Potter Professions

Harry had to talk with Cho. Soon. He was certain of that, although he didn't know whether he could explain to her why he hadn't removed their children from that school instantly, after having learned what the actual risks were. He wasn't even sure for himself whether his decision - or maybe the delaying of his decision - really was the best compromise.

He knew what he was doing, so much he would grant himself. He took risks, agreed, but smaller ones than that of a lifetime memory held by children whose friends couldn't be rescued from an imminent danger, and instead were abandoned by a father who was considered the most powerful wizard alive.

But Cho - at the very least, she should have the option to jump up, travel to Brest and grab her children; otherwise he'd be facing a lifetime memory of not having told her, renewed at every bad opportunity.

First of all, though, he had to talk once more with Agnès.

He caught her at the entrance to the Brest building. It wasn't by accident; he had checked her schedule before to see when he could find her between classes.

"Agnès," he said, "I need to talk with you again. It'll take more than a few minutes, that's for sure. But I don't want the two of us be seen in public, so where - "

She interrupted him with a coquettish smile. "Why not? Afraid of rumours?"

"Actually, yes - I'm pretty sure that you have a reputation of being righteous, and that's something I can't afford."

The smile disappeared as if it had been cut. "Yes, I see."

After a few seconds, a shadow of it returned. "But we can do it secretly enough so that only my reputation is damaged, in case someone sees us together. There's a restaurant where you can get mussles as they should be. Chez Antoine, on the Rue Cape d'Antibes. Seven o'clock?"

"Yeah, okay, I'll find it. What about table reservations?"

"Shouldn't be necessary at this time of the week, and if I guessed wrong, there's a bar where we can wait."

At the last words, Agnès had accelerated her speech because a noise echoed down the hall. She had started to walk and was some steps away from him when the source of that noise came into view, another teacher on his way to the school secretary's office. Harry nodded casually when passing him on his way out.

He would have preferred for him and Agnès to meet around lunch time, or some time afterwards, anything so that he'd have his evening free to meet Cho, or to search her out on that island in Canada. On the other hand, a more relaxed atmosphere could be a benefit. He and Agnès - they weren't enemies, that was about all they knew so far. It didn't make them allies by implication.

---

He found it hard to concentrate during his classes. In the early afternoon, he had double Sports with another class of girls he'd inherited from Amélie Resnais. Today's girls were sixth-years in his system, eleventh-graders otherwise. He had let them play volleyball the previous time, to see what they could muster and to learn that it was pitiful. Still unsure of how long he would have them, he'd decided to work for improvement.

"Salut, mesdemoiselles," he greeted them in the gymnasium under his waiting loudspeakers. "In our previous class, I had the opportunity to watch you play and to realize that it's fairly weak and rather limited. What's more, I could see why's that so. You're afraid to jump, and that's because you're afraid to fall, and that's because you're afraid to hurt yourself."

His words received mixed reactions. Some girls nodded, some others looked as if, for the first time, they had an inkling of why their playing was terrible, and the rest of them just stood there, looking expressionless or bored.

"I'm going to show you how to fall," he said.

"Oh yeah!" came a voice from the background. "The fallen girls from Lorient!"

Lorient was the building name for the gymnasium. In French, however, the remark was a quick-witted game of words because what the girl had said could as well be understood as de l'orient, meaning 'from the orient'.

Harry smiled, letting his eyes signal that he'd caught the wisecrack and appreciated it. Aloud, he said, "Falling girls, as far as I'm concerned - "

He was interrupted by sniggering, enough to realize that his attempt at clarification could easily be misunderstood again, and that there was little sense in corrections if the audience wanted to find innuendo everywhere, no matter how far-fetched.

He grinned. "I'll show you in a few minutes. But first we'll do our warm-up."

After the first song, three minutes and forty-five seconds at a moderate pace, he turned around to face the crowd. "That wasn't a warm-up," he said, "that was a kind of getting rid of the ice floes. The real warm-up comes now."

With these words, he started another song, much faster in its rhythm, no longer a step-in-place, instead a running-to-one-side, "one - two - three - four - five - and - pouuuuunce," the last word voice-painting the jump they had to do at the end of each sequence, followed by a short stretch in place before the same series of steps was made to the other side.

Of course he made the same steps and jumps as the girls. But his movements were mirror-inverted so he could face them directly, rather than through the picture in the spector globes. He knew that otherwise half of them would slow down to a stand-still, and the expressions in their faces told him that they knew too and that they wished he hadn't turned.

By the time the song had finished and the speakers were silent again, he was looking into flushed faces, and more than one of the thin gym outfits had large patches of sweat.

"All right! Please move to the wall! ... It doesn't matter which wall, just clear the middle of the hall."

With the floor empty, and the panting girls lining the walls all around, he drew his wand, pointed at the middle of the hall, and called, "Mollipraturilis!"

Next moment, a large, thin mat covered most of the visible floor.

The girls gasped at the mat, then gasped again when they realized how springy the fabric was, after they'd stepped hesitantly onto the grass-coloured stuff.

He marched to the middle of the girls' circle. "Okay now, watch me!"

After a few seconds, having gained their attention, he pressed his arms to his body, spread the hands in a mock imitiation of something between a penguin and Charlie Chaplin and, stiff as a flagpole, fell to the floor.

He came up again. "The trick is to turn your momentum into something to roll and slide - and that's what we're going to learn now."

---

The first of his two hours was over before they had a fair idea of what it meant to use the momentum from falling and turn it into further movement so that the shock from hitting the ground was spread across a maximum area of the body. When the majority of the girls had lost their reluctance to hit the floor at the end of a jump, he fetched a volleyball from his room and started a new mode of practicing - the ball-catching jump.

For that, the girls lined up because it was only one girl at a time. Harry threw the ball with some force while making sure that it was already low when coming within reach of a jump from the girl's position. The girl was supposed to hit the ball with fists, hands, arms, whatever, just to prevent it from hitting ground, very much like in a real game with real volleyball players. While the ball flew in a new direction, the girl had to complete her jump by hitting the floor, rolling around, and quickly coming up, all in a motion as fluid as she could muster.

The girls had expected to spend time - or rather, waste time - with some of them chasing the ball after each successful hit, and also after each unsuccessful one. They gasped and shrieked in surprise when the first ball, after bouncing off, returned into Harry's hands as if pulled from an elastic ribbon.

"It's a magic volleyball," he called.

It wasn't. The ball was an ordinary volleyballs; it just followed his silent and wandless summoning charm, jumping into his pointing hands as if he were merely holding them open to catch it.

As a result, the exercise was performed with the breathtaking speed of not more than ten to fifteen seconds per girl, five girls per minute.

For him, the sequence of ball-throwing, spell-casting, ball-catching had an almost mesmerizing effect, interrupted only occasionally when his throw was off.

It was the combination of all these factors that led to the small accident toward the end of double Sports. He'd thrown the ball, maybe even a bit harder than the others, only this time his aim wasn't good - the ball flew straight toward the waiting girl, but it seemed as if the girl hadn't really been waiting, not consciously, had instead been staring at him wide-eyed, in her own way as mesmerized by his performance as Harry himself.

The ball hit her just below the ribs. With a small cough, the girl collapsed to the ground.

Coming to his senses, Harry rushed to the girl, who was gasping for air. He put his hands on her stomach and sent a wave to relax the cramped muscles, then another one. A moment later, the girl was breathing normal again.

About to come up from his kneeling, Harry heard a remark somewhere behind him. "Stupid chick, has only eyes for the teacher. And now he even touched her there, I bet she ..." The rest of the remark drowned in other noises, for which he felt grateful.

* * *

"... tents are probably the same as for the classes they had a year ago, and the mattresses too, but at least our sleeping bags should be new, what do you think?"

Before Carlos could answer this question, Chloé continued, "Of course, they could have taken the ones from last year and cleaned them, but there should be something that's new and only for us, and the sleeping bags are the most obvious choice for that, aren't they?"

Carlos nodded.

While Chloé continued her monologue for a single listener, Carlos briefly wondered if it would always be that way if they were together, an endless stream of words from Chloé and silent nods from himself. Esmeralda had been considerably less talkative - still was, actually, even among her new friends.

But the thought faded, pushed into the background by more important matters, like the news Carlos wasn't supposed to tell, or the older things he wasn't supposed to tell.

"The sleeping order'll be the same as in the dormitories, with four people per tent. But it's much more open, there aren't any buildings, so it's much simpler to visit each other. But then, what's so interesting in meeting my roommates? Or yours, for that matter."

Carlos could do without that. Mathieu, Roland, and Serge, his roommates, were teasing him anyway because he talked so much with girls. His sister served as a partial excuse, but only to a degree.

"I've heard our camp will be directly on the waterfront, with the river to one side and the forest on the other. Wouldn't that be a good place to watch some forest animals? They'll come to the water in the evening, to drink and to meet each other ..."

Hardly so, thought Carlos while keeping silent, not with more than hundred handicapped students crowding the plain and filling the air with their noises.

"... was told the forests there in the Loire valley are so dense that even unicorns can live in them because it gives them the cover they need. Imagine if they come to the water!"

With some effort, Carlos kept his expression amused, rather than sneering.

"Yeah, I know, they're extremely shy, but I had this picture in my head, that the two of us would walk away from the camp, to a quiet spot, and sit there, and wait - you know, because there's unicorn hair in my wand, and didn't you say in yours too? ... So that would attract them, and they'd be interested in looking at us, provided we were calm enough. If I knew where the unicorn that gave the hair in my wand lives - "

Chloè stopped, fear suddenly in her face. "Say, are those hairs taken from slaughtered unicorns?"

"What?" Carlos awoke from his reverie. "No, of course not!"

"What makes you so sure? Look at other wand cores, look at dragon heartstrings! You can't get them from a living dragon, can you?"

"No, of course not, but there are lots of differences," replied Carlos. "Dragons die for many reasons, there's no shortage of them, while unicorns - for them it's as if we'd give some of our hair, it regrows."

---

"How would you know?"

The flippant tone from Chloé, after he'd listened so patiently, irritated Carlos more than it probably deserved. "I know what I know," he said importantly.

"Ah yes, of course. Yours was delivered by the unicorn personally, right?"

"No, it wasn't," he snapped. "But I know enough about magical cores! I know a phoenix who gave just three feathers, for three - no, actually he gave four feathers, but for three wands - "

"That stupid bird couldn't count, huh?" Chloé's voice was full of the mockery that Carlos, for himself, had suppressed a moment ago. "Or maybe there's a spare feather for three used ones? But shouldn't it be one spare for four others, like with the tires of - "

Anger boiled up in Carlos. "No, there isn't. Each of these feathers went into a wand, but two of them melted together, and the phoenix's name is Fawkes, he isn't the least bit stupid, and - "

Carlos had stopped himself, wishing desperately it wasn't too late. To smudge his own tracks, he added hastily, "Just because you can do magic and I can't doesn't mean I don't know about wands and cores."

"Say that name again," demanded Chloé, her voice suddenly serious.

"Forget it."

"No I won't. Say it again."

"Fawkes."

"Spell it."

"F - a - w - k - e - s. It's a typical name for phoenixes," Carlos said, trying to sound casual, at the same time waiting to be asked why, so he could tell her about Guy Fawkes the arsonist and Fawkes the self-arsonist.

"I read about a bird like that," said Chloé, "but I didn't recognize the name at the time because when I read it I was in second grade and couldn't pronounce English names. The story was about a phoenix who gave two feathers, for two wands, and these wands melted when their owners fought. And one of them was a bad wizard who was called Vol de Mort, and the other was a good wizard who was called Henri Portère. And when the fight was over, there was only one wand left, and the wand left was in the hand of the good wizard."

Carlos stared at her, feeling perplexion, pleasure, and a painful wave of guilt that he hadn't been able to keep his big mouth shut. But who would expect such a knowledge from a French girl born and raised in a small mountain village?

"Then, later, I was told that the story's true, it's not a fairy tale but something that really happened, although before I was born." Chloé's eyes were fixed on him. "But you said there were four feathers. What about the other two?"

Desperate to find an exit from this trap he'd dug for himself, Carlos remembered a lesson from his father that sometimes the truth could be used to hide your own traces.

"The story you read was probably written shortly after the fight. But later the good wizard married and had two children, and that phoenix gave two more feathers for their wands."

They were in the park, sitting on the grass and watching Bolo and Dona Gata playing together, or just lying in the last rays of the afternoon sun. But they were alone; Esmeralda and her friends had found other business, making Carlos suspicious that his sister might tell them a bit more about the school's risks than she was supposed to reveal at this point.

Chloé leaned back to stretch in the grass. "That's true?"

"I guess so, yes."

"Do you know more about them?"

"A bit, just what I read." Ever so casually, Carlos had managed his first lie: the Potter family, certainly not short on literature in various flavours, maintained just one taboo - stories about themselves, so Carlos still had to read the first line about his famous father by adoption.

Chloé smiled dreamily. "You know, that wizard is my hero. Tell me everything you know about him and his children. Do you know their names?"

"Erm ... A girl and a boy, I think it was. The girl - she was called Sandra, but then it was said that this is just a public version because her real name is Sun Dragon. She's supposed to be at least as powerful as her father ..."

Watching the girl in the grass, who was listening with her eyes closed and a smile on her face, Carlos reminded himself to draw a line in time. This imaginary story - how much would be known? Would there be something known about the snake? About the flute? About the castle in Ireland?

He would find the line. Keeping his knowledge at bay was easier than fighting a terrible temptation to talk about two more children, quite unremarkable in their magical power, but very real and very close.

* * *

Harry was fifteen minutes early in Antoine's restaurant on the Rue Cape d'Antibes. He'd arrived that early on purpose, so he could play the host to Agnès. He'd do it anyway, but he preferred to have these minor details right.

There was no bar, contrary to what Agnès had said. He accepted the table that was offered to him, ordered a pastis, and said he was expecting a woman and would wait for the order. By the time Agnès arrived - she was ten minutes late - the pastis and the smell from the kitchen were making his mouth water.

"Didn't you say there was a bar?" he asked when she was sitting opposite, and after she'd ordered a martini.

"Yes, sure." Agnès pointed through the window to the other side of the street. "Over there." Seeing his expression and hearing his chuckle about this misunderstanding, she asked, "Oh, I see - you thought the bar was inside, right?"

"Yes."

"No. It didn't even cross my mind that you - it'd be quite unusual here, but you aren't from here. That'd fit an American restaurant ... Are you from America?"

"No, I'm British, and that combination isn't uncommon there, either. But I lived in the States for a while."

Agnès used the opportunity and continued the small talk by asking questions. He let it go - after all, talking about raped twelve-year-olds while the waiter wrote down their order - a large pot of mussels for each of them - wasn't the best entrée for sure. Also, she was quite good at it: she asked how it was there, rather than what he'd done in the States, and how the dining habits were in American restaurants, rather than where he'd lived.

Reminding himself of his official story, that of a Foreign Affairs agent for boring business, he could steer clear of things like Groucho and movie roles and family. Then their mussles came, and for a few minutes, the only sounds were occasional slurps, considered normal in a restaurant in which mussles with lots of sauce were the norm.

Just when he was about to start the evening's real - from his perspective - agenda, Agnès said, "Your little witch shows no intention whatsoever of leaving the school."

"Chloé?"

"Who else?" Agnès's smile froze a bit. "Or did you convert still more girls?"

"No, and no boys either. But the expression your little witch felt a bit misplaced in context."

Agnès flushed for an instant. "Yes, okay - anyway, she's seen with a boy all the time, except in classes, because he's not a classmate. Whether it's him or his kitten, or the entire group - the boy has a sister, and the sister has a dog, and after lunch you can find all of them in the park. The Garcia siblings ... It's really cute, except that sooner or later Chloé will follow magic's call, and I don't think the Garcia children will be able to follow - "

In order not to laugh out loud, Harry escaped into a cough as if some white wine had gone down the wrong way.

Agnès eyed him with a trace of suspicion. "You look as if you already know the delivery date for two more boosters, because you can't stand the poor girl's misery at being separated from her friends."

"No, I don't have such a date, and it's another kind of misery why I'm here. I talked with some people about what you've told me, about the topic in general, and - well, I felt naive afterwards. But I'm wising up."

"Who did you talk to?"

The evening didn't go as expected. Interviewing Agnès wasn't quite as difficult as nailing quicksilver to the wall, but for sure she saw it as a mutual deal, as an exchange of information rather than a one-way street.

"One was a guy in the EMEC, the one who arranged things for my school position. The other was an ex-chief of police. They gave me a few tips."

"Such as?"

"For example, looking for places. If you - you need places, locations where you can feel safe, where you can be sure of not being interrupted. A building with apartments where someone else can see you in the staircase is not a good place," Harry said with a touch of irony in his voice.

"The gym would be a good place," said Agnès without any trace of humour.

Watching her face, he asked, "Is this more than a theoretical discussion?"

"It was no accusation toward you, if that's what you mean."

"Toward someone else?"

With a slightly angry tone, Agnès said, "You asked about good places, and I listed one, that's all. Aside from that, Sports teachers are natural prime suspects because they have an official excuse for touching girls, or students in general."

"That's all very nice - erm, disgusting, I mean - "

Harry's attempt on a joke didn't catch, and maybe it was best that way.

" - but it doesn't bring us any closer. We need something more specific."

---

Agnès played with her glass. After a short silence, she said, "I wasn't always at this school, Thierry. Before that, I was at a school where the students went home after classes. When I had a student where I knew for sure that he or she was the victim of sexual abuse at home, I wouldn't ask - neither myself nor anyone else - where it happened. This police-like approach is something totally new to me, and I don't like it much."

"If you're right, and if - "

"Oh, rest assured that I'm right. After a while, you develop a feeling for this characteristic pattern in the student's behaviour."

"But you don't seem ready to help me nail those bastards down. You told me enough to open my eyes to what's happening at the school - only when talking with the people I mentioned did I become aware how common this problem is, for cops anyway, but also for people in the educational branch. And now that I'm a bit further, you hint at this and that but all you're doing is beating around the bush."

"Maybe I have no suspect."

"Maybe I don't believe you." Harry snorted. "You can still count the weeks that I've been here on less than two hands, but even so I could name a few."

"Then why do you ask me?" Agnès looked a bit hurt and a bit embarrassed. "Accusing a teacher of something like that ... you think twice before doing it, and then you think again. I don't know you. I don't know who you are. Maybe I know enough to trust you with the students and to drop you from the list of suspects, but otherwise? You fooled me once, you could fool me again. That mark on your face, for example - is it real?"

Harry didn't need to fake astonishment; he really hadn't expected this question. He rubbed his forehead. "Real enough for your taste?"

"Maybe I have to apologize again, but I guess you know what I mean. If you'll tell me how it happened, then I'll know it's real."

"I came to investigate some suicides," replied Harry with a bit of coolness in his voice. "I didn't come to tell the story of my life."

"The suicides, yes." She nodded thoughtfully. "That's another mystery."

"Huh? Are we still talking about the same topic? It's the only mystery I'm concerned about."

Agnès shook her head. "These are two different things - at least I believe they are. Sexual abuse hardly ever leads to suicides, that's my experience. And I've learned that most often the worst you can do is to make these cases public, for example by reporting them to the police."

Harry stared at her. "You mean a family where the daughter is abused by the father is better than no family at all?"

"Maybe not better than another family, but the first step would destroy the reputation. And in that process, the girl's reputation would be destroyed first ... or the boy's, for that matter." Agnès leaned forward. "So you learn to live with that, maybe with more than is reasonable, maybe you could accuse me of that. But at least it explains why for me, unexplained suicides and sexual abuse at that school are two different things."

"Maybe so." Harry came forward too, until their faces were pretty close. "But the perpetrators here, whoever they are, are no parents, and catching them won't destroy families."

---

He leaned back again, let the silence hang for a few seconds. "Aside from that, would you say that the suicides have nothing to do with any sexual assault?"

Agnès looked at the tablecloth. "No."

"So we agree at least on that."

After a moment, Harry started a new attempt. "Let's try a deal with a piece a time. I tell you something, you tell me something. My turn - yes, you were right, the discolouration isn't real, although you could scrub it forever."

"That's what I thought." Agnès looked up. "You were a bit too casual about it. But it looks awfully real for sure. How was it made?"

Harry laughed, briefly but genuinely. "Nice try, but first it's your turn."

"Oh - sorry, it wasn't ..." Agnès smiled to show that her unfinished remark wasn't entirely true. "Well, to come back to your question from a moment ago - I'm not sure whether it makes sense to look for these places in the school itself. I guess you think of the teachers, or some of them, as those committing the assaults. That's only one option, and maybe not even a likely one."

Harry needed a few seconds to work through this statement, then he stared at Agnès in bewilderment bordering on horror. "But that would - that would mean something like, I don't know how else to call it - child prostitution?"

Agnès' face was expressionless. "Your turn, Thierry."

Hearing how she emphasized his name, Harry said, "Yes, you're right, that isn't my name either, but my real name doesn't matter for a moment. What's more important for me, are you trying to say that the school itself is a safe place? I mean, as long - "

"Didn't you hear? Your turn!"

"Okay, okay, I wasn't trying to flinch! I have spies among the students, and I'm quite concerned about their safety. I tried to send them off, but - erm, somehow it didn't work. Say, what's your opinion about Laurent Clerc and Gilles Picabault?"

"Two real assholes - why do you ask?"

Harry described the conversation he had with these two colleagues some days ago, and how they had hinted at small-scale business and large-scale business.

Agnès shrugged. "They're probably dirty, yes, but stop imagining strict boundaries between good teachers and bad teachers. I'm ready to believe any time that they'd mount a camera in the girls' showers and sell the pictures, but I'd consider them as borderline figures. By the way, your last revelation wasn't particularly impressive."

"Not impressive?" Harry snorted again. "Then let me impress you with a bit more information. There are two students who report to me. When I learned from you what direction to consider, my first idea was to send them home. But they've found friends here, and so they demanded I send their friends with them. I said that's impossible, I can't control other people's children, and ever since that moment I've been on tenterhooks. I don't know what to do."

Agnès smiled. "Yes, that was an armload of information." Her smile broadened. "Say, is your real name Garcia?"

"No." Harry smiled back. "But I knew Ramon Garcia well, and yes, you're on the right track otherwise."

Agnès looked disappointed. "I could have sworn they were your children."

"Ever heard of adoption?"

"Oh - yes, of course." Agnès looked satisfied. "Was that the reason why you picked Chloé to make her a witch?"

"Huh?" Harry didn't immediately follow her.

"With Carlos, I mean. He's certainly a wizard, and I'd like to know how - "

"Oh, now I see what you mean." Harry gave her a wry smile. "No, it was exactly as I told you, but Carlos saw me talking with her and decided to figure out what was going on, so it was just the other way around. And as for their magic, you know, where there's a booster, there's also a stopper."

"Well, that covers the ground a bit." Agnès grew serious. "Regarding their safety at the school - there are certainly better places, but I don't think the risk is such that they might be abducted as we speak. It's not as simple and obvious as that."

"Yeah," said Harry, "that's what I was telling myself, for I can't send them - I mean, I have to find a solution to protect them and their friends together, and for the time being, the only possible place is at school. But then where does the danger come from?"

Agnès inhaled deeply. "I never said what I'm going to tell you now, Thierry, but I'm deeply suspicious regarding the school trip to the Parc MiraLuc."

"MiraLuc?"

"Yes. If you check around at our school for special factors, irregular things, you find a lot that has to do with their sponsorship. They sponsor a lot more than just this camp, and while I haven't got a single proof or shred of evidence, just by counting the unusual things I find that name a bit too often."

Harry nodded. "Yes, I know what you mean, and most often it's true. So you think I have to prevent them from going to that camp?"

"Ah, maybe not the camp itself. But if my gut feeling is anywhere close to the truth, then this camp has a function. Maybe something like" - Agnès' lips went thin, then opened again - "an exhibition of fresh meat."

* * *

Cho listened to her husband's report, beseeching herself not to explode in blind rage. It wouldn't help. It would damage the delicate plant of their revitalized relationship. It would totally ignore the fact that the man opposite her wasn't a small boy with a fate-ridden imagination, rather a skillful fighter and caring father. Maybe not the greatest plotter the world had ever seen, which was a joke because he'd launched the greatest plot ever, but he belonged to the frontline for sure; his plans were average at best.

Still, it was hard not to scream at him.

Cho poured herself another brandy, to grab something other than Harry's throat, and to fight the bitter fury in her own throat with another surge of hotness. She knew she shouldn't. She was aware of a booze consumption that needed harsh cutting, painfully aware that she could afford not a single pound more, yes, all true, but ...

Harry pushed his own balloon glass in her direction. "For me too, please. Stone-cold sober I can't find a solution, so if it doesn't help at least it won't hurt either."

She glared at him. "You mean there's still some doubt about what to do?"

He didn't answer immediately, instead nodded toward his glass, then looked at the bottle still in her hand. It was a clever move to take the heat off her remark, although she wasn't quite sure that he'd made it fully on purpose. She poured him a generous amount.

He tossed the golden liquid around once and took a sip, yet didn't hold it in his mouth longer than a second before swallowing it down. "I'm here to tell you everything I know," he said, "and to give you the opportunity to be in Brest first thing tomorrow morning and take our children with you. I certainly won't blame you for that - "

"No, not you," she hissed, "but them."

"Exactly. They won't forgive us ever for leaving their friends in the cold. My best idea so far is to contact the parents of Esmeralda's roommates, tell them what's going on there, and organize a solution in which they become witches first and are transferred to another school afterwards - Beauxbatons, or the Goblin school, or whatever. That is, if I can get the booster for that."

She felt a bit surprised. This solution was more reasonable than she had expected from him. "It would jeopardize most of your results, wouldn't it?"

"Depends on how you look at it. It should be possible for Ron to stop what's going on there, although we have not a single shred of evidence yet. But the assailants would get away with it, yes."

She couldn't resist. "If you hadn't had the crazy idea to use our own children as your student spies there, the problem wouldn't exist. Then you could run your undercover operation without any trouble."

"Maybe so." He took another sip.

"You mean it isn't true what I said?"

He shrugged. "I'm not good at 'if's. 'If we had bacon, we could make bacon and eggs, if we had eggs.' That about summarizes my own notion of hypothetical statements. But even if it's true, and even if I had gotten the same results in the time so far, there's a point beyond which it wouldn't help either."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, assume that our own children were safely away. Assume that whatever friends they'd gathered were safely away too. Then I could operate freely, and then what? Sooner or later, I'd know other students well enough that the thought of them being the victims of some assault would be almost as unbearable as the - "

"Your old problem," she interrupted him. "You always wanted to save the world, while I aimed at more modest goals - saving my own ass, and those of my family, for example. That's what I'm going to do tomorrow."

She waited for his response, maybe for his disappointment or for a remark like You can't do that! so she could smile triumphantly and prove how wrong he was. Unfortunately, her own poker face wasn't world-class either, and of course Harry had his special senses that made it awfully difficult to really surprise him.

He watched her face. "By doing what?"

"By visiting your boss and leaving no doubt whatsoever what a terrible mistake it was to take any decision about Carlos or Esmeralda without asking me. When I'm done with him, he'll watch over their safety himself, if he thinks it's necessary. That'll burn them as bait for sure, and maybe that's a setback in your plot, but, well, you can't have everything."

---

Harry's eyes had widened for a moment. Then he'd looked pleased, a clear indicator that he hadn't thought of this possibility, and also that he had his priorities straight or else the damage to the bait wasn't as bad as she'd thought.

But now he looked serious again. "He's a mean bastard. I underestimated him twice, and I'm not going to do it a third time. Threatening him with lawsuits and other legal means might not be as effective as you'd expect."

"Don't you worry." Cho grinned maliciously. "I'm going to play the vindictive Chinese bitch. Brest is a harbour, as I'll tell him, and where there's a harbour there are Chinese, people who know how to hurt someone. I'll tell him that I'm just as uncivilized as he thinks of me. Trust me, I'll make an impression on that Monsieur Fresnel."

Now Harry grinned. "I do. And I'll make Ray get a move on these bracelets. I want one for each of our children's friends too."

"Are you going to tell them who you are?"

"No, not really, but I'll tell them that I'm Carlos and Esmeralda's father, or adoptive father. From then on, at least I can say hello to Bolo." Harry smiled ruefully. "That's really a factor I didn't consider in advance - a dog and its wagging tail."

Cho said, "My conversation with your headmaster, that's only the first step. There's a MABEL seminar not too far from that park near the Loire. I'll get in touch with them and look for background information. Depending on what they tell me, I might start some more investigation." She gave a beaming smile. "See, I'm going to help from the outside."

Harry's excitement was still limited. "This seminar, where is it?"

"The Chateau Saumur. It's a big castle, as I remember, dwarfing our little hole in the ground here but otherwise similar, that's why I wasn't inclined to spend much time there - "

They exchanged a knowing smile, leaving it to anyybody's guess whether it was for her calling Carron Lough a hole in the ground or for her unbalanced interests regarding the various MABEL seminars.

" - but they're locals, they should know a bit more. Then there's someone else I might ask for help, but I don't know if what I have in mind's possible, so let me check it first before I tell you more."

"For the school or for the camp?"

"The camp. Inside the school you're on your own."

He nodded, and the way he looked told her that he'd guessed who she would ask - an old friend for her, a sister in spirit for Harry, and an animagus who could be a falcon in the day and an owl at night to watch their children at camp. Almyra. If she found the time -

"Are you going to ask Paul?" interrupted Harry her thoughts.

"No, that's a line I leave to you to follow."

He nodded, then smiled at her. "The longer I think about your plan with Fresnel, the more I like it. For me there's little doubt that he's dirty, at least knows what's going on at his school. I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes."

Cho for herself had been more looking forward to this evening, more exactly to this night, which was planned as another step to get rid of the deficit they'd piled up over the past months in their lovemaking. They slept together, yes, but - was it the topic of misused children? Probably so, more than the brandy too much; at any rate they didn't push it, and found each other awake the next morning after having fallen asleep before either one had mustered the energy to get things going.

Harry apparated off after the better half of a shower and the lesser half of a breakfast; he had an early English class. Cho took her time at the breakfast table, then in her dressing room to select the proper pieces for the impression she wanted to make - as much businesslike as Oriental, and definitely feminine, not this androgynous crap some famous women in high ranks of business or politics had favoured, stuff just good for making a dyke envious. She came up with a black skirt, a light blue blouse of oriental cut, and a feather-light jacket of darker blue, both blouse and jacket made of silk, probably the only acceptable fabric for a wealthy Chinese.

Her bag, in contrast, emphasized her connection to Western business. It was black leather, square, thin, a shape that might as well host the latest laptop computer.

Armed with these accessories, she apparated to downtown Brest, to the same car leasing company she'd visited the last time. Half an hour later, the most expensive limousine money could lease in this city went uphill, a uniformed chaffeur behind the wheel. He looked even Chinese - to the careless French eye, that was; while his true nationality was Korean.

---

Entering the school secretary's office, she came across the first barrier, implemented to scare off less determined people. The woman asked, "Do you have an appointment with the headmaster?"

"I have a complaint."

"Well, yes, even so, you need an appointment with - "

"He's in, isn't he?" Cho's head jerked toward the door she knew only from Harry's descriptions. "Then would you please have the decency to make an appointment for me in, say, two minutes?"

Jeannette Clouzot, a name Cho also knew only from Harry's reports because the school didn't bother with name tags at the door or somewhere else, made a last attempt to regain some dignity. "About which topic would you like to have the appointment with Monsieur le Directeur - "

"About my complaint, what else? I didn't come here to discuss the autumn collection with him."

The temperature in Cho's voice had dropped quite a few degrees, enough to let the secretary give up any attempt to discipline this unpleasant visitor with bureaucratic obstacles. She stood up and, after a short knock at the door, disappeared in the adjacent room.

It struck Cho as weird. She knew about the intercom from Harry's description, she could see it on the woman's desk, so why hadn't it been used to announce her visit? Did the woman need a closed door to tell her boss about "that bloody bitch?"

Less than a minute later, the door opened again, and the woman reappeared. Judging from how she looked, she seemed tempted to march just to her place, leaving the door ajar, and to snarl, "Your turn." But she just stepped aside and stood there waiting for Cho to enter - maybe she'd realized just in time that the visitor would have left the door equally ajar.

The headmaster was all smile and sovereign serenity. "My dear Madam Chang, please sit down. Jeannette said that you have a complaint? I'm sure we can resolve any misunderstanding quickly. What is it that has raised your displeasure?"

Cho remembered Harry's warning not to be fooled by the man's looks, or by his words. She had been expectant to see Fresnel - with her own experience in negotiations at corporate level, she wouldn't fall easily for the mistake of underestimating her opponent, and she was much better than Harry in this kind of fight. Listening to every nuance in the well-oiled machinery of the headmaster's words, she registered the arrogance, the hidden contempt for her - some student's mother, fussing about something entirely meaningless, from the perspective you had when sitting behind that large desk.

She looked at the visitor's chair, of which Harry had warned her as well. "You cannot possibly mean this thing," she said, then took the high back rest and tilted it forward until she felt the chair's weight pulling rather than pushing. Then she let go.

The chair, slowly in the first inches then accelerating, fell to the rug-covered floor with a soft thud.

"I'll get you another chair," promised Fresnel, after having spent one second to glance at the toppled-over chair and another one to stare at his visitor. He bent over what looked like the other end of the intercom.

"No you won't. You claimed parental authority over Esmeralda Garcia - without even asking me. Then you did the same with Carlos Garcia, this time without even bothering to feign an official assignment. Or was it that miserable woman you had for the task?"

Cho didn't look at the headmaster while speaking. She pretended to inspect the rows of books in the shelves that covered the entire wall. Her voice sounded quiet and a bit monotonous, though matter-of-fact, avoiding lightness and sarcasm altogether.

"That must have been a misunderstanding. We just tried to avoid unnecessary hassle for matters of minor importance, in particular since you, when you delivered the children here, pointed out that they're your wards and that the administrative tasks should be - er, minimized."

Cho turned around to look at Fresnel.

"You need something, or someone, to show you your limits, Monsieur le Directeur Fresnel. Minimized - even if what you understood was true - isn't annihilated. I'm just wondering which way to go to make the clarification stick with you."

Fresnel seemed to think the time was right for a bit heavy artillery from his side. "I would appreciate," he said, "if you could temper your wild accusations and your hazy threats down to a more reasonable style of conversation. After all, no harm has been done yet - "

"You declared permission for them to join this camp."

"Er, yes, that must have been Madame Laval, but then, that's just the same as with all the other children for whom the parents gave permission, or will in the days to come. So what's the problem with that?"

"You made me lose face."

---

A moment ago, Cho had resumed her examination of the magnificant woodwork that held the books. Now she turned again to face the headmaster.

"I could call my lawyer, to make hell break loose over you and turn this chair you're sitting in as upside down as the one you wanted me to squeeze in." A contemptuous smile crept onto her face. "But that man is bound by Western conventions as much as you and the entire system that runs this school, so in the end, after a lot of loud noise, the result would be nil ..."

Fresnel's face, which had come to full alert when she had talked about losing face a moment ago, revealed enough satisfaction to tell her that this estimation was realistic.

"... that's why I feel more drawn to the second alternative. There are several Chinese triads represented here in Brest, which is inevitable in any major harbour around the world. These people have a much clearer view of what it means to lose face. More importantly, they have a well established system of measures, depending on the severity of the case." Cho's smile thinned. "I can assure you that a visit from their messengers would stick in your memory dramatically better that that from my lawyer. Painfully so, I might add."

"I know you're upset," said Fresnel, "but you can't possibly mean what you're saying."

Due to her performance as an admirer of book shelves, Cho had only the sound of his voice for measuring the impact she'd made so far, lacking the direct control of an observed expression. She'd made a dent in his self-assured armour, yes, though a minor one.

She stared at him. "You're right. What I'll do instead is send the triads first and my lawyer afterwards. At that time, he'll have your full attention."

The headmaster tried a polite chuckle. "He'll have it even so, Madame Chang. Probably even better than that with these unreasonable threats."

"Threats?" Her voice had grown contemptuous. "I wasn't threatening you, Monsieur Fresnel. I was merely making an announcement - a necessary part of the Chinese tradition of punishments. Goodbye."

She had turned, had made several steps toward the door, when he called, "Please, Madame Chang, just one more minute."

She stopped and turned. "Yes?"

He rose from behind his desk, then came forward to the front of the large piece to sit halfway on the desk's corner, a picture of well-rehearsed nonchalance, but a man driven out of his nest nonetheless.

"Fascinating as this particular Chinese tradition might be, I'm not overly interested in learning its details, while you gave me reason to believe that you're serious."

She just stood waiting.

"So let me ask you - is there a way to handle this privately? To repair the damage and the loss of face without involving outsiders?"

She made her voice sound hesitant. "There certainly is, which is one of the advantages in a well-established system of traditions and rituals. Unfortunately, my experience with Western people - especially institution representatives - is that they just aren't ready to believe without proof. They say so, but - "

"Please excuse my interrupting you, but it's part of my job to believe things without being given proof. To show you my seriousness, let me just call Madame Laval and - "

Driven by Cho's slight movement with a raised hand, the headmaster had stopped himself. Now he just stood at attention to what she was going to say.

"This would be the typical Western method," she said, "which means it would damage things even worse. Calling this woman would do nothing but solidify my own loss of face and make yours public."

"Oh." Suddenly he looked curious. "I wasn't aware of that. So what would be the proper way to keep this - ah, misfortune to a minimum?"

She told him. It was a chain reaction down the hierarchy: he would inform Madame Laval about a misunderstanding due to a letter delayed by the incompetent French postal services. This woman would inform the girl that the claimed parental authority was a mistake and never had really existed, and that the extension to include Carlos had been the result of a confusion in the paperwork.

"Should they ask," finished Cho, "she may tell them that the misunderstanding was resolved when my letter arrived in which I give my consent to them participating in the camp weekend."

"You mean you're not telling them directly yourself?" asked Fresnel.

He had recovered quickly, if there had been any such demand at all. Between the lines, his question was asking for the channels through which Cho had gotten wind of the developments.

"I haven't been in contact with the children since I delivered them here," she answered. "My sources of information are not recognizable as such. This will make sure that they perform their duty as smoothly and efficiently as before."

She gave a thin smile. "Don't go searching for them. That would be another breach of protocol, an indicator that your ability to believe without proof is insufficient."

Yes, he'd gotten the message, and he was chewing on it as he escorted her to the door.

He wouldn't chew for long, she thought while walking toward the car plus chauffeur who waited outside the old fence. Maybe she should send someone a few days from now - a smiling, bowing, impenetrable Chinese face with a message that was meaningless by itself, just to remind Fresnel of belief without proof. Not a letter, a present ... A Chinese dagger of considerable value, with a blade to cut snowflakes in half.

Yes, that would be proof enough to seal Fresnel's belief, enough to send him into a burning hall to save Carlos and Esmeralda. And not even dream of setting them up in any way common to less protected students.

Maybe this wasn't exactly what Harry had planned when putting them at this school. But these hadn't ever been Cho's goals, and besides, Harry had lost control of the situation. If he'd ever held it.