Chapter 48: The Auror Assembly
Alice Longbottom took a seat outside Rosa Lee's Teabag – the one in Hogsmeade – where Sirius, Moody, Shacklebolt and Tonks were already waiting. The last two were too young for her to have known them before: Shacklebolt was a couple of years younger than Sirius, and Tonks was, to put it simply, the daughter of Sirius' own cousin. So, too young. Shacklebolt was, what, twenty when Alice and Frank had been hospitalized? If anything, he hadn't yet done phase one of ATP, because she'd never seen him around the Auror Office.
Speaking of which:
"If we're starting an Aurors Anonymous, I'm afraid we'll have a hard time finding members no one here knows already. The 'anonymous' part may be compromised."
Tonks and Sirius glanced at each other while Shacklebolt shook his head slightly, a tiny bit amused.
Moody, of course, didn't say anything.
The youngest amongst them eventually cracked a laugh:
"Oh, come on, she's right! We're like the Auror Assembly, Moody is retired and Sirius is... a dropout, I guess, and I'm not entirely sure what Mrs Longbottom qualifies as, but we could walk right into headquarters and Robards would barely blink."
Sirius mouthed "dropout" with an offended look on his face – to be fair, he hadn't left ATP of his own volition – and Alice ordered a purple tea with a side dish of glazed randaline eggs from the waitress who had hesitantly veered their way at the sight of a new customer.
Then she looked back at the colorful young woman – and Alice was still working on accepting that no, she wasn't twenty-seven anymore, hadn't been for more than fourteen years now, and the girl who didn't seem to be that much younger than Alice felt like... really was.
"They call it 'exceptional leave', when it's either unsure if you're going to come back to the Auror Office or you were so gravely hurt as a result of our job that you will not come back but you should still keep some benefits. Frank and my stay at St Mungo's was entirely financed by the Auror Office, as it is. We've been... talking with the new head auror about our status-to-be."
Moody – whose eye was running around the few passersby, and Alice was only able to ignore the older wizard's most grievous injury and equally upsetting prosthetic because she'd been there when they'd arrested Augustus Rookwood in January 1982 and it was better than the dried mess the Death Eater had made of Moody's eye – grunted:
"Still looking to get back on the payroll, Longbottom?"
Alice refused to feel awkward – because of how out of shape being clinically insane had gotten her, because of her difficulties with actually getting anything done – and nodded.
"I'm forty-one, much too young to retire, and I refuse to let Lestrange and her cronies, no offense, Sirius, dictate any more of my life. It's bad enough that they stole nearly fifteen years from us, that Frank can't even talk about it and has a hard time leaving Longhampton, that our son doesn't know us at all. I earned that job and I will get it back."
Sirius raised an eyebrow at her – he certainly didn't seem offended on behalf of his obligatory malevolent ghost, which wasn't surprising – and watched her for a moment.
He could see, of course, that she was far from in shape. She hadn't gotten visibly fat or underweight under St Mungo's care, but she'd gotten soft, she'd lost her muscles and her reflexes. Worse than that, her mind believed nothing had changed, that the last decade and a half hadn't happened – but of course, her body couldn't keep up and kept betraying her.
It felt judging – Alice couldn't help getting defensive...
But Sirius spoke first, and the witch remembered the newspapers her family and friends had used to talk about the past she and Frank hadn't been a part of:
"You look better than I did, when I got out. Or before I needed a brand new body, even."
Shame curled in her stomach and Alice bit back the self-protective instinct that had almost had her say something inconsiderate.
She'd seen what Sirius had looked like in Azkaban, and she could guess he hadn't gotten much better while on a mad dash to Hogwarts. Even Dedalus and Emmeline's accounts of the later days, back when he'd been confined to his ancestral house, told the story of a tired man – and to someone who'd known him healthy healthy and unmarked by a decade of dementors and betrayals...
Sirius might look better now – almost like he used to, and that was another difficult truth to swallow, that he seemed unchanged when Alice and Frank had aged without any memories to bear witness to it – but he had had it worse than even them.
It was something difficult to imagine and even harder to accept, but it was the truth.
Maybe Alice could swallow her hurt feelings and admit her struggle to someone who had lived through something both similar and much more horrible.
"I... It's difficult. I don't know where to begin. It's like fourteen years have just jumped down my throat and I have to deal with a body that isn't anything like I remember it being. It's older, weaker and out of shape, and my reflexes are shot. I believe I can get past it, but... I don't know how."
Shacklebolt and Tonks, thankfully, kept well out of that conversation – even if they didn't look overly natural in their attempts to remain quiet, the man staring at his biscuits and the young woman unable to completely ignore the exchange, her eyes darting from her cousin to Alice uneasily – and Moody's constant need to watch over everything and everyone meant he wasn't visibly listening in, too busy paying attention to the rest of the world.
Alice knew it also meant he was hearing her anyway, but it allowed her to pretend.
Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment.
"...I could ask Amanda if she'd be willing to help. To get you back in shape, I mean. She can't do anything about your magical abilities, but as far as your body goes..."
"Amanda?"
Tonks, audibly relieved that they'd – slightly – veered off the personal and awkward part of the conversation, answered for her cousin:
"His sister-in-law, the muggle who married Black the Younger when he had no idea who he was. She scared the living daylights out of Fell and Savage when Scrimgeour sent them to check up on Regulus's house after he reappeared. Alexander's sister, too."
Sirius snorted at that.
"What Tonks isn't saying is that Amanda was in the muggle army when she met Regulus, and she has kept a strong workout routine since then. I can't be sure she'd be willing to train you back into shape, but it wouldn't hurt to ask."
Alice hesitated a moment – she didn't know Amanda White and admitting this to Sirius had been hard enough – but the truth was that she needed help.
"Thanks. Now, what are we doing here exactly?"
All eyes turned back on Moody, whose magical one was currently looking back behind him in a rather disturbing display. The battle-scarred wizard tilted his head at a nearby village house.
"That's a property Lucius Malfoy tried to buy off the Rowles a year and a half ago, even though it's not on their list of offers. He was so damn insistent about it that Njal Rowle sent his daughter to personally tell him to back off. Sirius' girl told me about it the other day, was wondering if there was anything to it. Thinking back on it, Miss Rowle finds it odd."
Kingsley pursed his lips and asked:
"...How insistent are we talking about?"
"Insistent enough for Malfoy to bring his personal bookkeeper and his law counselor along while offering more for the property than its objective worth. He, of course, made use of his silver tongue and almost succeeded in getting Miss Rowle confused as to why, exactly, her family wasn't willing to sell. She was expecting it, though."
Sirius made a face of disgust: the Malfoy family magic was discreet and all the more vicious for it, since it made their words more agreeable to the listener, always. It didn't turn people stupid, of course, but they were more willing to listen, to entertain the more innocent claims and explanations, at least while in a Malfoy's presence. It wasn't only charisma, and a previous grudge or a rash attitude – like Draco Malfoy's – would counteract the effects of the voice's undertones.
Honestly, Sirius suspected non-human ancestry to explain that particular family magic, vela or something similar, lost to generations and a sick need to hide away anything considered "unpure".
The point was, he'd never met a Malfoy who used those persuasive powers to push for good things, not personal gains. At best they did nothing – and Armand, as a squib, didn't have the family magic.
Alice seemed just as unimpressed by Lucius Malfoy's manners, if the scoff and subsequent "dishonest sod" was anything to go by.
Moody continued on, taking out a pocket book and an old key from his reinforced waistcloak:
"According to Miss Rowle, the house belonged to a mage arithmancer specialized in time magic, Reid Tofty, until his death more than twenty years ago. Tofty is linked to the Rowles through blood, they weren't just tenant and landlords, which is why they hold onto the house."
"Yeah, he's a great-grandfather of the current generation, Theodore and his brothers."
Moody didn't even glance at Sirius.
"...Of course you know that. Anyway, the house..."
"Reid Tofty is to Eleanor what Phineas Nigellus is to me, and you just threw the fact that we are together out in the open, Mad-Eye! Why would you be surprised that I looked at her family tree? I'd rather not marry a second cousin or something..."
Alice, unlike the retired auror, did throw him a look.
"Be honest, you'd have known that even if you weren't dating. On the matter, congratulations and I hope it lasts. Out of curiosity, what degree of cousinage are we talking about, in the end?"
The new center of attention had to grit out the answer:
"...Third cousins. We're both related to the Macmillans. There are others, further up, but we're talking Yadid Shafiq in the late 1700s or Cepheus Black earlier that century, so, you know..."
"You'd have preferred more distance, I get it, but in the end... Look, Frank and I..."
"...are fourth cousins, through Aldus Hawksworth, I know."
Alice stopped short, bemused for a moment – she'd obviously forgotten who she was talking to.
Sirius pinched his lips and scornfully glanced at the darker-skinned wizard across him.
"Kingsley somehow got away with being a pureblood from a noble House and not having any relatives appearing multiple times in his family tree in the last two centuries, and he's probably the only one here. Moody doesn't count because his bloodline has alternated between halfbloods and purebloods for generations, and Nymphadora is a Black by Blood so this means she's disqualified from the get-go even if her father is a muggleborn..."
"Excuse you, I'm not the one with second cousins for parents!"
"You're better off than me, sure, but Leonor Hawksworth and Maddox Flint appear twice on your family tree all the same, first half of the nineteenth century. Anyway, I was aiming for fifth cousins at best with Eleanor, but we're barely better off than Dear Old Mom and Dad..."
Kingsley tried to cheer him back up as best as he could:
"I've never heard of problems with third cousins, though. There's what, four generations between you? And I have a few halfbloods peppered through my family tree, that's why it looks a bit healthier than yours. You could try Blessings in Southside Street, if you are really worried about that. They do all the relationships rituals and everything, and maybe the expectancy ritual is only reliable 80% of the time, but that's better than nothing..."
Sirius grumbled under his breath and preferred to hide behind his cup of tea. Kingsley, honestly, could understand his concerns: it wasn't only that Eleanor was a third cousin, but also that there were more occurrences of "close" – not actually close, in truth, but identifiable – relatives in the preceding generations. You could wonder if this still counted as "only" being third cousins.
They didn't know enough about how this all worked – and what really went wrong with closer relatives – to anticipate precisely all possible issues.
Moody threw the younger crowd a sharp look then:
"Are you all quite finished? I thought we were talking about our actual reason for being here."
Sirius didn't say anything, so Kingsley took it upon himself to apologize. He and Mrs Longbottom had encouraged the dejected wizard to go on, after all.
"Sorry about that, Mad-Eye."
"Hmff... So, Tofty's house stayed in the family since the wizard's death. Something about needing to go through the research he did and potentially never published, but Deondra Parkinson keeps saying she'll do it and gets distracted halfway through by her own theoretical analysis."
Kinsgley vaguely wondered why Moody spoke of Eleanor's mother by her maiden name, but didn't care enough to find out. Tonks scrunched her nose pensively.
"...Then what do you all think Uncle Dearest wanted with the house?"
All five of them turned to look at the unassuming village house. It was nice enough, but nowhere near what you'd expect Lucius Malfoy to be interested in. The Rowles were obviously keeping it from falling into disrepair. Kingsley looked around: situated on one of the three main Hogsmeade streets, it had access to everything and everyone. It was also known as being empty, so...
"If the Rowles had been willing to sell, I'd be thinking a hiding spot for Death Eaters, especially as Lestrange's confession has sent a few of them on the run. We do have to wonder where they all disappeared to..."
Sirius had told them about the castle he – or rather, Bellatrix – had been brought to while the Reciprocation curse ran its course, but they had been unable to identify it. The apparent lack of anti-apparition wards implied it might be a muggle property, but the animated portraits within told a different story, and in the end the Order had no idea where to look.
Snape, of course, had been sworn to secrecy by his other master, and since they were all knowingly using him as a double agent, it was hardly a surprise.
...For all they knew, Voldemort had left that castle behind after Sirius' intrusion.
Kingsley shook his head and continued.
"Except the Rowles didn't sell, so either this never came to be or it's about something else. Something Reid Tofty owned, or something he made."
Mrs Longbottom nodded by his side.
"If he was a mage, who knows what he was researching exactly... I've got a decent level in arithmancy, I might be able, perhaps, to understand what that research was about, assuming he kept an organized grimoire or enough notes for it to be accessible to us normal witches and wizards. And, correct me if I'm wrong, I wasn't exactly available when this happened, but if this was more than a year ago, was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named even back yet?"
Moody squinted at her, his scarred face twisting around unpleasantly.
"We're talking February 1995, so no, not as he is today."
"In that case, did Malfoy even know about it? He wouldn't have been looking for a hideout or a base in Hogsmeade for Death Eaters if those were still 'murderous old pals' and nothing more."
Sirius and Tonks shared a long look, then he shrugged and she snorted.
"Uncle Dearest didn't know, I can tell you that. He might have been worrying about the Dark Mark at the Quidditch Cup, but he didn't know and certainly didn't think You-Know-Who was about to return. I noticed the change in attitude after the third task, Malfoy was almost giddy and feverish, something that would make you sick but still felt like an amazing craze. Barely contained."
Her cousin threw her a side glance, his face unreadable, but didn't say anything – Kingsley did just the same as Mrs Longbottom: he stared.
"...What?"
"You do realize Malfoy is, if a piece of shit, also a very good liar with a poker face that rivals Sirius'? You guys aren't close, you are an auror, why would he let you see something like that?"
The young woman huffed.
"He does get very angry on occasion and let the mask slip then. And he can be downright condescending when he doesn't even think he needs to pretend."
This time Sirius chimed in:
"Yeah, the poker face does fail occasionally, no matter the person. We're not saying Malfoy never slips up, only that you are hardly the kind of person who can get him going. Alice's point, Nymphadora..."
"Tonks."
"...Tonksphadora, her point is that Lucius Malfoy is a damn good actor when he bothers, and he never got caught until the Department of Mysteries because he made sure never to look guilty in front of people who could make his life difficult. And even with the people he didn't care about antagonizing, he was never openly discriminatory. Horrible, yes, and you could easily read between the lines if you knew to look for it, but nothing that would count as proof."
Tonks threw him an evil look – considering the "Tonksphadora", Kingsley thought it was deserved – and harrumphed.
"Well, Sirius Orion Black, Oh Great Head of Our Noble House, maybe Mr Goldilocks isn't quite as meticulous with his posture around his wife, then. The two of them often went to the same garden, and it's also Mom's favorite, so. I may have overheard them despite the muggle-repellent spells they always ward themselves with on those outings, because, as you know, I'm not a muggle. I can tell you Narcissa was far from thrilled with Snakeface's return, but it was like Malfoy couldn't even hear her objections, going on about opportunities and how they had to be careful and this was all very terrible but still absolutely ecstatic. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was on something."
Moody's face spasmed with revulsion at the words.
"More like he was on a dark magic high. I've already told you that, kid, but just because you two Blacks are immune to the mental pull of the Dark Arts, it doesn't make the usual symptoms any less real for everyone else. Magic with a strong dark factor gets easily addictive and pulls at people's sanity. Once or twice isn't that bad, especially since the first times the spells are hardly well executed and thus are less potent, but idiots start thinking they can handle it and then they do more and slowly but surely change, to the point that they often don't even question their actions."
Alice remembered the face of the youngest of the four who'd done... that... to her and Frank. The way he'd suddenly shifted into manic, disturbing obstination as the Lestranges had "used the opportunity to teach him about the Cruciatus curse".
Between two bouts of immense pain, her nerves aflame and tears in her eyes, Alice had thought this would break Crouch Sr – always so careful not to step on the line he considered made a mark mage, if willing to lurk until that very divide. His own son, lured over that line by the enemy and too far gone for any attempt at rescue.
Then she'd had more pressing matters to care about, and not enough sanity to spare for the DMLE's head. It was the first time she thought back on that particular fact, actually.
Shacklebolt drew her out of that unpleasant bout of reminiscing:
"...Tonks, do you often spy on your estranged aunt? Outside of work, I mean?"
The young woman squinted at her colleague.
"I only do it on purpose when there's talk of a murderous lunatic being back from the dead. I don't know if you've heard, but her husband fits right into the mold of the lunatic's followers."
Besides Tonks, Sirius shrugged.
"I mean, she's not wrong..."
Sirius' cousin then winced, a bit embarrassed.
"...My aunt may have had the impression all the muggles she crossed paths with in the last year were extremely clumsy, but that's obviously not the point."
Moody shook his head then:
"I brought this particular idiot into the Order because she was constantly tripping on her own feet while trying to nose around Malfoy's business. Her saving grace was, of course, her ability with disguise, but her clumsiness was the reason I recognized her while on my own stakeout."
The retired auror could still remember thinking there was something oddly similar between the overweight middle-aged man who'd almost walked into a wall earlier in the afternoon and the older woman who'd just dropped her entire wallet in the middle of the street, four hours and half a county later. Or the young man from two days before, who had managed to hurt his foot on a fire hydrant.
His magical eye didn't allow to see through transfiguration, only through perception charms – and solid objects, but that was another matter entirely – but he'd still been teaching the first phase of auror training when Nymphadora Tonks had joined it in January 1992.
Said metamorphmagus whined.
"Seriously, Mad-Eye! Come on, how could you really know in one single look?"
"Three times, Tonks. Two of those were on the same day, too."
"...Fair."
Moody turned his attention back to the one who'd asked the original question:
"Anyway, Alice. You were saying this could be unrelated?"
The witch had been staring at the Tofty house once again – she shook her head and focused back.
"If it was before Malfoy became He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's errand boy once again, yeah... We were prefects at the same time, and knowing him, he was either looking for something that would give him power over someone or for something valuable. Since Reif Tofty is long dead and was never in the influence business..."
Kingsley hummed as he finished his dusted coffee – fairy dust had become a popular alternative to sugar in the last decade, and it was his personal guilty pleasure.
"You think it was pure greed."
"I think the Malfoys are stock brokers and so-called investors who profit from the influence it gives them over, well, everything. Have been for centuries, even before there were words for it. And if there is something arithmancy is useful for..."
"Aside from targeting people who aren't here at all?"
Alice threw a vaguely annoyed look at Sirius, even if she understood where he was coming from.
"...aside from magical identification, yes, thank you Sirius, and also figuring out spell crafting configurations since we're at it, but my point was that arithmancy lets us spell out probabilities and their consequences, even when you don't know all the secrets of a situation. It doesn't explain why things are as they are, so you can still muck it up, but the right charts, if you know how to use them, could make a fortune."
Tonks made a face at that.
"...Or fatten one up, in Malfoy's case, I guess. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted something like that, if he knew it existed. I'm with Mrs Longbottom on that one."
"Call me Alice, please."
There was a small moment of silence – Tonks biting onto her last biscuits, Moody finally paying attention to the cup of tea he'd ordered and subsequently charmed for the leaves to react to any eavesdropping – before Sirius asked:
"So, what are we doing? We've already established it's unlikely for there to be any assholes hiding in the house, so it can't hurt to go and have a look, no? Eleanor gave you the key, anyway."
Tonks cracked a smile, her eyes wandering to the nearby patroller who'd been throwing them suspicious looks since he'd spotted the Auror Assembly a few minutes earlier on his beat.
"Yeah, better move on, we're making Patterson nervous, he must think there's something afoot and we didn't share."
She gave the middle-aged wizard a two-fingered salute – possibly to reassure him, partially because she wanted to tease the serious patroller – as the five of them stood up, Sirius wandering to the coffee shop to pay everyone's bill. Alice and Kingsley tried to argue, but he'd already disappeared in. Moody, obviously, didn't give a damn as long as they didn't leave without paying.
A few minutes later, they were all cramming into Reid Tofty's house – and being greeted with heaps of books upon books right from the entrance, too many to even fit on the wall-high shelves. The entrance corridor soon turned into a large living room – library was more like it – and a small office by the kitchen.
There, they found three distinctive books on the desk: grimoires, a mage's foremost research tool – as well as several more on the shelf right behind the desk, presumably the research the old wizard had already finished by the time of his death, while the three first tomes could be the subjects he'd still been interested in. The entire left side of the desk also had a box with stack of notes and other loose papers, research data or references.
Tonks groaned.
"I'm so idiotic, I didn't realize this would turn out this way! Please, someone calls a Ravenclaw..."
Sirius ruffled her currently blue hair mockingly:
"If you got accepted in the Auror Training Program, you did get several good grades on your NEWTs, so don't act like you are incapable of focusing on books."
"I'm a dedicated, hard-working Hufflepuff, thanks! I don't mind training and doing the practical work over and over again, but I draw the line at spending more than one hour a day reading complicated theoretical texts. My best friend was the one who did the cramming, and then she used me to review everything out loud. Wait, Alice, Wenlock, right? Isn't your family...?"
The older woman laughed and shook her head, though she was already looking at the papers in the box.
"Sorry to disappoint, I'm the Gryffindor half of the House of Wenlock."
At that moment, Kingsley came back with two chairs he'd gotten from the living room.
"Should I get upset, Tonks? You asked for a Ravenclaw and just somehow forgot about me?"
The younger witch smacked her forehead.
"Shacklebolt, of course! You guys are like, 80% Ravenclaws, right? And you took Arithmancy in school, too. I guess we're saved, then."
Everyone started reading after that, except for Moody who preferred looking for the "potential rest of it, if there's anything more material to find than arithmantic theories". Alice and Kingsley sat at the desk with the grimoires, Tonks sat right on the floor with everything paper-but-not-research and Sirius nicked the loose notes and the third chair.
After a handful of minutes spent on letters from Tofty's family, Tonks glanced at her cousin and whispered:
"Hey, Sirius. Are you alright? I mean, after Diagon Alley the other day..."
The wizard pointedly didn't look up from his reading.
"...I'm looking into it."
"Looking into what? The whole point of dementors is that there isn't any real defense against them except for patroni, and apparently you can't handle that anymore. Not when they're here, and that's when it matters."
As Sirius didn't answer – or acknowledge her in any way – Tonks cautiously added:
"Not that I blame you. You were at their mercy for a very long time, and it's already incredible that you can withstand them at all, but..."
"I'm not afraid of them."
The witch bit her tongue before she could point out that a lack of fear had never prevented harm. It was obvious Sirius didn't want to talk about it for now, and maybe he'd be more receptive to that discussion another day, in a place without Mad-Eye and Mrs Longbottom and Kingsley.
"...Glad you're doing okay, I guess."
Maybe he'd be more talkative then.
About one hour later, Sirius and Moody were examining a weird machine – all cogs and brass, mirrors and springs, with a faceted basin on the top that made it look like the muggle mechanical cousin of a pensieve – and the three pages of notes they'd managed to link to it, when Alice exhaled loudly.
"This is useless. There's too much, and it's way past my level in arithmancy, and let's not talk about the grimoire on time magic of all things. I don't know what you guys found, but... If it's about Tofty's research, then I can't help. What about you, Kingsley?"
The wizard grimaced and closed the tome he'd been frowning at for the last half-hour.
"I think... Nothing in particular strikes me, honestly. That one might be along the lines of your theory, Mrs Lon... sorry, Alice, something that could be useful in predicting business outcomes, and more than that, navigating luck and surprises, and perhaps even forcing their hand in the right circumstances, but honestly I'm not even certain I'm reading it right. I have no idea how Malfoy would even know about Tofty's research, or how he expected to make use of it, if it's the real reason behind his attempt at acquiring the house. This is all so far off...
He sighed and stood up.
"We could ask Rowle, I guess. She continued arithmancy classes at the Academe, with her mother's lessons, if I remember right."
Tonks eyed the office critically:
"Sounds like a lot of work, if there's nothing to be found here. Or, just business stuff, as far as Malfoy is concerned."
Moody turned back from the mysterious machine and scowled at the young auror.
"And if there is something, necessary. I don't want to find out some dark wizard has been manipulating the odds of the war or some ridiculous bullshit because we weren't throughout."
The young witch looked chastised for a second, but Alice intervened bitterly:
"We have a lot to do, both as the Order of the Phoenix, and for Kingsley and Tonks as aurors. I don't mean to be dismissive, Moody, but some things might be more urgent than this! Like handling the people who need to hide, relocate, or even leave the country if it comes to it!"
There was a moment of charged silence, Mad-Eye not answering and Mrs Longbottom glowering. Neither was wrong, of course: it all depended on the outcome of this research, in the end. If there was nothing, then it would be time and efforts wasted – but if there was something...
Kingsley felt someone should propose an alternative, and honestly... No one seemed too keen on doing that – Sirius had barely looked up from the machine and its notes – if he didn't.
"Alright, Mrs... Alice. Considering your situation, you should focus on rehabilitation, and maybe she could work with Emmeline on the safehouses, instead? It's not a bad idea to strengthen our protective power. I can handle this, if Miss Rowle comes with. We might even be able to drag her mother along for added efficiency, and since Mrs Rowle wouldn't be alone this time she might get less distracted and we'd have a definitive answer to our questions. Sirius?"
No answer. The auror glanced at the one who had kept quiet through the entire discussion and found him only half-listening. Noticing his lack of reaction, his cousin tapped him on the arm.
"Hm?"
"Your girlfriend? Doing this with Kingsley and possibly her mom?"
"Oh, right. I'll ask her."
The tension fell back as the five Order members set about tidying up – four, because Moody was, predictably, adding several defensive wards and alarm securities around the house's doors and windows. Sirius watched his old supervisor with pinched lips, before mumbling to himself that he'd have to mention that to the Rowles, too, as it was their property and it wouldn't do if Eleanor and her mother had a nasty surprise next time they came around.
Then he threw a last glance at the machine and shook his head: bad idea. Tofty hadn't designed it to look into the past, because that wouldn't actually change anything. Besides, Sirius wasn't even sure how to operate the thing, if what he suspected was right.
There was no point wondering about what could have happened to James and Lily, to Adhara if she'd been there and not him, to Peter if he'd seen it sooner...
"Wait."
Alice and Kingsley turned around just before they passed the house's threshold.
...Thinking about it, Rebecca Travers' husband was a cousin of Alice, right? Sheldon Cooper, a half-blood who had pushed a few journalists and more than enough purebloods to comment when Rebecca had inherited the ladyship after her brother's death. The only reason no one had gone further than that was because their marriage had been done through a Linelock ritual – him becoming Sheldon Cooper-Travers, instead of her taking his name – in order to preserve the family magic.
If anything, Alice was concerned by all this, and it wouldn't do to wait and forget about the whole issue once more – though, as far as good excuses for getting distracted went, Sirius thought a dementor attack ranked well.
"If, say, the head of a Noble and Most Ancient House commented on both Pettigrew's treachery and Thorfinn Rowle being a vermin, then proceeded to be overly grave while talking about oversized rats hiding in their ancestral house and terrifying their sibling, would you assume they actually have an infestation of Death Eaters relatives and were trying to pass a message?"
Sirius could just imagine Mad-eye's stare, even if the older wizard hadn't turned around.
As for, Kingsley, his answer sounded terribly cautious:
"...That's very specific and concerning, and yes, of course I'd assume just that."
Tonks' hair shifted in color several times, Sirius noticed from the corner of his eye.
"I don't think there's a way to be clearer than that without outright saying it, actually."
"Eh, I could have been paranoid. But yeah, we were in relative public and with her terrified sister who might have felt threatened and would then spill the beans, or maybe not be able to keep it a secret from the overgrown vermins in her house..."
Moody's gravelly voice cut in:
"Who?"
"Rebecca and Lynda Travers, at the Travers Cottage in Felixstowe. One obvious suspect would be Katherine Travers, a second cousin, but I don't know for the other one, since her nephew Lucas is back in Azkaban after the Department of Mysteries... I had to meet up with Rebecca about something else and she finished on that, so..."
Moody remained silent for half a minute – Sirius used that time to ask about Alice's cousin and if he was in danger, but she shook her head and said he'd been gone on a business trip across the world and wasn't scheduled to come back for months, which sounded exactly like something his wife might have orchestrated – then grunted.
"I'll see to schedule something on the matter. Surveillance first, maybe one of you two could pass along something to spy into the cottage, check if that's really what you think it is, Sirius. Then we'll talk about the Order butting in."
"Works for me."
Alice nodded too, and the five of them finally left the Tofty house behind – not without Moody putting one last spell on the door handle, though.
Tonks shook herself aware, taking in the fresh air and lack of mountains of books, and stretched her arms under the dying sun.
"Welp, people, I'm gonna pop back home and take a nap, because my shift is in two hours and me and Williamson are still on the graveyard shift, nine to six in the morning! Enjoy the rest of your day off, King..."
"Good nap, Tonks."
The youngest of the group apparated away with a cheery "pop".
Moody's eye swirled around in suspicion before he admitted he had a rendezvous with "Rufus".
Alice's eyebrows rose high at that.
"Why did you retire, exactly, if you're always hanging out with aurors and other affiliated people? Besides, what are you hanging out with the Minister for Magic for?"
The old wizard scoffed, clearly irritated.
"We're acquaintances, and I'm meeting him at his house, with his muggle wife. Got nothing to do with the Ministry. And it's not like I retired of my own volition, Longbottom."
"Acquaintances" for Moody meant "good friend", and Alice was reminded that she'd missed years at the Auror Office. Back before... Moody and Scrimgeour had been colleagues, on good terms but nothing more. She supposed they still had their differences, but they had worked at the same job – and survived it – for two decades.
The woman decided to let it go and focus more on her own problems for now.
"I'm going to go back home and make sure Frank hasn't maimed himself with one of his armors. Sirius, you can floo-call me if your sister-in-law agrees to help, okay?"
"Ah, the slash-happy armors... Sure, I'll call, no problem. Try to keep your husband from killing himself or someone else on accident, would you?"
The witch grimaced.
"...No promise."
Once she'd left too, Sirius turned to Kingsley, who excused himself saying he was going to finish the evening correctly, too, as he was on the three-to-noon shift.
Sirius ended up alone in Hogsmeade as the night was slowly falling, and also unwilling to go back to the manor quite yet. Instead, he could take a short walk, take in the state of the village with the ongoing hostilities, perhaps look for something he could send to Harry with his next letter. Not all shops were closed quite yet.
About ten minutes in – and an intense rumination on the benefits of gifting a sixteen years old a book on wizarding health safety, including the Birds and the Bees, which Sirius doubted his godson knew a lot about given his lack of proper parental figures – a scream tore through the street, setting off the shopkeeper and her last clients.