Electrum sighed. He had been asked to go over some memories in the Department, finally trusted with seeing them after having proven himself beyond a shadow of a doubt. He had no problem with the way sensitive information was handled, but it had not been exactly pleasant proving himself.

Three days ago, he had been asked to kill a man named Macnair, who was accused of being a Death Eater. He remembered asking nothing more than 'where?' and being led to the elevator in the Ministry. Since the destruction of Hogwarts, he had been trying to finish up with his studies, but he had been thankful that his betters decided there were more important tasks for him than sitting in a classroom in the school. He had been going through Auror training as a proof of concept that anyone committed enough could pass, with the hope that other students from the legitimate House of Hufflepuff could pass.

In the elevator, he learned a bit about the Death Eater's employment history, which made sense, although it unsettled him that the accusation came from a witch who was now a wanted criminal. Despite the probability that she had been planted by Voldemort, he really had not expected her to be capable of killing as many people as she had. He remembered mentally shrugging. The Department most likely had some evidence corroborating the accusation, or they would not be calling him for the execution, and it was really a waste of time thinking about it.

Electrum killed the prisoner with a fire charm, not wanting to use dark magic as it was associated with blood purism. He explained his reasoning, but it appeared the officials would have preferred a killing curse, but it was none too much trouble, as at least they saved the time incinerating the corpse. Familiar with how executions generally worked and knowledgeable of the wizard's many offenses, it was easy enough to make the decision in his mind, but from time to time he wished the dark wizard could have had a wand on him.

At any rate, he had been perusing the memories of the interviews with Ebony, noting that before her untimely death at the claws of a werewolf, Supreme Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge had done the same. What did she gain from perusing this? Why could she not find her and ask her in person? Since seeing her at Hogwarts, he expected she had resumed her normal duties as a Department employee, and since seeing her after the castle's destruction, which was inconvenient but ultimately worthwhile, he could only imagine that she had been in the continent. Seeking out Voldemort was basically how they reinterpreted her job after there was no school left to inspect, and since suspected Death Eaters had been making speeches and attending balls in various places across Europe, it seemed like the place to go to find information. Officially, they needed approval from the conference at Ys, but that was almost certain to go through, and once it did no one would particularly mind that they were already conducting investigations outside their countries.

As he understood the proposal at the conference, the goal was to make 'dark magic in Europe' a jurisdiction, and 'law enforcement in Europe' its owners. For all he knew Ebony might have been at the conference herself; he could be certain some of the people in her inner circle had attended. Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies was something of a celebrity guest.

Electrum returned to his work.

Some of the memories he had perused revealed a bit of the history of the Department, like how in the mid eighties after Crouch was moved to a sinecure, some of his people upstairs started to make the Unspeakables and Inspectors more powerful relative to other Ministry employees by cutting down on reporting requirements. The Department of Mysteries had initially been interested in Inspections of Hogwarts for the sake of magical research, which was most of what they had been doing before the war started, and some of the old timers were still into it, but the faction upstairs was making their lives easier and there was public support for continuing the wartime measures while Dumbledore's people insisted on their tired privacy concerns.

"I was always unsure why the old warlock gave up the war so quickly," he muttered. "He seemed to understand that there were things that needed to be done until the Potters died and everyone acted like it was over."

Concluding that the former Headmaster was just soft on dark magic and blood purists out of some kind of personal sentimentality, which was also his only explanation for keeping Grindelwald alive, he set about watching the last memory with Ebony in it, which the records indicated Umbridge had seen herself. When the preliminary questions were out of the way, she explained what she discovered on the subject of death.

"Around fifty years ago, as you know, there was the concern that students could possibly research Horcruxes, which was one of the concerns Professor Slughorn presented to the Department. Perhaps it was not the galleon that broke the dragon's back, but it was the most interesting to us. We promised to obliviate a few of the students who had been asking him questions if he would add his name to the proposal of the Inspections, and ever since then- either out of some insane commitment to magical research or a more anti-purist approach to the elimination of dark magic- we have looked for the books his students must have used. They had to have heard about Horcruxes somewhere."

"We always thought it would make a fine addition to the Death Room, yes," the interviewer said. "We just never found anything. Ended up assuming whatever brat had a question about it must've overheard something in Knockturn Alley."

"I doubt any 'brat' could have found them unless exceedingly determined," Ebony agreed. "Within the first few weeks of the school year, I caught Professor Quirrell in the Restricted Section. I thought nothing of it, since he could have been doing research on how to do his new job, but I heard some sort of mechanical clunking and decided to explore the place myself. Adopting the semblance of a Prefect allowed me to bypass the requirement of getting permission to see the books back there."

"You'd already had the disguise, though."

"Yes, but before that I assumed my predecessors had gone through the library already. In any case, I was nearly caught by a younger student, but I returned eventually, discovering that there was a hidden section, predating the common use of the undetectable expansion charm. It was a simple trick deduced by reading the spines of books by the same author, sorted out of alphabetical order. A panel moved in the floor, revealing a small array of books which I would estimate had not been touched in a hundred years at least."

"You decided they were no longer a concern, because no one had read them."

"Precisely," Ebony responded. "If the Department found them to be of interest, I would have to have some way of smuggling them out. Otherwise, they could wait until the Ministry controlled the school."

I see. The plan was to force their hands; that if they wanted to have access to the books, they would have to go along with the plan to nationalize Hogwarts.

It seemed that she would not recite anything she might have read in those books, meaning the next time anyone would have read them was when the Ministry employees combed through the wreckage. Electrum could not imagine what the books said, since he had no idea what a Horcrux was, but since it was supposed to be an addition to the Death Room, he knew where too look if he ever found himself interested. That said, he had better things to do.

Only a few days ago, he had been in a meeting with Crouch himself. The two of them had not met before, but apparently there was an important matter of discussion and he wanted to speak with the leader of the students. Privately, he disagreed with the Minister on one or two minor things, but did not let that bother him.

"Good afternoon," the older wizard had said when he came in. He had not realized it would just be the two of them. "I heard you took over for Ebony. Electrum, was it?"

"None could quite replace her, sir. What was it you wanted to discuss?"

"You were there when everything went mad at the Triwizard Tournament, I presume?"

"I was across the stadium from you, but I did hear things by messenger."

"The substance of it is that the students who are now persons of interest were accusing me of being in two places at once. Did that seem like an odd claim to make?"

"Yes, I suppose. If you had an accomplice take your place as presiding official to provide an alibi, you might as well have had an accomplice do the job for you."

"I suspect they did not think of that. I asked the employees surveying the ruin of Hogwarts if they could shed any light on the matter. There was something suspicious about the nature of the accusation. Anyway, they found that there really had been traces of dementors in the area."

"There could have been a Death Eater pretending to be you."

"He was pretending to be my son, actually. I lost my son many years ago, and one of the enemy elected to impersonate him, perhaps to discredit me, though it is possible he truly believed himself to be my son."

"Ah. Are you married, then? Perhaps it has something to do with your wife."

"Also possible, but I doubt it. My wife never cared for the public eye, and our son did not take after her to where most people would assume they were not related; he looked almost entirely like I did, at least whilst he was alive."

Electrum frowned to himself, but decided he should probably expect it. The mother would have been the more caring one, though I suppose losing a daughter would be more tragic anyway. He wondered if the blood purists had any such rules about which children were most important, but decided it did not matter. They were losing in all respects, though of course they would not see that. They had a bizarre lack of respect for the inevitable.

"That Death Eater would have escaped from Azkaban a few years ago."

"Yes, I suspected that Voldemort would either conduct a breakout or a siege of the prison. The kill on sight policy I introduced has likely already saved hundreds of lives. The wizarding world is grateful that Moody was able to kill Evan Rosier without jumping through any legal hoops. He was resisting arrest, of course, but the Aurors might have gone easier on him if it were not for the policy in effect."

"Where is Auror Moody, then?" he asked, picking up a pen from the desk. It looked a lot like a muggle fountain pen, which was odd to him, but changes were to be expected with a new government.

"Retired; apparently the Ministry demonstrates insufficient vigilance. With the reality being that we are aware of most of the wands on this island, we have the Floo Network entirely monitored, and all our employees are regularly screened for blood purism and dark magic, I suspect he was just tired of the work, or perhaps sympathetic to Dumbledore types." Electrum had been screened himself, though it was a bit of a pointless exercise. Essentially, the dark detectors had been modified with the mind arts to reveal blood purist leanings, though they kept having to recalibrate it. Whenever the artefacts said there were no blood purists in a room full of witches and wizards, there had to be someone evading detection, since it was a commonly understood fact that one in five people had been the victim of Death Eaters in some way.

"I fail to see why. Did you want to see me to retrieve him?" Crouch waved away the notion.

"It is unlikely you will find him; he might have even fled the country. My concern right now is that there may be former Hogwarts students on the continent."

"Beauxbatons?"

"Some of them, yes, but my main concerns are the ones who went to Durmstrang. We have an informant we suspect of playing both sides who tells us that a few former Slytherins were seen in Austria."

"The Death Eaters were lying about having nothing to do with Grindelwald's release."

"Almost certainly. The capture of any one of them, or even more concrete information would be the final nail in the coffin."

"You want us to go after one of them." That could complicate things legally. Not every country in Europe is committed to fighting blood purism.

"A number of students survived the destruction of the school. The interior is being reconstructed, but it is conceivable that a group of impressionable students could take a trip to the continent whilst they are on holiday."

"Who's our target?"

"You'll find out when you get a team together. You're not going alone."

"Very well."

Electrum sensed that there was no more to the conversation and walked out. Crouch is a busy man. He doesn't have time for protracted discussions on the near future; there are things that need to be done now.

He went to the level where until recently they had the door leading to the school. There was scholarship on the magical health concerns raised with living permanently inside impossible spaces, but the authors of some of the books supporting the idea were blood pursits. The concepts had nothing to do with each other, to be sure, but they had to be morons to believe the world was better off with only pure bloods around.

"Electrum-" a voice started. He whipped around, refraining from drawing. It was a younger witch, whose name escaped him. "Are you here to help? We should have the place mostly reconstructed soon... not that there're a lot of us left..." It'll be faster to tell the truth.

"I'm looking for a group of students I can take on a mission. We should be able to strike a blow against the Death Eaters."

"Oh, okay. I was mostly here for an education. I can't do anything unless I graduate. I think they changed the rules so now I can't even cast spells without graduating from an accredited school." The wizard frowned a bit. She's being unusually honest.

"The mission is voluntary, of course. I'll be starting with students who qualify for it."

"Oh, well make sure they come back alive. We don't have much of a school left as it is, especially after so many of them left last year... and the year before that."

"Safety will be prioritized."

"I mean, it's not like it's all your fault. We're going to have to be having children anyway, but when they come out they'll be babies. Is the Ministry going to ask people to reproduce to replace the population? Some of the adults around here have been talking about it."

"They might do that, but they would only be able to ask the people under their authority. The only way to get muggleborn children is by muggles reproducing, which is out of hour hands." He sighed. "It's not really that important. Some of the Hufflepuffs said the castle felt empty, but that was only a problem because the interior was static.

"So we just make the school smaller whenever there are fewer students? Won't we just forget about how many students there were in the first place?"

"Of course, but that would be an irrelevant historical detail."

Electrum left the younger witch to go into the wreckage of the school to see about recruits. It was unfortunate, perhaps, that their lack of people made it harder to find people who could fight blood purists, but incentivizing wizarding families to reproduce was only more likely to create more of the enemy. He had a suspicion he had just been talking to a pure blood, or something close to that. It was also unfortunate that not everyone was up to date on dangerous dialogue.

"Hopkins," he said, finding a young wizard with a penchant for explosive charms. He was indirectly responsible for the destruction of Hogwarts, which was ultimately a good thing, a substantial blow against the Death Eaters, and by consequence he was basically good. "How would you like to accompany me on an unsanctioned mission against the blood purists?"

"Unsanctioned?" he asked, looking uncertain. I would have thought he would be excited. Presently, he was levitating desks and chairs into place, if not with the greatest sense of care.

"Crouch is in favor of it, of course, but the Ministry would be violating international law by sending Hit Wizards after our targets in other countries. It is only a matter of time before the decision of the conference at Ys has unanimous approval, but there would be records of it if our government gave the order before the change took effect. We have to learn whether or not the Death Eaters had anything to do with Grindelwald's release."

"Well, that sounds like a good reason, but if it's not sanctioned... then it's undermining the Ministry's authority. I can't be a part of anything that isn't-"

"I know you're on a list as a dangerous element, because you tried to knock Hogwarts down with Aurors inside, but your record should be expunged if you go along with this."

"Expunged? Why would Crouch expunge it? If it's not sanctioned, he'll hang us out to dry."

"That's why we can't get caught. Think about it," he said as he walked off. There has to be someone else I can ask. Losing Hopkins would not be a substantial misfortune, but he does not have the proper sense of necessity, else he would have agreed immediately.

"Jones?" he asked, seeing a younger witch expanding books that had been shrunken. Her given name was Megan, but he had not the right to use it. "Would you like to go on a mission to combat the Death Eaters?"

"Of- of course," she answered quickly. "Um- when do we leave? How long do I have?"

"I'm not sure; I still have to get a team together. I probably have to look into recruiting people my age, though they're harder to find." Most of the Hufflepuffs in his graduating class had already found employment, quite a few with the Ministry, but some had gone abroad. "Crouch has not told me all the details yet, because he knows that if I couldn't get a team together, I would go alone."

"Okay, well you can put me down for going- unless the Minister says that there can only be so many, and you find other people more qualified." She quickly went back to work on fixing the place up. We could use her skills in Transfiguration. McGonagall was not exactly the fairest, but she was a competent teacher of her discipline. He remembered trying to get her to counteract Snape several years ago, back when they still cared about House points. Not counteracting him by taking points from the Slytherins made her responsible for what he was doing, and equally unfair by consequence.

He could keep going through the school looking for more recruits, and he would probably have to do just that, but it was more important to draw up a plan. Someone his age was really only going to go along with a trip to the continent if he knew what they were going to accomplish and how, and that was only going to happen when Crouch provided him with more details. He has to have some kind of lead on a Death Eater who might be easy to capture, or maybe just a well-connected family member. Many of them were married, he knew, and their wives frequently arranged social functions. Now that they were in Europe meeting foreign dignitaries, they probably felt more important than ever before.

"What I need is a method. If I don't have a target, or a place, I need a method," he said to himself. Ebony had been required to learn how to make portkeys as part of her training as an Inspector and she passed some of the knowledge on to him when they were in school together. Since then he had committed himself to learning it, though he had never told her anything about it. He would never impress her, after all.

"Portus," he incanted, the pen he had picked off the Minister's desk glowing momentarily. He had an idea, and he was already on top of it.