Chapter 26 – What Happened While We Were Away

I awoke to a message from Yggdrasil. I feared for what Odin had decided to do about Vili and how his approach had quickly gone bad. But no, Yggdrasil had chosen this time to relay the three messages that Harry had left for me while I was away. Having not yet heard them, I would have preferred to just hear the news from my husband over breakfast but feared that both Harry and Yggdrasil would be offended by that approach. Harry was still sleeping, so I told Yggdrasil to go ahead and relay the messages to me.

These are your husband's exact words. "We were able to capture and interrogate one of the spying friends from across the pond. Lots of good news on that front. He was alone and the capture was super smooth. He was on a specific assignment for the morning, so we had him back on the street, Obliviated and Confunded, before he was missed. His assignment was to talk to the Dursleys about me. We sent an auror on Polyjuice to do exactly that. He will write an appropriate report, then Stanley, he's the agent we captured, will translate it into his own style. Meanwhile, if the friends want to check on Stanley, the closed-circuit cameras the British government uses will trace his trip to and from the Dursleys. Stanley told us where Hemerocallis and his family were vacationing, and we brought them in for an interview and Confunding. No Obliviation was required, except for knowledge of our interview. Here's the best part: Hemerocallis doesn't think either the original Harry Potter stories or those he is writing are based on real magical people or factual events. He has never met and has no idea whom the person is who is sending him the little plot summaries. He thinks the person is a British, female, university student. He says that she writes poorly for a university girl and gives him the barest character and plot descriptions. He must add a lot. He adds a whole lot, which he makes up to keep the story interesting. He met Madam Bones on the FanFiction site when she asked for a beta to help her tell her tale in a way readers would want to read to the end. He cleaned up her first five chapters, to make them read more smoothly. Really no great new secrets in any of those chapters. She then suggested that she just send him an outline or brief plot summary and he write the chapters himself. All their contacts were PMs through the site. The site is across the pond, so the friends have all those messages. They know where they were sent from. All that could be done on this end was to erase security video from that area, so that Madam Bones couldn't be identified. Special Branch did that in a way that doesn't point to wanting to remove pictures of Madam Bones. Pretty good, huh. Also, the friends suspect Roger is a bit of a fraud who has brought them old case files from a closed investigation which found no magical people. Sort of pushed them over the edge when he demanded more money for the next set of files, saying the danger had greatly increased and their keeping him longer in America made it harder for him to avoid detection. I'd say how much I miss you, but you've only been gone six hours. I will tell you that I love you more than anything and worry that you'll take too many risks. Your report was chilling. We continue to protect Adrienne and her son. Good luck and be safe. As a reminder, you have Liquid Luck and were off it long enough that it should be safe to take some more."

Here is the next message. I didn't know what order to put them in. "It's strange to hear you report on a dangerous mission, which you aren't actually going to begin for months. The fact that you are away on a previous mission makes your message even stranger. Of course, we'll protect Adrienne. Of course, we will protect against another invasion. Thank you for the warning. I am pleased that you are taking my request that you keep me up-dated on these adventures so seriously. When you come back from your current Questing, I will do my very best to act normal and not reveal anything about this very strange mission you have undertaken. I am not sure that's the best approach. A warning might allow you to avoid problems, just like your warning has allowed me to increase Adrienne's protections. I accept that you know better than I what will make you safest and I will prevent you from learning of the contents of this message. So, I am to be the Minister in just a few months. That is surprising and unsettling. I hope I don't take over because your father has been killed. I do both love and miss you, but I miss you because you've been away on a Quest mission for weeks in my own time. I love you. Bye. And please, please, please try harder to be safe. I'm frightened for you."

This is the last message. I think your husband is confused. "You don't know where or when you are, and my head is spinning. Thanks for the update. The only new thing since my last message is that Ellie wants to talk to you as soon as your return to our world. She says its important. What haven't I told you in response to your other messages? Ron is also worried. We haven't found the leak. The Lester's have met the twins and Margaret; they got along better than I could hope. I think I'm doing ok as Minister. Ron, Wood and Ellie have helped a lot. Even McGonagall has been a help. She accepted with good grace Odin's injunction that Prudence wasn't the right tutor for Steven. Neville is tutoring him for now. If Adrienne weren't in hiding, I think she'd be ideal. Just a question, maybe a gentle suggestion for you to think about: with Frijjo dead, and more or less killed by us - although you certainly shouldn't spread that around, I'm worried about the safety of your brother and Callista on Vanaheimer. Please think about that. It's only an hour since my last message. I still love you. This really is rather mind bending.

I sensed that Harry found it awkward, as if he were over-stepping upon my territory, to bring up his concerns for Percy and Callista. I wasn't at all bothered. I also worried about them. Also, it was Harry's turf. Although Dad had appointed them as his emissaries, now that Harry was Minister, they were his emissaries and it was his duty to keep them safe. He felt about them as I felt about my Questers. That was a good thing and gave me an even warmer feeling about Harry.

I received a mental breakfast invitation from Hermione. She gave us an hour for Harry to wake up and get ready. She hadn't received the messages from Yggdrasil, so I asked it to send to her. "It's a strange series of messages. Moving back and forth in time is tough on the mind. Harry had good news about Roger and Hemerocallis. See you soon. I had hoped for an Odin message by now, but no cheer. I need something back from him before your committee meeting, or I'm not going to have good answers for some of the most obvious questions. I don't enjoy seeming that stupid. Will Dad be there?"

Don't know. Your husband does more of the inviting than I do. I need to go.

Hermione hadn't said anything, I simply assumed it would be just the four of us for breakfast. The addition of Cho and Viktor made sense, if the purpose of breakfast was to decide what we wanted the committee to decide prior to the meeting. I was surprised to find Andromeda and baby Teddy at the table.

Harry explained: "I invited Andromeda so you and she can reach an understanding, prior to the committee meeting. She wants to take Teddy to visit Tonks. She believes her daughter deserves to see her son. I told her that the two of you would know better about the safety and wisdom of that than Ron and me."

I had to switch into thinking mode, before my first nibble of breakfast. "It depends. Vili is now on Asgard. He tried to kidnap Adrienne and her child. If Odin has deposited his brother back in his cell, it shouldn't be a problem. Sigrun is the biggest danger, without Vili in the picture. She and Tonks have been at odds. I don't think Sigrun will bother us if we go in a group. I suspect that by now she has learned what happened to Vili and won't mess with us."

My answer pleased both Andromeda and Harry, who had Teddy in his lap. I wasn't thrilled that Harry had ambushed me but moved on to my breakfast with relatively good cheer. Honestly, I wasn't convinced of the wisdom of discussing what we needed to discuss in Andromeda's presence. She and Teddy had magical protection, plus an auror, but were far less secure than Adrienne had been, when she was nearly stolen by Vili. I don't think Andromeda could read my mind, but she turned to Harry and took back Teddy, telling us "that's the answer I wanted, now I must be going."

We spent breakfast and two more hours discussing the issues raised by Professor Sturluson. The lads were of united minds in thinking we needed to go back on Quest to answer many of those questions. We must extract as much information from Yggdrasil and the Vanir servers as we possibly could. In the end, we probably needed to make an in-force, non-Quest visit to the Village Vana. In the meantime, perhaps any entrance to seid-space from that village could be found from the seid-space side. The lads thought somebody must explore the purple ribbon which connected the worlds but wanted to join us for that exploration. I thought Harry would probably do as well as Odin in seid-space, but Ron and Viktor totally lacked a feminine side. I refrained from saying that aloud. I didn't want a fight. A trip to Venera was necessary, but not until we had learned much more about that world. I admitted that at present I knew nothing about that world apart from its name and membership in the group of Odin's worlds which had a covenant with the Light Guardian. The more I focused my thoughts upon Venera, the stranger it seemed that Yggdrasil, Odin, and the others had told me so little about that world or that I had never met a Veneran. I think Odin or Frijjo had mentioned that the Venerans were of the same basic Aesir stock as we and the Vanir. That was it.

We agreed to decide later about what to do about Venera and the Village Vana. Our focus for now must be exploring seid-space, getting a look at the 'transporter' under the shattered White Columns of Vanaheimer, finding out about Vili, and assessing what, if any, changes had been caused on modern-day Asgard by Frijjo's and our adventuring in seid-space. We also needed to bring Percy and Callista back from Vanaheimer. The Government House might quickly become a very unsafe place for emissaries from our world. Harry said it was fine to give my team a week off, but some of us needed to rescue Callista and Percy a lot faster than that. I reluctantly agreed. I had no idea what the Council would do, after they learned of Frijjo's death. I didn't think they liked or trusted her much, but Vanir honor might be requiring a response and my brother and Callista were close at hand.

"You do know that we have the Vanir ambassador at the Ministry. You even like Arce. We should consult with her right after this meeting. She is likely the best judge of how her people will react to Frijjo's death. I hedged that, because I don't regard the Keepers as super worldly."

Of course, we must speak to Arce. I had been slow. I excused myself, because I felt barely awake.

Ron, who had been a rather silent participant up until the very end surprised me, when he vehemently demanded "Harry's Minister, so he must stay home, same with Viktor, but the rest of us must sneak into Vanaheimer as soon as Hermione's committee meeting is over. I can tell that you fear Odin will allow Vili to 'escape'. Vili will run right to Vanaheimer to pick up where Frijjo left off, but he knows his way around that world and has far more contacts than Frijjo ever had. He is a threat. If we don't move quickly, while we have surprise on our side, then you won't be able to find out what you need to, and we might never be able to bring back Percy and Callista. Odin doesn't have to, and shouldn't, know what we are doing. We can travel directly through the pyramid-between-worlds to the Vanaheimer pyramid, meet with the servers and the Great Black Stone, promise our support and ask their help for a meeting with the Council at Government House. Percy and Callista will have to be at that meeting. You visit Percy quickly before the meeting, destroy what needs to be destroyed and we're ready to tie into as many Black Stones as we can to Apparate away from Government House at the first sign of trouble. If we can see the transporter, great. If Hermione and Ginny can truth-tell the members of Council, even better. If we can sell the Council and Servers on the idea of working together against the royal factions, also good. If we can leave the Vanir as friends, best of all. But however much we can't do, if things look dicey, we Apparate back to the Great Black Stone, Apparate or walk to the pyramid-between-worlds, which Harry's aurors and the rest of your Questers have well defended, and back home. It's the safest plan I can think of. This way the Servers and the Council learn from us that Frijjo is dead and Vili may soon be free. This way we have the best chance of retrieving our brother. Even if things go well, we insist that Percy and Callista must come home to sell the agreement to Harry and get instructions from our government."

We all agreed to the plan. Hermione looked very proud of Ron.

We decided that the six of us must visit Draco right away. We collected Luna and Apparated to the main entrance of Malfoy Mansion. We told Draco not to get upset with what we were about to say - the information was from Frijjo and we knew her to be a great liar. We told the tale. We told him that Hermione's professor friend could determine for certain whether the body we brought back with us was his mother. we needed a sample from him. Yes, of course he could see his mother's body. He really should wait until we knew that the body was Narcissa. It seemed improbable that she would have gone to the place where we found this body. Yes, we knew she had been missing for weeks. She had been missing in the past and turned up alive. The professor had shown Hermione how to wipe the inside of Draco's mouth with a stick to get a sample. Draco allowed Hermione to do this. Draco jumped on Hermione's statement that we expected to know whether the body was his mother by the end of the day. Luna agreed to stay with him. He was almost as upset as I expected him to be. There is no easy, painless way to deliver the news we had just given him.

If the Draco meeting was difficult for all involved, Hermione's Inter-Government Committee was a lot easier than I had feared. Dad was there. We were cordial if not warm. Everyone wanted to hear our story. There was surprise, even shock at the events in seid-space and at Ve's fortress. The return of Vili was universally recognised as the terrible news it was. The surprising thing is that everyone seemed happy to accept the plans which Ron and we had developed. It seemed that nobody else wanted responsibility for what would come next. Whatever happened would be on us, and most of the government leaders thought that was their best play. Tony gave a very uncharacteristic "I wasn't there. I can only rely upon the best advice of those who were. Captain Davies, Professor Sturluson - does this plan make sense to you?" They both agreed that it did. Boldgog promised to help us explore seid-space "before I attempt to join my family on our new world."

That was it. Dad told us "be careful and watch your backs politically." He gave all of us a hug. He hugged me as if he was unsure if he would see me again.

We went to the Ministry to meet with Arce. We told her all about the battles on her world and in seid-space. We mentioned that Vili might or might not be free soon. That was up to Odin. She was surprised but didn't seem upset or especially saddened by our news and that Frijjo was dead. "Her presence was a problem; she just assumed that it was her right to rule. that made all the factions half crazy. I think they were more violent because of that. "Vili might be more of a problem. He had secret friends among the royalty and among the opposition and Miomor's guards and police. It will be difficult to find all of his old allies."

Of course, Arce was willing to travel to Vanaheimer with us to try to broker a deal between the Keepers and the remaining members of Council. "Council isn't great, but they are a lot better than the royals. The big troubles will come from the royals and from the other Servers-without-a-circle in the Village Vana. They must be approached with great care. They have both pride and power. They are magical. I'm not aware of many others in the Village being magical, of course the railway circle may have changed that. I agree that it is best to bring Percy and Callista home for a while."

Harry looked pleased. He snogged me, wished us well, and said he needed to return to work. We went right from the meeting to the pyramid-between-worlds. It was just Ron, Hermione, Cho, Captain Davies, Aagog, Boldgog, Arce and me. Harry promised that "massive reinforcements" would be on call in the pyramid-between-worlds, if we needed help. Apart from that, we were on our own. I hadn't received a message from Odin by the time we entered Vanaheimer. I did not take that as a good sign. We had received the lab results from the professor: the body was not Narcissa. I was unsurprised that Frijjo had lied. Harry would convey the news to Draco. It was only sort-of good news. His mother was still missing and none of us had even a good idea on where to search for her. That was another problem for Harry and Wood. We were leaving too quickly to meet with Ellie. Hopefully, her important information could keep for a day.