A/N: There is strong language in this chapter. Please heed the rating. Again, many thanks to Procyon Black for the beta, whose keen sense of Mugglisms is indispensible.

Chapter 2: In the Company of Strangers

He watched the too-large hands sprinkle a pinch of green crumbles on the sheet of paper. Then the edge of a nail, scraping the dried fragments into what was roughly a line. From a pocket in the robe, the hands retrieved a small white tube—the mouthpiece. With surprising agility, the blunt hands rolled the paper into a narrow joint.

"Thar," the man muttered.

He offered it. Slender fingers, stained at the edges but moving with the delicate surety of a surgeon, or a potions master, received it.

"How much?"

"Fifteen galleons."

Lips curled in distaste.

"I'm makin' special discount fer ye," the man growled, "on accoun' yer connections to the org'nization."

"Connections? I'm afraid I do not understand you."

The man grunted and leaned forward, the red light gouging his face with shadows and pits. The scent of stale drink and substances wafted from the oily collar of his robe, mixing with the thudding music.

"Yer playin' dumb on me. You know what I'm a-talkin' fer. Them wi' thar powder and ways."

"Then let me make it clear to you: I neither possess nor desire to possess the ties you accuse me of."

"Well, I see yer dealin' with 'em anyway."

"Those, I assure you, are strictly on a professional basis. And no, I do not indulge in this latest mind-addling, soul-rotting craze."

"Righ'."

The coins exchanged hands.

"Thank ye, Mister Paresun Vesse. Ye have a good nigh'."

Severus Snape smiled thinly and, holding the joint between his thumb and forefinger, tapped the end with his wand. The twisted paper glowed. With delicate care, he put the mouthpiece to his lips and drew in a slow, even breath. A buzz started from his head and lapped down to his feet. He sighed.

He studied his surroundings with leisurely contempt. It was typical of a den—the nightmarish cross between a Muggle nightclub and an aristocratic opium lair. He was very glad he was not the only one refraining from squirming like lust-stricken beasts against each other or, worse, on the floor. There were quite a few others, he noted, some much older than he. Most were bent in various angular forms over the overstuffed poufs, a lone stream of smoke curling from their mouths. Some, though, were eying the uncovered bodies with a disturbing gleam in their eyes.

Snape took another draw at the joint before self-loathing could overtake him. He had come for business and for pleasure, not for a sunny trip down memory lane. That he could do on his own in the mustiness of Spinner's End.

The note he'd received that morning had told him to wait at the back of Hell's Chateau. The time had been listed as night, which, Snape thought with a snort of derision, was a highly relative term. Nine? Twelve? Three? Was it even limited to five in the morning and the break of dawn? Not that he was anxious to return to his own particular dump. His life, whether day or not, at home or in the streets, was a cesspool of ennui and false memory—constant, predictable, and dreary.

He took another breath. At least, he thought, the message could have provided some description of the agent. Anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would have done that. Merlin—loathe as he was to admit it, even Longbottom would have done so.

He had come to realize that dealing with these idiots was no better than suffering the stupidity of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. Not that he'd expected much different when leaving Hogwarts. He had predicted nights of drugged numbness, days of acrid memory, twilights of muted self-hatred—and that was what he had gotten. Part of the reason, as he told himself when the sun was too strong for the haze to creep around his awareness, was that everyone who might have written him a suitable recommendation was dead. Or crazy. Dumbledore, McGonagall. Voldemort. Granger had offered, after he had brought up the issue as an excuse during one of her unwanted visits, but he had quickly disabused her of that notion. He might have very little left, but he still had pride.

But in times like this, when the dreamy tingle of the drug was eroding his self-delusions, he realized that it was because he did not want to live anymore. At least, not a life of sunlight, which Granger and Weasley so eagerly embraced. No—he wanted night. Dark night, dim night, a choking curtain to grind him slowly, hour by hour, until he was a shadow, waiting complacently (like Albus) for the end. He twisted the ring on his finger. Yes. That was what he wanted—his greatest fear, his surest longing…

There was a stir in the crowd. Snape looked up irritably, annoyed at whatever had interrupted his reverie of self-pity. A bunch of people had gathered in the middle of the room around a table, on which someone was standing. A boy. Barely a youth, with half-lidded eyes and a hapless smile.

Snape swore under his breath. Wasn't there an age limit to this place? He could feel the memory of hands and a self-satisfied voice circling the edges of his mind. There had to be, but of course, it was probably enforced the same way that Dumbledore handled Gryffindors.

The boy had lifted a hand to his bare chest, and another hand holding a funny black pestle-shaped object to his lips. His gaze, half-lidded as though confiding a secret, wandered across the crowd. They seemed to settle on one person in particular, and he began to sing in a low, husky voice.

Give me a map
Marked with an 'X'
That'll lead me to your heart…

(Snape had the urge to clap his hands over his ears. Was it not enough that he could barely have peace with all these flesh-crazed teenagers tangled at his feet? Now he had to deal with enough sentimentality to burn a hole through a cauldron.)

I'll pave out the way
With cloth spun from air
And woven with my dreams…

(He understood the purpose of the pestle-shaped thing now. The way the boy was crooning into it, caressing it with his fingers in the meantime, was positively obscene.)

All that I ask
'cause that's all I have
Is that you please tread softly…

Snape's hands clutched, convulsed, and the joint snapped out of its mouthpiece and fell to the floor. He snatched it up, feeling countless eyes staring, and stuck it back into place, then tried to take a shaky breath. He swallowed thickly. It was close—too close.

The boy was still singing. Snape could see from the corner of his eye that his hand was now resting on the rim of those inadequate trousers.

Tread softly, he was whispering, because you tread on my dreams. Tread softly…

Snape flicked the joint into the fireplace. He'd had enough. Another moment of this and he'd hex someone—badly. He stood and stared over the crowd. For a moment he considered the front exit, but the vial of Tranquility Potion pressed hard against his ribs. He snapped around, feeling his robes lift behind him like a bat's swings, and stalked further into the back of the den. There was a door; he snarled at the cluster of boys around it, and flung himself out into the night.

A cool breeze darted over his nose and brow. He was in an alley of sorts, alone except for a streetlight that flickered at the edge of the main avenue. Further down, he could see shadows walking; in the other direction, he could make out the outline of a hulking shape; above it, an unlit window.

He sighed. Now he was regretting having wasted the joint. It was expensive, too. Of course, if the transaction of the Tranquility Potion went through with the enigmatic Monsieur Néant's missing agent, he would be more than compensated. Perhaps he would wait here, in what was undeniably the back of Hell's Chateau. But what he wanted was another joint.

He shook his head. Damn his sense of self-preservation. He knew too well what each heavenly breath did to his brain and his magic. When the mood was gone, the ramifications were difficult to ignore. Damn that idiot boy—damn the Hell's Chateau, damn everything. He made his way deeper into the darkness, next to the vague shape (it turned out to be a stack of Muggle furniture). Here, he could only barely make out the thunderous beat of music, registering in his ears like the sprinkling of hellebore in the essence of murtlap. The air curled against his damp skin.

It felt good to be alone. He twisted the ring around his finger for the second time that night, and stared up into the sky. There were no stars visible. Either it was cloudy, or the glare of Muggle streetlights had veiled everything. Words, lines, rose unbidden to his mind:

The blue and the dim and the dark cloth,
Of night and light and the half-light…

He sighed. He really should not have wasted that joint.

The door opened, and shapes emerged, figures; Snape instinctively pressed himself deeper into the shadows. He could not see their faces, but one was slim, pale-limbed, a boy, and the other was bigger, heavier around the stomach: an older man.

"Ah, so you wan' a private place to do it, eh?"

"I told you already, let me alone, will you?"

Snape straightened. He could see the boy trying to pull away, but the bigger man seemed to have an iron grasp on his wrist.

"C'mon, you've been teasing me all night," the older man slurred. His voice had both the disjointedness of alcohol and the giddiness of another drug—mort, perhaps, which was Muggle cannabis altered with that evanescent hint of a memory charm.

"You're a nice guy, but I'm warning you…"

"But you were lookin' at me all night! C'mon boy, don't be a fool." The man'svoice was now a growl. "I know you want it. Stop—fightin'—"

The boy's voice had been spiraling upwards steadily, and was now high and tense. "I mean it now!"

The man gave a vicious tug. The boy jerked forward like a puppet on a string, but in the next moment he was lashing out ferociously with his legs and fists. The man shrunk back with grunting noises. Snape stepped forward and raised his wand.

"Stupefy."

The drunken man lurched forward and, with a low moan, slumped to the ground like a wounded beast. The boy jumped back and lifted his head to stare into the shadows. The streetlight behind him caught the edge of his face and neck, tracing the outline of his bare arms and shoulders.

"Who's there?" the boy demanded. "I can see you!"

Snape felt a smirk tugging his face. The boy was trembling. He crossed his arms and stepped forward.

The boy stumbled backwards another step. "You're… are you a vampire?"

"Vampires are unable to perform magic with a wand," Snape lectured, slipping into his classroom voice before he noticed himself doing so. He had the impulse to add that even a first year in Gryffindor would know that, but refrained.

"Oh," said the boy. His voice was oddly familiar, Snape thought. "Then why'd you help me?"

"'Help you' is an overstatement. I was merely unwilling to have an act of nonconsensual sexual violence occur in front of my eyes."

The boy spent a moment hesitating before deciding that whatever Snape had said was insulting, and commenced glowering. "I din' need your help," he snapped and whipped something out of his back pocket. Snape started, his eyes on the boy's face. In the shadows he had not recognized him, but he saw now, clearly, that the boy was the singer he'd seen inside the den.

"I have this," the boy was saying. "I din' need your help. I have this."

Snape jerked his attention to the gleaming switchblade in the boy's hand. He snorted. "Put that away, boy, before you cut yourself. Tell me, how old are you?"

"Why do you care?"

"Answer me!"

The boy stared back, eyes calculating. "I'm eighteen."

"You're lying."

"Fine… Seventeen."

He did not even need Legilimency. "Still lying, boy."

"Don't call me boy!"

Snape bit back the urge to—what? Take points off? Hex the boy into oblivion? This was a street urchin, a dancer in a drug-ridden den, perhaps also a callboy, not one of the endlessly disobedient brats he could silence with a detention. But the resentful glower—perhaps a bit more sly, a hint less controlled—brought out the same, ingrained instincts. Damn it, Snape thought. Why did he have to waste that joint? What was he now—a fallen Socrates, a Pythagoras in the lair of heathens? He had no right to think himself better than any of the others who were rotting their brains in the smoke and sweat of Hell's Chateau; he was the same.

He strode forth and glared. The boy glared back.

"You're fifteen," said Snape with a satisfied smirk.

The boy faltered. "How did you know?"

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

The boy shook his head like a dog drying itself. "What?" He had a frustrated look on his face. "I dun' understand a word you're saying."

"Where did you get that song you were singing inside the den?"

"The song? You mean, 'My Dreams and the Stars, O Love, I Lay in Your H—'"

"Yes! That—whatever the title is," Snape snarled. It amazed him how nauseatingly saccharine some of these so-called singers could be.

"It's a big song right now," said the boy, looking at him curiously. "D'you like it?"

"No," Snape almost shouted. "I—no, I don't."

There was an awkward silence after that. They turned to watch a gaggle of teenagers stagger past, obviously drunk, along the main street.One of them pointed down the dark alley, but the others pulled him away, and Snape listened to their voices fade like echoes of a pebble splashing in a well.

"So what are you doing here?" the boy asked.

"Waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

Snape curled his lips. The boy was displaying every blasted sign of that typical adolescent disrespect, but he reminded himself that this was not Hogwarts. "The completion of a business deal."

"Business deal? What kind of business deal?"

"It is none of your concern," Snape said coolly.

The boy crossed his arms. "I'm here for a business deal, too."

So he is a callboy, Snape thought. "Indeed."

"I'm waiting for a guy with a potion. If he doesn't show up soon I'm going back and calling it a no-show."

Snape started. "You—are you the agent of Monsieur Néant?"

The boy blinked, and Snape watched realization click in place. "Are you Paresun Vas?"

"Vesse," Snape corrected with a hiss. "Yes, I am."

"Oh," said the boy. He ran a hand through his hair. "Fuck..." Snape twitched. "Guess you have a potion for me then?"

"Yes, I do," Snape said dryly. He stepped forward and held the boy's gaze for a moment. A quick probe brought up an image of the red den, a white and green mansion, the roar of a close fire; Snape did not recognize the last two, but the sense he received was of restrained mistrust and curiosity. Typical boy, he thought. No traps there.

The boy clapped a hand over his eyes. "What'd you do?"

Snape frowned. "Nothing." He had not expected his Legilimency to be detected, but perhaps he had probed too deeply and a moment too long. "Here is the potion," he said, drawing out a vial from his robe.

"C'mon, what'd you do?"

"You presented your thoughts to me. I merely perused them."

The boy's brows drew together sharply. He reached out and snatched the vial from Snape's hand.

"My payment?"

"Getting it," the boy muttered darkly. He gribbed the rim of his trousers and squirmed as he undid the top.

Snape nearly choked. "Just what are you doing—"

The boy looked up in surprised, but then a rather knowing smile, the same look he had in his eyes as he sung before the crowd, crept over his face. "Just getting you your payment," he said lightly. He squirmed some more and pushed his hips forward.

"If you are having an epileptic seizure," said Snape in a frosty tone, "I will be more than happy to direct you to St. Mungo's."

The boy looked quizzically at Snape's face. "What's that? And I wouldn't take anything to go to that hell-hole again."

"St. Mungo's?" Snape echoed, surprised. And then—again? But that was probably to be expected, he thought. Who knew what kind of scrapes these hooligans got into, or what state they could end up in after selling their own bodies. A heaviness of thought and memory entered his mind. Wasn't that the story of his life? Selling his body to his fellow Slytherins for a mockery of comfort, and then to Voldemort for the memory of love and hate, and then to Dumbledore for services as a spy. Not that it mattered. All that they were marionetting was a corpse.

"Here," said the boy, holding out a crinkled slip of parchment. "A Gringotts bill."

Snape took it with the tips of his fingers and aimed his wand at it. "Scourgify."

"What'd you do to it?" the boy asked suspiciously.

"Cleaned it."

The disgruntled look came back to the boy's face. "So this is the potion."

"That is the potion."

The boy unscrewed the cap and sniffed it. Snape was about to warn him not to spill when the boy put the vial to his lips and tossed his head back.

Snape froze. "WHAT—"

The boy looked up with one raised eyebrow. "Just checking to see if it was poisoned."

"You fool! You idiot! You numb-skulled, dung-brained... Gryffindor!" The boy was now looking at him with a glazed expression, but, he realized with a sinking feeling, that was perhaps the effect of the potion. "I made the potion at a five-hundred concentrate, which means that you have now taken enough Tranquility Potion to knock unconscious the entire city of London!"

The boy was swaying slightly. "I was jus'... jus' seein' if it was poisoned..." He took one step forward, and collapsed. Snape lunged forward just in time to keep the boy's head from cracking against the ground.

"Idiot, idiot!" he muttered. He looked up and down the alley. It was dark and abandoned, save for the man, still unconscious, who had earlier tried to accost the boy. "Idiot," Snape hissed again. "Less brains than even Longbottom."

He could apparate to St. Mungo's, but he remembered the boy's reluctance to go there. He could believe it. The white, antisceptic interiors, and then the irritatingly cheerful child-welfare witches, who had the subtlety of a Gryffindor and stupidity of a Hufflepuff. He had hated it himself, and if he left the boy there -- damn it. He could not just drop the boy off like that. He would have to go back and check, and risk being identified and hailed or reviled, haunted by the possibility of meeting someone out of the past he was trying to forget.

The boy's head had fallen back, showing a neck as pale and delicate as the sculpture of a swan. His trousers, Snape noted with a touch of annoyance, were incompletely buttoned. The vial had fallen from his hand, but fortunately it was capped, and Snape had cast an Unbreakable Charm on it.

"You have forced me, boy, to take responsibility for the stupidity of teenagers once again," Snape muttered. He had an antidote in his cabinet, although he would have to spend an hour or two adjusting it to the Tranquility Potion. And he had been looking forward to a night of rotting his brain. There was no extra bed or bedroom at Spinner's End, although there was the counter on which he prepared his potions ingredients...

"I do not know who in this arrangement is more unlucky, you or me," said Snape. He slipped the Gringotts bill and Tranquility Potion into his robe, hoisted the boy into a sitting position, and Disapparated.

qp qp qp

Ginny hated admitting it to herself, but she was nervous. She hoisted her bags onto the moving belt thing and watched it disappear into a mysterious box. The Muggle policeman next to the square gray arch (why did Muggles make everything have right angles?) opened his mouth and said something; a second later, the Translation Spell kicked in.

"Come now here."

She obeyed and gingerly stepped through the arch, waiting for the lights to turn red and the piercing shriek to ring out, as they had when Cormac had gone through. The arch remained dull and quiet, much to her relief.

She collected her bags and dragged them to where Aaron was waiting.

"What's taking them so long?" she whispered, nodding in Cormac's direction.

"He left a few knuts in his pocket first," Aaron whispered back. "And then they found a galleon in his jacket. I think they're wondering why he's carrying so much gold around, if they cotton on that it is gold, which they probably won't, because all galleons have been enchanted to be half their weight."

Ginny nodded.

"And after this—?"

"Then we board the plane," Aaron said, and grinned as though excited by the prospect.

Ginny returned an uncertain smile at this. She switched her attention to the arch (security checkpoint, Aaron had said several times) where Su Li, one of the three magicists Hermione had sent, was collecting her bags. Behind her, the last of the magicists, Roberto Mitavelli, was waiting for the policeman to order him through. Their eyes met briefly, and Ginny forced a smile onto her face. Mitavelli's lips lifted coolly in response, and then he stepped through. The arch stayed silent.

"So glad I put the alethiometer in the suitcase at last moment," Su Li said to Aaron, relieved, as she glanced at Cormac.

Aaron chuckled. "I wouldn't fancy trying to explain that to security."

Su Li leaned towards Ginny. "Last time, to Argentina, Aaron put a… a set of magical rings in his bag." She spoke slowly, as though to pronounce each syllable as clearly as possible. Ginny remembered Hermione saying that Su Li had only started learning English three years ago; it was impressive, Ginny thought. "The checkpoint went 'ding! ding!,' so loud!"

Aaron smiled sheepishly. "It was worse because I put them in a box that I'd sealed with a locking charm, and I couldn't just take out my wand and lift it right in front of them." He gave Ginny an almost hesitant glance.

"So what'd you do, then?" she prompted.

"We waited for a whole hour!" Su Li put in. "Then Dr. Granger opened the box with her wand when everybody was looking somewhere else."

"Good for Hermione," said Ginny. Su Li giggled, but frowned and looked inquiringly at Aaron.

"She means Dr. Granger," said Aaron.

"Ah!" Su Li whispered, clapping a hand over her mouth. "I thought… You told me Hermony!"

Aaron flushed, and gave Ginny another sidelong glance, and muttered something unintelligible.

The magicists were really having a good time, Ginny thought. She wished, briefly, that she could share Aaron and Su Li's joy. In fact, she had been looking forward to this ever since Hermione had told her about it. She'd read up about Svalbard in between the endless crackle reports; apparently, it had been largely abandoned by wizards and witches because of a strange magical interference that began about twenty five years ago, which was the reason why they had to Floo to Oslo, then Tromsø, and finally take a Muggle airplane to Svalbard. She'd shared this discovery excitedly with Hermione, and they'd speculated if maybe the trolleriometer was related to it. Her mother had fussed and clucked over endlessly, which was a good sign, and had prepared a thick suit made from pieces of winter clothes belonging to Ron and George.

It had all gone merrily until last night, when Hermione contacted her by Flooat one in the morning. What Hermione had said had disturbed her, and she had wanted to contact Cormac first thing in the morning, but it had been a Saturday, and Cormac's automatic Floo-reply had chirped in a cheery voice that he would be gone all day, shopping.

"He looks like he finished," Su Li whispered, pointing at Cormac, who was walking towards them with a large bag in tow and a harried look.

"All ready?" he said, as though he had been waiting for them all along.

Aaron jumped to his feet. "Gate 18, which is…" He looked up at the sign. "That way."

Su Li and Cormac began hauling their bags in the direction Aaron was pointing; Ginny could hear Cormac muttering about how Muggles got anywhere without lightening charms. Aaron hesitated, but followed the other two.

Only Mitavelli was left. "After you," Ginny said, her voice professionally cordial.

The man returned the smile. "Thank you, Auror Weasley."

They waited in the almost empty seating area. Cormac fidgeted; Ginny sat near the window and kept half an eye on the giant silver machines, another half on the three magicists. Su Li and Aaron were deep in conversation over a bunch of scrolls; Mitavelli sat somewhat apart, looking around with nothing in his hands.

Ginny shifted closer to Cormac. "Had a good time shopping?"

"Huh?" Cormac frowned. "Shopping?"

"Wasn't that what you were doing all today?"

It took a moment before his frown dissipated. "Oh, no, I wasn't… or I was, kind of." He shifted uncomfortably. "Francine took me out to buy winter things, but there wasn't anywhere. And then she went back, and I dropped by at a bar for a few moments. Could be the last time in a while that I have some good English ale." He attempted a grin.

"You're in luck," said Ginny. "I heard that Norwegians take to alcohol like Wronski to the broom."

"Oh," said Cormac, brightening noticeably. "That's encouraging, though I don't think I've seen very much of it around yet. All the blokes here seem kind of small. I'd always pictured Norwegians as being kind of… big and blonde, with horned metal helmets."

"And longboats?"

"Longboats? Oh, you mean those things that they sail around in while slaughtering Muggle monks left and right? Yeah, that's part of it too." He grinned and held up his fist. "Vee vill slaughter! Vee vill kill!"

Ginny giggled. When he tried, Cormac make her laugh just as much as the twins had back when George was still alive, and before Voldemort had poured what seemed like all his energies into exterminating the Weasley family.

Half an hour later, they were on the plane, and Ginny was sorely regretting having rejected the calm drops that Aaron had brought. Neither she nor Cormac took any; they were Aurors; they were used to being serene in all sorts of panic-inducing situations. Mitavelli had rejected them too. Su Li had taken one, telling them that she only took it because she liked how it tasted, not because anything too scary would happen.

Nothing too scary! Ginny thought now, incredulously. The floor was rumbling, a roar had filled her skull, and the thing they were in was hurtling forward faster and faster. Cormac's face was completely white. Ginny looked back almost desperately to where Aaron and Su Li were sitting. Su Li was looking out the window, but Aaron caught her gaze and grinned. Ginny tried to return it; somehow, she felt a bit more assured.

The plane gave a final lurch, and Ginny heard Cormac gasp beside her. "Holy fuck," he hissed.

Almost fearing to, Ginny looked out the window. The ground was falling away fast, as though she were on a flying carpet or a broomstick, but then they were rising up, up, much higher than any broomstick could go. She stared, fascinated, as the entire airport came to view and disappeared into a crowd of similar buildings. Slowly, the details collapsed into themselves, and the broad sweep of the ocean came into view.

"Holy fuck is right," Ginny whispered excitedly. "Cormac, these Muggles are brilliant!" She looked at the Auror; he seemed ready to vomit.

"Aaron," said Ginny, turning in her seat, "a calm drop, please?"

Cormac shook himself. "I'm fine," he said loudly in as bland a voice as he could muster. "I think he could do with one, though," he said, nodded slightly at Mitavelli. The Italian looked like an animated corpse.

"No, I'm fine," he bit out, a bit more coldly than warranted, Ginny thought. "Thank you."

Aaron looked a bit crestfallen. He sealed the bag of calm drops and made ready to put it away, but Ginny reached out a hand and tapped his shoulder. "Give me one, will you?" she said.

His face lit up. Ginny suppressed a smile. Really, he was rather cute when he smiled like that.

The calm drop tasted like a mixture of orange and peach. Even the flavor itself was relaxing. The ocean beneath rolled away like an endless, glittering cloth. Distances covered by Floo always went by discounted. But here, on a Muggle plane, the proof was below them that every moment was bringing them closer and closer to Svalbard. In a few hours they would be there, and then—?

Her mind went back to the conversation she'd had with Hermione.

"It's about the trip," Hermione had said right after Ginny had descended the stairs to the fireplace in bemusement. "Is anyone around?"

Ginny was about to shake her head, but she froze when Hermione brought her hand to her face, as though to push back her hair, and made the sign with her fingers, crossing the middle and index fingers. It was one of the signals the Order had developed, and it meant the same thing that Hermione had just said. But the usage of the sign, which Ginny had not seen in nearly five years, brought a sudden chill to her heart

"No, Mum's asleep," Ginny had replied, and answered as well with her hands, bringing pinkies to tough thumbs of both hands.

"Good. Aaron and Su Li are both going, I've cleared it with the Minister and half the Ministry."

"Yes," Ginny had said. Hermione had managed to acquire for Ginny the files on the two magicists, and from those Ginny had found that both were heavily rooted in the Muggle world. Aaron had a Muggle mother and a Muggle-born father; Su Li was Muggle-born and had not about magic until she was well into her teens. Both had received some degree of Muggle education.

"I just learned who the third is going to be," Hermione had continued.

"Who?"

"Some visiting scholar from the University of Florence. He's called Roberto Mitavelli." Hermione had paused. "Remember I told you about how I'd planned to send Jameson with you?"

Ginny had nodded. Hermione had given her his personal files as well; Hogwarts-educated, three years behind Ginny, Ravenclaw, Muggle father and witch mother.

"It turned out that his father is sick because he was hexed last week. A bit suspicious, don't you think?" Hermione's nostrils had flared. "I would've been fine with just Su Li and Aaron going, but the Minister insisted that Roberto Mitavelli go as well. The reason? Because he just got a visit from Monsieur Néant, a Wizengamot member. Néant—'nonexistent,' in French."

"Sounds like another Malfoy," Ginny had said.

"Close, but wrong Slytherin. I compared Néant's political profile and connections with all the known Slytherin families. Néant has close ties with the Gringotts Board of Overseers and the Department of International Magical Cooperation—as dothe Malfoy and Black families—but Néant has particularly strong connections with the EthiopianMinistry of Magic and the South African diamond mining industry. Of all the pureblood Slytherin families I could find, only the Zabinis match that profile."

"So the Zabinis are behind this?" Ginny had said. She had thought back to Hogwarts, summoning up what she remembered of Blaise Zabini, who'd been in the year above her. Black, tall, with an almost effete way of sneering, always wore the best robes, but never truly involved with Voldemort.

"I also looked up this Mitavelli," Hermione had continued. "That was somewhat harder, I had to convince the Italian Ministry to look through its records, even though I wasn't part of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He's got a pretty clean record, except for one—he was involved in a cocaine ring back in ninety-six. Never arrested or tried, but the Italian Aurors had his name down on their list."

Ginny had felt a bunch of disparate threads suddenly coming together. "Crackle! This Mitavelli—cocaine—it must be related to the crackle ring, and Zabini could be the backer, or head, or whatever. The White Knight."

"Yes," Hermione had said, rubbing her eyebrows and temples with the heels of her palm. "And now they want this thing of power from the north."

Ginny had frowned. "Why would they need a thing of power? Besides the fact that, well…" They're evil and want to take over the world, Ginny had thought.

"It takes a lot of power to make crackle from cocaine."

Ginny had nodded immediately. That was one of the reasons why all the Aurors were focusing on the crackle ring. Making crackle required a simple combination of a severe laughing hex called Rictusempra Extremis and a standard Stabilization Charm. Although transforming the cocaine into crackle required a great investment of magical energy, neither spell was difficult. Even a first year could conceivably produce them with the proper training. Apparently, with the proper combination of threats and punishment, even children of eight or nine could do it.

Ginny remembered they'd broken into the crackle farm located at the hazy no-man's land between Knockturn Alley and Muggle London. It was a dilapidated shack, wedged in an alley like a clutch of spider eggs. Inside, they had found seven children, ages nine to fourteen, who had been forced, day and night, to cast the required spells to transform cocaine to crackle. All of them were suffering from magical exhaustion, with two on the verge of slipping into a coma. They were also all addicted to crackle.

"So they want to replace the children with whatever this thing is," Ginny had said. In a way, it had also seemed like a good idea.

"Ginny, whatever this thing is, it's theoretically the most powerful magical incident ever recorded," Hermione had said. She had looked grim and tired, reminding Ginny for a brief, panicky moment of Albus Dumbledore. "It's at least five hundred times stronger than Hogwarts. Even if you put Stonehenge, the pyramids, Potala Palace, Machu Picchu altogether, you'd barely get a tenth way there."

"Yeah," Ginny had said. Hermione had fallen silent. Five hundred times stronger than Hogwarts, Ginny had echoed in her mind. It was impossible to truly comprehend. What could it be, this thing? Some hole in the ground that opened to the bowels of the earth? A fluke?

And now, they were flying towards it, mile by mile over the wrinkled sea.

Cormac prodded her shoulder. He had looked through all the magazines in the flap on the back of the seat, and had already dismantled the motion sickness bag. "Knut for your thoughts?" he muttered.

She shook herself. "Nothing really. Just…" She looked down into her lap and, feeling almost reluctant, made the sign that all Aurors knew, the signal that meant there were people around who should not hear. "Wondering how long before we get there, that's all."

Cormac nodded. He turned his hand in the gesture of having received the message. Then he stretched and yawned as though they were in the Auror office break room on a normal weekday afternoon. "Silly Muggle chairs," he muttered. "There's no place to put your legs. Just think, we'll be the only magic folk on that island. Just us. Weird, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Ginny said grimly. "Just us."

A/N: Please, drop me a review to let me know what you think! Even a short one is welcome.