The Three Kings: Resist

Disclaimer (1): Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.

Disclaimer (2): The Royal Ontario Museum is owned by the Government of Ontario.

Warning: Mentions of illness, past abuse, forced marriages, forced pregnancy, dysphoria, past minor character death, the misgendering of a closeted trans individual, fantasy-based kidnapping, body horror, violence, war, genocide, racism, and home invasion.

Chapter 5: Prophet

"Your mother's condition is worsening, Mr. Zabini. Perhaps it is time to discuss her continued care in the company of your…" Amane watches as St. Mungo's ancient-looking owner glances over her family with haughty derision, "...your family."

"They are our family, Mr. Lestrange," Blaise hisses, his fists balling at his sides.

"Perhaps your closeness to these people has convinced you that water is thicker than blood, but your mother's medical records say otherwise," Lestrange tells him. "Company policy says that I must contact a patient's next of kin, should no one else be able to-"

"I am my mother's heir-"

"You are a twelve-year-old boy," Lestrange says, looking down on Blaise with his steel grey eyes. Amane tries to ignore how Blaise flinches under his gaze, "Those below the age of majority are not taken into account when making these kinds of decisions. I will be sending an owl tonight, should no other relatives arise. Good day to you, Mr. Zabini."

Lestrange bows low to Blaise, ignoring Amane and her mother entirely as he limped out of Viola's private rooms, his lime green robes a flourish of movement behind her. Viola's eyes twitched behind their lids while the rest of her lay unsettlingly still.

Natsuki sits at Viola's side, her fingers running softly through the other woman's hair. Amane watches as Natsuki's chin wobbles, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Her mother presses a kiss to Viola's cheek, then her forehead, and then finally her lips.

Natsuki hadn't told Amane about the shift in her relationship with Blaise's mother, but she didn't have to. Despite her sister's continued offers to allow them to move in with their Japanese family just down the hall, Natsuki had politely declined to leave Viola's bedroom. No one spoke of what might have gone on behind those walls, but it was clear as day what was happening.

"They can't send her back there," Blaise whispers, his voice filled with dread. "They can't. She risked her life to get us out of the Forum. If she goes back…"

His voice trails off, but Amane knows what Blaise is trying so hard not to say. If Viola Zabini ever returned to Italy, she would be married off against her will for the eighth time and forced to bring more children to term before she finally died.

"Who do you think they'll contact?" Amane asks.

Blaise shrugs, "Decimus, probably. He's the closest legitimate relative my mother has. But we're related to all the remaining families in one way or another. Lestrange could contact any of them. I can't…" he chokes, "I don't want to go back there, Amane."

How do I fix this? She wonders. What do I do?

Natsuki stands suddenly. She points her wand at the door, locking it with a muffled click. She yanks the sheets back from Viola's bed, exposing her sleeping form to the air.

"Kaa-san, what…?" Amane asks. Natsuki doesn't answer, her wand slowly traveling down each of Viola's limbs as she mutters spells under her breath. She remembers, with sudden clarity, that her mother had been training to become a healer before James Andrews had snatched her away from her family.

"Liver failure," Natsuki finally concludes. "Damn it, why do organs always have to be so complicated? We can grow backbones without even blinking, but organs -" She pauses, wiping her wet cheeks. "Blaise, can you get in contact with the bartender at the Hog's Head? He's been supplying your mother with her treatments. Maybe he can do something…"

Blaise nods, "The visitor's lounge has owls. I can send him a letter."

As he rushes out of the room, Natsuki turns to Amane, "Go with him. No one should be alone after hearing that kind of news."

Amane finds Blaise on the fifth floor, sitting in one of the chairs beside the post office. The sleeve of his right hand is stained in ink, a testament to how fast he had written his letter. Blaise holds his head in his hands, his shoulders a slump picture of defeat.

"I can't go back there," he says again, this voice wracked with tremors. "If she dies, one of them will come here and take me away. I can't… I just can't…"

"I know," she says, slipping into the seat beside him. I feel so useless. What am I supposed to do?

"She always wanted a girl," Blaise whispers suddenly. Amane looks at him, remembering their first conversation almost a year ago. "She told me that so fucking often. She wanted a daughter, but she never had another child. Not after me." Blaise hiccups, "'Women move between families,' she always said. 'It keeps the secret safe.' She said that's why we had to leave Italy - because the secret was trapped within the Zabini family."

"What secret?" Amane asks, frowning.

"I don't know! She didn't tell me because-" Blaise grits his teeth, "Because I'm not… I'm not…" Blaise laughs, sounding so completely broken. "Maybe that's why she wanted you so badly. Maybe she wanted to pass the secret onto you."

No. That can't be it, Amane thinks. Whatever the secret is, your great-grandmother died getting it out of Italy. In a blinding moment of clarity, she remembers Nurnok and what the goblin had said.

The Secret Keeper, the Daughter of Albion, will find you, the tiny beardless goblin told her. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders. Be careful.

Amane wants to go back to Gringotts to ask for Nurnok again. But Nurnok was dead if Keith Howard was telling the truth, and he was the last person that she wanted to talk to right now.

"I bet it has something to do with that map that the goblins sent me," Amane tells him. "We should-"

"We've been looking for information on that map for almost a year. We're not going to find anything else, Amane. Just drop it," Blaise snaps, but then quietly apologizes for losing his temper.

"I bought you that dress," Amane blurts out. Blaise looks at her with red-rimmed eyes.

"What?"

"The one at the second-hand store. I went back and bought it. That's why I left," she says. Blaise stares at her and Amane stares back. I'm seeing something, she thinks. But I don't know what it is.

"You bought me a dress…" he whispers, every word flowing carefully off his tongue. Amane nods and Blaise presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. When he finally raises his head again, he's got a sad, lonely smile on his face.

"Thank you, Amane," he whispers, pulling her into a warm embrace. "Thank you for being my closest friend." When he moves away, Blaise's eyes are wet, "Do you seriously think that your goblin's map has something to do with the secret my mother wants to share?"

I bought you a dress, she thinks, not knowing what that meant, but knowing that it meant something. Amane nods, "Yeah. I think it does."

Bill arrives at the Royal Ontario Museum and a man with short black hair and bright purple eyes calls him over to the ticket booth. He blinks at the large sign before him, advertising the opening of The Three Kings: A Living Legend for October 31st.

"Here you go, Mr. Weasley," the ticket seller passes him a sheet of paper. Blankly, Bill registers that the man's name tag says his name is Em. "You're all set. Just take the Totem Staircase all the way down."

The entrance hall of the Museum has a small shop off to the side, it's shelves lined with ancient Egyptian memorabilia. Bill watches as one little girl grabs a plastic crown and jams it on her head, declaring herself the King Commander to any who will listen to her.

Bill smiles, remembering that his sister, Ginny, used to do the same thing when she was young. She'd often grabbed a stick in the backyard and used it to protect their mother's vegetable garden from the wandering packs of gnomes that inhabited Ottery St. Catchpole.

He walks toward the massive dinosaur skeleton that stands in the middle of the hall, it's long bony neck and tail extending out nearly fifty feet in each direction. Bill stands beneath its massive form for a moment, in awe of the museum workers and excavators who had strung this ancient beast together piece by piece without a hint of magic to aid them. The creature's skull looks surprisingly lifelike, its mouth opening to take a bite out of the tallest trees it's ancient world had to offer.

Muggles, he thinks, chuckling softly to himself. They are truly incredible.

The exhibition is located in the lower levels, so he takes a sharp turn to the left and heads toward the grand staircase. A massive totem pole, intricately carved with a hundred faces, stands in the open space between the winding steps, illuminated by an enormous skylight far above. Children race past Bill as he makes his descent down the well-worn stairs, their exhausted parents barely able to keep up. But when his feet finally hit the floor, Bill realizes that he is alone.

"Hello?" He calls out, listening to his voice echoing off of the walls. He turns his tickets over in his hands, wondering if he's made a mistake.

"Mr. Weasley."

Bill yelps, spinning around and pulling out his wand, pointing it at the figure that had snuck up on him. Shada barely reacts, offering Bill a tilt of his head and a twitch of his lips as a response.

"Mr. Weasley," the shade tries again. "Welcome to Toronto."

"Well, you didn't exactly give me much choice," Bill growls, pocketing his wand. He looks around, "Where is everyone else?"

"This is a private exhibition, Mr. Weasley," Shada tells him, his glossy grey eyes uncomfortably lifeless. "It will open up to the public in two days. For now, you are our only guest."

Two days? Bill frowns as he follows Shada as the shade glides across the floor. He looks down at his tickets, reading the date. His heart skips a beat.

"It's October," Bill says. Shada nods his head. Bill tries again, "It's late October. Right now. When I left Iraq, it was September."

"It is October," the shade confirms, forever unhelpful. The bottom drops out of Bill's stomach.

My travel permit said that I had to be back in Britain by September 7th, he thinks. My family is already in enough trouble as it is because of my work. If the Ministry believes that I've gone rogue-

"There is no reason to worry, Mr. Weasley. Your permit has been extended until the new year," Shada tells him as he opens the door to the exhibition hall.

"It took me an entire year just to get my permit. And now you're telling me that the Ministry just…" Bill feels so lost, so out of his element. "I'm not Lucius Malfoy. I haven't got Fudge in my back pocket. How did you…?"

Shada offers him a polite smile and fingers a golden ankh that hung on a cord around his neck. Bill frowns, How did I miss that before?

"I convinced them the same way I convinced you to come to Toronto," the shade tells him. He gestures to the door, "Please. Come inside."

This is a bad idea, Bill thinks, but his legs move for him, taking each measured step toward the unknown.

Shada seems to fade away once he crosses over the threshold and into the room. The dim ceiling light cast long shadows along the floor, enveloping the exhibition in quiet mystery, leaving Bill gasping at the treasures laid before him.

To conceal the birth of magic during Egypt's eighteenth dynasty, Bill's predecessors had worked tirelessly to create a false era of history called the Amarna Period. Curse Breakers, working in conjunction with the Department of Mysteries, had scoured the lands and tombs along the Nile, looking for anything that would compromise the Statute of Secrecy by revealing the ancient Egyptians first attempts at understanding their new power. The most well known of all these cover-ups was the creation of the false king, Tutankhamun, in an attempt to hide the final resting place of the legendary Pharaoh Seth and the magical items that lay within.

So when Bill looks around the exhibition hall and sees ancient scrolls containing early descriptions of magical theory, weapons that had been spelled to never lose their edge, and beautiful carvings of ancient magecraft, he can't breathe.

How has this gone unnoticed? He thinks widely, his head snapping from one display to the next, his mind a state of utter panic. Bill moves through the exhibition, pressing his nose up against the glass cases. One small stone mural, painting in vivid colour and detail, depicted a woman dressed in the black cloth of the Medjay warrior, a bronze sword strapped to her waist. Above her flew a silver dragon with bright blue eyes, lightning lancing out of its mouth. Bill swallows hard as he reads the tiny card at the bottom right corner of the case.

"The Dragon Princess, depicted in this late 18th dynasty carving, was the successor to the King Commander and eventual wife of Pharaoh Seth. Very little is known about her origins," Bill continued to read, "but recent discoveries have led us to believe that may have been the lost sister of the Assyrian Queen Muneera, the princess Kisara."

He steps back in shock. No one has ever figured out who she was, not even wizards. So how… Bill looks back at the room, his heart pounding in his chest. How is this even possible?

He stops, grits his teeth, and shouts out to the room, "I would really appreciate not being played with. So, whoever you are, come out and give me an explanation."

There is a soft, breathless chuckle and then the sound of wheels running over the smooth linoleum floor. Bill turns around and nearly backs into the Dragon Princess's mural.

The tiny woman before him sat in a motorized wheelchair. She wore a dark plum niqab over her face and a loose black abaya was draped over the rest of her skeletally thin body, the tubes of the oxygen tank strapped to the back of her chair disappearing beneath the layers of cloth. The woman's hands poked out from her sleeves like paper thin spiders, her blue veins clearly visible under a transparent layer of flesh.

The woman's eyes were the only part of her face that was visible. They lay sunken into her skull, surrounded by bruise-dark skin. Her pupils seemed to shine like a cat in the darkness, giving her an aura that put Bill's teeth on edge.

"William. It is good to finally meet you in person," the woman says as she propels her wheelchair forward. Her voice is whisper soft, almost impossible to hear beneath the breathing apparatus that she's clearly hiding under her niqab. The corners of her eyes crinkle, indicating a smile, "Forgive me for not shaking your hand. It's not the time for that yet."

"Who…?" He asks, unable to understand what he is seeing. "Who are you? How did…?" He gestures blindly at the exhibition around them. "How…?"

"I can answer both those questions with a single answer," the woman tells him. "My name is Ishizu Ishtar."

Bill's jaw pops open. Holy shit. The name Ishtar could only mean one thing.

"No… That's… That's impossible."

"For thousands of years, my family lived below our old temple in Assur - the very temple that you were excavating in September," Ishizu says, bringing her wheelchair to a halt right in front of him. "We were charged with the protection of an ancient treasure as well as a final, sacred duty that was passed from son to son. It is only in the last decade that we have resurfaced to share our knowledge with the world."

"Clan Ishtar..." Bill mutters again, still unable to get past the fact that a living descendant of the Three Kings legend stood before him. Then, in a moment of selfishness, he asks, "So… Are there any wands in your collection?"

Ishizu laughs at him, "I believe you know the answer to that already."

Mages. They were all mages. I was right, he thinks victoriously. Take that Bagshot. I was right!

"Come. I wish to show you my family's collection," Ishizu says, turning her wheelchair around and leading him around the exhibition.

She tells him fantastic stories about each piece, painting bright pictures with each whispers word. Bill asks a thousand questions and Ishizu answers each one, adding tiny details so that everything feels so real. The thing that fascinates him the most is all the magically preserved cloth. Entire outfits had been saved, the wisp-thin linen looking fresh from the looms. Bill sees the black Medjay uniforms and a stunning azure blue dress supposedly worn by High Priestess Mana. He pulls out a spiral muggle notebook, committing everything that she tells him into ink. He scratches hasty diagrams of painted pots and jeweled artifacts, his mind ablaze with the new knowledge.

Just before they reach the end of the tour, Bill finally builds up the courage to ask, "Why me?"

Ishizu lets out a soft hum as if asking him to elaborate.

"Why me?" He asks again, "You could have made anyone come here, but you chose me. Why?"

Ishizu blinks at him, her sunken eyes bright in the dim lighting. She tilts her head to the side.

"I have one last thing to show you," she tells him and leads him to the back of the exhibition room. She stops him in front of the wall and Bill blinks, his eyes suddenly blurring. He squints, shaking his head, and suddenly everything comes into sharp relief.

Bill takes a step back, in both shock and awe. The massive stone mural took up the entire back wall of the room, the rock strapping against the ceiling with its might. It depicted an ancient battle; in the far left corner showing the two opposing sides coming together, and the further to the right you went, the more chaotic it became. Finally, in the far corner, the fight had been won. The Pharaoh stood before a crowd of kneeling men and women, his arm reaching out in acceptance.

"Do you know what this is?" Ishizu asks.

Bill shakes his head, "No. But I know him," he points at the Pharaoh, recognizing him from the books that Yanni had gifted him with at the start of his career. "That's Aknamkanon." Then, when he examines the crowd again, Bill frowns. "Why is there a baby?"

At the end of the group were a pair of figures. The first was a young girl, with thick black hair that ran down her back. In her arms was an infant boy. They appeared to have been added to the mural after its initial construction, the differences in the artist's styles evident to the trained eye. But the oddest thing about the two was that they were standing in the Pharaoh's presence, not bowing down in worship.

Ishizu reaches out, her thin fingers brushing against the ancient stone. She touches the girl's ankle with a careful reverence, the corners of her eyes crinkling into a smile.

"This is the Battle of Deir-El Medina," she explains. "It depicts my ancestor, the exiled priest Kukuru-" Ishizu points to the kneeling figure at the head of the crowd, "-being thanked for his help by Pharaoh Aknamkanon. Because of his actions, Kukuru's noble status was renewed and he was allowed to join Aknamkanon's court as one of his subjects."

"That doesn't explain the baby," Bill points out.

"Yes, it does. Because Kukuru Ishtar took his children within him when he was banished from his temple in Assur," Ishizu says. She touches the girl's ankle again, staring up at the infant boy in wonder, "William, this is the earliest known depiction of the King Commander."

Bill can barely believe his ears, "You know his father's name ?"

"His sister's, too. I am her descendant, after all," she hums, the glint in her eye hinting at some guarded secret. "She was born Iskhu Ishtar, but her father changed her name to Isis when she came to court, in the hopes of pleasing their new Egyptian benefactors."

Bill stares up at the baby, committing every last detail to memory. He'd heard of the Battle of Deir El-Medina - anyone who studied the legend of the Three Kings had. Around the midway point of Aknamkanon's reign, his empire had been plagued with war and disease. Half of his country was in open rebellion, fueled by the supposed softness of their weak-minded king. Everything had come to a head in the artisan town of Deir El-Medina sometime around 1352 B.C., where the citizens had risen up to aid Aknamkanon in his fight against the rebels.

The King Commander, Bill stares into the baby's eyes, noting that they had been painted a deep purple in contrast to Isis's traditional black. He was real, then. Merlin, could there be an actual depiction of the other Kings themselves? Maybe even in their prime?

"But that doesn't answer my question," Bill says again. "Why me?"

Ishizu ignores him.

"Would you like to see the Battle, William?" She asks instead.

"Pardon-" And that's all the warning Bill gets before the floor shifts beneath his feet and they are propelled thousands of years back in time.

Bill slams into the ground, his mouth filling with hot sand, screams filling the air. He scrambles to his feet, coughing and sputtering, and ducks just to avoid getting his head chopped off by a curved khopesh sword. It's owner, a large dark-skinned man wearing a bloodstained cloth around his waist, doesn't even seem to know Bill is there, too intent on hacking his way through his opponent's wooden shield. He steps right through Bill, kicking sand in the eyes of his enemy and cutting him down with a single strike.

Bill stands in the middle of an ancient battle the likes of which he could have never imagined. Horse-drawn chariots carry men with large bows, smashing through shield walls and trampling enemies beneath their hoves. Arrows rain down from the sky, killing handfuls in their deadly descent.

A man falls to the ground, his fingers digging into the bloody earth, and the field begins to shake. A massive crack opens up and swallows a half dozen people before closing with a deafening boom. A demonic skull creature with leather wings roars overhead, sending out shockwaves of electricity before it is felled by a shining bird with four arms. And finally, off in the distance, were seven hooded figures, each clasping something golden in their hands.

Mages, he thinks. They have mages, trained and battle ready. A jolt of fear runs down his spine. He remembers listening to the Confederation Broadcast and realizes that if the wizarding world ever went to war with San Francisco, the city might drag them all down with it.

Something shifts again and Bill finds himself watching the battle continue on from the safety of a cliff. Beside him, Ishizu sits calmly in her wheelchair as something glows beneath the folds her niqab.

"What is happening? " Bill cries, unable to understand anything that he is seeing.

"This is the Battle of Deir El-Medina," Ishizu explains. She tilts her head toward a small crop of rocks, behind which a little girl was holding a crying baby. Something clicks in Bill's mind and he walks toward them, crouching down to look at the pair.

"Can they see me?" Bill asks, staring down at the infant King Commander and his terrified sister. Ishizu shakes her head.

"No. They can't. We may visit, but we cannot change this world."

He stands, "I don't understand."

"Then I will explain," Ishizu says and the earth shifts again. But this time, instead of flinging them backward in time, she seems to take them outside its grasp.

Bill stares up at a shimmering, silver tree. Spreading out from its great trunk were a trillion branches, each one diverging off into a trillion more shining pathways. He watches as one branch flickers and disappears into the void, while another twelve seem to emerge from nothingness farther up the tree.

"The Tree of Time," Ishizu says. "The trunk represents the past, rooted in fact. Farther up the tree where the branches begin to sprout, that is the present - ever growing and full of possibility. And then," she gestured toward the rest of the tree, a massive silver willow, "the future, constantly shifting in the breeze."

She takes a laboring breath, "We are at a crossroads, William. Look at the tree. Look at what is happening."

Bill sees.

He sees two royal women within the walls of an ancient stronghold. He hears the scratching of a quill on parchment and the hissing of a language he doesn't understand coming from within the walls as a sleeping force awakens beneath the floor.

He sees a girl in armour, broken but driven, the rain washing her tears from her face. He sees six of seventh in a tall tower, following the same path toward the temple beneath the first steps.

He sees the city where land meets water, of the great red bridge that crossed the open bay. A storm surrounds their hills, but none of those who dwelt within seemed to be able to see the impending danger. He sees two shining immortals heading to their deaths in search of their third.

"See what must never happen," Ishizu calls again and Bill watches as the voices within San Francisco are snuffled out like a candle in the wind. A woman with red hair and bright blue eyes stands still as a million years pass her by. The woman falls to her knees, a scream echoing out into nothingness, as the world around her turns to ash.

"See, William. See what must happen."

A thousand images flash before his eyes. He sees the armoured girl surrounded by her knights, preparing to offer all that she has to give. He sees the two royals standing within a sunken temple, falling to their knees in desperate prayer. He sees a war raging within the walls of the city, as former enemies joined hands to hold off their own destruction. He sees laughter. He sees pain. He sees loss and tear, joy and love.

The ground shifts again and Bill reappears in the exhibition room, kneeling on the floor in front of Ishizu.

"We are at a crossroads," she says again. "And yet, no matter what path the world takes, only one thing is constant." She points a single grey finger directly at Bill. "You."

"Me?" He asks, barely able to understand. "Why me?"

"You need to bring the three groups together so that they can act as one," Ishizu tells him, ignoring his question once again. "The fate of the entire world is at stake. Will you help us, William?"

"I have a choice?" Bill breathes, trying to gather his thoughts.

Ishizu's gaze softens, "You always have a choice. The future is fluid, remember?"

Is it really, though? He wonders. If I chose wrong, the world will end. But then a dark voice inside his mind reminds him of the red-haired woman, who stood for centuries before the world became dust. Yes, but in a million years. You'll be long dead by the time that comes to pass. You would be safe if you just do nothing.

It would be so easy to just say no, to walk away and tell Ishizu Ishtar to take her terrifying Tree of Time and shove it up her ass. He's got a family to worry about, a job that he needs to keep to achieve his own dreams. Bill shifts from foot to foot, trying to decide what to do.

Why did you do it? He'd asked his mother once when he was eleven years old and staring down at his Hogwarts letter. Wouldn't it have been easier not to? Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gibeon wouldn't be dead if they didn't fight.

Molly had taken her hands between his and sat him down at their kitchen table. Her stomach had been swollen with a hope for the future and her eyes were dark with tears of the past.

When you see someone being drowned by someone else, his mother had asked, What do you do?

Help them, he had answered.

How?

I'd stop the bad person drowning them, Bill had said. I'd swim out there and make them stop.

But you're safe on the shore. Why would you risk your life to help someone you don't know when it would do is put your own life on the line?

Bill had frowned, Because I don't want that person to die.

Molly had tipped his chin up to meet her gaze, Sometimes, when those safe on the shore are so blinded in their own privileged position, they will turn their backs on those that are less fortunate then they are. They refuse to take a side, refuse to do anything to change what's happening. And so those in the water drown. Then, when those poor, poor people wash up on the beaches, every day and every night, all that those who live on the shores ever do is wonder why nothing has changed.

But they could have helped, Bill had implored. Then he had paused, thinking it over, Is… not helping just as bad as… drowning someone else?

If someone's life is on the line, and you can swim…? Yes, Bill. Yes, it is.

"What do I have to do?" He asks Ishizu. He watches as the golden glow appears under her niqab. Beside her, Shada reemerges from the darkness, his ankh in his hand.

"One to go back to England," Ishizu says and Bill feels something crack, deep down in his soul. Bill sees himself stand, sees Shada press the point of the ankh to his forehead and watches himself walk out the door.

"One to travel onward to France," Ishizu continues and BIll feels another crack. Again, he watches as he stands, as Shada presses his ankh to his forehead, and sees himself leave.

"And finally, to come with us to San Francisco," Ishizu reaches out a hand to Bill, just like the mural of Aknamkanon behind her. He takes it, feels how inhumanly cold her skin is, and rises to his feet. Shada presses his ankh to Bill's forehead and feels something unlock.

Reyna closes the door to the bedroom and rests her head against the wood. She can hear Rosaline speaking to her children just beyond it, trying to keep them calm.

Neal places a hand on her shoulder, "They're safe here."

Yes, Reyna thinks. We've hidden them here for almost two months now. But that's not what I'm worried about.

Together, they head into the old sitting room, their footsteps echoing in the empty house. The wingback chair scrapes on the wooden floor when Reyna sets down, holding her head within her hands. There's a creak of rusty hinges and then a pair of heavy clunks on the coffee table in front of her.

"You did the right thing, getting them out of France. I don't know if I ever thanked you for that," Reyna tells him. She peeks through her fingers to see Neal popping open a bottle of a pale amber beer with a flick of his wrist. He passes it to her and does the same thing to the second bottle. She smirks at him, "It always amazes me to see you drinking anything other than twelve-year-old bourbon. I always figured that was what purebloods like you did, when I was growing up."

"My father would be rightfully appalled. Beer is swill, in comparison. But Hatfield never had much taste for good alcohol, so it felt wrong to stock his cellar with anything else," Neal says without a hint of sarcasm. He takes a long sip, keeping his eyes on her the entire time. When Neal places the beer back on the coffee table, he sighs, gesturing to the room, "Merlin, I miss him."

"So do I," Reyna agrees, giving the empty house a silent toast. It had belonged to her predecessor, Nicholas Hatfield. The old Minister died just over a year ago and had no family left to leave his estate to, as they had all been murdered during Marie Fawly's reign of terror. Neal had bought the property out of respect for their old mentor, but had never used it for anything until today.

"What are we going to do?" Neal asks, mostly to her but partly to their memory of Hatfield. She doesn't blame him. Sometimes, she wishes that the old man hadn't found so much comfort in the idea of life beyond the grave. Perhaps, he might have stuck around as a ghost and be there to offer advice to them in times of need.

Angelina had suggested that Reyna send Neal to Britain in the hopes that he could use his family connections to the old pureblood families there to scrounge up supporters for an international coalition. Reyna had planned for the wizarding world to approach San Francisco as a united force - not just as singular nations, like China and now apparently, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam. Neal told her that the most powerful of Britain's Sacred Twenty-Eight had no intentions of doing anything, but Bruneau had been on board the moment Neal had secreted himself into France for a meeting. But then Italy had sent in incredibly powerful witch to assassinate him, and Neal had barely gotten the former Minister's family out of the county in time.

"No one should have known that Bruneau got his Department of Mysteries information from mages," Reyna hisses and takes a swig of her beer, remembering the secret conversation she'd had with Angelina in the wake of the Confederation Broadcast. "That was classified information. So how in the world the Forum Romanum find out about it?"

"I don't know. Has your secret spymaster been able to get any information from inside France yet?" Neal asks.

"I'm not telling you who they are. I keep saying that," Reyna says, dragging up an old joke. She leans back into her chair and tries not to focus on how Neal's eyes never seem to leave her. "But yes, they have. Apparently, they've imported a pair of new Ministers."

Neal raises an eyebrow, "Imported?" And then, after a moment's pause, "A pair?"

Reyna nods, "Straight out of the burning wreckage of the Forum Romanum itself. And apparently on the orders of the Emperor himself," She digs into her pocket for the photograph Angelina had provided her just that morning. The couple looked like the siblings they probably were, with black curly hair and dreamy hazel eyes. The husband stood just off to the left of his seated sister-wife, her hands pressed against her pregnant belly.

Neal frowns, "They look too healthy to be from the Forum."

"I know. And that's what scares me. Because those two are supposed to be Quintus and Otacilia Seanus."

Neal's head snaps up, " Seanus? As in, the ancient House of Seanus? One of the final four families?"

"The very same," Reyna takes another sip of her beer, trying not to cringe at the bitterness it left within her mouth. Hatfield really did have awful taste.

Neal leans back in his seat on the couch and lets out a long, drawn-out breath. She tilts her head, observing him.

"Can I ask something?" When Neal nods, Reyna continues, "As a pureblood, what's your opinion on the old Forum families?"

Neal lets out a chuckle, "You are always so blunt when you're not worried about public opinion. I've always liked that about you." He sighs, glancing up at the ceiling, "I suppose this is where I'm either supposed to say that I hate them, or that I worship the blessed ground they walk on."

"Well, do you?"

Neal shrugs, "To be fair, I never really thought about them much until Hatfield dragged the pair of us to our first Confederation meeting. My father never talked about them; he was more focused on our continued connection with House Greengrass," he explains, mentioning the old British family that the Pendergrass's were a branch clan of.

"And now that you've met them?" Reyna asks.

Neal smirks, "You know, I wasn't kidding when I said that I liked your bluntness. So please, actually say what you're leading up to."

Reyna kicks him in the shin and he sighs, exhausted beyond belief.

"I'm serious, Reyna. Just spit it out it."

She fiddles with her beer bottle for a moment, "You hate muggles, Neal."

"I don't hate-"

"I see the way you look at them. If that's not hate, then it's a severe enough dislike that I'm worried… I'm worried that when you replace me after I die-"

"You're not going to die," Neal snaps, his brow creasing in the center.

Reyna snorts, "Neal, between the coup d'etat in France and the purge in Italy, with the way the tides are turning, it will be a miracle if I make it to the end of the year."

Almost a quarter of the American Ministers of Magic have ended up dead before the end of their carriers, Hatfield had told them toward the end of his carrier, back when it was a toss-up between Reyna and Neal to be his successor. This is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. If you want out, there's the door. Don't waste any more of my time.

They'd both stayed. And now, almost four years later, Reyna feels like it's only a matter of time before she becomes part of that deadly statistic.

"That's why we're pushing your image on the public, making you look like a respectable alternative," Reyna stresses. "Damn it, Neal. You could say the same things I do or worse and The Quill would take it with a grain of salt because you're a pureblood, rich, white man. I don't have time to train a successor like Hatfield did. I'm making due with what I have and, damn it, I need to know-"

"Are you asking me if I'm a pureblood supremacist?" Neal frowns.

"I'm not asking. Neal, you've made a hell of a lot of progress from where you were when we were first partnered together as Aurors, but we both know that you still need work," Reyna cuts him off before he can say anything else. "The future of America, of the entire wizarding world, rests on our ability to be able to communicate effectively with mages and their muggle allies. We don't have to like them; we just need to get along. And I need to know if my replacement can do that."

Neal grits his teeth and closes his eyes. Something within him deflates, leaving a hollow shell of a man.

"My daughter lives in San Francisco," he says, his voice cracking. Reyna recalls what fading memories she has of Chelsea Pendergrass, a quiet girl with somber eyes that looked more like her dead mother than she did Neal. Looking back on it, Reyna could see the effects of the trauma the Department of Mysteries' conversion program must have had on Neal's daughter, but she hadn't don't a damn thing that the time.

"Chelsea packed up in the middle of the night and left. She didn't say goodbye. She didn't leave a note. She hasn't made any attempt to contact me. Nothing," Neal says. "Because I made her go through that program. I hurt my little girl so badly that she didn't feel safe in her own home. But I know that, where ever she is now, she's safe." He lets out a broken laugh, "I know that the mages and muggles in San Francisco are doing more for her now than I ever did."

He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts, "I never really got it until my kids left me - not even when I was partnered with you. You were half-blood, a second generation witch... You grew up here and it was so easy to forget that your family didn't come from my world. And no matter what you told me about it being harder for you to climb the ranks because of your family's status, I never understood- no, that's not it. I never really tried to understand, because I was comfortable the way things were."

Neal looks at her, his hands twitching like he wants to reach out and touch her. But he doesn't, respecting her space.

"And now Shawn's gone, too. The last time we spoke, we fought about… about everything. About Chelsea. About the risks involved his new program. About…" Neal takes a shuddering breath, "About his... friend who was helping him. Royce. I said so many things, things that can't ever take back… Reyna, I didn't understand why Shawn was choosing to put everything on the line, when it would have been so much safer for him to stay quiet."

Reyna listens, quiet and patient. They'd had talked about Shawn's estrangement before, in conversations about how best to protect their families in the following months. But she'd never know what the two of them had argued about. Perhaps, she thinks, Neal was not ready to talk about the truth.

"Then Adam Morin tried to kill you and people started saying that you deserved it. That you deserved to have your kids taken from you. That Morin was right," Neal stares at her, unable to look away. "And when those same people started to say that I should have been Minister, I was disgusted. Not just in them, but in who I was, to ever give them that idea."

Neal huffs, "My prejudices are wrong, and it is up to me to work to work on them. And I'm sorry if I ever made you upset because of something that I said or did. I can't change who I was before, but I can fix who I will be going forward. And if using the privileges that I have keeps me safe, then I'm going to use them to shield you for as long as I can. I don't want to see you die, Reyna. Please, don't ever ask that of me."

He reaches out, stopping just short of touching her skin - not because he's disgusted by her, like some of the older families were. But because he was respecting her own choices, her own agency.

Reyna closes her hand around his, "Promise me that when the worst comes… that you will keep an open dialogue with San Francisco."

He nods. His eyes stare into her soul, as if he was trying to pass on some hidden secret.

"I promise," he tells her. "I'm your man, until the day I die."

Reyna leaves shortly afterward, apparating back and forth between random cities to cover her trail in case anyone was tracking her. Finally, she landed just down the road from her own house and walked up the boulevard under the pale moonlight.

Except, it's only when she's fishing for her keys on her porch does she realize that her front door is open, the locking mechanism lying broken on the ground. Cold runs down Reyna's spine. She reaches for the cast iron wall art nailed to the brick, touching the metal flower petals to activate the communication spell attached to it.

"This is Minister Palamo. There's been a break-in at my home. Please, respond," she states, only to be greeted by empty silence. She swallows, Someone must have disabled it. How…?

Every logical thought in her brain is telling her to leave, to run while she still could. They've already tried to kill me once. What's stopping them from trying again? Except, Reyna was an Auror long before she was ever a Minister. And she's entered uncleared buildings alone more than she cares to admit.

Everything seems to come rushing back to her the moment Reyna blasts open her own front door, her wand pointing in front of her and ready to stun anything that moves.

There's a shadowy figure sitting in her wingback chair, an open book obscuring their face. The light on the side table clicks on and Reyna's breath leaves her lungs.

The book, her rare first edition copy of Throne, snaps shut. The woman in the chair holds it carefully in her lap and gives Reyna a polite smile.

"Hello again, Minister," the mage leader, Atem, says. Her otherworldly purples eyes are filled with mirth. "I hear you wanted to talk?"

Hello again!

I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: green lilah, anita15, Safiruu, Rita Mu, Moonfirekitsune, dragomira, Tz342, and PeanutBrittle. You guys are awesome!

I would like to apologize for the long wait between chapters. Work has been insanely busy over the last couple of months and I also came down with a flu that knocked me out of commission for two weeks. But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, so here we go.

So we finally get to go to the ROM! I've been so excited to write this scene, which was in the works all the way back during the writing of Hunt. It's inspired partially by a conversation that I'd had with my mother but also based on a real experience that I had when visiting the Mesopotamian exhibit held there a few years ago. It's a lovely museum and if you are ever in Toronto, please check it out.

We also have a few timbits from the Compilation stories scattered throughout the chapter. Doctor Lestrange, the ageing owner of St. Mungo's, is the father of Rodolphus and Rabastain Lestrange and the father-in-law of Bellatrix herself. He is a noted pureblood supremacist who actually barred muggleborns from the hospital during the war against Voldemort and killed his own daughter after finding out that she was a mage.

Reyna's copy of Throne was brought up again. Throne is a book written by Violetta Black, Blaise's great-great-grandmother, about the possibility that the Lady Pharaoh ruled Egypt in her own right with the Thief King and King Commander being advisors and close friends - even going as far as to reject the idea of a relationship between Atem and either Bakura or Marik. While Black got many things wrong, Throne is an incredibly censored book due to its (sort of) pro-mage stance. The fact that Reyna owns a first edition copy is incredibly rare and also very telling of who her favourite character is from the Three Kings legend.

On a slightly spoilery note: the next chapter will contain the death of a child character. If you find this incredibly triggering, please feel free to skip the final scene.

Thank you all again for your patience.

Until next time,

AlcatrazOutpatient