Previously in the Darklyverse: Canada declared war on Britain and began targeting Aurors. Lucius threatened to break the Statute of Secrecy. Narcissa spoke to Andromeda about helping the Order.
xx
January 26th, 1983: Frank Longbottom
Agatha doesn't look good when she stumbles out of the fireplace into Frank's living room. She's got patches on the dark skin under her eyes, like she hasn't been sleeping, and her mouth is drawn taut in a thin, worried line. Frank's been waiting for her arrival since nine A.M. here, which is five in the evening in London, but by the time she gets to his flat, it's almost eleven Vancouver time. Judging by how harried she looks, he'd be willing to bet that she only just clocked out of the Ministry.
"How is it back home?" he asks, already knowing the answer.
Agatha shakes her head. "I don't know whether you or we are worse off right now. Most of the on-the-ground fighting between the countries is happening in Canada, so at least we have less of a concern that random Canadians will intercept us in public and try to kill us during our off hours—but the Muggle-borns aren't so safe, obviously. At least the Canadian Minister isn't bloody threatening to expose our existence to the Muggle population."
"And you can't just quit?"
She shakes her head again. "There are no armies, which means that Ministry employees—with Aurors on the front lines—are the closest thing to soldiers that Malfoy's got. Resigning at this point would be essentially considered to be the same as defecting. They've made it punishable with life in Azkaban."
Frank winces. "I'm sorry you're having to fight for them."
Agatha presses her lips together. "I'm sorry our corrupt government threw you all behind bars for trying to save us from ourselves. I'm doing what I can—using non-lethal force and avoiding Unforgivables—and I'm trying to slow down Dawlish as much as I can, but—"
"They've partnered you with Dawlish? Ouch."
"Yeah. It's just—with a partner, there's not much I can do to give anyone a heads up what we're doing or when we're coming, and the longer I'm sloppy, the more it makes me look like I'm trying to sabotage our efforts, which, of course, is exactly what I'm doing, but they can't know that if I don't want to end up—well—"
"Like us," Frank finishes for her, nodding. "Is there anything we can do on our side to help mitigate what's happening over there? I feel like an arse sitting on my hands doing nothing here."
"Well, most of the fighting is happening in Canada, isn't it? You could talk to the rest of the Order about being, you know, like, basically bodyguards for the Canadian officials you think are the most at risk, so that you're there to intervene on their behalf if they get attacked. I can give you information on who the Death Eaters' top targets are, if that would be helpful."
"That would be very helpful," agrees Frank. "Thanks."
To be honest, the thought of going head to head against not just Death Eaters but British Ministry officials who aren't Death Eater-affiliated makes him feel sick inside. From what he's heard about Pyrites, Frank doesn't trust him for a second—but most of the Brits on the front lines are going to be Aurors alongside whom Frank worked for years before he was carted off to Azkaban. These are good people, and, if what Agatha is saying is true—if many of them are only staying and initiating battles because they can't risk losing their jobs or being imprisoned—Frank has even less of a desire to fight any of them.
How is he supposed to stare down his colleagues, his friends, and hurl curses at them? How are they going to do the same to him?
It takes about ten minutes for Agatha to spill everything she knows about which Canadians the Order would best be placed to protect. There are more targets than there are members of the Order, which means the Order won't be able to tail everyone who's at risk—but that probably won't be a problem. On the contrary, the biggest hurdle is going to be to convince the Canadians even to allow the Order to try to protect them: from what Frank has gathered from Lily and Reg, Canada doesn't exactly want the Order's help.
By now, the Canadian Order is holding meetings every night, if only because their only reliable means of getting information at this point is from each other. The Canadian press has been a lot better than the Prophet at being honest with its readers, but the Veritaserum isn't exactly reporting on the strategies Canada is planning to use before its Ministry enacts them. Instead, the Order is depending on reports from people like Agatha and Vicky, Lily and Reg—and the spying Sirius has been doing on the Canadian Ministry.
It's tricky because the Order aren't the only ones spying on Canada: Britain is doing it, too. Hell, it was because of the Order's advice about the Death Eaters and Aurors sticking their noses where they don't belong that Canadian officials started using wards and Homenum Revelio in the first place. The best solution the Order has come up with was, surprisingly, Remus's idea: for Sirius to transform into Padfoot, conceal the shit out of himself, and sneak into the Canadian Ministry building to follow around key figures all day. They weren't sure at first whether taking on his dog form would cloak Sirius from Homenum Revelio, but they found out quickly that the spell can't detect Animagi—and thank god for that, because it's given the Order its best source of information yet.
Of course, the difficulty that the rest of the Order has had with trying to follow around Canadian officials is probably going to translate to just as much trouble trying to guard and protect them from other Brits moving forward. Frank, however, has some thoughts about that. "They don't need us flanking them during their workday when they're in the Ministry building," he argues an hour later when they're all crammed inside the Weasleys' dining room listening to him talk. "They've fortified the building, right? There's no way any Death Eaters or Aurors are getting in there, so we don't really need to, either. It's just after hours that we need to be tailing them."
Molly frowns. "It's not like we can predict their every move during their off hours, though."
"Well," says Ted, "it's not like Britain has any better of intel about their whereabouts than we do, right? We just need to figure out the most likely locations and start staking out outside them. Home addresses… wizarding neighborhoods and businesses that they frequent…"
"But it's the orb problem all over again," Alice points out. "The people we're going to be protecting the Canadians from aren't going to all be Death Eaters—they're overwhelmingly going to be Aurors. Frank and Kingsley and Alastor and I worked alongside these people for years. If they come to Canada, and they're using lethal force, and we find ourselves dueling with them, how do we handle that? They can't kill or maim us because we're protected by the asylum, but how do we deal with them aiming to kill Canadians who don't even want our help?"
"Well, a Stunner will incapacitate somebody just as well as a Killing Curse will, won't it? We don't have to aim to kill just because they do," says Sturgis.
But Frank doubts that it's going to be so straightforward when they're actually in the field. It never is, is it?
They know that the British Ministry have been mostly coming to Canada during business hours in Britain, which start around one in the morning Vancouver time. After the meeting, Frank catches as much sleep as he can before midnight, when he startles awake at the sound of his alarm and Disapparates for the outside of the home of his designated Canadian.
Out of the people Agatha suggested the Order defend, Frank's assigned himself to the Deputy Head of the No-Maj Welfare Department, an elderly witch named Carmella Stanchfield. She's presumably fast asleep in bed right now, but Frank gets a glimpse of her through the glass outside what he assumes is her bedroom window. She's white-haired and looks feeble, though that certainly doesn't have to mean that she doesn't know the spells to defend herself if she's attacked.
He's in for a long night crouching in the bushes staking out the house for intruders who may or may not show up. On the one hand, Britain must realize that the Canadians have fortified their homes against attacks just like the Brits have, which means Death Eaters aren't likely to get through in the middle of the night when Stanchfield is safe inside. On the other, the Canadians are at their most vulnerable when they're sleeping—somebody could still make the effort to charm down the wards and break in while Stanchfield isn't expecting it.
Besides, what else are the Aurors going to do for their whole workday? They're not just going to sit around twiddling their thumbs just because it would be hard to break into anybody's homes. If it's working hours in Britain, which it is right now, they're going to be doing something, and that something is probably going to have to do with making whatever attacks they can manage.
By the time the intruders show up, Frank's got a sore arse from how he's been sitting for the last two hours, and he's starting to nod off—but they do show up, and he's conscious enough to recognize it when they do. The crack that signals their arrival is distant, but it can only mean one thing: somebody's Apparated down the street and is probably going to hone in on Stanchfield and make a move any second now.
It takes him a second to locate them because they, like Frank, are Disillusioned. Even in broad daylight, you have to be looking for somebody Disillusioned to see them, and it's pitch black out here at this time of night. But then he hears them speak. They may be hushed, but they, like the sound of Apparition, are unmistakably recognizable: Frank worked with Proudfoot and Robards long enough that he'd know their voices anywhere.
For the first time in this whole bloody war, indecision bubbles up in Frank's chest for a moment. It was one thing when he was fighting Death Eaters, but he knows Proudfoot and Robards, and they're good people: they would never knowingly support a Death Eater regime. Or would they? How much do the Aurors really know about whom they're fighting for and why? How much control do they have over what they do?
Proudfoot is Agatha's best friend in the department, Frank remembers suddenly. If he has to tell Agatha that this has gone awry and he's ended up killing Proudfoot—
He still can't see them directly, but they're close enough now that Frank can see the grass crunching under their feet. He whips out his wand, aims it in their direction, and thinks as hard as he can, Stupefy!
He misses. Worse, the jet of red light that's just been emitted from his wand gives away his exact location. "Someone else is here," Robards mutters to Proudfoot.
Frank can't see their wands, but he's sure they've just aimed them both at him. "It's me," he croaks. "It's Frank Longbottom. You don't want to do this. You're going to have to come through me before you can get to her, and I'm—"
"Bored now," drawls Robards in a cold voice, as if he doesn't know Frank, as if he never fought alongside Frank instead of against him.
He's got to get out of these bushes. They know he's in here—they will have seen the light from his Stunner—and if they know where he is and aim a Killing Curse at him, it's going to rebound onto them and kill one of them instead. That's how asylum works, isn't it? It'll do the same thing for Frank that Voldemort's Horcruxes did for him. It's how Dorcas died, and if Frank isn't terribly careful, it's about to be how Proudfoot or Robards dies, too.
It's like Alice said: it's the orb problem again. Sure, Frank can try to dodge their curses so that they don't rebound, but what if he can't? Even if he wins the duel and gets them both in a Full-Body Bind or Stuns them, what's he going to do with the bodies? He can't just send them on their merry way back to kill Carmella Stanchfield or the Minister or any of the other dozen top Canadian Ministry officials that the Aurors are gunning for.
"We can't kill him," Proudfoot reminds Robards. Her voice is shaking, and Frank surges with—something. Not sympathy, but something like it. "He's got asylum. If we try to kill him—"
Petrificus Totalus, Frank thinks.
This time, one of them goes down. He can't tell which right away—they're Disillusioned, after all, and he only even knows it works because he hears the thud of somebody falling to the ground—but it's definitely Proudfoot's voice throwing up the subsequent Shield Charm, which means Frank managed to get Robards.
He rolls out from inside the bushes and struggles to his feet. "You can't win this one, Proudfoot," Frank tells her. "To try to get through Stanchfield's defenses, you're going to have to take down the Shield Charm, and if you take down the Shield Charm, I'm going to curse you. Try to curse me first, and it'll just bounce back on—"
Crack. Crack. Crack.
At first, Frank thinks she's grabbed Robards and Disapparated—but then why did he hear three cracks instead of one? And then he realizes the British Ministry must have worked out some kind of spell to summon support from each other when they need backup. The new figures aren't Disillusioned, but Frank can't quite make out their faces through the Shield Charm in the dark.
"Longbottom's here," Proudfoot quavers. "I'll hold the Shield Charm. Somebody needs to work on the wards on this house, and somebody needs to—I don't know what. Detain him somehow. We can't hurt him, but we can still incapacitate him, can't we?"
This would all be a lot more straightforward if none of them was Disillusioned, Frank thinks hysterically. He slams a few curses into the Shield Charm, but nothing penetrates it.
"Don't make us do this, Frank," comes a new voice—a horribly familiar voice—Agatha's voice.
And then it hits him exactly what he can do to get them all out of this.
"Get her to take down the Shield Charm," he pleads. "Just get her to drop her wand. I'm not going to hurt any of you. I'm here to help."
Somebody else scoffs—Frank thinks it's Dawlish. "You're 'here to help?' Because that's what you were doing when you were going rogue and lying to all of us about your intentions, right?"
"I need you to trust me, Agatha," Frank coaxes. He's slipped up, calling her by her given name, but none of that is going to matter anymore in a matter of seconds. "Just knock the wand out of her hand, and help me Stun everybody."
"Longbottom—"
"Do it," he says quietly.
A second passes, then two—and then—
"Stupefy!"
The Shield Charm falters and dies as Proudfoot presumably falls to the ground.
"Savage, what the hell d'you think you're—?"
Dawlish's words get cut off when he suddenly falls to the ground beneath Agatha's wand. Frank aims for the third newcomer, the one who still hasn't spoken or identified themselves—and, a moment later, they're down, too.
Frank looks at Agatha, who mutters, "Take off the Disillusionment, Frank. I can't figure out where your face is."
He does so. "We probably don't have much time before more of your people come here. We've got to get all of them to my flat, and we've got to do it now. Come on."
"Your flat? It's not that I'm not glad you're here and apparently have some kind of plan, but—"
"We don't want them dead, and we can't leave them to keep killing Canadians, so we're taking them all prisoner," says Frank flatly, "you included. You want a way to get out of the fighting without imprisonment? This is how. This is your out. We'll do to everybody what we did to those Death Eaters back at Sirius's family's house. Help me find Proudfoot and Robards in the grass, will you?"