The clock in Loki's office had slowed to the pace of treacle. It was long past the hour for mortals to lie abed, but there were three seated around his table, teacups going cool around piles of nominal paperwork.
The wall across looked as though holes had been cut into it, a beehive of moving images splayed over the space. Most of them were dusky fields, quiet and pastoral, though he had a few in the mountains and above the dark sea.
Loki strode back and forth with the air of one undertaking a delicate magical operation, which was not, strictly speaking, untrue.
"Any movement?" he asked, turning sharply.
"Nothing from Geneva," Lucius said, tapping the glass of the mirror in front of him. "Perhaps they won't show after all?"
"Oh, they will," Loki said. "Graf won't be able to resist this opportunity. The coalition has so much momentum, they're utterly convinced they have the upper hand."
"I'm not convinced they don't," Bones said, voice gravelled. She had taken some of her ever-present paperwork, but for once she hadn't picked up the pen and was looking instead at the wall. Orange sparks were swirling around her frame, her good eye jumping from cell to cell.
"They're twelve thousand strong, at our best estimate," she said. "Twice our army at least and you're pinning it all on some expensive muggle curio."
At this she glanced towards Pandora Lovegood, but the researcher was fiddling with a piece of wire, and made no response.
"Lovegood's work is well tested," Loki said smoothly, though his eyes stayed fixed on his spells. "It's exactly what we were hoping for."
"Not in the field," Bones said. "Under wartime conditions."
Lucius tensed suddenly, looking into his mirror as the view on the wall changed. General Longbottom emerged from a tent, striding to the top of the hill.
Loki looked forward, grip tight around the top of a chair. The fingers of his hands burned with magic and promise, the satisfying weight of a plan in the works, the rush of anticipation. Five hundred miles away, in the comb of his spells, the armies of wizards were rising.
He raised his hands, stepping away from the scene.
"Wait and see."
Frank woke all at once to the sound of the spell. He fumbled around his tent, rolling up his bedroll and reaching for his battle robes, hand settling on a gray bundle. It was time. He donned them both, stepping out of the tent.
The Southern high fens were chilly before dawn, even in early June. He saw a green-robed soldier patrolled silently over the ground, but it was the quietest he had ever seen the camp. The camp around him was hidden in a sea of Disillusionment Charms out in a field in the muggle Netherlands, part of the territory they had conquered last night.
He rubbed his eyes, his boots sinking into the dewy grass. That fight had won them a reprieve, more than he'd had any right to expect. Still, he wished he could have managed just a little more sleep.
Yesterday had been hard. Greater Belgium was one of the smaller wizarding countries, but they were absolutely blanketed in wards from after the last war. His army had had to move incredibly quickly to take Belgium in the night. But they had, forging through the capital itself before the other countries could muster, seizing the territory before they could get trapped fighting the larger powers within hostile wards. Now that his army had captured the hills and torn down a good deal of ward work, there was only to wait for their opponents to meet them.
He glanced up the hill, spotting a solitary figure on the crest, looking northwards. He tensed, but the mirror in his pocket was cool. No reports yet.
He ducked into the command tent, then threaded his way back to the top of the hill, overlooking dark plains in the starry early dawn.
His lieutenant was standing there, looking into the horizon. She saluted when she saw him come out, taking a step to the side.
"General Longbottom."
"At ease, Hamidou," Frank said, holding out one of the mugs he had pinned under his arm. "Coffee?"
Hamidou half-smiled, taking the cup. Frank sipped from his own, watching the lights of an electric train winding far below.
"They did well last night," Hamidou said, not looking away from the horizon. "You should be proud."
Frank smiled. It was uncharacteristic of Hamidou to offer such praise.
"They're good troops," he said.
"They came together well," Hamidou said. "And they did well. Better than I could have possibly imagined three years ago."
"Yeah," Frank said, frowning. Hamidou was still looking out distantly, her mug sending warm wisps into the air. "Here's for the same luck tomorrow, eh?"
He lifted his coffee, taking another sip.
Hamidou turned and regarded him.
"I don't think luck will be enough this time," she said.
Frank reflexively smoothed over his vest, feeling the almost imperceptible crinkle of well-worn photograph paper.
"Not luck then," he amended. "Skill."
Hamidou nodded, acknowledging this.
"We outfitted them well," she said. "But four armies-four at minimum…"
The warmth of his empty mug was receding from his fingers. He set it down on the grass.
"Your clearance should be high enough by now," he said, turning back towards Hamidou. "Have you ever read the Khatanga reports?"
"No," Hamidou said, startled. "Is that…"
"The report of a Russian infiltration a few years ago," Frank said, voice forcibly even. He could sense Hamidou's curiousity now, and he plunged over the awkwardness. "We discovered what is thought to be a remote experimental base belonging to an organization with active roots in the Russian government."
Hamidou nodded, glancing away.
"Hydra," she said.
"Yes," Frank said. "In it-the Minister's section-he was involved; it was rather early on, he spoke about the agents he encountered. One of them was a man, possibly a muggle, who could see through disillusionment and deflect spells."
He glanced back over the hill, slanting writing springing to life in his mind. He had perused that paper so many times he could quote it. "The people of the compound all bore vests of the kind you've seen, the magic-repelling kind. Or magic-resistant at least," Frank said, Pandora's admonitions about proofs and theory echoing in his ears.
Hamidou quirked her head, surprised.
"We haven't seen it in since," Frank said. "Not from Russia. It looks like the operatives there ran an isolated effort, and then Minister Loki burned the compound…" He shifted. "Anyway, he took them out himself in the end, one man against six dozen soldiers."
"What are you trying to say?" Hamidou said, looking back over the plains. "That numbers don't matter?"
The horizon was lightening by degrees, and his heart was thrumming against his breast-pocket. He breathed in, feeling the tight weave under his robes. Four armies.
"My point is, I trust the minister," Frank said simply.
Hamidou opened her mouth to speak then stopped, drawing out her communication mirror just as Frank's began to burn.
"Well." She abruptly turned back toward the camp. "They're on their way."
The German army arrived first, portkeying in just beyond the border. Their silent blue ranks stood below, dotted here and there with silver Swiss legions. They numbered thousands, almost the size of his combined French-British army alone. Frank gritted his teeth-Belgium and Switzerland were supposed to have taken the fangs out of Germany's fighting force, not repurposed it. He turned to the left, where a trail of Abraxans stretching back to the British coastline was watching for the Norwegian approach.
The red troops of Denmark and Sweden appeared abruptly on the plain beside them-less well-organized but, if Frank's intel was correct, better trained. Over ten thousand men. More than twice their number. He felt the army behind him shift, and he walked through the middle rank, adjusting uniforms and offering encouragements, letting his face stay calm and even.
"What are they waiting for?" one of them asked him in a heavy French accent.
Frank looked over his shoulder, finding a blue ripple in the sky.
"Ready formation Achilles!" he called as the Norwegian contingent bore down.
He heard the murmurs from the troops. Drage! Dragons…
Sure enough, there were dragons swooping down from the sky-ten, eleven, at least fifteen…
He broke for the front, getting ahead of his army. He could hear calls from the three armies down below.
"Bereit!"
Hamidou was cursing audibly.
"Lieutenant," he said, and she nodded, mounting the Abraxan. She and the winged troops galloped into the air, blending into the clouds, just as the three armies surged forward. As one they lifted their wands, and the world lit up.
The sound was thunderous.
Frank raised his shield-the enemy was large enough to shoot in a quick and never-ending rate-light was blazing into soldiers around him, spells crashing over his ears, so loud that the sound was like a physical thing, pushing them back. He squinted, sensing that if he opened his eyes in the blaze he would never see anything else.
He felt his shield shatter under the barrage and the spells continue to beat down even as he recast it-the armor under his shield was getting hot but it had not broken and impossibly, incredibly, it had worked. All around him his troops were blinking in the sudden pause, shaking off the assault and they were still standing.
Across the field, he could see the Swiss general tapping his wand in befuddlement.
It had worked.
Five hundred kilometers away, in a little room under the Ministry, a fallen god burst into full-throated laughter.
A burst of dragonfire cut into Frank's wonderment and he snapped out a shield, scanning the sky for his Abraxan flank.
"Formation Gawain!" he called, spotting Hamidou's group, high above. They were split between three of the black figures, leaving the others free to rain fire on the front-lines, preventing their advance.
He unshrunk a broomstick from his pocket and darted into the air after the dragons, tapping his communication mirror and trying not to focus on the dizzying height.
"Davis," he said, "I'm going out."
A few moments later, a horse swooped down from the clouds. He rose up and slowed, dropping down onto the horse's back before retrieving his broomstick. Powerful feathers beat around him and he rested his hand on the horse's neck.
It looked like an older Abraxan, perhaps one he had fought in the battle of France. She wore one of the Lovegood's saddles though, which was encouraging. The ones preferred by the Hamidou's cohort had almost no charms against being hurled off. He took up the tack, the horse raising its head.
"Let's hope we keep each other safe, eh?" he said, pulling sharply to the side as a black mass fell towards them. The air up here was wild and sharp, white feathers burning as they fluttered down on the troops below.
He spotted Hamidou far ahead, casting blasts of fool's lightning at the lowest dragons. He rode upwards, aiming for a fresh one.
"Conjunctivito!"
The dragon roared, throwing off its handler as it spun around in the air, belching fire.
"Down down down," Frank urged, throwing up another shield as the horse drove them downwards. The battle had become a roiling mass of spells and confusion-he could just make out his forest-green troops carving their way through the explosive mass, and he led his Abraxan out of the way of the spellfire.
The dragon was flying erratically, hurling fire down on allies and enemies alike. Frank threw a Confundus Charm after it and it shuddered, then dove, flying low over the trees. Bleakly, he wondered how the Obliviators were going to clean up that mess.
A burst of fire hit him in the side and he spat out a shield, his skin searing in pain. His Abraxan screamed as she fell, her wing burning. Longbottom's stomach swooped, eyes blurring as they lost altitude.
Clenching his broomstick between fingers that burned and shivered, he cancelled the Shrinking Charm and threw himself back on, watching the Abraxan spiral towards the ground.
"I'm sorry, friend," he murmured, jumping back into the air and raising his wand as he barreled toward the next dragon.
"And after that?"
Frank was floating, the voices a soft murmur in his consciousness.
"And after that he took out two more Ridgebacks before we got the medics on him."
He recognized the light accent, hovering uncertainly over the trailing s's. The tone of her voice was even, even as the words slipped agreeably past him. What had she said? He couldn't quite…
"Our flank took out eight, at which point the armies on the ground finally realized they were outmatched."
"I see," said the other voice. This one was filled with warm satisfaction. Frank swam upwards, trying to open his eyes, but he felt jammy and stiff, trying to fight whatever potions were running through his body.
He got them open anyway.
"Loki," he croaked, his vision a blur of gold and green.
"Yes," the voice said, sounding amused.
"Did we win?" he asked.
"Yes, General," the voice said. "They've retreated for now. You did well out there."
He reached up to touch his face, but felt instead rough bandage. His hand was a white blur.
"You're due to make a full recovery, of course," the voice continued. "Though I've been told you need your rest."
"So it's over?" He realized belatedly that his hand was still resting on his face and flung it off, hitting the side of the bedspread. It bounced off-cushioned, he realized, looking back up.
Cool fingers brushed his forehead.
"Sleep, soldier," said the Minister. "We'll speak more when you're well."