Victims (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 34)
Title: Victims (After the Flaw: Oligarchy, Chapter 34)
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Previous Chapters
Rating: PG13
Summary: Teddy, HC, and Victoire face the music
Notes: I own these characters. The others belong to JK Rowling.
Coming Home / Previous Chapters
The January sun was already well below the horizon as the four figures walked through the cold streets of Norwich, one of the four pushing a fifth along in a wheelchair. The streets were unusually quiet, even for this time of year, with more and more Muggles afraid to strike out onto the darkened roads. Most were now seated in front of their televisions, their radios, their computer monitors, catching up on the news that had horrified, angered, and overall captivated them over the last two weeks.
As much as they hated to admit it, most wizards knew that this fear made today's events easier to coordinate. However, they had still played it as safely as possible when it came to the memorial for Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt. What would have been a massive public memorial in more peaceful times was now simply a gathering of dignitaries, Ministry officials, and selected friends and family. Citizens who would have been welcomed to a public viewing in the past were now reduced to listening to BBC Wiz simulcast it on the wireless.
Logistics played a larger role than ever before. A gathering that would have been seen as a mere curiosity by Muggles before January 4th was now viewed with unwavering suspicion. Invitees filtered in over the course of three hours from various landing points within Norwich, Kingsley's home town. After the Ministry sent out diagrams of "Approved Muggle Funeral Attire" to all attendees, they were giving the simple warning: Arrive in Muggle dress or don't arrive at all.
The service and the burial were held outdoors, at the grave site, behind innumerable protection spells and far from the view of Muggle passersby. That way they wouldn't have to worry about Muggles noticing a congregation of strangers at any churches in the area.
The funeral service was simple. Minister Hermione Weasley, her voice still rough from the tears of yesterday's burial of her brother- and sister-in-law, said a few words about her predecessor. Minerva McGonnagal, looking so old and frail that you wouldn't believe she was the same woman who led a charge of enchanted desks at the Battle of Hogwarts, spoke as his former teacher as well as one of the last surviving representatives of the Order of the Phoenix. One of Kingsley's cousins spoke for the Shacklebolt family; his ancestors were relatively new to the Isles, and as an only child of two parents who had passed from the world years before, Kingsley's surviving relatives were thin on the ground.
Finally, the words were done. The casket holding the Minister was lowered into the frozen ground and the pile of dirt was lifted by wand onto it. Groups began to leave as they arrived: as small and far apart as possible. After two hours, these five wanderers left Hermione and Ron Weasley and a few remaining foreign representatives and began their trek to a Floo station across town.
"It's getting ugly out there," said Dudley Dursley, holding his wife, Susan's, hand. They walked to the left of Harry Potter, who was pushing his own wife along in her wheelchair. To the right walked Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets and his eyes glued to the passing sidewalk.
"Job market's tough," said Harry to his cousin's comment.
"Job market's easy," Dudley shrugged. "I'll be able to get a new job easily enough. Hell, I could start my own company with all the experience and references I've built up over the years. Not everyone out there are berks about my marriage. At least, well, I hope they're not."
"Just ugly in general," said Ginny, nodding in understanding.
"It was ugly from the day of the attack, sure," Dudley explained. "People were freaking out left and right. Demonstrations, riots, fighting and all that. Let's just say that Dad would be in his element," he added darkly. "Now... People are starting to organize."
"Organize?" said Teddy, his head lifting slightly.
"They're not liking the government's response," said Dudley. "So some people are starting to take matters into their own hands. Those blokes at work? The ones who were talking, the ones who got me fired? It was more than talk. They had been asking around. Going to meetings. Organizing Neighborhood Watches." Dudley snorted. "Neighborhood Watches. Neighborhood Militias, more like. Average Englishmen, going out and looking for wizards. Dealing with them on their own terms."
"They're going to get themselves killed," said Susan.
"And kill others in the process," said Ginny. "We can handle ourselves if it came to it. But how's your average Muggle going to know the difference? How many innocent Muggles are going to be killed by these idiots who can't tell a wizard from a Muggle?"
"It's a witch hunt," said Dudley. "Literally. Like the old days: Throw them on the fire. If they live, they're a witch. If they burn, they're not."
"They should make sure they weigh the same as a duck," said Teddy sickly. "Have we learned nothing from Monty Python?"
"They wouldn't even know where to start looking," said Ginny. "I mean, I don't want them to look at all, but if a normal Muggle's going to want to kill a witch--"
"Nothing average about that kind of Muggle," said Susan.
"--I'd rather they find a proper one so we can beat them good and hard for their... Damn it," said Ginny, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to sound like one of them..."
"You didn't," said Harry, kissing the top of her head. "And they are finding wizards. We've been seeing more and more of it. The Aurors, we've been having to save wizards from Muggles as much as we've been saving Muggles from wizards or from each other. You're right, Dudley. They are organizing, and I have a good idea about who's doing a lot of the work."
"Dennis?" asked Susan.
"Among others," said Harry. "Creevey can't be the only wizard out there who has a bone to pick with us. There's a reason that someone Goes Muggle, and I reckon it's usually because they're too scared of what they can do. Of what we can do. Of course they're going to take the Muggle's side when it comes down to it, and of course they're going to have information about us that your average Muggle wouldn't have."
"I'm surprised they haven't gone to the government yet," said Teddy. "You'd think they'd want to help the Muggles as much as they could to fight back."
"Maybe they already have," said Harry. "Hell, a lot of Muggle governments already have information about us. We opened up to them a lot after 9/11. The Muggles know where Diagon is. They know where Hogwarts is, where the Ministry of Magic is."
"Then why haven't they done anything?"
"Our protection spells are still too powerful," Susan explained. "They can't cross any of those borders without magic blood or a Muggle Charm."
"So what you're saying," said Teddy, "is that if someone with a Muggle Charm or with magical blood, like an ex-wizard or a Squib whose been on the wrong side of too many jokes, wants do to something, they'll be able to? Like if, say, that Creevey bloke wants to turn suicide bomber in the middle of Hogsmeade, he could?"
The group fell silent, their minds too easily embracing the horror that could come from such an act.
"I'd hope not," said Harry quietly. "There are so many MLE agents patrolling the streets that you'd hope nothing like that would get by us."
"You can't tell me there are too many wizards seriously looking for those kinds of thing, though," said Dudley. "I mean, they're trained to look for, what, cursed objects, yeah? Do they even have bomb-sniffing dogs?"
Harry and Susan exchanged a glance, but couldn't answer the question. The truth of the matter was, for centuries, wizards had considered Muggle technology nothing more than an amusing joke by a desperate species. Things like guns and dynamite were so foreign that many wizards wouldn't recognize one if it was put in front of them. It was only too plausible for someone to walk into Diagon Alley with a semi-automatic, a rocket launcher, or a belt of hand grenades and do some major damage before any security wizards even recognized what they were carrying.
The thought made Harry's stomach churn.
"We should talk to Seamus," he said to Susan. "Make sure the pureblood Aurors know what to look for."
"Yeah," said Susan, who, while a pureblood herself, had seen enough Muggle movies and video games in her nearly twenty years with Dudley to know what to look for. "Absolutely."
"We're here," said Ginny, grabbing the wheels of her chair to brake Harry's pushes. The group had arrived at a small flat, a "For Rent" sign eternally plastered to the kitchen window. Looking left and right to make sure no one was looking, Teddy opened the door and allowed the others to come inside, empty but for the single hearth and a flower pot of powder.
"You two want to come over for a bit?" Harry asked the Dursleys. "Have a cup of tea?"
"No, we should head home," said Susan. "Things as they are, we need sleep when we can get it, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," said Harry. "Teddy? Could you stop in for a few minutes?"
"Sure," said Teddy, albeit hesitantly, as the Dursleys made their goodbyes and Flooed home. Harry could tell from the tone of his voice that Teddy knew exactly what Harry wanted to talk to him about.
Minutes later, Teddy followed the Potters out of the Floo and into their Wimbourne home. It being the first time he had been here since Ginny had been injured, Teddy could already see some noticeable differences. The furniture was spaced further apart, for one, with the Potters' coffee table now missing completely. The wireless was now on a lower shelf, as was the bar upon which Teddy now hung his jacket.
"Come on into the kitchen," said Harry to Teddy. "Help me get this tea going."
"Alright," said Teddy, pulling off his jacket.
"You two alright on your own?" asked Ginny. "I have to use the loo."
"Do you need any help?" asked Harry.
"I'll be fine," said Ginny, pushing against her chair's wheels to turn herself down the hallway.
"Are you sure?"
"I'll be fine!" Ginny repeated more firmly. Harry didn't press further, but Teddy could see the look of concern on his face as he watched his wife steer herself into the bathroom and close the door behind her.
"Is she?" Teddy asked.
"I don't know," Harry said with a shake of his head. "She's still really early in the rehab process. She was able to talk the Healers into letting her out for the funerals, and they're making her go back tomorrow. It helped that her sister-in-law's the Minister of Magic. But... she's proud. Always has been. That's one of the things I've always loved about her. Especially now with Percy and Penelope gone, and with Charlie the way he is, she doesn't want to become another burden..."
"But she's not," Teddy argued. "I mean, if she needed any help with anything, I wouldn't hesitate--"
"Neither do I," said Harry. "But... she's still trying to learn how to work with her new situation. I ask, but I don't want to ask too often. You know Ginny. She'll get upset if too many people try to help her, and that will only make it worse. It will make her feel weak, and she hates to feel weak. That was one of the pacts that we made when she left Mungo's: If she needs help, she'll ask for it. But I won't press her. Besides, it's a lot easier for a witch than a Muggle, since she can still use her wand to do a lot of things that she wouldn't be able to do otherwise."
Teddy nodded, but could tell that Harry didn't completely agree with the words he was saying. He loved her, after all, and hated having to see her struggle through anything. They might find a happy medium someday. And they might find a way for Ginny to walk again, and this will all be another dark chapter in their otherwise happy lives together. But until then, the Potters would have to find some middle ground to make them both happy while still maintaining some semblance of sanity.
Just like Hermione and I should have found...
But what middle ground would there have been anyway? They had come to the decision together: They had made a mistake. They shouldn't have gotten married. At least not yet...
Don't, Teddy snapped. Don't leave the door open. That's what rushed you into the marriage in the first place. She had been right after all. Her and her damn Granger Stubborn. They should have spent more time apart. Should have seen other people, experienced something besides each other, before they had come to the decision that they had. Maybe they would have come out in the end still in love with each other, and maybe they wouldn't have.
If something happens again, then it happens, he thought as he and Harry entered the kitchen. But for Merlin's sake, don't wait for her. If you find yourselves together again in five, ten, fifteen years, then fine, deal with it then. But you dug your hole, don't wait for her to come pull you out.
As the two worked in silence, Teddy braced himself for the inevitable. After all, Harry had yet to say anything to him about the affair with Victoire, or about the ensuing divorce. He had yet to tell Teddy how disappointed he was in him, how he had raised him to be smarter than that. To be better than that. To--
"I talked to Seamus," said Harry as he filled the teapot.
Or he could talk to you about that, thought Teddy, flinching.
"Yeah," said Teddy quietly.
"I thought you said never again," said Harry calmly. "That day at Holyhead, remember? No more fighting, no more helping the Aurors. That's not a life you've ever wanted to lead."
"That was before," said Teddy. "Before all of this. I want to help again."
"By joining up?"
"They could use a metamorph," Teddy explained. "Kingsley went on all the time about how good my mum was with espionage stuff. And I have the theater training that could help in undercover work..."
"I'm just wondering if you're thinking clearly about things, is all," said Harry, "considering what you've been though."
"What about it?" asked Teddy. "Those promises? The ones I made to Hermione? Why do they matter anymore? We're not together, and Lord knows I've already broken enough of my promises to her--"
"But she still loves you," said Harry.
"That's not enough. Obviously."
"Not enough to save your marriage," said Harry. "But you're still trying to be friends, right? Is she still holding you to those promises? How would she take it if something happened to you? What would Andromeda say?"
"Look, Harry, if you don't want me to do it, just say that."
"I just want to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons," said Harry. "That you're not just being reckless because of what happened to you and Caroline. You said it after you snuck into the Death Eater meeting to capture Carrow: You're not cut out for that kind of work."
"Victoire's hunting Stymphalians," said Teddy. "Hermione's helping her. Hermione hates her right now, but she's still helping her. You're an Auror now, and half of the family's joining up with you. Everyone has a use except me. I have to do something."
"There's plenty that you can do that doesn't involve putting your life at risk..."
"All of our lives are at risk!" Teddy argued. "The whole bloody world's at risk! I'm not going to make things better by practicing my Romeo and Juliet monologues! I'm not a kid anymore, I have to do something!"
Harry hung his head, covering his face with his hand, and started laughing morbidly. "Damn it," he grumbled. "Now I know how Molly and Arthur felt."
"What?"
"When we were going off Horcrux hunting," he said. "We gave the same line: We're not children anymore. We couldn't stand by and do nothing, especially Ron and Hermione. It didn't make it any easier for their parents to accept. Arthur understood, even if he didn't like it. I still don't know how well Charlotte and Dan took the news before Hermione altered their memories, removed their say in the matter. But Molly... Molly tried like hell to talk us out of leaving. The entire summer, she'd lay the guilt trip on all three of us, just like I am now..."
"It's a parent thing," Teddy shrugged. "If it weren't you, it'd be my mum or dad."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Harry. "Lupin and Tonks... Well, they might not like it, but between the Auror and the Defense professor werewolf, they'd at least be more comfortable letting you go out there. You'd have been raised in their house, probably taught things that you didn't learn from me or Squall. You'd be more prepared to fight than you are now."
"Harry, just because I haven't been fighting Death Eaters my whole life doesn't mean I'm not prepared," Teddy countered. "I learned loads from you and from Squall. Just because I haven't used those skills doesn't mean that they're not there. I might not be as skilled of a duelist as you but, hell, I'm a fucking actor. I have just as much experience with my morphing abilities as Mum would have. Maybe more. I'm trained in improvisation. What I don't have in fighting skill I can make up for with stealth and subterfuge."
"Stealth and subterfuge?" asked Harry with a cocked eyebrow. "Did you get that out of one of your Dungeons & Dragons books?"
"Um... maybe?"
"You know this isn't a computer game, right?"
"Of course I know that!"
"I'm not so sure that you do," said Harry. "I remember how you reacted after you found out Antaeus had been hunting you and Caroline in Japan. You wanted to run and hide. That's smart, but it's not going to be enough if you're out there in the field. You might have to stand up and defend yourself. Or defend others. Are you willing to do that?"
"Of course!"
"Are you willing to hurt someone? Wound them? Are you willing to kill someone?"
"If it comes to that..."
"It will," said Harry. "If things are going to keep going the way I think they're going, then it will come to that. People are going to die. And if they do, you can't melt down like you did on the Quidditch pitch. You have to keep a cool head. Can you do that? You've always been an emotional person, Teddy. But when you're out there you can't let that take control. I don't want to see you get hurt."
"I'll be fine, Harry. I--"
crash
"Shit!" Teddy yelped. Without a word, Harry was on the move.
"Ginny!" he yelled, running towards the bathroom.
"I'm fine!" came a voice from the other side of the door.
"What happened?" Harry asked, twisting the locked doorknob.
"My Corpus slipped," said Ginny, her voice barely hinting at her pain.
"Let me in."
"I'm fine, I just... I... nnf..."
"Ginny?"
"Damn it," Ginny muttered from behind the door. There was a squeak and a thump, her wheelchair rolling backwards and slamming into the wall.
"Alohamora!"
"No!" Ginny yelled as the knob unlocked with a click. "Harry! Is Teddy with you? Don't let him--"
Harry paused, his hand turning the knob, realizing that he had, in his panic, almost caused Ginny an indecent amount of embarrassment by opening the door on her, probably sprawled across the floor with her pants around her ankles, with her godson standing right there, seeing it all.
"I'll go," said Teddy quickly, his face turning bright red.
"Alright," said Harry, his eyes pressing Teddy away as fast as possible. "You think about what we talked about, okay?"
"I will," said Teddy, walking back to the closet and pulling out his jacket. As he did, he felt his hand tighten around his wand.
And he would think about it. He had already been thinking about it, if not in the way that Harry probably wanted.
Thinking of Ginny, thinking of what they did to her, what she was going through now, only cemented Teddy's belief that joining the MLE, the Aurors, was the right idea.
He'd find who did this to his godmother, his mother.
And he'd make them pay.
---------
Victoire Weasley's finger hesitated over the doorbell.
I don't need to be here she has what she needs she can give it to Aunt Jean she doesn't need me--
SHUT UP
Her finger fell forward.
bzzzz
Victoire took a deep breath. Another. Another.
Don't. You're hyperventilating.
She couldn't help it. She wished she had taken her mother and father's offer to come along as a buffer. She felt like bolting down the street at a full tilt, leaving her handful of papers on the stoop, either to be retrieved or to be scattered to the winds. Just jumping into the nearest Floo to Siberia. Anything but this.
The door opened, and Victoire couldn't even break a nervous smile of greeting at the face on the other side of the entry. She's gotten so old...
"Hello, Mrs. Granger," Victoire squaked.
"Victoire," said Charlotte Granger with a nod, but none of that warm smile that she would receive so often in the past. This girl had single-handedly ended her daughter's marriage, after all, and here she stood... Victoire could almost feel herself shrivel under Mrs. Granger's gaze.
"Um," Victorie said in her smallest voice. "HC... um... Caroline's expecting me? Togivemeherresearch," she added as quickly as possible.
"She's upstairs," said Charlotte, her voice hinting at a thousand things that she wanted to say to Victoire, but knowing that the girl upstairs was the only one that had earned the right to say them. Instead, Charlotte stepped back from the door, allowing Victoire to enter the house. Charlotte closed the door and walked down the hall, Victoire following behind. In the background noise, she could hear either the television or the wireless playing, as was the norm in the last two weeks, the news of the world.
"--nese military units have amassed in various strategic points throughout the world's most populated country. According to reports out of Beijing, the Chinese military have begun their attack on specific targets, but are having considerable difficulty breaching the defenses surrounding these magical focal points. Similiar reports out of India and Pakistan, with many reporting that nuclear weaponry may be deployed should these barriers prove--"
Victoire's stomach dropped even further. Nuclear weapons? Some countries were actually thinking of using them against wizard settlements? Why? For what purpose? She knew that Muggles were having a hard time fighting wizard insurgents, but to go that far...
And, worse: Would protective barriers be able to hold up against an onslaught like that? Would the Muggles finally find an effective weapon against magic, even if it meant wiping out entire cities, both wizards and Muggles, in the process?
We have to find them, she thought as she ascended the stairs behind Charlotte. I don't care how much good it would do to find a few bloody birds when the threat of wiping out entire towns with one bomb is all too real, but we need to do what we can.
"Caroline?" Charlotte said, knocking on HC's bedroom door.
"Yeah?" Hermione Caroline said from the other side.
"Victoire's here."
"Alright."
Charlotte pushed open the door and stood aside. Victoire said a thanks so quietly that she wasn't sure if it was anything more than a breath of air and stepped inside to the room.
When she was younger, Victoire would come up here on occasion. Not very often, of course: She and HC were, at least used to be, friends, but they had never hung out nearly as much as HC and Teddy did. But from the few times that she had been up here, Victoire had always loved the Muggle posters, toys, and various trinkets. Victoire would sit on Caroline's bed, fiddling idly with Caroline's stuffed animals or transforming robots, and talk about classes (HC's primaries or her own home schooling) or boys or whatever.
This wasn't that room anymore.
Victoire knew the reason for the barren state. Caroline had moved out. Gotten married. Moved in with her husband and brought all the trappings of her youth with her. One typhon attack and one divorce later, Caroline slept in a room filled with empty shelves and blank walls, her little personalizations all trapped behind a series of defensive barriers in her now-demolished Clapham neighborhood. The bed was the only bright spot, if you could call it that: a set of bed linens, once brightly-colored ninjas now faded with far too many washings, were strapped to a mattress that Caroline had outgrown three years ago.
This is all your fault, you know, Victoire's mind reminded her yet again. If it weren't for you, Caroline wouldn't have had to slink home, the failure of her marriage wafting off her like--
"Shut it," Victoire muttered.
"What?" asked Hermione Caroline Granger, her head spinning sharply to face Victoire. She was sitting at a desk in the corner, a small book-like device sitting atop it. Around the desk were scattered various clear plastic boxes through which Victoire could see cloth, yarn, and various other sewing implements.
Charlotte had started to convert this into her craft room, Victoire realized. She had, that is, until you forced her youngest to move back in--
"Um, do you want me to shut it?" Victoire stammered. "The door?"
Caroline merely shrugged and turned back to her book, which at a second glance Victoire saw had a flat television set and typewriter keys on its pages.
A computer, she thought as she closed the door. A lot smaller than the one she used to have. Didn't she have to keep that computer's television on her desk, and the computer itself somewhere else?
She probably still has the old one, that tiny voice continued to nag. It's back in Clapham, but she doesn't have it because she's not living there anymore. Because of you.
Would you just stop it?
"You, um," Victoire said, her throat bone dry, "do you have the... um... research?"
"I do," said Caroline, tapping a bare patch of plastic below the keyboard with her finger. As she did, little boxes filled with letters flickered across the computer's television.
"Okay," said Victoire. "Well, um, I brought maps and notes and stuff but if you want me to just take them and go then I can."
"You don't have a computer, do you?"
"No...."
"Then it'd be faster for me to just show you what I have instead of trying to print it all out," said Caroline, unplugging the computer from a cable that was running into the wall and carrying it to her bed.
"Alright," said Victoire, walking carefully to the bed. "Look, Hermione, I don't know what to say to--"
"Can we not?" said Caroline shortly. Her eyes never left the computer, but Victoire could tell that the Muggle was doing all she could to keep in control.
"Right..." said Victoire, deflating.
"I'm helping you because it'll help Jean and Charlie and Luna," she continued. "But you and I? We're not fine. Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"I found quite a bit of information," said Caroline, her voice losing the shake of anger and sorrow that had been creeping into it. "Whether it's enough to make any definitive conclusions or not, I don't know. I've used as many contacts as I was able to come up with, pulled as many strings as I could pull, and came out with more than I thought I would."
"What did you find?"
"Seven references that I think are the birds you're looking for," said Caroline, punching a few buttons on the computer's typewriter. "I started with as many Google search phrases as I could come up with--"
"What's that?"
"A search engine and if I have to explain everything about the internet to you it would take forever so let me just talk through this. I wasn't able to find much on Google, unfortunately. Descriptions were too varied, for one thing. One person's metal bird is another's fiery falcon is another's flying saucer. Things were especially thin on the English-speaking sites, which would make sense because, yeah, you saw them in Poland. Odds are they wouldn't end up in England or America or Canada. So I decided to use my resources."
"Like what?"
"Warcraft," said Caroline, a small, proud smile cracking her lips despite herself.
"Can I ask...?"
"The computer game that I play all the time," Caroline explained. "It's online, it's global, and it's a community populated by millions of geeks like me."
"You're not a--"
"I put out an APB in the forums and asked everyone in my guild to contact everyone that they know. Even if one out of every, say, thousand people on the game are the type that absolutely love cryptozoology, I would be able to find a few solid leads. It didn't hurt that it's been on everyone's mind, with the typhon, the three-headed dog in St. Louis, and all that..."
"So these... crypto... whatevers... They found articles?"
"They did," said Caroline. "Granted, they weren't from the most reputable newspapers, but they don't have to be. Most mainstreams wouldn't pick up those reports. Before the typhon attack, they would have written most of them off as lunatic ravings. On the internet, though, there are enough fringe news sites and forums where you can find the information if you really want it. So I bugged my friends, and they bugged their friends, and they flooded their own forums. It helps that there are so many Muggles out there looking for answers, they were more than willing to find something to do. People gave me a lot of information, not just about the Stymphalians. Other magical creatures are suddenly appearing in Muggle areas all around the world. I kept those leads, too, if you want them."
"Wouldn't hurt," said Victoire. "But the birds?"
"I asked peopleto start the search from October. I could have gone back further--"
"Luna already tracked their patterns from late 2018," Victoire said, spreading out the map that she had taken from Luna's hidden research stash. "Everything up til Kaliningrad the night we were attacked."
"Okay," said Caroline. "So here's what I have... Can I write on this?" she asked, pointing to the map.
"Please," said Victoire as Caroline grabbed a purple felt pen from the nightstand.
"Alright," said Caroline, spinning the computer so they could both see the map which was displayed. "Two separate sightings in Norway," she tapped the pen to the paper map. "One was October 14th, just a few days after the attack on your campsite. And another December 10th. What makes me nervous is that there was also a sighting in Kaliningrad on the 10th."
"There might be more than one flock," said Victoire with a nod.
"You're the expert," said Caroline. "Can there be more than one flock? Can they travel that far that fast?"
"I don't know," said Victoire. "They were considered extinct before we found them, so there's not a lot of research on speeds, endurance, that sort of thing. But to cross Scandinavia in one day... I don't know."
"Could they have Apparated? I mean, okay, not the birds, exactly. But could the Oligarchy have shipped them by some other method than flying them?"
"Again, it's possible," said Victoire, tracing her finger back and forth between the two points. "Animals aren't good with magical transport. Disorients them like it disorients us, but animals don't cope with disorientation nearly as well as we do. But I suppose if they build big enough cages, or Stupefy the birds, it could be done..."
"So they can be Stupefied?" Caroline asked, her ears picking up. "They can be hurt? They're not, like, unstoppable killing machines?"
"They can be stopped," said Victoire, "and they can be killed. Magic doesn't work on them, though, at least not very well. They're feathers deflect it."
"But they can be killed..."
"Luna killed one," Victoire explained. "They can launch their own feathers like arrows. Luna used one of the feathers and threw it back at the bird, cutting its head off."
"Use its own weapon against it?" Caroline asked. "Like Agahnim in Zelda?"
"Ummm... sure?" Victoire said with a slow nod. "She was able to get a spell to work, eventually, because the head's not covered with the feathers. It's just that it's a really small target, and it's moving. She stunned the other two after she was able to get close to them."
"How do you know all this?"
"I guess I remember more about Luna's memory than I thought I did," Victoire shrugged. "More stuck."
"So it can be done," said Caroline, staring at the map. "If we can figure out where they're going, we can stop them."
"Yes," said Victoire quietly. "Yes, we can."
"And they'll have Oligarchy with them?"
"That's the hope."
"It can all be over..."
"Yes," said Victoire, and before she could stop herself:
"I love him."
The sudden silence struck Victoire's eardrums like a hammer. Over the map, Victoire could see Caroline's face pale.
"Victoire, I can't--"
"I know," said Victoire quickly, reaching for Caroline's arm then pulling away before touching her. "But I just need to say it, I need you to know. I'm sorry that I did what I did, but I need to have you understand that I didn't do it to hurt you. I didn't do it because I was... I don't know, desperate or horny or whatever. I did it because I love him, and because I thought that, maybe, he felt the same way. I'm sorry that I've ruined everything between you two, more than you can know. It's been killing me knowing what I did to the both of you. But... that's how I felt about him, how I feel about him, I just... needed you to know that."
"I hope he does."
Victoire blinked. "What?"
"I hope he does love you," Caroline said, her throat husky. "It would hurt less than knowing that he cheated on me with someone he didn't have any feelings for. It'd make... the divorce easier if I knew that we should never have gotten married because he was torn between me and another woman and that if he was just a jerk who couldn't keep his cock in his pants. It... It'd..."
Caroline started to cry. Victoire wanted to reach out to try to comfort the girl, her friend, but also knew that it would be the worst thing to do.
"It'd..." Caroline said, sniffing, "It'd make it easier if I knew that... that he wasn't just doing it because he didn't love me enough..."
"He still loves you," said Victoire quietly. "I know that's not going to help, but he does. Even when we were together, it--"
"I don't want to know," Caroline said. "Please, I don't want to know about what you two did when you were together..."
"I won't," said Victoire. "Just... He never stopped loving you. Whether he loved both of us or was just feeling sorry for me, I don't know. But he never stopped loving you."
"It's just not enough," Caroline said with a shuddering sigh.
"I don't know," said Victoire sadly. "But for my part, I'm sorry that I've done this to you."
"I'll remember what you said," said Caroline, wiping her eyes. "I can't... If you're looking for forgiveness, I'm not ready to--"
"If you ever forgive me, I'd be shocked. That's not what I'm looking for. I just want you to be better."
It'll help that you won't be around to bother her, her mind interjected. You'll be escaping, and she'll be happier for it.
"I'll remember," said Caroline, picking up her pen again. "Is that enough? Can we drop it now?"
"Yeah, we can drop it," said Victoire, her heart lightening somewhat. She still felt the guilt on her shoulders like a lead weight, but at least now it was closer to twelve tons instead of thirteen. "What about the other sightings?"
"Right," said Caroline, looking at the map on the computer. "There weren't any sightings outside of Kaliningrad until January 5th."
"The day after the attack..."
"They move fast after that," said Caroline. "Probably figured they wouldn't have to hide as readily. After all, we Muggles had enough craziness happening. What are giant metal birds, right?"
"What do you have?"
"January 5th, in the Slupia Valley Landscape Park," said Caroline, tapping the tip of the pen to the northern coast of Poland. "January 6th outside of Wilhelmshaven." Another dot, the northern coast of Germany, just east of the Netherlands. "And January 8th, outside of Bruges..."
As Victoire stared at the third dot, right across the Dover Strait, she shook her head. "Somehow, this doesn't surprise me in the least."
"Keeps coming back here, doesn't it?" Caroline sighed. "England or France..."
"London or Paris," said Victoire. "Three guesses on their target, and the first two don't count."
"The sighting was six days ago," Caroline said. "There haven't been any since then. Maybe they've moved if they knew they've been seen."
"By Muggles," said Victoire, picking up the map. "I doubt the Oligarchy really think very highly of any sort of Muggle response, and they know that the Ministry's too busy to worry about Muggle news reports, especially fringe newspapers or, um, websites. So you're right, they might have moved on. But would you trust that?"
"No, I wouldn't," Caroline said. "It might be that they're waiting for the right time to attack. But why does it keep coming back to us? Why can't they pick on another country?"
"I don't know," said Victoire. "You said that there are other sightings, right? Other magical creatures around the world?"
"Maybe they're planning a synchronized strike," Caroline said with a shudder.
"We need to talk to your sister," said Victoire, standing up. "Now.
"The Stymphalians are coming, and we need to make sure that the Ministry's ready."
Coming Home / Previous Chapters
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Previous Chapters
Rating: PG13
Summary: Teddy, HC, and Victoire face the music
Notes: I own these characters. The others belong to JK Rowling.
Coming Home / Previous Chapters
The January sun was already well below the horizon as the four figures walked through the cold streets of Norwich, one of the four pushing a fifth along in a wheelchair. The streets were unusually quiet, even for this time of year, with more and more Muggles afraid to strike out onto the darkened roads. Most were now seated in front of their televisions, their radios, their computer monitors, catching up on the news that had horrified, angered, and overall captivated them over the last two weeks.
As much as they hated to admit it, most wizards knew that this fear made today's events easier to coordinate. However, they had still played it as safely as possible when it came to the memorial for Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt. What would have been a massive public memorial in more peaceful times was now simply a gathering of dignitaries, Ministry officials, and selected friends and family. Citizens who would have been welcomed to a public viewing in the past were now reduced to listening to BBC Wiz simulcast it on the wireless.
Logistics played a larger role than ever before. A gathering that would have been seen as a mere curiosity by Muggles before January 4th was now viewed with unwavering suspicion. Invitees filtered in over the course of three hours from various landing points within Norwich, Kingsley's home town. After the Ministry sent out diagrams of "Approved Muggle Funeral Attire" to all attendees, they were giving the simple warning: Arrive in Muggle dress or don't arrive at all.
The service and the burial were held outdoors, at the grave site, behind innumerable protection spells and far from the view of Muggle passersby. That way they wouldn't have to worry about Muggles noticing a congregation of strangers at any churches in the area.
The funeral service was simple. Minister Hermione Weasley, her voice still rough from the tears of yesterday's burial of her brother- and sister-in-law, said a few words about her predecessor. Minerva McGonnagal, looking so old and frail that you wouldn't believe she was the same woman who led a charge of enchanted desks at the Battle of Hogwarts, spoke as his former teacher as well as one of the last surviving representatives of the Order of the Phoenix. One of Kingsley's cousins spoke for the Shacklebolt family; his ancestors were relatively new to the Isles, and as an only child of two parents who had passed from the world years before, Kingsley's surviving relatives were thin on the ground.
Finally, the words were done. The casket holding the Minister was lowered into the frozen ground and the pile of dirt was lifted by wand onto it. Groups began to leave as they arrived: as small and far apart as possible. After two hours, these five wanderers left Hermione and Ron Weasley and a few remaining foreign representatives and began their trek to a Floo station across town.
"It's getting ugly out there," said Dudley Dursley, holding his wife, Susan's, hand. They walked to the left of Harry Potter, who was pushing his own wife along in her wheelchair. To the right walked Harry's godson, Teddy Lupin, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets and his eyes glued to the passing sidewalk.
"Job market's tough," said Harry to his cousin's comment.
"Job market's easy," Dudley shrugged. "I'll be able to get a new job easily enough. Hell, I could start my own company with all the experience and references I've built up over the years. Not everyone out there are berks about my marriage. At least, well, I hope they're not."
"Just ugly in general," said Ginny, nodding in understanding.
"It was ugly from the day of the attack, sure," Dudley explained. "People were freaking out left and right. Demonstrations, riots, fighting and all that. Let's just say that Dad would be in his element," he added darkly. "Now... People are starting to organize."
"Organize?" said Teddy, his head lifting slightly.
"They're not liking the government's response," said Dudley. "So some people are starting to take matters into their own hands. Those blokes at work? The ones who were talking, the ones who got me fired? It was more than talk. They had been asking around. Going to meetings. Organizing Neighborhood Watches." Dudley snorted. "Neighborhood Watches. Neighborhood Militias, more like. Average Englishmen, going out and looking for wizards. Dealing with them on their own terms."
"They're going to get themselves killed," said Susan.
"And kill others in the process," said Ginny. "We can handle ourselves if it came to it. But how's your average Muggle going to know the difference? How many innocent Muggles are going to be killed by these idiots who can't tell a wizard from a Muggle?"
"It's a witch hunt," said Dudley. "Literally. Like the old days: Throw them on the fire. If they live, they're a witch. If they burn, they're not."
"They should make sure they weigh the same as a duck," said Teddy sickly. "Have we learned nothing from Monty Python?"
"They wouldn't even know where to start looking," said Ginny. "I mean, I don't want them to look at all, but if a normal Muggle's going to want to kill a witch--"
"Nothing average about that kind of Muggle," said Susan.
"--I'd rather they find a proper one so we can beat them good and hard for their... Damn it," said Ginny, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to sound like one of them..."
"You didn't," said Harry, kissing the top of her head. "And they are finding wizards. We've been seeing more and more of it. The Aurors, we've been having to save wizards from Muggles as much as we've been saving Muggles from wizards or from each other. You're right, Dudley. They are organizing, and I have a good idea about who's doing a lot of the work."
"Dennis?" asked Susan.
"Among others," said Harry. "Creevey can't be the only wizard out there who has a bone to pick with us. There's a reason that someone Goes Muggle, and I reckon it's usually because they're too scared of what they can do. Of what we can do. Of course they're going to take the Muggle's side when it comes down to it, and of course they're going to have information about us that your average Muggle wouldn't have."
"I'm surprised they haven't gone to the government yet," said Teddy. "You'd think they'd want to help the Muggles as much as they could to fight back."
"Maybe they already have," said Harry. "Hell, a lot of Muggle governments already have information about us. We opened up to them a lot after 9/11. The Muggles know where Diagon is. They know where Hogwarts is, where the Ministry of Magic is."
"Then why haven't they done anything?"
"Our protection spells are still too powerful," Susan explained. "They can't cross any of those borders without magic blood or a Muggle Charm."
"So what you're saying," said Teddy, "is that if someone with a Muggle Charm or with magical blood, like an ex-wizard or a Squib whose been on the wrong side of too many jokes, wants do to something, they'll be able to? Like if, say, that Creevey bloke wants to turn suicide bomber in the middle of Hogsmeade, he could?"
The group fell silent, their minds too easily embracing the horror that could come from such an act.
"I'd hope not," said Harry quietly. "There are so many MLE agents patrolling the streets that you'd hope nothing like that would get by us."
"You can't tell me there are too many wizards seriously looking for those kinds of thing, though," said Dudley. "I mean, they're trained to look for, what, cursed objects, yeah? Do they even have bomb-sniffing dogs?"
Harry and Susan exchanged a glance, but couldn't answer the question. The truth of the matter was, for centuries, wizards had considered Muggle technology nothing more than an amusing joke by a desperate species. Things like guns and dynamite were so foreign that many wizards wouldn't recognize one if it was put in front of them. It was only too plausible for someone to walk into Diagon Alley with a semi-automatic, a rocket launcher, or a belt of hand grenades and do some major damage before any security wizards even recognized what they were carrying.
The thought made Harry's stomach churn.
"We should talk to Seamus," he said to Susan. "Make sure the pureblood Aurors know what to look for."
"Yeah," said Susan, who, while a pureblood herself, had seen enough Muggle movies and video games in her nearly twenty years with Dudley to know what to look for. "Absolutely."
"We're here," said Ginny, grabbing the wheels of her chair to brake Harry's pushes. The group had arrived at a small flat, a "For Rent" sign eternally plastered to the kitchen window. Looking left and right to make sure no one was looking, Teddy opened the door and allowed the others to come inside, empty but for the single hearth and a flower pot of powder.
"You two want to come over for a bit?" Harry asked the Dursleys. "Have a cup of tea?"
"No, we should head home," said Susan. "Things as they are, we need sleep when we can get it, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," said Harry. "Teddy? Could you stop in for a few minutes?"
"Sure," said Teddy, albeit hesitantly, as the Dursleys made their goodbyes and Flooed home. Harry could tell from the tone of his voice that Teddy knew exactly what Harry wanted to talk to him about.
Minutes later, Teddy followed the Potters out of the Floo and into their Wimbourne home. It being the first time he had been here since Ginny had been injured, Teddy could already see some noticeable differences. The furniture was spaced further apart, for one, with the Potters' coffee table now missing completely. The wireless was now on a lower shelf, as was the bar upon which Teddy now hung his jacket.
"Come on into the kitchen," said Harry to Teddy. "Help me get this tea going."
"Alright," said Teddy, pulling off his jacket.
"You two alright on your own?" asked Ginny. "I have to use the loo."
"Do you need any help?" asked Harry.
"I'll be fine," said Ginny, pushing against her chair's wheels to turn herself down the hallway.
"Are you sure?"
"I'll be fine!" Ginny repeated more firmly. Harry didn't press further, but Teddy could see the look of concern on his face as he watched his wife steer herself into the bathroom and close the door behind her.
"Is she?" Teddy asked.
"I don't know," Harry said with a shake of his head. "She's still really early in the rehab process. She was able to talk the Healers into letting her out for the funerals, and they're making her go back tomorrow. It helped that her sister-in-law's the Minister of Magic. But... she's proud. Always has been. That's one of the things I've always loved about her. Especially now with Percy and Penelope gone, and with Charlie the way he is, she doesn't want to become another burden..."
"But she's not," Teddy argued. "I mean, if she needed any help with anything, I wouldn't hesitate--"
"Neither do I," said Harry. "But... she's still trying to learn how to work with her new situation. I ask, but I don't want to ask too often. You know Ginny. She'll get upset if too many people try to help her, and that will only make it worse. It will make her feel weak, and she hates to feel weak. That was one of the pacts that we made when she left Mungo's: If she needs help, she'll ask for it. But I won't press her. Besides, it's a lot easier for a witch than a Muggle, since she can still use her wand to do a lot of things that she wouldn't be able to do otherwise."
Teddy nodded, but could tell that Harry didn't completely agree with the words he was saying. He loved her, after all, and hated having to see her struggle through anything. They might find a happy medium someday. And they might find a way for Ginny to walk again, and this will all be another dark chapter in their otherwise happy lives together. But until then, the Potters would have to find some middle ground to make them both happy while still maintaining some semblance of sanity.
Just like Hermione and I should have found...
But what middle ground would there have been anyway? They had come to the decision together: They had made a mistake. They shouldn't have gotten married. At least not yet...
Don't, Teddy snapped. Don't leave the door open. That's what rushed you into the marriage in the first place. She had been right after all. Her and her damn Granger Stubborn. They should have spent more time apart. Should have seen other people, experienced something besides each other, before they had come to the decision that they had. Maybe they would have come out in the end still in love with each other, and maybe they wouldn't have.
If something happens again, then it happens, he thought as he and Harry entered the kitchen. But for Merlin's sake, don't wait for her. If you find yourselves together again in five, ten, fifteen years, then fine, deal with it then. But you dug your hole, don't wait for her to come pull you out.
As the two worked in silence, Teddy braced himself for the inevitable. After all, Harry had yet to say anything to him about the affair with Victoire, or about the ensuing divorce. He had yet to tell Teddy how disappointed he was in him, how he had raised him to be smarter than that. To be better than that. To--
"I talked to Seamus," said Harry as he filled the teapot.
Or he could talk to you about that, thought Teddy, flinching.
"Yeah," said Teddy quietly.
"I thought you said never again," said Harry calmly. "That day at Holyhead, remember? No more fighting, no more helping the Aurors. That's not a life you've ever wanted to lead."
"That was before," said Teddy. "Before all of this. I want to help again."
"By joining up?"
"They could use a metamorph," Teddy explained. "Kingsley went on all the time about how good my mum was with espionage stuff. And I have the theater training that could help in undercover work..."
"I'm just wondering if you're thinking clearly about things, is all," said Harry, "considering what you've been though."
"What about it?" asked Teddy. "Those promises? The ones I made to Hermione? Why do they matter anymore? We're not together, and Lord knows I've already broken enough of my promises to her--"
"But she still loves you," said Harry.
"That's not enough. Obviously."
"Not enough to save your marriage," said Harry. "But you're still trying to be friends, right? Is she still holding you to those promises? How would she take it if something happened to you? What would Andromeda say?"
"Look, Harry, if you don't want me to do it, just say that."
"I just want to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons," said Harry. "That you're not just being reckless because of what happened to you and Caroline. You said it after you snuck into the Death Eater meeting to capture Carrow: You're not cut out for that kind of work."
"Victoire's hunting Stymphalians," said Teddy. "Hermione's helping her. Hermione hates her right now, but she's still helping her. You're an Auror now, and half of the family's joining up with you. Everyone has a use except me. I have to do something."
"There's plenty that you can do that doesn't involve putting your life at risk..."
"All of our lives are at risk!" Teddy argued. "The whole bloody world's at risk! I'm not going to make things better by practicing my Romeo and Juliet monologues! I'm not a kid anymore, I have to do something!"
Harry hung his head, covering his face with his hand, and started laughing morbidly. "Damn it," he grumbled. "Now I know how Molly and Arthur felt."
"What?"
"When we were going off Horcrux hunting," he said. "We gave the same line: We're not children anymore. We couldn't stand by and do nothing, especially Ron and Hermione. It didn't make it any easier for their parents to accept. Arthur understood, even if he didn't like it. I still don't know how well Charlotte and Dan took the news before Hermione altered their memories, removed their say in the matter. But Molly... Molly tried like hell to talk us out of leaving. The entire summer, she'd lay the guilt trip on all three of us, just like I am now..."
"It's a parent thing," Teddy shrugged. "If it weren't you, it'd be my mum or dad."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Harry. "Lupin and Tonks... Well, they might not like it, but between the Auror and the Defense professor werewolf, they'd at least be more comfortable letting you go out there. You'd have been raised in their house, probably taught things that you didn't learn from me or Squall. You'd be more prepared to fight than you are now."
"Harry, just because I haven't been fighting Death Eaters my whole life doesn't mean I'm not prepared," Teddy countered. "I learned loads from you and from Squall. Just because I haven't used those skills doesn't mean that they're not there. I might not be as skilled of a duelist as you but, hell, I'm a fucking actor. I have just as much experience with my morphing abilities as Mum would have. Maybe more. I'm trained in improvisation. What I don't have in fighting skill I can make up for with stealth and subterfuge."
"Stealth and subterfuge?" asked Harry with a cocked eyebrow. "Did you get that out of one of your Dungeons & Dragons books?"
"Um... maybe?"
"You know this isn't a computer game, right?"
"Of course I know that!"
"I'm not so sure that you do," said Harry. "I remember how you reacted after you found out Antaeus had been hunting you and Caroline in Japan. You wanted to run and hide. That's smart, but it's not going to be enough if you're out there in the field. You might have to stand up and defend yourself. Or defend others. Are you willing to do that?"
"Of course!"
"Are you willing to hurt someone? Wound them? Are you willing to kill someone?"
"If it comes to that..."
"It will," said Harry. "If things are going to keep going the way I think they're going, then it will come to that. People are going to die. And if they do, you can't melt down like you did on the Quidditch pitch. You have to keep a cool head. Can you do that? You've always been an emotional person, Teddy. But when you're out there you can't let that take control. I don't want to see you get hurt."
"I'll be fine, Harry. I--"
crash
"Shit!" Teddy yelped. Without a word, Harry was on the move.
"Ginny!" he yelled, running towards the bathroom.
"I'm fine!" came a voice from the other side of the door.
"What happened?" Harry asked, twisting the locked doorknob.
"My Corpus slipped," said Ginny, her voice barely hinting at her pain.
"Let me in."
"I'm fine, I just... I... nnf..."
"Ginny?"
"Damn it," Ginny muttered from behind the door. There was a squeak and a thump, her wheelchair rolling backwards and slamming into the wall.
"Alohamora!"
"No!" Ginny yelled as the knob unlocked with a click. "Harry! Is Teddy with you? Don't let him--"
Harry paused, his hand turning the knob, realizing that he had, in his panic, almost caused Ginny an indecent amount of embarrassment by opening the door on her, probably sprawled across the floor with her pants around her ankles, with her godson standing right there, seeing it all.
"I'll go," said Teddy quickly, his face turning bright red.
"Alright," said Harry, his eyes pressing Teddy away as fast as possible. "You think about what we talked about, okay?"
"I will," said Teddy, walking back to the closet and pulling out his jacket. As he did, he felt his hand tighten around his wand.
And he would think about it. He had already been thinking about it, if not in the way that Harry probably wanted.
Thinking of Ginny, thinking of what they did to her, what she was going through now, only cemented Teddy's belief that joining the MLE, the Aurors, was the right idea.
He'd find who did this to his godmother, his mother.
And he'd make them pay.
---------
Victoire Weasley's finger hesitated over the doorbell.
I don't need to be here she has what she needs she can give it to Aunt Jean she doesn't need me--
SHUT UP
Her finger fell forward.
bzzzz
Victoire took a deep breath. Another. Another.
Don't. You're hyperventilating.
She couldn't help it. She wished she had taken her mother and father's offer to come along as a buffer. She felt like bolting down the street at a full tilt, leaving her handful of papers on the stoop, either to be retrieved or to be scattered to the winds. Just jumping into the nearest Floo to Siberia. Anything but this.
The door opened, and Victoire couldn't even break a nervous smile of greeting at the face on the other side of the entry. She's gotten so old...
"Hello, Mrs. Granger," Victoire squaked.
"Victoire," said Charlotte Granger with a nod, but none of that warm smile that she would receive so often in the past. This girl had single-handedly ended her daughter's marriage, after all, and here she stood... Victoire could almost feel herself shrivel under Mrs. Granger's gaze.
"Um," Victorie said in her smallest voice. "HC... um... Caroline's expecting me? Togivemeherresearch," she added as quickly as possible.
"She's upstairs," said Charlotte, her voice hinting at a thousand things that she wanted to say to Victoire, but knowing that the girl upstairs was the only one that had earned the right to say them. Instead, Charlotte stepped back from the door, allowing Victoire to enter the house. Charlotte closed the door and walked down the hall, Victoire following behind. In the background noise, she could hear either the television or the wireless playing, as was the norm in the last two weeks, the news of the world.
"--nese military units have amassed in various strategic points throughout the world's most populated country. According to reports out of Beijing, the Chinese military have begun their attack on specific targets, but are having considerable difficulty breaching the defenses surrounding these magical focal points. Similiar reports out of India and Pakistan, with many reporting that nuclear weaponry may be deployed should these barriers prove--"
Victoire's stomach dropped even further. Nuclear weapons? Some countries were actually thinking of using them against wizard settlements? Why? For what purpose? She knew that Muggles were having a hard time fighting wizard insurgents, but to go that far...
And, worse: Would protective barriers be able to hold up against an onslaught like that? Would the Muggles finally find an effective weapon against magic, even if it meant wiping out entire cities, both wizards and Muggles, in the process?
We have to find them, she thought as she ascended the stairs behind Charlotte. I don't care how much good it would do to find a few bloody birds when the threat of wiping out entire towns with one bomb is all too real, but we need to do what we can.
"Caroline?" Charlotte said, knocking on HC's bedroom door.
"Yeah?" Hermione Caroline said from the other side.
"Victoire's here."
"Alright."
Charlotte pushed open the door and stood aside. Victoire said a thanks so quietly that she wasn't sure if it was anything more than a breath of air and stepped inside to the room.
When she was younger, Victoire would come up here on occasion. Not very often, of course: She and HC were, at least used to be, friends, but they had never hung out nearly as much as HC and Teddy did. But from the few times that she had been up here, Victoire had always loved the Muggle posters, toys, and various trinkets. Victoire would sit on Caroline's bed, fiddling idly with Caroline's stuffed animals or transforming robots, and talk about classes (HC's primaries or her own home schooling) or boys or whatever.
This wasn't that room anymore.
Victoire knew the reason for the barren state. Caroline had moved out. Gotten married. Moved in with her husband and brought all the trappings of her youth with her. One typhon attack and one divorce later, Caroline slept in a room filled with empty shelves and blank walls, her little personalizations all trapped behind a series of defensive barriers in her now-demolished Clapham neighborhood. The bed was the only bright spot, if you could call it that: a set of bed linens, once brightly-colored ninjas now faded with far too many washings, were strapped to a mattress that Caroline had outgrown three years ago.
This is all your fault, you know, Victoire's mind reminded her yet again. If it weren't for you, Caroline wouldn't have had to slink home, the failure of her marriage wafting off her like--
"Shut it," Victoire muttered.
"What?" asked Hermione Caroline Granger, her head spinning sharply to face Victoire. She was sitting at a desk in the corner, a small book-like device sitting atop it. Around the desk were scattered various clear plastic boxes through which Victoire could see cloth, yarn, and various other sewing implements.
Charlotte had started to convert this into her craft room, Victoire realized. She had, that is, until you forced her youngest to move back in--
"Um, do you want me to shut it?" Victoire stammered. "The door?"
Caroline merely shrugged and turned back to her book, which at a second glance Victoire saw had a flat television set and typewriter keys on its pages.
A computer, she thought as she closed the door. A lot smaller than the one she used to have. Didn't she have to keep that computer's television on her desk, and the computer itself somewhere else?
She probably still has the old one, that tiny voice continued to nag. It's back in Clapham, but she doesn't have it because she's not living there anymore. Because of you.
Would you just stop it?
"You, um," Victoire said, her throat bone dry, "do you have the... um... research?"
"I do," said Caroline, tapping a bare patch of plastic below the keyboard with her finger. As she did, little boxes filled with letters flickered across the computer's television.
"Okay," said Victoire. "Well, um, I brought maps and notes and stuff but if you want me to just take them and go then I can."
"You don't have a computer, do you?"
"No...."
"Then it'd be faster for me to just show you what I have instead of trying to print it all out," said Caroline, unplugging the computer from a cable that was running into the wall and carrying it to her bed.
"Alright," said Victoire, walking carefully to the bed. "Look, Hermione, I don't know what to say to--"
"Can we not?" said Caroline shortly. Her eyes never left the computer, but Victoire could tell that the Muggle was doing all she could to keep in control.
"Right..." said Victoire, deflating.
"I'm helping you because it'll help Jean and Charlie and Luna," she continued. "But you and I? We're not fine. Yeah?"
"Yeah..."
"I found quite a bit of information," said Caroline, her voice losing the shake of anger and sorrow that had been creeping into it. "Whether it's enough to make any definitive conclusions or not, I don't know. I've used as many contacts as I was able to come up with, pulled as many strings as I could pull, and came out with more than I thought I would."
"What did you find?"
"Seven references that I think are the birds you're looking for," said Caroline, punching a few buttons on the computer's typewriter. "I started with as many Google search phrases as I could come up with--"
"What's that?"
"A search engine and if I have to explain everything about the internet to you it would take forever so let me just talk through this. I wasn't able to find much on Google, unfortunately. Descriptions were too varied, for one thing. One person's metal bird is another's fiery falcon is another's flying saucer. Things were especially thin on the English-speaking sites, which would make sense because, yeah, you saw them in Poland. Odds are they wouldn't end up in England or America or Canada. So I decided to use my resources."
"Like what?"
"Warcraft," said Caroline, a small, proud smile cracking her lips despite herself.
"Can I ask...?"
"The computer game that I play all the time," Caroline explained. "It's online, it's global, and it's a community populated by millions of geeks like me."
"You're not a--"
"I put out an APB in the forums and asked everyone in my guild to contact everyone that they know. Even if one out of every, say, thousand people on the game are the type that absolutely love cryptozoology, I would be able to find a few solid leads. It didn't hurt that it's been on everyone's mind, with the typhon, the three-headed dog in St. Louis, and all that..."
"So these... crypto... whatevers... They found articles?"
"They did," said Caroline. "Granted, they weren't from the most reputable newspapers, but they don't have to be. Most mainstreams wouldn't pick up those reports. Before the typhon attack, they would have written most of them off as lunatic ravings. On the internet, though, there are enough fringe news sites and forums where you can find the information if you really want it. So I bugged my friends, and they bugged their friends, and they flooded their own forums. It helps that there are so many Muggles out there looking for answers, they were more than willing to find something to do. People gave me a lot of information, not just about the Stymphalians. Other magical creatures are suddenly appearing in Muggle areas all around the world. I kept those leads, too, if you want them."
"Wouldn't hurt," said Victoire. "But the birds?"
"I asked peopleto start the search from October. I could have gone back further--"
"Luna already tracked their patterns from late 2018," Victoire said, spreading out the map that she had taken from Luna's hidden research stash. "Everything up til Kaliningrad the night we were attacked."
"Okay," said Caroline. "So here's what I have... Can I write on this?" she asked, pointing to the map.
"Please," said Victoire as Caroline grabbed a purple felt pen from the nightstand.
"Alright," said Caroline, spinning the computer so they could both see the map which was displayed. "Two separate sightings in Norway," she tapped the pen to the paper map. "One was October 14th, just a few days after the attack on your campsite. And another December 10th. What makes me nervous is that there was also a sighting in Kaliningrad on the 10th."
"There might be more than one flock," said Victoire with a nod.
"You're the expert," said Caroline. "Can there be more than one flock? Can they travel that far that fast?"
"I don't know," said Victoire. "They were considered extinct before we found them, so there's not a lot of research on speeds, endurance, that sort of thing. But to cross Scandinavia in one day... I don't know."
"Could they have Apparated? I mean, okay, not the birds, exactly. But could the Oligarchy have shipped them by some other method than flying them?"
"Again, it's possible," said Victoire, tracing her finger back and forth between the two points. "Animals aren't good with magical transport. Disorients them like it disorients us, but animals don't cope with disorientation nearly as well as we do. But I suppose if they build big enough cages, or Stupefy the birds, it could be done..."
"So they can be Stupefied?" Caroline asked, her ears picking up. "They can be hurt? They're not, like, unstoppable killing machines?"
"They can be stopped," said Victoire, "and they can be killed. Magic doesn't work on them, though, at least not very well. They're feathers deflect it."
"But they can be killed..."
"Luna killed one," Victoire explained. "They can launch their own feathers like arrows. Luna used one of the feathers and threw it back at the bird, cutting its head off."
"Use its own weapon against it?" Caroline asked. "Like Agahnim in Zelda?"
"Ummm... sure?" Victoire said with a slow nod. "She was able to get a spell to work, eventually, because the head's not covered with the feathers. It's just that it's a really small target, and it's moving. She stunned the other two after she was able to get close to them."
"How do you know all this?"
"I guess I remember more about Luna's memory than I thought I did," Victoire shrugged. "More stuck."
"So it can be done," said Caroline, staring at the map. "If we can figure out where they're going, we can stop them."
"Yes," said Victoire quietly. "Yes, we can."
"And they'll have Oligarchy with them?"
"That's the hope."
"It can all be over..."
"Yes," said Victoire, and before she could stop herself:
"I love him."
The sudden silence struck Victoire's eardrums like a hammer. Over the map, Victoire could see Caroline's face pale.
"Victoire, I can't--"
"I know," said Victoire quickly, reaching for Caroline's arm then pulling away before touching her. "But I just need to say it, I need you to know. I'm sorry that I did what I did, but I need to have you understand that I didn't do it to hurt you. I didn't do it because I was... I don't know, desperate or horny or whatever. I did it because I love him, and because I thought that, maybe, he felt the same way. I'm sorry that I've ruined everything between you two, more than you can know. It's been killing me knowing what I did to the both of you. But... that's how I felt about him, how I feel about him, I just... needed you to know that."
"I hope he does."
Victoire blinked. "What?"
"I hope he does love you," Caroline said, her throat husky. "It would hurt less than knowing that he cheated on me with someone he didn't have any feelings for. It'd make... the divorce easier if I knew that we should never have gotten married because he was torn between me and another woman and that if he was just a jerk who couldn't keep his cock in his pants. It... It'd..."
Caroline started to cry. Victoire wanted to reach out to try to comfort the girl, her friend, but also knew that it would be the worst thing to do.
"It'd..." Caroline said, sniffing, "It'd make it easier if I knew that... that he wasn't just doing it because he didn't love me enough..."
"He still loves you," said Victoire quietly. "I know that's not going to help, but he does. Even when we were together, it--"
"I don't want to know," Caroline said. "Please, I don't want to know about what you two did when you were together..."
"I won't," said Victoire. "Just... He never stopped loving you. Whether he loved both of us or was just feeling sorry for me, I don't know. But he never stopped loving you."
"It's just not enough," Caroline said with a shuddering sigh.
"I don't know," said Victoire sadly. "But for my part, I'm sorry that I've done this to you."
"I'll remember what you said," said Caroline, wiping her eyes. "I can't... If you're looking for forgiveness, I'm not ready to--"
"If you ever forgive me, I'd be shocked. That's not what I'm looking for. I just want you to be better."
It'll help that you won't be around to bother her, her mind interjected. You'll be escaping, and she'll be happier for it.
"I'll remember," said Caroline, picking up her pen again. "Is that enough? Can we drop it now?"
"Yeah, we can drop it," said Victoire, her heart lightening somewhat. She still felt the guilt on her shoulders like a lead weight, but at least now it was closer to twelve tons instead of thirteen. "What about the other sightings?"
"Right," said Caroline, looking at the map on the computer. "There weren't any sightings outside of Kaliningrad until January 5th."
"The day after the attack..."
"They move fast after that," said Caroline. "Probably figured they wouldn't have to hide as readily. After all, we Muggles had enough craziness happening. What are giant metal birds, right?"
"What do you have?"
"January 5th, in the Slupia Valley Landscape Park," said Caroline, tapping the tip of the pen to the northern coast of Poland. "January 6th outside of Wilhelmshaven." Another dot, the northern coast of Germany, just east of the Netherlands. "And January 8th, outside of Bruges..."
As Victoire stared at the third dot, right across the Dover Strait, she shook her head. "Somehow, this doesn't surprise me in the least."
"Keeps coming back here, doesn't it?" Caroline sighed. "England or France..."
"London or Paris," said Victoire. "Three guesses on their target, and the first two don't count."
"The sighting was six days ago," Caroline said. "There haven't been any since then. Maybe they've moved if they knew they've been seen."
"By Muggles," said Victoire, picking up the map. "I doubt the Oligarchy really think very highly of any sort of Muggle response, and they know that the Ministry's too busy to worry about Muggle news reports, especially fringe newspapers or, um, websites. So you're right, they might have moved on. But would you trust that?"
"No, I wouldn't," Caroline said. "It might be that they're waiting for the right time to attack. But why does it keep coming back to us? Why can't they pick on another country?"
"I don't know," said Victoire. "You said that there are other sightings, right? Other magical creatures around the world?"
"Maybe they're planning a synchronized strike," Caroline said with a shudder.
"We need to talk to your sister," said Victoire, standing up. "Now.
"The Stymphalians are coming, and we need to make sure that the Ministry's ready."
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