The Bureau Of Loopholes

"Hang on, Val! This man's not dead!"

Remus Lupin opened his eyes slowly, the hovering, indistinct forms and colors gradually coming into focus as two women bending over him. One of them held up a lantern to examine his face, and he closed his eyes against the glare.

"Val, he's had a rough time of it! He doesn't need you blindin' him!" The reproving voice had a strong accent, but it was one that Remus couldn't recognize.

"Ah, give it a rest," another, younger voice replied, and her Irish brogue was more apparent. "Now that he's alive, we may as well fix him up."

"I'll be all right, th—"

"Dearie, where are you hurt?" interrupted the older voice. The woman didn't wait for his reply before lifting his head (the sudden rush of motion made him feel ill) and feeling at the back. "Oh, Val, just look at this lump!" she exclaimed, turning her patient over. Soon, two sets of hands were feeling at his head.

"Perhaps he's concussed," the Irish woman—Val—suggested. "Some of the purple stuff, then?"

"No, blue, I think; what d'you use on your Sean when he gets knocked about by them Bludgers?"

"He doesn't get hit in the head, now does he?" Val asked in a frosty voice. "But my brother Aidan concusses when you look at him hard, and Mum always said that of Quirian's Head Tonic worked wonders—that's green, I think. Or is it purple?"

"P'raps it's blue. Check with Poppy, there's a dear." While Val ran off, the other woman turned Remus over again. "Wot's your name, dearie?" she asked, and Remus opened his eyes. She had a seamed and wrinkled face, with sharp, dark eyes and a kind expression.

"Remus," he replied, briefly. "And you really don't need—" He was cut off by the grip of her bony fingers on his chin. She chuckled.

"I'm Atropos. Atropos Fletcher." In the use of the last name, there was a subtle chastisement for his informality. "And the snip of a thing that just ran off is Valerie Lynch. Young boy like you would know who Sean Lynch is, right? The Irish Quidditch player?" Remus shook his head (which brought another surge of nausea); while he had always enjoyed playing Quidditch at school, he'd never really kept up on the professional sport and its players. "No? Well, Val's his wife. Right kind of her, to take time off from that harum-scarum child of hers to help us out, but she's an old friend, right?" Atropos looked back over her shoulder. "Val's comin' back now with a bottle; we'll have you fixed up in a moment, dearie."

Sure enough, Val had returned, carrying a brown vial. "It's red, look!" she called, pouring a few drops on her hand. She then proceeded to push the rim of the bottle into Remus' mouth, and he sputtered as a poignant taste—like a boy's first, stolen sip of scotch—flooded his senses. He pushed the bottle away, but must have swallowed some of the nasty red tonic, because his nausea had faded to nothing, and the painful lump he had received after being Stunned was almost perceptibly shrinking.

"Th-thank you, ladies, but I ought to be leaving—I have some . . . things that I have to do, so . . ." Remus offered, trying to stand. Val and Atropos held him down.

"No, it couldn't possibly have worked yet. You have to wait at least five minutes for the stuff to work properly," Val advised. She was examining the bottle again. "You know, perhaps it's not red, but a sort of rusty maroon."

Val's lantern illuminated the hem of a yellow, polka-dotted robe coming within Remus' field of vision. "This is Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet journalist. What is your involvement with this 'Humanity Movement'? What are your opinions on the Hit Wizard brutality situation?" Her voice had lost its aggravating edge, frazzling with the night.

"I'm just a volunteer," Val replied, loosening her grip on Remus. "Disaster relief, you know?"

Rita's eyes positively glowed. "You're Valerie Lynch, aren't you? The Quidditch player's wife?"

Atropos turned to face the reporter as well, and Remus used her distraction as an opportunity to escape with a hurried "Thanks." Those women . . . he wondered if any of their children had been mothered to death.

 

It took Remus some time to get his bearings. The night had fallen completely, lanterns like Val's creating spherical, glowing landmarks in the uncharted territory of the darkness. The alley in which he'd been lying was soon behind him, though that didn't matter if he couldn't tell what was before him.

His first stroke of navigational luck came when he smacked into either a dim streetlight or a signpost—it was hard to tell the difference without light. Rubbing his forehead and suppressing a curse, Remus walked around the pole, only to promptly stumble over the lip of the sidewalk and onto the cobbled street. He didn't bother stifling his frustration this time. A light flickered on across the street, and an aggrieved wizard shouted out his personal opinions on youngsters who banged about in the darkness. By the light from the irate man's window, Remus could now see the sign on the pole: Government Boulevard. Aha! He remembered this place now. If he went straight back, through the alley and out the other side, he'd be facing the Minister of Magic's lawn.

" . . . And goodnight!" the wizard concluded, turning off the lamp. Again, Remus was swallowed whole by blackness.

It suddenly occurred to him that he had his wand. "Lumos," he said, feeling very much the idiot for not thinking of this earlier.

So, where to now? Remus felt that he ought to regroup with the other protesters, but he'd have to find them first. Where was everyone? He hadn't thought to ask, back with Val and Atropos, and he certainly wasn't returning to chat with them.

As he was pondering a course of action, Remus heard a familiar pair of voices.

"Sirius! Have you found Rem yet?" A pause. "Oh. No luck here, either, but the witch in charge of doctoring the victims says that he's not in with the dead."

"He wasn't around any of the fires, so . . . where is he?"

"Dunno," Peter replied. A lantern came into view as its carrier turned a corner. "I hope he's all right."

Relief drowned him. "Sirius! Peter! Here I am!" Remus called, not realizing until now how anxious he had been. He all but ran to his friends, and then Sirius was laughing, clapping him on the back, and Peter was smiling, and the man across the street had turned on his light again, yelling at the three 'hooligans' to let him get a good night's sleep, but none of them cared, because everyone was alive!

"Rem, you had us worried! I came to help treat the injured, then Sirius told me you were missing . . . we've been looking for you for almost an hour now," Peter explained. "I'm so glad you're all right!"

"What's the situation?" Remus asked, thinking of the mention of casualties. "How . . . how many are dead?"

Silence.

Sirius' laughing eyes, bright in the light of lantern and wand, closed for a moment in remembrance. "Fifty-two. Most of them . . . they just threw us in a heap . . . some of the people on the bottom . . . they couldn't breathe. And some were beaten to death." When his eyes opened, they were bright again, but bright with fury.

Peter looked from one friend to the other, and wished that he knew what to say to make them feel less morose. He'd always distanced himself, thought their nicknames were silly (except for his own, which he actually didn't mind), had his face buried in a book or played some silent game while his friends conversed. Now, when he needed to communicate with them, he found himself without the right words. And so he turned to practicalities. "A man told me that there'd be a meeting in the Leaky Cauldron for anyone who wanted to discuss a next step," he offered. "We could go there."

Remus smiled at Peter, but it was a hollow expression that ached. He had just learned that fifty-two people had died, and all that it gained was a defeat. "Yes. We could go there."

 

The Leaky Cauldron was a favorite tavern of witches and wizards from across Britain, and often its capacity had been marveled at by patrons. It seemed so small, intimate, and cozy when the only customers were a few friends sharing butterbeer or iced tea, but when a raucous party of a hundred or so wished to be accommodated, somehow it never got too crowded for one more. If the Committee for Time/Space Alteration ever got a hold of the proprietor, old Tom, he'd have a lot of explaining to do. But since Hugo Jamarcus, head of the Committee, was a dedicated regular, the Leaky Cauldron never came under scrutiny. And it was safe to say that almost everyone preferred it that way.

Certainly, Mundungus Fletcher did. Every Friday night for the last fifteen years of his life, he'd come for the drinking, the conversation, the singles, and most of all, the gambling. It was a familiar thing to see him sitting at a large, round table in the middle of the main room, a shifty smile on his face, a hand of cards held protectively close to his chest, and a small stack of knuts and sickles in front of him. Rumor had it that Mundungus knew fifty-two spells to magically rig any deck, and hadn't yet lost a game with anything at stake. (Rumor also had it that his mother had once beaten him at an extended bout of double solitaire, though no one had ever bothered to ask either of the Fletchers about the veracity of this.)

However, there was to be no playing of card games tonight. Sitting at the bar, Mundungus morosely nursed a mug of . . . well, whatever that fellow who had been sitting here previous to him had ordered. It tasted a bit sharp, a bit sweet, and didn't seem very alcoholic. "Cheap stuff," he muttered, not much caring that what he'd have bought probably would have been yet cheaper.

It wouldn't have been so bad, Mundungus decided, if any of these protesters had been concerned with fun. They were just that many more people to be fleeced. But no, all they were talking about was how miserable they were and how much they wanted to get back at the Hit Wizards. Not a gambling soul among them. Not one who carried anything valuable that could be nicked.

The young man sitting right next to him, for example. Very intense-looking person: dark, focused stares, a dour mouth, the whole bit. He was reading! In a tavern, in the tavern, reading some book on the uses of different kinds of blood in potions!

And on the other side! The man looked cultured but not overly wealthy (he had some fine rings, though), detached but not unobservant, and was currently talking to . . . someone. Three someones, actually. One was a wild-looking youth, with dark shaggy hair and a grim face that might have been playful under different circumstances. Another had this worn expression, almost old, though he couldn't be more than twenty. And the last was . . . "Peter Pettigrew?"

 

Peter looked around, hearing his name called. It took only a split second to focus on Mundungus Fletcher. "Oh . . . hello," he replied.

"Peter! Why don't you introduce me to your friends?" Mundungus was beaming, and Peter hadn't the slightest idea why.

"Erm . . . everyone, this is Mundungus Fletcher, and, um, this is Sirius, and this is Remus, and . . . sir, what was your name again?" He faced the man that Remus had called the de facto leader of the Humanity Movement.

"Lemuel Claret." He turned around to smile at Mundungus, and there was an eerie similarity between his tight expression and the broad grin. With a start, Peter realized that both of the men had pointed teeth.

"Pleased to meet you," Mundungus answered, extending a hand to shake. "Are you with these . . . protesters?" he asked, keeping his hold on Lemuel's hand. Perhaps it had something to do with the feel of three gold rings against his skin.

"Yes." The sharp smile grew a bit. "I am a vampire."

Mundungus shrugged. He withdrew his hand. "So I suppose you wouldn't want to engage in a bit of . . . gaming?" He looked up hopefully at the three who had been watching the exchange. "Any of you?"

Lemuel waved it off. "Later. Right now, though, we need to decide when and where to congregate again. Something morale-boosting, hopefully something to increase our funds . . .. Remus, would you mind calling our people in? We ought to all have a say."

Remus nodded, and then left to mingle with the crowd. He could be seen talking to a few people at a time, gesturing back toward the little group by the bar.

"Something that would raise money, you say, and morale?" Mundungus pondered. "Like a benefit dinner, perhaps?"

Peter licked his lips. "Sounds good enough," he replied, and then called out to Tom, ordering some soup. "Sorry," he offered, as the wizened man scurried off to provide for his customer. "I just remembered that I hadn't eaten since breakfast."

 

When the Humanity Movement's members had been free to mingle with the other patrons of the tavern, it was difficult to see how many of them there were. But now, with the entire group crowded into one side of the room, the sheer majority they held was easy to see. Disturbed by the nature of their erstwhile companions, most of the folk that weren't part of the Movement quickly vacated the premises. No one much minded, as it provided them with more privacy, but it was dispiriting to realize that they could drive everyone away without saying a word . . ..

There were more relevant issues at hand, however. Sirius rapped an empty mug on the bar like a judge with a gavel, and the chattering and jostling subsided. Once the group was paying full attention, Lemuel Claret stood to address his fellow protesters.

Most public speakers would have begun by trying to rile the crowd, or attempting to make the disastrous strike on the Minister's lawn seem less terrible. He did neither, dealing instead with plans for the future. "We are going to continue our campaign. There are three things that we need in order to accomplish this: first, we need more supporters in higher places. If any of you know sympathetic people stationed in the Ministry or in anything else important, I ask you to try and recruit them. Secondly, we require more funding to keep our public operations in motion. On that note, let's all congratulate Urho Tuomala and his wife Iva for maintaining their successful program, Cub Aid, which provides for the children of werewolves! They've been doing a miraculous job with very little money, and all for no profit!" Lemuel paused while the Finnish couple was pressed to the fore and applauded enthusiastically. As the clapping and cheering died down, he continued, "And third, we need to hold a rally that will be fun. How many of us have time or money to enjoy ourselves?"

"Not enough of us!" shouted someone from the crowd, and he was backed by a muttering of agreement.

"What kind of fun are we going to have, Mr. Claret?" shouted a younger girl, holding her mother's hand. "Can it be a Quidditch game?" A nearby man shushed her, scowling.

"No Quidditch for us. It's illegal for an adult werewolf to play on a team for a professional organized sport," he growled, voice accented, but there was a wistful note to his rough outburst, as though he had once dreamed of playing the game. "Same for vampires, I think."

Lemuel Claret nodded. "So that's out. We've had a suggestion for a benefit dinner, though; do we agree on that?"

"Will there be dessert, too, Mr. Claret?" called the girl, provoking a chuckle from those standing around her.

"If we can get it, yes," he replied. There was a look of hope from some of the shabbier protesters; how long had it been since they'd had a good meal? As humans, they were allowed to carry wands and theoretically could conjure food to satisfy themselves, but the truth was that most educators were wary of accepting H.W.A.I.P.C. into their schools, and most people in the crowd simply hadn't had the education necessary for more than the simplest magic, like firing colored sparks. The concept of a huge, communal dinner was looking better and better.

It seemed that the crowd agreed, judging solely by their faces. Most had too much pride to admit how much they needed a real meal, afraid of seeming 'poor', but others were voicing their approval, and the consensus was nevertheless apparent. He now turned his attention to the event coordination. Lemuel knew each of his followers by name, a tribute to his leadership skills, and chose several trustworthy people whom he could count on to head committees. "Olivia Shrock, I'd like for you to be in charge of finding a time and place for the event. If anyone has a potential site, bring it to her attention, all right? Matthias Librian, I'm putting you in charge of publicity. Find yourself some volunteers, and once Mrs. Shrock's group has the specifics set, you can get to work advertising. Try targeting powerful or potentially supportive people. And . . . Imiszke Innilauven, I'd like for you to deal with the planning, procuring food and help, setting up, decorating . . . is that too much work to load on you?"

"No, sir! Just let me at it!" a blond woman with thick glasses shouted, almost glowing with excitement at the responsibility she had been awarded.

"Good." And then, more to end the speech than anything else, "Is this going to be the best fête we've ever held?"

There was a pause while some members of the crowd tried to sort out what that word had meant, and whether Mr. Claret was speaking of divination, but from the scattered pockets of cheering they deduced that he had been referring to the dinner. Once that had been sorted out, a chorus of assent, clapping and foot-stomping and shouting, sparks shooting from random wands, gave him his answer.

After the noise had died down, Lemuel pulled Remus aside. "You've got the best Ministry connections of anyone in our movement: a friend in the Bureau and a friend in the Ministry. You'll handle the . . . legal affairs, all right? We don't want a repeat of today." He sighed, and Remus could tell that he had known the name of every single casualty.

"Yes, sir," Remus promised, feeling as though he ought to salute.

"Good."

As Lemuel Claret went to make good on his agreement to play Mundungus, a young man with an intense, dark glare confronted him. "Sir, it seems that you want donations for your movement. If you'd let my people come to your banquet and speak with your followers, we could offer you no less than seven hundred fifty galleons."

It took the vampire a moment to collect his thoughts. "Seven hundred . . . seven hundred fifty? That would—you have no idea what you—seven hundred fifty!" And perhaps they hadn't been as collected as he'd supposed. "Just who are your people? Who are you, for that matter?"

"Severus Snape," the stranger replied. "And my people . . . you may have heard of them. We call ourselves the 'Death Eaters.'"