This one's mostly filler, I have to say. Something of an interlude to show how things are back home. Hopefully it doesn't feel like we're bouncing around too much.

Chapter Ten: A Ripple Effect

-CEDRIC-

There must be some kind of way outta here,
Said the joker to the thief.
There's too much confusion.
I can't get no relief.

O

Often, in his quieter and more contemplative moments, Cedric thought that maybe it had been a mistake to put his name in the Goblet of Fire. Even on its own, the Triwizard Tournament was a daunting thing, far more so than he had anticipated. The very first task had seen him pitted against a bloody dragon, with absolutely no warning at all, mind. Curiously, Krum and the Delacour girl had both seemed rather unaffected by the revelation, almost as though they had been forewarned. He had hoped the other headmasters might show some integrity, but it seemed the desire to best Albus Dumbledore had won out.

Not that they had succeeded in any meaningful way; not only had Cedric come out of the first task in the lead for points, the one to best Dumbledore had well and truly been Harry Potter.

The student rumor mill had turned over and analyzed every detail of the events of the year, tumultuous as they had been, and traced it all back to that one first outburst of Harry's at (former) Professor Snape. From there, his steadfast refusal to participate in the Triwizard Tournament in even the remotest capacity—as well as his brooking of absolutely no foul play from the staff—had set off a chain of events leading to…well, Hogwarts in its current state.

And Hogwarts was not in the best of states currently.

"Cedric? Are you here?"

His head snapped up from where he had been dozing over a book, the unfortunate combination of the still silence of the library with the dense subject-matter of the ancient tome before him having lulled him into "resting his eyes" once more. Shaking his thoughts back into wakefulness, he belatedly recognized the voice.

"Over here," he said, catching a whirl of robes as Cho spun from the aisle she had been about to search for him. "Everything alright?"

Cho rushed over, her eyes wide and gleaming with excitement. For a moment, Cedric imagined her informing him that she wasn't about to join the wave of withdrawals, that Marietta had talked her into staying like she had been forced to, lest her mother's job at the Ministry be threatened.

"Marietta told me earlier, over breakfast," Cho said in breathy tones, "that her Mum overheard some of the DMLE officers talking about Harry and saying he's wanted for destroying the Goblet of Fire."

Well that was a lot.

"…What?"

"You remember that disturbance at the Ministry weeks ago?" Cho asked him as she sat, and Cedric nodded. Of course he remembered it; it had been all Dad had been able to mention in his letters. "Ced, the Goblet of Fire was destroyed. By fiendfyre. All trace of it's been burned to a crisp, and that means – "

"No binding magical contract," Cedric abruptly realized.

"And no more need to stay at Hogwarts," Cho told him. "You don't have to be the champion anymore."

"…Harry is wanted for destroying the Goblet?" Cedric asked her, and Cho rolled her eyes.

"That's not the important bit, Ced!" she huffed. "You can withdraw now! You don't have to stay here!"

"I…suppose that's true," Cedric sighed, "but my dad…"

"I think it's high time you stop letting your dad decide what you do," Cho said with a frown. "It's his fault you're wrapped up in this thing in the first place."

"It's not his fault, he just said it would be a good opportunity to – "

"To risk your life for eternal glory and give him something else to gloat about," Cho said, and Cedric let a groan of a sigh.

"This again?" he asked. To her credit, Cho looked very slightly contrite, her shoulders giving a small hunch.

"I don't like the way he treats you sometimes, is all," she said. "He acts like you're his accomplishment, like everything you do is his by extension, just because he's your father. Remember when you won against Harry in that quidditch match last year? He wouldn't stop bragging about that for the longest time, you said."

"He still hasn't," Cedric admitted. "Acts like Harry falling off his broom was some laughable thing."

"It's lucky he didn't die," Cho said with a frown. "And he was so embarrassed after, the poor thing."

"Look, I know my dad has his faults, but he's family," Cedric said. Cho favored him with a warm smile, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips.

"You Hufflepuffs and your loyalty," she said. "Loving a family member doesn't mean unilaterally accepting them, though. You're allowed to do what you want, not just let your Dad dictate how he wants you to behave."

"He's not been – "

"Cedric, what did he say to you when you wrote him that you weren't so sure about putting your name in the Goblet?" Cho asked. "Or last year, when you told him you were thinking of quitting quidditch to focus on your OWLs?"

"He…told me it was my decision to make," Cedric said. True enough, his dad hadn't squarely dismissed his desires, but he had made his opinions quite plain in the language of his letters and a generally distant attitude. Only when Cedric had "seen the light" and made the decision to juggle his quidditch season with the mounting pressure of OWLs (and his prefect duties—another bragging point for Dad) had Dad finally resumed his warm attitude toward his son.

Cho had informed him in blistering tones that this was called "emotional withholding" by muggle mental health professionals.

For a moment, things were silent between them. She was so good at that, letting him think for a moment, watching his expressions until she saw the ponderous look fade to something a bit more resolute. Cho was a quick thinker, but that made her a bit impulsive—this was reflected in her playstyle on the quidditch pitch as well, and was responsible for the bulk of her injuries. Cedric, meanwhile, was a big fan of contemplation, of weighing the options. While Cho dove and swept about the pitch at every glint she saw, Cedric hovered and scanned and made absolutely sure he knew that he was diving for a snitch.

Evidently, this made them perfect for each other, according to her.

"So," she said after a long moment, "what do you want to do?"

Cedric took a breath. "I want to focus on studying for my NEWTs," he said, "and I think…maybe it might be fun to become a professor. Teach the next generation. Dad says I have more potential than that, though."

"You tell him that he should ask McGonagall or Flitwick if teaching doesn't require potential, he'll sing a different tune," Cho told him crossly.

"That would be fun to see," Cedric chuckled. Leaning back in his seat, he sighed as he stared down at the page about the Bubble-Head Charm. Weeks, he'd spent in the library, poring over books and neglecting his studies, neglecting his friends, neglecting Cho, all just to figure out how to breathe underwater for an hour in order to survive the next leg of this mad tournament. The realization hit him like a bag of bricks, like the tail of a Swedish Short-Snout. "…I…don't want to be a Triwizard Champion anymore."

"Well, as I've just said," Cho told him not unkindly, "now you don't have to be."

"I want to spend more time with you," Cedric went on, watching a beatific smile bloom on her face. "I miss feeling normal."

"You should write Professor Sprout," Cho insisted. "She'd fast-track a transfer to the Lily Academy in no time at all. Flitwick did for me."

"Perhaps I will," Cedric said with a sigh. "Even without this whole debacle of a tournament, Hogwarts…doesn't feel the same anymore. It's all Ministry workers and posh types. Half the time it feels like they only give me the time of day because I'm a pureblood."

"Oh, that's certainly the case," Cho said with a roll of her eyes. "Professor Yaxley found out Mum's a muggle, and I went from being his favorite student to scum on the bottom of his shoe overnight. Fancy that."

"His loss," Cedric said.

"Don't you see, though, Ced?" Cho asked, and Cedric wondered how she could make his hated nickname sound so very endearing. "It's only going to get worse. And they don't care. They like their society like this. Insular and xenophobic and stagnant."

"You know so many more words than I do," Cedric told her, and she frowned at him.

"I'm serious, Cedric!" she insisted, reaching out to wrap her small hands around his rather broad ones. All the better to catch a snitch with, he insisted. "Doesn't this all feel like it's…leading to something?"

Cedric let a small sigh at her words; she was right, of course. While he was nowhere near as perceptive as Cho even on his best days, he was still able to see that their society had reached a tipping point, and not any sort of good one. Muggle-borns—already loath to mingle with a society that saw them as nothing more than enlightened savages—were leaving wizarding Britain in droves now that the new and archaic educational decrees had cut their education off at the knees. Some elected to pursue other options in France, Australia, or America; the rest, though, were simply leaving magical society entirely, returning to their former lot as muggles and broadening their knowledge of magic only as a means to enhance their lives.

Cedric mused that things must have gotten bad if life as a muggle seemed the more enticing prospect than staying at Hogwarts.

"It does," he finally answered Cho's question. "Even Hogwarts, it…feels different. Empty and…"

"Not safe," Cho said. "You have to be careful about what you say or do or even what answers you give in class. I made the mistake of pointing out the Ignatia Wildsmith was the one to invent Floo powder in Potions, and Professor Rowle said a muggle-born could never have come up with such a thing on her own. He even tried to insinuate that she stole the research from a pureblood, Edwin Ricketts. When I argued with him, he took fifty points from Ravenclaw."

"But…Edwin Ricketts was just the one to suggest Ministry regulation of Floo travel," Cedric said. "He helped coordinate the Floo Network, but he had nothing to do with the invention of Floo powder. That's…ridiculous."

"But that's what they're teaching now," Cho said. "They're erasing muggle-borns, rewriting our history books. The only reason Professor Binns isn't the History of Magic teacher anymore is because he teaches what actually happened."

"You mean he teaches blood-traitor propaganda," a scathing voice spoke nearby, and the pair looked up to see Cassius Warrington standing near their table, arms crossed and a smirk on his face. One of the newer additions to the Slytherin quidditch team, Warrington had gained a quick and notorious reputation for his brutal tactics in intercepting the quaffle—and he had racked up a staggering number of fouls in the process. "Tell me, Diggory, how's it feel, knowing you managed to top getting sorted into the house of failures and fools by getting yourself mixed up with a half-breed?"

"I'm quite proud of myself, actually," Cedric said. "At least I'm not putting the moves on someone picked right off the family tree."

"Yes, how is dear Merida doing?" Cho asked. "Your…third cousin, right? Looping those branches right back together, aren't we?"

"I don't recall addressing you, half-breed," Warrington spat. "I'm proud to carry on the legacy of magical blood, unlike your blood-traitor father, lowering himself to – "

"Is this going to end anytime soon?" Cho asked. "I don't really have time to listen to the same tired inbred rhetoric."

"Been a lot of that going around as of late, hasn't there?" Cedric said with a chuckle, and Warrington seethed as he reached for his pocket. At once, Cedric was on his feet, and Cho was at his elbow. For a moment, Warrington faltered, torn between saving face and getting himself stomped; Cho had been helping Cedric learn all manner of useful spell for the second leg of the Triwizard Tournament, and the two of them were a formidable combination. Warrington knew this.

Before he could make a decision, however, a dry and reedy voice shrieked into the silence, startling all three of them.

"This is a library!" Madame Pince shouted as she bustled closer. "I won't have you lot treating it as some dueling ring! Go kill each other somewhere else!"

She chased the lot of them from the stacks and out into the corridor, a hail of books pelting them like a flock of angry birds as they ran. Once safely away from the confines of the library, Warrington took the opportunity to flee like a coward, with only one last backward sneer as he disappeared around the corner. Fixing her hair, Cho let a small huff.

"For a woman who goes on about respecting her books, she has no problem weaponizing them when the occasion calls for it," she observed.

"Maybe it's her way of letting them fight back," Cedric guessed, and Cho let a small snicker at that.

"Put that way, it does make rather a lot of sense," she said. Peering up at him, she snatched up his hand, lacing their fingers together and gently swinging their hands between them. "So…what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking I would like to write Professor Flitwick and ask him to fast-track a transfer for me," he said. "And if my dad has a problem with it, he'll simply have to deal with it."

Cho gave him her proudest smile, slinking his arm around her and squeezing him in a hug.

"I hoped it was something like that."

000

-GINNY-

Look around your world, pretty baby.
Is it everything you hoped it'd be?
The wrong guy, the wrong situation,
The right time to roll to me.
Roll to me.

O

"Mad, what's happened, isn't it?"

Ginny wondered at the voice for a moment. Fred and George even sounded exactly the same, to the point that it was nearly impossible to differentiate them only from listening hard enough. Still, she knew from the contemplative tone and the thoughtful phrase that it was George. He was the grounded one, the tether that kept Fred from floating off where none could retrieve him. Caustic words and the occasional bit of brutal honesty were Fred's forte, while George was the only one that could keep him from alienating even his own family.

Ginny wondered why some still bothered to try to look for the difference. Spending five minutes in either's company was more than enough to glean a thousand variations in their mannerisms.

"Which bit?" she eventually asked. "Hogwarts being taken over by the Ministry, the Ministry being a bunch of Death Eaters and their pals playing puppet-master, or Harry deciding to skip the country and somehow still managing to be harassed by the government?"

"Probably the part that concerns your ickle crush," George said with a grin in his voice, striding up to the window of Ginny's room and climbing out to join her on the roof. It was a brisk evening, but the climate-control charms on the Burrow carried a steamy waft of warmth that kept most of winter's bite at bay even on Ginny's improvised balcony. "It's really heating up over there. Even the Prophet won't stop talking about it."

"Trying to say it's all his fault, you mean," Ginny scoffed. "It's complete malarkey. Harry would never do half the things they're trying to pin on him."

"It all sounds like a wicked sort of adventure, though," George chuckled. "Flying hotels and shootouts in floating cities. I didn't know America had those."

"Maybe next year, we can go on a study-abroad trip," Ginny suggested. "Hermione's sent a couple of pictures back, and it looks lovely."

Unable to keep a wistful tone from her voice, she wasn't surprised to hear George let a quiet chuckle, and she glanced over to see him with a grin on his face.

"Our dear little Gin is growing into a young woman of such complex emotions," he said. Ginny only stuck her tongue out at him, soundly disproving his statement as he winked at her.

"I can't help but be happy for them, honestly," she admitted. "No matter what, no matter how long I took, I wouldn't ever really be able to stop thinking of him as…famous Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the boy that actually saved my life. Even if we did get together, it…it wouldn't be the same as what they have. Hermione can look at him and see…just Harry. The danger magnet with a hero complex who desperately needs someone to save him from himself half the time."

"…Yeah," George finally said, looking impressed at her. "You really do have some complex emotions, don't you?"

"Girls are more complex than boys," Ginny told him loftily, and George rolled his eyes.

"More confusing, you mean," he said. "Sometimes I wish there was a translation book out there to help a bloke make sense of you lot once in a while. I still can't believe Ron of all people was the first one to figure it out."

"Oi, I resent that…sort of," Ron's voice spoke, and he climbed out to join them with a tray of hot cocoa and a grin. Ginny couldn't help but smile back; Ron with a girlfriend was her new favorite Ron, and even with Mum's warning, Ginny had issued one of her own, telling Tracey that if Ron needed a swift kick from his little sister to set him straight, she'd do it.

Oddly, such an occasion hadn't yet cropped up.

"So, Ronald, what's the secret to your romantic success?" George asked as Ron passed them each a cup of cocoa before sipping at his own. Staring contemplatively down at his mug, he gave a small shrug.

"We…talk a lot," he said. "She tells me when something's bothering her, and I tell her when something's bothering me. And then we…talk it out, you know?"

"Open communication?" George asked with a snort. "Pah. Ridiculous, that."

"I guess her mum's an advice columnist," Ron said, "and she says that most of the romance problems she gets written to her could be really easily solved if everyone just sat down and talked to each other. Tracey took that to heart, I guess."

"Sounds rather ideal for you, then," Ginny said. "Any girl attempting to date you would need that sort of patience."

"Is that what we're doing?" Ron asked, his ears going a bit red. "Ragging on me when I'm the happiest I've been?"

"Oh, you know I'm happy for you, you prat," Ginny said, gently bumping him with her shoulder. "I'm your little sister, there has to be the occasional taking of the mickey."

"It's in the contract," George added, and Ron rolled his eyes, bumping her right back.

"Suppose I'd be more worried if you weren't picking on me," he said.

"See? You get it."

…

That night, Ginny emerged from the steamy confines of the bathroom across the landing from her bedroom, having just enjoyed the simple luxury of a hot shower on a brisk evening. The very next day, she would be joining quite a few other former Hogwarts students in a tour of the Lily Academy, which would be opening its doors come March for an extended third term. The Ministry was still faffing about deciding if the school would be permitted to administer OWLs and NEWTs, but that hadn't deterred the headmistress or deputy headmistress, who had sent along pamphlets to prospective students detailing the American floating city of New London.

And what a city it was. New London looked shockingly like its namesake, though in shades of bronze and brass and sporting a populace clad in the finest Victorian-era clothing. It was actually a collection of floating islands in the sky (of which America seemed to have plenty), hovering somewhere near the coast of the state of Washington.

Evidently, the wet and cold climate was also quite like its namesake.

New London was apparently known to some within the Ministry, though for obvious reasons, it wasn't talked about overmuch. Dad had only heard the occasional passing mention of it, and rarely at that. It was spoken of in disparaging tones, its mere existence an affront to the wizarding world of Great Britain. How dare the muggle-borns and half-bloods they were trying to oppress go to live elsewhere? Who else would occupy menial labor positions and see to the tedious desk jobs?

Rolling her eyes at the absolute idiocy of some people, Ginny fussed about in her wardrobe for a moment, seeing what clothing options she had. Her choices were a bit limited, though Mum had at least ensured that she didn't have to spend every waking moment in her brothers' hand-me-downs and had at least a few girly options. She was a bit of a tomboy by nature, or had been. It seemed becoming a teenager had flipped some switch in the back of her head. Suddenly, she cared how her hair looked any given day, fussed with her clothes from time to time. She had even caught herself primping in the mirror the other morning.

Holding a ruffled denim skirt in front of her while eyeing herself in the full-length mirror in the corner of her room, Ginny made sure her bedroom door was shut before casting a quick levitation charm on the article of clothing, reaching back to grab a couple of tops in hand and comparing how both of them looked as an outfit. While everyone she saw tomorrow would be a former Hogwarts student, she was no doubt liable to at least strike up a conversation with a new face, and she would not be doing so in jeans and a hand-me-down t-shirt.

Especially if that new face belonged to a handsome boy.

Maybe Michael Corner would be there. She'd danced with him once at the Yule Ball and found him to be rather charming. After all, she could only pine after Harry for so long, especially given the fact that they'd really barely ever spoken to each other outside of a few casual chats and one rather dire conversation after he'd saved her life. Unfortunately, she'd been quite young and in no fit mental state anyway to be making dramatic love confessions. Also, Harry had been covered in slime and blood and had just recovered from a near-death experience.

That was a trend with him, she'd gone on to find out.

Her musings were interrupted by a knock at the door, and she turned to see the knob already turning.

"Oi, don't knock and just barge on in anyway!" she chided Ron as she saw his head peek in.

"Bugger, sorry," he said, covering his eyes when he saw her clothes floating about. "You decent?"

"Yes, but someday I might not be," Ginny huffed. "What is it?"

"Dad's just gotten in," Ron said, peeking through his fingers and stepping into the room. "He…got fired."

"…That's…not terribly surprising," Ginny said resignedly, settling heavily onto her bed Ron made his way over and sat next to her. "He's been talking about it for a while now."

"It's mad," Ron sighed. "It's like they're trying to flush this place down the toilet."

"They already have," Ginny said. "It's all just circling about now."

"Maybe we should move to that New London place when we're done at the Lily Academy, start fresh there," Ron said.

"From the look of it, that might be the only option we have left," Ginny pointed out. "Most of the purebloods around here call us blood-traitor already."

"Good news is, McGonagall's already Flooed and told Dad he has a Muggle Studies job waiting for him at the academy," Ron said. "Probably even be better money."

"What about the professor from Hogwarts?" Ginny asked.

"Charity Burbage?" Ron leaned back on the bed, eyeing the still-floating outfits. "She'll be helping with muggle-born outreach or something. Letting muggle-borns know exactly what Hogwarts will be like for them and stuff. I think she'd run teaching out a while ago, prefers working with muggles in person."

"I have a feeling the Ministry won't be happy with the Lily Academy basically snatching up two-thirds of their citizenry and shipping them out of the country," Ginny muttered, and Ron shrugged.

"Dad says there's only so much they can do about it without becoming a dictatorship," he said, "and that would get the ICW involved. Not to mention they have their hands full with this business in America."

"Speaking of that," Ginny said, kicking her legs slightly, "do you think Harry's really going to be okay over there?"

"Oh, I'm sure of it," Ron told her with a wave of his hand. "Harry always comes through this sort of thing. And he's got Hermione, you know she won't let anything happen to him. Whatever's going on over there, he'll be back come summer with a story to tell, I'll bet."

"You have a lot of faith in him," Ginny observed, and Ron shrugged with a small bit of melancholy on his face.

"I wish I did have, before," he said.

"You knew he didn't actually do it," Ginny insisted. "You were just…"

"Being a jealous berk," Ron finished for her, and she smirked at him.

"You said it, not me."

"It's only the truth," Ron said. "Suppose I just needed my own sort of adventure, someone to share it with or whatever."

"Ronald Weasley," Ginny said with a smarmy smile at him, "are you cooing over Tracey again?"

"Oi, maybe!" Ron said with a pouty look.

"You are so sweet to her, it's unbelievable," Ginny told him. "If you ever dump her – "

"I know, I knooow," Ron drawled, rolling his eyes. "You'll hunt me down, Mum'll hunt me down, Fred and George'll hunt me down, I even got a letter from Charlie promising he'd hunt me down. He's never even met Tracey."

Ginny giggled and scooted closer, pressing a smooch to his cheek despite his protests.

"Alright, Slobber Queen!" he grumbled, and Ginny cackled as she squeezed him in a hug.

"You come into my queendom, you get slobbers," she said, dropping her head on his shoulder with a happy little noise. "Love you, my dear big brother."

"I love you too, twerp," Ron told her as he attempted to wiggle and extricate himself from her grip. "Best sleep, though, yeah? Big day tomorrow."

"Right, so get out of my room," she told him with an impish look. Chuckling, he hopped to his feet, holding his hands up defensively.

"Banished from the queendom already, eh?"

"You've rejected my slobbery cheek-kisses," she told him in faux-imperious tones. "That's grounds for immediate banishment."

"Goodnight, my dear little sister," he said as he paused at the door. "You're alright. Even if I don't say it a lot."

He left (shutting the door behind him, no less), and Ginny rolled her eyes with a wry smile as she tossed her clothes back in her wardrobe and crawled into bed. It was a chore, sometimes, being the little sister to six boys. But when it mattered, they always came through for each other.

She wouldn't trade this—her strange and massive family—for anything in the world.

000

-PETER-

And I find it kind of funny.
I find it kind of sad.
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had.

O

Sleeting rain lashed at the windows outside, the rickety old house battered by a constant and howling wind. The only warmth, the only light, came from the small stone fireplace along one wall. Even then, the normally cheerful crackling and popping of the logs sounded almost ominous, threatening to his ears, like a creature of some sort hissing angrily at him.

It was not the sort of night to know that someone out there wanted him dead.

Of course, Peter had long grown used to the concept, even lived a terrifying year knowing that Sirius was hunting him down with every intention of committing the crime for which he'd wrongfully been imprisoned. It was only due to the misplaced mercy of James's boy that Peter even still drew breath.

Unfortunately, he doubted there would be any such luck this time around, and he doubted even more that such notions would sway whoever was going around killing his former cohorts. This was not Sirius Black and his wild, half-mad agenda. These killings were methodical, calculated; the perpetrator, whoever it was, was as merciless to Voldemort's old retinue as they themselves had been to those they had oppressed.

As if to prove his musings, a newspaper on the side table next to the sofa on which he sat caught the orange light of the fireplace, which flickered across it hauntingly.

Watchdog Killer Claims TWO More Victims!
Prominent Daily Prophet Editors MURDERED!

The Carrow twins, Amycus and Alecto. Bellatrix's prized disciples. She would be heartbroken (murderously so) to find that they had met their end. Although, she would very likely have also had words with them herself about sneaking back into the shadows and not seeking to return the Dark Lord to power. No doubt a "lesson" would have been had, one involving much screaming, groveling, and peals of mad laughter.

There was always mad laughter with Bellatrix Lestrange.

None of that mattered now, though. The Carrows were gone, dead, killed by the person known only as the Watchdog Killer. At every scene, there was always an emblem of a dog left on the wall or floor near the body. Peter's first thought had been Sirius, but he'd dismissed that notion rather quickly; Harry was overseas, and there was no way his godfather wasn't with him.

Whoever the killer was, he had halved the Dark Lord's number, and Voldemort himself was beginning to grow weary of the crusade. With Harry quite out of reach, both Barty Jr. and Peter had been trying to convince him to go with someone, anyone else in order to complete his return to power. Voldemort, however, was reluctant to do so, insisting that it had to be Harry's blood. Thankfully, at least, the Ministry's ineptitude was working in their favor, as the wizarding government was doing its level best to drag the boy back, kicking and screaming if need be.

This seemed to be having some unintended consequences, however, as evidenced by the second page of the Prophet.

Meddling With MACUSA
What's REALLY Past the
Proclamation Line?

This article speculated at great length about what really lay across the Proclamation Line of 1763—long considered a wizarding No-Man's Land, it was now coming to light that there was in fact a whole society over there, a nation's worth of magic folk that were growing more and more irate as MACUSA and Wizarding Britain dragged their affairs into their land. If tensions kept mounting the way they were, a war was sure to brew, one MACUSA would be hard-pressed to win, the article insisted.

Peter wondered if the Dark Lord really knew what he was getting himself into.

Crash!

A noise pulled him from his thoughts, a clatter in the kitchen of the house in which they were squatting. The old muggle couple that had lived here had been…disposed of by Barty Jr. and the Dark Lord. The three of them had considered putting down a Fidelius Charm, but things got tricky when one tried to hide that which didn't belong to him. For the moment, they were simply relying on their anonymity to keep them from being discovered.

Had it been enough?

Standing, Peter took up his wand and crept slowly toward the kitchen. Of course, there was every chance that a pot or pan had simply fallen to the floor. Perhaps the other two had returned early from whatever errand they had gone on. The Dark Lord hadn't shared any details with Peter, who knew better than to ask.

One didn't press Voldemort for information he wasn't ready to give, and when he was, he did so readily, often in the form of an impressive monologue.

"My lord?" Peter spoke, hating the way his voice wobbled around the words. "Barty? Is that you?"

He peered into the kitchen –

"Petrificus Totalus," a voice growled, and Peter felt his entire body suddenly immobilized as he stood in the doorway. Through the gloom, he could just make out two cloaked figures standing near the door to the back garden, two horribly familiar faces. "Good evening, Pettigrew. Been a while."

"Do not attempt to transform," Barty Crouch Sr. spoke in a voice of tranquil rage. Near his feet, a metal bowl was still wobbling from its impact with the floor. "If I see so much as one whisker sprout, there won't even be a finger left this time."

"I'm afraid I don't even know which one of us you should be less thrilled to see, boy," Alastor Moody said, sounding grimly amused as he made his way over with a solid clunk on every other step. "It's about to be a very difficult day for you."

"You see, we need you alive," Barty Sr. spoke. "You're going to talk, and you're going to tell the Wizengamot exactly what you've been up to the last thirteen years."

"And if you make a fuss," Alastor said with a leering grin, "well…you're already a dead man walking. We'd just be balancing the books, wouldn't we?"

"Mobilicorpus," Barty Sr. said with a flick of his wand, and Peter felt himself lift off the ground. Desperately, he struggled against the body-bind Moody had put him under, but he couldn't twitch so much as a finger. If he attempted to transform…it was difficult while bound but not impossible, though he knew that the elder Crouch's threat was quite a bit more than hot air. Moody's assessment that he didn't know which one to be less thrilled about seeing had been quite an accurate one; both of these men had every reason to want him dead.

Again, he mused that it was a sadly common sentiment as of late.

Even so, he would simply bide his time; they had to slip up eventually. Let them think they'd gotten the best of him for now. It would be all too easy to –

"Y'know what?" Barty Sr. asked Moody. "I'm not taking any risks. Stupefy."

And the last waking thought Peter Pettigrew had that evening was nothing overly polite at all.

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