Warnings

"Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there."
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Faramir expected things to return to its old schedule when his older brother finally left for Gondor, no doubt returning to the wrath of their father and the disapproval of their commander. So he was completely shocked when he arrived in the Training courts and found Lady Gryffon waiting for him instead. Thankfully, she was not bearing the sword of Gryffindor, because that really made her difficult to disarm.

"My lady?" he asked instead of greeting her good morn. He was that startled.

She gave him an impish grin that rang alarm bells in his mind. He had the sudden feeling that he should have pretended to be sick when he woke up.

"My son," she started. "Is busy completing a project of mine with Enid. He'll be gone for nearly a year. What we'll be doing is to work with Hodur until Enid frees her schedule enough to teach you again."

He didn't know why the ominous feeling grew until she told him to discard his weapons because they would be having strategy lessons with Lord Hodur immediately. And then he understood because three weeks of training with Lord Guiomer told him the character of all the other Lords and Ladies through Lord Guiomers cheerful chatter and he knew that Lord Hodur was the mellowest during evenings. Everybody, even his siblings, avoided him in the morning.

"Oh, don't be so horrified," Gryffon said cheerfully. "He doesn't bite. We broke him out of that years ago. And Enid may be the smartest among all of us but Hodur is still very good with strategy." When he continued to look like he was walking to his grave, she added, "And Meiran will be there to serve as the lightning rod."

Faramir brightened and Lady Gryffon rolled her eyes accordingly.

Meiran and Faramir often crossed paths because of her position and because of all his tutors, Faramir spent most of his time with Hodur. In that point, he was also rather aware of the Potion Masters foul temper. Meiran usually went in and out of Hodurs office and was often on the receiving end of his ire. She had earned Faramirs eternal admiration for snarling back and then calming him down at the same time.

When they arrived in the Research Facility, Hodur's office was in a state of organized chaos, with several books that Faramir knew was from Lady Enids office piled precariously on the floor. Several maps were spread and Meiran was adjusting one of the odd crystals that Lord Hodur sometimes used when he really needed to work all the way until midnight.

"Good morning!" Lady Gryffon said merrily.

Faramir wondered if she really was fearless, even as Meiran's quiet "good morning, my lady," was covered by Lord Hodurs snarl of, "There's no bloody good in this morning since you insisted on working on this freaking hour."

Gryffon just beamed at him while saying indulgently, "Don't be so bad, Hodur. It is freaking early, yes, but it is freaking important too."

Several things finally clicked in Faramir's brain and he realized that Lady Gryffon wasn't fearless so much as insane. One did not make fun of an ill-tempered Lord Hodur. Unfortunately, it must have been something of an ordinary occurrence because Meiran was snickering beside him, muffling the sound with her hand.

"What is going on?" Faramir finally asked, firmly deciding to ignore both of the crazy people in the office. He wondered how that came about since has pretty sure Lord Hodur was the sane one among the Leaders of Haven.

"A letter came last night," Meiran answered seriously, though there was a suspicious quirk in her lips. "From Rohan. It was personal correspondence from Prince Theodred and it mentioned something alarming."

"Alarming?" he asked.

Lady Gryffon broke off the argument to turn serious. "Yes," she said. "Because Prince Theodred spent years in Haven, learning the sword and becoming one of the best students that ever passed here. If something worried him, then here is a reason for it."

Lord Hodur snorted rudely. "Of course there's a reason for it. And he has a right to be worried too. Orcs are being organized," he said the word like a curse. "Marauding stupid orcs are bad enough. Marauding smart orcs are worse. This'll hit everybody in the south and stretch everywhere."

Faramir's eyes were wide. "What does that mean for my country?" he asked.

They gave him unreadable looks, but Meiran wasn't quite so controlled and he saw sympathy in her eyes.

"Gondor is only two weeks ride from Rohan," Hodur said finally, breaking the awkward tension. "A week if you push it really hard. This will affect your country most."

Faramir wasn't aware that his body was trembling as his mind raced to find a way to warn his country. He ruled Boromir out even as he thought of him, because he'd be too far away to help rally the troops. His father was out of the question. That left one sergeant general that swore fealty to him when he turned twenty-one. It would be difficult to send him a message but he knew he could ask for Lady Gryffon's help in that endeavor. Nothing had indicated to him that she would refuse him.

A hand at his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts.

"Calm down," Meiran said.

"I'm calm," he answered her seriously. All their faces held disbelief, so he elaborated, "I'm just thinking of what to send the sergeant general as a warning."

Lady Gryffon smiled slowly, like a fierce, contented cat, and said, "That's good and I'll go over with you on what you've got later. But now, we need to figure out where the orcs are gathering from and how they are organized. Rohan is the one being attacked first so that means they are our first defense. Once we send that to Theodred, he can prepare for it and possibly not be overwhelmed in another year or so."

It was really simple to say and a difficult thing to apply. Faramir had to firmly put thoughts of Gondor in another side of his mind and then stamp on it firmly. The patriotic part of his consciousness cried out at this but he soothed it with thoughts that it was only for a while. While Haven was beautiful, Gondor was home.

However, when it was two bells away before luncheon (and food still kept appearing out of nowhere when Lady Gryffon mentioned she was hungry), all they managed to find out was the attack pattern and the average number of orcs sent every time. Meiran, the extremely literal woman, actually managed to figure out the days they would attack, right down to the very hour, place and weather pattern.

Lady Gryffon called her anal retentive and weird. Meiran just smiled and said, "Thank you."

Lord Hodur snorted and said, "We'll have to take a break and go back to it. We're going around in circles. And I have a bleeding headache."

Lady Gryffon gave a tired smile. "Good work, everyone. This'll help Theodred, but I'll have to remind him not to not expect a change of pace. Stuff like that is one way to get you killed," she said. Then she saw Faramir and exclaimed, "Faramir, you'll have to work with my men. After luncheon, your time is your own."

After which, she grabbed his hand to listen to his ideas about how to warn Gondor.

As Hafny flew towards Rohan, Heather sent the orphans to gather the committee and to also fetch Felicia.

Nobody really realized it but Felicia was such an integral part of Haven that it would probably collapse if she went on vacation.

Before the industrial boom and everything went insanely busy, Felicia handled the educational aspect of Haven only. When Hermione went into the Research Department, she gave to Felicia the Commerce and Trade aspect – and that made her even busier than anybody Heather knew. It didn't help that Meiran, who was in charge of the guilds and admission of new citizens, made everything pass through Felicia first.

But instead of complaining, Felicia took control of everything with amazing efficiency and it worked. Soon enough, the only thing Heather had to was read through Felicia's summarized reports for each district and committee and then give comments and approvals. While this made Heather feel like a giant, walking rubber stamp, it gave her time to walk through each district at least once a week to see each person and new citizen personally.

"You called, my lady?"Felicia asked with a worried expression.

And it just made Heather so bleeding guilty that Felicia was such a genuinely nice person and just didn't complain. At all.

Heather mustered a weak smile. "There's a problem but it isn't involving Haven directly," she told the gathered committee. "But it will eventually involve us."

They arranged themselves around the table as Heather told them Theodred's message. All of them caught it quickly, either through experience or education. They were the committee heads for a reason and nobody wanted to deal with slow people when it came to reports.

"Why don't we send for our men?" one of them asked. "And then send them to Rohan?"

Another one cut in before Heather could say anything. "Don't be stupid. It was personal correspondence from Prince Theodred. Nobody else probably knows about it. If we do that, we'll be hailed as an invading army," he said.

"Takes away the element of surprise too," someone else muttered loudly.

There was a susurrus and Heather was really so damn proud of them. Hermione had muttered about war strategies and leaving the people defenseless. They all ended up incorporating it in their educational system so that even a civilian was taught about tactics and strategy and knew to use it to lethal advantage.

One of the most amusing games that people played in Haven was outthinking each other when given an impossible situation with near-useless tools. Amazingly, the current champion was a civilian with the creative use of whipped cream, a butter knife and a chair against an axe wielding orc. What was even more brilliant was that Hermione judged it to be feasible.

"It's a warning," Felicia cut in. "And we can do preparations for it. We can't send all our men, but what about the Brotherhood and the Order?"

That was actually a good idea. And just like that, Heathers sleeping gift woke up and started sending out visions.

Heather rubbed at her temples as she mentally sorted through everything with expert ease, eyes glazed. "That'll work," she told them. "But we have to do it slowly and gradually. And then sneak in our people as merchants or something."

The committee head that was in-charge of taking care of the messages and the hawk carriers nodded and said, "I'll send out the missives, my lady." Then he left.

The committee head for Internal Relations and the head for Foreign Liaisons were whispering together. They raised a point, "My lady," one of them said. "If orcs are attacking with proper orders, the devastation caused will be greater. As such, the individual villages will flock to the larger cities for protection."

Bugger. From the look on Felicia's face, she also understood where this was going.

"You're right," Heather sighed. "But we can't accommodate them all within the walls.

Felicia frowned. "They can live outside the city walls. We'll just have to build another set of walls. No need for enlargement," this was said with the tone of a person who had found a neat solution.

She wasn't a wizard so Heather forgave Felicia for forgetting about the wards. Because all of them would really have to add another set of wards on top of everything else.

"We don't need walls," another committee head complained. "We'll just build bell towers to ring in case of an attack. Then the people will flock towards the city when it rings."

Cost efficient. Ah, he was the committee head of the Treasury. No wonder.

But no matter how funny it was, he still had a point. War was coming, Heather knew and they needed all the funds to supply it. The war could be felt in the darkness of her visions and the times when she would wake up in the middle of the night, poised to throw the knife she kept under her pillow. She was a war veteran and sometimes her instincts warned her and she believed them because they were ingrained habits of survival.

"We'll go with the bell towers," Heather said, cutting of the rising argument between the different committee heads. Then she directed her eyes to the Treasurer. "Start having a small surplus. It ought to accumulate over time. Everything seems to point towards ear. And if we don't end up involved in it, then it will not hurt us either way."

All of them agreed and understood since all of them had attended Draco's lectures one time or another and his favorite thing to say when students started an argument in front of him was, "Stop quarrelling. It's an expensive waste of my time and my resources."

Heather always had to bite her tongue every time he said that in front of her since she found it so bleeding ironic. This was Draco. Enough said.

With all of their preparations because of Theodreds warning, it took everyone a while to notice that Cailyn was pregnant again.

Guiomer was with Kreacher and Hermione, building the safehouses and practicing his magic at the same time. Hermione was only supposed to supervise for the first two safehouses but Heather knew, with their kind of luck, that complications would arise.

Draco was busy with the brewers and the greenhouses, starting the new surplus methods that would ensure there was enough for daily use and still enough to store.

Meiran and Felicia's efforts were seem as the children ran busy and the carpenters and blacksmiths suddenly became overworked. Even the hospital and the schools buzzed with people and students. Luna would be often seen, gently pushed to the side by her more efficient twin assistants. Heather would have laughed at that if she had the moment to stop and do it, but her time was consumed by increasing the level of training and producing more prepared soldiers. A small portion of that slowly trickled to the Brotherhood, which slowly settled themselves into the fringes of Rohirric territory and was slowly assimilated by Rohan without anybody's knowledge except Prince Theodreds.

But going back to it, the one to first notice was two year-old Aedan, who tugged on Heather's trousers, immediately catching her attention.

"Yes, little dragon slayer?" Heather asked the boy.

Aedan smiled even as his brows crinkled cutely. "Avia, mater is going big in the tummy. Did she eat too much?" he asked innocently.

Oh. Wait, what?

Heather excercised her grandmotherly skills and summoned a smile. It helped that Aedan was in her arms, climbing like a monkey over her shoulders to explore her colorful hair.

"Let's go visit your mater," she said. A quick glance dismissed her men and they headed towards the bakeshop. It made Heather slightly guilty that she was neglecting her daughter-in-law.

Cailyn's eyes were tired as she greeted them and Heathers guilt intensified. "My lady," she said with a smile. "Aedan. What can I do for you?"

Heather had to set Aedan down and they boy immediately clambered on top of Fenny. Then she set the taller woman down on a nearby chair with a deep sigh.

"Cailyn, sweetheart," Heather murmured. "You look like you haven't slept since Guiomer left."

Cailyn started crying and the abrupt change, the weird food and the fits of exhaustion made everything click in Heathers mind. A small tingling of foresight told her that she was right.

"Oh, honey," Heather sighed again. "Do you know you're pregnant?" The question was warranted since Cailyn seemed to be the type not to notice.

"I-I am?" Cailyn asked, genuinely shocked.

Well, that answered the question.

There was no celebration this time, with the gradual hoarding and how occupied everyone was. But there was an increase of gifts and trinkets that they left in her house. Heather, after some internal debate, sent Hafny to Hermione with the news about Cailyn's pregnancy written in code. She would leave it to Hermione's discretion on whether to send Cailyn home or not.

The news was well received by Aedan, and after pestering Luna about pregnancy and why his mother was suddenly crying and laughing in close intervals, went about trotting after his mother like a faithful shadow, making sure her crying fits became more seldom. Due to this, Fenny was often abandoned. Usually, he would collapse by Heather's office door, radiating woe and neglect in volumes.

Heather had never seen anything funnier and would usually wait for the fox's arrival eagerly. It was the highlight of her day.

Okay, so maybe she was just a bit sadistic, but Heather also caught Luna's smile and Draco's smirk, so at least she wasn't alone in it.

Hermione wondered if Heather had another gift aside from her gift of foresight. It certainly felt like it when Hafny came winging down the sky like a particularly feathery ghost, carrying a rolled up letter in her talons just as Hermione was packing her saddlebags to leave Guiomer to the rest of the project. Draco kept muttering about "Potter Luck" or something of that sort. Hermoine was starting to realize that he may have a point in being annoyed by it.

Nobody could do coincidences like Heather could. Really annoying.

"Is it from Mater?" Guiomer asked, even as he concentrated on summoning a specific size of rock. Kreacher was beside him, looking as approving as he ever managed, now that 'Young adopted Master Black' was taking his magic seriously.

Hermione shot him an incredulous look for not noticing and then scolded herself for it. Guiomer may have been observant by he wasn't the type to notice pattern behaviors when it came to birds. Hafny was in a pleased and happy state, not even a bit ruffled, indicating that the owl had recently seen Maethor and that the one sending the letter was Heather.

"Hoot!" Hafny said, sounding pleased with herself. Even a bit smug. Hmm, either that hinted at how Heather bribed the bird to send it or the contents of the letter itself. Hermione wasn't taking anything for granted, especially not when it came to Hafny.

Unrolling the letter with some trepidation, Hermione read the letter and then snorted loudly.

"Aunt Enid?" Guiomer asked, voice tinged with surprise.

Hermione felt like she was channeling Heather when a bubble of amusement welled up in her. It couldn't be helped, though, since Hermione's eidetic memory allowed her to remember with perfect detail how pale Guiomer had gotten when he was first told about Aedan's conception. The new little one couldn't possibly engender anything different.

"Guiomer," she said with a barely concealed smirk. "You might want to hurry up with this project.|

"Why?" he asked. He finally put down his wand and gave her his complete and total attention. Hafny at her shoulder was suspiciously still.

"Your wife is having mood swings as violent as a child's see-saw on a stormy day," Hermione said. "And then she'll bloat like a balloon and then pop within nine months."

His face turned blank for a moment, rapidly paling at the eminent realization occurring in his mind. He sat on the ground violently as his knees gave way. Hafny finally flew off as Hermione's shoulders shook too much to be a stable perch. And then, with a speed that shocked her, Guiomers mood changed quickly and completely. His smile was as blinding as the sun and his eyes shone with such happiness that it hurt just to watch it.

"Another one," he whispered. Then he grabbed the nearest body, who happened to be Kreacher, and then swung him around despite the House-elf's vehement protests.

Hermione gave in and just doubled over with laughter.

DEELETED SCENES:

Something Fishy (And the reason for all that hospital visits)

Pelan woke up tired that morning and was immediately saddened by that fact. He was in Haven, the city where there was little to no crimes and had special jobs for orphans. Why was he sad?

To try to make up for it, he went to the statue of Dancing Nymph since looking at the beautiful statue always lifted his spirits. When he got there, he received the shock of his life. The statue was in a different position. She was still beautiful and still wearing the same beautiful dress. The only thing different was her position and the shepherds staff that lay at her feet.

It was almost as though she decided to move!

A quick mental smack and he was headed to the hospital. Really, he was probably sick if he couldn't remember how the Nymph was really positioned.

Tired. Sleepy and probably sick. Questions (if there were any, I forgot to check) will be answered next chapter.

Just to clarify, Heather included Faramir in the planning to see if he could put personal feelings aside and be a good commander. Needless to say, he passed with flying colors.

Please R&R.

~Hallen

Avia is Latin for grandmother.