Welcome to The Autumn King.
I ask that you don't correct my errors in characters' relative ages and other such details. Some of them simply didn't work with the story I wanted to tell. Others (like Gellert Grindelwald's actual age) I didn't realize until too late. For the purposes of this story, Grindelwald was born sometime around 1920.
It's also been three years since I've taken a Latin or Greek course, so I ask your pardon on that score also. For that matter, it's been four or five years since I've written fan fiction of any variety.
Other than that, it's great, I promise. Ceridwen Kinney and the Cult Dracona are my own creations, as are most of the spells in this story.
Yrs. with Regards,
slightlyskewed
PRELUDE
August, 1970
The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade
"I'll bite," Moody snarled, slamming his empty mug on the table. "Where do you think she's got to, McKinnon?"
"Well," McKinnon said. "As little as I enjoy saying this: does it really matter where she's gotten to? She's half way round the world and we haven't heard a peep. Ministry procedures say she's as good as dead."
"As good as...!" Moody grumbled to himself for a few moments, shaking his battered head. He pulled a silver flask from his pocket and refilled his mug with a steaming green liquid. "You never did like her. As good as dead--pah."
Marlene McKinnon raised a fine black brow at him. She was not the sort of woman to be easily moved. "Alastor, it has very little to do with whether or not I like her. We gave her an important mission. She failed. If she were here and I were in her place, I'm positive she would say the same thing about me."
"And you don't like her."
"As you wish," McKinnon said. "No, I don't like her. I disproved of you hiring her and I certainly disproved of you giving her such a high bloody position."
"What's she ever done to you?"
"She is entirely too brash." McKinnon's black eyes glittered dangerously. "She's willing to make almost any means fit the end. Sweet Hecate, I sometimes wonder if she even thinks about things before she does them. Do you remember the incident with the merpeople at the bottom of Loch Ness, Alastor? Of course you do. We could've all been killed."
She looked like she was ready to go on, but Alastor Moody's sharp barking laughter stopped her. A few of the other patrons milling around the Three Broomsticks looked their way quizzically.
"Are you even listening to yourself, Marlie? Getting killed is in the job description. We're getting paid to almost get killed. Now I'll admit, she isn't always the safest bird--" he took a deep drink of his strange green beverage. For a moment, green steam shot from his nostrils. "--but I don't think she's as worry-free as you're making out. She's a beast with two faces. Taught her that myself, all those years ago." He laughed again: the last of the steam wisped upwards towards the ceiling.
"Anyway, Marlie. The reason I asked for you specifically isn't because I much care about your opinion. I asked you, lass, because you're so bloody good with Divination."
"Oh no."
"Oh yes. I want you to help me find her. She's a damn good Auror--would be a waste to strand her in Germany. She might be a little reckless, but she's clever and she's one of our best duelists. And then--well, you know her mission, don't you?"
"I was never given the specifics. Wasn't she after that cult leader--the man Albus told us to look for?"
"Good, good. That's all you need to know. At any rate, suffice it to say that the man isn't the only danger out there. In that part of Europe, there are all sorts of nasty things she could've run into--things lying in wait for just such a chance at freedom. Your job is to make sure she hasn't--and fetch her back if she has."
McKinnon looked infinitely annoyed by this new appointment. Grunting, plainly choosing to ignore her face, Moody took a battered photograph from the same robe pocket his flask had come from. A tall and somewhat athletic looking woman with a sharp face and wry grey eyes looked up at them, folding her arms expectantly. She was not young--a scar near the hairline of her head suggested she had some experience in the field--there was something maddeningly confident in her stance. Her smile was a little sly, almost foxlike. She might have at one point been pretty.
"I know what she looks like," McKinnon said tiredly. "Why are you--"
"She handed me this photo right after the Raskolnikov job--I asked her for one to give to the press. There's a bit of blood on it--hers. See?" Moody flipped the photograph over, revealing a dry brown smirch. "Use it to find her. Trace her."
Then, observing McKinnon's still-disgusted face: "Dammit, Marlie. She was one of my favorite students--don't make me twist your legs off to do this."
McKinnon sighed. When Mad-Eye Moody said he was going to twist off your legs, it was generally best to take it as more than a metaphor. "All right, all right. As a favor to you, Alastor. As a favor for you--I'll find Ceridwen Kinney."