Thank you for all these recent great reviews, mywildcharmsforyou; you are awesome! I do update pretty quickly – while I'm likely costing myself followers and readers, I like the challenge of producing a complex story and layered characters over a short period of time. Why not Scorpius joining Lily in the catacombs? To use a parallel, imagine how long it took for Luna and/or Ginny to become major players in HP – book 5, really. Sometimes people need time before they come together, which makes them all the stronger for it. As for Logan, he – along several other of the student OCs, like Natalie – has a major role to play ahead. Starting in Book 2, even.
I'm glad you find Sion sympathetic; one thing I want is to blur the lines between good and evil, where everyone has shades of both sides – even Lily being capable of flirting with the darkness. Always found Voldemort a bit boring, personally. Regarding what happened to the beast…hmm, what indeed?
Off we go with chapter 3 here, as bit by bit we piece together a picture of the new era of wizarding Britain beyond Hogwarts…
"Lily, time to get up. Come on, it's seven already. Your clothes are on your chair and Dad's making breakfast. Come on. Up."
Lily rubbed her eyes, yawned, and pulled her bed covers over her eyes. "'S too early, Mum."
"You have to be there in an hour, sweetie. Up," Ginny said, pulling the covers off of her daughter. "Your aunt's not going to let you wiggle out of it now that you agreed. Sorry. Clean up after your owl, too; it's making a huge mess again."
Reaching for her covers again as soon as her mum left the room, Lily heard a snapping and tearing sound coming from her windowsill. She bolted out of bed as a large, brown, hawkish great horned owl perched on the edge of the sill, tearing apart something furry and bloody, littering the bedroom floor with blood splatter and fuzz.
"Andy, no!" Lily cried. She leapt up, grabbed her wand, and poked the mangled half-carcass out the window. Her owl gaped at her, looking furious before turning around and crouching down, watching its dinner on the ground below.
Wiping her wand on her dirty clothes from the day before she'd left on her floor, Lily scowled at her owl: "Why can't you eat something nice, like mice? Why do you have to destroy everything?" She was convinced she'd gotten the world's least considerate owl – and the one with the worst name. Andronicus. It sounded like some ancient Greek or Roman wizard she'd read about in Bathilda Bagshot's sleepy writing, not the name for a bird that found it hilarious to deliver mail alongside half-devoured rabbit bits.
Getting ready was the first frustrations of her impromptu Ministry field trip. The blue blouse Ginny had laid out felt weird, her black pants felt too tight around her waist, and Lily had so much trouble getting her hair to cooperate that she threw up her hands and tied it back in her usual ponytail, abandoning all hope of trying for something nice. To make matters worse, she tromped back into her bedroom for her wand just to find Andy perched on the windowsill with the freshly-recovered rabbit carcass, looking immensely smug about his avian rebellion, his yellow eyes lit up as if to say go ahead, call the Aurors.
"Mum's gonna smack you," Lily grumbled.
Al was already awake and digging through a plateful of eggs in the cozy but cluttered kitchen by the time Lily made it down. He'd sprung up since his third year: At almost fifteen, Al was the same height as James now and still growing, his boyish, chubby cheeks gone and replaced with a lean, gaunt look that made him a near-carbon copy of Harry. He raised an eyebrow as Lily slumped into a chair and said, "Where's my sister?"
"What?" she said, digging her elbows onto the table and pawing through her own plate.
He sighed. "I was making a joke. You look mature, sis."
"That's a really awkward compliment," Lily groused. Too early.
She didn't get five minutes of peace before Hermione burst through the front door, looking less than thrilled about a new work week. "There you are, Lily. Are you ready? Harry, Harry, come on. It's time to go."
"We running late for something I missed?" Harry said from in front of a stove and beside a pile of pots and pans, magically held up in a single tower. "I've had nothing to do at work since the new guy took over."
"I want to talk to some of your Aurors. Did you read the paper this morning?"
"No, but –"
"Fine, come on. Oh, Lily – come on. We should get going."
Confused by her aunt's sudden hurry, Lily asked, "Are we flying or something?"
"No, that's too slow. Come hold my hand."
"What? Why are – "
Hermione reached out and grabbed her hand instead. Lily hardly had time to protest before she felt herself taken off her feet, the world warping and twisting around her, everything feeling like she was squeezed through some tiny pipe just too small around to fit her. Black and green ribbons swirled around and past her, her stomach lurching and turning until her feet hit hard stone. Lily keeled over and gripped her knees, staring down at obsidian tiles as she held back threats of vomiting.
"See? That was real quick," Hermione said as Harry popped out of thin air next to them.
He frowned at her and complained, "Hermione, really? You can at least tell me if Apparating is part of your showing my daughter around."
"Harry, please, you were fighting Dementors at that age. She's handling it fine; see, she hasn't even thrown up."
Lily thought that was assuming too much. Her stomach threatened to jump straight out of her mouth, and it was only by closing her eyes that she resisted the urge to puke all over the floor. When she looked up she gasped, losing all her concentration and nearly vomiting before bending low once more. A high ceiling of bronze and black stone rose high overhead. Torches lined the walls, the hall broad enough to fit a dozen and a half people abreast with room to spare. A great foyer opened up before them, lined with alcoves that glowed with green fire from time to time, spitting forth wizards and witches traveling in via the Floo Network. In the atrium, a great statue hung above a shallow pool of water. Stone effigies of a wizard, a witch, a centaur, and a merman all reached out to grab a star hanging above a vertical stone wand at the center of the pool, the five points of the star spurting water in long arcs to the edges of the pools. The statue people looked inspired, as if ready to act and jump out of their stone and into action, all four on equal footing. Around the circular base of the foundation read the inscription Unity Defeats Adversity.
It would have been more impressive had Lily not been trying to hold back her urge to barf.
Wizards and witches crowded the atrium and the long hall. They were short and tall, dressed like Brits and adorned with all manner of strange garb, colorful and plain, grousing in English and bantering in foreign languages Lily couldn't hope to understand. It was a madhouse, an organized chaos that eluded her.
"I have to talk to some people," Hermione said, hurrying into the crowd without taking a second to explain. "I'll be back in a bit. Harry, stick with her."
Harry raised his hands in confusion as she disappeared into the crowd. He sighed, turned to his daughter, and said, "You think this is bad. I had to go to school with her. Imagine a normal day when suddenly Hermione gets a brilliant idea, and then it's off to the library. I don't even know why I'm surprised anymore. Come on, we need to get you a guest badge."
Five minutes later Lily pawed a white, circular sticker on her chest that read Lily Potter – student tourist. The crowds had only grown since they'd first arrived, and she stuck as close to her father as possible to avoid getting swept up in the rush. She felt like a salmon in a river, caught between the flow of the water and the rush of other fish all swarming this way and that, almost mindless in the traffic.
"Listen," Harry said, pulling her out of the way of a trio of burly, silver-haired wizards arguing in Russian, "I think your aunt wanted to show you around, but to be honest, her office is pretty boring. Want to see where I work?"
"Yeah!" Lily said a little too loud, drawing suspicious looks from the Russian wizards. "I mean, if that's alright. I don't want to…it's busy."
He waved off her concern. "Nah, ever since we voted in the new minister, everything's been pretty slow with the transition. Nothing's really – "
"Harry! What's this, were we supposed to bring along strays today and I missed the memo?"
A tall, lanky, dark-skinned and –haired man jostled through the crowd, dodging a pair of chatty witches on the way. He had a wry smile on his face as weekend-related exhaustion wore at the edges of his eyes, but he looked wiry, strong, young, even as his face betrayed a number of years under his belt.
"It's kind of a habit," Harry said, clapping the man's hand. "Hermione wanted to bring my daughter around for career counseling, but then thirty seconds after we got here she ran off. Lily – this is one of my friends and an Auror like me, Dean Thomas."
Lily smiled politely and held out a hand, only to have Dean shake it with a jackhammer's subtlety. "Wait a minute," he said, realization creeping into his eyes. "You're Harry's kid who was in the middle of that whole dark wizard shootout at Hogwarts a little more than a year ago, right? Neville told me all about that."
"Er – something like that," Lily said very quietly.
"Blimey. You teach 'em up well, Harry. She's not teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts already?"
Harry shrugged, his expression torn between pride and trying to move the conversation away from the subject of what had happened at the end of Lily's first year. "About that, actually; I wanted to introduce her – "
Dean cut him off with a bout of laughter: "Can't believe the man's agreed to that. Before you run though, Harry – you get to that hogwash up near Durmstrang yet?"
"I'm sorry, what?" said Harry, his face suddenly serious. Lily also hushed to listen: She knew what Durmstrang was, considering Professor Yaro had told the first-year Ravenclaws that he'd attended the Norwegian school of magic during their very first Transfiguration lesson.
"That whole bit about the Inferi attacking that gathering of teachers from the school, and Dolohov…" Dean trailed off, eying Lily before adding, "Y'know, run by the office when you get the chance and check it out. I didn't really see the hard evidence myself, but hey. We hear weird stuff happen every day and only ten percent of it is true. Good to meet you, Lily."
As Dean weaved his way back into the crowd, Lily huddled closer to her father and asked, "What's happened, Dad?"
"I don't actually know," said Harry, screwing up his face. "Hermione picked a hell of a day to bring you in. Come on. Let's get down to my office."
Brightly colored paper airplanes zipped through the air around them, pink ones darting here, green darting there, a blue one zipping by Lily's ear. By the time she and Harry made it to a grated elevator and down to the second floor of the Ministry, she thought she'd seen every color of message – right before a color-changing, neon one that squawked buzzed by her, looping around her head, zig-zagging through the halls and dive-bombing a short, plump witch who dropped a handful of parchment in surprise before hurrying away.
"Department of Magical Games. They think they're hilarious," Harry said, guiding her away down the wide, polished black stone-walled halls. "Ask Teddy sometime why they do that, considering that he works there."
Considering what she knew of Teddy Lupin, Lily figured the paper airplanes were more for entertainment than anything else.
Bright light spilled out from wide windows down the second floor hall, with loud chatter spilling out onto the floor. Lily was hardly surprised when Harry steered her in that direction, less so when he opened the door to the office and let loose the sound of laughter and faint music. Large, open cubicles filled the Auror's Office, a much more colorful and cheery place than Lily had imagined. She'd thought of her father's workplace as a sterile, stuffy joint, filled with serious-faced wizards and witches jumping at the chance to escort somebody off to Azkaban. Naturally, they all wore ankle-length black trenchcoats in her dreams as well, spinning their wands in their hands while clutching glasses of firewhisky, shut away in smoky, dim rooms.
The reality was much different. Pictures and articles covered the cubicles and the walls – here a photo of one Auror's family, his beautiful wife and spitting daughter waving, there a shot of Puddlemore United (Lily grimaced in disgust) soaring to score a goal. Wizards and witches of all sorts filled the spacious office, some reclining at their desks and sorting through pieces of parchment, others standing about a plate of croissants and waving at a newspaper.
"Harry!" called a tall, brown-haired man with a dark expression, chucking a half-eaten croissant on his desk and walking up to them. "Bloody crazy business this morning, what with the Inferi stuff – oh, who's this? This your daughter?"
"Yeah," he said, waving his hand between Lily and the Auror. "Lily, this is Michael Corner. He's been here ever since I started. You know his daughter, right? Also in Ravenclaw, your year?"
Oh lord. Say something nice. Lily wanted nothing more than to vomit after realizing that this Michael Corner was the father of perhaps her least favorite person at Hogwarts, Evie Corner, both the smartest person in their year and the biggest know-it-all she'd ever known. She'd remembered Professor Longbottom mentioning back in her first year that Evie's father was an Auror. Guess he was telling the truth.
"Oh, right!" Lily said, faking enthusiasm the best she could. "Yeah, we're…uh, classmates. She's brilliant."
"Well, not so sure about brilliant. She can do better," said Michael Corner. "Anyway, we'll see, right?"
"About that," Harry cut in. "Lily, your old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is retiring, so Michael's agreed to take her spot. He'll be leaving here starting in September to be your teacher."
"Might be heading up your house too, for all I know," he added with a burst of pride.
Lily almost had to hold her jaw from dropping on the floor. Evie's father is teaching Defense? And might be head of Ravenclaw? Please no. The absolute last thing she wanted was a man who sounded as if he expected academic perfection to be on her case all the time. Worse, if he and her father were close…she could just imagine him dropping notes to her father from time to time. Lily screwed up again. I thought she would be good at this class? She's garbage. Really, your daughter's only good at Potions, Herbology, and Astronomy?
"You mind watching her for a second?" Harry said to Michael, glancing off towards the other Aurors. "Hermione wanted to bring her in to check out careers, but she ran off to…I don't know what…and I want to get the heads-up on this Inferi-Norway abduction business that Dean told me about."
Michael Corner nodded in exaggerated fashion. "Right, right, it's all good. Do your thing, boss."
Lily wanted to tag along with Harry. Michael Corner – Professor Corner? – was odd, a pompous sort who puffed out his chest and pushed his long brown hair out of his face as if to show the world his visage. "So, you thinking about trying out to be an Auror one day, Lily?" he said. "Careers, long way off for a third-year, but never too early, really."
She waved a hand in the air awkwardly, putting on a plastic smile and saying, "I, uh…I'm kind of exploring my options. What's this?"
Lily pointed to a pyramid of posters on the near wall. Each was a black-and-white photo or sketch, the photos showing wizards and witches staring out and grimacing, many crazed and snarling, others unnaturally calm. At the very top of the pyramid was one burly-looking, unshaven wizard with a twisted face and dark hair, glaring out at her from the page. Wizarding Wanted: Number one, read a caption beneath his photo, Antonin Dolohov: On the run since the Battle of Hogwarts. Wanted for six confirmed murders and in questioning for more than two dozen unconfirmed reports.
He was a ghastly sort, no doubt, but Lily was more concerned with the number-two poster on the pyramid. It wasn't a photo but a sketch, unmoving, rough, a conjecture at best. The man sketched on the parchment was thin, gaunt, his cheeks sunken and shallow, with beady black eyes and silver hair. Unknown assailant, read the sketch caption, Hogwarts engagement. Last seen May 2020, Hogwarts School.
"Unknown assailant." He wasn't unknown to Lily. She knew exactly who Sion Redgrave was. Part of her wanted to blurt that out, to point out that he wasn't an unknown at all but a dark wizard in pursuit of…of what, really? Lily's mind twisted, trying to figure out just what she knew. He knew Professor Vos, he knew…things…and that was it. How would that sound to her father and this Michael Corner and the other Aurors?
Better to keep her mouth shut.
"This?" Michael said, waving his hand at the pyramid. "This is our most wanted list. All the dark wizards and witches we want to capture for all sorts of dastardly deeds. At number two there, that's the dark wizard who struck at Hogwarts a year ago – all of us want to know about him. Bet you do too, considering that we heard you were in the middle of the shootout. Number one's a lot more interesting, though. Dolohov there, he was a Death Eater, one of Voldemort's cronies. We got a report this morning that spotted him in Norway recently with a hundred Inferi, attacking and abducting a group of Norwegian teachers at the Durmstrang Institute, a – " Michael stopped all of the sudden, glancing down at Lily, as if he had released classified information unknowingly. Putting his lips together, pausing for a moment to think, and shrugging as if rationalizing that she was Harry Potter's daughter and had heard everything anyway, he added, "It's rough business. We want people to be on the lookout, but we're all busy. You know, new transition to a new Minister and all."
Lily wanted to know more, but before she could ask about this Dolohov fellow, the office door opened and in walked an almost regal man in a gilded cloak of silver and gold. He was short but stocky, only a few inches taller than Lily but built like a prodigal Beater. He had a short black goatee that matched his close-cropped hair and brown eyes, and his fine, shiny skin made him look as if he hadn't seen a day out in the elements his whole life.
He looked about, twirling his long, whippy wand in his hand as Michael Corner stopped talking immediately. "Harry, Harry Potter, been meaning to talk to you, where are you?"
Harry weaved his way through a number of Aurors around the dwindling plate of croissants. "Oh, Minister!" he exclaimed, looking surprised at the guest. "Is it about – "
The new arrival – the Minister, apparently – wasn't looking at Harry any more, however. He glanced Lily's way, his expression softening as he cried, "Ah! Is this your daughter, Harry? Brought her to show off?"
"Uh, no, you see, Hermione – "
"Oh, don't rationalize it, the girl's got potential if the reports from a year ago at Hogwarts were anything!" the Minister said, ignoring Harry completely and reaching out to grab Lily's hand. Lily, still in shock of the unexpected arrival, let her hand dangle like a dead fish as he shook it. "My name's Jeffrey Drake, Lily Potter. Minister of Magic, newly elected, formerly from Gringotts Bank. Harry, our chat can wait. Do you mind if I borrow your daughter for a bit?"
Harry's mouth hung ajar, his eyes flicking between the Minister and his daughter. After a long pause, he spread his hands and said, "Um, brilliant, sure, Minister. Go for it. Lily, go on. Be polite."
Lily glanced back at him, searching for what to do next, but he waved her on. Not that she had much choice: The Minister of Magic nearly dragged her out of the Auror's Office by her hand, guiding her back towards the lift. He was a much more powerful man than he looked, and as they walked down the hall, workers spread aside for them, glancing at Lily with questioning expressions.
"You know I was only elected this summer?" the Minister said as they boarded the lift, climbing back towards the first floor. "A lot of this job has been learning who to trust. It's been a busy transition, and your father's been a big help so far. Come, we'll talk more in my office."
The Minister's office wasn't anything to scoff at. Situated at the end of a secondary atrium on the first floor and looking out over a waterfall cascading into a rock-lined pool, the office was encased in glass on three sides. Images of talking heads spoke from projectors around a solid, shiny black desk, reporting the news from all corners of wizarding Europe. A giant Ministry "M" banner hung from behind the desk, with three padded chairs scattered about in front of it. A fireplace sat in one corner of the office, attached to no chimney but freestanding, burning for effect rather than heat. It was a spacious office, with room for at least two dozen people standing, not including the Minister at his desk. Upon the lone wall not encased in glass and overlooking the halls was an illusion of London, showing the Thames and a bright, sunny day, the clear morning sky watching over the busy city.
A head stuck out of the fireplace suddenly, the face serious, long, gaunt, and old. Lily jumped as they entered. "Can it wait, Kingsley?" asked the Minister as he shut the door behind them. "Company."
"I only needed to update you on the news today," said Kingsley Shacklebolt, the man Lily knew as the former Minister of Magic and a friend of her father's. "It's not just Durmstrang instructors and Norwegian officials among the missing. A former member of the Order of the Phoenix, Mundungus Fletcher, was seen being taken by the Inferi in the attack over the weekend."
"Wasn't that man a thief and a smuggler? That's not relevant at all. Little loss."
"I only thought you should know," said Kingsley. Just as soon as they had arrived he was gone, the fireplace returned to normal burning logs.
The Minister sat down in his chair, ushering Lily into a seat on the other side of his desk. "It's a nightmarish day. Problems in Norway, but hardly our responsibility. We have problems here at home, and that's our first duty. I hear you saw them during your first year at Hogwarts School?"
So that's what you wanted me for. Lily nodded, folding her hands in her lap and looking down. "A little."
"Mm. This isn't an interrogation, Lily, I don't need to know any gruesome details," said the Minister. He got up and pointed to a kettle behind his desk. "Tea? It's probably early in the morning for someone on summer vacation."
"Oh, please," said Lily, trying on a smile. Her stomach was still settling from Hermione's impromptu side-along Apparition. Tea would go a long way to settling that.
The Minister turned his back, summoning two tea cups with his wand and pouring from the kettle. "I'm always a fan of sugar in my tea," he said, although Lily couldn't see him adding it with his back covering up the cups. "When I was at Gringotts, some called me a heretic for it. It eases away stress in my opinion."
He turned and set down a white, floral-patterned teacup before Lily. She eagerly took a sip: Even with the sugar it was strong by tea's standards. Lily had never felt much from tea before, but this time it made her head a tad woozy even as her thoughts grew a bit clearer. Interesting tea.
"You know," the Minister went on, "the Ministry offers a number of junior internships, even a junior assistant position for sterling students fresh out of schooling. Your father's, well, legendary; no doubt he's passed some of his talent on to you. I know you have brothers, and I've thought, well, maybe…"
"James is more interested in Quidditch," Lily said. Something compelled her to talk all about her brothers as she drank her tea. Well, why not? "Al…I think he wants a quiet kind of life."
The Minister shrugged. "Well, no matter. More talking about you, really, as you're the one here. I'm still learning the ins and outs of everything there is to governing a body like this, but it…well, it does make me wonder who I can trust. Do you talk regularly with your aunt, Hermione Weasley?"
Lily took another sip of her tea. Of course she talked with Hermione a lot. She could tell him that. "Yeah. She took me here today. She wanted to show me around for career stuff."
"Oh? Did she…suggest anywhere in particular for you after Hogwarts? Maybe joining the Ministry yourself?"
"Not that," Lily said, shaking her head. Heck, Hermione had griped about the Ministry. It was only right she tell the Minister all about what Hermione had said. She needed to be honest, really. That was what mattered. That was the only thing that mattered. "Well, she suggested it might not be so good an option no. She doesn't think having a Gringotts banker as Minister for Magic is a good idea. When she says that makes a Minister smarmy and greasy – "
The Minister cut her off with a loud harrumph. "Hm. That's a bit disappointing to hear, Lily. Is the tea good?"
"It's strong, sir. It's different."
"Hm, well, a bit of a personal blend, really. I've found it brings out the best in people. Would you say your aunt is, well, at odds with things around the Ministry?"
Of course she was at odds, Lily thought. She'd complained enough about it, hadn't she? And why shouldn't she tell the Minister this when he asked her? Honesty counted. That felt right. Her head felt a bit woozy, on the other hand, a tad dizzy and detached. "She doesn't sound like she likes it."
The Minister pondered this for a minute before going on: "Well, your aunt's always been her own person. How about your father? I want to get to know him better, but I'd love to hear from you. What's he say about his job and the Ministry as a whole? Doubtless he's got strong feelings."
Well, no. Harry was concerned about dark magic, not the Ministry. Of course, Lily needed to admit this, since the Minister had asked. She had to answer when asked. She took another sip of tea – addictive stuff, whatever this was – and said, "I don't think Dad really cares."
"That's good to hear, if nothing else," the Minister said. "Wanted to ask you about someone else, just as an off tangent…do you know your Headmaster well? John Maribor?"
"At Hogwarts?" Lily said. Of course she knew him. More through Professor Vos than directly, but hey, the Minister had asked. "Roughly."
"Any thoughts about him? You hear anything about him? I get the idea he's rather stern, no?"
Lily nodded, her head wobbly. "My Astronomy professor said he'd be Minister one day," she said. That was right. Vos had said that, and since the Minister had asked, she needed to admit it. That was what honesty was all about. "I don't think he likes me very much."
"Hm. A bit concerning, but thank you Lily," said the Minister. He pulled out his wand, gave her a look, and said, "Can you look this way?"
She did, he waved his wand at her, and suddenly she felt something strange, like an invisible icy bucket had dumped its contents all over her. Her mind straightened out and wrangled with a headache, and suddenly Lily had a hard time remembering what she'd been talking about with the Minister for Magic. They'd been talking about career things, right? Positions in the Ministry? Something like that? Her memory felt fuzzy, like a gray veil hung over the last things she'd said.
"Anyway," the Minister said, as if nothing strange had happened, "Come next spring, I might offer you a place here. We could always use good, thinking interns, ones committed to the British ideal. I do have a busy slate, though – do you mind walking down on your own back to the second floor, Lily? You know where the lift is?"
She nodded, for she did – but it was the part in between coming up the lift and now that felt strange. Why didn't she remember what they'd come to talk about all of the sudden?
Lily filed out into the hall, wandering back towards the lift through a much less crowded hallway. She felt woozy, wobbly, her mind bloated and fat. It was all because of aunt Hermione. That was it. That was why she felt bad. She was happy the lift was empty except for a half-dozen multicolored paper airplanes buzzing around her head, all of them like the moths that buzzed around her brain, flighty, dizzy things.
Two wizards were arguing in the hall when she stepped out of the lift on the second floor. One was unfamiliar, portly, with a mop of blond hair dangling about his boyish face. The other, though…
"I don't care what you want," Headmaster Maribor snarled in the other man's face. "I don't care if you think you can cut costs at my school. I am the Headmaster. It is mine. You want me to lower my castle's defenses to let you in and out, just so you can make an accounting of the place? That's preposterous. I won't risk it."
"John, come on," the other man pleaded. "We've all learned from that black widow Dolores Umbridge. We're not boogey men. Hogwarts is Hogwarts, that's that. We won't impose any Inquisitor or some dictatorship. We won't make any drastic changes. Besides, we're not asking for you to drop Hogwarts's defenses permanently, just when we're coming and going. The Minister just thinks the school's using a lot more money than it needs to, and when we're paying back debt to Gringotts, well…you see where we might be able to cut costs. We can help you. Do you really need to have students playing Quidditch, for example?"
Maribor looked ready to clock his opposition in the face when he spotted Lily. He froze, stuck halfway between the two of them before he turned fully towards her and said, "What are you doing here?"
She opened her mouth to say something – better tell him the truth after all; that's what you do – when a little voice in her mind stopped her. Why are we telling him the truth, again? "I'm, um…I'm just passing through," stammered Lily.
"Lily, you are not supposed to be here," Maribor growled.
The other man perked up at the name, however, and said, "Lily? Wait a minute, you're Lily Potter? Daughter of Harry? Blimey, I suppose your father brought you in for a look around? Considering your future? I should introduce you – this here's – "
"I think she bloody well knows who I am, thank you," Maribor rounded on the blonde wizard with a snarl. "Lily, this is Declan Stennis, head of the Department of Magical Education, who so delightfully wanted a meeting with me on a Monday morning. Also, who I had just finished with, and who was about to let me go back to my school."
"Well, hardly," the other man, Declan, said, puffing out his chest. "I mean, I wanted to ask a few things – "
"if you're already invading my castle, they can wait," Maribor growled.
The wizard, Declan, stood up to Maribor for a moment before walking away, glancing at Lily for a second before taking the lift down. The Hogwarts Headmaster stormed up to Lily, his wand out, his face full of stone and steel.
"Did your father bring you here today?" Maribor asked her, his voice grating and angry.
Lily felt scared all of the sudden, wanting to shrink away back into the lift. "Yes – I mean, he and my aunt – I didn't do anything!"
But it wasn't her words that had set the Headmaster off. He set aside whatever he was here for, instead squinting at Lily with a concerned expression. "Lumos," he said, lighting his wand and holding it up in front of Lily's face. "Don't move."
She wasn't about to tell him no. Lily stood as still as a statue as Maribor waved his wand in front of her face, peeking closer as he did. He reached out and pushed up her left eyelid as Lily sucked in her breath. She wanted to look away from his bright want, but the Headmaster wanted to see something, something, in her eyes.
"Shoddy hiding," he muttered after a moment. "Where'd you just come from?"
"Nowhere!"
"I hate bureaucrats as much as anyone. I'm on your side. I used to work here. Where are you coming from?"
Lily's lip quivered. "The Minister. We were just talking about career stuff."
Maribor snorted, drawing away from her: "Bullshit. That small little man is Gringotts' pawn. Resorting to something like this after thieving the role that is rightfully mine; disgusting. Those goblins are up to something. Is your father in?"
The Headmaster half-dragged Lily back to the Auror Office. His face had turned to stone, angry and solid. When he shoved open the door to the cheery office, Michael Corner stood up and said, "Headmaster Maribor? From Hogwarts? None of us are – "
"Where's your boss?" Maribor snarled, shoving Lily in front of him. As Harry stood up across the office, Maribor pulled Lily along with him over to him.
"Lily!" Harry said, looking concerned. "What happened?"
"I can respect you Harry, even if the rest of these shits make me want to vomit," Maribor growled. "Try watching your children closer. If you want them to learn, don't bring them around these parts. Try Hogwarts. This place is dead. At least we don't use Veritaserum on children in my castle. Not as long as I'm there, at least. I'm not that suspicious."
