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.

10. Chapter 10

"I hate it," Archie declared, for what had to be the tenth time. Leo watched him pacing on the other side of the table, which was littered with iterations of the article that they had been struggling to put together for a week and a half. Archie had hated every rendition of it since Harry had gotten her hands onto the piece. "I mean, listen to this: The past six months have been a trial. These words, I think, must be the understatement of the century. A trial? Really? This is a person who is risking his life, risking everything, to get a warning out in the Daily Prophet, and he's calling it a trial? No, he's going to be like Voldemort is an insane dictator and is going to kill us all, don't join him he's crazy and awful with eighteen exclamation points in all capitals!"

"No, he isn't," Harry replied, sounding exhausted and annoyed, and Leo went over to rub her shoulders. He might not have anything to add—he rarely had much to add, these days—but he could still provide some small comfort. "Being hyperbolic isn't going to help. The people reading this article are going to be the people who waited after Voldemort's coup and who stood by after the Lower Alleys were burned."

Leo's hands twitched, and Harry glanced at him with a small, sympathetic smile before looking back at Archie and continuing. "We're reaching out to people who were at least comfortable with the old world. To some degree, they trusted Riddle, and they trusted the authorities that he supported, including the Daily Prophet and the Ministry of Magic. They want to believe that Voldemort is like Riddle, or at least that he follows the same general rules as Riddle did, and that Voldemort will keep their lives more or less the same. Being hyperbolic just reminds them of Bridge, and the hypothetical writer, the writer we need to be so that they read to the end of the article, has probably either never read Bridge or doesn't think much of it."

"I hate it," Archie bemoaned again, miming a dramatic swoon. "Do not make the same mistake as we did? This is the most awful article known to mankind."

Harry rolled her eyes at her cousin, crossing her arms over her chest, but she didn't reply. There was a crinkle of paper as Rosier, sitting with one leg propped over the other on the other side of the table, put down the finalized version.

"Harry is correct," Rosier said, sliding the article back across the table towards Harry. "This version is better than your other versions, if not particularly well-drafted. Being well-written would, however, make it look all the more like a hoax, so in some ways I think it's better this way. It does not threaten any of my sources."

"Should we be adding anything else?" Harry asked, looking over her work with a critical frown. "Without many specific details or incidents, it looks unrealistic and suspicious. We just have the two, and both of those were well-publicized already. It doesn't create any further impact."

Rosier shook his head regretfully. "Ideally, we would have a few more specific incidents, but the risk is that we would invent something that never actually happened, and which would then be easily disproven. Aside from that, however, I don't think someone within Voldemort's ranks would actually refer to too many other specific incidents—if he refers to them, Voldemort will know that he was there, and I fully expect heads to roll once this appears. He will want to provide enough detail that his account is believable, but not so many that he will be caught."

Harry sighed, setting the sheet of paper back down. "Do we need to include the part about Pansy?" There was a slight pause, then Harry cleared her throat, tapping one finger beside the paragraph that outlined her friend's role and her actions. It was not a sympathetic picture. "Pansy isn't—she's not like this."

"She only cast an Anti-Coagulation Hex at Dad," Archie muttered under his breath, ignoring the glare that Harry threw at him. "She only leads a group of Voldemort's most dedicated followers."

"The Imperius Curse—"

"The Imperius Curse prevents people from casting complex spells, and you know it, Harry." Archie blew out a breath, annoyed. They had had this argument before, at least six times while writing the piece. "The Anti-Coagulation Hex requires more focused intent than the Imperius Curse allows. Your friend might have first joined Voldemort's side to save Draco and her family, but let's face it, Harry, the Pansy standing across from us now is not the person you knew. She's a leader among them. She needs to be included for any sort of realism whatsoever."

"The effects of long-term torture should not be underestimated," Rosier added quietly, his face grim. "Whatever she once was, I think it best if we both put that out of mind, Harry. It can't help her now, and refusing to face it will make us both less effective at our duties. And Archie is correct, we cannot exclude her—her role too prominent within Voldemort's ranks. It would be like excluding Bellatrix Lestrange."

Harry smoothed out non-existent wrinkle on her sheet, her expression troubled. "Yes, you're right, you're both right. I'd just—I'd like to protect her as much as I can."

"Protect your memory of her instead," Rosier suggested awkwardly, looking back at the table covered in scraps of paper. "I am satisfied with the article. When do you expect to be able to run it?"

"But it's so stuffy," Archie complained again, still pacing on the other side of the table. "I don't think it's very effective—the language is so stiff, so overly formal. It doesn't even sound real. It's not—not panicked enough, it doesn't have the right energy for this kind of warning. I mean, listen to this: The world outside of Britain cannot be worse than the monster that has taken control of our state. The Light faction, for all they have allied with anti-aristocratic revolutionaries, lesser-bloods, and foreigners, cannot be worse. He's risking his life to sneak this in the Daily Prophet! Would he really be this formal?"

There was a slight pause, then Rosier frowned. "I'm afraid I don't understand your point."

"Things are just more formal here, Archie," Harry said, with a slight grimace. "I mean, even among friends at Hogwarts, people tended to be circumspect about certain things, and not just in Slytherin. An article like this, written for strangers, has to be formal—it just doesn't sound right otherwise. It doesn't sound like it was written by a pureblood who was raised here, especially not one raised with SOW Party views, if we're any more casual."

"Harry is correct," Rosier confirmed, and Archie blew out another annoyed breath. He had been raising this point ad nauseum, and Leo wondered whether the dozenth confirmation would be any more convincing to him than that previous eleven. Rosier looked towards Harry. "Again, when do you expect to be able to put it into the Daily Prophet?"

Harry glanced over her shoulder at Leo, worry and a question in her green eyes.

"Tonight, if I can contact Abbott. If not, tomorrow night." Leo sorted through the drafts strewn across the table to find the notes given to them by Abbott, their inside source. "Tomorrow is probably more likely."

Leo's part in this escapade was to plan the actual entry and exit into the Daily Prophet, a task that fortunately required little effort from him. He had struck harder, more tightly defended targets before, ones that didn't have a friendly ally on the inside. Abbott would be pretend to leave work, but instead hide in his shifted form to let them in, guide them through the printing press, and get them out. Harry and Leo were needed to help wipe the scene of all traces of the three of them.

It was a good thing that it was not a difficult strike to plan. They said that time healed all things, but four scant months were nothing to the loss of the Alleys. The pain wasn't so sharp anymore, but it was still there.

Or, maybe, the pain was only different. The first months, the loss of the Alleys had been a twisting, painful fire so much like the one that had torched his Alleys. The burning pain had dimmed only when Leo was in movement, when he was looking after his survivors and seeing them all off to safer places. He had had very little time of his own to grieve, not that he ever wanted to stop to grieve. He had hurt too much any moment he had stopped moving.

A little over four months later, his pain was emptiness. There was no more fire, there was no more pain, but there was a gaping hole in his chest where his heart used to be that he always, always felt. It was worse than the pain, because there were moments, tiny instants when he first woke up, or just before he fell asleep, or when he wasn't thinking, when he would forget. The loss of the Alleys, in these moments, felt like a bad dream. He would rise from his bed, humming, ready to face the day, and then he would remember.

His Alleys were gone, as were his people. Rispah was dead, as was most of his Court of the Rogue. What remained, of the Lower Alleys that he had sealed off, was nothing more than a ruined husk. There were not even the bodies left, as the Fiendfyre had consumed them.

And then his mood would crack, draining away into nothingness, and he would be left empty.

"Tomorrow is better," Rosier said, and Leo pulled his attention back to the conversation. "I can send word so my informants will be prepared to deal with the fallout."

It did take until the next day for Leo to finalize the plans. Abbott would pretend to leave at the end of the day, but would stay in his shifted form after curfew and would let him and Harry into the building. Abbott knew how the printing press worked, and he would show them how to use it. Leo and Harry were there to wipe the scene as much as possible, since everyone working at the Daily Prophet would likely be questioned in some form or another once the article came out. Abbott didn't have the knowledge or experience to stage a clean break-in, and he would go home and be Obliviated by his daughter for his own safety.

When he and Harry arrived under her Invisibility Cloak, Diagon Alley was empty. Stepping down the streets, Leo almost felt that he had crossed into another world. Diagon Alley had always been bright and alive—the shopfronts painted in dark greens and blues with sparks of gold that flashed under the glow of the night-time lanterns that the shopkeepers had always put out. The light would pool on the grounds, giving a warmth to Diagon Alley that couldn't be extinguished, and there were always people on the streets. Diagon Alley was once the busiest street in all of Wizarding Britain, and to see it bare, unlit, subdued to a shade of its former self, was shocking.

The night was wet, a good thing for their escapade. The rain would make any witnesses doubt what they had seen, would wash away their scent, and would pose problems for tracking spells, though he and Harry had taken a dozen precautions for that express purpose. The appearance of the article itself would be evidence enough of a break-in at the Daily Prophet, and there could be absolutely nothing that could allow either him or Harry to be tracked. They could not leave any sign that would conflict with the premise that the article had come from within Voldemort's camp.

The rain darkened the streets of Diagon Alley. Without the lanterns, the shopfronts were black, the windows nothing more than an icy sheen in the night. The cobblestones were cold and grey, water running in rivulets between the slick stones. He caught Harry's arm once, when she slipped, but they didn't bother with an Umbrella Charm or anything other than their cloaks to shield themselves. It would be better for the escapade if they were soaked through, if they smelled like nothing but the wet of the rain outside.

The cold rain permeated everything, though there was nothing that tried to cut through it. Before, even in the heaviest of storms, Leo could expect to hear something—sounds of complaint from within storefronts, gasps of surprise and awe from restaurants and pubs at the rain. It was miserable, and Leo thought that was fitting.

They moved quickly down the streets. The Invisibility Cloak did not make them insubstantial, and if anyone looked too closely, they would have seen a misshapen non-figure in the night, outlined not by presence but by absence. The water dripped off them, soaking Harry's Cloak. Leo had no idea if being wet would affect the Cloak's magic, but if it did, Harry didn't mention it.

The Daily Prophet was located in a huge, six-storey building situated just off the main lane. The building was made of smooth, once-white stone, tightly interlocked together and free of any moss or ivy. The gaps between each block was minimal, not enough for him to find any foothold. Dark streaks marred the façade of the building, stretching upwards from half of the lower-storey windows, a lingering reminder of the fire that had taken the newspaper out of commission for four months of the last year.

Huge, script letters reading The Daily Prophet hung over the front of the building, each one the size of a person and made of a tarnished gold. Once, there was a charm on the words that would have them march around the building and flash, but it hadn't been renewed since the fire, so the letters only sparked and wobbled.

They drew close to the building and inched their way to the side. There were several entrances, but Abbott would let them in through the side, where they were less likely to be seen. Indeed, when Leo spotted the door, he saw that Abbott had left it just barely ajar. Leo tugged it open and they entered, pulling off the Invisibility Cloak when the door shut after them. Harry had her wand out already, checking the hallway for Monitoring and Alarm Charms.

The hallway was narrow, bland, and smelled of paper and ink. Leo looked both ways, searching for Abbott. Neither he nor Harry knew how the Daily Prophet's printing press worked, nor did they want to waste time figuring it out. The morning paper for the next day was running already, to be ready for delivery by dawn, and the quicker they moved to add their article, the more copies of the Daily Prophet it would be in. There was no way it would be in every copy—indeed, it looked far more realistic and alarming if it wasn't—but they did want it to be in as many copies as possible.

There was a flash of movement at one end of the hallway, and Leo looked over to see Abbott motioning for them to follow him.

"This way," he said, keeping his words brief. Abbott was a small man, brown-haired and non-descript, but his nose twitched every few seconds in nervousness. "Quickly. We have to turn the article you drafted into the copy that would be put into the Daily Prophet, and then the printing press is underground. I deactivated all the Monitoring Charms I could find—one of my people tonight will wipe my wand, while my daughter wipes my memory."

Harry nodded, but she ran a check anyway. "There's no harm in being too careful," she replied. "This will be a complex thing to remove from your memory, both the planning and the events of tonight."

Her unspoken concern hung in the air, and Abbott's lips flickered into a small smile. "My daughter is very good at Memory Charms. She will also embed a false memory consistent with my alibi for me. Come, the run for tomorrow morning started only a few hours ago. If we move quickly, it should be included in most of tomorrow's print run."

Leo nodded, taking out his own wand to clean the hallway after them. While Harry took care of the scrying charms to identify any Monitoring or Alarm Charms, he wiped the hallways of any signs of their presence. Puddles of water and mud disappeared, papers rearranged themselves back to the positions they had been in before they arrived. He didn't touch anything, keeping his essence from anything in the building.

It would only take one mistake to derail their plans.

The Daily Prophet offices were a maze of rooms, desks, and corridors. Without Abbott, he and Harry would have been completely lost. Harry was casting the spells needed to wipe or confuse their presence as much as possible. Abbott was silent, though his nose twitched every so often and he looked around at every unexpected creak. The smell of the rain, fortunately, permeated the building—it seemed that several people had left their windows open a crack, no doubt to escape heat of the crowded editing rooms and the ink-smell of the building.

Abbott paused in front of a door, a dark look crossing his face, and motioned for Harry to break the lock. "One of the senior editors—they're less likely to question him."

Harry nodded, and the door gave way to a Resigno spell. She pulled out a cloth, soaked in a solution to eliminate their essence, and popped open the door.

The office was an inside one, without a window, pitch-dark. Leo cast a Lumos charm, revealing a small, cluttered room, dominated by an oversized desk scattered with pieces of parchment. Abbott made a move to sit in the grand, high-backed chair behind the desk, but Harry shook her head. "Better not," she muttered. "Essence. As little contact as possible, please."

Abbott nodded, instead leaning over the typewriter. "The article?"

Leo passed it over without comment, and Abbott set it in the stand beside the typewriter and got to work. The noise of the keys seemed too loud, and Leo quickly cast a noise dampening charm even if he doubted that the noise could be heard from anywhere outside the building. Wordlessly, he went to stand by the door to keep watch, for guards, Dementors, or even just the reactivation of Monitoring Charms.

With the curfews, he doubted that anyone would be out. They were good for one thing, the curfews, and Dementors were unlikely to enter an office building. Still, the Daily Prophet was formally exempt from the curfew restrictions, since the machine that distributed news to the populace was considered essential to society. There was still a risk that an editor or machinist or journalist was there, though with the Dementors on patrol, Leo doubted that many would be using the curfew exception. The Dementors, Leo suspected, wouldn't be listening to any explanations if they caught someone on the streets.

It took Abbott a half-hour to type the article onto the heavy newsprint that the Daily Prophet used, a tense half an hour during which Leo stood at the door, casting passive scrying spells while Harry read over Abbott's shoulder. He finished, pulling the sheet off the top, and hurriedly got out of the way while Harry lit their original copy on fire and rubbed off the typewriter and the stand with her potion-soaked cloth.

"Did you touch anything else in the room?" She demanded at the end, looking around. Abbott hesitated, his nose twitching, then nodded at the edges of the desk.

"I might have rested a hand there—I don't remember," he confessed, and Harry silently rubbed the section of the desk off with her cloth.

"Anything else?"

Abbott shook his head, looking worried, but Leo didn't remember him touching anything. Neither he nor Harry would have touched anything, though their essences wouldn't be as easy to identify. He could give Abbott some additional assurances, though; it would be a long night, and people who were nervous tended to make mistakes. "I have a spell for a general wipe of the room—it isn't targeted enough for many things, but it should blunt or confuse anything left."

Harry nodded, motioned for Abbott to leave, and followed him out. It was the work of a moment for Leo to cast the wiping spell, a useful one at Rogue break-ins to stymie the Aurors. It wasn't perfect, and Harry's potion was better for magical essence, but it would at least clean the scene of the highest-level magical traces. He shut the door behind him, locking it, and let Harry wipe the doorknob with her cloth once again.

The basement was one huge, cavernous room, dominated by a huge assembly of knobs, dials, gears, and clattering type: the printing press. The morning paper was already running off the machine, making an enormous clatter that drowned out even the rain. The room smelled of paper and ink and magic, and the spells that made the pictures move threw up an unearthly purple glow.

Abbott skirted the press, leading them around the edges of the room to a huge, long desk. The next day's paper was laid out on the table under spells, and Abbott drew his wand, casting a series of spells to unlock it. He reached in, pulling out a page seemingly at whim, and slipped in the replacement. He glanced at the page he had pulled out, then shrugged and lit it aflame, letting it burn to nothing.

"Foreign affairs—not important, and mostly a lie anyway," he muttered, leaving the spells unlocked behind him. It looked better that way, more like a third-party had broken in and gotten into the press rather than anyone within the organization. Any employee of the Daily Prophet would have re-sealed the spells without thinking about it. "It's done. What time is it?"

"Half midnight," Harry supplied, pulling out her cloth again to wipe the table. "How many papers will it be in tomorrow?"

"At this hour? A little under two thirds, I should think," Abbott replied, with a twitch of his nose.

"That's enough," Leo said, his voice rough. "If we are done, we're done. Let's clear the scene of any extraneous magical traces and get out of here."

Outside, it was still raining—lighter than before, but still a heavy downpour to shield their presence. Abbott shifted forms and he was gone with barely a goodbye, leaving Harry and Leo back under her soon-to-be-soaked Invisibility Cloak.

He was probably going to be sick, after tonight—his lungs had never really recovered from the effects of the Fiendfyre, and the cold and damp dragged at him in ways that they never had before. And yet, if they pulled it off, it would be worth it. It would be worth it a dozen times over, because even if Leo could never bring back his Alleys, he could at least do his best to see that Voldemort would not profit from long from their destruction.

XXX

Archie felt good, heading downstairs to go to Rosier Place for the general meeting. It wasn't that, objectively speaking, things were any better. Nothing would bring back Cedric, or Mr. Weasley, or anyone who had died in Wales or the Lower Alleys. Martial law still ruled Wizarding Britain. Archie was still in the top five Most Wanted, company that he was honoured to share with Uncle James, Aldon, Lina, and Harry herself. Most of the population was still demoralized and cowed, but Archie felt like things might be finally starting to turn in their favour.

Harry and Leo had made it back. Leo had caught a cold and had been laid up at Potter Place for the last few days, but they had made it back, and their article was in the Daily Prophet the very next morning. Dad had checked in with the shifters, and while Abbott remembered nothing and was utterly convinced he had spent the night at home with his family, Zabini had quietly let them know that even if everyone at the Daily Prophet was being questioned, Abbott was generally seen as being both too low-level and too timid to make the suspect list. He had been questioned, but only once, and his alibi had held.

Archie checked his messenger bag to make sure that he had his notes. It was the last major alliance meeting for the year. While they often had meetings with one or two or even three of the other leaders, they rarely met as one group. Archie, for example, often met with Aldon, with Dad, and with Hermione, but he almost never heard anything from Uncle James, Lina, or Uncle Remus, all of whom were on the military side. Similarly, Hermione met a lot with Archie and Dad, the Scots and even Lady Malfoy, but she didn't need to meet often with Aldon. The big meetings, held monthly, were how they kept track of everything else that their growing organization was doing.

"Ready to go, Arch?" Dad asked, waiting outside the Portkey Hub with his own notes in hand.

"You bet." Archie grinned. Maybe it was the coming holidays, too—it was hard to feel miserable when the air was growing crisp, the decorations were staring to drape the house, and the tree had already gone up. Things hadn't changed that much, but Harry and Leo had gotten a breakthrough article into the Daily Prophet, and no one had died for it, and it would soon be Christmas. How could anyone not feel their spirits lifting?

They weren't the last ones at Rosier Place, chosen only because Aldon was the only one who kept his formal dining room open and prepared for meetings. Potter Place was larger, but while Aunt Lily and Uncle James had opened most of the manor for their two units and other guests and refugees, they didn't have a large formal dining room as the Rosiers did. The Potters, like most of the older families, had had a Great Hall, though theirs was demolished sometime in the nineteenth century in favour of newer designs that did not include a huge, formal dining room.

Hermione was already there, having Portkeyed in separately from a meeting in Scotland, and she was checking through her notes. Archie took a seat beside her, pulling out his own notes and looking around.

Aldon was sitting across from him, watching the rest of the room with a slightly wary air. Chess was beside him, her communication orb in front of her linking them to both John and Gerhardt, their liaisons with MACUSA and Wizarding Germany. She was sitting maybe three inches closer to him than necessary, just enough to throw off the spacing between the chairs, and if Archie didn't already know that they were together from the disastrous chaperoning incidents a few weeks ago, those three inches would have said all he needed to know.

She caught his gaze, blushed slightly and looked away. Archie smothered a laugh.

It took a moment for Archie to place the person lounging in the chair on her other side, Captain Aleksandr Willoughby Dragić, and now that he knew what to look for, he didn't know how he could ever have missed his part-human status. All the dhampir had a sort of look to them—it wasn't as if they looked the same, because their appearances differed as much as wizards' did, but they had an edge to them that Archie saw but couldn't quite describe. It was something sharp, setting off the alarms in his subconscious, and if he turned his head just slightly he sometimes thought he could see a glimmer around them. Confirming his guess, Aldon leaned over Chess to say something to him, and the young man showed a tiny, sharp fang as he smirked.

Lina was sitting across the table, talking to Alastor Moody, with Uncle James listening. Harry was on Uncle James' other side, chatting to Uncle Remus. The rest of the table was dotted with various other leaders or contacts, many of whom Archie had never had anything to do with after the initial treaty negotiations. Mei Ling Song was there, representing Queenscove because Neal downright refused to attend political meetings unless he had to, Tonks was there on behalf of Scotland Yard, Hannah Abbott and Blaise Zabini were there for the shifters, and with them were a smattering of the former Light faction Lords and Clan emissaries.

Aldon had a full complement of elves staffing his manor, another reason why it was convenient for him to host, and the table was piled high with snacks. Strangely, both ends of the table were both bare and had no chairs set out; considering it was Aldon, Archie suspected that the layout was an intentional move to prevent anyone from sitting at the head of the table and even subtly implying that they were in charge of the alliance. With no chairs and the food in the middle of the table, people would congregate towards the centre.

"No Dumbledore?" Dad asked, directing the question across the table at Aldon.

"He sent his regrets—he could not get away from the school," Aldon replied, looking up and around the table. "I do think everyone who will be attending is here, however. Archie, would you call everyone to order?"

"Sure." Archie stood, looking down the rest of the table and clapping his hands twice to get the attention of the room. "Hello, everyone! Thank you all for coming—everyone is here, so should we get started? Harry, you and Leo handled the last strike, so could you give everyone an update?"

Harry nodded, standing up, as the people around the table rustled and turned to her. "There's not much to say. You all saw the results in the Daily Prophet. It was an uneventful strike—we were not tracked. We were fortunate, in that the weather for that night was cooperative."

"The result was very promising." Unlike Archie and Harry, Aldon didn't bother to stand to give his report. "While the Daily Prophet published a retraction and news of the break-in the next day, they failed to identify any of our informants within the organization. Everyone working at the Prophet has been questioned at least once, but attention is focusing on one of the senior editors, whose office showed signs of tampering. He has been taken in for further questioning. New safety protocols are also being introduced at the office. Voldemort is upset with the breach—Travers is being assigned to manage the Prophet, much as McNabb is currently in charge of the Ministry of Magic.

"Within Voldemort's organization, my reports indicate that he is deeply upset. He is convinced that the editorial did come from within his ranks, and the Lestranges were tasked with finding the culprit. He has focused, logically, on the families which came to him after the Welsh massacre. The Greengrasses and Ogdens have been singled out as the most likely leaks. Voldemort's recruitment has also slowed significantly. Although the article did not make it into every paper, it seems that it was widespread enough to travel by word of mouth otherwise."

Aldon paused, his eyes flicking towards the rest of the table. "If no one objects, I may as well complete my update."

There was a slight murmur around the table, but no one objected.

"I continue to have persons coming forward offering to act as informants, but few are of note. My assistant is also beginning to cultivate a few of his personal connections, whom we hope to turn into more valuable informants at a later time. On the counter-intelligence front, we did identify five spies among the newest recruits, who were summarily rejected, and I have finally completed interviewing everyone within our organization. I identified three further informants for Voldemort, one of whom was in the military branch and two of whom were among the Light faction families. None of them were, fortunately, in any senior positions."

Archie held his breath, waiting for a snarky comment or a glare at any of the former Light faction, but Aldon simply pretended they didn't exist. "In all cases, the chain of command has been notified, but I advise against moving them. It is better to allow Voldemort to believe he has informants, and these three have been in place for some months. As long as we can control the information available to them, they should not prove dangerous to us, and they may be useful if we ever need to feed false intelligence back to Voldemort."

"Aldon, I remain concerned about the risks of leaving them where they are," Uncle James spoke up. "I can control the placement of the informant within the military branch, the other two…"

"Their Lords have been informed, and I will leave it to those Lords to handle their family members. They know the stakes, being, most likely, the loss of their own ancestral manors." Aldon's words were cold, and his expression was equally stern. "As you know yourself, James, we are thinly spread—it is the responsibility of each safehouse to be aware of their own risks. I will not hesitate to recommend that no backup be provided to those Houses that refused to mitigate their own risks, including by refusing to appropriately manage the informant in their ranks."

There was a hard silence, when Aldon's eyes finally flickered across the Light faction Lords, but no one reacted.

After an awkward moment, Uncle James cleared his throat. "We've made some progress on the military front. With recruitment, we're finally looking at having a fighting force equal to what we had in the summer. Unfortunately, Voldemort's active fighting force has also increased, and we have a dozen safehouses to defend while he only has Malfoy Manor and the Ministry of Magic itself."

"Still, we have enough by numbers that we can feasibly begin looking towards active counter-strikes, larger targets to hammer home the idea that joining Voldemort is not safe, and to show that Voldemort isn't an overwhelming, invincible force." Lina added, leaning forward with almost a lazy gesture. "With the assistance of the Scots, that is."

"Our position remains the same," Quinn said, Toby beside her. They were the emissaries for five of the eight clans only, since Laird MacMillan was attending on behalf of the three noble Clans. "Scottish Clan forces will be concentrated primarily in Scotland, and I doubt our Lairds would be willing to send out more than a quarter of our forces to assist in a strike outside of Scotland. I should also note that, with the success of Irish independence, many of us see no reason why we should not be striking for our own independence now rather than on the promise of later."

"Despite your land border?" Lina quipped. "Cameron, your forces never had the numbers of the Irish. The Irish had a much higher proportion of combatants to non-combatants, and they had the benefit of widespread internal support and geography. All they had to do was take the Ministry outposts and expel the Ministry elite, people who were easily identified because they had status, they had to gone to Hogwarts, and they had the good jobs. And half of the Irish forces were undocumented, so they had surprise on their side, not to mention that they were the first such declaration of independence. Are you insane?"

"Is that even a question?" Toby shot everyone around the table a daring grin. "Aren't we all a little insane, to be fighting a war instead of running for it? We'll be discussing this more at the next Clanmeet—if you have any proposed strikes, we can present and discuss them there for additional support arrangements."

"Which would be…" Lina said, looking as if she were fighting her instinct to roll her eyes. "Next summer?"

"February." Cameron shot her a glare. "They're quarterly."

"Fine." Lina looked around to the rest of the table. "I suggest we concentrate on targets that may be agreed upon by the Scots. At this time, while we have the numbers, I do not recommend another assault on either Malfoy Manor or the Ministry of Magic. Voldemort's forces are concentrated on those two locations, and even with our success with the newspaper, the morale of Voldemort's forces is still high after Wales. We need to develop a pattern of small-scale wins, and we need to bleed the enemy as much as we can. James, Alastor and I will work with the Scots on a potential target list that we can both agree on."

"Fine by us," Quinn replied, her words echoed by the nods of both Toby and the Laird MacMillan.

"Will there be vampire involvement?" The dhampir sitting beside Chess was lounging in his seat. "The Stormwings will already know this, but my unit's primary purpose here is to handle the vampire threat. We won't participate in a strike unless there is vampire involvement, though we will defend ourselves if attacked."

"I'm confident that we can find a target of interest to both you and the Scots," Lina said dismissively, waving her hand. "Did I miss anything, Alastor? James?"

"No, that's everything," Uncle James agreed, then he glanced at Uncle Remus. "Remus, from training?"

"I expect to have another two units trained and ready for orders by the end of January." Uncle Remus looked exhausted—the full moon was fast approaching, and while he had a steady supply of Wolfsbane, the potion was not a complete panacea. "One more in February. We do have a good number of new recruits though, so James, I'd appreciate any spare Aurors you have for training purposes."

"The holidays are coming," Uncle James replied with a slight wince. "I don't think anyone else would be willing to volunteer until January, at least…"

"I don't think the recruits will be ready to start training before January anyway." Uncle Remus shook his head. "Many of them are still putting their affairs in order and sending their families abroad. January will be fine. If all our new recruits stay, we are looking at the equivalent of three more units."

"This might be a good time to raise the refugee issue and to discuss international aid," Hermione broke in, picking up her pad of paper. "The European nations have been reporting a huge increase in refugees. As much as we try to convince them to come forward to us, they aren't, and they're finding more ways to head for the Continent themselves."

"One group was arrested by Voldemort's forces." Aldon tilted his head, his expression inscrutable. "Their boat floundered. They're being held for trial—treason, subversion of state power, sedition, the usual slate of charges."

Hermione shook her head. "More were successful. The Ministère de Magique in France is very upset. My last meeting with our French liaison had them demanding financial assistance for their new, expanded Auror patrols because the refugees making it over are…" She hesitated, picking her words carefully. "Less prepared for No-Maj France than they should be. Incidents threatening the Statute of Secrecy have increased, and they are beginning to discuss shipping the refugees back to Britain."

"The French will have to face the reality that refugee camps will need to be set up." That voice took Archie a moment to place, since it came from Chess' comm orb, but it was Gerhardt Riemann, their liaison with Wizarding Germany. "Wizarding Germany will still take refugees, but they must follow the legal process. That may not mean following your routes, Hermione, but it does mean presenting themselves to the German Ministry and making an application for status. They cannot simply cross into our borders and try to hide without status. We have informational bulletins being released in our news regularly, but even last week our Aurors found a group of seven British mages in the Black Forest, surviving by stealing from the No-Maj markets. We have resources for resettlement that do not involve petty theft from our No-Maj neighbours. Is there nothing more that you can do in Britain on this?"

"If I could have, I would have," Hermione said, a slight edge to her voice. "We've also been sending out word through our regular sources that refugees can present themselves to us and we'll put them through the process in the safest way possible, but the refugees slipping outside of our usual routes are the ones who don't follow our news sources or trust us to help them."

"We'll put it out again, at least that there are processes for refugees to follow if they want to leave," Archie interrupted, making a note on his pad of paper. "And I'm sure Aunt Lily can find a way to work it in when she goes on her tour, too, for those who are already abroad. She has interviews lined up through Wizarding America already, then she'll be travelling around the world."

There was a heavy sigh from the comm orb. "There is little else that can be done, so I appreciate it," Gerhardt replied.

"I'm already hearing the marketing starting in the States for the Lily Evans revival tour," John added, sounding bright. "If her interviews go well, we can hope for more political support for both financial aid and refugee acceptance. MACUSA remains willing to accept refugees, and it might be best for anyone who comes forward now through the formal channels to be sent to America—we're far enough away that we aren't seeing anyone come across on boats or illegal Portkeys, and we can take some of the weight off our European allies."

"Thanks for that, John." Hermione sighed, pursing her lips slightly. "I'll make a note of it, though Wizarding Europe will claim you're taking all the easiest refugees to resettle, as if there is such a thing as an easily resettled refugee. I'd also note that the ones coming forward to us now are significantly fewer than those making a run on their own. We also desperately need more funds to support the refugees—I can only hope that Lily's interviews lead to more donations. In other news, for those who haven't heard, Saoirse Riordan was elected last week as the Taoiseach for Wizarding Ireland, in a landslide victory. She has opened her borders to resettlement by internationally-educated British halfbloods and newbloods, an offer which many of the BIA's internal British network is taking."

"Really?" Uncle James sounded surprised. "But they're British—turning and emigrating to Ireland now—"

"The BIA membership is largely sympathetic to Ireland," Hermione interrupted flatly. "British newbloods and halfbloods have more in common with Irish mages like the Tuatha Dé and the Free Irish than we do with the British, because we all schooled together abroad. Most British halfbloods and newbloods who returned home after schooling just wanted to stay close to their families. For many of them, Ireland is a nice compromise, where their educational backgrounds are respected and they are free to work wherever they want and marry whomever they please, while staying closer to their Muggle families than they would be in America or Australia. Northern Ireland also has the benefit of still being within the borders of the Muggle United Kingdom, which is much easier to contemplate than a move to America."

Uncle James winced at the admonishment, but he didn't comment. There was a moment of silence, before Dad cleared his throat.

"On the supply front, we've secured most of our routes," Dad said, pulling the attention to himself. "I've spoken with most of the Guilds. They aren't supporting us directly, but most of them will deal to us under the table. In terms of potions ingredients and our potions stores, we're stocked for a month of limited engagement except for the vampire antidotes, which Harry is working on now."

"One of the ingredients is rare, and needs to be imported from abroad," Harry added by way of explanation. "We ran out, and the substitution would require more of the other ingredients and considerably more magic for a weaker result. We expect another shipment of Masdevallia orchids within the next few weeks."

"That's fine," Archie interceded. "We have enough, and I've done reviews of every safehouse's supply of Healing Potions. At least three members of every safehouse is trained for first aid, and we also have a call list of Healers with on-duty shifts if more advanced help is necessary. Every safehouse is also equipped with at least one cache of Healing Potions, and most have two or three. For the rest of my update, Bridge is still doing well, though we've had to adopt a more random distribution schedule to help mitigate the risk to our distributors. With the Irish announcement, we've also had two distributors withdraw because they moved to Ireland, so we're actively recruiting additional support. Still, we're having an out-size impact because people are often making two or three more copies for their friends themselves. The Underground is also still working, but it's hard to gauge their impact. They haven't opened themselves up to owls, so it's one-way communication as far as we can tell. But Voldemort hasn't successfully tracked down their signal or attacked them yet, either."

"We can always do another break into the WWN," Tonks suggested with a daring grin. "That was funny, that!"

"If we wanted them to be hunted down," Moody growled. "As long as they don't draw attention to themselves, Voldemort is likely to leave them alone. The newspaper is enough of a target, and we need a way to provide information quickly more than we need people to think we're funny."

"I agree." Uncle James nodded. "Shield before the sword, as it were. Should we move on? Queenscove?"

Most of the other reports were brief, only a few words about shoring up the defenses at their own manors, more requests for military support, and discussions of defensive pacts between neighbouring estates. Queenscove had taken in most of the recruits from abroad, as well as from those educated abroad—most of their forces weren't comfortable among the Hogwarts-educated pureblood elite, nor were the Hogwarts-educated pureblood elite necessarily comfortable with them. At some point, they would need to consider shuffling forces for a more even distribution, but since Queenscove still only had the equivalent of four units and provided primary support to both Goldenlake and Naxen, that was a problem that could wait for the new year.

Tonks had a long update about increased magical crimes being committed against Muggles which the mages hidden within Scotland Yard were starting to have trouble burying. Normally, the mages at Scotland Yard would find a way to close the case through Muggle means, but would provide their investigation notes to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, in turn, would investigate the crime within the wizarding world and lay charges. Voldemort's Ministry, however, was not enforcing the laws protecting Muggles, and extremists were emboldened into more attacks. The priority at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was to capture or kill the rebels, and mysterious Muggle deaths were falling by the wayside.

The shifters were still going about their business unnoticed—with the exception of Blaise Zabini, who was currently wanted for questioning, most of the other shifters were staying unnoticed. They were people like the Abbotts, who were prolific but not powerful, and generally considered not worth anyone's attention. And yet, they had set firm watch rotations around Malfoy Manor, the Ministry of Magic and the Lestrange Manor, and were starting to gain a general sense of Voldemort's habits and those of his top lieutenants, as well as weaknesses in their target locations. It was slow, tedious work, but Archie could see how it would give them critical information in the end.

The meeting wore on for two and half hours, during which Archie became very thankful that Aldon had supplied plenty of snacks, as well as coffee, tea, and water. By the time that they were reaching the close, Archie was beginning to yawn—they had gone without breaks, and a break was sorely needed. His brain thought it was too long to be focusing, to be taking notes and listening, but these meetings were only once a month and they were very much a necessity.

"What do you think we can expect for the holidays?" he asked, when it became clear that the meeting was winding down. "We've spoken a lot about what we've done, but a lot of future plans we've said have to wait until next year. What about Voldemort? He's not going to be relaxing, is he?"

Lina shook her head, but her mouth twisted into a sour sort of smile. "No one can tell what Voldemort might do. But the newspaper article has, it seems, focused his attentions internally for the past weeks, so he has not had time to plan any new actions. It is also difficult at the best of times to get troops on the field over the holidays—his most fervent believers would be no problem, but if he is courting a mutiny, or if he believes he is, he may not have the political capital to spend on a large force for a holiday strike."

"They said that about the Tet offensive, too," Moody growled in response, glaring around the table. "No, we don't expect an attack. But we might be wrong. Don't drop your guard schedules. Constant vigilance!"

"And with that," Dad said, his mouth twisting into a bit of a helpless grin, "I suppose you want to tell us all to have a happy holiday?"

XXX

The air was cold on Francesca's face, a feeling that made her break out into smile. She fought to keep herself from skipping down the sidewalk. Oxford Street, the heart of shopping in London, was absolutely packed on Christmas Eve, but she was outside. She was off Rosier Place grounds. She was around other people, people that she hadn't seen yawning over breakfast every day for months, and it was almost Christmas and the very air seemed to be celebrating with her. Even the fact that she was being tailed by two bodyguards, being Alex himself and one of his lieutenants, a dark-eyed, raven-haired beauty named Bianca, could not dampen her spirits.

She was outside. She was in London, shopping. She was, for a few hours, free.

It wasn't that she disliked Rosier Place. Rosier Place was very nice, especially with the holiday decorations going up around the building. Lina and Moody had grumbled at length about how frivolous the decorations were, but Aldon had seen the sparkle that came into her eyes when she saw the glitter-charms and never-melting icicles going up through the manor. Rosier Place was indeed celebrating the holidays, and they were going to further extremes than they had in anyone's memory.

But it felt like she hadn't left Rosier Place grounds in months. She had gone to Queenscove a few times, and to Grimmauld Place twice, but with the war, she often felt underfoot. Queenscove was always busy with training schedules and patrols, and Grimmauld Place was too crowded. And she had a lot to do at Rosier Place, so she just hadn't left. There was always more to do.

It just made being outside, walking around in No-Maj London, going shopping, even more exciting. It was probably going to be the only time she would get out to go shopping for another six months at least, so she fully intended to make the most of it, and damn whatever her two bodyguards thought. She even had money, because her parents had sent her usual allowance for AIM books and housing to her through their joint bank account, and Aldon still refused to take a penny from her for rent. All of that was available for her to spend.

She started in the clothing stores. She had come with a full wardrobe, but most of her dresses were decidedly meant for a climate that was not Wizarding Britain. AIM and San Francisco were both considerably warmer than Britain in winter, even if the part of Kent where Aldon lived favoured cold rains instead of snow. A new, waterproof, winter coat, a variety of new, long-sleeved dresses with thick stockings and several woolen cardigans made it into her bag, spelled with paper charms to be both smaller in size and weightless.

They stopped in a lingerie store for new undergarments. Francesca really would have preferred to do this particular visit on her own, but one look at her two bodyguards and she knew they would be following her in whether she liked it or not. In Bianca's case, the dhampir was taking the chance to shop for herself so she didn't mind, but Alex walking in and adding three very racy nightgowns to her pile of purchases was unnerving, to say the least.

"I—I don't—" she stammered, picking up one of them, which was so thin as to be sheer. It wasn't that she didn't like nightgowns, because she did prefer them, but hers were usually much more functional. Hers weren't see-through.

Alex just shot her an amused sort of glare, and Francesca sighed and took them all to the register. Alex had sharp teeth, and no one said she had to wear them. And they were very pretty, so maybe she wouldn't even mind trying them on, in the privacy of her own room. There was nothing like pretty clothes to make her feel pretty.

After that, she poked into a second-hand bookstore and bought out half of their stock of romance novels—a considerable proposition, because there were simply so many romance novels—then went into a new bookstore on a hunt for Christmas presents.

In the middle of a war, with almost everyone on lockdown, there would be nothing like No-Maj books to pick up people's spirits. She hit the thrillers for Christie—there was a new Stephen King novel that she would like, then she found a short story collection for Aman, and a poetry collection for Albert. For Archie, she picked up Good Omens, co-authored by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and for John, as many of The Sandman comics as she could find. Tina had always been a hard buy, but she found a wedding planning binder for her, while Neal got Tigana, a fantasy from Guy Gavriel Kay. For Hermione, whose tastes in books she had never really figured out because Hermione simply read everything, she just went to where the newest and latest literary fiction novels were and bought a book by Margaret Atwood on the recommended reads table. Since she was there, she found books for her parents—a business strategy book for her mother, and a historical fiction novel for her father.

And then, she only had to find a present for Aldon.

What did one buy their boyfriends, anyway?

She had made him cufflinks last year, which she saw that he wore every day. He liked to read, but most of his books, she saw, were magical theory—none of which she would find in a No-Maj bookstore. He had a collection of romance novels, of the exact kind that she read, but she suspected that he only read them because she did. Like Archie, he did have some interest in No-Maj science and technology, but unlike Archie, Aldon's interests were more practical than speculative. Archie dreamed about space, about science fiction, about the future, but Aldon was focused on what No-Majs had now and how it could be used alongside magic. She couldn't see him enjoying books like Sagan's Cosmos or Hawking's A Brief History of Time as Archie did, and yet there was something decidedly unromantic about buying him a physics textbook for Christmas.

What else did she know about him? What was he interested in, other than magical theory, science, and technology? If they could get laptops working reliably at Rosier Place, she might have tried to buy him a video game of some kind—Civilization II had just come out, and she could see Aldon enjoying conquering the world in video game form—but there was no way he would have the time to play it. Not, at least, until the war was done. He didn't seem like the type who liked knickknacks, though Rosier Place was full of them. She had never seen him play any sort of board game or card game and she knew he didn't follow sports.

She gave up at the bookstore, paid for the books that she did find, and wandered back out onto Oxford Street. Clothing stores—she didn't want to buy him clothes. There was a records store, but she had never seen him listening to music. It wouldn't have been hard to make him a CD player like Archie had, but she wasn't sure if Aldon would use it. There was a stationary store, but Aldon already had dozens of notebooks and fine quills and fountain pens, and she had no idea what she would buy anyway. An art supply store? She thought Aldon would throw himself off the roof of his manor before taking up sketching or painting. Home décor or other decorations were too impersonal, especially when Rosier Place was already so beautiful. The bookstore was already out.

"What, um, do you think Aldon would like?" she asked Alex, stopping a little bit off the sidewalk. "His interests—you went to school with him. You've known him longer than me."

Alex shrugged. "A Muggle history book? He doesn't like being ignorant. I had to teach him about the Second World War, so I'm sure a Muggle history primer would be appreciated."

Francesca wrinkled her nose. "But we just left the bookstore," she muttered. "And it's so impersonal. A history book."

"The best present for a man you're seeing, in my opinion, is a present for yourself," Bianca declared, looking into the nearby makeup store with interest. "Just make yourself up, put on your sexiest underthings, and put yourself in his bed. Easy."

"We aren't—" Francesca coughed slightly, blushing. "We aren't at that point in our relationship."

"That's the first date stage, dear," Bianca replied, patting her on the shoulder with a wicked grin that flashed her fangs. "You know what they say, you should always test-drive the car before you buy it. Or, in my case, investing in a date at all. Why wait to be disappointed?"

"Not—not that time, for us," Francesca tried again, looking away, and her eyes caught on the shop across the street.

It was a small shop, not like the behemoth clothing chains that bordered it on both sides. The gold letters over the entryway were simple, only saying Carter's Fine Watches and Jewellery, and the background was painted in blue so dark that it was almost black.

High-end watches were a status symbol. James Bond always wore a watch, the brands varying from Rolex to Breitling to Tag Heuer. In the movies, there was no better shortcut to show the wealth and prestige of a man than the brand of his dress watch. Her own mother had lectured her, saying that if she wanted people to pay attention to her in the business world, she needed a good timepiece along with expensive, understated jewellery. Her own dress watch was a minimalist Movado, with a single diamond marking noon—a gift from her mother after she'd won the partnership with Blake & Associates—which she had never worn.

A dress watch was the staple of a good wardrobe, and Aldon didn't have one. Not as far as she had seen.

Before she knew it, she had crossed the street, heading for the tiny, exclusive shop. She wouldn't be able to afford anything truly high-end, nothing like what James Bond wore, but maybe she could find something both elegant and affordable. Hopefully. Her budget was the highest it had ever been, but high-end watches ran in the thousands of pounds.

She didn't have a thousand pounds. She might have eight hundred pounds.

The shop felt even smaller inside than it had looked from the outside. There was only one old man there, sitting in the corner with a newspaper, and a long, glass showcase ran down the length of the shop. Bianca came inside with her, for which Francesca was grateful—Francesca looked her age by Asian standards, but most people who weren't Asian tended to think she was younger. Bianca looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties, though Francesca suspected she was older. Having Bianca there, someone who looked like she had the age and the money to be shopping for fine jewellery, made Francesca feel like the shop owner wasn't going to come over and kick her out the minute he spotted her.

The men's watches occupied two cabinets at the end. Most of them were outside of her budget—even Rolexes, the most accessible of the high-end watch brands, started a digit above what her budget allowed. There were only six timepieces within her budget, and she took the time to examine them all carefully.

Aldon wouldn't know anything about No-Maj watch brands, she realized. There was something a little bit pointless about buying him a symbol of luxury from her world, because Aldon probably wouldn't even recognize it for what it was, at least not until Christie or Lina told him. She could probably buy him a cheap and pretty watch from somewhere else, and he would like it just as much. But she would know, and she wanted Aldon to have something prestigious that he could wear out into the No-Maj world. And there was something wrong about the idea of Aldon wearing anything less than prestigious.

Every watch here would be a status symbol of some kind, so Francesca focused on what she thought Aldon would like. Not a big, chunky watch, nothing that showed two or three extra dials or endless gears—their faces were too crowded, and they didn't suit him. They'd also be too big to work well on Aldon's wrist, and Aldon's style was sleeker. It should be something simple, something minimalist that screamed quality. Movado would be a good choice, but the black watch face on the one they had in the shop didn't speak to her. It didn't have numbers, and while she was sure Aldon could read a watch, she knew well that most people preferred the hours to be marked.

That left just two: an Archimede and a Hamilton. The Archimede had large hour markings, in a font that Francesca found blocky to the point of being childlike, for all that it was at the upper end of her budget. The Hamilton, however…

It was minimalistic without being too minimalistic. Numbers marked noon, three, six and nine, with lines indicating the other hours, gold on a black face with tiny, thin gold hands. It was elegant but functional, attached to a sturdy, deep brown leather strap. It was masculine, but without being ostentatious.

According to the tiny placard beside the watch, Hamilton watches had been in the movies since 1932, when Clive Brook and Marlene Dietrich had worn them in the Shanghai Express. Since then, they had been worn in action movies and science fiction films both; directors from Martin Scorsese to Stanley Kubrick used Hamilton watches as props. The brand had a story behind it, and even if Aldon really had no idea what that meant, Francesca thought that he would like the symbolism.

"That one," she said, and Bianca had to help her get the shop owner's attention.

On the way home, the watch secure in the bottom of her bag of romances, she co-opted Alex and Bianca into carrying back takeaway for everyone still at the manor. Chinese food was not precisely holiday-themed, but what could Francesca say? She missed Chinese food, and she was sure that everyone back at Rosier Place would appreciate it. Aldon's elves were excellent, but their food was decidedly British in bent: salads, bangers and mash, steak and kidney pies, shepherd's pies, beef stews. Occasionally, there was pasta or pizza, though only in the plain Italian style rather than heavily heaped with ingredients like in America.

Christmas morning dawned clear and cold. There was no snow this far south in Britain, but at least it wasn't raining. Despite the decorations, Aldon hadn't planned anything for the people living at the manor generally. Training and patrols went on as normal, and she knew that Aldon would still be spending at least the morning reading reports. He had planned for them to have dinner tonight, but that wouldn't be for hours yet.

When she finally deigned to get out of bed, thinking vaguely of spending the afternoon reading in her favourite window-seat overlooking the training grounds, she spotted the pile of presents stacked on her coffee table. A smile started spreading over her face—she had known that the elves would be delivering presents, because she had given all of her gifts to a helpful elf last night who had promised that they would be perfectly wrapped and delivered—but somehow, she hadn't connected it with herself.

She fell on the pile with glee. There was a whole collection of used Regency romances from Hermione, who had inevitably written a note about how they were still all tropey and terrible, and most of them were anachronistic as well, to which Francesca couldn't help laughing. She and Hermione might be friends more out of circumstance than anything else—they wouldn't be friends if Francesca were not friends with Archie, but Archie did not come without Hermione—but she knew with a bone-deep conviction that however much Hermione might disagree with her on her tastes, she would fight to the death to ensure that Francesca was allowed to enjoy them. Archie had sent her a set of wizarding robes made in the British style, because he was of the opinion that she needed a set, while John and his family had shipped over a big supply of her favourite kind of tea, along with a smaller version of the formal tea set they had bought her the year before. Her parents had sent her a card letting her know that they would deposit her gift directly into their joint bank account, and there were books, throws, scarves, and sweaters from her other friends. Even Lina had given her a book of runic defensive magic, which only made Francesca feel guilty that she hadn't gotten the formidable witch anything at all.

She left Aldon's gift for last. It was a long, flat box, wrapped only with a white ribbon tied in a bow. She tugged the bow loose and pried the box open, praying it wouldn't be too extravagant. It wasn't a ring, at least, that much she could tell from the shape of the box. No gemstones, please, she begged silently. No gemstones, and no family heirlooms, and nothing that cost more than a month's worth of wages, please.

It was a necklace. Gold, but it was simple in design with a tiny gold-dipped origami crane as a pendant. It was pretty, and even if Francesca could tell that it had likely been expensive, it wasn't too much. It wasn't a Rosier family heirloom, and it wasn't covered in rubies or emeralds or diamonds. It was nothing that screamed of magic, and it was nothing that any member of the Rosier family would have ever worn before her.

It was something he had gotten just for her.

Dinner was too far away.

She pulled out the necklace, put it on, and ran out of her rooms. Rosier Place was big, the guest wing and common areas crowded with people having private get-togethers, but it was only a few minutes before she was tearing into Aldon's private study. He was blessedly, blessedly alone, which meant that she could launch herself at him, throw her arms around his shoulders, and peck him on the cheek.

"Thank you for the present," she said, as he turned towards her and tugged her into his lap. "It's perfect."

He smiled, bright with a hint of shyness, and she spotted his new watch on his wrist already. "Happy Christmas," he said, and he tapped her chin down for a proper kiss.

XXX

Queenscove was too crowded, Neal decided firmly. And Butler's demand that he host a grand, formal Midwinter Feast, in the style of the Queenscove Lords of old, was ridiculous, even disregarding the fact that it was made by an ancient house-elf wearing a reindeer-patterned towel straight off the Harrods Christmas section.

They were at war. No one else, to his knowledge, was doing anything like a huge and formal event, but his head elf was implacable on the subject. His elves, if he wanted to be accurate, because his other two elves wouldn't hear a word against it, either.

"The Lord Queenscove is always hosting a Midwinter Feast," Butler said sternly, the third time that Neal had tried to dissuade him.

"But you're already feeding nearly fifty people every day," Neal protested. "And you clean, and you do the laundry, and you already do so much. There's only three of you! Isn't a feast just going to be too much?"

Butler scowled at him, and when he spoke, his voice was, to say the least, very much offended. "It is not being too much work. We is having the traditional Midwinter Feast, my Lord Queenscove, and that is being final."

Neal winced and left it at that. His elves were surprisingly stubborn, when it came down to it.

Despite his telling them that decorations weren't necessary, his elves had also gone and decorated the castle to the nines again, with a twelve-foot tree and even more garland than he had seen last year. He could hardly walk anywhere in the castle without being confronted with all the trappings of the holiday season. Holly, tinsel, and worst of all, mistletoe.

His castle loved mistletoe. Absolutely loved it. And what the elves put out, it moved around. And then it made it absolutely impossible to leave unless the requisite kiss had been given and received. Neal's attempts at reasoning with his castle had accomplished next to nothing—even if his castle had stopped trapping Neal and Yuki after a day, Graeme had had to be rescued no less than eleven times, Fei eight, Dom five, and Kel twice. And that was only over the past five days!

When it happened to his friends or family members, it was pretty funny, but with the dreaded Midwinter Feast coming up later that evening…

His mother would be scandalised if she had even a hint that his guests had been made uncomfortable, which was why he found himself, that afternoon, trying to reason with his stone inheritance. His life was a strange place.

"Come on, Queenscove," he muttered, resting one hand on the wall at the back of his Hall. He could control the castle from anywhere, but sometimes, he thought he had a better connection to the stubborn building if he faced it where he had first met it—at the primal keystone that had trapped him here, more than a year ago. "I'm doing the Lord thing. I'm having the Feast, even if it's the middle of a war and it's the most ridiculous thing ever. It's embarrassing, but I'm doing it, so please just put away the mistletoe. Leave my brother and cousins alone. And please don't make the other guests make out with each other."

I'd never embarrass you like that, the castle replied, inasmuch as the castle ever replied. Neal thought there was a hint of faux innocence to it.

Neal glared at the wall, demanding, putting pressure on his castle the way that Aldon told him to do it. Aldon, that lucky bastard, never had any problems with Rosier Place. His manor was quiescent, giving him information on his request, and it never tried to play tricks on him. Neal couldn't think of a single time where Aldon's manor had changed where a door went on him.

Queenscove was tricky. It seemed to shift, almost like a child caught misbehaving, before it replied to him. Graeme deserves it though, it seemed to mutter. Graeme is a son of Queenscove. He needs to act like it.

"And how does a son of Queenscove act?" Neal demanded at his castle, not caring how ridiculous he must look at this moment. Anyone who lived at Queenscove became used to the castle's ways, and Neal attempting to dress down his own castle was not an uncommon event. "Tell me, Queenscove, how should Graeme be acting?"

There wasn't a coherent reply—just the strong sense that the castle wanted to be crowded, with dozens of Queenscoves living within it, and Graeme was twenty-five and wasn't even considering settling down yet. Neal wanted to bang his head against the wall.

"It is almost 1997," he hissed at the wall. "It is perfectly normal not to settle down for awhile, or at all. Get over it. What about Dom, or Fei, or Kel, then?"

The castle shifted again, but Neal pinned it down mentally. Fei and Dom were Queenscoves by association, since they were related to Neal, and the castle thought that they, too, needed to abide by certain standards of behaviour. As for Kel, the castle knew that that Kel was Neal's best friend in the world, so the castle was trying to give her a reason to stay. And what better reason for her to stay than if she was involved with one of Neal's family members?

Neal actually banged his head against the wall, then.

"Ouch," he muttered again, then he glared at the wall and imposed his will. "Well, stop. Just stop. No more mistletoe. It's unbecoming of Queenscove Castle to be throwing people at each other, whether or not they are part of the family!"

The castle fought him, annoyed, throwing out that it had been Queenscove for long before Neal was born, but Neal tightened his grip. It thrashed, but after a moment, the feeling subsided.

No more mistletoe, it agreed, sulking.

Neal sighed in relief. He would ask the elves to remove the mistletoe first thing tomorrow morning, and hopefully he wouldn't have to deal with this problem again until this time next year. He had no delusions that the castle would have "forgotten" this conversation next year, but that could wait until next year.

Turning around, he saw that his hall had been decorated to the extreme. They hadn't removed the embarrassing tapestry of someone who looked far too much like him for his comfort, but a huge tree dominated one corner of the room, blocking at least part of the tapestry from view. The tree was decorated in gold chain and glowing light-spells in about eighteen clashing colours, while the windows were lined with huge fake icicles across the top and an even layer of magical snow across the bottom. Massive poinsettias lined the walls, far larger than Neal had ever seen in his entire life, while wreaths were pinned on the wall every three feet opposite the tapestry. A ten-foot never-melting ice sculpture of, Neal was embarrassed to see, himself stood before the entrance, and a soft, glittering substance that Neal thought was supposed to be snow fell from the ceilings. Behind the High Table, his elves and the castle had managed to set up a waterfall, which threw off gold sparks instead of droplets of water at them. It looked like Queenscove had vomited its adoration of him plus Christmas over his Great Hall.

The tables, at least, were somewhat more subdued. The High Table was lined with evergreen boughs on the edge facing the public, while tall candles were spaced evenly down the table. The gold of the candlesticks matched the edging on the formal china already set out on along the table. Below the dais, two long harvest tables had been set up, both with long, gold runners and centrepieces of evergreen and berry-spotted holly. In the daylight, it was beautiful, as long as no one looked too closely at the walls around them.

At night, when the walls, the statue, and the tapestry had faded into the darkness, it was stunning.

Maybe, he thought, looking out at the forty-odd people dressed in their best, seated at the two long tables in front of him, being the Lord Queenscove wasn't so bad. There were things he didn't like—being trapped in Britain had never been in the plans, and being caught up in a war even less so. But there was the castle, and there were his responsibilities, and for someone as flippant and silly as he often pretended to be, he did like having responsibilities.

His parents sat to one side, his father dressed in robes with the Queenscove insignia, his mother in a traditional hanfu with the symbols of her family. Neal himself had chosen Queenscove insignia as well, but in the traditional surcoat of Chinese heirloom-casters, while Graeme's surcoat was quartered with the Song insignia. Yuki sat beside him, in a kimono marked with the Daiomoru crest—Kel, further down the table, had also chosen to put on a kimono, likely because Yuki was worried about being embarrassed if she were the only one wearing the traditional Japanese garment. Fei had dug out a blue-and-gold hanfu, though she had left off her family insignia since they were, unsurprisingly, on the outs again, while Dom was shifting at the end of the table beside her in his best dress robes. The only family members he had missing were Will, still in Geneva, and Jessa, who had gone to Dom's family in Toronto for the holidays because no one was prepared to let her into Wizarding Britain in the middle of a war.

Down the two long tables, he could spot people that he had come to know—mostly British, some of whom had lived as expatriates for many years, others who had returned home after schooling and who had lived under the rule of the Lord Riddle. A few of them had worked as Aurors in their adoptive countries, and a few more had Defense Masteries, but most had no experience in defensive magic at all before the war. A fair contingent of them, focused on the near end of one of the long tables, had been lawyers, and Percy Weasley sat with them. More than half of the people who had volunteered for a posting at Queenscove had lived in the No-Maj world before the war, working in shops or construction sites or offices.

There were only a few people missing—the people that could not be spared from their position on the walls. There were volunteers who would trade off with them halfway through the night, guaranteeing that they would get at least some of the festive experience. Separate plates for them had also been set aside, so that they would still get the meal.

His mother poked him in the side. "Yuanren, as Lord, you must give a speech before the meal begins," she whispered.

He blinked. "Er—a speech?"

His mother glared at him, so he hurriedly stood up while Yuki hid a smile.

"Er—I'm told I have to give a speech," he announced, improvising quickly. He had been a stage actor, so he could improvise a speech with the best of them, or so he thought. "It would have been nice to know this ahead of time, but maybe no one wanted to keep me from rambling on too long. Thank you, everyone, for your dedicated service thus far. A Midwinter meal is the least that we can provide for you, so please—enjoy!"

He sat down, and his elves promptly began marching out to serve them, the plates hovering in the air behind each of them.

A duck terrine with cranberries and pistachios. Smoked salmon salad, served with a chestnut, bacon, and parsnip soup. Only after the starters came the turkey, sitting on a bed of stuffing and surrounded by tiny sausages wrapped in puff pastry, with roasted potatoes, carrots, and Brussel sprouts on the side. Boats of gravy and cranberry sauce were spaced down the table, both of which Neal used liberally. He could hear his parents laughing on one side beside him, while Yuki was engaged in a heated discussion with Kel and Dom on her other side over, of all things, the best kind of cheese.

The candles burned lower, and even with one eye on his wards, he found himself relaxing. The sentries rotated quickly midway through the meal, well before dessert was served, and the sound of happy people filled the air.

He hadn't wanted to put on a formal Midwinter Feast. It had seemed like too much trouble, and maybe a little too distracting in the middle of a war. But now that he was here, he thought, it was worth it. It really hadn't been any trouble for him to put one on, not with the house-elves insisting on it, and carefree laughter filled the air.

They might be at war, but they could all use a break. For one day, it couldn't hurt.

XXX

At Potter Place, at that same instant, Archie and Harry were laughing over their own Christmas dinner. Like at Rosier Place and Queenscove, there were still patrols running over the grounds, but the Lord James Potter had given everyone except a skeleton patrol the day off. If one ignored the people walking out on the grounds, the circling walls, and the statue knights that stood sentry at the gates, it almost looked like the Christmases of many years past.

The dinner was the same, a grand Christmas turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, squash, and buttered bread rolls. Archie and Harry were still in their pyjamas, and the floor was still littered with wrapping paper. They were still laughing over their presents, and Lily had given James yet another tie. Around them, there were stacks of books, both Muggle and wizarding; potions and Healing accessories; prank products, new robes, and Quidditch supplies.

But there were a few other signs of the war. Harry had given Archie a set of Battle Potions, along with a special belt-pouch to keep them in and a lengthy lecture that he should keep it close at all times; Archie had given her a new dagger, longer than her old one and wickedly sharp. Alongside the more mundane gifts were practical clothes for the training yard, charm bracelets with tiny metal charms that would explode if torn off and thrown, cloaks imbued with protection charms. The laughter was never truly carefree, and if James and Lily sat closer together than they normally would have and laughed a little louder than usual, no one commented.

One day. This was one day where the war could be pushed off the grounds, and even if they had to go back to it tomorrow, there was still today.

XXX

Pandora ran her fingers over the stunning silver showpiece that Voldemort had given her that morning. It was huge, and it was gorgeous, and it fit around her neck like it was made for her. Seven emeralds as large as quail eggs dipped down from it, laying evenly across her chest.

It wasn't even an old piece, this time. Voldemort had given her free reign over the family heirlooms of all the old families already, and Pandora had picked them clean. There had only been a few pieces that she had liked, because jewellery, unsurprisingly, came in and out of fashion just as other trends did. Her fashion sense did not, in practice, run to the gaudy pieces of the past. She had only a few rings, necklaces, and bracelets from those raids, but this piece had been made specifically for her, to Voldemort's exacting specifications.

The past few weeks had been, to say the least, annoying. Pandora had taken no pleasure in the massacre of Wales, for all that it had been on her list of suggestions. A better move, in her view, would have been an assault on any of the resisting noble houses, but Voldemort had liked the shock, awe, and fear of the Welsh approach. She supposed, at least, that the trial of the Anti-Apparition barriers had also been a success, for all that a third of their power stones had cracked under the strain.

It didn't matter, she thought. The point had been made. Voldemort was too powerful for a reasonable person to oppose, and the first few weeks after the assault had shown it. Hundreds of people had stepped forward to swear their loyalty to the new Ministry and to Voldemort personally, at least until the leak in the Daily Prophet.

Pandora was still not convinced that it was truly a leak. The article was too vague, and while it was ostensibly written from the perspective of a non-noble, it was only the noble families who had come to Malfoy Manor directly, for all of Voldemort's speeches about the equality of wizarding blood. The other details had been correct, and it was always possible that someone in the inner circle had become disillusioned and tried to hide their identity, but it was also possible that their enemies were trying to decrease their recruitment and sow dissension.

Voldemort did not care. In his view, leak or no leak, the response had to be the same. He would make an Example, and regardless of whether the person had actually been the one to leak, no one would ever attempt it again. It was disobedience towards the state, he had snapped, and if there was one thing that Voldemort could not abide, it was any hint of disrespect towards him. So, for the past few weeks, Voldemort had been on a witch hunt throughout his own ranks, searching for the source of the leak.

The sound of pleading had grown tiresome weeks ago, and most days Pandora found a way to excuse herself from Voldemort's presence and allowed him to carry on. She had better things to do with her time than watch Voldemort use his alarming proficiency at Legilimency on all those he suspected, and many that he did not.

Today, however, Voldemort had demanded her presence. So, here she was, presenting herself in the former Malfoy grand reception room. He was immersed in conversation with Travers, no doubt about the investigation within the Daily Prophet, and she spotted Bellatrix hovering in the background. The other Lestranges were nowhere to be seen.

She listened closely to Voldemort's conversation with Travers. Travers' investigation of the Daily Prophet was still focused on Albansdale, the senior editor whose office had been tampered with, though the man was still pleading his innocence. Travers hadn't been able to squeeze any further information out of anyone, and while there was nothing specifically tying Albansdale to the article, action needed to be taken. Travers was recommending charges for criminal negligence be laid against Albansdale for presumably leaving his office unlocked.

She mentally made a note of it, figuring that the information could come in useful at a later time, because all information did. McNabb was standing to one side, similarly waiting, and when Voldemort was done with Travers, McNabb stepped forward. They talked at some length about the resistance, about the next steps that would be taken. They had raided multiple homes in the past few months, but hadn't found anything yet—they would need to move soon against one of the major rebel noble houses. In theory, the law of privilege had been struck, so Voldemort could, by law, have a search and seizure warrant issued and storm the noble strongholds as he had done with families that had not been noble.

In practice, things were a little different. The fact was that noble houses carried magical power within them, and the use of additional force required additional warrants, for which the Department of Justice firmly said that they lacked the evidence to support. Even if they did, there was the risk-assessment to be made by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a department that had been much smaller since the Welsh insurrection, when more than a third of the Ministry had either died or abandoned their posts. The Ministry was now short-staffed, and the reviews and recommendations came slowly—too slowly, for Voldemort's tastes.

Voldemort did not care about the warrants, and while he had been inclined to simply ignore the Department of Justice, Pandora had managed to convince him that disregarding the laws entirely would chip away at the "law and order" persona that he had been cultivating. The Welsh insurrection had allowed Voldemort to rely on ancient wartime laws, but the unusual proceedings had given Bridge an opportunity to romanticize the event into an unjustified genocide. Any movement against the rebel noble houses had to be as official and boring as possible, a show of their legitimate authority, or they would be playing directly into Bridge's hands.

McNabb was sent off with instructions to put more pressure onto the Department of Justice to find a justification for the issuance of the necessary legal warrants for additional force be used, against any or all of the resisting noble houses. Examples needed to be made, and Voldemort was eager to act.

Then, it was her turn, and Pandora swept an elegant curtsey before him. "Thank you for the gift," she said simply. "It is beautiful, and I am most grateful."

She touched her necklace once again, knowing that Bellatrix would be burning with jealousy from the shadows at the edge of the room. Her eyes lowered, she let her lips curve into a coquettish smile, exactly the kind of move that she knew the other witch could never pull off, and to which she would have no choice but to react. She was playing with fire, and she knew it.

"Not now, Pandora," Voldemort said, though his tone was indulgent. "You may play with Bella later. I need counsel."

"And how may I assist you?"

There was a slight pause. "Espionage," Voldemort said finally.

Far beneath the surface, Pansy shifted from where she had been observing and taking notes. She was too close to Voldemort to be able to control things directly, but with time, she had learned how to prod her alter ego. It had to be slight movements, the smallest things that had perfectly reasonable explanations attached to them, because while Pansy was ultimately the controlling personality, Pandora could never be aware that she was there. Pandora acted on her own, based on the experiences and history that Pansy gave her. But Pansy could sometimes slip things to her alter ego, try to push things in the direction she wanted.

Pansy was the spy. Pansy was the one that Aldon called the Swallow, and inside Pansy was every part of herself that needed to be hidden from Voldemort. Pandora was real, and Pandora controlled when Pansy allowed her to, but what Pandora knew could just as easily be handed over to Voldemort. There were things that Pansy had hidden, quite aside from her spy status. Her close relationship with Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, for one; her relationship with Aldon Rosier and his friends, for another. Her love of creatures, and her fervent desire to protect Parkinson Palace, for a third and fourth. These were things that were precious to her, and so, Pandora did not have access to them.

Pandora would accept a reasonable explanation, however, and Pandora had no problem thinking that they were her own ideas. If nothing else, Pandora was confident and self-assured to the point of hubris. So, Pansy listened. Maybe, just maybe, she could turn this to her benefit.

"Espionage?" Pandora asked, drawing the word out with a note of surprise. "Surely you do not mean to send me away?"

"Of course not." Voldemort waved his hand impatiently. "You will stay here, where you belong. But I am having difficulty integrating my informants into the rebels' organization. I had hoped that, since you had gone to school with the younger Rosier, you might know something about him."

Pandora's lip curled in disgust. "I know only what most know," she said sourly. "We were Housemates, and our families were friendly, but even when he was believed to be a pureblood, he was the worst kind of nobleman. He was several years older than I."

"The worst kind of nobleman?" Voldemort turned dark eyes on her, and Pansy held fast to her memories. Pandora couldn't have everything, but she needed enough to support what she had said, so Pansy picked a dozen choice memories and threw them at her alter ego.

Three memories of Aldon speaking to her condescendingly—one where Pansy had been going out to exercise, and he had criticized her robes. He had always been kind to her, but it was superficial, as if he had never looked at Pansy once and taken her seriously. More memories of her childhood than anything else, because Pansy as a child was far more like Pandora than Pansy would have cared to admit, and it was easy enough to let Pandora to fill in the blanks.

And Pandora did.

"He never considered me seriously," Pandora said, right on cue, her voice bitter. "I am of the weaker sex, and he would never allow me to forget it. We were forced together by our families in childhood, but when he started school, we saw less of each other, though of course I was expected to maintain friendly relations with him publicly. People would comment, you understand."

"So, women are his weakness." Voldemort paused, thoughtful, and far beneath the surface, Pansy flailed. That was not how she wanted this interaction to go. "Ought I send a woman to him, then?"

Pandora shrugged, her nose wrinkling. "He would feel obligated to help and rescue a woman, yes, but he would never allow a woman to occupy a position of trust. More likely, he would send such a woman to safety overseas."

Pansy breathed a silent sigh of relief. If nothing else, Pandora was resourceful, and she was right. She submerged herself a little farther into her subconscious.

"And he is a Truth-Speaker." Voldemort shook his head, a heavy frown crossing his face. "I have informants, Pandora, but none have passed any good information for weeks. I suspect that they have been compromised. And Rosier has turned away my last five agents."

Underneath the surface, Pansy grabbed at a memory. She couldn't say that this would work, nor could she say that it was anything except an opportunity. But that was more than she had been able to give anyone thus far, and she threw the memories at her alter ego.

Aldon Rosier, rarely seen outside the company of one Edmund Rookwood. Sometimes, Alesana Selwyn was in those memories too, but Aldon Rosier and Edmund Rookwood had been near inseparable. She couldn't think of anyone else who had been closer to him, and Edmund Rookwood was here. He was less than happy about being here, that much Pansy knew, and she could buy him an opportunity out. One memory, and just enough information of their close relationship, and it was a chance. Both for him, and for Aldon.

"Edmund Rookwood," Pandora said, her lips curving into a vicious smile. "With Rosier, perhaps you should not attempt to trick him—anyone who would have the competence to fool a Truth-Speaker is better used elsewhere. Send someone that, even if he knows is a spy, he cannot refuse. Rookwood was Rosier's best friend through childhood and school. He will not refuse Rookwood. Have Rookwood seek help from his oldest and best friend, and Rosier will feel compelled to help."

"And how do we control Rookwood?" Voldemort studied her, skeptical but intrigued. "Rookwood has never been anything other than a reluctant participant. He could be turned."

"Not if we keep control of his wife." Pandora's voice was soft, but deadly. "Edmund Rookwood loves his wife more than he cares for his oldest friend. But Rosier has always hoped otherwise."

There was a moment of silence, as Voldemort considered the idea, but then he smiled. "Summon Rookwood to me, if you would, Pandora. I have much to discuss with him. Then have the younger Lestrange secure Alesana Rookwood at the Lestrange Manor. It is a better prison than Malfoy Manor."

Pandora nodded, turning on her heel and leaving the room. Far below the surface, Pansy breathed a small, cautious, sigh of relief.

It was a risk. She didn't know how Edmund would weigh Alesana's life against possibly betraying Aldon and his movement, nor whether Edmund would manage to pull off being a double agent if he did choose his principles. But it was a step, and she could only hope it was a step forwards, and not a step backwards.

XXX

AN: Before anyone asks, I actually did have the article written, except meek described it as "a college sophomore's deep literary piece" and "completely unreadable", which were entirely accurate assessments. And it turned out that having Archie talk about the article instead was far more entertaining, so imagine about 1000 words of the same drivel that he was reading out loud and you've pretty much got the article. Also, clearly Francesca pays more attention to what James Bond is wearing than the plot of any James Bond film, but also fancy watches are very fancy. And yes, there is a weird experimental third-person omniscient PoV in the middle of this... it was experimental, I'm not sure I liked it, so happy to hear your thoughts!

Thanks as usual to meek_bookworm for her thorough beta, and to everyone who is kind enough to leave me a review! I do love hearing from you, so do indulge me!