Petunia rose. "You're… you're Dorian Dursley, are you? The demon hunter?"

Dorian smiled grimly. "Dursley, yes. But I'm on the revelation side of the schism. Now get against the wall, all of you!"

Dominic looked the three men up and down with an appraising glance. To him, they appeared to be carrying curious bits of metal. "Shouldn't you be armed or something?"

Jill pulled him back with a protective arm. "Be careful, Dominic: you don't want to be on the wrong side of those guns."

"Guns?" he gulped. "Like the ones Jinnet warned us about?"

Jeff grabbed onto the back of his son's collar. "Exactly like those."

Petunia stepped forward defiantly. "Not that it matters, but what is the revelation side of the schism, and why does it bring you here? Does it have something to do with the red sashes you and the people near you were wearing on the Dursley family lineage?"

Dorian shook his head. "Those were x's, you enabling hag; they crossed us off the tree for changing our spots. Each successive generation has to be on the tree, but they don't have to like it."

"Enabling?" Petunia didn't understand.

"You are Petunia, aren't you? Vernon's wife? I heard you cooperated wholeheartedly with my not-distant-enough relatives. Pretending you didn't even have a sister!"

"Well, if your type was going to kill her for being a witch, what was I supposed to do?"

Dorian glared at her, shrugged, and kept talking. "My type would not be the type to kill her. You see, two generations hence, my grandfather, Robert Dursley, had an argument with your husband's grandfather, Thomas Dursley.

"Robert believed that those fortunate muggles who knew of the existence of magic should convince them to break their three hundred year Seclusion. The dark times of witch burning are over; they would be in some danger, of course, but they'res got to be some sort of anti-nuclear missile jinx, and when it was all over, wouldn't life be more worth living if six million odd people didn't have to have their own little world?

"Thomas, of course, disagreed. His family had been fighting wizards for millennia; he, for one, thought killing them outright would be easiest. Took the reign of Grindelwald rather hard, that one. Their sister had married this fellow called D'Angelo, God rest his soul, whose family had been in charge of distributing magical remedies to muggle villages destroyed by the Dark Wizards Walpurgi for centuries. Until about twenty years ago, when your minister informed us that he owed us no aid whatsoever for the duration of the fight against Voldemort."

"That sounds like Fudge, all right," Harry broke in.

"Now you see why I need you people to cooperate, and whether willingly or unwillingly, you will cooperate." He nodded at his two men. "Word has reached us of a new minister for magic. Unfortunately, without any idea how you magical folk operate, we have no idea how to find him or her. None of our old linking devices work anymore. Fortunately, some careless person put up a flier for this Wizard Muggle Alliance group that was meeting here next week."

Teresa burned scarlet. "Well, it was after my first meeting! I didn't know you folks were so tight on security!"

"Be that as it may, you will lead me to the new leader of the magical world, or I will have to give this young wizard a more thorough understanding of the workings of a gun."

Jeff pulled Dominic tighter to him. "I'm actually a squib," said Dominic shyly.

"A what?"

"Magical parents, but no talent myself."

The three men squinted at the boy. "How does that happen?" the man behind him wondered to himself.

Dorian waved a hand impatiently. "No matter. Who here is a full witch or wizard?"

Harry Potter stepped forward. "I'm… well, I've been trying to bring down Voldemort since I was eleven. He killed my parents when I was a baby. I'll take you to McClaggen if you like. We were on our way to Diagon Alley anyway."

The man to Dorian's left spoke for the first time. "Potter? The one they say defeated the Dark Lord?"

Harry took a step back. "How did you—"

"The wizards were a bit lax on security that day. We almost got in contact with the minister again, but he was one of the few that wasn't too happy. In any case, I'm Brian, and it's an honor to meet you."

Harry shook his hand solemnly. "I'm not having much luck this time around, though."

The man who had been in back stepped up to him. "I'm Mark, by the way. Why do you have to defeat him? Aren't there wizards trained for that sort of thing?"

Harry hesitated, wondering if these men could possibly be spies. "I… I just do. Magically."

They seemed to accept this. Half an hour later, the seven unlikely allies were on their way to Diagon Alley.