ah!”

“Everyone, put on your backpacks!” Hermione ordered. “Remember: If you get lost, home in on our beacon!”

Those who hadn’t put on their backpacks - made-up to look like parachutes to fool the muggle flight crew - hastily did so, including Harry. While Hermione and Justin went down the aisles and checked the straps, he again patted the pocket where the Elder Wand was stored. He was certain he would have to use the wand soon. Rookwood was a dangerous enemy, having survived so long while being hunted by entire countries, and the houngans… he shivered, remembering what Reid had done. If they met that houngan again they’d make him pay.

The co-pilot entered the compartment and walked down to the back of the plane. “We’ll reach the drop zone in five minutes,” he announced. “I’m lowering the ramp now.” The man pushed a button at the back, and the ramp started to descend, revealing the dark night sky outside.

“Line up!” Hermione yelled over the howling of the wind that filled the compartment.

Harry was the first at the ramp, with Ron at his side. If he squinted he could just make out the contours of the land below. Or so he thought. He recalled once again how the landing zone looked from above - it was near an inland lake, supposedly easy to find from the air.

“We’re above the drop zone!” the pilot announced.

“Go!” the co-pilot shouted. “Go! Go! Go!”

Harry didn’t hesitate and ran down the ramp, flinging himself into the air. As soon as he was clear of the plane he pulled out his shrunken broom and straddled it. The moment he felt the Firebolt react to his commands, turning his freefall into flight, he wanted to yell with delight.

This was flying!

He twisted and rolled a little, before pulling up and slowing his descent. Ron appeared at his side a few seconds later, on his own Firebolt, grinning widely. Sirius and the rest of the Order followed quickly afterward, with the two Veela in their transformed forms, gliding with their wings. Under a nearly full moon, the Order formed up with them, followed by the Resistance members.

The Resistance were not as used to such manoeuvres, and Harry saw one of them lose his grip on his broom. Harry dived after the screaming, flailing wizard, hand outstretched as if he were chasing the snitch. He only took a few seconds to reach the man - Gary - but it took a few more seconds for Gary to stop flailing, and grab Harry’s hand.

“I lost my broom!” the wizard yelled into Harry’s ear as soon as he was seated behind him on the Firebolt.

“I saw!” Harry responded, already pulling up. He couldn’t see the others, not at this distance and in this light, but… there was Ron!

His friend flew towards them, holding out a second broom. “Here’s your broom,” he said. “I managed to summon it.”

He could have summoned Gary’s backpack, and Gary with it, instead of diving after him, Harry realised, feeling a bit sheepish. But as long as everyone was safe… Gary managed to switch to his own broom without taking another dive, at least.

“We got Gary,” Harry reported via the radio. He looked up, but even though the moon was still almost full, he couldn’t spot the rest of the group.

“Good,” Hermione answered crisply. “Disillusion yourselves and proceed to the landing zone!”

*****​

Near Moneague Lake, Jamaica, April 25th, 1997

Hermione Granger followed Justin’s marker as they made their way to the landing zone near the Moneague Lake. At least, she was reasonably certain that they were on the right course; none of them had been there before, but they had studied the maps and the lay of the land beneath her corresponded to what she had memorised. She was still relieved when they flew over the lake, confirming that they were on course.

A few minutes later, they landed in a small clearing. Justin was already casting Muggle-Repelling Charms, as planned. Hermione dismounted, stored her broom, and started to count the people present as they formed a perimeter. Three were missing. She pushed the button of her radio. “Harry? Ron? Where are you?”

“We’re coming. We’ve had some trouble navigating,” Harry answered.

“Do we need to use the radio beacon?” That would probably get the attention of the muggles too, Hermione knew. They would be gone before any muggle force could reach them, but reports might draw attention from the houngans.

“No, no. We’re following the road south; we’ll find it as soon as we reach the lake.”

“Alright.” Her voice didn’t betray how relieved she was that Harry and Ron had managed to save Gary. They had trained for this, but obviously not enough if Gary had panicked like that, and forgot to simply summon his broom back to his hand while falling. Maybe they should have landed in the plane… no. The risk of getting spotted by spies - compelled muggles, or disguised wizards - was too great. After two attacks by Rookwood, the houngans would be on high alert. They would be focusing on covering the coast, since smugglers tended to use ships and boats, according to her information, but they would also be observing the airports - even if only to spot muggleborn children of tourists to kidnap, if the latest complaints to the ICW were to be believed.

Hermione took a look at the markers floating around the clearing. “Memorise this location! It’s Rally Spot Lake One!” she ordered. They needed a few locations they could apparate to, in case they were split up - or had to retreat from a fight.

“Justin, Sally-Anne - centre of clearing.” She was sounding like the Major, she realised, frowning.

Her friends’ markers converged on her. She lowered her voice. “We’ll establish the caches with the Zodiacs and the aid station next.” Those would be Justin and Sally-Anne’s responsibilities respectively. She hoped they wouldn’t need either, but she doubted that they would be that lucky.

“I bet Brown is taking notes,” Sally-Anne mumbled.

Hermione thought so too. That was why they would be establishing another set of caches and an alternative aid station, too, without Brown knowing about them.

Just in case the Unspeakable was captured. Or tried to backstab them and escaped their prepared response.

She heard Harry on the radio again. “We’ve got visual of the landing zone,” he announced.

She was too relieved to see her friends arrive - in a manner of speaking - to be annoyed at him quoting some action movie, again.

*****​

Near Guanaboa Vale, Jamaica, April 26th, 1997

There was a rat nearby. Padfoot could smell it as he circled around their temporary camp to check the ‘perimeter’. The huge dog growled - he hated rats. One rat in particular, but others were not any better. But he could not track down the creature; he had a task to do. An important one. He had to check for enemies hiding in the underbrush. Enemies whom spells might miss, but his nose wouldn’t.

Growling softly, he ignored the trail of the rat and continued his sweep instead. Apart from more rats and one snake, he didn’t smell anything else. No humans. And no rotting corpses, nor buried bones. Unlike the rats, he tracked down and killed the snake, just in case it was spying for a parselmouth.

Padfoot changed back into Sirius Black before he stepped out of the underbrush and into the area where the group had put up concealed wizard tents. Not many - just four. And one of them was reserved for Brown and Aberforth. He spotted Remus sitting in front of the ‘Order Tent’ as if he was watching the sunrise. His best friend was looking less haggard now, or so Sirius thought - it always helped when he had a task, something to care about.

“All’s clear,” Sirius announced. “Just some rats and a snake around. I killed the snake.”

Remus nodded. Sirius glanced over at the tent of the Unspeakable. “What’s he doing?”

“Resting, same as everyone else,” Remus answered. “Hermione and the others don’t want to start tracking Rookwood with tired troops.”

“Ah.” Sirius grunted. He understood and agreed with the reasoning, but he hated waiting. Hated waiting inside the tent even more. He wouldn’t be able to spot anyone sneaking up on them. “I’ll inform the others.” He nodded at Remus and walked over to the ‘command tent’, as Harry had called it.

He stepped inside the tent, the slight tingle informing him that he was passing through a ward, and found Harry and his friends inside, staring at a table. At a map on a table. “Perimeter’s clear!” he announced, saluting like a muggle. Only the other witch, Sally-Anne, giggled, though. But Harry at least grinned.

“Good.” Hermione pointed at the map. “We’ve chosen the locations for tonight. Given the range of Brown’s spell, this array will allow us to cover the entire island with the minimum number of spells.”

“I’m certain that he hasn’t told us how powerful his spell really is,” Sirius said. Unspeakables never revealed their secrets; everyone knew that.

Hermione shrugged. “We’ll still achieve the results we need. And,” she added with a grin, “it gives us a few more opportunities to study his spell.”

“And it will give him a few more opportunities to stab us in the back,” Sirius retorted.

“Aberforth will be watching him.” Harry shrugged.

Sirius hoped that that would be enough. He and his friends knew just how dangerous Dumbledore’s brother was, but many still thought the man was a wastrel, and a stain on his family.

Not unlike how many had seen, and still saw, Sirius himself.

*****​

Dry Harbour Mountains, Jamaica, April 26th, 1997

Sighing, Augustus Rookwood had to admit that the houngans knew how to protect their Library of Souls. It had taken him a week to unravel the wards guarding the area enough to slip through them without alerting anyone, and that had been with access to the mambo’s mind. But now he was faced with a veritable maze of magical plants and animals, ready to mangle and tear any unwary intruder to shreds. And the wary intruder, noting the absence of Anti-Apparition Jinxes, might be tempted to use that apparent weakness to evade those defences, only to trigger a reactive ward, which would cover the area with those jinxes and alert the houngans. Very clever, but not clever enough.

The wind spells ready to force down anyone on a broom - or carpet; Jamaica hadn’t banned them, of course - were a bit better hidden. If he hadn’t assumed that there would be such defences he wouldn’t have discovered them, and even now he was not quite certain if they were not simply a decoy set up to hide the real defences. All he knew for certain was that using his broom would be suicidal.

Which left passing through the jungle, and all its guardians, which would include buried skeletons and Inferi, in addition to plants that would give Sprout trouble and animals that would make Kettleburn back off. It was a good thing that Augustus was made of sterner stuff, and smarter than either.

He had a potion to negate his scent, which, in conjunction with a Disillusionment Charm, would render most animals unable to detect him. But the plants… they did not use just scent or sight to find their prey, but also pressure - and of the air, even, not just on themselves. To pass that gauntlet, he would have to move as if he were but a leaf in the wind - or so slowly as to not be detected at all.

And to avoid the Inferi and skeletons he knew were lying in wait beneath the soil, patient and unmoving as only the undead and constructs could be, he would have to avoid setting foot on the ground at all, and mask his body’s heat as well.

But first he would need to plot a path that would avoid most of the plants and traps - and he would have to infer most of their locations.

He snorted. Yes, the houngans knew how to guard their most sacred place.

*****​

Near Ulster Spring, Jamaica, April 26th, 1997

Ron Weasley watched Brown prepare his ritual, his wand in hand, though pointed at the ground. He didn’t trust the Unspeakable. Not really. Who knew what the Department of Mysteries’ goals were? Did they want to capture Rookwood, or silence him forever? Or might they see this as an opportunity to kill Harry, Hermione and Sirius before they could change Britain further, and blame it on Britain’s traditional enemies? Not on Ron’s watch.

He watched as the man used his wand to form a runic circle on the ground. As far as Ron could tell - and he had paid a lot of attention - it was identical to the one Brown had used, unfortunately unsuccessfully, earlier in the evening near Grange Hill. Brown looked utterly collected, as if he was merely doing an exercise in Ancient Runes, and not preparing to cast a ritual spell in the middle of Jamaica, where houngans might stumble upon them at any moment. Ron wished he had that sort of composure.

He wasn’t the only one, he knew - most of the Resistance members guarding the perimeter were nervous, and Justin had had to remind a few of them to keep their eyes on the jungle around them, not on the Unspeakable behind them. And yet, Ron was keeping an eye on the perimeter as well - Moody’s lessons were hard to forget, and the Resistance members, apart from Hermione, were not among those Ron would blindly trust to guard his back.

Brown finished creating the circle, and stepped into its centre, carefully avoiding smudging any of the lines. He moved his wand in slow, controlled motions, the tip trailing motes of light that were steadily growing brighter. Ron couldn’t quite catch what the Unspeakable was mumbling, but that wasn’t new either.

Soon the man was surrounded by a thick band of glowing, floating lights as his wand rose above his head until, with a loud “Vena!”, he stabbed the wand towards the sky. For a moment, the floating lights glowed even brighter, then they dimmed, and Brown blinked.

That hadn’t happened the last time - the lights had winked out. Ron tensed up as Brown smiled.

“I found him.”

*****​

A minute later, everyone was on their brooms, following Brown. They were flying at a decent pace, though with their Firebolts, Ron and Harry could have made much better time - but Brown was the only one who knew Rookwood’s location.

He looked over his shoulder, checking the markers behind him, and the brooms he could see in the moonlight. Even though they were not disillusioned, they were surprisingly hard to spot thanks to their dark grey colour. They would be even harder to detect from below, disappearing against the night sky - provided anyone in the jungle below could even see the sky from the ground.

Though that cut both ways, Ron reminded himself - all he could see was the tops of the trees below him, and the few hills and rocks that broke through the canopy. No wonder Rookwood was hiding here.

Suddenly, in front of him, Brown’s marker started to descend, and Ron followed the Unspeakable, descending in a shallow arc until they were almost touching the treetops. Behind him, the Resistance members were spreading out to cover their flanks - and to make it harder to hit several of them with a single spell.

Brown’s marker slowed down even more, almost coming to a complete stop, before disappearing into the treetops. Ron sighed, cast a Shield Charm, and dove into the canopy himself, his spell forcing the branches away as he broke through to the ground. He kept an eye out for other markers - if the Unspeakable were about to betray them, then this would be the perfect opportunity to lure them into an ambush. Which was why half the force would stay in the air, as a ‘reserve’, and the other half would spread out on the ground.

He landed next to Brown’s marker and dismounted, but kept his broom in hand, just in case. Other markers touched down nearby.

“As of ten minutes ago, he was straight ahead of us, at a distance of five hundred yards,” Brown said over the radio.

“Straight ahead?” Harry’s voice cut in.

“Ah.” The Unspeakable became visible and pointed. “I could lead you there.”

Hermione shot the proposal down, as she had shot down his earlier offers. “That’s too dangerous. You’re the only one who can find him, should he manage to escape. Do the ritual again and inform us if his location has changed. Remus, Tonks, stay with him.”

“Alright.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ron thought their acknowledgements came a bit grudgingly - Tonks’s certainly sounded sarcastic - but then, he knew exactly what the two thought about guarding Brown instead of doing the fighting. But someone with more experience with magic than most muggleborns had to keep an eye on Brown.

“Everyone else - advance carefully. Ground force, expect traps and wards! Flyers - stay behind the ground force.”

Ron didn’t bother with calling out his acknowledgement. He simply started off towards Rookwood’s last known location as others, including Hermione, rose above the canopy again. Harry’s marker followed him as Ron took the lead. Moving through the jungle was different from moving through the woods in Britain. The underbrush was denser - though that soon changed - and the hot and humid air, as well as the softer ground, made it more exhausting. But the worst thing was the darkness. The moonlight wasn’t bright enough, not here on the ground, to be able to walk without stumbling over roots and rocks, and the faint light at the tip of his wand didn’t help that much. But anything brighter would give them away to their enemy.

He thought they were almost in range of their detection spells when he heard Brown’s voice over the radio: “Rookwood hasn’t moved.”

“Flyers, fan out and start to encircle him before moving into range,” Hermione ordered. “Sirius, scout ahead.”

Since Ron and Harry were in the centre of their formation - if you could call it a formation - they didn’t have to move, though Harry stepped up next to him. Then a big black dog - Padfoot - moved past them, briefly poking his nose at the disillusioned Harry before trotting ahead. The animagus wasn’t trailed by a marker from Ron’s spell, so any spell Rookwood had cast wouldn’t reveal him either. Or at least not as a wizard. Another marker joined them, and Ron tensed up. He hated not knowing who was near him - someone needed to create a better spell to detect humans.

“’Arry? Ron?” He knew that voice.

“Yes,” Harry answered Vivienne.

“Waiting again,” he heard Harry mutter. “So close…”

“Won’t be long,” Ron whispered. He hoped he was correct.

“Anyone have a good...” someone - Ron didn’t recognise their voice - started on the radio.

“Don’t talk unless it’s important!” Hermione’s sharp voice cut the bloke off. He heard Harry chuckle, and grinned himself.

A few minutes later, Padfoot returned. Once he reached them, the dog turned back into Sirius. “If Rookwood’s there, then he is behind strong wards. Very strong wards, not just Muggle-Repelling ones,” he said into the radio. “About two hundred yards ahead of us.”

Ron winced. He could think of a few reasons why the Death Eater was protected by strong wards - and all of them meant that their task had just grown far more dangerous.

*****​

Dry Harbour Mountains, Jamaica, April 26th, 1997

Hermione Granger clenched her teeth as she heard Sirius’s report. Very strong wards? Either the Death Eater had created a fortified hideout, which would have taken a long time, longer than she thought he would have had, or he had taken over another houngan’s manor. Or, she added silently, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, this was the Library of Souls.

Astride her broom, she drew a hissing breath. If this was the Library of Souls, then Rookwood couldn’t be allowed to proceed. What he could do with the knowledge of the Library, if he managed to breach the Library’s defences... She shook her head. But to stay and go after Rookwood meant that the houngans would see their presence as an attack against the Library - or a houngan’s manor, if her gut feeling was wrong. They would blame all of Rookwood’s actions on Britain. Could they risk that?

She scoffed. Even if they left right now, the houngans would blame them for the intrusion, and they wouldn’t have anything to show for it. They’d be not just abandoning the mission, but the victims of the Withering Curse as well.

She pushed the button of her radio. “Seamus, start preparing a ward breaching charge. I’ll check the ward’s strength.”

She gripped her broom more tightly and flew ahead, descending as she did so. After about a hundred yards, she stopped and cast a detection spell. There was no ward above the jungle’s canopy. She scoffed - she should have expected that; the houngans would not draw attention to the Library like that. She noted the four markers beneath her and used her radio again. “Sirius, I’m descending on your position.”

Her Shield Charm fended off foliage and branches as she broke through the treetops, before she dismounted near Sirius - and Ron, Harry and Vivienne, or so she assumed. “Show me to the wardline.”

“Follow me!” she heard Harry’s godfather say, then one marker and a weak Wand-Lighting Charm - she really needed to find a spell that showed your allies’ names on their marker - started moving towards Rookwood’s last position.

It didn’t take them long to get close enough to the wardline, and one glance at the wards was enough for her to know that this was no houngan’s manor. Nor had Rookwood created those wards. “We’re at the Library of Souls,” she announced on the radio. “Rookwood must have slipped through the outer wards already.”

Curses filled the channel until Harry restored radio discipline while she analysed the wards’ strength. “Bloody hell,” she muttered under her breath, prompting a snort from Sirius near her while she calculated the amount of explosive needed to take these wards down.

Everyone would need to cast a Silencing Charm, just in case.

*****​

Augustus Rookwood studied the area in front of him again. There had to be a way to get past that Devil’s Snare without alerting the skeletons buried underneath the plant - and without catching the attention of the Blood Apes in the trees nearby. A way that didn’t involve using the path on the ground, since that one would be trapped as well. Maybe if he skirted the extreme range of the plant’s tentacles; even if the Blood Apes detected him, they would not venture too close to the trap...

The earth shook suddenly and he found himself on the ground, thrown down by a shockwave that left him struggling to breathe. He scrambled on all fours, whirled around, and saw smoke and fire cover the jungle behind him. Clumps of earth and rocks and wood started to rain down, bouncing off his Shield Charm. What the hell had happened?

He spotted the Blood Apes moving towards the explosion, swinging from branch to branch - it had been an explosion, he realised, at the wardline! Someone had just torn down the wards protecting the outer area around the Library of Souls! No, blown them away! But who would… the mudbloods! The houngans wouldn’t do this, and no one else would dare to. Even for the mudbloods, this was madness!

He clenched his teeth. But why would the mudbloods attack the Library of Souls? His eyes widened. They were after the same knowledge he sought! But their bomb would have alerted the houngans. Were they really expecting to stand against the might of Britain’s ancient enemy while assaulting the Library’s inner defences?

It didn’t matter - he wasn’t prepared to take on the mudbloods. Who would have expected them to dare invade Jamaica while still reeling from the devastation of the last war? He had to flee before he got caught between the houngans and the mudbloods! All his work for nothing! He focused on his hideout, then realised that he couldn’t apparate. Had someone triggered the reactive ward already? Because why would the mudbloods block Apparition? The houngans wouldn’t apparate directly into the area anyway, and such an act would only hamper their own…

He gasped. They wanted to prevent others from fleeing! And he was the only one present! They were here for him! He had to flee! He had to escape! His broom! No - that would be suicide! No broom, no Apparition, and they would be encircling the area… he had to evade them on foot. He started to run, away from the explosion. Away from the traps, too! With the enemy so close, if the Devil’s Snare caught him he was as good as dead!

He hadn’t made it further than a few dozen yards when his Human-presence-revealing spell showed three people moving towards him. He fell back, hoping they hadn’t spotted him - but they gave chase! No!

He gripped his wand tightly. He could take three mudbloods! He had taken three houngans, after all, and he was prepared for more!

Before he could cast his first curse, though, he found himself reeling again. And his Disillusionment Charm gone.

Someone had triggered the wind trap.

*****​

“The wards are down. Ground forces, move in and take out Rookwood! Flyers, keep an eye out for escape attempts, and reinforcements! Everyone, watch out for traps!”

Ron Weasley heard Hermione’s orders over the radio and started advancing at once, to and then past the giant crater Seamus’s bomb had left. That crazy Irishman had gone overboard, he just knew it - even if Hermione hadn’t said anything. He reached the area where the wardline had been, and held his breath crossing it, even though Hermione had already confirmed that the wards were down. Who knew what magic the houngans could do? Dumbledore had been fatally cursed in Jamaica!

A month of training against another crazy Irishman made him look up regularly as he moved on, and, when he saw something move above him, his reflexes took over. He threw himself to the side at once, just in time to avoid a monster slamming into the ground where he had been a second ago. A hairy, screeching monster, larger than himself, with four flailing arms. A Blood Ape, he remembered from one of Hagrid’s lessons.

“Blood Apes in the trees!” he yelled into his radio while flicking his wand. His Bludgeoning Curse hit the monster right as it was getting up, and tossed it head over heels into a tree trunk behind it, leaving it dazed for a moment. He was about to finish it off when he caught sight of two more in the branches above him, and he managed to hit one of them with a Reductor Curse while rolling to the side. The other, though, smashed into his Shield Charm, shattering it with its sheer mass, and clipped him in the leg with a swipe of its claws.

Ron yelled with pain and kicked out with his good leg, catching the creature in the stomach. It didn’t do anything but give it pause for a moment - but that was long enough to whip his wand around and drill a hole in the ape’s head with a Piercing Curse.

He rolled around, grunting when he felt his leg flare up with pain, and managed to get up on one knee, just as the first monster charged him. A swish of his wand conjured a stone wall right in the ape’s path, too close for it to stop in time, and Ron grinned when he heard it smash into the wall. His next Blasting Curse turned the wall into deadly shrapnel, and he heard the monster scream again. It wasn’t down, despite bleeding from multiple wounds, but it was hampered and reeling, and a Cutting Curse beheaded it.

Panting, he ran a hand over his wounded leg, feeling the blood soaking his trousers. Then he saw his leg - something, someone had ended his Disillusionment Charm. He dropped despite the pain, and rolled under the next brush, frantically conjuring more walls to break the line of sight of whoever had made him visible.

“There are Anti-Disillusionment spells active! Watch...” he heard Seamus yell through the radio, before more screams cut the Gryffindor off.

Ron looked up, and saw the treetops above him shake. He blinked, wondering what was happening, when he saw a broom rider crash through the canopy, smashing into several branches before hitting the ground.

Ron gasped, ran his wand over his wounded leg and closing the wound, then ran over to the fallen wizard before a monster could get to him. A glance told him that Harry was casting at another ape.

“Everyone, land at once!” he heard Hermione over the radio. “The winds will make you crash!”

He reached the flyer, his wand moving, already casting, when he noticed the sightless eyes staring ahead. The wizard - Sinclair, Sinclair Thompson, he recognised him - was already dead.

*****​

Sirius Black had changed into Padfoot when he passed the crater, trying to track Rookwood by scent. He hadn’t had any success, though, before apes started dropping from trees, followed by muggleborn flyers, whereupon he had other things to occupy his attention. Like staying alive and protecting his family. But for that, he had to get back to them first - he had taken the vanguard, to scout ahead, and had left them behind.

He killed two of the beasts with Blood-Boiling Curses - they went mad with the pain, and attacked each other, allowing him to slip past - before he spotted Vivienne. The Veela had transformed and was grappling with an ape, the two opponents slashing at each other with claws. He tried to get a clear shot off with a curse, but by the time he was close enough, her wings had already battered the ape down, leaving it broken on the ground next to the burning carcass of its companion.

He quickly closed her wounds while she thanked him in the screeching voice of her current form. When he spotted Harry and Ron nearby, mopping up the last of the apes that hadn’t been driven off he smiled with relief. “Harry!” he yelled, making his way over to them, past a smouldering tree trunk.

The two boys turned around, separating to catch him in a crossfire before they recognised him. “Sirius!” Harry exclaimed, meeting his eyes for a moment before glancing around again. “We need to press on, or Rookwood will escape!”

Sirius wanted to tell Harry to hold, and fall back - but they were here for Rookwood, and he knew Harry wouldn’t listen. Not as long as they could fight. So he nodded, and turned around. “Follow me!” he yelled, retracing his steps.

While they moved further ahead, the radio channel’s chatter painted a grim picture. They had lost, according to his count, which might be off, at least three of the muggleborns - dead or wounded after being caught on their brooms by a wind spell or trap. Fortunately, Hermione, who was doing her best to reorganise the rest, hadn’t been airborne at the time. The witch’s dislike of flying might have saved her life, Sirius thought with a chuckle. And Bill and Fleur were fighting a wizard who had to be Rookwood!

Sirius reached the spot he had been when the trap had been sprung, and looked around. He didn’t see anyone nearby. A quick transformation revealed that Padfoot didn’t smell anyone either. He heard someone, though - helped along by the fact that, as Padfoot, he wasn’t wearing a radio that filled his ears with screams and orders.

“Someone’s coming!” he whispered when he had changed back, pointing down the path.

Harry, Ron and Vivienne immediately moved to hide in the underbrush. If this was Rookwood, he would be caught in the crossfire before he could react.

It wasn’t Rookwood. It was a muggleborn - Gary something; the man who had almost fallen to his death when they had arrived on the island. He must have fallen again, since he was limping and looked rather battered.

“Gary!” Sirius heard Harry yell. “Over here!”

The young wizard stopped, looking around, and Sirius saw him smile when he spotted Harry. “Harry! I’m so…”

Whatever he had been about to say turned into a scream when a thick arm broke through the ground from below and grabbed his leg. Before anyone could react, Gary was pulled to the ground, and his screams cut off when a dozen more arms grabbed him and literally tore him to pieces.

*****​

Harry Potter blinked. One moment, Gary was smiling at him, the next, he was but blood and gore on the ground. Then rage filled him and his wand - the Elder Wand - rose.

“Inferi in the ground!” Ron yelled, to them and into the radio.

Harry didn’t pay any attention. He already knew that. A Fire Whip shot out of his wand, the complex spell appearing to be much more effective than he remembered as it lashing out at the undead creatures digging themselves out of the ground. Where his spell touched them, they were cut apart and set aflame. Within seconds, all that was left of the dozen monsters were burning pieces scattered around. Some of them were still moving, Harry noticed - one lower body with one leg still attached was even dragging itself over the ground.

He lashed out with his spell again, torching the twitching remains, when he saw that the plants near the Inferi’s location were moving as well. No, it was just one plant - Devil’s Snare! He grinned, flicking his wrist, and sent the Fire Whip at it.

But where the whip touched the tentacles, they didn’t recoil as he had expected. Instead, they started to grow, wrapping themselves around his spell - and growing towards him and Ron as well!

“What is that?” he heard Ron yell. “Fire doesn’t harm it!”

It wasn’t Devil’s Snare, then, Harry thought. But fire wasn’t the only way to kill - destroy - a plant. He cast a Cutting Curse, bisecting the closest tentacles. The cut pieces kept wriggling, but… no, they were reconnecting with the rest of the plant!

“Merlin’s balls!” he heard Ron curse. “What does it take to kill this plant?”

“Fall back!” Sirius yelled. “We can bypass the plant!”

“Skeletons!”

Vivienne’s yell made Harry glance over his shoulder. Dozens of skeletons and Inferi were encircling them from the rear - and even above, in the trees.

“Releasing a special Bludger!” Ron announced, “Watch out for the tentacles!” He pulled out one of the twins’ enchanted iron balls and tapped it with his wand, then sent it towards the approaching undead. While Harry cut down more tentacles, stalling the plant, the Bludger flew into a row of skeletons, tagging several of them. They started to fall apart at once, both the ones knocked down as well as the ones seemingly untouched, while the Bludger continued on, smashing into an Inferi.

Harry turned his attention back to the plant-monster. He briefly felt the urge to keep cutting it, grinding it to pieces until only dust was left, but controlled himself. Or the wand. Brute force wasn’t the answer. What would Dumbledore do?

He chuckled, shaking his head when the answer came to him. A swish of his wrist directed his wand towards the plant, and he started to transfigure the tentacles into wood. Soon - much sooner than he expected - instead of a wriggling, growing plant, he was facing a wooden sculpture of a Devil’s Snare.

And this wood burned easily.

“Good work!” Sirius said as Harry turned around to help dispatching the remaining undead creatures.

“Let’s get Rookwood now!” he replied.

“Bill! Where are you?” Ron asked over the radio. There was no answer.

Harry glanced at Ron and nodded. They had to hurry.

*****​

Augustus Rookwood muttered the worst curses he had heard Greyback use under his breath while he retreated further down the path leading to the Library’s entrance. He had been prepared for houngans, fanatical enemies rushing in, trusting their own traps and guards not to hurt them. That was why he had laid down wards that would confuse the creatures in the area, making them attack anyone.

But his enemies were mudbloods; they were expecting guards and traps. They even had a Veela with them, whose fireballs had come uncomfortably close once already. But he was far from being helpless!

He ducked behind a massive tree and took a few deep breaths - the running and the humidity were getting to him, too. When the tree shook slightly under the impact of a curse, he nodded. They had seen him and now they would be flanking him. Predictable!

He flicked his wand, and the ground beneath him rose, forming a pedestal, quickly carrying him up to the branches five yards above him. A Colour Change Charm turned his robes brown-green, and he slid around the trunk onto the branch. There! He saw movement to the side, someone using the underbrush beneath three smaller trees as cover. Grinning, he flicked his wand, turning the vines hanging from the branches into tentacles.

He didn’t see the results of his actions, though, as almost immediately his tree shook under the assault of several fireballs - the Veela must have spotted his spell. That the creature managed to fly in the area of effect of the wind trap… he couldn’t dwell on that. He had to escape. The other mudblood would be flanking him right now.

Clenching his teeth, he dropped to the ground, a Cushioning Charm breaking his fall enough to avoid further injury. Up ahead beckoned the entrance to the Library. He wouldn’t be able to enter, but he would be able to use its concealing enchantments.

And there were a few particularly nasty guard beasts in the area as well he could lure his enemies into - he doubted that they had removed their scent.

*****​

They were close to where Bill and Fleur had been at the start of the battle when the radio went out. Harry tapped the button, but he heard only static. Ron blinked, then quickly hurried back a dozen yards, then tapped his radio again.

“It’s a ward!” he yelled.

That would explain Bill and Fleur’s radio silence, Harry thought as Ron rejoined them. But where were… An explosion ahead provided the answer. The four rushed on, though no longer on the path. Not since they almost fell into a pit of animated bone spikes. If not for the enchanted Bludger that would have ended badly.

Another explosion, followed by screams. Harry pushed himself to run faster, jumping over a rock in the way, then turned around a giant tree trunk. There! A flash of black fatigues between two smaller trees! “Hey!” he yelled, closing with the figure. He had almost reached them when he noticed that they were not standing there, but hanging from a tree, held up by a vine wrapped around their throat, their feet dangling a foot above the ground. As he stared, the figure slowly turned around, and he recognised Anna’s battered, blue face.

A strangled scream escaped him, passed his clenched teeth, and he set the entire tree ablaze before shattering it with a Blasting Curse. Another one dead, and he hadn’t been able to help her. A flick of his wand transfigured the body, now lying crumpled on the ground, into a small stone figurine, which he picked up and put in his pocket. At least they wouldn’t leave her behind.

They went on, destroying the trees in front and to their sides, not caring if they were vine-covered or not. Harry was responsible for most of the destruction - his wand made it easy. They found Bill and Fleur, both wounded and surrounded by what looked like jaguars - if jaguars had matted fur, red eyes, and green ichor dropping from their mouths. Bill was waving his wand in complicated patterns, seemingly uncaring of his bleeding legs, while Fleur, transformed, was throwing fireballs at the monsters, though all she seemed to accomplish was to keep them dodging instead of charging.

“Bill!”

Ron’s yell was followed by a barrage of curses, and caught between Fleur and their group, the creatures quickly either died or fled, Harry’s Fire Whip accounting for three of the kills.

“Bill!”

Ron rushed towards his brother, but Fleur stepped into his way. “Stop! He’s been cursed! Don’t distract him, or he might die!” the Veela yelled, wings spread wide.

Harry would have offered his help, but he was no Curse-Breaker. And Bill didn’t seem to have the time to explain what curse he was fighting - the wizard was pale and shivering, sweat running down his face. His slowly turning blue face.

Harry muttered a curse under his breath. “Where’s Rookwood?”

Fleur pointed to the side, towards a large rock. “Bill said, before he got cursed, that he had warded the area. Rookwood, that is.”

Harry nodded, exchanged a glance with Ron, and then went left as his friend went right.

*****​

Augustus Rookwood was panting and trying not to scream with pain and give away his position. That could have gone better. He had managed to lure the remaining two enemies - one must have fallen to his Strangling Trees - into the pack of Rock Jaguars, but even after he had used the distraction to throw a vial of Mummy Rot spores into their midst, they had not been overwhelmed. The damned Veela had gone mad and covered the entire area with fireballs, forcing him to retreat further down the path, while the wizard had countered the spores! If he had known that he wasn’t facing a mudblood, but a skilled Curse-Breaker he wouldn’t have wasted his vial!

And now he was trapped between the inner defences of the Library, and the Curse-Breaker and the Veela outside - he could see their markers floating above the rock. They were waiting there, waiting for him to break cover and run the gauntlet of fireballs, and whatever curses the wizard had laid down by now.

Augustus looked around. If he had an hour, he could probably slip through the entrance here. But he didn’t have an hour. The houngans would arrive soon, even if the mudbloods didn’t charge his position. He had to find a way out! He was Augustus Rookwood, a genius! He could do this!

He pulled out his box of vials. He still had some potions left. Nothing major, but… maybe the Burrower’s Acid would be enough to get through the sealed entrance? Or…

He stopped moving when a black shadow appeared on the path leading towards him. A Grim! He thought, before correcting himself. There were no Grims. It was a huge, black dog. And it was trying to find his scent - not knowing that he had masked it. And he was hidden by the concealing enchantments on the entrance to the Library.

Grinning, he pointed his wand at the beast, but before he could cast the Killing Curse, the animal jumped back and darted behind the next rock. Had the beast noticed him? Or something else he had missed? And where was it now?

He stepped out of the entrance, leading with his wand, turning to face the rock, when the ground beneath his feet exploded and he found himself thrown into the wall to his left with enough force to shatter his Shield Charm.

He was recasting it as he dropped to the ground, and scrambled to his feet - he had to get back into the entrance, to find cover and hide. And find his enemy. There! A marker floated at the right corner of the rock. He sent a Killing Curse at it, to make them dodge and seek cover while he rushed to back to the entrance.

His curse was blocked by a conjured wall, though - and so was his path. Dropping to the ground and rolling to the side, he dispelled the wall - or tried to. It didn’t disappear. He gasped. Who could…

Before he could finish the thought, his shield shattered again as a volley of Bludgeoning and Blasting Curses converged on his position. He was thrown around like a rag doll in a storm, smashed against the stone walls with enough force to break bones, and dozens of rock shards sliced into his skin.

But, bleeding and broken, he had managed land inside the Library’s entrance. Chuckling at his luck, he moved his wand to seal his wounds and heal his broken bones… his wand! Where was his wand?

“Accio wand!”

He pushed his hand out, summoning it wandlessly - without success. He quickly drew another wand he had taken from a dead houngan. He wasn’t helpless. He was prepared. For anything! He was…

The ground shot up underneath him, throwing him out of the entrance, into the air, and before he could react, his body was hit with another volley of Bludgeoning Curses, and this time the pain was great enough that he passed out.

*****​

Harry Potter stared at the Death Eater in front of him - he had caught him with a Levitation Charm in the air after his stone lance had thrown the man out of his hideout. It was Rookwood. The wizard was alive, though the broken bones protruding from his bleeding skin showed that he was seriously hurt. Harry didn’t care. The man was a mass murderer, and deserved death once they were back in Britain.

“I’ve got him!” he yelled, before he stunned the man for good measure, then stripped him naked and wrapped him in magical ropes. He wouldn’t take any risks there.

When he found the skull in the man’s enchanted pocket, he smiled widely. Mission accomplished, he thought - they had all they had come here for.

His radio crackled to life - someone must have dealt with Rookwood’s ward - and he heard Hermione’s voice.

“The houngans are here, more than a dozen of them. Rally at the crater!”

*****​

 

Chapter 64: Surrounded

‘When considering the mission that the Order of the Phoenix and the Muggleborn Resistance undertook to Jamaica in 1997, one cannot help but wonder why almost the entire leadership of both organisations took part in that incursion. The risk of leaving the progressive factions decapitated - and that just weeks after Augustus Malfoy’s plan to murder them had spectacularly failed - should all of their leaders be among those heading to Jamaica had to have been apparent even in the mission’s planning stages. So, knowing this, why did people like Hermione Granger, Sirius Black and Harry Potter all enter Jamaica as part of the same mission?
Some historians point out that these individuals were among the most capable wizards and witches in Britain at the time, and therefore the only ones able to handle such a mission, and that they had left others behind to follow in their footsteps, should they not return.But while the skill and experience of the individuals in question is not in doubt, it would nevertheless be incorrect to conclude that they were therefore indispensable to a mission of this nature. Even after two Blood Wars, Britain was not entirely bereft of capable wizards and witches - certainly not to the extent that both the leader of the Muggleborn Resistance and the leader of the Order of the Phoenix and the majority of the Wizengamot needed to personally take to the field.
Others claim that, just as Gellert Grindelwald was defeated in a duel with Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort was killed by Harry Potter in personal combat, these extraordinary individuals were needed for a similar feat - or at least were not able to exclude such a possibility, and therefore had to go on the mission. But since there is no known prophecy linked to such an event, and nothing else supports this notion, it can be safely discarded.
No, in my opinion, the people mentioned went on the mission because, their portrayal in various media notwithstanding, they were not coldly calculating strategists and politicians, but people - teenagers and an older wizard deeply traumatised by the events that concluded the First Blood War and his subsequent time in Azkaban - who would not let their loved ones face mortal danger without them, and whom no one else could tell otherwise.’
- Excerpt from ‘The Second Blood War’ by Hyacinth Selwyn

*****​

Dry Harbour Mountains, Jamaica, April 26th, 1997

Hermione Granger heard the wind before she heard the alarmed screams from the flyers above her. Suddenly, there was a roaring storm above the jungle - and it was blowing straight down, shaking the treetops above her, tearing leaves and small animals off the branches and slamming them into the ground. Then she saw a broom rider crash through the foliage, hit a thick branch with a sickening crack she heard even over the roaring storm, and spiral down until he crashed on to the soil.

When he started screaming, she recognised him - Timothy Meyers. He was still alive, though badly hurt. Broken bones for certain, she thought, as she saw Sally-Anne race towards the wounded wizard.

“Everyone, land at once!” she yelled into the radio, overriding the screams from others. “The winds will make you crash!”

Her order was too late though - she heard more screams over the radio. Eric and Celia. They had crashed as well, but she didn’t know where. And Seamus and Tania were in trouble, too.

This was all her fault. If she hadn’t been so rash… but there was no other choice. They couldn’t let Rookwood enter the Library of Souls. But she should have increased the Resistance’s training. Made them prepare for traps and creatures, not just houngans. Though they there hadn’t been enough time for that - no one became a Curse-Breaker in a week or two.

Hermione shook her head, telling herself not to berate herself for past mistakes any more. She had to focus on avoiding further mistakes. Trying to sound as cool and collected as possible, she keyed her radio again, overriding the cacophony of screaming and yelling. “Sally-Anne, set up a first aid station at the crater. Justin, Mary-Jane and Emily, cover her. Seamus, Tania - look for Eric and Celia. Everyone else, converge on Bill and Fleur’s position, east side. Do not go through the centre.”

She glanced to her side, where Aberforth was standing, looking unruffled. “We’re securing the crater area for the wounded,” she said.

The old wizard simply nodded and started towards the jungle bordering the fresh crater on the northern side, where the Library would lie. He flicked his wand, and a screaming four-armed ape taller than Goyle fell out of a treetop.

“Blood Apes,” he commented.

The ones of which Ron had warned them. Hagrid would probably love them, Hermione thought, blowing up a treetop with a Blasting Curse and killing another at the same time. She heard gunfire - assault rifles, and a light machine gun. Tania and Seamus must have found one of their missing members, then. The fire went on for far longer than she had expected, though, until suddenly, a small cluster of trees to the west erupted in fire.

“Bloody plant monsters, soaked up bullets without trouble!” she heard Seamus complain over the radio. “Need to burn them!” Then she saw him and Tania break through the underbrush, with a floating Celia between them, running straight towards the shelter Sally-Anne had created in the crater.

“Undead! Zombies! My leg’s broken, I can’t move!” Eric’s voice sounded on over the radio. “Oh, god! I can’t move! Bullets don’t hurt them! Help! Help me! Please!”

“Burn them!” Seamus yelled into the radio. “Use grenades!”

“Use the Bludgers!” Tania added in a yell.

“They’re too close. Too cloARGH!”

Hermione clenched her teeth. Another one dead, she thought, and it was her fault. Out loud, she said: “We need to deal with those undead.” She turned to Aberforth. “Handle the northern side, and focus on plants and creatures.”

Then she headed west. “Seamus, Tania - on me!” The two fell in, forming an inverted V-formation with her at the head.

They saw the zombies - Inferi, she recognised them right away - before they reached the edge of the crater. Dozens of them, with more behind. She pulled out one of the enchanted Bludgers the twins had created, and threw it towards the advancing ranks of undead. “Frag grenades!”

Seamus and Tania were happy to comply, and two grenades, followed by another two, arced towards the undead, although coming up a bit short due to the wind from above. They still peppered the undead with metal splinters - some bouncing off Hermione’s Shield Charm too - and bowled the closest ones over. And - which had been the point of the attack - exposed the bones inside the Inferi to the aerosolised potion the Bludger was spreading. Soon the majority of the undead were looking far more like puddles of flesh than humanoid figures. The skeletons behind them were faring even worse, crumbling to dust in seconds.

“Burn them!” she ordered, turning back to check on Aberforth.

On the way, she received word of Gary and Sinclair’s deaths. Two more, she told herself. But Harry, Ron and Sirius, as well as Vivienne, were moving to flank Rookwood and support Bill and Fleur. Or avenge them - they hadn’t heard anything from them, nor from Anna, over the radio for some time. She couldn’t dwell on that though - she needed to keep their force together and ensure the wounded were taken care of.

The northern side - or front - was a wasteland. Aberforth had either burned or vanished the trees near the crater, and was in the process of eradicating a Devil’s Snare when she reached him.

“Fire-resistant variant,” he grunted, “needs to be transfigured to be destroyed.”

She nodded, watching their surroundings, and pushed the button of her radio again. “Don’t try to burn any Devil’s Snare you may spot, it’s resistant to fire. Transfigure it into wood before burning it!” The curse she heard in response sounded like it had come from Seamus, but Tania didn’t comment, so they were probably not fighting one.

“Nasty traps here,” Aberforth said. “I had to deal with buried animated bone spikes, all the undead you could think of, and the nastiest plants I’ve seen in a while.”

He didn’t sound as if he was criticising her, but she felt the sting anyway. She should have prepared better for such dangers and enemies, not focused on battling houngans and their minions. But she wouldn’t have been able to prepare for either enemy if she hadn’t focused on one.

“What about the eastern side?”

She shook her head. “Mary-Jane and Emily are covering that flank. But Harry and Ron went there first, so it should be safe.”

“For the moment,” he grunted.

“For the moment,” she agreed. Something caught her attention at the southern edge, and she raised her Omnioculars to her face. A flick of her thumb focused them and started zooming in.

She felt her stomach drop for a moment, then used her radio.

“The houngans are here, more than a dozen of them. Rally at the crater!”

*****​

She rushed forward to the shelter in the crater. Or, bunker now - the conjured steel walls had been reinforced with earthworks. She spotted Celia and Timothy right outside, rifles at the ready - Sally-Anne must have mended their broken bones and closed their wounds already. Mary-Jane and Emily had taken up a position to the east.

“Transfigure some of the earth below into steel!” she ordered over the radio. “In case they have undead burrowing through the soil.” There had been too many buried skeletons and Inferi in that jungle not to consider that possibility.

“We’ve captured Rookwood and secured the skull. We’re all safe, but Bill’s wounded.”

Harry’s announcement over the radio made her smile with relief. They had done what they had come for. It had cost them too much, but they had done it. Remus reported that his group had managed to avoid the houngans by apparating to a rally spot before the Anti-Apparition Jinxes covered them. So at least she wouldn’t have to worry about them.

Now they just had to survive the houngans. They couldn’t fly away, and they couldn’t apparate. That left marching. As the Sergeant used to say - no matter where, soldiers had to walk. She stuck her head inside the shelter. “We’re pulling out, to the east!”

Stepping back, she waved her wand and started to turn the southern edge of the crater into a ditch with a wall behind it while Justin and Sally-Anne, followed by Celia and Timothy, started to move east - and north. She pushed the button of her radio. “Sirius, we’re pulling out of the crater, towards the east, meeting up with you on the way.” They had to get out of range of the Anti-Apparition wards.

“Alright,” she heard Sirius answer.

Movement to her right drew her attention, and she turned around, wand rising, until she recognised Tania and Seamus, heading towards her from the west. “Move on and set up a pillbox at the northeastern corner!” Hermione ordered. They could cover their retreat if necessary.

As they passed her, following the others to the edge of the crater, Hermione pushed a lock of hair out of her face - the winds above were still pressing down, making moving just that little bit more exhausting - and studied the approaching lines. No sign of the houngans, yet. But that didn’t mean much.

“Are we going to fight them?”

Aberforth had caught up. She turned her head to look at him. “We don’t need to. We came here for Rookwood, and we have him.”

“Well, lass, might not be up to you to decide that.” He chuckled, though without any humour.

“Indeed.” She shook her head as she watched the first row of the undead tumbling down into the ditch. “I still have to try, though.”

“Not from so close, though.”

“No, I think not.” She tried to sound cool, unconcerned even. Like some of the officers in those old movies.

The two of them fell back, creating a few more ditches and walls, before they reached the edge of the crater under the guns of Tania and Seamus. Aberforth transfigured the earth into stairs and, a few seconds later, both of them stood at the edge of the crater. A swish of his wand removed the stairs.

The undead had overcome the first obstacle, and some had entered the first aid post while the rest surged onward. Hermione studied the edge of the crater, though - were those wizards there? They were alive, at least. She hoped they were houngans, and not zombies, as she pointed her wand at her throat and cast an Amplifying Charm.

“Houngans! We are not here for the Library! We are not here to fight you. We are here to catch the Death Eater who has been killing your people. We have caught him before he could enter the Library, and now we will leave.” Her voice rang out over the crater.

The undead didn’t stop, climbing over themselves to reach the top of the second wall, but the figures at the edge of the forest halted in their advance. For a moment, Hermione felt hope that they could avoid further fighting.

Then spells flew from those people towards her position, impacting on the crater’s slope, and blowing up chunks of earth - and globs of acid. She almost ducked behind the walls Tania and Seamus had erected, but kept standing. At that range, they couldn’t really hit her with a spell.

Hermione tried again. “We are not here to fight you. We are withdrawing. You can check the Library - it’s untouched. We only came here to catch a fugitive criminal. A Death Eater.”

“They’re coming through the jungle, trying to flank and cut us off!” Tania informed her.

She didn’t curse out loud, not with her Amplifying Charm still active. “If you keep attacking us we will be forced to defend ourselves! Stop attacking! Call back your zombies!” More spells flew at her position, some getting close.

“Bastards must be thinking we’re weak!” she heard Seamus mutter nearby. The undead in the crater were at the third ditch and wall.

She canceled her charm and pushed the button of her radio. “They’re not listening to us. Seamus, place a few bombs at our position here! Tania, suppress the houngans at the forest’s edge!” Tania didn’t bother with acknowledging her order; she simply started firing. Hermione saw the tracers from the light machine gun hit the houngans facing her, and a number of them collapsed. She expected them to retreat at once, but they stood their ground until a few more were hit enough for their shields to shatter, before retreating back into the jungle.

Turning to Aberforth, she pulled out another enchanted Bludger. “That’ll occupy the ones advancing in the jungle.” She hoped Justin was watching their flanks as well - if they were to be cut off...

The old wizard grinned, then waved his wand and a dozen wolves rose from the torn up soil of the crater. “These will help.”

As the transfigured animals sped into the jungle, towards the zombie line there, the undead in the crater broke through the final obstacle, and advanced on the slope.

“Fall back!” Hermione ordered, flicking her wand to turn the slope into mud, making the Inferi slip and fall, slowing them to a - sometimes literal - crawl.

Tania fired another burst, then picked her machine gun up and kicked Seamus, who was moving wired packs of Semtex around with his wand. “Get moving!”

He cursed, but didn’t otherwise argue, moving past Hermione with Tania on his heels. “Move until you catch up with Justin’s group!” she yelled, “I’ll tell you when to detonate the bombs!”

“Should be the last to leave, lass,” Aberforth commented.

She refrained from answering that she wasn’t; he was. He was right, after all. So she turned around and ran into the jungle, keeping an eye on her right side. Howls from the wolves told her that they had met the undead.

After a few dozen yards, she turned around. No movement at the crater’s edge yet. Another dozen yards later, she saw the first undead climbing over the abandoned firing position. She pushed the button of her radio. “Seamus, blow it now!”

A second later, the pillbox and the edge of the crater vanished in a fireball.

*****​

“We’ve captured Rookwood and secured the skull. We’re all safe, but Bill’s wounded.”

Harry Potter released the button on his radio and turned to the rest of his group. Ron had Rookwood’s broken, stunned and bound form floating behind them, and Fleur was propping up Bill while Sirius and Vivienne were keeping an eye out for more animals. Both Veela had transformed, their inhuman heads moving like raptors’.

Hermione’s voice rang out over the radio. “Sirius, we’re pulling out of the crater, towards the east, meeting up with you on the way.”

Harry’s godfather acknowledged the message, then turned to the group. “We need to move.”

“Just give me a minute and I’ll be able to walk,” said Bill, before anyone could ask.

“You’ve beaten the curse?” Ron asked, his strained voice betraying his concern.

“Wasn’t a curse. It was Mummy Rot spores, and a few caught me before I could vanish the cloud. I didn’t have a counter-agent on me, so I had to deal with them with my wand.” Bill was still breathing heavily, his face covered with sweat. He didn’t look like he was fully cured, but he might just be exhausted, Harry thought. Either way, he’d slow them down, unless they levitated him as well. Which meant another wand would be occupied while they moved.

Bill groaned, closed his eyes, and took a few more deep breaths before shaking his head. “Alright, I can walk.”

“Can you run?” Sirius asked.

Bill grimaced, then pulled a vial out of his pocket and downed it. He shuddered for a few seconds, then sighed. “Yes.”

Harry glanced at Ron. His friend was frowning, but didn’t comment.

“Let’s go!” Sirius pointed towards the path they had come through. “I’ll follow the path we took here, so we won’t walk into another trap.” Without another word, the wizard changed into his animagus form and the large black dog trotted off, with Vivienne close behind.

Harry looked at Ron. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

His friend nodded at him, then started after Sirius, followed by Bill, who was still a bit shaky on his feet, and Fleur, who was levitating Rookwood.

“They’re not listening to us. Seamus, place a few bombs at our position here! Tania, suppress the houngans at the forest’s edge!” Harry heard Hermione over the radio. So, they would have to fight the houngans. He had expected that.

Harry was actually glad that Bill was not that quick on his feet, even with the potion he had taken - it made it easier for him to keep an eye on their flanks and rear while moving. They might be able to avoid traps thanks to Padfoot’s nose, but animals could move. And so could houngans and their zombies.

He was tempted to leave a few traps of his own - pit traps, mainly - but if Hermione wanted to move the entire group back this way then that would be a bad idea. Even if it would be very easy to create such traps with his wand.

Movement to his left, up in the trees, made him whip his wand up - more of those animals? Blood Apes? Something was moving there, hidden by the foliage, but he couldn’t tell what. No houngans though - his spell would have noticed them. He flicked his wand, a Cutting Curse slicing through the nearest tree at an angle. The entire treetop fell down, and he could see several human-sized figures smashing into the ground. Almost out of reflex, he cast a Fire Whip, then flicked his wand, the magical flames lashing out at the figures, cutting them apart and setting them ablaze.

They didn’t scream, but one of them kept moving. Undead, then.

“Inferi to the southeast of our position,” he announced over the radio.

“How many?” Hermione asked.

“Can’t tell,” Harry answered. “They’re in the trees.”

He caught up to the rest of the group, who were now glancing to their left. Fleur, still transformed, tried to take to the air, but as soon as she rose higher than a yard or two, the wind pressed her down again - with enough force to send her sprawling. The Veela screeched with anger and frustration, before getting up and peppering the treetops to the southeast with fireballs. Harry couldn’t tell if she hit anything, but at least it would hinder the enemy some. Vivienne followed her example.

They crossed the path leading to the library several times as Sirius led them through the jungle, until they heard gunfire in front of them.

“We can hear your shots,” Sirius announced on the radio, “we’re close - watch your fire.”

A minute later, the first markers were showing up - and Harry tensed up. He was reasonably certain that those were the rest of their group, but… if houngans had managed to get between them…

But he had to cover the rear. He hadn’t spotted any undead or animals near them for several minutes, but that could change at any moment.

“If that’s you in the trees,” he heard Sirius say over the radio, “then conjure a flock of birds!”

Harry didn’t see any birds, but apparently there were some since Sirius led the group further ahead, and soon he saw Justin, Sally-Anne and most of the new recruits - Timothy, Celia, Mary-Jane and Emily. They were looking a bit ‘wild-eyed’ - this was their first real battle. And they had already taken casualties as well.

“Hermione’s bringing up the rear,” Justin said, erecting a few walls with his wand. “She tried to talk to the houngans.”

“Merlin’s balls! Zombies to the east!” Ron yelled.

Harry whirled around, and his eyes widened. There was a line of zombies moving through the jungle, straight towards them. Dozens, no, hundreds of them. And they were more of them coming from behind them - they had caught up to their group.

*****​

Ron Weasley wanted to push on, towards the southwest. Towards Hermione. The jungle was crawling with zombies, and if she was cut off and surrounded… but she’d call for help in that case, and she was with Aberforth. He clenched his teeth and sent a tree toppling with a volley of Cutting Curses, blocking the approach of another group of Inferi. “Vivienne! They’re bunching up behind the tree trunk there!”

The Veela didn’t hesitate, sending a dozen fireballs into the undead, setting them afire and adding to the smoke covering the battlefield. If not for his Bubble-Head Charm, Ron would be retching from the stench of burning flesh.

He glanced around, but couldn’t spot any new enemies right then. The foliage above them had been ripped apart by spells and the wind spells were making flight impossible, so there wouldn’t be any enemies taking to the treetops… unless someone disillusioned them.

Frowning, he cast a few more Blasting Curses at the canopy. Better safe than sorry. Not that he could tell if, among the branches and tree fragments falling down, there were enemies caught by his attack anyway. Vivienne left to rejoin Sirius, a bit further to the south.

Was that movement to the east? More Inferi? How many had the houngans created? Had they raised all the dead of the island? Markers appeared floating above the figures. No zombies, then. Not the Inferi variant, at least. “Houngans to the east!” he yelled into his radio while he crouched behind a tree stump.

A flick of his wand transfigured the wood into steel. Another raised the earth nearby, forming a low wall. Two Resistance members - Timothy and Celia - sprinted towards him, rifles in hand, and took cover to his left.

“Suppress them!” Ron yelled.

The two hesitated a moment, then rose with their rifles and started to fire short bursts at the houngans, who had advanced in the meantime. He saw one of the enemies fall before thick black smoke hid all of them.

Ron scoffed, and blew the smoke away with a gust of wind, exposing two houngans crouching near the fallen. Timothy and Celia quickly shot the two, their Shield Charms not standing up to the rifle fire. He blinked - that was too easy. Those were too weak…

He glanced up, already rolling to the side, but no enemy was pouncing at him from above. So, not a distraction, then. Or not for that. “Change position!” he yelled, standing up to send a few curses at the enemy - more to make them dodge and keep their heads down than with any hope of hitting one of them - while Timothy and Celia sprinted towards a tree a little way behind him.

They set up a firing position there, and it was Ron’s turn to sprint back. Just as he was starting to run, the earth beneath him exploded, and he was thrown forward, and into a fallen log, hard enough for his Shield Charm to shatter. He felt something in his shoulder break, and pain laced his entire left side as he rolled over the rocky ground.

Gritting his teeth, he raised an earthen wall to grant him cover, then dragged himself further back, towards the others, trying to ignore the pain. “I’m hurt!” he yelled, clumsily pushing the button of his radio with his right hand while holding his wand. “We need reinforcements here!” Timothy and Celia couldn’t hold off the houngans. Not by themselves.

“On the way!” he heard Justin yell, and a few seconds later, he saw the former Hufflepuff appear to his right, followed by Sally-Anne and Mary-Jane. Sally-Anne waved her wand, and Ron felt himself pulled towards her while the other two passed him. He grunted through clenched teeth at the pain it caused as he was pulled through the underbrush, before being deposited at the first aid station they had prepared earlier.

“Sorry,” Sally-Anne mumbled, without sounding as if she was, as she waved her wand over him. “Broken shoulder… Hold still.”

He refrained from snapping at her - it wasn’t as if he wanted to move, considering how painful that was. Then his shoulder felt as if it was on fire, and he yelled with pain.

“Hold still!” Sally-Anne jabbed her wand at his shoulder once again, and the pain started to subside. “There! Almost as good as new!”

He panted while he clutched his shoulder, squeezing it while the pain slowly faded. “Thanks.”

She nodded at him, then stood up. “Now where did your stupid brother go?”

She sounded remarkably like Pomfrey, Ron noted. Probably something about healing people. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Probably with Harry at the rear.” Which would soon turn into the front.

“Ron!”

He knew that voice! Hermione! He whirled around, heedless of the pain that caused to his freshly mended shoulder bones, and saw her standing at the entrance, staring at him.

“I’m alright!” he said, looking her over. Her fatigues were covered with mud, but she didn’t look hurt. She was fine. Safe. Here. He took a step towards her, opening his arms.

But before he could embrace her, screams filled the radio channel.

*****​

Hermione Granger jerked when she heard the screaming. That was… Timothy? She wasn’t certain. But someone, probably Celia, was trying to talk over the radio as well. Throat microphones were needed, she thought. That would solve this problem.

She keyed her own radio and was about to tell them to use a Silencing Charm when the screaming suddenly cut off, and she heard Justin’s clipped voice: “A dozen houngans are advancing on our position. Timothy got cursed, bad. We’re falling back. Need reinforcements.”

Sally-Anne gasped, already moving.

Ron passed her as well. “Follow me!”

For a moment, she wanted to tell him off - he had just been healed, after all. But she didn’t, and followed them instead. The others needed them.

“Start falling back towards the northeast!” she ordered over the radio while ducking around a broken tree trunk. They couldn’t stay and let the houngans encircle them - they had to punch through the lines and move out of range of the Anti-Apparition Jinxes. As fast as possible. Aberforth, Tania and Seamus would have to serve as rearguard.

She followed Sally-Anne through some underbrush, and had to dive to the ground at once - they had almost stumbled into the enemy lines. A flick of her wand raised earth walls as cover while she glanced around. Where were the others?

Then she spotted them and wished she hadn’t. Timothy - she thought it was him - was writhing on the ground, about twenty yards away from her. His limbs had rotted off, and he was waving his stumps around, screaming without making any sound. Someone, probably Justin, had cast a Silencing Charm on him.

Sally-Anne screamed as well, and started to crawl towards him. Hermione saw a yellow spell pass over her friend’s head, and another spell turned a bush behind her to stone. She thought about pulling out her rifle, but… she needed her wand more in such close quarters. And Celia was already firing her own rifle, up ahead, while Ron was busy dealing with an attempt to flank them from the south. They needed to get moving before they lost contact with the rest and ended up cut off.

Hermione sent a volley of Blasting Curses at the closest houngans - thirty yards, she estimated. The explosions sent them sprawling, one of them not getting up while the other two hastily retreated behind two thick trees which had fallen, one ending up over the other, forming a barrier on the ground. She had to change position herself to avoid the curses raining down on her from a houngan who had managed to climb a tree to the northeast, and after a particular close near-miss, she had to recast her Shield Charm behind a hastily conjured stone wall. She crawled through a bush while the wall was slowly eaten by acid spells.

Ron was falling back towards her, taking out the houngan in the tree with a Reductor Curse that blew up the branch the other wizards was crouching on, filling him with splinters and sending him tumbling down ten yards. He didn’t get up afterwards.

The two who had taken cover behind the logs hadn’t changed position - she could see their markers floating above them. She was tempted to cast a few more Blasting Curses, turn the logs into shrapnel… but they’d expect that, wouldn’t they? Instead, she turned the earth beneath the logs into water, turning the entire area into an impromptu pool which rapidly became a mudhole. Then she pulled out a Molotov cocktail and banished it over the now floating logs after which she turned the water into petrol.

The screams of the two houngans caught in the mud didn’t last long, the floating markers above them quickly winking out. She clenched her teeth, turned a bush into a spreading cloud of thick smoke, and made her way towards where Sally-Anne was treating Timothy.

Or trying to, she corrected herself when she reached them - Timothy had been reduced to a head set on a rotting mound of flesh and bones and shriveling skin. To Hermione’s horror, he was still alive, still screaming soundlessly, blood pouring out of his mouth. Sally-Anne was crying while she tried to stop the curse, casting spell after spell.

“Hermione! Nothing is working! I can’t stop the curse!”

And they couldn’t stay here, not with the jungle filling with houngans and their creatures, and the main force already moving.

They couldn’t save Timothy. Hermione knew it. There was only one thing left that they could do.

“Stupefy!”

The red spell hit his forehead, and she saw the wizard’s eyes close. “Move!” she yelled at Sally-Anne.

“But…”

“Move! We can’t stay. Go to Justin!”

Sally-Anne stood up, tears running down her cheeks, and started running towards Justin and Celia, who had fallen back further, to the north. The witch was moving as they had trained to, sprinting from cover to cover, Hermione noticed.

Where was Ron? There! He had just blown another tree apart, the crashed treetop blocking the line of sight to the advancing enemy, and was running towards her. She swished her wand, creating a few pit traps behind Ron.

He jumped behind the earth wall she had created, panting. “Are the others already… Merlin’s balls!” She saw him staring at the remains of Timothy. There was nothing left but some amorphous mass of rotting flesh and some bone and skin fragments.

She wanted to hold him, reassure herself that he was unhurt, alive. But there was no time. “We need to move.” She conjured a few smoke clouds - red and green ones, to make the houngans think they were poisonous - and nodded towards the north.

He was muttering curses behind her as they rushed through the underbrush, towards where the others were waiting for them.

*****​

Harry Potter flicked his wrist and his Fire Whip Spell cut another Inferius apart. The burning pieces dropped to the ground, where they’d flop and twitch around until they turned to ashes - he didn’t watch, but instead focused his attention on his next target, after a quick glance upwards, to check for enemies above him.

Near him, Padfoot suddenly changed back into Sirius, waving his wand while yelling: “Disillusioned Inferi ahead of us!” A cloud of red smoke appeared between the treetops and the ground, around fifty yards away.

At once, Harry raised the Elder Wand and sent a Blasting Curse at the ground beneath the cloud. Dust and earth were thrown up, briefly obscuring the area, and an already damaged tree toppled over. A second later, Sirius dispelled the Disillusionment Charm, and five dozen zombies appeared - three of them on the ground, missing limbs.

Vivienne, in her raptor-form, screeching what Harry thought was a French battlecry, buried all of them in fireballs, leaving the entire area burning. Harry hissed - they had to move through that area, unless they wanted to brave more traps to the west, where the Library lay, or face the enemies trying to close with them from the south. He flicked his wrist and sent streams of water at the burning area.

Sirius changed into Padfoot, sprinted ahead, then changed back. “I don’t smell any other Inferi around,” Harry heard him report over the radio.

He wondered why the houngans hadn’t disillusioned more of their undead zombies - they would have been far more effective that way. Maybe most of the Inferi they were fighting had been stored underground, like the others, and not brought in by houngans after they had been alerted?

He shook his head, moving quickly to catch up with Sirius and Vivienne. This was no time to dwell on such things. Not when they needed to break through the enemy line. Behind him, Bill and Fleur were securing their flank - and setting fire to other parts of the jungle. And Ron, Hermione and the Resistance would be moving west of them. Except for those who had already been killed.

They passed the area where the remains of the Inferi they had just destroyed were still smouldering. Harry’s Water-Making Spell had turned part of the ground into mud, and he had to struggle a little to keep up his pace. The humid air wasn’t helping either.

Movement ahead of them drew his attention and he stepped behind a tree, pressing himself against the burned bark. Figures moved through the woods. The markers floating above them confirmed that that they were not Inferi. “Houngans ahead. Fifty yards!” he informed the others. They were moving cautiously, from cover to cover, conjuring some where it wasn’t available. If not for the markers, Harry wouldn’t have seen half of them.

“Bill, Fleur - move up and flank them from the south!” Sirius ordered. “We’ll hold them in place. Conjuration and Transfiguration.”

Harry wanted to blast the enemies apart - his wand almost moved by itself - but if he did that, he would ruin Sirius’s plan. So he conjured a dozen venomous snakes. He ignored their grumbling about how vile humans tasted and sent them against the houngans while staying in cover. With a bit of luck, they wouldn’t be detected in the underbrush before they bit someone. He sent a few more after them.

Sirius, of course, choose to conjure something flashier - Harry heard lions roar, and saw the houngans spread out, spells flying from their wands as they reacted to the attacking cats. Harry saw a huge thing drop down from the trees ahead, straight on a houngan. Too big for a Blood Ape, but of similar shape - and quickly killed, it seemed. More might have been in the trees - but the houngans set them on fire.

Then Harry’s snakes entered the fray. One of the houngans collapsed, screaming loudly. The rest started to send curses at the ground. Harry was grateful that the snakes were too far away for him to understand their pained words as they were killed.

Nevertheless, they had done their task - Fleur and Bill were in position now. While the Veela threw half a dozen fireballs at the centre of what was left of the houngans’ formation, Bill cast curses Harry didn’t recognise.

“Now!” Sirius yelled, standing up behind the rock that served as cover for him, his wand weaving. Harry slid around the tree trunk, smearing more ash on his clothes, and unleashed curses of his own at the disarrayed and partially exposed enemies. One of them decapitated a houngan who was trying to put out the fire licking at his clothes, another missed his target, but caused the witch to jump away - straight into a curse of Sirius’s that dropped her to the ground in a cloud of blood.

Vivienne’s fireballs joined Fleur’s, and the remaining houngans didn’t last long in the crossfire, their shields shattering under the assault. The last of them tried to run, but Harry caught him in the back with a Bludgeoning Curse that broke the man’s spine as it smashed him into a fallen tree trunk.

Sirius changed to Padfoot and raced ahead, quickly covering the ground between them and the fallen houngans. Harry was close on his heels and threw himself into cover as soon as he reached him, almost ending on top of a charred corpse. He fought not to retch at the sight and rolled over, peering over the rock that hadn’t saved the dead enemy. The area ahead of them seemed clear, and through the wrecked foliage, he could see a slope rising a few hundred yards ahead of them. That should take them out of range of the wind trap so they could outfly the Anti-Apparition Jinxes, Harry thought.

Bill and Fleur were already moving past him, towards a tall, thick tree northwest of their position.

“I don’t see any enemies,” Harry said, pushing the button of his radio.

“Seems clear here too,” Sirius added.

“Nothing here ei-Fleur!”

Harry whipped his head around. Fleur was on the ground clawing at her throat, barely protected by a stone wall Bill must have conjured. The Curse-Breaker was frantically casting at the Veela while the wall shook under the impact of more curses coming from the trees at the base of the ridge.

Harry added a cloud of smoke to obscure them from their enemies’ sight, then started to dart from cover to cover, sending Blasting Curses at the enemies’ positions.

“It’s a Strangling Curse! But I can’t dispel it!” Bill yelled over the radio. “I don’t know why!”

Harry clenched his teeth, conjured a stone wall between himself and the enemy, and then rushed over to their position, sliding the last few yards over the ground.

“I can’t dispel it!” Bill repeated himself while Fleur looked like she was trying to tear out her own throat. For a moment, Harry thought about punching a hole in her chest, into her lung. He had seen that on a TV show, once. No, he had no idea how to do that without killing her. He pointed his wand at her instead.

“Finite! Finite! Finite!”

He was shouting the Incantation. It had worked when Ron had been cursed by Voldemort. It should work here as well - none of the houngans were a match for the Dark Lord!

“Finite! Finite! Finite!”

He saw Fleur gasp, taking a deep breath, and smiled with relief.

Then the earth around him erupted, and he found himself flying through the air, with Bill, Fleur and the remains of the stone wall and several trees - right into what felt like a hurricane.

*****​

For a horrible moment Harry felt as if he were inside a giant blender. The wind was throwing him around, head over heels, stone and wood fragments were smashing against his Shield Charm, and he lost all sense of orientation, barely managing to hold on to his wand before he crashed into the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of him and shattered his shield. He rolled on the ground, frantically waving his wand to recast his Shield Charm as larger rocks and parts of trees hit the ground all around him.

One rock hit his shoulder, and the pain wrecked his casting. He grit his teeth and tried again, finishing the spell despite something hitting his leg. A wave of his wand conjured a stone shelter, protecting him from the deadly rain, and he finally could tend to his wounds.

The shoulder was easy - bruised and dislocated. He had had the same wound in Quidditch training, or with Moody, often enough, and it took no more than two spells to set and numb it. The splinter piercing his leg was more difficult. When he summoned the shard, it didn’t slide smoothly back out of his leg but ripped an even worse wound on its way out. Staunching the bleeding took half a dozen spells, and he felt so light-headed afterwards, he had to quaff a Blood-Replenishing Potion.

But he could walk again and he could cast again. But Sirius, and the others… He reached for his radio, then noticed that he had lost the headset. He tried to summon it, but failed - it must have been destroyed. Cursing, he crawled out of the shelter, wand ready, and gasped at what he saw. The storm above had abated, but the ground had been torn up by rocks and parts of trees. Where were his friends? And where were the houngans?

A volley of curses flying at him answered the latter question. He threw himself forward, dodging two yellow curses which hit the ground behind him, into a roll. His Shield Charm flared up as it deflected another curse, and he jumped behind the remains of a tree, reinforcing it with conjured stone before he came to a stop.

And just in time - a wave of fire washed over his makeshift cover and, despite his shield, he felt the heat on his exposed skin. Snarling, he sprinted back the way he had come, sending two Blasting Curses at the closest enemy’s position before diving behind his shelter. More curses pelted the stone walls, and he ducked low, then rose and lashed out with a Fire Whip Spell that cut down the last tree that had survived the enemy’s onslaught - and caught a houngan out in the open. The wizard’s shield failed to protect him and he fell down. Harry saw the marker floating above the man disappear before he ducked behind the stone walls again.

More curses flew over his head. Too high to hit him - by design. Another curse hit the ground behind him, turning it into a fizzling, smoking puddle. He vanished the entire area, then pressed himself against the wall when spears and arrows rained down on his position, two splintering against his shield. Someone was trying Banishing Charms, but couldn’t aim well enough. But if they used them on bottles of poison or acid...

He couldn’t stay here - the houngans could fix him in place, and reduce his cover or flank him. Or both. They probably were trying to do so already, outside his view. But where were Sirius and the others? He saw two markers to the west, above the remains of a group of trees. By his estimate, they were outside the range of the enemies’ Human-presence-revealing Spells. But if he ran towards them, he’d give away their position.

He couldn’t stay, he couldn’t go west, there were more enemies to the east… Harry snorted. They wouldn’t expect him to charge straight at them, and if he covered the ground between his position and theirs in smoke… He just had to be quick enough, and lucky enough, to get within their ranks…

Shots fired nearby interrupted his plans. Shots fired at the houngans.

*****​

Ron Weasley rushed forward while Tania laid down covering fire with her light machine gun, supported by Celia and Emily with their rifles. Harry was lying behind the crumbling remains of a stone shelter, and by the looks of the devastation around him, the houngans had bombarded his position with dozens of Blasting Curses - the ground looked like it had been ploughed up by giants.

He was casting a few spells himself as he navigated the treacherous ground, toppling a tree with a Reductor Curse, then slid into cover next to Harry. “Mate! Are you hurt?” His trousers were covered with blood and mud.

“Not any more,” his friend answered, shaking his head. “Those are experienced houngans, not curse fodder. Bill and Fleur were in the middle of this, when it blew up...”

Ron hissed. His brother had been… He looked around. There were two markers floating above some downed trees, and other markers closing in on them, from his own group. But Harry had been with Bill, Fleur, Sirius and Vivienne… “Let’s fall back, before we get hit here!”

“We can’t stay here,” Harry continued. “But with the others rolling up their eastern flank, we can hit them from the west.”

They conjured smoke clouds, raised a few walls to provide hard cover, then sprinted back towards the treeline. Not towards the markers there - they wouldn’t lead the enemies to them. The shelter blew up behind them and Ron changed direction, heading more eastwards, then turning south again. Something started to break through the soil in front of them, something made up of bones. Ron hit it with a Reductor Curse and sped up some more.

He reached the treeline before Harry - who wasn’t quite as unhurt as he had claimed, as Ron should have known - and slid behind a rock there, pulling out his rifle to cover Harry. His friend broke through the underbrush, then veered west. Ron followed him at once, slinging the rifle on his back and covering their right with his wand. It wasn’t far.

“Sirius!”

“Harry! Stop! He’s wounded!”

That was Hermione! Ron slid around the fallen tree Harry had jumped over, and saw that the witch was standing between Harry and Sirius - and Vivienne. They were lying on the ground, not moving, and Sally-Anne was waving her wand over them. Justin was there as well - apparently, he was the one now levitating Rookwood’s bound form.

“How…” Harry didn’t finish his question.

“They’re alive, but badly hurt. No curses, but… broken bones, bleeding…” Sally-Anne looked briefly at Hermione before returning her attention to the two on the ground. “I’ll need more time to fix them here.”

Ron saw Hermione bite her lower lip. “Can you transport them?”

Sally-Anne drew a hissing breath. “Not right now.” She kept casting, and her expression didn’t change.

“Alright.” Hermione spat out orders over the radio. “We need to hold here until we can move the wounded. We’re facing experienced houngans - probably their leaders - in the northeast. Seamus, Tania, Emily, Mary-Jane - fall back and secure our rear! Justin, Celia - cover Sally-Anne and the wounded! Keep an eye on the west as well. Everyone else - we need to find Fleur and Bill and push the houngans back!”

Where could his brother be? He wasn’t answering on the radio. Ron followed Hermione to the edge of the treeline, and looked around. He couldn’t spot any sign of the missing couple. Maybe… no. He had to keep his hopes up. They would find them.

Hermione created a trench in front of the treeline, and slid down into it, pulling out her rifle. Ron joined her, and saw a few curses already flying towards them, although none came close - they were too far for anyone to reliably hit them using a wand. A decent range for rifles, though.

“So… fire and move?” he asked, quoting the Major.

“Yes, but we won’t advance,” Hermione answered as Harry joined them. “We’ll fix them and move to the northwest, so we can catch them in the flank should they cross the open area.” She nodded towards the south. “They’ll be distracted.”

Ron turned his head and gasped when he saw the wizard who stepped out from the treeline. Was that… impossible! No, it was Aberforth - but he had coloured his beard and robes!

“Move!” Hermione said, standing up to fire at the houngan positions. Ron and Harry dashed along the trench, Harry elongating it with his wand as they advanced. After a dozen yards, Ron stood up and started firing, using short bursts, as the Sergeant had taught him. He doubted that he hit anyone, though - not that it was needed; it seemed every houngan was casting at Aberforth. The old wizard was moving back and forth in front of the treeline, deflecting curses with conjured obstacles while sending spells of his own back at the houngans. Ron saw several trees starting to move, their branches growing and flailing like the Whomping Willow’s. At least one body was hit by them, and sent flying.

Ron’s rifle ran out of ammo and he slid down into the trench to reload. Hermione had passed him, and was now behind Harry, getting ready to fire again.

He took a deep breath, and was about to dash towards her when a shriek cut through the noise of the battle, and multiple fireballs exploded ahead of them. Ron froze for a moment. That had been Fleur, and she had sounded as if she had just… no!

He shook his head and started to run.

*****
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