Previously in the Darklyverse: Under Death Eater Pyrites's direction, the Aurors focused all of their resources on investigating members of the Order. Agatha tried to teach herself how to make a talking Patronus in order to connect with the Order.

xx

December 14th, 1982: Agatha Savage

When Agatha opens the door, Proudfoot looks pissed. It's raining, and she's sopping wet, clutching a soggy newspaper to her chest. "Have you seen this?" Proudfoot demands, holding the thing out for Agatha to take.

"Hello to you, too," says Agatha, amused.

"This isn't bloody—don't you subscribe to the Evening Prophet? Haven't you seen?"

"Seen what?" Agatha asks idly, snatching the paper out of Proudfoot's hands. She subscribes to the paper—of course she does—but she just Apparated back home not five minutes ago after having a late dinner at Reaney's house, not that she can tell that to Proudfoot. Nobody but Reaney knows that Agatha has been investigating her superiors at the Ministry, and she intends to keep it that way.

Of course, the investigation hasn't exactly been going well the last week or two, ever since she accidentally found herself invisible in the middle of a Death Eater meeting and discovered that her boss, the Minister, and everyone in between is on the Dark side. That gave her more than enough information to answer her questions—enough that she doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing with it now that she's got it.

"Malfoy and Pyrites gave a press conference tonight," snaps Proudfoot as Agatha unfurls the Evening Prophet. "They're pulling all the Aurors off of the Death Eaters so we can focus our investigations on tracking down the vigilantes."

"What?" Agatha yelps. "I—they—"

"Yeah. Exactly. Can I come in?"

Agatha steps back to wordlessly allow Proudfoot inside, her eyes scanning the paper. Sick dread is pooling in her stomach. "I can't bloody believe this," she finally mutters while Proudfoot is drying herself off with a spell. "I just…"

She knew they were corrupt—she even knew they were planning to move some Aurors away from the Death Eaters and onto the vigilantes—but judging by the discord among the Death Eaters in the meeting she interrupted, Agatha had thought they had more time, that the change would be gradual. She hadn't expected the Ministry to pivot so quickly.

"We have to do something," says Proudfoot urgently. "Look, I know Pyrites is our boss and we can't just refuse our orders—"

"Why can't we? No, seriously, why not? If we all revolt—if we refuse to use Ministry resources to investigate the vigilantes—"

Proudfoot raises her eyebrows. "I thought you said you weren't on their side. Just because we should be looking into the Death Eaters doesn't mean we shouldn't be holding vigilantes accountable, either."

"I wasn't on their side, but, Proudfoot—can you really look at this and believe that Death Eaters haven't had a hand in Pyrites's orders?"

"I… but Malfoy's always been a purist, and if we're being honest with ourselves, so has Pyrites. It's not a conspiracy just because they're prejudiced."

And Agatha looks into her face and wishes more than anything that she could tell Proudfoot what she's been up to and what she's discovered in recent weeks—but she knows she can't. Proudfoot is her best friend in the Auror Office—hell, she's one of Agatha's best friends, period—but that doesn't mean she can trust her. After all, if Proudfoot has an issue with vigilantes and still thinks the way to fix the system is from within, she's certainly going to take issue with Agatha using Pyrites's name and resources to poke around in Death Eater matters on her own time.

"Do you really think it's fair to be persecuting the people who've been trying to save us from Dark wizards?" Agatha presses, switching tack. "They probably saved countless lives, and in exchange—"

"They lied to our faces," Proudfoot reminds her. "Moody and Shacklebolt and Abbott and Longbottom—they were all in on it, and we saw them every day, and they covered it up. They broke dozens of laws—"

"The law was never going to be on their side. Look how much backlash Lily Evans Potter faced when she was running for Minister and wanted to bring vigilantes on board as liaisons."

"Yeah, and she turned out to be one of them, Savage, remember? She was only arguing in their favor to save her own skin—"

"And Malfoy and Pyrites aren't doing the same thing?"

She's said too much; she freezes; but it's too late. "You're not just saying Death Eaters 'had a hand' in influencing the decision for us Aurors to stop pursuing them, are you?" says Proudfoot slowly. "You're saying Pyrites… Malfoy… the whole damn system…"

"I sound mental," whispers Agatha. "I know I sound mental, but I'm not. Look, I can't tell you how, but I know things, okay? I've been…"

Proudfoot waits, but Agatha can't bring herself to finish her thought, not when for all she knows Proudfoot would turn right around and report her to Pyrites for it. Finally, she adds, "Can we at least agree that we need to raise hell at the office about this? We can't just abandon our Death Eater investigations. If they go unchecked, they could decimate the whole damn Muggle-born population of Britain before long."

For a long, tense moment, Proudfoot just looks at her—but then she sighs and says, "Yeah. Yeah, we're going to have to. We can't stand for this."

But the next day at work, Agatha has hardly been in the office for two minutes before Proudfoot drags her aside into the break room. "You can't make a scene out there," she compels Agatha.

"What are you talking about? I'm not—"

"Three people have already spoken out about the new orders," Proudfoot mutters, "and Pyrites fired all three of them on the spot."

"What—? Who?"

"Beischel, Delarosa, and Naese. Look, we'll do something about it, I promise, but we can't do it right now. We can't fix the system if we're not even in the system."

But Agatha is starting to understand why Moody and the others kept their true allegiance under wraps all that time working for the Auror Office—why they didn't try to bring their vigilantism to work. "How are we supposed to do anything within the Ministry when this is what the Ministry is mandating? If we do anything, we're going to have to do it against protocol. You do realize that, right?"

"I know." For the first time since last night, Proudfoot looks really, truly nervous. "We… we'll figure something out, okay? Just—please don't get yourself fired before we can. We're not the only ones who… we'll find support, I promise, but we can't do that if we're gone."

It's not like Agatha can argue this, especially when she isn't exactly swimming in savings—she's not in a position at all to quit her job for ideological reasons. "All right," she consents. "All right. We'll wait it out, but we're going to have to be careful—feel people out—get a sense of who we can trust."

This, it turns out, is a lot easier said than done. Agatha has to say something to people if she wants to feel them out like she told Proudfoot they should, but if she goes too far with someone it turns out she can't trust, she could put a target on her own back—get herself kicked out of the Auror Office entirely. The atmosphere in the office is tense; she can hardly nudge her water-cooler conversations in the direction of the new decree without prompting her colleagues to change the subject or, in the worst cases, speak out in defense of Pyrites and Malfoy.

"Moody was lying to us for years while he was leading this office," argues Dawlish, who's been placed on the same assignment as Agatha: investigating whether the vigilantes are using Fidelius Charms to protect themselves. "I mean, aren't you pissed about that? Don't you want to see justice for him and the others?"

Considering that Pyrites is a bloody Death Eater, Agatha is starting to care less and less about Moody and the other vigilantes being on their guard around here before their imprisonments. If Dawlish only knew that Moody's camp weren't the only ones lying to them—but Agatha can't go there, not when she's almost positive Dawlish would turn her in if she revealed her true thoughts.

And then there's the other thing: Proudfoot may be feeling more willing to break protocol and continue looking into the Death Eaters, but there's not much point investigating them when Agatha could give you a list right now of names of people high in the Death Eaters' ranks, and everyone from their boss to the Minister of Magic himself would be on it, along with a dozen other top Ministry officials. Agatha doesn't have the first idea how to dismantle the Death Eaters, not when they've pretty much seized power over the entire government.

"It's insane," she tells Reaney over dinner that evening, feeling utterly defeated. "I don't have the first clue where to start or how to make a difference, and meanwhile, Muggles are dying every day, and the people responsible aren't just going free—they're running the whole show."

She pushes vegetables around her plate with the fork in one hand; Reaney grabs the other and squeezes. "You don't have the resources the vigilantes had," she says, "and the resources you did have through the Auror Office aren't at your disposal anymore, at least not for this purpose. Just keep your head down for now, okay? You're no use to anyone if you're imprisoned—or dead."

But Agatha doesn't know how much longer she can bear sitting on what she knows—doing jack shit to help the vigilantes who were one minute Agatha's colleagues and the next wanted criminals. They only wanted to save the country, just like Agatha wants now, and what was the price? What is the price?

She hopes she can get her Patronuses talking sooner rather than later, so that as little time as possible passes before she reaches out to the fallen Aurors. Agatha may not know what to do, but they will.