Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it is the work of JK Rowling. If it's new, it's mine. Please don't compare us, I hardly measure up.

A/N: This chapter does not contain the action of the last, but it's pivotal.

And now...

Chapter 15 – The Compass of Culpability

For a while, Elijah did little more than seethe. Albus couldn't blame him, especially now. After the fight with Grindelwald, the dark wizard must have believed he'd been discovered by all. Subsequent murders were sloppier and numerous. Grindelwald had gone on a killing spree that had convinced the wizarding world that he was evil. He had enough supporters that there was reason to be afraid. Grindelwald and his followers did not discriminate much in who they killed, although their support of the Nazis seemed to have disintegrated; repeated victories by the allied forces was testament to that. However, Wizards were being hunted and killed in horrifying ways, their bodies marked with an othala rune symbol which was charmed to destroy anyone who tried to remove it.

At last Elijah seemed able to speak, though his tone was accusatory and his eyes flashed dangerously. "So the pair of you skipped off to safety with Arabella, I assume?"

"Elijah, mind your manners," Nicholas warned. "The ministry does not generally approve of vigilantism. If Albus had killed Grindelwald at that time, you would have attempted to arrest him and considered him a murderer and Grindelwald his helpless victim." Nicholas' tone also carried bite and Albus almost felt that he didn't deserve defending.

"Is Arabella hiding with you then?" Elijah asked.

Nicholas opened his mouth to respond, but Albus stopped him. "Grindelwald has proven himself amazingly capable of forcing victims to provide information they'd previously sworn not to divulge. For that reason, we feel it is best if few people know the location of certain individuals, including Arabella."

Angrily, Elijah lurched to his feet, knocking the table over in his haste for the second time that evening. "Are you accusing me of being a pawn for Grindelwald? I'm not the one who let him escape!"

Instantly Nicholas was on his feet as well, matching Elijah's unreasonable volume with his own. "You will calm yourself, Elijah! If you make one more accusation against my friend, I will take him home to grieve and leave you to sort this out alone!"

Elijah backed off, but he did not look happy about it. Albus watched the exchange with mixed emotions. He was suffering guilt for the decisions he'd made; it might have been the all-consuming emotion had Lorelei not told him over and over that he had done the right thing on Christmas day. Faced with evidence to the contrary, he still could not allow her to have been wrong. At the moment he could not see her as anything less than perfect in every regard. Albus was not new to grief; he could reason that this was the denial stage – some small part of him believing that if she could not have been wrong then something could resurrect her. It defied logic, but then, where there is love, logic does not reign supreme.

Within in a heartbeat he was there again, his mind having drifted back four and a half months prior, to that fateful Christmas Night. He and Lorelei had disapparated to the area outside of Hogwarts with their two guests in tow. They walked in silence onto the grounds of Hogwarts, Lorelei melting the snow with her wand to make the trek easier while Albus levitated Arabella. The plan was to let Katherine McGregor look over Arabella. Katherine had grown to be a good friend and was very trustworthy. She also was a talented healer that Hogwarts was lucky to have. At that point they had had no idea how Arabella would react when she awakened. They had been counting on distance to break Grindelwald's mind control. However, they believed that if her reaction was anything like Lolly's, the situation might grow difficult.

Lolly had spent most of the trek muttering to herself. She could have popped into Hogwarts and waited in the warm castle, since house elves were not limited by the same constraints put on humans. Perhaps this was part of the self-punishing she seemed driven to undergo. "House elves is not supposed to leave like this," she worried in an undertone. "They is not, they is not. Lolly should be serving her family in their house, oh yes."

"Lolly, am I not your family?" Lorelei had asked in a weary tone.

"Yes, Miss Lorelei, you is," the tiny creature had responded.

"Is Arabella your family?" Lorelei had pressed.

"Oh yes, Miss Arabella is family to Lolly."

"Then you are with your family at their new home, correct?" Lorelei had stated.

Lolly looked both confused and hopeful. She finally nodded.

"We should have reduced that house to ashes, it would have saved on confusion," Albus had remarked. He was mostly kidding, though already wondering if he'd done the right thing by letting Grindelwald go.

"Albus, that is my sister's home now. I'm hoping that after Grindelwald is caught and put in Azkaban, that she can go back and have a reasonably normal life there," Lorelei had said in that same weary tone she'd used with Lolly.

"If I had finished him when I had the chance..." Albus had begun.

"Then you'd go to Azkaban," Lorelei had interrupted. "Fine thing to have my husband in Azkaban before I get to enjoy being married to him properly."

He'd looked up at her sharply. After her reaction to his display of magic in Manchester, he had half expected her to return his ring. He supposed that insecurity with regard to relationships was something one never outgrew, no matter their age. "You – you don't think it was a mistake then?" he'd stuttered slightly in a most uncharacteristic fashion – feeling once more that Lorelei had somehow reduced him to a blithering teenager.

"Which part?" she'd questioned, with a smile that made him wonder if she could read him so easily. Lorelei was not a legilimens like he, though her empathic nature sometimes astounded him.

"I could have destroyed him – the opportunity was there and I did not take it," Albus had admitted.

"Neither did I, if you notice," she countered, moving closer to him in the chill air. She snorted slightly and lifted her hazel eyes to meet his. Her cheeks were pink from the exposure and her lips looked slightly chapped. "Albus, what kind of man does it take to make good people contemplate murder? That is what it would have been at that moment when he'd lost his wand. What kind of man is he, when he is capable of doing terrible things, of manipulating kind people into cold behavior, or killing those we love so easily? I know he did not give Liam a chance to escape. My brother was a very capable wizard and yet his body was found without his wand. There's part of me that wants vengeance, yes, but I do not want to be reduced to his level to get it. If I kill Grindelwald, it will be in a fair fight."

"But how many more will suffer for my inaction?" he had asked almost prophetically.

"You cannot think like that, Albus. It is our morality that makes us who we are. Mercy is a great power, one of the greatest in my opinion. It is a power Grindelwald will never know." She'd stopped and chuckled slightly at herself. "Listen to me, will you? I'm preaching."

They had reached the great hall then, stamping their boots automatically to shake the last of the winter powder. "I don't think Arabella can hide here for long," Lorelei had observed, "But I don't think she will be safe with Nicholas either."

"I have another place for her," Albus had replied. "But for now, we need to take her to Katherine."

The Albus of the present realized that Elijah had asked him a question. Lost in his memories, Albus had completely missed it.

"We've already told you he didn't," Nicholas answered for him. "Whatever message George had to deliver, it died with him."

"That just doesn't make any sense though," Elijah countered, his voice still gruff. Then he spoke as if it had been Albus he'd been conversing with all along, and he didn't make eye contact with Nicholas. "The way you describe the events, it sounds like Grindelwald thought you had something of value. If it was just to shut you up, he would have killed you outright. If he wanted to find out who you had shared information with, he would have separated the pair of you. It sounds like he never even attempted. That leads me to believe he was after something physical – a magical object or perhaps documentation of some kind."

"The aforementioned notes?" Nicholas guessed, though Elijah did not acknowledge him.

Albus had to agree that Elijah's logic was flawless and he concentrated on the events of the evening. "George's message was delivered via a pair of spelled mirrors. He said he had to show us something, but he did not say what it was. Obviously he did not give me something physically. George had been killed at least an hour before we had arrived, so I would hardly be in possession of something he had on his person. I would assume if such an object exists, his murderer took it."

"Is it possible that Lorelei had something she was unaware of?" Elijah further pressed. He was finally calm enough to sit. He righted the table that had been overturned earlier and took his seat again. Albus had not seen the bar owner return to the room, despite the noise of the table hitting the floor. Perhaps he was uncomfortable with the volatile behavior of the three wizards. Elijah retrieved his wand and cleaned up the drinks that had been spilled with a barely audible, "Evanesco."

"I do not believe so. Her contact with George was limited. If your suspicions are correct, then I think it more likely that George hid whatever Grindelwald was after, and that no one has found it yet," Albus conjectured.

"Now, the trap..." Elijah cued.

"Ahh yes, the trap." Albus took a deep breath. "When Grindelwald began to show his true nature, we were forced to recognize that his magical abilities are very great. As you know many of the worst murders were carried out by those who claim to be innocent. We may have a terrible time sorting out who actually supported Grindelwald and who was under a spell." Nicholas nodded agreement.

"There are wizards capable of reading that," Elijah replied dismissively.

"In March, Grindelwald attempted to attack Minerva McGonnagall as she entered the ministry to be interviewed by the aurors," Albus started.

"Yes, yes, I know," Elijah said impatiently.

"Are you aware of how?" Nicholas questioned, staring at Elijah with a look of dislike that Albus had not expected.

"Attacked a member of the unspeakables – Billingsly -- who was supposedly confunded," Elijah snapped. "I hadn't believed it at the time, but the Ministry was sure."

"He was far more than confunded, something we might not have known, had it not been for the project that Levi Billingsly was working on," Albus pointed out.

"The compass of culpability," Elijah stated with wonder.

"Correct!" Nicholas smiled again. "Levi would most certainly have been arrested, had he not been holding that compass, which pointed away from him, indicating that he was not guilty of what he'd been charged with. It's what gave us the idea."

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