Cataclysm

by kitsunerei88

[Sequel to Vanguard] Lord Riddle is dead, and the Ministry has fallen. What began as revolution becomes a war, and wars are never easy – not least because of the enemy.

3. Chapter 3

Archie woke up, shielding his eyes from the bright light now in his bedroom. It was a Patronus, a coyote, glowing white, and he scrambled upright.

"Black. You said once that if we needed anything, we could reach out to you and you would try to help, no strings attached. Well, the Alleys are on fire – Fiendfyre – so if there's anything you can do, please. We need it."

Archie fumbled for his wand, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, focusing hard for his own Patronus. They had covered Patronuses last year in Defense, so at least he knew how to cast one. He thought about afternoons at AIM with Hermione, about moments on stage with the theatre troupe, about dancing with Hermione at the Spring Fling last May. He thought about the end to that night, when they had fallen into her bed, kissing until his lips had felt swollen and numb, just kissing, until they fell asleep wrapped around each other.

His terrier jumped into being, ears alert. Archie didn't know a lot about Fiendfyre, only that it was Dark, it was deadly, and it was a spell often used for war. Dad would know more, and Uncle James, and Lina Avery. Maybe Neal would know something, too. And they would need Healers, so he had to call Hermione, too. "Leo. I'm calling people, and we're on our way, as soon as we can."

Then he ran down the hallway, yelling for his Dad, at the top of his lungs.

It still took almost thirty minutes for him to get to the Lower Alleys. Thirty minutes, and even rushing, they were among the first ones there. Uncle James was on his way, as was Uncle Remus, and Neal and his mother, and Aldon was gathering people too. Lina was a Stormwing, and Dad said that meant she was a crazy mercenary witch who would sell her talents to the highest bidder, but she would know Fiendfyre. Aldon said he had another Defense Mistress on staff with Blake & Associates as well, and he would be on his way as soon as possible.

Thirty minutes was too long. Thirty minutes, and Archie could see the flames rising in the distance, smoke climbing in spirals above the facades of the buildings in Diagon Alley. Hermione was waiting, pale-faced in the dark, standing in front of the turn into Knockturn Alley.

"We have refugees," she said quietly, her brown eyes worried. "People have been running – I've directed them to stay in Craftsmen's Alley for now, unless the fire spreads. I don't know the counter-spell for Fiendfyre, and neither does anyone I've been able to see, so – so I've just been treating injuries. Burns, mostly, and smoke inhalation."

"Fiendfyre is advanced Dark magic," Dad said in reply, shaking his head. "Have you seen Leo?"

"Only glimpses." Hermione pressed her lips together, but Archie could see from the look in her eyes that she was holding back tears. It was bad, then – Hermione didn't cry easily. "Archie – it's… I don't know what can be done. I don't know what anyone can do. They're just holding it back right now, no one knows the counter-spell for Fiendfyre. Aroma Alley is already gone, and so many – so many neighbourhoods…"

"I know the counter-spell." Dad's voice was grim as he hurried down the Alleys. "I can't cast it very well, because it's a Light spell and I'm Dark, but James can do it. I'll see if I can teach anyone the counter-spell, get people casting it as much as they can. Archie, Hermione – stay here. We'll keep sending anyone running to Craftsmen's Alley, and you do what you two do best, and set up for any emergency Healing, all right?"

"Shit!" Archie turned to see Aldon, Lina, Chess and another dark-haired, dark-eyed woman running down Knockturn Alley towards them. Lina had a blade on her, and she had already pulled it out, and her sleeve was up. "Even if we have a Light caster, we can't control flames like this – it's too far out of control, Sirius. You know it. We can buy time, but I can't – no one can. Who is in charge, here?!"

"Leo Hurst is the Rogue of the Lower Alleys," Archie spilled out, turning to face her. Lina's hair was tied up, a rough knot at the back of her head, and she had left her guns behind. "He's – I haven't seen him, yet."

"He's been in and out, getting people out of the fire and trying to set up firebreaks," Hermione supplied, tying her own hair into a knot, without a tie. The texture of her hair would keep it up, but Archie would have to help her untangle it later. "The counterspell is advanced."

"And Light. I'm too Dark for this." Lina shook her head. "It's out of grasp for me. Francesca and Aman here are Light, they can cast the spell, but we don't have the power for this – no one does."

"But – but I don't know the spell," Chess stuttered, visibly upset and terrified, Aldon at her side. "And I don't – I don't have a wand. I – why am I here?"

"Because you're a two on Erlich's scale," Archie heard Aldon reply, calm, an open book in hand. "I have the spell here – I can't cast it, but I think I can translate it into proto-runic form for you, if this theory is correct."

"The proto-runes will degrade – I don't have an ACD!" Chess was wailing, but Aldon gripped her shoulder, hushing her as he reached in a pocket and pulled out a small notebook. The other woman, who Archie assumed was Aman, already had her wand out and was heading further into the Alleys, towards the flames. She must be the Defense Mistress that Aldon had mentioned being on staff at Blake & Associates, Archie realized.

"I've got enough paper and I'll write the spell out as many times as we need to, Francesca, until it works. We'll deal with it. I can't cast the spell, I'm too Dark." Aldon didn't take a single look at Archie or Hermione, focused as he was entirely on Chess. "Please."

Chess bit her lip, sniffling, but she nodded. Aldon let her go, pulling out a pen with his other hand, beginning to scribble something in his notebook as he walked her closer to the towering flames.

"I'm here." Archie turned to see Uncle James running down the Alley, Uncle Remus behind him, their wands already out. "Where are the Aurors?! There should be an outpost, three blocks south from here, down Kingsgate. For something like this, they should be calling in everyone on-call!"

A shape staggered out from the end of the street, the silhouette barely distinguishable against the bright, blinding flames. There were a dozen dark shapes, casting Blasting Curses at the buildings nearby for firebreaks, not that it seemed to do much. Aman was there by now, her wand at play, and large pillars of fire were smoking out of existence.

It wasn't enough. Each of Aman's spells were taking care of half a building, one building, not the twenty, thirty blocks or more that Archie could see already that the fire stretched. He watched as Lina threw herself in the fray, her blade already against her wrist – there was no form to what she was doing, no spell, but blood spilled and the fire on three buildings calmed, fizzled, and the shapes in those sections turned back. She was grappling control over the flames.

Archie swallowed the bile from his throat, turning to the new shape, to Leo staggering out of the maelstrom of hot fire and ash.

"The Auror outpost is empty," he snarled at Uncle James. "It went up in flames half an hour ago – it was the starting point of the Fiendfyre on this stretch. No one is there, and the Ministry is empty, too. It's almost as if they were in on it."

Lina has turned back from the flames that she was now holding, her breath ragged. "Sirius, you're Dark – ever done any blood magic? It's more effective for this than anything else we can do, get control over the fire, halt its forward motion, turn it back for someone else to put out. Aldon, hand him your knife and let your girl draw power from you instead, your oath should let her do it if she needs it enough."

"I don't do blood magic, Lina," Archie heard Dad shouting back. "It's – it's—"

"Oh, don't pretend like you aren't already an Erlich six, at least, Sirius," Lina snapped, looking up as she pressed her blade a second time against her arm. The flames on two other buildings nearby paused, flickered, and stilled – not going out, but no longer spreading, either. "You can only go a point darker, and Aldon should keep himself in reserve for Francesca to draw on. Aman, don't worry about these flames here, I have them – I'll hold the line here until someone can wipe them out."

The dark-haired woman nodded, turning her attention deeper in the Alleys. Archie saw Uncle James, white-lipped, joining her further in the flames. Leo was slipping on ahead, marking a trail into the heart of the Alleys, while Uncle Remus followed with a sharp expression of focus on his face. As a werewolf, he could tolerate the heat better, Archie realized, as they both began pulling out more coughing survivors. Aldon and Francesca were behind them, him handing her sheets of paper that she tried to use to beat back the Fiendfyre. They were less effective than Archie could have hoped – it took so long for Aldon to hand her each new spell that in the time that Aman and Uncle James cleared four or five buildings each, Aldon and Chess only beat back the flames on one. The fire spread back almost as fast as they could act.

"I won't cast blood magic, Lina." Dad's voice was a warning. "I'll teach the spell to anyone I can, and if someone can write me a runic screen—"

"Tabernak!" Another voice, and Archie didn't need to turn to see who it was. Only one person swore in Quebecois French, and he felt the blast of cold wind coming down the street, blowing the smoke back. "Maman—"

The rest of the sentence was in Mandarin, so Archie had no idea what was said, but Neal's mother had her fan in motion, carving a spell in the air, and the flames on the closest few buildings, the ones that Lina was holding, went out in a splutter of choked soot and ash.

"Let's go," Neal's mother said, nodding deeper into the Alleys. "Holding the line here does little. Come, Stormwing, and let us buy time for more people to run."

"You should follow them, Archie." Hermione touched his shoulder and handed him a handful of Blood Replenishers and Pepper-Up Potions. "Someone needs to go with them, handle emergency first aid, and direct people here for more Healing. Healer Hurst just got here with a few of the Healers from the Maywell Clinic, so we can handle the camp. Go on."

"Blood Replenishers?" Archie held up the small vials. "I would think it's mostly burns…"

"The Blood Replenishers are for Lina and Aldon," Hermione said, grim, nodding to the group at the end of the street. "Francesca can't keep up this pace, she doesn't have the magical power for it, and Aldon will almost certainly pull his knife before the hour is up, whatever Lina's orders. He's terrible at following orders. Pepper-Up for everyone else."

Archie grimaced. Blood magic was a touchy issue – only Dark witches and wizards did it, and it had an unsavoury reputation, but he couldn't deny that the few times he had seen someone use it, it had been incredibly effective. Now wasn't the time for squeamishness, though, and he turned to run down the streets after the others. "Be careful, 'Mione."

The flames were hot. It was nothing like being near a nicely banked, comforting fire at home, small and merrily dancing in the fireplace. These flames were sooty, hungry, too tall and too hot and too out of control, and Archie could almost feel the hate rolling off them as they tried to consume everything. This was Fiendfyre, which was sentient in its own enraged, destructive way, moving solely to burn everything in its path. He ran forwards, taking people from Uncle Remus and from Leo for emergency Healing as they pulled them out of the flames.

They were making progress. A little progress, but it was progress, and they beat it back one street, then two. Archie couldn't see anything, or everything – he caught glimpses of Chess, looking wan, while Aldon, too, was paler than usual. Contrary to Hermione's assessment, Aldon hadn't pulled his ritual knife, so Archie handed off two Blood Replenishers to Lina, who had six fresh cuts on her arm and didn't look to be stopping anytime soon.

He handed a Pepper-Up to Dad, who had a sheet of paper in one hand now, a runic screen to translate his magic into Light affinity so that he could cast the counter-spell. Dad had to cast two spells for every one that Aman or Uncle James cast and he was slow, slower than Lina who was taking control of two or three buildings at a time, waiting for the Lady Queenscove to extinguish them for her before she moved on, and much slower than Uncle James, Neal and Aman, who were leading the pack. Neal was a Light mage too, Archie remembered, and he realized he had never seen Neal battle with a wand rather than his blade. But fire wasn't something one could handle with a sword.

He tried to stop Leo a few times for emergency Healing, but the man only grabbed the offered Pepper-Up potion from Archie's hand and plunged back down another side alley. He and Uncle Remus kept pulling people, more and more of them, coughing, out of buildings and shoving them towards Archie. It was all Archie could do to give emergency treatment for smoke inhalation and the most severe burns, then direct them towards Craftsmen's Alley.

People died. Archie didn't see much of that, only a few dying under his watch after Leo had pulled them out, but he knew that people were dying. The survivors they were pulling out became fewer and farther between the more they pushed the flames back. Archie passed a few charred bodies on the street, people who must have succumbed to the smoke while trying to run, and he held himself back from vomiting.

He had seen worse, he reminded himself. The Darien Gap had been worse. He had seen death before.

But that death had been very different. That death had been sickness, not cursed fire – those deaths had not been wanton murder.

Uncle James was in the thick of it, he, Neal and the other Defense Mistress at the head of the phalanx pushing the flames back. They were the most effective, one of their spells often putting out whole buildings at the time. They were making progress, Archie reminded himself. They were making progress, and Archie couldn't afford to let himself think of the many, many blocks that had already gone up in smoke, he couldn't think about how much there was left to put out. He couldn't think about the people that must have already been lost, because the people being brought to him now were far more injured, even if there were fewer of them. There was a child, who looked only four, that Leo had pulled out with a pained look that told Archie that he hoped, but he feared to hope. The boy looked quiet, like he was only sleeping, no burns on him at all, but Archie could only shake his head and direct Leo to set him on the side of the street. He didn't even have a cloth or anything to cover the child.

There was the sound of a fwump, in the distance, and Archie gaped, exhausted already, as another spout of flame went up. That block had to be at least five or six streets away, but the fire moved so fast, ghostly flame-shapes racing from rooftop to rooftop, undoing all the progress they had made in the last hour.

It wasn't fair. All they were doing was beating it back, one building at a time, and all whoever it was had to do was set another Fiendfyre spell in motion. Fiendfyre would consume, would eat and destroy, until there was nothing left for it to burn at all. They were only one drop – one stopgap, one makeshift obstacle, and Archie was running out of magic.

He checked his pockets for a Pepper-Up, then he remembered that he had given his last one to Uncle James fifteen minutes ago. He turned, looking around – Aldon and Chess had stopped, and she was sitting on the ground, her head between her knees, and Aldon had his knife out. Archie couldn't see what he was doing – blood magic, obviously – but he wasn't grappling for control over the flames. There probably wouldn't be anyone to put out any fire he managed to control anyway, Archie realized. If he was running low on magic, even without casting the Light counter-spell, then so was everyone else.

Aman, too, had stopped, leaning over to catch her breath, and Neal's last few spells were spluttering, only taking out parts of a fire instead of whole buildings. Even Uncle James was slowing, and Archie looked for his Dad.

Dad had stopped too, staring up at the fire that still burned, a tight and angry look on his face. Lina was shaking her head, and Neal's mum, beside her, managed to put out one more building. Uncle Remus carried one more person out of the fire, a young woman with only minor burns, but Archie didn't need to do any magic to know that she was dead.

"Rogue." Lina's voice was a rasp. "You need to make a decision. These Alleys are magical space – you need to collapse them, close them off, let the Fiendfyre burn itself out before it catches to Craftsmen's Alley, or Knockturn, or the other Alleys that haven't gone up. You have the ward-keys, don't you?"

"I—" Leo said, then he cut himself off. "I have the ward-keys. How could I… There are people still here. Sealing it off is a death sentence – I can't—"

"You don't have a choice." Lina's voice wasn't unkind, but it was unequivocal. "If you don't, it will spread further, and we don't have the power to put it out. No one does – if Lord Dumbledore himself came down here now, he would likely only be able to save two or three streets. If it's any comfort at all, anyone beyond this point is likely already dead. Lord Potter, how much do you have left? Neal? Aman?"

"Two spells, I think," Neal croaked, dark soot marking his face and covering his clothes. "I can… push for maybe two buildings."

"Only one, for me." Aman's voice was softer than Archie had expected. He had always thought people with a Defense Mastery would be like Dad, or like Uncle James – loud, with big, brash personalities and a certain swagger. She didn't carry any of that, and her voice was almost apologetic when she spoke. "One big one, but I'm nearly out."

"Lord Potter?"

Uncle James shut his eyes, thinking it over with a grimace. "Maybe three, more likely two. Sirius?"

Dad only shook his head, waving the piece of parchment he was holding. "Nothing. I'm out."

"Where's your closest ward-stone, Rogue?" Lina took a few steps closer to Leo, her expression stiff but determined.

There was a pause before Leo spoke, and the words twisted out of his mouth as he responded. "Over there, about half a block down. Let me – let me warn who I can, first. There are alarm spells I can invoke, it'll just be – a few more minutes."

"That's fine. Where are the break points?" Lina pushed. "I don't know this ward-space well enough. Do you have control over where you can cut off? Will some of us need to stay in reserve to put out anything left behind?"

Every word looked like it was costing Leo something to say. He didn't look well, but Archie didn't think this was a sort of Healing he could provide. This was Leo being asked to decide who lived and who died, what part of his Alleys he would sacrifice to save the rest, and Archie didn't feel like he could interfere.

He didn't know the spell, and even if he did, he was nearly out himself.

"I can take out Cherry Street to Kingsgate, then down Kingsgate to the end of the warded space," Leo replied finally, his voice dry and quiet, something lost and desperate in it. "There'll be a few buildings left out still on fire, but… it's the closest I can seal off."

"Then let's go." Lina turned, scanning for the others. "Mei Ling and I will get you there. Aman, Neal, Lord Potter – get ready to take out anything that's left. Aldon?"

"Half. I can help," Aldon said, picking himself up. Archie caught Chess making an aborted motion towards him, but she seemed to think better of it and pulled her hands back to herself. Aldon missed the movement, striding forward to meet Lina.

"Get control of the flames – smother them if you can, but these ones are stubborn. If you can't, hold them and wait." Lina turned back to Leo. "Lead the way, Rogue."

Archie held himself back, wiping his forehead. His hand came away with sweat and soot, and he had blood on himself, too. Not his own, he knew, because more than one of the people he treated had had open wounds, from the burns or from other accidents that happened as buildings came down. He walked over to Uncle James, his steps slow and tired.

"Is there – can I do anything to help?" he asked, a little timid. "I'm an Erlich one – if I knew the spell… I don't have much left, but I don't know how much power the spell takes, either."

Uncle James looked at him, grim-faced, and shook his head. "I don't think I could teach it to you in the time we have – Sirius tried with a few of the other volunteers, but it didn't take that well. If Rosier needs it, you can ballast me with whatever you have left at the end, if no one else gets to it first. I can't believe—"

Uncle James fell silent, his expression darkening, and he turned away to look at the flames still towering over them, not far away. The ghostly shapes of creatures – dragons, griffins, chimaeras, lions, eagles – rose up from the burning buildings, soaring over the deathly scene. They were beautiful, flashes of colour in the flames, but all Archie could see was the people that would be left for dead, the people that they weren't able to save, the people that had been murdered.

He didn't even want to guess how many people had died tonight. He didn't know many people in the Alleys, but Leo was here, and he hadn't seen Rispah, whom he had met, or Swift. Or what about Margo – did Margo live in this section of the Alleys? He hadn't seen her, but that didn't mean anything. He had seen so few people…

There was a loud blaring noise running through the air, so loud that Archie winced. It was unlike anything he had ever heard, an unearthly wailing sound, completely unignorable. He covered his ears, but the sound wasn't just in the air, but running through magic – he could feel his core vibrating in his chest, a sensation so uncomfortable he couldn't ignore it.

The sound went on and on, long minutes. As uncomfortable as it was, Archie could say nothing. If anyone was still alive in the Alleys beyond this point, this was their last signal to get out. This was a sound of fear, of sorrow, of desperation, and when it ended, Archie couldn't help but feel something breaking inside of him.

That was it. That was everyone.

"No!"

Archie barely remembered the voice, but he recognized her the minute he whipped around. Her voice was low, for a woman's, but still high compared to the man's voice that she had pretended to have for so long. Her hair was longer, tied up in a short ponytail bobbing at the back of her head, and she threw a broom on the ground and ran, heedless, towards the flames. Archie gasped, and his wand was in his hand, the Petrificus Totalus spell on his lips before he knew it.

They were sealing off the Alleys now. She couldn't do anything now, and even if she was fresh, even Harry didn't have the power for this – even Harry couldn't save twenty, thirty blocks or more. She wasn't all-powerful, and he rushed to her, throwing his arms around her.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself saying, as she shook off the spell. It hadn't been a very good Petrificus Totalus, because Archie was pants at Defense, even when he wasn't bone-tired from Healing half the night. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you can't go in. You can't go in, Harry, it's too late."

"What are they – they can't—" she stuttered, fighting him, but Archie was bigger than her now. Archie had height and weight on her, and he clung to her, using his entire body weight to drag her down. He heard a loud, grating noise, the sound of blocks of stone being thrown off, the rumble of an earthquake or a landslide. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see it, not wanting to know that they had just condemned hundreds, if not thousands, of people to their deaths to keep the Fiendfyre from spreading.

"I'm sorry," he kept saying, over and over again. "I'm sorry, we didn't have the power – no one has the power to put out this much Fiendfyre."

"If I was here—"

"Harry!" Uncle James' shout was a foghorn, and Archie hurriedly disentangled himself from his cousin, letting his uncle throw his arms around her. "Harry—I…"

He didn't have words after that, but Harry pushed him away after a few minutes, seeing Leo come out. The expression on Leo's face was terrible, horribly blank, his mouth twisted downwards in pain and his eyes haunted, and Uncle Remus quietly reached out to grab Uncle James before he could stop Harry going towards Leo. Leo needed this moment, more than Archie did, more than Uncle James.

"It's done," he heard Leo say, his voice barely audible over the sound of the flames still going, and Harry reached him, throwing her arms around him. "Cherry Street and down Kingsgate. It's gone. It's done. It's done, and everyone – everyone left inside – the Dancing Phoenix, and the Maywell Clinic—"

"Everyone within those bounds was probably already dead," Lina finished for him, her voice calm, and even if Archie thought what she was saying was probably true, it was not even halfway reassuring. "You did what you had to do, Rogue. Don't take this guilt on yourself. Leave it on the person who set the fucking fires. This fire was set, with the starting points being the Auror outposts, and no Ministry personnel came to the alarms. Any ideas?"

There was a long moment of silence, and Archie saw that Aman was putting out one last building, Neal beside her with his last few spells. Aldon was in front, his mouth a thin line as he drew his knife against one forearm and grappled with the flames on about four houses as blood welled and dripped to the ground. He was struggling to control them, four being a bit much, but that was nearly all the remaining flames. Neal's mum's was expressionless as she dredged up a few last spells to put last of the flames out.

That was almost all the remaining buildings he could see. What once was there, towering columns of hungry fire, rickety buildings and burning wood, was simply gone. Leo had sealed it off, torn it away into a separate space, until the fire could burn itself out. He caught sight of Chess, crouching down on the ground and picking something up near a building that had two bodies outside of it, one of them very small. Archie gulped, breathing through his need to throw up.

He wasn't normally queasy, but these people hadn't died naturally. These people had been massacred, because someone, somewhere, decided that whatever he wanted was worth more than their lives.

Uncle James shook his head, raising his own wand and casting the spells to take out the fires on the buildings that Aldon was holding. "The Ministry was in on it. They had to be – there are always Aurors on call, and these outposts are always staffed. It wouldn't be impossible to set one on fire, but it should have been quickly stopped, long before it reached this kind of blaze."

"Scar," Leo muttered. There was only the hiss of recently doused fire in the air now, no more crackle and roar of flames, and he suspected all their hearing had been damaged. Leo was speaking louder than he thought he was speaking.

"Scar?" Lina repeated, her voice sharp, and Archie saw as Harry's hand gripped Leo's, tighter. "Who is Scar?"

Leo didn't reply, but Harry looked up. "Someone in the Alleys, who was fighting Leo for control for the last couple of years," she said, solemn and distant. "I – I don't know much. He almost killed Leo in a free-dueling tournament two years ago."

Leo shook his head, abrupt. "No one knows much. Marek tracked him to the Cesspool, but the trail went cold there."

"Hmm." Lina exchanged a glance with Aldon, who was looking distinctly unsteady, but Aldon nodded. "We debrief tomorrow, at the meeting. As long as you require it, Rogue, the Lord Rosier extends the hospitality of Rosier Place to you."

"No – no," Harry interrupted, her bright green eyes seeking Archie's. "Leo can stay with us, or with Arch. Dad?"

Uncle James looked like he was fighting himself for a moment, and then he sighed and gave up. "Yes, he can stay at Potter Place with us, Harry. For tonight. Tomorrow, we'll talk."

Leo shook his head. "No – I need to be with my people, in the Alleys. This is – this is where I belong, here, with any survivors. I need to see who survived, I need to look for my friends, my family. Organize shelter, food for the survivors. Healing."

"I'll stay with him, Dad," Harry said, the decision made in an instant, and Archie knew there was no arguing with her, not when she had that look in her eyes. Even years later, Archie would always recognize that look. "Go home without me. I'll be fine here. No one will be looking for me yet, and we're all illegal now anyway. I need to be here, with Leo."

Aldon hobbled over, his arm still dripping blood, though he didn't seem to have noticed. He rested one hand on Leo's shoulder, his knife sheathed. "I will make inquiries with my spies, and we'll plaster this all over Bridge. These people, they will not die unremembered, and their deaths will not be in vain. Harriett."

"Aldon," Harry acknowledged uncertainly, with a small tilt of her head.

Aldon looked very awkward for a moment, then he inclined his head. "Draco Malfoy is in my care at Rosier Place. You are, of course, invited to visit with him any time you wish, though I caution you that I do have strict rules at my residence, for our safety during these difficult times."

"Thank you." Harry paused, studying Aldon for a moment. "I'll do that. It will be good to see Draco again."

Aldon nodded stiffly, turning to search for Chess. She was holding something in her hands, but Aldon went to her without comment, reaching an arm out. She grabbed it with only a moment of hesitation, and they were gone in the whirl of Side-Along Apparition.

"We should head back," Lina said, shaking out her shoulders. "Unless there's something else out here that urgently needs to die, I'm going to go sleep. I will see everyone tomorrow."

She walked away, taking a few minutes before she could turn on the spot and Apparate, and the other Defense Mistress, Aman, followed with a small, sorrowful smile a minute later. Archie watched her disappear, then looked towards Leo and Harry.

"Let me take you to the Healing camp," Archie said, his smile weak and not at all happy. "I'm – I'm almost out, but I'll do what I can. Neal?"

Neal shook his head, his eyes dark in regret, as his mother joined him. "I'm dry. Barely enough to Apparate home. Sorry."

Uncle James and Uncle Remus were already standing with Leo and Harry, saying something about logistics, but Leo was blank-faced and didn't seem to be listening. From the terrible expression on his face, he didn't seem to be capable of processing what they were saying. Dad touched Archie on shoulder, motioning with a silent tilt of his head the route back to the camp, and Archie nodded, leading the way to the makeshift camp in Craftsmen's Alleys. His uncles would make sure that Leo and Harry followed.

The camp had more than eighty people lined up in a neat grid, but to see it only brought a renewed sense of overwhelming sorrow and despair.

These were the survivors. There had been a vibrant community here, in these Alleys. Archie hadn't known it very well, but it had been here, hundreds or thousands of people living side by side, building homes, living lives, raising families. People had lived here, laughed here, loved here. And these hundred-odd people were the survivors, and they couldn't be more than a tenth of the people that had once lived here.

XXX

Aldon staggered, hitting the ground heavily near the outer wards to Rosier Place. He was drained, an odd feeling considering he had cast only a little of his own magic, but Francesca had pulled on his core, on his magic, for half the night. He had given her as much as he could without reserve, and she was supporting herself on his magic, though he wasn't sure that she knew she was doing it. She needed it, and his magic had acted, helped by a small blood spell to ease the transition.

It wasn't a good feeling, but a hard, painful, sucking sensation as she siphoned off whatever she needed from his core. That didn't matter. He would go through worse for her, and his core would recover. She had exceeded her maximum limits for casting magic tonight, and she would be relying on whatever she could draw from him for her survival until her own core could recover, which would take at least a few hours.

He looked down at her. She was expressionless, her face covered in a few streaks of soot, and her movements were wooden. She was carrying something in her hands, and Aldon took a closer look at it.

It was a Puffskein, covered in soot and ash and making a sad, snuffling, keening noise. He couldn't even tell what colour it was, it was so dirty, and Francesca's hands were covered in the same dark ash.

"A Puffskein?" he asked, and his voice didn't sound right. It was lower than usual, rasping, and he cleared his throat, tasting dirt and ashes and the copper tang of blood. He wanted to spit, but that would be impolite.

"Is – is that what this is?"

Francesca didn't sound much better, and she coughed twice, deep coughs from her chest. Smoke inhalation, Aldon realized. He should have asked Archie to look at her before they left. He would have to see who was at Rosier Place who might have Healing training of some kind – he didn't think they had any at Blake & Associates, at least. It was likely fine, he thought, because surely if she had been that injured, Archie or Neal would have noticed before they had Apparated home. But he should have asked.

"I found it," Francesca was saying, sounding miserable, and Aldon pulled his attention back to her. "It was rolling out of one of the buildings, and it was – it was crying, and it was alive, and everything else around me was—"

She fell silent for a moment, and she reached up, smearing ash across her face, wiping away tears. "Is it a problem? If it's a problem, I'll give it to Rolf. Rolf likes creatures."

Aldon shook his head. He didn't know much about Puffskeins, other than the fact that they were fur balls that liked to be thrown, that they purred when they were happy, and that children liked them. They were low maintenance pets, and absolutely not the sort of dangerous creature that Ed, or Alice, or even Pansy had ever been interested in. They were considered positively boring, as magical creatures went, largely because the only thing magical about them was that they found their own food and handled their own excrement. "It's – no, of course it's not a problem. It's only a Puffskein. We'll clean him up, see what colours he has in his fur. Some breeders like to breed for colour, or fur texture."

And with that, Aldon's sum knowledge of Puffskeins was exhausted. He never liked creatures anyway, not unless Ed liked them. Then he had largely pretended to like them, or he had been indifferent, and Ed had never once shown an interest in Puffskeins. The only reason he knew about Puffskein breeders was that he had reviewed an application for funding for a Puffskein breeder through the Rosier Investment Trust some summers ago. They had rejected the application, because specialty Puffskeins didn't seem like something that would be commercially successful.

"Is it a him?" Francesca looked down at the small creature. "How can you tell?"

Aldon had no idea. He didn't even know if Puffskeins had a biological sex. They all looked the same, not that he had seen enough Puffskeins to be able to tell them apart, other than obvious things like colour.

"Let's just call it a him, for now," Aldon suggested instead, looking down at Francesca with a weak half-smile. She was staring up at him, her eyes wide, and even with the soot smeared across her face, she was stunning. He swallowed roughly, looking away, reminding himself to keep his hands to himself. "It seems rude to call him an it, just because we don't know. I don't think he minds."

"Okay," she said, and she didn't raise any issue as Aldon walked her back to her room in the guest wing. He paused, a moment, at her open door as she walked in.

He shouldn't enter, not without an invitation and a chaperone, but Francesca didn't look well. Her movements were stiff, mechanic, not at all like her usual grace, and she walked into her outer parlour and stopped, looking around. The expression on her face was frighteningly blank, even with the tear tracks in the soot. She wasn't crying, or maybe she was – tears were leaking from her eyes, but she wasn't sobbing, and her breathing stayed even, almost as if she didn't know she was crying. She clung to the Puffskein, which was still keening, frozen in the centre of the room. Her clothes, now that Aldon saw them in the light, were covered in soot and ashes, and her stockings were torn. She didn't seem to know what to do with herself.

She was still beautiful.

"Francesca…" Aldon breathed out slowly. "Are you… all right?"

"Fine," she said, and Aldon didn't need his gift to know that she was nowhere near fine.

"May I… come in?"

She didn't reply, but there was a tiny jerk of her shoulders in response.

"I will… take that as a yes," Aldon said slowly. "Unless you advise me otherwise."

She didn't respond, and Aldon took a few slow steps into her rooms. He turned her to face him, his hands gentle, but she didn't meet his eyes. He leaned down a little to look her in the eyes; they were glassy, dark, a little lost, and the Puffskein in her hands was still crying.

Shock, he guessed, not that he knew anything, but it would make the most sense. He should be in shock too, but he supposed that, having lived through the Tournament, been possessed by Justice, fought a duel and having secured his own manor the night of the coup, the bar for shock for him was a little higher. Or perhaps it was only that, with Francesca in front of him, he didn't think he had the luxury of being able to go into shock. For all he knew, he would go into shock later.

He had no relationship with anyone in the Lower Alleys. That didn't mean he didn't appreciate how many people must have died tonight.

"Let's get him cleaned up," he said, gently directing Francesca to the bathroom. His brain was screaming at him the improprieties of this situation, but he firmly told that part of his brain to shut up. She needed him, and if that meant he needed to walk into this bathroom and help her clean off a very sooty Puffskein, then his sense of propriety could go hang itself. All of Society, or what was left of it, could go hang itself.

He took the Puffskein from Francesca and set it on the counter in the bathroom. His sleeves were already rolled up, to cope with the heat in the Alleys and for blood magic, and he saw that one of his cuts was still sluggishly bleeding. He washed his own hands, and his arm, letting black ash and blood drain down the sink, and he left it at that. His cuts would heal on their own, another few scars to showcase his newfound and apparently inescapable identity as a Dark blood mage, and he had more important things to worry about.

Could Puffskeins go underwater? He had no idea. They were supposed to be hardy creatures, right? That was why they liked being thrown, and why children liked them. Children were not generally gentle with creatures, but at the same time, sticking a non-aquatic creature underwater was a very different thing than playing Quidditch with it.

Of all the things Aldon did not want to do, it was accidentally drown Francesca's new pet in front of her. He decided it was better to play it safe, and only half filled the sink with warm water, just enough for most of the Puffskein to stay above the waterline. He gingerly placed the creature into the sink, breathing a silent sigh of relief when the Puffskein kept crying and the water seemed to do him no harm whatsoever. Indeed, the creature splashed a little in the water, rolling about, and the water quickly turned grey.

Aldon motioned for Francesca to come closer. It took a few more sinks of warm water and soap, and a fair bit of scrubbing on both his and Francesca's part, but the Puffskein turned out to be a mottled pink, with a hint of sparkle. It was starting to blow bubbles at them, and making a purring noise that Aldon suspected was happiness, gratefulness, or pleasure. He handed Francesca a dry hand towel.

"You may as well keep him," he said, his voice rusty. The only communication he had had with Francesca over the last forty minutes or so had been in the form of gestures: handing her a damp cloth, passing her a bar of soap, motioning for her to wash her face and hands and making room at the small sink for her to turn on the faucet, to drain the sink and refill it with clean water. She, too, had been silent, following his directions without comment.

Her face and hands were clean now, and absently Aldon realized that he had never seen her without makeup before. Her eyelashes weren't as long or as dark as he had thought, but her eyes seemed even larger, more luminous, and she looked younger than she ever had before. Her clothes were fit for only scrap, or at least the stockings were, but Aldon thought that she could be dressed in rags and he would still be floored.

If she would let him, he would give her full reign over his rather substantial assets and let her clothe herself however she wished. The Rosier family vault was full, his personal accounts had a healthy amount in them now, and the Rosier Investment Trust was still wholly owned by the Rosier family. He could buy her a hundred new and more appropriate wardrobes, if she wanted them – silk robes and satin dresses, cashmere sweaters and cardigans, stockings made of the finest material money could buy.

He realized he was staring and looked away, clearing his throat awkwardly.

The Puffskein looked much smaller and stranger when wet. For something to do, he picked the small creature up and tucked it carefully into the towel in Francesca's hands. "Do you want to give him a name? His owners are likely dead, so..."

She nodded, absent, looking down at the sad-looking creature. He blew a bubble at her and made a chirping noise. Aldon had not done a very good job washing the soap off of him, and he could see the filmy residue still stuck on the Puffskein's fur, but he had rinsed it about three times before simply giving up. His fingers were wrinkled from being in water for too long, and soap would probably not harm a Puffskein anyway. He hoped.

"Bubbles," she said eventually, her voice quiet. "I think – Bubbles."

Aldon nodded, the bathroom feeling too small and close without something for him to focus on. He leaned back against the counter, propping his hands against the ledge. "Bubbles is a fine name," he offered, trying to figure out what he should do next.

He should leave. He should at least not be in this bathroom with her. If he wanted to be entirely proper, there was a line somewhere in the doorway to these guest rooms, and he had crossed it when he walked inside without a chaperone and shut the door. But she wasn't fine, and she had needed help, and he had asked if he could enter and she had agreed. Or, to be more accurate, he had interpreted a motion as agreement and asked for her to tell him to go if she didn't want him there, which she hadn't done. She hadn't said a single word of protest about the fact that he was here, in her bathroom, or in her rooms.

Here was the good thing about propriety. It gave him rules that were clear and easy to follow. Do not talk to girls late at night without the explicit permission of her parents. Do not be alone with girls past a certain hour without a chaperone, particularly without permission of her parents. It would be wise to avoid being alone with a girl at all times, but if the situation is unavoidable, at least leave the door open lest her reputation be harmed. If interested in someone, intentions must be declared and a formal courtship, preferably in the context of a betrothal, is the most respectful and appropriate method to explore that interest. And do not, absolutely do not, engage in any sexual relations before or outside of marriage.

Aldon had broken a lot of those rules. In fact, he was fairly certain that the only one of those rules he hadn't explicitly broken as far as Francesca was concerned was the one about sexual relations, but he had kissed Francesca four times at a very public event, which he figured was close enough. With Francesca, strangely, it was the one time that he had tried to do the right thing that had gotten him into the most trouble.

But without the rules, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. The rules of propriety said that, having now been alone with Francesca past two in the morning in a closed guest wing with a shut door, her father, John and half the Queenscoves should be out for his head and he would have to marry her post-haste or face death by duelling, but that was clearly not the right answer. He wished that someone had given him a book to follow – whatever the Americans used instead of Etiquette for All Occasions would have been an ideal birthday present from someone. He would have much preferred it over the birthday beat that Neal had deemed it appropriate to give him instead.

"Er—" Aldon cleared his throat again. "Do you need anything further from me? Do you wish me to remain here with you, or do you wish me to leave? I can – please. Tell me what you want me to do."

There was a long pause, and Francesca's eyes were still stuck on her new pet. Bubbles was purring in the nest of towels Aldon had pressed him in, his pink fur now stuck in every which direction.

"You should – it's late," Francesca said, her voice very soft and hesitant. "You have a meeting tomorrow. You should sleep. I should – I should shower. I'm gross."

Aldon started nodding, straightening from his position against the bathroom counter, but then he stopped, his gift ringing. There was something she wasn't telling him, and it was then that he realized that she hadn't answered his question. She had said that he should go, but not that she wanted him to go.

"Forget about what I should do, Francesca," he replied, stopping in the doorway and turning around. "If I miss a few hours of sleep, I will recover. What do you want, right now? What can I do for you?"

The pause this time was even longer, and Francesca's words quiet, halting. "I want a shower, and then – and I don't want to be alone. I want—" She cut herself off with a deep breath, and Aldon felt the rumble in his core that told him that she was lying by omission. "And then I want a cup of tea, and then I want – I want you to stay with me until I fall asleep."

She fell silent, her eyes glued to a spot in on the bathroom wall across from him, embarrassed.

Aldon wondered for a second if he should push her on what she wasn't saying, but the rest of her words had been true. He hesitated, then he cleared his throat again. She had said that she wanted him to stay with her, so perhaps what she was hiding wasn't important, or perhaps he didn't want to hear it. Perhaps wanting him to remain was good enough – he did not, he decided, want to know if he was only second-best, a replacement for someone who wasn't there.

"I'll brew a pot of tea," he said, the words coming out more awkward and abrupt than he had expected. "It'll be waiting for you after your shower. And I'll stay with you until you fall asleep. What kind of tea would you like?"

"The – the camomile with milk." Francesca looked up at him then, and her eyes were wet. "I – thank you."

"It's nothing, Francesca." Aldon tilted a small, uncertain half-smile at her. "It's – whatever you need."

It was an odd feeling, sitting on her settee in awkward silence, a cup of tea in his hands. When they had spoken by communication orb, there had never been silence. They had always had something to say, about the ACD or about their daily lives or anything in the world. She had been curious about him, and he her, but all of that was months behind them. He didn't know what to say.

What did one say, at three in the morning after a night like tonight? What did one say when they had watched hundreds of people dying? What was Archie saying, or doing, or Neal?

He heard a small snuffling sound and felt something wet touch his shoulder. Glancing down, he saw that Francesca had fallen asleep, the expression on her face soft, and her hair was still wet as she leaned into his shoulder. Her legs were bare after her shower, and Aldon didn't dare think about what she had to be wearing underneath her thick, fluffy bathrobe. Instead, he focused on the Puffskein, Bubbles, now peacefully purring in her lap, on the hot cup of tea he had in his hands, and on the meaningless painting of peonies waving in the wind above the empty fireplace across from him.

One of his ancestors popped his head into the frame, taking a look at the scene. Francesca's head pillowed on his arm, Aldon as the sitting Lord Rosier allowing it, and it was past three in the morning at Rosier Place in her private chambers.

"That woman has completely gelded you," Darius Rosier told him, entirely amused. "I would call you an embarrassment to House Rosier, but truth be told, I have never had so much entertainment in my life or death. But you had best make her the Lady Rosier before her father and brothers come hunting. I don't like your chances in a duel, those newfangled Muggle weapons you have or not."

"Go to hell, Darius." Aldon sighed, checking on his core and reaching for his wand. Francesca had recovered enough that she wasn't siphoning magic off him anymore, and he had enough magic of his own that levitating her to bed was a simple enough task. He took a moment to pull the blanket over her, then to settle her new Puffskein on the pillow beside her.

Then he headed for the library. He had coded letters to write, and a statement to draft, and his own chambers would be far too much temptation to sleep.

XXX

Leo didn't remember falling asleep. He was, in fact, not sure he had actually fallen asleep rather than having been hexed into it. It took a moment for him to realize where he was, and what had happened.

The Alleys were gone. Almost a full third of the Alleys were gone: the Cesspool, almost all of Market District, two-thirds of Patten District. The Dancing Phoenix, the Maywell Clinic, Aroma Alley – they had all burned in the flames. And he had made sure they burned, until nothing was left, because he had been the one with the ward-keys.

He had been the one to seal off his Alleys, sacrificing some to save the rest.

He was looking upwards at brown canvas. A tent, he remembered – he, Harry, and the Healers had managed to get a small number of brown, canvas tents to keep the wet off the survivors for the night. He hadn't wanted a tent, but Harry had forced him into one anyway, saying that if anyone needed it, he did. He shouldn't have slept at all.

He hadn't found Rispah. Or Aled, or Solom. Margo and most of the children, who normally stayed close to the Dancing Phoenix at night, were nowhere to be found either. Marek had shown up, dirty and pale-faced and rasping terribly, near two in the morning, and as thankful as Leo was to see him, his smile and rough embrace were weak, because Marek's entire family lived within the fire zone that Leo had sealed away.

Had lived within it, he corrected himself roughly. Marek had croaked out that his sister had survived, but he had only shaken his head when Leo asked after his brothers, his nieces and nephews, his parents. His lady, Anci.

There were other groups of refugees, in other alleys near the fire zone. Even so, Leo guessed that they had lost more than a third of the overall population of the Alleys, but in the districts affected, Cesspool, Market, and Patten, he thought the number was well over three quarters. The fire had started in the poorest areas of the Alleys, the ones most susceptible to fire, the ones least likely to have trained witches and wizards who could put out the flames, and it had spread from there.

It had been set. The fires had been set – the evidence was clear as day. He had seen two Auror outposts go up in flames himself, the one on Kingsgate looking after the Market district, and the one in Patten district. The Cesspool must have gone up first, spreading like wildfire in the poorest neighbourhood of the Alleys, before the others.

None had gone off in Flash, or Highfields, or Unicorn. None of the wealthier, middle-class, primarily non-elite pureblood neighbourhoods had burned. Rispah's words from last night came back to him – those were the neighbourhoods most likely to support Voldemort's agenda, she had said. They were the ones who had been pureblood for generations, and yet hadn't broken into the upper classes. They were the ones who dreamed of making the upper crust, whereas the people in the neighbourhoods that burned were primarily preoccupied with daily survival.

Would those be among Rispah's last words to him?

He didn't want to think about that. She lived in the area he had sealed off, deep in Market district, and she hadn't responded to his Patronus last night. But Rispah didn't have a wand, had never had one, and he had hoped—

He had to get up. He had to move, and he couldn't stay in this cot all day. There were things to do, and he had to go back out there and let the survivors of the Alleys see him. He had to look for Rispah, for Aled and Solom, Krait and Ercole and Orem and Shem, and the children – Jason sometimes had to stay late at Eeylops Owl Emporium, out of the fire zone. He pulled himself upright, swinging heavy legs onto damp, dirty cobblestones, feeling a dull ache spread through his legs, his back, his shoulders.

"Leo?" Harry poked her head in the tent, her green eyes identifiable even though a very different face and hairstyle. Her eyebrows were pressed together in worry, and she sighed, seeing him awake. "You're awake. I'd like to let you sleep more, but we have a problem."

Leo laughed, a rasping, sick sort of noise. He had breathed too much smoke last night, and the Healers had been spread thin. His mother had forced a Healing spell on him anyway, though Leo had tried to redirect her to focus on others. He was fine, or as fine as he could be in the circumstances, and he had just signed the death warrant for anyone not already out of the fire zone so he wasn't sure he had merited a Healing spell. "We have a thousand problems right now. What is it?"

"Craftsmen's Alley is pushing us out." Harry's forehead creased in disapproval. "A bunch of Guild Aldermasters are here, demanding that we move. They don't want a hundred refugees dirtying their street and making it difficult for their members to get to the Guilds."

From the way she said it, with a bitter twist of her lips and deeply sarcastic, Leo knew that she was repeating words from someone, almost exactly. He swore, standing up. "Where the hell do they expect us to go?"

Harry shook her head, her pert nose wrinkled in barely hidden disgust. "I don't think they care, but Craftsmen's Alley is for Guild members and for people on Guild business only, they said."

Leo looked around, finding an old shirt and trousers laid out beside his bed. They were three years old, just old clothes he had left at home when he had moved out, but they were clean, and they were likely all that he had left. It was more than most of the survivors would have left.

"Who's there?" Leo pulled on the shirt, and reached for the trousers. "Tell me my father isn't among them."

"He's not. He's, er, arguing with the Potions Guild to let refugees stay in one of their unused dormitories. There are twenty beds in it, but if people don't mind sharing, he says he can host forty, though it will be a squeeze." Harry hesitated. "Your mum is also talking the Healing Guild into accepting a group of refugees, the most injured twenty or so, into the training hospice. It's the Aldermasters of the Alchemy, Metallurgy, and Craftsmen's Guilds that are causing the most fuss. I think the Bracers Guild, the Farmers Guild and the Inns of Court are talking among themselves, and I haven't seen anyone from the Runes Guild at all."

Leo made a low noise of aggravation. Damn it – even with his parents stepping in to argue with their own Guilds, that was only seventy-odd people. He had another almost thirty in this group alone, and Marek reported at least two other camps. There had to be more. Leo hoped there were more. But they all had to go somewhere, and he suspected at least some of the inhabitants of the other neighbourhoods would be having the same reaction as the Guilds.

"Let me talk to them," he snapped. "What time is it?"

"Just after eight in the morning. And, er—" Harry hesitated again. "Archie pushed back today's meeting to noon, I got an owl. He said he's putting refugee assistance at the top of the agenda for today and for me to make sure you were there."

"I don't have time for a noble negotiation meeting!" Leo snapped, grabbing his wand from beside the thin, flimsy pillow someone had given him. "Just—" He cut himself off, taking a deep breath, feeling a deep well of mixed anger and pain bubbling underneath the surface.

He couldn't show that to the survivors. He was the Rogue – he was the closest thing that these people had to stability, and he had to show that he was in control of himself. He couldn't afford anything else.

"I need to work out where people can stay," Leo finished slowly, forcing his anger below the surface. Someone was responsible for burning his Alleys, and he would find out who, but for now he had to take care of who was left. "Tell your cousin I can't attend. I have too much to do here – these people will need supplies, food, clothing, and if the Fiendfyre has burned out, I need to see what's left. We need to make lists of the survivors, so people might be able to find each other, and then – then lists of people who didn't survive."

Harry paused. One hand reached out to touch his arm, and Leo recognized distantly that she was quite a bit taller than she used to be. Not as tall as her cousin, who would likely end up tall and rail-thin, but she didn't need to look far up at him, now. "Look, Leo—"

She stopped, her tongue flicking uncertainly against her lower lip, then she took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm not going to pretend like I really understand Archie anymore. He's changed a lot from the person that he used to be, so I don't really understand what he's planning, or what he's doing, and I've been away for a year. But I can tell you that Archie is…" She thought for a moment, searching for her words. "Caring. Archie is caring, Leo. He's one of the most deeply empathetic people I know, and he'll try to do the right thing. If he says you should be there, I think you should go."

Leo's first thought was that Black didn't know the first thing about the Alleys. He was still a noble, and unlike Harry he was very much a noble, one who carried his nobility around him like a cloak. The first time Leo had seen him, he had been too clean, too elegant, clothed in finery that would have fed a family in the Lower Alleys for three months and completely unthinking. As well-meaning as Black might be, he was not of Alleys and had no relationship to the Alleys, and Leo couldn't imagine that anything Black might do would be of any real help.

Leo didn't need big, grandiose statements about war. He didn't need showy gestures of condolence. He didn't need people's sympathy or well wishes. Leo needed a place for hundreds of refugees to stay, and he needed food for them all. He needed clothing for them, and tents, and cots, and a thousand small toiletries like soap, toothbrushes, cups and towels and feminine hygiene products.

He didn't want to go and watch Black, or the Lord Rosier, or the Lord Dumbledore go and appropriate the tragedy of the Alleys for their own agendas.

But Black had come to help last night. Black had come through – he had come, and he had brought people who knew how to fight Fiendfyre. He hadn't asked for anything in return, and Harry trusted him. And there were things he needed, and if anyone would be prepared to listen to what Leo and the Alleys needed right now, Leo could only hope that it would be Black.

"I'll go," he said, abrupt, not liking it in the least. A place for hundreds of people to stay, food for them all, clothing and other necessities did not come cheaply, and he had to go to explain it. "Noon."

He pushed his way out of his tent, the flap snapping open with a loud clap, and strode over to the cluster of Aldermasters that he could see squabbling with his mother. She looked exhausted, and Leo didn't think she had slept, but she was holding her own.

"What is this about, then?" he asked, pitching his voice low in warning. "Explain."

It took him an hour and a half to sort out the Guilds, or at least to tell the Craftsmen's, Alchemy, and Metallurgy Guilds to go to hell. Or rather, the fact that the Farmers and Bracers Guilds had shown up and agreed to take the remaining thirty into their courtyards, pulling them off the streets, made it a moot point, at least for this group of survivors. He set one of the women in his camp, a young woman of about twenty who shyly introduced herself as Tuula Hayes, to making a list of names of the survivors for him.

He spent the rest of the morning finding the other camps. Marek led him to the camp he had been at, about four alleys over, which had about seventy survivors, and then he walked a circle around the fire zone, finding six more groups. He walked around, being seen, because even of people hadn't been in the Court of the Rogue, everyone knew who he was, or rather who he had been.

The Court of the Rogue had had the most presence in the three districts burned. There were people in the other districts that followed him and the Rogue's Law, but fewer of them and most of them were just informants. They worked in the Ministry, or the Floo Regulatory Authority, or other legitimate businesses but passed information to him when they could. They weren't his key lieutenants – he didn't find Rispah. He didn't find Aled, or Solom. He didn't find Krait, or Ercole, or Dawull, or Orem or Shem, or any of Rispah's ladies.

He didn't find Margo, or Cora, or Jason, or any of the children.

He spent the morning dealing with problems, setting people to taking names, getting numbers and assessing need. His was the only camp to have gotten any tents, and if he didn't correct that soon, then he would be looking at sickness. Most of the other camps hadn't had much by way of Healer support all night either, so the people in them were in worse condition. No one seemed happy about having the camps where they were, but each of those complainants had been much easier to cow than the Guilds had been. He set a point person on every camp – there was always someone, or a group of people, who had taken charge over the night, because someone had to take command and make decisions. They had all uniformly been relieved when he showed up, then promptly horrified when he put them in formal control of the camp, at least until other arrangements could be made.

There were three hundred and eighty-seven survivors. Three hundred and eighty-seven people who needed a place to stay, food, warm clothing, bedding, toiletries, and things he hadn't even thought about yet.

Potter Place looked different to him when he landed. The same high stone walls were there, with the same stone knights patrolling the grounds. The main building was stone, the grounds expansive with more than enough space for a hundred refugees.

He couldn't help but think that stone didn't burn.

The huge tent over the negotiation table, which had been set into a square with Black alone on one side, could shield forty of his survivors from the rain at night. Everyone else was already there, and Leo spotted easily the ones who had come to his aid last night.

Black himself looked no different, but there was a slowness to his movement that showed his tiredness. His girlfriend, Hermione Granger, was nursing a thermos of very black tea, while the Lord Queenscove and his mother had circles under their eyes. Lord Potter, too, was unusually silent, and the Lord Black's face was grim. The Lord Rosier didn't look tired, but there was a sharp alertness to him that made Leo suspect he had taken a few Wideye Potions or a lot of coffee. Only Lina seemed to show no effect of the night before. Leo was late, the last one there, which he figured was fine. He had been busy.

"Thank you for coming, Leo," Archie said, nodding to him in an understanding way which immediately put Leo on guard. "I know you are busy, but I wanted you here because we need to talk about refugee assistance in a very real way today, and we don't have enough experience with this. I need you to tell me what you need."

Archie turned to the rest of the table. "For those of you who haven't heard, the Lower Alleys burned last night. Fiendfyre was set off at three Auror outposts, and it spread quickly. Leo, do you want to say anything more?"

Leo pushed away his anger, swallowing it. Black had said he needed Leo to tell him what he needed, and Leo had to play this stupid game to help the survivors. Shelter, food, supplies.

He fixed that mantra in his mind. Shelter, food, supplies. If he got those, these nobles could say whatever they bloody well wanted. "The neighbourhoods that burned were Cesspool, Market and Patten. They're the... least affluent areas of the Lower Alleys, and were the least able to defend themselves. They have a high proportion of Squibs, and there's no money for formal schooling. Very – very few people knew the counterspell for Fiendfyre. I have three hundred and eighty-seven survivors that need a place to stay, food, clothes…"

"Three hundred and eighty-seven out of how many?" Lina said, almost idle, and Leo fought the wave of anger at her attitude. Shelter, food, supplies, he reminded himself coldly. He could not fly off the handle here.

"The population of the Alleys was never well tracked," Leo snapped, his words sharper out loud than they had sounded in his head. "Rough estimate, three to four thousand dead. I don't know. I have eight makeshift survivor camps and people at every one making lists."

Lina nodded, accepting, and Leo didn't like the expression on her face. It wasn't sympathetic, but there was something almost like understanding in her eyes. Leo hated it, and he looked away.

The Lord Rosier cleared his throat. "I have some information, if you would like it."

"Aldon." Archie motioned for him to continue, and a quick glare silenced the Light faction Lords on the other side who were already muttering. "Go on."

"I sent an inquiry late last night to my spies in Voldemort's group, asking if they knew anything. I received a reply about an hour ago and only decoded it now." Aldon waved a sheet of parchment. Leo saw three neat rows of numbers, followed by a flowing hand. "Voldemort burned down the Alleys. Scar was his associate, helping him recruit, but it seems that Voldemort lost control of him. Voldemort is also aiming at legitimacy, so he was covering his history – I imagine Scar and others in the Lower Alleys had information about him that he did not wish to get out."

And three to four thousand dead was worth the price of that secrecy. Leo gritted his teeth, lest the thought escape him.

"How sure is your information?" The Lord Dumbledore's voice was thoughtful. "I am only asking as, with a tragedy of this scope, it would be all too easy for any one person to use it to sway sympathy for their chosen cause. We want Voldemort to be behind it because it suits us for him to be so – but that does not mean that it is so."

The Lord Rosier stared at the wizened wizard for a long moment, and his voice when he spoke was cool, even through the rasp of smoke inhalation. "I suppose, Albus, that it comes to a matter of trust. You either trust me, or you do not. I assume you either have none of your own contacts in Voldemort's group, or you haven't taken the time yet to verify with your own informants. It doesn't matter. House Rosier is prepared to act on this information, and any who are willing to trust me are invited to follow. I am done trying to convince a crowd of Light faction supporters, at every turn, of my trustworthiness. You would not have made such a comment to Neal, or to Raoul, or to Gareth."

"Aldon, Albus was only making a point." Black's voice was a warning, and the Lord Rosier raised both of his hands in the air – a gesture of surrender, but the man made it look as if it wasn't. "Thank you for that, both of you. We are getting side-tracked. The issue is refugee assistance, and we have almost four hundred refugees to feed, clothe, and shelter. With Voldemort in charge, we will have more. What are your suggested plans? Hermione, Patricia, why don't you begin?"

"The British International Association already noted an uptick of blood refugee claims in America, Canada, Germany and the Nordic Union over the past year," Patricia Ryan began, and Leo drowned her voice out as she began reciting numbers, handed to her by Hermione, and describing the various humanitarian programs available in different countries.

Leo didn't care. Not about how many blood refugees had been accepted in the past, not about the amount of influence that the stupid British International Association could use, not about possibilities. He needed help now, and the British International Association couldn't promise now. They had nothing to provide, only noise, and he didn't care to hear it.

Instead, he thought about Rispah. His cousin on his mother's side, or more likely a second cousin, Rispah had been with him his whole life. She was ten years his senior, and her sharp, sometimes dark, humour had lit up even his dreariest days. She had been the one to introduce him to Aled, his first free-dueling instructor, and to so many people in the Alleys, and she had been at his side when he challenged the last Rogue according to Rogue's Law. And she had been there, seven years running, his closest confidante and the Queen of the Ladies of the Rogue.

Aled. Leo wouldn't have called him a mentor, or a brother, or anything like that, but Aled had always supported him when he needed it. Aled had always been there, a steady presence – he had been one of the first to swing to Leo's side when he became the Rogue, regardless of his age. Whatever the day, whatever the situation, Leo could always trust Aled to bring a firm, pragmatic view to the table.

Margo wasn't sure how old she was, but his mum thought that she was probably around thirteen now. She looked younger, because she had been undernourished as a child, but Leo tried to make sure that all the children got enough to eat at the Dancing Phoenix after hours. They might not be his children, but they also were his children, because they had no one else. He wasn't a parent to them, but maybe an older brother, or an uncle. He had had a responsibility to them, and instead he couldn't even get them out of the Alleys. When the time had come, he didn't even know where they were.

Solom. Krait. Ercole. Dawull. Harra. Orem. Shem. Kuri. Anci. He hadn't found them. He hadn't found any of them.

The Dancing Phoenix was gone. It had been a second home to him, ever since he had taken the Rogue's seat. The last Rogue had had a grand, throne-like chair at the head of the room; the first thing that Leo had done, fresh off his win in the trial by combat, was take it out to the street and torch it. He wanted to be a Rogue that was accessible to the public, to the Court of the Rogue, and he would sit at the same tables as everyone else. He was the Rogue because of what he did as the Rogue, not because he sat in a particular chair, demanding food and tribute and acting like the Lord of the Lower Alleys. Even if that was what the Rogue was – the Rogue held the ward-keys to the entire Lower Alleys, just as noble lords held the wards and power from their ancestral manors. Leo was not that kind of Rogue, playing at being a king in his own country, and he had sworn to himself that he would never be that kind of Rogue.

Leo walked the streets of his Lower Alleys as much any of the Court of the Rogue, because it was important to be seen. He knew every street, every corner, every courtyard and fountain and bench. He knew where the shopkeepers liked to gather to gossip after the day was done, he knew where the laundry girls liked to do their work, he knew where the chefs and barkeeps and servers went at two in the morning after the restaurants closed to eat their dinners before falling into bed for another day. Three of his neighbourhoods, including one that he would have called the beating heart of the Alleys, had been cut away.

His mother's clinic was gone. The Maywell Clinic, an achievement of the Alleys that had seen so many people pass through who would otherwise never receive Healing, which had saved so many lives, which had been a clear, identifiable pillar in the community, was gone. The Healers who had staffed the clinic, many of whom didn't live in the Alleys, might have survived, but the building itself, the support staff, the symbol of hope, was gone.

So much of his life was gone, and the discussion that happening around the table, underneath a pretty white tent and in front of a grand noble mansion, was no more than a distant buzz. He didn't belong here. He wasn't one of these people.

He should be in the Alleys, looking after his own.

"Leo?"

Someone tapped him on the arm. The Lord Queenscove, who had apparently switched seats with whoever was sitting beside him earlier, was staring at him with an expression of concern, and Leo shook himself. "What?"

His voice came out rough, rude, but no one commented.

"James has offered to put up sixty people here, at Potter Place – one of the wings here is unused," Black said, staring at him intently. "Albus, Raoul, Gareth and Tahmeed have offered to put up thirty each, which works out to a hundred and eighty refugees, leaving a little over two hundred left. The Clans will take in another sixty, and the Irish can do eighty. That's three hundred and twenty, so the last eighty or so—"

"The last eighty or so can stay with the Guilds," Leo finished, feeling something else coming over him. He shook it off – this was not the time to show emotion. "You're taking them in, but for how long? A week? A month?"

Archie's expression was sympathetic, and Leo hated it. "As long as it takes to get alternate arrangements in place. The British International Association will draw on their reserve fund to support them for the moment and will lobby with the ICW and the other Wizarding nations to declare a formal state of emergency for Wizarding Britain, which will start humanitarian aid flowing. Narcissa has agreed to go to the ICW – she was deeply involved in the previous government, she is recognizable, and she witnessed the coup itself, so she is the best choice to raise the alarm. Lina, Neal and Aldon will arrange a way to get her out of the country to Switzerland and into the ICW. Once we have an alternative, we can get your people out of the country."

"Out of the country?" Leo frowned, feeling a new sense of anger rising. "This is our country. Why should we leave?"

There was a long moment of silence. Leo looked around the table, seeing expressions that varied from dislike and annoyance to sympathy and, worst of all, understanding. More than a few were carefully blank, poised.

"Because the massacre of your Alleys is only the start," Lina said finally, abrupt. "Frankly, if we want to live, we should get the hell out of this country too. But, for whatever reason, we aren't – we're here to fight. And part of fighting means getting the people who can't protect themselves somewhere safer. If we're lucky, then they might get to come back one day. If we aren't, well, at least they get to live."

XXX

Neal stopped his mother, on the way out of the meeting. "Mama, can you go home without me? I'd like to check on him." He nodded after Aldon who, despite his controlled exterior, was not entirely successful at hiding his exhaustion. The thing with Aldon was that, in any situation of discomfort, he tended to turn insulting and angry – and when he was tired, that was only made worse.

His mother was a head shorter than him, but she had always carried herself like someone twice her height. She nodded, tilting her head up to look at him with a small smile. "Go on, Yuanren. I will go ahead, home, and speak to the house-elves about our security measures."

Neal grinned, and hurried after Aldon.

He didn't quite manage to catch the man before he Apparated, so he followed. Luckily, Aldon was only heading back to Rosier Place, and Neal managed to catch up to him before he was a third of the way across the grounds.

Lina acknowledged he was there with a short nod. "I'll go run a patrol of the grounds," she said, and with that, she jogged off, moving faster than Neal would have expected for someone of her age.

He took a few seconds to pick his words. "Have you slept?"

"A few hours."

"Uh-huh." Neal snorted. "And how many is a few hours?"

Aldon shrugged. "Three? They invented Wideye Potions and coffee for a reason."

"You need more sleep than that, especially after a draining." Neal pulled his wand, checked his core to confirm that he had enough magic, and cast a thorough diagnostic loop.

Chronic exhaustion – not just from the past night, but over the past several months. The blood magic he had cast last night was still reverberating through his core, and Neal guessed that by now, Aldon's magical affinity score had probably increased to an Erlich six. The cuts had scabbed over, but hadn't scarred yet, and he checked them quickly for infection. Aldon's lungs were damaged, the same as everyone who had been in the Alleys last night, but it didn't look like Aldon had gotten even the preliminary treatment for it. He brushed against Aldon's liver, confirming a few minor indications of Aldon's self-reported past alcohol abuse, but more concerning to him was the four espressos and three Wideye Potions Aldon had winding through his system. Neal guessed that he had wanted to be particularly sharp for the meeting, and then thanked the heavens that Aldon was too sheltered to have ever found anything harder than alcohol, caffeine and Wideye Potions.

He could just imagine the trouble Aldon would cause with something like speed, or cocaine, or Draper's Folly. He'd find a way to do a quick sweep of Rosier Place, he thought. Just in case.

"Find anything interesting?" Aldon's voice carried a small bite, but he was too tired to do anything about it anyway. Aldon's core hadn't recovered from the night as well as Neal would have expected.

"You need to sleep," Neal said, his tone brooking no argument. "And I'm setting rules in place – no more than two espressos in a day, and one Wideye Potion. You're abusing them."

Aldon shrugged, uncaring. "Needs must. If you're here anyway, would you mind looking in on Francesca? I failed to have you, or Archie, look at her last night before returning home. It was my error. I ought to have, she was coughing last night."

"If you take a nap, I will," Neal replied, seeing the opportunity and grabbing it. That was a talent one had to develop with someone like Aldon – he often needed to trade a favour to get Aldon to do something he didn't want to do. He supposed he probably could just hex the man, but he didn't want to resort to that just yet.

"Fine." Aldon paused for a long moment, and there was a small, low sigh. "Do you trust me, Neal?"

Neal raised an eyebrow. That was a question unlike any that Aldon had ever asked before, a rare display of vulnerability. "I do. Why are you asking?"

"Most of them, at Archie's meetings, they don't. Lord Potter, Lord Dumbledore, even your ally, the Heir Goldenlake… they don't trust me." There was a small huff, a somehow sad and angry sound all at once. "I have… friends, or allies, in Voldemort's camp. They risk their lives every time they send me a message, and this morning's information… I can't imagine the risk that Swallow must have run to decode my message and write me a reply so quickly, then to send it out by owl. And half the people at that table don't trust that I'm not the goddamn enemy. Instead, Lord Dumbledore warned everyone that I was taking advantage of a tragedy to turn it to my own purposes."

Neal didn't know how to reply to that. He didn't think that was what had actually happened, but he couldn't deny the undercurrents of mistrust at the negotiations. Rough groups had already formed – the historic Light faction, regardless of where they were sitting, were intensely loyal to the Lord Dumbledore, supporting and reinforcing each other at every turn. The Irish and the Scots had formed a rough alliance, the Welsh and Shifter Alliance generally supporting them with a few minor differences in position. The British International Association was a bit of an outlier and didn't trust anyone, but they benefitted from a certain patronizing generosity the Light faction bestowed on them, since they spoke for the newbloods and halfbloods long expelled from the country. Aldon had Lina backing him, but when he spoke, he often spoke alone, since Lina spoke only to provide strategy. The Lady Malfoy spent most of the meetings silent.

Even Neal had never stood up and outright supported Aldon. He did trust Aldon, and he did support most of the things that Aldon said that weren't sarcastic remarks or insults, but he simply hadn't thought Aldon needed his support and reinforcement. Aldon was harsh, acerbic, quick to insult his opponents and quicker take apart their arguments – he was much better at the political game than Neal. He often had an explanation of why something was ridiculous, nonsensical, intellectually deficient, or outright stupid before Neal had even processed what the proposal required. He was often right, even if he went about telling them all so in an unproductive way.

"I hate them, Neal," Aldon was saying, his voice low and harsh. "The Light faction is no better than the SOW Party, and quite a lot worse. I wasn't kicked out of the SOW Party for being a halfblood, you know. There are halfbloods in the SOW Party. I was kicked out because I challenged the blood discrimination laws. I summoned Justice. I helped put together Bridge. I risked myself, and Francesca, and I pulled attention to their supposed uniting cause, blood equality, at the Unity Ball. I've done more against the blood discrimination laws than most of them have in generations. And that's not enough. For them, because I'm the Lord Rosier, because I'm Dark, because my family was in the SOW Party, that means I can't be trusted."

"I trust you." Neal slung an arm over Aldon's shoulders, a little cautious. He was given to easy affection, though he knew Aldon was not. But he thought Aldon needed it right now. "I know I haven't said it in the meetings, and I'm sorry for that. But I do trust you, and I trust your information."

Aldon looked up at him, giving him a small, bitter half-smile. "But you didn't grow up here, Neal. You don't carry the same prejudices. But that doesn't matter. I've finished trying to please Archie's group of proposed allies. I realized, after the attack… I will do the same thing no matter what the Light faction decides. I will rebel against Voldemort, regardless of whether I must do so alone or not, regardless of whether I will have any other support. I do not accept Voldemort and his Ministry as our legitimate government, and I refuse to pretend as if nothing has changed. I drafted a statement on behalf of House Rosier to publish in the next Bridge, right after the front-page article on the burning of the Lower Alleys. Everyone else, they can follow me, or not. I don't care anymore."

Neal studied the man for a moment, picking up the firm, reckless, resolution in his eyes. "House Queenscove will be behind you. I believe you, Aldon, and you're right. We can work out the details later. The burning of the Alleys was an atrocity, an act of war. If we're going to say anything, now is the time to do it. Let me see your statement while you nap. Archie should know we're doing this, and I'll see who else is ready to follow, but we'll do it whatever they say."

Aldon nodded, a slight movement, his shoulders sagging as he trudged back to his manor. As promised, he handed Neal his handwritten statement before letting Neal send him to bed with a mild sleeping potion. Neal spent the rest of the early evening checking in on Francesca, Aman and Lina, who had also been in the Alleys last night, and scouring Rosier Place for any illicit substances, just in case.

It took four days to craft the final statement, which was short and to the point.

We the undersigned do not accept the Ministry of Magic as the legitimate government of Wizarding Britain.

As published in Bridge on June 5, 1996, Lord Riddle and the SOW Party are no longer in control of Wizarding Britain. The terrorist threat of the last year, led by the so-called Voldemort, successfully committed a coup d'état, killing the Lord Riddle, the Lord Malfoy, the Lord Parkinson, the Minister for Magic, and many others. With the attack on the Lower Alleys the evening of June 21, 1996, to which none of the Ministry responded, our course is clear.

The government of our great nation has been captured by extremists. In accordance with our duty as the leaders of our respective communities, we whole-heartedly reject this new government and stand in defiance from this point forward. We encourage all others to do the same.

Lord Aldon Étienne Blake Rosier, House Rosier

Lord Nealan Yuanren Queenscove, House Queenscove

Lord Sirius Orion Black, House Black

Lord James Fleamont Potter, House Peverell

Lady Narcissa Druella Black Malfoy, Regent for the Lord Draco Lucian Malfoy, House Malfoy

Lionel Patrick Hurst, Rogue of the Lower Alleys

High Priestess Saoirse Riordan, Tuatha Dé

Mary Docherty, President, Free Irish

Minerva Isobel McGonagall, the Lady Ross and Emissary for the Clanmeet

Patricia Mary Ryan, Vice-President Advocacy, British International Association

Hermione Jean Granger, Head Representative, British Students Association (all chapters)

Neal called his family and his closest friends. Graeme took a leave of absence from work, and Dom was between jobs anyway. Fei had just finished school and was looking for an excuse to avoid her family, and Kel bought a plane ticket. His father, Baird Queenscove, arranged to go on sabbatical and would arrive after the start of the new school year, once Jessa was back at Ilvermorny. Even Yuki, newly graduated from Mahoutokoro and a trained Healer, found a way to escape her conservative family's clutches to join him.

The only ones left were Will and Tina, but they would stay with the ICW in Geneva. Will intercepted the Lady Malfoy at the No-Maj airport, with the formal backing of the Canadian delegation to put her under political sanctuary while at the ICW. Tina, for her turn, pushed for a full investigation of Wizarding Britain by the International Wizarding Criminal Courts.

Francesca spoke to John, pulling in the Scamanders, who while non-noble still carried influence within Wizarding Britain. And John, along with Gerhardt Riemann, cut their summer plans short in favour of travelling to the ICW and, in Gerhardt's case, applying for an internal transfer into Wizarding Germany's delegation. John, since he had a secure line into Wizarding Britain through a comm orb with Francesca, became the de facto, unofficial, MACUSA liaison into Wizarding Britain.

And Aldon reorganized his informant groups. Some of his informants no longer needed to be secret, since they were already in open rebellion, and they moved into other roles. The shifter alliance, who hadn't signed the statement to preserve their efficacy as spies, would keep gathering information but report to Sirius rather than Aldon since their identities were known within the group. Aldon kept only full responsibility for his spies whose identities were secret, those in the Voldemort camp, and he began working to recruit more informants. The people he called Swallow and Vulture were quickly joined by Magpie, Finch and Hummingbird. Neal didn't know the spell that Aldon and Lina had used, but Aldon somehow managed to seal the knowledge of the identities of each of his spies into his soul, that they couldn't be taken away from him by force.

It was only a week, but Neal stood on the top of his battlements, preparing for action.

XXX

Three rooms and a bathroom.

They were decently sized rooms. The two bedrooms were adequately appointed, each with a grand four-poster bed just as Draco had at school. The wardrobes were adequate, and a small variety of robes, tailored to his size, had appeared in it with no explanation after only a few days. They weren't his clothes, and he doubted they were even new clothes, but they were well-made and in good condition and… well, Draco didn't have anything else to wear.

The parlour was large, with a soft, light green sofa arranged in front of a fireplace. There was no Floo connection to his fireplace – Draco had checked – but there was always a warm fire crackling in the grate. There were four bookcases along the back, stuffed with a wide variety of mismatched textbooks, legends, and biographies, and a woven basket held blank scrolls of parchment, ink, and quills. A small side table stood on one side of the room, where Draco and his mother had taken their meals, alone since Draco didn't have the run of Rosier Place. If he needed or wanted anything else, he only needed to ask one of the house-elves who silently came by, three times a day, with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

His rooms were very comfortable, and he couldn't point out anything truly wrong with them. But it didn't matter how comfortable the rooms were, because Draco was still a prisoner.

His mother had left three days ago. She had explained the circumstances to him – someone needed to go to the ICW to explain what had happened. Someone needed to announce the coup to the wider world, and someone needed to carry word of the massacre in the Lower Alleys. His mother was recognizable, a figure in the previous government, and she was the logical choice. Draco understood, and his mother had told him everything that he needed to know, about the negotiations, about the statement in Bridge that she had signed on his behalf as his regent.

Draco understood, but he hated it. He had no control over any of it. Draco was the presumptive Lord Malfoy, but until he came of age, his mother as regent would make the decisions for him.

And Draco didn't agree with most of her choices. More to the point, his father wouldn't have agreed with them. Draco would not have supported an end to the blood discrimination laws, which his mother hadn't opposed. Draco would not have supported the referendum votes, which his mother hadn't opposed. Draco wouldn't have signed the joint statement, not because he agreed with Voldemort but because he didn't trust Blake any farther than he could hex him.

Draco loved his mother desperately, but something in her had broken the night his father died. She and his father had loved each other deeply, and without him, she seemed to be lost in her grief, making decisions that couldn't be in the best interests of House Malfoy. He felt her pain, hard, sharp and keening, every time he was close to her.

Draco, like his father, would fight against Voldemort, but he wouldn't have made deals with the Light faction and these other rebel groups, some of whom had fought against the Ministry for generations. He, like his father, wouldn't sacrifice everything they had fought for over the past few decades – there were reasons that laws had been instituted for Muggleborns and halfbloods, to protect the precious wizarding culture from the ever-encroaching threat of Muggle culture. He would agree that the laws needed finesse, that they shouldn't be a blanket statement, but they had been put in place for a reason and they should be guarding the line. And his mother seemed completely willing to sacrifice the progress they had made over the past few decades to fight against Voldemort when there were other options.

House Malfoy was powerful, a Book of Gold family. They had allies. Surely there were any number of other Dark, noble, pureblooded families that would have given them sanctuary: the Travers, the Averys, the Notts. Any one of the SOW Party families would have sheltered them, because they were the Malfoys, and they would have treated him far sight better than Aldon Blake did. He just needed to get to them instead of being trapped, a prisoner, at Rosier Place.

And there was Pansy. No one was doing anything to help Pansy. Draco had asked after her relentlessly, but his mother had only shaken her head.

"We don't know," she had said, a look of sorrow on her face. "The Lord Rosier reports that she is alive. Aside from that, we don't know."

She always called him that, the Lord Rosier, as if Aldon Blake was the proper Lord Rosier. He had been disowned, and while he might have wrestled the title from the Rosier family, Draco wasn't sure that he could, or that he should, hold it. He had been disowned. As a second cousin, even underage, Draco could challenge him for it.

He had considered it, at length.

"We'll be rescuing her, right?" Draco had replied, because that was the obvious next step. They had to rescue Pansy. Pansy was close friends with Blake, and of course he would act to rescue her, at the very least. There was no other answer.

His mother had shaken her head, slowly. "We don't know enough at this time to do anything, and they're still pulling together a force to fight. We don't have enough people for a rescue mission, not with Voldemort now entrenched at Malfoy Manor. It would be suicide."

Draco didn't believe her. Without his father, in her grief, he thought his mother was all too willing to accept the explanations that other people gave her. He knew, from what his mother had said, there were almost twenty people at the negotiation table, some of them reportedly able to call on hundreds. Voldemort had only had thirty people when he took Malfoy Manor, and he didn't see why they couldn't use their hundreds of supporters to rescue Pansy. They just didn't care to rescue Pansy, he thought – his mother was looking in the entirely wrong direction for allies. They should be looking towards their traditional allies, not the Light faction, not House Rosier, not these other groups. They all had their own agendas, and no interest in rescuing Pansy, and that was the sum of it.

He could challenge Blake for title. As a second cousin, he was close enough in line, and Blake had always been terrible at duelling. Blake hadn't taken Defense Against the Dark Arts past his fifth year, and in duelling club, Draco had always managed to defeat him.

Yet, Blake had won against Caelum Lestrange at the Unity Ball. Draco wasn't entirely sure how, but the rumours he had heard suggested that Blake had had a few tricks up his sleeve, and that he was willing to resort to blood magic. And, duels for succession were always duels to the death, in which Blake would be allowed to use anything he liked to defend his title. Draco needed more information before he issued a succession challenge.

There was a knock at the door, polite, and Draco, still absently thinking over the challenge idea, went to open it.

He didn't recognize the figure for a moment, and then he did. She was almost his height, though built with wider shoulders and a stocky figure. She smiled at him, a little shy, her green eyes bright through the spectacles she wore on her nose. Uncertainty radiated from her like a halo, even as she hesitantly held her arms out for a hug.

It was the hair. Draco had only seen her hair long once, in his mindscape when he was dying in first year, but it was unmistakeable, wild and thick.

"Rig—Harriett," he said, a little shocked even as he corrected himself. A bead of something that he didn't even know he still had died – there had always been some part of him that had wanted another explanation, he realized, that had wanted it to be a joke. But Arcturus Rigel Black was not Rigel, and instead there was Harriett Potter, looking at him with an expression that he intrinsically recognized as Rigel's. There was only the slightest pause before he stepped forward, wrapping his arms around her. "I'm glad to see you. I'm so, so glad to see you."

"Me too, Dray." Her voice was soft, choked with emotion, and Draco felt a strong sense of relief from her. The timbre of her voice was higher than the one that he remembered, but there was still something familiar about it.

No one else called him Dray.

"Call me Harry. Only Aldon calls me Harriett, but Archie says he's training him out of it by calling him Al and seeing how he likes it." She grinned, a little impish, affecting an American drawl that she had to have picked up from her cousin, and Draco couldn't help the laughter that escaped him.

"Harry. I'm – I don't know what to say. So much has happened." He stepped away from her, inviting her into his rooms with a casual wave of his hand.

"I know." Harry sighed heavily, walking in and falling into his sofa. She moved differently, as Harry rather than as Rigel – there was something relaxed about her movements now, something he had seen only rarely in Rigel. "I'm still catching up on everything. I shouldn't have gone away for an entire year, but with the circumstances being what they were, I didn't have much choice. I'm… very sorry about your father, Dray."

"Thank you." Draco looked away, his face falling. The hurt was still raw. "Did you hear about Pansy?"

Harry nodded slowly, her face taking on a grim cast, and there was a spike of worry. "I did, yes. Aldon told me. He… also tells me that you've failed to pass his intention test four times since you've arrived. The one where you have to say that you intend no harm to him, to the people at Rosier Place, and to Rosier Place itself."

Draco scowled. Blake's stupid test. He gave it to him every week, and he always said that Draco failed. Draco wasn't sure that he was even testing him – maybe Blake would say he had lied no matter what he said. "I don't believe that's a real test, on his part."

Harry fell silent, tilting her head in a very familiar way. "I think his gift is unusually sensitive," she offered, thoughtful. "You don't have to be lying for him to notice, he'll pick it up if you're even considering something that would harm him or anyone here. He's always been paranoid, and the statement published last week only makes that worse. He's put himself out as a target."

"He gave it to you as well?"

"He gives it to everyone." Harry paused, studying Draco closely with green eyes that were entirely unfamiliar. "If anyone enters, even if they were here before, he requires the statement in front of him. If he catches anything except pure truth, they're either denied entry, monitored strictly while here, or put in lockdown."

Draco swallowed, looking away. If that was the case, he was probably failing it because he was considering challenging Blake for title, he realized. He couldn't possibly say that he intended no harm if a part of him was consistently considering harming him for the Rosier title. But even without that, he didn't know if he would pass the test. The truth was, as long as he planned on escaping and opposing Blake and all he stood for, there was a distinct chance he wouldn't pass. And if he didn't pass, then Blake wouldn't let him out of these rooms.

And he didn't have a wand.

"I need to get out of here, Harry." Draco looked up, at the ceiling, his voice low and desperate. "No one's doing anything about Pansy. Pansy… we left her there. She caused a diversion for us, and we ran, and now no one is doing anything for her."

"As I understand it from Aldon, Pansy is alive, but Voldemort keeps her close." Harry looked away. "Rescuing her will probably have to come with a full attack on Voldemort. They're still working out the details for the treaty, but right now it looks like Aldon, Sirius and Archie are going to be handling information gathering and internal communications, making sure that people know what they need to know. My dad is going to be in command of most of the military activity. The British International Association is taking charge of refugee logistics, and MACUSA is pushing for the ICW to close the British borders and halt all flights. If they do, it'll mostly be symbolic – they can't stop the Muggle flights. Nothing is finalized yet, but they should move fast once the treaty is settled. We'll get Pansy back soon."

Draco looked down, his face crumpling a little. There were always reasons, and he didn't believe most of them. "Soon," he replied, bitter. "It's been almost a month. Voldemort took Malfoy Manor with about as many people as they have around that table. She's just not a priority, for them."

"I don't think that's the case." Harry frowned at him, a mild sense of disapproval echoing off of her. "If she's being kept as close to Voldemort as Aldon suggests, then it would be hard to go for her without the proper preparation. From what I've learned, Voldemort took Malfoy Manor by surprise – he planted an agent into the SOW Party, someone Riddle trusted, to create a weakness in the wards. It clearly took months of planning, especially with a second force of the same size holding down the Ministry."

Draco fell silent for a moment, thinking. He couldn't deny that all of this would make sense, but all their information was coming from one person, one source. "I don't trust Blake. Rosier, I mean."

Harry leaned back, letting a soft laugh escape. "He's not the easiest person to trust, no," she acknowledged. "I'm not sure I do, either. He's changed a lot over the past year. I don't really know what to think of him, but it seems like his aims are in line with ours, at least for the moment."

"Ours?" Draco looked at her in surprise, an ugly feeling of mixed surprise and disappointment curdling in his stomach. "I mean – you support this? Beyond Voldemort, I mean, all these other changes they're promising?"

Harry looked at him, open surprise on her face, and then Draco was hit with a strong sense of disappointment from her. Disappointment, and dawning realization. "I—" she paused. "Well, I am a halfblood, Draco. I'm caught in the Marriage Law and the other blood discrimination laws too. I don't really have any feelings on the independence referendums, but I've always been opposed to the blood discrimination laws."

"I'm not saying those laws are good," Draco replied, leaning forward, almost eager in the face of her disappointment. "I mean, obviously they need to be reworked, because they shouldn't be a blanket rule. For example, you – you should never have been caught by them. You're noble, you're powerful, you grew up in a wizarding family. You're Slytherin, for god's sake."

Harry didn't answer him, staring at some point on the mantlepiece.

"But I mean, the laws were instituted for a reason," Draco continued, the words rushing from him almost without thought, all the lines that he had been taught before and some that he had heard only recently. Everything he knew about the blood discrimination laws, in a wild torrent. "Muggleborns have different magic than us, more uncontrolled and dangerous, especially before they learn to control their magic. They don't learn the same things at home as we do, and they don't share our background, so it would be fundamentally unequal to have Muggleborns schooling with us. They would be so behind and wouldn't be able to keep up. It wouldn't be fair to them to put them in our classes, or to hold us back for them, so it's best for everyone to have them educated separately. And culturally, Muggleborns and halfbloods are very different from us, since they grow up part Muggle. Our wizarding culture and traditions are unique, they're the pillars on which we built our society, and they need to be protected. We're not Muggles, and there are so many of them, and so few of us, so we need the laws to protect our way of life. I'm not – I'm not anti-Muggle, but they aren't like us, and they should be kept separate from us for our own protection—"

"Draco." Harry's voice was quiet, but firm, and her green eyes were hard.

Draco shut up.

"Draco, I am not an exception," she continued, calm and even. "Don't treat me as an exception to the rules. I'm a halfblood, just like every other halfblood who was banned from Hogwarts. The only thing that was different about me is that I had a pureblood cousin who sort of looked like me who was willing to break the law for me. I broke the law to go to Hogwarts. I—"

She fell silent, looking away, the smallest pang of regret coming off her. "Maybe you're right, because I shouldn't have. If I hadn't, we wouldn't be in this situation now. The Marriage Law probably would have passed in first year, so Riddle wouldn't have needed to plant the diary in second year. The petrifactions would have never happened, the basilisk would never have happened, and Voldemort wouldn't have escaped."

"But I would have been dead," Draco snapped, a little sharp. "In first year, with the Sleeping Sickness."

"No." Harry shook her head, and Draco felt a sharp stab of guilt, guilt mixed with grief, coming from her. "That – that was my fault too. I burned through all the ginseng that year making too many potions, too quickly, trying to be helpful. Trying to prove myself. If I hadn't, there still would have been some for you. You would have been just fine. And if I had just – if I had just gone to AIM, like I was supposed to, and Archie had gone to Hogwarts, like he was supposed to – we wouldn't be in this situation today. I – this is my fault."

"It's not your fault."

"No, Dray, this is my fault." Harry sighed heavily. "Because I wanted to go to Hogwarts, because I wanted to learn potions under Professor Snape... thousands of people died. I have to help fix it."

"That's not—" Draco didn't know what to say, and he fell silent. Everything was thorny, a mess – if he was right, and Muggleborns and halfbloods should be kept separate, then Harry was an ideal example of the reasons why. Rigel had attracted trouble like no one else. But Harry wasn't supposed to be the example. Harry was so powerful, and so smart, and she worked so hard, and none of what had happened had ever been her fault. But it was exactly what others would say of her, what they had said in the Black Trial, and that made him feel sick to his core. He shoved the thought away, rude. "Well, what are you going to do?"

"Blaise and I are going to go try to convince the other SOW Party families to join us. Millie's abroad, so there's – there's only us, now. We need to try to bring as many people onto our side as possible. We were hoping you might be willing to come with us, but…" She shrugged. "It's fine, Dray. I'm really glad that you're safe. I should really – I should go. There's a lot to do."

"Wait," Draco started, but she stood up, looking at him with a sad, troubled expression.

"I'll – I'll come visit you again soon, I promise," she said, her discomfort and grief palpable even without his Empathy, heading for the door. "I'll see you later."

The door shut behind her with a quiet, very final, snick.

XXX

ANs: Happy Easter, everyone, and I hope COVID-19 quarantine is treating everyone well! One would think that I would write faster with the courts being shut down, along with all my other usual distractions, but alas. Cataclysm is considerably harder for me to write than any of the others, because I'm very much not used to writing action, and it's mostly action. Thanks as always to best beta-reader ever, meek_bookworm, whom I work far too hard, and to all of you who take the time to drop me a review! Please do leave me a comment or review - I like to know your thoughts!