Two Days Earlier...

Bill Weasley was, according to his contemporaries, a lab rat.

He hadn't always been considered as such; heck, he could still remember the days when he was considered one of the coolest kids in Hogwarts. Back then, he'd been Head Boy, top of his class, and all around popular with damn near everyone short of Slytherins. He'd had several girlfriends throughout his tenure there, none of them really serious, and he knew enough people who knew other people that when it came time for him to find a job, word had already spread about his considerable skills with charms, ancient runes, arithmancy, and complicated spell work.

These days, on the other hand, his name was connected with laboratories, secret government research, and zealous dedication to his work. His mind, continuously bombarded with new ideas that he just couldn't let go without at least trying to research, was always on the go; it practically never stopped, except when sleeping. Had he been on speaking terms with his parents, Bill had no doubt that his mother would have fussed over him, trying to get him to find a less stressful job.

Of course, no one ever really understood that to Bill, his job wasn't stressful; it was wonderful.

Back in Hogwarts, he used to dream of creating new spells, of pushing the boundaries of magic further than had ever been known. That was why he took the Gringotts job—everyone else wanted him to settle for mundane warding, or magical object creation. Gringotts, however, promised to have him sent to one of the cradles of magical civilization—Egypt. If that wasn't good enough, they also offered him the job of Curse Breaker, meaning he would be going face to face with ancient magic, thereby giving him the opportunity to further his intellectual drive to know more.

Bill spent much of the following years going through tomb after tomb of ancient pharaohs, relishing the challenges posed in the security wards that were left to protect the treasures within their confines for thousands of years. Each time, they grew more and more difficult, and with each greater challenge, Bill grew more and more excited.

But there was a problem.

While the difficulty of the wards grew with the importance of the tombs, the amount of such challenges available were not infinite, and eventually they would run out. Even worse was that while he managed to glean some important magical information from the wards, he could not use them in the modern world, since such wards were considered Dark. This meant he could not even experiment with what he had found out; he couldn't even theorize about it! If he did, he would find himself cooling his heels in some Egyptian prison, or worse—Azkaban, if they deported him.

So when Harry came along and gave Bill the offer to work as a magical theorist for the Empire, and offered him nigh-unlimited resources and zero boundaries (short of inhumane experimentation), Bill had felt like his life had been given meaning to once again.

So now, years from his days at Hogwarts, years after he started working for the Empire, Bill found himself on the verge of another major breakthrough. One that Harry had commissioned him.

"Mister Weasley?"

Bill looked up from his holographic representation of the Hogwarts wards' data to see one of his lab assistants—a luxury that Alexandra Potter had, without pulling any punches, told him to get or he'd be forcefully sent on vacation for overworking himself.

'What was her name again?' he wondered. 'Florence? Flora? Floy?' Bill raised a mental eyebrow. 'No, definitely not Floy.'

"Mister Weasley?" repeated the very pretty young woman. Not that Bill was paying that much attention, mind you. Half of his mind was still fixated upon the data he had been staring at for the past four hours.

"Err...yes, Miss...?" he decided not to guess. It would end up being humiliating if he got it wrong—both for her and for him. Besides, he had a reputation for being less than attentive to people, ever since he got sprung out of the Death Eater concentration camp in Nova Scotia.

His assistant gave a long-suffering sigh, but smiled nonetheless. "Delacour, Mister Weasley. Fleur Delacour," she reintroduced herself.

"Right," he said, sounding exasperated with himself. He'd gotten close with Flora. "I knew that."

Fleur gave her boss an indulgent smile. "Of course you did, Mister Weasley."

Bill waved off his own imaginary cobwebs before giving his assistant his full attention. "What did you want to speak to me about?"

Fleur nodded and handed over the datapad she had been digitally writing on while he worked, always taking notes. Instead of the notes, however, was the image of a shipment receipt. "The shipment from your brothers' weapons factory in Alberta just arrived. Five thousand units, as ordered," she explained as she pointed out the relevant sections in the manifest.

Bill's eyes lit up like an excited child's. He had been waiting for this shipment impatiently ever since Harry first explained to him what he wanted done. It was yet another major breakthrough, but due to its costly manufacture, they had been limited to a paltry 5,000 units instead of the 50,000 they had wanted; enough to equip an entire Legion.

"Anything from the Roberts factory?" Bill asked eagerly.

Fleur had to visibly keep herself from smiling at how adorable Bill looked whenever he was excited. It really was like a kid on Christmas morning. "Unfortunately no, Mister Weasley. Lady Roberts'" as Alexandra Potter-Roberts was also known, "says that her brother in law reported difficulties in getting the product together, since it was their first time manufacturing this particular item. He says the shipment should arrive tomorrow, first thing in the morning," she reported dutifully.

Bill pouted for a second before brushing that aside and grinning. "I see. Well, nothing for it. Let's go check out Harry's new toys, eh?" Not for the first time, Fleur goggled at the familiarity with which Bill alluded to the Duke of Halifax. She, of course, knew of the history between the two men, but even then, the Duke usually commanded such reverent respect that hearing anyone refer to him by his first name was...well...surprising.

Quietly, as was expected of her, Fleur followed her redheaded boss towards the cargo drop area in the massive hangar that Bill used as his lab. It was one of the early Airship hangars that had been used to build the Retaliation-class Airships prior to the use of the specialized Imperial Shipyards. Here, he had ample space to accommodate to his whims; if a particular experiment needed private space, isolated from the rest of the lab, he would conjure up walls and adequately segregate the needed space. When the experiment finished, he would then take them down. It was simpler that way.

The only exception was the cargo drop area, which was permanently sealed off from the rest of the lab, in order to prevent the delivery teams from getting a view of the very sensitive and very top secret projects he was working on at all times. It was a wonder by itself that he personally managed to oversee each and every one of them, with only a single assistant to help him, but he somehow did it, and with flying colours.

Predictably, there was a series of trucks waiting for him in the cargo drop area, all of which seemed absolutely packed with crates about two heads taller Bill and a fair deal wider. As Bill practically skipped his way to the nearest crate, Fleur made her way to the delivery men, holding a long-suffering look on her beautiful face as she took care of the paperwork while her superior acted like a child on Christmas morning.

Once the crates were all unloaded, Bill wasted no time in banishing the contents of the crates to the alloted section of his hangar were all five thousand units would be contained for inspection. The delivery men, glad to have the empty crates back to cut down on the cost of getting new ones, quickly loaded them back up in their trucks and then rode off after receiving a signed payment instruction from Fleur.

Together, the lab rat duo made their way to the sectioned off area where the ordered units were now grimaced as she realized that she could now be considered a lab rat as well. Like Bill, she hadn't always been known as such. Back in France, at Beauxbatons, her stunning looks and Veela charm (a gift from her maternal line), coupled with her intelligence had ensured that whatever job she wanted could have been hers for the taking. Instead, once the wars in Europe had broken out, sweeping even into France, she found herself at the epicentre of a massive conflict that made her a prominent target for the Dark faction in her own country's civil war due to her Veela heritage.

For the first two years, she and her family had stayed in France, but after the Dark faction had laid siege and captured Beauxbatons, resulting in the death of Headmistress Olympe Maxime, the Delacour family had fled the country to Spain, where the central government had been having some success with their own civil war. After a year there, however, they had been forced to flee again after a particularly nasty offensive by the Dark faction there managed to break the government's front lines. That was when they applied for refugee status and migrated to Harrisburg.

Five years of war, and Fleur had been forced to watch her carefully ordered world descend into chaos. Perhaps that had been the reason she had chosen this career—it was isolated from the world, in a way, even though she knew the inventions and discoveries here would deeply affect the world outside. Still, it gave her a sense of disconnection from the troubles of the war; it prevented her from seeing the atrocities and tolls of the conflict, and in that sense, it made her feel safe in these uncertain times.

Though if Fleur was completely honest with herself, she couldn't deny that two other factors had a hand in her decision to take this job. One was intellectual curiosity—her grades at Beauxbatons hadn't been something to sneeze at, and her participation in the Tri-Wizard Cup as her school's representative served enough as proof of her skill. She was curious about the work that went on behind the scenes of the Empire's mighty war machine. No one spoke about the research that went on under Imperial funding—it was taboo, for some reason or another. Yet, as she found out, there were plenty of opportunities to enter the research business. It was just that once you were in, it was forbidden to ever speak about what went on behind the Research and Development doors. It was a crime, in fact.

The other reason, of course, stood before her in the storage room where the 5,000 units they had ordered from Weasley & Weasley. William Weasley, otherwise known as Bill. If Neville Longbottom was considered his right hand man, then Bill Weasley was Harry Potter's left hand—the man who's brilliant mind had helped spearhead more than a dozen advances in technomancy.

Nevermind his good looks, Bill Weasley fascinated her. When she had first applied for this job, she had expected that her natural Veela charm would immediately make him hire her. Instead, not only was he not affected, but he had pointedly paid her looks little to no heed—instead focusing on her practical abilities; what she knew, what she could do, and the like. At first, she had felt insulted by his utter lack of interest in her, but then she had found it fascinating. What kind of man could unwittingly brush aside the effects of her Veela charm? Even homosexual men felt some attraction, even though all her heritage did was cause a chemical reaction, not true attraction.

So she had felt the tables turned on her, and she was the one who tried to ingratiate herself to Bill, instead of the other way around. It had worked, to an extent; he had shown interest in her as she rattled off her intellectual accomplishments. A few interviews more, and she had been hired.

A loud explosion drew the stunning blonde from her reminiscing. Her boss had sent a powerful blasting curse at one of the units, and was seemingly exhilarated by the total absence of any damage to it. She smiled tolerantly before drawing up her datapad and making the appropriate notes.

One Day Later...

Fleur smiled as Bill practically bounced around his lab. The Roberts weapon shipment had arrived as promised, and Bill had been anxious to try the weapons at his private firing range under the lab. On the other hand, Fleur had been tempted to opt out of this particular experiment; the weapons frightened her. They were much bigger than what Bill and Alexandra Potter-Roberts usually designed and worked with, and had a frightening look about them.

However, she had decided to stick by her boss. Who knew what he might do if left alone with those horrid machines of destruction? Besides, the instructions sent in by Imperial Military Headquarters had clearly stated that the whole lot was needed in the British Isles ASAP.

The problem was, Bill loved to try out everything that passed through his lab, even when there was a deadline to it. That was one of the first things Fleur had noticed when she took this job. If no one put their mind to it, Bill would put off sending away his inventions and theories as long as possible while he tried them out and tinkered away. Thus, she had taken it upon herself to act as his alarm clock, of sorts. Whenever a deadline came unbearably close, she would remind him of it and insist that the products be sent away, much to his disappointment. He always understood, though, and never resented her for it; it just broke her heart whenever he looked so forlorn at being parted from his "toys."

"Off to the range, eh?" Bill was telling her more than asking, once again snapping Fleur out of her reverie. She smiled at him in response.

"As you say, Mister Weasley."

Bill shot her a long suffering look. "We've been working together for almost a year, Miss Delacour. Will you not call me Bill, as I've asked?"

Fleur gave him a brilliant smile. "It would be inappropriate, Mister Weasley, especially since you do not yet call me by my own name," she replied. She wondered if perhaps that had sounded flirty, even if she had not meant it. She needn't have worried; judging from Bill's expression, any hints of flirtation had gone right over his head.

Bill, however, was not as dense as he sometimes seemed. He offered a smile in return and nodded. "Fleur, then," he said agreeably, surprising her immensely. "To the range, then, Fleur?" he repeated.

Fleur felt her cheeks stretch immensely as she grinned at him brilliantly for his use of her first name. She had never once thought he would actually take her up on her suggestion—oblivious as he seemed at common social interactions, but he had completely surprised her by showing her he had not yet completely sealed himself off from social conventions.

'There might be hope for him yet,' she thought happily as she followed him to the range.

Two hours later, Fleur was resting at her desk, her datapad on her desk, almost forgotten. Around her desk were dozens of experiments, all occupying their own desks as well. There was simply no space for her to get a walled off office. Not that Fleur minded; the experiments sometimes helped her gain some inspiration that she would then relay to Bill, who always welcomed fresh suggestions.

Currently, however, she was mulling over the matter of her boss. Fleur was always quite honest with herself, and this was no exception. She fancied Bill Weasley. It was that simple. An incredible part of her feelings for him were, undoubtedly, fuelled by lust. Lab rat though he may be, Bill Weasley had always kept in shape, partially due to pressure from the Duke, rumours said. This was not altogether odd, really. The Duke asked for all his men, retainers and soldiers alike, to stay fit, just in case.

The other, just as large reason was true attraction, she felt. He had a mind that just astounded her. Certainly, his pre-war records had stated that he was a disciplined student, and she had once or twice seen his wandwork and it boggled her mind. She had realised then that his position at Harry Potter's side had not been his connection to him via the Duke's wife, but rather a testament to his skill and intelligence.

In Fleur's personal tastes, that was just goddamn sexy. A man who could think up innovative ways of using magic and technology and look good and use magic masterfully? He was a veritable jackpot, he was!

But how to get him?

Ah, there was the perennial question. Some said that Bill Weasley had lost all interests in romantic relations after his stint in a Death Eater concentration camp. Apparently, he had undergone severe torture to his lower areas, and that had eliminated his sex drive altogether. Fleur wasn't sure that was right, though. After seeing how brilliant Bill was, there was no way the Death Eaters would have damaged him in any way other than what was necessary. Torture of that sort would have been counterproductive.

On the other hand, it was more likely that, in order to shut himself off from the torturous memories and emotions from his period there, Bill had essentially shut himself off, emotionally speaking. It would hurt less for him if he did not feel at all. This theory was, to Fleur, eminently more likely.

"Ah, Fleur, there you are!"

Unfortunately, yet again, the object of her affections interrupted her thoughts.

Fleur looked up at her boss with a look of curiosity, absently noticing that his long hair seemed frazzled. In fact, his whole disposition radiated stress and a hint of panic. Almost immediately, she shot to her feet, her datapad in hand.

"Is something wrong? Did an experiment go haywire?" It was a testament to how much this occurred that it was among the first questions she asked.

Thankfully for her nerves, Bill shook his head. "It's worse...or better, depending on how you look at it," corrected Bill, amending himself at the last second. "I've just got off the communicator with Harry. He had a peculiar request to make that I am..." he paused here, silently choosing the most appropriate words, "...uncertain about."

Given the way Bill's hands were twitching and wrangling with each other, she easily translated uncertain for something much worse.

"What is it, sir?" she asked warily, almost dreading the answer. Not much could unsettle Bill Weasley—especially given all that he had gone through, but here they were.

"You know how I have been researching the wards of Hogwarts?" he asked in what seemed to be a non-sequitur for Fleur. The young woman blinked once before nodding.

"Of course. You look at that hologram about four hours each day," she said matter-of-fact. Bill blushed slightly at the deadpan way she relayed his obsessive streak with his projects. "It's for finding a way to negate the effect of the wards on our ships, right?"

"Yes, well...Harry wants me to approach the wards project in a different manner," he informed her, dropping into a seat heavily. "He's not satisfied with just negating the wards, now, although he does ask that we keep on with that."

Fleur blinked. Her logical mind was driving her in a direction she thought quite ludicrous, but she decided to hear her boss out regardless. "What does he want us to do, then?"

Bill took in a deep breath and sighed. "He wishes for us to, and I quote, 'tear down those fucking wards.'"

Fleur blinked once. Then she blinked again. Then she absently noticed that her dainty lips seemed to be parting and her jaw moving was moving downwards.

Bill nodded. "I have worked with that man for about six years now, and now for the second time, he surprises me," he admitted, clasping his hands together in front of his face, his bank hunched over as he thought of how best to address this matter.

"What was the first time?" asked Fleur, curious despite her disbelief at the Duke's request.

Bill grinned. "When he offered me to work on Project Archangel."

Fleur wasn't surprised, for once. Bill Weasley's hand in the Archangel Project had never really been a secret, and it was common sense that it was for this reason that he had been kidnapped by the Death Eaters rather than outright murdered like so many others.

"So you'll be leaving for the Isles, then?" she asked, getting back on track. "Shall I call for someone to pack your things?"

Bill shook his head, before levelling a piercing stare at her. She silently took it for a few seconds before she began squirming in discomfort. "Mister Weasley..."

Bill was snapped out of his trance. "Hmm? Oh, sorry," he apologised quickly. "No, I don't need someone to get my things packed, Fleur, thank you very much."

Fleur nodded somewhat demurely, finding herself oddly shy around this serious facet of her boss' personality. She was excusing herself to go back to work when she felt his hand on her arm, tugging at her lab coat in restraint. She turned to look at him curiously. "Mister Weasley?"

Bill was still staring at her, those piercing blue eyes of his gazing up at her calculatingly. Finally, after a few seconds of a stare-off, Bill elucidated his thoughts to her.

"I want you to come with me."

Fleur was taken aback, to say the least. Yet, somewhere deep within her, a spark of hope flared up. "What?"

"Harry wants me on site to bring down the wards, and while I could feasibly do so given enough time, having you there would help me immensely with my work," he told her earnestly. He completely missed the crushed look in her eyes.

"Oh, of course. The assignment..." she said, feeling foolish for having thought that he might want her around for something else than work. "I...don't know, Mister Weasley. Who would take care of the lab?"

Bill waved the concern away. "I'll call in a favour from Alexandra. She'll be happy to duck in her head every other day or so."

Fleur was still unsure about this. It was highly irregular, and quite frankly, she did not want to come within miles of another battlefield. Yet, at the same time, she knew Bill was counting on her. Gods, what a dilemma!

In the end, though, logic won over emotion.

Fleur sighed and nodded once, sounding only slightly defeated. "Very well, Mister Weasley. I shall accompany you to the Isles."

Bill grinned. "Excellent! But before that, there's one more thing we have to do..." he said, his tone growing more mysterious at the end.

Fleur rose a fine, delicate eyebrow. "Oh?"

That Evening...

The streets of Harrisburg were quickly losing their life as its inhabitants began to withdraw into their houses for the night. There were, of course, always the few that went out for a night of fun, even on a weekday, but for the most part, the city streets became deserted during the night. Only drunks, late hour workers, and the Imperial Provosts—the capital's police force—tended to roam the streets after a particular hour.

Perhaps this was why the inhabitants indoors rose from their dinner tables and crowded around their windows at the strange sight outside.

Imperial Provosts were not a strange sight, but fifty of them in the same place were. And all of them were headed towards the magical sectors of the city. That told the other peoples of the city a lot already. Magical citizens, barring non-human species, were still looked at with much suspicion throughout the capital and the rest of the Empire. How could they not? They had been the perpetrators of one of the most global and damaging wars in history! Thus, whenever the Provosts had to capture a magical criminal, they usually went into the sector in force, just in case any other magic user got involved.

This time, the blue-uniformed Provosts veritably swarmed the Magical sector, most of them marching at a trot alongside the bursting trucks full of more Provosts. All of them were armed with the same rifles as the Imperial Army, and all of them had grim looks on their faces. They knew that while most of the human magical population understood their current situation, there were still a lot that saw no reason for the discrimination and distrust to continue, given the Death Eaters' defeat. Many of these tended to get vocal and physical in their discontent, and so the Provosts were always armed in such a way to dissuade such demonstrations. They had orders, and would carry them out to the best of their ability.

At their head was the Provost Marshal himself—an absolute rarity. The Provost Marshal, most assumed, was a bureaucrat that rarely, if ever left his office; only doing so if he had to go to Parliament to explain himself or to fight for the Provosts' budget. The truth was, the Provost Marshal was a mean old bugger who had fought in the First Legion once; back during the pre-war days. He was an India veteran and had been severely wounded in his right arm. So much so that he had been forced to retire from the Army. Now, after the coup, and with a new Imperial capital in place, Harry had plucked him out from amongst the refugees and given him command of the Imperial Provosts via a proxy in Parliament.

More surprising was the redheaded man at his side, a stunning blonde by his own. The scarred Provost Marshal, a man feared within his organisation, was acting deferentially towards the man beside him, and politely ignored the woman. The two conferred for a moment before the redheaded man pulled out a wax sealed envelope and handed it over to the Provost Marshal, who promptly broke the seal and retrieved the letter within. He sped read it once before giving the redheaded man a nod and then raising his hand and then flicking it forward.

Amongst the ready Provosts, one of them pulled out a whistle and blew hard, giving the blue-coated men the signal to carry out their orders. In strictly designated groups of ten, the policemen of the Empire dispersed towards their designated targets.

Soon enough, the groups of ten reached the doors of several pre-chosen houses and, within seconds of each other, the policemen knocked loudly three times before all shouting the same thing.

"In the name of Her Majesty and Parliament, open up! Imperial Provosts!"

The Day of the Battle...

"So we've only got about twenty four hours to find a way to take down the most powerful and ancient system of wards still active in the world?"

"Yep."

Fleur looked at Bill askance. Her boss was either way too calm about this, or crushing his own panic underneath layers of outward serenity. Whichever it was, he had not stopped staring at the holographic display of the wards and their respective information since they had boarded the shuttle that was to take them to the British Isles, the HMAS Argent Spear.

Both of them paid no heed when the door to their working space, which also doubled as their room (since they had very important guests in the others, the two had decided to bunk together), slid open with a hiss.

"It's actually forty eight hours," corrected the person at the door, making them look up from their work. Sirius Black.

"Hello Sirius," greeted Bill, while Fleur stuttered out an incredibly formal and polite greeting.

Sirius grinned at Fleur's nervous greeting. "Hey Bill," he returned the greeting, before giving Fleur a charming kiss on the back of her hand. "And hello to you, mademoiselle," he spoke in flawless French, to which he added a flirtatious wink that made Fleur blush to her roots.

Bill sighed in annoyance. "Sirius, do try to keep your hands off my lab assistant. She is quite invaluable to me, you know," he said with perhaps more force than he had meant to. Sirius' grin was not deterred.

"I'll bet she is," he mumbled to himself, though Fleur heard him and blushed again, trying to stutter out that it was not like he thought it was.

"Anyhow, what's this about forty eight hours instead of twenty four?" asked Bill, trying to get the discussion back on track. "Has something happened?"

Sirius nodded, his face becoming grim as he turned to business. "Harry's initial overtures failed. The flanking attack attempted to blast their way past resistance in the stairway from the docks using a Bombarda grenade."

Bill goggled. "In such tight environment? How bad was the casualty count?" he asked, horrified.

Sirius allowed a smile. "Zero." He laughed at Bill's astounded look. "I know. Word has it that ol' Neville realised how big a fuckup he'd let loose and conjured a shield that single-handedly prevented the collapse of the stairs on his men."

Bill looked impressed, while Fleur was a little outraged by Sirius' colourful language.

"Neville's matured quite a bit, then," praised Bill genuinely. Sirius nodded in agreement.

"He sure has, given all the crap he's had to deal with recently. You know Susan hasn't spoken to him since the Harrisburg incident?"

"Truly? A shame. Does she not understand what was at stake?"

Sirius shook his head. "Word has it that Neville explained, but she still blew up at him," he said, before shrugging. "I guess I can see her point. He was gone for so long, without a word to her, and then shows up like a bloodied hero? Plan or not, if I had a bird who did that to me, I'd leave her."

Bill shrugged. "I guess that's where we differ, Sirius," he stated. "I've always found that reason should be employed in such situations. We cannot justly justify the termination of such social ties with one another on an emotional basis. There are greater things than us to consider."

Sirius barked out a laugh. "I see why you're Harry's left hand!" he chortled. "Cold as ice, you are! A perfect counter to Neville's more impassioned way of doing things."

Bill frowned. "People don't actually say that about me, do they?" he asked doubtfully. Sirius laughed.

"Are you kidding me?" he asked as he paused his laughter to take a few breaths. "Bill, you're practically a god to bookworms! When's the last time you've shagged a woman, for goodness' sake?"

Fleur, who had been silent all this time, flushed red in embarrassed indignation now. "Mister Black!" she shouted reproachfully in indignation. "Really!"

Sirius looked over at Fleur, remembering that she'd been present all this time. He grinned bashfully at her and scratched his nose. "Sorry, luv. Just making a point."

Bill, however, had not taken notice to Fleur's protest. Instead, he was contemplative. "I see. Perhaps I have disconnected myself from society a bit too much," he agreed. "Still, it is not as if my situation is like yours, Sirius; I do not have women throwing themselves at me all the time."

Fleur nearly snapped her neck clean off, given the speed with which she turned her head to look at Bill incredulously. That was all it took for Sirius to gain a mischievous gleam in his eyes, though he remained silent on that matter.

"Maybe," he conceded. "But to other matters. I know Harry wanted me to take charge and supervise the transfer of you lot and our guests," he made air quotation marks at the word guest. "to the camp outside Hogwarts' wards, but aren't you supposed to give them a brief pre-briefing?"

Bill grimaced. "I doubt they would enjoy my presence, given last night's events."

Sirius grinned. "Well, you were under perfectly legitimate orders. Remember, Parliament and Her Majesty herself ratified Harry's orders."

"Doesn't make it any more pleasant. Being forced out of your homes at gun point rarely strike an amiable chord with people," observed Fleur, intervening on Bill's behalf. "Even when some of said people are your family."

Sirius shrugged. "Wait a bit, do it now—I don't rightly care, to be honest. Harry only asked me to make sure you all got to your destinations safe and sound. Once that's done, I'm back in James' employ. I'm just saying, giving them a moment to digest this whole business before thrusting them into the crux of the matter would perhaps be best for any future plans of reconciliation."

With that, Sirius bade the two farewell and left the room, leaving the two researchers to their thoughts and each other.

AN: As an answer to the burning question I'll likely be getting a lot of: No, Sirius is not being OOC within the parameters of this story.

I know he's been previously characterized as something of a canon Remus--minus the whole angst thing--but this is merely because Sirius, at the time, was an active duty soldier. His part is now done, so he's able to relax a bit.