Chapter One: Proud of Yourselves?

Author note: This story is part of the Magical Flashpoint Side Story series. It follows the first chapter of "East of the Sun" and the first four chapters come before the rest of that story. The last chapter comes after the end of "East of the Sun".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin.

Silence hung in the briefing room to the count of twenty, then Lance stalked to the front of the room and turned to face Team One, Onasi, Roy, and the Unspeakable. He looked at the Unspeakable and said flatly, "I thank you for your aid, sir, but we need to speak privately here."

The Unspeakable inclined his head, bowing to the teen. "Certainly, Heir Calvin; please inform me if you require my division's aid in this matter." At Lance's return head bob, he swept out.

Sapphire turned to the rest of the room and narrowed. "Are you proud of yourselves?" Lance demanded, his voice low, but no less intense and angry for its volume. "Happy to see a teammate, a friend, dragged off like a criminal when he'd done nothing wrong?" He paused a beat. " 'Cause if you are, 'Lanna and I might as well just forget the whole 'purebloods living in the tech world' thing right now. In case you missed it, we're related to the Lestranges, too."

"Lancelot," Uncle Greg started, but Lance wasn't taking any of it.

"Oh, I know why you didn't say anything, Uncle Greg," the boy snapped. "You're jealous, 'cause all this means Uncle Wordy's not only related to us, too, but he's our second cousin." The brunet head shook. "It doesn't matter, not a whit, 'cause Dad picked you, not our grandmother's kin." Lance left out one little fact, mostly because he had a nasty suspicion, but he wanted to get the initial rant done with first.

The teenager rounded on Sam next. "So what's your problem, hmmm? Oh, I know, you've heard all the stories, haven't you? About how the Lestranges tortured the Longbottoms so long they ended up insane? So, what, you gonna tar me and 'Lanna with that same brush now? Are we Death Eaters, too?" Shame shone in Sam's eyes and he didn't meet the angry teen's gaze; he swallowed hard, but held his silence.

Ed met the teenager's eyes, but anything he might have said was overridden by the still furious Wild Mage. "And what happened to being Uncle Wordy's best friend, huh? What, you can keep secrets, but he has to drag his family history out for you to see? Has to spell everything out, just so you'll keep being his friend?"

"Okay, enough," Ed cut in. "You made your point. We screwed up, all of us."

"Oh, I'm just getting warmed up," Lance hissed, "But there's one thing I need to do first." He turned on his heel to Onasi. "Auror Onasi? A word, if you would?"

Confused, but not about to argue with the furious young wizard, Auror Onasi trailed over. Lance's eyes slipped to his sister and he curled one free hand, mimicking claws. Alanna's eyes widened and she inclined her head, right before her brother turned back to Auror Onasi. Lance's left hand slipped behind his back, where his sister could see it and counted down. Alanna moved as soon as he hit 'one', snatching a bug off the back of her brother's hair. The bug struggled, but the girl held it fast. "I think we have an uninvited guest here," she spat, just as livid as her brother.

Auror Onasi's eyes narrowed and he drew his wand. "Miss Calvin?" he requested in a formal tone. Alanna held the bug out and Auror Onasi angled his wand at the struggling insect. "Animus Revalo (1)." A white light enveloped the beetle in Alanna's grip, then it started to glow red. The Auror's gaze turned hard. "You have five seconds to transform back or I'll do it for you," he growled at the beetle. The beetle, which had curled antennas and markings around those antennas that resembled glasses, just buzzed its wings at Auror Onasi.

Lance held out one hand, his eyes even harder than Auror Onasi's. "Lyftgelác gebindan (2)." Air currents visibly wrapped around the beetle, holding it fast in midair, and Alanna let go, stepping back to give the Animagus room. "Last chance," Lance said, his anger buried under a veil of calm.

The beetle struggled against the magic holding it, but Lance had chosen his spell well; the bug couldn't budge. Auror Onasi adjusted his aim ever so briefly. "Animus Invertio (3)." A blue-white pulse flew from his wand and struck the beetle. For a moment, nothing happened; then the beetle blurred and a woman appeared, a good meter off the ground, still trapped by Lance's restraint spell. Blonde hair was still elegantly curled and coifed, but looked a bit ruffled around the edges, her magenta, green-trimmed robes whipped around her, pushed by the air currents, and her green eyes were wide behind rhinestone studded glasses. "Miss Skeeter," Auror Onasi drawled, an angry glint in his eyes. "What a surprise…the Queen of British Gossip and Slander herself, an unregistered Animagus. Looking for a few additional tidbits, were we?"

"Let me go," Skeeter burst out. "You have no right to hold me."

"First of all, you'll have to take that up with Heir Calvin," Auror Onasi retorted, a smirk spreading. "Second of all, I know for a fact, Miss Skeeter, that the only way Lord Malfoy could have found Auror Wordsworth is through his Auror file – which is sealed from the public. I suppose I'll have to have a word with young Daniels about letting every pretty face that pouts at him into the public records archive."

Skeeter's eyes went wide at Auror Onasi's immediate – and correct – supposition for how she'd managed to get around Auror Division's security. Auror Onasi's smirk grew wider. "And thirdly, you're an unregistered Animagus, Miss Skeeter; that's a crime both here and in Britain. Now, since you're a British citizen here under a diplomatic visa, you're correct that you cannot be held and tried here in Canada, but I imagine there are a number of individuals in Britain who will be most interested in whatever evidence I can offer them." Onasi made a show of inspecting his fingernails. "I hear Azkaban is quite lovely this time of year."

"Or you could let me go and I'll conveniently forget about these two little brats being Animagi as well. Two can play at the unregistered Animagi game, after all, Auror Onasi."

Lance's smile was only technically a smile, he looked more like a predator faced with a fresh catch. "Oh, but we are registered," he informed the captive witch in an airy tone. "Though I doubt you would have realized that from just a casual glance at the Animagus Registry; it is a bit obscure." The smile became a smirk. "We've been registered since we were born, Miss Skeeter. You could almost call it a family talent." With that, the teen waved his hand, dissipating his restraint spell. "She can stay, Auror Onasi…just make sure she can't hear us."

Auror Onasi looked gleeful at this pronouncement; Team One only had to look once at Rita Skeeter to know why. Skeeter looked horrified and crushed at the fact that secrets would be discussed right in front of her, but she wouldn't hear them. "My pleasure, Heir Calvin," Auror Onasi agreed, hauling Skeeter to one corner of the briefing room and casting several spells to restrain her and keep her from hearing anything.

As Auror Onasi returned, Lance dropped all pretense of calm; rage flashed as he turned on Team One again. The teenager squared off with his uncle, almost spitting each word. "Even if Dad had known about Uncle Wordy back when he first tracked you down, it wouldn't have made a lick of difference; magic trumps tech when it comes to guardianship. The only way I know of that Dad could keep us out of Lord Malfoy's clutches was to find someone related to him through his father's family, directly related: that's you. Nothing's changed there; you aren't going to lose custody of us at this point. So, seriously, drop the instant jealousy…green doesn't look good on you."

Without waiting for a response, Lance looked to Alanna, who sighed, understanding his expression. "I don't like it," she murmured.

"Me either, sis, but I only know what you told me."

The redhead considered for several moments. Then her jaw clenched, her hands curling into fists. "Uncle Wordy might be a Lestrange by blood, but the House of Lestrange has no claim on him; not when he was born and not now."

"Blood is blood," Auror Onasi pointed out quietly. "It would take an extreme circumstance to override that."

Violet eyes were cold. "Tell me, Auror Onasi, does rape count as an 'extreme circumstance'? Or does a rapist have a right to the child they sired if they're a British pureblood Lord?"

Gasps rang out around the room, though Lou looked grim; he'd apparently already sussed out this part of Wordy's heritage. "Rape?" Ed croaked. "How? Wordy was born here."

Mournful, Alanna explained, "His parents vacationed in England…nine months before he was born. He didn't even know until Claire had that magical inheritance test at Gringotts." She hugged herself. "The goblins were going to put the Lestrange estate in trust for Claire, as his firstborn, but Silnok was so mad, he brought up the idea of Uncle Wordy taking the Headship."

"And Blackroot went for it," Ed filled in, a dawning horror in his eyes at how he'd just treated his best friend…over history that neither man would wish on their worst enemy.

"Not at first, but then I brought up what Bellatrix Lestrange had hidden in her Gringotts vault. Black Arts in a Gringotts vault are a violation of our treaties with the goblins, so Gringotts can decide how it wants to handle the offending family."

Auror Onasi whistled. "Like giving all rights and privileges of an old British family to the Canadian-born Squib son of the late Lord."

"Exactly," Lance agreed somberly. "It's perfectly legal, but the Wizengamot isn't likely to see it that way; most purebloods see goblins as lesser, below tech-borns and only slightly above techies. To let the goblins punish one of their 'own' families is anathema to the Lords, on both sides, even if it's legal. The family name change from Lestrange to Wordsworth was also a requirement from Gringotts, as a lesson to all why you don't violate the treaties." He pinned the adults with his glare. "You lot need to figure out which side you're on, but I'm not abandoning him…"

"Me either," Alanna chipped in.

"What do you got?" Spike asked, interest lighting up his features. "And can I help?"

"I'm in as well," Auror Onasi growled, "Arresting a Canadian Auror on Canadian soil…they overreached themselves on this one."

"Yes, they did," Lance agreed, "And we're going to use that against them." Sapphire swept the rest of Team One and the hovering Roy Lane. "You lot in?"

Shame and chagrin marked several faces as their own actions and the likely results of said actions sunk in; they hadn't supported their friend and teammate in a critical moment and they'd let their own prejudice color their response. It was Ed Lane, rather than Greg Parker, who answered. "What do you need?"

[1] Latin Animagus detection spell

[2] Old English for 'air restrain' Website used is: oldenglishtranslator, which is a co dot uk address.

[3] Latin Animagus reversal spell

Author note: As I'm sure you can all tell by now, this story is the 'other side' if you will of "East of the Sun". No spoilers, but I meant to make it look like Team One had done nada to help their teammate...though I'm sure more than a few eagle-eyed readers caught several hints and clues to the real story going on in the background. Here also is the rant some of my reviewers and commenters were hoping for in "East of the Sun". We're just gettin' warmed up, so hang tight, even if you do already know the ending.

Also, insert rant about this site being so ornery about anything that hints at a URL and also a rant at Word for somehow adding something called a 'character style' to everything after my first footnote. Ugh...you would not believe how much time it took to fix the fact that when I put this up in the Doc Manager, half the gosh-darn chapter ended up in italics! I finally had to lift my chapter into a new Word doc (where the problem, which did not appear in my master document, promptly showed itself), remove the 'character style' from that document and redo all my italics! By which I mean that stripping out the so-called character style removed all my careful formatting and my emphasis on the correct sy-lla-ble. *sigh* That joke didn't translate into text all that well...

At any rate...ugh...I pray I never find that issue in any of my other chapters again...ever. I don't have the foggiest why Microsoft came up with these...character styles...but I hate 'em. Useless things that ruin all my careful work and offer no real benefit...I'm just lucky it was only one chapter (I checked Chapter Two for a similar issue, thankfully found none).