Huge thanks to bissek, Byakugan789, Jack Inqu, skywiseskychan, The Sinful, and especially SixPerfections for helping me out with an interesting little subplot for this story that's bubbling in my brain. Hopefully now it won't be utter crap.

Disclaimer: Despite watching angry and even booby-trapped letters be delivered to Hermione after Skeeter's article about her, him, and Krum came out, did Harry wonder why he didn't get even a single piece of hate-mail while the Ministry was making him out to be insane? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whomever else she sold the rights to.


Chapter 4
Forced Employment

A golden glow caught Sirius's eye as he came down the stairs, and he made a swift detour to the tray on the table inside the foyer. If nothing else, it was proof the spell was working as it ought, he decided as he scooped out the two letters inside the tray and the the glow promptly vanished. One had the Ministerial seal pressed into the envelope's wax, but the other had no marking to indicate its origins. The handwriting on the front looked so familiar, but he could not put his finger on exactly why that was.

It had to have been someone he had written to a lot before his incarceration, he knew that much, but after twelve years spent in the literally soul-consuming hell that was Azkaban, many of those happy memories were long gone. His recovery at St. Mungo's had helped a tremendous amount – he doubted he would be anything close to sane had he decided to throw the therapist out of the room like he considered doing his first dozen or so sessions – but even now, two years later, there were still holes in his memory and wounds on his soul.

He pushed the dark thoughts away and refocused on the present. Who had sent the letter? A few seconds' fruitless thinking made him shrug. Though he was curious who it was, it really was not his place to figure it out. It wasn't like it was his letter. Continuing down the stairs to the kitchen, he pulled out the chair next to Narcissa and tossed the letters across the table. "Morning post!"

Jen quirked an eyebrow and kept her gaze on him as she gathered the letters. "And they came to you instead of me because…?"

"We discussed this before you ran off to Bulgaria," he reminded her. "Unless you'd rather have a bunch of owls dropping off the betrothal contracts and gifts in your lap all day once your birthday rolls around?"

"No, I just would have preferred we talk about you collecting my post when I wasn't running around to finish packing my things. I wasn't paying as much attention then as I really should have been."

Sirius shrugged. He knew this was Jen's love of secrecy talking, but it really wasn't such a big deal. It was just a little post-redirection charm cast over the house to collect all her mail in a single place; he had one up for himself, as well, so that his post would be waiting for him in his study. "I added exception clauses for all your friends, so their owls should be able to find you wherever you happen to be. And it's a minor spell, just something to make your birthday and the days immediately afterward a little easier. It isn't like I was going to leave it in force while you were at Hogwarts."

"Thank you for those adjustments, at least," she grumbled, then she sighed. "But can it come down once the initial storm of proposals ends rather than waiting until September, perhaps?"

"Of course it can. Once I forward your replies to them, all subsequent letters should come directly to me because I'm your head of House. I figure it should be safe to take it down after… the first week of August?"

"And yet you put it up a month before my birthday," she pointed out.

"First, you agreed to it. Second, it was going to have to go up at some point, anyway. No reason to wait. Third and most importantly," he said with a small smile, "I was looking out for the poor owls. No need for them to fly all the way across Europe when you wouldn't want to deal with their letters then, anyway. It would just tire their little wings out."

For all that she was still watching him with narrowed eyes, Jen's lips twitched once, twice; he just waited patiently, and finally an easy grin spread over her face. "Two years I've lived here, and there are still days I can't tell if you're joking or serious."

Narcissa grimaced beside him, and Jen widened her eyes and opened her mouth to take it back. She was not fast enough. "I'll have you know that I'm always Sirius."

"Can I come to Hogwarts with you?" Narcissa whined to Jen. "If getting away from him for a few months at a time is enough to make you forget that pun, I clearly need to do so, and I don't have many other places to do that in. I'll even hide in your trunk during the day if that's what it takes."

"Well, I'd offer to keep you in my closet, but I think it's too late for that," the girl laughed. "Regardless of how you want to interpret it." Her good mood restored, she tore into one of the letters and skimmed over it.

"So what does the Ministry want?" Sirius asked after a quick glance at the purple wax of the envelope.

"I…" Jen shook her head. Her expression was a study in disbelief. "I have a job interview."

"A job interview?" he repeated dumbly. "You've only just taken your OWLs; you haven't even received your marks yet. And you're not seventeen. Who in the Ministry would be offering you a job?"

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's an interview for a job offer that is contingent on me getting the requisite NEWT scores." She rapped her fingertips on the wooden table for a few moments, only nodding when Kreacher delivered a plate loaded with food in front of her. "I have to go, though. Putting it off while I wait for my scores might reflect badly on me, something I can't afford if I want to work there in the future, and I really want to know just what has them so interested even though they know I still have two years before I can actually apply for a job."

"You still haven't told us who it was, you know."

She smirked at his comment. "I'm afraid I can't speak of it." And with that cryptic answer, she tore the other letter open.

Sirius took a bite of his own breakfast before glancing up, and what he saw made him stop mid-chew. Jen was glaring at the letter in front of her, eyes flashing with purple fire. Fire that was duplicated in yellows and reds when the sheet of parchment burst into flame in her hands. She let the letter float in the air and vanished the ashes, and only once all traces of it were gone did she return to her meal.

"Jen, what was that all about?" he asked, the concern in his question echoed by Narcissa.

"It's nothing. Just someone I am really not in the mood to talk to at the moment."

"If you want, I can tell them to stop bothering you—"

"No." The teenager closed her eyes and waited a minute; when she opened them, she had at least a semblance of calm. "This is just a mistake I made coming back to haunt me. That's all. I can deal with it on my own."

"All right," he finally said, reluctantly relenting. "If you're sure. You can always let us know if you decide you need any help with it."

She barked out a laugh, the sound much colder than his own. "If I can't handle this, I have much, much bigger problems."

The atmosphere around the table was noticeably strained for the next several minutes, and Sirius was never so happy to see the raven that flew into the room as he was right then. Loki, his goddaughter's pet, had never taken to him, but while he mostly ignored the bird and it ignored him, the familiar's presence always managed to cheer Jen up a little.

The white envelope in the raven's talons was a little unusual, though.

"Looks like your charm isn't quite up to snuff," she teased after glancing at the writing on the front. "I'm fairly sure you wouldn't think to add these people to the list of exceptions. Unless it only affects post being carried by owls specifically?"

He shook his head. European wizards primarily used owls to ferry letters around, yes, but other places preferred different birds, so the spell should have worked just fine. That was assuming Loki had not done something to avoid it, of course; how a bird, even a disturbingly smart bird like Jen's, could manipulate magic, he had no idea, but it wasn't the strangest possibility he could think of. As if understanding where his thoughts were headed, the bird looked at him from where it was perched on Jen's shoulder and gave him what he would swear was a taunting croak.

One hand mindlessly stroking the bird's breast feathers, Jen read through the letter, a frown appearing and growing as her eyes skimmed the page. "Aunt Cissy, have you noticed anything strange at Candyland recently?"

Sirius grimaced. The piebald witch's… preferences, if he were going to be polite about it… were something he did his best to pretend did not exist. It was an uncomfortable clash of morals, pitting basic decency against the need to protect his family, and the fact that the latter won out was a sign that for all he had tried to distance himself from his family's opinions in Hogwarts and even now, some of the lessons he had learned as a child were still too deeply ingrained to be gotten rid of. He was not the only one who had to wrestle with it; the rest of the family, bar Jen, had remarked on their own difficulties, and while Ted and Dora had not reported Narcissa to the DMLE – partly because they knew it would do little good considering the laws of their world were written to protect magicals first and foremost – Sirius knew that both Ted and Andi had left anonymous tips with the Muggle police about Candyland.

Jen was the only Black who had no problems with Narcissa's nature, but as a former child prostitute, her opinions on pedophilia were more than a little distorted.

"No, not really, but I haven't been by in the last few weeks, either. Why? And what specifically are you talking about?"

"That is a good question that I do not have the answer to."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure they can handle it themselves, can't they?" he suggested. He had pulled Jen out of that life as soon as he found her, and he really did not want her to get involved in it again. Honestly, he would be completely fine with her cutting all ties to her former colleagues and employees.

"If they could, they would have done so rather than bringing it to me." She mulled over the contents of the letter for a moment. "Nothing to do about it from here, though. I'll just have to head over and learn what's going on from the source."


The club was actually fairly quiet when Jen barged through the front door that afternoon. That was no great surprise; without the music for the dancers or the dull roar of the crowd as they watched the show or waited for their children of choice to be available once more, much of the noise the club normally created was absent. There were still some sounds coming from the innards of the club, obviously, but no more than she expected from sixteen to eighteen preteens playing around.

Throwing open the door that led to the main gallery, Jen's sudden entrance caused everyone to stop what they were doing and look at who had caused the interruption and why. "Mama!" several of them shouted, their voices filled with delight… and with relief.

Just what had been going on?

Her eyes panned over the crowd of kids as she looked for Paula or Drew, the two she had trained to take over in her absence, but neither of them were to be found. Fortunately, someone else was. "Sarah," she called out, waving the ten-year-old to follow her. "I got a letter from Richard this morning, but all he said was that he needed my help. What happened?"

"It's Steven, Mama. Lots of weird things go on around him. Stuff like what you can do."

What she could do? That… could be a problem. "Steven?" she asked instead. It had been a while since she spent more than a couple of hours at Candyland, but she could not recall anyone with that name.

The coltish brunette nodded. "He's new here. Five days, a week tops? He's…" She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment before she admitted, "He's scaring the clients. They can barely get his shirt off before his dresser's rattling or the bed starts shaking around. Drew tried to start him off with the ones who mostly like to watch and pet, but he won't even put up with that. We've all talked to him about it, but it's like he's never done this before."

Jen pursed her lips. This was starting to look ugly, and not just because she suspected the kid was a Muggleborn. "Where's his room?"

"Far back corner." Sarah looked away. "Dicky figured it would be best to keep him out of the way until you showed up. Do you think you can calm him down?"

"Maybe, but more likely he'll have to go somewhere else. It doesn't sound like he's taking to the job. Do you know anything about him before he showed up?" She shook her head sadly, and Jen sighed before plopping a hand on her head and giving the girl a strained smile. "Okay. That's okay. I'll take a look and see what's going on up in that head of his. Just leave it to me."

Sarah nodded quickly, shoulders slumping in relief.

Pulling her hand away, she wasted no time climbing the single set of stairs that led to the upper floor. Originally, this floor had been just a single cramped hallway, but once she got better at her magic, she had set out to expand and rearrange it so everyone would have more space and so they could increase their staff. The six weeks she had spent on that project had been an… interesting experience, and while she had eventually succeeded – though not without numerous fits and starts and periods when she had to completely rework a section she previously thought was fine – construction was something she was more than happy to leave to the professionals from now on.

As she walked down the hall to the room Sarah had directed her to, she could hear an unsteady thumping sound that just kept getting louder and louder. Turning the corner, she spotted Drew flinging himself out the door and pulling it shut behind him. "How bad is it?"

The dark-skinned boy glanced up at her voice and gave her a grateful smile. "Mama, thank god you're here. I can't handle this kid."

"Let me give it a try." Drew nodded and backed away, letting her come closer and push the door open. She immediately pulled it shut again to block the drawer that had shot out of the dresser at her head. "That bad, apparently."

"Yep. I don't think he's cut out for this line of work."

"That makes two of us." Though she kept one hand on the knob, Jen raised her right hand and sketched a rough shape in the air beside her head. Hieroglyphs were much more detailed than Futhark runes, but thankfully her will made up for her haste and lack of artistic ability. The ends of the blocky letter 'u' turned into hands, and the twisting loop above them softened the sharp edges into smooth curves and evened out the ends. She threw the door open once more and shoved her magic into the heka glyph.

A wave of translucent color pulsed out and away, washing over both her and the boy inside. The remaining dresser drawers stopped their banging, the books and broken toys dropped back to the ground, and the squeaking bed fell silent.

Nudging the door closed with a foot, she quirked an eyebrow at the kid who was huddled under his blanket, eyes wide in fear. "You've been scaring a bunch of people, Steven. That's not very nice."

"Who are you?" the boy demanded in a shaky voice. "What did you do?"

"I'm Jen, and I stopped you from making further trouble." Beside her, the symbol shimmered with a multitude of colors. Heka was not exactly a common rune; it functioned to direct raw magic, and while that made it useful for concentrating magic into a single area, the fact that hieroglyphs were predominantly used for wards meant there was little point in rebalancing an entire script just to decrease the charging time. The way she was using it now was normally an even worse strategy. By forcing the flow of magic back inward and preventing external manifestations of magic, she had forcibly repressed the boy's accidental magic, but it also negated her own spells in the process. Had she carved the rune into a solid surface and activated it there, she would be incapable of getting to it and dispelling the magic, leaving a magical 'dead zone' unless someone came along with a heavy enough object that the surface could be damaged and the rune effaced.

Thankfully, the characters used for runic casting were more transient and could be canceled by the creators with a focused thought, else she could have sentenced herself to a life as Muggle.

Steven did not seem to know whether to be more scared of her or the destruction his own accidental magic had wrought, and rather than come closer and tip the balance away from her advantage, Jen propped herself up against the wall next to the doorway. "How did you even get here, kid?"

"A guy took me from the park. He gave me some candy, and then I woke up in the boot of his car." Fat tears dripped from the boy's eyes down his cheeks, and apparently bolstered by her sympathetic gaze, he added, "He said my parents didn't want me anymore and told him to take me away, but I think he was lying."

"I think he was, too. Do you want to go home?"

Steven sniffled and nodded.

Jen gave him a weak smile, other emotions churning out of sight beneath the surface. "It's a good thing I'm here, then. You see, I have some very special gifts, and with them I can make sure you'll be home by dinner." He perked up at her promise, even going so far as to give her a watery smile. "Even better, you won't even remember any of this. It'll all just be a bad dream." And not even that.

"Okay," he said.

"Good boy." Narrowing her eyes at the heka symbol, she sent a thought at it that shattered it into motes of light. A wave of her hand and a bolt of scarlet light had the boy tipping over to slump bonelessly on top of his bed. "That's the simple bit done," she muttered to herself as she stepped closer. She laid her hand on his forehead, more a gesture of apology than because it was necessary for her spell, and she flipped backwards through his memories, shredding them into psychic confetti until she got the part where his kidnapper pulled him out of the car. From there she conjured up an entirely new set of memories, rewriting history so that he spent his week in a drug-induced stupor. A savior, half-remembered, who found him and took him away from the house was added at the end, the memory then trailing off into the black of unconsciousness.

Standing straight, she turned to the door, eyes narrowed. It was time to get this little one back home, but before that, she had a few more questions she needed answers to.

Drew was still outside the doorway when she left the room, but he had been joined at some point by Richard Hutchins, her ex-boss and the owner of Candyland Club. "You got him all straighten out, then?" he asked hopefully.

"To an extent." Richard nodded until she added, "I'm going to take him to the police station in a few minutes so they can ship him back home."

"You're what?!"

"I've already erased his memory of his time here, don't worry." She cocked her head, and her grin took on a sinister edge. "How much of his history do you know?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," he said.

Jen nodded, and then her hand lashed out to grab the front of his shirt. Whirling around, she flung him into the wall and lifted him until his feet were reaching desperately for the floor, the weightlessness charm she had cast upon him allowing her to demonstrate her apparent feat of strength. Negating the majority of his weight did nothing to change the fact that the remainder was supported solely by her fist where it was slowly burying itself in the soft flesh of the floor of his mouth. "Liar," she purred. "That was far too quick a evasion, and obvious besides. You knew that Strom snatched him off the street, didn't you?"

"It's… not that big… a deal," the brown-haired man panted, trying to pull himself off her fist.

"Not that big a deal? Richard, surely you remember our agreement. The only kids we hire on are runaways or those who want to work here. We don't go snatching every child we spot walking around."

Taking as deep a breath as she would allow him, he did his best to glare down at her. "And then you left. Whatever deal we had doesn't matter anymore. I have to keep up the numbers somehow; a bunch of kids retired this past year because they got too old, and all the guys who bring us new talent were coming up empty. I had to do something."

"And you thought kidnapping was an option?" She lifted her right hand and wiggled her fingers in preparation. "We've talked about this before. Bringing in runaways who are used to the life means we have happy kids who do the job without complaints. The money keeps rolling in, the kids have a fun time, no one gets hurt. Everybody wins. Kidnapping? Kidnapping makes people care. It brings in the bobbies to do a little digging. It gets people to pay more attention to what's going on around them." Jen sneered at him. "Having fewer kids to run the club is something we've dealt with before, and eventually we'll find some more. It won't hurt the business. The attention we'll get from a bunch of kidnappings, on the other hand, will.

"You know what I did to the last group of people who tried to hurt my kids?" Richard shook his head at the apparent non sequitur. "I killed them. It wasn't quick, and it wasn't painless. Your stupidity is now threatening my kids." Lightning crackled from her fingertips and arced between her fingers and backward to connect with the skin of her forearm. It was far from the most effective way to murder the man in front of her, and if she did decide to end his life, she would use another method, but the theatrics would serve to get his attention. And they had succeeded beautifully if the stain on the front of his trousers was any indication. "Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you, too."

"I'm the one whose name is on the bank account," he tried desperately. "And you need an adult around to handle any problems that crop up. It's not like you're spending your time here to take care of it, and people won't listen to a twelve-year-old."

"There are a few people I could get to replace you fairly easily. People who are devoted to me and will do what I say when I say and without question. People I can count on a lot more than I can you, it seems." And even if she couldn't use Rita or Eddie for this, she could always make one someone she could.

Richard's face was turning pasty now. "The finders are all used to working with me. If I'm not around, they'll think it's a sting and won't talk to you. That means no new kids, and then this place will fail."

That was an angle she had not thought of, and if she were honest, he had a good point. Candyland was a refuge for the kids like Paula and her who had been kicked out of or ran away from the homes they were sent to, and listening to the horror stories Paula and several other of her children told, she did not want to risk sending them back into the cruel hands of the system. Still, she could not just admit he was right. If she did, he might not accept the rule she was now laying down.

Richard was still in the mindset that he was the owner, she was the employee, and she did what he told her. It was time for that paradigm to change.

"I think most of your finders would recognize me just fine," she countered in a soft voice, "and then I could introduce them to the new owner. It would be a minor inconvenience at most." Cold sweat sprang up on the man's forehead. "But congratulations. That's good enough to keep you breathing this time." Dismissing the charm, she let him fall to the floor. "Take note of what I said. This time. If I hear so much as a whisper that you've done something this stupid and destructive in the future, you won't have to worry about finding replacement employees. You won't have to worry about anything ever again." She bent down to stare into his eyes, a malevolent grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Have I made myself clear?"

"C-Crystal."

"Good." The door to Steven's room opened at a glance, and she stepped inside just long enough to float the boy into her arms. "Drew, come with me."

The pair of retired prostitutes turned the corner and were in sight of the stairwell before Drew spoke. "Would you really kill him?" His voice was not scared, but he did sound a little unsure. Probably he, too, was considering the logistical issues that would come about if Richard died.

"With the way he was about to draw a bunch of heat down on us? Yes." She reached over to ruffle the boy's hair. "You know I'll do whatever it takes to protect you guys."

"Yeah, I do, but…"

Drew trailed off, unsure of just what he wanted to say. Jen just sighed. "If he doesn't try to screw everyone else over for a few more quid, it won't be a problem. I don't want to kill him, and as long as he doesn't make me, he'll be fine. I still want you and Paula to keep an eye on him, though, especially where and how he gets any new hires. Draft some of the other kids to help you; get them all involved if you want. The more eyes on him, the better the chance we'll catch him if he tries anything, and if everyone's watching him, he will be less likely to try it in the first place."

"We'll get right on it, Mama." She smiled down at him, but the expression was returned with one that was still timid. "Don't take this the wrong way, but that was really scary."

"I suppose it was, but it had a purpose. Do you know how I kept all the big, bad monsters away from here for so long?" Though Drew shook his head, she could tell from the gleam in his eye that he had figured it out already. "I made sure I was bigger and badder."


With a small sigh, Jen relaxed deeper into the cushions. Dealing with the rest of the fallout of Richard's bout of incredible stupidity had, unfortunately, not gone as smoothly as she hoped it would. Oh, the big hurdles had been simple enough: once she transfigured herself into a form unrecognizable as her own, she woke Steven up in a house she had 'borrowed' without the owner's knowledge, cajoled him into telling her the entire story as he remembered it – which gave her the opportunity to make sure his memories had been properly rewritten – and led him to the police station. Her duty was meant to end there with dropping him off so the bobbies could get him back to his family.

But no, that was when things had gotten sticky. It seemed that Steven's family, while not rich by any means, still had enough money to make a scene about their missing son. There was also a reward being offered, but much as that money would help Candyland and offer delicious irony besides, the process to claim it would have required that she actually set up a proper identity for her disguise. Because it was just a mask, there would be no background details for the police to confirm, and so she had passed on the reward when a helpful officer informed her about it.

It was her refusal to claim the money that had made the department suspicious, and she could see why. Most people who had gone to the trouble and the risk of saving a kidnapped child would be willing to take the reward, regardless of whether it was their primary motivation, and considering the police had no leads as to the identity of the original kidnapper, they were understandably skeptical of her story. It had taken some fast talking and faster compulsion and confusion charms for them to let the issue go and allow her to make her escape.

A familiar core stepped out of the fireplace, and Jen cocked her head thoughtfully as the witch it was part of started climbing the stairs to the library. "Bad day at the office?" she asked when Dora walked in and flopped down face-first onto the other sofa.

"Not bad," the metamorph muttered, her voice muffled. Turning her head toward Jen, she continued, "Just long, and meeting up with some of the Order afterwards was aggravating."

"They are that, aren't they?"

"I don't mean that hanging around them was irritating. It was what happened once it was all over." Sighing at Jen's expression of curiosity, Dora pushed herself upright. "After that ambush a few weeks ago, they've started to move to more of a squad-like setup so each team can meet separately and Apparate wherever they're needed. It's to keep them from all falling into another trap. I volunteered to help them out with practicing fighting as a group, and this afternoon I was working with Remus Lupin's team."

"Remus Lupin," Jen repeated, rolling the name around in her head. "Isn't that Sirius's werewolf friend?"

"That's him, all right." A blush stained her cheeks before it was quickly repressed. "I might have fancied him a bit."

"Why?" Jen asked in honest confusion. From her own single experience with the wizard, she had found nothing attractive. "Wait, 'fancied'? You don't fancy him now?"

Dora rolled over onto her back and glared at the ceiling. "No, that died a fiery death."

"What happened?"

"We got to talking after the meeting, and he seemed interested in me, so I went ahead and asked him if he wanted to go out and get a drink or two, see how the night turned out. He never actually said no, just kind of stammered about how he was so much older and didn't know what other people would think if we were seen together. I figured he was playing hard to get or maybe was trying to be a gentleman and didn't want anyone to start any derogatory rumors about me. I didn't think it was to spare himself any grief because, well…" Sitting up, Dora made her spiky hair cascade down to her shoulders in blonde ringlets, and her breasts swelled until they were nearly popping out the top of her blouse. "When an older guy has someone looking like this on their arm, the only thing other wizards think about is how envious they are."

"If you gave him a preview like that, I really am shocked he turned you down!" Jen laughed.

Giving her a small shrug, Dora's face grew pinched as she reverted the changes. "Well, he did. It's fine; I'm done with that."

"Some guy spurning your advances doesn't really sound like a fiery death," she pointed out. "And I know you. Even if you got turned down a dozen times, if you still fancied him, you'd keep going after him. So what aren't you telling me?"

"Instead of telling me he wasn't interested, he tried to give excuses for why it wouldn't work. He said he was too old. So what? I've always had a thing for older guys, and considering our lifespan, fourteen years isn't that big a deal. Hell, thanks to the so-called Black Curse, he might wind up outliving me! He said he was poor. Money isn't everything. I'd rather be poor and in love than rich and stuck with someone picked out for… me… No offense," she hesitantly added as she seemed to recall just who she was talking to.

Jen waved the comment off.

"Yeah, well. And then he said he was too dangerous. Because he's a werewolf, I would be in too much danger."

"Okay…" She could see why he would think that. Years ago, back when she was still under Elsie's tutelage, she had an encounter with a werewolf that was absolutely terrifying. Before the siege of Hogsmeade, she would have agreed with Lupin, but slaughtering a dozen transformed werewolves made them far less intimidating than they had once been. "And that's what made you so mad?"

"You could say that." Dora's hair flashed to the same black as the rest of the family's for an instant before returning to its normal cheerful pink. "What do I do for a living, Jen?"

"You're an Auror."

"That's right. I am an Auror. I spend my time hunting down dark wizards. For me, getting in a fight for my life is just a regular day at the office." She snarled and leapt off the sofa, pacing restlessly like a caged lioness. "But no, a lone werewolf is clearly too much for me to handle. Never mind that there is an office in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that specializes in capturing werewolves when they're transformed. An office where the workers have a whole lot less combat experience and less training than I do. Nope. I'm just so incompetent that I wouldn't be able to safely restrain him. Nor do I have the insight or common decency to keep an eye on the calendar so I can give the guy a little peace and quiet immediately before and after the full moon. Or maybe I'm just so stupid that I'd think he was a giant doggy and would let him out to play fetch with him."

"Now I know why you said your fancy died a fiery death," Jen muttered, eyeing the ranting woman warily.

"Yep." Dora fell backward back onto her couch with a groan. "That's why. I can put up with a lot of things from guys I'm interested in, but implying I can't do my job? That's not one of them."

An awkward silence fell over them for several minutes. "Well," Jen finally suggested in a forcibly chipper tone, "it could be worse. At least you didn't shout all of this at him while the rest of the group was watching."

"I did. They were."

"Oh. In that case, yeah, that went about as bad as it possibly could."

All her attempt at comforting earned her was a pillow flung at her head.


Maybe it's just me, but that's one of the bigger reasons I dislike Tonks's moping in book 6. Go ahead, tell an FBI agent or a soldier that you two can't be together because you're too dangerous for them to handle. Let me know how that works out for you. It's even worse here since Dora has proven she's a badass by taking on the Big Bad and dealing a not-insignificant amount of damage to him. Seriously, who's more dangerous: the timid werewolf who's never actually hurt anyone or the megalomaniacal Dark Lord with a triple-digit body count?

Also, foreshadowing. Foreshadowing everywhere.

Silently Watches out.