Happy Friday!

Chapter 91

Jasmine could feel a headache building behind her eyes. It had been a long day filled with warding formulas and signing client contracts for Gringotts. Lily had insisted on calling her during her lunch break. Jasmine hadn't gotten the chance to speak to her friend in ages. Between their jobs and the war there wasn't much time for casual conversation anymore. Everything was always so dire.

So, here she was, lounging in the side room of her office, her lunch on the table in front of her. She had decorated the office with the help of Narcissa, who had handpicked each piece of furniture. Lucius and Abraxas had praised Cissy's taste in both color coordination and comfort levels when they visited for their own consultations. The room itself was large for a break room. It doubled as a library and research space. Jasmine had a desk in the corner covered in parchment and an open tome resting upright on a stand. She still had to finish the Longbottom property wards for Augusta, but they could wait till after lunch.

The walls were lined with bookshelves that were filled with information about rune and warding from all different countries. Quite a few of them were passed down from Celeste and Simon.

Right in front of the fireplace sat the best piece of furniture that Jasmine had ever had the pleasure of resting on. It was essentially a fainting couch, but Merlin, it was comfortable. In front of it sat a lovely oak coffee table.

Lily's head was poking out of the fire, her once long red hair had been cropped into a short pixie cut, making her look almost fae like in appearance. Though she had a rather prominent pout adorning her face, which ruined the fairy look.

"When are you and Sirius going to settle down? I feel like even though it is something I'd expect of him. Isn't it a bit much putting of the official engagement and wedding party for as long as the two of you have?"

Jasmine leaned back in on the couch. If only she were allowed to drink this early in the day. Fire Whiskey sounded amazing right about now.

"We agreed to wait till after the war. I've explained this to you, Lily. Not all of us want to marry right out of Hogwarts. You, James, Alice, and Frank are the odd ones. Leave me and Sirius out of your weird wedding pact."

Lily let out a huff. "I just worry about you. I don't want you to waste your time with someone who is never going to commit. You've been unofficially together for nearly four years, Jasmine. You can't even hold hands in public. Not to mention that you still have to have, what, four children together?"

Jasmine felt her cheeks heat up a bit at the reminder of the obligation of having four blood children. "Lily, we'll get there. We're taking things at our own pace. Speaking of little ones, how have you been feeling? I know things aren't exactly easy for you at home."

"Well, Harry is nearly a year old and both James and I are in hiding over some bloody prophecy. You and I both know how stupid that is. Divination is a bunch of rubbish. Thank you for warding the property, it lets both of us sleep a bit better a night. Alice told me that you're putting the finishing touches on the Longbottom Estates for her and Frank."

Jasmine waved her hand dismissively. "It's not a problem. I just want to keep two of my closest friends safe. Not to mention my adorable little godson needs to be protected from the megalomaniac Dark Lord trying to kill him."

Voldemort went underground after his failed attempted at killing most of the graduating class at Hogwarts in '78. The battles that he had started since then had been cruel and tactical. Tom Riddle lobbied with his followers in the Ministry publicly while he murdered officials in the dead of night. There haven't been many large-scale battles since '78. Dumbledore had rallied The Order of the Phoenix in response. They tried to keep the peace when battles did break out, but there weren't nearly as many members in the Order as there were the Death Eaters. Even with Jasmine securing the Black Family and Malfoy Family, there were still plenty of Purebloods that wanted to rid the world of muggleborns and muggles alike and privately fudded Tom.

Jasmine had her own small force working around both the Order and Voldemort, but it took baby steps to get where they were today. The Black Family had been pivotal in making sure that staunch dark families that they had been close allies with stayed allies, they feared both Orion and, more importantly, Cassiopeia.

Bella was a menace in a fight, and one of the best duelists Jasmine had ever seen in any of her lives. Severus was the resident potions expert, but his dueling skills rivaled Bella's on a good day. Marianna Zabini was her lead informant and general assassin, when she was in the mood. Though, now she was on maternity leave for the next month or so for the birth of her first daughter.

Theo and Blaise were doing what they could from the States. They sent over as much anti-dark magic armor and weapons they legally could. Theo spent more time in the UK than he did the States being the general Healer to their little ragtag team.

Regulus was gathering international allies and trade routes through Mikhail, who was happy to shut trade down between Voldemort's followers and most prominent sellers of magical goods.

Finally, there was Sirius. He was their spy in the Order. Well, he worked with them and then would complain to Jasmine about the missions that Dumbledore was sending different people on that could get them killed. Thus, Jasmine small group tended to get them out of sticky situations.

Merlin, she was still trying to get all the Horcruxes together. Jasmine had been a fool to think it would be easy to find them all. She had been far too confident in what she had known from the future. Too many pieces had shifted on the board before she could get them all. Theo had located the cup, she destroyed the diadem, she had gone to get the ring herself last year, the diary was in Gringotts somewhere, and they still couldn't locate the damn locket.

"Yes, well, I still don't believe some ridiculous prophecy. We're in hiding for James' sake more than mine. Honestly…it wasn't like Pandora made the prediction."

"If you're feeling stir crazy you are more than welcome to stop by later today. You know that my home is always open. Speaking of Pandora and doors, do you know she made a prediction for me two weeks ago?"

Lily snorted, a delicate hand came up to cover her mouth. "Did she really? What does that have to do with doors?"

"She told me that I'd need to keep my office door open in a fire call two weeks ago. It was one of the stranger calls I received from her. I think being pregnant has messed with her powers a little bit."

"Has anything come through your door?"

Jasmine shook her head, "nothing but clients demanding my attention. Unless one of them are the mysterious gift, I feel that this prediction could be an ongoing one. Though, I'm not sure how safe this is for me. I have proximity wards to alert me when strangers come through, but-"

Jasmine's felt something trigger her wards.

Speak of the devil.

She stretched her rune vision to the next room over. It seemed like it was someone small that was entering her main office. The body dove under her desk as three much larger bodies triggered her wards.

"I'm going to have to call you back, Lily."

Jasmine waved her hand in front of the fireplace before her friend could respond. She picked her wand up from the coffee table and made a beeline for the door to her main office. Her deep blue robes swept out behind her right as the door was pushed open and three grown wizards nearly stumbled into her office. Rodolphus Lestrange was leading them, all three had Auror badges on their robes. That department needs another deep cleaning if those badges were real. Jasmine didn't know the other two men flanking him, but she just leaned against the front of her desk, pretending that there wasn't a child hiding just out of sight. Though, the three of them froze at the sight of her.

There was an unspoken fear of her after she resisted their master's imperious curse. She'd only solidified that fear by killing, maiming and capturing quite a few Death Eaters when they crossed her path. Rabastan lost an arm and half his face to two of Jasmine's spells only four months ago. Though, both Jasmine and Rabastan were masked at the time, the injuries that were written about him sustaining by the daily prophet were too coincidental not to be the Death Eater she had cursed to hell and back.

The bastard was still recovering, she hoped he was suffering.

"Is there something I can help you three with. You don't have an appointment."

The man on the left held Rodolphus' wand arm back as he made a movement to lunge at her. "A child has run off. His father asked us to look for him. It would be a shame if he was taken like those other missing children. We saw him come this way…"

Like she would be giving any child over to these three chuckleheads. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Does it look like I have a child milling about in my office? Now, unless you have a warrant, leave. I won't have Ministry dogs poking around Gringotts space."

"This isn't the bank, girly."

Jasmine scoffed. "I'm contracted as Gringotts main ward expert. My office spaces are considered Goblin and Gringotts territory. Do you want to take this up with the Goblins? I've heard that they're itching to put a wizard on trial for trespassing."

"Just give us the kid, Peverell. Your door was open." As if demanding her to do something was going to convince her to listen.

"Yes, and there are twenty-seven other doors down this hallway that a child could enter. Get out of my office."

The men didn't dare move an inch further into her space. She made a shooing motion with her hand. They moved to leave, grumbling.

"Oh, Rodolphus, I heard your brother was in an accident. Do tell him to be more careful in the future. Playing with magic you don't understand could get you killed."

The two Aurors actually had to drag him through the door and cover his mouth as they exited. The man was kicking and shouting as he dug his heels into the stone floor beneath him. Jasmine waved her wand and the door slammed and locked behind them. She pinched the bridge of her nose before moving around the desk, the child underneath was shaking something awful.

Bright blue eyes, freckles and a shock of red hair greeted her. The kid couldn't be much older than a first year at Hogwarts. Which, by Jasmine's calculations, meant that this was more than likely Bill Weasley.

"They're gone now. I won't let them take you away. Did they hurt you?"

Jasmine didn't even want to imagine what the Death Eaters would do to a Weasley child. They were proud supporters of Dumbledore and an old Light Family.

Ever the Gryffindor, Bill stopped his slight quivering and crawled out from under the desk. "No, they didn't touch me. Mum says I shouldn't talk to strangers, but I need to find my dad...we got separated."

"Well, I'm Jasmine, that makes us little less than strangers. You look like Arthur Weasley. I assume he's your father?" There was probably a small army of order members looking for Bill.

"Yea, I'm William, but everyone calls me Bill. How are you going to call my dad?"

Sirius wasn't in the Ministry today, but James was on desk duty, due to a hip injury last week.

Jasmine twirled her wand between her fingers. "I'm going to call my cousin, he's an Auror, you know James Potter, right?"

The kid's eyes lit up. "You know James? He's so cool! I've only met him three times, but him and Sirius fight dark wizards!"

As the kid gushed about James, she conjured her patronus. Her thestral danced in front of the two of them waiting for an order. Bill let out a gasp at the ethereal being. "James, I have William. If your helping Arthur look for him, we're in my office."

The thestral galloped through the wall and off to find her wayward cousin. That left Jasmine with an eleven-year-old poking about her office until his designated adult showed up. It had been quite a long time since Jasmine had dealt with a someone in this age bracket.

Bill no longer seemed nervous, just curious. "What do you do here? When I came in I felt like I walked over some kind of barrier, kind of like wading in a pond…I've never seen an office like this in the Ministry. Dad's office is nothing like this."

There weren't too many offices like Jasmine's. It was outfitted for a ward and rune master. She had her walls lined with books on runes and one that updated a ledger for standard fees and accepted rates for warding work worldwide. She had a signing station next to her large oak desk that sat in the middle of the room on top of an ornate rug lined with protective runes. It had been handed down from master to master. Celeste had proudly given it to Jasmine when she felt she had taught Jasmine everything she knew. There were a couple beautiful landscape shots that peppered the walls from her various travels, courtesy of Petunia. Little knickknacks lined open spaces. Quite a few were Marauder in origin.

Jasmine's office was lined with protective wards, top to bottom. There was a nifty one that ignited false documents upon entry and another for those under Polyjuice or a glamour of any kind. The fact that Bill could inherently sense runes was amazing. It was a talent that not many masters possessed. It took Jasmine a few years of honing her magic to be able to sense the subtle shift in of her ward lines when she crossed them.

"I am the ward master for Gringotts. What you felt when you came into my office was a powerful protective ward that alerts me when someone opens my door. I can show you a few runes. How about we look over some fun ones over some biscuits?"

That got a resounding and excited yes. Jasmine pulled the chair in front of her large oak desk where clients usually bartered prices and fees across from her to right next to her leather chair. She motioned for Bill to sit down and she went to the other room and grabbed her emergency stash of French biscuits that Marianna sent to her straight for Paris. The preservation spells have them lasting for weeks at a time.

It seemed like a good a time as any to break them out. Jasmine also grabbed a beginner book on runes. If Bill showed as much promise as she thought he was, she was going to have an interesting talk with Arthur once he showed up.

"Is your last name Peverell?" Bill asked as he munched on a madeleine.

"Yes, my full name is Jasmine Peverell."

He frowned for a moment as she slowly opened the book and leafed through the pages to find a good place to start.

"My mum doesn't like you very much. I don't understand why, you're wicked!"

She had to hold back a snort. Dumbledore must be telling the Order horror stories about her. She hadn't been asked to join the Order, while, ironically, almost all of her comrades had, including Bella. Besides Sirius, they had all declined for one reason or another.

"I've never met your mum, but I imagine she's just never gotten to know me. Now, let me introduce you to the wild world of ancient runes…"

It took nearly an hour for a frantic Arthur Weasley to come barreling into her office. James was hot on his heels. Though, Jasmine waved her wand and pressed down on a Brazilian rune at the front of her desk. It stopped the men in their tracks as if they were frozen to the spots they were standing in.

"Now, James, where did we meet for the first time?" As easy as a question as it was, not a lot of people knew where the two of them actually met.

"St. Mungos, come on, Jazz, you're going to need to make them a little harder." She let out a small laugh and released him.

"Did you clear Arthur before dashing down this way?"

James rolled his eyes. "Of course, I wasn't going to let him come near you or a child if I wasn't sure that he was himself."

She released the spell and both men stumbled into the room, the door shutting behind them. Bill was still sitting at Jasmine's desk, a cookie in hand as the other waved to his father. He had a book of runes on his lap.

Arthur ran over to him and enveloped him in a crushing hug. "Oh, my brave boy, I thought that I had lost you." Arthur's voice cracked at the end as he sniffled.

Bill, despite being calm and collected throughout the ordeal, seemed to finally be breaking a bit as tears started to well up and silently fall down his face.

James turned away and motioned for Jasmine to do the same. She kept her rune vision active, she didn't want Bill pocketing anything that wasn't a cookie. Her office had a lot little charmed items that shouldn't fall into the wrong hands.

"How is your hip doing? Did the herbal remedy help?"

James nodded. "I can barely feel the injury its healed so well. I was worried it was going to be a career ending injury. I know that's what mum and Sirius were thinking while I was in St. Mungos."

Which was another reason Euphemia didn't want James in the Order. It was hilarious to double team him with his mother. Though, they had two different reason for not wanting him to join an anti-terrorist group. Euphemia didn't agree with them on principle since they were essentially vigilantes and James could lose his job if caught fighting for them. Jasmine wasn't the biggest fan of any Dumbledore spearheaded group. He was a Light Lord and he had an agenda.

"That's good. Sirius needs his partner when he's off gallivanting against dark wizards. Idiot can't manage to keep himself out of trouble."

James grinned and nudged Jasmine a bit at the mention of his best mate. "I'll keep him out of the doghouse. No worries, he won't be hurt on my watch."

Arthur cleared his throat, Bill grinning at his side. The two looked remarkably similar. Jasmine hadn't realized just how much until she saw them side by side. She supposed ten years younger, with more hair, and quite a few kilos lighter, would change the way Arthur looked. "Lady Peverell, I wanted to formally thank you for helping my son. You didn't have to step in when you did. My family owes you a life debt on behalf of my son," it sounded like he was choking on the last bit of his sentence.

Jasmine crossed her arms, a tad on the defensive, "I wasn't going to allow a suspected Death Eater take a child. Merlin knows what they'd do with one," she actually had an idea of what they've been doing and it isn't appropriate for young ears, "As for the life debt, I have an idea for that."

Arthur's arm wrapped around his son's shoulders. Jasmine resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn't going to whisk him off into the night. She'd wouldn't have told him Bill was here if that was the case. "What do you have in mind. My son is a minor, he hasn't even started Hogwarts. I know what happened to the Avery Family and a few others that owe you debts. We have nothing you could want."

"Arthur, Jazz isn't going to demand money from you. Those families are connected to the new Dark Lord. The Avery Family helped in the near assassination of my father."

Jasmine put a hand on her cousin's arm. "It's fine, James. He's just concerned about his son. I just wanted to know if I could sponsor Bill. He's shown an immense talent for ancient runes. Gringotts could use him after he graduates. I want to have first dibs on the kid by training him myself. I would naturally be paying for his schooling, extra books he'd need and any trips we'd go on to tombs and runes. I want to start training up apprentices with a natural talent for runes and magic, your son fits that criteria."

"S-s-sponsor?" Arthur looked like he was about to faint. Sponsorships were rare in magical Britain. Most didn't happen till the child was partway or nearly finished with their primary education through Hogwarts. It was an investment in talent for a master at their craft to sponsor a pupil. It was a great honor for a member of an Ancient and Noble House to offer to sponsor a child from a house that had fallen out of favor.

Bill was bouncing up and down excitedly. "Dad, come on! This would be great!"

"You'd need to keep a high-grade average, I expect nothing less than EE and Os in nearly all subjects. You'd be starting ancient runes in your first year with me as your long-distance instructor."

Arthur let out a sigh. "I will need to talk it over with my wife, but if that's what you want out of the life debt, I can't deny you."

Merlin he was acting like she was going to murder him. "Arthur, take your son home. Get some rest. I'll stop by tomorrow with the paperwork."

Welcome to the final part of this story! Did anyone see this coming? I've had this time skip planned for almost a year and a half! I'm so happy it's finally here! So much has to happen in so little time!

I have nearly finished the drafts for most of my grad school submissions. Only 2-3 more of each to go! =D

Thank you all for the reviews, favorites and follows!

Next upload: November 13

See you all soon,
~Animerocker