Alduin wasn't the only one who got more room to breathe as the situation fond its new equilibrium in May. Finally, Kingsley had time for more than a minute of two talking over the mirrors, and he came to Travers Manor one evening to discuss the situation in detail.

The first news he brought was that his Veritaserum investigation among the Aurors brought up to who were clearly obliviated. "No clear ties tot he Lestranges, or anyone else suspicious," he said bitterly, "and you know that any attempt at restoring their memory is going to be slow and uncertain. As it is, though it's certainly a strong indication, it's nto even proof that it's related to Pettigrew, let alone that they participated voluntarily. We will obviously focus our further investigation on them and people around them, but..."

But it would take time, Alduin knew, time they could ill afford when war was upon them and they had a possible security leak to eliminate. He only nodded, and they sat together in silence for a moment.

"Dumbledore is refounding the Order, I understand," Kingsley said then. "I was made the offer to join - not in so many words but, you know."

Alduin nodded again. "Will you accept?"

Kingsley grimaced. "I don't know. It's not like I have the time, but...we need to coordinate, and he's hardly likely to cooperate with the Ministry officially, so..." He sighed. "I wish I had someone I could send instead of me, but the only one I trust to this degree is Giacomo, and the Order wouldn't trust him."

Alduin rolled his eyes, but unfortunately, Kingsley was right.

"What about you," the man continued, "Dumbledore didn't make you the offer?"

Alduin laughed. "He can't stand me. He trusts me because he has no choice, but to include me in something voluntarily…?"

"Hm." Kingsley seemed to consider that for a moment, then said: "Maybe I'll make your presence a condition of my accepting. Like I said, we need to coordinate."

Alduin sighed. "I don't particularly want to be in Dumbledore's Order – I wasn't in the first war, and there were reasons for it. Like you, I wish I could send someone else," he grinned, "but then if you joined…"

Kingsley gave him a look. "Don't even try it, I don't have time to keep you up to date with everything else I'm supposed to be taking care of. Did you know Fudge tried to arrange for an extrajudicial killing of Barty?"

Alduin's hand froze on its way to its glass of water. "What?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah," Kingsley said grimly. "Tried to have him Kissed without a trial. Amelia almost had an apoplexy when she found out. I seriously wonder if that man isn't Imperiused..."

"Might be," Alduin admitted, "but it's equally possible he's just that afraid of what Barty's going to say in trial...for fuck's sake." Alduin had truly not expected this, not because he trusted Fudge in any way, but because the man was an incompetent coward. He would suggest the Imperius testing in earnest, if he didn't know Kingsley had that in place ever since Mr. Bartemius' situation was revealed. But there were other kinds of pressure that could be exerted, and the more he thought about it, the more he considered Kingsley was right – being put under pressure to do that was leagues more likely than actually doing so out of his own self-preservation, unless Barty was about to say that Fudge was a Death Eater – and even Alduin in his paranoia had limits to what he could believe.

Though perhaps if he'd pretended at incompetence dedicatedly enough for over a decade...it would certainly explain how he got to power…

Alduin shook himself. This was no times for flights of fancy like that.

"There was also an attempt to free him by a few Imperiused maintenance workers," Kingsley continued in the meanwhile, adding pointedly: "I don't think Fudge's the only one afraid of what Barty is going to say."

"Dammit." Perhaps he should have a word with Lucius, though to what end precisely, he wasn't sure.

"My thoughts exactly." Kingsley sighed. "I'm afraid that...they'll switch to trying to kill him now, because that is much easier than getting him out. I'll do my best to prevent it, but..."

Alduin nodded. There was a lot of Death Eaters and their relatives with contacts in the Ministry. "Is there a way to get him to a safe house?"

"Such a high profile criminal? Not officially, no. We'd be accused of trying to secret him away and...it would never fly."

Alduin's eyes turned distant.

"Don't even think about it," Kingsley aid sharply.

Alduin looked at him. "He was my friend," he said quietly.

"I know, but...you spoke to him."

"I did."

"Then you know what he's like now. Yes, maybe years of therapy would put him back to rights, but...you know he deserves prison, and he barely served any time at all."

Alduin sighed. "I know. But...they'll succeed, sooner or later, in either freeing him or killing him. How can I just sit back and watch?"

"I'll try and move the date of the trial forward as much as possible," Kingsley said after a moment. "Fudge will be resistant, but he really doesn't have the capacities to block us on this, not unless he gets Wizengamot to give him more powers, and I trust you can prevent that from happening?"

Alduin nodded.

"Then I'll try to get him in front of the court within a month. He's a priority, after all, and the less time either side has to kill him, the bigger his chance of survival."

Alduin nodded. This, he knew, was the best plan they had.

-hp-hp-hp-

With all that had been happening lately, Harry had rather put off studying for the exams, and now was very unpleasantly surprised when he realized they were only weeks away. Weeks! He needed one of those time-turners he had heard Alduin talking about.

He did what he could to make his studying more effective – he enlisted Hermione's and Su's help with things he didn't understand, he consulted his Slytherin friends, he devoted every moment he had to it, but still, he couldn't help feeling this year's exam results would be rather disastrous.

"Mate, you saw Riddle come back from the dead," Ron told him, "I'm sure your cousin won't bother you too much about bloody grades!"

Harry supposed that was true enough, but he didn't want to do well just for Alduin. He realized most of these subjects were important – except Astronomy, Merlin only knew why they were studying it, and History with Binns was pretty useless too – and he didn't want to fall behind.

When he explained this to Hermione in frustration, she bit her lip and then said: "Maybe arrange the subjects in order of importance? I mean, Defence would be first obviously – though I don't think you really need to study it – then I suppose Charms and Transfiguration, and maybe Potions and Creatures? The rest, I suppose, is not so important for the war..."

She looked like it physically hurt her to tell him not to study for some classes, but she had a point, and Harry arranged it according to her advice.

Not that it exactly lessened the sheer amount of work he had to do.

At least, he thought to himself sarcastically, he had more time for it now, given Parvati's reluctance to spend much time with him since the Easter break. Her parents were still putting pressure on her to break it off with him, from what she told him, and – the part she hadn't exactly said out loud, but Harry'd figured out on his own, with some help with letters to Sirius and Alduin – she was trying to decide if she should cave or not.

Unsurprisingly, Alduin was full of understanding for her and explained that going against your family was hard, while Sirius was scornful and insisted that any girl who'd give in to pressure like this wasn't worth his time.

For his part, Harry was inclined to leave her to it. He certainly didn't want to be broken up with again, but it felt like it was a decision she had to make on her own, without him trying to force her into it. Alduin had written that deciding to go against one's family was the kind of choice one could easily come to regret, and Harry could imagine that happening, too. If he pressed her, it would be even worse, he imagined, and so he did his best to focus on his exams and the training he did with the Gryffindor group – Ginny had joined in gladly and without any issues, thankfully – and forget about the Parvati problem for now. And commiserate with Ron when he couldn't.

Ron's relationship with Zainab hadn't survived the Easter break long, and Harry gathered that it was due to some argument about him, just as it had been with Dean. Unlike Dean, however, Ron was not inclined to blame Harry for it in the slightest.

"If she wants to say that you're exaggerating the danger to get attention," he'd muttered to Harry after the breakup, "she can do it to someone else than me."

That, Harry supposed, was true enough. Still, there seemed to be no relationship left standing around him – except for Hermione and Krum, he supposed – and Harry wondered if Riddle's return just made people feel more on edge, and more prone to argue.

The last thing they needed for the war was people on the same side coming to hate each other.

-hp-hp-hp-

Alduin spent quite a bit of time considering the Order problem before deciding to simply go and see Dumbledore and discuss it with him frankly. He had to talk to him about the Chamber business, anyway.

In fact, that was what he opened with, as soon as he settled in the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk.

"You know how to get inside, then?" Dumbledore asked.

"I do," Alduin replied confidently. He'd replayed the memory of Riddle showing the process in the diary and practiced until he could mimic the opening sound perfectly. He wasn't completely confident it would work, but he'd caved and consulted his grandfather's portrait – as well as the man's notes – on spells tied to language, and had some suitably vague conversation on the topic with Tulia Odgen as well as Perpetua Burke. Both sisters assured him that no, unless there was a degree of sentience imbued, phrase-triggered spells did not take into account if you actually understood what you were saying - 'the reason why so many Muggles tend to die horribly after they read something they shouldn't in an ancient tomb', Tulia had told him bluntly – and not even Riddle was insane enough to imbue a set of doors with sentience, hopefully.

"Then I am all in favour of eliminating this danger. What will we need?"

Alduin shrugged. "There is a basilisk inside, so some roosters should be quite enough."

"I will speak to Hagrid, then, and I believe everything should be ready soon enough. In the meantime, I believe there was something else you wished to discuss with me?"

Alduin inclined his head, and explained the problem they'd discussed with Kingsley.

"I have considered this in regard to Mr. Shacklebolt as well," Dumbledore confirmed. "You have your own network of allies, after all – your own Order, if you will. I do believe it would be better if, instead of becoming part of my organization, we simply met regularly to update each other – me, you, Mr. Kingsley for the Ministry – he wouldn't have the time for Order missions anyway – and perhaps some other groups we make contact with."

Alduin was actually very pleasantly surprised with the suggestion, which was uncommonly reasonable.

"Where?" He asked. "I know Hogwarts is secure, but it is far."

Dumbledore nodded. "I'll have a safe house ready for your approval," he said. "Await my message."

Deeply suspicious of such friendly development, Alduin headed to his family gallery for the second time in way too short a period for his comfort, this time to speak to the one Hogwarts Headmaster in their family history, who could perhaps shed some light on this mystery. "Mr. Alfred?" He called.

The man stepped into his frame, and gave him a penetrating look. "Yes?"

"Could you possibly explain what just happened in Dumbledore's office?"

The portrait gave him a look. "You know I am sworn to secrecy."

"I do, but..." Alduin trailed off. He had never been quite sure what exactly the limits of this charm were, and he had rather hoped they'd allow Mr. Alfred to tell him something at least.

"Let us just say that Dumbledore had received an object lesson in the value of equal cooperation recently."

That only left Alduin burning with curiosity, but he knew that his great-great-great many times over uncle wouldn't say any more, and so he turned and left the gallery, only shooting the briefest possible looks at the portraits of his parents and grandparents in passing. It was not, he knew, healthy for him to spend too much time here.