Electrum was of a mind it was best to be going somewhere while talking, and it was best to be talking to someone while on the move. Consequently, Leanne was accompanying him on his trip to London by Firebolt, a necessary expense by the House of Hufflepuff. He supposed they could be going by train, but it would not leave for a few days.

"It still feels like a manner of a loss-" Leanne started; he noticed she was staying the slightest bit behind her.

"I was thinking as much in the beginning. It would have been inevitable that we would have taken control over the school eventually, but the school has only been getting more and more dangerous. It was better to rip the ward off and be done with it."

"Crouch announced that he was taking control of the school- I needn't say I agree it was better destroyed than left under a former Death Eater, but..."

"He couldn't have taken over the school as Minister. With Umbridge dead- the greatest victory for the blood purists to date- we have a only a few educators who can actually do the job. With the school being relocated to London, it'll be under a lot of Ministry wards. The Improper Use of Magic Office spearheaded a project to pick up spells by spoken incantations, but the reason it was actually funded was because we could use them to pick up human speech. We're interested to see if anyone casts a dark curse, to be sure, but it would give the Aurors a headache because there would be no way to filter them out that the enemy sympathizers couldn't replicate. The words that cause the warding to respond mostly have to do with sedition."

"That makes sense," Leanne started back, looking at the racing countryside below them. "The wards should keep out any kind of future usurpers, who may be motivated by something other than blood purism or dark magic."

It seemed doubtful, since they had no other enemies, but Electrum decided not to bring it up.

"Have you arranged the transfer of our protected students back to their homes?"

"I have to give Megan and Justin credit for that; they were the first to start arranging registered portkeys. Cedric was preoccupied with low-priority students, and he was on about getting some teachers together in a provisional school, on his own property more likely than not."

"That seems to fit his general character, tolerating the intolerant- but to get around saying what's been said, the idea of a provisional school might work."

In the distance he could see they were passing over Leicester by a red castle outside the city proper. He had always liked castles, fortifications, and the like, but their owners rarely impressed him.

"I doubt he's gone through the proper channels," the witch next to him said. "Wrapping up the year with a few more lessons might help them academically, but they're getting this idea that they can be educated outside of Ministry schools. They'll have to be made aware no credit will transfer from what they do there."

Electrum left that as it was as well. It seemed a waste of words to tell her it was a good idea.

Over the past year he had come to appreciate her help, but it could not be said he ever depended on her; the work she did work was the work of any decent individual with a sane understanding of politics. He could replace her, as much of a momentary annoyance as it would be.

"Do you intend to be an Auror?" he asked.

"There's a lot that can be accomplished in the Ministry proper," Leanne answered at length. Her momentary silence was no cause for immediate concern. "What do you have in mind?"

"I can't afford to spend the time going through training and grunt work. Some of our graduates in the last few years will have gone that route, and that's well and good, but we need to be moving in the present and I already have people capable of following my direction. It may seem like they're loyal to me specifically, and I suppose I've earned their trust, but it's more complicated than that. They wouldn't have been loyal to me if they wanted someone else, and it seems they know enough to evaluate leaders." Though it was unimportant, he was actually confused by the respect they had for him. Unless he was mistaken, he had not heard a single word of criticism.

"Well, we also have school when it starts again, so we can't find employment just yet. I'm of two minds about that, though. If we have school through the summer, and only allow parents to visit children, then it seems less likely the fence-sitters will just take their kids and disapparate. At the same time, we would be isolated and students couldn't collect information on their parents. We wouldn't be able to move around during the summer, while the children of some of our enemies will be... gaining real-world experience."

Electrum thought about it, gazing below for anyone who would fail to mistake them for birds.

"It's a negligible advantage, and I don't see Crouch getting behind it. I'm almost certain at the present that we'll be in school for the entire year, but that's once they get the teachers together." It was more of a task than it sounded, with foreign schools being an option for some of them. Worse, some of them were blood purists or sympathizers, the worst being Snape, obviously, but Slughorn was nearly as bad for associating with them, and McGonagall for defending them. Only a handful of them would be willing to join in the Ministry school, though there was some hope Charity Burbage could coax a few of the others off the fence.

Out of all the teachers, she had taught the most rewarding classes. She had only recently started as a replacement for Kirkland Hart, the Interim Muggle Studies teacher after Quirrell, and she was completely supportive of the Hufflepuffs in a meaningful way, defending them at staff meetings, as she told it. As opposed to the balanced approach her predecessor took by consulting multiple perspectives on muggles, her assigned resources stuck to the truth. The short of it was that social problems in their world were negligible, and they managed rather valiantly to alleviate the poverty resulting from an inability to perform magic. They were being abused by wizarding society by having their children subtracted from them, and died of conditions that could be easily remedied magically, making the Statute the worst offense of them all. In class Professor Burbage stated that while it was a crime to bar the clever, tolerant muggles from their resources, it was better in the short term not to burden them with magical conflict, and that they were more likely to solve their own problems than have them solved, though that could not ethically be expected of them.

It was a difficult subject for students who had grown up hearing something different, and in a matter of days the Slytherins stopped showing up entirely, but she had apparently argued to the school governors the previous year that they would not find anyone else to fill the position, with the previous two being killed by Voldemort, a scourge who deserved to be remembered and described as a scourge. They could not directly control the content she was teaching, of course, and neither Headmaster during her career attempted as much, though for entirely different reasons. According to a fifth-year at the time, Albus Dumbledore walked into one of her classes to prove the factual inaccuracy of around eight in ten claims she made with sourced texts, but did nothing more. It might have registered as an embarrassment to some, but Electrum instructed the Hufflepuffs that there was no need to doubt anything she said after that, since she would have corrected anything actually untrue. To him it was only another episode of the laughable tolerance practiced by the Headmaster.

Severus Snape disregarded Muggle Studies classes during his tenure, since his favorite students were not in attendance.

"I have some idea that Professor Burbage is favored to take charge of the curriculum," Leanne offered out of nowhere. Good. We shouldn't go too long without some conversation taking place.

"That would be best. With the least education experience, or near enough, it should be a challenge, but she'll take on the responsibility gladly. I can't say how many teachers will follow her, but it would be good to get Lupin." It was his understanding the wizard worked quietly behind the scenes, effectively doing the work no one else was willing to do, but he knew little else. The school will have no need of an official Headmaster, but with it likely enough McGonagall will not be returning, it would help to have someone who knows how the school has been run to ensure a functional transition.

Whatever his objections to the school and its leadership, Electrum had learned a great deal. Academically, he understood Hogwarts was considered a premier school internationally, and had improved substantially under the previous head, though he reminded himself there was significant shuffling of staff members, and much of the rating had to do with their efforts. He learned more than he could likely repay from Ebony, but not more than he could pay forward and he made sure of that. Muggle Studies was only truly interesting the last two years, and the instructor reserved more sensitive subjects for private discussions she was glad to give in Hufflepuff Basement.

Following a lecture on decreasing the average blood quantum by selective breeding, a younger student named Macmillan followed him to the boys' dormitory, where he was only going to store a completed star chart.

"Ever spared a thought for settling down? I don't know who else to ask about-"

"No," he remembered answering.

"Really? I had thought- well, it seemed to me Leanne was interested in you."

"She's just nice," Electrum explained. "You should assume a witch doesn't know you exist unless you're in the room. They have more important things to occupy their minds than you."

"How do you know you're not important to her?" the younger wizard asked, pressing the matter.

He left without answering.

Presently, it seemed the witch flying next to him had a question.

"Yes?"

"Did you ever get the list of students unaccounted for?"

"You handed it to me."

"Oh." Leanne paused, looking down below them. We don't expect any threats from below. "Right, well, it isn't too many... but a few of them have me worried. We know the defense team must have interacted with Justin in some way, because we found him where we heard the battle took place, but he says he lost track of Ernie after being stunned."

"Well, we know he didn't go with them. The only way they could have left was with a portkey, and he could never have gained their trust in that amount of time except by pretending to be a blood purist everyone else is trying to bring to justice."

There was some circumstance under which his companion would have laughed, since she usually did that, but it appeared this was not one of them.

"Is Ernie a pure blood?"

There was a pause. Electrum took the opportunity to scan the horizon once more.

"He's not the only one in our numbers. Long as he knows he's not to be marrying any sort of half-blood, better no one at all, really, he'll have paid his debt by the time he dies. He's helping us, so even if we had something on his family, it'd be a low priority."

"Do you think he's with his family now?"

"That's not a bad guess. It'd only be a matter of going back on his own rather than being told to go back, and if he had some way of getting there, it's all the same. He doesn't know enough to be a problem if we lost him to the Death Eaters, but it doesn't seem likely that would happen anyway. They were only seen once by any of our people, and there were no reports of them after that."

"What were they doing there? The defense team knew they were there-"

"It's only an idea, but they could have been there to kill Crouch. Weasley's no genius, but even he could have realized everyone else there would want evidence he wasn't lying, and Crouch would rather confront an imitator than allow a Death Eater to look in his head. If Weasley was willing to have his head examined, he either really saw something or he had something convincing enough to warrant an investigation. If he got Crouch inside the school, even better if he brought the Heads with him, it'd have been easy for the few Death Eaters waiting inside to be rid of him for good. Madame Maxine is hardly one of us, but I doubt she'd survive it."

"What's our plan if he dies?" Leanne asked.

"We don't have one. It sounds awful, on the face of it, not having a plan for an assassination or a successful rebellion, but it's the same reason we also don't have a plan for an asteroid crashing into the planet at the speed of light. It's just not going to happen." He exhaled. "The reason it's not going to happen is because no one is going to know where he is at any point in time, he'll have Aurors proactively seeking out the Death Eaters, and every other measure will be in place."

What he chose not to vocalize was that their enemies had families, the pride of the blood purists, and families could be taken prisoner on fictitious charges, though their arrests would provide the opportunity to search their properties, during which time the Hit Wizards could put together evidence for the charges. With most of Voldemort's men tied up trying to get their families out of the holding space they had been building in the Ministry, even if they were not personally caught or killed they would present less of a threat to Crouch. If they fled, it was only a matter of putting pressure on whatever foreign entity sheltered them, and they could dress it up as doing the other country a favor.

"So it's something that makes no sense to consider because of how unlikely it is..." the witch started back, staring off into the horizon. "What if he has a heart attack?"

"There should be a Healer somewhere near him at all times," Electrum answered after a moment. "There are people whose entire jobs will be to keep him alive, so it's doubtful from the start."

Nothing was said for a fair bit as he pondered how much it sounded like he was setting up Crouch to be killed, as if saying it was unlikely made it more likely. He knew, though, that he could state any number of unlikely circumstances and would not make them any more likely to come about. He had no reason at all to suspect New Zealand would win the next World Cup, and if anything saying that would make them less likely to win, or so went the conventional wisdom of cheering.

It was difficult to say he cared nothing for Quidditch; it was a fun game and he was good at it, and it pained him to leave the team to help lead the Hufflepuffs against the blood purists. It made him a better flier than he would have been, but the reason he missed playing was not that it could be counted as training; it was only the goodwill he could share with his teammates as they worked together to defeat the other team. He cared nothing for the fact that the Snitch was worth a hundred fifty points; it was fifteen times harder for the Seeker to catch it as it was for a Chaser to score.

He landed in Diagon Alley, having taken the aerial entrance a few times in the past.

"How did you hear about this?"

"I live in Cardiff; most of the time I take the floo. I can't take the broomstick through the fireplace, so it gave me an excuse to fly once or twice."

"Do all boys love flying?"

"Don't care," he grunted, his slight scowl not facing her as he dismounted and walked across the familiar blue-shingled roof to a loft window.

"Where is this place?"

"It's called The Black Badger. Short version is a handful of former Hufflepuffs since Ebony meet here to discuss our plans going forward." He looked around the upper room and saw no one. "Can't hear anything from the bakery below, so we're the first to arrive." If the owner-operator were in today, the mill would be turning at least.

"Who else is going to show?"

"The last two years we had Angelica Lex, works under Euphemia Edgecombe in the Floo Network Authority, as well as Gwenog Jones-"

"The Quidditch player? That was your idea?"

"She's well-connected, outspoken, and she'll fight. It's more than they ever asked of me."

It seemed appropriate to change the subject as Leanne's eyes drifted to the floor, but they were interrupted by the door opening downstairs.

"Anyone in here?" a voice called.

"We're upstairs," he replied, moving some chairs about. He could not quite recognize Ebony's voice anywhere he heard it; she was relatively good at changing its sound in subtle, seemingly natural ways.

"When you said Miss Jones is well-connected..."

"Her sister just made Auror. They don't talk much, but it's something."

The Inspector stared at them from across the bakery's upper room, not taking a seat. Electrum refrained from doing as much and could not hear Leanne going against the trend.

"Hi, I don't believe we've met-" Leanne started.

"We have, but you don't recognize me," Ebony responded. "I was making myself look younger at the time, and I had a few magical defenses in place. I carried an enchanted book that made it hard to pick me out of a crowd, working with the same principle as the muggle repelling charm. You wouldn't have recognized me unless you saw me without it, and I had it with me most of the time."

The wizard could feel her eyes on him. It's not any great honor to see her without the enchantment. Had she reached out to you instead-

"What are we here to discuss?" the witch asked, still staring at him.

"I need the progress report from Electrum. He's my only set of eyes in Hogwarts, so we'll go from there."

"Right," he responded, thinking back to the latest figures. She wants to know how many reliable people we'll have in the new school, and how many students will still be threats. He went over the current breakdown of loyalties at Hogwarts, breaking the students down to allies, blood purists, and their sympathizers. The Inspector stared, unblinking, as she absorbed the information, likely aware there were exceptions within Hufflepuff, who had become enemies. He mentioned that Hogwarts had been destroyed, falling without the kind of magical defenses the Aurors expected to have to crack.

"This is about what I expected," Ebony said. "If what I have about their Houses is accurate, roughly half of the sympathizers should be attending the Ministry school. They'll blend in with what we have, because they'll be in the minority at that point, and no one is going to fight for the legality of dark magic with Crouch's people watching." Regarding the point about the school falling, she offered a momentary, amused smile. "I would hope you did not believe I wasted my time there."

Leanne looked like she had a question.

"Yes?"

"Well, I don't know how to ask this, but, well, doesn't this sort of put you out of a job?"

There was a pause. The Department employee cocked her head slightly.

"I suppose it does. Without Hogwarts and its library full of dark magic and student population full of blood purists, I expect I'll have to be transferred, possibly to a different office." It was uncomfortable, the expression she was wearing. Ebony did not usually smile.

"I suppose you could go back to the Improper Use-" Leanne started.

"That position has been filled. I have something else in mind. It's actually something I've wanted to do for a long time." Electrum knew better than to ask anything; it would only further delay her. Eventually, she seemed to decide she had enough fun. "Defense against the Dark Arts."

The wizard exhaled slightly in amusement. They just can't keep you away from the young and impressionable, can they?


A/N: Thank you for reading Beyond Fear or Reason. As always, I'm happy to read reviews of it, even if it's been years after I published it. If it hasn't, don't worry, the next book in the series will start next Friday. All the characters you hate and hate to love will be back in Much Worse than Death.