Chapter 8 – The Dark Lord

Content warning: this chapter contains death.

16th April 1979

James couldn't remember how to breathe.

It was like the air was being repeatedly dragged out of his lungs in deep, ragged breaths that weren't sobs, but that he could feel tearing at his chest with every movement.

He was sitting by his mother's bedside, his hand clutched firmly around hers. Her eyes were closed, just like she was sleeping, and the rhythmic beep, beep, beep of the monitor beside her bed echoed through the silent room.

Beside her was another bed. The sheets had been taken away earlier in the day and now only a thin, sickly green coloured piece of linen marked the space where Fleamont Potter had lain only last night - marked the place where he had died.

Lily's arms were around his shoulders, but her touch felt foreign as James watched his mother's chest rise and fall.

He knew that she couldn't hold on for much longer. That much was obvious by the sadness in the eyes of the healers when they spoke to him, by the stark absence of his father and the whispers of "if only we'd caught it sooner" that echoed in his mind.

If only.

James was an only child, but he'd never felt alone before. Even prior to meeting Sirius, his parents had been loving and kind and the only home he'd ever known. Now he could feel, in a horrifying visceral way, that sense of belonging being torn from him.

And he couldn't breathe.

He didn't know how long he'd sat there, or how long is had been since any of them spoke, but when Lily cleared her throat quietly and asked "does anyone want some tea?" she may as well have been shouting the words directly into his ear.

He glanced up to see her worried face looking down at him sadly. She looked exhausted, he realised, having not yet been home since her shift the night before. Her makeup was smeared along her eyelids, and her lip was red and swollen where she had been worrying it with her teeth.

James looked at her, and felt the familiar urge to comfort her, to make everything okay. But that wasn't how it worked. Not this time. James was always in control, and the helplessness he felt as he sat in the hospital room, unable to do anything to save the most important people in his life, was unbearable.

"That's okay, Lils," he said at last, squeezing her hand.

She nodded, wisps of hair falling into her eyes as she turned to Sirius and Remus.

They were huddled together by the door of the private room that James' parents had occupied for the past week. Sirius' head was against Remus' shoulder and he, like James had been, was staring as though in a trance at Mrs. Potter, bundled inside her hospital bed. As far as James could tell, he had been standing like that for hours.

Remus glanced down at Sirius when Lily turned to them, but the latter made no attempt to move, or answer, so Remus shook his head in response before brushing Sirius' hair away from his face, whispering soothing words that James couldn't make out.

He felt suddenly as though he were intruding on someone else's grief.

Sirius had cried and shouted and banged his fist against the wall when they'd learnt of Fleamont's death the night before. James had done none of those things.

He couldn't.

Not when just a couple of weeks ago his parents had visited him and Lily, bringing several plates of baked goods and a set of records they'd procured from a muggle music shop that had opened up in the village.

"You and Sirius would have been mad for the place," they'd told him, smiling nostalgically. "You're so grown up now."

But he wasn't, James thought bitterly. He didn't feel like a grown up at all, and he didn't know how to get through the day knowing that his father was gone, knowing that soon, his mother would be gone too.

It couldn't be happening.

And yet when the monitor beside Euphemia's bed started screeching at them, when the red line that had up until now proven that she was still with him flattened, he couldn't feel surprised either.

They were gone. And as Lily's arms around him tightened, as Sirius finally moved away from the door and stepped towards the bed, James felt his throat tighten as he tried to suck in enough air to keep going. As he tried to process what this meant.

The tears were finally coming, hot and fast and terrible. This was it. They were dead, and he couldn't breathe.

19th April 1979

The Ministry was unusually quiet in the evenings.

It had only been an hour or so since the majority of his colleagues left, and yet the empty desks and eerie silence were enough to send a chill down James' spine.

He'd stayed late despite the concerned look in Moody's eye as he slunk out of the office and the offer from Frank to head over to his house for dinner. It had been a kind offer, but Alice and Frank had only been married for a few weeks, and James didn't want to intrude.

He also didn't want to be alone in the house while Lily was at work, so he'd stayed, sorting files that didn't really need sorting and putting all the training equipment from that day's sessions away. It reminded him of being Quidditch captain - cleaning up after everyone. That train of thought led him to thoughts of Benjy - Gryffindor's current Quidditch captain - which led him to thoughts of Chloe - which he quickly tried to shake from his mind.

It had only been a few days since he, Lily, Sirius and Remus had stood in St. Mungo's, watching as his mother took her final breaths. It was still raw and painful and yet in some ways, James felt as though it had happened years ago, as though he could barely remember the soothing feel of his mum wrapping her arms around him, or the sound of his dad's laugh. It was current and distant all at once, and the sensation was overwhelming.

All he knew is that he didn't want to be alone.

He trailed down the corridor out of the Auror's headquarters, wondering if anyone had fixed the office in the Department of International Magical Cooperation that had been raining earlier in the day. If not, maybe he could give it a go.

His attention was caught, however, by the appearance of someone he never imagined seeing in the Ministry - Mulciber. James hadn't seen him since they'd been at school together, and he had had no business being in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at this hour.

James stepped back into the shadows of a doorway where he couldn't be seen as Mulciber passed. As he did so, he noticed that Mulciber was twirling his wand repeatedly between two fingers, muttering to himself. He paused at the end of the corridor, looking in both directions as though he was expecting to see someone else, before continuing in a straight line.

His actions were extremely suspicious, and when James' mind raced with what he could possibly be doing, a memory came to him.

When he'd been tidying Moody's desk - for lack of anything better to do - he'd come across a note informing Moody of an important meeting taking place that very evening. A meeting where, the Minister claimed, they had the opportunity to gather information on Voldemort from someone with intimate knowledge of the death eaters themselves.

If that person was Mulciber, James was sure the meeting had to be a ploy.

Maybe they weren't in school anymore, but James had never been more sure that he couldn't trust somebody.

Impulsively, he decided to follow Mulciber.

Wishing he had his invisibility cloak with him, James trailed after him, trying to keep far enough back so as to not draw attention to himself. It was an adrenalin rush, he realised at once - an opportunity to put some of his Auror training to the test, and something that allowed him to think about something other than his parents' deaths.

Mulciber didn't go far. Moody's note hadn't said where the meeting was being held, but it turned out that the Minister for Magic, along with a number of his associates, were located in a large meeting room at the back of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Mulciber entered the room and was regarded, James was relieved to see, with suspicion from the witches and wizards around him.

James knew he couldn't follow and risk being caught snooping around outside an official meeting. Not when he was only a first year trainee Auror.

He did, however, happen to know a very useful spell for seeing through walls.

Moody had only taught it to them a week ago, but after a handful of failed attempts the spell worked, opening up a window in the wall that James could see though, but that was invisible to anyone inside.

"And why should we trust you, Mr. Mulicber?" The Minister was asking, regarding Mulciber over the top of his glasses.

Mulciber answered in a disgustingly sweet tone of voice that made James feel quite ill. "I never believed the Dark Lord's promises," he told the Minister, "and I've never personally had any problem with muggleborns."

Thinking of how his friend Mary had been hospitalised by Mulicber two years ago purely for being a muggle born, James knew this to be a complete lie.

He craned his neck to get a better view and with a jolt of horror, he saw that Mulciber had one hand gripped around his wand, the tip of which was pointed directly at the Minister under the table.

Surely they'd have taken his wand, James thought, panicked. But clearly Mulciber had planned ahead. There was a wand placed on the table in front of him - almost identical to the one in his hand - no one had thought to check him for another. Why would they? It was extremely rare for a wizard to carry a second, or somebody else's, wand.

James' whole body tensed.

If the second wand didn't belong to Mulciber, then who else was here?

Standing up hastily, James glanced around at the dim corridors. Pulling his own wand from the back of his jeans, he held in blindly in front of him.

"Is anyone there?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking slightly. "Show yourselves."

He'd forgotten one key rule of being an Auror, James knew, as he heard several whispers in the darkness, coming from all around him.

He'd seen Mulciber check the corridors on his way to the office, and yet James had dismissed the action as him checking for people who might catch him. He hadn't considered that he'd been making sure his back up was in place.

"Well, well, well," a familiar voice said, and a tall man stepped out of the shadows directly to James' left. He whirled around, pointing his wand at the man's chest.

"James Potter; why doesn't it surprise me that you'd be one to get in our way?"

"Who are you?" James demanded. The man's face was obscured by a ludicrous silver mask, and although James was sure he knew him from somewhere, he couldn't place the voice.

"Why should I tell you? If I recall, you were going to be the one to stop us." He regarded James with humour, "how's that working out for you?"

"Yaxley," James said furiously, remembering his and Frank's exchange with the man a few months ago. "You won't get away with this."

"Oh really?" Yaxley smirked, "because from where I'm standing, we're about to have a Minister for Magic who's under the control of an imperius curse and a poor, dead, baby Auror."

James cast his spell without thinking. Yaxley clearly wasn't expecting it, because he only managed to block at the last moment, before firing a hex back at James that narrowly missed.

Fuelled by his anger, James backed up along the corridor, firing spell after spell at Yaxley, feeling the release of energy as he blocked and moved naturally in time with the duel.

Then a spell hit him squarely in the back and he was blasted forwards, past Yaxley, where he landed against the wall, hitting his head painfully.

"Shit," he muttered, glad at least to see that he still had his wand.

The action seemed to have alerted the Minister to the commotion too, as several witches and wizards were exiting the meeting room, looking stunned to find a masked death eater outside their door.

Momentarily James was relieved.

Then he saw movement all around him and with a pang of horror, James saw at least a dozen other death eaters stepping forward. Some had their wands pointed at him, and others were barrelling down the hallway, towards the Minister.

"Shit," James repeated. He rolled onto his side as a spell flew towards him, hitting the wall where he'd been only a moment ago and blasting the stone apart.

He clambered to his feet despite his pounding head, shooting spells indiscriminately behind him as he ran - away from the Minister, away from the death eaters - away.

He was vastly outnumbered. He needed help.

He came to a stop when he found a store cupboard a floor above him, which he rushed into, shutting the door firmly behind him and locking it with a spell.

He was breathing too heavily, and he ached everywhere, but he needed to concentrate, he told himself, trying to calm down. He had to alert The Order.

Holding his wand out, he tried to stop his hand from shaking at he whispered the charm they'd all been taught to produce message-bearing patronuses that would automatically deliver a message to all members of the order, but as hard as James tried, he couldn't make it work. His mind was too full of worry, of fear and the ever present knowledge of his parents' death to concentrate on anything happy at all.

"Don't panic," he whispered to himself, leaning heavily against the door. "There's got to be something else, there's got to be."

Inspiration struck a moment later, and he reached into his pocket.

Ever since his parents got sick, he and Sirius had been carrying around their two way mirrors in case they needed to contact each other in a hurry. Thankfully, he hadn't yet gotten around to taking it out of his robes.

"Sirius," James gasped, holding the mirror up in front of him desperately. "Sirius? Sirius, please be there. Merlin, please..."

"James?" Sirius' face appeared in the mirror, his brows furrowed as he looked through the glass at his friend. "Are you okay mate? You look like shit."

"Thank Merlin," James breathed, "Sirius listen to me, there's an emergency."

"An emergency?" The voice was Remus', and he appeared beside Sirius in the mirror a moment later.

"Yes, listen," James repeated. "I'm at the Ministry. The place is crawling with death eaters and I don't know what to do. I think I hexed some of them but then I ran and I - I'm okay now. I think. But you need to tell the Order - they need to get here now."

"Christ James, where are you?" Sirius demanded, looking frantic. "Are you sure you're safe?"

"I'm fine, I'm in a room the floor above the Auror offices - just get hold of Moody and whoever you can, quickly!"

Sirius and Remus disappeared, and James saw his own reflection staring anxiously back at him as the mirror returned to normal.

He hoped they would hurry. There were only a handful of people in the office with the Minister, and James wasn't sure whether they'd be a match for the number of death eaters who'd been waiting for them.

James' face disappeared from the two-way mirror, leaving Remus looking into his own scarred face, he and Sirius wearing matching expressions of shock.

"Let's go," Sirius said, springing into action. "We can apparate to the Ministry -"

"Sirius, wait," Remus said, grabbing his arm. "You heard James! We have to contact the Order – we can't face all those death eaters alone."

"Then you do that." Sirius' voice cracked as he pulled his arm free. "I have to go. I just – I can't lose him too."

And before Remus could reply, Sirius span on the spot and was gone in an instant.

Remus wanted to follow him, to discard all his caution and run right into the fight, but knew that James' chances of getting out of the Ministry alive depended on Remus bringing back up. With a shaking hand he held his wand aloft, searching his mind for a happy memory strong enough to overcome the fear coursing through his veins. He settled on a memory he had often returned to in times of need: the moment when his friends revealed to him that they had become animagi. James grinning at him as he transformed into a stag, Sirius bounding up to him in dog form and nuzzling against his hand, Peter racing round his feet with his long tail trailing behind him.

With a deep breath, Remus muttered "expecto patronum." Silvery light burst from the end of his wand, taking the form of a wolf for just a moment before it split into a dozen different identical creatures, streaking away to spread his message to the other Order members.

The Ministry is under attack. James is in danger. Hurry.

That done, he turned his thoughts to the Ministry, grasped his wand tightly, and a moment later he was there, the atrium cold and quiet around him. But it was only seconds before there was a soft pop and Alastor Moody appeared beside him. Frank and Alice stepped out from a fireplace opposite them, shaking the soot from their robes. In moments, they were joined by Peter, Lily, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadowes, the Prewetts, and Caradoc Dearborn.

"Remus!" Lily said at once. "What's going on?"

"I don't know – James contacted Sirius with the two-way mirrors. He only said that there were death eaters everywhere."

"Never mind why. Where are they, Lupin?" Moody said gruffly. They all looked to him.

"Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

A look of understanding passed across Moody's face. "I should have seen that Mulciber was setting a trap," he growled. "Right – Dearborn and Prewetts with me. McKinnon with Meadowes and Potter. Lupin with the Longbottoms. Pettigrew – wait here. If any more of us arrive, send them on. Anyone you don't trust turns up, keep them here."

"I can fight too," Peter protested.

Moody either didn't hear him or didn't listen, because he was already making his way towards the lifts.

"Remus," Peter said. "You can't just leave me here."

"You'll be fine, Pete," Remus said irritably. Every moment spent here was a moment that James and Sirius were in danger. "You're out of the way here."

"Out of the way?" Peter repeated indignantly. "Why does no one trust me to do anything? You never let me help!"

"You know I didn't mean – I just mean you'll be safer here! Goddammit, Peter, what does it matter? There's no time for this – James and Sirius are in there!"

He ran after Frank and Alice, joining them just as the lift doors closed behind them. The lift jolted downwards, sinking underground

"This is really it," Frank said. "This feels more important than anything I've done as an Auror. It's really happening – and at the Ministry of all places."

"You're rambling, love," Alice murmured, squeezing his hand. "Are you okay, Remus?"

"I'm fine." It was the most blatant lie he had ever told, but he had to make it true. He had to hold everything together long enough to find James and Sirius, to make sure they were safe.

A calm voice that felt entirely at odds with the situation announced that they had reached the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. The doors opened, and the tense silence of the lift at once gave way to shouting voices and the clashes of misdirected spells.

Remus raced ahead, not waiting to see if Alice and Frank were following him. He'd expected to find them all in one room, but somehow the death eaters seemed to be everywhere, and fights were breaking out all around him as the rest of the Order members flooded the halls.

"Sirius!" Remus shouted. "James!"

But he couldn't make out any individual voices as he darted in and out of different rooms, dodging curses and ignoring the faces around him. He passed a line of desks that were dented and charred, a cabinet that had been hit with a spell so violent it had been reduced to a mess of melted metal, and through doors that had been blown from their hinges. In mere minutes the battle had turned an ordinary floor of offices and meeting rooms into a war zone.

It wasn't until he ran out into a quiet corridor, somehow isolated from the rest of the fight, and he almost ran into a masked death eater who shot a spell at him automatically. But when Remus deflected it, the death eater didn't cast another spell. Instead he took an uncertain step backwards. After a moment of hesitation, he took off his mask.

"Regulus." Remus hadn't even considered that he might be here. When James said that there were death eaters in the Ministry, the faces he'd pictured were of Mulciber and Dolohov, not Sirius' little brother. He looked far too young to be involved in anything so dangerous. "Have you seen your brother?" Remus asked on impulse.

"What?" Regulus said, his brow furrowing. He lowered his wand slightly. "Sirius is here?"

"Yes – he came to find James."

For a moment, a flicker of worry crossed Regulus' face; it seemed impossible that the two of them were really in this situation. Remus had spoken to Regulus very little at school, their exchanges confined to brief greetings. But now the fight, the chaos all around them, felt distant somehow, and Remus could almost believe that they were having this conversation in the corridors of Hogwarts on the way to a lesson or to the Great Hall.

And then Regulus' expression changed. He lifted his wand again and said, "What do I care? If he gets himself killed it's his own fault."

"You don't believe that," Remus said urgently. "Look, just help me find him and then we can get out of here. No one needs to get hurt. He's your family."

"Don't talk to me about my family," Regulus snarled. "And don't think I won't hurt you just because you're his boyfriend."

The sounds of the fight grew louder, like more people had arrived. The whole floor seemed to be alight, the flashes of dozens of curses throwing shadows out into the corridor.

"I know you weren't always like this, Regulus – you can be a better person, I know that."

"You don't know anything about me!" Regulus cried. "You're just like him, always telling me who I'm meant to be. Well I know who I am, and I'm nothing like you!"

His wand was pointed directly at Remus' chest, and Remus prepared to defend himself, but the attack never came. Regulus' courage seemed to fail him, and he opened his mouth to speak – but then the wall beside them burst apart, pieces of brick exploding outwards. The sound was louder than he could have imagined, cutting through all the other shouts and explosions. Remus ducked his head, shielding his eyes, and when he looked back up he was face to face with Severus Snape.

He had stepped right through the hole in the wall, coming between Remus and Regulus.

"Well look who it is!" Snape's smile was cold. He lifted his wand but Regulus cried, "Wait!"

Snape frowned at him. "What's wrong with you? He's just a filthy werewolf."

But when he pointed his wand at Remus, Regulus grabbed his wrist and deflected the spell upwards. The ceiling opened up like an eye, rubble falling down upon them. Remus didn't wait for the dust to clear – he had wasted enough time already. He darted through the hole in the wall, Snape's and Regulus' voices fading into the general clamour around him, and ran through empty rooms until he reached a large hall that appeared to be a training room.

Frank and Alice were there, inseparable as always, standing back to back as they fought a pair of masked death eaters. And, to Remus' immense relief, Sirius and James were there too, on the opposite side of the room. James' glasses were broken and his hair was matted with blood on one side, but the two of them were both still standing – and that was enough.

Remus' eyes met Sirius' for the briefest of moments, before a curse lit up the air between them and struck the wall so hard that the whole building seemed to shake. All eyes turned to the wand that had cast such a spell; it was held in a white, long-fingered hand belonging to a figure in dark robes. His eyes were unnatural - the colour of blood – and he had slits for nostrils. Remus had never seen him before, but he had no trouble recognising Voldemort.

The Dark Lord spoke, touching the tip of his wand to his throat so that his voice was magically amplified. Every other sound seemed to fade away, bowing to the authority of his voice.

Enough. This battle is done. We leave now.

His gaze swept the room, resting for a moment upon Sirius and James. Remus' chest constricted in fear, his hand tightening on his wand, but Voldemort merely span around, and with a swirl of dark robes he was gone.

Peter had been waiting for over twenty minutes, fiddling with his wand and pacing back and forth. A few more Order members had arrived and rushed straight on into the battle, but the longer Peter was alone the more he felt unsafe. What was he meant to do if the death eaters found him? He couldn't defend himself if he was outnumbered. But no one had cared enough to think about that, no one had come to check on him. The atrium was entirely silent so he had no idea what was happening, no way of knowing whether or not they were winning the fight.

He was alone and he was afraid.

Eventually, just when Peter was considering going down to see for himself what was happening, there was a loud bang and the floor shook beneath his feet. This was followed by impossibly loud words spoken in a cold, eerie voice.

Enough. This battle is done. We leave now.

The last of Peter's courage gave way, and he was about to apparate away when footsteps approached him and a trio of death eaters rounded the corner and burst into the atrium. Peter froze in place, his wand in his hand but his head too clouded with fear to produce any spells that might have helped him. This was it; this was how it was going to end. He wasn't going to die of old age in his bed, or even go down in the glory of battle like a true Gryffindor. His life was going to end here, uselessly, pointlessly, with no one there to help him.

One of the death eaters raised his wand, and Peter felt a new wave of fear flow through his veins. But just as Peter thought it was all over, another death eater said, "No, leave him."

"Why?" the first death eater said. "He's one of them."

"No," he repeated, and this time Peter recognised Lucius Malfoy's voice behind his mask. "You heard the Dark Lord. The battle is over. Let's go."

The three of them stepped into the fire places lining the walls, throwing down handfuls of powder. The flames turned green and engulfed them, leaving Peter alone once more. He fell to his knees, his whole body shaking.

He was alive. He was so sure he was about to die, but he was still here. And Lucius Malfoy had saved his life.

Sirius stared at the spot where Voldemort had vanished, replaying in his mind the sight of his blood red eyes and ghostly appearance. He'd never seen anyone who looked more like one of the villains in Remus' comic books before in his life, and he could only imagine the kind of dark magic that he'd have had to conjure to tear himself apart so completely.

It was a sobering thought, after the heat of the battle - he really was evil.

He was brought out of his thoughts by Remus' arms around his neck. "I couldn't find you," he whispered, and Sirius knew that he must have been as scared as he'd been, trying to find James in the dark with the knowledge that there were death eaters lurking all around him.

"I'm here," he said.

Remus let go of him and hugged James, squeezing him tightly.

"You're both idiots," he told them sternly.

"Speaking of which," Sirius said, turning to James. "What were you thinking!?"

Most people had vacated the room, and they were surrounded now only with the dusty piles of rubble and the echoing voices of people trying to reach out to one another through the wreckage.

"I just -

"You could have gotten yourself killed," Sirius told him harshly, "even if it was just Mulciber, James, you know - you know - he's dangerous. Why didn't you call for back up straight away?"

"I don't know," James sighed, shaking dust out of his hair. "I wanted to do something. I just - I wanted to feel... like I wasn't hurting all the damn time. Like I could be useful."

"I know how you feel," Sirius told him insistently. "I do," he said, when James looked away. "It might not be exactly the same but they were my parents too and -" his voice broke, and James looked up at him again, the fear and horror of the day washing over him all at once as he looked at his brother.

"I'm sorry," James said. "I shouldn't have tried to stop Mulciber alone."

"No, you bloody well shouldn't," Sirius agreed. Then, echoing the words he'd said to Remus earlier, he added, "I can't lose you too."

The next thing Sirius knew they were hugging, James' face pressed into his shoulder as he took deep, pained breaths.

"I love you," he told Sirius firmly. Then, "we're going to be okay, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Sirius replied with a lot more confidence than he felt. "We've got each other. And..." he added, looking over James shoulder, "you've got her too."

James turned to see Lily in the doorway, flushed in the face and looking at him with such immense relief that James thought she might need to sit down.

"I didn't know you were here," he said as she rushed over to them. "I'm sorry Lils, I'm okay. I'm fine."

Sirius turned away as they embraced, smiling reassuringly at Remus who was watching the scene apprehensively.

"I think that's enough excitement for one day, don't you?" he asked when he saw Sirius watching him.

"Quite possibly," Sirius said. He stepped closed to Remus and held out a hand to him. "Home?"

"Home." Remus agreed.

20th April 1979

It was surreal, after the battle at the Ministry, to go back to work the next day as if everything was the same as it had always been. Peter felt like the life he had been living was a lie, like the feeling of security he'd had since settling in at the post office was merely a safety blanket he'd been hiding behind. There was a war going on, he could see that now, and he no longer felt sure about his place in it.

So when Lucius Malfoy walked into the post office, it felt almost natural. Peter's life had been turned upside down, so why shouldn't a death eater be here? It's not like it was the first time he'd visited Peter at work.

"Peter," Lucius said pleasantly. "I hoped I would see you here."

"Hi," Peter said, busying his hands with putting away some envelopes to hide that he was shaking. "I'm not entirely sure I can return the compliment."

Lucius smiled, resting his cane on top of the desk Peter was standing behind. "You needn't be afraid of me, Peter. I'm not your enemy."

"You're not?" Peter replied warily.

"Of course not. We have an understanding, don't we?"

"We do?"

"Certainly. You did me a favour, intercepting that letter a few weeks ago. And I returned the favour last night."

Peter felt like they were walking on the edge of a great chasm, avoiding talking about precisely what had happened at the Ministry, and that if he said the wrong thing he would fall into its depths.

"I suppose we're even, then?" he asked anxiously.

"For now. But I hope there might be a few more favours you can do for me, now and then. And I can help you, as well." He leant across the desk and said conspiratorially, "We'll look out for each other from now on."

"I guess that sounds okay," Peter replied slowly.

"Excellent." Lucius stepped back from the desk. "Then I'll be seeing you soon."

He walked back out the door without waiting for Peter to reply, leaving him with less idea than ever of where he stood.