Modern Knights

Chapter One: The Fall From Betrayal

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

“Harry,” Remus smiled at Harry his usual, fatherly greeting. A big, black dog sitting next to Remus barked his own welcoming. Sirius had been pardoned by then, but the condition of his pardon had been that he work as an Auror. As such, he still liked to to keep as much out of sight as possible.

Harry broadened his smile at the sight of them, knowing that, even now, they were compromising their jobs and their lives just to see him.

“I didn’t mean to worry you,” he told them, trying to apologize. “Normally I’d just go to Madam Pomfrey, but it’s been getting worse.”

Remus nodded, his lips thin. “No, you were absolutely right to owl us.” He muttered something to a painting on the wall, a rather large one of an ancient castle. The picture swung open without a sound, revealing one of the many rooms at Hogwarts Harry previously hadn’t known existed.

Harry took a quick moment when they were inside to examine his parents’ two old friends. Sirius had transformed back into a human; he still had that haunted look in his eyes, and he looked ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Other than that, however, he look surprisingly well for someone who had spent the last two decades of his life either in Azkaban, on the run, or fighting Death Eaters.

The strains of work were showing much more heavily on Harry’s former teacher, however. There were as many gray hairs in his head as brown and his face was deeply lined, looking ready to crumble at the slightest provocation. His voice, though, was as strong and as young as ever, if more businesslike than Harry remembered.

Sirius used his wand to push away the strands of hair covering Harry’s scar. Both men let out a small gasp.

“Merlin’s beard, Harry,” Remus muttered under his breath. “Why didn’t you owl us sooner?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably under their gazes. He could feel the scar, even now, pulsing slowly, and knew with out looking that it was emitting that eerie green light again.

“We should have come sooner, too,” Sirius reminded Remus with a sigh. Turning to his godson, he said simply “We’re sorry.”

“It’s fine!” Harry protested eagerly. “I know how hard it was for you both just to get here…the fact that you did at all…”

Remus and Sirius exchanged looks that could only be described as ironic. Harry remembered, the way people do only in dreams, ever detail of that moment. One high, stain glass window was the only light of the room, sending a pattern of colors across its shadow. Sirius was running his hands through his hair tiredly, Remus was tapping his foot impatiently. Each was coated by the red light from the window as they contemplated for several minutes an unknown decision.

Finally Remus turned back to Harry. Although no words had been spoken between the two men, they seemed to be at some sort of an agreement. “Nox ad lume,” he muttered. Immediately Harry felt the pain in his head diminish.

“It’s only temporary,” Sirius explained, a curiously resigned look on his face. Harry had wondered at that, but then again, this whole meeting had been relatively strange.

“We’ll meet a month from now, right here,” Remus told him. “That should give me time to research a more permanent spell.”

“Thanks, Remus.” Harry would have hugged him, but Remus only stuck out a cold hand for him to shake. Slightly confused, Harry shook it. Remus only nodded to him before disappearing through the portrait.

Sirius turned to him again, a small, forced smile haunting his face. Again Harry felt bad for even telling them about his scar and forcing them to come to Hogwarts. While Hogwarts was the safest place in the entire world to stay right now, the flipside of this was that it was also the least accessible, and traveling to it meant maximum exposure for the two agents because they couldn’t use magic for most of the way.

As though reading his thoughts, Sirius reassured him, “You did the right thing be telling us. No scar, not even one from him, should act that way.” He scowled briefly, and gave Harry a small slap on the back. “The world’s different than it was a few years ago.” His dark eyes had unfocused look momentarily before he turned his gaze back to Harry. “People do things they wouldn’t normally do.” With that last, ambiguous comment, Sirius morphed into a dog once more.

Harry scowled as he sat up in bed. He hated that dream, that recollection, yet still it came back to haunt him. That had been the last he’d been able to talk to Sirius or Remus in friendly terms. In fact, other than one brief argument during which Harry had stormed out of the room, Harry hadn’t spoken to them since.

He looked at Cho, sleeping in the bed next to him. The moonlight through the window lit up her pale face and skin, illuminating the soft rise and fall of her chest as she slept. Her hair shone in the moonlight, dark in contrast to her light skin. A slight breeze ruffled the lace curtain, sending shadows across the room and her face.

Harry could have sat there until morning, just looking at his beloved fiancé, but that familiar pulse in his ear told him that he had to be somewhere else. He didn’t know whose wonderful idea it had been to have all the dragons on call 24/7 through a magical locating device that would buzz in their ears whenever they were needed, but Harry seriously hoped that that person got what they deserved.

With one last glance at Cho, Harry sighed and swung out of bed. He was too far into the life he had chosen to lead to get out of it now, but there were rare times when he wished it didn’t require so much time and so much lying. Quickly dressing and scrawling out an explanatory note (some major archeological find or another), he disappeared from the cozy room with a small pop.

He landed in a much different environment. It was raining, of course, because it always rained in Scotland, although now a nice dose of lightning and thunder had been added to the already depressing mix. Harry hesitated before going through the usual series of doors, feeling the rain pound on his cloak as he surveyed the terrace around him. It was the main entrance to an old, relatively small castle (key word being relative; no castle is ever truly small). The castle itself had as many or more protection spells that Hogwarts, though its spells were directed entirely at other wizards instead of at muggles. Seamus had the land deeds of the castle under his great-grandmother’s maiden name, which seemed far enough removed from his own name that no one would ever make the connection. In addition, no one would ever suspect Seamus Finnigan of having anything to do with the Dragons.

Harry wandered through the halls without his usual perfunctory manner. A small part of him was determined to take his time getting to the central rooms in recompense for being called at 3 in the morning. It was, in fact, the Finnigan ancestral home, and the outer hallways were crowded with friendly paintings of Finnigan ancestors that smiled and waved at Harry as he passed. The inner rooms, of course, had been remodeled to a much newer style, but the outer ones had been left alone both for façade purposes and for preservation of simple elegance.

After a quick identity test, the large wooden door at the end of the hall admitted him into the other part of the castle. Harry was slightly surprised to see almost every high-ranking Dragon agent in the room, sitting around a large circular table. Harry had always found it amusing that a Malfoy, of all people would coin in on the concept of the round table and wondered if Alcyon had known it’s original meaning.

Anya and Orion Lestrange slipped in just after Harry, making the number of officers in the room complete at nine. There were, in total, at least sixty other field agents under the dragon insignia, but many of them were simply assets who didn’t even know where the headquarters were. Harry glanced at each of his fellow officers in turn as they waited for their beloved leader to make his own appearance. Each one had their own reason for being here, in this place they would have never dreamed they’d end up. In some ways Alcyon, Draco’s cousin and founder of the Dragons, had exploited personal grievances to his own benefit, but at the same time, he’d given the people caught in the middle of this stupid war a chance to fight back for themselves.

Fleur and her younger sister Gabrielle were the perfect example. They had joined the Dragons along with Harry right after it’s founding, when the Ministry’s declaration of veela’s as “dangerous and unreliable creatures” had led to the placement of veelas, including their grandmother, in interment camps along with giants and elves. Thus one reason for Seamus’s joining (his grandmother being half elf); the other, of course, being the same as Harry’s.

The two Lestranges’ reason also sprouted from disillusionment with prior allegiances, as they had broken off from Voldemort’s party after he had made no attempt since his rise to power to free their parents from Azkaban. Adrian Pucey and Malcolm Braddock had similar qualms with Voldemort, although theirs was that their parents had been executed by him for suspected treason.

And of course, Draco. Draco who was determined to claim his revenge on both his father and his grandfather, who had chosen rival sides in the war. Very few people, even among the Dragon’s, knew that Draco had personal as well as monetary motives. Harry had not been enlightened by Draco himself (the two still weren’t on anything past ‘barely civil’ terms) but Fleur knew many of the dark Malfoy family secrets and, gossip that she was, had told nearly all of them to Harry. Even she, however, did not know Alcyon’s motives.

Fleur turned to him with a large smile. “You’re still wet,” she told him, her silver eyes sparkling. “Orora,” she said, pointing her wand at him. Harry felt the moisture that he hadn’t even noticed before lift soundlessly from his cloak.

“Thanks,” he said, smilingly tiredly back at her. Fleur, of course, looked perfect as usual, every hair in place and not a single line on her face. Harry belatedly realized he hadn’t so much as looked in a mirror this morning and guessed that he had bags the size of the moon under his eyes.

The friendly conversation of the room died down suddenly, with no obvious signal to the abrupt silence. Harry glanced away from Cho to see Alycon move into his spot at the “head” of the table. A small smile touched the corners of Harry’s mouth as he decided that only a Malfoy could make a circular table seem like it had a head.

“Right to business,” he said, without preamble or apology. Harry sighed again, because Alcyon, like Fleur, somehow managed to roll out of bed at 3 o’clock in the morning and still look perfect. It was easy to see that Alcyon and Draco were cousins, although Alcyon’s dark hair contrasted sharply with his cousin’s lighter hair. Harry gave a swift glance around the table, unconsciously checking for who else looked better then him. He was quite pleased to find Draco looking exceedingly tired and annoyed, probably because Alcyon was back from where ever he had disappeared to for the last month and Draco was back to be an ordinary officer. Harry didn’t really like Draco to begin with, but Draco on a power trip was almost unbearable.

“As you know, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the discoveries of Weasley, Weasley, and Granger, Incorporated.” Three large screens floated down behind Alcyon, revealing the three faces of Fred Weasley, George Weasley, and Hermione Granger. Harry felt a small pang upon beholding the last visage. “They originally worked primarily in the field of advanced applied magics.” Draco gave a small sneer, at his cousin’s last comment, recalling one of their older ads that had loudly proclaimed “The first self-flushing, guaranteed to make you laugh, environmentally safe toilet” (the last bit had been Hermione’s addition to the otherwise obviously Weasley catch line). He continued, “Recently, however, they have been moving into more militant lines of research. It turns out our scrutiny of them was not unwarranted as it was confirmed an hour ago that they have developed genetically engineered flowers-”

Alcyon was cut off by a couple of sniggers. He continued with a glare, “that’s petals, in addition to creating an immediate cure for almost any magical ailment, increase a person’s resistance to the Cruciatus and Imperius curses.” He paused a moment to let the information sink in. Harry felt severely underwhelmed. Couldn’t this have waited until later (when he was fully rested, preferably)? There was no reason for rushing to get what the Ministry and the Corps would probably already have by now.

As though reading his thoughts, Alycon continued. “Luck is on our side, however. Both Granger and the Weasley’s have very divided interests and loyalties when it comes to disclosing the information, as all three of them are close to the leaders of both groups. Consequently, neither group knows of their discoveries… yet.”

“Which is why we must act quickly,” he finished, silver eyes flashing across the dimly lit room. “We need to get the plants, destroy the evidence of the discoveries and perform memory spells on all three before anyone else finds out. They have all been extremely secretive about this entire work, which, while it has made them difficult to track, will prove their ultimate downfall.” He smiled unpleasantly as folders magically appeared in front of each of the officers.

Malcolm Braddock looked through the folder, his permanent scowl deepening. “Just memory charms?” he asked, eyebrows lifted.

Alcyon nodded curtly, a small sneer curling up his mouth. “We want them to continue to work and make other discoveries we can exploit.” He spoke condescendingly, as though he was speaking to a child.

Harry hadn’t opened the folder yet. This wasn’t the first time he’d been faced with a choice between loyalty to the people in his past life and loyalty the coworkers of his new life. His mind moving off into unrelated, ironic tangents, Harry remembered reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost” in his sixth year at Hogwarts. It had been a Christmas present from Hermione, “just for fun,” she had said. One look at the huge volume and Harry had known he would never get through it all, but for Hermione’s sake he made an effort to be seen reading it from time to time. He did actually finish the first book, and some of the words came back to him now.

Under brows
Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride
Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast
Signs of remorse and passion, to behold
The fellows of his crime, the followers rather

Harry had developed a certain knack for memorizing names, dates, places, and even passages, which was one of the reasons he had become such a good agent. Somewhere along the line here he had become a leader in this, a Miltonic Satan, his official position third among the officers, but his real position higher than that. Fleur and Seamus had both joined in wake of his example (and persuasion, as it shamed him to admit), and Gabriella in theirs. And while Harry had not developed deep friendships with any of the former Slytherins, their lives had been in his hands countless times and his life in theirs only slightly less often. In fact, he’d almost become like an older brother to Anya and Orion, partially because he had been the one to recruit them, but more importantly because they knew what it was like to be without parents in their lives.

Whether he liked it or not, Harry had responsibility in this world that he had never expected to find himself, and one of the few things that hadn’t changed about him was his sense of obligation.

Sighing loudly, Harry opened the folder, making the same decision he always did. He gave a small grunt of frustration when he saw that he and Draco would be working together, yet again. Alcyon seemed almost determined to make the two of them friends, for reasons Harry had yet to fathom.

The operation looked deceivingly simple, involving only six stages. The WWG lab was in an old, gothic style two-story building just south of Hyde Park with a fairly simple interior layout that would be no challenge to navigate. Alcyon was sending all nine officers in, with himself coordinating communications and timing from the roof.

“The first stage of Operation Roots is scheduled to commence in at 8:58 pm. There will still be employees going in and out of the front entrance, so Draco, Fleur, and Harry will enter through the west entrance just after the guards have changed. There should be two guards on duty. Perform a full body bind on each of them. Fleur will stay at the entrance to make sure nobody passes by.

“Once inside, you’ll be in a long corridor with the labs on one side and the memory Pensieves on the other side. Ignore them. All you need to do is go straight down the corridor to the end of the hall where the central security room is located and where the anti-Apparating charm is situated. Getting in should be no problem; our asset, Rosaline Fairfax, will be the only one guarding it. She is expecting, however, to receive Fred Weasley’s death in exchange for her help, which of course we don’t want to happen. Draco is going to perform a very complicated memory spell on her that will erase this current mission from her mind but retain her loyalty to us while Harry temporarily disables the anti-Apparating spell on the building.

“The mission will go very quickly from there. When Harry has given me conformation that the anti-Apparating spell is removed, Gabrielle will Apparate in Granger’s office, Seamus in Fred Weasley’s, and Anya into George Weasley’s. Each will perform a memory charm on the magicists to erase all knowledge of their progress in plant genetic engineering.” The diagram of the building appeared on another floating screen behind him, with three lights flashing in each of the offices. “Adrian will Apparate into the memory room and destroy the Pensieve containing information about the experiments.”

Adrian interrupted with a scowl on his face. “How will I know which one it is?”

Alcyon smiled sarcastically. “Trial and error’s always a good method. When that fails, read the labels.” Adrian’s scowl deepened. Alcyon really had a way of treating all the agents like inferiors.

“Finally, Malcolm and Orion will Apparate in the laboratory. Orion will wrap up three prototypes of the plant and Malcolm will destroy the remaining plants. When each of your respective tasks are complete, you will Apparate to the roof. Draco will do the same when he has finished with Ms. Fairfax. I will communicate to Harry when all of you are out. He will replace the anti-Apparating spell and exit the building through the same entrance he came in, where he and Fleur will place memory charms on the guards, lift the body binding spell and come join us on the roof.”

“Why are we meeting on the roof?” Gabrielle asked slightly timidly. “Why not back here?”

“Because,” Alcyon began, condescension and annoyance clear in his voice, “I want you all to be on hand in case anything goes wrong.”

His last words had a haunting, almost chilling effect on each of the agents as they all wondered: with such a simple mission, what could possibly go wrong?

“One last thing,” Alcyon commanded as the agents stood up to prepare. “Don’t forget to take the polyjuice potions before you leave.”

~

“Well, there’s going to be something going on tonight that we very much want to be a part of.” A handsome, middle aged man was sitting at an old desk, his black boots making smudges in the dusty surface as he sat in his most relaxed pose: feet on the desk, chair tilted on two legs and arms resting behind his head. The suit he wore had once been a crisp, clean business suit, but it was now more than slightly ruffled as he had been sitting in it for the past four hours. His long black hair was tied into a ponytail, and the smile on his face did not match the seriousness in his eyes.

“Ron told you?” Angelina Johnson was sitting in a chair in front of the desk, her legs folded under her in what looked like a distinctively uncomfortable pose.

“Ron told Arthur,” Sirius Black corrected her. Looking at him and his surroundings, no one would guess he was the head of an important espionage agency that might be the only thing standing between the entire wizarding community and a corrupt dictatorship. Having found out that interesting nugget of information, however, someone perceiving Sirius and this room would probably have the wit to guess that this important espionage agency was also entirely illegal.

There was nothing high tech about the office; the most interesting thing about it was that it was octagonal. Other than it’s shape, however, it could have quite easily belonged to an accountant. The wood paneling just screamed that the office belong to a lawyer or a judge, but the immaculate nature of the room and the entire lack of personal items on the desk overthrew the hints of the walls and proclaimed accountant.

Which Sirius Black most obviously was not. What he was, however, was someone who was trying desperately to balance the demands of his job with his own personal morals. He would not make the mistake that had driven his godson away from him. More importantly, he would not let anyone else, particularly not one of his Corps, make the same mistake.

He ran one tired hand through his hair as he looked at the young women in front of him. “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say,” he warned her. “I want you to sit this one out.”

“I can’t!” Angelina protested, proving Sirius right. “With Bill in Berlin and Charlie in South America, I’m the only field officer left. I have to go.” She tried desperately to try and make her last statement seem like a simple, unemotional fact but failed. Angelina was one of those people who couldn’t do anything without being passionate about it.

“It’s going to take place at the WWG labs.” Sirius told her, also making an attempt at restraint from emotion and succeeding only slightly more. Angelina cringed visibly, understanding now why he didn’t want her to go but still wanting to. “Needless to say, Fred being your husband and all…”

“My first duty it to my job, I know that,” Angelina interrupted, attempting again to persuade Sirius. “And I can act accordingly.”

Sirius shook his head sadly. “No, it isn’t.” He sighed, something he seemed to be doing a lot of recently. “Nor should it be. I don’t want you to have to choose.”

“Who are you sending in my place?” She asked tiredly, her voice defeated.

“Dean and Ginny,” Sirius replied promptly, waiting for the next round of outbursts.

“You’re sending Ginny instead of me!” Angelina was close to shouting now in infuriation. “You won’t let me go because of my husband, but you’ll overlook that she has not one, but two brothers there? She isn’t even a real agent!” Her fist made contact with the chair, swiftly breaking off one of the arms.

“Reparo,” Sirius said, restoring the chair to it’s former state. “We aren’t doing anything on this mission other than watch. Ginny is the only one that can take pictures that are actually readable. Dean is there in case something goes horribly wrong, and to protect Ginny. I’ve already talk to both of them, and they know that the second anything goes wrong Ginny needs to Apparate out of there.”

“And I couldn’t do the same?” Angelina asked, her fury rising up once more.

“Then there would be no point to you being there in the first place,” Sirius told her wearily. Angelina sighed, finally accepting that she couldn’t go. “Let me do something in the meantime,” she begged. “Let me go help Charlie, or Bill, or do something?”

“For starters, you could go to the locker room and send up Ginny and Dean.” Sirius sighed, relenting half an inch. “Then… maybe you can go visit Charlie. He could use a bit of relief.” Angelina gave him a small, forced smile as she stood up. She opened her mouth, and looked ready to say something but changed her mind. A grin tugged at her lips as she held up her wand and muttered a spell that created a large, green fiery ball.

“Go get Dean and Ginny, please,” she said. Sirius glared at her as the ball of light went whizzing off.

“I could have done that myself, you know,” he told her.

“I know.” Her smile had grown. “I guess I should be off then.” She went up to one of the panels in the octagonal room and pushed. The wall yielded under her touch, and a revealed a long hallway. “Don’t have too much fun without me.” Sirius gave a sigh of relief as the panel shut behind her.

“How’d she take it?” A voice asked behind him.

“How’d you two get in here so quietly?” Sirius retorted. He turned around to find only Ginny standing in front of his desk, looking quite pleased with herself. Dean was nowhere to be seen.

“Remember how you asked me to look for glitches on the anti-Apparating spell you put on the building?” Ginny asked, grinning like a cat. “Found one.”

One of the other wood panels burst open as Dean Thomas came rushing through. “Not fair!” He exclaimed. “I didn’t know you could Apparate!”

“Well, you do now,” Ginny told him, tilting her chin up slightly in victory. She was a good foot shorter than Dean, but somehow managed to seem taller than him. Ginny had certainly grown up from her Hogwarts days, Sirius reflected, as she turned to him with a smile that could break a guys heart. Then she managed to tangle her legs together in the most ungraceful sitting down motion Sirius had ever seen, and he decided she hadn’t changed all that much. He was also reminded of why he hadn’t made Ginny a field agent. No agent could be that much of a klutz and survive for very long.

“Apparently you can Apparate within the building if you’re already in it,” Ginny told him, accepting her 5 galleons from Dean with another grin. Her face became somber again. “Did you tell Angelina who the Aurors were getting their information from?”

“From Fred’s ex?” Sirius shook his head. “I may have omitted that detail. Angelina and Rosaline don’t get along amazingly well.” Sirius’s face became, if possible, more serious. “And not to sound repetitive, but if things start going bad…”

“I get out of there.” Ginny looked deadly serious, her legs and arms crossed and her face tight with resolve, but Dean looked at her with mistrust.

“Why don’t you clarify what ‘if things start going bad’ means,” Dean said. “Just so Ginny doesn’t try and twist the situation around later so she can stay.” Ginny glared at him.

“If the Aurors don’t do their job properly and people other than the Dragons get hurt,” Sirius said, looking stern. “Understood?”

“Perfectly,” Ginny told him reassuringly. Still, something in her voice convinced neither man in the room.

“Oh, and just as a quick reminder,” Sirius added, as they turned to go. “Remember to drink the polyjuice potion before you leave.”

~

Not four blocks down the road another highly classified and entirely relevant conversation was taking place. Another middle aged man, and one that had once been a good friend to Sirius Black, was drumming his finger tiredly on the metal desk in front of him as he surveyed the eight somber faces in front of him. He actually really hated the ministry issued desk, and wasn’t sure why he illuminated it’s presence by drumming his fingers on it. Another rainy day mystery. But now he would return to business.

“I can’t let you go on this one, Ron,” he told the red haired agent in front of him, unaware that he was mimicking a similar conversation that had taken place only moments before.

Ron looked angry, understandably, but he bit his lip to keep from speaking and simply nodded, instead. He knew too well the consequences of mixing personal affairs with business, having witnessed the disastrous results of such actions back in his seventh year. At the same time, however, he felt so hopeless, felt like he could be doing more. But his brothers and Hermione knew what was going on, and were quite willing to be used as bait… unlike the previous incident that would be branded in his mind forever.

“Just to reiterate, it is imperative that we find out who we’re dealing with here.” Remus Lupin looked exceedingly old and tired, even older than he actually was. “Even if you fail to make any captures, this mission will be a success if you come back with even one name or face. The pensieve is stored safely within our vaults and all the prototypes have been destroyed, so there is no chance of us losing the any information to them.” The agents before him nodded, each face more serious than the last.

“Thanks to the analysis of Mr. Silvers, we believe we know where they are going to hit and when. His guess is that they will hit on a half hour mark after 8:30, because that is when they change guards and that is when Ms. Fairfax will be on duty. Since we can’t Apparate in until the spell is lifted, I’m going to want most of you in position before then so we can surprise them. It is absolutely necessary, however, that we allow the spell to be lifted so they Apparate in. Since they will undoubtedly be using the polyjuice potion, our first priority is to get into the central security room and reinstate the Apparation barrier once we receive conformation that the Dragon agents are already in the building. Our main goal is either to hold them there until the polyjuice potion wears off or until we make a capture. Cho and Colin will be waiting in the room, hidden, until the spell is lifted. Cho will then attempt to neutralize the Dragon agent there while Colin reissues the spell before communication can be made to the other Dragon agents.” Lupin looked at Cho and Colin, both of whom had once been his students at Hogwarts. Each time he sent them into combat he felt a small, fatherly type pang in his stomach, but he would do what he had to do. They all had to.

Cho and Colin nodded, looking determined. Lupin continued. “The rest of you will take undercover positions at the other locations in the building that Mr. Silvers feels they will hit. Do not attack the Dragon agents until you receive conformation from either Amos or Severus, who will be coordinating all of this from a roof across the street, that the apparition barrier is back on. The one exception in this, and I will trust Alicia to use her judgment in this, is if the any of the scientists appear in danger of their life. I seriously doubt it will come to that, because it would be very much against the Dragon’s interests to make an attempt to kill them, but if it does…” Alicia nodded.

Lupin continued. “Oliver will go to the labs where the prototypes were supposed to be. Obviously, if Ms. Fairfax is telling the truth, that will be a necessary stop for them.”

Cho raised her hand timidly, making it seem to like a classroom environment. Lupin smiled for the first time as he nodded for her to speak up.

“Do we have any indication that she’s telling the truth?” Cho asked, trying desperately to make it seem like she wasn’t questioning anyone’s judgment.

Lupin thought for a moment, stroking his chin gently. “Not by Ministry standards,” he said. But he was still thinking. “But I don’t think she has any motive for lying. On the other hand, with her history with Fred she doesn’t seem to have much motive for telling us anything at all. And she claims she has no idea who the person is that she’s been dealing with. But this is the best shot we’ve had in awhile, so we’re going to take it at face value.” Cho nodded, satisfied.

“That leaves Viktor to deal with the memory room, where they’ll obviously hit if they don’t want us to have a chance of finding out about these discoveries.” Viktor nodded, looking glum as ever. “Colin will leave the central security room to help as needed. If we make one capture, even one, Cho will lift the anti-apparition spell once more and you will all by the back door of the Headquarters. Otherwise, we fight until the potion wears off and we can get faces. Understood?” Seven solemn faces nodded.

“And of course I don’t need to remind you to wear the polyjuice potion yourselves. Take an extra dose with you so you can take again when it begins to wear off.”