fear no more the heat o' the sun

LJ 18th anniversary

alchemine — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 01:35:08 GMT

That's a lotta days.

Sugar Quill Maneuvers - repost

alchemine — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 07:12:59 GMT

"You're insane, Sirius," James said flatly. "I love a challenge as much as you do, but this is suicide. If you get caught -"

"I won't get caught." Sirius was impatient. "And besides, it's a matter of principle."

"A matter of principle? You're madder than I thought."

"Why is Sirius mad?" asked Remus, who had overheard the last words as he walked in. He tossed his books onto his bed and flopped down beside them. "I mean, I know he is, but what mad thing has he done now?"

"You missed it when you were in the infirmary yesterday," James told him. "Padfoot here got caught trying to sneak a sugar quill in Transfiguration. McGonagall took the whole box away, and now he thinks his honor will be permanently wrecked if he doesn't get them back."

Remus sniggered. "How do you mean to do that, Paddy? Bribery? Pleading?"

"I mean to go and take them," Sirius said, offended at this suggestion that he would resort to methods reserved for mere mortals. "I already searched her office and they're not there. She must have taken them to her private rooms. So that's where I'm going next."

This was enough to make Remus sit up, though he winced a bit with the effort. He shot a glance at James, then at Sirius, and shook his head slowly.

"I have to agree with Prongs on this one," he said. "She'll kill you. And it won't be quick, either. Cats like to play with their prey first."

"Hmmmph," said Sirius. "So, James, can I borrow the Invisibility Cloak, or are you going to go all Head Boy on me and say no?"

James pondered this for a moment. "Oh, all right. But if you get caught, I'm going to say you took it without leave."

"Fine. And I'll need the map, too."

"That's not all you'll need," Remus put in. "How are you going to open McGonagall's door? I'm pretty sure 'Alohomora' won't work."

"Aha," Sirius said. "Filch keeps a list of all the professors' personal passwords in his office, in case of emergencies. Wormtail sneaked in there in rat form and got McGonagall's for me. You see, I have one real friend in this room." He grinned at Peter, who was sitting in the window seat, crunching his way through the huge bag of crisps Sirius had bought him as a reward. Peter grinned back around a mouthful of crumbs.

"Looks as if you've got it all worked out, then," said Remus. "So when are you going to your execution? I mean on your mission?"

"Tonight, after dinner. She usually goes back to her office for a bit then. I'll get in and out, and she'll never know I was there."

"Suppose she just chucked the box out?" James asked. "Thought of that, have you?"

Sirius stared at him. "Who would chuck out a full box of sugar quills?"

"McGonagall would," said James and Remus simultaneously.

"Hmmmph," Sirius repeated.

At the tail end of the dinner hour, few people were about in the corridors, and so no one was there to hear mysterious footsteps, apparently unconnected to a pair of feet, approaching Professor McGonagall's door.

The footsteps stopped, and underneath the Invisibility Cloak, Sirius carefully unfolded the scrap of paper Peter had given him. Then he stifled a groan.

Oh, wonderful! Thanks for telling me it wasn't in English, Wormy. You owe me a bag of crisps now. He looked over the phrase on the paper and thought for a minute. He didn't speak any ancient languages - hardly anyone did anymore, except for die-hards like McGonagall - but he had had some instruction in this one from his childhood tutor. He thought he knew enough to puzzle out a few words.

Checking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, he gave it a go. It took several tries, but eventually he got the pronunciation close enough that the door obligingly swung open. He caught the knob to keep it from opening too far, slipped through, and closed it softly behind him.

His first order of business was to check the map to see if "M. McGonagall" was still in her office. She was, so he looked around, wondering where to begin searching. McGonagall seemed to like antique furniture - there was a cherry armoire looming against the far wall, a matching desk near the door to what he assumed was her bedroom, and two trunks flanking a crimson velvet sofa. Any of them could be a potential hiding place. He was sure she had a huge cache of confiscated student treasures in here somewhere. Probably she took inventory on Saturday nights and gloated at all the misery she'd caused.

May as well start with the armoire, he thought. He swung open its doors, but found nothing but books, thick, dull-looking ones. Next he moved to the desk and opened a few drawers. There was a leather-bound photo album in one, and curiosity made him stop to flip through it. Engrossed in looking at pictures of McGonagall as a kid - she'd been a spindly little thing, but surprisingly cute - he forgot about his mission, and the map, until he heard a sudden shuffling noise outside the door. His stomach dropped toward the floor faster than a post owl coming in for a landing.

Please don't let it be her!

But it was. A muffled female voice spoke a few words, and the door swung open just as he stuffed the album back into the drawer and got the cloak over his head again. In came his nemesis, looking tired and harassed, and carrying a heap of rolled parchment. She dropped it unceremoniously on the floor (Is that how she always treats our homework? Sirius wondered) and shut the door behind her. Then she kicked off her shoes, one after the other, flung herself full-length onto the sofa, and closed her eyes.

Maybe she'll just fall asleep there, and I can slip out, Sirius thought hopefully. He waited. She didn't move. He waited again. Any second she would start snoring -

But instead of snoring, she sniffed moistly, once, then twice. Her chin quivered, and Sirius realized, to his absolute horror, that she was crying. Not in a loud, obvious way, but discreetly, as if she thought someone might be watching. If she only knew!

After what was possibly the longest minute in the history of time - or so it seemed to him - McGonagall swiped a fierce hand across her face and levered herself into a sitting position. Reaching up, she plucked the pins from her hair, depositing each one in a blue china dish that sat on one of the chests, and then sighed with obvious relief.

Sirius, in the corner, stood transfixed and appalled. He'd never seen McGonagall in any hairstyle but the bun, and looking at her this way was rather like seeing her naked. No sooner had he thought this than she stood up, undid the back buttons of her robes, and let them fall in a puddle of fabric around her bare feet.

Bloody hell! Sirius squinched his eyes shut, but not before he'd inadvertently had a good look at McGonagall's underthings. They were rather nicer than he would have expected from her - white satin with lace trim. The figure beneath them was quite a bit more shapely than he'd thought, too. Not that he'd ever thought about it much.

When he heard her footsteps pad past him toward the other room, he finally dared to open his eyes. Now was the time to escape. He didn't like to think what she might do to him if she knew what he'd just seen. As far as he knew, the professors weren't allowed to Transfigure students against their will, but she might make an exception in his case.

Slowly, silently, he began edging along the wall toward the door. Before he'd got halfway there, though, he heard her coming back and froze. She was dressed - thank heaven - in a modest white nightgown, and was carrying a goblet of what smelt like spiced wine. Frantic now, he tried to think of a way to get out before she settled in for a long evening in front of the fireplace.

He must have made some sort of noise in his agitation, because McGonagall's head snapped around. She put her goblet down on the nearest surface and took a few hesitant steps toward his not-so-hidden hiding place. Even without her customary spectacles, her gaze was so piercing that Sirius quailed invisibly.

She came closer and closer, until she was less than two feet away from him. He could smell her perfume, a citrusy scent he knew very well. He'd smelt it every time she swept past him down the aisles of her classroom for the last six years. Now it seemed cloying and oppressive. It was making it hard for him to breathe. Perhaps he was breathing too fast, or too loudly. He rather thought so.

McGonagall stared hard at the empty spot in front of her. Then she slowly raised her hands, feeling around, and caught the edge of the Invisibility Cloak. She gasped and pulled at it, and all at once Sirius was in full view. He was sure he looked every bit as shocked as she did.

"Professor -" Sirius began hastily, alarmed by her expression. He saw her draw a deep breath and knew she was about to blast him with one of the famous, feared McGonagall tirades. Without thinking, he reached out and clapped a hand over her mouth to stop her, and then felt ill as he realized what he'd done. Well, there was no taking it back now.

"Please don't shout!" he implored her. "It'll be embarrassing for both of us if half the school comes running to see what's going on."

McGonagall swatted his silencing hand away indignantly, but she'd taken the point to heart - when she spoke, it was in low tones.

"Mr. Black, what do you think you're doing in my private quarters?" Here her voice began to rise out of control and she made a visible effort to reel it back in again "Are you - are you spying on me? Have you any idea how outrageous this is? Well, out with it! I can't tell you how anxious I am to hear your explanation."

"I'm not spying, I swear! I, ah, came looking for my sugar quills," Sirius said. It sounded idiotic, even to him. Somehow the principle of it all didn't seem that important anymore. Remaining a Hogwarts student did. So did avoiding a term in Azkaban for being a low-level sex offender.

"Sugar quills?" McGonagall repeated. "You mean to say that this is about your wretched sugar quills?" The voice went up again, and Sirius flinched.

"Yes - I'm sorry -"

McGonagall stepped even closer, peering at him as if in disbelief that anyone could be such a fool. Sirius stumbled back to get away, and came up against the wall with a bump. She was no longer the towering figure she'd been when he was a first-year - he'd finished growing over the previous year, and now topped her by a few inches - but she was just as intimidating as ever. He was terrified to look her in the face. When he lowered his eyes, though, his height gave him an eagle's view directly down the scoop neck of her nightgown. It was the last place he wanted to look - not because the sight was unattractive, but because it was attractive. Disconcertingly so. Why couldn't she just throw him out and punish him in the morning, in her office, with bun, spectacles and severe robes in place?

Sirius, you really are a dog, he thought.

McGonagall stared at him for another long moment, then turned away and went to sit on her sofa.

"I don't even know where to begin disciplining you for this," she said. "Gryffindor doesn't have as many points as I'd like to take away." She looked down, and her gaze fell upon the pile of discarded robes on the floor. She stiffened.

"How long have you been in here, Black?" she asked slowly.

"Since you came in," Sirius confessed, dreading her response. When it came, it wasn't what he had expected: her eyes filled with tears again, and her cheeks turned bright red. From the heat in his own face, Sirius suspected he was matching her blush for blush.

"I didn't see much," he added. "I closed my eyes when I realized you were, er, changing clothes."

McGonagall looked as if she wanted to die of embarrassment. She was quiet for a while. Then she said. "All right, Mr. Black. I'll make a deal with you. If you go back to your dormitory right now, don't breathe a word about what you may or may not have seen while you were here, and swear never to do this again, I will not give you the punishment you so richly deserve. But if I hear anything - so much as a snigger during lessons - to indicate that you've been gossiping, I will start by taking two hundred points from Gryffindor. And then we'll see what else I can think of after that."

"Yes, okay, great," Sirius babbled, preparing to pull the cloak back on and go. "You can trust me."

"Oh, really? I'm not so sure," McGonagall said. "I've trusted you till now, despite your penchant for ridiculous antics. And suddenly I find you creeping invisibly around my sitting room. I'm sure you thought that was very funny and daring, but to me, it just feels like violation." As she said the last word, she folded her arms protectively over her chest. Sirius didn't think she even realized she'd done it. He hung his head.

"I really am sorry, Professor," he said.

McGonagall let out a very derisive snort, but she unbent a bit, too. "You'd better get on back to the dormitory now. Oh, and if you look on the table nearest the staircase in the common room, you'll find your sugar quills waiting for you. I stopped and left them just before I came here. I don't want you messing about with them while I'm trying to lecture, but in your free time, you can eat them till your teeth drop out for all I care."

Sirius had to grin at that. "Thanks," he said. "I'll go now."

"By all means, don't let me keep you," McGonagall said, making a shooing motion at him with one hand. Sirius' grin widened. She might look different at the moment, but she was definitely the same starchy Minerva McGonagall. He headed for the door, wondering if he should tell her how nice she did look, even with her eyes and nose all red from crying, then deciding he'd better not push his luck -

"Professor?" he asked, turning back.

"What is it now, Black?" McGonagall demanded testily. She had already reclaimed her abandoned drink and was preparing to put her feet up on the sofa again.

"What were you crying about?" he asked, unable to believe his nerve at even bringing the subject up. For a minute, he thought he'd muffed his lucky escape. A parade of emotions - anger, shame, sadness - marched across her face. At last, she said, in a rather quivery voice, "Do you think that's any of your business?"

"No," Sirius said honestly. "I was just concerned. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

She bit her lip and looked uncomfortable. Any second now, he thought, she'd order him out. But instead she said, "Since you are so concerned, I'll tell you that an old friend of mine was killed yesterday. By - byYou-Know-Who. And all his family with him. I've just received the news today, and," she stopped for a trembling breath, "I suppose I haven't quite adjusted to the idea. It keeps hitting me all over again at odd moments."

"Oh," said Sirius, wishing he hadn't asked. "I'm terribly sorry." He cast about for words and hit on something he'd heard his grandmother say in similar situations. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

McGonagall actually smiled a little. It was a wobbly smile, but at least it was there. "No, Mr. Black, but thank you for asking."

"All right, then. Er, have a good evening," he said. Argh! Could you be any more insensitive? Go now, while you still can! He turned to the door, but before he could open it, she spoke again, to his back this time.

"I'm glad you and your friends are still here where you're safe, at least for a while," she said in a choked voice. "I wish I knew some spell that could guarantee you'd never have anything worse to worry about than your sugar quills."

Sirius stood with his hand on the doorknob, wanting to get away, wanting to turn around and comfort her, wanting to cry himself. Somehow he couldn't do any of those things. All he could do was listen.

There was no sound behind him for a minute. Then she went on "I hope you won't lose anyone like this, but I'm afraid - I'm so afraid you will."

Sirius imagined himself hearing that Remus had been killed, or James, or Peter. The idea was so horrible that it broke his paralysis. He dropped the Invisibility Cloak, went back to where she sat, and did something he'd never thought he would do: put his arms around her and hugged her hard.

He wasn't sure whether she would hit him for his boldness or cling to him in sorrow. In fact, she did neither. She returned his embrace for just a moment, then pulled away and stood up.

"Go on, then," she said, ushering him to the door with one hand on his shoulder and wiping her tears away briskly, as if they annoyed her. "Go on, I'm quite all right. Thank you again for your concern. Goodnight." Before he knew what was happening, she had grabbed the cloak, thrown it over him and pushed him out into the corridor. The lock of her door snicked closed, and Sirius was left standing in invisible shock.

Did that really happen? he wondered. Wait till I tell Moony and Pr-

He stopped. She had asked him not to tell anyone what he'd seen, and though he knew she'd meant she didn't want to hear any underwear jokes, he thought the last bit had been the more intimate by far. And even though he'd invaded her privacy earlier, he found himself wanting to respect it - to protect it - now.

I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm going to say I didn't find the sugar quills there, so I came back.

He walked slowly toward the stairs. Somehow, he had the feeling that those sugar quills weren't going to taste nearly as sweet as he'd imagined.

alchemine — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 19:57:19 GMT

1. Departure, A.G. Riddle
2. Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
4. Boy, Roald Dahl
5. A Break With Charity, Ann Rinaldi
6. The Love Commandos, Tarquin Hall
7. The Fifth of March, Ann Rinaldi
8. Or Give Me Death, Ann Rinaldi
9. The Coffin Quilt, Ann Rinaldi
10. For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business, Kevin Werbach
11. Reflections, Diana Wynne Jones
12. Talk Dirty French
13. Talk Dirty Italian
14. Come Juneteenth, Ann Rinaldi
15. My Vicksburg, Ann Rinaldi
16. Hang a Thousand Trees With Ribbons, Ann Rinaldi
17. An Acquaintance With Darkness, Ann Rinaldi
18. Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the 19. Scandal That Changed Hollywood, Greg Merritt
20. Cast Two Shadows, Ann Rinaldi
21. The Bones of a King: Richard III Rediscovered, The Greyfriars Research Team
22. Juliet's Moon, Ann Rinaldi
23. The Letter Writer, Ann Rinaldi
24. The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey
25. Odd Girl Speaks Out, Rachel Simmons
26. Gidget, Frederick Kohner
27. Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
28. The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, Wendy McClure
29. The Girl in the Ice, Jason Vail
30. A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight, Victoria Lincoln
31. How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between), Mei-Ling Hopgood
32. The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
33. The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater
34. The Terra-Cotta Dog, Andrea Camillieri
35. The Shape of Water, Andrea Camillieri
36. Divergent, Veronica Roth
37. The Stand, Stephen King
38. The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created Alice in Wonderland, Jenny Woolf
39. Finders Keepers, Stephen King
40. Fun Home, Allison Bechdel
41. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
42. How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman
43. The Talisman, Stephen King and Peter Straub
44. Black House, Stephen King and Peter Straub
45. Welfare Brat, Mary Childers
46. Dick Francis' Damage, Felix Francis
47. A Dark Matter, Peter Straub
48. Airframe, Michael Crichton
49. Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch
50. A Case of Need, Michael Crichton (as Jeffery Hudson)
51. The Lost World, Michael Crichton
52. Woman With a Secret, Sophie Hannah
53. Little Face, Sophie Hannah
54. The Snack Thief, Andrea Camillieri
55. Voice of the Violin, Andrea Camillieri*
56. Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson*
57. Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
58. Rat Race, Dick Francis
59. Raven Black, Ann Cleeves
60: Madeline Kahn: Being The Music, A Life, William V. Madison
61. Columbine, Dave Cullen
62. The Barter, Siobhan Adcock
63. No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind the Death at Columbine, Brooks Brown and Rob Merritt
64. The Blackhouse, Peter May
65. In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware
66. Redeemed, Margaret Peterson Haddix
67. The Lewis Man, Peter May
68. The Chessmen, Peter May
69. The Enchanted Places, Christopher Milne
70. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
71. The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo
72. The Dead Key, D.M. Pulley
73. The Einstein Prophecy, Robert Masello
74. The Ice Twins, S.K. Tremayne
75. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
76. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

The Avengers: The Age of Ultron
Mad Max: Fury Road

Julius Caesar
Dirty Dancing
Seussical
Cabaret
Our Town
Mary Poppins
Into the Woods
A Midsummer Night's Dream
You Can't Take It With You
Tinseltown Christmas

Visited XX beaches
Had a junior in high school
Worked in this new office building
Got a Hubspot inbound marketing certification
Visited Laughlin, Nevada
Drove across state lines on my own
Took TC to Las Vegas
Walked along the Colorado River

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 10:01:24 GMT

Feline instincts had caused Minerva a great deal of embarrassment in the past, but at that moment, they saved her life. Instead of running, which would have triggered the wolf's instinct to chase, she froze, and stared.

The wolf stared back, ears flattened to its head, pale eyes flickering from side to side as if it were registering some nearly imperceptible movement on her part. Rain ran over its pelt like quicksilver and collected on the shaggy ruff around its neck. Each drop lengthened, trembled, then fell into the trampled mud and grass under its massive front paws. It growled again, louder this time, and the skin across Minerva's back tightened as her sodden fur tried to puff out in response. She was close enough to smell blood from the wolf's last meal on its breath. How could she have been following its scent, yet not realized she was nearly on top of it?

The rain. The rain watered the scent down.

It had been more than that, though. She hadn't been paying attention, and now, unless she could think of a way to escape, she was going to pay the price. If she'd been facing a wild wolf, she might have frightened it off by transforming - but there had been no wild wolves left in this part of the world for centuries. This could only be one of Grindelwald's. For all she knew, it would take a sudden transformation as a signal to attack. If she stayed in this form, on the other hand, attack was almost certain.

While her mind raced in a circle around these equally undesirable outcomes, the wolf seemed to reach a decision. Its black lips pulled back, revealing strong, sharp fangs that looked capable of snapping her right in two, and her body involuntarily tensed in preparation to fight or flee. At the same time, somewhere high above, she heard a faint, mournful cry that sent a wave of despair through her. After all she'd endured, she was going to die here under the dark, dripping trees, with no one to bear witness but a faraway bird.

This is not fair! she thought desperately as the wolf crouched a little lower.

Another, closer call came from the unseen bird, and the wolf's ears twitched, but it did not look away. The large muscles of its haunches bunched beneath the rough fur. It was going to spring at her -

-but before it could, something white swooped down, fast and low, skimming just above its head. The wolf let out a yelp and a whine, like a dog in pain, and whipped around to snap at the attacker.

In that instant of distraction, Minerva changed shape, already clawing for her wand. As the bird soared skyward, she hurled a fierce Stunning Spell, saw it strike in a red flare, saw the wolf begin to crumple. But her abrupt transformation had knocked her off balance, and she fell too, with the hot, limp, furry weight of the wolf's body across her lower half. It was touching her - oh, ye gods, she was trapped beneath it -

Before she could panic any further, she jerked up her wand hand and gasped out a Banishing Charm. She'd cast better ones in her life, but this one worked well enough. The wolf fairly flew away from her, struck the trunk of a nearby oak hard enough to knock leaves loose from the branches, slid to the ground, and lay still.

She was free. Soaked and filthy, lightheaded with adrenaline, but free.

If she'd had her way, she would have curled up right where she was until she could stop shaking. Instead, she forced herself to her feet almost immediately. Rational thought was returning quickly now that she was human again, warning her to be careful: wolves ran in packs, after all, and where there was one, there could easily be others. They might be anywhere. How often had she lain concealed herself, in cat form, biding her time while she followed some unsuspecting target with her eyes?

I am not going to be prey, she thought. I will not. I refuse. Wand extended at arm's length, she backed up until she felt the rough, solid bark of another tree behind her. The wolf lay where it had fallen, its sides barely moving with each breath. Even at this distance, she could see the bleeding scratches the bird had left on its head and muzzle.

As if the bird could read her mind, it screeched again, almost directly above her this time. Minerva stood rigid, waiting to see if the sound would stir any movement in the trees around her, but nothing happened. Perhaps it would be safe to try for a glimpse of her rescuer, then? The bird had behaved so oddly. And that cry, now that she could focus on it, sounded eerily familiar. She ought to look.

Leaving the tree's meager protection felt like stepping off the edge of a cliff, but she made it past the overhanging branches without incident and squinted up at the sky. The rain was still falling, just a light, silvery drizzle now. And gliding down through it toward her, pale as an angel, was the most beautiful, impossible sight she had ever seen.

"Sugar," she whispered. "Oh, Sugar -"

The serene illusion ended as soon as the owl landed on her shoulder. He dug his talons in - unnecessarily hard, she thought - and flapped his wings in her face a few times before hopping down to perch on a nearby stump. His feet were stained with the wolf's blood; smears of the stuff showed up starkly against his feathers and the roll of parchment tied to his leg.

Well, that explains why he's here, at any rate, she thought. She had considered bringing Sugar along when she had gone to France in June, but not knowing how long she would be gone or how dangerous the job would be, had ended up leaving him to eat and sleep the summer away at Hogwarts. Now someone there had interrupted his holidays to send her a message, and had inadvertently saved her life. If he had not come when he had, or if it had been another owl ... well, she couldn't bear to think about what would have happened then.

Sugar, whose sharp eyes missed nothing, saw her looking at his leg and dipped his head, pecking at the parchment. Minerva reached out and pulled it free with a still-trembling hand. She started to unroll it, then reconsidered and crammed it into the pocket of her robes instead. The owl squawked in protest.

"Do I look as if I have time to read the post?" she asked. "I have to tell someone about this. Arabella, or Albus -" She broke off, flinching at the sound of his name. While facing the wolf, she had thought of nothing but survival, but now the memory of her last conversation with Albus was beginning to creep back, bringing its baggage of fury and unhappiness along with it.

Before she could grow too distracted, Sugar caught her attention again with an impatient flutter of his wings.

"I'll open it later," she promised him. "Now come." She held out her left arm; he stepped onto it, looking rather disgruntled, and clamped his talons just above her wrist. With her free hand, she raised her wand and sent a signal into the sky. Then, keeping one eye on the motionless wolf and occasionally stroking Sugar's feathers for comfort, she waited for help to arrive.

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:56:51 GMT

Dumbledore fell silent for a moment, and Minerva sat watching him, thinking I've heard this before, haven't I? Of course I have. And if I ask him to go on, he'll find an excuse to leave ... anything to avoid answering ... anything to get away from me ... But no, this was Albus, who always told her what she needed to know. It was her father who had fled from her questions as if she were one of the old Muggle inquisitors.

"What has any of this to do with my mother?" she asked at last.

Dumbledore stared down into his silver-rimmed cup as if he hoped to find the answer in the tealeaves.

"You were five, weren't you, when she passed away?"

I must have been. It was autumn; the trees had already turned. She realized he was waiting for her confirmation and nodded.

"Five years old," he said in a musing tone. "How can I blame Malcolm for explaining it to you as he did? It must have hurt him enough even to say she had been ill."

"She was," said Minerva. The statement made no sense. Of course her mother had been ill. Her father had said so. "He woke me and said that she wasn't well, and I was to stay where I was, and play, and keep quiet -"

On a deep, instinctive level, she had known something was wrong when her father had appeared in her bedroom that morning. He'd been ghost-pale, his face so drawn that even a five-year-old could see he'd suffered a terrible shock - but he hadn't volunteered any information, and she'd known better than to pester him for it.

The idea of playing alone for a while had not been an unpleasant one. Her bedroom had held everything a little girl could want in the way of magical amusements: self-turning skipping-ropes; puzzles that replayed scenes from history after you'd put them together; cuddly toys that rolled over to be petted; tiny china teapots that sent real steam from their spouts; and dozens upon dozens of books. More compelling than those things, however, had been her father's admonitions.

"Don't go near this door, Minerva; do you hear me?" He stood right in the doorway, blocking it with his body so she couldn't see even a sliver of the passage outside. His wand was in his hand, hanging loosely as if he'd forgotten he had it.

"I won't. I'll be good," she promised.

"See that you are," he said, and left her to her own devices.

Since her mother wasn't there to help her get dressed, she opened the wardrobe herself and pulled at the sleeve of her favorite blue robe till it came off the hook. Some of the buttons didn't go into the holes quite the way they were meant to, but she managed to do up enough to serve her purpose, and, with friendly advice from the full-length mirror inside the wardrobe door, to get her shoes on the right feet. Then she settled down to play, as she had been told to do.

But her father was gone for what seemed an endless time, and eventually she got bored and restless. Climbing onto a chair near the window, she watched leaves fall from the trees behind their house for a while. Nearly all of them were off now, lying in drifts on the ground, leaving the trees to point bare twig-fingers at the cold blue sky. Her mother had taken her out there the day before, and saying "Stand still and watch!" had made those leaves fly around them in a whirlwind of brilliant crimson and yellow and orange till Minerva screamed with delight.

She hoped her mother would get well soon so they could go out again. There were all sorts of strange sounds in the house, and voices she didn't know - maybe her father had brought someone to make her mother better? Why would he do that? He always took care of them himself when they were sick, with spells and charms and nasty-tasting stuff in droppers. Surely nothing could be wrong with her mother that he couldn't fix. She crept closer to the door, too worried to heed his instructions any longer, and listened hard for anything that might tell her what was going on.

"His daughter's in there." It was a deep voice, a man's voice.

"Shall I look in on her?" The female voice was very near, almost at the door, and Minerva scrambled back in panic. Suppose the lady came in, caught her here, and told her father that she hadn't been minding? She scooted all the way over to the window again and snatched up her stuffed Puffskein to show that she was still playing.

"No, she's well enough where she is," said the man. "We'll be off soon anyway, and I don't want her slipping past you and seeing anything she oughtn't."

Their voices went away again, though Minerva could still hear them murmuring in the front room if she tried. In a little while they began to fade, as if the strange visitors were leaving. She heard a squeal and a bang - that was the front door closing, she knew; her father kept putting Silencing Charms on it, but they never lasted. Her mother said the faeries came while they were sleeping and undid the spells for a joke. Minerva had climbed out of bed on many nights and crept down the corridor, hoping to catch them at it, but had never succeeded.

There were heavy footsteps in that corridor now. She knew them well, heard them every night when her father finally came up from the basement and paused to look in on her before going to bed. But never, never had his steps been so slow and weary-sounding as they were today.

Just outside her door, they stopped. The brass gargoyle-head knob turned of its own accord. The door opened to let him in.

She was already halfway across the room, ready to say that she was hungry and wanted to come out now, when she caught sight of his face. It frightened her beyond the power of speech. Instinctively, she raised her arms to be picked up, unsure whether she wanted to comfort him or be comforted by him, and clutched at the front of his dark robes as he lifted her. He was shaking all over, trembling the way the tree's leaves had done before the wind had blown them to the ground.

He's scared too, she thought.

"You've done your buttons wrong," her father said, and without warning, began to cry in harsh, painful sobs, holding her tightly against his chest the way she would have held a doll.

Even now, so many years later, thinking of it brought back an echo of the uncomprehending terror she'd felt at his loss of control. She'd had no idea what might have happened; had only known that if her invincible father was crying, it had to be something awful.

Before she had found her voice to ask, he had got hold of himself and started explaining - a hesitant, awkward explanation, in which he fumbled for words and stopped over and over to wipe his eyes. She had not understood. It hadn't been till later, after the chaos and confusion of the funeral had passed, that the truth of her mother's absence had struck home. Then she had clung to her father at every opportunity, certain that if she let him out of her sight he would disappear too.

There had been a battle of wills in their house after that - she wanted to be with him; he wanted to retreat into his work; and the two desires were not at all compatible. (Gods above, Minerva, can you not leave me alone for five minutes? he had shouted once, after stumbling over her for the tenth time that day. How can I do anything with you at my heels all the time?) But in spite of his frustration, he had tried to appease her; had spent many evenings sitting in the ancient rocking chair beside her bed, writing notes on a long scroll of parchment and waiting for her to fall asleep so he could go down to the basement and do whatever he did there. It was one of the clearest memories of her childhood: the creak of the chair; the rasp of the quill; the eldritch glimmer of his wand-tip as he lit his pipe; struggling to stay awake as the undertow of sleep dragged her away from the warmth and safety of his presence.

In the end, he had left her for good, but he hadn't meant to. He would not have abandoned her like that if he'd had any choice. He would not have lied to her, either.

"Not lied, Minerva." Dumbledore's voice cut through her thoughts and made her jump - had she spoken aloud? She must have, because he laid aside his cup, leaned forward and folded both her hands between his, raising them in a strange attitude of supplication.

"Malcolm only softened the truth," he said, "made it easier for you to understand. He meant to protect you."

"Protect me from what? What are you trying to get at, Albus?"

"He meant to protect you," Dumbledore repeated as if he had not heard her. "And perhaps to protect himself as well - to avoid the pain of telling his daughter, the love of his heart, that her mother had destroyed herself."

It was a curiously old-fashioned phrase, the sort that always reminded her just how many decades separated them. A second or two passed before she fully realized its import.

"You mean suicide," she said. The word hissed out into the still air like a snake uncoiling. Surely such a word, such an idea, could have nothing to do with the pretty, playful girl she remembered, the girl who had told her to stand still and watch while a riot of autumn leaves swirled around them.

"That is exactly what I mean," said Dumbledore. "Malcolm found her in his laboratory, with a vial of one of his own poisons in her hand. She'd barely tasted it, but even that sip had been enough to do the job. His reputation for efficiency was well deserved."

Minerva had only seen the inside of her father's laboratory a few times - he hadn't liked her going down there, had enforced the rule against it so strictly that she hadn't even dared to after he was gone - but she could envision the place well enough, all windowless walls and clammy stone floor and corners thick with tenebrous shadows where the lantern-light did not reach. Now, in her mind's eye, a slight form suddenly appeared in those shadows. It lay all but engulfed by them, cold and white and still as a perfect model of a girl made from snow. Gooseflesh prickled all over her body at the image.

"I don't understand," she said shakily. "Why would she have done that? She was all right. She was happy." We were outside together only the day before. Outside under the trees. Mothers don't laugh and play with their daughters one day and drink poison the next, they just don't.

Dumbledore sighed and let her hands go.

"I've no more than speculation for you, my dear, and poorly-informed speculation at that - I only spoke to her a few times before Malcolm resigned from Hogwarts and packed her off to the house you grew up in. She was a clever, charming girl, but terribly impetuous. When she met Malcolm, she decided that she wanted him and would have him, never mind what anyone said about the inappropriateness of it all. I can only suppose that when their marriage was not what she had imagined it would be, she decided to escape it just as impulsively."

Boldness can lead to impulsiveness, whispered her father's voice. Impulsiveness can lead to actions with terrible consequences. Your mother -

Gods above. This is what he was talking about. I never knew. He was afraid for me; afraid I would come to the same end she did. The thought made her shiver. She rubbed her arms reflexively, trying to warm herself a little.

"Your father blamed himself," Dumbledore went on. "Not only because he felt he had made her unhappy, but because he had indirectly given her access to the means of her death. It might not have mattered, really. If she were truly determined to take her own life, she would have found a way to do it regardless. But Malcolm thought if there hadn't been such a convenient method at hand, she might have reconsidered. And he never stopped believing that if he hadn't made that particular poison so quick and deadly, he might have found her in time and been able to save her. He expressed those feelings very eloquently at the inquest."

"There was an inquest?" The knowledge of what that must mean was there, drifting just beneath the surface of her consciousness like a drowned creature, but she rejected it instantly. It was repulsive. It was wrong. Her father might have done things she had not known about, but nothing, nothing could ever make her believe he had hurt her mother.

"There had to be," said Dumbledore, "The matter required investigation. Alison hadn't left any sort of message behind, and her marriage to your father was an unconventional one. It would not have been too difficult to imagine an old man with a young wife becoming jealous and suspicious, and perhaps doing something irrational because of it. And if he also happened to be one of the most notorious poison-makers of the century -"

"No!" Minerva all but leapt from her seat at that, hands flying up and out in a broad gesture of negation. "No, no, no! He didn't. He wouldn't. It's not true, Albus, it's not!"

"Hush, hush." Dumbledore motioned for her to sit down again, to no avail. "Even if they thought he had done something of the sort, the investigators could find no evidence. The death was declared a suicide, and everything was kept very quiet, even within the Ministry - they preferred not to let it get about that one of their own had been involved in such a thing. Once Malcolm had had been cleared of suspicion, he threw himself into research. He took everything he knew about poisons, which was quite a lot indeed, and put it toward developing antidotes. One wouldn't have to be very perceptive to realize why."

"You think he finally saw what he had been doing," said Minerva slowly. She sank back down, and her chair slid forward a few inches to catch her. Once it had her in its seat, it drew its battered arms in as if trying to reassure her with an embrace.

Dumbledore nodded and picked up his cup again, pretending to be interested in the cold contents while she processed this idea. Even to her shock-frozen mind, it made sense. Moody had said that her father had seen his work as an intellectual challenge; something divorced from his personal life. How must he have felt upon seeing the horrible results of that work firsthand? Had he thought she would blame him if he told her the truth? Would she have blamed him? She didn't know, because he had not told her.

And neither, she realized suddenly, had Albus. Albus had known this story all along, but had kept it from her - for what reason? He would have had no need to fear being held responsible.

"Why did you not tell me this before?" she asked, glancing up at him sharply. To her surprise, he looked away.

"How could I have, Minerva? You were a child still when I took over your care, a child who had only just lost her father. It seemed unfair to burden you with such knowledge, especially at a time when you already had enough worries over leaving home and beginning school."

"Later, then. It's been a decade. Surely there was some point in all that time when you could have said something."

Now he looked back at her, his gaze serious and steady. "Ah, but don't you see? After you had settled in, you were well; you were content. Should I have destroyed that peace by telling you a tale that would have been no comfort to you? Yes, I thought of it - many times - but the moment never seemed right. I promised myself instead that I would tell you when you asked, and now you have.

As he spoke, he reached for her hand again, but she pulled away, refusing to be soothed so easily into acceptance. He had been bending her to his will this way since the very moment he had coaxed her to leave her father's house with him. All at once she found herself tired of it.

"You should have told me regardless. She was my mother. A child has a right to know about her own parents. You ought not to have waited, Albus. Suppose I had never thought to ask at all? Would you have let me go on forever that way?"

"Minerva, my dear, I have only ever had your best interests at heart," said Dumbledore gently. "I believe you will realize that later, when this shock has subsided." His rejected hand was still extended toward her, the long, smooth, scholar's fingers trembling almost imperceptibly. After a moment, he withdrew it and tucked it, along with its mate, into the wide sleeves of his Ministry robes.

She had hurt him; she could see it. It was the first time in their long relationship that he had let her see such an emotion on his face - worry, yes, and concern, and even sadness, but never this. Apologetic phrases welled up - I'm sorry, I do understand, please don't look that way - but her own hurt and anger would not let her speak them.

He should have told me, she repeated to herself. He should have known I would be able to bear the truth. He should have trusted me.

She meant to tell him all this, but when she finally managed to squeeze words past the lump in her throat, she found herself saying, instead, "Perhaps you ought to get back to your work now."

Dumbledore studied her face, apparently trying to gauge whether she truly wanted him to go. Then he rose with a dignity that told her he was only leaving in deference to her wishes, not because she was forcing him.

"I will be available," he said, "when you are ready to discuss this further."

Once he had gone, she got up as well, and wandered restlessly around the room. Ever since she'd become an Animagus, she'd had a feline urge to roam; it always grew stronger when she was upset, and now was almost irresistible. If she could just get away ... just walk a little ... The idea had not even taken shape completely before she was out the door; forgetting, in her agitation, to lock it with her usual triple-strength spell, or even to close it.

It was after five o'clock now; the corridors were packed with people heading for the rear courtyard, where the broomstick sheds were, or the entrance hall, which had a large Floo-connected fireplace. Minerva followed the first group, thinking vaguely that she might borrow a spare broom and go out flying instead of walking. Yes, that would be wonderful. She hadn't really flown in ages - there hadn't been much time for it after she started teaching, and none at all since she and Albus had come here.

At the exit to the courtyard, however, she found the doors sealed and a crowd of people standing around, watching a square, gilt-framed magic mirror that floated gently in midair.

"What's going on?" she asked the group at large.

"More of those exploding Muggle things," said an older witch irritably. "They're not letting anyone fly. It's ridiculous. The trouble's miles off, and I'm not even going in that direction." She poked her companion in the shoulder. "Move, Agnes, so this girl can see."

Agnes shuffled obligingly to one side, and Minerva slipped between the two women to get a better look at the mirror, which showed a long view from the roof of the Ministry building. Sure enough, plumes of dark smoke were rising in the distance. There must have been another rocket attack while she and Albus were talking. They hadn't even noticed. Neither, apparently, had the Muggles - when the mirror shifted to show a scene at street level, they were splashing along under identical black umbrellas as if nothing had happened.

"I'd be home already if they'd let us go straight away," complained the first witch, adjusting her brown waterproof cloak.

"For heaven's sake, Cora, just come with me and use the fireplace, or go out the main doors and Apparate," said Agnes. "You'll never get home if you stand here fussing all night."

"What, and leave my broom here? Do you know how many Galleons my husband paid for it? He had to ... "

Minerva, who didn't care if Cora's husband had invested their entire pension plan in her broom, thanked Agnes for the look at the mirror and elbowed her way back out of the crush of people. She would go through another side door, then. There were plenty of them within the warren of the building, most leading directly to the street. Before she got more than a few steps toward the nearest one, though, a Sonorus-amplified voice - Moody's - cut through the air and stopped her cold.

"All available Aurors, Animagi and support personnel, report to the situation room immediately. Repeat, all Aurors, Animagi and support personnel to the situation room."

Some of the surrounding Ministry workers paused to listen, but most just kept on with their own business; they were used to these sorts of announcements. No one even glanced at her borrowed sunrise badge when it began to flash the alert signal.

Oh, please, she thought. Not another attack. Not now. I can't bear it. But the badge kept flashing insistently, and a few seconds later, the announcement came again. She had to respond. She had agreed to do this job, and now she was stuck with it, whatever her personal feelings might be, however much she might wish she were someplace else.

"I want to go home," she said aloud, to no one in particular.

"Don't we all!" said Cora, overhearing her from the fringes of the crowd.

"Shut up," said Minerva bleakly. Without acknowledging Cora's outraged response, she turned and started trudging toward to the situation room, which was a small, stuffy paneled chamber with an entrance tucked under the main staircase. Moody and Arabella were already there, along with a score of exhausted-looking Aurors and a few of the very small group of Animagi - and Dumbledore, standing just to Arabella's right. His eyes only met hers for an instant before he turned back to his conversation.

Still numb and distracted, she sat down in the nearest seat and listened with half an ear to Arabella's report. A new attack, wolves, wizards, fires, deaths - she'd heard it all a hundred times. She was as aware of Albus' presence on the other side of the room as if he were a blazing torch, but studiously avoided looking at him.

Listen to the briefing, she told herself. You'll be killed out in the woods if you run off without knowing the whole story. Listen ...

"Minerva." Someone pulled on her robe sleeve, and she glanced up, startled, to discover Elina Krankkala, a fox-Animagus on exchange from the Finnish Ministry of Magic, holding a Portkey and frowning at her.

"You aren't paying attention," Elina scolded. "We're going now. Janus!"

A tiny, wizened wisp of a wizard scurried over in response to her call.

"I was hoping for a night off," he said plaintively. "I haven't recovered from yesterday yet." Janus was at least a hundred and seventy, and his forays in his other form - a squirrel - left him so drained that he had to be carried out of the forests on a cushion and hand-fed with nuts and seeds till he recovered his strength. He had retired decades ago, but with the shortage of Animagi, had agreed to come back and help the Ministry one last time.

"No more has anyone," said Elina. "Look at Minerva. She looks like hell. What's wrong?" The last sentence was addressed to Minerva, but she barely noticed it - she'd finally glanced at Albus and seen him bending down to whisper something into Arabella's ear. Arabella was listening, but shaking her head as if she did not agree with him.

"Minerva!" Elina did not like being ignored. "I asked you a question."

"What? Nothing ... nothing, I'm all right. Give me that Portkey."

An instant later, the three of them were standing in a field that appeared to be half a grazing ground for sheep and half the approach to a wood full of twisted trees. With the ever-increasing frequency of these attacks, the Ministry's response times had become better and better, and the Aurors' teams were now arriving almost on the heels of the attackers. The cottages across the field had hardly begun to burn; it looked as if a few good Restinguo Spells, combined with the cold, steady rain, would put them out before much damage could be done.

Unfortunately, they hadn't arrived in time to prevent damage to people. On his first step away from their arrival point, Janus tripped over a woman's sprawled body, and would have fallen if Minerva had not caught him by the arm. The old man's bones felt thin and frail as dry twigs under her hand.

"Thanks," Janus wheezed, getting his balance again. "Is she dead?"

Minerva looked down at the body.

"Yes," she said tightly. Her stomach had grown much stronger over the last few months, but this woman was mauled even worse than the wolves' victims usually were. Bits of whitish bone and grey matter showed through the bloody mess that had once been a face. If it hadn't been for the corpse's long, dark hair, she might not have known it was female at all.

"Nothing we can do for her, then," Janus said. "I see them waiting for us by the wood - let's get started before the rain mucks the scents up too much." With a sharp firework-like pop, he switched to his animal form and scampered toward the Aurors, more sure-footed on his four little squirrel legs than he had been on his human ones. Elina was after him in a flash, loping a few paces behind with her head low and her beautiful coppery tail high.

Minerva flicked into her own animal form, ignoring the instant of vertigo as her line of sight dropped to near ground level, and followed. As they neared the trees, one of the junior Aurors - Arabella's assistant Declan - pointed them each off on a slightly different angle. Fanning out made the search go faster, though they didn't usually have enough Animagi on a single assignment to do it. This time they were lucky. She hoped that luck would hold.

The rich aroma of wet earth and leaves beneath the forest canopy overpowered almost everything, but in a bit, she managed to find a likely scent and follow it. After months of these assignments, she'd become very good at tracking - almost too good, in fact. It was easy to move automatically while her thoughts wandered free, despite the dire warnings she'd received from Janus against that very thing.

"Focus, focus, focus," he had told her. "It's not just the humans and the wolves you have to worry about; there's all sorts of nasty beasties out here. They wait, and they watch, and when you aren't looking - snap!" To punctuate this statement, he'd brought both shriveled hands together in front of her face like a pair of jaws, his bright brown eyes glittering above them.

Minerva had thought that Janus clearly belonged to the Alastor Moody school of paranoia, but she had tried to be extra careful anyway. Today, however, she simply couldn't manage it. Away from the distractions of the Ministry building, her mind kept going back to the shocking story Albus had told her, and the feelings it had provoked. There was hurt somewhere deep within her, but anger kept rising up to obliterate it - anger at her father, for his oblique warnings, and at Albus, for his refusal to trust her with the truth. The only one who had been honest with her was, of all people, Moody himself.

You have secrets you keep too, a voice reminded her. Its calm logic made her even angrier. You never told Albus about Tom ...

It isn't the same at all, she thought back fiercely, wriggling under a fallen log that was in her way. That secret is mine. I'm harming no one by keeping it. But this - it was my father's secret, but it affects me too. It's shaped half my life, and I've never even known.

On the other side of the log, she encountered a little stream, swollen with rainwater, and had to splash through it. It took a few seconds for her to shake the water off her paws and find the scent, which was now so diluted that she barely recognized it as wolf. Then she was off again, struggling to recall everything she could about the time before her mother's death. Her memories were spotty in places - she'd been so small it was a wonder she remembered anything at all - but none of them were ominous. Her mother had washed and dressed and fed her, played invisible tag with her, told her about faeries and goblins, occasionally pinched her as punishment for some misbehavior or another. That was all. If there had been something darker going on inside her, it had been well hidden.

That's not quite true. Don't you remember her crying? You thought it was a dream ...

Yes, there was a memory there, something vague - half-waking in the night to hear her mother crying quietly, endlessly, and her father's deep voice soothing her in gentler tones than he ever used. She must have been unhappy then. But that was no excuse, was it? It was selfish, what she had done, and irresponsible, and reckless. Minerva's father had been right about that. All his guilt and sorrow, all Minerva's longing for a mother who would care for her the way other girls' mothers did - all that could have been avoided. Surely if she were to be angry at anyone, it ought to be her mother, who had started the whole miserable affair.

She chose to marry my father and be my mother. She had no right to desert us like that. At least my father always did his best for me, just as I'm doing my best at this horrible job. We've tried to be responsible. She never did.

Leaves rustled in the undergrowth to the left, but in her distraction, Minerva dismissed it as the wind or rain. She did not hear the faint sound of breathing or the near-silent padding of paws. She heard nothing until a low, soft growl made her glance up sharply.

A grey wolf stood not ten feet from her.

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:54:38 GMT

"My father wasn't a poisoner," said Minerva. "Quite the opposite. After he retired from teaching, he did research on antidotes for poisons. He used to sell them to places like St. Mungo's and the Grieve Sanitarium."

Of this, at least, she was certain. She'd seen him bringing the green and amber glass vials up from his laboratory, all sealed and labeled, and packing them into cork-lined wooden caskets for shipping. Sometimes he had let her sit beside him at the kitchen table and cut out the squares of velvet that went around the vials to protect them during their journey. The memory was still clear in her mind even now: how her feet had dangled miles above the ground as she snipped away carefully, wanting to get each square just right; how she had glowed with pride at helping him.

Her fond recollections would have meant nothing to Moody, even if she'd chosen to share them. He shrugged off the information she'd provided with hardly an acknowledgement.

"Maybe Malcolm made antidotes when you were a child," he said, "but sixty years ago, he specialized in poisons. Always coming up with refinements to make them more effective - or less effective, if you wanted the victim to suffer a while. It was all a game to him, like doing the rune puzzles in the Daily Prophet. He might've felt different if he had to watch people die from his creations the way I did."

"He didn't poison people himself, then?" she asked. It was the first thing he'd said that had given her any reassurance.

"Hmmph. Not he," snorted Moody. "Ravenclaws don't have the stomach for that sort of thing. No, he left the actual poisoning up to the Aurors and the Unspeakables. Even the testing happened someplace else. He sent all his new stuff off to Azkaban and let them try it out on the inmates. But I stand by what I said: you can't trust poison-makers. There's no knowing when they might decide to slip something into your pumpkin juice."

She stared across the desk at the rough planes of his face, measuring the look in his ink-spot eyes. Provoking and combative he might be, and she wouldn't have put it past him to lie if he felt a situation demanded it, but in this case, she thought he was telling the truth. That her father - a man who for all his temper had never so much as slapped her hand - could have killed people, even indirectly, seemed impossible. But there it was.

"So this is what you have against me? You don't trust me because my father made poisons for a living? Do you think that's fair?"

"Hell, no, it's not fair," said Moody. "It's not true, either. I don't trust you because I don't trust anyone I don't know well - especially not when I meet them just after they've discovered a nest of spies a little too conveniently. I thought you ought to have been given Veritaserum when it happened. I still do."

Oh, no. Not that again. Somewhere deep in her chest, she felt a small flame of anger flicker into life and begin to grow at frightening speed. Be careful, Minerva. Don't let him make a fool out of you - and don't make a fool out of yourself.

"Your colleagues questioned me about that right in front of your eyes," she said. "With a Truth Spell."

"There's ways around Truth Spells," said Moody.

"I'm sure there are. But do you suppose I was in any condition to use them? As I was lying in my hospital bed with broken bones and bruises from head to foot?" She heard her voice climbing shrilly, struggled for control and managed to bring it down a notch or two. "Do you know how difficult it was to recover from all that, even with magic? It's been almost a year and things still hurt now and then. If I had been part of their group, would they have done for me that way?"

"Maybe," said Moody, undeterred. "If you'd threatened to turn on them, or tried to blackmail them, they might have."

The man was impossible. Nothing she could say would convince him of her innocence - and yet she had to keep trying. She'd be damned if she would lose another battle of wills and logic, or give way in the face of false accusations. Tom Riddle had forced such a defeat upon her. Alastor Moody was not going to, whatever it cost her to prevent him.

"Fine," she snapped. "You won't be satisfied without Veritaserum? Give it to me now, then. I'm sure you know where to get some, assuming you haven't already got a bottle of it in your pocket. Ask me anything you want to know, and let's have done with this."

Moody looked surprised and somewhat tempted by the suggestion, but he shook his head at her.

"Can't do it. That case is closed. I can't reopen it unless you have new evidence." The scarred corner of his mouth twisted even further with something that might have been a grin. "Or want to file a confession."

"I don't want to file a confession! I want you to stop watching me as if I'm some sort of criminal. I've been helping you. My father was helping you as well; you said so yourself. He didn't deserve your nasty remarks, and neither do I." She was really shouting now, all thoughts of self-control forgotten, on her feet and half out of her mind with fury and frustration. Oh, if only she could have cursed him, hexed him ...

Her loss of temper sparked an alarming reaction in Moody. With a flat bang of wood on wood, he shoved his chair back against the wall and rose up. He was not so very much taller than she, but his heavy, broad-shouldered frame dwarfed her utterly. He looked dangerous, as if he might flatten her with a spell or pick her up and snap her over his knee at any second.

"Settle down there, girl," he warned. "Don't forget you're talking to an Auror."

By now, Minerva didn't give a bent Knut who she was talking to. She'd put in two months of back-breaking, heart-wrenching work without expecting or receiving any sort of compensation -- he, at least, was paid for his trouble! If he could offer her no respect after all that, she owed him none in return.

"I'm not talking to an Auror," she fired back. "I'm talking to a mean, suspicious-minded bully. And if you think -"

She had only meant to point at him for emphasis, but Moody saw her hand move at her side and took the gesture for something far more threatening. Moving faster than she could follow, he grabbed the edge of his desktop and swung the entire left half of it up and away on an invisible hinge. Everything that had been sitting on it - quills, blank forms, broomstick twigs - went flying. The ink jar smashed right at Minerva's feet, spattering the hem of her uniform robes with dark droplets. Somehow, in the midst of all this, she had time to think So that's how he gets in and out. Then he lunged through the opening in the desk and seized her by the wrist.

In a perfect world, she would have answered his effrontery with icy calm. But he had startled her, and she drew in a sharp, shocked gasp before pulling herself together and demanding "Let me go this instant!"

"Give me your wand first."

"I'll do no such thing!"

He squeezed her wrist a little harder at the refusal, not hurting, but indicating through the very control of his grip that he could hurt, and badly, if he wanted to. His face, bare inches away, was a mask of determination - he had no more intention of yielding than she. They might have stayed there in stalemate forever if Dumbledore hadn't suddenly thundered, "Stop!" from the doorway behind her.

Minerva didn't have to see him to know he was furious. She'd only heard Albus speak in such cold, commanding tones on a few occasions in all the time she'd known him. No one had ever dared disobey him when he did; nor did anyone now. In half a second, Moody had released her hand, which immediately began to tingle as the blood seeped back into it, and taken a step away.

"Sit," Dumbledore said. They sat, Moody on the edge of his gutted desk, Minerva in the chair she'd vacated. Now that the crisis was over, she realized for the first time just how upset she had been: she was still so tense that every muscle in her body ached, and even the light touch of Dumbledore's hand on her shoulder, which usually soothed her, was almost too much to bear. Still, she appreciated the message it sent. He was angry, but not at her, or not only at her.

Silence reigned as he stepped between the two of them, neatly avoiding the pool of ink, which was still spreading across the floor like the aftermath of a murder.

"Now," he said, "I would like both of you to kindly explain the outrageous scene I've just witnessed. Minerva?"

Albus, he's been saying the most awful things - The unspoken words were scalding and bitter in her mouth, but she held them in, knowing they would make her sound like a little girl telling tales. She did not tolerate that sort of behavior in her students. She would not tolerate it in herself. Instead, she said, in the most even tone she could manage, "We were discussing Mr. Moody's opinion of my father, and of me. We ... disagreed. He felt he needed to restrain me and take my wand."

"I see." Dumbledore turned a look on Moody that made Minerva very glad he was not looking at her that way. "Alastor?"

"Seems there's a gap or two in Miss McGonagall's family history," Moody said. "She hadn't known Malcolm had been with the Ministry, or what he'd done here. She didn't take the news very well."

Dumbledore processed this. Then he said, "Minerva, will you wait for me in the corridor? Just outside, please. I'll be with you in a moment."

Too off-balance to even think of protesting at being sent away, she got up and followed his instructions without a word. She felt rather awkward about standing outside and listening to their conversation, but he had told her to stay, and would expect to her to be here when he came to collect her. Plus, she would have been lying if she'd pretended she didn't hope he was going to tear a strip or two off Moody's hide. With that in mind, she set aside her qualms and eavesdropped for all she was worth.

"You forget yourself, Alastor," Dumbledore was saying. "The Ministry may allow you free rein with the criminals you bring to justice, but Minerva is not one of them. You have no right to touch her without her permission. Do not let me find you at it again."

"You won't," Moody growled. "I'll put a Body-Bind on her next time. The girl was ready to attack me right here in my own office."

"Knowing you as I do, I'm sure she was provoked enough to do it," Dumbledore said. "And equally sure that you overreacted and saw an attack where none was forthcoming. She was taught to use magic more responsibly than that. Unless, of course, you question my abilities as one of her teachers?"

Even out in the corridor, Minerva could feel the tension in the air. Finally, Moody cleared his throat and said, "No, of course I don't. But --"

"I don't care to hear excuses," said Dumbledore. "I want to know exactly what you told her about Malcolm."

"Only about his Ministry job," Moody said. "I wouldn't have brought it up if I'd known she didn't know. It would be a surprise, wouldn't it, finding out your own father had been one of that sort?"

"And nothing else?"

"Is there anything else?" Moody returned.

"No," said Dumbledore. He said it firmly, but Minerva knew him well enough to know he was lying - or perhaps "omitting" would have been more accurate.

Moody, experienced investigator that he was, seemed to realize it as well.

"... Right," he said. "Well, she was upset about that, but she was still calm enough till we came round to her little adventure last year. She wanted me to get some Veritaserum and re-question her about it. I prodded her a bit, just to see what would happen, and she started raging at me. I only grabbed her to stop her doing anything rash. The girl's a Gryffindor to the bone. Never backed down even after I had hold of her."

There was grudging admiration in the rasp of his voice. Minerva was so amazed by it that she missed the next thing Dumbledore asked.

"'Course I didn't," Moody scoffed in response. "I may not be all soft over her the way some of us are, but that doesn't mean I want to beat her within an inch of her life. She won't have so much as a bruise to show for it. Unless you question my abilities?"

"Never," said Dumbledore. He sounded tired now, not angry, as if he'd just finished a difficult piece of work and was dreading another one yet to come. "I appreciate your honesty, Alastor. I'll be back later. I have business to discuss with you."

"I'll be here," said Moody. "Straightening up, thanks to your girl out there."

Oh, that's rich, blaming me for what's your own fault, thought Minerva bitterly. It's a shame I can't make you clean it up without magic. It'd take hours that way.

Dumbledore came out to join her, squinting (the transition from Moody's dark den to the well-lit corridor was a painful one) and offered her his arm.

"Perhaps this would be a good time for a cup of tea," he said.

"I don't care for any, thank you," said Minerva, remembering the last time someone had tried to talk to her over tea, and how that had worked out. Albus wasn't likely to spike her cup the way Arabella had - she couldn't remember ever seeing him drink alcohol, except for the eggnog the Hogwarts house-elves served at Christmas - but the idea made her nervous all the same.

"Have some anyway," Dumbledore said, and started walking her toward the visitors' floor.

She thought he was going to take her to his own quarters, but he stopped at her door instead, explaining that he had some work spread out over his sitting area. Normally, the idea of secret work would have piqued her curiosity. This time she just shrugged and let them both in.

The inside of the room wasn't much to look at - though she'd thought of doing a little magic to brighten it up, she hadn't yet found the time between assignments. As a result, it still sported the Ministry's idea of decor: a threadbare beige rug over linoleum, a matching beige bedcover with lopsided pompons dangling dejectedly from its borders, and white-plastered walls that were empty except for a stuffy picture of the Minister of Magic twice removed, occasionally blinking and harrumphing as if he were about to hold forth on policy.

She and Dumbledore sat facing each other in a pair of armchairs, and she watched while he conjured a tea tray and poured himself a cup.

"None for you? Are you sure?" he asked.

"Quite sure," said Minerva, who felt she would choke if she tried to drink anything at the moment.

"Perhaps later. So," he said, lowering his face so far into his cup to breathe the steam that he nearly dipped his nose into the hot liquid. "Alastor has been telling you about your father's work."

"He said he was a horrid poisoner," said Minerva indignantly. "I don't see how that can be. My father never hurt anyone. How could he have brewed poisons for killing?"

"He -" Dumbledore stopped, seemed to gather his thoughts. "I'm sorry, my dear. I'm afraid this won't be any easier for me than it will be for you."

"Is it true, then?" With all her heart, she yearned for him to say that it wasn't -- that Moody was mistaken, or had been having her on in his warped way -- but she knew he wasn't going to. The truth of it was written in the deep, sad lines on his forehead, in the dimmed blue of his eyes.

"Malcolm worked for the Ministry," Dumbledore confirmed. "He was a department head and a maker of experimental poisons. I knew him both before and after."

"He might have told me that," said Minerva. "He told me enough other stories about himself."

"He didn't want you to know," said Dumbledore. "Of course, it was never likely that he would have been able to keep it from you throughout your entire life, but he always did think he could make almost anything happen through sheer force of will."

"And why did he not want me to know? Was he ashamed of it?"

"In a way," Dumbledore said. "Alastor is right about one thing - some poison-makers are very untrustworthy. They love the stealthy nature of poison, the knowledge that they have the power to take lives with little danger of detection.

"But Malcolm was different. He was an academic, and it was the academic side of the job that fascinated him; being set up in a fully stocked laboratory and told to research and experiment was like a dream. And he could never resist a challenge. Could he make a certain substance to someone's requirements? Could he make it even better than they had hoped it would be? Could he surpass the impossible standards he set for himself?"

That fit with what Minerva remembered of her father. He'd never been quite satisfied with the results of anything, whether it was a potion or something more mundane. She couldn't count the number of times he'd dug up and replanted his vegetable garden to fit more seedlings into the space, or the hours he'd spent plaiting her hair when she was too young to do it herself, fussing with the ribbons and cursing under his breath until it looked the way he thought it ought to.

"He had the sort of mind that thrived on such things," Dumbledore went on. "If he had been a Muggle, he would have been what they call a scientist - and scientists are known for asking, Can I? when the question they ought to consider is, Should I? Scientists, Minerva, scientists are inventing terrible weapons even as we speak, weapons neither Muggles nor wizards can possibly imagine, because they can. Only time will tell if they should have."

His last words had such an ominous ring that she had to swallow hard before she could ask the next question.

"And my father - with time, he decided he shouldn't have?"

"Time," Dumbledore said, "time, and loss. The loss of someone he truly loved."

"Who?" Minerva whispered. But in the back of her mind, she already knew.

"Your mother," said Dumbledore.

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:51:14 GMT

Both Minerva and Dumbledore had meant to continue their conversation when things calmed down. As it turned out, that was not going to happen anytime soon. The sirens that had interrupted them had heralded the start of a new phase in the Muggle war, and for weeks, Muggles and wizards alike were kept hopping - literally - as they tried to cope.

It seemed the German Muggle army had invented a new weapon: a strange object that flew until it ran out of fuel, then crashed and exploded. The proper name for this device was the V-1 rocket, but most people called it the buzz bomb instead, for the noise it made as it hitched and jerked across the sky. When that sound stopped, the bomb was on its way to earth. Anyone who failed to get out from underneath before it landed was in serious trouble.

The Ministry of Magic, acting swiftly and decisively for a change, responded to this threat by lifting some of the restrictions on Apparating in public. Though wizards still had to use the approved Apparition sites to travel around the city, Apparating to escape from a falling buzz bomb was now allowed in any location, even in front of Muggle witnesses. Muggles who survived would assume the mysterious vanishing person had been killed, said the official Ministry announcement, and those who didn't wouldn't be able to talk about what they'd seen anyway.

This reasoning was rather too cold-blooded and callous for Minerva's liking. Still, it hadn't stopped her from taking advantage of the new policy several times during the first few weeks of the bombing. And though she had felt a little guilty at first about being able to Apparate when the Muggles were stuck diving for cover under tables and behind parked automobiles, she'd soon discovered that Apparating was only slightly more efficient, especially if you delayed while trying to decide if the bomb was going to pass over or not. She'd almost left it too late the last time. When she'd manifested in safety two blocks away, the soles of her shoes had been melted and smoldering from the first heat of the blast.

At least she didn't have to cope with the bombs as much as she might have if she'd been spending more time in London. She and Dumbledore really hadn't expected to be here at all - they had thought they would be returning to France to carry out their original assignment. Before they could be recalled, however, an ambitious junior accountant in the French Ministry had used a modified Reconciliation Spell to analyze the books of the business they'd been meant to investigate, and had determined that there was no truth to the money-laundering rumors. Their mission was moot.

Minerva had supposed she'd be sent back to Hogwarts after that, where she would most likely spend a lonely two months waiting for the autumn term to start. She hadn't got the money to go anywhere else, and even if she had, recreational travel was just too difficult at the moment, even for witches and wizards.

But she hadn't counted on Arabella, who was not a person to waste a resource as valuable as an Animagus once she had hold of it. Just as Minerva was thinking she ought to start packing her bags, Arabella had come to her and asked, in a manner that assumed an affirmative answer, if she would be willing to repeat her tracking performance at a few more attack sites. When she hesitated, the older woman had added smoothly that Albus would be staying on also, of course, until he had to return to prepare for the new year.

This was manipulation, pure and simple, but realizing that didn't make her any less susceptible to it. She wanted to be where Albus was, and Arabella knew it - heaven only knew how, since Minerva certainly hadn't told her - and had no scruples about using the information. Like her cousin, Arabella was a firm believer in ends justifying means. It really was a wonder that more of the Dumbledores weren't Slytherins.

So Minerva was still here, technically staying in visitors' quarters within the Ministry building, but in reality, rarely entering the room she'd been given except to collapse into bed and sleep. As the Muggle dictator's bombs fell faster and faster, multiplying from single spies to battalions, Grindelwald's attacks were increasing with them in a terrible synchronicity. Reports came in two and three at a time now, each account more wrenching than the last, each a desperate plea for help. With every one, the Aurors were off to a new location, taking Minerva and the other Animagi with them.

In the course of this, she'd learned to step over body parts and walk through fires with a fair amount of composure. Arabella had been right: the first experience of such things was the worst. Still, it wouldn't have been accurate to say she'd got used to it. She would never get used to it. And despite all Arabella's praise and encouragement, she knew in her heart that she wasn't cut out for this sort of work. The destruction and waste of the attacks, the sight of wounded, orphaned children - these things hurt her a little more deeply every time. She'd taken to going directly to the forest at each site so as to avoid the survivors. They looked at her the same way her students did, with expectant eyes that begged her for explanations, and she had none to give.

It didn't help that she was still mostly ignorant of the strategy behind what they were doing. Other than the report she had read back at the farmhouse in Brittany, she hadn't been given much information about what, if anything, the Ministry knew about Grindelwald's plans and motives. Nor had she been told if her efforts were contributing in any significant way to improving their situation. She went where she was sent and did what she was asked, and rarely had time to think far beyond the next trail she needed to sniff out.

All of it would have been easier to bear, she thought, if only she and Albus had been able to spend any real time together. They saw each other every day and often went on the same assignments, but his work began where hers ended: the moment she found a Portkey, he was off in hot pursuit of the people who had used and abandoned it. She would have liked to accompany him - she could handle a broomstick well enough to keep up, even if her Quidditch days were over - but she was not allowed.

"We don't have enough Animagi to squander the ones we do have on other assignments," Arabella told her when she put forth the suggestion. "Focus on your own job, and let the flyers do the flying."

"It wouldn't stop me doing my job," Minerva insisted. "It would be an extension of it." She didn't mention the main reason she wanted to go, which was that she worried about Dumbledore and thought she might be able to help ensure he came back in one piece, but Arabella seemed to understand anyway.

"Thank you for the offer," she said, "but no. There are several people in that group already, and I promise you, they all watch each other's backs like hawks. You can do more to help us on the ground. I can't give up my best tracker, after all."

Disappointing though this was, Minerva let the subject drop. Somehow Arabella's trick of delivering a rejection with a spoonful of praise in it made protests seem unworthy.

In a way it was probably just as well she couldn't go, since the person in charge of all the Portkey flights was the obnoxious Alastor Moody. He'd stopped being openly hostile after she'd carried off a few successful assignments, but she still sensed suspicion rolling off him in waves every time they had to associate with one another. When she was in her cat form, she could even smell it, a sour, irritating tang that made her want to sneeze.

She longed to tell him to stop it, for Merlin's sake. She had done everything that had been asked of her. What more did he want? Wretched man. If only her father were here to tell him off - no one, be it a gouging shopkeeper or a hapless Muggle census-taker, had ever been able to stand up to one of Malcolm McGonagall's rages. She'd inherited a fair bit of that temper herself. Soon she would run out of patience and let Moody have a taste of it. Most likely she would have done so already, if she hadn't thought it would reflect badly on Albus and Arabella. They had brought her here; she owed it to them to behave properly and not embarrass them.

And then, too, they liked Moody, for reasons Minerva could not fathom. Despite her long-suffering attitude about her colleague's eccentricities, Arabella clearly trusted him with her life, and Dumbledore, whose calm good humor appeared, on the surface, to be the polar opposite of Moody's gruff, abrasive personality, was thick as thieves with the man.

Because of this, whenever Minerva could not find Dumbledore herself, and Arabella was not around, she was forced to seek out Moody and ask where he might be. On this particular early August afternoon, a relatively quiet one for a change, she was on her way to Moody's office to do just that.

She'd learned her way around the Ministry building fast enough. Like many magical constructs, it was larger on the inside than the outside - not to mention rather oddly laid out - but it was nothing on Hogwarts, which appeared to have been designed by asylum inmates on work release. If you could navigate those halls, you could go anywhere.

First she passed the main Accidental Magic Reversal office and the clammy wet-blanket feel of its magic-dampening field. Then came the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, looking like a cross between a junk shop and a rummage sale with jewelry and furniture and knickknacks crammed into every corner. Through the glass panel on the door, she caught a glimpse of an exasperated worker chasing a dish and spoon that kept running away on spindly legs.

Minerva couldn't help smiling a little at the sight, but her smile faded immediately when she realized she was getting near the interrogation rooms. There'd been screams inside those rooms the last time she'd come this way, screams so loud and terrible that even Silencing Charms couldn't contain them. She didn't want to know what sorts of things went on in there. She walked faster, nearly tripping over her own feet in her hurry to get past, and sighed with relief when she turned the corner into the Aurors' wing.

Arabella and Moody both had offices here, though the rooms were very different - Arabella's large and nicely furnished, with a view of some of the more prominent Muggle landmarks, Moody's a windowless den barely bigger than a closet. She'd asked Dumbledore why on earth a senior Auror had been confined to such a hole, and he'd laughed and said that it was a choice, not a punishment. Moody didn't like feeling exposed.

That philosophy apparently extended to his furniture-arranging practices as well; his desk was backed into a corner facing the door so that no one could possibly creep up on him, and pushed so far against the walls that Minerva thought he must have to vault over the top or crawl underneath to get to his chair. Whichever method he preferred, he'd already used it, because he was seated there when she arrived, meticulously replacing a broken twig on his broomstick. She closed her eyes briefly - remember he's Albus' friend, remember he's Albus' friend- and then rapped on the doorframe.

"Saw you coming," he said without looking up. "I've got mirrors in the doorway. What d'you want?"

She glanced up. Sure enough, there was a pair of small, round mirrors, angled to show the corridor in both directions. It didn't surprise her a bit.

"I was looking for Albus," she said. "I haven't seen him since you came back from Sussex this morning."

"I haven't seen him either," said Moody. "Why do you need him?"

"It's a private matter," said Minerva, refraining from adding And it's none of your business.

"I'll bet," said Moody. He clipped off the broken twig, tossed it into the tiny brick fireplace on the wall to his right, and pondered the selection of spares in his servicing kit.

Minerva had meant to leave as soon as she'd got the information she wanted. Now she found herself watching his activity with interest. She loved fancy brooms and had been saving for one of her own, but it was slow going on a teaching assistant's salary. Though Moody's was the previous year's model, it had been the top of the line when it was new. If he'd been anyone else, she would have asked if she could help to repair it. As it was, she still couldn't resist offering a little unsolicited advice.

"The one on the far left would do well," she said, pointing. "You wouldn't even have to bend it ..."

Moody shot her a sharp glance over the broom handle.

"And just how do you know so much?" he growled.

"I played Quidditch in school," said Minerva, not without a hint of pride.

"Did you now? What position?

"Keeper."

"Catch," he said, and lightning-quick, snatched up a tin of polish and hurled it at her. She had fast reflexes that had grown faster since she'd become an Animagus, but this was unexpected, and she barely got her hands up in time to stop the tin from blacking her eye.

Moody let out a bark of laughter. "That's the most pathetic catch I've seen in a long time. Were you a starter?"

"No," she said, stung. "I was on the reserve team."

"That's what I thought," said Moody. She tossed the tin back to him. He caught it easily with one hand.

"I played too," he said. "But I was a starter. Hogwarts Quidditch Cup, 1883 and 1884."

"How nice for you," said Minerva tartly.

"How nice for you," mimicked Moody. "You're a McGonagall all right. On the spot with a snippy answer. Your dad was like that. Made him hell to work with." He examined his twigs again. "You're right about this, though." Picking out the twig she had indicated, he attached it to the broom's base and fixed it in place with an Adhesion Charm.

Her first impulse was to turn on her heel and leave - she didn't have to take such remarks from him, even if he was Albus' friend. But the last thing he had said had reminded her of something she'd almost forgotten in the hectic rush of recent weeks.

"You mentioned my father once before," she said. "I gather you knew him. And didn't like him."

"I wouldn't say I didn't like him," said Moody, holding his broom up to the candlelight to check his own work. "And I wouldn't say I did. He wasn't easy to like."

Minerva would have denied this out of hand if she hadn't realized there was probably a grain of truth to it. Her father had been the center of her limited universe, and she'd loved him desperately, but by the time she was six years old she'd known he was difficult. If he had behaved in the workplace the way he had at home, she could see how outsiders might have been put off. But that didn't mean Moody was allowed to disparage him.

"He was a brilliant man," she said, "He deserves a little respect."

"Sure, he was brilliant," said Moody. "I never said he wasn't. I don't know what he was like as a teacher - he was away during the years I was at school - but he did amazing work here. You wouldn't believe some of the things he made for us during the Whitechapel mess in '88. Shame we didn't get to use them the way we meant to."

"Wait - are you saying he worked for the Ministry once?" asked Minerva. She'd grown up listening to her father tell stories about Hogwarts, but he had never mentioned doing anything else. The only times he'd commented on the Ministry of Magic at all had been while reading the Daily Prophet, and then his remarks had generally included the words thick, daft and criminally ignorant.

"You didn't know that?" Moody asked. "He was co-head of the Magical Defense Department. The Minister of Magic at the time brought him from Hogwarts when the former department head died of an experimental curse. That was in 1875 or so - he'd been here more than ten years when I started my training in '87. He went back to teaching around the turn of the century. Got bored, I think, and tired of all the Ministry politics."

Minerva had been standing in the doorway the whole time Moody was talking. Now she edged into the office and sat down in a straight-backed guest chair without being invited.

"No, I didn't know that," she said. "I thought his whole career had been in teaching."

"Well, it wasn't," said Moody. A strange expression was starting to creep across his scarred, craggy face. For once, she could see no suspicion or distrust there.

Sympathy, she thought. He feels sorry for me. It made her angry. He had no right to look at her that way. He had no right to pity her, even if there were a reason to - which there wasn't, there couldn't be.

At the same time, she felt a little uneasy. She'd come here to do a two-minute errand, and suddenly she was finding out things she'd never suspected about the father she had thought she'd known. She could not imagine what might be coming next.

"Look, everyone respected him, if that makes you feel any better," Moody said. "But he was an intellectual snob, a real ivory-tower sort. He was eccentric, too - and that's the opinion of someone who's known for being pretty odd himself."

When she remained silent, he went on.

"Besides, you've got to keep your guard up with someone who enjoys making a living that way. Useful it may be, even necessary, but really -- how can anyone ever trust a poisoner?"

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:48:00 GMT

As full darkness settled over forest and town, Minerva bid Arabella goodbye and set off to fulfill her duty to young Cyrus.

She had promised glibly enough to reunite the boy with his father, but that had been hours ago, when she was fresh and clear-headed. Now, dirty and bramble-scratched and weary from her sojourn in the woods, she found herself yearning to avoid what was sure to be a miserable experience. She knew she wasn't going to do that - she had given her word and would do her best to live up to it. Still, she couldn't help hoping that someone had beaten her to the punch.

Her hope turned out to be false. When she finally located one of Arabella's subordinates - a heavy, dark Auror with an Irish-sounding name and an even more Irish-sounding accent - he told her gruffly that no, they hadn't had time to deal with the bodies yet beyond examining them for evidence, and yes, she could certainly take one away if she knew the family it belonged to.

"One less for us to worry about," he said, digging into a pouch at his side and extracting a crumpled piece of parchment. "Have the next of kin sign this."

She smoothed it out and squinted at it in the dark. It was a form. That was typical of her limited experience with the Ministry of Magic. If the world were ending, they would be filling out end-of-the-world paperwork as everything collapsed around them.

"Thank you," she said to the Auror. He offered her a weary grin of acknowledgement, and she realized that he was not far from her own age. Under other circumstances, the two of them might have been making polite conversation at a party. Instead, they were standing in a smoking ruin and working out how to dispose of a stranger's corpse.

Won't this day ever end? she wondered as she stuffed the form into her pocket.

The Auror gave her general directions to the field morgue, which was in the courtyard of a building several streets over, but she still had to stop and query several grim-faced workers before she located it. Inside, a dozen bodies had been laid hurriedly, but respectfully, on the cobblestoned ground. Pillars of wizard fire blazed in each corner of the enclosure, casting cold blue light across the mute forms.

Clenching her teeth against both tears and sickness at this sight, Minerva began working her way down the row, inspecting each face, searching for Cyrus' father. She found him on the fourth try. No one could have convinced her that he could look any more ghastly than the last time she'd seen him, but somehow, against all reason, he did. At least he didn't resemble her own father, who had been old and grey and weathered as granite when he passed away. This man was no more than forty-five or fifty. Underneath the clotted blood, his hair was fair, his skin unlined.

She considered that blood, worrying at her lip with her teeth until she tasted her own blood and had to stop. Perhaps she ought to make the poor man a little more presentable before she returned him to his son. Yes, the boy had already seen him this way; had seen the attack itself, but there was no reason to force the sight upon him again.

Well, don't just stand here thinking about it, dolt. Go on and do it.

Unwilling to touch the man's waxy flesh quite yet, she knelt beside him and drew her wand. Its light, easy balance, so natural that the chestnut shaft felt like an extension of her arm, reminded her emphatically that this was the present, not the past. She was not clutching a borrowed wand in a bitten-nailed eleven-year-old hand. She would not look down to see her father's dead face.

This is nothing in comparison to that, she admonished herself, and set about Transfiguring the body. Since the ragged gash across the chest was the worst part, she sealed that up first so she wouldn't have to look at it any longer. Then she moved on to the throat wound, and then to the smaller injuries, till the man lay whole and unblemished. At last, she got up and stood back a little to inspect her work. She'd been trying for a peaceful effect, as if he were only sleeping, but it hadn't come out quite right. However, he looked far less terrifying than he had, and that would have to do.

"All right, Mister - oh, dear, I don't know your name. Well, whoever you are, I'm going to take you back to your family now," she told him. "I've done all I can for you. They'll see to whatever else there is." She levitated the corpse with a sweep of her wand, remembering, with a pang of sympathy for child-Minerva, how she had struggled to do this very same thing ten years before. That day had been dreadful, every bit of it, from her botched attempts to handle her father's body with a modicum of dignity to the clumsy, heartfelt words she'd blurted out at his graveside.

Thinking of that, and of him, she scanned the courtyard one last time. Her father had been mad for the old myths of gods and goddesses - hence her name - but his interest had been purely academic. He hadn't believed in any of them, or any religion, really. Nor had he taught her to expect much in the way of an afterlife. Now, though, a fragment of poetry came to her, something from one of the Muggle burial rites, and she murmured it to the still forms before her: "Requiem aeternam dona defunctis. Et lux perpetua luceat eis."

Eternal rest give unto the dead, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Somehow it felt right to call upon light with darkness all around her. She held tight to that image as she guided the floating body toward its final destination.

~~~

Thanks to the strange connection between the wizards' war and the Muggles' war, violence by one group tended to beget violence by the other. On June the sixth, the Muggles had launched their ongoing assault on Normandy. Grindelwald, true to form, had followed with multiple attacks of his own. Now, as June twelfth ticked slowly toward June thirteenth, the Muggles had got wind of more trouble brewing on their side of things and responded by blacking out their largest city.

The Ministry of Magic, not wanting to attract notice (or bombs, for that matter), participated in blackouts along with everyone else. Instead of clumsy Muggle devices like curtains and painted plywood, though, it had equipped its London offices with shielding spells that made all the windows appear dark, no matter how many lights blazed within. That was just fine with Arabella, who liked things bright; she'd lit a dozen candles and a pair of oil lamps as soon as she'd arrived in her third-floor office. Hours later, she was still plugging away at her incident report in their flickering glow, stopping every few minutes to shake out her stiff left hand. There were new quills that did the writing for you, she'd heard - Quick-Quotes, or something like that. No doubt it would be a decade before the Ministry realized they were available, and another five years after that before someone authorized the money to pay for them.

"Ouch!" she said suddenly as a cramp turned her fingers into claws. The quill clattered onto her desk, and she looked down at her hand - the traitor! - in annoyance. Maybe she was suffering from incipient arthritis. She was nearly of an age for it, no matter how she tried to pretend she wasn't, no matter how many potions she applied to combat the creeping lines and spots. And her hands weren't the only things troubling her: her back ached, too, and her chest hurt from an afternoon of breathing smoke and climbing over rubble.

"You're falling apart, Arabella dear," she said aloud, getting up to walk around the room and stretch a bit. "You're too old for all this nonsense. You should be at home, pruning the rosebushes and cooking chicken for the cats."

That wasn't likely to happen anytime soon, she thought bitterly as she rounded the corner nearest the door. Ninety-seven was well past the point when most Aurors gave up on field assignments. The work was just too physically taxing. Even Alastor, who was twenty years her junior, complained of his aches and pains sometimes, though it was often a ploy (usually an unsuccessful one) to get her to rub liniment into some part of his body.

But because of Grindelwald, curse him, she was in this for the long haul. She was a Dumbledore by birth, and that meant latent Gryffindor tendencies were constantly creeping out to sabotage her natural, healthy self-interest and common sense. The roses would have to wait. So would her plans to reconcile with her children, neither of whom had spoken to her since their father had died. The only news she got of them now came through Albus. He'd told her Louisa had married and had a son, her grandson, whom she'd never seen. Lord, the boy must be old enough for Hogwarts by now - perhaps Albus could help her get a look at him. She wouldn't tell him who she was. Louisa wouldn't like that. No, she would just admire him from a distance.

Louisa wouldn't have approved of her continuing in her current position, either, Arabella knew. Nor would Louisa's elder brother, Christopher. They just didn't understand what it meant to care about one's work the way their father had done. Eanred had never complained about all the times her job took her away from home, had known how much she loved it, had realized that loving it did not mean she loved him, or the children, any the less.

She missed his unconditional support most on nights like tonight. He would have reassured her that she had done all she could and made the best decisions she was able. But he was gone, and she was left to get her validation from Alastor, who thought nothing anyone did was enough, and Albus, whose stock answer to a question was another question. It was not a situation she would have chosen for herself, had she been given a choice.

Her pacing had brought her to the windows that lined the office's far wall, and now she stopped to lean on the sill and look out at the dark sky above and the darker streets below. The moon was already up, slightly less than full, a blank white eye framed off-center in one of the windowpanes. Her lip curled in unconscious scorn as she thought of all the superstitious panic a full moon would cause - every wizard who'd lived to tell the tale of today's attack was probably already spreading rumors that he had seen werewolves running wild. Sometimes she thought people's credulity and stupidity were Grindelwald's greatest weapons.

Be kind, Arabella, Albus would say to that. They cannot help their fears. She supposed that was true, but it didn't make things any easier for her.

"I'm too old for this," she said to him, and to the moon. "I'm just too old."

~~~

Dumbledore, completely unaware that his cousin was having an imaginary conversation with him at that moment, was looking for Minerva. Arabella had told him earlier in the day about the orphaned boy and Minerva's insistence on helping him. When he had spoken to her again upon returning from his expedition with Moody, and heard that Minerva had declined to leave the attack site, it hadn't been much of a logical leap to deduce that she was trying to finish up whatever she had started.

"You let her stay?" he had asked.

Arabella hadn't missed the accusatory overtones of that question. Still, she'd responded mildly enough. "Well, of course I let her stay. She's a grown-up girl. Who am I to stop her?"

Noting her white-knuckled grip on her quill, Dumbledore had said no more. Arabella was, in general, a calm and reasonable person, but when she was under stress, pushing her too far was risky business, even for him.

He had left the office planning simply to wait until Minerva came back. She knew where to find him. She would be along any moment now. In the meantime, he could start his own report, which, unfortunately, would be brief, as he and Moody hadn't found anything of use.

This had kept him distracted for a while. But as time passed with no sign of Minerva, worry had begun to gnaw at him again. He wasn't so concerned for her physical well-being - she had her wand, and was as fast with a hex or countercurse as anyone he knew - but he hated the thought of her all alone, trying to deal with a situation that had to remind her of the one she'd endured years before. She was too tenderhearted not to be upset by that, whether she would admit to it or not.

Finally, he had decided it couldn't hurt to go and meet her. If she needed assistance, he could offer it, and if not, then he at least he would know she was all right. With a swift word to Arabella to let her know where he was going, he'd left the Ministry building, which was still crowded, even at this late hour, with workers assigned to the Grindelwald effort, and Apparated back to the ruined site of the attack.

It wasn't so ruined anymore. Nearly everything was repaired now, the fires put out, the rubble conjured away, the spaces where the destroyed buildings had been neatly raked. He didn't have to look long to realize that Minerva had already gone. Where? The people he asked didn't know. She'd turned up, collected a body and disappeared again. She hadn't said where she was going. She hadn't said much of anything. Had she looked all right? Did anyone look all right around here?

Dumbledore had to admit they had a point. He was walking away and pondering where to go next when someone called "Professor Dumbledore!" Turning, he saw Arabella's assistant, the junior Auror who'd been coordinating the cleanup efforts, beckoning to him from behind a table heaped with parchment and clipped-together wizard photos.

"Professor, good to see you're back safe," the man said as he approached. "Cornelius told me you were looking for your Animagus friend. Pretty girl, black hair, bit on the skinny side, yeah?" Dumbledore nodded, thinking how much it would annoy Minerva to be summed up in those three phrases. "I saw her. We spoke when she came for the body and again just before she left. I had the idea she was going back to London to meet Arabella."

"How long ago was this?" asked Dumbledore.

The man licked a broad thumb and riffled through one of the piles in front of him. "Let me see ... here it is. Half past ten. I stamped the next-of-kin form when she returned it to me." He held the parchment up so Dumbledore could see 22:32 blazing on it in golden Ministry ink.

So long ago? It was - Dumbledore consulted the rotating stars and planets of his pocket watch - after two a.m. now. What could the girl possibly have been doing for the last four hours? But even as he wondered this, he realized he had a good idea.

I'll be giddy with all this going back and forth before the night is over, he thought as he Apparated again.

Back on the pavement outside the Ministry building, he stood mulling things over for a moment. It would be very like Minerva to go off and stew in private if she were unhappy about something; she was forever trying to conceal what she saw as signs of weakness. And in a city under blackout, there were, literally, thousands of places she could go. However, he thought her sense of responsibility would prevent her straying too far from where she knew he and Arabella would be. That meant he could most likely search the simple way: on foot.

He gestured with his wand, and a glimmer of wan greenish light sprang into life a few paces before him.

"Find Minerva for me," he instructed it. "By the shortest route, please. No wandering."

The will o' the wisp flared, as if insulted that he expected it to lead him astray, but set off willingly enough. Dumbledore followed.

~~~

Through the dark streets he went, trailing just behind his half-visible guide and nudging it back onto course with a wand-wave every time it looked to be giving into its natural urge to meander. Even that prodding wasn't enough to keep the wisp from circling somewhat. When it finally stopped, he realized they were only a block or two from their starting point.

"Here?" he asked, looking around and shivering. The air was cold and damp - this street was near the river. Nothing, animal or human, moved among its bomb-scarred buildings.

The wisp bobbed up and down. Yes.

"That way?"

Side-to-side movements. No.

"That way?

No.

"That way, then?"

No, no, no. Now the wisp's light was flickering madly, like a candle near an open window. It rose as far as it could go, which was only a foot or so off the ground, and suddenly Dumbledore caught on.

"Up?" he asked, gesturing to the top of the nearest building.

YES! bounced the wisp.

"Excellent," said Dumbledore. "Thank you, my friend. Would you like to go back to the marshes for a rest?"

Yes, the wisp indicated again, dimming in exhaustion. Dumbledore pointed his wand at it. The next instant, it had vanished. The instant after that, so had he.

He manifested on a grimy rooftop, between a ventilation shaft and what appeared to be the door to the main building. A few pigeons roosted in an uneven row along the nearest ledge. Not far from them, a larger shape stood, leaning out over the edge.

"Minerva," he said softly, so as not to startle her. "I was told you had left the attack site hours ago. Have you been here ever since?"

"No," she said, turning to look at him. Her face was pale and strained, but he saw no sign of tears. "I went walking for a while after I came back here - it's easy to do now, with no Muggles on the streets - and I lost track of time. I didn't know when you'd be back anyway. Did you find anything useful?"

"Nothing to speak of," said Dumbledore. "There were some abandoned Portkeys lying about. It seems the attackers came in from half a dozen different directions, perhaps to create confusion if anyone tried to follow them. Some of Moody's people are tracing those paths back to their destinations now. Where did you walk?"

Minerva made a vague gesture. "Here and there. I stopped at this place because it was close to the Ministry offices. I had meant to go soon and see if you'd come yet."

"Ah," said Dumbledore.

"I haven't really walked around a Muggle area for ages," she said. "I didn't realize how horrid things are for them now. Everything is in ruins. The shops are almost empty. What do they eat?"

"Whatever they can get, I imagine." He came up to the ledge and surveyed the view: a landscape almost completely sunk in darkness, interrupted only by faint glimmers from the special streetlights the Muggles used for blackouts. It was darker even than he remembered it being in his youth, before they had perfected their electric lamps and set the city ablaze with artificial light.

"They live in a different world," said Minerva beside him. "But I suppose it's not so different in some ways. What does it matter how things happen? Muggle bombs destroy buildings every bit as well as magic does. People die whether they're torn apart in front of your eyes or slip away when you're not looking. In the end it's all the same." She turned from the ledge and sat down on a large chunk of loose stone that looked as if it had been blasted off the building next door, tucking the tattered, filthy hem of her robes around the tops of her boots in much the same way she would have curled her tail round her paws as a cat.

Now, Dumbledore thought, we are getting to the core of things.

When he spoke, he made his voice gentle, but not pitying. Excessive sympathy would not do.

"Arabella told me about the boy you helped," he said.

"I didn't help him, not really," she said. "I gave him back a body, but I couldn't give him what he truly needed. I couldn't give him his father."

"Has he any other family?"

"His mother. She was on her way. I didn't see her." Minerva turned her face up to the sky. "It's good that he'll have her to tell him about his father, to remind him. He might forget otherwise. It happens that way, you know."

"I know," Dumbledore said. He waited a moment.

"I would have told you about your father if you had asked me," he said at last. "I have been waiting ten years for you to ask. It always surprised me that you never did, considering your insatiable curiosity about every other subject under the sun."

She glanced over at him, and for a moment he almost thought she was Malcolm. The angles of her face were nearly identical, though softer and more feminine; and her expression, at the moment, was very much like the one Malcolm had worn when confessing that he was going to marry beautiful eighteen-year-old Alison Gordon: defensive, perhaps a little guilty, but also yearning for understanding.

"I wanted to ask you," she said, "but -"

"But?"

"But at the same time I didn't. I wanted to remember him only as my father, not as a - as a man. I thought your memories would spoil mine somehow. I know that's ridiculous."

"Not at all," Dumbledore said. She fell quiet after that, and he turned to look out at the city again so she could have some privacy. In the street below, a Muggle vehicle cruised past, its headlamps dimmed to blackout standards.

"That Auror, Alastor Moody, said something about him," Minerva said suddenly, breaking the silence. "My father, I mean. It sounded as if he didn't care much for him."

Dumbledore had been expecting this topic to come up ever since the forest - he'd seen her outraged look at Moody's casual disparagement - but still hadn't quite decided how to address it. He was saved from having to do so by the familiar wail of Muggle air-raid sirens. All the pigeons on the ledge burst into fluttering, rustling flight at the sound.

"Come, we'll have to go back to the Ministry building," he said.

"I don't see anything," Minerva said, but she got up anyway. "Suppose it's a false alarm?"

"Then it will still be one when we're safe under cover," said Dumbledore.

When an explosion lit up the sky to the northeast a few minutes later, no one was on the rooftop to see it.

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:47:08 GMT

By the time Minerva had coaxed the boy away and found the Aurors' base of operations - a tent magically enlarged on the inside and enchanted to look like a Muggle telephone box on the outside – Arabella’s Protectors had arrived. They were a kind-faced elderly couple in soft azure robes, and they took charge of the boy expertly, patting and soothing him in a manner Minerva knew she was incapable of mustering. He was clearly best off in their care. Still, she felt a little wistful as he vanished into the tent, the hand that had held hers now clasping that of the female Protector. The last thing she heard before she turned to go was the woman asking "What's your name?" and his voice replying "Cyrus ..." followed by a surname she couldn't make out.

Cyrus, she repeated to herself, heading off to the meeting place Arabella had indicated earlier. Hold on, Cyrus. I won't forget about you. I couldn't if I tried.

Arabella was waiting for her there on the periphery of the damaged area, now accompanied by Dumbledore. Both of them had singed hair and clothing, as if they'd been walking through the fires without magical protection. Neither volunteered any explanation for their appearance, however, and from their identical stony expressions, Minerva gathered that she probably should not inquire.

"You got the boy settled, then?" Arabella asked as she approached.

"Yes," said Minerva. She saw Dumbledore watching her and gave him back a look that she hoped said Ask me later. It seemed to work. He said nothing, but touched her arm in silent empathy.

"Good," Arabella said briskly. "Come along. We're needed in the forest."

They were far enough from the center of the town, and near enough to the forest's edge, that they could almost have walked there, but to save time, they Apparated, materializing on soft, damp ground still warm from the day's sun.

"Most of these incidents have taken place near wooded areas like this one," Arabella explained as she led them past the first ragged line of oaks and beeches. "The attackers use the trees as cover while their forces gather, then strike and fade back into the forest."

That sounded terribly inefficient to Minerva. "Why not just Apparate directly to the attack site?" she asked.

"Why?" Arabella frowned. "Oh - you haven't been old enough to Apparate for very long; you won't have learned all the little tricks and rules yet. They can't because it's too dangerous - the more people you have Apparating to the same location at once, the greater the chance of splinches."

Minerva peered up at the sky, where a few early stars were beginning to appear in the spaces between treetops. "Well, I can't imagine that squadrons of them are swooping in on broomsticks, so they must be using Portkeys," she said.

"So we believe," said Dumbledore. "Some of the researchers in the Magical Surveillance group have developed a spell that will let us trace the path of a Portkey journey from one end point to the other, even without the Portkey itself. To use the spell, though, we must be able to pinpoint the location where the attackers entered the forest. They've been blocking our attempts to do that magically, so we have resorted to a more mundane method."

"And that is?"

"Scent," said Dumbledore.

"That's where Animagi come in handy," said Arabella. "That's how we intend to use you."

Use me? Minerva wondered. Something about that word choice was less than pleasant, but she ended up letting it go. They all had enough to worry about without adding quibbles over diplomacy to it.

~~~

Ten minutes later, she was creeping through thick old-growth forest, her head nearly touching the ground as she picked out the scent of living creatures from the drifting stench of smoke. Dumbledore had explained the reason Animagi were preferred for this sort of work: though ordinary animals could sniff out trails just as well, they couldn't analyze or report on what they discovered. Human intelligence and animal senses were a powerful combination.

Minerva had never really tried to follow a scent this way before - since all her previous quarry had been confined within the relatively small space that was Hogwarts, she'd only needed to watch and listen. Luckily, instinct took over now and filled the gaps in her experience. She could tell when a scent was the wrong sort, or when a path was going nowhere. It saved time, and that was good. Evening was fast approaching; pools of shadow were already beginning to form in the forest's hollows and thickets. Soon it would be blacker than the inside of a sack, and though she could see in the dark when she was in this form, she didn't want to meet the neighborhood predators if she could avoid it. What was more, she knew that the longer she spent following false trails, the greater the chance that the real trail would be lost.

After close to an hour of searching, she came upon something promising: a wild, doglike smell that she thought must surely be wolf. Its essence set off a deep, primal reaction at the heart of her cat-nature, and her mind responded by serving up a series of horrific wolf-related images from earlier in the day. Torn throat. Blood and glass and ash on the ground. The boy's face --

The boy. She forced herself to relax. The boy's father was gone beyond all hope of recovery, but she could still get recompense for the boy himself - if she could help to catch the men who had commanded the beasts.

That bit of rational thought was enough to counteract the powerful upsurge of instinct, and in control of herself once more, though with bristling fur and partly bared teeth, she set off along the trail again. It went straight to a semi-open area - not a true clearing, but a place where the trees were less dense - where it was suddenly joined by a medley of human scents, with repellent hints of dark magic mixed in.

Minerva made a broad circle around the spot, sniffing and considering. Then she switched back to her human shape, pulled out her wand and sent a red-and-gold beacon into the gathering dusk. Arabella and Dumbledore appeared almost immediately, one after the other and a few yards apart, followed a moment later by another person.

I know him, Minerva realized in surprise. This was one of the Aurors who'd investigated the student recruitment ring she'd stumbled onto during her first year of teaching. He'd been in the room when his colleagues were questioning her, standing silently off to the side as if he were supervising their efforts. Though she'd been addled by painkilling potions and truth spells at the time, she remembered his face. It wasn't one you'd forget easily: deep, ugly scars cut across cheek and forehead and pulled the corner of his mouth out of shape. Underneath the damage, he looked no more than middle-aged in wizard years - perhaps seventy or eighty, certainly younger than Albus or Arabella, though his hair had more grey in it than either of theirs.

When he saw Minerva, he scowled and turned to Arabella.

"You brought her?" he demanded.

"We needed an Animagus, didn't we?" Arabella returned. "Minerva, this is Alastor Moody, the other senior Auror on this case. I believe you two have met before."

"Not formally," said Minerva. "How do you do, Mister Moody?" She waited for Moody to offer her a hand to shake, but he only grunted in response.

Offended, Minerva turned away from his glowering face and deliberately addressed her report to Arabella. "This is where they entered the forest. There's scent all over this area, and leading off that way -" she pointed back toward the now-invisible town " - but none on the other sides. The ground is all trampled, too, you see, with footprints and paw-marks. I don't think they brought the wolves with them, though. The wolf trail comes from another direction. Could they have summoned them when they arrived?"

"That's what they do," said Moody shortly. "Albus, are you going to cast the tracing spell, or am I?"

"I will, if you like," said Dumbledore. Moody shrugged.

"Very well then," Dumbledore said. "Minerva, please show me the exact spot where you believe the attackers manifested."

"Just there," said Minerva, indicating a scuffed section of ground. Dumbledore walked to it, drew an intricate symbol in the dirt with the tip of his wand, and whispered an incantation - not in the usual Latin, she thought, but perhaps Greek. She had learned a bit of that at school, but not enough to understand what he had said.

As they all watched, a tiny ball of hissing, crackling white fire appeared over the place Dumbledore had marked. It grew to the size of a Snitch, then a Bludger, then a Quaffle. Then it rose, hovered briefly just above the trees, and shot off to the east, leaving a blazing trail in the air behind it.

"Right, I'm off to get the rest of my group," said Moody. "Come along with us, Albus. Arabella, we'll report to you as soon as we can." He glanced at Minerva. "Not bad. But if you've misled us somehow, I'll be back to find out why."

"Alastor," Arabella admonished. "She is Malcolm McGonagall's daughter, you know."

"Hmmmph. Some recommendation," Moody said, and Disapparated. Dumbledore made a droll face at Minerva, as if to say Don't take him seriously, then followed.

"What on earth was that all about?" Minerva asked Arabella as soon as the two men had gone. She was torn between bewilderment and anger. She hadn't done anything to Moody. Why should he be so unpleasant to her? And what had he meant by that last remark? Insulting her father was not the way to get on her good side - especially not right now. The image of the orphaned boy and the dead man fluttered across her mind's eye again, and she bit down hard on her lower lip to drive it away.

Arabella snorted. "Alastor can be a bit overzealous at times. It's part of what makes him successful as an Auror, though I'll tell you candidly that it also makes me want to give him a good, hard slap sometimes. Anyway, he wanted to have you interrogated with Veritaserum back when you discovered Grindelwald's recruiters at Hogwarts. Albus felt that would be needlessly traumatic for you, and asked me to prevent it if I could. I spoke to my superiors, who agreed that a basic Truth Spell would suffice. Alastor was overruled. He wasn't at all happy about it."

"I noticed," Minerva said. "Why did he want the Veritaserum used in the first place?"

"Because he's Alastor," Arabella said dryly. "He probably slips some of the stuff to his own mother a few times a year, just to make certain she's not Grindelwald in disguise. That was a joke," she added when Minerva didn't laugh. "All right, seriously, he simply couldn't believe that you'd come upon the recruiters by accident. He thought you must have known about it and set them up to save yourself."

Infuriating though this idea was, Minerva had to admit it made sense in a devious sort of way.

"Is there anything I can do to change his mind?” she asked.

"Probably not," Arabella said. "He'll come around in time, when he sees you're trustworthy. Until then, don't worry about it. He may be overly cautious, but he isn't irrational. He'll do nothing to harm you." Suddenly, she staggered a little and put out her hand to brace herself against Minerva's shoulder. "I'm dead on my feet. That hour of rest wasn't nearly enough. I think I'll go back to the Ministry offices - at least there I can sit down and start the reports. Why don't you come along? You can wait for Albus there."

The thought of sitting in a clean, quiet office, far away from all the ugliness of the day, was so wonderful that it nearly brought tears to Minerva's eyes. But she wasn't finished here. Not by far.

"Go on without me," she told Arabella. "I've a promise to keep."

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 05:36:28 GMT

"Tranquil" had never been the right word for the town. It had been an industrial center for a very long time, becoming more and more frenetic as it churned out ever-increasing quantities of goods. During its recent bombardment, it had lost its brisk, bustling quality, but still had not achieved tranquility. An aura of held breath hung over the streets, as if everyone were waiting for the next blow.

On this June afternoon, however, the worst fighting was elsewhere, and the atmosphere not as dismal as usual. People had ventured out to investigate the meager selection in the shops. A few vehicles moved slowly along the streets. Here and there, the high-pitched voices of playing children drifted out of courtyards and alleyways. Not a postcard scene -- the ruined carcasses of buildings would have spoiled it - but not so very bad. Almost normal.

Almost.

Along the town's southern border, separated from it by a wide ribbon of cultivated land, lay a forest that been there when the town was no more than a collection of huts and dirt lanes, and before that, when there had been no town at all. All sorts of violence had played out beneath its dark canopy over the centuries, as animals and men fought for status and territory. Now, however, something completely unprecedented was going on. Men moved purposefully among the trees; odd-looking men in long, robe-like garments, armed with slender pieces of polished wood instead of guns and knives. None of the town's residents were around to observe them, but any who had come close enough to hear their conversation would have found it as strange as their appearance.

"How many are wizard-owned?"

"Three. We'll move quickly - hit and run. Kill as many as we can and destroy the buildings. No looting. It slowed us down last time."

One of the men pulled something out of the front of his robes - a round, heavy watchcase, tarnished almost black - and squinted at it.

"Plenty of time still," he said. "Think I ought to call the reinforcements yet?"

"I suppose you might as well," allowed his companion. "I'll make certain everyone else is doing what they're meant to be doing."

He walked away, and after glancing back at the tree line, the first man faced the heart of the forest and raised his wand.

"Ventum lupi," he said.

He didn't lift his arms to the skies and bellow the words dramatically, like a magician in a story, but they resonated with power all the same, a low, thrumming power that electrified the air for a moment and made a few birds fly up, startled, from the nearest tree. In the distance, a low moaning noise started and rose into a howl, then tapered off into a sob, as mournful and wrenching as if the creature making it were lamenting the death of the only thing it had ever loved. Another howl began before the first had even ended. Others followed on its tail, each in a different location, each unique in its pitch and timbre.

Grinning, the man tucked his wand out of sight. The pack was coming.

~~~

Minerva stayed in the upstairs corridor for some time reading the report Arabella had given her. When she started to get stiff from standing in one position, she went downstairs still reading, so absorbed in the material that it was a wonder she managed to avoid falling and breaking her neck. She walked past Dumbledore without a word or a glance, went straight into the front room, and settled on a window seat to finish, carefully arranging her robes so she could put her feet up without risking indecent exposure.

Reading this stuff, she thought as she plowed her way through the footnotes and cross-references, was like seeing an ugly accident. No matter how horrified and disgusted you were, you couldn't stop looking, couldn't help wanting to know if it was really as bad as you thought it must be. She felt just that way now. Names, dates, descriptions of attack sites - they all blurred together, and yet details kept leaping out at her, pulling her along inexorably toward whatever awaited at the end. A small pulse of pain began behind her left eye sometime during Appendix I. By the time she got to Appendix II, it had developed into a full-fledged headache.

The very last section of the report was photographs, both of the two victims of werewolf paranoia, and of people who had actually been killed by Grindelwald. Halfway through, she saw a boy she'd known at school - he'd been in seventh year when she was in fourth - and dropped the pages as if insects had suddenly crawled across them. She hadn't been expecting that. How could someone barely older than she, who should by rights have lived another hundred years at least, be reduced to no more than a face in a gallery of the dead? It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

Feeling sick and shaken, she got up and made her way back to the kitchen, giving the fallen pages of the report a wide berth. Dumbledore glanced up from his own reading as she entered the room.

"Finished?" he asked.

"Yes," said Minerva. She sat down in the chair beside his, a bit more heavily than she had intended to, and pressed the heels of her hands hard against the throbbing in her head. When she took them away again, Dumbledore was watching her with sympathy, but also with an undernote of cool assessment.

"I'm quite all right, thank you," she said before he could inquire. "It was only a headache. It's gone now." But it wasn't, and neither were the feelings that had triggered it. She squashed them down mercilessly. There would be time to deal with them later.

"I'm very glad to hear it," said Dumbledore. He relaxed his scrutiny and began hunting through the various pockets of his robes, fishing out coins and crumpled bits of paper. Minerva had seen him do this at least a thousand times, and knew that it was the prelude to an offer of sweets - every time she'd come to his office raging or sobbing about something during her school years, he'd quieted her with an Everlasting Gobstopper or Chokecherry Chew before settling down to discuss the problem. Surely he didn't think she still needed that sort of coddling?

"I was wondering about something," she began, hoping to forestall him. "The attacks in the report - they've mostly been on wizard homes, haven't they?"

"Correct," he said. Having found nothing, he left off his search and swept all the detritus back into his largest pocket.

"Why has nothing happened in Hogsmeade, then? With so many magical people all living together there, I should think it would have been attacked long ago."

"On the contrary,” he said. “The concentration of magic is what keeps it safe. A few years ago, when Grindelwald was first rising to power, a good score of his followers came out of the Forbidden Forest, accompanied by a pack of wolves, and threatened some of the houses on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. When the village elders saw what was happening, they raised such a defense that the attackers retreated. Since then, Grindelwald has focused on smaller settlements - the places where one or two wizard families live surrounded by Muggles - where his people will meet with less resistance. But he has grown stronger, and no one knows when he might dare to try his luck in Hogsmeade again. We have sent emissaries to the werewolves in the Forbidden Forest, begging them to help us, or at least warn us if he appears there, but I'm afraid they haven't been very receptive to either idea."

"I suppose they think he’ll reward them if he wins,” said Minerva scornfully.

"Very likely," said Dumbledore, "though if they considered the way he treats their cousins, they might think otherwise. Grindelwald’s use of wolves is one of his connections with the Muggle dictator, by the way. Hitler likes to refer to his human agents as wolves and his under-sea ships as wolf packs, and to give his camps names like 'Werewolf' and 'Wolf's Lair.' His given name, Adolf, is derived from an older one that means 'noble wolf,' a fact of which he is said to be quite proud."

That raised half a dozen more questions in Minerva's mind - but before she could begin asking them, the kitchen fire flashed a poisonous green, and the head of Monsieur Beaufort, the French Minister of Magic, appeared in it. Dumbledore was already out of his chair by the time she recognized who the visitor was, mingled anticipation and worry written all over his face as he leaned toward the great stone fireplace.

"What is it, Leon?" he asked, and Beaufort launched into rapid-fire French that Minerva hadn’t a hope of following. When she'd heard she would be going on this assignment, she'd spent several unfruitful hours with a French phrase book, finally conceding that even she could not learn an entire language in one sitting. Dumbledore had promised to translate for her while they were away, but appeared to have forgotten his promise as he absorbed the Minister's news.

Beaufort noticed that Minerva was in the room and switched to lightly accented English.

"My apologies, mademoiselle," he said to her. "I was telling Monsieur Dumbledore that I have received a message from your own Minister of Magic. There has been another attack. Madame Figg had said she was on her way to meet you -"

"She arrived earlier this afternoon," Dumbledore said.

"Excellent," said Beaufort. "Minister Hathaway has requested that she return immediately, and I have told him I will send the two of you back with her. Since you are unoccupied, I see no reason to keep you sitting idle here. I am sure the Aurors need all the help we can supply."

"I agree," said Dumbledore. His expression had gone very grave. "We will leave as soon as possible. You have a new Portkey for us, I assume?"

Beaufort's head nodded, and the next moment a small, heavy object flew out of the fire and skidded across the floor. Minerva stopped it with her boot and picked it up. It was a disk-shaped silver paperweight.

"Thank you, Minister," Dumbledore said, taking it from her.

"Thank you, Monsieur," replied Beaufort. "I shall wait for your report. And I wish you the best of luck." With that, he vanished. The fire flashed again and died down, leaving a lacework of ash studded with glowing orange embers.

For a few seconds, Dumbledore stared into it as if mesmerized. Then he glanced over at Minerva and managed a small smile.

"We'll be in no danger," he assured her. "The attack is already finished. This is only the aftermath, though I should warn you that it is likely to be unpleasant. Your talent will come in very useful, however. They employ Animagi at these sites whenever possible."

"How?" Minerva asked.

"I haven't time to explain, but you'll see soon enough. Now, a change of attire is in order." He drew his wand and spoke a few words, and his robes loosened, billowed around him and became dark blue with silver edging and insignia - an Auror's uniform. After studying this costume briefly, Minerva produced an identical one for herself.

"Very good. Just a few alterations -" At the touch of his wand tip, the rising-sun badge on the breast of her robe dimmed subtly, and one of the two braid loops around her left shoulder disappeared. "Rank markings," he explained. "You and I are both special liaisons to the Ministry at the moment, but you rank slightly lower than I." She nodded mutely, thinking how strange it was to see Albus, the gentle scholar, behave in such a brisk, military manner.

As always, he seemed to pick up on her thoughts. With a slightly self-deprecating wink, he said "We mustn’t go without our fearless leader, of course. Will you fetch Arabella, please?"

Minerva went. She was prepared to spend some time coaxing the older woman awake - she didn't think she would have appreciated being roused from sleep so suddenly - but AraArabella woke without a hint of grogginess or confusion and listened to Minerva's explanation on the way downstairs, Transfiguring her sleek black robes into uniform as she went.

Dumbledore held up the silver paperweight as they approached him.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," Arabella said. She turned to Minerva.

"Remember," she said, "the first time's the worst."

If that had been meant to make Minerva feel confident, it hadn't worked. Fortunately, she didn't have to dwell on it for long. They touched the now-activated Portkey together and disappeared.

~~~

The next thing she was aware of was smoke, black smoke and stench hanging so thickly in the air that if she'd believed in a Hell, she would have thought she'd found it. As her watering eyes adjusted to the atmosphere, she saw what must have been an ordinary city block not long before. Three adjacent buildings, reduced to heaps of flame-eaten timbers and shattered stone, were still burning fiercely, while a fourth stood precariously, a blasted shell of its former self. Broken glass littered the ground like the aftermath of an impossible summer ice storm. Whatever Grindelwald had done here, it had been brutal, but effective.

Throughout the mess lay pale, bloodied forms both large and small, too still to give any hope that they would ever rise again. Minerva could see robed witches and wizards moving from body to body, examining each carefully and documenting its position with pictures and scribbled notes. This, she realized, was how Arabella's team had come by the terrible photos in their report: they had taken them in places like this one.

Half horrified, half fascinated, she took a few steps toward the nearest building and was caught in a plume of drifting smoke that made her throat close up with revulsion. It was acrid, like the smoke she'd smelled during the Muggle air raid she and Dumbledore had experienced the winter before last, but it also contained unmistakable hints of decaying flesh and other nasty things.

Dark magic. Instinctively, she covered the lower half of her face with a fold of her robe sleeve. She wasn't going to let that stuff work its way inside her lungs if she could help it. Just the gritty, greasy feel of it was enough to make her skin crawl.

Someone had already spied them and called to Arabella, and the older woman was striding obeyed in that direction, telling her two companions to wait a moment. Minerva waited, still trying to keep the smoke out of her nose and mouth, fanning it away with her free hand so she could get a better look at what was going on. At last, she devised a small negative-pressure spell to dissipate it, and immediately noticed a group of wizards in identical cloud-grey robes. They were arranged in a neat outward-facing formation between the wrecked buildings and the street, wands drawn and eyes scanning restlessly.

"Those are the Obliviators," Dumbledore explained. "They modify the memories of Muggles who come too near and see too much. Not many do, now; with their war going on, they take violence and destruction almost as a matter of course. A terrible thing, but it does work in our favor. Look --"

He pointed to a dark-haired Muggle woman who had just appeared at the north end of the street, holding the hand of a little girl perhaps three years old. She cast a curious glance at the crumpled bodies and robed people, and one of the Obliviators began to step forward - but before he could lift his wand, the woman shook her head in sorrow and resignation and shepherded her daughter quickly in the other direction, pointing at something ahead to divert the girl's attention.

Without a word, the Obliviator melted back into formation.

"You see," Dumbledore said quietly, and Minerva nodded. They stood watching together a little longer, until Dumbledore saw someone he knew near one of the burning buildings and raised a hand to signal that he was coming over.

"Minerva, I hate to leave you, but I really must speak to her. I won't be a moment. Just wait here for me, or for Arabella." He hurried away.

Wonderful. Now I'm standing here alone like a complete fool. Isn't there anything I can do? she wondered unhappily as she watched him go. Everyone who was already there and working seemed so busy, and so aware of what needed to be done, that she didn't want to approach any of them to offer her assistance. Even if she'd dared to try pitching in on her own initiative, the place was in such chaos that she wouldn't have known where to begin.

She looked around, feeling helpless and hating it, and suddenly heard a faint, anguished noise, like the whimper of a child in pain. At first she couldn't pinpoint the source of the sound - with all the distractions surrounding her, it was a miracle she'd heard it at all – but then she saw a flash of movement near one of the piles of rubble.

”Who’s there?” she called. “Are you hurt?”

There was no reply. Wood popped and crackled in the burning ruins behind her. A fresh blast of heat struck her in the back. Drawing her wand, she moved closer to the pile and peered cautiously around a broken piece of beam – and gasped. A boy of perhaps ten or eleven stood there, white and trembling, eyes glued to a man’s body sprawled at his feet. Deep gashes were raked across the body’s chest, and its torn throat was still leaking blood. Though its arms were flung up in a posture of self-defense, its face was clearly visible. The mangled features bore a pitiful resemblance to the blanched, rigid ones of the boy.

Gods above. I've seen this before. No, that's not right. I've lived this before. My father - my father - She clenched her hands into fists. The room had been silent, her father lying as if asleep, but not asleep. There hadn't been a mark on him, but she had been just as horrified as this child looked, had been frozen to the spot in just the same way.

"Minerva,” someone called behind her. It was Arabella's voice - she recognized it dimly - but it seemed far away and unimportant. She ignored it.

"Minerva, I need you to - oh. Oh, dear."

"It's his father," Minerva said flatly, without turning around.

"Yes, I see that," Arabella said. "The poor boy. Don't worry; the Protectors will fetch him away soon. They're part of the Ministry; they come to all the attack sites. Wonderful with children, they are. They'll take good care of him till relatives can be found. Really. Now, if you could come and help me ..."

Help her? Minerva thought, tearing her gaze away from the boy for a minute and staring down into Arabella's soot-grimed face. The black stuff had settled in all the lines there, etching them even deeper than they had been back at the Ministry house. Arabella looked a thousand years old at the moment, and more than a little frightening. She can't be saying what I think she's saying.

"You don't mean we should just leave him here by himself?" she asked incredulously. "Standing over his father's body, waiting for people he doesn't even know are coming?"

From Arabella's harried, I-don't-have-time-for-this expression, Minerva suspected that she wasn't too far off the mark. But looking at the small, wretched figure before them, the Auror softened and said "No, no, of course not. We can find a better place for him to wait, at least." She glanced back in the direction from which she had come. "I've got to go - why don't you see what you can do for him? I'll be right over there. Come and meet me when you're finished. Try to be as quick as you can, though, I do need your help." She turned and walked away, absentmindedly slapping at a drifting ember that had landed on the front of her robes.

Now Minerva and the boy were alone together again. Having a task to carry out was an immense help - it cut through the shock and helped to stabilize her - but she found herself feeling unaccountably nervous about approaching the boy. How would he react? What would she have done if someone had come upon her just after she'd discovered her father's body? She couldn't imagine. She certainly hadn't been pleased to see Albus when he'd turned up months later - had, in fact, done her utmost to get rid of him.

This boy is not you, she reminded herself. This is a different situation. Someone has to help him, and you're the only one who can. Her head began to pound again, a dull, miserable throbbing that made her want to retch. She ignored it and touched the boy on the shoulder.

"You can't stay here," she said as gently as possible.

The boy didn't jump or flinch, only turned a pair of wide, shocked, tearless brown eyes up to her.

"He was right next to me," he said. "They knocked him over. They bit him. He was right next to me."

"I know," Minerva said. Her fingers closed on the sleeve of his shirt - the father was wearing torn and bloodied wizard robes, but the boy was dressed as a Muggle. "Come with me - there are people to help you -"

"I don't want to go," he said, pulling away from her. "I can't leave him alone."

A painful lump started to form in her throat. This, too, was familiar. Why do we think the dead will be lonely? she wondered. Why, when we're the ones who have been left behind?

"He won't be alone. I'll come back for him. I'll bring him to you. Just come with me now. Please."

She was worried that he would argue further, but this idea seemed to soothe him, and he reached up to put a hand into hers.

"Do you promise?" he asked.

"I swear," she said.

As she led him away through the false twilight of smoke, she silently cursed Grindelwald with every curse she knew.

The Shadowchasers

alchemine — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 17:28:11 GMT

I've taken The Shadowchasers off ff.net and FA. When OotP came out, I thought I'd be able to finish it even though so much had changed, but after three years I think it's time to admit that it's not going to happen. However, I am going to keep a copy here at my LJ so I'll have a place to direct anyone who asks where it's gone. There are eight chapters in all, so just scroll on past if it looks like spam. :-)

The Shadowchasers
Summer, 1944. A Muggle war and a wizards' war are raging side by side. Darkness threatens to engulf the world. Light must prevail.

Darkness had fallen like a long shadow across the world.

Black as sin, deep as the abyss, unending as despair, it had fallen, and for years showed no signs of lifting again. Children grew up under its veil without remembering the time before. Their parents, who did remember, began to romanticize that time in their minds. No one blamed them.

But in the midst of the darkness, light persisted in sparks and pinpoints, in great bursts and small, steady flames. Sometimes it gained ground against the darkness. Sometimes it lost. But light would not relent. It meant to win the war - to win both the wars.

Because though not everyone knew it, there were two wars raging.

There were two.

~~~

June 12, 1944

You'd never know to look at it, thought Minerva, what's going on out there.

Shading her eyes with one hand, she gazed out over the misty heath, trying to spot any sort of movement. There was none, naturally. She and Dumbledore were in Brittany, in the Monts d'Arrée - a misnomer if there ever was one; they were big hills, not real mountains - some distance from the cataclysmic fighting that had broken out in Normandy a few days before.

From what they had heard, that battle looked as if it was going to have a powerful effect on the course of the Muggle war. It had certainly had one on the mission that had brought them here. Even before they had arrived at the Ministry of Magic's London headquarters to depart on their journey, Muggle soldiers had begun surging up onto the beaches of Normandy. The French and British Ministers of Magic, who generally had a fair idea of what was happening in the Muggle world, had been caught completely off guard by the invasion. After a hurried conference, Beaufort, the French Minister, had allowed Dumbledore and Minerva into the country on the condition that they stay at this remote outpost till he sent for them. With all in confusion and no one knowing what was going to happen next, he didn't want them roaming loose while trying to carry out their task.

So here they were, with an ancient forest to one side of them and inhospitable-looking granite hills to the other, biding their time and waiting for instructions. Minerva didn't mind the location a bit. She'd lived her first eleven years in the mountains and felt quite comfortable among these scaled-down peaks. In truth, she'd secretly hoped that Beaufort would divert them to the Alps so she could see the legendary scenery there. He hadn't, so she had climbed the slope of the tallest available hill to get a look at what there was to see here. It might not be the Alps, but it was impressive in its own right.

"A lovely view," said a deep voice beside her.

"I was just thinking that," she said. "You've read my mind again."

Dumbledore chuckled and pushed his spectacles up on his nose.

"My dear, I have told you before that mind-reading, useful as it would be, is not one of my talents. I can't imagine how that rumor came about."

"I believe you started it yourself," Minerva said with a quarter-smile.

He smiled back, but at the same time, she saw him glancing past her, studying the vague shadows on the horizon. Since they'd been here, he'd been strangely subdued - not at all his usual good-humored self - spending most of his time buried up to his eyebrows in the reports that came several times a day by Ministry owl. She knew the Muggle conflict had something to do with the effort against Grindelwald; if he was this concerned about it, the connection must be even deeper than she'd been told.

"How far away is the fighting?" she asked.

"Two hundred miles or so," he said. "A little more than three hundred kilometers, in Muggle terms. But the invading forces are beginning to move, coming in from the sea on a tide of blood. As the tide ebbs and flows, our fortunes rise and fall with it."

Before she could ask what he meant by that, he glanced up at the sun as if gauging its position in the sky.

"We've been out for quite a while. You may stay longer if you like, of course, but I should be getting back. The message owls must be colliding with one another by now."

"I'll go with you," said Minerva. "I've seen all there is to see, and it's frigid up here besides. I won't be any use to you if I catch my death of cold." As if to confirm her decision, an icy gust of wind came along and whipped her thin summer robes around her. She turned away, shivering, and gazed out at the still landscape one last time.

"I wish it were as peaceful as it looks," she said.

"So do I," said Dumbledore. "So do I."

He drew her back from the edge of the outcrop, and together, they vanished.

The Ministry's outpost lay deep within Huelgoat Forest, to the east of the peaks. Because its wards allowed Apparating out, but not in, they had to walk the last mile or so through the cool, dim greenness of the forest, over a soft carpet of moss and last year's larch needles. Here and there, boulders jutted up from the earth or lay in tumbled piles like a giant's discarded marbles. The sound of running water came from every side - the forest was full of streams, some large, some no more than trickles. The only thing missing, Minerva thought, were animal noises. Where were the birds? The deer? It was as if they knew the world was at war, and were prudently waiting the conflict out in nests and glades beyond human reach.

She and Dumbledore made good progress, though at a comfortable pace, and soon reached the little clearing where the Ministry building sat. The moment they passed through the ring of ivy-infested trees that surrounded it, they both halted in surprise at the sight of someone sitting on the front step. Minerva automatically reached for her wand, but stopped when Dumbledore laid a warning hand on her arm.

"Wait, it's all right," he said.

Their visitor was already struggling to her feet and limping over to them, leaning on a knobbly black cane. She was wrapped in a woolen cloak in spite of the season, and looked older than the mountains themselves, with deep lines channeling her face and thin, flyaway white hair emerging in wisps around the edge of the cloak hood. From the midst of all this peered a pair of blue eyes that should have been faded with age, but instead were sharp, clear and familiar. Minerva stared into those eyes, frowning as she tried to work out where she'd seen them before. When the answer came to her, she relaxed, and felt Dumbledore's restraining hand slip away.

"Bella," she said. "Thank goodness."

The crone let out a shriek of laughter. She threw off the cloak, straightening, firming - and all at once, Arabella Figg was standing before them, sleek and elegant as ever. Only she, Minerva thought with a mixture of amusement and mild annoyance, could stand in a clearing in a wild wood looking as if she'd just stepped out of the fashion pages in Witch Weekly.

"I'd be worried if an Animagus couldn't recognize someone in another shape," Bella said. "Clever little witch. Come here." Caught with no polite avenue of escape, Minerva submitted rather stiffly to an embrace. It only lasted a moment before the older woman released her and turned to Dumbledore. "You too, Albus. You're not exempt from your familial duty just because we're working."

"I would never dream of shirking my familial duty," Dumbledore said solemnly, letting his cousin enfold him and kiss his cheek. "My mother would curse me."

"That she would," said Bella with a sly smile. "And if she didn't, I would do it myself. How would you like to be a toad for a week or two?"

"She means it," Dumbledore said to Minerva. "The things she did to me when we were children ..." He shuddered. "I am delighted to see you, Arabella, but I confess I was not expecting a visit."

"I've news for you." Bella looked around. "I don't want to tell you here, though. We need a good, strong Silencing Charm surrounding us before we speak of anything important."

"Then we'll waste no more time," Dumbledore said, and spoke the spell to open the front door of the house.

Once safely within walls, Bella instantly swapped the playful manner she'd displayed outside for her stern, no-nonsense Auror face. After nearly two years of knowing the woman, Minerva still wasn't quite sure which of those was the real Arabella Figg. She suspected it was the former - all the other members of the Dumbledore family she'd met had had a lighthearted way about them, and when not on the job, Bella was no exception. Still, seeing her switch from one persona to the other so abruptly was always disconcerting.

They sat in the kitchen, where five-foot-thick clay walls kept the temperature low even in late afternoon, and Dumbledore laid extra silencing charms on top of the ones the building was already equipped with. By the time he was finished, every word, every step, every scrape of their chairs across the floor was as muffled as if he had hung the room with thick velvet drapes. The effect would have sent a claustrophobic shrieking out into the forest. Even Minerva, who had learned to appreciate close, den-like places as a cat, felt oppressed by it.

Into this heavy atmosphere, Bella delivered an equally heavy report. Grindelwald's activities, she said, had been increasing in direct proportion to the ferocity of the Muggle conflict. There had been ten attacks throughout Britain and France in the last week. More than a hundred witches and wizards had been injured, and almost fifty killed - which, for a population as small as the magical one, was a terrible blow. Many of the survivors were not expected to live. A significant number of the rest were too traumatized to speak. Bella and the other Aurors had been in the thick of it all, Apparating from one attack site to the next, collecting evidence and interviewing everyone who was capable of helping. At the same time, they'd been struggling to avoid being shot at or blown up by the Muggle troops who were busy fighting their own war.

Unfortunately, all the Aurors' attempts to pinpoint their enemy's location or anticipate his next move had failed. Dumbledore, with Minerva's support, had been meant to work toward the first goal in a different way: by investigating an organization suspected of funneling laundered money into Grindelwald's coffers, and hopefully uncovering some sort of clue as to where it was being sent. The business in Normandy, and the upheaval it had caused, had temporarily scotched that plan.

"Now," said Bella when she'd finished, turning to Minerva, "as you're going to be helping us, I've been authorized to give you some information of a more ... classified nature. You'll need it to do your job properly. But first, I want to review what you already know. You've been spying on our behalf at Hogwarts for nearly three months. Summarize for me what you've learned about Grindelwald."

Minerva shrugged. "I've heard more rumors than I can count, but nothing I could hang my hat on. I suppose the two most common themes are that he wants to seize power in the wizarding world, and that he's working with the Muggle dictator - Hitler, not Mussolini."

"Right, and half right," Bella said, with a quick glance toward her cousin. "Albus, perhaps you should cover this part. You're the teacher, not I." Dumbledore smiled at her comment, but Minerva could see no real humor in his face.

"Well, then, Minerva," he said, in the lecturing tone she remembered from her schooldays, "we have two wars: a Muggle one and a wizard one. We have two evil men: Hitler and Grindelwald. Both wars are happening at the same time, in the same place. Both men are capable of hideous crimes - of inhumanity, you might say. Does it seem plausible that they might be connected?"

She nodded. "I thought the rumors were most likely true."

"The rumors that they are working together are not true. Adolf Hitler has probably never heard of Grindelwald, though based on his own track record, I'm sure he would approve of Grindelwald's methods. But the two men are connected."

"Connected in what way?"

"Grindelwald is a dark wizard who thrives in the presence of dark things. Pain. Death. Fear. Suffering. Sorrow. Hitler has unleashed a storm of darkness into the world. Grindelwald has tapped into its power and used it to increase his own power. He would never have been able to grow so strong without it. In any other time and place, he would have been a petty criminal, perhaps someone with a few followers who delighted in harming the weak. But now - now he's developed into a monster, a monster that feeds on another monster. There has been massive debate at the Ministry over whether we should give the Muggles magical assistance in defeating Hitler. Some of us - including Arabella and myself - feel that this would be the wisest course of action. Break Hitler's power, and we might break Grindelwald's as well. But not everyone at higher levels agrees, and so we're left to mind our business while the Muggles mind theirs."

"It's idiocy," said Bella, whose eyes had gone hard and angry during this last part. "The psychic connection between them is obvious. Grindelwald has even adopted some of the little devil's tactics, as if the wolves alone weren't enough of a link. Recruiting young people to his side - you know all about that one - appearing at wizard homes and killing anyone who opposes him - I never thought I would live to see some of the things I've seen. I almost wish I hadn't. If the Ministry officials would just face up to the truth of it -"

She broke off, shaking her head as if at the futility of continuing. And taking a hard look at her, Minerva realized that despite her elegant robes and expertly done makeup, Bella looked her full age for the first time during their acquaintance. The lines and wrinkles of her earlier disguise had not vanished completely; traces of them still creased her forehead and lingered around her eyes, and the flesh under her jaw sagged slightly. She was still attractive - but over that attractiveness lay a ghost-image of the old woman she would be in another two or three decades. What could have happened to her in the few weeks since they'd last been together to make her look like that?

Minerva wasn't sure she wanted to know. It worried her, though. In the process of telling her painful story, Bella had run through all the slightly manic energy she'd displayed when she first arrived, and now she looked bone-weary as well as old. Dumbledore, sitting on the other side of the table, had clearly noticed the same thing.

"Bella, my dear, perhaps it's time to stop for a while," he said. "I think a rest might do you good." He glanced over at Minerva, who caught his meaning and got to her feet.

"Yes, he's right. Come upstairs; you can lie down on my bed. Here, I'll help you -"

"I'm not so old and decrepit that I can't walk by myself, Miss Minerva," Bella said tartly, waving Minerva away, putting both hands flat on the table in front of her and pushing herself up. "But thank you. I think I'll take you up on that suggestion. I feel as if it's already been a very long day." She gave Dumbledore an affectionate pat on the shoulder as she passed behind him and headed for the creaky wooden staircase, Minerva following a step behind.

The upper storey of the house consisted of a short, low-ceilinged corridor with a chamber opening off to either side. Minerva had been staying in the room on the right, and it was there that she directed Bella when they reached the top of the stairs.

Just inside the doorway, Bella stopped, hand to her forehead.

"Ah - I have something for you. It slipped my mind for a minute. Don't tell Albus; he'll be up here casting spells all over me if he thinks my memory's failing." Pulling out her wand, she caught Minerva's right wrist, turned her hand palm-up and passed the wand over it, leaving a heavy, cream-colored envelope behind. "This is the most recent report on Grindelwald. Go read it. Then come back and fetch me in an hour. One hour, not a minute longer. Promise."

"Yes, yes, I promise," said Minerva, thinking that Bella looked as if she could do with twenty-four hours of rest, not just one.

"Good girl," Bella said. Minerva couldn't help rolling her eyes at that - it appeared she was forever going to be a mere girl to them, at least in part - and a lovely, amused smile bloomed on the older woman's tired face. "Sorry, but it's true. You really are a good girl. I'm glad you're here to help. Albus and I need a little youthful energy around us. Now go on - you have plenty of reading to do."

The door closed softly, and Minerva was left alone in the hall with the envelope, looking down at the coiled dragon imprint in its scarlet seal. She'd seen Albus with these official Ministry envelopes many times, but it seemed strange and wrong to hold one herself, even though it said "McGonagall, Minerva G." in brilliant golden ink on the front.

Gryffindor colors, she thought.

Feeling as if she were trespassing somehow, she reached for the seal. The little dragon hissed viciously at the approach of her hand, but did not snap, as it would have if she were anyone but the intended recipient. Its hiss was cut short as she broke the thick wax and began to read.

Ministry Of Magic
Department Of Magical Law Enforcement
Major Crimes Division
Case: 59I2900GRINDS
Subject: Grindelwald, Siegwulf
Reporting Aurors: A. Figg, A. Moody, E. Fitzroy, D. McDonough

Siegwulf Grindelwald (b. Johann Kühn c. 1730) currently holds the top position on the Joint International Ministries' Most Wanted list of dark wizards. He is wanted on more than 50 individual charges, including assault, grave desecration, necromancy, abuse of human rights (wizard and Muggle), unauthorized control of dangerous beasts, improper application of Memory Charms and use of the Unforgivable Curses, including the Killing Curse. (For a complete list, see Appendix I, Section IIb.) His case has been designated 1SC (highest priority, special circumstances); any witch or wizard encountering him may use whatever means necessary to contain him, including lethal force.

Grindelwald has extended his life well beyond the natural wizard's span of approximately 160 years through undetermined magical means. (Consumption of unicorn blood and possession of a Philosopher's Stone have been ruled out.) He may be an Animagus, possibly a wolf, though this is mainly the result of popular speculation and has not been confirmed either by this team's research or by eyewitness accounts. It is certain that he has control over the few native wolves remaining in the forests of Europe, as wolf packs have provided physical force to complement the magical means used in all his attacks. [1] This is most likely the reason behind his assumption of the name Siegwulf, or "wolf-victory." [2] The wolves' aggressive behavior is not at all characteristic of wild wolves, who normally avoid humans altogether. However, it plays into long-standing fears and superstitions about these animals, and for that reason, has caused a great deal of panic in regions where Grindelwald is active.

A side effect of the wolves' appearance has been an increase in animosity toward the known werewolf population and violence against those suspected of being werewolves. As of this report, there have been twenty confirmed incidents of assault on werewolves and accused werewolves. One victim was cursed to death on the scene. Another was severely beaten and died in hospital. Neither fatality was, in fact, a werewolf. [Refer to Appendix II, Section V for postmortem photos.] Many solutions for containing this situation have been proposed, including the creation of a Werewolf Registry to help the Ministry monitor the whereabouts of these beasts; however, none has been officially selected to date.

In addition to the werewolf controversy, Grindelwald has stirred up a great deal of ill feeling against Muggles and Muggle-born wizards among his sympathizers. [3] However, the reporting team has found no evidence to indicate that anti-Muggle prejudice is a cause or a philosophy for Grindelwald. Rather, we believe that he is playing upon the prejudice that, regrettably, already exists in abundance within our society in order to sway the weak-minded and uncommitted to his side. A study [4] of his attack pattern supports this hypothesis - he strikes in a manner calculated to induce terror through its very randomness, with no particular emphasis on Muggles or Muggle-borns.

Though as yet there is no confirmation of Grindelwald's whereabouts, signs point to the Black Forest as a probable location for his headquarters. It is our recommendation that at least some tracking efforts be focused on this area, and our further recommendation that this action be taken as soon as possible, before the loss of life becomes any greater. Hesitation, in this case, will only lead to our destruction.

Arabella Dumbledore Figg, Senior Auror
Alastor Moody, Senior Auror
Edward Fitzroy, Auror Level II
Declan McDonough, Auror Level I

June, 1944

Ficlet - Beneath it All

alchemine — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 08:19:28 GMT

Okay, fiat_incantatum, here you go.

Rolanda is endlessly fascinated by what Minerva wears under the stiff armour of her green day robes. They're the most exquisite, old-fashioned underthings she's ever seen -- the sorts of clothes you might find tucked away in someone’s grandmother’s trunk -- but every piece is crisp and new, handmade by an unknown seamstress. Sometimes she stares at the impossibly tiny flowers scattered across the field of Minerva’s petticoats and wonders whether they were stitched by fairy workers, or by house-elves shackled to their chairs with hanks of embroidery floss. It wouldn't surprise her in the least.

On the surface, Minerva does not seem the sort of woman who would indulge in such dainty finery, but Rolanda has seen the evidence herself; has touched the folded garments in bureau drawers and loosened the laces to let them fall away from Minerva’s body. The linen is so thin that it clings to Minerva’s slight curves and reveals the shadowed contours beneath it. It is nothing like the springy elastic stuff Rolanda buys on special trips to Muggle shops, designed to keep all her bits in place and out of the way.

Now she watches as Minerva yanks her petticoat strings tight, ties them in a hard knot and shakes the full skirt out over the tops of her button boots. She’s frowning, in a rush, not stopping to appreciate the fine fabric under her fingers.

“You have time,” Rolanda says, hoping to soothe her. “The meeting isn’t until ten.”

"I don't want to be late," Minerva says distractedly. She waves her wand, and a thin blue ribbon weaves itself in and out of the open neckline of her camisole, finishing off with a neat bow between her breasts. "Scrimgeour doesn't tolerate tardiness. Albus told me--" She stops, bites her lip.

"Don't start!" Rolanda uncoils from the armchair and jumps up. "You said you weren't going to cry anymore after the funeral was over."

"Oh, it isn't that," says Minerva, and Rolanda sees she is telling the truth; her eyes are dry behind their square lenses. "I only wonder whether I'm doing the right thing, asking for Hogwarts to be closed. Albus would never have let that happen.”

"You're doing what you think is right," says Rolanda. "That's all you can do."

Minerva sighs and stares at her feet. The students would hardly recognise her now, Rolanda thinks: she looks vulnerable, almost girlish, with her bare shoulders exposed and her dark hair hanging loose around her. Her spectacles are slightly askew on the bridge of her nose, and Rolanda straightens them carefully before drawing Minerva into her arms. What a bundle of contradictions Minerva is, hard and soft and strong and fragile at the same time, with as many layers to her personality as to her complicated clothing.

She would be happy to stand here all day, luxuriating in the warmth of Minerva's thin body and the sweet scent of her lavender sachet, but Minerva catches sight of the clock and extricates herself from the embrace gently but firmly.

"I haven't time now, it's nearly nine already and I haven't even got my robes on." Turning away, she picks up her cameo pendant and fusses with the velvet ribbon, and Rolanda wonders – not for the first time – how hands that are so precise with a wand, so clever with a caress, can be so clumsy with jewellery. She grins to herself. It's always reassuring to see that there are some things even Minerva cannot do.

"Haven't you worked out how to fasten that yet?" she asks.

"I would have if you hadn't bought me one with such a fiddly clasp," Minerva says crossly, still fumbling behind her neck.

"But this way I get to help you every time," says Rolanda. "Stop crabbing and hold your hair up." Minerva obeys, and Rolanda blows a few stray tendrils out of the way with a warm puff of breath before deftly hooking the miniature catch.

“There,” she says as the cameo comes to rest in the hollow of Minerva’s throat, cold and heavy against the warm, living flesh. Minerva stares at it in the glass and plucks the ribbon with long, nervous fingers, as if wondering whether she ought to take it off again.

Our Lady of Perpetual Worry, Rolanda thinks in fond exasperation. She winds her arms round Minerva's waist again.

"Leave it," she whispers in her ear. "It's just right. And so are you." And reassured, Minerva smiles.