The operation required wearing muggle clothes and using only a select few of their entire group. Those selected were Hermione, Blaise, and Hannah, and he would be leading them himself. They needed people with perfect familiarity with the muggle world. Blaise had lived with several different step fathers, and in all different environments, and Hannah was sort of like him, in that she was raised ignorant of her magical heritage, but she had not elaborated beyond that. The four of them apparated to the site, the town of Skegness, where the fake Dumbledore had last been seen. Ron and everyone else in the kill/capture group, after the argument became public, had not wanted to let Hermione, the leader of the other group, to go without any of them going, but there was nothing for it; she had lived much of her life around muggles.

"I'll see for myself in moments whether or not he's being honest with us," she had said right before they left. As a final touch, she was using some basic charms on his appearance to keep him from being too obvious; she had already done the others; except he who insisted on doing it himself. Since the recruiters were operating at the same time, she had actually started with them.

"He's not being honest with everyone else."

"Well, sure, but I would at least like to hear his reason for doing so."

They found witnesses of the event quickly. For those who knew how to look for Ministry patrols, it was easy. Getting past them was the hard part. The four of them stayed in a group, walking at a normal pace and talking about completely a normal subject, regular schooling, each familiar enough with how it generally worked past the level where they dropped it. Contrary to the rustic wizards who had a hard time even blending in themselves, Obliviators were quite knowledgeable about how the nonmagical behaved, and could spot those trying to trick them. The objective, of course, was to get past them, to one of the muggles who might still remember something.

"Excuse me."

They turned to see a man with his wand out, if not in a threatening way. He was dressed in a normal suit and acted like some kind of reporter, what with the camera around his neck. Most likely, the memory experts picked out a different disguise based on the situation; sometimes they were police, sometimes grief counselors, sometimes tourists, and according to Arthur Weasley, there was even one time they pretended to be from fish and wildlife.

"Sir?"

"Did you happen to see a man here who claimed to be able to heal people? We're trying to put together accounts for a story."

"Oh, no, we didn't hear anything about that," he said after looking around. "I don't know if you can tell, but we just blew into town."

"I see. Well, have a nice trip then," he said, looking around for a car. As they had planned it, however, there was a train station not too far from their position.

"We'll let you know if we see any faith healers," Hermione called out as a sendoff. Blaise's snort seemed to indicate he thought it was unnecessary, or perhaps too much. "What?" she asked as they went on. No one explained anything.

They had gone over before the mission that they would not say anything to each other that could be read as out of character. They were all dressed the part of teens on a little summer getaway, and they all had to act the part. They never knew who would be listening. Whenever someone interrupted them, they were to at some point resume their original topic of discussion. They also asked Susan and Ron about Obliviators and things they might miss.

"Well, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement doesn't deal with Secrecy issues, but we've had muggle witnesses here and there," their first expert witness had said. "The procedure is all pretty simple; there's nothing ridiculously inhumane about it. Legilimency is only authorized if the subject cannot speak to us."

"So, if you had a Secrecy issue... Harry started, looking over at his longtime friend.

"I know what you're thinking, and you'll still have to be dead careful with it, mate. The only word we've got is telling us that the proper investigators are tied up looking for leads on the real Dumbledore."

"Those are the Aurors, then."

"It's a whole different office with a whole different head. Man's name is Rufus Scrimgeour; he fought dark wizards for decades. If you hear some of the Ministry employees tell it, he's been in your corner the whole time."

"I've never heard of him."

"Well, 's more like he likes the idea of you. You're saying there's a fight, and he wants one."

"I would be careful, as far as that goes," Susan said. "My mother said he's not terribly concerned with law and order."

How they had resolved a lot of their discussions about what means to use against what foe was to imagine a staircase of escalation. On the bottom there are only words, and only words were appropriate responses. The first step was made up of things like exclusion, spreading rumors, misrepresenting things to the authorities, and so on. The third step was more direct sabotage like pranks, petty stealing, and harassment. The fourth was violence, and at length they split that up in to two different steps, understanding there could be some situations in which only nonlethal spells were expected, so they made a fifth step for war. At any point, it was preferable to try to resolve a conflict by going down a step rather than meeting the enemy, and it was basically never okay to go a step above the enemy. As far back as when they were in the Room of Requirement learning spells to defend themselves, he told everyone that he was not making bullies of them after an incident with Zacharias Smith being suspected of harassing some younger kids.

"Harry, this way."

The direct address snapped him back to the present from his momentary reverie. It was hard to say how much time his thoughts took up as he turned a corner with the others, but it was nowhere near as much time as it would if he had to compose it all in words; that much was certain. Blaise, by the looks of it, was approaching a woman with a baby.

"Are you from a newspaper too?" she asked. "Don't tell me you want a recording; I really don't have all day."

Hermione understood the general idea. Going inside the baby's head while Hannah asked about something she apparently lost, he could only imagine what it was like in there. With only the tiniest impression of something that had happened when eh was a baby, he really had no idea what it was like to be one. In mere moments, however, she shook her head.

"Hannah, I think we might have left it at the exchange over that way," she said.

"They're doing their due diligence," his old friend said, hanging back with him as their two allies walked in front. Blaise had kept his head on a swivel every second of the contact with the witness.

"It makes sense. Even if babies can't talk, they might remember it down the road."

"Well, sure, but it's almost universal that they forget everything from such an early age. Their brains are rapidly developing and they really don't have the neurons to waste on personal memories."

"Tell that to someone else."

"I'm sorry," she whispered after a moment. "You never talk about it, so I had honestly forgotten. I can't remember so much as one second from before I was around three or four."

"It doesn't matter. No one would ever believe anything a baby had to say. Imagine if you told your friends that someone healed people when you were a baby, but your parents don't remember it when you ask them." He thought about it a moment. Were the Obliviators trying to spare the babies that unlikely fate?

"What does that leave us, a dog?" Hannah asked. They were coming up to the beach where people liked to let their dogs run around, if they had such an animal.

"I had hoped to avoid it, but it seems there is no choice at this point."

In mere moments, Hermione was going through the mind of a black lab, Blaise was exchanging a few words with the owner, who just so happened to be an attractive muggle in a sun dress, and Hannah was on the lookout. That left him to furtively cast a muffling charm, as well as a confundus. They knew they were in a nonmagical area, but they were exceptionally common charms for a variety of purposes that would not necessarily look suspicious. He joined the lookout directly after casting them.

"Thanks," the witch said. "The Ministry should know that someone was here in a few minutes."

"Yeah, but they won't know who did it. Four years ago, a house elf got me in trouble with a hover charm."

"I think I heard about that. You've had it really rough, haven't you? It makes me wonder why you never get frustrated with it all."

"I don't know how much more frustrated I could get," he muttered back. "I've got my friends."

"Do you have anyone else?"

"We're late," Hermione said, causing everyone to turn to her. It was their exit phrase. Said by anyone else, it would mean that someone was coming. Said by her, their objective was complete- though someone might still be onto them. "Sorry, but we have to go. We'll have to call you later."

"That's quite okay, I already have her number," Blaise said, holding up a spare bit of parchment. "I'll be sure to think of a believable story to tell your parents before asking for them to put you on the line, Sarai."

"Oh, stop it," she said as they started to walk off down the beach. There was no immediate cover from which they could disapparate, but going straight back after talking to one girl with a dog would be suspicious; the best approach was to keep walking on the beach until they could angle back up to the streets and buildings.

"What happened?" Hannah asked. "Did the dog just happen to see our target?"

"We would have kept looking otherwise," the other witch said. "Dogs have exceptionally sharp hearing and retentive memories. She heard everything the man said, though she didn't understand it." She looked over at Blaise. "By the way, it was a nice touch, and I know you're better at blending in than I am, but you didn't have to get her number just for a bit."

"Just for a what?" he asked, putting the spare bit of parchment in his pocket.

"Was there anything useful?" Harry asked.

"The girl was suffering from an inoperable tumor and she was willing to take a chance with the strange man who said he could heal her, though the dog who was afraid. While he was healing her, he said that if she wanted to find him, he would be available at the White Hill, a secret island about a mile across the water."

"Did some people start getting in row boats?" Blaise asked. "What's the plan here?"

"I don't know. Unfortunately, if he said this to everyone, we can be reasonably certain that the Obliviators heard about it."

"What if that was the goal?" Hannah asked. "What if they didn't want the muggles to go over there, but they wanted the Ministry to investigate it?"

"Then it's safe to assume Daphne was right, and this isn't the Ministry," he muttered, looking around. He did not see anyone popping in to check on his violation of the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. Was it just that those spells in particular registered as harmless? Was it because he was on a beach in the middle of the summer and no one was likely to notice? Was it because they couldn't find out who cast them if they tried?

"We can't have had nothing out of the people who attacked old Xenophilius," Blaise said after a moment. "The leaders of that attack had to at least know something about what the Ministry's play is-"

"They might have," Harry said. "We killed them. When they attacked us, we couldn't afford to be picky about our targets. The survivors that we interrogated knew some details, and they were kind enough to point out the bodies of the people who knew the whole plans. It's unfortunate, but the ones we caught were grunts." He had practically rehearsed that particular speech with the amount of people who had asked the same thing.

"What I want to know is this about this island," Hermione said, redirecting them. "What's there? Why would someone try to get the Ministry to go there?"

"Even if we can only find out by going there, we can't go without the whole group," he decided. "We'll apparate back and tell everyone what we've learned here."

In less than a minute they were satisfied with the paucity of people around, and it seemed like no one was looking in their direction when they disapparated. Though it was a bit of a complicated story, it did not take all that long to explain to those gathered, which was everyone not on other missions. In addition to the recruiters, Ron had asked a few people to gather resources and intelligence, and Michael had volunteered, along with Luna.

"Is there any chance that this is all a trap that the Ministry thought up?" he asked.

"They would have had to use a False Memory Charm on every dog in town. I don't know if they could get away with that, but that's what it would take. They had no way of knowing that we would read the mind of the one we did," Harry said. "They could have been trying to trick the Death Eaters. Even if their official position is that Voldemort isn't back, the Auror Corps probably knows he is."

With that, the short meeting was over. He could hear Hermione telling someone that the government, or at least some of its offices, very much were smart enough to come up with plans like they described, and that the perceived incompetence was only supposed to look that way to those who could not be convinced their plans were working. As soon as the others were back, they would have to apparate over to the island, or as close as they could get to it.

"Mate?" Ron asked.

"Yeah?"

"D'you know about... well-"

"I know about you and Hermione."

"Figures. We were going to tell you."

"I don't mind or anything. I just didn't see it coming. I... er, well, we've all been friends for so long, I just thought it would stay that way."

"We can still be friends," Ron added hastily.

"I mean, just friends. I just have to adjust or something."

"You mean, you didn't really see her like that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she was always a friend. I'll be honest; I don't even get it."

"What? Did you not see her at the Yule Ball?"

"Well, yeah, but that was years ago."

"You didn't notice what's been happening since then?" Ron asked, shaking his head. "I reckon you wouldn't, if you only saw her as a friend. Basically, she didn't go through all that trouble on a daily basis, but she's been getting pointers from the other witches. 'parently, there's a few simple spells she learned in an afternoon that keeps everything in order."

"I almost feel bad for not noticing," he said. "That wouldn't have been good for anyone, though."

"She prob'ly doesn't mind you just seeing her as a friend, mate. If anything, it's kind of impressive."

They sat there silently, staring up at the trees for a moment. He could guess at any number of reasons why his friend might have come round to his other friend. Most likely, it was not all in his head, and Hermione really had become more attractive, perhaps seeing the value in it after the ball, where by discontinuing her general strike on all things girly earned her a few friends of a gender previously alien to her. If he could take an absolutely wild guess, she found out that dressing the part made people respect her more rather than less, and that none of the reputation she had built up through coursework and class participation had gone out the window; she had not been pigeonholed as a typical female with a stamp to the forehead.

"Well, chances are, the others are going to be back soon," Ron said, sitting up all of a sudden. He was not as industrious as their other friend in most cases, but it seemed that becoming a vigilante had awakened something within him, or perhaps his return from Hogwarts had given him a new lease on life. "We'll have to explain the plan to them, and then we'll have to get going. It's tempting just to let whatever it is pass, but I reckon they won't leave any evidence for us to follow."

"Yeah, er... that's probably right," he said, getting up. Was he just trying to change the subject? Was it such a bad thing for them to not have anything to say for a moment, and think about the same thing? The two of them rejoined the others, who were standing around in a circle, going through an update on their progress in learning new spells, basically. Almost all of them had enough for the purposes of most missions, and they had enough to teach others, so for most of them it was just a matter of practice and application. After that, they had to go through Occlumency training. He had instructed Hermione on how they had to proceed with that and she agreed to it, as long as there was another Legilimens in the picture. To that end, he had asked Daphne to join in the effort, and she was making progress.

"How's your own progress?" Ron asked, turning to Harry.

"No one can get anything out of his head." She crossed the encirclement of DA members to stand right next to him. "Not even when I just ask," she muttered. It seemed like no one else could tell what had just happened; a few people were still listening to Terry talking about the theoretical side of things. The recruiters arrived directly after, with Ernie having managed a chain apparation or something; he knew there was no way of just using the Floo Network. It was also poorly advised. Though there were plenty of places around Britain that they could reach without crossing any border wards, but there was no need to teach anyone at the Ministry about any kind of pattern they were using.

"Daphne," he said after a moment. "Have you been getting better at getting people's secrets out?" he asked.

"Why, of course."

It was probably for the best that they had someone who genuinely wanted to invade someone's privacy if they were training her up from scratch. Terry's eyes shifted rapidly before backing off, saying he had to get back to his reading.

"You told us you can read people's surface thoughts now. How about trying to get a mission report out of our recruiters while the other team is getting back?"

"Very well," Ernie muttered. He had not expected the test, not exactly, but he had prepared for it. Apart from him, he was one of the best. They stared at each other for a little under a minute before she gave up, then she turned to Neville, who seemed to put up a decent effort, but was having a harder time meeting her eyes than anything else. She said that there had been some success recruiting, and there were even those who expressed interest. Everyone who had was invited to a summit, effectively a town hall for concerned citizens where everything would be laid out for them in greater detail. There would, of course, be plants in the audience, but with enough decent Legilimens, they could handle that.

"Ernie?"

"She had everything right."

"Brilliant. Now we just need the others here, and we'll set off." He would have to see what was going on with Hermione later, already sure it was not going to be as simple.