BETA ORIONIS

SEQUEL TO ALPHA LEONIS

CHAPTER 1: THE PROPHET'S CODE

All alone I heal this heart of sorrow

All alone I will raise this child

Flesh and bone, he's just bursting toward tomorrow

And his laughter fills my world

And wears your smile

-'Sand and Water', Beth Nielsen

1995

"You're not going to find a word of truth in there," said Molly Weasley contemptuously, eyeing the copy of The Daily Prophet Sirius Black was browsing.

She put a bowl of scrambled eggs on the table from which Nymphadora Tonks spooned herself a large helping, and then sat herself at the dining table of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Sirius Black's old family home and the secret headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Harry Potter, James Potter's orphaned son, had witnessed Lord Voldemort's return to a body of his own only a few months previously at the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts.

Unable to face this truth, however, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge had convinced himself Harry was a liar, and the rest of the Ministry had followed his lead. It now actively sought to slander the credibility of both Harry and Hogwart's Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the founder and leader of the Order, and by so doing, helped Lord Voldemort gather strength and followers uncontested in the shadows of the wizarding world. With close ties to the Ministry, The Daily Prophet had become a disgusting extension of Fudge's campaign of cover-ups and discrediting.

Remus Lupin looked up over the cover of the book he was reading at the table at Sirius. "If you want any useful truth out of the Prophet these days, you need to pay attention to page three."

"I saw it," Sirius replied, frowning but flipping back toward the front anyway. "Nothing but more on educational reform and a big useless article on a performance at the Muggle-repellant theatre in Wandsworth—"

"Yes, that."

Sirius blinked at his old friend. "What?"

Remus chuckled. "It's coded, Sirius. We have a friend at the Prophet. Here." He reached for the paper and Sirius handed it over. Remus picked up a quill from the cluttered table and began glancing at the article, underlining words and letters, and then scribbling on the paper below it. After a few minutes, he handed it back to Sirius, and Sirius inspected Remus' writing at the bottom of the page: Crick sacked soon. Mail was watched. One Aur missing. Seven disap. Four Dementor attacks. Russer being watched. Umbridge momentum. No update against Dumbledore.

Sirius mouthed the message and then asked, "Is this how we knew Mary Crick was going to be sacked?"

Remus nodded. "Thanks to the warning she was able to escape questioning."

"She's hiding in safety now with her husband's parents," Molly added.

"There's one Auror missing…seven disappearances…more Dementor attacks… Russer. He being careful, then?"

Remus nodded. Next to him, Tonks randomly choked slightly as some sausage went down the wrong pipe. She coughed and washed it down with orange juice, her eyes watering. Remus patted her gently on the back and she gave him a grateful smile that he looked rather quickly away from.

"Gracious, chew your food, Tonks, dear," Molly clucked from across the room.

"Umbridge…" Sirius muttered, ignoring them. "But what does it mean 'No update against Dumbledore'?"

Remus leaned forward. "She gives us advance warning if she can before the Ministry makes any kind of move against Dumbledore, big or small. Tactile, written, plans for Hogwarts, anything. She knows it's important. That sentence means there's nothing new there."

Sirius nodded, looking impressed. "That's bloody helpful, having someone give us through the Prophet what the Prophet's trying to hide. Who is she?" He looked down to the bottom of the article and saw the attributed name there.

Lenna Albeney.

December, four months later.

"I'm just saying I don't understand what was wrong with him. He was polite. And no receding hairline."

"And wonderful biceps."

"Yeah! So what was it this time?"

"He made me into a nag. I'm not a nag usually. But he would leave his junk around and never seemed to do anything quite right… Plus I didn't like his hands. Could you grab a trolley? The train will be here any minute."

"His hands?" Calun Albeney repeated dubiously, finding a trolley and walking up to the brick wall between Kings Cross Station's platforms nine and ten. He took a quick glance around and pushed it through, seeming to melt into the brick. His younger sister stepped sideways through at the same time, followed by a grayish cat with a peculiar marking on its ear.

"Yes, his hands," she sighed.

"Okay, Len," he replied, shrugging and shaking his head. There was no sign of the Hogwarts Express, but families were milling around the station waiting for its impending arrival. Lenna's breath clouded in the chill and she adjusted her scarf more snuggly around her neck as she and Cal found a bench and sat down, pulling the empty trolley up beside them. Cal took a wrapped gift out of the pack around his shoulder and then placed it back, grinning. Lenna rolled her eyes at him as the gray cat leapt up beside her and sat watching passersby.

"I don't think it's going anywhere," she teased.

Cal laughed and sat down next to her, taking his gloves off and stowing them in his small pack. "I've been waiting months to give it to him. He's going to love it."

Lenna grinned at him. "I hope so, after the gold you dished out for it. Grace told me."

Cal made a huffing sound. "Grace's folks are rolling. It wasn't that bad."

They both looked up as they heard the train. It whistled, smoke and mist billowing around, as it pulled into the station and came to a slow halt. The station suddenly became very noisy as parents rushed forward to meet their children coming home for the winter holiday. Owls soared overhead or hooted restlessly in their cages, and cats and rats scurried off the train and around the station. Lenna scratched behind Dinah's ears, glad her pet had never been very inclined to join the throng.

"Where is he?"

"He'll find us," replied Lenna as she and Cal stood up to make spotting them easier. "He's usually in the back middle of the train."

"I don't see him."

"Will you be patient?"

Cal huffed again and scratched at the hair coating his jaw. Cal was losing his hair slowly, though it was still a strong, dark brown. He had a touch more lines on his face than he'd had at twenty, the deepest of them being laugh lines. Keeping busy both at work and at home had kept his paunch in check, and despite the years his belt was acquiring, he never seemed to age much to his younger sister.

"Mum! Mum! Uncle Cal!"

They both beamed as they heard the voice, and then they saw him, coming as fast as a boy pulling his heavy school trunk and owl cage could. He had a fluffy Santa hat on his head that kept changing colors, but his raven hair stuck out from under it. As he always had been, he was tall for his age. "Mum!" he shouted again. They lost sight of him in the crowd for a moment and then he reappeared, a skinny boy getting buffeted by all the people, his blue and bronze scarf flying behind him. Cal had been walking forward toward him and he caught him in a tight hug. He then took over the job of pulling the trunk so the boy could run to his mother.

She had to step back to absorb the impact of the boy-missile. She held him tightly for a moment. "Hi, honey."

"Mum!" he exclaimed, stepping back and obviously bursting with news. "Professor Umbridge is out of control, Mum! She's such a foul, heinous toad—she won't teach us anything—we just have to read out of our books all hour and she expects us to pass our exams and Harry Potter tries to stand up to her and she won't have it and Mum can't Professor Dumbledore do something about her? Can't he get rid of her?"

"Breathe, Rigel," Cal chuckled.

"I've told you what she's been doing in letters," he continued, ignoring his uncle for the moment, "but I don't understand how no one seems to be able to do anything—"

"I've told you, Ri," Lenna said as they slowly moved toward the platform exit, "Umbridge has the full backing of the Ministry. If Dumbledore openly opposes her, the Ministry will have the excuse they want to not only take him out of Hogwarts, but probably imprison him as well. He needs to stay to help the students." She lowered her voice. "And the Order."

Rigel threw his hands up, exasperated, and his fluffy hat was pushed askew. "Why is our Ministry so corrupt? Why are we allowing it? We need new people in charge. This is—it's absurd! A government is put in place to protect its people, not work against it, and if it stops fulfilling that position, it's to be ousted!"

"That's very Lockean of you, darling." She righted his hat, trying to keep a giggle back because she didn't want to offend him. "Listen to me. We just have to trust Dumbledore. He knows what's best to do. Everyone is doing all they can. We can't just organize some sort of coup. The confusion of that would give You-Know-Who an opportunity for his first strike. We have to deal with the idiocy of the Ministry for now."

"But that's not to say you shouldn't cause trouble for the hag," added Cal brightly. Rigel grinned and his mother rolled her eyes.

"I stick up for Harry and Professor Dumbledore whenever I can," Rigel told them. "But not many people in Ravenclaw believe him. And, y'know, I can't tell them why I do and about the Order of course… Luna Lovegood believes Harry, but no one takes her seriously. And I've been learning all the stuff we read about in class on my own because Umbridge doesn't allow us to use wands in class. I couldn't get this one deterrent spell right and Professor McGonagall helped. She hates Umbridge as much as anyone…hey Dinah." He picked up the cat and cuddled her to his chest.

"Your mother dumped Dan," Cal informed him without ceremony.

Rigel looked unsurprised as he glanced up at Lenna. He nodded a bit, looking away, and stated, "He was messy and had fingers that weren't uniform in width."

"Exactly!" Lenna exclaimed. "They were thick at the beginning and got smaller around at the ends! Like little triangles. It freaked me out."

Cal stared at them both, looking dumbstruck.

"Mum's big on hands," Rigel explained stoically.

"You are the weirdest two people in all of London, you know that?" Cal said, shaking his head like he couldn't believe it. "Uniform width fingers—what the bloody hell. You're just making up excuses now, Lenna. That's what I think."

His sister stuck out her tongue at him.

"Rigel, tell your mother she needs a man," said Cal.

"Mum, you need the right man."

"Thank you, darling."

Cal rolled his eyes. Rigel started to haul his trunk off the trolley, but Cal stopped him for a moment. "Wait wait wait." He reached into his pack and then tossed the gift at his nephew. Rigel caught it with good reflexes.

"Whoa! Hey thanks, Uncle Cal. What is it?"

"Open it up, kid." He was grinning.

Rigel tore off the wrapping and his mouth dropped open into a soft O. He was holding a small, dark wooden box with old-looking coastal designs of fish and the sea carved on it. It was intricate and looked to have many ways of opening. "Uncle Cal, is this…?"

"What we found at that old antique shop in Ireland last summer? Yep!"

Rigel leapt forward and threw his arms around his tall uncle. "Thank you, Uncle Cal!" His face was alight when he stepped back, holding the old box. "Merlin, it's so…" He looked up at his uncle. "Wait. This cost so much money when we asked—you shouldn't have—"

"You let me worry about that, chief," Cal retorted, ruffling his nephew's hat. "Grandma and Grandpa Worthington helped pay too, so remember to send them a thank-you owl."

"I will." He gazed back down at the seemingly-innocuous box. "I will. It's so brilliant! Mum, d'you realize how much I can put in this? I can put in my quills and ink and letters and so much—maybe even my entire trunk… The magic that went into this, Mum, I mean it's really—handmade, one of a kind, the man said…"

Lenna laughed and Rigel continued to praise his gift the entire walk back to the car.