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.

12. Chapter 12

Francesca woke up, her heart pounding. The air in her bedroom was wrong, thick and heavy, and an electric current sizzled uncomfortably against her skin.

The wards, she guessed, struggling to pull herself awake and out of bed. With the information that Draco had brought back, Aldon had been preparing for the last week and a half for this. They had procedures, they had rules, and Francesca reminded herself of those rules in a failing attempt to calm herself down. She had to get up. She had to wake people up in the guest wing. She had to make sure Draco was up, and Aman, and at least one other person, and then she had to make her way across the manor to Aldon's study. She had a job to do, and she couldn't sit here, quivering in surprise, anxiety, and fear.

They were ready for this, Lina and Alex and Moody and Aldon, she reminded herself sternly. They were ready, they had been in meetings every day reviewing the manor's weaknesses for exactly this reason. Security measures had been increased, and people were no longer permitted out in the grounds, other than in the training yard. Even within the manor itself, certain areas were now off-limits, in case anything happened.

She just wished she knew more about what was happening. She could guess that it had been the wards that had woken her, and the silence of her room seemed to agree, but all she really knew was that something was wrong. She didn't know if the chills running up and down her arms meant that they had broken the wards and crossed, or if they were trying to cross the wards, or something else.

Aldon would know more. Aldon was innately connected to Rosier Place, whereas Francesca needed to be right in his study, her hands on the primal keystone, to be able to access anything. He had heavily implied that, were they actually married, that she would have the same control over his manor as he did, but Francesca had ignored him. Francesca was becoming very good at pretending not to hear his unspoken but heavily implied words.

Her blankets were too heavy, or maybe she was still sluggish, but she shoved them to one side and swung her legs to the floor. She was listening, listening hard, but she didn't hear anything—no shouting, no crashing, no yelling. A quick look outside her window showed the pale fingers of dawn beginning to stretch above the horizon. She couldn't see anything outside yet, but the electric charge in the air didn't lie. She swallowed, feeling a slow, churning ache in her stomach, and grabbed a dressing robe, stuffed her pocket with a stack of her paper charms, and ran out of the room.

She had her orders, just like everyone else, and she started hammering on doors down the hallway. She didn't wait for a response for most of them—she only needed to wake up Draco, Aman and one of her other Blake & Associates colleagues. Whoever else she woke from research and development would ensure that everyone else was awake and the non-combatants would go to a reinforced and secure room on the second floor, not far from the Portkey Hub, and wait for orders to evacuate. Aman had a battle station within the manor, so she had separate instructions, as did Draco.

Draco was the first to wake and poke his head out of his bedroom, when Francesca was already three doors down. His blond hair was tangled, a small tuft sticking up at the front in a cowlick, and he was still in his pyjamas. Regardless, his grey eyes showed no hint of anything except sharp alertness. "Time?" he asked, and Francesca only nodded before he disappeared back into his room. Getting dressed, she presumed, but she didn't worry about it.

Aman was up within a few minutes as well, pale-faced but determined. She only nodded at Francesca before she ran off, wearing sweatpants, a pair of boots, and a mismatched coat, her wand in hand. Albert was the first of the rest to answer his door, his face drawn, and his mouth turned down in worry. He didn't need to ask any questions, only catching Francesca's eye.

"Go," he said, gesturing down the hallway. "I'll handle everyone else."

Francesca nodded, distractedly wondering why the alarms hadn't gone off, but then an ear-splitting siren ripped through the silence—Aldon, or Lina, or Moody, probably. The sound was a wall, physical, pressing against her and thrumming in her veins. Her heartbeat was too loud, too heavy, melding and competing with the noise, and she stopped, gasping, resting one hand against the wall and struggling to breathe.

She fished, with one shaking hand, in her dressing gown pocket for her spells. The rough paper was less comforting than she thought it would be. Her breath was catching, her head spinning, but she wasn't carrying any Calming Draughts, nor did she have a spell to Summon one for her.

She didn't have time to have a panic attack. She didn't have time for panic, and there was a cache of Healing Potions stationed at the entrance to the guest wing corridor. The blue of the Calming Draught stood out, stark, among the brightly coloured vials, and she popped the cork with one trembling finger and threw it back. Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing evened out, and while she was still panicked, she was functional, and the world steadied itself around her.

There was no time for panic, now. She could have all the panic later, her inevitable anxiety attack no doubt three times as bad when she replayed everything in her head and judged herself for her many failures, but Rosier Place needed her now. She stumbled out of the guest wing, heading towards Aldon's study in the family quarters.

The dhampir were already moving through the common areas, the flash of white teeth and cruel, anticipatory smiles bright in the darkness. They would be dividing into groups of three or four and heading onto the grounds, each one backed with magical support, and their orders were to keep any attackers from reaching the manor itself. For the moment, the manor itself would only have her, Aldon, and Aman, providing support from a distance. If the attackers gained ground, the groups had orders to fall back to the manor.

Francesca wished she knew how many people were assaulting the manor, but only Aldon could tell her that. She found him, incongruous in sweatshirt and trousers and heavy boots, exchanging words with Alex outside the grand ballroom. He had his wand strapped on his wrist, and Francesca could see the telltale mirage-shimmer of magic around him that signalled that his personal ACD-ward was up. His handgun hung at his side, and he had a rifle slung over his shoulder and resting on his back.

"They're assaulting in two groups, about twenty in the front and an equivalent force in the back," Aldon said, his words calm and sharp. "Smaller than we had expected—I had thought they would throw no fewer than sixty at us, but perhaps they are holding back. They are not past the wards yet, and I do not want to trigger my main defenses unless absolutely necessary. They would be a waste on a force of this size. I think it best that I drop the wards and allow them in, fooling them into believing they have broken through, but only once your units are in position. How long do you need?"

Alex's eyes flicked towards her, but he made no further sign that he had noticed her. He, too, was prepared for battle—a broadsword was strapped on his back, strange against his plain black shirt and dark-wash jeans. "A surprise ambush on their ambush? We're going to be spread thinly, but I think it's manageable if we manage to eliminate a third or more with gunfire before fully engaging. I'll need ten minutes to get my troops into ambush positions, but no more than ten minutes. What are the ammunition stores like?"

"Good enough, though not as much as I would like," Aldon replied with a wince. "Limit your men to two clips each and make them count. We can always cast more, but our stores of raw metal are not where I would like them to be."

"I will switch my weaker shooters to one clip each and give the rest to my best shots," Alex decided, far calmer than Francesca had thought that anyone could possibly be at a time like this. "Front, or back, Aldon? Equal forces each side, but where will you be?"

"There is a window in the attic with a good sightline—I will cover the back," Aldon replied without hesitating. "With luck, perhaps I can take out five or six before they cross the trench line. Moody's unit is covering the back as well. Take the front, if you will."

"Done." Alex turned, his movement crisp, and Francesca saw that he, too, had a handgun at his waist. "Ten minutes, Aldon, then let the wards go. Francesca." He nodded at her and brushed past her, bound for one of the exits to the grounds.

"Captain Dragić." Francesca paused, hovering to watch Aldon. Was anything else that she needed to say, or that she should say? She had the information she wanted, being the approximate assault size and a general idea of what would be happening. She should be running to her own position, in Aldon's study, where she would be able to feel everyone and access all the defensive wards and spells, instead of hovering.

There was nothing she needed to say to Aldon. But maybe there was everything—a thousand unspoken words that she didn't know how to say even if she wanted to say them. What was she supposed to say, that didn't sound like complete nonsense?

Be safe sounded too plain, too simple—it was what she would say to Aman, or Lina, or anyone else. Don't leave me was an option too, but she wouldn't say that, not in a million years when this was Aldon's own manor under attack. Come back to me reeked of desperation and worry, and she understood how much Rosier Place meant to Aldon. This was his place, his birthright, and he would defend it until he died. She didn't even know if she wanted him to be anything different, because this was the Lord Aldon Rosier in front of her, not Aldon Blake. Good luck?

It didn't matter. He crossed the distance between them in three long strides, cupped his hand over her cheek, and met her lips in a hard, bruising kiss that Francesca was sure that he would never have given her otherwise. Except for the one time when he had been drunk, Aldon's kisses had always been gentle caresses, sweet explorations where he always seemed worried that he would cross some invisible line and that she would push him away. Rarely did his kisses feel like hunger, and Francesca staggered for a moment, grabbing at his shirt. It was only a moment, a single action, before Aldon yanked himself away with a rasping gasp.

"You remember your orders?" he asked, his words stern.

"Yes, I—I just—"

"Good. Follow them." Aldon moved to brush past her, then he paused. "This is a smaller foray than we had anticipated, Francesca, so it will be fine. I will make sure that you are fine, do you understand? Don't be afraid. Just follow your orders."

"I—" Francesca sucked in a deep breath, trying not to let her face show her worry, trying to believe him. The attic was a sheltered place, wasn't it? "Yes. Okay. Um. I'll—I'll see you later."

See you later. Was that really the best that she could come up with when her boyfriend dove into battle? Really?

Aldon half-smiled, a small flash of amusement crossing his face, and then he was gone. Francesca took a deep breath and hurried to Aldon's study, slamming her hands onto the black stone that dominated the room and shutting her eyes.

She had to know. She had to see—Aldon didn't want the trenches blown yet, not on a foray force of forty, but the explosive spells would still be under her control, and she could release the fire spells, and there were the landmines, too. She shut her eyes, sorting through the roller coaster of information that flooded her mind, and then she demanded that the manor show her what she needed to see.

Lina was already on the grounds, lying behind one of the small, earth-and-stone barricades that had been set down over the last week, well behind the mental line Francesca had marking the landmine zone. She had four others with her, two men and two women, each of whom was hiding behind another small barricade. There were far more barricades than were necessary to hide the five of them, though Francesca thought they were spread out more than she would like to be if she were in the field. On the west side, she could see that Alex and his group of four, all dressed in dark clothing and two of whom carried rifles, were making their way into position, barely visible in the early morning gloom.

At the back, Master Moody was setting up in the sculpture garden. The statues there had always unsettled her, but she had to admit that it was the perfect place to set up an ambush. He had a larger unit than the two groups in the front, though his was the only group covering the back. Draco was with him, and Francesca knew that they were being covered by Aldon above. Aman was, for the moment, covering the back with him with her wand out from a third-storey window. Aman's duties were largely to fall back and protect the non-combatants in the event that evacuation was necessary—a Defence Mistress she might be, but she had never been in active combat of any kind before.

Their units were too small. There were too few of them, compared to the huge enemy groups at both the front and the back. Francesca sighed heavily, her breath ragged and shaky; there were easily twice as many attackers as there were defenders.

She felt when Aldon let the wards fall, the shock reverberating through the grounds. She didn't recognize anyone in the enemy formation, but they didn't bolt across the ward lines as she had expected—they waited, they were patient, they pried at the grounds looking for the spells that they knew had to be present. Obligingly, Francesca nudged one of the fire-spells in the front into activating, along with three of the runic landmines. Lina could only blow the spells that had been hers to begin with, while Aldon needed to have his attention on the back line.

It was many long moments before they crossed over, their dark figures hesitant, and all of Rosier Place was silent and waiting. Francesca's heart was hammering as she watched, her hands itching towards her paper charms. Aldon didn't want to use too many of their other defences—he didn't want to blow the trench unless absolutely necessary. He wouldn't be happy if she set off too many of the defensive traps and spells, and most of them had taken days or weeks of effort to set up. Lina's glorious trench-trap had been nearly four months of blood and magic, and once it was blown, it would be blown. Even Moody's flood-spell could likely only be released once.

Even without the trench and flood spell, the other spells accumulated. If Francesca triggered too many of them, they wouldn't be ready for another attack if it happened too soon. A runic landmine or two might not cost much, but fifty of them cost a lot of magic. The fire-spells, the poison-spells—they all added to the magical cost of an attack, and as a paper-mage, Francesca knew more about magical cost than most.

Paper-mages lived on magical cost—on the amount of magic they each had in a day, on the amount of magic they could store in their paper spells ready for release, on calculations of depreciating magical energy for those same paper spells. Francesca's paper charms could carry about four days' worth of spells at a time, her lack of a large core made up by the fact that her paper spells depreciated slower as well. She could throw out, at once, nearly five days' worth of magic if needed.

The enemy mages were crossing the ward lines, and Francesca's fingers itched to release a few more of the defensive spells. They were crossing onto Aldon's territory, her territory, and she didn't want them there. She didn't want these enemies on her grounds.

She didn't hear the shot, but she knew it had happened. One of the mages on the back line fell back, his body jerking, and the mage beside him had barely turned to look at him before he, too, was gunned down. Francesca knew, without having to think about it, that several floors above her in the attic, Aldon was discharging the shell casing from his rifle.

His shots were only the first—Francesca could hear the gunfire now, a violent pop pop pop that was decimating the enemy front lines. Her stomach was roiling, a tight, painful knot only barely helped by the Calming Draught she had taken, but she couldn't look away. She couldn't afford to look away.

Oddly, it wasn't actually the gunfire that was so effective. Francesca could see that most of the shots, Aldon and the other sharpshooters with rifles excluded, were going wide, and even the shots that did hit were, for the most part, not life-threatening. The power of the gunfire was only the noise and the unknown. This was not magic. This was something outside magic, this was something that Voldemort's army could not and did not see coming in the pale dawn light, and Francesca wondered how many of them understood what was raining down on them. The attackers were falling back from both sides of the manor, retreating from the rain of bullets on one side, and the precise spectre of death on the other, and then the spell-fire began.

Things were under control. She was sensible enough to see that their response was incredibly successful, a week of preparation and the fact that Aldon had somehow managed to secure the most battle-hardened unit for Rosier Place paying off. But none of that helped—she was still anxious, still terrified, and she was still shaking, the Calming Draught only a mild buffer against the extent of her fear.

Her instructions were to sit, watch, and wait. She was the one with her finger on the protective spells, the one person in the manor who both had a full view of the grounds and who wasn't distracted by active combat herself. She was the only one with an overall view of the battle and she was the one who needed to make the call for evacuation, if necessary. Aldon had also reinforced to her that she should be in the first group of evacuees, but Francesca had silently decided to ignore that particular order. She'd evacuate, certainly, but not before others.

No one had told her how maddening sitting, waiting, and watching would be. She could watch Aldon, three floors above her, methodically lining up targets in his sight and firing, or Alex's unit slamming into the side of the front enemy group, flanking Lina's group that faced the enemy head-on. She could see that they were doing well, but that made no difference to her. She was still watching the people that she knew, the people that she cared for, fighting to defend her manor.

She wanted to do more. Her orders were not to do more, but she wanted to do more. This was her home too, or at least it had been for most of the past year, and she couldn't just—just sit there and watch as they risked their lives. She didn't know most of them that well, nor had she really tried, but she didn't mind most of the ones that she had spoken to. They had always been nice to her.

She had her orders, but she wasn't planning on leaving the room. She wasn't even thinking of leaving the desk—she was sure that could use spells from here. There was a window, and she could call lightning from the skies. She had four prepared lightning spells and six fire-spells that she thought she could alter and use without leaving the room, without even leaving the desk. She could just… provide a little bit of extra support from here. It wouldn't distract her since she needed to watch the whole of the grounds anyway. It wouldn't be any extra trouble. None at all, and she would help in a more practical way.

She grabbed one of Aldon's fountain pens, pulled out her paper charms, and got to work.

XXX

The gun in her hand clicked empty, and Lina cursed. She was out of bullets. Sirius, Harry and Leo had managed to get them two shipments of lead and lead alloys so far to cast bullets, but neither had included the raw silver ore she added into her mix. Her bullets flew better in magical environments, and now she was out.

No matter. The opening round of gunfire had scared their attackers badly—based on how they acted, Lina didn't think that there were many of Voldemort's fanatics in this group. They were more than six months into war, but Voldemort's fanatics had been active for more than a year. Voldemort's fanatics would not have scared quite so easily, and the fact that they had fallen back meant that this was a small group, not worth dropping most of the major spells for. Only twenty of them, and Lina thought six had fallen in the first wave. Alex had two sharpshooters with him, and Lina's Stormwing shadow, Acimović, had a good eye and a better assessment of risk. Body shots only, even when they were close enough to try for headshots.

They were close enough. Lina put away her gun, drew her wand, and leapt over her low barrier with a yell. That drew their attention, and a moment later she was exchanging spell-fire with a lean, middle-aged man who moved too slowly for battle to be his day job. If she had the time to come up with the pure intention needed for a Killing Curse, she would have used it on him; as it was, they were outnumbered, so she could only spare the magic and focus to hit him with Slashing Curse laced with a Sleeping Hex. In theory, the man would bleed out before he woke up.

There was barely time to draw a breath or collect herself before she was back into it. A woman, this time, whip-thin and fast. This one had something resembling combat training—possibly a former Auror, possibly one of Voldemort's fanatics. Lina neither knew nor cared, she just knew that this woman was faster than her, and she threw herself out of the way of a light-blue spell that looked dangerous. She landed hard, her footing coming out from under her, and threw up the first shield that came to mind.

Élodie, Alex's second, hit the woman from behind, a dagger flashing into the woman's back. The woman gasped, the sound gurgling, and Lina knew that Élodie had hit one of the woman's lungs.

"Merci," she threw out, breathless as she pulled herself to her feet. She and Élodie had went a long way back—to Étienne, even, the three of them serving together back in her Service Year.

"De rien," Élodie replied, dodging as Lina threw a Blasting Rune at a wizard casting a spell behind her. The Rune blew up in his face—unlikely to kill him, but it might give him some burns. She didn't have time to check, a faint whisper of robes trailing on grass her only warning before she was back at it.

There was a crackle in the air, and lightning ripped down from the skies, blowing a hole in the centre of the enemy formation. Lina's nostrils were filled with the scent of ozone and burning flesh, and the enemy group scattered.

These troops were barely trained—once out of their basic formation, they were easy pickings for her and their units. Dhampiri war units, there were really none better. It seemed like no time at all before what remained of Voldemort's foray group were turning and retreating. Lina hesitated, glancing at her dhampir counterpart.

Alex shook his head, drawing his wand and spelling his bloodied broadsword clean. "Let them go, Lina," he said, his voice rough. "Small fry. They were only testing us. Let us count the dead—I have none."

Lina looked behind her, counting heads. Acimović was crouching on the ground beside one of the dhampir, but from the fact that the man was sitting upright and swearing up a storm, Lina assumed that he was perfectly fine. She counted her own heads, and it looked like hers were fine as well. "None for me, either. Fortunate."

Alex snorted, his blue eyes skimming the others. They were his unit, so he knew them better than Lina did. "Hardly. That was a trial run—Voldemort's weakest fighters. Had any of mine fallen to that, I would have been ashamed."

"The meat shield line," Lina muttered, turning back to scan the grounds. "They were trying to trick us into revealing all of our defences."

"Captain," Élodie came forward and saluted. "I count eight enemy dead, and a further three enemy injured. Shall we take them prisoner, or dispatch them directly?"

Alex glanced at Lina. "Not vampires. I will not make this decision."

Lina sighed, turning to look at Élodie. In the normal course, and as a mercenary, she would have executed the enemy injured—keeping prisoners was risky, and they cost money in food and upkeep. Rosier Place had a few cells in the basement, which were spelled to make anyone who stayed there long profoundly uncomfortable, but they hadn't been used for that purpose in years, if ever. If they took prisoners, they would need to reinforce those rooms further for security and to prevent escape. Executing them was the smart choice to make.

"Some of them are critically injured," Élodie said, her voice neutral, though her eyes were sympathetic. "Should we decide not to execute, we will need Healers."

But Lina was no longer a mercenary fighting without colour of right. She was no longer a paid security consultant, working in areas that were outside the law. She was no longer a very well-paid and sought-after assassin, nor a gang hostage negotiator, nor even a mercenary.

She was a soldier. She was a commander, and she was fighting under a flag and cause. They might not have uniforms, but if Aldon and James and Sirius wanted to argue their legitimacy later before the ICW, they needed to act like a nation. They needed to behave better than Voldemort did, even if it was inconvenient, and messy, and a risk.

In a just war, one did not simply execute the enemy's combatants. Not without a full war crimes tribunal, not without a trial in which they had the benefit of legal representation. One took prisoners of war instead.

"Matthias, return to the manor and get another one of the people trained in Healing," Lina decided, annoyed, looking back at Rosier Place. "We'll Heal them and take them prisoner. Marie-Pier, find the Lord Rosier. Advise him that we have prisoners, and we need a lawyer here, ideally with an understanding of the law of armed conflict as it relates to the treatment of prisoners of war. Two lawyers, if he can manage it, and stay with him. Aldon will want information out of them—tell them he can't meet with them until the lawyers arrive. Enrico, Bianca, Acimović, go around back and confirm the status of the engagement there. If Alastor's group is still fighting, I trust your judgement on whether to engage or to return for backup. Everyone else, keep an eye on the people here. We know Voldemort didn't send his best against us, which means he might have sent them against someone else. We need to confirm status with the other safehouses as soon as possible."

XXX

Aldon sat against the wall in the attic, his eyes shut with his rifle leaning against one shoulder. He was exhausted, a heavy lethargy and tiredness suffusing his limbs. There was a part of him that wanted to go back to bed, and physically he was tired enough that sleeping would be better than not, but his mind was still racing, still whirling over the dawn attack.

He thought he could count four kills for himself. Voldemort's fighters had been taken by surprise by his rifle, and he had used his silencer. Four clean body shots, before Moody's group had struck and things became too much of a melee for Aldon to be of any use whatsoever other than releasing the occasional Blasting Curse.

Moody's men had been alarmingly efficient, or perhaps Voldemort's group had simply been poorly trained. Possibly both. They had carved a swathe through the enemy—he had seen one Retexo, the Light equivalent to Avada Kedavra, used by Moody himself, while Malfoy had pulled one Avada Kedavra before being drawn into the melee of close-range duelling. There were at least six enemy dead in Aldon's back gardens, and possibly more. By the time Francesca had become involved, her lightning raining from the skies and flames roaring from the ground, Moody's group was already well on its way to routing the back group.

He didn't know who the attackers had been, because he hadn't recognized any of them, but their blood was soaking into his soil. Aldon thought he should care about that, but he didn't. None of their own had fallen, to his knowledge, and that was far more important to him than the fact that he had killed. He had killed before, and he would again. And again, and again, until he had the world he wanted.

"Lord Rosier," a lisping voice said from the doorway, the name coming out in pure French, with a rolled initial r and dropping the last r entirely, rosy-ay rather than the English rosy-err. It was easy way for Aldon to pick out anyone who spoke French, because those that did could not help but pronounce his name in its native language. "Stormwing Avery has taken prisoners. Three of them. She requests that you ask for two lawyers, preferably trained in the law of war, to come to Rosier Place immediately. I am instructed to stay with you until they arrive."

Aldon opened his eyes, his gaze fixing on the dhampir woman standing in his doorway. Langevin, he thought she was called. "The dead? How many?"

"None for us. Eight enemy dead," Langevin replied. "Three prisoners of war, Lord Rosier."

Aldon sighed, his lip curling, and drew his wand to summon two Patronuses. Prisoners of war. He would rather they didn't have any, and not only because, based on who Voldemort had thrown at them, Aldon didn't think any of them would have any information worth having. They would need to secure the prisoners, feed them, all the things that they wouldn't have to do if they were dead, and he wouldn't even get any good information from them.

The first merlin, he sent to Clan Cameron in the north—after being blown, Aldon had given Robin time off to recover, and to think about where next to place her. Robin wouldn't be helpful as a spy anymore, since too many people knew her identity, so he had been considering sending her abroad as a legal advisor to their international delegation.

He was glad he hadn't done so now. Robin had developed an excellent reputation within the Department of Justice, and over the past year undercover she had likely learned something about the law of war.

The second merlin, he sent to Queenscove for Percy Weasley. Although Percy was almost exclusively a criminal defence lawyer, he knew Percy better than the few other criminal defence lawyers that had joined their side. Percy was good on his feet, and judging from the Arcturus Rigel Black trial, adaptable enough to move into a new area of practice.

That done, he heaved himself off the floor and went to review the damage to his manor. He checked first on Francesca, who was pale and had ink splattered over her hands. There were several spent paper spells littered around her, mixed in with a number of paper spells destroyed by her apparent inability to use a fountain pen. She looked more drained than he liked, so he sent her to bed before going outside.

Bodies. There were so many bodies, and Alex already had his dhampir arranging a funeral pyre some distance away while another group gathered and laid out the bodies for identification. Lina was in charge of the prisoners, and all of their emergency-trained Healers stabilizing them and the other injured on the field.

In total, a strike on Rosier Place had cost Voldemort sixteen bodies, nineteen including the three prisoners of war. Everyone at the back had managed to escape, largely because Moody had given orders to let them retreat without returning fire. That was slightly under half of the people that Voldemort had sent against them in the first place.

Not enough people, in Aldon's opinion. Voldemort had to know that he hadn't sent enough people, and instead they had blown about a third of their Blasting spells, two fire-spells, and a poison spell at the back. The fire-spells and poison-spell would take up to a week to set up again, but the fifteen Blasting spells could likely be refreshed today without too much difficulty. He was too tired to weave the fire and poison spells into the keystones today, so they would need to be a priority tomorrow. Or the next day.

He needed a stimulant. Surreptitiously, he pulled his wand and Summoned a Wideye Potion for himself—he hadn't had any today, so it shouldn't be a problem, but Neal tended to ask annoying questions whenever he caught wind of it. He should never have implied that he had ever had anything resembling substance abuse issues to the earnest Healer. Then, he hurried over to Lina to debrief.

Robin caught up with them only a quarter of an hour later, as Lina finished detailing the morning's action.

"We will need someone to identify the enemy dead," Aldon was saying, with a nod in the direction of the line of bodies. "One of the prisoners might—"

"Not yet, Aldon," Lina said, shooting him a look of warning. "They're prisoners of war—we do nothing with them without the lawyers present, one for us and one to advise them. It's been thirty years since I needed to know anything about the treatment of prisoners of war."

"Prisoners of war?" Robin interrupted, joining them. Her clear blue eyes scanned the grounds, and to her credit, her expression didn't change when she saw the blood-soaked ground and the grim line of bodies, as well as the three prisoners on the ground.

Two of the three of them looked terrified—the last one, only resigned. Two men and a woman, all of them middle-aged. Aldon didn't recognize any of them.

"Your advice would be of use, Clearwater," Lina said, turning to her with a tired half-smile. "I do not, as a general rule, take prisoners. What are we required to do with them?"

Robin tilted her head towards Rosier Place, a silent motion to leave the prisoners. Lina nodded and led the way around the corner of the house, and Aldon silently drew a ward for secrecy. "You know very well that Voldemort wouldn't do the same, right? In his view, this is an internal conflict, and prisoner of war status is really only applicable to international armed conflicts."

"I somehow doubt that Voldemort thinks that much about it." Aldon snorted, glancing at a view of his grounds that did not include blood or bodies. "He does not seem to be the thinking type."

Robin smiled, a quick flash that had no amusement in it. "I wouldn't say that, but then again, I never came to his direct notice. I would say that whatever he is like, many of the people around him are intelligent and do have an eye to international law. Dolohov, especially—he hates the law of armed conflict, but he does know of it and they do have justifications for not following it. Aside from the fact that the law of war is only applicable to international armed conflicts, Britain has never been signatory to any of the Conventions governing the law of war—they were developed in the aftermath of the Muggle Second World War, in which many witches and wizards internationally were involved, but not us. Here, at that time, Lord Riddle was beginning to gain power and pass the first laws against Muggleborns. The rest of the world was growing closer to the Muggle world, writing the laws of war, while we withdrew."

"I don't care that we aren't signatory, or that there might be grounds for us to avoid the laws of war entirely," Lina said, shaking her head sharply. "If we want to join that world at the end of this war, we need to obey the international conventions now. Lord Potter would agree with me, Lord Dumbledore would agree. Refresh us on the rules, Clearwater."

Robin nodded, acquiescing, and leaned back against the side of Rosier Place. "To be entitled to prisoner of war status, captured prisoners have to be considered lawful combatants. Lawful combatants are immune from punishment for crimes committed during lawful acts of war, such as killing enemy combatants. Generally, to qualify, a combatant has to be part of a chain of command, bear arms openly, and conduct military operations according to the laws and customs of war—which generally means fighting as if they are in a war. People who aren't combatants, like spies, don't qualify for prisoner of war status but are supposed to be protected as civilians."

"What rights do they have?" Lina made a motion with her hand to move on, frowning in distaste. "What are we allowed or not allowed to do to our wonderful prisoners?"

"I'm assuming I won't be allowed to torture them," Aldon added dryly, only half-joking. He hadn't been thinking of torture—not the way that his cousin Caelum practiced it, anyway—but he was also lucky enough to be a Truth-Speaker. He had no intentions of being gentle in his questioning, even if he didn't intend on resorting to physical pain for answers. All of them, regardless of what they knew, would need to be questioned.

"No." Robin shot him an unimpressed glare. "You're also not allowed to compel them by magical means to provide any information other than their name, their age, their rank and their service numbers if they have them. That means no Veritaserum, no Legilimency, and certainly not torture."

Aldon paused, and he felt his eyes narrowing in disgust. He had intended on using one or both of Veritaserum or Legilimency, if necessary. "No Veritaserium and no Legilimency?"

"No. No Imperius Curse, either. Nothing that may be construed as compulsion."

"And…" Aldon's voice was quiet, with an angry edge. "What about my gift?"

Robin tilted her head, thinking, then she grimaced. "If you could get information without compulsion, I doubt it would be included in the prohibition. But what further information you could get from their name, age, rank, and service number only, I don't know."

Aldon turned away in disgust, as Robin went on.

"You're also required to treat all prisoners humanely, with respect for their persons and their honour, to inform their next of kin of their capture, allow them open communication with their families, including sending and receiving packages—"

"That is an incredible risk!" Aldon burst out, turning back to Robin to glare at her. Notifying families and facilitating open communication, that would give their prisoners access to people who had a vested interest in breaking them out, and the packages would all have to be screened. They didn't have the resources to handle it. "The families—they'll just help the prisoners escape, they'll feed information to Voldemort, they'll do anything to harm us and get their family members back. It's just not possible!"

"If you want to follow the law of armed conflict, you'll need to make it possible," Robin replied coldly, looking back at Lina. "Otherwise, they also need to be given adequate food, clothing, housing, medical attention, and any other essentials of life. They cannot be forced to work, and if they do work, they must be paid. After the war ends, they are to be released without further consequence, unless war crimes are being alleged."

"This is absurd," Aldon snapped, turning away. "Next you'll tell me we're not even allowed to strip them of their wands."

"No, we are allowed to hold their wands," Robin said, with a slight laugh. "We are not allowed to break them, however—they are to be kept secured, and returned upon release."

"This is too much." Aldon turned to Lina. "We don't have the resources for this. We'd have to make secure holding cells, set up guards for them which would take away from our own patrols—this is the equivalent of keeping an enemy agent within our nest, and I do not like it. Keeping prisoners is an opportunity for Voldemort."

"What would you propose instead?" Lina stared at him, considering. "Releasing them, that they might come against us again in the future, or that they might provide further information about us to Voldemort? Or executing them? You've killed, Aldon, but let me warn you that executing someone is very different than killing in the heat of battle."

Aldon looked away. "I'll do it if I have to do it, Lina."

His core shifted uncomfortably, and he mentally told his gift to be silent.

"If the other resources aren't an issue, we can also try offering the prisoners the right of parole," Robin offered, interceding delicately into the conversation. "There are several options, and none of them are exclusive. Offer them the opportunity to swear an Unbreakable Oath not to harm anyone within your manor or attempt to escape, and then you have no need to worry about guards or wards and would only need to secure their wands. In return, you can offer them freedom of the manor. An Unbreakable Oath never to raise a wand against one of us or anyone on our side again, and you can offer to have them released or sent abroad. In exchange for other privileges, such as their own quarters, you can also ask them to willingly provide you with information. It might work to set the prisoners against each other—for example, you only need one to cooperate to identify the dead. Once done, you can give him preferential treatment as opposed to the others, and it might persuade the rest to cooperate."

Aldon sighed and shook his head. He didn't like it. He very much did not like it, but he knew that Archie and the others would, and he had to think about a world after. The world after would be easier to navigate with a reputation for treating their prisoners well and in accordance with the law of war, even if it was not, as Robin said, strictly necessary.

The world after. It seemed far enough away that a part of him simply did not care to plan for it, especially when planning for a world afterwards led to more risks for their current position. And yet he knew rationally that he needed to keep the world after the war in mind.

"Very well," he grumbled, somewhat bad-tempered. "I suppose, Lina, that you asked for two lawyers so that one could provide advice to the prisoners? Percy should have been here by now."

"You sent him the Patronus at the same time you sent mine?" Robin straightened from where she had been leaning against the Rosier Place wall, blue eyes widening slightly in concern. "It's been an hour, and it's Percy Weasley. The man is prompt to a letter."

"It is unusual," Aldon conceded. He had expected Weasley to be here as soon as, or sooner, than Robin. "I'll send someone through to Queenscove."

Malfoy was already hard at work on the day's correspondence in the room that Aldon had assigned him as his office, and he waved a short sheet of parchment as Aldon poked his head in. "An owl just came," he said, his face paler than usual. "Peverell Hall was attacked this morning—reporting two dead of theirs, though they successfully bottle-necked the attackers at the gates. They also report twelve enemy dead."

"Prisoners?"

"They didn't say." Malfoy shrugged. "I'm sure they would have mentioned it had they taken any."

Aldon studied him for a second. His gift detected nothing—everything that Malfoy said was true, but there was something slightly off about the young man anyway. He looked wan even for someone normally so pale-skinned, and there was a flatness to his words that seemed different than usual. When Malfoy was considering betraying them, or running away, the flatness of his words tended to come with a certain reticence and a distinct sullen undertone. This flatness came with nothing else, a lack of emotion that did not pair well with his blank affect.

As far as he knew, Malfoy had not killed before this morning. Aldon had seen him casting the Killing Curse, though he didn't know whether Malfoy's spell had hit its mark. He paused, wondering if he should say anything about it.

He didn't.

"Anything else in the correspondence?" he asked instead, nodding at the pile of other notes. It was no larger or smaller than it had been on any other day—no surprise, since the mere fact that Rosier Place had been attacked that morning didn't mean that anything else should have changed.

Malfoy didn't reply immediately, instead glancing at the pile, including the blotted piece of parchment in front of him. "I… have not managed to decode any of the missives yet."

He hadn't been able to focus enough to decode anything, Aldon understood. He hesitated but picked his words carefully. "I can take the messages today. Would you be able to go to Queenscove and fetch Percy Weasley for me? I sent a Patronus about an hour ago, but I have had no response. I am concerned, but also cannot leave the manor—we have set off too many of our defensive spells, and I need to be on hand."

"Queenscove?" Malfoy stood slowly from his desk. "I—yes. Queenscove."

"After that, if you could, please go to Potter Place," Aldon continued, trying to find a way to put this within Malfoy's usual duties. Aldon didn't want to talk to him about that morning—he did not think he was an appropriate person to talk to him about that morning—but he was sure that a full report to Potter Place was necessary. And if Malfoy went to Potter Place, perhaps Harry would be better placed to speak to him. "Advise the Lord Potter that Rosier Place was struck this morning, and we report sixteen enemy dead, no casualties of our own, but I cannot leave Rosier Place as we've blown more of our defensive spells than I would like. I'm sure they're in as much of a mess as we are right now, but if we can, we need to have a meeting later tonight. Also see if you can find Harry and ascertain her status—I may have a mission for her."

He didn't have a mission in mind, but it sounded plausible enough and if pressed he was sure that he could think of something later.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but stacked the other missives in a small pile and walked over to hand them to Aldon. "Very well. I'll be on my way."

Aldon nodded, accepting the pile and taking a look down at them. He doubted they would say anything much, but he'd never know until he decoded them. Another thing to go on his to-do list, and mentally he re-ranked his day's priorities. The messages were always among the most urgent, at least until they were decoded, and he didn't have the luxury of a break. He sighed, figuring that in the time before Percy showed up, he could at least make a start on the correspondence.

Percy Weasley arrived within the half-hour, Aldon allowing the transit from Queenscove in record time and meeting him in the corridor outside the Portkey Hub. "Queenscove?"

"Under attack. I never received your Patronus," Percy replied briskly, looking strange in jeans and a woolen peacoat. Aldon should not have been surprised—Neal's castle was predominantly foreign-born or foreign-trained, and as he understood it, among their set, robes were largely seen as formalwear only. And it wasn't as if Aldon could fairly comment on it either, his own manor having largely adopted Muggle dress with only a few exceptions. "The Lord Queenscove sent you a Patronus a few hours ago too. I assume you didn't receive it."

"I did not," Aldon replied, gesturing for Percy to follow him outside. "How bad is Queenscove?"

"Sieged, but otherwise fine." Percy's mouth twitched into a smile. "It seems that Voldemort is flummoxed by the Muggle-style physical defences, so the Lord Queenscove has doubled the wall sentries and they're plotting pitching barrels of burning tar on the enemy from the ravelins. With the failure of the Patronuses, however, they're making more inquiries. He'll send someone to report when they know something."

Aldon shook his head, worried. A three-pronged strike was a concern. "Ravelins? And Voldemort himself is there?"

"I believe so." Percy turned to look down on him over his horn-rimmed glasses. "Ravelins are triangular fortifications set outside a castle's walls. They provide an outpost for the main castle where defenders can go to harry an attacker, but also force the attackers to split their forces instead of trying to overwhelm the walls. The Lord Queenscove told me to assure you that he's fine, they're fine, and to thank you for worrying. He told me to sing it, as well, but please don't ask that of me. We've largely been hiding within the castle with a few additional precautions. What did you need me for?"

"We have prisoners of war," Aldon explained succinctly, his lip curling in distaste as he led Percy down the stairs and out the front door. "Lina insists that they need someone to provide advice to them before we attempt to question them."

"I see." Percy nodded, the motion crisp. He spotted Robin, still standing with Lina overseeing the three prisoners. "Let me speak to Penny, and we'll go from there. I'm assuming Penny already gave you legal advice?"

"She did."

"Then I cannot. We are conflicted on this issue. From this point onwards, Aldon, anything to do with the prisoners, speak to Penny and Penny will speak to me."

"I need to interview them, Percy," Aldon said, his tone carrying a note of warning. "As soon as possible."

"You can interview them if they agree to it, after I've spoken to them." Percy nodded again, but the intent, for Aldon to go back to whatever he was doing before, was clear. "It'll be some time because Penny and I will also need to come to terms on their treatment."

"Why don't I have any choice in their treatment?" Aldon muttered, annoyed, but he checked the time on the handsome new watch on his wrist. A dawn attack, but it was nearly ten-thirty in the morning now, and one eye over the grounds showed that Lina, Alex, and Moody had things well under control. Moody seemed to have moved onto re-creating the Blasting Rune stones that had been scattered over the grounds.

Aldon rubbed his eyes. With everything else under control, the correspondence came first. He couldn't know how important any of the correspondence was until it was decoded, so he returned to his study and swept Francesca's spent and ruined paper charms to one side to return to her later. With a three-pronged attack in the morning, and with Queenscove, it seemed, still in the midst of action, it would likely be some time before Rosier Place would need to defend a second attack.

The correspondence took him a few hours longer than usual to decode. As awake as he was, he struggled to focus. The slightest noise from outside had him up and looking out the window, the tiniest rustle and flash of movement from the corridor had his head turning. He was inclined to check on the rest of his manor mentally, if not physically, at least every fifteen to twenty minutes. Most of Blake & Associates, who had been run through Archie's first aid Healing course, were addressing the physical injuries from this morning—the rest were helping on the grounds, cleaning up and setting up new defensive spells. Francesca was in her rooms, and he resisted the urge to check on her.

Checking on his manor was a drug. It wasn't just that he could see the defences being rebuilt, the blood coming clean—the time scales weren't nearly long enough for that—but it was a strange, addictive comfort. When he checked, he knew where everyone was and what they were doing—when he checked, he felt in control of the situation, at least of his manor if not of the overall war.

He forced himself to pay attention to his correspondence instead. Checking did not change the results, and even if he felt in control, he was not. Lina, Alex, and Moody had the situation on the grounds well in hand, Robin and Percy would work out a plan for the prisoners, and the resistance would be best served, right now, by Aldon doing his own work instead of twitchily checking on everyone else.

There was a long report from Magpie, in which she stated that the ICW had formally expelled the Wizarding British delegation over what they called the Welsh genocide. Although the delegation was still resident in Geneva and still able to release their own statements, they would no longer be permitted to read their statements before the other nations. Her uncle was still working on the proper phrasing for a report of this nature for Voldemort, so Aldon decided that it needed to be slipped to Archie for formal announcement before the Ministry of Magic could find a way to spin it.

His sources in Hogwarts spoke of general anti-Voldemort sentiment, more evident since most of the students who had been supportive, even mildly, of new regime had not returned to school—the teachers were still trying to keep them out of the conflict, but Cardinal reported that they were having less success as time wore on. She thought that it was only a matter of time before things hit the boiling point and spilled into open conflict. Finch, who had returned to school with Seamus Finnegan mid-September, was one step ahead of her—he reported breaking up fights every few days in the Gryffindor dorms between Finnegan and Ron Weasley. According to Finch, the remaining Irish students at Hogwarts were struggling in the new atmosphere since they largely remained neutral or supportive of Voldemort. He had heard of fights breaking out in the other dorms, even if they hadn't yet spilled into the corridors.

Finch also reported that the former Light faction, those that hadn't already joined with the resistance, wanted to reopen negotiations to join. Their primary goal in negotiations was the preservation of their noble rights in any world afterwards. Finch expected that his parents would be sent as the negotiators for the remainder of the Light faction, based on their close relationship with the Potters.

Aldon shook his head, deciding to give this information to Archie to work out. On a personal level, as a Lord who had advocated for the demolition of the nobility before, Aldon no longer cared about the status itself. He was wealthy whether he was a Lord or not, and the prospect of sitting in the Wizengamot had never been very appealing to him. However, he knew that many of the others already in the resistance, particularly those foreign-trained, supported the full abolition of the nobility, while most of the Light faction were either neutral or supportive of noble privilege. Their summer negotiations had come to an impasse, so their original treaty was silent on the issue.

Peregrine, hidden within the Daily Prophet, reported that nothing was going out in the newspaper without being personally reviewed by Travers. Aldon wasn't sure how that would realistically have prevented their last strike from succeeding, but he didn't care because it would slow down the production of the paper. They would almost certainly have to reduce their distribution to one paper per day rather than a morning paper and an evening paper, which could only work in the resistance's favour.

Hummingbird, still nested in a high-level position in the Ministry of Magic, reported that all Ministry officials were being subjected to loyalty interviews. Several people had already been arrested for having less than full loyalty to the new regime, but a quick skim of the names told him that none of his had been caught yet. He sighed and shook his head—one of the most frustrating parts of being a spymaster was that, while he collected information, there was often nothing he could do for his agents while they were in the field, nor for the innocent bystanders that were caught by his spies' actions.

It was a few hours before the lawyers, alongside Lina, came to an agreement on the prisoners. None of them were truly supportive of Voldemort, rather they were people who had been pressured into service, and all were willing to swear Unbreakable Oaths to cease all hostilities in exchange for being sent overseas with the next group of refugees. Small mercies, Aldon thought, though a part of him was still disgusted that apparently the law allowed them to kill people outright in war, but forced them to maintain any prisoners in relative comfort if caught.

One of the prisoners, in exchange for securing her family and sending them abroad with her, was further willing to provide whatever information she had and names for the dead, so Aldon spent two hours in an interview with her later that day. The woman was chatty in her nervousness, spilling out everything that came to mind, but the most useful information she had was the new organizational structure for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Several other offices, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, had been entirely disbanded and integrated into the DMLE, and funding had been stripped from half of the departments in favour of the DMLE. She was eager to prove her honesty—indeed, she was so eager to prove her honesty that she second-guessed herself and everything she said rang true, even if it was contradictory.

It was all that Aldon could do to keep himself from snapping at her. Her eyes were wide, terrified, and filled with tears, and she flinched at even his gentlest prying. It set him on edge, that someone would be so completely and obviously frightened—and his own instinct, nearly an hour in, to give the woman something to be frightened of, was even more alarming.

Was he that person? He had never intended on using physical force. He might have considered Legilimency, maybe, or Veritaserum, but nothing like physical torture. He wasn't Voldemort, but he had killed four this morning, and it hadn't even been his first time killing. He had killed his own third cousin some months ago in cold blood, and he had no doubt that he would have executed the prisoners had it been necessary. He would have done it. He would have made himself do it, damn it all. But he wouldn't have tortured them, and he'd have killed them quickly and efficiently if that was what was needed. He was only Aldon Rosier, and he was not sure that he merited fear—not, particularly, with an agreement in place.

It set him on edge, and his back teeth ached with words unsaid as he kept his demeanour calm, cool and collected. He wouldn't snap at her. He wouldn't threaten her, not when she had already agreed to cooperate. But he wanted to.

By seven that night, a motley group of people and representatives had gathered at Rosier Place. Archie and Sirius were there, Sirius taking a risk and leaving Kingsley Shacklebolt to hold Grimmauld Place. The Lord Potter had sent Harry from Potter Place, since he could not be spared from dealing with the aftermath of the fight there, and Graeme Queenscove, Neal's older brother, was attending from Queenscove since Neal was still handling the siege. Percy and Robin were both still there, and Hermione had come as well, since she happened to be at Grimmauld Place when Lina and Moody had organized the meeting.

His house-elves had, with their usual efficiency, laid out a healthy spread—not just sandwiches, but steaming hot trays of pasta covered in tomato sauce, meatballs optional, salads, breaded chicken parmigianos, and even a tureen of soup. Both coffee and tea were widely available, and Aldon stacked his plate considerably higher than he would have normally. He had barely eaten all day, living off caffeine and air, and judging from everyone else's plates, he was not the only one.

"Should we begin?" Archie asked, throwing a look of worry around the room. "Aldon, I don't know if this is everyone we're expecting?"

Aldon shrugged slightly in favour of cutting a piece of the breaded chicken and depositing it in his mouth. "I don't know. Lina?"

"I'm sure I taught you better than to eat and talk at the same time," Lina muttered, though she was doing the exact same thing. "Whatever. Etiquette rules are stupid. No, I'm not expecting anyone else—most of the safehouses are nervous, they don't want to wander far from their grounds right now. We might as well get started."

"I can go first," Graeme Queenscove said, looking up from his bowl of soup with a friendly smile. "Let them eat, it looks like they've been drowning in battle cleanup all day. Queenscove is under siege. We have about sixty, seventy of Voldemort's soldiers outside the front gates. They've assaulted twice with no success."

"No success at all?" Moody leaned forward. "Voldemort himself is there?"

"There's a megalomaniac leading them, if that's what you mean. Powerful, but Queenscove has stood for more than a thousand years. Magical dwellings that old are soaked in magic, and Queenscove has faced down Lord-level wizards before. Queenscove has never been taken by assault either, only by treachery." Graeme, who looked very much like a shorter, stockier Neal, flashed a wicked grin. "We're entertaining ourselves by slipping out to the ravelins to hit them with spells from behind every now and then. My cousin Fei, in particular, is having quite a lot of fun setting things on fire. Underground tunnels, you know."

"They're still there?" Moody frowned.

"You bet." Graeme's grin dropped, and his voice took on a more serious tone. "After we learned about the failed Patronuses, though, we went and checked—there's a barrier set up not too far off our lands. It seems to limit contact with the outside. Not just messages, but also transit, no one can come in or out by the usual means. Good thing we have the Portkey Hub."

"Portkey Hubs are managed on a network, much like the Floo," Aldon added, swallowing his mouthful of chicken. "Because they are intrinsically connected to other Hubs, they can't be excluded by spell-work, but a connection elsewhere needs to be broken. I am not entirely sure Voldemort is aware, as of yet, of the existence of the Portkey Hubs, though he might be aware and not have the technical knowledge to understand the finer details."

"Sure." Graeme nodded, blinking stupidly in a way that Aldon recognized well. The Queenscoves, it seemed, generally preferred to be underestimated rather than overestimated, and that confused blink was nothing but a farce. "That. But it does limit our ability to provide backup as agreed to Goldenlake or Naxen now, since we can't transit more than six at once."

"We'll have to account for that," Lina said, glancing at Moody and the Lord Black. "How are your forces holding up?"

Graeme shrugged. "As I said, we're fine. Neal's doubled wall sentries, and we're also posting guards in the ravelins now. I don't think Voldemort or his people are familiar with medieval fortress architecture—there was nearly a riot when the fire started coming at them from behind. But we're also a big fortress, so at more than twice the sentries, we're all doing twelve-hour guard shifts daily. Further relief would be appreciated if you can get us any, and Neal told me to threaten everyone with all kinds of death if talk came up of withdrawing units from Queenscove. All kinds of death, because evidently there's more than one way to die."

"I don't think that'll happen, though the Lord Potter has the final decision." Lina sighed. "Moody and I will talk to him and see if there are any rearrangements that might be possible. Is that everything, Queenscove?"

"Supplies. We're going to need additional supplies. Raw metals for bullets—though we only have a minimum of people who are gun-trained, our Stormwings have blown through more of their store than they'd like. And I know the ACD production is backed up, but we think our circumstances should put us higher in the priority queue, at least for now." Graeme leaned back in his chair. "That's about it."

"Potter?" Lina glanced over at Harry.

"We also took an attack this morning," Harry said, her expression carefully poised. "Dawn, an attack force of approximately forty to fifty. They hit the north gate, the east gate and the west gate at once, but they didn't gain the grounds. The walls forced them into a bottleneck, so we were able to hold them off with a minimum of casualties—we had two losses only, twelve dead of theirs before they retreated."

"A quick retreat," Lina commented, frowning slightly. "Speaks to a poorly trained unit."

"Lina, if he threw forty against us this morning, forty to fifty against Potter Place, and another sixty to seventy against Queenscove, that is more than we believed his forces had been," Moody interrupted. "He had about eighty on the field at Malfoy Manor, and we killed near two dozen there. There were perhaps a hundred in Wales, plus the Dementors, plus the vampire covens. A hundred and fifty wizards means that Voldemort is recruiting, and he's recruiting fast."

"Dad thinks that it was a diversionary strike—meant to tie us down while they struck elsewhere, as they did," Harry confirmed. "And to test our defences. It did provide us with more information on the weaknesses in our own defences, so Dad is working on reweaving the wards and setting up new earthworks that we can fall behind if we lose the outer walls."

"Did you take prisoners?" Lina asked, methodically twirling pasta around the tines of her fork. "How many?"

"We didn't. The orders were to let them go if they ran."

Lina nodded, a little absent, merely noting the information. "Rosier Place was, like both Queenscove and Potter Place, struck this morning near dawn. Force of around forty, perhaps a few more or less. We report sixteen enemy dead, no casualties of our own, and three prisoners of war taken. The striking force was poorly trained, likely the weakest today—we suspect that the strike on Rosier Place was designed as a trial meant to set off our defences only, rather than a true attack."

"Prisoners of war?" Hermione straightened in her seat, leaning forward with her hands clasped on the table. "And what's being done with them?"

"This group have sworn Unbreakable Oaths to cease hostilities against us in exchange for passage with the refugees out of Wizarding Britain," Lina replied, looking up at Hermione. "Can you put them on your next passage manifesto? We also have a family—one of the prisoners exchanged information in order to get her family out with her."

Hermione blinked. "Not with the next group, no, nor with the one after that. It—it really is not as simple as adding names onto a manifesto. All the countries accepting refugees are screening candidates, so I'll need to interview each of them, prepare a report, and submit it to the receiving countries for their consideration. At best, it'll be three weeks, more like a month. You'll have to hold them for now."

"A month is a huge improvement on what the timelines were before," Archie boasted, his voice picking up in excitement. "Aunt Lily's revival tour is already making a splash! Wizarding America, Canada and Australia have all increased their targeted acceptance numbers and they're no longer privileging halfbloods and Muggleborns, and even the European countries are taking more. The British International Association is also seeing a massive increase in donations, so we don't have to steal supplies, we can buy them fairly and squarely!"

"Not that we should stop the supply strikes," Harry interrupted dryly, placing one hand on her cousin's arm, stopping him from waving his arms about. "Voldemort loses resources twice over with every strike, because he's draining his treasury and getting nothing from it. On another point, Lina, you mentioned that one of the prisoners gave information in exchange for our getting her family out—have we secured her family yet?"

"Not yet, no." Lina shook her head. "You think they are under guard?"

"Not under guard, precisely—" Harry cut herself off, thinking. "He doesn't have the forces for a guard, but he probably has people reporting on the movements of their families. Just because someone is not with us doesn't mean they're necessarily against us, and Voldemort wouldn't trust the people he sent on this sort of suicide mission. He needed leverage. It'll be safer for us to extract them under cover. Leo and I can take charge of it."

"Good, do that," Lina confirmed, looking back towards the rest of the table. "In terms of the prisoners, when we took ours this morning, we didn't have a formal policy, so to be safe we followed the laws of war. Are there any objections to that treatment in general? I expect this won't be the only time we take prisoners."

"I hadn't thought that we would treat them otherwise," Hermione admitted, eyebrow raised. "What other options are there?"

"The exact options that Voldemort himself would use," Robin said, looking up from her own plate of pasta and salad, with a wry smile. "Torture and execution as enemies of the state."

"We are not doing that," Archie said decisively. "We're not stooping to Voldemort's level. We'll keep to the laws."

"Don't discuss this any further," Percy interrupted, shaking his head. "If we are abiding by the laws of war, then we need to observe the conflict rules, and I cannot hear anything further. Indeed, I've probably heard more than I should have. Penny will provide advice and represent the resistance—I and the remainder of the defence lawyers will handle providing advice and representing any individual prisoners."

"I'll need to know who I should take instructions from," Robin added, swallowing a mouthful of pasta. "And we'll need to draft policies. We've come to agreements with the three prisoners we have on an ad-hoc basis, but we need policy. I love policy. I can do it, but an assistant would help."

"Try Susan Bones," Aldon said, reaching for his glass of water. "The Bones quietly joined after the Welsh massacre. She's at Hogwarts right now, but she shouldn't need to leave school for this."

"Susan Bones has a good head on her shoulders," Percy agreed. "She summered with Bones Goldstein last summer. She would do well."

"I'll reach out to her." Robin sighed, sounding far more tired in that breath than she had looked the entirety of a long afternoon. "Thank you."

"We should make an announcement through the ICW," Sirius suggested, setting his mug of coffee down. "Make it clear that, even if we don't have to, we are abiding by the laws of war. It'll set us up better for the future. I'll let Cissy know, and she can draft a release there. It can only work in our favour, if we're the ones seen as being humane and Voldemort just razed Wales."

Aldon laughed, a little rough, setting his cutlery down. "Speaking of which, my contact within the formal delegation informed me today that Wizarding Britain has been expelled from the ICW. They're still resident in Geneva, and I understand Sir Philip Bulstrode is delaying the news from reaching Britain, which makes it an excellent piece for us to release. Also, another informant advised that the remainder of the former Light faction is coalescing around the Longbottoms—they'll be coming forward to reopen negotiations to join us. Their priority is to maintain their noble status for the world afterwards. I'll leave it to you to negotiate with them."

There was an awkward silence, as the various people around the table exchanged looks—most had schooled their expressions to be carefully neutral, since the majority were noble, but Archie looked worried, Graeme intrigued, and Hermione was frowning.

"The British International Association is not going to like this," Hermione said slowly, lips pursed. "Part of our support is conditional on dismantling the political system that led to our exclusion in the first place."

"It was a fight to even keep our treaty neutral on the subject," Archie admitted. "The BIA wasn't alone in wanting changes to our political system. The shifters, too, wanted further representation, and a lot of our non-noble support is predicated on widespread emancipation. This is not something we can give up easily."

"But at the same time, Archie, you can't deny that we also need the support, and I think many of us around this table would want to keep our statuses, even if it's only symbolic," Sirius added in a low voice. "I'm not expressing an opinion, but the history argument carries a lot of weight."

"Not with me," Harry said, her voice clear and firm. "If it's wrong, then it needs to be fixed, whatever the history might be."

"Nor with us," Graeme added. "Neal hates politics—Mama likes it enough, and Neal will do it, but he'd rather be a Healer in an emergency ward somewhere than lord of a manor. Not that we hate the castle, mind, but somehow I doubt that stripping the meaning of the title means that we'd lose the castle."

"I, too, would prefer to spend my life pursuing my own interests rather than sitting in the Wizengamot," Aldon said lowly, looking down at his plate. "But I'm not so naïve as to think that my view is shared by a majority of my peers. Even in a world without Voldemort, it will be easier to win the support of the former Dark Society nobles if we maintain a semblance of the status."

"This is a serious change to our treaty." Hermione's voice was disapproving, her eyebrows furrowed, and she pushed her empty plate away from her. "I'll need to speak to the Board, and—"

"They haven't come forward yet," Archie reminded her, his voice a little sharp. "Let's not rush, Hermione. They haven't come forward yet, so let's put our heads together and we'll figure something out. Maybe no one will be happy about it, maybe everyone will hate it, but all we want is for everyone to live with it. I'll—I'll deal with this individually, and will collect everyone's thoughts on it later, and I'll read about other political systems and come up with something. If we can win them over now, get their investment into a new world and a new political system, then we'll have an easier time establishing ourselves once we win."

"If we win," Lina corrected him coolly, pushing her plate away. "We're very far from winning, Archie. The fact that we aren't entirely on the back foot is not the same as us winning anything. We still have not made any serious strikes since Malfoy Manor, let alone succeeded at any. Sirius, what's the latest word from the Scots?"

"Four clans are still supportive of an Irish-style strike for independence," Sirius said, picking up the thread easily. "They don't want to wait. My sense is that the MacMillans and the McKinnons are going to follow them, but they're checking their forces over first—the McLeods and McLaggens remain opposed, but the McLeods might buckle under the pressure if the rest agree."

"The McLaggens will never agree," Robin snorted. "Rocks for brains, the lot of them, and they have all the pride of their nobility. Fortunately, they're one of the smallest Clans, since they haven't adopted in as many halfbloods as the others. In contravention of the Clanmeet Agreement of 1982, I might add."

Sirius tilted his head in agreement, his face grim. "We still have to wait for the Clanmeet, but my guess is, we'll have to join forces with the Clans and sweep from Scotland down. The advantages of this approach are that, if we succeed in taking Scotland and establishing a border zone, we'll be able to act a little more safely. We'd secure Hogwarts, Hogsmeade—we could set up formal refugee camps, as well as prisoner of war camps, if we need them. If we could have someone look into border control spells in other contested zones..."

"Aman can do it," Aldon said, pushing his own empty plate away with a sigh. "I am sure there are spells of some kind, though Wizarding nations have always been held together more by national spirit than anything else. There will need to be work setting them up, but I do not expect the population of Scotland will contest. Aside from the Clans, the Daily Prophet has been pushing for people to move south out of Scotland for months—it's one of the primary reasons I had suspected that they would be a retaliatory target for the Irish independence strike."

"I had forgotten about that." Lina nodded thoughtfully. "That may help, if the only people that truly need to be thrown out are at the Ministry outposts. It might be quick, and then we can begin taking the international ports. Let's see how Voldemort deals with supplies when he can't import anything, and I'll put money on him either not knowing how to navigate the Muggle world enough to get supplies that way, or being too far above it all to do it."

"Don't put it past him," Robin said, shaking her head. "Voldemort himself might not, but his followers will."

Lina made a face. "Very well. I won't put my money on it. I'll still put Aldon's money on it."

Half the room broke into chuckle, while Aldon shot Lina an unimpressed glare. He thought he probably should have said something about it, but it had been a long day, so he let it go.

By the time he took himself to his own chambers, the sun had long since set. The funeral pyres for the dead, now each identified with brief notes sent to their family members, were burning, and the acrid smoke spiralled to cloudy skies above. Alex was taking care of it, a fact for which Aldon was grateful. He would give Alex one of his father's bottles of wine for this, one of the best vintages. One of the ones that his father used to bring out for his most prominent and important business clients. Taking care of fifteen bodies certainly justified the gift of very good wine.

Thinking of wine, Aldon wanted a drink. Wine would be good, but really, he would take anything that was not whiskey. Port. Sherry. Brandy. Cognac. Vodka. Gin. Tequila. He'd never tried tequila before, but he thought his father had a bottle of the liquor in his rooms.

He shouldn't. One drink for him inevitably led to two, inevitably led to three. But he had never tried, truly, to limit his own drinking before. If he just poured himself one drink, and he left the bottle in his father's cabinet, or in the kitchen, or anywhere except bringing it into his rooms, then it would be that much harder for him to keep drinking, wouldn't it? He'd be able to exercise the self-control, if the bottle wasn't directly in front of him. He'd be able to stop after one drink.

A drink would soothe him. He had been running himself ragged all day, from an attack in the morning, to sorting through the correspondence, to handling the prisoners, to a long, serious meeting in the evening. He was unsettled, off-kilter—his shoulders felt tight, and he was both exhausted and too awake all at once. A drink would be relaxing, would make everything a little distant and easy and he would wake up refreshed and ready for another day.

One drink, he had just about decided. He'd fetch one of the crystal glasses in his room and go try that tempting tequila in his father's liquor cabinet, but he walked into his rooms and halted.

Francesca was curled up on his sofa, her hands limp on a book in her lap. A fire was already roaring in the fireplace, the warm light playing over her face as she stared into it. She was in a dressing-robe, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, her bare feet stretched out to the heat of the fire.

"Francesca," he heard himself murmuring, wondering whether he should really be surprised that she was here. She had never observed the proprieties of their situation very well, so if she wanted to see him, of course she would wait in his rooms. "It's late. You shouldn't be here."

"I couldn't sleep," she replied, looking over at him. "The—the fires, outside. And I napped too much of today. I shouldn't have—I should have done more. I was just—I was so slow adjusting my paper spells, they were prepared for direct use and not indirect use, and I couldn't figure out how to use your pens without them blotting all over, and I wasted half of them before I just—I gave up. But my core is small, so even if I could do a bit, it wasn't—it was so little compared to everyone else. And then I didn't even stay to help with the clean-up operations. I just—"

"You were drained," Aldon replied quietly. "You could do nothing more."

"Yes, well." Francesca turned away, looking back into the fire. "I couldn't sleep."

Aldon sighed, very consciously closing the door behind him. There would always be a part of him that recoiled, ever so slightly, every time he shut a door to close himself and Francesca off from the world—he had lived in one world for too long not to instinctively feel improper by doing so. But it was something that she expected, so he pushed the feeling away with practice and went to sit beside her on the sofa.

"What can I do for you?" he asked instead, offering a hand for her to hold. She set her book on a side table—a technical magical theory text, one of Aldon's personal favourites—and twined her fingers in his, cuddling up to his side. She didn't say anything for a moment, looking down at his hand, then she lifted it to her lips and pressed a kiss onto it.

"I want to stay with you," she murmured, her eyes not meeting his. "I just—I want to be with you."

"Err—" Aldon said, unsure how else to react. He had the sense that there was something going unsaid, and while he was accomplished enough at reading between the lines, Francesca tended to be completely outside of his experience. Archie, Neal, and their other friends, too. "It is late, Francesca. People will, err—people will talk."

Francesca snorted, letting go of his hand and looking away. "Let them talk," she muttered, sounding very put out, though Aldon had no idea what he had said. "They don't say anything worth hearing about us, Aldon, which you'd know if you listened to what was actually said."

"I'm only—" Aldon let out a sigh, cutting himself off as he thought better of it. Francesca had never cared a whit for her reputation, and saying anything of the like had never led to anything except silence and a cold shoulder. Instead, he reached out and draped an arm over her shoulder, tugging her closer to him. "I'm sorry. Of course, you can stay. As long as you need."

She relaxed, seemingly mollified, sagging into his side. She was warm, almost too warm, and Aldon swallowed, turning away politely as he caught sight of a bit of lace where her dressing gown gaped open. Lace. Of course, she wore lace. White lace.

She giggled, sounding a bit embarrassed, catching the sharp turn of his head. "You can—I don't mind if you look, you know," she stuttered, blushing deeply. "I mean—"

"If I look, it will be that much harder for me not to touch," Aldon said lightly, then he immediately regretted it. It was too crass, too vulgar—what had he been thinking? Evidently, he hadn't been, or a different body part had temporarily taken control of his tongue.

She giggled again, a little louder, tugging herself free of his arm. She stood, untying her dressing robe and shrugging it off. Aldon's eyes followed it—it was dark blue, fluffy, and very opaque, thereby being a much safer thing to for him to look at than his girlfriend. He could see well enough from the corner of his eye that her nightgown was white, made of a shimmery, floaty material that was very much not opaque. The neckline was lined with the lace he had spotted earlier, as was the trim on the bottom, though it fell barely halfway to her knees. There was a necklace around her neck, the one that Aldon himself had given her for Christmas, with a gold-dipped origami crane.

"Francesca—" he choked out. "I—this is—"

"Maybe—" she fumbled with her words, stepping between his legs. "Maybe touching was the point." She leaned down, pressing her lips delicately against his.

She was warm, and Aldon would have had to be dead not to react. In fact, if he were dead, he wondered if he might not react anyway. She tasted sweet, with the slightest hint of tea, her lips moist but not wet. Her body pressed against his, and he reached, with one hand, to steady her. That was all it was, steadying her before she fell over, and nothing else. It had nothing to do with the fact that the curve of her back was very attractive, that he'd fantasized about molding his hands over her hips for any number of other things many times before, or that the shimmery, floaty material felt silky smooth against his hand. His other hand reached up, cupping her cheek as he deepened the kiss.

It was electrifying. Every one of their kisses had been special, to his mind—he never took a kiss for granted, so he tried to savour every single one. But this kiss, these kisses, were different. They held the promise of more, and one kiss turned into a second kiss, and then a third, before Aldon regained control over his mind and pulled away.

"Wait," he said, panting slightly. "Francesca, this isn't—I mean, I can't possibly—"

"Why not?" she whispered, her breath brushing his ear, her arms around his shoulders. She was sitting on his lap, her body and breasts pressed against him, and his hand was still curled against her hip to steady her. "Are you not, um, interested?"

"Please don't pull that tone on me," Aldon said, trying to sound stern and knowing full well that his interest was perfectly apparent if she wanted to look—or feel. "I think that we should keep—that—to another time. When we're more serious."

"Are you not serious about me, then?" she asked, pulling away to look at him with a considering, slightly hurt, look in her eye. "I'm surprised. You—didn't you say, when we first got back together, that you were uncomfortable with anything other than a relationship of some permanence?"

"Yes, but—" Aldon sighed, trying to sort his words while being very distracted. Her gown was distracting. He wanted to run his hands over it, and over everything under it, too. "I am serious, Francesca. But we're at war, and … I don't." He paused and tried again. "If there was nothing else, maybe I would, but I wouldn't like to sleep with you and then leave you, willingly or not. Sex is something you should save to share with someone who can guarantee that they won't be dying in combat anytime soon."

"You're an idiot," Francesca muttered, raising a hand to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "An absolute, complete idiot. Have you considered, maybe, that it's my body? I can decide what I want to do with my body, and I want—I want to have sex with you."

"If I survive the war, then—"

"No." Francesca glared at him, the slight crease of an upset frown between her eyes. "I don't want to wait on a promise. I don't want to wait to see if you survive the war, because I know that you'll throw yourself into this war and that, even if you make sure that I get out, you would rather die than give up this manor. I want to have sex with you. I want to share this—this experience with you. You can say no if you don't want to have sex with me and I'll go, but if you do want to have sex with me and you just have some belief that—that we shouldn't because, I don't know, my so-called purity? Then I think you're being very stupid."

Aldon gaped for a moment, struggling to put his thoughts into words. He should say no. He should tell her that he didn't want to, and then he should help her put that fluffy, very opaque dressing robe back on and walk her back to her own rooms. That was the right thing to do, the proper thing to do, and that was something that no one would ever question. That was the route that protected both her honour and his. Sex was something that should be left to marriage. Many Muggles, he thought, shared his view.

The only problem was, he didn't want to say no. He didn't want to turn her away, he didn't want to help her put on her dressing robe again, and he didn't want to take her back to her own chambers.

He wanted to take her to bed, and her words did not help. It was her body, and she made her own decisions, and she wanted to give herself to him. She made it sound so simple: did they want to go to bed, or not? His own arguments, in light of her blunt words, seemed thin as tissue—predicated entirely on external considerations of what they should do, and not on what they wanted to do. He tried to convince himself that what he wanted was wrong, that many people thought sex should wait until marriage, but for the life of him he couldn't come up with the reason why, not with her body settled and pressed against his. It wasn't as if, if something happened, he wouldn't take care of her.

He wanted her. He desperately wanted her, and she was in his lap, wearing a gauzy gown that did very little to hide her body from his gaze. The warm firelight made her skin glow, and he could see the hint of her dark, peaked nipples from the corner of his eye. He wanted to catch one of those in his mouth, see if she would whimper at his touch. Without his conscious thought one hand reached up to cup her small breast, his thumb reaching out to brush the dusky nub. She gasped, and the sound made a part of him—a part that he was trying very much to ignore so that he could think clearly—twitch.

He wanted to touch her, to kiss her in places that he had only fantasized about, to take her to his bed and make her his. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and for the moment, he couldn't think of any reason why they shouldn't have each other.

"If you change your mind," he said, struggling to put his thoughts into something sensible and coherent. This wasn't fair to her—no matter how he put it, taking her to bed would not be fair to her, but she had said that she wanted him, and there was no question that he wanted her. "I'll stop. Say the word, and I'll stop. At any time."

She stared at him, and her expression was equally serious. "I want you," she said, her words firm, simple, and clear. "Take me to bed."

"Then, my love," Aldon said, carefully guiding Francesca to her feet and standing up. He offered her a hand. "Let's go."

XXX

ANs: Do you know how hard smut is to write? It's so hard. That last scene of sexy descriptions near killed me. Anyway, this chapter goes out to Tamarisk; because of you, I actually had to look up my law of armed conflict notes for prisoners of war! Further thanks, as always, to meek_bookworm, partly for helping me try to figure out what euphemism Aldon would use for "penis". Further reminder that Rev Arc is nommed in the Fic in the Box exchange, and this author would personally absolutely love if someone took up the task of writing Aldon and Chess' night (because, you see, I just cannot do it)!

As always, please leave me a review or a comment-I love reading your feedback!