Year 1: A Storm is Threatening

War, children, it's just a shot away,
It's just a shot away.

- 'Gimme Shelter,' The Rolling Stones (1969)

No spell could stop the searing summer, so Sirius bought a fan. The noise of its relieving rattling and the blaring radio almost drowned out his brother's hammering on the door, letting him ignore it moments more to preen at the mirror. His hair had to flow perfectly, his shirt had to be rumpled just right, and above all, he had to hide the pack of cigarettes in his jacket. Regulus would tell. Regulus would always tell.

Regulus also didn't wait for summons, shoving the door in to stand in Sirius' bedroom like a paler, scrawnier, indignant shadow of his elder brother. 'You need to turn that down!'

'What was that?' Sirius swaggered to the windowsill where speakers obligingly poured Radio Jackie through Grimmauld Place. The Stones came so loud the it whined at the pitch-changes. 'You want me to turn it up?'

'Sirius! They'll be back soon!'

The faithful little battery-powered radio didn't go any louder. Sirius pouted and turned it down, if only so he didn't have to raise his voice to piss off his brother. 'Which is why I'm gone in five minutes.'

'Gone?'

'Yeah.' Sirius turned to Regulus. His brother wore a baggy white shirt, dark hair tousled and messy. No doubt he'd been upstairs with his nose in a book for hours. 'Another exciting night in for you, then, huh?'

'Did they give you permission -'

'What do you think?' Regulus didn't move, so Sirius let his shoulder shove him out the way as he left. 'It's fine. I'll be with respectable people -'

'The Potters aren't respectable -'

'Give it up, Reg.' Sirius didn't look back and went downstairs. Regulus, of course, scurried after him like Kreacher might if someone had broken something and not instructed him if they wanted it fixing or throwing out. 'Mum and Dad and I have an agreement: we disagree on everything. I've been cooped up here for two bloody months. I'm going out. To see people. You remember people?'

Regulus sputtered as Sirius wandered through the kitchen. 'And what am I supposed to tell them?'

Sirius opened the back door and stopped, letting the gathering dusk creep in to shroud him, like comforting arms around his haughty indifference. 'You can tell them the truth, Reg. You were all righteous and indignant. You reminded me of my duty as a good little Black. I ignored you. You couldn't stop me. I don't know why you're so upset.' He turned the collar of his leather jacket up, even if it was only early evening in the hottest summer he'd ever known. 'Don't worry. You get to be the good one again. Maybe they'll even love you for it.'

Perhaps Regulus had an answer, but Sirius knew better than to linger after his parting words. He let the kitchen door slam shut behind him as he sauntered into the back yard. Grimmauld Place was not a wide house, but the garden at least stretched on a way, rooftops of London poking in the distance over the back fence. The lawn was tidy, the flowers bloomed in their well-ordered beds at the edges, and even the scent of summer couldn't stop it from being forced, sterile; a theatric display of the perfect urban wizarding garden.

But Sirius didn't have to wait long. He was just patting down his pockets and wondering if Regulus would spot him having a cheeky cigarette when a dark shape glinted in the blood-orange sky, shimmering from nothingness into a looming shadow. The winged Aethonan glimmered out of concealment charms and into sight first, but the wheeled cabriolet came not long after. Both swung through the evening sky to land, hooves and heavy wheels churning up Mrs Black's perfect lawn. Sirius could have sworn he heard a squeal of indignation from Regulus behind him.

A head of messy black hair stuck out from the cab window. 'Oh, no, Pads, we've messed up your garden. I'm so sorry.'

Sirius laughed his first real laugh of the summer and yanked open the cab door. 'Hells,' he declared, hurling himself onto the bench next to Peter, across from James and Remus. 'I've missed you guys.'

James clapped him on the shoulder, and already the Potters' Aethonan was turning for another take-off. Sirius heard the rustle of a wheel taking out his mother's rose-bush. 'Don't worry. Tonight we make up for lost time.'

§

It was a magic bus. But it still rattled so hard Jack didn't like resting his head on the window. So he sat up and lit a fag.

Dory elbowed him. 'Oi.'

'Ain't no sign.'

'I mean gimme one.'

Outside, towns swapped for fields swapped for towns. The speed was impossible, probably, but Jack wasn't even sure where they were going. Maybe she didn't live that far from Peckham. Dory was the one calling the shots. He considered refusing her, then remembered she'd somehow convinced him to come out anyway. He didn't fancy another argument.

'Cheers. And a light?' Dory stuck the cigarette between her lips. He sighed and fished out his lighter. She could do it herself.

It meant she was silent for a few seconds. Jack took advantage of the rare moment to look up and down the Knight Bus, clocking each witch and wizard glaring at them. This was every passenger, but it was early evening, so there weren't many. He didn't care, but it was good to know how much shit he was going to have to put up with if someone decided to be a busybody.

'So where are we going?' he grunted when Dory handed him the lighter back.

'Oh, you're Mister Attentive, aren't you? I said, we're picking up -'

'Yeah, but hell is that?'

'Bumfuck nowhere in the Midlands - don't ask me to find it on a map. I say the town to owls and the Knight Bus, and magic does the rest.' Dory grinned impishly at him. 'Don't worry. We won't be there long; I promise to not let you get terrorised by sheep.'

Jack grunted again. 'Cos I'm fuckin' terrified of sheep, me.'

'You seem terrified of something. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why you'd rather spend the night in crappy south London when you could go out. See people.'

'September's next week. See you plenty then.'

Dory rolled her eyes. 'You'll see Travers.'

'Bugger Travers.'

'This is what I like about you, Jack; you paint a picture with your words. Just four syllables and an entire vista of your falling-out is painted for me.' She cocked her head. 'Is that why you didn't want to go out? You didn't want to see Travers?' He grunted yet again, and she somehow rightly figured he meant, 'no.' 'Then what? This'll be good for you, Jack. Good for us. We'll hang out. Meet new people. New and less arsehole-y people. The real pricks won't be there; no way would the McKinnons -'

He must have flinched. Or stopped puffing on his fag, or something, because Dory narrowed her eyes. 'You got a problem with the McKinnons?'

Jack pulled up his leather jacket. 'No more 'n I got a problem with any rich pure-blood bastard.'

'Nathaniel's a good guy.'

He grunted.

'And Marlene's lovely.'

Jack scowled. 'They're all the same, ain't they.'

'Well, we're going to their party,' said Dory, sticking her nose in the air. 'So you'd better behave.'

'I know. Keep lecturing me an' I'll take my fag back.'

'Can't. I got lipstick all over it.' But Dory sank down onto her seat, small and plump and amused. 'Oh, tonight's going to go well.'

§

'Who do they think they are?' Saul Avery's voice was a growl of a pup playing deploring parent, and he drank the glass of glimmering firewhiskey like it would grant him years and presence. It, of course, did neither.

That's excellent. Drink so much before we go you cannot even stand. I see no flaws within this scheme.

Randal Mulciber stood at the sitting room door, and merely by the raising of his hands did he summon silence. With the curtains drawn, the flames of the fireplace fought for dominance against the gloom of the corners, and crackled to cast curt shadows across his heavy features. 'They're one of the most prestigious magical families in Britain,' he said, deep voice softer than usual. 'They're important and they're influential.'

Saul's head snapped around, the pup dissatisfied with the toy thrown his way. 'You're -'

'Which is why they must be taught a lesson.' The lines of Randal's face turned sharper, as if finding focus, and Saul quietened.

'Too right,' said Amycus Carrow, Randal's eternal shadow. He did not, of course, break from beliefs embedded in his bones and offer an original thought of his own.

His sister, however, gazed at Randal with gimlet eyes of green. 'How, exactly, do we do that?'

'Wreck the party,' said Flint, forever the formidable figure offering suggestions over decisive malice.

'That'll make us popular,' sneered Saul.

Again Randal spoke, and again they all listened. 'We don't need to wreck anything. All we need is to be there. A presence. A reminder that when a family this powerful is so open, so inappropriate with who they welcome and embrace, we will see.'

'And maybe,' said Alecto, red wine swirling in her glass, 'give some Mudbloods a miserable time.'

Shadows shifted as the corners of Randal's mouth curled. 'Maybe.' But now he looked to the darkened corners, to the two who held their tongues. 'Should I take silence as objection?'

Snape sat up from his corner, where he had only lingered to listen. Forever had he been at the periphery of these gatherings, and only in the last months had Randal included him more, invited him to the meets. But Snape shook his head. 'No objection.'

'Of course.' Randal's eyes trailed to the window where the last of them sat, watching the sun finish its feast upon the day and grow fat and tired in the sky and saying little. 'Graham? It's not like you to be so coy about this.'

You mean it's my place to be quiet until pointing out how foolish you've been. But it was easy as ever master his expression, simple to not smile. 'You have fun. I'm not going out.'

Saul snorted. 'Don't have permission?'

Calm blue eyes met Randal's and matched them. 'My place is here until Wednesday.'

The answer of a smile was strained. 'Of course. I was just afraid you were suffering an attack of Scottish solidarity.' Despite the inference, the challenge, with a simple joke could Randal banish the tension.

'Not at all. I encourage you to go, and have fun. After all, brother,' said Graham Mulciber, legs swinging off the windowsill as he sat up, 'I have no love for the blood-traitor McKinnons or the Mudbloods they mingle with.'

§

She loved the prelude to a party. It made the air fizz with exciting optimism, all of the promise of things to come. The decorations gleamed, lights hanging from gutters, from every tree in the front garden. The band were setting up on their little stage thing outside, and she wondered if that was always there, or if they'd had it made for the occasion. House Elves fussed around to put the finishing touches on everything, so they were missing only two things, really, before they could get started. The first, and most obvious, was people.

The second was where Fletch and her friends came in.

'Your folks really don't care about you throwing a party?' she asked Nathaniel as they set down their crate by the two tables. One had been laid out with a spread of food and snacks that could feed the five thousand, let alone a slew of Hogwarts students. The other was empty - for now.

'They're in Paris.' Nathaniel McKinnon shrugged. 'And they know we do this. So long as nothing gets broken or ruined, they prefer us doing it at home. Beats skulking off to suspicious corners of England to get drunk, yeah?' His expression went flat. 'Not that we'll get drunk here.'

Fletch pushed the lid off the crate, and gestured with a flourish to the impossibly huge number of bottles and barrels in the magically-enlarged container. 'Not at all.'

Nathaniel clapped. 'You're a life-saver, Fletch.'

'I still charge ten percent for saving lives.' She snapped her fingers at her two companions. 'Come on, unpack.'

Stebbins' eyes widened. 'Don't snap your fingers at us! We're partners! Not flunkeys!' Hargreaves, of course, simply shrugged and hefted the first barrel out of the crate.

'We all have our parts to play. I'm the pretty face. Hargreaves is the muscle, because she loves emasculating you.'

'Everyone needs a hobby!' called Hargreaves. She'd deposited the first barrel atop the table, and was already returning for another.

'I'm the brains,' argued Stebbins. 'So I say we make the House Elves do it.'

Fletch grinned and patted him on the cheek. 'Good man.'

Hargreaves flopped against the crate. 'Couldn't have thought of that before I lugged one of those bloody things over there?'

Fletch ignored them and turned back to Nathaniel. 'Not that I object to the chance of saving lives, but you're of-age. Why can't you buy the booze?'

Nathaniel grimaced. 'Who am I going to buy it off in this sort of bulk who won't go running to my parents?'

'Apparently,' said Fletch with a grin and an elaborate bow, 'Cornelia Fletcher.' And she could buy in bulk from the Hog's Head, because old Abe didn't ask questions, not even of an underage Hogwarts student buying enough alcohol to sink Hagrid. 'And I must say, Nate, it's very good of your parents to let you use your house. It's a great place.'

Nathaniel turned to look over the McKinnon abode, a huge, sprawling country house in a corner of Lothian, southern Scotland so quiet they could be loud enough to wake the dead and still not break the Statute of Secrecy. He nodded to himself with satisfaction. 'It is. And it's going to be a great End of Summer party.'

§

'I'll get it,' Lily called as she sprang past the living room to answer the ringing doorbell. She'd been halfway through the book on Defence theory she'd picked up in Diagon Alley last week, but Dad had just settled down with the telly and a cup of tea. The more she could do for him before she left for school, the more she could pretend she wasn't guilty for leaving him alone.

Not that she expected much. The Evans family didn't have a lot to do with neighbours; not any more. And this summer she'd called a curt and decisive end to Severus' visits, a final underlining of their parting ways at Hogwarts.

Even if she'd expected a magical visitor, though, she certainly wouldn't have expected Dorcas Meadowes - short, plump, blue-haired and grinning from ear to ear - and Jack Corrigan - broad-shouldered, leather jacket adorned with studs and badges, surly and smoking. She knew them, of course; she shared a dorm with Dory. But they hung out in different circles, and she didn't think she'd ever exchanged two words with Hufflepuff Corrigan.

'Come on, Lily!' Somehow, Dory's smile only broadened. 'We're going to the McKinnon party!'

A/N: Welcome, welcome, to my new project! Some of you may have heard me talk about it; some of you will not. Hopefully it'll speak for itself, but I should make some things clear: this is going to be a long story, this is going to have me here for the long-haul, and it is going to be a canon-compliant depiction of the First War from August 1976 to its very end. 'Liberties' taken with canon will likely be things I planned before JK's continuous releases messed with me, or me throwing her dates out the window on occasion.

Most chapters won't be 'bitty' like this one, too; all will become clear soon.

Again, the work should speak for itself, so about all I can say is that followers of my part work should perhaps prepare themselves for a slower release schedule. I intend to be regular, one or two chapters a fortnight ideally, but my life is rather busier than it was when I wrote the Stygian Trilogy, and this is being reflected in my productivity.