"Miss Weasley," Snape said calmly, sitting behind Dumbledore's desk like he fucking owned the place. He didn't. He didn't belong here, in the Headmaster's office, with Gryffindor's sword on the wall behind him, taking the place of a man he murdered. He knew it, too. He'd conjured sheets over the portraits of all the past Headmasters like he knew they wouldn't approve of him, and he couldn't stand to see their judgemental glares, or hear their objections to his plans to turn the school into a baby Death Eater training camp. "Please, have a seat."
"I prefer to stand, Sir," she informed him, coldly, civilly, like Tom speaking to Dumbledore, thinly veiled disdain and hatred simmering beneath her icy politeness.
"Very well, then. I have a message from your father. I have been instructed to mention that he gave you a...rubber ducky?" he said, as though he honestly couldn't believe what he was reading off a sheet of parchment lying before him on his desk. "...for Christmas when you were nine to establish that it is indeed from him."
...Okay, she was listening. Because that was true, and she had no idea why Dad was sending anything through Snape. Didn't he know that Snape was a fucking traitor? He cursed George's ear off! "Go on, then."
"The stupidest of your brothers managed to get himself captured at the Ministry several hours ago, in the company of the usual suspects." Gin felt her heart stop— Ron! "The three idiots have escaped custody and may by this point have managed to evade the Hit Wizards and vacate the building." Oh, thank God— She fell into a chair. "Our witch on the inside was only able to do so much for them without giving away the game and compromising her attempt to dismantle the muggleborn extermination programme."
What?
"Bloody madwoman," he added at a mutter.
No, seriously, what?!
"She has warned your parents. They are enacting their escape plan as we speak. She doesn't believe that you are in any real danger here — your parents were at risk due to having lied about Ronald's whereabouts, aiding and abetting a truant and compatriot of Undesirable Number One. Your value as a hostage is severely limited by the fact that the Death Eaters have no way of communicating to Potter or your parents the conditions upon which your safety depends, and it is highly unlikely that Yaxley will wish to let it be known among other Death Eaters that he so nearly had Potter in custody, but allowed him to escape, as he would have to in order to make use of you as a potential hostage, but your parents insisted that she send word to you to get out and go to ground. I believe the idiots are currently holed up at Grimmauld Place. You are invited to join them as you are, and I quote, 'too feisty to sit up there at Hogwarts while the rest of us have all the fun. And Harry is clearly pining' end quote."
"What?"
He pushed the parchment across the desk so that she could see that it pretty much said...exactly that. It was signed 'You Know Who' with a little five-pointed flower.
"Who the hell— Are you— What the fuck is going on here?!"
"We do not have time for me to explain all of the relevant details. Suffice for the moment to say that an unexpected ally has chosen to throw in on our side, and has apparently—"
"Our side?"
Snape gave her a look like, I know you are not so stupid as to have actually just said that, Miss Weasley. "Miss Lovegood will vouch for me."
"...Right..." Gin would definitely be asking her about that one. Even odds on whether she'd be able to make out the actual explanation through the riddles Luna always seemed to speak in, but she usually managed to make it pretty clear what she wanted Gin to do.
But if Snape was on their side...
"Calytrix has apparently swanned into the Ministry in the guise of an auditor reporting directly to the Dark Lord himself — a ploy which I can only imagine has been successful thusfar because absolutely no one would dare claim to speak for him if they didn't — kidnapped Dolores Umbridge, and assumed control of the entire institution in the confusion following Potter's assassination of the Minister—"
"WHAT?" Harry had what?!
"Yes, the idea of Potter actually accomplishing something useful does rather boggle the mind. I sincerely doubt that it was intentional."
"No, seriously, what the—?!"
The wizard gave her an exasperated sigh. "Sneak out of the school, make your way back to London, and ask him about it yourself. Tell no one in the school about this conversation. If your friends ask where you are going, tell them I brought you up here to taunt you about your brother's capture and you suspect to fish for any clues to your parents' whereabouts, and that you need to—"
"No."
"No?" Snape repeated, dangerously calm.
"No. I'm not leaving. I can't leave! I— Luna has this whole plan, I have to stay and help, I can't just leave!" She had to stay and help protect the younger students! Be an example for them, and—
"I have it on good authority that three weeks from now, there will be absolutely no need for a resistance movement among the student body."
"I'm not leaving! I don't know what's going on here, but—"
Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. "What is going on here, Miss Weasley, is that if you do not leave the school and somehow get word to your parents that you are safe and well, and no longer at risk of being used as a hostage, your mother is going to storm the bloody castle looking for you!"
"Fine! Let her!"
"No, it's not fine. I need this school to run smoothly and avoid any unwanted attention from the Dark Lord or Bellatrix, for as long as possible! The Carrows disappearing will be a large enough red flag, I do not need Molly Weasley putting a spotlight on us as well, and neither Calytrix nor I are in a position to rescue her without entirely compromising ourselves should she be captured."
"...What do you mean, the Carrows disappearing?" The Carrows were definitely still here, she'd just seen them at lunch...
He gave her a peevish glare. "What do you think I mean? This is no longer Albus Dumbledore's war, Miss Weasley."
...So he was just going to start...making Death Eaters disappear? Like, killing them?
...Mum would probably be horrified to hear it, but Gin thought he might have the right idea, actually.
"Fine, I know where they'll go. I'll write them a letter. But I'm staying. I– I can't just abandon everyone and go hide."
Mira hid a grin as Alecto Carrow made her way down the list of students who were meant to be in this lesson. It was practically every sixth-year student in the school, their lecture sections combined to allow the Death Eater to maximise exposure time in spite of Sev's efforts to limit the Carrows' contact with the student body. Only a few of the most loyal Death Eaters' children had been excused from the course. "De Mort?"
"Present."
Carrow gave her a suspicious glare, considering whether to interrupt herself to insist that Mimi address her with due respect. The slightest nudge inclined her to decide no, she would find an excuse to put the tardy French pretender on the spot later in the lesson. She had decided, after long consideration, that Mira could not possibly be related to the Dark Lord. He didn't have any family, so. She didn't know what Mira's game was, but she was certain that she wasn't who she claimed to be.
That was fine. Her suspicion only made it easier to plant the idea that she and her dear brother ought to investigate the mysterious Mira de Mort at the earliest opportunity...such as when she very shiftily slipped out of the Great Hall at dinner and made her way into an abandoned wing of the school, where there would be no witnesses to their abduction.
That errand — the entire reason Mira was actually here — accomplished, she let herself relax a bit. Well, relax wasn't really the right word. The atmosphere in the lecture hall was a little too tense for relaxing. Let herself luxuriate in the anger and anxiety of the other students, their uncertainty and barely-restrained impulses toward rebellion. She didn't take them — stealing an emotion was like picking a flower: it killed it — just...let them wash over her and through her, enjoying simply...being in the midst of such an emotionally-charged crowd as she contemplated Ginevra Weasley.
She was revising the opinion she had formed of the girl from impressions gathered from Harry and his friends. Before meeting her, she'd expected Ron's baby sister to be...sort of like Ari. The sort of girl who was up for anything — who saw problems as challenges, and never backed down from a challenge—
"Well," she said slowly, helping herself to a piece of the chocolate egg. "If you really want to talk to Sirius, I expect we could think of a way to do it..."
"Come on," Harry scoffed. "With Umbridge policing the fires and reading all our mail?" He wished she was right, but there was just no way. It was hopeless.
She made a thoughtful little hmm. "The thing about growing up with Fred and George is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve."
She had expected stubbornness and determination to be taken seriously—
"You're not coming!" Ron snapped, protectiveness expressed as anger because he couldn't think about how scared he was, or—
"Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!"
"You're too—" Too young, Ron expected Harry had been planning to say, but Ginny didn't let him.
"I'm three years older than you were when you fought You Know Who over the Philosopher's Stone!"
She had expected that that determination and bravado might be hiding deep insecurities and identity issues — little Ginny Weasley had been a victim of Tam's horcrux in this timeline, the one Tam had been trapped in, that was. He'd used her to try to escape, which, from Harry's memories of the confrontation in the Chamber of Secrets, had involved months of major possession, after which little Ginny Weasley had never gotten mind-healing. Hermione had asked her about it once, and Gin had confirmed as much, though of course she made a point of telling Hermione that it was fine, she never wanted another legilimens in her head again ever.
But Gin wasn't scared or hurting, or even genuinely eager to contribute, to make herself heard and useful.
When she carefully eased her way through and around the younger girl's occlumency (surprisingly competent, given that she was entirely self-taught), sinking into her feelings and memories as smoothly as possible, Mira found that, more than anything, Ginevra Weasley was angry.
She had been violated, and she was furious. She was going to fight, and she was going to do everything she could to thwart the monster Tom Riddle had become, if it fucking killed her, damn it!
She'd spent the past four years dragging every bit of useful information out of the memories she'd stolen from not-Tam when the horcrux was destroyed, learning everything she could about him, yes, but also everything she could from him — how to charm and manipulate people, how to present herself to send a message, how to be cold and calculating and ruthless when necessary. There is no good and evil, only experience, and how you choose to use it.
She reminded Mira of Bella more than anyone else in her own world. Not Bella now, but when she'd been thirteen, fourteen, with little sisters to protect and the whole world against her, determined to stand up for them, no matter how badly she would suffer for it. (Not might, would, because Bella had absolutely known that she was going to be beaten back down every time she faced her father, and Gin fully intended to do the same thing, playing the part her little seer friend had assigned to her, facing down the Death Eaters' occupation and becoming a symbol of unconquerable resistance within the school over the next year.)
Ironically enough, Harry and his friends had thought that she would be safer here than with them, hunting for Voldemort's remaining horcruxes, but not only was she almost certainly in greater danger here, she was actually better prepared to hunt for said horcruxes than they were.
Thom had continued interacting with his first horcrux for years after its initial creation, discussing the process of making subsequent anchors with his alter-ego, the objects he chose to use for them and potential locations to hide them. And Gin had come away from his failed attempt to subsume her soul with more than enough memories to put together what they were (his diary, the Peverell Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Chalice, and the Diadem of Ravenclaw) and a short list of locations he had considered hiding them.
Granted, none of them had ended up in the any of those places — she'd managed to establish that much over the past two summers, enlisting her elder brothers' assistance to check whether any of the artefacts at the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace were horcruxes and whether Tom Riddle or any of the aliases he had considered and used over the years had ever opened an account with Gringotts.
Wool's Orphanage was long-since demolished (not that Thom would ever have wanted to return there, much less leave a soul-anchor there indefinitely, but there was a certain logic to checking the absolute last place anyone would expect him to put one), and there was no sign of dark magic anywhere in the neighbourhood which had been Thom's childhood stomping-grounds. Similarly, there was nothing to be found at Thom's paternal grandparents' home, and while there were traces of incredibly dark magic around his maternal grandfather's...shack, Gin hadn't been able to tell whether that was from a horcrux living there for decades and whatever traps Tom would have left around it, or just from the Gaunts being evil shits doing who knew what kind of dark magic in their home, but either way, there was no horcrux there now.
Admittedly, this wasn't much progress, but it was more than Harry and his friends had made. If Dumbledore hadn't already retrieved the Peverell Ring, she would have located at least one, whereas the trio of hapless stooges had only found Slytherin's Locket...and that basically by accident.
Also unlike Dumbledore's woefully under-prepared team of would-be heroes, Ginevra had made a point of learning how to destroy any horcruxes she might find — basilisk venom was sort of hard to come by, but anyone could cast fiendfire with the right motivation, and little Ginny Weasley had that in spades. And the force of will to put it out, which was definitely more impressive. (Not that she'd actually tested it yet. She wouldn't want to accidentally burn down half of the Forest or her parents' ramshackle house. Mira could tell, though.)
Gin was actually just sort of impressive in general. On top of teaching herself occlumency, sorting through the memories she'd stolen from not-Tam, and trying to hunt down Voldemort's horcruxes without alerting anyone to the fact that she was doing so, she'd been making an effort to learn how to defend herself even beyond the DADA club Hermione and Harry had started (offensive and defensive magic were unfortunately difficult to practise alone), and going out of her way to support Harry where she could.
And, perhaps most importantly, Gin Weasley was not afraid to get her hands dirty. Her possession ordeal with not-Tam had swiftly disillusioned her, exposing her to the darkness inherent in humanity in ways most people never were. She hadn't really seen war and existential horror in the same way veteran Death Eaters had in the Seventies and everyone who was still alive at home had in the past eight months, but compared to Harry, Hermione, Ronald, and even Tonks, she had a much more realistic idea of what it meant to be in a fight for your life, in a position where it was kill or be killed. She hadn't ever killed someone, but she wouldn't hesitate to employ lethal force against her enemies if she had the chance. She didn't like that about herself, it scared her more than a little, made her wonder exactly how much influence Tom had had on her, how much of her personality might now be...him. But if Voldemort were kneeling before her, unarmed and at her mercy, she'd cut his fucking head off in a heartbeat.
And Mira was willing to bet that if she gave Gin a knife and asked her to kill a couple of Death Eaters (and a hideous Ministry toad) to awaken the Family Magic and give them a safe haven from the DAPs, she would do that, too. Plus, both of Ginevra's grandmothers were Blacks, so the Family Magic would almost certainly recognise her and wouldn't consider her a potential threat or intruder or something. Gin (or Ronald, but Mira suspected he would be a bit more squeamish about human sacrifice, even of complete shites like Umbridge and the Carrows) was probably the closest Mira could get to having another member of the House helping her perform the necessary sacrifice.
In fact, the Family Magic might be willing to invest itself in her, if Mira could convince her that it was in her best interests to be adopted into the House, but that was getting ahead of herself again, with the dragons and the hatching, so—
Lost in thought as she was, Mira didn't notice the incoming pain hex until it was far too close to deflect (and even if she had been able to deflect it, she probably shouldn't in a crowd like this). She did notice it in time to resist it, distancing her perception from the physical sensations it induced, reducing the painful, pinching stinging of a thousand different nerves being tweaked throughout her body to a slightly-uncomfortable, creeping, tickling sensation that sent a shiver down her spine and made her squirm a bit, but didn't actually hurt.
"Now that I have your attention, Miss de Mort," Carrow sneered, "I'll ask you again: Why is it important for young witches and wizards to learn about muggles and their pathetic, magicless ways?"
Because they make up ninety-nine point nine nine per cent of the human population, maybe? But hey, ask a stupid question... "I must confess, Professor, I don't think that it is," she 'admitted', doing her utmost to avoid preemptively sniggering at her own response. "I've never actually met a muggle, you know. I'm not entirely certain they really exist. Father says they're just a story the government uses to justify the restrictions on magic 'required' by the International Statute of Secrecy."
Carrow glowered at her like she didn't believe her, even though Mira was absolutely certain there were highly isolated magical children who had never left magical enclaves or seen a muggle in real life. Dru hadn't, when she was Mira's age. Of course, she'd known that muggles existed, but there were conspiracy theorists out there who actually believed that they didn't. "I assure you, Miss de Mort, muggles are indeed real."
"Forgive me, Professor, but do you have any proof of that statement?"
The 'professor' sputtered at her for a moment before managing to say, "Of course we do! There are entire cities occupied by muggles! Their existence is well-documented—"
"Ah, yes, documented. Next I'm sure you'll begin insisting that the world is round."
"The world is round!"
"That's what the heliopaths want you to think," Mimi informed her, as seriously as she possibly could. "You should read the Quibbler, it's the only reliable source for news if you want to know the truth behind all the lies and glamours and social engineering the government puts in their papers."
On the other side of the room, a few places away from Gin, Luna Lovegood nodded approvingly, despite knowing full well that the Quibbler had never suggested that muggles were a government conspiracy. "Daddy has recently become a sceptic on the matter of muggles, however. We happened across a very convincing 'muggle' whilst hunting for Crumple-horned Snorkacks the summer before last. He's planning an expedition to investigate the matter more thoroughly."
Brilliant. She absolutely loved that girl.
Unfortunately, Carrow realised that engaging in an argument about conspiracy theories would ultimately go nowhere and waste a great deal of time she could otherwise spend filling the heads of ignorant little purebloods with lies about their muggle neighbours. Rather than responding to either of them, she turned to a boy with a Slytherin tie. "Mister Young! Same question! Why do we need to learn about muggles and their ways?"
Young clearly hadn't been expecting to be put on the spot. "Er. So we appreciate that we're not grubbing in the mud like they are?"
"...Well, yes, but not the answer I was looking for," the 'professor' claimed, grinding her teeth. "Mister Grey? Your best guess."
"I don't know either, Ma'am," he said firmly, eyes flicking over toward Mira. "I mean, I know muggles are real, but they might as well not be. We never have anything to do with them, so..."
"No. Morsette?"
A girl with a Gryffindor hairband stood to make her response more formally. "The most important reason to learn about muggles is to more effectively limit the damage they unwittingly do to the natural world, Ma'am. Pollution, and such."
On the opposite side of the room, another Slytherin boy asked, "Why should it be our responsibility to clean up their messes?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because we need clean air and water, too?" a Hufflepuff suggested, her friends nodding along.
"So, just clean up enough for us and keep their rubbish out of our spaces with wards and shite! They made their bed—"
"That is so incredibly selfish and short-sighted—"
"What, just because I don't think we should let them take advantage of our magic to—"
"If we clean up their messes, they'll just keep making more—"
"Shut up!" Carrow interrupted. "All of you! Stuff it! And sit down Morsette! Feldsmiffler!"
"Yes, Ma'am?" asked a girl who was currently regretting having arrived late and therefore having been forced to take a seat at the front of the room.
"Why do we need to study muggle ways, Miss Feldsmiffler?"
"Er... In case we all lose our wands or something?"
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"Well what do you think, if you're so smart?!"
The girl who'd called Feldsmiffler's response stupid didn't have an answer, but but she really didn't need one, as several others decided to chime in. "It's so we don't get in a war when the Statute of Secrecy eventually fails."
"It's so we win the war when the Statute fails!"
"Why would the Statute fail?"
"Because there are too many idiot Gryffindors in the world, one of you is bound to bugger it up eventually."
"Shut up, Rowle, no one asked you!"
"I still haven't heard any convincing proof that muggles even exist!" Mimi reminded them.
"Yeah! I'm with that girl! Have any of you ever actually met a muggle?"
"Oh, for the love of the Dark! If muggles don't exist, where do muggleborns come from?!"
"Squibs," Mira said firmly. "And some of them are actors."
"No, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"But didn't it say in the paper that magic only comes from magic? So where do muggleborns come from?"
"I heard they steal magic somehow."
"Well, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"
"Professor? Professor! Can you explain the thing, the magic stealing or whatever?"
To her credit, Carrow tried to answer, but for some reason, she couldn't seem to remember the "logic" behind the ridiculous justifications of the Muggleborn Registration Commission. "It's— Hem! Well, you see— I mean— That's not important right now! I'm asking the questions, here!"
Literally everyone ignored her.
"Don't you have to be able to do magic to steal magic?"
"Why would anyone who has magic need to steal it?"
"No, Lestrange is right, it's like some anathema ritual thing..."
"So, where do muggleborns come from exactly?"
"Well, you see, Stephanie, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much—"
"Piss off dickface!"
Mira sat back in her seat smirking at the furious professor at the front of the room, completely unable to rein in her students' growing argument. She hadn't even had to encourage anyone to keep the fight going, and they managed to effectively waste almost the entire lesson period, without a single person coming up with the answer Carrow wanted (so that we can more effectively exploit them, basically). Tee hee.
They were still arguing amongst themselves when the period finally ended, and Mira followed Gin and Luna out into the corridor. "Weasley! Lovegood!" she called after them. "Wait up!"
They actually separated from each other, Luna falling behind, so that it didn't look as though they were necessarily together when they turned into a passage which was a shortcut to both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and then into an empty store-room after establishing that there were no witnesses.
Completely unnecessary, given that approximately zero self-absorbed teenagers gave a damn whether the blood traitor and the weirdo hung out together, but well-executed.
The moment she joined them, Ginevra started casting basic privacy charms. Luna asked, "Are you lost?" frowning heavily at her.
"No?"
"Are you sure? Because you don't feel like you belong here, and you have Harry's eyes."
Ooh, seer. Right. "I'm Lily Evans and Sirius Black's daughter, from a sister timeline. But I'm supposed to be here. Dru doesn't make mistakes, this is definitely the timeline I need to be in."
"Why? And why should we believe you about anything?" Gin asked, decidedly more confrontationally, her wand still in her hand.
"Because there's going to be an alien invasion on Mabon."
That was not what either of them had expected her to say. Insofar as they had expected anything in particular. If they had had an expectation, that wouldn't have been it. They exchanged a look which said as clearly as their thoughts, Is she insane? and I don't think so, actually...
"I'm here to warn as many people as possible. That task is complicated significantly by the fact that New Avalon doesn't exist in this timeline, and practically everyone I was counting on to believe me is insane or dead. Also, I'm not actually a Death Eater, so I can't actually keep control of the Ministry, which means the actual government and all of its resources are currently in the hands of a bunch of half-mad morons who think that the best way to ensure the cooperation of the public is ham-handed fascism and extensive pamphlets."
"Wait!" Gin interrupted. "You're Calytrix? I thought you were spying on the Death Eaters or something!" And you look like you're about my age! ...Maybe she's using a de-aging potion or something to blend in? Wait, no, she said she's Lily Potter's daughter, that means she can't be much older than Harry, right? What the hell?
Mira grinned. "That's what they think, too, but if I stick around it will ruin the mystique. Also, someone will probably eventually mention me to Voldemort, and then I'll be in trouble for deviating from my assignment. And also because I'm not a Death Eater. Also, I have more important shite to do than deal with fucking bureaucrats. We're on a fixed timeline here! Nineteen and a half days until the proverbial dung-bomb goes off."
It was already mid-afternoon — she'd had to wait until Tonks came back from the shops to brew the sleeping potion for the Carrows — and she was sort of committed to staying here through dinner to kidnap the Death Eaters, but it would still be early enough to get some shite done back at Grimmauld. She had been planning on spending the evening getting the kids started practising basic occlumency and trying a few of the locating spells they'd found, but now, having met Gin, she fully intended to move them over to Tonks's flat (out of the way in case the Family Magic didn't recognise them) and awaken the Family Magic tonight.
Tonks wouldn't mind. They'd discussed it, albeit as a potential solution to use in a few days, once Mimi found solutions to the logistical problems involved in awakening the Magic, and Tonks wasn't even using the flat, anyway. She hadn't been before she'd come to Grimmauld, and now she was going to stay here at the school and help Sev, since he hadn't actually abandoned the Cause. She was currently up in his office getting the rundown on exactly what the fuck was going on around here. Mira thought their working plan was for Tonks to impersonate Sev and deal with running the school — dealing with professors and students, stockpiling supplies to get through the initial collapse of supply chains, etc. — while Sev, his Graphic Arts professor, the NEWT G.A. students (sworn to absolute secrecy), Helena, and the Sorting Hat did everything they could to get the Castle's long-neglected enceinte wards back in working order.
"Weasley, you're coming with me to revive the Black Family Magic. And also because Harry is pining. It's fucking pathetic, honestly. He didn't even look twice at Maïa in her skimpy little sleep-shorts. I thought he might be bent at first, but no. He's just that into you."
Gin went very pink, her thoughts straying involuntarily to incredibly innocent memories of kissing Harry over the summer. "But—" She turned to Luna. "—what about— Luna! What about, you know...your whole plan."
Luna, who had been staring blindly at Mira since she'd said there's going to be an alien invasion, probably seeing potential futures where no such thing happened, because of course she couldn't, they would be impinging on the universe from outside the plane. Until it actually happened, it wouldn't even be a possibility...she didn't think. Maybe it was, now, because of time loop causality? But she didn't think so...
Luna, still staring at Mira, startled at her name, silver seer eyes blinking several times in quick succession. "I...don't know. I think she's telling the truth, her words don't feel like lies, but..."
"But you can't see anything like an alien invasion on the horizon because literally everything you can see from here is within this plane, and this is coming from outside." The girl nodded hesitantly. "You can ask Sev. He inspected my memories."
Mimi could just show the seer herself, but Luna Lovegood struck her as...very innocent. (Much more so than the trio at Grimmauld, and Mimi hadn't shown them yet. To say she didn't anticipate that they would take the experience well would be a massive understatement.) It would undoubtedly be convincing to let little Luna live through vivid, first-person memories of the past six months, but it would also be incredibly traumatising for the little seer to witness the horrors Mira had seen first-hand. The fact that Mira hadn't been particularly horrified would only make it worse for the younger girl, her own emotions clashing with the exhilarated, adrenaline-fueled battle-joy inherent in the memories, adding a layer of jarring dissonance to the objectively terrible events and the feelings they would inspire in the seer. It would be kinder to let Sev vouch for her.
"I...think you should go," she told Ginevra. "I think... I don't know, everything's different now! Mira being here changes things. Even if the aliens don't come... I don't think we're going to need a phoenix anymore."
Gin didn't want to be relieved to hear that, but she definitely was. "But what about the Death Eaters?"
"I...don't think they're going to be a problem? Not like they were..."
"Currently, the plan is to just make them disappear," Mimi informed them. "Well, the ones who are already here, at least. I'm sure Voldie will send replacements eventually, but we're all going to have much bigger problems in a few weeks."
Ginevra, unlike her friend or her brother and his friends, didn't strike Mira as being too innocent to witness at least some of her tamer memories first-hand. She gently pressed a copy of the first DAP infestation she'd seen into the younger girl's mind: An entire small, Appalachian town, still pretty as a picture, nestled into its little valley, the streets filled with shambling, half-dead puppets, alien creatures glommed onto their heads and backs, carrying them from house to house, seeking out residents who had chosen to hide, frozen in fear, leaving only soulless husks in their wake, and chasing down those who attempted to flee, flinging themselves through the trees after their prey. She could feel the fear and horror they inspired, even hundreds of metres away as they were, curling around her mind like smoke on the wind, inspiring an echo of the same feelings from her fellow conscripts — anyone who'd been remotely qualified had been recruited to do whatever they could to help Security deal with these things — her own response twisted into hatred and giddy excitement, ready to go—
"Gah! What the fuck?!"
"Like I said. Bigger problems. London's going to be a fucking nightmare when they reach it. We need the Black wards at full strength to keep them out and I need someone to help me awaken them. You're the girl for the job. I know you hate legilimency, but it will be so much faster if you'll just let me show you what's going on..."
"Yeah. Um. Yeah, fine, alright," the redhead agreed, clearly shaken.
Luna nodded, "I need to speak to Professor Phoebetor. Ginevra, I don't expect I'll see you again before you leave, so I expect this is the time to wish you Fortune's favour," she added, taking both of Gin's hands in hers and kissing her on the cheek.
"Um. Thanks? I mean, um. You too, Luna..."
The seer nodded again, her mouth set in a grim line. "Mira Calytrix, I wish I could say it has been a pleasure, but under the circumstances..."
Mira snorted. "I know. Nice meeting you, too."
One final nod, and she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.
"Alright," Gin said firmly, glaring at her and resenting the fact that they had to use legilimency for this, but feeling the urgency of the situation strongly enough to do so willingly. (It was hardly as though letting Mira use legilimency to catch her up would make her any more vulnerable than she clearly already was, if Mira could just press memories on her like that, regardless of her attempts to keep up an occlumency barrier.) "Tell me everything."
Alright, so we're finally getting to the end of the buffer on this story. There's one more complete after this chapter, and then one that's half-written (we'll see if I can get it done before Friday, but probably not).
While I've been posting this, I've finished another five (and a half) chapters for Changeling, two (and a half) for Switched, and half a chapter for the Plan. So, assuming that I don't get Chapter 18 of this done by Friday, we'll have Switched on Friday and Monday, and then Changeling W/F, M/W/F.
I'd *like* to finish the Plan chapter next, but that's probably not going to happen within the next week or two, because I've been asked to revise a chapter for a book which is based on a report I wrote in 2014, so quite a lot of writing hours over the next couple of weeks are going to be diverted to that. (Seriously, I thought I was done with that part of my life. I dropped out of grad school *five and a half years ago*. The last time I heard anything about the project was in *2019*.)