"Hey, Flinthead!" called the former Slytherin quidditch captain's boss. "There's a couple of people here to see you. Make it quick; you need to wash the manticores in ten minutes."

Life had certainly taken a turn for the worse after that twit Davies had beaten him in the tryouts for England's quidditch team. Relying on his brawn to support him after Hogwarts, Marcus Flint had not bothered with his studies. Now he was cleaning up hinkypink dung for a living with no end in sight. It was thus that he met the opening statement of his visitors with more interest than he might have right after graduation.

"Hello. Marcus is it?" Jeff greeted his last hope for the day. "Would you like a better job?"

Despite his current circumstances, he was still a Slytherin. "What kind of a job?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Jill, "we have hundreds of careers open. What are you good at?"

Marcus stared. "What am I good at? Well, quidditch, obviously. Are you coaches?"

"No, I don't think so," Jeff chuckled. "Quidditch doesn't really get you anywhere after school unless you have real talent, and if you had real talent, you'd be on a team a few years after graduation. Besides flying, was there any specific spell you could do better than anyone else?"

Marcus frowned suspiciously. "I stopped caring soon after wingardium leviosa."

"Then you can levitate things pretty well, can you?" Jill said hopefully.

"Well, part of quidditch involves understanding the motion charms on the balls." He lowered his voice. "As my athletic days are over, I don't mind telling you I bewitched my share of quaffles. Very mild charm, of course, in case it was noticeable—I didn't want a repeat episode of that bludger in that one game against Gryffindor a few years ago. I never caught the idiot on my team that did that one. No one recognized my quaffle spells, but they were effective enough."

Jill grinned. "Oh, you'd be perfect for construction. All you have to do is lift some heavy stones without appearing to use magic. All the other workers will have to use their muscles, so you'll move right to the top."

Marcus glared. "They have to lift heavy stones without magic? I'm not going to any penal camps."

"No penal camps; it's their job. We're trying to recruit people to live among the muggles."

Marcus' first impression was one of shock. He was from the pure blood house—did they really think that had changed? What sort of Slytherin would do such a thing?

"Your time is up, Flinthead. Those manticores aren't going to bathe themselves."

On second thought, the pure blood mentality was one of survival, and these people made it sound simple to survive among mudbloods. Why let his inherent talents languish as he struggled to find a place in the bottom of the barrel? As a wizard, didn't he have a gigantic advantage over muggles everywhere? Why not exploit it?"

"I have to go," he told Jeff. "I'll think about it."

"Well," Jeff said, handing him an address on a slip of paper, "if you decide to do it, you can firecall Arabella Figg at number nine, Privet Drive. She'll set you up."

The Alliance representatives left Marcus Flint with his mind full of plans he'd never dreamed of an hour ago.