Kyrah didn't want to talk to Albus.

She could not, in fact, remember a time when she had less wanted to speak to someone.

She was sure there had been, of course, but she was having trouble thinking of one as she sat in his office, waiting for him to return from his meeting with Gill "Langley" — Sir William had been, as Kyrah understood it, a devoted friend and companion of the last Lord Langley, and had adopted his name as a sort of tribute to him after his passing and the fall of his House. It had caused a minor scandal when the Wizengamot had realised that he'd done so (several decades later, as he'd used the persona primarily in formal post-statute interactions with the muggle monarchs of the day), but Kyrah thought it was a rather sweet gesture — and whoever the Republic of Ireland had designated as the "head" of their delegation's security detail, in the absence of young Síomha. Clíodhna again, perhaps?

Practically anyone would be better than the young sorceress for the purposes of diplomacy — even before she'd rejected the Britons' silly little boys' club so very dramatically, Albus had taken a clear dislike to her — but at the moment, her absence was not one of political consideration. Mister Cavan had made a point of returning to the Castle for breakfast this morning, presumably to make it clear that he was uncowed by the thought of multiple assassination attempts in one day (albeit attempts so poorly executed Kyrah had to wonder if they were really trying), but he did have duties outside of the Tournament and Morrigan's youngest daughter seemed to have attached herself to him personally.

Kyrah was quite certain she wasn't the only one wondering if that attachment was strictly professional. Personally, she was hoping it wasn't. Perhaps it was being surrounded by teenagers all the time, but she found herself dwelling on petty relationship drama far more as Kyrah than she ever had as the Flamels, and she thought she'd detected a hint of fondness behind the poor girl's constant aggravation with her charge's insistence on tweaking the noses of mages who wished to kill him.

Of course, his insistence on associating with terrifyingly powerful mages who didn't want to kill him was hardly any better. Kyrah had thought Síomha was going to have a heart attack when she realised that in the two minutes she had stepped out to the loo, he'd managed to strike up a conversation about subsumation with Sarah. Not that Sarah had any ill intent toward anyone here (save perhaps Angelos, persistent annoyance that she was), but Síomha struck Kyrah as one of those young sorceresses who had quickly grown accustomed to being the most powerful witch in the room at all times, and wasn't entirely comfortable on finding herself out-classed.

Not unlike Castalia...or Albus himself, in fact.

(Unfortunately, all trains of thought seemed to lead back to whatever unpleasant task Kyrah did not want to attend to at any given moment.)

It really was a shame that he'd never moved beyond the overly-simplistic, annoyingly moralistic and essentialist, Christianity-influenced understanding of light and dark that his mother had impressed upon him as a child, because she rather thought he would like young Síomha if he could ignore his prejudice against dark mages long enough to get to know her.

Kendra Dumbledore, Kyrah thought, had a lot to answer for.

No, that wasn't fair, she admitted, sighing.

Albus had had plenty of time and opportunity to grow into a more well-rounded, balanced person than he was raised to be. The faults of the son could not be laid at the feet of his mother, or not entirely, if for no other reason than that Kendra had been dead and buried longer than Kyrah had known Albus. Her influence clearly still lingered in his moral philosophy, but when Albus had first written to them seeking an apprenticeship, lost and mourning, more in need of a purpose than an education, he had had the potential to become a very different person than the man he had grown into.

It was not Kendra who had taken her Percy and turned him into this man who was, for all their years of correspondence, practically a stranger to Kyrah.

As Kyrah was practically a stranger to him, for that matter.

If the past four months had taught her anything, it was that neither she nor Albus knew each other nearly as well as they'd thought.

Fawkes, keeping her company while she waited, warbled inquiringly, the phoenix equivalent of a slightly-concerned hmm?

"Have you spoken to Albus about his reaction to the violence at the First Task?" she asked the bird.

Their trilling, twittering response made it clear that they had not, but if they had, they would have expressed their approval. They might have been somewhat disappointed that he had not managed to make those responsible pay for their disruption of the festivities then and there, but he had taken decisive action to protect his people.

Kyrah didn't know what she had expected. Phoenixes might be inherently magically light, but that hardly meant that they embraced peace or valued mortal life in general, much less sociality and cooperation. They weren't unicorns, attracted by purity of heart and innocence of intention. No, phoenixes were drawn to "fire" personalities: reactive, self-righteous mages whose emotional responses echoed their own.

"He didn't protect his people," she snapped at the bird. "He acted rashly! He escalated the violence, causing greater fear and danger for those who could not defend themselves, while accomplishing practically nothing toward the end of subduing the aggressors!"

It wasn't that she disapproved of the use of force to bring an end to violence. She wouldn't have expected Percival to resort to violence before attempting to address the conflict by other means — for all he had been appalled by the violence of the Revolution, he had been terribly reluctant to follow his conscience and attempt to deter Gellert's people or the counter-revolutionaries from committing various atrocities in the names of their respective causes — but it was clear that Albus was no longer Percival, and she could understand the instinct to violently eliminate the ability of those causing harm to do so. She could even understand that he was frustrated and scared, that his immediate reaction on being released by the force holding them in place throughout the task — a force they could neither identify nor resist in the moment — would be to lash out at a problem he could solve, over which he did have some influence.

What hurt was learning that, after she had headed down to the ground to help with the evacuation,to attempt to impose some degree of order and restore calm to those fleeing the violence in the stands, Albus had attacked the crowd — the vast majority of whom were simply trying to escape the fighting or at worst defend themselves and their families — and done so indiscriminately.

He didn't hurt anyone, the phoenix retorted, with the unmistakable air of a dismissive scoff.

"Not permanently," Kyrah admitted, "but he certainly didn't help anyone, either!" Cassie had told her later that his actions had only increased the ferocity of the fighting in the visitors' section. "And he certainly harmed any number of innocents, if only by adding to their fear when they were already under attack, being incapacitated by someone they hoped would help them!"

Fawkes made a chittering little click she could only interpret as an even more dismissive, Yeah, right, whatever, and very deliberately began preening their tail feathers.

Kyrah was beginning not to like that bird.

It had hit her like a physical blow when Madam Tonks barged into the curse-check post with orders — drafted in colour-changing ink on the back of Draco Malfoy's most recent Charms essay, but the aurors present recognised DLE Director Bones's signature — demanding that they document stunned non-combatants and capture impressions of the magical traces on them in order to prosecute the 'self-righteous old goat' for mass bystander assault.

Tonks (the one everyone referred to as Little Nymphadora — it remained to be seen whether her apparent preference to be addressed by her surname would reduce confusion among mutual acquaintances next time Nazim grew bored with Carthage and decided to revisit his first name), somewhat pink over her mother's interference, had suggested that she was out of line to insist that Director Bones "waste their time" on such measures — it was not, generally speaking, the purview of independent advocates to demand the DLE collect specific evidence for a prospective case, and taking the time to document trace evidence on victims with no physically or mentally damaging acute or long-term curse effects did inarguably slow the process of clearing witnesses — but Kyrah suspected that the Director hadn't taken much convincing at all.

If Madam Tonks hadn't made a point of ensuring that the evidence of Albus's transgression would be documented, she didn't doubt that the harried young DLE Director would have overlooked it, given more urgent concerns, but it was almost equally certain that as soon as Madam Tonks suggested they do so — and presented her with pre-written orders, all the Director had to do was take two seconds to sign — Director Bones had agreed.

Albus, after all, had been one of the most insistent voices claiming that there was no need to post visible law enforcement in the stands, even after the near-riot at the Order of Merlin ceremony. There had, of course, been a number of un-uniformed aurors at the event, most of them scanning the crowd for trouble, but there were hardly enough of them to act as riot control for a crowd of five-thousand, and their unobtrusive presence, though better-suited to catching potential assassins or saboteurs in the act, was certainly not a deterrence to random violence on the part of the average mage in the same way that having a uniformed hit wizard in sight might be.

As it was, she was acutely aware of exactly how many innocent spectators, ranging from furious to shaken to absolutely terrified by the chaos, but none of whom had raised their own wands in violence, had been evacuated by the Hogwarts elves or retrieved from the stands after the fighting died down bearing traces of Albus's magic.

It was one thing for him to persecute Severus Snape for a past he was clearly attempting to atone for — a thing she most stringently disagreed with, which she had never imagined her Percival hateful enough to do, but with a motivation she could understand. It was very much something else to so callously disregard the rights and wellbeing of dozens of innocent bystanders in an attempt to subdue the instigators of the violence. And an ultimately futile one at that. Only a handful of those whose wands showed evidence of offensive spells had been stunned or incarcerated by Albus's crowd-control spells, presumably because most of them were competent enough to shield against such measures.

"What were you thinking?" she asked, as the door opened to reveal the man in question.

He closed it behind himself, giving them a measure of privacy for the first time in two days — disregarding Fawkes, the Sorting Hat, and the Portraits of Headmasters Past, of course, as Albus apparently had no qualms speaking honestly and unguardedly in their presence. The Hat and the Portraits were bound to serve the school, and by extension its Headmaster (and the latter were currently hidden behind their silencing curtain to prevent interruptions), and the phoenix was hardly likely to go telling tales, given that the only person in the Castle they regularly deigned to speak to was young Cassie.

He looked exhausted, and far older than his hundred years and change. "Pere— Kyrah, I have no idea what you're talking about. However, I find myself already in desperate need of a headache relieving potion and perhaps a strong drink, so if you intend to resume lecturing me about my administration of my school, your opinion has been noted. I invite you to see yourself out," he said, more snidely than was called for, in her opinion.

It was true she'd been unable to hide her disappointment in the state into which Hogwarts had fallen in the past centuries as lessons resumed and the acute decline in modern educational standards and the dismal quality of his teaching staff had become all the more obvious, but she'd thus-far refrained from accusing Albus personally of mismanagement. She'd hoped that, having been relieved of his extraneous political positions, he might devote more attention to the administration of the school without her nagging him to do so — or rather, with only oblique observations, rather than pointed criticisms of his failures.

Thus far, he had not, but then, she imagined he had hardly spent less time on politics this year than in those past, given the demands of the Tournament and their guests.

"I am talking, Albus, about your reckless, foolhardy decision to wade into the riot yesterday with offensive spells."

He groaned. "What would you have had me do, Kyrah? Stand idly by while my guests made mockery of my hospitality? And it was hardly as though I resorted to the same degree of violence as those I was attempting to restrain."

She bristled at his tone, not openly sarcastic, but certainly with a faint undertone suggesting that he thought this was an excuse she — and all of the other older guests, she suspected — would accept, despite finding it somewhat ridiculous himself. Presumably he hoped to rely on precedents related to the rights of lords and guests when it came to matters of hospitality to absolve himself of any censure for his attempts to subdue the rioters.

Unfortunately for him, "At least fifty-seven innocent bystanders were caught in your attempts to address the so-called insult to your hospitality, Albus. Plus however many more were released before we began documenting the victims of your mass stunners. If anyone failed in their obligations yesterday, it was you."

"Again I ask, what would you have had me do?" he asked petulantly, pouring himself a double-measure of Ogden's and lowering himself into the chair behind his desk, leaving her to pace the open area before it. "I could not simply stand by and do nothing."

"It might have been better if you had," she snapped. "But in answer to your question, there are plenty of more acceptable methods to subdue a panicking crowd, chief among them any number of pacification spells—"

Albus grimaced at the reminder that a handful of teenagers had succeeded in quelling the conflict where he had not — from halfway across the arena, without harming anyone, and with no awareness of the situation beyond that there was some sort of trouble up in the stands. "I cannot condone the use of mass compulsions, Perenelle, regardless of their temporary legality under the circumstances."

...Yes, and Kyrah was certain that that had nothing to do with the fact that the young woman responsible was the very same who had (albeit likely unintentionally) pulled the trigger on his political downfall at the end of the previous June. If he intended to try to punish those students for fixing a mess he had only made worse...

"But you can condone the use of individually targeted legilimency charms, which are much more likely to cause serious trauma to students in your care, either from resistance strain or pure violation of their mental autonomy and privacy?" she drawled, deliberately referencing the root of his ire toward the Granger girl. Because she had no desire to debate that particular issue at the moment, however, she added, "If you were reluctant to use mental coercion, an overpowered Cloudburst would have done nicely," before he could offer a retort. "I will admit I'm not much of a fighter, but I can't imagine anyone would find it easier in the midst of white-out rain. Any area-effect environmental charm would have been more advisable than offensive spells targeting individuals indiscriminately. Or if you truly felt it necessary to use a physical restraint spell on the entire mob, you could have used something more obscure, which the most dangerous among them would not have been so easily able to block or counter — Freeze Fog would have likely been far more effective than mass stunners, especially if you raised it from beneath the risers."

Albus apparently had no response to that suggestion — presumably he hadn't expected her to offer one. "Yes, well, one's options are often clearer in hindsight than in the heat of the moment. I didn't see you calling rain or attempting to calm the crowd, either!"

"No, I was attempting to help those fleeing on the ground. If I had realised, however, that you intended to stun bystanders indiscriminately, I would happily have switched places with you!"

"I dare say that if I could, Perenelle, there are a great many choices I would make differently after seeing their consequences play out. Alas, I cannot, thus it does no one any good to berate me for a poor choice already made," he said stiffly. "If that is all you have to say, you may save your breath."

"It's not." ("Of course not...") "Much though it may benefit you in future to consider the criticisms you receive for your actions in the recent past, I thought you might also benefit from a few hours or days to consider your response to the charges of mass bystander assault Andromeda Tonks plans to levy against you as soon as Director Bones manages to restore some sense of order to her Department." At least, Kyrah assumed that that was why he hadn't already received a summons over the matter — their resources must be understandably over-extended at the moment. Notifying a relatively upstanding lord who believed he had done nothing wrong that there was an ongoing inquiry into his actions within his own domain was a politically delicate proposition which was best not dealt with on zero sleep, with tempers already short on all sides.

Albus slumped in his seat, glowering at his glass. After a few seconds he broke the expectant silence growing between them, muttering under his breath, "I hate that girl." More audibly he added, with a bitter scowl, "There was a time, not so very long ago, when I considered Andromeda Tonks to be an ally, you know. Perhaps not the most powerful, given that she holds no political position in her own right, but a staunch supporter of muggleborn and werewolf rights, with a sincere desire to support the causes of the common people, the intelligence and education to do so effectively, and the pluck continue in spite of the ever-growing hatred of her former peers. But it seems that one truly never does leave the House of Black after all."

Kyrah fixed him with the most thoroughly disapproving expression her sharp peri features could muster. "There is no conspiracy, Albus! And while Madam Tonks may indeed find her loyalties drifting back to her natal House, I fail to see the relevancy here."

"Call it what you like, Perenelle — a feud, perhaps, or some twisted game," he spat, "but the Blacks are making a concerted effort to utterly marginalise me!"

"Given the general short-sightedness of your decisions over the past several decades, I can hardly imagine it has required much effort at all to undermine your political positions, and I sincerely doubt that Miss Black has it out for you personally, but that was not my point! In what twisted frame of mind can you look at the prospect of a case brought against a lord — even one whose position is appointed, rather than hereditary — on behalf of dozens of mages less powerful than he, both magically and politically, over the issue of his trampling of their rights as citizens and his guests, as anything other than supporting the common people?"

From the somewhat horrified expression which began to dawn on his face halfway through her characterisation of his actions, a frame of mind in which he, Albus Dumbledore, Leader of the Light and self-proclaimed champion of the downtrodden masses, could not possibly be considered to have committed any sort of trespass, because whatever he did, he did on their behalf, with the best of intentions.

He didn't trample their rights, impetuous young shapechanger, the phoenix "snapped", their meaning carried more by the pulses of light magic suffusing the room than the warbles, whistles, and clicks of the "words". He was trying to save them from their attackers without using magic which might cause lasting harm to any hapless human fool who got in the way. Which, clearly, many did. That is not the fault of my dear companion!

"Firstly, you have some nerve calling me an impetuous youth, you self-important flaming feather duster, when I know that you know who I am and that I've been a resident of this plane at least two centuries longer than you." The phoenix glared at her with a single beady eye and attempted to interrupt with an offended quork, but she wasn't done yet. "Secondly, it is misleading to suggest that the bystanders were at fault for placing themselves in harm's way when they had no opportunity to avoid it. And thirdly, you seem to have missed my earlier point that there were plenty of other magics which would have been more effective in stopping the attackers, less likely to impact the bystanders, or both! Congratulating your dear companion for making bad choices and salving his wounded sense of self-righteousness does—"

She broke off as she made a horrifying realisation: Was it Fawkes who had been so terrible an influence on Percival in the decades since they'd last spent any considerable time together? He'd come back to the Flamels in the summer of Nineteen Forty-Five, leaving after some months to travel and gain some perspective before returning here and taking up his teaching post again. She recalled thinking, on receiving a letter from Egypt several months into his travels, that perhaps it would be a good thing that he had met a phoenix who wished to travel with him.

At the time, it hadn't occurred to her that the avian fae most likely held much the same perspective on humanity as most fae (that the short-lived mortals native to this plane were a curiosity at best and food or entertainment at worst) and would therefore be entirely unlikely to help him develop the more nuanced understanding of human motivation and morality the Flamels had tried to instil in him in the wake of Gellert's defeat. She recalled responding: Nelle and I are glad to hear that you've made a new friend, Al. Truth be told, we were a bit concerned about you out there on your own. Yes, we know you're a grown man, perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but loneliness is a terrible burden, and one which only grows heavier with time. If your new-found companion can help alleviate that pain, we are happy for you.

But the phoenix would have reinforced and championed Albus's absolutist sense of right and wrong, supported his predilection to believe his own judgement superior to that of anyone else and helped him to brush off legitimate criticism, constantly assuring him that of course he was in the right...as the phoenix saw it. The phoenix, who, like all phoenixes, valued self-righteousness and hot-headedness and would only have encouraged those traits in their latest companion. They could hardly do otherwise — the magic they used to sustain themselves in colder, wetter climes such as those here in Britain, like that of the People, depended on a degree of emotional resonance to function, and phoenixes' and humans' respective emotional ranges barely overlapped enough to facilitate the necessary understanding.

Fuck.

And Albus, who had always, always conflated light and right and magic and politics and any number of other concepts which ought not be conflated, could not help but trust the assurances of a creature of light magic, such as his beloved Fawkes. If the phoenix thought he was a good person, then surely he must be.

Double fuck.

That would explain the shift in poor Percy's character over the past decades, but she could hardly tell him, you need to break up with Fawkes because I don't like the person you are when you're around them. The phoenix had been his daily companion for...nearly fifty years? No matter how much he might respect her — and that respect had been seriously damaged by her ploy to leave the Flamels behind — any affection he still held for her after her betrayal was surely outweighed by that he held for the phoenix.

...

No, Kyrah, you can't ask Sarah to ask Angelos to destroy the damn bird.

"Perenelle?"

"Yes?" she said automatically (she did sometimes still forget that she wasn't answering to Perenelle anymore — centuries of habit could be difficult to break), trying not to sound as though she was seriously contemplating the murder of his flaming feather duster over there.

"Are you quite well? You seemed to drift off...?"

Oh, right. What had she— Oh, yes. "Apologies, stray thought. Fawkes's assurances that you are always in the right hardly do you, or anyone else, any favours, Albus."

His expression, predictably, shifted instantly, from vaguely concerned to more than vaguely annoyed. "Your opinion is noted. Thank you for warning me about Andromeda. If there is nothing— Wait." He cut himself off as he apparently thought of something else they needed to talk about himself. "What was it Olympe and Igor were going on about yesterday? Something about the importance of following the plans for the Tournament to the letter from here out? And why didn't you warn us that we judges would be bound by that damnable cup as well?"

Ah. That.

"I doubt we actually are bound by the Goblet."

Albus's frown deepened. "I may not have been following Olympe's explanation very clearly, Perenelle, but I did gather you were the one who had suggested that we are."

"I also suggested that it was odd, because substitute judges have been employed on multiple occasions with no ill effect, and I've since had time to perform a number of analysis charms, none of which have detected any ongoing binding magic on myself or Cassie." She wasn't entirely certain young Castalia's patron would allow her to be bound in such a manner, in fact, but she couldn't explain as much to Albus without sharing secrets which weren't hers to reveal. "The binding on the Champions can be detected even outside of the tasks, so it does now seem more likely that Angelos was responsible for our inability to leave the judges' table than that the Goblet has somehow bound us without our knowledge or consent."

That theory was further supported by the fact that everyone's least-favourite Avatar had made herself suspiciously scarce since the end of the Task. It was not out of the question that her refusal to allow them to intervene was indirectly responsible for one or more deaths in the riot. Having promised not to kill anyone in Britain, she likely (rightly) expected Sarah to be wroth with her when she reappeared, even if she had only violated the spirit of her vow, and not her word.

It wasn't impossible that the judges would only be locked into place for the tasks themselves — as far as she could recall, they'd never attempted to switch out a judge mid-task — but upon reflection, with a bit of distance from the nerve-wracking violence and terrifying helplessness of finding herself unable to turn away from the Task, she was beginning to think she'd been overly hasty in supporting Cassie's concerns about the terms of the binding.

Albus's fingertips drummed at the table, his whiskers twitching as he opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, changing his words after a moment to, "I have trouble believing that any single witch, no matter how many obscene rituals she may have used to augment her own power, could so easily restrain not only me, but you and Miss Lovegood as well. To say nothing of Olympe," pronounced in a gently disbelieving tone — one which suggested he thought she was giving the actual embodiment of a malicious god too much credit.

Of course, Albus refused to believe that Angelos was anything more or less than an obscenely powerful mortal witch.

"She's not— I know you don't believe that magic has a will of its own, Albus, but for the purposes of interacting with Angelos, you would do well to act as though gods and Powers are in fact very real, regardless of whether you simply believe yourself to be humouring all we delusional witches." His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, presumably because that was the closest she had ever come to conceding that there was any possibility that Aspects of Magic were entirely figmental (as Kyrah or the Flamels), but he didn't interrupt. "Regardless of whether she draws her power from the mundane world or not, I assure you, she could contain all of us easily, in the right context. Moreover, the Goblet is animated by a very simple intelligence. It is possible that whoever entered Mister Potter also altered the other terms, explaining them in greater depth than ever before and so binding us as well, but I strongly suspect that they did not.

"It was difficult enough to convince the damned thing to choose Champions for three distinct groups simultaneously. It wasn't used for two Tournaments after the one where Beauxbatons won the right for all three schools to use it because they had such trouble communicating their intent. I can't imagine anyone managed to explain the specifics of the Tournament itself to it, especially within the window of opportunity on Samhain. No. The terms are almost certainly as they always have been — the Goblet chooses a Champion — or Champions — and places a geas on them to meet the challenge they were entered to face, whether that challenge is single combat against the champion of a neighbouring clan, leading an army, or competing against each other in the Tasks of the Triwizard Tournament.

"The actual expectations for the contest itself — the basis of the binding magic — are, as I understand it, held by the individual who enters the token or tokens for consideration. Given that the Tasks are not announced ahead of the Choosing, students enter themselves with an expectation which essentially boils down to facing whatever challenges the judges set for them or participating in the Triwizard Tournament. I think the Champions will have been chosen with an eye to the challenges we had in mind when the Goblet made its decision. If we change the details of the Tasks now, the Champions it chose may no longer be the most likely out of all the submissions to succeed, but so long as we judges are in agreement on the matter of what the Tournament does entail and the Champions face the challenges they are set, the penalties should not be triggered. And the binding magic doesn't touch us, which is to say, individual judges, at all."

It likely was safe to alter the Tasks as needed, delaying them or even moving them. No one had been penalised for the judges' alteration to the first task to include the additional champions, after all. If the binding were truly that strict and Potter had been entered as a champion for a fourth school, he ought to have been expected to have his own team for Capture the Crown, rather than to have been a member of the Hogwarts team, and judges would not be allowed to recuse themselves from judging particular champions to avoid conflicts of interest. No, it was far more likely that, as had always been the case, the Champions were bound to meet the tasks set by the judges, and the judges were at liberty to alter the tasks as needed, so long as they were in consensus about it.

But given that arrangements had already been made to hold the Tasks here, and that Cassie's solution to the problem of spectator interference ought to minimise opportunities for further mishaps, it hardly seemed worth it to move the entire production at this late date. She hadn't said anything to the other judges, and with the myriad political problems they were facing, she doubted they had given it much additional thought themselves. If and when the subject arose again, she would of course offer her revised opinion on the matter, but until then, their current arrangements would suffice.

Albus nodded slowly, his features fixed in a contemplative frown. "Very well. In that case, has anyone questioned Madam Black about the matter? If she was responsible, she ought to be held accountable in some way."

"As far as I know, she hasn't returned to the school since the end of the Task. Not that it matters. I haven't the faintest idea how we might induce her to admit responsibility if she was indeed responsible, much less penalise her for her actions."

The wizard glowered at his now-empty glass. "There has to be something... Perhaps Monsieur Delacour will be willing to pressure Magistra Selwyn to bring her companion to heel."

Kyrah sincerely doubted that would be the case — out of all the diplomatic representatives present at the school, Selwyn and Delacour had perhaps the most incentive not to antagonise each other. They had, in fact, been meticulously cordial and genuinely diplomatic in their interactions, both apparently willing to make efforts to further reinforce the current peace between the ICW and the University. It probably helped that Delacour held not-so-subtle anti-statutarian leanings. As best Kyrah could tell, they agreed that the Statue was doomed within the next decade or two (at best). Delacour seemed to be attempting to sound out how willing the Americans might be to help Europe negotiate the inevitable dissolution, which anyone with any sense could see they were woefully unprepared for.

"It can't hurt to ask," she said, quite diplomatically herself, in her own opinion. It would probably be more effective to invoke Death and petition it to enforce some penalty on the Dark for skirting the spirit of its vow, but Albus didn't believe in the Powers, and Kyrah had no intention of antagonising the annoying brat. Whatever Death might do, it almost certainly wouldn't remove Angelos permanently from this plane, and quite frankly, she didn't care to deal with the campaign of revenge-harassment the avatar would likely wage against anyone who attempted to see her punished for not technically breaking her word.

Albus nodded slowly, still eyeing his glass with a troubled frown. "Hmm... Well, if there is nothing else...?"

"No," she sighed. "It seems in poor taste to wish you good afternoon when I've only just come bearing bad news, but nevertheless..."

"And you as well, Pere— Kyrah."

Frankly, she reflected, making her way back to her rooms, she was more concerned about Albus than Angelos. Yes, the Dark was inherently problematic, but the presence of its avatar was a problem Kyrah was not equipped to address in any meaningful way. Albus, on the other hand, she might be able to help.

He wouldn't listen to her over Fawkes (Why would he? She asked herself, slightly bitterly. You lied to him.) but that didn't mean he wouldn't listen to anyone.

His reaction when she framed Andromeda's defence of the commoners he had assaulted as what it was gave her hope that he was not entirely beyond saving. He might listen to someone else, someone who could help him...step outside the perspective he had held for far too long now, help him understand how he was perceived by others, and even more importantly, see how his decisions actually affected the people he claimed to care for, on whose behalf he firmly believed himself to be fighting.

Ensuring that he would meet just such a person was clearly the only reasonable plan of action.

She just had to strike the right note.

They would be a commoner, of course, and male. Albus was very much a product of the time in which he had been raised — he had always been far more comfortable with Nicolas than Perenelle, and more willing to trust his advice. She suspected that his sense of propriety interfered with any attempt to relax in the company of the opposite sex, and that his lack of sexual interest in women lent itself to a lack of interest in women in the more general sense.

So, a man, then. A reasonably well-educated man, but one whose concerns and interests centred on his family and his job, rather than the ruling of a country or international diplomacy, with all the political perspective that implied. Someone who could never dream of sending his children (if he had children) to Hogwarts, because it was simply out of his reach financially — a journeyman, perhaps, in a common field (Construction, that would do. There were to be dozens of contracted wardcrafters involved in the construction of the Sinking Island for the Eighth Task, scheduled to begin over the Yule holiday, one more wouldn't seem out of place.) — but who made an honest living and was more or less content with his lot. Someone who had never held any real influence in society, whose decisions were limited in scope, and whose fate and fortune were, to a large degree, dependent on the decisions of those like Albus, who held the reins of power in this country (or had until recently), but who made the best of what he had to work with.

Someone who knew nothing more about Albus Dumbledore than what he read in the papers recently and the stories he'd been told by his parents about the end of the Revolution, who struggled to reconcile those two images as much as Kyrah, but who was in a position to buy Albus a drink and try to get to know him as a person, rather than as a legend. Who was in a position to become a casual friend and offer opinions from the perspective of an average citizen, with the wisdom of having lived an entirely average life. Someone who could give a face to the faceless masses and remind Albus that those masses were made up of individual people, with their own motivations and desires and their own sense of morality, whose best interests might be at odds with each other's. Someone who might finally be able to show Albus — not tell him, Albus would have to believe that he had come to this realisation on his own — that life is complicated, and not every matter can be reduced to simply good or evil.

Of course, she would continue to urge Albus to adopt a more nuanced perspective as Kyrah as well, but with a second persona which could offer a radically different perspective and opinions which would be entirely out of character for Kyrah(/Perenelle), it would be that much easier to guide him to the realisations he desperately needed to make

She would call him...Freddy, she decided. Alfred Sims, that was a good, solid name. A good, solid name for a simple, dependable bloke who would, with luck, help Albus find his way back to her Percival again.

Yes, Kyrah does think it entirely reasonable that her solution to the problem of Albus not trusting her is to lie more. He doesn't trust Perenelle(/Kyrah). She lied to him about having died. Freddy is an entirely different person. It's a completely different situation...if you're a metamorph, and being multiple entirely distinct people seems like a normal, reasonable thing to do in the first place.

Clearly, there is no way this could possibly go wrong.