Chapter 5
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quaff: As you said, Luss can't see it – not just because they aren't magical but also because the soul fragment is too small to register to Flames. Mammon knows their colleague isn't magical, so won't bother asking about the odd concentration of black magic they sensed in the scar. I've got plans for dealing with the scar, but there's a few other things that need to happen first.
Xanxus is currently… unavoidably detained… but he will be told about magic eventually.
Elfin69: You'll have to wait and see what happens with the Horcrux. It includes Mammon but that's all I'm saying. There were no tracers on the letters; the Weasley kids had Arthur take the letters back to the Burrow for Errol to deliver, so the letters went nowhere near the Headmaster's wand.
July and August had passed fairly quietly at the Varia. Work ground to a halt in the summer, when daytime temperatures made it too hot to think, let alone move. Many Varia took the opportunity to go on holiday (normally somewhere cooler) or visit family if they were still on speaking terms.
Ivy had received a second owl in late August, this time from Sirius. Her godfather's letter was more informative than the ones from the Weasleys had been. He was currently hiding in his childhood home in London, despite the bad memories it held, as the place was well protected and extremely difficult to find, let alone enter, without an invite. Dumbledore had also persuaded him to host a group of 'like-minded people' – read people who believed that Voldemort was back – assembled by the old man to keep an eye on the 'current situation' – meaning what Voldemort and the Death Eaters were getting up to while the Ministry was playing ostrich. He hadn't actually said as much, citing security concerns in case the letter was intercepted, but it was clear if you read between the lines.
The Weasleys were amongst those 'like-minded people' and were actually living in the house with Sirius, helping him clean it out and make it properly habitable again. He had included a few tales of their misadventures, including a rather murderous old ghoul in the attic, a grandfather clock that spat bolts at anyone who walked past, and Ronald being attacked by a vicious set of Sirius' father's dress robes. The Weasleys were unhappy she hadn't replied and were wondering if she had actually received their letters; Errol was so old that him being unable to complete the delivery was a real possibility. Remus sent his best wishes and hoped she was safe, as did the others. Sirius warned her that she was likely to get in trouble for disappearing when she got back but assured her that he supported her decision to leave the Dursleys and had gained Remus' support too.
The letter also contained some unpleasant news; Dudley and his friends had apparently had a run-in with a rogue Dementor and were now soulless shells. The news had come from Mrs Figg, who Ivy had not known was magical or connected to Dumbledore's group in any way. According to Sirius, the Ministry was doing absolutely nothing about the attack, which wasn't a surprise. While the Dementor's Kiss was not something she would wish on anyone, Ivy struggled feel anything for the boys who had made her life Hell. She would probably have felt more for complete strangers than she did for her childhood tormentors.
Ivy persuaded the owl that brought the letter to stay and deliver her reply, then carried it off to her room to write said reply. Her contract and omerta limited what she could tell Sirius, but hopefully what she could tell him would reassure him she was safe and doing well.
She told Sirius about her holiday in Paris, that she was now in Italy, and her new friends. She made sure to alter events to make it sound like she had met her friends while in Paris and they had decided to travel together, using a few facts that Hermione had told her about the bushy-haired girl's own trips to France to make the story more plausible; telling him what really happened was out of the question, even without omerta. She felt bad lying to Sirius about where she really was, but she didn't want certain people (Dumbledore) finding out where she was if they somehow got their hands on the letter and dragging her back to Britain. Sicily was an autonomous region of Italy, so it wasn't like she was telling a huge lie.
Figuring out how to tell him she wasn't going back to Britain was a bit harder. Yes, she wanted to avoid the giant target that was on her back now Voldemort was loose again, but the main reason was freedom; freedom she would lose the moment she was back under Dumbledore's thumb. Eventually she settled for just telling him the first reason, not sure how he'd react to the second. Sirius looked up to Dumbledore, so he might take that one badly. She did make a point of promising to look into continuing her education where she was. She was already catching up on her mundane education and she could see if the Mist Officer was amenable to accepting cake in exchange for helping her get access to her vaults again so she could continue with magic.
She also apologised for not replying to the Weasleys letters. Errol had passed away a couple of days after arriving at his destination, the long journey having been too much for the loyal owl. To be honest, it had been a miracle he had survived the journey in the first place. The owl had been buried in the grounds, as was Traditional when a living being expired on the premises (not that she told Sirius all of that). She sent her condolences and offered to send money to buy the Weasleys a new family owl if they wanted one.
Her reply written, she tied it to the owl's leg and went out the back to send it off on its long journey back to Britain. Ivy stood watching the owl fly away until it was nothing but a speck in the azure sky, then went back inside.
September was Mad Month. All the jobs that had built up over the summer came flooding in during the last few days of August. Information – the Squad responsible for the intelligence side of things – had set up their operations room two days in advance with snacks, blankets, and instant coffee in preparation for double shifts and less than five hours sleep a night just to sort through all the missions and get them out to the other Squads. Missions were usually assigned to the Squad best suited for the job; in September they were assigned in batches by geographical area, with multiple Squads working in the same area and swapping members as needed. Squads were often thrown together at the last minute from whoever had the right skills and was available at the time, especially from those missions in more isolated regions.
It wasn't just busy for the Squads. All training was put on hold during September – since the chances were whoever was training you was elsewhere – and the apprentices press-ganged into running errands for Housekeeping, ferrying paperwork from Information to the Officers, or heading out with a Squad if they were apprenticed directly to an assassin. Ivy had finally been taken off gopher duty and was now helping haul sleep-deprived assassins who had injured themselves back to Medical to patch them up so they could be sent out on yet another of the many missions that just kept pouring in. It was not uncommon to trip over assassins curled up in hallways and public rooms or sleeping in puppy-piles, having dropped off in the first comfortable place they found. It was a hectic time, punctuated by moments of madness and severe sleep deprivation all round. Ivy had been tempted more than once by the thought of a cup of coffee to keep her going despite her quite frankly unpleasant reaction to caffeinated drinks. She settled for leaning on her Flames rather than adding to Medical's currently insane workload. At least the lack of sleep meant she wasn't having disturbing dreams about long dark corridors or Voldemort's rebirth.
Another owl had arrived during the first week of September, one that Ivy was very glad to see. Hedwig had come bearing letters from Neville, Luna, and Hermione, along with a package from the older witch. Ivy was delighted to hear from her friends, though she was careful to handle the letters with gloves –considering where they had come from there was a good chance that a certain someone had put a tracking spell on them. She would have to ask Mammon to either check the package for spells or teach her how to do it before she opened it.
Both Neville and Luna's letters were filled with stories about what they had done during the holidays and information about the new DADA teacher – a Dolores Umbridge, who was apparently quite highly placed in the Ministry. That didn't bode well. Hermione's letter, while containing the same sort of information, started with a reprimand for running off without telling an authority figure – e.g. Dumbledore – and not writing to Hermione the way she had written to Neville and Luna to explain why.
To be honest, Ivy had completely forgotten she hadn't told the older witch about her leaving the Dursleys. Hermione had gone to America with her parents two days after they left Hogwarts – the brunette had been quite enthusiastic about it when she received the letter from her parents after the Yule Ball – for the better part of two months, and Ivy hadn't been able to remember when the other girl was due back. With everything else going on and the lack of an owl to take letters for her, it had slipped her mind.
Ivy had found time to scribble out a short joint reply to the three of them and sent it back with Hedwig – who was slightly disgruntled at having to leave her human again so soon after being reunited – apologising to Hermione for leaving her out of the loop, assuring them she was safe, and promising write properly once things weren't quite so busy. Unfortunately, it looked like that wouldn't be until early October at best.
Albus Dumbledore was not a happy wizard. His gaze swept over the packed Great Hall, coming to rest on the Gryffindor table where the reason for his displeasure should have been sat. They were already two weeks into the school year and Ivy Potter still hadn't emerged from wherever she was hiding.
Why did the girl have to pick now of all times to disappear into thin air? With Tom in possession of a body and the prophecy moving forward once again, he needed Ivy Potter where he could lay hands on her when the time was right for her to complete her destiny and enable Tom's defeat. However, instead of staying put at her aunt's house like he had told her to on numerous occasions, she had snuck away in the dead of night while Mundungus was snoring on the front lawn! Albus had been sorely tempted to hex the sneak thief, but such actions were unbecoming of a paragon of the Light and the man was useful, so he had settled for a stern reprimand with a Look of disappointment.
All of his attempts to locate Ivy were fruitless. The goblins had been as unhelpful as usual when he had gone to Gringotts to enquire if she had accessed her vaults lately and had flat out refused to set up a watch on her accounts unless he produced a Ministry warrant. He had not had the opportunity to place tracking charms on the letters the Weasley children had sent, as they had sent them while he was at Gringotts. Searches of the muggle areas of London had proved to be an exercise in frustration; with no starting point, the area was simply too large to be searched even with magic. Even Remus, with his enhanced sense of smell, couldn't find a trace of Ivy in the areas they had searched. Albus had eventually called off the search in mid-August and instead set people to watching Diagon Alley, convinced Ivy would make an appearance to do her school shopping. She had not.
Albus was convinced Sirius knew something. The man was too calm despite his goddaughter being missing. Unfortunately, one of the few good things Sirius' parents had done for him was teach him to Occlude, so Albus couldn't use the passive Legilimency he favoured to try and lift the information from the fugitive's mind. Active Legilimency required a wand, so was far too obvious, and he couldn't track the man's post because the truly paranoid Wards around Grimmauld Place included ones to detect when the Lord's correspondence had been tampered with by someone in the building. Tampering with it after it had left was possible but unwise – Dumbledore wasn't entirely sure how Sirius was delivering the letters, since as far as he was aware Sirius did not own or have regular access to an owl, and post owls were vicious little bastards when someone attempted to interfere with a delivery.
When Luna Lovegood had returned to Hogwarts with Ivy's owl, Dumbledore thought he had spotted his chance. He had been successful in attaching a wandless tracking charm to Miss Granger's package when she had met up with Miss Lovegood and Mr Longbottom after dinner. The charm would activate on skin contact with the next magical who touched it, attaching itself to them for a brief time and allowing him to pinpoint their location; it also had the added bonus of being difficult to detect by anyone checking the package. That had been more than a week ago, and the spell had still not been activated. Tracking charms dissipated after a week if not activated, so Albus knew that plan had failed. He would need to think up a new strategy.
Glancing down the table at the Ministry stooge Fudge had saddled him with to teach Defence this year his frown deepened. While he needed to get Ivy back under his control, Dolores Umbridge was a more immediate problem. The Ministry's increased interference in his domain was not something he was prepared to tolerate. He would need to deal with that as quickly as he could so that he could devote his attentions to the war effort and locating the wayward Chosen One.
At least Ivy being gone had one benefit. With her not present in Hogwarts, he didn't have to worry about Tom using the Horcrux Albus suspected was in Ivy's scar to try and get information on Albus' plans.
