'Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such a tight schedule,' Albus said as he stepped out of the Floo. 'I know it must not be easy for you to make time.'

'We're happy to,' April said, offering her hand. She had not changed much from her school years, Albus thought. She had aged a little, but she looked nearly identical to the way she had in her seventh year.

Albus shook her hand before turning to her husband. He had not known Orville Davis well. He had been an important figure in the Slytherin House in his day, but he had not given him any reasons for closer monitoring. In the context of his class – two years before his wife's – he was even unassuming. He had not – at least openly – shown any sympathies towards Voldemort and his brand of ideology, nor tendencies thereto that may have warranted closer monitoring – though no outwardly visible tendencies did not always imply no tendencies.

Which was why he was here.

Reading April's letter, he did not think that April could possibly have become an altogether different person than she had been when she was still in school, but he still had to know for sure, if he was going to entrust Harry's care to them for the next month. It would naturally be unacceptable for Harry to be placed in the care of a family that espoused the ideology of pure-blood supremacy – part of the reason that he had opted to place Harry at the Dursleys in those turbulent and unsure times instead of in the care of another wizarding family – and from what he knew, the Davis family had several clients that did quite openly support such ideas – the Parkinson and Greengrass families among them. He needed to know what kind of ties they had to them before he could allow Harry to spend the better part of his summer with them.

'Thank you for meeting me,' Albus said, shaking Orville's hand.

The man nodded. 'Welcome. Please follow me.'

The two of them led Albus to an elegantly furnished dining room, where he sat down in Orville's offered chair. 'What may we do for you?' Orville asked.

'As I mentioned in my letter, I'm here about Harry Potter,' Albus began. 'I'm sure you know that he is currently staying at Hogwarts for the Summer Holidays. However, if you read the Prophet this morning, you might know that there will be a conference happening in Zürich starting next Monday, and I have been asked to go. The conference could last several weeks, during which time Harry will need to stay somewhere else, as there will be nobody directly responsible for him at Hogwarts. I have heard from Harry that you have sent him a letter, inviting him to stay?'

'We'd be happy to take him,' April said at once. 'My offer stands. He's more than welcome here.'

Albus nodded. 'Thank you, April. I'm sure Harry would be delighted.'

'How is Harry?' April asked. 'Has he been doing well? I've heard that his guardians have moved to another country and weren't able to take him? That's very irresponsible of them.'

Albus nodded. 'His aunt, uncle, and cousin have relocated for a work opportunity,' he said, echoing Harry's story. 'Unfortunately, due to issues with visas, Harry was unable to follow them.'

'Work opportunity? Where?'

'Prague,' Albus answered. It was a lie, but he hoped a tactical one to subtly steer the conversation towards where he wanted it to go.

'Prague?' Orville asked with raised eyebrows, taking Albus's bait. 'I was there just last week.'

'Were you?' Albus replied, feigning surprise. 'What for?'

'Oh, work, of course,' Orville answered. 'My first time there, but I was so busy I wasn't even able to see the city,' he added with a chuckle.

'New clients?' Albus asked. 'Remind me again what you do?'

'Share trading,' Orville said, looking excited to be talking about his work. 'It's getting more and more lucrative with every year. More and more people – and especially the "old families" – are finding that they can't raise enough money for their usually worryingly inefficient business ventures. Gringotts doesn't give loans, and commercial moneylenders don't give anywhere near the amount they need, and Knockturn Alley…well, the best you'll get is exorbitant interest rates on dirty money, and let's not even mention the worse possibilities…so they come to us for the tried-and-true muggle solution – selling stocks. We then sell their shares to people who want to invest their Galleons, and we get a cut of their returns. Simple, really. And with how well businesses are doing these last few years, I expect this market to grow even more.'

Albus nodded – finally now are wizards catching on to what muggles had figured out centuries ago. 'Interesting. Have any noteworthy clients?'

'Ah, a few,' Orville replied. 'Myron Wagtail – you know, the Weird Sisters lead singer – is one. He's got too much money and too little sense. The woman I went to Prague to meet is a member of the nobility in Austria-Hungary. Several Wizengamot members, the cleanliness of whose money is of extreme doubt, but nobody could prove either way. Those are the major ones. There're plenty of smaller clients.'

'And whose shares do you sell?' Albus asked, trying finally to get at what he had come here to find out. 'You must have many important clients on that side, too, for all these people to be coming to you.'

'Well, a lot of businesses work with multiple traders,' Orville said. 'The Shafiq family's potions business works with at least a few dozen – both in Britain and in other countries. I work with Hassan Shafiq's division here in Britain, but I'm only one of several that they work with, and that's but a tiny slice of the whole cake. I'd work more directly with the smaller firms. Parkinson, for example, I'm the only one who he'd trust with his artefacts racket – at least the parts of it that see the light of day, anyway. I also work with Greengrass's import-export business after he staged a hostile take-over on that French guy's company – Boucher, I think. He's reduced to a small-time cross-channel merchant now, though I hear he's been getting into some underworld stuff far beyond his skills – we'll see how much longer he still has to live. There're several others. MacMillan, Chang, Malfoy, but those aren't as big.'

'Fascinating,' Albus said, and Orville smiled widely at him. 'Very interesting work. If I may ask, how did you end up working so closely with Parkinson and Greengrass's businesses? It seems like quite an impressive feat.'

'Well, they were in the same year as me back in school,' Orville answered, sounding flattered. 'So when they were looking for someone to help them raise funds for their business…'

'They went with their friend?' Dumbledore supplied.

'Friend is overstating it,' Orville said, waving his hand dismissively. 'They knew who I was and thought I was competent, so they came. I've never liked Parkinson. He's not very sharp – definitely on the lower rungs of the Slytherin pecking order – and he solves all his problems by throwing money at them. He might've even wanted to join up as a Death Eater back in the day, but nobody ever found any connections to them. Not that he didn't want to – I just think he was too much of a coward to actually join them, personally. But his business is popular and successful – even just counting the legal parts that we know for sure exist – and he trusts me with his money, so we work with him. It would damage our reputation a lot if we dropped a client like that out of nowhere for outwardly no reason – maybe forever. Greengrass is the same, but he's at least a smart fellow. We can at least have a conversation about some meaningful subject, but I would not invite him to Tracey's birthday dinner.'

'The children seem pretty well-acquainted, though,' Albus remarked in an off-handed tone.

Orville shrugged. 'Well, of course they would be. When the adults do business, the kids aren't going to watch and take notes, are they? They play together, and when kids play together, they become friends. No idea how long the friendship will last as they grow up, but Tracey and Greengrass's daughter Daphne are pretty close. Parkinson's daughter will probably be the first one to go, in my opinion. If Pansy's believing the horseshit that his father is probably spewing about how "pure-bloods are better than everyone else"…well, I think we've taught Tracey well enough to know to run as far away from people like that as fast as she could.'

'You really had to say "horseshit" in front of Albus Dumbledore, did you?' April asked, rolling her eyes.

'I'm telling the truth, am I not?'

'I have heard nothing,' Albus said, smiling. 'However, I am sure that whatever you did say was perfectly fitting.'

'It sure was.'

Dumbledore nodded, satisfied with Orville's answers. April was still the same as ever, and Orville was no pure-blood fanatic. Harry would be safe at the Davises. He had gotten the information he wanted. A small part of him was a little ashamed at how easy it was for him to get what he wanted from people now.

He had taught him how to do that, decades ago, and he was now cynically using it for the greater good.

No, he told himself. It's not for the greater good. It's for Harry.

Albus checked his watch. 'Oh, my. It's almost four.' He looked up at the Davises. 'I'm sorry, but I have a meeting at the Ejwent Zehwolt at quarter-past that I must get to.'

'No problem,' April said cheerfully. 'When will Harry come? Should we pick him up at Hogwarts?'

'I will be leaving for Zürich on Thursday, so if you will be able to pick him up at Hogwarts on Thursday morning, that would be ideal.'

'I'll be away starting tomorrow,' Orville said. 'But April will be here. She could get him.'

'I'm sure Harry will be thrilled.'


'When'll she be here?' Harry asked, clutching his trunk and jittery in anticipation.

'Anytime now,' Dumbledore said, looking at his watch.

At that moment, the fireplace in Dumbledore's study roared up in a green flame. 'What's going on?' Harry cried.

'Don't worry, that's normal,' Dumbledore answered calmly.

When the fire cleared, Harry was shocked to see a woman step out from the fireplace. She had long, straight brown hair and brown eyes. She was dressed in a long trench coat that could have passed for a wizard's robe, and she had a slight smile on her kind-looking face.

'Good morning, April,' Dumbledore said, before turning to Harry. 'Harry, this is April Davis, and April, Harry Potter.'

Mrs Davis's eyes settled on Harry, and she studied him for several moments, her eyes staring seemingly right into his. Suddenly, the expression on her face changed – turning into a broad, beaming smile.

'Harry!' she exclaimed. 'It's been so many years!'

'Uh…sorry, but have we met before?' Harry asked, confused.

Mrs Davis nodded excitedly. 'When you were a few months old. You haven't changed at all!'

'Well…uh…I hope I'm not a little baby anymore,' Harry replied, scratching his head.

'Oh, you know what I mean,' Mrs Davis said, laughing. 'Even back then you had your father's hair – black and impossible to comb. And your eyes…they're exactly like Lily's.'

Her voice broke a little at the end, but she swallowed and quickly regained her composure. 'I'm glad to see you, Harry.'

Harry nodded awkwardly. 'I'm…uh…glad to see you, too.'

Mrs Davis beamed again despite Harry's awkwardness. 'Well, do you have all your things?'

Harry nodded, pointing to his trunk. 'It's all in here.'

'Should we go now, then?' Mrs Davis asked, looking at Harry and then Dumbledore.

'Feel free to use my Floo,' Dumbledore replied, pointing at the fireplace. 'Before you go, April, if you may, please keep me updated on how Harry is doing?'

Mrs Davis nodded. 'Of course. I'll write once a week.'

'Thank you, April.'

Mrs Davis walked towards the fireplace and took an ash-filled bowl from the mantel. 'You first, Harry.'

Harry walked slowly towards the fireplace. 'Uh…what do I do?' he asked, stopping right in front of it.

'I forgot you've never travelled by Floo before,' Dumbledore said. 'It's very simple. April will throw a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace, and that'll activate the Floo. All you need to do is concentrate on where you want to go, and then step through into the fireplace. The Floo Network will bring you there.'

'The Floo address is "Davis, 321 Diagon",' Mrs Davis said. She then took out her wand and without uttering a word, lit a fire. She then reached into the bowl and grabbed a fistful of the ash-like Floo Powder before throwing it into the fire. There was a loud woosh, and the fire, which had previously been a warm orange, turned to the bright green that Harry had seen when Mrs Davis had arrived.

'Go on,' Mrs Davis coaxed. 'Remember to concentrate on the destination.'

Harry looked apprehensively at the flames. Did Dumbledore and Mrs Davis expect him to jump into them? 'Just walk right through,' Mrs Davis said, as if reading his mind. 'The fire won't hurt you at all. But remember to concentrate on the destination!'

'Davis, 321 Diagon,' Harry muttered to himself. He took a step towards the fireplace, then half a step back.

'Close your eyes if it helps,' Mrs Davis suggested.

Harry took her suggestion and took another step towards the roaring fire. 'Davis, 321 Diagon,' he repeated before taking another step. He could feel the heat of the fire now, but steadfastly, he took another step forward, still repeating the address in an undertone.

Suddenly, he felt a small push from behind, and then, he was sucked into a tight, winding tube at high speed. Harry did not dare open his eyes as he shot through what must have been the Floo Network. It was a completely unpleasant sensation – almost as bad as the time Dumbledore brought him to Diagon Alley – and within seconds, Harry was beginning to feel nausea taking him.

And then, suddenly, the sensation stopped. A split second later, he landed hard on his rear on a firm floor, skidding to a stop. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was in an elegantly furnished lounge, with tasteful wooden panelling and plush, upholstered furniture.

There was another woosh behind him. Harry spun around and saw Mrs Davis walking out of the fireplace, dusting off her trench coat. She extended an arm to help Harry up, and he took it.

'Rough first Floo trip?' she asked, grinning.

'You could say that,' Harry grumbled, rubbing his arm where it had slammed into the floor.

'Don't worry, nobody does it perfectly the first time,' Mrs Davis said. 'I remember the first time I used the Floo…I had it a lot worse than you.'

'Mum?' came a voice from another room. 'Are you home?'

'Yes, I'm home, Tracey,' Mrs Davis called back. 'Come!'

A door opened, and out stepped Tracey Davis, dressed in perfectly normal-looking pyjamas. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had what looked like a stuffed dragon under her arm.

She and Harry stared at each other in silence for a moment, before Harry broke the ice. 'Uh…hi, Tracey.'

Tracey gave a small, somewhat tense smile. 'Hello, Harry,' she said shyly before looking back up at her mother. 'I didn't expect you to come back so early.'

'Well, Dumbledore had to leave earlier than he initially thought,' Mrs Davis answered. 'So I had to go get Harry earlier, too. Tracey, why don't you show Harry to his room?'

Tracey nodded. 'Come on, Harry.'

She walked one door over from, presumably, her bedroom, and opened the door. Harry followed her slowly, dragging his trunk across a floor so smooth that it must have been kept that way by magic. When Harry entered the room, he found it understated, just like the living room outside, but was elegant and beautiful. In the centre of the room was a large bed, and on the other side were a set of large windows that looked directly out into Diagon Alley. Harry could see just across the street the marble columns of Gringotts.

'Wow,' he breathed, unable to contain his awe.

'The guest bedroom,' Mrs Davis said from behind him. 'It's yours. Like it?'

Harry nodded. 'It's amazing, Missus Davis.'

'April,' she said, and Harry nodded. 'Why don't you put your things down, Harry, and we'll have breakfast? You must be at least a little hungry. Tracey, why don't you help him?'

Harry laid his trunk down next to the bed, and the two of them started emptying it. 'How are you?' Harry asked as he started taking out his clothes.

'Not bad,' Tracey replied as she opened a drawer and stacked some of Harry's clothes inside.

They did not speak too much after that, Harry – and presumably, Tracey, too – both unsure what to say. Harry felt like he had already found out everything about Tracey through her letters, and they had already corresponded extensively about their last weeks for that to be a topic of conversation, too.

They finished in less than thirty minutes, the entire contents of Harry's trunk – except for the invisibility cloak, which he kept in a small, locked container in the trunk – have been hung up, stacked, or otherwise put away.

'When you're all done, breakfast is ready!' April called.

Harry followed Tracey into the kitchen. Harry was unsure what he had expected from a magical kitchen, but whatever his expectations were, they fell way short of the Davises' kitchen. Three plates of a simple but hearty- and healthy-looking breakfast sat on the table, but what caught Harry's attention most were the pots, pans, and knives. They were floating in the air above the kitchen sink while seemingly normal-looking sponges and brushes cleaned them by themselves. Harry watched as a knife moved underneath the water and rinsed itself clean, before setting itself down softly and precisely on the drying rack.

'This is incredible,' Harry remarked, gesturing at the pot, which was now rinsing itself.

'It is,' April agreed. 'Saves us a lot of time and stress when preparing meals. You never need to worry about overcooking or burning anything, or chopping something too large or too small, or anything like that. Tell the equipment what to do, and they'll do it for you. Same with cleaning up – set everything to clean themselves and go do something else. Actually, that could be even easier – there're spells for cleaning – but sometimes they don't work perfectly, so most people prefer to do it this way.'

They sat down and began to eat. The food was not as fancy as that at Hogwarts, but Harry found it just as delicious. Despite it being prepared with magic, Harry felt that somehow, it was cooked with more care than meals at the Dursleys were – especially his portions, which were often the smallest and worst. That tasted better than the best ingredients.

'How were your two weeks at Hogwarts?' April asked as they began to eat.

'All right,' Harry answered.

'What did you do? Was it boring?'

'Sometimes,' Harry replied. 'But I had plenty to do.'

'Did you spend a lot of time with the teachers?'

Harry shook his head. 'Not really after the first week. They were busy with their projects.'

'Ah, right, I forgot about that,' April said. 'I remember Lily stayed at Hogwarts in the summer after her sixth year to work with Professor Flitwick on some research.'

'She did?' Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

'Yes, she did,' April confirmed. 'Professor Flitwick took a particular liking to her. Professor Slughorn, too – he was the Potions professor before Snape.' She paused to cringe at the mention of Snape. 'Lily chose Flitwick, though. She liked doing things with a wand more than cauldrons.'

'Potions is boring,' Tracey agreed.

'I didn't think it was too boring,' April said. 'It's probably the teacher. Slughorn was good. He was…self-aggrandising…at times, but everyone thought he was a good teacher. Snape, though… Well, out of everything I expected him to become, a teacher was the last on that list.'

'Why did he become a teacher, then?' Tracey asked.

'Dumbledore pushed for him,' April answered. 'To be fair, Snape was more qualified at Potions than any of the other candidates who applied, but if I had been Dumbledore, his personality would've been enough for me to not hire him. He was in the same year as me in Hogwarts, and he was a real piece of work, I'll tell you.'

'He was in the same year as you?' Harry asked. He processed that for a moment. 'Then was he in the same year as my mum, too? And my dad? He really doesn't like my dad.'

'He was,' April replied. 'He and Lily were friends at one point, actually – '

Harry nearly choked on his food. 'Snape…and my mum? Friends?'

April nodded. 'At one point, before their fifth year, I think. They slowly drifted apart, and then had a major falling out during fifth year, and that was the end of that. As for your father…well, there was nobody Snape hated more – except for maybe Sirius Black.'

'Yeah, he's made that known,' Harry muttered, suppressing a shudder at the memory of his first weeks with Snape. 'How did Snape and my mum become friends?' he asked, forcing himself to regain composure. 'And who's this Sirius Black?'

'Sirius Black was a friend of your father's,' April answered, her tone oddly cautious. 'And Snape and Lily met during childhood. They were from the same town, and they were friends before Hogwarts. Snape was an okay boy in the early years. Had a bit of a mean streak, a bit antisocial, but not bad. Then, he made the wrong friends, believed everything they told him, and got delusions of grandeur about his blood status – he hated his muggle father, who was, according to Lily, a drunkard and wife-beater. It was pretty reasonable for Snape to hate him, but the problem is that his friends convinced him that it wasn't just his father who was bad, but all muggles. Of course, Lily was a muggle-born, and this did not sit well with her at all, which led to their falling out.'

'And Dumbledore let him teach?' Harry asked, shocked.

'Yeah, that sounds so irresponsible,' Tracey agreed.

'Dumbledore stuck up for him,' April said. 'The Ejwent Asztyrajom found Snape innocent of crimes in the Voldemort War, and he told everyone that Snape had changed his ways. And in the end, Snape was more qualified than the other candidates who had applied – so many potions masters were killed during the war – so it was hard to argue against his appointment.'

'Do you think he actually changed?' Harry asked. 'He's still…unpleasant.'

April shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. I don't know if Snape is that good of an actor to fool Dumbledore for more than a decade, but at the same time, I don't know if a leopard can completely change its spots. I have heard that he was sorry for your mother's death, but…well, I'm not sure how much of that I believe.'

'By the way, speaking of your mother, I wanted to show you something,' she added. 'I need to find it – I forgot where it's buried – but I'm certain you'll like it.'

'Mum loses things all the time,' Tracey said, smiling. 'It's a talent of hers.'

'Only because your dad likes to "organise" all my things,' she retorted lightly. 'And then forget where he put them. I don't remember, and he doesn't remember, either. Is it a surprise that everything gets lost?'

Tracey and April laughed, and Harry joined in with a light chuckle. 'What is it that you want to show me?' he asked after the laughter had died down.

'Something about Lily,' April said cryptically. 'It's a surprise, but I know you'll enjoy it.'


Harry found that breakfast had loosened him and Tracey up somehow, and their conversations became more casual and comfortable. Tracey showed him around their flat, every room of which was decorated as elegantly as the living room and Harry's bedroom. Several windows gave magnificent views over Diagon Alley, which was far busier than the time that he and Dumbledore had come together. There was a compact but packed library that Harry thought Hermione would especially enjoy.

Tracey then showed Harry her own bedroom. Compared to the other rooms in the house, it was more decorated, with posters and pictures – all of which moving – lining the walls. It, however, still had an air of organisation to it. The bed, for example, was meticulously made, and the books on the shelves were placed perfectly upright.

'Those are my games,' Tracey said, looking oddly embarrassed as she pointed to a stack of what looked like board games on her shelf. 'There's…uh…Table Quidditch, Galleons, Devil's Snare. We could play them – if you're interested, that is.'

'They seem interesting,' Harry replied. 'Why would I not be?'

'Oh…uh…well,' Tracey paused to swallow, 'Daphne and Pansy wouldn't be interested.'

'Why not?'

Tracey swallowed again, blushing a little. 'They'd think it's childish,' she said in a small voice. 'They've stopped playing with toys years ago.'

Harry shrugged, almost wanting to laugh. 'I don't see any problem with it,' he replied. 'I mean, it's not like I've seen magical board games before, so of course I'd be interested.'

Tracey gave him a broad smile at that.


'Ich wiederhole noch mal, was ich und meine Regierung schon hundertmal gesagt haben. Wir glauben, dass wir Berlins Standpunkt klar gemacht haben,' Ernst von Aachen groused irritably. 'Preußen will nicht, dass sich unsere Beziehung weiter verschlechtert, aber wenn Britannien absolut keine unsere Anträge akzeptieren will, dann wird die Schuld für diese Verschlechterung nicht bei uns liegen.'

'Von Aachen repeats what he and his government has already said a hundred times – they believe that they have made Berlin's position clear,' Cornelius's translator said, his fatigue from days of nonstop work showing through in his voice. 'Prussia does not want our relations to worsen more, but if Britain does not want to accept any of their requests, then the fault for the worsening relations does not lie with them.'

'And I have said a hundred times already,' Cornelius shot back before Albus could stop him. 'Britain will not bow down to your unreasonable demands. The situation with Ilse Eisele last year was a mistake that has already been rectified, and not an international affront. We categorically refuse to make an official apology. Additionally, hunting privileges in the North Sea have been negotiated decades ago, and our side has followed them without fail. We will not give in to Prussia's blatant grab for territory. Furthermore, you know very well that the Goblin-Wizard Accords in our country prohibit our interference in Gringotts affairs, making the crackdown you demand into dirty gold in Gringotts – which may or may not even exist – an impossibility.'

'Cornelius,' Albus whispered. 'This discussion has dragged on two full days longer than it should have – and about to become three. Consider what I have advised you to do. Give the apology and let Prussia have its honour. It costs nothing for you except a little humility, and might give you room to negotiate for what you want.'

'No, I cannot do that!' Cornelius breathed back harshly. 'The Ejwent Dexmot will spit-roast me for it! I cannot afford to be weak and let von Aachen walk all over me, Dumbledore!'

'This is not weakness,' Albus tried to reason. 'Negotiation involves a give and take. You cannot expect Prussia to give you everything for free on a silver platter, while offering up nothing in return.'

'The Ejwent Dexmot will not see it that way!' Cornelius snapped. 'The election, Dumbledore! It's in a year! What if – '

'Is an election more important than safeguarding peace on the continent?'

Cornelius's face reddened – Albus hoped out of shame, but knew that it was probably out of anger – and he sputtered, before turning back to the other delegations, ignoring him. Albus, for once, wished that he were in Cornelius's place. Cornelius was possibly trading peace for a few election ballots. Has he already forgotten the war ten years ago? Knowing him, he probably has.

'Von Aachen says that on the contrary, he believes Britain's demands are unreasonable,' Cornelius's translator was now saying. 'He believes that Britain's demand for reparations for the Grindelwald War according to the London Assessment of Damages is frivolous. All six nations currently present, as well as four others, agreed to the appropriate reparations that should be paid to each other in the Stettin Accords of 1946, and any attempt to extract more funds from Prussia represents at best an open attempt at theft. Prussia also raises questions towards what Britain needs these funds for, especially in light of evidence that certain British citizens may be supporting the Protectors in Russia's civil war.'

'A preposterous accusation!' Cornelius blustered immediately. 'Britain's stance in the civil war is clear neutrality. Any attempt to unfairly implicate us is a provocation!'

'Объясните тогда, Фадж, откуда пришли 100.000 Галлеонов для Хранителей, которые наши войска прошлый месяц на границе захватили!' Zhadnov, the Hwjerikwunist spokesperson, shouted out of turn.

'It could easily have been someone else behind that!' Cornelius snapped back before his translator even finished. 'A Frenchman, for example, could've used Galleons in an intentional attempt to throw off the authorities!'

'La politique de la France n'est pas, et n'a jamais été, de fournir une aide, financière ou autre, à des bandes criminelles violentes,' Lefebvre, the French representative, replied, cold anger in his voice. Albus wanted to bury his face in his hands in shame at Cornelius's latest and, somehow, worst blunder.

'Кого называете "жестокой преступной группировкой"?' Zhadnov roared, pounding the desk, while the representatives of the Protectors clapped in support of Lefebvre's denunciation of the Hwjerikwunists.

'Hwjerikwunistleri "şiddet içeren bir suç grubu" olarak adlandırmak barış için verimli değil, Bay Lefebvre,' rebuked Şener, the Ottoman representative.

'The pot calling the kettle black!' Cornelius shouted back as soon as his interpreters finished their translations. 'If anyone is a gang of violent criminals, it's the French! Forgot your own misdeeds against Austria already?'

'Das stimmt genau!' the Austrians joined in. 'Wir haben kein bisschen vergessen die Verbrechen, die Frankreich vor weniger als zwanzig Jahren begangen hat!'

'La France s'est comportée pendant ce conflit dans le plus grand respect de la dignité humaine – '

'Eine schamlose Lüge!'

'Les actions de la France sont – '

'Kriegsverbrechen!'

'Enough!' the moderator shouted in Eltrys, and after a spell of frantic translations, the room fell silent. 'I am calling a pause to this meeting. We re-convene in twenty minutes.'

All at once, the various representatives stood up and began filing out of the room. Albus watched as Cornelius stood up, swiped his briefcase off the table, and stomped away, his face red. As much as Albus wished were the case, though, Cornelius was not the only one. Von Aachen had a look of intense frustration on his face, and Lefebvre, too, appeared livid.

Albus walked out onto the grounds of the conference hall. The surroundings were beautifully manicured, and the Alps were visible in the distance, but he felt no sense of calm. More than a week of negotiations had produced almost no results. Every time anyone had come close to some sort of meaningful settlement, it would be sunk by yet another avoidable argument or blunder – many of which, to his embarrassment, had been caused by Cornelius. Albus was growing frustrated, but he knew that he had to keep his calm. It was obvious that if not for his help, things would be even worse than they already were.

At the very least, there had been some kind of progress outside of the conference hall. Ten years ago, just after Voldemort's downfall, Albus had proposed the idea of reviving the Tri-Wizard Tournament – under revised rules, of course. It would promote international cooperation and ties on the continent among the youth, he thought, and may turn them away from practising more sinister endeavours. For ten years, the tournament had gone nowhere, beset by squabbles and petty disagreements among the heads, but finally, now, in this most unlikely of times, it had taken a great step forward towards realisation.

The main disagreement preventing the tournament's revival had been the inclusion of the 'New Three' – the Preußisches Zaubereigymnasium, the Rasputin Koldovstvorets, and the Bosphorus Institute – in the tournament, which had historically included only the 'Old Three' – Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. Olympe Maxime had been open to including the New Three with the condition that they would be excluded from the main event – the Tri-Wizard Challenge – but Igor Karkarov had time and time again blocked even that. Recently, however, he seemed to have had a change of heart, and had grudgingly yielded to Olympe's proposal on the side-lines of the conference.

The only question now was where the tournament will be held. Durmstrang would refuse, Albus was sure. It had never acceded to host any major event, and it was too much to expect Igor, the stubborn man he is, to change his mind. The New Three were barred from hosting – though it was not as if they would be able to, anyway. Berlin and Istanbul were hardly suitable places to hold such a large and demanding event, and Russia was, of course, in a civil war. It would come down to Hogwarts and Beauxbatons.

As Albus walked, his mind drifted to other matters – chief among them the problem of the Defence Against the Dark Arts position. For decades, nearly every single teacher that he had appointed to that position had not managed to stay for much longer than one year. The timing with which the bad luck had begun and its duration seemed to Dumbledore no coincidence – it had to be dark magic of some sort, possibly created and cast by Tom Riddle himself. But everything that he had tried in hopes of finding the source of the misfortune had come to no avail: changing the name of the position had done nothing, neither had eliminating it completely for one year and then re-establishing it. A thorough inspection of the castle, too, had yielded nothing.

In these last few years, though, there seemed to him a ray of hope. Some of the less competent occupants of the position had simply been fired, rather than meeting more unpleasant fates. Several years ago, one teacher had managed to stay on for two years before departing due to health reasons.

But now, that was all in doubt once again. Voldemort had been present in the castle for nearly a year, and in that time, could he have strengthened the magic? He wanted to view Quirrell's fate as an outlier – a sort of gruesome retribution by Voldemort against a follower who had failed him – but was it really? Quirrell's fate was certainly a warning sign – both for the 'curse' itself and Voldemort's new strength. There were so many steps that needed to be taken, but there was only so much he could do alone. Cornelius had covered his ears, and there is little that he could hope to accomplish without the support of the Ministry's apparatus.

Cornelius has, however, had more than enough free time to meddle in what did not concern him, and push for his own replacement candidate for the post of the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor – Gilderoy Lockhart. 'I want to help you,' he had claimed when Albus had asked him why he had suggested Lockhart to him, but Albus knew that with all things Ministry, there must have been additional motivations at play. His personal history, for one, was mysterious and does not quite seem to add up. He had gone into the National Defence – the army of the British Isles – right after Hogwarts – an unusual path, but not un-heard-of, especially for someone of mediocre academic achievement like him – and there, he had supposedly excelled in his training, finishing in the very top of his class.

Then, however, less than two years after his entry into the Defence, the records say that he suddenly dropped out, taking in its place a desk job in the Department of International Relations. Albus found that incredibly odd – Lockhart should have had a straight path towards becoming an officer, where he would no doubt have done quite well for himself. Why would he throw all of that away in exchange for a dead-end job with middling pay? And then, in yet another unlikely twist, he surfaced again as an adventurer-turned-writer just a year later, his books telling of exotic travels and incredible feats of defeating 'dark forces', the latest of which was published less than a year ago. To make things even stranger, many of those books had been written from places where there had recently just been conflict – though no books mention the wars themselves. Could Lockhart be some kind of travelling soldier-for-hire, moonlighting as a writer?

Albus did not know what to do. If Lockhart really were some kind of mercenary, would he want him to be teaching Hogwarts students? Was he really even as competent as his obviously embellished memoirs suggested? Without resorting to illegal methods, there was no way to tell. In any case, he hardly had a better candidate – all others who had applied were middling at best. Unless he could quickly come up with someone else – which looked ever more unlikely as the Zürich conference dragged on – he may have no choice but to accept Fudge's man.