O

APOLLO

Plague

October

Much to Hope's disappointment, it quickly became apparent that Stella was still going out with Adam, and judging by their ostentatious displays of public affection at break and lunctimes, had no intention of breaking up with him soon.

"You told me she only keeps a boyfriend for a few weeks," she lamented to Roxanne one afternoon.

"She normally does," Roxanne protested. "She must like him better than the others. He is pretty fit, after all."

"Thanks..." Hope muttered.

"They'll break up eventually," Roxanne insisted. "If you want a boyfriend in the meantime you could go out with Cadmus."

Hope stared at her. "What?"

"Cadmus Flint. He fancies you. Morella told me."

"Gross. I'm not going to go out with someone just for the sake of it. Anyway, how does Morella even know?"

"Morella knows everything," Roxanne said. "Too nosy for her own good, and she and Cadmus have always been close."

"Teddy and I are close, but I'd never tell him who I fancy."

Roxanne ignored this. "So how about it?"

Hope glowered. "I hope you're joking," she said. "Cadmus is OK, but I am never going to go out with him. Not a chance."

She sighed. "It's fine. Who needs a boyfriend right now when we have a quidditch cup to win for the third year in a row?"

"Quite right," Dom agreed, while Roxanne shook her head, expression grim. She was determined that Slytherin would finally win this year. "And you'll have studying to do, remember. Your OWLs are coming up next summer."

Hope let out an exaggerated groan. "Don't you start. Flitwick and Leppard are already setting practice papers, and even Edgecombe was banging on about how important they are."

"How is Edgecombe with you this year, anyway?" Roxanne enquired. "Is she still being weird?"

Hope pondered this.

"Kind of..." she said. "She ignores me a lot of the time, which is fine with me. She's been a bit better ever since the boggart last year. I think Neville had a talk with her. But I do seem to irritate her, and I don't mean to. Although," she grinned. "The other day Elodie dared me to wear my hair pink and spiky in Defence class. So I did. Elodie definitely thought I would get into trouble, but in the end she got a detention because she kept turning round to taunt me. Edgecombe didn't even mention the hair. If anything she was nicer than usual."

"Maybe she hates your Weasley red hair then," Roxanne said. "She's not very nice to Dom either, although she tries to hide it."

"She's fine," Dom said at once, going pink. Roxanne snorted.

"So you say. I say different. I always thought she was a bigot, but maybe it's the hair."

"Hmm." Hope was not convinced. "It would be really weird to dislike a student because of their hair, wouldn't it? Ron did say once that I looked like Edgecombe at school, and he thought that she's jealous that I can change my appearance - something about an argument she once had with Hermione. But that doesn't make sense either - I think he was only saying it to wind Hermione up."

"Oh my god, I've got it!" Roxanne exclaimed, her eyes widening in dramatic fashion. "What if... you're secretly her daughter and you were adopted at birth and she regrets giving you up. She hates it when you have red hair because it reminds her who you really are."

It was Dom's turn to make a sceptical noise in her throat, but for a fleeting second, Hope wondered if this could be true, her heart thumping wildly. Her mother had struggled to have a second child, as she knew.

Dom, accustomed to Roxanne's crazy theories, brought her back to her senses. "And it's a coincidence that Hope's a metamorphmagus like Tonks and Teddy, is it?" she said. "There are only a dozen metamorphmagi born each century in Britain."

Hope, feeling idiotic, realised that what Roxanne was saying was impossible. "Dom's right," she said. "My parents would have told me if I was adopted, they would never keep that from me. I've seen loads of pictures of Mum when she was pregnant with me, and also," she pulled a face, "remember at the vow renewal, Dom and I were talking to Hestia? She'd had too much to drink and started telling us about the day I was born. She delivered me, see. You were lucky you missed that, Rox. She was talking about Mum's labour and everything."

Dom nodded her agreement. "Way too much information," she said. "There's no way Hestia was lying about that."

Roxanne was not to be deterred.

"Then maybe Edgecombe-"

"I think," Dom cut firmly across her cousin, "rather than these wild theories about love and adoption and secrecy, I think it's actually a lot simpler than that, Hope. Edgecombe's the only teacher here who didn't teach Teddy as well, isn't she?"

"Yeah... so?"

"Teddy was quite famous when he was at school, got amazing grades and became Head Boy."

"I know that, thanks," Hope snapped. "You don't need to tell me I'll never live up to him."

Dom looked quite shocked. "I didn't mean that," she protested. "Hope, that's not what I meant at all. I just meant that teachers treat us a certain way because of who we're related to, however much they try not to. James, Al and Lily get treated differently because they're Potters, you know they do. And Michael, because his dad is a teacher here. I'm saying that I reckon all the other teachers subconsciously see you as Teddy's sister. But Edgecombe never knew Teddy. So she acts differently towards you and you interpret it as something negative."

"You're saying it's all in my mind?"

Hope hadn't meant to bite Dom's head off again. She so hated to be compared to Teddy, or reminded of the legacy he had left behind him, but that wasn't her friends' fault.

"I know you didn't mean it like that either," she mumbled, as Dom looked helplessly at Roxanne. "Maybe you're right. But let's stop talking about Edgecombe and talk about people we actually like."

"Or people who like us," Roxanne said slyly. "Cadmus probably wouldn't be so bad as a boyfriend, you know..."

oOo

November

The first term passed in a blur of activity, much as it always did. Dom kept her team working extra hard at their quidditch training and it paid off with a landslide win against Hufflepuff in the first match of the season, during which Dom scored ten goals, Hope scored fifteen, and their new seeker Mitchell Sullivan rounded off the game with the most impressive capture of the snitch Hogwarts had seen in recent years.

Whether because of her quidditch prowess or her more grown up height and figure, she wasn't sure, but Hope found she was attracting more than a few admiring glances nowadays, particularly from boys. She pretended not to notice (she was not going to become an arrogant toerag like James Potter), and she wasn't the least bit interested in any of them (there was still a chance that Adam might be right for her, after all), but she would have been lying to say that it did not give her a morale boost.

Her schoolwork was improving as well. She was getting good marks in Herbology, Charms and Defence Against the Dark Arts, and was even paying more attention in Ancient Runes and History of Magic. Potions was a categoric disaster as always, but even these classes were more bearable now, because this year they had them with the Gryffindors, meaning she could share a work bench with Michael Longbottom and Esme Okare and have friendly people to help her out. Elodie had tired of throwing insults at her every few days, and the two of them had reached an unspoken agreement not to interact at all, which was fine with Hope.

Looking back, Hope supposed she should have known that everything was going too smoothly to last.

oOo

December

"Just to warn you, Edgecombe's in a foul mood," Roxanne said, throwing her bag against the wall and sitting down on the stone bench next to Hope. It was the week before the Christmas holidays. Despite the biting cold, Hope had come outside for some fresh air, and was hastily scribbling down her summary for Defence Against the Dark Arts. She looked up at her two friends. Dom was looking miserable and her eyes were tinged with red.

"What's up?"

Dom shrugged. Roxanne cast a quick look around to check no one was in earshot, and then muttered, "Edgecombe wouldn't excuse her to use the bathroom. Then when we went after class, Kirstin and her gang were there and being evil as usual."

Hope felt a surge of fury. As if life at school wasn't hard enough for Dom sometimes. Using bathrooms was a source of anxiety at the best of times for her friend, so damaging were the taunts and insults that other student had thrown at her over the years. She tended to prefer using the private ones in Ravenclaw tower, but this was not always practical amidst a long day of lessons.

"I'm fine," Dom said hurriedly. "I went in a different one. Roxanne and Morella made sure no one else was there."

"Yeah but still..."

Dom drew her knees up on the bench and rested her chin on them, looking doleful. "I hate it," she said. "I hate having to worry about it, all the fucking time. I wish I could just not think about it, like most people."

Hope gazed at her sadly. It was so unlike Dom to complain about her situation, for all she had to complain about.

"Didn't George give you some tablet things... to help?"

"Yeah," Dom admitted. "But he told me not to use them too often. He and Fred originally made them for the Order, for when they were on long surveillance missions, and they aren't even licenced to sell them because of the regulations on non-medical products. They're fine in small doses, but they're not supposed to be used all the time, because he doesn't know what the long-term effect might be."

"Maybe..." Hope hesitated, knowing that what she was about to say would not be well received. "Maybe you could see if St Mungo's had any medically approved-"

Dom was already shaking her head. She had always had a fear of the wizarding hospital, and refused to set foot there voluntarily, even though there were longer term treatments she could have opted for. George and Ron had invented products over the years that enabled her to live a life she was happy with, even if some parts weren't ideal.

Hope did not press the subject, but Roxanne was still raging.

"It's so unfair," she said. "Edgecombe was bang out of order today. You should complain about her. Or your dad should. Flitwick and Vector wouldn't stand for it, you know they wouldn't."

Dom shook her head again. "I don't want to make a fuss," she mumbled. Roxanne looked at Hope in a resigned manner.

"Don't worry. I'll make her pay next lesson," Hope declared, and Dom smiled in spite of herself. "I wouldn't," she laughed. "You aren't exactly her favourite student, are you? She really is in a horrible mood."

Hope glared at the icy floor. "Why is she in such a foul mood? She was this time last year, as well. I thought the Christmas run up was supposed to be happy."

"It's the anniversary of The Surge this week, remember," Roxanne pointed out. "Maybe she has bad memories of that. Maybe she lost someone."

Hope remembered the conversation that she and James had overheard the summer before Edgecombe's first year at Hogwarts, when Hermione, Ron and Harry had been talking about the new defence teacher.

"Hang on, she did," she exclaimed. "She lost her partner."

For a second, she felt guilty, but then she looked at Dom's red eyes and the irritation coursed through her again. "But it's not an excuse! All the teachers must have lost friends and family in the last few years. My dad-" She couldn't help but make the usual comparison. "My dad lost his parents and all his best friends during Voldemort's time. He would never take that out on his students if he was a teacher."

Hope checked her watch, knowing she needed to make a move, especially as she had to use the bathroom herself. She would nip into Myrtle's one on the way, but she did not mention this to her friends. Her life was so much easier than Dom's.

"See you later," she said, giving Dom a brief hug before swinging her bag onto her back.

"Be good!" Roxanne called after her.

O

"You're late." Edgecombe snapped, as she entered the classroom.

Hope scowled. She was a little late due to her last-minute dash to the loo, but what difference would it have made? Several of her classmates were standing up and taking books out of their bags.

"Only a tiny bit."

The teacher glared at her. "Late is late, Miss Lupin. Come and see me afterwards and you can do a detention tonight."

Hope rolled her eyes.

"And you can drop the attitude as well," Edgecombe added.

Hope sighed and made her way towards a vacant desk.

"Right, shield charms," Edgecombe went on, returning to the front of the class as Hope took out her books. "Miss Carmichael, kindly inform the class what we will be dealing with today."

Elodie stood up with her habitual aura of smugness, taking up her parchment, on which her small, rounded, pin neat writing was visible, and read out her detailed summary of a shield charm's usages. Hope shot daggers at her back. Weren't you supposed to be a teacher's pet or a grade A bitch? Elodie achieved both to perfection.

"Thank you," Edgecombe said, as Elodie finished speaking. "We'll be all practical today. Please pair up."

Hope hated lessons where they had to find a partner. Who was she supposed to pair up with when she had no real friends in her class? She looked hopefully around for Michael, but he was already matched up with Esme.

"I'm going with Natalie," Elodie said to Marion at once. "You'll need to find someone else."

Marion glanced around the room, and moved resignedly towards the only person without a partner, Hope herself. Annoyance was Hope's immediate reaction, but then she noted Marion's face, the fall of the mouth and the dejected slump to her shoulders, and suppressed her irritation. Hope had never forgotten that the other girl had once defended her in front of Elodie - even if nothing had ever come of it - and had always refused to be around for Elodie's mistreatment of Dom - even if she had never done anything to stop her. She smiled properly and Marion brightened.

Despite this, it was not a successful lesson. Hope's disarming charm was strong and she managed to shatter Marion's shaky protective bubble a couple of times, but she couldn't concentrate enough to perform the shield charm herself.

Edgecombe swept round the room, snapping at students for doing it wrong, and it was with great relief that Hope looked up at the clock on the wall and realised that there were only ten minutes left of the lesson.

"That was poor," Edgecombe said to the class at large, after she had ordered them all to stop. "You will revise them and work on them before the holidays, study the theory carefully when you are at home – if you are at school for the holidays you can practise further - ready to try again after Christmas. Any questions, as this is the last class of the term?"

Esme raised her hand tentatively into the silence and Edgecombe's face mellowed. Hope supposed that even Edgecombe couldn't bring herself to be mean to Esme, with her tiny frame, soft features and huge dark eyes, her black hair in two large buns on either side of her head.

"Yes Miss Okare?"

"Sorry – sorry to ask. I was wondering if you knew – knew… If you could tell us what a Narcoviral Curse is?"

Edgecombe blinked at her, visibly thrown.

"I really meant questions about our recent lessons, Miss Okare."

Esme chewed her lip, embarrassed, and Edgecombe checked the clock on the wall. There were only two minutes until the bell.

"Very well," she said. "But there is not much to tell, to be honest. A Narcoviral Curse is simply a theorised phenomenon, one that has never been proven and likely never will be. The theory is that a Narcoviral Curse would cause an illness, one that affected only muggles, and that over time it would spread, diminishing the muggle population so that wizards and witches came out stronger."

The class were all looking at her wide eyed and she gave an impatient sniff as the bell sounded.

"It's a myth," she said. "A wild, implausible theory. Absolutely not something that could happen. Please focus on your actual work over the holidays and come back well prepared in the new year."

Hope chanced a glance at Esme, who did not appear remotely reassured. Hope knew better than to ask Edgecombe any more questions. She had far better sources of information if she wanted them.

O

Hope broached the question on the third night of the holidays, when all four members of her family were sitting eating dinner together.

"What's a Narcoviral curse?"

Silence fell instantly. Her father did a double take and Teddy stopped with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth.

"Where did you hear that term?" her mother demanded.

"Someone asked Edgecombe about it the other day."

"Who asked?"

Hope was bewildered at their reaction. "Esme. Esme Okare. One of the Gryffindor girls."

"Her sister's a healer," Teddy murmured to his parents. "Works with Vic. Their dad works at the Ministry."

All three of them were exchanging meaningful glances, and Hope knew that look only too well. Do we tell her? Do we not? She was fairly sure that they would. Honesty and openness were at the heart of their family and always had been.

"I think Teddy would be able to explain best," Remus said at last. "He knows the most about it."

Hope could tell from Teddy's hesitation that he was deciding how to phrase it into terms that she could understand, for which she was grateful rather than offended. Sometimes, when he talked about the specifics of his own work, she hadn't the faintest idea what he was on about.

"The theory behind a Narcoviral Curse has been around for a long time," Teddy began. "Since Voldemort's era, in fact, although the subject has only been properly discussed by academics since his final downfall. During Voldemort's first rise to power, a theorist called Marmon Golpalott published an article concluding that, if you didn't care about blood purity – and according to him there was no point in caring about blood purity anymore, as it wasn't a sustainable goal - there was a far more effective way to rid the world of non-magical people than dominion, open war and a dark wizard taking over."

"What?"

Teddy looked at her seriously.

"Disease."

Hope's throat was very dry.

"Now, as I said, at the time it was just a theory," Teddy went on. "According to historians, Golpalott was an eccentric individual and wrote about a number of horrible ideas, but he was fairly harmless in the flesh. He was descended from a long line of potioneers, carried out bizarre and sometimes illegal experiments, but he never showed signs of wanting to unleash dark magic himself. In any case, he died before Voldemort's first downfall, and many have expressed scepticism over his ideas since then. But according to his theory, a Narcoviral Curse would manifest itself as an illness, one that could run like wildfire through the entire world. And it would have... disastrous effects. Wizards would carry it without harm to themselves, transmitting it to others. Non-magical people would fall ill."

"So they'd die?"

"Not necessarily." Teddy shook his head gravely. "The aim of such a curse would be to eradicate muggles eventually, but there aren't enough wizards and witches in the world to sustain us if all the muggle population died out at once. So the disease would need to be selective, intelligent, identifying though genetics those who were most likely to produce magical offspring in the future, and eliminating those who weren't."

Hope gaped at him.

"Can - is that even possible? To make a curse that does that?"

Teddy nodded slowly. "It is far more feasible now than it was in Golpalott's time, or even a decade ago," he said. "Until about fifteen years ago, there was no way to measure or predict the amount of magic a person had within their blood. It wasn't even deemed quantifiable. It was believed that you were either magical or you weren't and that blood and genetics made no difference to magical powers."

"But - but I thought magical blood didn't matter!" Hope was thoroughly lost now. That was what she'd always been told.

"In some ways it doesn't." Teddy was struggling to find a way to contain the explanation to simple terms. "Not in the way pureblood fanatics have always claimed. So called 'purity of blood' doesn't mean a damn, although squibs and non-magical offspring are slightly less common in families that date back generations of witches and wizards. However, a muggleborn child could easily have a higher MDI than a pureblood one."

"MDI is Magical Disposition Indicator," Remus chipped in, seeing Hope's blank look. "It is the spectrum used to measure the levels of magic within a person's blood. We all have an MDI, muggles included."

Teddy grimaced.

"Sorry, I'm getting technical again."

"It's fine! Go on!" Hope was eager to hear more, however unpleasant the subject.

"Studies have shown that ninety percent of humans on this earth have some trace of magic in them," Teddy continued. "Few have enough for it to manifest itself in any discernible fashion. Most muggles could hold your wand right now, say the words of any spell in the world, and nothing would happen, but it doesn't mean they have no magic in them at all. Your MDI needs to be very high - a measure of eighty or above - for you to classify as magical, and most of us if we were tested would have readings of over one hundred."

"Interesting." Hope had never considered this before. "So is that why some wizards are more powerful than others? Like Dumbledore or Voldemort would have had a high MDI?"

"Yes, exactly! I mean, MDI wasn't a concept in their day, but we can assume their readings would have been off the charts. Others may be relatively low for a witch or wizard, although there are ways in which it can be improved. It is like strength or intelligence... some have to work hard for it, others have a natural advantage from the off. That is how we get Muggle-born witches and wizards, when two "officially" non-magical people have the genetic make up to produce a child that is magical. Your MDI fluctuates throughout your lifetime as well, which is why you can get only one magical person in a family or, more rarely, you get squibs. Nowadays, that can be predicted by those who know enough about Magienetics."

"Magienetics," Hope repeated. "That's what gave you the idea for your work on a werewolf cure."

"Yes." Teddy looked delighted that she'd remembered this detail. "It's what Jessye Laurier does. Mine and Vic's friend, you know. She started working at St Mungo's straight after leaving school, and-"

"And she studies how magical genes can be passed down in a bloodline," Hope finished. "See, I listen to some of the things you tell me."

"I do see," Teddy smiled. "Does it make sense?"

Hope's brain hurt a little, but she understood what Teddy was saying. She was a Ravenclaw, however much she wished otherwise.

"Yes," she said. "I get it. I'm guessing it's not simple maths though. Like - two parents with an MDI of forty don't make a child with eighty?"

"If only." Teddy laughed, but not unkindly. "No, it's not nearly that simple. There are many factors that need to be taken into account; age, health, environment, how much the magic is actually used. Muggle magicians and psychics are sometimes so because they naturally have elevated levels of magic, and through their work or hobbies have been training it without knowing it. They are often the most likely to have children with a high MDI. That is putting it in very simple terms though, I don't understand a lot of it myself and Jessye would be able to explain it far better than me. But the upshot is that there are patterns that can be analysed, sequences that can be calculated, specific formulas that can predict if someone is likely to produce magical offspring in the future. There have been big advances in those studies in recent years. St Mungo's made a huge breakthrough in the field a decade ago, and Jessye's own research accounts for ten percent of the progress made in Britain since then, although of course it is studied worldwide."

"So – so this curse illness thing? If it happened... It would use the patterns identified in that research? And people with the least amount of magic in them would be most affected?"

Teddy concurred.

"Those who had little to no possibility of producing magical offspring would die. Fully magical people would carry it and transmit it but remain unaffected. Those who had a good chance of producing a witch or wizard child or grandchild in the future would fall ill to varying degrees. They would likely survive, but would be weakened to allow the magical blood to come out stronger in the event of reproduction. It would take years - decades at least - but once the curse had taken hold it would be difficult to eradicate, and eventually it would ensure that only magical people were left in the world."

Sick to the stomach, Hope's mouth had fallen open with horror.

"But could it happen?" she said urgently. "Is it actually possible? Edgecombe said it was a wild theory."

Tonks made a furious noise in the back of her throat. Edgecombe had been in her bad books since the incident with the boggart the year before.

Teddy's eyes were sorrowful.

"It could happen," he acknowledged. "It could, Hope. We know now, after all the studies conducted over the last ten years, that the theory behind it is plausible, even if it has never been demonstrated in practice. Magic advances year on year, becomes more lethal in less obvious ways. A curse like that would take years to create, and it would be incredibly complex, not something your average witch or wizard could come up with on the spot. But if the right person had the right theory, took that theory into practice and was cold blooded enough to start the spread of the curse throughout the population, it is possible. And-"

He trailed off, biting his lip and glancing at his parents.

"What?" Hope persisted, head swivelling between them. "What's going on?"

It was her mother who replied.

"There are rumours," she said. "That one has been created already. In theory it's classified information at the moment but plenty of people know about it, and I would rather you hear the truth from me than half-lies from someone else. Aurors across the world are on high alert and wizarding hospitals are already making preparations, in case. They've been talking about it since the summer so it is possible that Esme overheard her sister or her dad at home and that's how she knew. I don't want to scare you but you also need to know. It could happen. It could be happening right now."

O

Hope tried not to dwell on the possibility of a deadly, worldwide curse. Her parents and Teddy continued to assure her that while she should know the truth, at the moment magical organisations across the world were doing everything they could to prevent the curse, if indeed it existed, having the lethal effect it was theorised to create.

"Try not to worry about it," Teddy said quietly, after the initial conversation, when he managed to catch her on her own. Hope was still reeling from what she had learnt. "They're trying to track down whoever started this before anything comes of it. It might all be rumours anyway. Someone causing a stir and wanting to induce panic. Idiots do that all the time. Please try not to worry about it for now."

Hope did as instructed, pushing her concerns out of her mind and focusing on Christmas, an enjoyable affair for all of them with their mother off work and the full moon nowhere near. Also to look forward to was the Weasley New Year party, which had replaced the traditional Boxing Day gathering now that the children were older, and this year would be held at the Potters' house.

"You look great!" Hope exclaimed, as they arrived at the same time as Bill, Fleur, Dom and Louis. Dom was wearing a dress covered with blue and gold sequins. "I made it myself," she said. The sequins caught the light as she spun round to show Hope. "Maybe Roxanne was right. Maybe I will go into clothing design."

The house was already very busy. Fred Weasley had been mysterious about his own plans – off with a new girlfriend, Roxanne speculated – and Teddy and Victoire were at a party with their school friends, but the rest of the family were in attendance. Even Charlie and Alex had come back from Romania to celebrate with them.

Hope and Dom made their way into the basement, used by the Potter children as a playroom, which had been enlarged, tidied of its usual mess and decorated with streamers, and to which the "children" were to be banished for most of the evening, at least until the countdown to midnight. Not that they minded at all. James greeted Hope and Dom cheerfully as they entered.

"Snaffled some butterbeers!" he said, waving over to the corner. He raised his eyebrows at Roxanne. "Some of us should go easy on them."

"Piss off," Roxanne muttered. She had gone overboard the year before. "That was wine, not butterbeer."

"I'm sure I can sneak you some wine too. There's even firewhisky in Dad's cabinet, if you want?"

Roxanne shuddered. "I'm good thanks. I'll pass on the butterbeer too, it's all sugar."

"Al will be bouncing off the walls by midnight then." Louis grinned at his cousin.

Albus shrugged and added a large dash of lemonade to his own glass, before making a similar concoction for Scorpius, who had been invited along for the fun.

"Is everyone here?" Dom added. "Where are Rose and Hugo?"

"Late, as always," James sighed. "Aunt Hermione will be moaning at Ron for holding them up as we speak. I'm betting another hour at least."

To their surprise, Rose and Hugo arrived ten minutes later.

"You look nice!" James said, staring at his cousin in some astonishment as she entered the room.

"That's what Dad said," she replied. "Same tone, and Mum hit him over the head and told him he hadn't changed in twenty-five years."

She did look pretty, Hope observed, in a striking red dress that showed off her slender, coltish legs, her brown hair in carefully formed curls and her dark eyes lined with kohl.

"You can hit James if you like," Al said hopefully, but Rose bestowed him with a serene smile and shook her head.

"Right, what shall we play?" James asked, a further twenty minutes later, when everyone had said their hellos, got themselves drinks and snacks and James had firmly shut themselves in the privacy of the room. "An interesting game. Not exploding snap."

"Truth or Dare!" Hugo said. This was cried down at once, for which Hope was grateful. She was not going to spill her most personal secrets to all and sundry, but James had a habit of drumming up the most horrendous dares.

"Never have I ever?" Roxanne suggested.

"Ew, absolutely not," Dom said. "You can't play that with family. Anyway, that's a drinking game. Literally no point with butterbeer and lemonade."

"Hide and seek!" Lily said. Everyone groaned.

"Cute," James said to his sister. "But I said interesting games only." She aimed a kick at him in retaliation, which he dodged, sniggering. "How about secret snatch?"

Bemused expressions greeted this suggestion.

"What is secret snatch?"

James pulled a handful of extendable ears out of his pocket.

"Everyone takes it in turns, goes off with one of these, and doesn't come back until they've got a nice juicy bit of gossip. And whoever gets the best one wins."

This was met with a mix of reactions. Roxanne took an extendable ear without hesitation. Lily and Hugo grinned and Hope was torn between a certitude that it would be fun and the knowledge that it definitely wasn't honourable. Al, Louis and Dom exchanged awkward glances and Rose shook her head at once.

"We can't spend all evening eavesdropping," she said. "It's wrong."

"Extendable earshot!" James protested. "You know my rule."

Rose graced him with her most disapproving of glares, and Scorpius also appeared uncomfortable. "I'm don't want to spy on your family," he said.

"You two could be the judges then."

But Dom was also reluctant. "We can't," she said. "Rosie's right, it's plain wrong, and our parents already tell us loads if we ask them. We'd probably only find out stuff they would have told us, and if we got caught then they wouldn't trust us at all anymore."

James relented with a heavy sigh. "Fine! Fine! What shall we play then?"

"Please can we play hide and seek?" Lily begged, unperturbed by James's condescension. "It's my favourite, and you know you all enjoy it once you get started."

With no better suggestions, the others agreed.

"You can count first though," Hugo said to his cousin. "And while everyone's hiding they can think up ideas for a better game."

Lily obliged at once. "One, two, three…"

They all scattered, half of them sprinting upstairs. Dom hid behind the curtains in the dining room. Roxanne was already cheating and had slipped out into the back garden. Hope went into the tiny porch by the front door and then smiled to herself as she looked upwards at the cupboard that was attached to the wall. This was where her gift would come in handy. She'd need to make herself the same size as Flitwick, but she'd be able to fit inside it if she could get up there in the first place. Morphing her arms as long as they would go, she hoisted herself into it, grateful that her strength at a peak thanks to Dom's intensive quidditch regime. Then she shrank herself right down – trying to ignore the feeling of discomfort as her organs compressed - and pulled the cupboard door closed. Now nothing to do but wait until everyone else had been caught. She sat there for a while and went into a daydream about Adam breaking up with Stella and realising that Hope was his ideal girlfriend instead.

There was a sudden scuffle below. Hope heard a whisper, and the sound of the porch door being pulled to.

She tried to breath silently, which was difficult as her lungs were already severely restricted. But it wasn't Lily down there. With a sense of disquiet, she heard her own mother's voice.

"What's going on? We were expecting you ages ago, is everything OK?"

Then Harry's voice, muttering the muffliato spell, the jinx that would stop anyone overhearing their conversation. Hope, barely two metres away, could still hear every word, and felt awkward. James's rule of extendable earshot was all well and good, but when someone deliberately made efforts not to be overheard and you were still able to eavesdrop, that was something else. There was nothing she could do, however. Harry was already speaking.

"We'll need to go in tomorrow, all of us. I'm really sorry. I know you were supposed to be off."

"It's fine," Hope heard her mother reply instantly. "But what's going on?"

"Kingsley received a message today, via holographic charm."

"Holographic charm? Talking image and all that?"

"Yes. Completely untraceable. Triggered by a normal letter that passed all the security checks. When he opened it, the holographic charm came out of it. With a message for all wizardkind."

"Who of? Who from?"

"We don't know who he is. A man who calls himself The Crow. No one we recognise, although he could easily be in disguise for the purpose of this. Not that that's important right now, it's his aims that are the problem. He's sent the same message to magical leaders across the world."

"Saying?"

Hope heard Harry take a deep intake of breath.

"We'll go over the full details tomorrow. But... he's released it, Tonks. The Narcoviral Curse. It's spreading as we speak."

o

o

January

Row upon row of grave faces stared up at the Minister and Harry standing at the front of the Auror conference room. The holographic message had been replayed for all of them moments before, deadly threats issuing from the figure of a pale, dark haired man with sunken eyes and a bony frame. Thus far, he had yet to be identified by any recognition system or spell across the world.

Bentley was the first to speak into the silence in his low, gravelly tones.

"It doesn't make sense," he growled. "Why? If his threat and his aims are true why has he warned us like this? Not only us, but governmental bodies across the entire planet? What does he stand to gain from warning the world that he intends to eradicate all the muggles within it?"

Kingsley's deep voice quelled the buzz of murmurs that followed. Only his dark eyes gave away the fact that his innermost thoughts did not match his calm exterior and Tonks, after all these years of friendship, recognised the look of consternation in them.

"That is a key question that must be asked and analysed," he confirmed. "The MoSS are studying the facts as we speak, and will update us when they can. Our job, for today, must be to avoid speculation and solidify the contingency plans that we have been discussing since the summer. I regret they may not be termed contingency plans for much longer."

"And it's not a hoax?" Cragg's voice was hopeful as she expressed the secret thought on some of the others' minds. "We're sure?"

Harry shook his head.

"Sources indicate that The Crow's threat is not idle," he said. "Muggles are falling ill in Asia with a sickness that doctors do not recognise. Two men have reportedly died from the disease already. It is too early to tell if wizards on that side of the world are currently transmitting illness as well, but without any evidence to the contrary, we should assume they are."

The room sagged at this pronouncement and Kinglsey spoke again.

"I am to meet with the muggle prime minister tomorrow, to warn him of the dangers that are incoming. Yes," he inclined his head in response to a number of derisive snorts and sarcastic mutterings, "I know that our current relationship with the muggle government is not at its best, but I can at least try to impress upon him the seriousness of the situation and advise him on the most practical way to proceed."

Some hopes of that, Tonks thought. The muggle prime minister was widely regarded as the worst the country had known in all of British history, acting only in self interest, with no regard for his own people, let alone the wizarding population he had been forced to acknowledge upon election.

"As for the wizarding public," Kinglsey went on, "they must know the basic facts, the dangers that are now present, and the protocol that must now be followed if we are to avoid a worst case scenario. Pictures of The Crow will be released worldwide to aid his capture, but that is unlikely to help us for the moment." He glanced up at the silent, revolving image of the pale man above them. "We think that this face is a disguise. Naturally, the precise context of The Crow's message will remain classified, but we must be aware that with so many governmental bodies in receipt of it, rumours and leaks are a near certainty as we proceed."

He drew himself up, radiating the mix of authority, hope, sadness and concern as he always did in darker times.

"I am sure I do not need to tell you that we may be facing the most widespread threat to wizarding and muggle society that has ever existed. If that has not yet occurred to you, then realise it now. We must consider ourselves as much at war today as we were twenty-two years ago. To view this as a lesser threat than Voldemort would be a let down to both our society and the muggles this curse is destined to eradicate. Back then, corruption and division nearly cost us that fight. I do not believe that anyone in this room would allow those mistakes to be repeated."

The meeting was dismissed and their colleagues filed out, Tonks and Harry last to leave. Tonks chanced a glance back at Kinglsey, who was reading a page of notes with lines etched into his face.

"He reminds me of Dumbledore, these days" she said to Harry with a half smile. "Always the solid, reliable presence. The voice of reason. The one person who pulls everyone together."

Harry merely grunted, eyes distracted.

"What you thinking?"

"That there's something familiar about The Crow," Harry sighed. "I can't put my finger on what."

Tonks wasn't convinced, given the certitude of most that the face in the message was a mask of some sort. "You've watched that hologram about ten times this morning already, Harry. That's probably why."

"Maybe."

It was all he would say on the matter, and Tonks left him to his thoughts. She had her own mountain of work to get through, and this was only the beginning.

o

o

"Mum?" Hope decided to come clean. She had not enjoyed the New Year party after overhearing such an intense conversation, and had climbed back down from her perch the minute Harry and her mother had returned to the living room, opting instead for the cupboard under the stairs. Lily had discovered her minutes later, most disappointed that Hope, of all people, couldn't have found a better hiding place. Hope had paid no attention to the rest of the games. Her mother had left the party soon after midnight, gone off to work at five o'clock that morning, and had only just returned. It was now ten o'clock at night. Teddy was at Victoire's and Remus was already asleep.

"Hi love." She smiled, although there were dark circles under her eyes. "I thought you'd be in bed."

"I- I need to admit something," Hope blurted out, nervously rubbing a dry patch of skin on her hand. "I was playing hide and seek with the others when you talked to Harry last night, and I heard what you said. I couldn't help it. Honestly."

Her mother goggled at her in astonishment.

"Where on earth were you?"

"In the wall cupboard."

"The wall cupboard?"

"You know, the one that has the keys and quidditch balls in. I shrank myself to really tiny, like Flitwick's size."

Her mother winced.

"It can't be healthy to make yourself that small," she said. Hope could only agree with this. It had been most unpleasant and she had felt sick for the rest of the evening. "Please don't make a habit of it."

"I won't." Hope was far more worried about the other reprimands to come, and Tonks shrugged wearily.

"You heard what Harry and I were saying?"

"I didn't mean to," Hope insisted. She knew eavesdropping was bad and how often had she been told off for it? "Really I didn't." But her mother didn't look angry. "You'd find out soon enough anyway," she said. "Kingsley's going to make a statement next week."

"So what is going on?"

Tonks rubbed a tired hand over her forehead before explaining. "There is an individual who, as you will have heard, calls himself The Crow. We have no idea who he really is or how he's sprung up out of nowhere, but he claims to have created a Narcoviral curse and released it into the population out in Asia. Our sources indicate that he isn't lying. Muggles are falling ill on the other side of the world."

"Is that where The Crow is from?"

"We don't know. The image that he has presented to us is almost certainly a disguise, but originating from this side of the world would make sense, if our understanding of his intents and purposes is correct."

"And what are they?"

Tonks spread her hands.

"To create as much chaos and division as he can, before the illness caused by the curse has spread to the western side of the world at all."

"So – so it will spread, then?" Hope asked. "Like Teddy said it would when he talked about it before Christmas?"

She tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice, determined as always to maintain the front that she portrayed to the world. Bold and fearless. Curious, yes, but unafraid. Her mother's smile was gentle and understanding in return.

"We're doing our best to mitigate the damage. Magical organisations across the world are going to advise muggle authorities on how to handle it and prevent the spread as best they can. Some are quietly hopeful that maybe, as we've been warned, we can fight back. Contain the illness and avoid too many casualties, both in our own country and others."

"Then why has this Crow person given you warning?" Hope asked. "Why didn't he release the curse and let it happen, if telling you means you can put up a fight?"

"It's a good question," Tonks confirmed, eyes serious. "That baffled us too, at first. But after analysis and discussion today, it's becoming clearer what The Crow's intentions are. You see, this curse needs to exist in specific circumstances to do the job it was created for. In order to have a drastic impact on the muggle population, it needs to be contagious enough to spread over the whole world. It can't be too virulent, though, because if it brought down everyone in its path, it would burn itself out. It needs time to have the desired - for us, undesired - effect. And the more time and opportunity it is given to spread, the more time and opportunity we have to put up a fight against it."

Hope wasn't sure she fully understood but she was listening intently all the samw.

"History shows us that diseases, both muggle and magical, have always been most lethal when panic and lack of organisation have allowed them to spread," Tonks continued. "Spanish flu was a disaster for the muggle population in the early twentieth century. Likewise, Knarl Flu ran rampant in The States a few years ago because MACUSA didn't put any measures in place to contain or monitor it."

"Knarl Flu. That's what Dom had!"

"Yes," Tonks said. "It was a nasty illness, and she was unlucky, poor thing. But in general, the measures to contain Knarl Flu in this country were well managed. Dom, as you'll remember, had to declare her illness to St Mungo's, spend two weeks in complete isolation, then be tested twice and officially cleared before she was allowed to interact with friends and family again."

Hope remembered it well. It had been very unfortunate and done nothing to curb Dom's fear of hospitals, but she had recovered reasonably fast.

"Knarl Flu demonstrated how effective containment measures for illness and disease can be," Tonks went on. "So naturally our aims are to put in similar protocols for this. But because the curse is affecting magical and non-magical people in different ways, the fight against it needs to be a collaboration between both communities. If we were to succeed in that, and present a unified fight from both the muggle and wizarding populations, the curse might not have a chance of properly taking hold."

Hope could not miss the doubtful inflection her mother placed on the word if.

"The Crow undoubtedly realises this," Tonks continued. "He will already know that the best way to prevent a unified fight is to create irreparable discord between magical and non-magical authorities. We believe that is why he sent us the warning in the first place. Over the next few days, magical leaders across the globe, all of whom have received The Crow's message, will meet with the muggle leaders of their respective countries, try to warn them of the danger that is approaching and advise them on how to tackle it."

"And - and that's not good?"

"We are anticipating resistance. They are to be told that a flu-like illness, one that has so far affected a handful of people on the other side of the world, has actually been created by wizards and poses a terrible, deadly threat to their people. Even to us, it sounds farfetched. Your own defence teacher is proof that some of our own kind don't believe a Narcoviral curse could exist. Yet we are asking muggle leaders to take our word for it without any concrete evidence. And the measures we will be suggesting to hold back the spread of the curse are extreme. Bans on international travel, mass quarantines, severe restrictions of movement until we can produce a counter curse, which could take months. It would incur a huge cost, one that we do not have the means to finance and that the muggle authorities, if they believe us at all, are unlikely to risk when there is no imminent threat and when they will have to justify it to millions of people who know nothing of the wizarding world."

Hope tried to imagine being the leader of a country, knowing exactly who had caused this problem but unable to reveal it to those who looked up to them. It must be horribly frustrating.

"And that is where the problems will start," Tonks went on. "If the illness had been planted silently and left to run its course, it may have taken months for our kind to realise it was magically induced. It would have claimed lives, yes, but when faced with the growing, incontrovertible threat, there would have been a chance at a unified approach between wizards and muggles. A lot of muggle leaders may have turned voluntarily to the wizarding world for help and advice. By giving us certain pieces of information from the start, before it has taken hold, The Crow is forcing our hand, playing on the moral obligations of our integral leaders. He is forcing them to denounce the threat and admit it has been created by wizards right from the start. We now suspect that the rumours were started by The Crow as well, to make the world less likely to dismiss it as a hoax. It is a clever move, there is no denying that."

"So muggles won't listen at all?"

"Some might. Some won't. Some will be angry and resentful and who can blame them? Especially when they have no way of explaining to their own kind what is actually the problem. Others will try and do as advised, but the measures will not be effective if only a handful of countries or regions put them into place. Regardless of the reactions, the first cracks will start to appear without a collaborative approach."

"But," Hope protested, her mind still whirring. "But if they think there's a better chance of muggles listening when the curse has taken hold, can't they wait a bit? Until it's more obviously a threat?"

Her mother gazed back at her sadly.

"Do you really think that someone like Kingsley, when warned of a terrible disease coming in a tidal wave towards innocent and defenceless muggles, would be willing to stand aside and let it kill them, if there was the slightest chance he could prevent it all together?"

Hope thought of Kingsley, with his fierce principles, his deep, commanding voice, his insistence on the right way forward, not the easy way forward. Of course he wouldn't.

"The idea of sacrificing the few for the many, of brushing moral qualms aside in the name of the greater good, that was so prominent in the wartime years, went out a long time ago," Tonks continued. "The Minister will not even consider it and I respect him for that. He means to be upfront with the Prime Minister from the start. But he will have an uphill battle and it may come back to haunt us. The current muggle government doesn't like him anyway, is mistrustful of anything to do with us. Kingsley is already predicting that he will not heed a word of what he tells him next week."

Trying not to feel too depressed by this thoroughly bleak outlook, Hope thought again.

"I still don't get why The Crow told everyone," she said, after a long pause. "Even if there was a decent fight against it, couldn't he start spreading the curse again whenever it was dying down?"

"I suppose he could," her mother said slowly. "Assuming he evaded capture - Aurors across the world will be hunting him and he will not want to pop up too often. But that's not the only reason. Remember this is to masquerade as a muggle illness, at least for the moment. He does not want to arouse suspicion in the non-magical world, because if the disease goes against what makes sense to muggles, it would likely drive the authorities back towards wizarding leaders for help and advice. Division appears to be The Crow's aim, just as much as destruction. No, it appears he is playing the long game, quite prepared to sit back and watch the drama unfold while wizards and muggles are faced with the dilemma of how to act, and likely fall out because of it. These are the first fallings of snow that could lead to an avalanche of chaos."

"And will it?" Hope's eyes were wide as she looked anxiously back at her mother, unable, now, to keep the tremor of fear out of her voice. "Will it be as bad as everyone thinks?"

Tonks put a gentle hand on her cheek.

"I hope not, my love. We all hope not. We've got a good head start."

She looked completely wiped out.

"You should go to bed," Hope said abruptly. "Thanks for telling me."

She gave her a brief hug and went upstairs to bed herself, deep in thought.

OOO