A bit of scene setting in this chapter. Albus Dumbledore is not the only wizard moving pawns about.

Across the Water

Lally Hicks scowled at the portrait of the late headmaster. Silent Thunder's portrait currently showed him at his least flattering – falling drunk on his face. He was not that bad a teacher when he was sober. Silverfoot gave a snort of disdain and turned the portrait to face the wall, earning twitters from the other portraits in the headmaster's office of Ilvermorny. These were transformed to howls of outrage when she repeated the process, such that all the former headmasters and headmistresses now faced the wall like naughty children.

"Tea?" Silverfoot nodded at the teapot, which immediately started pouring for the office's occupants. Headmistress Fleur Delance tapped once on the large hanging mirror. The image wavered, before being replaced by Seraphina Picquery in her office in New York.

"Something is going to happen in Paris, but we have no idea what," Seraphina confessed to her former Head of House. The elderly witch nodded sagely.

"It is about Grindelwald, isn't it? And that Obscurial…" Silverfoot shrugged indifferently, but her eyes flashed glacial blue.

"Grindelwald was an alumnus of your school," Delance peered over the top of her eyeglasses. "Durmstrang Institute…"

"The way things were done back then we should be thankful the entire cohort did not graduate as dark wizards. You have sent your dear nephew off to Paris? I hear from old Guillaume that snallygaster claws and thunderbird feather stocks are low in the Potions store," Silverfoot accio-ed the sugar bowl over and turned her attention to the MACUSA President. Two cubes of sugar dropped into the teacup. "Your term as President ends next summer, Seraphina. One year to salvage your reputation and MACUSA's. I do not think it wise sending Goldstein off alone. She has a good heart. If your purpose is to contain or neutralize this Obscurial…"

"I have little choice in the matter…" Seraphina rebutted. "The European ministries already know about Grindelwald and the Obscurus…"

"Ma'am, pardon me, but the main issue now is how are we to deal with the problem at hand," Lally interrupted. "I know Tina. She will never strike down an innocent." A thunderhead was gathering over the mountaintop. The day darkened. The air charged. The wind howled like a pack of ravenous wolves.

"Unlike some," Delance glanced meaningfully over at the DADA professor who ignored the headmistress. "Galahad is his own man. He does not owe me any familial loyalty or love. If he is in a chivalric mood, he might intervene. More likely he will be haring off on his own quest. Have you been in touch with your counterpart in Hogwarts, Silverfoot?"

"Dumbledore? Surprised he has not yet been locked up. The way he keeps dragging his feet – one might think him sympathetic." A flash of lightning and a thunderclap. St Elmo's fire danced on the tops of the towers. Silverfoot lifted her wand to reveal a blue arc dancing along its length. The thunderbird feather core was responding to the approaching tempest, pushing its latent magic to extreme levels.

Even in distant New York, sequestered in her office, Picquery could sense the electrically charged atmosphere at Ilvermorny. "I have met his student – Newton Scamander, but not the man himself. The student thinks the world of his teacher."

"They always do," Silverfoot pointed her wand at a globe, discharging the excess magic from it in an offhand spell, turning the globe into a swarm of butterflies, crystal vase and Faberge egg in rapid succession before reverting to a globe.

"Eulalie, you collaborated with him on a few papers, did you not? Will you consider him trustworthy?" the headmistress asked.

"He is academically brilliant, but I only know him professionally and will withhold my opinions as to his trustworthiness…" Lally replied.

"Not only Galahad Graves has sailed to France. MACUSA offices along the Atlantic coast report various members of the clan have decided to summer in Europe," Seraphina added. "Including Madame Nimue, Bedivere, Tristan and Iseult… and those are just through legal channels. Some just vanished while under surveillance." Learning how Percival's folks danced the fine line between lawful and illegal, she now understood why he had been so tight-lipped about his private life.

"Try unregistered portkeys. I hear one can get them at thirty galleons apiece in New Orleans," Lally added.

The meeting ended as the summer storm hit in full force. The disgruntled portraits were turned the right way round and the headmistress dismissed the two professors. The two witches strode out in silence until they were a good distance from the office on the castle's parapet, shielded by magic from the howling winds and lashing rain.

"I trust you have both Dumbledore and Tonton Nico in your address book," Silverfoot nodded at the other witch's purse. "Keep it close at hand. Both Dumbledore and I are watched for our links with Grindelwald. So we must bide…" A crackle of magic on her wand, a prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck. Silverfoot spun round and fired a blot at the library window where someone had been spying on them since they started their walk. A howl of pain and the scurrying shape of one of the other academics announced her suspicions were well founded. Perhaps one of Professor Delance's cronies, or Picquery's spies. They would need to wait for dinner to see who was indisposed.

Tina stared at the rain lashing at her window. She had been awoken by a summer thunderstorm, just when she was having such an enjoyable dream. She had been flying through the sky on a thunderbird with Newt. Queenie had been there too, on the ground with Mister Kowalski. There was also a wedding cake somewhere, but the dream was already fading as dreams often do. She decided she would not be able to sleep with the ruckus the wind was making down the chimney.

Throwing on her dressing gown, she lit the lamp with her wand and studied the leaflet advertising the Circus Arcana she had picked up from the train station. A quick check with the newspaper archives revealed the circus had sailed from New York the previous winter. It was due to perform in Paris the coming week after jaunts in various European cities. Circuses operated outside most jurisdictions, being constantly on the move. Employees were hired and fired at will, no questions asked. Galahad's sources claimed a young man resembling the alleged Obscurial was sighted on the ship that brought the circus to Europe. A copy of Credence's adoption papers as recovered from New York's city archives showed his mother was possibly French.

MACUSA also received intelligence that various eminent magicals, purebloods or otherwise, were converging on the city, not only from all over Europe but the New World as well, and as far afield as Asia, Africa, and Australia. Many were known for anti-Muggle sentiments. Was Galahad Graves one of them? Did he buy into the ideas of Magical supremacy or seek to overthrow the Statutes of Secrecy? Galahad held his cards close. Never play poker with him. She had witnessed Galahad act all chummy with a small-time gangster in Gnarlak's before sticking a knife in his back. At least with the Director, one knew where one stood with him.

Galahad both loved and hated storms. It had been a stormy night when his mother died. It had been storming too when his little sister was killed. Yet there was something about the charged air, the wildness of a thunderstorm that called out to his very core. The raw elemental power – it was dangerously intoxicating. Percival had caught him once climbing onto the roof during a thunderstorm. A lightning strike had taken shingles off where he had been standing moments after Percy dragged him back in. Now he was courting danger again, standing in the belfry of the cathedral, savouring the full blast of the tempest.

As a result of his childhood deprivations and poor health, he started school a year behind everyone else his age. Unlike the often No-Maj born children on the plantation, both his parents were both purebloods, so he heard from his mother. His poor mother who had terrible taste in her men and often left her children to fend for themselves even when she was alive. He had long suspected his real father had seduced his mother when she was a mere child herself. The looks his distant relative who taught at Ilvermorny gave him - a mix of disgust, pity, and pain. Professor Delance had given him the locket with his mother's portrait in it and finally deigned to acknowledge him as family the very day he was expelled.

If he had not been expelled, perhaps he might have been an Auror like Percival, or he would have been dishonourably discharged within the year for insubordination. He had blamed Percival's mule-headed stubbornness for causing Timmy's death. Galahad had been locked up for illegal trading in rougarou hairs when Timmy had his fatal accident. If he had been free, he would have stolen Percy's wand and removed those cuffs himself, then maybe he would have taken Timmy on a merry trip about the south and maybe torch the local MACUSA office en route. Timmy – he always regretted what happened to him. He had talked Timmy into climbing up the sycamore tree and onto that rotten branch. Had he known the boy would slip? Or had he expected the branch to break? Maybe he was just plain jealous of how popular Timothy was with the others back then.

After Percival left for New York, there was little the Misses Graves could do to rein him in. The only one who could manage him was the Barone, and the Barone had a very fluid interpretation of right and wrong. He ran scams and rackets, often roping in his siblings to help. They made a small fortune tricking gullible No-Majs with fake divinations and seances in New Orleans. He made forays into the European black market during the Great War with corned beef transfigured from dead rats, coal from stones, and bandages from discarded rags. The charms rarely last more than a day after the items were sold. Prohibition brought its own opportunities. He was not above turning the competition into stones and skipping them across a lake for the fun of it or settling things No-Maj style with a blade. No-Maj or Magical, they were all fair game to him.

For the sake of not causing Percy needless embarrassment in his post, he had toned down his illegal activities in recent years. The gang had hopes that perhaps Percy might visit, not just to clap a pair of cuffs on Galahad and toss him in a prison coach. Too many of them had slipped across to the other side, sometimes a result of the shady lifestyle they had gotten into. There were a few who remained respectable up to their deaths. Ragnelle was well-regarded as a thunderbird expert years after a stray lightning bolt caused her demise. War hero Caradoc earned a Purple Heart after he fell on a French battlefield. Percival would likely be a legend in MACUSA for future generations of Aurors. It would do Lionel, Lohengrin and little Lynette good to have some proper role models to aspire to.

"Gal, you aren't trying to catch pneumonia, are you?" Bedivere Apparated beside him. "Come back down. Pelly has arrived and he did not splinch this round."

"Coming, Bee." Pellinore managing an Apparation in one piece without doing a Side-along? One must be thankful for small miracles. The wizards Disapparated from the belfry.

The ancient alchemist and his wife huddled beside the hearth in his house. The old stone building has stood for centuries, protected by a multitude of charms and spells. Perenelle moved out in the early 19th century for somewhere with more modern conveniences. She was through with her losing battle with her husband's messes. They still loved each other and visited from time to time.

"Elaine de Lance's son. Why here, why now?"

Had his blood brother reached out to him somehow? Gerwyn Grindelwald had never acknowledged any of his illegitimate offspring. His son should be none the wiser. Galahad was all sly smiles. He had given away nothing. Fleur Delance had tried to offer help back then when her younger cousin got into trouble, but the bad blood between their families meant her cousin mistrusted her. Elaine's motherless children were left with her then husband, who abandoned them at the local bawdy house.

"I told you that boy was a fighter," Perenelle added.

"He has strong magic in him. It scares me thinking what if he were to throw his lot in with Grindelwald. So much pain and darkness behind him. That business with his sister… It is not just any child who would attempt bringing back the dead."

"You mean, not any untrained child would try and end up almost creating an Inferius. Terrified both Connie and Char but impressed Le Barone when he brought that creature home. The badly done spell almost killed him too. They had to incinerate her earthly remains to undo it. Le Barone believed he was a natural necromancer and offered to apprentice him, if only to keep him out of trouble. Did Fleur say why he was expelled?"

"He transfigured a tutor into a toad and locked him inside one of the chimney bricks in the common room. His victim ended up very well-baked when the Wampus Quidditch team returned from practice and started up the fire. It was late November after all. Apparently, he took issue with the man carrying on with some of the students. Unapologetic to the end." If he chose to ally himself with his blood brother…

"Any further news from Albus?"

"I have not been reaching out to him lately… He has more worries, like his country's Ministry."

They have both seen much in their long lives. Perhaps some might say too much.

Author's Notes:

One reason why some consider Grindelwald scarier than Voldemort is that his message has a global appeal (not just within UK or a select group of pureblood supremacists). Just look at the turnout in Paris and Berlin at his rallies. He was going big – as in global wizard domination.

Some background setting for my recurrent characters:

Seraphina chose the Horned Serpent House. Incidentally, the same House Percival Graves was sorted to. Professor Fleur Delance was one time Head of the House during both their school years. Her nephew Galahad ended up sorted into Wampus. Silverfoot and Grindelwald both attended Drumstrang at roughly the same time, but different Houses.