Chapter 13:

Networking Part 3

The entourage of purebloods, plus Harry, entered the lavish dining hall and seated themselves around one end of the table. Vincent Senior took his seat at the head with his wife to the right and son to the left of him. Valentine sat on the seat next to his grandson and Harry next to him. Bellatrix sat directly across from Harry, leaving a seat empty between herself and Mrs Crabbe.

As soon as they sat down food appeared on their plate and bowl. A simple salad and what Harry recognized as cream of potato soup. Beside each bowl was a glass of white wine.

The philosophy of pureblood dining matched the traditional European philosophy of dining. Fill up on vegetables, savor the meat afterwards. Cherish the desert at the end.

Harry was at least cultured enough to know a salad fork and soup spoon amongst the cutlery on his placemat, so he dug in.

"I understand you interviewed for a Hogwarts professorship." Valentine began the conversation. "How do you intend to juggle that along with your duties as a head of house? Being on the board of governors and wizengomat are both full time jobs themselves."

"Simple." Said Harry. "I don't. I have no business dictating how Hogwarts should be run, seeing as I'm not even an alumni. Hence the professorship. A few years or decades of that and then maybe I can take it up. Same for the Wizengamot. I'm not Dumbledore, I can't juggle three full-time jobs and a war."

"Do you intend to leave those seats vacant?" Mrs Crabbe asked. "They've remained so for long enough, don't you think?"

Translation: You're leaving a lot of power and influence on the table.

It was a sensible observation. If he put all of his focus on balancing his seat on the Wizengamot and board of governors, he could make some serious changes. Be the feather that tilts the scales as it were. But in combination with all the other things he needed to focus on that would be too many things to juggle. He would only wind up doing each poorly.

"I plan to find proxies to take my place for both within the next year, but it will be a long time before I'm suited to do either. No, right now I need to establish myself through my own works. Whatever those works wind up being. I need to become laser focused on one or two things for now." He explained. "Besides, what's the rush? I can expect to live another century, my own capacity to get into dangerous situations notwithstanding. I can take up these other roles in five years or fifty years. I have a lot of life left to live before I'm ready to do so."

Valentine nodded with every word in approval of the wisdom in them.

"Is that why you sold off all of the Morrigan stocks and bonds? To relieve yourself of the extra work of managing so many accounts?" He asked.

"Partly. Also because all of those investments were made by people far more business savvy than me, but they did so a century ago. As such, most were very likely to be poor investments by now. But as with the wizengamot and board of governors I lack the knowledge and experience to judge them. Better to do away with all of them and use the funds they freed up for building a life for myself." Harry explained. "I can rebuild such investments at a later date. Once I start working, I can start putting money into stocks based on wise advice from a financial firm or mentor down the line."

Vincent senior stepped in.

"But what of the lump sum you just received from cashing out of the stock market?" He asked. "Why not just reinvest it using your seer abilities and drown in galleons?"

Bellatrix and Mrs Crabbe both snorted into their wine at that question.

"You mean beyond the fact that using divination for financial investments being illegal and easily tracked?" Harry asked rhetorically. "I'm not that kind of seer. I'm more of a personal seer. More postcognitive than precognitive. I can see and feel the histories of people and objects, rarely their futures. Current emotions and states too."

It wasn't lying when everything he said was technically true.

"Then what are you going to do with the sudden wealth you've found yourself with?" Mrs Goyle asked.

"Well, I bought a house." Harry said. "Can't exactly live in Ollivander's spare room forever. Besides, isn't it a requirement to participate in politics that I have to own property? Be invested in the land."

"That hasn't been the case since before I was your age." Valentine said. "Back then it was also a requirement to be married with children. The logic being that if you are both financially and genetically invested in making a better future, you will make choices they believe will ensure such. It did not always pan out that way."

Yeah, the assumption that a man or woman will actually love and cherish children and property they only created or developed out of duty was a patently incorrect one. Plenty of pureblood heirs and heiresses squandered the family wealth or took part in corruption for personal gain just to leave the children and spouses they hated with nothing but the ill-reputation the individuals responsible earned them.

"I think I want to bring that back." Harry declared after a moment of consideration. "Not by law, but as a personal standard. I think I'll wait until I've successfully raised and kept a family before getting into politics. Raise at least once child to adulthood. Should give me plenty of time to get established and build a reputation so everybody knows how to work with me. Plus seeing Hogwarts from the perspective of a parent as well as a teacher will make me all the more suited to taking my place on the board of governors."

"My goodness, mister Morrigan. You certainly do work fast." Bellatrix said in a teasing voice. "Here I was thinking we would at least date for a while, yet here you are skipping right over the courtship and marriage and going straight to putting children into me."

Harry had the good manners to blush almost as deeply as Vincent junior at the teasing and laughter it elicited. The unexpected foot rubbing against his leg, on the other hand, made him nearly jump out of his skin.

Down girl! This isn't the time for that sort of thing.

"At least you have a time frame in mind." Mrs Crabbe continued the teasing. "That gives you, what, seventeen years and nine months before you're ready for the full duties of your lordship?"

This time the joke seemed to be at Bellatrix' expense, based on the scorching glare she sent Mrs Goyle's way. It was the eldest present who came to the rescue.

"Ladies, we are at the dinner table. Let's not get into verboten topics." He asked with a placating hand gesture.

"Well, I mean. We've spent the entire time so far discussing politics and finances, so why not add sex and religion to complete the whole quarfecta of forbidden dinnertime discussion topics?" Harry said.

And with that zinger even Valentine broke from his usual stoicism to laugh.

After that the conversations sizzled down to more polite topics. They asked about his new home and he droned on about the work he had left to do on it and how he would have to spend the rest of the week repainting it and buying new furniture. Not to mention curtains, rugs, appliances and gah! They sympathized with him. His explanation for working for Ollivander, that he merely needed somebody to work the desk while he did some cutting edge research, was readily accepted. Though, the disappointment in learning that he was not, in fact, his apprentice and successor surprised everyone, especially Bella.

"I may be good at matching customers with wands and identifying issues with them, but making and caring for wands? Far beyond my ability and Garrick could tell that from the beginning. No, I really was just there for the busy summer." Harry explained.

From there Vincent junior was the chatterbox, talking his ear off about his experiences taking divination classes at Hogwarts and how he couldn't wait to have a competent teacher in the subject. The little worm was trying to weasel into his prospective teacher's good graces. Still, it was good to see the young man having a good time. not to mention alive and not reduced to ash by fiendfyre. That was nice too.

Harry started his Thursday by exiting the wizarding world into Muggle London for the first time in far too long.

It was an overcast day with a light drizzle and hefty fog, which was rare weather for London (sarcasm). But transparent umbrella in the other, and a smile on his face. He made his way towards a store he had not visited since his time dating Daphne when she would draft him into escorting her to boutiques to sell her creations.

A custom lingerie store.

This one usually took design recommendations, more appropriately called commissions, from customers and hired out designers like Daphne to make them. But they still had a few stock brands that sold often. Everybody with a sex life needs to buy prophylactics and blindfolds, after all. One never knew when a good blindfold could come in handy.

Harry went into the tiny corner reserved for male lingerie, chuckled at the mannequin decorated in Tim Curry's transvestite outfit—makeup, perm, and all—and nabbed two pairs of underwear. One ostensibly looked like a banana hammock but felt far more comfortable, and the other was a pair of silk boxers. Outside of a well-fitted suit and tie and oddly specific fetishes, these were pretty much men's main options for lingerie in the eyes of women. Picky, those creatures.

The teller rang him up with a bored look on her face and Harry sympathized. He had that same despondent look of boredom with all things erotic after a few weeks with Daph. Being oversexed will do that to a person.

Last he heard of the blonde she was engaged to Dennis Creevey of all people. He imagined their relationship involved a lot of light whipping, bindings, and the formerly tiny boy being stepped on with high heels while blindfolded; or at least, that's how he imagined their tamer nights. People used to really feel for Dennis over his brother's death. People in the know came to envy him.

But speaking of being stepped on while wearing a blindfold.

"One super soft pair of blindfolds while I'm at it." He requested.

And like that he was back on his way to Diagon Alley.

He made a quick stop at Ollivander's to put his things away—in the incredibly unlikely event that he lost his bet—then down to Gringotts. Business/nonprofit proposal in hand.

His waltzes through Diagon Alley had become increasingly less dreary with each passing day. Even on this particularly dreary day, he received more smiles and waves from the denizens of wizarding Britain's favorite shopping center than he had the day before. From shop owners to the increasing number of children being allowed to play in these streets again to the parents watching said children with a protective eye.

Some people had confided in him that, for some reason they couldn't explain, the world at large had started to seem like a much brighter place recently. As if the war of attrition that had taken so much from them—spiritually, financially, physically—just didn't matter as much anymore. Like it was such a silly thing that they ought not spend every second obsessing over.

Harry had no idea where this new outlook was coming from, and he would continue to deny any such knowledge if asked. but he would continue doing his work to make this trend continue.

It was a baby step, especially in this world where Voldemort had spread his more insidious war to every nation on earth instead of just focusing on Britain. He was only one man and couldn't smack people back into reality at a pace anywhere near fast enough. The hundred thousand or so wizards in the U.K. were within his reach. But the tens of millions worldwide? All of whom speak different languages—if not literally then culturally—and whom he didn't have the local sensitivities to reach out to? For that, he'd need to recruit some fellow men of zany character.

He knew exactly where to start when the time came, but first, his mission into the depths of Gringotts.

He entered the complex of marble and stone only to be quickly led into the backrooms. He passed winding corridors of offices, private board meeting rooms, and even less pleasant places. It was all just as confusing to navigate as the maze of caves below ground. Somehow getting lost up here seemed like a more dangerous proposition than getting lost down there. In the tunnels, he could blast his way through any obstacle that tried to confront him. Up here he might be cornered by a ministry official of the Percy Weasley variety, and manners would prevent him from killing them like he would kappas.

With his worst nightmare at the forefront of his mind, he stuck close to the poor goblin in charge of guiding him. The short guy walked deceptively quickly.

"Here you are," the guide said in front of a pair of ornate double doors, "I will come to fetch you when your meeting is over."

He then bowed and walked back the way they had come.

"Welp. Here goes nothing!" Harry said as steadied himself and pushed the doors open into...

A ballroom. It was a ballroom. An enormous one that reminded him of the Yule Ball. It was filled to the brim with tables organized into pairs and trios and on each table was a mountain of boxes, folders, and documents. At the very center of the room was a long table at which sat five glowering goblins, the leftmost two looking positively ancient and the rightmost looking younger than any other goblin he'd yet to meet.

He'd never seen a baby goblin, as it was considered to be inconsiderate by goblins to bring an infant out into public where their fussing would disturb other people. Bringing a baby onto a plane or into a theatre was about as inconsiderate as screaming racial epithets in a crowded place to them. Goblin culture had some excellent policies.

"Mister Morrigan. You may enter," the leftmost and eldest of the goblins called across the vast room by way of greeting.

Harry returned the greeting with a nod and shut the double doors behind him before approaching the long table. He blinked in confusion at the name tags.

Smicklehook, they all read.

Harry assumed they were five generations in the same family. Nepotism much?. It helped that they skipped delineating which was which with numbers next to their names, but instead by left-to-right in order of their seating arrangements.

"Let's get straight into business. You are here to try and gain additional funding for your non-profit," said the middle Schmicklehook, "a homeless shelter for werewolves."

Harry nodded.

"Then before you begin your attempt to persuade us to your way of thinking, might I direct your attention to the trio of tables to your left," the eldest Schmicklehook said.

Harry looked at the tables to his left.

Of all the tables in the room, it was by far the most ill-balanced set. Two had the tallest piles in the entire room. The third had a single stack of clipped-together paper, appearing to all the world like the script proposal to a play.

"On the left table is a list of every charity made to end homelessness but had no effect. On the right is the one that succeeded in ending homelessness," Schmicklehook the Middle continued.

Harry bypassed his curiosity about the back stack as he walked to the right table that held the single document.

"Really!? What's in there?" Harry asked as he picked up the file.

"Oh! It's blank," said the second youngest Schmicklehook, "we just put it there so that people would know there are, in fact, three classifications."

He said this all without a hint of humor, so Harry was unsurprised when he flipped through it like an animation book to discover a sea of splendid white.

Message received.

"And I suppose the back stack lists those that made homelessness worse?" Harry concluded.

"Indeed," said the second eldest Schmicklehook, "so you understand our hesitation to invest in yet another homeless shelter. After the trillions upon trillions wasted in everything from good-Samaritan-funded soup kitchens to the Great Society programs that failed so terribly that they increased poverty exponentially."

"We cannot fit the number of attempts at tackling poverty, in all of its forms, that not only failed but also worsened it, into this room," said the eldest.

"So, we ask you again," asked another member of the board, "why should we invest in your shelter, when all others have failed?"

Harry considered the five goblins.

"For one, it is not a homeless shelter," he started, "but before I begin my tale of woes, may I browse through some of the stacks? I want to check a few things."

They all nodded or made some "be-my-guest" gesture.

"Feeding the needy?" Harry asked.

He was directed to a trio of tables right next to the one on sheltering the homeless.

He did a sermo revalio—the word search spell—for "Al-Capone'' on the stack of successful ones and found what he was looking for when a document lit up like a Christmas tree. It was a document detailing the gangster's soup kitchen which fed thousands a day during the height of the great depression. It was marked as unaffiliated with the bank.

Then he simply dug into the pile. Food drives, military aid, and volunteer shippers during natural disasters and times of strife made up the majority of the pile's building blocks, all of which, save for military aid, received funding from Gringotts due to internal requests from other goblins to do so, usually through Muggle intermediaries. There was also an absurd amount of approved aid to Gurdwara's serving langar to the needy. Godly work, those Sikhs did.

Then he found what he was looking for. A non-profit request from a private wizard to set up pre-emptive food banks on every continent. Fresh food, not canned, and kept for months or even years under preservation charms to be distributed when the next hurricane or earthquake left people bereft of a home or even a city to live in. Harry recognized the wizard's name, as he was the foremost producer of magically enhanced refrigerators; Gerald Fortescue.

This cinched it for Harry.

These five goblins, this family sitting before him were not greedy. They weren't self-interested, and they most certainly weren't cruel in their habit of denying funding. They were disillusioned.

And yet in this one stack was all the evidence in the world needed to dissuade the most pessimistic scrooge of his hesitance to believe in the efficacy of charities. Everyone from murderers to saints had given time, sweat, and money to feed those in need whether funded by Al-Capone's blood money, the taxpayer coffer, the church's plate or rich socialites. There was just so much love in the world, more than even Dumbledore might be willing to admit.

Whenever a truly devastating hurricane hits a Muggle city and lives are at stake, wizards, witches, goblins, house elves, mermaids, and even centaurs dropped what they were doing and ran to provide aid. From the shadows, of course. And while this aid was often confused as divine intervention from unseen angels by the Muggles who received it, Harry always saw in it a miracle of another kind.

He had personally seen unreformed pureblood supremacists, namely Goyle and Zabini, dig a Muggle child out of a sinking wreckage in the aftermath of the autumn 2000 floods.

"We're better than them Potter," Zabini had said when Harry confronted him about the perceived change in character, "and part of being better is to rescue them from death by water, as opposed to slaughter them in death by fire as they regularly do to one-another."

Pureblood supremacy could be a strange and confusing ideology to understand sometimes. Most of the time, really.

But what he knew now was that he had the advantage here.

These five men wanted to help him. Wanted to help the world. They had enough love and goodwill towards their fellow man to spare. Why else would they be put in charge of the English branch of Gringottes' charity fund? They were just hesitant and, rightly, concerned about giving that money away to the undeserving.

He wasn't just here to prove to them that his proposal would work but to prove he wasn't a monster. Not a crook intent on lining his own pockets, or the pockets of his cronies, with the funds from the goblin's investment. Not some creep planning to traffic the vulnerable werewolves to perverts the world around or use the shelter as a brothel of sorts for those same perverts. These are the kinds of things many charities or foundations were a fronts for, and it was made all the more disgusting as they were usually funded by well-meaning suckers who thought their money was going to a good cause.

On a similar note, he was there to prove he wasn't an airhead idealist who wanted to save the world but has no understanding of the problems he saw. Those ones tended to do even worse damage on a macro level than the thieves and sex traffickers.

These men wanted to help end hunger, homelessness, and the abuse of vulnerable groups like werewolves. Maybe even more than for the righteousness of it, but so they can put their name on it and say "We didt hat! That was the Schmicklehook family's doing!" For what greater achievements and ambitions are there?

Most importantly he had to prove to them that his plan would work. The many people who come to Gringotts with plans to help the world but would only make them worse. This family famously turned away a man who wanted to create a paper recycling plant. When the goblins not-so-politely informed him that recycling paper was absolutely terrible for the environment and booted out.

That man returned a month later with a business proposal to create a paper mill and tree farm and got approved. That he did his research and learned that paper companies plant more trees than they cut down, turning deserts into forests, and that recycling paper polluted rivers and airs with toxic and smelly chemicals, deeply impressed them. The more obvious realization that normal paper was readily biodegradable while recycled paper was not, might have helped him too.

He just had to apply that kind of thinking to how he worded his proposal.

Harry had to prove he meant it. He had to prove he understood the problem. He had to prove that it would actually help the werewolves and he had to prove it was sustainable under its own might. This was going to be a piece of cake, minus the sugar. Sweet-sounding platitudes would get him nowhere fast.

Two hours later saw Harry hovering against the outside wall of the Shrieking Shack. He held and brush in his hand and a paint bucket levitating beside him as he gave the old building a lovely coating of baby blue.

Or at least, he was trying to paint it. But the woman sharing his broom with him and planting increasingly sloppy kisses onto his cheek was more than a little distracting.

"Gross! What are you trying to do to me?!" He managed to say with as much anger as would pass through his giggling.

"You said sloppy!" Bellatrix replied tersely, "and I need to practice my grandma kisses anyways."

Grandma kisses?

"You have children?!" Harry said in surprise, "and they're having children!?"

Bellatrix scoffed at that.

"Hardly! No, I have a niece and a nephew. The former is a bombshell in a workplace full of hot bachelors. The latter is the prettiest of pretty boys to ever pretty boy. It will be a miracle if he doesn't make me into a great aunt before graduating from Hogwarts." She explained.

Yeah…don't hold your breath on that one, Bella. Draco was too smart to knock some girl up and had confided in him once that he never planned to have any children of his own. Which was something Harry couldn't comprehend.

It was after they visited Sue for her bridal shower that Draco learned it was common for Japanese businessmen to adopt young men who they saw as potential apprentices as their own sons. Adult adoptions to carry on the family name. And for some reason, Draco thought that was a brilliant idea.

"Give me ten young men with the hunger to create, industrialize and innovate and I'll create the billionaires of tomorrow!" Draco had once said after having too much to drink. "They will be my sons, ones worthy to rebuild the Malfoy name from the gutter it sits in."

But Nymphadora? Bellatrix might be onto something there. Harry might have to poke his nose around the Lupin and Tonks households to see if he could make that magic happen.

"But that would make you a great aunt. Not a grandmother." He said.

"If my sister is a grandmother then being a great-aunt is practically the same thing." She said back as she planted a sucking kiss on his ear.

He'd have to be more careful about the terms and conditions of future bets. Winning might be worse than losing.

When she eventually calmed down in her kissing attack, she quietly watched Harry paint with the fist-sized brush.

"Why don't you animate several brushes to do it for you?" She asked.

Because I'm pants at animation charms and grew up accustomed to manual labor.

"Catharsis and to burn off energy mostly," he said his half-truth, "I call it active meditation. Clearing your mind by doing menial tasks."

She considered this idea.

"Like with occlumency?" she asked.

"Nope. Opposite actually," he said, and left off the explanation until she glowered at him. He elaborated, "Okay! Have you ever been in the company of a man while he stares off into space and you got the overwhelming desire, as a woman, to break him from that peace?"

Bellatrix laughed at his phrasing.

"Once or twice," she admitted.

"And what was the usual answer?" he asked.

"Nuffing," she said in a mocking impression of a man, or at least a very full one.

"Well, would you believe me if I said they were telling the truth?" he asked, "They really were thinking about nothing, but thinking about it very hard."

"Huh!?" Was all she could say as she looked at him as if he were a madman.

"Okay! Imagine if instead of clearing your mind by emptying it and being calm, you instead cleared it by…not feeling the need to think. By being at peace while your body works automatically."

If Ron couldn't get Hermione to understand this topic, and the importance of leaving men alone when they're in this state, he doubted he would get it across to Bellatrix. Amazing things happened when men were left in that state for long enough. Epiphanies, sparks of genius like invented laser disks, or impromptu naps.

"Is it like the resolute silence that goes through your mind when you're caught unexpectedly in a fight, or warzone," she asked suddenly.

"Yes! A little bit," he confessed but backtracked, "although now that I think about it, they're very different feelings of inner peace."

As soon as he finished saying it, he regretted the words. Now she knew he had seen real battles before, not just dueling. If he had been less concerned with getting his point across, he would have spotted the real intention behind that question a mile away.

She didn't show any signs of being pleased with her victory but appeared for all the world to see as if she were deep in thought.

"Do you have a second brush?" she finally asked.

And so, they spent the remainder of the afternoon painting the outside of the house by hand. Sure, they could have used bigger brushes or rollers. But that would mean less time sitting on a broom together, with her head on his shoulder, as they both making the monotonous movements to put paint on the wall.

Having this woman around, even if she did put him on edge with her probing questions, was doing so much to keep him grounded in reality. To see somebody so changed by different circumstances and choices, and changed for the better, helped him to hope that maybe, just maybe, he could actually save this world. Only this time, not doing so too late to avert the worst damage and make the wounds of the war and ideological divides insurmountable for eternity.

The Order meeting had already begun and yet, for some impossible reason, Romulus Lupin was put on guard duty at the front door instead of sitting in.

This was surely a meeting entirely about "Hadrian Morrigan" and all of the information Dumbledore, Bill, and Kingsley had managed to gather on the interloper. Romulus was of the opinion that he was the most entitled to know these details. For some reason, both dad and James disagreed.

He had spent the better part of twenty minutes grumbling to himself about the injustice of it all when a quiet knock reached the front door. Frowning, he wrenched it open and discovered his being put on guard duty had been a ruse.

"Uncle Peter!" Romulus said as he embraced the man.

"Ohhh! There's my favorite godson!" The rat animagus bellowed as he lifted Romulus in a bear hug.

Romulus took immediate notice of how much thinner his godfather was since he left for his mission, and knew that was never a good sign. The pessimist in him wanted to wager that Secret Agent Wormtail's latest mission had been a failure. But for now, he'd wait to find out.

"Order meeting already underway?" Peter asked.

"Yup. And boy did you miss out on some interesting goings-on!" He told his godfather as he dragged him to the kitchen.

He barely heard his godfather's less reassuring response.

"Oh, I think I've been kept avail of a little too much goings-on." He mumbled.

They entered the kitchen uninvited and the Order, or most of it, gave the usual fanfare when one of their own returned safe and sound after months away. Molly took one look at Peter and frowned, before rushing past him to the kitchen to whip up a massive meal from leftovers. Attagirl Aunt Molly!

As she busied herself, Peter's fellow Marauders welcomed him home with hugs and pats on the back. He even got a few pecks on the cheek from Tonks and the younger Figg.

They found their seats at the table and Mrs. Weasley dumbed a platter of soup, pastries, and fried vegetables in front of the emaciated man. He barely managed to mumble a sincere thanks before digging it.

"Now that everyone is here, and our prank is set off, I call this Order meeting into session," Dumbledore announced, "and while we let Peter settle in from his long trip, I think the first business item of the day is England's mysterious new bachelor."

A series of grumbled agreements echoed around the room and Dumbledore went on.

"Excellent! I held an interview with the young man, but unfortunately, most of it I cannot share," the headmaster went on, "he is a charming and considerate person. Humble, but tries to hide it behind a facade of self-confidence. But it is misplaced as he shows incredible wisdom for his age."

This was all a bit more abstract than what they were all waiting for, of that Romulus was certain.

"Sadness and remorse envelop him wherever he goes but he has such a great sense of humor to overcome it that I am confident in his inner strength," Dumbledore must have noticed the bored expressions on all of their faces because he cut to the chase, "he is also a true seer and casts wandless magic with the ease of a tree swaying with the wind."

The room erupted with debate—and a few I-told-you-so's from Arianna Figg—at Dumbledore's pronouncement. They bombarded him with questions: How can you tell he was a true seer? Was it truly wandless magic and not a trick? All the while Romulus's godfather ate his meal slowly as he listened in visible confusion.

"He is a true seer, and he saw something that only I and one other person on this planet should know," Dumbledore explained. "That would have been enough for me to know he is the "real deal", as they say, but he made a second prediction that I'm still coming to grips with myself. I wish I could share what he saw but it is vital to the war effort that no more people gain this knowledge. It's quite possibly the one piece of knowledge that could win or lose this war, so long as it remains secret."

Alastor Moody spotted a problem with that.

"If it's so important then is it really safe to allow this unknown element to walk around with it in his head?" The retired Auror asked.

Romulus had been thinking the same thing.

"I had a similar concern. In fact, were I as cutthroat as I was during my days fighting Grindelwald during world war two, I would have slain him on the spot," he confessed.

The sobering and frightening revelation the kindly old man just shared with them nailed home exactly how serious this situation was. Well, now Romulus just HAD To know!

"Any information on the young man's past?" Filius squeaked.

Dumbledore shook his head.

"I was too preoccupied trying to learn the extent of his abilities, and was focused on interviewing him for the position as well," Dumbledore sighed, "and besides, any personal history he might have told me if I pried would likely be a lie or lacking in all details. He is secretive, of that, you can be sure. I just hope I made the right choice in trusting him to keep the secret he shared with me."

The room went quiet, before all at once, turning towards Bill Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"I found Jack with a side of shit," Bill said simply.

"Me too, except Jack left town," added Kingsley.

And like that, they were back to square one with this guy. A ghost who just appeared to the world at large from thin air and began making waves. Romulus had no idea how James and Remus were keeping straight faces because he was finding it impossible.

"How do we even know if he's on our side?" Asked Tonks.

"He isn't," said Severus ominously and with complete confidence in the statement.

Romulus had to roll his eyes at the dour pronouncement before leaning back in his chair and folding his arm.

"Are you saying you have information that he may already have… loyalties?" Sirius asked.

"He is not one of the Dark Lord's either," Severus elaborated, "think about it. Think about this man's actions since surfacing, and who he has chosen to associate with. His first point of reference in the wizarding world was to become a helper to Garrick Ollivander, a man who has repeatedly thumbed every attempt to restrict him in who he can and cannot sell his services to and should either the Dark Lord or Dumbledore ever walk into his shop with a broken wand he would replace it for either of them."

Bill took over.

"And then think of who he chooses as his romantic interest." Sirius dded.

Tonks perked up.

"I think I see where you're going here," she concluded.

"Bellatrix Black," said James, "a woman who managed to keep her sisters together even as they drift towards opposite ends of the conflict. A woman who remains a loving aunt to both Nym and young Draco."

Sirius growled, and it came out a little too dog-like.

"Right. A bastion of family integrity and neutrality that one," he said.

"Sirius," Remus said in a warning tone.

The Black heir backed down but seemed to barely hold his tongue.

"I agree with Severus' analysis," Dumbledore concluded, "he has surrounded himself with people that, in one way or another, are neutral or ambivalent to the war. We are either witnessing the work of a peace-maker intent on healing the schism in our society or…a new player intent on rivaling or replacing Voldemort and myself."

That quieted the room.

A third faction in the war? Well, fourth counting the ministry, and honestly, who did? But still, another faction?

Why would he collect those of the wizarding world either neutral or antagonistic to both sides of the war under one banner? Was it his intention to fight against both or let them duke it out and conquer the victor?

It was something Romulus couldn't imagine doing. It made him wonder. Was Dumbledore leading them astray, intentionally or otherwise? Were their tactics for this war going to cause devastation instead of victory? These were questions he never pondered before and was uncomfortable now that "Hadrian" was forcing him, through his actions, to do so.

"Which do you think he is?" McGonagall broke the silence.

"It might be my intrepid optimism, but I think it's the former," he said, "or at least, he seems to want to be the peacemaker between the two sides. He says, and I believe him, that he does what he does because he believes fate is pushing him towards a certain path. I just worry he doesn't realize how dangerous and difficult that path is."

"Needless to say I will not be trying to recruit him into the Order," Dumbledore concluded, "but he is a godsend in terms of a teacher. I just got a letter from the Board of Governors confirming his appointment and will send the good news to him promptly."

Damnit! That means Romulus wouldn't be able to track him down and interrogate him once the school year started. Yet another boring year of homeschooling with Uncle James and Aunt Lily until she too returned to Hogwarts. Joy.

"I have many questions," Peter broke his silence now that his meal was finished, "but the information gleaned from my spying might be more important, and I'm sure my godson will fill me in later."

He wiped his mouth with a conjured napkin and gave his reports.

"The vampire tribes, all 12, are on the cusp of joining Voldemort," he ripped the bandaid off all at once. "What few distrust him are becoming less and less inclined to get their food through legal, non-fatal means. Stirrings of dissatisfaction echo through the underlings and the leaders can't snuff it out. Attacks on Muggles have already begun to increase."

"And I have on good authority that two leaders already swore to Him. I'll give you three guesses which two, and the first guess doesn't count," he finished.

He had spent half a year of shuffling across Eurasia and Africa, sneaking past customs and borders and listening in on known vampires in his rat form. It had clearly taken a toll. That wasn't even getting into the illnesses he must have caught along the way, from coming into contact with other rats and fleas the world over or the omnipresent danger of getting caught.

Romulus really admired the man.

"I'm afraid things are similarly bad with my werewolf contacts," Remus added, "more and more are going feral, living short and brutal lives in lost forests across Europe. Those that are still taking part in society are either too financially desperate to make waves, or leaning towards joining Voldemort."

More grumblings.

"But what werewolf in their right mind would join a regime with open animus towards them?" asked Peter.

"I think it's more a matter of 'the ministry is our biggest threat, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is the second, and the resistences are either feckless or worse than Voldemort in their tactics," Arthur Weasley hypothesized, "so from their perspective they may be considering You-Know-Who just for the pleasure of fighting for him and getting a bit of revenge against society."

"Right in one," confirmed Remus.

The bad news just kept coming. And yet Dumbledore looked oddly amused.

"In Greater Britain, at least, I foresee the werewolf issue becoming much less of an issue fairly soon," Dumbledore announced, "as is our current funding problem, for the foreseeable future."

He then dropped a sealed contract of some kind—a title or deed maybe?—and a fat coin purse of galleons onto the table.

"Mister Morrigan purchased the Shrieking Shack from me and the transaction was approved," he announced.

The predicted response from everybody in the room, save for the Marauders themselves, was wondering aloud what that had to do with anything.

"And why would he purchase that?" Asked Tonks. "Wait, you're the owner of it?!"

Dumbledore chuckled.

"When I asked him he said, and I quote, I just got the feeling that it would make a great place to shelter disenfranchised werewolves during the full moon," Dumbledore explained, throwing his hands up as if giving up on explaining.

Remus, Peter, James, and Sirius chuckled together at that one.

"The Shrieking Shack used to be my prison during the full moons while I attended Hogwarts," Remus explained, "which this stranger couldn't possibly have known.

Well, it was a well-kept secret. Was.

"And he intends to refurbish it, and turn it into a nonprofit shelter during the few days around the full moon for werewolves to stay," Dumbledore explained, "he intends to provide as much wolfsbane as he can for those who can take it, and other aids for those who cannot."

It was then that a familiar white owl flew in through the window. They really should stop invoking his name like this. Surely this man couldn't have a taboo on his own name, could he?

Dumbledore retrieved the letter Hedwig was carrying and read it. His smile got even brighter as he read it and the document to come with it.

"And I have even more excellent news." He announced as he turned the document around showing a bright red 'approved' stamp on it. "The Gringotts fund for Charitable Acts just approved additional funding for his shelter program."

"What does the letter say?" asked James.

"Well, you might be interested to learn that he is asking me if I can recommend five people interested in being trustees to help get his program approved. And maybe volunteer on or near the full moon."

James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Romulus all stood up in perfect synchronicity.

"I figured as much," Dumbledore hummed as he sent Hedwig off with Morrigan's confirmation as the new Divination professorship.

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