Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him— he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory. — Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

The Siv's queue absence was explained immediately. "All Ministry Personnel to report to the Atrium, immediately," ordered a cool, female voice, her voice magically amplified throughout the entire building. Alice scarpered into the lift, hurriedly jamming level 8 when the grates clanged shut and she skyrocketed upwards. There was no attendant inside and she felt the wrought iron panelling wriggling, threatening to unspool themselves and constrict around her body with vicious hisses. She couldn't explain why but there was a bad taste in her mouth that tasted faintly metallic and sharp. It didn't bode well.

When the doors rattled open, she walked at a quick foxtrot to the Atrium, melting in with last minute stragglers. Another voice was booming through the Atrium, reedy and masculine, but she couldn't make out the words as she skidded to a halt behind what looked like the entirety of the Ministry of Magic gathered in the black tiled chamber. There was a general hubbub of voices which the voice seemed to be competing for— a weak Sonorous charm, no doubt. She was surprised that no one had cut short her Siv session, but then spotted Ameena nearest the far side of the crowd bowed in intense conference with an older witch who seemed to be her boss. They all had a harried, nervous look to them.

Alice's brows knitted together, and she muttered various iterations of, 'excuse me' and 'sorry' as she weaved her way through the crowd near the Recollectionist department, before spotting a tall, broad-planed back wearing a familiar tweed jacket. Frank looked down at her as she sidled up by his side with a tight looking smile. His strong, warm hand found her shoulder and squeezed. He was looking at her with something like pity.

"You alright, Alice?"

She felt her stomach roll sickeningly and tried not to think of Everard's burned body or Danica's corpse. "Hey, Frank. Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

But his answer was drowned by the sudden booming of the reedy, masculine voice. It was the Minister for Magic, Harold Minchum, who was speaking from a raised dais to a crowd of hundreds and had evidently fixed his weak charm because his voice was now so loud it rattled the floor and the Floo Flame flickered in annoyance in their grates.

"…assure you all that we are doing our absolute utmost to ensure the wellbeing of—"

"What did I miss?"

But Frank only squeezed her shoulder tighter. "Alice, I'm so sorry."

"— and to remind you that the Ministry takes these issues incredibly seriously—"

She frowned: she had noticed a curtain hanging over the honeycomb windows that latticed the east side of the Atrium. Judging by the sweeping murmurs, she wasn't the only one who'd spotted the cordoned-off zone. Minchum made an impatient snap with his wand and his dais raised a little higher so he could be better seen. He waved a hand to quiet the audience.

"Frank, what's happening?" Alice couldn't expunge the anxious keening from her voice but Minchum's voice drowned them out again. It were as though she had plunged headfirst in the Siv again because she had a hard time piecing his words together as though she were catching them in frantic gulps of air.

"This morning…took his own life…committed suicide this morning and the Ministry will not…He left a note intended for…he believed that our fall was not only imminent, but …"

A witch just a few rows up from Alice and Frank suddenly turned towards Alice, her luminous brown eyes shining. Johanna Shacklebolt mouthed something that looked like, 'I'm sorry,' before turning back to Minchum.

"...here to offer words of a different sort," Minchum continued, and Alice noticed how his pinstriped suit looked slightly too big for him. The job too insurmountable. Driftwood against a tidal wave. There was a name that fell from Minchum's mouth like an anchor, that dragged her slowly beneath the waves and she felt the air knock out of her chest. "Not words of defeat…He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does not understand…Separately we are weak, but together we are stronger…"

His message was big but his voice was not and it rang through the tense air like the echo of a storm, hollow. A facsimile of thunder. There was scattered applause and the sound slammed her back into her body. Alice's ears were ringing. But Minchum continued despite the gale of unease, of hope beginning to wane.

"However, the Ministry also acknowledges…have kindly offered…provide free counselling…the east wing of the atrium will be closed…"

"Frank, who is it?" Alice's voice sounded small and childlike and when he said the name, she floated away, far and high above the atrium. Her body was still rooted to the ground, shoulder to shoulder with Frank. In a distant sort of way, she could see him looking at her, his hand still on her shoulder, gripping her as the siren song sucked her deeper into the black trench. From up here the Ministry looked beautiful, people congregated near the fountain like ants. She could see the gleaming black hair of Blackwood and the white of Malfoy bowed in conference together.

She thought of the last time she saw that name, how she'd been too busy to pay proper attention. How he had wrung his hands as though he were squeezing a wet towel and how she's dismissed him as she'd run after Puffskein evidence. She thought of his shock of red hair and the curling flowers embroidered on his sleeve cuffs. How she had plucked his file from the cabinet and handed it to Johanna. How she'd raised her voice for the other Aurors to hear and recommended him. How she said he was the right wizard for the job, despite his age, his gentleness.

How she'd given him the emergency Portkey just in case.

"Vale, Tiberius Nibb," Minchum concluded, and the entire Ministry of Magic thundered his name back, so it reverberated off the walls. Alice let her head tip back as she gazed at the constellations which seemed to writhe and wriggle, which seemed to spell the young cadet's name everywhere, a cadet who she had barely even spoken to, had barely even known. Who she had offered up like a lamb to slaughter without even thinking of the risk. She looked back at the dais, which was slowly being lowered to the ground, watched Minchum tap his throat with his wand, and it all went quiet. Watched him offer an arm to a small woman with a shock of red hair and flowers on her robes.

It was evident that they were all dismissed, and the crowd surged back to their work. No time could be spared these days and the funeral, to be held later during the week, was closed to the public on request of Nibb's parents. Alice felt her feet move of their own volition— Frank was speaking, and Alice nodded mutely through it all, barely even felt Johanna catching up with them and giving her a bone-crushing hug as they walked back to the offices. As they passed the fountain on their way back to the elevator, Alice could have sworn the centaur was weeping.

From what she could piece together from Johanna and Frank's conversation, Minchum had pushed to use Nibb as a martyr, but his parents had refused citing propaganda, the inhumane use of their son's memory. Alice was barely listening, she was rocking in a boat out to sea on her own, the horizon flat and endless, sharp as a knife's blade until someone knocked her shoulder as a group surged into the elevator and punched the Auror level button.

"Boo-hoo," a cold voice sneered, and Alice turned in the confined space to see Lucius Malfoy as the grates rattled shut and they shot down to level 2. Alice felt herself pushed up the back of the elevator and the writhing feeling was back, the fear that the elevator was going to swallow her whole.

"Counselling?" he continued to anyone who would listen, looking for a rise, and the other Ministry workers shifted uncomfortably in the tight elevator. "That's just a Muggle invention. Women's business." He looked like he was enjoying himself and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction, but it was no use: Malfoy had caught sight of her burning face, and, lip curling, said, "Come now, Fortescue, don't look so morose! There's no sense crying over a dead cadet. That's what they're there for. I'm surprised you even bothered learning his name."

"Shut the fuck up, Malfoy."

It took Alice half a second to register that the speaker was Frank, his chest heaving. She could see his hands shaking slightly. Malfoy went still. Time seemed to warp on itself, as though they were rattling down to level 2 in slow motion. Malfoy was quiet for a beat longer before he smirked, and his eyes slid to Alice.

"Actually, Fortescue, a shrink might be the perfect thing for you after all since Nibb died on your watch—"

Alice didn't remember how it happened, but there was a scuffle as the lift opened and the crowd around them gasped.

Johanna had punched Malfoy in the face.

Some middle-aged blustering wizard and an ancient Unspeakable witch had called for order and for Johanna to be reprimanded but everyone else in the vicinity suddenly seemed either very busy or vision impaired, and melted out of the elevator, pulling the protesters with them.

Malfoy, who was now sporting a bloody nose, hissed, "In another world you'd be punished for that, Shackles."

But Johanna just stared back at him— or rather down at him since she was extremely tall— as the doors rattled to a close on his ruined face, and Malfoy was transported to another part of the Ministry.

Alice half expected Johanna to look worried, fearful even, but she turned back to Alice and Frank with a hard, blazing look on her face.

"A dickhead and a racist? Consider me shocked. God, I love punching people like him." Frank was looking incredibly impressed meanwhile Alice was barely containing a sob. "Hey!" Johanna said, wrapping her arms around Alice. "Hey, let's get you upstairs alright?"

"I should be saying that to you. Are you okay?" she managed to mumble through numb lips.

Johanna's eyes crinkled. "It would be a lie to say I was. But you're not okay either," and she looked up at Frank. "None of us are. Wizards like that get to run this place meanwhile good people, innocent people, are just collateral. I don't even know why he lurks around here anyway. Probably just to remind everyone he's an Old Boy. He's like a fart you can't get rid of." Johanna enveloped her in a hug again and Alice held on for dear life. "It's not your fault, ok? I hate Malfoy but he has a macabre point, even if he is a total racist git. This is part of the job. We all signed up knowing the risk. Tiberius, too."

Alice broke apart from Johanna wiping her eyes. "I know, I know. I guess I just feel…"

"Responsible?" Johanna offered and Alice nodded back, her bottom lip trembling. What she was feeling swirled around her nervous system like oil and water. Frank was still looking at her with those worried brown eyes. "You're not responsible at all, Alice," Johanna affirmed.

The three of them headed upstairs, carefully avoiding second and third grades who barrelled past them like oxen in detective clothing. Alice murmured a quick goodbye to Johanna and Frank, excusing herself for the bathroom. When she was inside, she made a beeline for the nearest cubicle, slamming the door behind her. She vomited quickly, then several more times, resting her forehead against the porcelain for a moment or two, before washing her hands, and drumming her fingers (one, two, three, no bad thoughts).

They were right. No sense crying any more about it, at least not publicly. She was already ashamed and humiliated, and now mixed in was the belief, no— the confirmation that she was bad. Defective. Cadets hadn't died on Johanna or Frank's watch. Of course, they had died on hers. She was an imposter at her job and an imposter among her friends and colleagues. There was nothing redeemable in her and it was only a matter of time before they found out the truth. The face of the white-haired witch from her dream flickered in front of her like a Muggle TV unit. She deserved the punishment of Tiberius' death.

When she returned to her desk, a slip of parchment was waiting for her:

Alice, I didn't get a chance to say before, but I'm sorry about Tiberius. I don't blame you at all. No one does. And neither should you. F

She stared at the parchment for a moment, her mind a blank sheet of paper, before slipping it into her pocket next to Ameena's note. Her coat had become a sort of graveyard of good intentions that she didn't deserve. She worried them between thumb and forefinger over and over again, almost as though she were trying to rub the words into dust, because if they were dust then it was not real, and Tiberius wouldn't have—

"Daydreaming again, are we Fortescue?" sniped Blackwood, his reedy voice clipped, and Alice jumped again, whipping her hands out of her pockets. She hadn't seen him return from the Atrium. "With you on the case we'll catch those Puffskein murderers in," and he checked his watch, "Let's say, ten years?" He shrugged on a well-oiled travelling cloak. "Since you've time to daydream, I thought you'd also have time for this," and he gestured to a fresh new stack which was now dangerously teetering over the edge of her desk. He'd obviously dumped it there during the announcement. "Well?" he demanded, and Alice scrambled to scoop all the parchment up in her arms, feeling a flush creep up her face like a vine.

"Is this all to be filed, sir?"

"No," Blackwood drawled. "It's to be turned into bunting." But instead of turning on his heel and leaving, he paused, his long, lithe fingers brushing her cryptic crossword that sat unfinished next to Sartre, the plant. He picked it up The Daily Prophet, delicately, surveying her hasty scrawl in the small white boxes jigsawed between empty ones. "It looks like you've missed an important one, Fortescue," he said. "Supervisor's negligence leads to avoidable death. Five letters," he looked at her, but Alice was mute. "No? Can't think of the answer? I'll give you a clue." He leaned in close so no one else could hear.

"First letter starts with A."

He dropped the paper on her desk contemptuously. "A dead cadet on Ministry watch, your watch, requires paperwork, Fortescue. Perhaps an enquiry. Ask O'Leary for the paperwork."

She wondered what would happen if she was sick on her desk now when she heard a door open, and silence fell over the office. Everyone was looking at her. Crouch was striding across the office to her desk, his face unreadable. Blackwood stood to attention, but Crouch ignored him.

"Fortescue?" he barked. She managed a nod, feeling her neck shudder through concrete. My office," he said curtly.

She followed him, head bowed, feeling Blackwood's gaze on her back and his soft, silky whisper, "Good luck."

Crouch's back was thick, strong, he couldn't be more than forty, but he walked like a soldier on a death march, stiff and efficient, as though he were conserving energy for a more terrible fight.

"In," he barked, and she nearly jumped into the chair in front of his bureau. He sat down in front of her, and she did everything in her power to avoid his gaze.

"Tiberius Nibb," was all he said by way of introduction. Crouch surveyed her, his face lined and severe for someone still relatively young. There really was a buck's head mounted on the wall. They had never actually spoken before; this was the closest she'd ever been to him. What was she supposed to say? It was her fault. She was ready to take the blame. He probably found her wanting. Useless. Completely useless she was. She deserved to be fired, deserved to be punished. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she heaved a great shuddering breath before Crouch surprised her by waving his wand and a drink's tray burst from one of the mahogany panels behind him.

"Whiskey, Fortescue?"

But Crouch had poured her a glass large enough to tranquillise a horse which she accepted although she set it in front of her, as though afraid it were all a test. Crouch took a long gulp of his and then poured another before he sighed.

"These things happen."

Alice stared at him. This wasn't how this meeting was supposed to go. "Blackwood mentioned an inquiry," she managed to whisper, her voice shaking slightly.

"Hang Blackwood," Crouch growled, and Alice nearly fell off her chair. "Although he is right, it is protocol since you were his commanding officer. But we're in a war and frankly I can't spare you for tedious tasks. It's why no one pulled you aside before Minchum's address. We frankly don't have the time." Alice was rapidly blinking back tears of relief, which turned quickly into sharp vinegar pinpricks of shame that she felt so relieved.

"You're on the Puffskein case, yes?" Crouch asked sharply. "Well, I've spoken with Blackwood and Scrimgeour, he's acting as a consultant for the case by the way, and I agree with them that all signs point to an honour killing. As this is your first case I want due diligence, and although I may need you spared from inquiries, you are to learn the proper way of things. You will finish it professionally and accurately, but quickly. I want a no-nonsense wrap-up. Then I am happy to sign off on you taking on some meatier work, some more dangerous fieldwork. Think of it like hands on training."

He had a way of speaking like a bark, as though he were a general giving orders to the infantry before the great battle. Her head was still reeling. How long had it been since Nibb had…and they were talking about another case? More deaths? He flicked his wand, so the tumbler inched closer across the table at her. "You're meant to drink that, you know."

Trying to mask the shaking of her hands, she took a sip. It was spiced and it slipped languidly down her throat. She felt the stone in her stomach dissolve and her tongue loosen slightly. The tumbler nudged her again and she downed the rest in one sip. He poured her another before surveying her impassively. She didn't know where to look or what to do but she suddenly felt a burning in her throat that wasn't from the whiskey. She had to confess. It wasn't right that she'd be let off the hook so easily, not when someone had died. She had to say something, and she had to say it now.

"Sir," she said quickly, nearly bursting. "Tiberius tried talking to me this morning and I said I didn't have time, that I'd speak to him later, but I've been so busy with paperwork and the case that I didn't have time, I mean, I didn't make enough time for him—"

But Crouch had raised his hand.

"Enough," he said, although not unkindly. "Nibb was a fully grown adult capable of making his own decisions. It is the Ministry that failed him, not you. It is You-Know-Who and his army who have failed him, not you. It is also his own doing, not yours." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the polished wood desk. "I'm told you're smart, Fortescue. Your superiors who took you through training, poor training I'm ashamed to admit since we don't have the luxury of time, they all said you were smart. Do not lose yourself to this. Use this to harden yourself if you must. Because I'm afraid to say Nibb will not be your last casualty. If you cannot handle standing in a graveyard with dead comrades and civilians, all dead by your choices, then you are in the wrong job." He waved away the whiskey and stood up. She followed suit, understanding herself to be dismissed.

The last thing Crouch said as she passed him out the door was, "You cannot save everyone."

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, although a chill descended on the office around five o'clock, which she took as her cue to leave. She was winding a thick scarf around her neck, thinking wistfully of the beanie she left at her flat, when Frank walked over, fidgeting with his wand, the lamp glinting off the lacquered hawthorn.

"Alice, I know this is probably terrible timing but how would you feel about grabbing dinner?"

He said all of this very quickly, as though his entire sentence was run off in a water catchment. "As work colleagues, of course," he added. "I just thought, given today, you might want company. I'm worried about you."

She cringed internally. Shit, shit, shit. She felt her throat constrict. "Frank, I'm sorry— I was actually going to duck to Diagon Alley before everything shut. There's— ah— something I need to get." Then she added rather lamely, "For my cat."

"I didn't know you had a cat."

Alice's brain was working overtime. "Er, yes! A recent acquisition. That's why I'm going, to buy something for my cat. Yep, that's why I'm going." She started swinging her arms uselessly. It was rather deranged.

"Alice?"

"Mhmm?"

"I can imagine how hard the Puffskein case and Nibb must be—"

"I'm fine, Frank," she said, her voice whistling and high. She needed to blow off steam now. She tried smiling but felt tears sting at the corner of her eyes. "See you tomorrow, yeah?"

She had never walked quicker out of the office, leaving Frank staring at the floor as she went. She exited via the Floo grate, after an excruciatingly long fifteen-minute wait in line. New posters had been plastered next to the stern looking witches and wizards pointing and shaking their first in what was meant to be a rallying cry, 'YOUR MINISTRY NEEDS YOU.' The new posters, hastily tacked over the top, were in softer colours, flowing writing: 'YOU NEED YOU.' A St Mungos seal in partnership with PUS (Pacifists United Salisbury) was stamped on the bottom. But someone had already graffitied over the top. As she spun her way back to the street, the crude symbol flashed in her mind, and then she was on her way to Charring Cross. By the time she'd spotted the Leaky Cauldron it was out of her mind.

She said a quick hello to Tom the bartender who, despite the war, was busier than ever (either people weren't aware of the danger or people were and they were determined to drink their way through it anyhow) and rushed out the back where she tapped the beer kegs with her wand and stepped through to one of the streets.

Diagon Alley, like the Leaky Cauldron, was bustling and she couldn't tell if it was in spite of, or defiance to, the war. Minchum still hadn't called for harsh lockdowns which was likely his way of containing any widespread panic. Twilight inked across the sky and lanterns and fairy lights hummed as they bathed the alley in a buttery glow. She noticed, however, that Knockturn Alley was most definitely empty. She brought her scarf higher up her face to fight the chill that snaked its way down the winding street, hurrying towards a shabby shop with a curling sign that read 'Hatice's Kafe.'

Glancing furtively over her shoulder, she opened the door and slipped inside.