It was not a day where anyone had been hoping things would get worse, again. The headline could not have been less conducive to their plans. They had expected something like what was already printed, idle suspicion that he and Voldemort were working together, or really part of the same thing, or even some new flavor of slander. Instead, it was their worst fears, confirmed.

"Potter using time manipulation?" Neville asked for the third time, looking at the paper in disbelief. "It jumps straight to that? Not polyjuice? Not charms that change your appearance? How the hell did they know?"

"They know because they twisted some arms downstairs," Harry said, sighing. "I can only think that in order for the Death Eaters to get in to the Department of Mysteries when they were trying to bait me into going there to get the prophecy, Rookwood must have known some back way in. The Unspeakables appear to have a total disregard for even a pretense of transparency; that's the opposite of what they're trying to achieve. If it were all public information who and what came and went from the basement, at all times, it would be hard to keep anything secret down there."

"Would they really need to have a secret way in?" Michael asked after a moment. "I thought it was after hours and Malfoy and Yaxley were pulling some strings to get them past the security."

"What we're discovering is that there are a handful of good people working within the Ministry. If a load of Death Eaters showed up a few weeks after the Azkaban breakout, virtually anyone except their direct supporters would have raised the alarm. They might have gotten in, but they would never have escaped alive, not if the Auror Corps set up a gauntlet at all possible exits. There had to be another way out in order for them to complete their mission and get the prophecy to their master, and we've learned that he doesn't exactly want them all killed off, especially not the senior members who would have been hand-picked for this."

"Okay, well, let's say there's another way in," Ginny said. "Could Rookwood just get in without notifying anyone inside, even if it was after hours and no one was inside?"

"The thing about that is that we have no idea if there is an after hours for Unspeakables. When we went there to get the Time Turner, the place was crawling with them. When they tried to trick us into going there, they had to get in at a specific time, and they couldn't have cleared the place in advance. They might have knocked out a few employees in the Hall of Prophecy, preparing for us to get there, but if one of them, who had been there before and knew his way around, had all the time in the world and didn't need to rely on other factors, he definitely could have quickly got in, obtained some information, used a Memory Charm, and then gotten out without any issue. He even has a device that can stop time for himself."

"I can't argue with that," Susan said. "Alone, he would be able to get away with anything, but Voldemort would never have allowed him to try to kidnap you himself, not if he thought there was even the tiniest chance that you would have brought reinforcements. It's just not a one-person job."

"What do we do about this now?" Michael asked, again impatient.

"There's nothing we can do to shut down this kind of speculation," Harry said. "I've already asked Rita for an interview about time manipulation, and the substance of that is that I would really like to be able to travel through time, because then I could prevent my own parents from being murdered."

"I'm missing something here," Ginny said. "What's the goal here? Why suggest that you have that power?"

"It's to see how we react, for one thing," Blaise said. "I couldn't tell you whether they expect us to confirm or deny it, but it won't help either way. It's also to poke holes in the narrative that we're spinning, which happens to be true. If a Time Turner were awarded to Harry Potter's best friend a year before Lord Voldemort supposedly returned, why would he not use it to go back and fix it? All they have to do is not reveal their own record that she sent it back after deciding she couldn't keep up with all the classes."

"The goal, then, is to invalidate the evidence that we provided," Harry said. "Even if he's really back and it happened exactly as I said it did, it was only because I wanted it to happen." He looked down at the article. "How was I seen in Swansea, and Newcastle at the same time? How would they ever confirm that it was the same time and not just someone's watch being off for a fraction of a second? They know I can apparate- oh, here we are- 'never completed any formal training in Apparation', you know, because I didn't get to that year of school."

"They could have made it up if they felt like it, but these are real pictures," Susan said. "We split up for dealing with the last threat as well, so the Death Eaters must have figured that we would split up to deal with Pyrites as well. Someone, whether it was a Ministry official or a dark wizard or a crooked newsman- I suppose we shouldn't even rule out goblins at this point- fanned out and looked for young witches and wizards violating the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Sorcery. They might have had boots on the ground at several different locations of ours and we never would have known."

"They could have some other way of finding us as well; we wouldn't know about that either," Ginny said. "I wouldn't be surprised if they're somehow monitoring apparation for minors."

"We don't know," Harry said. "What we know is that the public is only acting like they were on our side, and now we have a set of different problems on our hands."

"I miss when we weren't fighting for public opinion," Michael said.

"We never have been. We just need more eyes on the problem. That's the only way to look for Voldemort, the hard way, and that's going to be the only way to find him. We can't allow people to help him. I don't even think that he eats or sleeps, but if anyone has any interaction with him at all, then that's something we can use to find him."

"The Death Eaters were mostly independently wealthy before all this started," Blaise said. "The elves prepare the food and take care of most other things that you might hire someone else to do or do yourself with magic." He thought for a moment. "Well, there's always the vices."

"What do you mean? I thought the dark magic replaced them for the most part."

"They're not all lunatics," he said. "Did Lucius seem like a violent monster when you spoke with him?"

"No, not really. I'm familiar with adults who are that obsessed with managing their images and it's not impossible."

"As someone who's been through this, I'm reasonably certain that he only uses it when necessary, and he's aware of the effects it might have on his mind. He's a cruel, evil man, but he wants to retain as much control over himself as possible. I'm thinking that he uses some kind of vice to manage it, probably elf wine. It's substantially more intense than any other kind of magical drink."

"Can't they make that in-house, though?" Susan asked. "We never had slaves, but we were aware of how it worked, growing up. If you have elves and fruit growing somewhere on the property- wait, no, the idea might work for someone else. When we took over Azkaban I went through the records and basically Rookwood was constantly begging for, well, someone to come visit him."

"He's addicted to human contact?"

"Only of a specific kind, probably," Ginny muttered. "He can stop time, Neville, how do you think he's used that ability?"

There was a momentary pause and it seemed like everyone was thinking about how best to end it. They had wondered with Memory Charm specialists like Lockhart, but he really seemed harmless except for being absurdly vain. Was it so unsettling to think about what all could be done without anyone knowing it that everyone just tried not to think about it, and then flinched at every reminder?

"Well, I suppose we can be reasonably confident about this information if it came from when he was at his lowest point, but it's not that simple," Michael said. "If he's getting witches, or muggles, or I don't know, centaurs, shipped to wherever he is on a daily basis can we follow that sort of lead?"

"It's true that only a vague idea of a vice could be hard to follow up, and it's only putting us closer to a Death Eater," Harry said. "However, it's more than we had before. Blaise, Susan, look into it. I have work with Luna." He nearly got up, then looked around with his hands on the table. "We can't know if they actually know we have the Time Turner or not, but there's no point in trying to cover it up now."

"That could be what Voldemort wants," Michael said. "If he doesn't exactly know, then he could take our not using it, or our using it more, as proof that we're responding to the suggestion that we have time manipulation. I can't even guess what he would do with the information, but it's not going to look good with the public."

"They're eventually going to find out that we stole a Time Turner," Susan said. "It might be better to just admit to it now and say that we're using it to fight the Death Eaters and the Ministry didn't, not even to prevent them from getting out of Azkaban." Her face contorted into a scowl. "I just thought about that now, but seriously, think of how many lives could have been saved if they had decided it was safe to use. This was all because the Department couldn't use it without permission and the rest of the current government couldn't get it out of the basement if they said they were working on it."

"It may have been brought out if they decided to acknowledge Voldemort's return, but that would have been too little, and too late," Harry said. "Most likely, the only reason that Rookwood didn't steal it before we did is he didn't know it was completed, or still there. Getting his soul sucked out by dementors would have been too distracting for him to hear about Hermione testing it. The second he heard about our use of it, or suspected that we might have it, he went to check. Anyway, we can't control how the public responds to all this. It's better if we just use it the best we can."

He met with the Memory Charm specialist, finding her with her nose in a book about dark magic.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Of course. Are you?"

"That was why I asked. Let's get going."

The two of them apparated to a muggle flat they rented out relatively cheaply where nothing magical could be found, changing into what looked more like businesswear for the nonmagical and then exiting through the door. The squib they were meeting was a high ranking government official on a black project, an inter-ministerial effort with a handful of trusted members- they were, in essence, most likely to know about it if there came any suspicion that a secret magical society existed right under their noses. They were greeted by an older woman who looked like she had worked hard for her entire career just to get where she was.

"You two look a little young."

"I think you know that in this line of work, it matters what you're made of. You've seen people who've tried hard for decades and they haven't gotten as far." He held a hand out. "Harry Potter, Ungentlemanly Warfare."

It was a real ministry, apparently, at least fifty years earlier it was, but it was not as if anyone in the room had access to the roster of employees, so their words could not be proven right or wrong. The fact that they had made it into the meeting, though, suggested that they had been invited, since they were all very good at their jobs and would not under any circumstances simply lose track of an invitation. It was not as if they could have known that Daphne was basically astrally projecting herself through the veil in the Department after a breakthrough of sorts and sifting through interesting minds in London out of boredom.

"I really wish she wouldn't do that," Susan had said when she found out. "It really flies in the face of everything that we've said about people's mental integrity."

"I can't stop her," Harry admitted, checking his mental shields again. "I think she's actually given up on being in her own body again and she's acting like the rules don't apply to her. She's starting to see herself as a ghost more than anything else."

"That's... well, that explains a lot at least. Hermione hasn't given up?"

"No. She hasn't given up on Ron being alive either."

"He's past our threshold. I'm glad at least someone understands that rule applies to best friends as well."

That wast the end of that conversation, and he felt like there was, at least, more to be gained by listening to the one around him. The people from black projects discussed many of the strange happenings from around the country, apparently the type to take that sort of thing seriously, and able to isolate all unexplained incidents and unify them as terror attempts. They confirmed that no known groups had claimed credit for the civilian deaths. It was a few hours before they took a coffee break.

"Say the word, Harry," Luna said with a water cooler between them, looking through it like a funhouse mirror. "I know just how to make them all go home thinking that they decided it was all just a coincidence, or at least that was the conclusion that everyone else drew."

"That sounds complicated. Fortunately or otherwise, it might not be our place to intervene. If all they know is that there are a load of unexplained deaths, we might not be looking at a Secrecy issue."

"What's magic other than what they can't explain?"

"That works one way, but not the other. They can't explain what some highly secretive group of terrorists might be doing either. We can't cast the spell unless there's something conclusive." He shook his head. "There's nothing for us to do here."

Right as he was about to go, someone from MI5 stood up and they all looked.

"I'm sorry, I can't quite take it any longer. There's something that I found that-" He shook his head. "It seems real. It seems recent." He produced a spellbook and set it on the table. It looked like a Charms primer for a third year class, though it was hard to say how old it was. "I've studied this for months. There are notes in the margins; I think some girls were sharing it. It's way too much effort to be a kids' prank."

Everyone at the table took a look at it.

"Where did you find it?" came the obvious question.

"It was just sitting on the ground in the middle of nowhere, according to the file. It sat in a desk for years because no one took it seriously. I got it out and started looking through it. At least within the last thirty years, it seems like- it could be a cult, I suppose- someone is making a concerted effort to teach kids how to use magic, and the kids, I think one of them is named Molly- are taking notes."

"There was never any investigation into this?"

"That's what I think is so strange. I can imagine people not taking it seriously just because of what it's suggesting, but it also wasn't thrown out. It makes me think that it was forgotten, either because someone retired or died in the line of duty."

Harry knew damn well why it was forgotten; the oblivators were supposed to be under orders to get rid of all the evidence, but if they did not know what had been found, they would have to interrogate people before wiping their memories, and if they interrogated the wrong people, they could miss something, especially if a junior officer, who had been expected to report everything to a senior officer, had actually hidden something away. Every so often, there was a slip up and no one was ever handed a harsh penalty for that sort of thing, but if it had been sitting around for thirty years or so, the muggles could keep pulling the thread in secret and the appropriate department would never know the difference.

"Well, it seems obvious why it was left in a desk," Luna said. "There's nowhere to go with it."

"That's true," the man from MI5 said. "At the same time, I can't let it go. I can't help but think of how many things would be explained if there were witches and wizards teaching their children how to perform magic. Almost every item that this and previous groups have brought up for the last fifty years, ever since the war, ever since we started talking like loose lips sink ships-"

"Simply having a theoretical explanation for one thing or another would not really prove anything," someone else said. It was hard to tell if her accent was natural or just part of her cover. "I mean, even if it's a real piece of evidence-"

"It certainly looks like one."

"What could we possibly do with it? How could we investigate further? What should we expect to find going forward?"

"Well, I think it's pretty obvious. We don't normally find evidence of these people with magic because they have some vested interest in evading us. Perhaps they can make it disappear, even when it's in our possession, or perhaps they normally take better care of it. What I think has to be the case, though, and what we should assume one way or another, is the worst, that they can change people's memories. They only haven't changed our own because they don't know we have this."

"Excuse me-" his friend started, but it was his turn to be excused. He stood up, and walked out, and sure enough she followed him.

"There you have it," he said. "That was all it took; a man who wasn't afraid to look like an absolute loon."

"I don't want to erase their memories-"

"Then don't," he said. "That's an order from me. They're already anticipating losing their memories so they'll leave notes or something. The only way we're getting out of this is by making the book look like it was part of a prank or something."

"The ICW is never going to let us get away with that sort of response."

"They will if they don't find out, and we're not accountable to them. It doesn't really matter. What we need to do is actually resolve this rather than just keep hitting people with memory charms. The whole reason these people are actually taking him seriously is because they've seen things they can't explain either. We've tried manipulating their memories before, and it left a hole."

"What if it doesn't work?" she asked.

"Then we have to negotiate. They wouldn't want our magical government to be shut down by an international organization, at least it's not likely. We'll have to threaten them rather harshly just to make sure. That's how muggles keep secrets so they shouldn't have any grounds to complain. That's the hope, anyway."

Luna took a deep breath.

"Well, we always have hope."