The weather that night was like a bad cliché; dark and stormy. Eric used floo powder to get from Hogsmeade to the Harveste Moon Apothecary. There he met up with Dorian, Tylena, Naomi, and Sheena. "I guess the Professor wants all of his students there?"

Sheena nodded. "Us, and all our predecessors. It looks like this is going to be a big night." She reached behind her and drew out a four-foot staff. "Take this."

Eric examined it, noting the intricate carving. It had a wide base, about eight inches of a carved grip, then roughly three feet of tapered length. He turned to Sheena. "Is this a wand?"

She nodded. "It's a Rukh Wand. A very powerful design meant strictly for combat. We shouldn't need it, but the Professor wants us to be able to defend ourselves."

Eric had heard about Rukh wands. The rukh feather that was the core of these wands was extremely conducive to gathering and directing immense amounts of magical energy. They were, however, notoriously hard to acquire and harder still to incorporate into a wand. Besides that, the wands that Sheena was handing out were some of the smallest possible. Rukh wands were usually at least six feet long, making them entirely impractical for normal use. They were weapons, and were good for little more.

The stepped out of the Moon's shop together, keeping the girls in the middle with Sheena taking point and Naomi following behind. Eric and Dorian flanked either side, watching for assailants. However, the usual corner denizens were not to be found, as the entire population of the alley was slowly filtering into a small, extremely dingy looking tavern.

The Rookery, however, was far more than it appeared. As the quintet moved past the outer room into the back, the corridor opened up to a vast meeting hall. The room appeared as a vast theatre, with a slightly apportioned stage in the front. Seats in both the mezzanine and the balcony were filled to capacity, and it was no small feat for the group to convince several attendees to clear five grouped seats; finally setting for three rows that offered two seats a piece.

The hall was a cacophony of sound that promised Eric a screaming headache in the morning. Yet after a few minutes a resounding chime could be heard over the din, calling everyone to silence. As Eric watched, three figures walked upon the stage. Eric was none too surprised to find that one was his teacher, Professor Frugilagus. The other two were new faces to him, but were apparently well known to the crowd. This was made plain to him when a rather elaborately dressed man called forth to the crowd. "The house recognizes the chairman for this evening, Lord Bradford Collins!"

Bradford Collins was a middle-aged man with a hook nose and straight black hair. As he stepped up to address the crowd, Eric was suddenly aware that there had to be an amplification spell on the area; the sound of his hand contacting the podium thundering through the room, giving evidence to what must have been a rather heavy ring on his hand. "Good evening, fellow Rooks. Tonight we replace rumor with fact, and misinformation with evidence. I will open our meeting with this simple yet powerfully disturbing statement: Lord Voldemort has returned."

Lord Collins tapped his ring on the podium several more times, creating the same effect as a gavel to silence the crowd. "Evidence of his rising power has been evidenced in happenings that have occurred over the course of the last four years. Four years ago, he entered Hogwarts wizarding school as a parasite upon the Dark Arts Defense teacher in order to bypass the school's defenses. Three years ago, a memory enchantment was used to attack the staff and students using the legendary Chamber of Secrets. Last year, a gathering claiming to be Death Eaters terrorized the Quidditch World Cup, only to scatter at the presence of the Dark Lord's true sign.

"Finally; In the last several months, young Harry Potter claimed to see the Dark Lord regain physical form. Now, any one of these instances could be taken as coincidence, mistake, or hysteria. However, if we take them together, it becomes clear that a force more malevolent than any we can condone is at work."

There was the sound of a knocking staff. Lord Bradford nodded. "Speak, for you are recognized."

A wispy, rat-faced man stood up. "If you speak the truth, and the Dark Lord has returned, why do we approach this with fear? Surely the reign of He-who-must-not-be-named would be a benefit to us!" Murmurs though the hall indicated a wave of agreement.

Again, Bradford nodded – this time at the Professor, who stood and took the podium. "I have no doubts that most of you see Lord Voldemort as a boon. He opposes the Ministry and the current order of things as many of you do. Using classical logic, you see the enemy of your enemy as your friend.

"The Dark Lord, however, is friend to no one. He seeks ultimate power and ultimate rule. Because you find yourselves often in opposition to the Ministry, you fail to see the benefits our current system offers. You see, the very rules that they seek to impose on us are the same rules they must also live by. There will be abuses – many of which have been occurring with more and more frequency of late. However, we can work to counteract this without deadly risk to ourselves.

"If the Dark Lord gains the power he has been seeking, those options will not be available to us. You all know that any who stood against him died – swiftly and painfully. Do you honestly think that if he held power over us, that any would have the benefit of a doubt if his anger was against us?" The hall broke into more murmuring, which Corvin allowed for a minute or so.

At length, he took a cane to the podium, knocking for attention again. "Our enemies tonight are threefold. First, we have the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters; they are weak, but the Ministry's current policy of denial will allow them to grow strong soon. Second, we have the Ministry; their blindness turns a form of paranoia against us as they seek to root out any who would disturb the status quo. Finally, we have the upstarts who would take this opportunity to carve out power for themselves. They are as dangerous as the previous two, especially on an individual level. They will damage any focused effort on either side, and the injury to bystanders will be considerable."

The Professor drew himself to his full height, seeking to impress the importance of his words on the crowd. "Understand this: what we shall ask of you tonight is nothing more than for you each to look out for his or her own best interests. Those interests are best preserved by maintaining the way things are; peaceful co-existence with each other and the Muggle World around us. Disturbance of this puts us each in constant jeopardy from far too many sources to defend against. We must band together as a community and pledge to watch out for one another until this crisis has ended."