Needless to say, Michael had been to his fair share of political events over the years. A bit of an understatement, that — he'd somehow managed to bumble his way into being a career politician, one could argue political events constituted a large portion of his job. He'd seen pretty much everything by now. High-brow, cerebral lectures from theorists and economists at one university or another, arguing with random, possibly inebriated arseholes at a pub (sometimes while mildly inebriated himself), well-polished, professional events all formal and polite, shouting each other down on the floor of the Dáil, campaign events running the gamut from strictly planned to more open and chaotic, protests that sometimes walked the ledge of devolving into a riot...

He was certain he must have been to an event more boring than this one at some point, but he was having trouble thinking of one.

Michael had learned by now that the magical world could be shockingly mundane, what with having magic and goblins and dragons and he couldn't even guess what else at this point. Which wasn't really that much of a surprise — the mages might have all kinds of magic they could play around with, but they were still people. As very normal as they were, they also managed to make their politics mind-numbingly boring.

He still didn't know why that was. Perhaps, because they didn't really have mass media the same way normal people did, so they didn't pay so much mind to the presentation of things? They did have radio, Michael knew, though from what he'd been told they only ever played snippets of things, they didn't broadcast entire speeches or events. Hell, putting less effort into prettying everything up could be an improvement, if they had a mind to not censor themselves, but it didn't seem to work like that. That political power in this country was at least partially hereditary probably didn't help — they didn't have to worry about building and maintaining popular support, and their oratory was reserved for other people of their class, restricted by the refined etiquette and conventions they'd built over who knew how long. A combination of the two, probably.

Whatever the cause, it was seriously bloody boring.

They'd been led outside, set up in the stands they would later watch the first event of this silly Tournament from. Though, the stands were pretty damn empty at the moment — the delegations from Ireland and the UK, most of the Wizengamot and assorted family members, a slew of Order of Merlin members, staff from the three schools, plus a smattering of curious spectators they'd attracted, but that was pretty much it. Sure, that was still a few hundred people, but it left the stands set up waiting conspicuously barren.

Apparently, most people didn't care to sit around and watch this bloody thing. Michael really couldn't blame them.

Much of the event was taken up by a lengthy speech from Erin Scrimgeour, who'd replaced Dumbledore as the new Chief Warlock a couple weeks back. When she'd been nominated to the post, Michael had gotten an explanation of just who the hell this was from Clíodhna — she was somewhat famous, Saoirse had wanted to make sure Michael was caught up. She'd been a long-serving Director of Law Enforcement — sort of the magical equivalent of a Defence Minister, though not really the same thing — before retiring in favour of Barty Crouch some decades ago, the same one that was currently Michael's counterpart (sort of) on the magical side. When Crouch had ended up being removed from the post in the aftermath of the fall of Voldemort, one of many officials caught up in a complex tangle of scandals, the Minister at the time had begged Scrimgeour return to help put the flailing Ministry back together. Once the ship was set aright, Scrimgeour had immediately retired again, back in the early 80s.

So, the point was, she was very well-liked, and thus easy to get a confirmation through the Wizengamot, but she was also a bit old. According to Clíodhna, she was actually a little older than Dumbledore, though she certainly didn't look it — mages aged more slowly than normal people, by magical standards Dumbledore actually looked really old for his age. (The common assumption was that he'd been nailed with a few bad curses in his famous duel with Grindelwald.) Michael had met her on two occasions, briefly, and if he didn't know she was pushing a hundred twenty years old, he would have guessed...maybe sixties? She could still move about perfectly fine, if somewhat more cautiously than a younger person, was still sharp, blue eyes still hard and steady, speech coming fluent and confident. There were even a few hints of the previous red-orange in her silvered hair here and there, so, never would have guessed she was nearly as old as she was.

Of course, it was just bloody impossible to guess the age of mages just in general. Clíodhna looked to be about his age, but she was closer to twice that; he'd have guessed Fionn was maybe seventeen or eighteen, but he was actually in his mid-twenties. He had trouble putting a number to Síomha in general, she was just so very intense, his feeling could be anywhere from sixteen to thirty depending on the mood she's in. (She was twenty-six, a couple years older than Fionn, which tracked.) Little Lyra Black looked like she was maybe twelve? He definitely wouldn't have guessed she was almost fifteen, it was ridiculous...

Anyway. Their official position was that Scrimgeour represented a significant improvement over Dumbledore, due to Scrimgeour being somewhat more amenable to Ireland's political interests. Though she probably wouldn't hold the post long — it was his understanding that her age had been a factor in her selection, they'd probably replace her within a decade, two at most. She was, by all accounts, reasonable and well-intentioned, if a mediocre politician, too bullheaded and uncompromising to flourish in such an office. Rather like Bones, the current Director of Law Enforcement, in that way.

Also? A great orator, she was not.

Her speech wasn't...bad, exactly. It was just dry, and passionless. She started off with an explanation of just what the Order of Merlin was, exactly — presumably for the benefit of the non-magicals and foreigners in the audience, their people should already know this. Her description was both more politic and less informative than Clíodhna's had been. (Basically, a social club for a bunch of old, conservative men, which had somehow managed to acquire actual political legitimacy from their government a couple generations ago.) Then she went on, describing the events of the riot at the World Cup, with a bit more superfluous, dramatic language than was entirely necessary.

The actual words of the speech weren't that bad, Michael had seen far worse writing, Scrimgeour's heart just wasn't in it, her delivery flat and bland...which did make sense. Scrimgeour had been an Auror, and she was retired, had been for decades — presumably, this was not what she wanted to be doing with her time.

Talking about Michael and his people being attacked, Scrimgeour back-tracked, talking about Síomha just in general, which was at least vaguely interesting. Michael had known Síomha was adopted, the parents she'd mentioned a couple times weren't her biological parents (not that the distinction really mattered). Though, he hadn't heard it from Síomha, Fionn had mentioned it at some point. He hadn't known that Síomha was a foundling — that is, she'd been abandoned as an infant, found and taken in by the Ailbhes. According to Scrimgeour, nobody really knew where she'd come from. That was...odd.

"The hell," Alex next to him whispered. "It ain't the bloody Eighteen Hundreds no more, nobody just ditches infants on the church step."

"We're talking mages here, Alex — I doubt it was a church."

Eh, most likely it was something scandalous — rape, incest, or some pairing that was simply impolitic for whatever inscrutable reason — and the Ailbhes claimed not to know where she came from so they wouldn't have to admit it. It's not like it really mattered, wherever she'd come from didn't change who she was, but he couldn't help feeling vaguely curious. He wondered if Síomha even knew herself, if it'd be worth it to try asking...

Anyway, quick overview of her life, blah blah, her messy as hell duel with an infamous vampire criminal a few years ago, blah blah. Joining Saoirse first as a local representative and then as a junior member of their leadership council went omitted, perhaps tactfully. Finishing off with coming back to the riot, holding the line until backup could come, preserving the lives of Michael and company and downing who knew how many dangerous rioters.

Amusingly, Síomha seemed vaguely irritated by Scrimgeour's summary of her life and her actions during the riot. The three recipients were standing down there to the right, all accompanied by an escort that would be involved in the ceremony, supposedly — Síomha was joined by Fionn, standing just behind her right shoulder, both of them in their Saoirse uniforms, of course. Síomha kept cutting glances at Scrimgeour, pretty bland, the expression mild enough Michael probably wouldn't be able to read anything from it he weren't so familiar with her by now. Fionn would lean forward every now and again, mutter something in her ear, the tension lifting out of her shoulders revealing it'd been there in the first place, her lips twitching with a half-hidden smile.

Stopping Síomha from doing something ill-considered out of frustration or disdain or boredom was part of Fionn's job, after all.

And then moving on to Castalia Lovegood (silly name, he'd never heard anyone use it), whose segment of this stupid thing was rather longer. Scrimgeour started off with the scandal of her mother running away to marry her father against the Ollivanders' wishes — which didn't seem necessary to bring up right now, but what did he know. Near the beginning, mentioning Cassie's older brother Xenophilius, who was currently editor-in-chief at the Quibbler — one of the major British periodicals, which came off like a ridiculous conspiracy rag but Clíodhna and Ciarán insisted was actually legitimate, it was just in code (Ciarán had written up a glossary, and it made far more sense now) — and also the managing editor for Pandemos Printers.

"Wait," Michael muttered, leaning closer to Ciarán, "Pandemos like the big publishing company?" If he recalled correctly, it was the third largest publisher in magical Britain, though actually had the largest share of the fiction market.

"That's the one. I'm not sure how involved Xeno Lovegood is in the day-to-day, but he's been in charge there for over a decade now."

"I had no idea the Lovegoods were involved in that." From the way people spoke about them, he hadn't gotten the impression the Lovegoods had anywhere near the legitimacy being attached to a major publishing company should give them.

"They own it, in fact, always have. The Lovegoods have been producing books since before there were Lovegoods, back centuries ago when they'd been an old religious commune."

...Michael had no idea what to say about that, so he kept his mouth shut.

While he'd been distracted, Scrimgeour had moved on to Cassie's dueling career, starting with the tournaments between European schools of magic the ICW managed — which Hogwarts hadn't participated in for several years, though he'd heard they were putting a team together for next year's summer tournament. Apparently, Cassie's record undefeated streak in the singles event still stood to this day. As soon as she'd graduated she'd gone pro, traveling the world and participating in an almost constant schedule of events here and there, steadily climbing up the career rankings and racking up titles, including the big biannual all-ICW tournaments in '87 and '91, and some world-wide championship Michael had never heard of held every five years, back in '92 — which made her one of two current Hogwarts professors to hold the title, Flitwick had taken it in '67 and '72.

...Filius Flitwick? That tiny little bloke? But, he was so nice and cheerful! And, just, so little, Michael would never have guessed that...

Of course, what Cassie was more known for by most people was...well, her vigilantism, that's basically what it was. While she was in the country for one dueling event or another, she had a habit of seeking out the worst criminals magical society could imagine, and making them very, very dead. She'd even taken out multiple so-called Dark Lords over the years — Michael still wasn't certain what exactly differentiated "Dark Lords" from ordinary arseholes, but he understood enough to realise that was supposed to be impressive. Eventually, she got famous enough over it magical nations dealing with some endemic dark wizard -related problem would explicitly ask her to come to their aid, or try to organise some dueling event in an effort to entice her to their country, it was a whole thing.

A slightly ridiculous thing, Michael thought, but that was the magical world for you.

And then Scrimgeour moved on to talking about the riot, how she'd popped around the field seemingly at random to rescue innumerable people and families (knowing Cassie, especially families), how there were a dozen stories floating around about people being a moment from horrible tragedy when Cassie would appear out of nowhere, dispatch the rioters, throw a couple healing spells at the more severely injured, and then vanish again, sweeping in and out like a force of nature — or, Michael mused, a visiting angel, benevolent and awe-inspiring, but also a bit overwhelming and rather terrifying. How, when the Ministry finally began to muster a response, Cassie had acted as the vanguard, the point of the spear driven through the chaos, smashing the rioters against Saoirse's shields to be scattered. All told, by the end of the night she'd personally put down several dozen violent criminals.

It was really no surprise they'd decided to let her into the Order of Merlin after that, no matter how much they might not like her (due largely to the reputation the Lovegoods had among the nobility Michael really didn't get).

More than any other part of her speech, it was here that Scrimgeour seemed to come alive. Describing the chaos of the battle, Cassie leading the Ministry people through it, untouchable and unstoppable, a hint of emotion actually managed to slip into Scrimgeour's voice — yep, definitely a military person, or whatever one called the magical equivalent, no doubt there.

Cassie smiling prettily through the whole thing was only slightly creepy. Not that that was unusual, Cassie was just a warm, cheerful person like that in general — all soft and blonde and delicate, Michael sometimes forgot she was a ridiculously competent battlemage. (Until she got annoyed, anyway, then he remembered very quickly, even he could taste the lightning on the air and he wasn't even magical.) It was somewhat more obvious than usual at the moment, decked out in what he assumed was her normal dueling kit — boots and trousers and tunic, a mix of leather and cotton, the wand holsters around each wrist rather more involved than he was used to, almost looking like bracers. He wouldn't be surprised if she could knock spells out of the air with those. Michael had been somewhat shocked when he noticed the person accompanying Cassie: Stacey was outside, just standing there out in the open, and it was daytime! Granted, November in Scotland, it wasn't particularly sunny, but...

Michael had cornered Stacey to talk to her a couple times, after overhearing Ciarán informing Síomha she was a vampire — because vampires were real, Christ... Anyway, vampires were a complicated subject — it didn't help that there were two completely different kinds of people called vampires, and British mages tended to not recognise the difference — and they did not have a good reputation here, to put it mildly. Síomha had been extremely unhappy with Michael's insistence on speaking to one, but Stacey seemed...perfectly nice? Normal, despite being, you know, a two-hundred-fifty-year-old creature of the night, or whatever.

Talking to her had mostly just been depressing, to be honest. it wasn't really that long ago that her kind, the vampires who were born the way they were and were really just people, had almost been completely exterminated in a consciously-executed campaign of genocide at the hands of humans — especially considering their extended lifespan, there were plenty of them around who remembered it, it was recent history to them. And apparently a side effect of their altered physiology was a much greater difficulty in producing children, their birth rate was low enough they were still struggling to survive, centuries later. It was... Not good, understatement that, but, yeah, not good.

(It really hadn't helped that Síomha, standing right there listening, had had absolutely no sympathy at all. Michael had gotten the very clear impression that Síomha would prefer it if Stacey's people had been entirely wiped out back in the 16th Century, and he had no idea how to feel about that.)

Stacey was in another long, colourful dress, this one in the same blue and green Cassie was wearing, her light-sensitive eyes shielded by a wide-brimmed hat in matching colours. Interestingly, there was a very obvious, heavy gold necklace around her neck, thick and crude, didn't match the rest. The air around her kind of seemed to...shimmer, a little, faint rainbow mirages clinging to her, like reflections on oil, slipping in and out of sight — Michael assumed there was an enchantment on the necklace shielding her from the sunlight, but he hadn't seen this before, was it new? Stacey was sure acting like it was new, a wide, silly smile on her face, standing very close to Cassie — they were holding hands, he noticed, Cassie keeping an almost defensive hold on her, Stacey unwilling to drift too far away — occasionally tipping on her toes and awkwardly forcing herself down again, as though resisting the urge to bounce in place, her eyes flicking over the crowd, the nearby forest, excited but with a tense, nervous energy about her, almost...

She'd probably never been outside in the daytime before, he thought. That would explain the odd mix of glee and terror, there.

Anyway, once Scrimgeour got to Cassie and the Aurors pinning the rioters against Saoirse's shields, Cassie announcing her arrival by literally exploding someone holding Lyra Black under a torture curse — Scrimgeour didn't describe that, but Sirius had witnessed it, and he'd told Alex who'd told Michael — she backtracked again talking about the excitable little noble girl and Triwizard Champion.

Not that there was a whole lot to say — Lyra had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and nobody was entirely certain where she'd come from. Scrimgeour described Bellatrix Lestrange, the infamous magic Nazi and mass-murderer, deciding to clone herself through blood magic, because apparently that was a thing people did, and sending her off to be raised by infamous werewolf revolutionary and cult leader Fenrir Greyback, because why not, the girl leaving that life to return to Britain when she heard Sirius had escaped from wrongful imprisonment over a year ago now. This was, Michael understood, the most widely-accepted explanation for her origin.

Lyra herself had claimed, being interviewed with the other participants in this silly Tournament, that she actually was Bellatrix Lestrange from an alternate dimension, and that she'd traveled forward in time on a lark, ending up here. This explanation was almost universally dismissed, due to travel forward in time being impossible. (Which implied travel back in time was, why didn't people tell Michael these things?!) The only exception was the Quibbler, who had printed the ludicrous story as fact.

And also Fionn and Ciarán, who happened to be a white and black mage respectively. Neither of their goddesses had confirmed it, but they claimed Lyra was also a black mage, and that made the story she'd told far more plausible — the gods had absolutely no respect for what puny mortals considered to be possible or not. Given a couple minor holes in the widely-accepted story (like Lyra acting like someone raised in British nobility, that was the biggest one), and the fact that their goddesses hadn't said Lyra's absurd story was wrong, they were just going to assume it was all true. Which, absurd, but, magic — Michael wasn't really that surprised anymore at this point.

Of course, he still was a little surprised by the gods being real part of the whole thing, and also that anybody sworn to one could be executed by the state. Because, apparently religion and myths and old folklore and the like had always been true — or at least sort of true, from a certain point of view — and the freedom to worship as one pleased was an entirely foreign concept to British mages. That shite was still wild sometimes, when he thought about it too hard, but he was trying to just roll with it.

Lyra was also made up in battlemage gear, though a very different style, silver-accented leather hugging her knee to chest. It looked almost like armour, and probably actually was, enchanted a thousand different ways to do who even knew what. She was joined by Sirius, himself dressed in fancy magical robes in black and silver, though rather lazily, the seams not quite lining up the way they should, the top layer sort of drooping off one shoulder.

Both of the Blacks had looked painfully bored for most of the speech, Lyra's arms crossed over her chest, foot tapping impatiently, glaring unfocused into the near distance. The irritation had gone out of her stance, though, her foot still tapping but at a more steady, deliberate pace...in time with the bobbing of Sirius's head, Michael suddenly noticed. Not just that, Sirius's fingers were tapping at his arm, the slightest rhythmic sway to Lyra's hips, small enough Michael hadn't noticed until he caught the way the panels of her weird heavy leather skirt were shifting against her legs. They were...

It almost looked like they were listening to music. Did they have their own private sound illusion going on over there, just to entertain themselves? That was... Huh. Michael couldn't say he was surprised, exactly, and it was probably wise for Sirius to find some way to distract his hyperactive little niece, but still. Honestly, it was just kind of funny. He had to point it out to Alex as soon as he put it together himself — Alex got a kick out of it, he had to struggle to cover a laugh.

(Michael didn't miss how Alex's eyes lingered on Sirius, but couldn't blame him for that, he was a very handsome man.)

Anyway, before long Scrimgeour moved on to the reason Lyra was being inducted into the Order of Merlin — hijacking the wards the magic Nazis had put up over the area, trapping them where they could be (relatively) easily captured by law enforcement and helpful volunteers. Scrimgeour did make the point that the absurd magic necessary to pull that off had risked her own life, but left out the part about how Lyra could well have accidentally blew up the entire campground. To do it, she'd done the same drawing magic symbols in the air thing Fionn could do, but he'd explained that the more runes involved in a spell the more mental effort it took to keep it under control, and the greater volume of magic involved in the spell the more catastrophic the consequences if that mental effort was greater than the caster was capable of.

Given the number of runes Lyra had cast, Fionn was legitimately shocked she'd been able to manage it; given highly technical shite about geomancy Michael really didn't have the magical knowledge to begin to follow, literally thousands of people should be dead right now.

Michael tried not to think about that.

(Fionn insisted it probably would never have worked if Lyra weren't a priestess of Eris. Apparently, Eris was tied to Luck — gods of luck and fate and the like had a habit of fudging the numbers for people they liked. From what Michael understood, if Lyra weren't implausibly magically powerful and well-educated, and if she didn't have literal gods watching over her, they would all be dead. So, yeah, er, that was... Yeah.)

Before long, that was done, Scrimgeour tying the whole thing up, her voice still sounding bland and uninterested in what she was saying. (Really not a public speaker.) And then, with a brief introduction, she handed it off to Lord Ainsley, who was the Chancellor of the Order of Merlin. He was also a Lord of the Wizengamot, in Dumbledore's so-called "Light" faction, and was a pedantic, chauvinist arsehole — they'd met briefly, once, it had not gone well. The old man — older than Scrimgeour and Dumbledore, even, supposedly over a hundred sixty (Christ) — somehow managed to give an even more painfully boring speech than Scrimgeour, all talking about the history and traditions of his Order, the heights of virtue they represented, the honour of blah blah blah, it was so tedious.

While Ainsley droned on, the people involved in the ceremony rearranged themselves a bit. The recipients and their escorts moved back, closer to the line of Hit Wizards demarcating the far side of the space, Scrimgeour stepping a little further from the stands, putting her back to them. As awful as it was, Ainsley's speech was mercifully short. One of the other Commanders of the Order — another old man in ridiculously elaborate, colourful robes, they all looked so silly — handed a glitzy-looking golden medal on a long purple ribbon to Ainsley. Unfortunately, Ainsley spoke more, but it was thankfully short, declaring Cassie had been invited to join the Order, a brief, sanitised description of what she'd done to earn it, clearly quoting a written statement of some sort.

Once he was finished, he handed the ribbon to Scrimgeour. "Castalia Lovegood, step forward."

Cassie didn't walk up right away, though, first turning to Stacey; her vampire girlfriend unfastened the cloak — which had a colourful symbol involving a triple-spiral on it, he assumed that was a Lovegood thing — whipped it off from around Cassie's shoulders, folded it over her arm. Then Cassie stepped forward, walking to within an arm's reach of the Chief Warlock, sunk down to her knees. There was another brief statement here, about acting on behalf of the Wizengamot who had confirmed blah blah blah, and Scrimgeour finally hung the bloody ribbon over Cassie's head.

Perhaps it would have been better to arrange this ceremony side-on, so Scrimgeour's robes wouldn't be in the way and they'd actually be able to see Cassie right now, but hey, Michael hadn't organised this bloody thing. Never did organise this sort of thing, in fact, and thank God for that...

There was some polite clapping as Cassie smoothly flowed back up to her feet, cueing Michael he should be doing the same, accompanied by some much more enthusiastic applause, including some cheering and whistling. Curious, he glanced behind him over the stands, couldn't quite hold in an amused snort. The cheering was mostly coming from the right side of the crowd, opposite the Wizengamot and Order seats from Michael, behind the Champions, judges, and school staff — so, where most of their foreign visitors were sitting. (Michael noticed Cæciné, the junior Beauxbatons Champion, was alone among the big-name guests in that she'd even stood to applaud properly, joined by a few people who were similarly very blonde and delicate-looking, presumably related to her somehow.) The more thoroughly British sections of the stands seemed much less receptive. There were plenty of people behind him who weren't clapping at all, he even spotted a number of Wizengamot people with their arms crossed, impassively staring down at Scrimgeour and Cassie.

Shaking his head, Michael turned back forward. Stuck-up British mages couldn't put aside their distaste of Cassie's politics long enough to acknowledge she'd saved literally tens of thousands of people's lives over her vigilante career, not even for a second. Bloody ridiculous.

Cassie returned to Stacey, who swirled the cloak back around her, re-fastening it closed over her shoulder. Then Stacey tipped up on her toes to give her a peck on the lips — Cassie was quite tall for a woman, but Lovegoods seemed to be tall just in general — but before she could retreat Cassie's arms had circled her waist, holding her in place. After a couple seconds of, just, kissing out in the open in public, because why not, Cassie picked Stacey up and spun around a couple times, apparently just for the hell of it, their skirts flaring, Stacey's surprised laughter audible all the way from here. Stacey's feet back on the ground, they returned to their spot in line, their hands still clasped, Stacey still leaning against Cassie's shoulder and breathlessly giggling, Cassie smirking in the general direction of the stands.

There was a bit of unpleasant grumbling behind him, presumably over Stacey being a vampire and all, but Michael could feel himself smiling — that was just sweet, okay, these people needed to get the sticks out of their arses.

Anyway, Ainsley was talking as soon as the mumbling calmed down, having received another ribbon from one of the Commanders, reciting another prepared statement from memory. Síomha's was almost verbatim identical to Cassie's, only a single phrase switched out, acknowledging she'd secured the life of a foreign dignitary (Michael) and thereby preventing a serious diplomatic incident, service to the nation, blah blah. The ribbon was handed to Scrimgeour, who called for "Síomha Raghnaill Ní Ailbhe" to step forward — she'd pronounced the name exactly the way Saoirse mages did, Michael was slightly jealous, he always fucked up that first syllable of her last name.

There was a brief pause as Fionn removed Síomha's cloak — in Saoirse's colours, not the Ailbhes', Michael understood there'd been some debate over which would be more appropriate — and Síomha sauntered up to the Chief Warlock. Normally, in formal situations where she was being watched, Síomha's pace took on a sort of self-conscious mechanical precision, but she'd clearly thrown that out now. There was a pantherine grace to her walk, a cocky sway to her hips, Michael was certain there'd be a smirk on her face he wasn't close enough to make out. More like how she walked when she wasn't being watched, or when she was dueling or showing off or something.

Because, of course, she was showing off. As Michael had told her when she'd asked about it: when intentionally doing something inflammatory, go big or go home.

When she reached Scrimgeour, Síomha did not kneel as Cassie had before her, just waited a step or two away. Scrimgeour hesitated a moment, but then moved on into an iteration of the same over-dramatic litany she'd used last time — perhaps she was assuming Síomha wouldn't kneel to the British Chief Warlock for political reasons, had decided to brush it off. There was another brief hesitation as, when Scrimgeour got to the point where she was supposed to be hanging the ribbon around her neck, Síomha didn't dip her head to make it easier for her, instead holding out an open hand, palm up. Displeased muttering already sparking to life behind him, Scrimgeour placed the medal in her hand, somehow managing to project bemusement with only the simple action.

Síomha took a couple steps back from the Chief Warlock. For a moment, she stood almost unnaturally still, her eyes closed — ignoring the increasing noise from the stands, the uneasy shifting of the Hit Wizards and Order of Merlin people. Then, gasps and shouts drawn from dozens of throats, hands going to wands, flames flickered over Síomha's skin, an unnatural black and a dark, moody red, something even besides the colour seeming somehow off, wispy and ethereal.

That was a visual manifestation of someone flaring their magic, Michael knew by now. It could sometimes happen when a mage cast a particularly powerful spell through a wand but, due to details about how the mechanics of magic worked that he didn't know enough to understand, it was far more common with witchcraft. (That is, magic done by methods not involving a wand, which were relatively rare these days.) Michael had noticed a few barely-visible flickers, perhaps a faint glow to his eyes and a rustling of his hair, when Fionn did his drawing words on the air to make magic happen thing, but he'd seen it most often and at its most obviously visible when Síomha was casting powerful wandless magic — which she really only did to show off, things that required this much effort she'd usually just draw her wand for.

Or, sometimes, when she was particularly angry. Fionn had explained that magic had a tendency to react to human thought and emotion, and that everyone's magic reacted to intense emotion. For it to happen visibly was rare, required a combination of well-above-average power and control insufficient to prevent it — or, sometimes, for the mage in question to decide not to prevent it consciously, to make a point or just be intimidating. There'd been a couple minutes at the riot after the World Cup, in the first moments of the fight, where Síomha's eyes had been glowing an eerie green in the night, black and red flames washing over her in the instant before every spell she cast. Michael hadn't asked, but he assumed that had been a combination of Síomha being very, very angry, and also just being terrifying on purpose.

He didn't think she was doing it on purpose this time — it just happened on its own whenever she cast some wandless magic, a natural consequence of how it worked. But, perhaps, she'd chosen to do this particular thing because she knew it'd look freaky as hell.

The ephemeral flames seemed to be drawn toward her hand in a wave, and the instant after it ended, the visual effect dissipating as the energy she'd channeled was properly focused, eye-piercingly brilliant blue-white fire burst into life in the palm of her hand. The gold of the medal was entirely hidden, enveloped by flame — he could hear the hissing roar of it from here, so bright he blinked spots from his eyes, he felt phantom heat on his face but he was pretty sure he was imagining that — over the next seconds the contorting, flickering ball of light, rising off her hand, blue and orange tongues racing along the purple ribbon, reducing it to ash on the air in a blink—

The fire vanished, leaving behind a formless blob of molten gold, suspended a foot over Síomha's hand. She dropped it, the white-hot, bronze-ish blob falling down to the dirt, steam puffing into the air as it struck, a few flickers of yellow flame as blades of grass immolated in the intense heat. Síomha stared at the silent and almost painfully still Chief Warlock for a couple seconds, her hands folded behind her back, posture loose and unconcerned — seemingly not bothered by Scrimgeour and most of the Hit Wizards having their wands in their hands and half-pointed at her, which was sort of impressive on its own, Síomha was not good enough to fight her way out this badly outnumbered. After a moment of tense silence, Síomha turned her back on the armed and still extremely dangerous ex-Auror, sashayed her way back toward Fionn.

The unrest in the stands behind and around him was only increasing, the grumbling now pierced with an occasional angry shout. Even the Wizengamot and Order of Merlin sections were more active now than they'd been in their disapproval over Cassie and Stacey, scowls creasing faces, some figures on their feet, wands in hand — though to do what, Michael couldn't guess. There was a bit of shuffling and thumping, people moving about behind him, some kind of scuffle developing. He started turning around, check out what was going on back there.

He never did get a look. His head was halfway around when Ciarán jumped, spinning around almost unnaturally fast to get a foot onto the bench under them; one hand came down hard on Michael's shoulder, shoving him down nearly double, the breath forced out of his lungs in an involuntary gasp, the other coming around, his wand in hand. Bent over far enough his head was quite nearly between his knees, he didn't see what happened, but he did hear the reverberating snap of air being displaced, probably by a barrier spell of some kind, a hard sort of clanging, followed with an almost electric crackling of energy dissipating into the air.

The weight on his shoulder lifted, somewhat, but before he could gather the breath to ask what the hell was happening Ciarán roared, "Anois imídh!"

Go, now.

Michael glanced up, caught a glimpse of Síomha and Fionn some metres away — Síomha had whipped back around, her wand in her hand, and Fionn had dropped Síomha's cloak reaching for his own, he'd looked their way quickly enough the cloth hadn't quite fallen all the way yet. They were still surrounded by Hit Wizards, but thankfully the Ministry's people seemed to be turning to the stands too, they should be fine. Hopefully.

And in any case, Michael wasn't going to hang around if some crazy magical arsehole was chucking curses at him. Gritting his teeth, he reached into his pocket, his fingers finding a narrow cylinder of enchanted ceramic, crushed it in his fist.

Like a great hand plucking him out of the world, he was yanked into an incomprehensible smear of shapeless colour, dancing around him in a formless swirl, his skin tingling from the power of the portkey spell wrapped tight around him, his hair standing on end, his stomach churning as he was dragged bodily through the fabric of the universe, bile crawling up his throat, and—

The magic ended as abruptly as it'd begun, the world crashing back into solidity with almost aggressive suddenness, Michael tossed down to the grass on his arse. He had time to let out a single nauseated moan before, with an odd slurping pop, another person appeared...and then immediately fell right on top of him, knocking the breath out of him all unexpected weight and elbows.

"Oh, shite," the body pinning him down groaned — the voice was thick and unsteady and disoriented, but still identifiably Alex's. Pushing himself off, immediately flopping down onto his side, "Sorry, Mike, I don't— I hate these fecking portkey things..."

Yes, well, no arguments from him on that one. "'Sfine." He'd definitely have a bruise over his ribs later, but it wasn't like Alex could control where the bloody thing had dropped him. There were more noises of portkeys tossing people down onto the earth, groans and cursing, Michael pushed himself upright to look around, his head spinning a bit.

They had arrived where they'd meant to: one of the courtyards at the Academy of Caoimhe Ní Bhláithín, the only school of magic in Ireland. After some debate, Saoirse had decided this would be their first fallback position if anything went wrong at Hogwarts. The Academy wasn't one hundred per cent behind the Nationalist cause, obviously, but anyone looking to make a hit on Michael and his people would have to be absolutely insane to pursue them here. The Academy sat at the heart of the largest magical settlement in Ireland, and the population would not react well to a bunch of British crazies showing up and tossing around curses.

Also, situated nearby were the home of the Caoimhes — one of the largest and most influential Irish magical families, and more or less dedicated Nationalists, though they didn't advertise it — and several properties managed by Fionn's colleagues, Bríd's priesthood. (Mostly, Lú's also had people about, apparently.) If people did follow them here, there were the wards and professors of the school, yes, and random passers-by off the street, but also Caoimhe battlemages and as many as a couple dozen white mages.

Suffice to say, attacking the Academy would be a very stupid thing to do. The crazy British nationalists among the mages, the sort of people who had a problem with Michael, weren't the brightest people in the world, but they weren't that stupid.

Anyway, their people had arrived in quick succession, Michael's staff easily distinguished from Saoirse mages by who had ended up in the grass and who was still standing. Pushing himself up on shivering knees (bloody portkeys), he stumbled through the crowd, counting people in his head. After a couple minutes, he'd confirmed all of his people were here, though they were short a few mages — he noted Síomha, Fionn, and Clíodhna in particular were missing.

"Cavan!" Michael glanced around, after a second spotting the man who'd called his name: Keane was still seated in the grass, looking abnormally pale, a bit disheveled. He was being fussed over by his assistant... Shite, Michael had completely forgotten her name. He'd caught a glimpse of her a few times, but he wasn't certain they'd ever actually spoken. Oh well. Anyway, Keane was staring up at him, asked a little breathlessly, "You alright? Bastard didn't manage to hit you?"

"Hit me with what?"

"Someone threw a curse at—"

"Jesus!" Michael's heart had jumped hard into his throat at the unexpected voice coming from just off his left shoulder, he had to take a couple seconds to breathe. "Don't do that, Ciarán. They should put a bell on you, scared me half to death, Christ..."

The slight little man's lips twitched, gave him an apologetic shrug. "I didn't mean to startle you, sir. I'm not accustomed to dealing with muggles — most mages would have been able to feel me here. In any case, as I was saying, someone in the stands behind us threw a curse at the back of your head. I doubt it would have hit, given the angle he was firing from he had a very shallow window, but I blocked it anyway. There were a few more hexes cast before all your people got out, but any directed at us either missed or were intercepted. No injuries. You'll all be getting a curse-check, though, just to be safe."

"Ah, good." He hadn't noticed anyone who looked like they might have been hit with anything, but then he might not have. Apparently there were a lot of nasty curses that had delayed effects, having a healer or cursebreaker give everyone an examination any time spells were exchanged was a basic safety precaution. "What curse was it? That I was almost hit with, I mean."

One of Ciarán's eyebrows ticked up. "Why does it matter?"

"Diplomacy, Ciarán — I can't throw a proper diplomatic fit if I don't know how angry I should be."

"I see," he said, a slight shade of amusement on his voice. "It was a blasting curse, incendiary."

That...sounded bad. Not that Michael was really frightened by the idea — it clearly hadn't done any actual damage, and he had expected something like this to happen — but dropping the word incendiary in reference to a spell aimed at him was sobering anyway. "Give me something more to work with, here. What would have happened if it hit me?"

"Given it was aimed at your head? You would have died before you realised anything was wrong."

A few people within earshot gasped, someone spat out a curse — Michael wasn't looking, but he was betting that was James. Alex's hand ended up clenched over his shoulder, and Michael was tempted to give him an exasperated look, say something like, honestly, there was no reason to be silly about it now, he was standing right here, perfectly fine.

But instead, he let his eyes tip up toward the grey sky, forced out a sigh. "So, what you're telling me is, someone in that crowd tried to kill me. Again."

"Yes."

...Exasperation was probably not an entirely rational response to being told a racist with superpowers had just tried to make his head explode. "Well. I guess I have an irritating conversation with Dumbledore and Scrimgeour to look forward to. We should probably wait for Fionn or someone to come back and tell us things have settled down, right?"

"You want to go back there?" That was Keane again, now up on his feet though looking very unsteady, leaning on a man in a Saoirse uniform Michael didn't recognise. "You mad bastard, you were almost just assassinated!"

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Yes, well. The first time was frightening, and the second time, the third time maybe unnerving, but now? I guess I've gotten used to it. Now I'm just annoyed."

Alex's hand on his shoulder tightened a little, and Keane glared. "If you do something stupid and get yourself killed—"

"Oh calm you down, Keane, I'll be fine. I trust Saoirse to handle it, it's why we went to Síomha in the first place and they've done an excellent job so far — if they tell me it's not safe to go back today, we don't go back. And I get to throw an even bigger diplomatic tantrum over the mages' inability to secure public events against terrorists. Should be fun. But anyone who doesn't want to accompany me back to Hogwarts is welcome to return to Dublin, I'm not going to ask anyone who truly doesn't feel safe to stick around."

There was a bit of muttering at that, the news that Michael did intend to go back spreading through the group toward the people not close enough to eavesdrop. Keane looked very unhappy, but he gave Michael a surly nod — probably irritated that he couldn't back out of the Hogwarts posting now without looking like a coward, which, Michael wouldn't judge him for that, and it wasn't like many people outside of those currently present even knew about all this anyway. Really, Keane should go back to continue talks with their counterparts from the UK, but if Michael's example and his trust in Saoirse gave Keane and his people the nerve necessary to not back out, so much the better.

Ciarán just looked amused, which he wouldn't if he thought there actually would be significant danger in going back, so, it was probably fine.

Casting around for something to say or do without awkwardly changing the subject, Michael noticed several mages making toward them — Academy staff, he knew, a couple he recognised by the cut and colour of their robes as professional healers. "Ah, there's the welcoming committee. If you'll excuse me, Keane, I'm off to ask them for a bloody drink. I do hope people would stop trying to kill me, it's going to drive me to alcoholism at this rate...

"Let's go, Alex. Someone do come find me when news comes in."

[he always fucked up that first syllable of her last name] — In the dialect Síomha and company speak (the dialect taught at the magic school in Ireland, and thus dominant among Irish mages), the "ailbh-" in her family name gets a funny allophone. Due to assimilation with the following consonants, the vowel gets a bit centralised, and sometimes even absorbs a bit of lip rounding. It is just an allophone, though, Michael could pronounce it like a normal [a] and be fine, he's just self-conscious about it like that.

[Anois imídh] — If anyone who actually knows Irish is thinking this is slightly ungrammatical, yes, I know.

Bluuuhhhh. Took longer than I thought it would to finish this thing. Distractions are distracting, and depression is terrible. We have two more scenes before the Task itself, which may or may not be posted as a single chapter, we'll see. Those are finished already, we've finally started the actual Task part of the Task just today. We're gonna put the Task all in one chapter, and it'll probably be pretty fucking long, so, no telling on when we'll actually have that finished. Gonna be ridiculous, over-the-top bullshit though, because of course it is, this is me writing magical combat. Many of you know what to expect by now.

Woo? Woo.

—Lysandra