February 1990

Cassie stepped out of the floo, the swirling green fires dissipating to reveal the familiar sight, sounds, and magical environment of Albus's office at Hogwarts. She'd hardly been here for a breath before Albus called over, "Good evening, Cassie. Give me one moment to finish this." Albus was at his desk, bent over a length of parchment — writing a letter, by the look of it. Could be about anything, stars knew this bloke had far too many jobs. She'd heard there was business of some sort going on in the Senate at the moment, and some controversy in the alchemists' guild, or perhaps there was some issue with a political ally or a parent of a student, could be anything.

So Cassie left him to it, wandered around the room for a moment. The collection of gizmos on the table down here had multiplied, she still had no clue what most of them did — Albus tinkered in what little spare time he had, they could have all manner of esoteric functions, or maybe they were only meant to make funny clicky noises and generally be baffling, it was impossible to say. The candy bowl near the pensieve cabinet was filled with cockroach clusters at the moment, which had to be some kind of joke. (Albus didn't eat cockroach clusters — his candy taste leaned toward the fruity and intolerably sweet — but it would absolutely be in character for him to set out a bowl of the things just to fuck with guests.) Up on the podium near his desk, Fawkes was presently on his perch, and looking rather worse for wear. He must be nearing the end of a cycle — phoenixes were immortal, but they aged paradoxically quickly, a mature phoenix 'living' for maybe only two to three years before immolating and being reborn from the ashes.

The sad-looking bird gave her a hoarse little coo as she approached the perch, the light magic unpleasantly hot against her, but she still managed to pick out the sense of a greeting. The long, graceful neck had gone too weak to hold up his head, instead curled over his torso, almost vulture-like, the tail drooping, a lot of the crystalline lustre gone out of his feathers, colours a faded muddy orange and rusty red. The feathers had definitely thinned, the crest atop his head missing several points, the wings looking patchy and thin enough she doubted whether he'd be able to fly at all.

"Hello yourself, you old bastard," she drawled, coming to a halt in front of the perch. "You're not looking so good there."

There was a little bit of twittering and huffing, searing white magic fluttering against her mind, intense enough Cassie grimaced. Phoenixes were beings, but their anatomy wasn't well-suited to speech, communicating through magic instead — the problem was, their magic was unbearably light by nature. Most of the time, she could make a stab at parsing it, but sometimes it was difficult to pick out the intended meaning carried on the magic, like white text on a sheet of white paper. A sheet of paper that also happened to be on fire. She was...mostly certain that he was teasing her about not looking as good when she was his age.

She scoffed. "I wouldn't bet on that." Nobody was entirely sure how old Fawkes was — he'd been in the Valley at least since the battle to uproot Gaunt some seven hundred years ago, but he could have lived for millennia before showing up here — but Cassie was a cheater. "Are you just being insulting, or did you forget that I'm a metamorph? Are the months taking your brain cells as well as your feathers?"

His wings shifting in a little shrug, Fawkes forced out a huff that almost sounded like proper human derision. This twitter of song was much easier to read: all humans looked kind of ugly to him. He meant, they didn't even have feathers or anything. Some people (like Albus) at least dressed colourfully enough to help make up for it, but they were just so plain and funny-shaped and vaguely disgusting, like oversized mice. No offence meant, of course.

"Naturally." Beauty standards were very different between species, after all — she'd never really thought about it, but she'd imagine the gulf was much more extreme between species which weren't even sexually compatible, like humans and phoenixes. "But have you still forgotten I'm a metamorph?" Cassie closed her eyes for a second to concentrate (this was a far more difficult shift than she normally bothered with), and with a crackle of magic, she'd covered her skin fine, yellow-white down, her hair transformed into longer feathers in the same glittering orange and red as a phoenix, long and drooping down over her shoulders. She cast a quick mirror illusion to check her work — mm, she hadn't quite gotten the refractive, crystalline look of the feathers right (it was an effect of the magical properties of phoenix feathers, and she couldn't directly copy that) but it didn't look bad.

Weird, of course — humans weren't meant to have feathers — but Violet would probably think it was neat. Might be worth showing her later, just for fun.

"There, piece of cake. That more to your tastes, old man?"

The low coo Fawkes gave in response Cassie was pretty sure was supposed to be very crude sexual innuendo — she heard a little huff of laughter puff out through Albus's nose.

Cassie laughed. "You're a dirty old man, you know that." She reverted her appearance back to normal, at least in part just because wearing clothes over feathers was somewhat uncomfortable. "Get back to me when you're young and pretty, and try again."

His low voice grinding with exasperation, Albus drawled, "Cassie, must you flirt with literally everyone?"

"Must you have left out the bowl of cockroach clusters? We all have our own ways of irritating people for our own amusement." Cassie wouldn't actually shag Fawkes — she honestly didn't think it was even possible — it was just funny to joke about it right in front of Albus.

By the bouncy little twitter Fawkes shot back at Albus, he agreed.

"Besieged on all sides," Albus groaned, letting out a heavy sigh. (Sarcastic, Cassie was pretty sure.) He finished rolling up his letter, dribbled on a dab of wax, before pressing it down with a stamp. She leaned over the desk to peek — that seal was the official sigil of the Chief Warlock, must be domestic politics. "Tilly." A middle-aged elf woman appeared next to his chair with a soft pop. "Send this off for me, if you please. It isn't an urgent matter, whichever owl you catch first will do."

Taking the roll of parchment with both hands, the elf nodded. "Yes, Headmaster, Tilly is going." And she disappeared with another pop.

"Let's move to the chairs by the fire — I could stand the warmth tonight." Albus got up and moving somewhat slowly, but without any obvious signs of difficulty, no hesitations or groaning. On the way to the armchairs, he quick gave Fawkes a scritch down the back, and fetched a glass bottle from a hidden shelf — Cassie didn't notice it until he interacted with it, covered with some kind of privacy spells — the liquid inside amber-orange. Before moving to sit, he held out the bottle toward her. "Go ahead and do the honours, if you wish." He meant to pour them both a glass if it looked good to her, or hand it back if she didn't want any so he could do his own.

While he gently lowered himself into one of the chairs, Cassie turned the bottle around to get a look at the label. Ah, Somerset cider brandy, of course — Albus had spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Godric's Hollow, and had retained a preference for the local cider ever since. He also favoured mead and various other fruit wines and brandies, but the best bribe if you wanted him in a good mood was absolutely Somerset cider. This wasn't from his favourite mill (an ancient little place near Glastonbury), but it wasn't a bad pick. She wondered if Albus had gotten it for himself, or else who wanted on his good side.

"Sure, why not." She drew her wand, conjured a little side table with a flick, and then a pair of short-stemmed wide-rimmed glasses. Drawing a bit of water and freezing them into ice — just a little bit, with a contact cooling charm added to them, didn't want to water down the brandy too much — Cassie said, "As fine as I'm certain it is, I'll have to call it at a single glass. I quit drinking the day I took in Violet."

"Is that so? I suppose you have always asked for coffee during our visits, but it never occurred to me to ask."

"It is. In retrospect, I developed a pretty serious drinking problem over the course of the war. It's not as though I have to be concerned about the health effects, but that's not the sort of habit one should have while acting as sole caregiver for a child."

"I apologise, Cassie, I had no idea. It seems the wine and brandy I've been sending to mark holidays and birthdays are in quite poor taste."

"Don't feel guilty about it, it's not that sensitive of an issue. I leaned on my lovers to help watch my intake for the first couple months, and I've mostly gotten over it — the urge to drown myself in liquor until I can't feel anything any longer is only an occasional threat these days."

Albus clearly wasn't reassured, but she guessed that was his problem — unfortunately for him, she wasn't here to be nice today. "Speaking of acting as sole caregiver for a child, I half-expected to see Violet with you tonight." He didn't actually ask the question he obviously meant to, because Albus could be needlessly coy at times.

"Síomha's at home with her." Cassie finished pouring the drinks, stoppered the bottle again. After handing Albus's glass to him — the angle the table was at would be somewhat awkward for him to reach — she swept down into the available chair. "Or, not at home, I suppose. We've been invited to a Shrovetide group wedding in town, last I heard Síomha had decided they'd go to help with the set-up." Cassie hadn't known much about peculiar Catholic practices until she'd started spending more time with Síomha, but apparently they weren't to have weddings during the month and a half or so before Easter? There was occasionally a rush of weddings in the days and weeks just before an Chéadaoin an Luaithrigh — especially if they discovered there was a baby on the way they didn't want to become a bastard. Group weddings, several families deciding to pool their resources together to make a big damn festival out of it, were rather rare, but they did happen.

"Ah, how charming." That was one way to put it, Cassie guessed. "I never did ask during our visits, is Violet Christian? I know Lily was Catholic, but I haven't the slightest idea whether her sister carried it on."

It took Cassie a moment to respond, Albus catching her in a middle of a sip of brandy. It was pretty decent, very strong apple notes cut with an edge of the oak barrels it'd been aged in, and also subtle hints of cinnamon, and maybe a touch of vanilla? (Again, Cassie wondered who was trying to bribe Albus, and if they'd gotten anywhere with it.) "Ah, I'm not sure I would say so. She was certainly raised with it, to a degree, but children her age tend not to be very firm about that sort of thing. Síomha is Christian, though, and so are our neighbours — in the syncretic Catholic tradition the Gaels are partial to, you know. I don't know if Violet believes in any of it, probably not, but we do participate in holidays and the like, being neighbourly."

"Mm. I didn't realise this Síomha of yours is religious."

"Oh sure, most Gaels are. Or, the commoners are, at any rate." As far as Cassie knew, Albus hadn't much experience with Gaelic commoners — he would never have had much occasion to. "Síomha's reasonably devout, even. Which is fine enough most of the time, though it does come up to kick me in the arse occasionally. Turns out Catholics have a tradition of entirely abstaining from sex during the Lenten season — only a few days left, and then I'll be waiting until Easter."

Albus let out a low, rumbling chuckle, his beard twitching with a smirk. After taking a sip of the brandy, he drawled, "And I imagine that is a great hardship for you. I find it difficult to believe you possess the wherewithal to endure a whole six weeks."

"Who said I will? I'm very popular, Albus — I have options." Though, this year she was seriously considering just not bothering. She had had over other lovers during the season since taking in Violet, but she'd been seeing them with decreasing frequency over the last year and change — it seemed insulting somehow to invite someone over solely because her preferred lover was temporarily unavailable for religious reasons. She'd already suggested to Síomha that she might continue coming over as normal, and they'd just...not have sex for those weeks. Having Síomha in her bed and not being able to do anything about it might be a little frustrating, but she could just dip out and get herself off quick if it came down to it. She'd have to alter her normal meal plans to accommodate the fasting rules, but that was fine, she could figure it out. Síomha had said they should both consider it, share their thoughts on Tuesday, so, they'd see.

(Besides, if Síomha didn't come by those six weeks, Cassie suspected Violet would miss her — they had become rather close ever since the three of them had started travelling together.)

With a little exasperated huff — just playing at this point, Albus had ceased being legitimately bewildered by her promiscuity when she'd still been a teenager — he waved the subject off. Or not entirely, it seemed: "I do think I would be interested to meet this Síomha one day. Violet speaks of her so often."

"...I'm not certain how she'd take the idea of an introduction to the bloody Chief Warlock. She's not the sort to walk in our circles, you understand." Also, it would be awkward to explain — Síomha still didn't know Violet's real name.

"If it isn't feasible for whatever reason, that's all right. I'm merely curious." Naturally. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, Cassie, but I do have other business to attend to, and I imagine you'd like to catch up with Violet and Síomha sooner rather than later. What did you wish to speak with me about? I understand it's a political matter." The way Albus said those last couple words almost made them sound like profanity.

"Right." Cassie took another sip of the brandy before setting it down on the arm of the chair, turning her full attention Albus — this was going to be seriously bloody awkward. "Violet wants a new Wizengamot proxy."

The big bushy white eyebrows (it was still a bit surreal how old Albus looked) arced up his forehead. "Oh? And what brought this on?"

"The amendment to the Act toward the Elimination of Lycanthropy passed just last week."

Albus grimaced. "Ah yes, that. I can't help but wonder whether certain members of the government don't intent to 'eliminate' lycanthropy by so thoroughly impoverishing them that all those poor souls simply starve to death."

That was exactly what they wanted to happen, obviously — whether they starved to death free, due to poverty, or in Azkaban after being sent there for violating any one of the unreasonable control measures taken by the DRCMC. If Albus didn't realise that, he was fucking blind. "I suppose you should ask Elphias. He did vote for it, didn't he? Both the recent amendments and the original Act back in Eighty-Three."

"He did, yes," Albus admitted with a sigh. "This is one matter on which Elphias and I disagree most strenuously."

"Then why the hell do you have the self-righteous genocidal bastard sitting in Violet's seat?"

There was a hot crackle of light magic on the air, Albus's aura responding to his irritation, his eyes narrowing with a sharp glare. "I understand your frustration, but do try to keep in mind that we are speaking of one of my oldest friends."

Cassie glared right back. "With all due respect, Albus, one of your oldest friends can go fuck himself. The policies he's supported while voting the Potter seat are outright genocidal — not just toward werewolves, but vampires and lilin and wilderfolk as well. You're simply not going to convince me to be polite about it."

Thankfully, Albus grimaced in discomfort rather than attempt to contest the point. It seemed he was about to say something, but he cut off, took a sip of brandy to buy himself time.

"I know you two were friends back in school, but why— It's politics, it isn't personal. I still don't know why you work so closely with those bastards in the Light and Ars fucking Brittania. We don't agree on the current state of the law in this particular area, I know that, but you can't tell me your politics aren't more in line with Common Fate than those human-supremacist arses."

She'd half expected another sharp glare, but to her mild surprise Albus let out a thick, frustrated sigh instead. "Naturally. If only I had understood that at the time."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You've spent a fair bit of time around common folk over the years — essentially live among them now, as I understand it. How well do you think any of them understand the internal culture and daily functioning of the Wizengamot?"

For long seconds, she could only gape at him...and when she did find her voice, it was only to let out an impressively articulate, "Er." Just, the implication he was making there was— Cassie never payed that much attention to politics, only so much as she needed to do her job. She'd been an Auror at the time, and she and Albus had kept up a sporadic friendship since she'd finished academy, so she'd been indirectly aware of the drama around Albus being made Chief Warlock. He was, in all of British history, the very first Chief Warlock who hadn't come from one of the constituent families — the first commoner to head the assembly, ever. There'd been a bit of scandal at the time, of course, because a lot of the nobles were a bunch of self-righteous bastards, she'd mostly laughed it off, hadn't payed that much attention...

She vaguely remembered that, toward the beginning there, Albus had asked her for advice multiple times, when one issue or another came up. But she'd always brushed it off with a joke about not having the head for politics, and changed the subject — she'd assumed at the time that he'd just been trying to rope her into his camp, to bring her into the game and lean on her name and personal connections, family and friends and old acquaintances. Maybe even her money, for all she knew, stars knew neither being Chief Warlock nor Headmaster payed all that well.

It'd honestly never occurred to her that Albus might be looking for help because he had no fucking clue what he was doing, and didn't know anyone close enough to the Wizengamot but also neutral and trustworthy enough to ask. That she had no interest in politics whatsoever was why he'd been asking her specifically, he'd needed her help...and she'd just brushed him off.

Okay, she felt like a huge fucking bitch now, in retrospect.

Oblivious to the precise direction of her thoughts, Albus was explaining what she'd already figured out for herself. "In the earliest hours, the very evening the assembly confirmed me to the office, I received an invitation from Jason. Jason Atwell, that is, the current Lord's father. He represented his family in the Wizengamot at the time, and was widely considered to be the leader of Ars Brittania, before the Atwells switched to the Light and Cadwgan took over." Llewellyn, he meant, Cadwgan Llwellyn — he was about a decade younger than Cassie, she only knew him by reputation (self-righteous human-supremacist bastard). She didn't know Jason Atwell at all, suspected he was a generation or two older than her. "The wording of the invitation led me to expect he meant to offer his congratulations on my selection. And in a manner of speaking, I suppose he did — though the meeting was not without ulterior motives.

"I had expected only Jason, perhaps his wife and his children. Instead I found myself together in a room with Jason and a collection of Lords from Ars Brittania and the Light, sipping expensive wine and nibbling on fancy pastries — a single bottle alone I suspect was more valuable than all of my personal possessions combined. And I was told how things are done," Albus drawled, an obvious note of derision on his voice. "I was told, not in so many words, that the Chief Warlock is little more than a figurehead. That the majority in the Wizengamot would set the agenda, select nominees to fill various positions. That I may run my office as I wished, but that the Wizengamot and the courts were directed by their membership alone. That I was to be a caretaker, a handsome face to represent our people both internally and at diplomatic functions, and little more."

Forcing a smirk on her face she didn't feel at all, Cassie said, "At least they were right about the handsome face part." His oddly accelerated ageing hadn't truly started hitting yet, then, he'd still been young(-ish) and pretty and terribly dashing. Attractive enough that she'd been somewhat disappointed in her mid-twenties, having waited what she'd felt like was a comfortable number of years after leaving school, for her advances to be turned down flat with the explanation that he was attracted to women not at all — she'd known he'd had male lovers, of course, she just hadn't yet known it was an exclusive preference. And he had found her brief stint as Cassius very peculiar, so. Oh well.

Albus let out a chuckle, rumbling deep and low, beard curling with good-natured amusement. "So they were! But the other matters, the routine in the government and the day-to-day function of the Wizengamot, I simply took them at their word. How was I to know any better? The first I ever stepped foot upon the floor of the Chamber was at my admittance into the Order of Merlin, only a short time before, I had not grown up with the politics of the nobility, I had precious few friends who knew much more than I. What I did know of the politics of the time did seem to set me common cause with the Light. They, to me, seemed the most eagre to ameliorate the greater injustices of our society while at once staving off the violence of Revolution. In our early encounters, I took them to be honourable men, expressing their honest wish to promote my success as the first Chief Warlock elevated from the commons. It was only years later that I came to understand how terribly naïve I had been."

"Don't beat yourself up about it too much, I can see why you might have made that mistake under the circumstances." The Light had originally formed as an alliance of Lords who wished to prevent the Revolution coming to Britain through, yes, uncompromising suppression of Communalist elements within their own country, but also through instituting a variety of reforms to let off some of the pressure that might make taking such a risk seem so appealing to the destitute. Taking the lid off the pot before it could boil, so to speak. Cassie understood why their politics might seem appealing then — the areas where Albus and the Light most strongly disagreed hadn't been a matter of attention at the time, so might not have made themselves known until later. "When you did realise you'd been tricked, why didn't you turn straight to Common Fate? They would have loved to have you, you know, the first commoner to hold the office..." Common Fate did tend to be the most consistently populist faction in the Wizengamot, after all...

Albus grimaced. "By then, it was too late. I had already settled into a routine of letting the Light set the calendar. Their people had been placed in my office, throughout the courts, in W.A.S. and all over the Ministry — to undo what had been done I would need to have them removed, make appointments to replace them all, an effort I suspected I would not be able to find the support for. And how was I meant to begin that conversation? approach a member of Common Fate with whom I have no prior relationship? Would it be better to lie, and claim I'd had a change of heart, or to admit to my ignorance, that I had been so thoroughly taken advantage of, and pray that I am not immediately dismissed as a potentially valuable ally? Would they believe whatever I decided upon? What chance was there anyone would speak to me at all? To all appearances, my politics had become quite clear by then — there were no signs from the outside that I was not an enthusiastic participant in the Light's political project, their people had been appointed to work directly alongside me, presumably at my own initiative.

"No, Jason had planned his gambit perfectly. This theoretical member of Common Fate I might approach had no reason to know how my actions had been constrained — decisions that would ordinary be left up to the Chief Warlock himself I had been told were to be directed for me by the majority. So not only had Jason taken an inappropriate degree of control over the levers of power for himself and his allies but, to the outside observer, it seemed to be my work, my project. And oh, the damage the consequences of my ignorance have wrought over the decades since! I have made a great many terrible mistakes over the course of my life, but few sting quite so badly as trusting Jason Atwell."

...Yeah. Yeah, that...kind of explained a lot, actually. Cassie hadn't been paying that much attention, she'd, just, assumed that Albus's politics had swung farther away from his youthful radicalism than she'd realised. If it weren't for the occasional comment at Order meetings, lingering for drinks after setting up a safehouse or successfully sneaking someone out of the country, she might never have been given any reason to suspect otherwise. She'd been rather blindsided when she'd learned from Dorea that Albus had specifically arranged for a werewolf child to secretly attend Hogwarts, she would never...

Well. It explained a lot. That was all.

"I'll explain that to Violet."

Glaring moodily into the fire, Albus blinked back to alertness, turning a raised bushy eyebrow at her. "Hmm?"

"There is a reason Violet didn't come with me tonight, and it's not just because she's occupied with that wedding coming up. She is..." Cassie trailed off, bought herself a few seconds with a sip of brandy. It wouldn't be appropriate to lie to him — she had no compunction about it, but she knew Violet would be uncomfortable with Cassie circumventing her inability to lie on her own behalf — but she also didn't want to unduly hurt him. But she wasn't sure there was a way to put this delicately. Puffing out a sigh, she said, "She's a little steamed, I guess. It... You know I've been bringing her to meet with the Starlighters, to get her to understand that it's okay to be different. She's friends with wilderfolk, and werewolves, and vampires. When she realised how her vote has been being used... Well.

"I know you don't necessarily agree with me on the Starlighters." From what she'd heard during the war, Albus had some very funny (read: racist) ideas about vampires, but his attitudes toward werewolves and wilderfolk in particular were much better than Elphias's voting record would suggest. "But I'll explain to Violet that your political allegiances are...more complicated than they might seem. I'm sure she'll cool off by the next time you see her." The original plan had been to meet maybe once a month, but Albus's schedule hadn't allowed that — it'd worked out to closer to every three months. Mostly just sitting in his office and having tea, Violet excitedly babbling along about whatever they'd had on lately...

Albus nodded, face long and tired. "Of course. Thank you, Cassie." He paused a moment, giving his brandy a contemplative sort of look. "I suppose she took personally the suggestion that I might believe her friends to be inhuman monsters."

...He probably didn't want to know this, but, he'd asked, she guessed. "Yeah, you could say that. She did cry, a little." Albus grimaced. "Not about you so much as her name being put on... Well, I'm sure you can guess the sort of feeling. I wouldn't worry about it too much, I swear, she's the sweetest damn kid — that girl couldn't hold a grudge if her life literally depended on it." She didn't even want Cassie to punish the Dursleys for her, which was frankly incomprehensible. "I'll explain what happened with Jason fucking Atwell, and things like you arranging for werewolves to secretly study here, give her a couple weeks to process it and she'll forgive you. It'll be fine."

He let out a long, heavy, unhappy sigh, but after a moment he nodded in assent. "I suppose I'll take your word on that — you know Violet better than I."

"And I'm far more trustworthy than Jason Atwell."

"...In your own manner, perhaps," Albus drawled, turning to give her a thin smirk. "In my time among the nobility at Hogwarts and in the Wizengamot, I've come to understand that the Blacks are a very straightforward sort. You always know what you're going to get — however rarely that may be what you wish for."

Cassie smirked back. "Society games are so patently nouveau riche."

"I suspect many of your peers may object to being written off as new money."

"Don't you know? Blacks consider any family which wasn't around before the retreat of the Empire to be new money."

"Ha, fair enough." Albus needed to fight past a crooked smirk to get a sip of brandy — if she had to guess, imagining the look on the faces of little lordlings who'd made arses of themselves to him over the decades if they were told that their so impressive legacies were too young to be respectable. It was funny, honestly, Cassie had done that a few times to fuck with noble boys who were being particularly smug in her presence. Some of the humour drained out of his face, before he said, "Under the circumstances, I understand why Violet may wish to assign a new proxy. I hope you realise that appointing someone more in line with your politics may...present complications."

"I know. I suggest a compromise." Cassie worked a sheet of paper out from inside the strap of her wand holster, held it out to him. "I asked around, made up a list of people who have the education and inclination for the job, and whose politics Violet won't find too offensive. That's in descending order of preference."

His face twisted with reluctance, he took the slip of paper and folded it open— "Oh," his eyes widening, "Smethwyck! Eirian, Rhys, Aeronwen... I'm familiar with Eirian, lovely woman."

"So I've heard. We have met, but it was a long time ago — I'm given to understand she's changed much since then." The Eirian Smethwyck Cassie had known had been a fiery sort, impetuous and rebellious...and tragically unattracted to women. Cassie had maybe laid it on a little thick, which at least Eirian hadn't really taken personally, mostly just seemed to think it was funny. Their friendship had lapsed as the Revolution on the Continent was heating up, they hadn't spoken since. She'd heard from gossip that she was a much calmer, very grandmotherly sort of woman now, sounded like the type Violet would get on with easily. And as far as she knew, her politics should even be mostly favourable — the Smethwycks were one of the agrarian commune types, seemed like Violet's speed. "I didn't realise you knew her, I landed on her as my first choice independently. If she's not available for whatever reason just go down the list."

"Bellchant, Glanwvyl, Grey... Yes, I'm certain we'll be able to find somebody suitable. Honestly, I expected this would be a far more contentious matter — Eirian Smethwyck is not the name I would expect to see first on a list of favoured proxies composed by you."

Cassie shrugged. "If I were composing a list for me, she likely wouldn't be, no. I would have started with a Monroe, or a Rosier. Or maybe I'd go to the Mac Millans or the Bulstrodes, I have cousins who are Mac Millans or Bulstrodes." Albus scowled a little — some of the Bulstrodes had supported the Dark Lord — and she tactically decided to fail to mention that her mother had been a Bulstrode, and that one of Violet's favourite people in their noble set was as well.

(Thanks to Violet befriending Millicent, Cassie had finally met her own grandmother for the first time — politics had made having very close relationships with the Bulstrodes difficult for most of her life. Diana was getting up there in years now, well over a hundred, but she was quite pleasant, really. Enough that Cassie was a little offended by Albus's silent distaste, but it wasn't worth arguing about.)

"Maybe an Eirsley," she continued, "if I wanted to make my deceased cousins squirm." It wasn't really a secret that the Eirsleys had been (and likely still were) Communalist sympathisers, had even sent people to the Continent to fight on the wrong side during the Revolution. "But I'm not picking a proxy for me, I'm picking one for Violet. She's rather softer and far less selfish than I am. I'm thinking the Smethwycks may be just about perfect, but the rest of the list will do fine as well."

"Yes, I can see that. Very well," he said, tucking the slip of paper into a pocket. "I shouldn't have difficulty arranging a meeting with Eirian within the week. I suppose if Eirian herself is unavailable, any recommendations she may have to offer would be acceptable."

"If they're Smethwycks or clients, sure — anyone further afield I'd want to vet myself."

"Of course, of course." Albus hesitated a moment, eyes flicking to the fire, fingernails tapping at the side of his glass. "There is how this is to be announced to consider as well. Some have questioned my suitability as trustee of House Potter, as I have no direct relation to the family, and was not myself raised with the expectations of the nobility." Perfectly justified questions, seeing as Albus had thoughtlessly stuck her with muggles to be raised in ignorance, but there was no point in bringing that up again just now. "We would not want to draw undue attention to the House's management — under the current circumstances, with your home at the Refuge, and Violet living in secret..."

Somehow managing to resist the urge to groan and roll her eyes, Cassie kept her exasperation to a light sigh. "You're not as subtle as you think you are, you know — you're shite at keeping it off your voice, you coy bastard. Just spit it out already."

Albus gave her a curly little smile that looked about as coy as he sounded, bright blue eyes twinkling in the firelight.

፠

Violet's letter appeared in the Daily Prophet hardly a week later.

Normally, when the papers reprinted letters sent into them, they simply typed out the words and formatted them as needed, both to reduce the cost of printing and to save space. This time, though, they'd reproduced the letter as they would a photograph — it looked exactly like the letter Violet had prepared, with her handwriting intact, though rendered in black and greys without the variety of colours she'd used.

Because Violet had been entirely incapable of resisting the urge of prettying up the thing. Cassie truly hadn't been surprised, honestly — Violet had taken to writing letters to the friends she didn't see as often, and she tended to add little doodles in the margins, decoration along the edges. She'd spent quite a lot of time making the letter look good before sending it to the Prophet, despite Cassie telling her that they'd probably just print it as plain text anyway. There had been branches of some kind drawn the sides with occasional blossoms here and there — apple flowers — in the top corners sprigs of pine with bright red berries — yew, the two trees together representing Hardwin and Violante, and by extension the House of Potter (though that was an internal cultural thing, not something non-Potters were likely to recognise) — a somewhat simplified, stylised drawing of a hippogriff curled up sleeping on the bottom of the page. Violet had done the text itself in pretty curly calligraphy, adding little vines and flowers to some of the capital letters, very fine, detailed work — but then, Violet had spent a significant amount of her time playing around with calligraphy for going on a year now.

On either side of her legal name she'd added drawings of bunches of leaves with a few rounded flowers peeking through. Violets, of course — the silly girl didn't think anyone would get the reference (Cassie hadn't even recognised the flowers), she was just amusing herself.

The letter had been very pretty, of course, though Cassie couldn't understand why Violet had decided to spend so much time on it. She hadn't expected the Prophet to reproduce it as best they could, but she couldn't say she was especially surprised in retrospect — this was the first public statement of any kind from the so-called Boy Who Lived, and the impression carried through with the inclusion of the artwork was truly quite charming, they must have decided it was worth it. Though the effect was rather lacking without colour.

To everyone,

Hello! My name is Harry Potter. Yes, that one. Albus suggested I write a letter to be printed in the newspaper about my proxy on the Wizengamot being changed, in case anybody gets the wrong idea. So this is me doing that.
I was never really told much about what was going on in the Wizengamot. My teachers are focussing on other stuff, and I was told politics are grown-up things, and we'll talk about it when I'm older. I was told someone my father knew, a friend of Albus's, was taking care of all that and I didn't have to worry about it for now. I am learning a little bit now, but it's slow. Politics are complicated!
The first thing my teachers and I talked about much was the recent amendment to the Act Toward the Elimination of Lycanthropy, and that only because I saw it in the paper and asked about it. Once I understood what it was about, and that my proxy voted for it, I got very angry, and then when I was done being angry I was very sad. I didn't know my proxy was using my name to make life harder for werewolves! And not just werewolves, but vampires and wilderfolk too! I wasn't told any of that, I didn't know what was happening, and I did not like learning that my name was being put on things like that.
I have friends who are werewolves! And vampires and wilderfolk and nymphs too! My caretaker, who Albus has watching me (I'm not saying their name for secret reasons, because we're being sneaky), thinks it's important for me to know all the people in our country, not just the humans. And I thought that's what the war was about? That we're all people, and being mean to someone just for the way they were born is bad. They're my friends, and I hate the thought that they might have seen my name on things like that and I think I don't truly respect them. I even cried about it, honestly.
If I want to be able to look my friends in the eye again — and to stop betraying the beliefs my parents fought and died for — I needed to get a new proxy right away. After talking to Albus, we decided Eirian Smethwyck was best. She has my "full confidence" — my custodian says those are fancy grown-up words that mean she's really nice and I think she'll do a good job.
So nobody be mean to Albus for changing my proxy, okay! That was me that did that, it was my idea, he's just doing what I tell him to.

Love from,
Harry Potter

Naturally, the letter caused an immediate scandal, for various reasons. Cassie had told Violet it was going to do that. Violet had just asked if it was going to be a scandal for stupid racist reasons (absolutely), and if it was likely to get anyone hurt (probably not) — so she'd told Cassie to send it anyway.

Over the next few days, Cassie could barely hold in a grin reading the opinion and society pages in the Prophet. Violet might claim to hate politics, but her first move was turning out to be a hell of a good one, if Cassie said so herself. Violet didn't read any of that stuff, almost aggressively uninterested. But then, Cassie had warned her there was some pretty awful racist vitriol in here, so, the sweet girl quite reasonably didn't want to subject herself to that.

She read every single one of the letters addressed to Harry Potter that Albus forwarded to them. He had a post redirection ritual on her, anything sent to Violet from someone that she didn't personally know brought elsewhere to be sorted. (He'd made adjustments to let everything addressed to Violet Black through since, naturally, she needn't take the same security precautions as the famous Boy Who Lived.) As a consequence of the letter in the Prophet, 'Harry' had gotten a significant uptick in personal mail, both fan letters and threats. Albus sorted out the ones from non-human beings, and human mages who'd been involved with the Order and/or knew her parents, and sent them along.

More than once, Cassie had found Violet sitting somewhere clutching a letter from some British werewolf or vampire, crying. They'd already discussed the matter, so, each time Cassie would simply bring her a biscuit and hold her until she calmed down.

(After all, as Síomha liked to joke, good girls deserve biscuits.)