The Ending of an Era

1933

For Septimus, the last three years of his time at Hogwarts positively flew by.

He hadn't much envied Professor Dumbledore the choosing of the Prefect for his year. Of the eight boys, there were really only two who were unsuitable for the job. They were only unsuitable because they were on the Quidditch team, and trying to juggle Quidditch, Prefect duties, and studying with OWL's coming was just … very unwise. At least in Septimus' mind. Choosing one Prefect from the remaining six boys couldn't have been an easy task.

As it was, Dumbledore's choice meant that he effectively had three Prefects for Septimus' year. Dumbledore had chosen Charlus as Prefect. While Charlus was, indeed, a good choice, all three boys were fairly sure the selection had little to do with Charlus' suitability and a great deal to do with Charlus' surname.

The Potters were quite influential, second only to the Black family really, and at that only because the Black family had more members. The Potters had been producing single children only for a number of generations, which had drastically cut their numbers. It was pretty clear to the boys that Dumbledore had assigned Charlus with the hope of currying some small amount of favor. Slughorn had been currying favor too, considering that Lucretia Black was the female prefect for her year in Slytherin and Pollux Black, who was three years ahead of them, had been a prefect his fifth and sixth years and Head Boy the year before.

Charlus being a prefect had made their campaign against the nasty elements in the school infinitely easier. Charlus had a damn lot of fun nailing every idiot of that sort that crossed his path with the maximum punishment a prefect could levy, every single time. He had also turned a blind eye to Septimus and Harfang's nighttime excursions, and had actually helped most of the time, even if he could only make sure the other prefect doing rounds that night patrolled away from where Septimus and Harfang were at.

Charlus' advancement to prefect was also the beginning of the end of any respect Septimus had for Dumbledore. About a month and a half into fifth year, Charlus was called into Dumbledore's office and taken to task for levying such 'harsh' punishments against blatant rule-breakers. Dumbledore had been of the opinion that such should be dealt with gently, that those in the 'Light' should not lower themselves to the same sort of punitive level the 'Dark' contingent used, and that the Dark-aligned students needed to be given the chance to see the error of their ways and repent. Dumbledore had even gone so far as to threaten (if vaguely) to rescind Charlus' status as prefect if he didn't toe Dumbledore's line.

Charlus had given lip-service agreement to Dumbledore then gotten out of the meeting. He'd then called a meeting of the boys in their year and told them about the meeting. While their roommates remained unaware that Septimus, Charlus, and Harfang were the Marauders, they supported the Marauders' cause, and were willing to refuse the badge if Charlus was removed as prefect.

The only reason the Marauders hadn't pranked Dumbledore within an inch of his life on the spot was that they were worried he'd make the connection between his scolding of Charlus and the pranks. They had mutually voted to delay their retribution for a while, to give Dumbledore a chance to either forget about it, or assume that they had. That said, they made extensive plans for either late in the year or Sixth Year, depending on how things worked out as OWLs got closer.

They ended up opting for sixth year. By the time Easter Break came around and it seemed safe enough to contemplate enacting the pranks, all three of them were up to their eyeballs in things to do, between patrolling, planning and carrying out pranks against the usual targets, and studying for their OWLs.

Dumbledore really got on their bad side just before Easter, too. He finally attempted to remove Charlus as prefect since Charlus had refused to stop punishing the worst offenders so harshly, and Dumbledore's attempts to give back the points lost at least was for naught, because Charlus just took them right back off again as soon as he found out that points had been awarded or his subtraction of points had been nullified. Dumbledore's expression when every last Gryffindor fifth year refused the badge in Charlus' stead had been entertaining. Septimus, who had been approached last as his friendship with Charlus was well known, had been particularly entertained by Dumbledore's frustration.

"Quite frankly, sir, leave the badge with Charlus and be glad of it." Septimus had told Dumbledore, rather bluntly. "Because if I take that badge, they're going to get worse than they already have. A lot worse. Charlus at least doesn't have the Weasley temper to make things more difficult for that lot." He'd pointed out. True, Septimus was more phlegmatic than many in his family, but that didn't mean he didn't get angry and hex first without asking questions. "And I don't understand why you're trying to protect that lot of ... undesirables ... either. I've watched that lot make everyone miserable the entire time I've been in this school. By my count, sir, their second and third and tenth chances are long since past. They're not going to suddenly see the light and change their ways if we play nicely with them. The only thing they respect and respond to is force."

Dumbledore had been rather horrified by that pronouncement, and had let him go. Charlus had retained his prefect status, but they all knew he'd never make Head Boy because of the stand he'd taken. Not that Charlus especially cared about that.

Septimus was pleased, come summer, to discover he had gotten O's in everything save History of Magic. After some thought, mostly to ensure he was still interested in the possible career he'd chosen for himself until he became Head of House (he did hope that didn't happen until he was ninety or so), he signed up for NEWT level classes in everything save History of Magic. It was going to be a rather heavy load of classes for NEWTs, but he knew he could do it.

Charlus and Harfang had similar grades in their classes, and opted to continue on with most of their classes. In their cases, besides dropping History like a bad habit, they had both dropped Muggle Studies. They'd learned enough in the previous three years to feel more comfortable in the Muggle world, and figured they would do better learning the rest as they went, rather than in a classroom. Part of that attitude was engendered because they had noticed that Muggle Studies lagged behind Muggles' achievements rather noticeably. The other half of the reason was the slant put on the lessons by the teacher. They were fairly sure the teacher didn't like Muggles at all, and it came through in what and how the teacher taught them.

The Marauders struck before the next school year had officially started. Somehow, between the arrival of the upper years via carriage and Dumbledore being required to meet the first years, he'd gotten hit by a prank that turned his hair – all of it – a blinding neon green. His hair was also puffed out around his head in a way that, several decades later and a continent away, would end up being called an 'afro'. All his hair. Including the beard. The results were both eye-searing and hysterically funny. And if Dumbledore's attempts were anything to go by, not easily gotten rid of. In the end, to everyone's startlement, he simply cut most of his beard off in order to be able to see and eat. He showed up to the first class of the year with his head-hair shorn close to his scalp.

The prank was cause for a lot of comment from everyone third year and up. Those were the kids who had been around long enough to have figured out the pattern to the Marauders' attacks. The question of what on Earth a professor could possibly have done to merit being targeted was on everyone's minds. Especially since it took Dumbledore nearly a week to get the color to go away. Doubly especially when that wasn't the last prank he was subjected to. By the end of the year, the Marauders had played a grand total of a dozen pranks on the man, and everyone was wondering why.

Sixth year brought with it the advent of learning to cast spells silently. Septimus was surprised to find that it came to him relatively easily. DADA had been his best, favorite class since second year, but he'd sort of expected that, given he had a Blackthorn and Dragon Heartstring wand. That combination all but guaranteed he'd end up in combat at some point. The ease he had with silent casting had come as something of a surprise at first. Once he'd thought about it, though, it made sense. Being effective in combat meant being darn good at casting spells silently so that your opponent had no idea what you were about to cast.

Everyone else seemed to struggle with learning silent casting. It took nearly a month for anyone to cast silent spells with any kind of reliability, never mind any sort of speed whatever. Even then, learning to cast a single silent spell for the first time usually meant a minimum of five minutes of effort for everyone else until almost the end of sixth year. Septimus generally accomplished it within two minutes starting in late November. He managed to do it faster and earlier than that in DADA.

On top of the speed with which he was able to learn to cast spells silently, he was able to perform the spells with only a minimum of effort. Most of the others strained and fought and concentrated fiercely to cast silently all year. Septimus, once he'd learned to cast the spell the first time, barely had to try to be able to cast it after that. Again, by late November, he was able to cast spells he had already learned one-after-the-other far, far faster and more easily than anyone else he was aware of.

To his surprised pleasure, the DADA instructor took him aside just before the Yule break and offered him additional tuition, commenting that Septimus had an unusual affinity for the subject.

"I know what classes you're taking, lad." The man said. "And if you're planning the career I think you are, you're going to make for one hell of an Auror in very short order."

Septimus admitted he was right about Septimus' future plans, and spent an hour every weekend learning a variety of spells that weren't on the syllabus, more for lack of time than any other reason.

"There's more spells out there than a man can learn in a lifetime, lad, never mind in seven years of school." The Defense teacher pointed out. "The more spells you learn, the more formidable you'll be. People expect a certain range of spells to be aimed at them in a fight, depending on who their opponent is. In your case, they're going to be expecting purely Light Hogwarts-taught spells and Auror-taught spells. Go outside that range, and you'll catch your opponent out every single time."

Before Septimus had quite known it, he was graduating, with all O's. Better still, the Ministry headhunters had sought him out, offering him a spot in the Auror academy. Better even than that, despite not doing quite as well (both had at least one E, rather than all O's), both Harfang and Charlus had also been recruited. They arrived at the Ministry together, and were confronted by the head trainer almost immediately.

"Ministry keeps an eye on what comes out of Hogwarts." The man said. "DMLE picks up quite a few, of course, but we have a hell of a time teaching them to work in groups. You lot." He waved at them. "You already work together. That's going to give you a huge advantage in the field, once you're trained up. You're not going to have to learn to trust your partner."

What none of them found out for several months was that while partnering Aurors was standard procedure, it was usually *partners*. As in, two people. Not three. But the DMLE had seen how tight the three of them were, and in a rare show of intelligence, had opted not to break them up.

Auror training made a mockery of their school days. They were drilled incessantly on spell casting, tactics, laws and penal code, arrest procedure, recognition and breaking of a variety of wards, recognition of potions and their effects, recognition of and emergency treatment for potions or spell damage, and spell recognition based on color flashes and/or wand movements among other things.

The training forged the triad into a nearly unbeatable force. Septimus was the heavy hitter of the three – not necessarily more powerful than they, but he was the one with the broader knowledge of spells and greater ease in silent casting. Harfang quickly became their expert on wards, potions, shields, and healing. Charlus was their tactician and research expert, when research was required.

Of course, that didn't truly become settled for another two years, but as it was merely expanding upon a division of duties that had come about in the Marauders, it wasn't entirely unexpected by the three of them, nor difficult to set in place.

Around Christmastime 1933, the general atmosphere in Europe changed. Some Muggle fellow named Hitler came to power in Germany and … well, started making waves there. Worse, Grindelwald, long a dark stain on Europe's magical presence, started making a bit more noise than usual.

The DMLE kept abreast of such things, just in case. Unfortunately, the attitude of the rest of the Ministry was that it was happening in Europe, not here, and therefore of no concern whatsoever. Especially that muggle.

None of them knew it then, but later, much, much later, Septimus and Cedrella both would point to the events of that year as the beginning of the dark time to come. A long period of fear, war, death and betrayal. Of brother fighting brother and old men who had long lost any empathy for their fellow man attempting to control the fate of them all.

Whenever the subject came up, later in his life, Septimus was quick to say that it had also marked the beginning of an unprecedented era – one of unexpected, felicitous alliances in the battle to fight the encroaching darkness. One of bright, rising stars in the Light. Of people willing to make a stand against lawlessness and depravity and Darkness.