Charlie did not remember where he had been when he got the call to go to somewhere in Africa to help defend an Order base against Bakr of the Draa. He could remember telling someone in Grindelwald's organization that he would be back and he wanted to continue the meeting if at all possible. He remembered thinking he was not leaving them without a representative, since Andromeda was still there, though his main reason for leaving her behind was because she had not seen a fight in years. He supposed someone more concerned with that sort of thing would think it was appropriate for her to return and defend the house that had been dedicated to her at her birth, but he was not one of them.

As he finished up the preparations with a man calling himself Diggle, he let his mind wander while talking and that thought slipped out somehow.

"Ah, I suppose you are right. Estranged from her family, she returns to reclaim her birthright and fight against dark wizards not too dissimilar from the ones who stripped her of her heritage?" He's having too much fun with this. "I suppose it would be at least equally apropos for her daughter to take up this struggle, and in terms of consequence she is the better duelist. It's a pity she ended up in Hufflepuff; she could have been something else entirely had she followed her mother."

The younger wizard only stared in response.

"Forgive an old man his sentimentalities. I know the world does not seek to spell out whatever would be the most poetic."

"I reckon I still have to thank you for delaying the enemy. We're on borrowed time as it is. Ron's friend has been making firecalls and owl post to every other base, but no one's answering, or they're telling her that they can't come straight away because they're dealing with something else."

"We should really have been doing something to ingratiate the locals. We dealt with a slight problem for the school a moment ago, but-"

"If anything will accomplish that, it's this. Bakr's realized he can't leave us alive because we're ruining things for him. If we survive this, we'll get more reasonable people to start thinking that Wahde really is some kind of spiritual successor to Dumbledore." Diggle nodded as he laid down more wards. She and Sirius had arrived the previous night with representatives from the Magicians, whose only condition was that they make some attempt to talk the dark wizards out of it.

As far as he understood it, that was essentially what they were doing, and as such he wished he could have been there sooner. He could not speak Arabic, or any other language that was commonly spoken in magical Africa, but he certainly felt like he had spent the last few months of his life negotiating, and to an extent that was what he had been doing with dragons. They're highly intelligent creatures, and they're also highly proud. They only allowed themselves to be relocated to Romania without a fight because we convinced them it was the place to be.

"Are you saying you know this wizard?" a voice asked from behind him. He turned around to see Tonks, recognizing her from his school days, though her hair was black instead of pink for some reason. That's right, she was outed as a metamorphamagus sometime in her fourth year. She had a breakdown and her features started changing in front of everyone.

"I'm not his best mate or anything," he said. "Every time Sirius and I were chasing Anthony, chasing Regulus, or whatever else, he wouldn't be far behind. At this point, I have to assume it has something to do with us."

"Is he in league with the Dark Lord?" Diggle asked.

"I don't think he's taking orders, or he doesn't think he is. He's basically trying to become the African equivalent, and to do that, he needs the feather of taking down Dumbledore's old followers for his cap." The older wizard seemed to understand.

"Who is making the plans for our defenses?" he asked. "There may be some last-minute changes that could serve us well."

"I've been making the broader strokes, since I had instruction on magical siege from old Moody," she said. "I left Mundungus in charge of scouting. Hermione came up with all the wards you're helping lay down.

"Perhaps you could describe the broader strokes," Diggle suggested.

"There's a fine layer of detection wards about a mile around. If they see them, they won't think anything of it, because they'll already know that we know they're coming. Inside them, there's a layer of ancient Chinese trap wards. It'll take them a while to get through those, and we should be able to use killing curses on them while they're stuck. Hermione can control a lot of the wards remotely; you should see what she's got going on inside."

It looked like the older wizard had, though Charlie had not.

"Are the wards connected?" he asked. "The dark wizards will almost certainly use brute force to try to get through."

"The wards are connected, but it's complicated. There are circles within circles, circles on the edges of circles, some of these can rotate- it's a confusing web that they would probably try to destroy rather than counter on its own terms."

Diggle shook his head at the idea.

"Many of the Death Eaters may behave like that because they are common criminals. Those aspiring to be or to serve the Dark Lord of Africa would use Legilimency."

"Is that a common ability around here?" Tonks asked.

"Not around here, but they've got friends from the Kalahari," Charlie said.

"There are legends about a sorcerer of darkness who would bring together dark wizards from all over the continent."

"Can we even fight something like that?"

"Bakr of the Draa is not the first dark wizard to attempt to elevate himself to such a mythical status," Diggle said. "With our very best efforts, he will not be the last."

Thinking back to the meeting of dark wizards, Charlie realized the older man might actually be more right than he realized, because when he and Wahde had seen him, there were glowing white runes on his skin, and they seemed to go under his black robe and multi-colored tunic. Ron and his friends were doing something like that at some point, only I think they manually scarred themselves rather than laying them down magically, because it kept them from being detected and just washed off by Thief's Downfall gates. Since it was probably Hermione, we'll have to get her to see if she can't do the same for the rest of us.

They heard the sounds of someone crashing through the jungle, but it was only Mundungus.

"They're half an hour, walking," he managed, catching his breath. "Can't be any fewer than thirty."

"What about Bakr's personal guard?" Diggle asked. "He should have between five and ten-"

"They'll be tied up with the negotiations," Tonks said. "They can't let Sirius and the African witch try anything funny."

"Would they know what to expect?" Charlie asked.

"We have reason to believe one of them is a Death Eater, probably Lestrange. Lord Black isn't going to surprise him with anything."

"Isn't that funny, a dark wizard exchange program," he muttered. He had never had the twins' skill with jokes, but he had a sense of humor, even if it seemed to be uncooperative at the moment. "I wonder if Voldemort has anyone from around here."

"I don't know about around here," Diggle said. "From what we know from the Kalahari, however, there's a good chance he has something Semitic."

"That's the north. Phoenicia- Sirius and I were in Tunisia not too long ago. There were a few people there who called themselves Phoenician."

"Of that I am sure, yet-"

"There's no time for that," Tonks interrupted. "We need to prepare."

Agreeing, Charlie went with her. Just like we sent Mundungus to scout, they probably sent someone to get a feel for our defenses. There was something that confused him apart from why they were looking around when they had human detection charms.

"Can we not apparate through our own defenses?"

"Only in places. Hermione asked me to lay down some specific 'breaking runes' to disrupt the anti-apparation warding. No one should recognize them, especially since they're a few inches underground." It takes skill to place them when you can't see them.

"So apparating would entail going from one point to another until you're in?"

"There's still some running involved. Some points, you can apparate, and others you can disapparate. We learned to make the distinction when we were setting up the new holding cells in the Ministry sub-basement a few years ago."

"Right," he said, remembering he would not know what Law Enforcement was doing just from the occasional update about his father's department. As it was, he could think of no particular weakness in the design, since it would even allow them to escape if necessary, but it would only be necessary if they had to abandon all hope of winning, and he had a responsibility to keep that in the picture. "What do we do once they get here-" he started to ask, but Tonks stopped suddenly and help up a hand.

"We'll get to that when we get to it. I need you to listen. You're the creature expert. We need to find anything the enemy might be using as a scout."

Being so designated was not the honor he might have imagined in his Hogwarts days. There were so many creatures in the world, and they all behaved so differently, but in ways he could mostly explain if he had access to the proper material. There were a few exceptions, like the rare helpful Grindylow, but he wrote a proposed explanation for his N.E.W.T. without stating that he came up with it himself.

"I think I hear something," he said. "It's a Fwooper, but it's distant."

"Aren't their songs supposed to drive you mad?" Tonks asked, causing him to remember the magical African bird was at least briefly covered in Care of Magical Creatures.

"That's only when they feel threatened. The mating calls are painfully high-pitched, but not harmful."

"There's a mating call, then. How is that unusual?"

"They don't have a good sense of smell or hearing. They really only call for partners when they've seen one in the area." He got his wand out. "What concerns me is that there's a bird here that's not responding." Sirius told me that Anamagi are relatively common in the Ashanti Kingdom. If Bakr has been recruiting from there, he'll have something that can get past our human detection charms.

"I don't know a spell that can deafen us," the Auror said, implying their best hope of finding it was wandering around until they hit it.

"I've got a better idea." He concentrated on his understanding of the bird from classes and personal experience. They were always sold with a silencing charm applied, but he had at least seen them in open-air markets in various parts of magical Africa. "Avifors," he incanted, a bright orange bird with a hunched forward head appearing before him. "Hermione wouldn't have told you anything about any kind of rune we could use? Were you ever trained in runes?"

The only answer Tonks offered was to freeze the bird in place, cut a few runes into the skin with sparks coming out of her wand, and then healing the feathers.

"We're sending this off after the other one?" she asked. "It'll know how to find another one?"

"It'll at least get us in the right direction."

Unless incredibly skilled in wandless, silent magic, the Animagus was not able to cast spells while in an animal form. The outer wards, or some of them, should be keeping him from just fleeing outright. If he turns back, Tonks's charms should get him. Charlie silently prayed the newly conjured bird could find another of its species as he released it. The Auror was casting the human detection charm, loudly, if for no other reason than to keep the enemy scout from realizing they were onto his tricks. In a matter of seconds, a crashing could be heard, and he dodged a dangerous-looking spell coming from that direction, but Tonks managed to hit him with a stunner.

As they walked over to the position of the unconscious scout, they saw that it was a witch, and one he had seen before, on the coast of Tunisia. Was she from there? She looks a little darker, but I guess she still could have been. He realized he had no good way of determining if she were from the Ashanti Kingdom or not, but he hardly saw how it mattered except to complete the mental picture he had of how Bakr might have recruited his army.

"Do you recognize her?"

"Sirius and I ran into her one time. I couldn't have said what made her stand out so much, apart from being, well- Sirius was pretty drawn to her."

"Oh, he was," Tonks agreed, facetious. "I'm sure you had nothing to do with it." As they petrified the enemy scout, he decided it was hardly worth the effort to recall for his partner that he had even gotten onto Sirius about the necessity of asking random witches as to where they might find dark wizards. It's been a long time since then. To think I used to be looking for Bakr, so I could get to Said, so I could get to Goldberg, and that was all after I came down here for Ginny.

He tried to think of what the plan had been with her. Would they have just taken her back to Hogwarts and given her a stern lecture about running off to other countries and breaking laws in the process? It was pretty obvious that what the Order was doing was different, but it was a whole organization. We just asked too much of her. She didn't ever see the school as a place worth defending, just a gladiatorial deathmatch stadium. She was probably dreading the trip her first year and we never realized.

Though Charlie did not come home very often, he did make a trip just before the last Weasley went off to London to board the Express. At the time, though, he had been more interested in Ron's account of the return of Voldemort. I can't really blame myself for that.

They had the witch in the manor in a matter of minutes and woke her up with conjured rope around her. If she turns into a bird, we'll just stun her and she knows it. She blinked a few times and accepted her circumstance quickly.

"I must applaud your creativity," she said. "I shall have to remember that trick in the future."

"Magic is magic, south of the sea," he recited, remembering what she told him. "I didn't think you'd be involved with dark wizards."

"Did you think we were proud of the muggles, as you call them?" she asked. "I was like our leader. I grew up among them."

"You're trying to lift them up?" Tonks asked. "The enforcement of the Statute may have been left up to local authorities, but we have the right to intervene if any egregious breach is-"

"-discovered, made evident, or suspected, we know," the strange witch listed. "You have not asked how we meant to do it."

"Do you think you're just going to show them a few magic tricks?" Charlie asked. "It's going to be just as simple as that?"

"No, we have learned not to do anything like that. We intend to take over their world with as little visible magic as possible. Once every major leader is under our control, we shall unite them under a common goal-"

"This is all for Africa, then? The land, its people?" Tonks asked. "Even if no one else is, you should be familiar with how different-"

"We have no one else," she said. "The do-no-magics will learn to get along under our direction."

"There isn't time for this," Charlie said, putting her under the tranquilizing spell he used on unruly creatures. He knew about conquerors in history, and to his moderate chagrin his youngest brother probably knew a little more, and as complicated of a subject as it was, the best kind of conqueror was the accountable kind. If a secretive group of dark wizards intended to force everyone around them into an era of peace and prosperity, it was an entirely different thing than muggle armies taking over muggle countries, or magic conquering magic.

"It's kind of like what Grindelwald wants-" Tonks started.

"Not really," he said, heading back outside. "He's trying to get rid of the Statute entirely, not just get around it. The last thing this war needs is another side, but there it is."

"Where are we going?" the Auror asked, probably not liking being dragged around without an explanation.

"We're going to conjure another Fwooper. We don't want Bakr's forces to realize she's been taken."

"They almost certainly already know that. They're less than half an hour away, and she hasn't reported to people using the mind arts, or she has-"

"They're not using that to communicate from a range. When Sirius and I found the Lost City of the Kalahari, even walking a few feet away from the city would put you out of their reach. She's not going to tell anyone anything while she's unconscious, and she'll be like that until she's woken up."

"We're looking for other scouts, then," Tonks said, adapting quickly. "Animagi? I can't begin to describe how valuable it would be to have a Legilimens closer to the base." Charlie thought it was more likely the former than the later. The fact that they found one scout did not mean there were not more, nor did it mean the tactics the scout had employed were bad.

"Hermione wouldn't let them in her head, and we barely know anything about her ward design. We have to watch out for that anyway, though. If they figure out how to apparate in here, we're dead."

"Dead, you say?" The pair of them rounded quickly, wands drawn, to see a trio of young students, probably from Uagadou.

"How did you get in here?" Tonks demanded. There were two witches and a wizard, and two of them were carrying wands themselves. The other wizard could be from Botswana. Could be like the rustic with the picture runes.

"You do not know everything," the witch said, twirling her wand through her fingers. "Did you know that no amount of warding can keep an Erumpent out?"

Charlie could use a specialized beast detection charm to verify that there were none in the area, but he would have heard them.

"You don't have one, so it doesn't matter. You're young, so we're not inclined to-" Spellfire like a white ribbon emerged from one of the wands and he ducked under it, kicking the wizard in the knee as Tonks shielded against the witch. Better take the opportunity. He hit the other wizard with a stunner, but he did not seem to be at all phased. The wizard with a wand hit him with a thunderclap hex, forcing him backward and ringing his ears in the process. "DIGGLE!" he shouted, hoping backup would arrive.

The Auror was having better luck blasting the younger witch back with a jet of water, though the wandless wizard made her scream with a punch she caught in her free hand. Charlie was only just managing to get to his feet as she put him down with a killing curse, distracting the other wizard, whom he knocked out. The witch tried to run, but got caught by one of the wards, and then a stunner to her back.

"Tonks, he's a kid," he managed.

"I didn't enjoy it!" she shouted back. "Look, I stunned the other one- I'd have- I'd have done anything else about this one, but he would have killed me-" She attempted to heal the broken bones in her hand.

"Sorry. Any idea what was up with him?"

"I was about to ask you. You're the one who's been down here."

He shook his head. The dead wizard's white shirt had moved to give the slightest glimpse of a glowing, intricate design.

"If it's what I think it is, we don't have a chance in hell."