** Fic: Every Advantage ** for liliths_requiem

[genficsanta]

Title: Every Advantage
Author: penknife
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2500
Character(s): Minerva McGonagall, Alastor Moody, Albus Dumbledore, and Aberforth Dumbledore
Warnings: discussion of canonical character death
Summary: One mission in a long war.
Author's Notes: Happy holidays! You asked for a non-fluffy story set in the first war against Voldemort (among other things), and I hope this suits.



Minerva was hanging up her wrap in the Hog's Head bar when Alastor Moody came stomping in, slamming the door against the driving rain. The "closed" sign on it was hardly needed to discourage custom in this weather, not that Aberforth had so much to begin with.

"They're at it already, I see," Alastor said, cocking an ear to listen to the sound of raised voices from the floor above. His hand drifted toward his wand as he spoke, an instinctive twitch she wasn't sure he even noticed. He was strung alarmingly tightly these days, but then Minerva couldn't say it wasn't for good reason.

"I expect so," she said. The Order meeting would be small, only the two of them and the Dumbledores and Elphias Doge, which meant the longest part of it would most likely be spent listening to Albus and Aberforth quarrel.

"No reason we had to meet for this," Alastor grumbled. "Could have handled the whole thing by Floo."

"Which could be monitored. And you can't say Aberforth shouldn't have a say in the matter."

"He'll have his say in any case," Alastor muttered, and began making his way up the twisting stairs behind the bar. Minerva followed him, the voices from above becoming clearer as they ascended.

"... another one of your clever plans," Aberforth said, punctuated by a thump that was probably a pint glass being slammed onto the table. "In which once again you sit here and send half-trained boys out like lambs to the slaughter--"

"Think we're little lambs, do you, Aberforth?" Alastor said, stepping aside to let Minerva ascend the last steps. Aberforth looked up, taking in the pair of them, and then gave Albus a sour look.

"Why didn't you say you were sending those two?"

"You didn't ask," Albus said mildly. Elphias was nowhere to be seen, which helped account for their tempers; he was a peacemaker by temperament, and generally managed to prevent Albus and Aberforth from acting quite so much like disgruntled schoolboys in each other's presence.

"Doge is running damned late," Alastor said before Minerva could ask if he'd been delayed. It was a more likely explanation than anything more sinister, though she felt a shiver down her spine that she preferred to blame on the weather. They'd lost so many friends that it had stopped being something that prevented people from going on with their business as if nothing important had changed.

"He couldn't make it," Aberforth said. "You just get us."

"Let's on with it, then," Alastor said. "Have you got the potion?"

"I do," Albus said, setting a flask on the table next to two glasses that looked none too clean.

"I still don't see any reason I shouldn't just go myself," Aberforth said.

Albus looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "I thought I'd made any number of reasons perfectly clear."

"To start with, you're a more valuable hostage," Alastor said, picking up the flask. He tipped a generous measure of Polyjuice Potion into each glass.

"Because Albus cares so much what happens to his family?"

"Must you?" Minerva said in frustration. Albus said nothing, although she noted that his expression had shifted abruptly to a pleasant and unconvincing mask.

"Because you're his brother, and they could use your blood to get at him, if nothing else," Alastor said. "And besides, it'll be a tricky bit of talking, and you've got all the tact of a mountain troll."

Aberforth went on scowling for a moment, and then snorted in reluctant amusement. "That's fair enough. No one ever called me a great talker."

"Then, gentlemen, may we get on with it?" Minerva asked, pushing one of the glasses in Aberforth's direction. He shook his head at her, but plucked one of his own long hairs and dropped it to coil at the bottom of the glass. The potion in it darkened immediately, a scent like garden soil rising.

Moody reached into his pocket and drew out a curling lock of blond hair, letting it rest on his palm for a moment. He'd clipped it from Edgar Bones's hair before the burial, and then he and young Frank Longbottom had exchanged sharp words about it, with Frank calling him a ghoul with no respect for the dead.

"Let it be," Alice had said, her hand on Frank's arm. "If it helps anyone ever, do you think Edgar would mind?"

"He wasn't even an Auror," Frank said. "He was only a kid. Let him alone, at least let him be buried decently--"

"We're Aurors," Alastor had growled, though she knew he'd been fond of young Edgar too. Everyone had liked him, a sunny and generous soul. "We can't afford to be decent, not in a war. We need every advantage."

"It won't hurt anything, not really," Alice had said, smoothing Edgar's hair with her fingers. "You can't even see." She had leaned against Frank's shoulder, then, and he'd put an arm around her as if to keep her warm.

Minerva found herself wrapping her own hands around her arms now, although the fire in the little sitting-room was blazing. Moody was actually hesitating, she realized, but abruptly he tipped the lock of hair into his glass and picked it up, waiting only as long as it took for the potion to brighten to ruddy gold before he drank.

Minerva drank as well, the potion bitter as clay on her tongue. She watched her hands shifting to match Aberforth's, down to his broken, dirty fingernails. "Well, Albus?"

"You'll do very well," Albus said.

Alastor turned to look at her, and she pressed her lips together to avoid making a sound. It wasn't quite like seeing a ghost. Alastor wasn't even trying to put on Edgar's habitual cheer, and the lines of tension on his face and in the way he carried his body were all his own. She thought he'd pass well enough to someone who didn't know Edgar well, though. And after all, the war had changed them all.

She felt a momentary pang for the young Alastor she'd been in school with long ago, sharp and with a dark sense of humor but not yet twitching at every shadow, but she put all such thoughts aside as unprofitable. "We'll both do," Minerva said.

"I've got a mirror somewhere if you want one," Aberforth offered.

Alastor shook his head. "Nothing I want to see. Let's go change clothes and get this done."

By the time they were down the stairs, the sound of raised voices carried again from the room above. Alastor shook his head and shrugged on a nondescript coat that was, like the rest of the clothes Albus had bought him for the occasion, intended to be unremarkable. Minerva draped herself in Aberforth's oilskin mackintosh and pushed the door open, bracing herself for the rain.

It was a relief to be outdoors all the same.

"Thought they'd talk us to death if we gave them the chance," Alastor said.

"Everyone's on edge lately."

"So they ought to be." Alastor looked the street up and down. Only a few people were out, ducking from shop to shop through the downpour. "Not much chance to be seen, but that's all to the good. Makes it seem more plausible that it's a slip."

"Shall we, then?"

Alastor nodded, drawing out his wand, and the two of them Apparated together, appearing on a rooftop overlooking an alley. Across the alley, the back door of a pub was propped open, and as she watched, one of the barmen came out to light a cigarette, cupping his hands to shield the flame against the rain.

Alastor waited unmoving until the man finished his cigarette and went back inside, and then paced the roof, muttering incantations to reveal watchers or traps. That was his business, and she left him to it, keeping still until he returned to her side. He muttered a charm to prevent sound from carrying beyond arm's length before he spoke.

"Two men in the alley -- no, don't look, you won't see them. That seems about right if they're worried about an ambush, and too few if they're planning one. They've rigged a few defensive spells, mainly alarms; they'll know we Apparated in already, but they ought to expect us to check the place out before we go waltzing in."

"After you," Minerva said.

Alastor snorted. "None of that. I'm playing the young whippersnapper, remember?"

"I think to Aberforth we are young whippersnappers."

"Aberforth's no duelist," Alastor said abruptly. "Maybe when he was young, but I'd rather have you in this if it all goes pear-shaped."

"Why, thank you, Alastor," Minerva said. "But I think the idea is not to wind up in a cataclysmic battle."

"That's the plan," Alastor said, sounding dubious.

"As well as persuading them they didn't manage to kill poor Edgar."

That had been Alastor's idea, to take this opportunity to throw confusion into Voldemort's plans by making him doubt his own people's reports, and to send him off hunting people safely in their graves. At least he'd had the sense not to propose it in a meeting full of the youngest members of the Order, who could be regrettably sentimental about such things. Minerva was on Alastor's side on that, at least -- they needed every advantage they could get.

"If they'll buy it."

"Confusion to our enemies," Minerva said, and began looking for a way down from the roof that wouldn't require changing into a cat.

The pub was more crowded than the Hog's Head, but not by any means full, and it was easy to pick out Rosier watching them from the corner intently. Alastor was drawn taut with tension, his hand drifting toward his wand again. That was probably believable under the circumstances, though.

She led the way, shouldering chairs and a few people aside with Aberforth's usual disregard for politeness, and took a seat at the corner table without being asked. She nodded to Alastor, for whom she'd left the empty chair with the best view of the room, and he sat down after her.

"We're here," she said, summoning up Aberforth's gruff tones. "Speak your piece."

Rosier looked them over. She'd never liked the man, which in some ways made this easier; it was at least better than seeing one of her own students sitting across the table from them. "I think I've made myself clear already. You're the ones who should be doing the talking. Why should I believe you're anything but Dumbledore's spies?" From the muffled undertones of his voice, the table was charmed to prevent their voices from carrying as anything but an incomprehensible mutter.

"We're done with that," Alastor said. "When I joined the Order, Dumbledore claimed he'd protect my family." He swallowed hard, and for a moment Minerva could believe he was Edgar, or at least that these were Edgar's words, carrying bitterness from beyond the grave. "He lied. Your people killed my wife and children."

"We thought we killed you," Rosier said matter-of-factly. "Apparently someone wasn't thorough."

"Bastard," Alastor said, and Minerva thought the heat behind the word was real.

Rosier shrugged. "You came to me."

"I have a sister," Alastor said. He wasn't much of an actor, but his intensity worked well enough. "Amelia. She's still in school. I want her safe. I'll do whatever it takes. But you have to promise she won't be hurt."

"Maybe we can make a deal," Rosier said. "But wars are messy. It's hard to promise anyone won't get hurt as long as your people keep fighting."

"So let's end it," Minerva said. Rosier turned to her, and she fought the urge to straighten her shoulders, instead hunching them unhappily the way Aberforth habitually did. "I'm tired of Albus's war."

"His own brother?" Rosier shook his head. "Forgive me if it's a little hard to credit."

Minerva shook her head, trying to put the worst of Aberforth's bitterness into her voice. "You don't know Albus. I do. He'll keep fighting no matter how hopeless it is, no matter how many people die to keep him from having to admit he's lost. They're nothing to him, these children he keeps throwing at you. Lambs to the slaughter."

"Amelia wants to be in the Order of the Phoenix, just like her big brother," Alastor said, with a twisted smile that was nothing like Edgar's merry one. "He'll get her too, sooner or later."

"He's not all that different from Grindelwald, when it comes down to it," Minerva said. "Of course, he thinks he's right. But I expect Grindelwald did too."

"Grindelwald overreached himself," Rosier said. "We've got better plans."

"Do you think I care?" Minerva said. She wasn't sure if the bone-deep weariness in the words was put on, or was in fact her own. "I want this war over, and then you can do what you want. I've got no interest in Muggles or politics."

"You understand I'll need more than your word," Rosier said. "Bring me something to serve as a token of your good faith, and then we can talk."

"The Prewett twins," Alastor said. "I knew them in school, they'll trust me. We can ..." He trailed off, as if unwilling to say the words, and Minerva revised her judgment of his acting ability upwards.

"Name the ground," she said. "Set your trap. We'll bring you the Prewetts. Then you ought to see how far we'll go to end this war."

"That's fair enough," Rosier said, in a grudging tone she thought was put on to conceal his pleasure; the Prewetts were increasingly proving themselves a thorn in the Death Eaters' side. "As a show of good faith. We'll be in touch."

"I'll be waiting," Minerva said.

Rosier stood and pushed his chair back, Apparating without bothering to step outside; the few occupants of other tables had been studiously ignoring the corner table, and they went on studiously ignoring. Minerva and Alastor exchanged nods and Apparated as well, the streets of Hogsmeade reappearing around them.

Minerva pulled the oilskin hood down lower against the rain. "We'd better get under cover before the potion wears off."

"Yes, we had," Moody said. He shook his head. "Think they'll bite?"

"They'll set up an ambush," Minerva said. "And give us the chance to set up an ambush of our own." And then there would be a battle, and more of her former students to be laid out for burial. If they were lucky, it would mainly be the ones currently fighting on the other side. "Poor lambs," she murmured before she could stop herself.

"That's war for you," Moody said, and hunched his shoulders as he turned his face into the wind.