The Art of the Possible

1925

1 "I still don't think you should be coming along. You are not an Auror," Tina was telling her sister as they both walked at a brisk pace through the corridor that lead to the Wand Permit Office.

"You won't be for much longer either if you go through with this," Queenie retorted, sounding as concerned as ever. Since she was wearing pumps, she was having some difficulty keeping up with Tina.

Tina had always been the more practical dresser of the two. "I have to do this. I won't argue with you any longer about any of it." Abruptly, she stopped walking, so that Queenie nearly crashed into her. "Look," Tina said, raising her hands in a typical and obvious imploring gesture. "I know that you're right to worry. I know that" - She hesitated and lowered her voice - "I'm disobeying orders. But this is, I think, more important than my job. There is something fishy going on. I need to get to the truth of it."

"Are you sure this isn't just your wounded pride talking?"

"I don't know. You tell me." Without waiting for a response, Tina spun around and marched off again.

She knew that she needed to find a way to track Celestia Prewett other than asking Graves, who'd only order her to back off again. She couldn't back off, though. Too much misery had already been caused by those darned Grindelwald supporters - too much death and destruction. If they got their hands on a mystical weapon of mass destruction, then there'd be no-one left to stop them. Needless to say, that would mean bad news for everyone, No-Majs in particular. Why was Graves so unconcerned? Why was he willing to trust Prewett at all? Okay, yes, he knew more than Tina did about the whole situation – granted. Still, there were too many questions his conduct raised in her mind, too many doubts. Besides, orders or no, if she could prove Celestia Prewett's duplicity and prevent her from getting her hands on that horrible frozen heart thing, then Graves wouldn't have any reason to admonish her. She was, after all, only doing her duty to the wizarding world. That outweighed protocol.

Since Celestia Prewett had been briefly arrested and her wand registered, authorised MACUSA personnel could track her wand. Prewett probably didn't know that, which was what Tina was counting on. Tracking spells could be countered by illegal magic, which was something Prewett and her ilk probably had zero qualms about. As she walked into the office in question, Tina dearly hoped that no-one would question her request, since she was an Auror and they had their own fish to fry.

From behind her, Queenie said, "That's a lot of hope you're pinning this on."

"Sh," Tina made, annoyed, as she approached the desk of the witch in charge of the early shift.

Being notoriously horrible at memorising names, she of course for the life of her couldn't recall the austere, middle-aged, good-looking woman. Mostly, Tina relied on Queenie for that kind of irrelevant trivia. Hoping her expression was casual, she planted herself in front of the desk and waited. The woman didn't look up. Trampling down her growing irritation, Tina cleared her throat. Still, nothing happened. The witch in charge was scribbling something on a parchment. At other desks, several people were also absorbed in their work.

Tina, however, had no time or patience for such nonsense. She said, "Excuse me, but I need access to the tracking-"

"Authorisation."

"What?" Tina furrowed her brows. There was a pang in her stomach. Darn it.

This time, the witch did look up, albeit for only a second. "Do you have an authorisation slip? New directive says I can't grant any Auror access to wand tracking unless they have a parchment signed by Mister Graves, himself, or someone who's his superior."

"I..." There was no Plan B. This was bad. Should she just give up?

"No authorisation, no access."

From behind Tina, Queenie said, "We're sorry, Misses Shaw. We weren't aware of the new regulation."

"You, I understand. An Auror, however, should know better."

Before Tina could protest, Queenie grabbed her by her arm and started dragging her outside again.

Out of the office, Tina leaned against the stone wall and covered her burning-hot face with her cold hands. This was a hiccup and no mistake.

"Don't feel down. It was a bad idea, anyway," Queenie said. She obviously wasn't even trying to hide her relief.

Tina let her hands drop to her sides. "Mister Graves just anticipated my, uh...my enthusiastic initiative. It won't stop me, though. I've got a job to do."

Queenie looked both dejected and resigned. "Obstinate is what you are. Tina, outside of going behind your boss's back, there's no-" She interrupted herself. Her eyes grew wide. "No. What you're thinking of right now is-"

"A loophole. If it doesn't work, I'll leave it alone; I promise." Both she and Queenie knew that this wasn't true, of course, but still: formalities and all that. Energised by a renewed sense of purpose, she pushed herself off the wall and started striding down the hall. After about ten steps, she stopped short and cast a look at her sister, over her shoulder. "You coming or what?"

After a moment's hesitation, Queenie reluctantly set into motion. "I might as well. Someone needs to keep an eye on you."

"Whatever works for you." Tina set off again. This was going to work; it had to. Once she'd gathered all the evidence she needed, she'd be able to prove to Mr Graves that the Prewett woman was not to be trusted.

2 The light sphere around Celestia's wand was steadily growing larger and whiter. It was just as well, as the raindrops had started making their way through the trees' canopies. Celestia's pinned-up hair was already plastered to her skull. She was shivering in the cold. Her fingers, toes, ears, and nose were numb. Neither she nor Nocturna had said a single word for at least half an hour. There'd been no need, and frankly, Celestia had had no desire to speak. Unlike Nana or Alastair, she'd never been much for small talk, but during the past several months, she'd grown even more sullen than normal. Maybe it was a little silly, but spending basically every waking second engaged in a desperate quest was the best way to drain a person of every ounce of joy and levity. Celestia was well aware that she had a penchant for melancholy, that this was an integral part of who she was. Lately, though, it was becoming harder and harder to keep herself from lapsing into emotional numbness that was barely interrupted by bouts of annoyance, anger, and despondency.

To be honest, she'd been feeling more and more like she had shortly before she'd left Apollo.

This was pretty bad. She wasn't sure whether she'd be able to go on much longer without scoring a significant victory. Her thoughts turned to Newt - quite unbidden, as usual. Ever since she'd left him behind, she'd been experiencing lack of appetite and increased headaches. Well, Nocturna was right about one thing: suppressed emotions always bubbled to the surface at some point. A guilty conscience was even more stressful than she'd anticipated. Even repeating her mantra of how she hadn't had a choice wasn't really working anymore.

She wondered where he was now, and whether he'd been the one to alert the American authorities about her intentions. If it really had been him, she couldn't find it in herself to be mad at him. He'd been horribly worried, for - she had to admit - good reason. Besides, she hadn't been completely honest with him, either. All he had done was be a good friend, and she'd betrayed his trust in the worst possible way.

It was a pretty wretched situation, no doubt about it.

What would he think of Leta's involvement in the Grindelwald movement? Probably nothing good. Leta had come a long way since that fateful incident at Hogwarts; she and Newt didn't have much in common anymore. People changed. They took different paths. They drifted apart. It might be sad, but it was an inevitable fact of life.

"Tia." Nocturna's voice ripped Celestia out of her gloomy ruminations immediately.

"What is it?" Celestia stopped short and spun around.

Not five feet behind her, a little to the left, stood Nocturna, cracking a gleeful smile, holding her wand aloft. She was bathed in bright, white light.

Celestia's heartbeat quickened. Her mouth went dry. She gnashed her teeth together. It took her a second to get a grip on herself, but then she nodded once. "It has to be right where you're standing."

"Buried in the earth?"

"Maybe. Move your wand up and down."

Nocturna did. It made no difference. However, when she moved it closer to the dead tree stump to her left, the light got almost blinding. "Tia!"

"Yes." Quickly, Celestia hurried over to the tree stump and knelt down in the dark-brown muck without minding how it soiled her coat and skirt. That didn't matter. None of these trivialities mattered a single bit. All that did matter was-

Her fingers found it among a bunch of dead leaves: a cold, small, round thing of metal. This was it. It was one of the two coins that would get her closer, ever closer to the Fawleys' salvation. Time was running out.

3 As was usual for her at this early hour, President Seraphina Picquery was in her office, doing paperwork. Tina was hoping the President would be alone, even though counting on her expectations hadn't turned out so well today. To be honest, she didn't believe that the President would give her the blessing needed to track and follow Celestia Prewett, but this was Tina's last shot at doing so without actively defying her boss.

"You're already defying him," Queenie said, from behind her, as they approached Picquery's secretary's desk in the office's anteroom. "The President's blessing wouldn't change that at all."

Yes, yes, all true. But still, she'd try. Again, as she had with the Shaw woman at the Wand Permit Office, Tina approached the secretary – a young, relatively thin, dark-haired wizard of exceedingly pale skin – trying hard to look friendly.

This time, however, Queenie was quicker. She darted past her sister and stood before the desk, smiling sweetly. "Good morning, Emil."

Upon hearing her voice, Emil looked up, already wearing a forthcoming expression on his pleasant, soft-featured face. "Miss Goldstein! Good morning. What can I do for you?"

"Well, it's…" Queenie trailed off, waved off, shook her head. "Oh, it's quite silly. I shouldn't have bothered you. We'll better go."

It was no surprise to Tina whatsoever that the good man straightened up, nearly falling all over himself. "No, no, no," he hurried to say, spluttering like a youngster. "It's no bother. Not much to do at this hour: most people aren't willing to get up as early to work as you as your sister." He briefly glanced at Tina, hardly looking her in the eye, before focussing his attention on Queenie again.

Tina just reined herself in, doing her best to not just storm forward impatiently to demand an audience with the President. Her approach was as good as her sister's, but there was a time and a place, and what might work in one situation might not in another.

Again, Queenie smiled sweetly. She said, "We're early birds just like yourself…and the President. Is she in there?" Of course, she'd already know, but people tended to be a little scared by her exceedingly powerful Legilimency prowess.

Emil nodded. He leaned forward conspiratorially, and said, in a quiet voice, "She's been reading up on reports on Grindelwald's people's exploits for the past couple of hours and won't be in a particularly great mood. If you want any favours from her, I suggest you really do come back later."

"We would, but the thing is" – Queenie stepped up to the desk and placed her gloved hands flatly on the desktop – "my sister has information about a Grindelwald supporter, and that can't wait until Mister Graves shows up at the office."

A few seconds ticked by, during which Emil just mulled things over, whilst Tina wanted nothing more than to grab him and shake him until his teeth rattled. Time was of the essence, here! She barely refrained from tapping her foot on the stone floor. Patience had never been her forte.

Then, the slight frown creasing his forehead melted off his face. He nodded. "All right. I'll tell her. Wait here, please."

"Thank you, dear," Queenie said, her smile growing, lighting up her whole face. When he disappeared into her office, she spun around to Tina, beaming broadly. "See? You don't always have to go through the wall."

Tina couldn't help but return the expression, albeit in a more subtle fashion. "I'm just glad I have you to keep reminding me of that."

Half a minute later, Emil emerged from the office and into the anteroom again. "You can go in."

Not needing to be invited twice, Tina strode forward with determination, her sister by her side. Behind them, Emil closed the door.

Seraphina Picquery was sitting at her desk, focussed on a parchment spread out right in front of her. To her left, there was a rather large stack of them. The office was large, but not cavernous. The grey walls were mostly covered with dark bookshelves and old oil paintings that depicted Picquery's predecessors. She, herself, contrasted starkly with her mostly monochrome surroundings: she wore a long, form-fitting gown of midnight blue that was embroidered with a stylised, silvery phoenix pattern on the chest. Her hair was, as usual, hidden by a tall, glittering, intricate head-wrap. After a moment or so, she put aside her quill and raised her face to look at the Goldstein sisters. "If you're wondering about the outfit, I'm meeting with the Prussian ambassador later."

Tina blinked and shook her head. Had she been staring? Sometimes, she did that without even noticing. "Apologies. No, we're actually here because-"

"Because you want me to override Graves's directives and give you permission to track the British witch Celestia Prewett, whom you suspect of being a Grindelwald supporter and not, as Graves assures me, an agent working for him."

A strange little silence ensued. Tina refrained from exchanging a look with Queenie, as well as from telling the President that that had been one heck of a run-on sentence. As her dad had loved telling her when she'd been a child: nobody liked a smartass. She cleared her throat, her knuckles pressed to her lips. "Madam President, I'm not in the habit of going behind Mister Graves's back."

"Is that so? I've been told that you are rather fond of sporadic bouts of insubordination," Picquery returned, unimpressed.

It wasn't always easy, translating her thoughts and emotions into appropriate words. Tina gathered herself, crossed her arms, and took a deep, soothing breath. "That's never my intention. I don't want to undermine Mister Graves's authority – really. It's just that, in this case" – She threw up her hands, just willing Picquery to understand what was at stake, here – "he's mistaken. I know he's mistaken."

Picquery didn't reply for a moment. The expression on her face was unreadable as she scrutinised Tina, then Queenie, then Tina again. Finally, she said, "Is that why you brought your sister? So she can disclose some evidence to me that didn't convince your direct superior?"

Tina felt her chances for success slipping away completely. This was so frustrating! It was all she could do to keep her cool, and she wasn't sure how well she was managing. Her success rate was questionable at best. She closed her eyes for a few seconds. "I have nothing more to offer to you than I did to him, but please, you have to listen to me. Celestia Prewett will double-cross us the moment she gets her hands on the frozen heart. She may not be a Grindelwald fanatic, but her sister is, and how probable is it that they're not working together after Nocturna Prewett busted her out of here? They cannot, under any circumstances, get their hands on the frozen heart!"

"Mister Graves trusts Miss Prewett," Picquery replied, the picture of calmness. She locked eyes with Queenie. "Is he mistaken? You looked into her mind, didn't you?"

Queenie, pointedly ignoring her sister's stare, nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I did."

"And?"

"Miss Prewett was very concerned about the man she loves, one Alastair Fawley. As far as I could tell, she'd do anything to save him."

"You saw no evidence of sympathy for Grindelwald's cause in her mind?"

"No, but that doesn't mean much. There are ways of hiding thoughts behind powerful emotions that would make those thoughts hard to spot even for me."

Even if the whole exercise was probably doomed to failure, Tina was immensely grateful to her sister, who really was doing her best to support Tina despite her trepidations.

Picquery just looked at Queenie for a moment, before focussing her attention on Tina again. She folded her hands atop the parchment laid out in front of her. "Miss Goldstein, I do not approve of your mutinous tendencies. There is a chain of command for a reason, and you'd be smart to simply do your job and not defy your superiors at every turn if you wish to continue your employment at the MACUSA. Going behind Percival Graves's back is not just rude, but it undermines his authority, and I will not stand for that. Besides, I have better things to do than get sucked into your juvenile little schemes. Is any of that unclear?"

During the little speech, Tina just stared at her, chewing on the inside of her lower lip. This was bad. This was so, so bad. How was she supposed to do her job if her hands were tied all the time? To her, this made no sense at all. Instead, she said, "No, ma'am."

"Good." Picquery picked up her quill again. "Now, I'm going to sign a permit for you to track Celestia Prewett's wand."

Tina stared at Queenie, who only shrugged, and then at Picquery. "Madam President?"

Picquery didn't look up as she grabbed a blank parchment and started writing on it. "You heard me correctly, Miss Goldstein. No, I don't condone your conduct, but in this case, I happen to agree with you: Mister Graves's trust in Prewett mystifies me. She is not to be trusted and must be tracked." She signed the document and held it out to Tina, who hurried forward and all but snatched it from her hand. "Now go and do your job, but be warned: one more step out of line, and you'll be signing permits for wands until the day you drop."

4 When Celestia and Nocturna re-joined the others, they had, to Celestia's relief, found the other enchanted galleon. The group reconvened on Continental Avenue. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still grey, and everyone was soaking wet.

"So, what now?" Ares said sullenly, as he unsuccessfully tried out sorting his almost white hair with his fingers.

Celestia was holding the galleons up and scrutinising the series of numbers on their sides. They had been enchanted to only reveal their secrets to her; her contact did not take any chances. That was a good sign. "Now," she said, "we go to the coordinates engraved on the galleons. That's where we'll find our next clue."

"Do you have any idea what that'll look like?" Leta said. She sounded rather cheery and didn't seem to be bothered by the rain.

That was a little strange, Celestia had to admit. She'd never pegged Leta as being much of an outdoorsy person. "No," she admitted, doing her best to not look at Ares, who no doubt would be rolling his eyes by now. Maybe she was being unfair, but frankly, he'd never done much to earn any benefit of the doubt from her part. "But my contact assured me that I'll know it once I see it."

"We shouldn't all go," Ethel, who was standing to Ares's right, opined. All eyes were on her. "Someone's got to take care of Goldstein."

"Goldstein's been told to back off," Apollo said.

Ethel gave him a look that was half indulgent and half annoyed. "Honey, you don't know that harpy half as well as I do. Graves might have her on a leash, but she's dogged and doesn't ever give up. She'll ignore her orders if she thinks she's doing the right thing."

"I say we risk it," Leta said. "One rogue Auror against the lot of us stands no chance."

"I say we lure her into a trap and kill her," Ethel said, grinning. She had a gap between her incisors that gave her a roguish, youthful levity that belied her true character. "She's a nuisance, that one, and the world will be better off without the likes of her."

Celestia stared at her, disbelieving. Only now did she feel how cold she was. Her stomach was a bowl filled with lead. "You cannot be serious."

"Why not? Why do you care? Is Goldstein a friend of yours, hon?"

"No," Celestia said, taken aback, "but I happen to not be a murderer."

Everyone exchanged knowing looks, and Celestia felt like Disapparating and leaving the lot of them behind.

"Tia," Nocturna said, putting an arm around her sister's shoulders, "sometimes, we can't afford to hold onto all our ideas of morality. They're all fine and dandy, but we're at war. The greater good demands personal sacrifices from all of us."

"I'm not a Grindelwald acolyte, Nana!" Celestia snapped, and only just didn't shake off Nocturna's arm. "Self-defence is fine, but flat-out murder?"

Again, everyone exchanged knowing looks. Again, Celestia felt like just running away from them.

Ares said, "I told you she didn't have the guts to do what is needed."

That was too much. Before she even knew what she was doing, Celestia stepped forward and slapped him across the face – hard. "You don't know anything, you conceited little piece of refuse," she said, her voice little more than a tremulous whisper. "You don't know where I've been. You don't know what I've seen, what I've done. So don't you dare judge me ever again, or you can find out if I have the guts to get really nasty."

Ares just stared at her, his pale eyes narrowed, his usually pallid cheek reddened from the slap. He pressed his lips together into a bloodless line and balled his hands into fists.

After an uncomfortable little silence, Ethel whispered lowly and then laughed. "Hell hath no fury and all that," she said, and nudged the visibly incensed Ares in the side. "Oh, chill, sweetie, won't ya? You insulted her, and she slapped you for your troubles. Fair is fair."

To Celestia's surprise, Ares relaxed. He…wait, did he smile when he glanced at Ethel? Hm. How very odd. He said, "I should try to keep certain thoughts to myself. They're counter-productive; I realise that."

This was as close to an apology as Celestia was ever going to get. Besides, she was already starting to feel bad about resorting to violence. "I'm sorry I hit you."

"Now that we've got that one out of the way," Apollo said, giving his ex-wife an almost amused look, "we need to decide whether we run the risk of letting the Goldstein woman catch up to us or not."

"It would be unwise. She's enough of a threat to be a risk to our enterprise, even if Graves ordered her to stand down," Ethel said, serious again.

Celestia had no idea what to think. On the one hand, she could understand why the others wanted a particularly persistent Auror off their backs. On the other hand, they were talking about cold-blooded murder. They could call it a sacrifice to the greater good until they turned blue, but that didn't change a thing. Murder was murder, and that was always wrong. Then, she thought about Alastair, and all the things she was willing to do for him. Could she lose so much sight of herself, to the point of condoning or even committing murder? Could she ever be responsible for the death of another human being? She had no idea, and that was more than just a little frightening.

Briefly, she wondered about Percival Graves's role in all of this again. Did he believe Celestia to be his agent? Was he actually the mole working for Grindelwald? Did it matter? Well, in the end, of course it did, but for the nonce, he was aiding her and keeping the Aurors – most of them, at least – off her back. That was what she needed to focus on. The only thing that mattered was finding the frozen heart and saving Alastair. Everything else was secondary, even her conscience.

"All right," she said, her voice trembling a little, "I cave. Let's get rid of the Auror."