Black Gold

Black Gold
By Pogrebin
Betrayal. Lust. War. Oil.
Told in Three Acts

Prelude
( the opening gambit, to tempt and tease )

Dramatis Personae

Gerald Wilkes, Spy for Grindelwald
Evelyn Wilkes, his not-so-devoted wife
Nicolas Lestrange, jailbait
Sylvia Zabini, the future Mrs. Lestrange
Grindelwald, evil Dark Lord & Nazi aide
Archbishop Zabini, morally corrupt priest
Cassandra Vablatsky, Seer
Dolohov, leader of the Marxist Seven Crows
Robert Finch, self proclaimed War Profiteer
The Ballerina
...with a special appearances by Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels!

(x)

Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there be, GO, mark him well;
For him no anthem's raptures swell.
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, all centred in himself,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from which he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung. Sir Walter Scott

We used to trade gold.
Now we trade information.

December 1942

how can they see with sequins in their eyes?

(x)

Oil lubricates the wheels of society.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, money is an excellent lubricant, as well-- just as smooth as petroleum jelly and twice as elegant.

Evelyn Earnshaw enjoyed voicing such sharply witty jabs at the nature of society. Her great passion in life was exploring contradictions, for she lived among them, she breathed in the small conflicts that go unnoticed- the brown butterfly perched on the wilted flower, the beggar with the deportment of a military sergeant holding out a tattered hat by the street corner-

Don't you ever wonder how absurd it is, was the beginning of one of her famous cocktail party stories, 'enjoyed' politely because she was so moneyed, that we are one little planet, one little dot in this solar system, a speck in the galaxy, a microscopic piece of lint on the coat of the universe and we still have the hubris to assume that we are all alone?

Such little details caught her interest because she was one among them.

Earnshaw was a name that breathed of old money, musty books in prep school libraries, and the starched scent of societal approval.

Evelyn was the heir to the Earnshaw empire.

She was also, incidentally, a Muggle.

And, not so incidentally, married to Grindelwald's best spy.

no one knows
where our secrets go

(x)

Information lacks the lustre of gold.

It is, however, more powerful.

Information can be weighed down by implications; consequences entailed if it is whispered in the right ears and the faintly illicit tang of the possibility of blackmail. Blackmail: a glamorous word. Smooth and glossy like sequin seduction sensual subversive.

There was nothing glossy about the bare-walled office that Gerald Wilkes had been shunted into.

If Gerald had the information:

He would have liked to feel the weight of it in his hands-- something he could touch, like a voluptuous woman draped like a velvet curtain over him. Such a tangible expression of his power would have pleased him greatly. He was not a man who appreciated finesse. If he had the means to destroy his enemies--subtly, quietly, with all the coiled cunning of a cobra--he would still be disappointed--

Mr. Gerald Wilkes was not a Slytherin.

He did not appreciate the art of quiet destruction. He would have preferred the silver glint of an axe and the metallic taste of blood.

And he didn't have the information, anyway.

Evelyn Earnshaw had never been to Hogwarts, and before she met Gerald, she had never even known it existed-- but she was a woman Salazar himself would have approved of.

Gerald Wilkes was not a Slytherin.

But Evelyn was.

He would never have imagined such a detached way of executing a coup de grâce, a master play.

This is why he never saw her coming.

(x)

Act I
( an introduction and what's-a-nice-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this )

August 1942
and with this ring I wed thee true
and with this ring I wed thee now
and with this ring I play so dead

(x)

Patriotism, flappers and air raid sirens.

An end to pacifism. Out with Neville Chamberlain. In with Winston. Just the beginning of the days of infamy.

And the society marriage of the year.

With this ring, I thee wed. Evelyn. Gerald. Hearts as one. Entwined forever. Or some such sentimental drivel. Kiss the bride like you mean it.

A whirl of bridal gown, white satin and lace, as Gerald Wilkes swayed his newest acquisition (wife- 1 piece, excellent condition, barely used, perfect for every occasion, comes free with--) in the stone gazebo. Below the sumptuous dress the sheer sex of nylon stockings snaking up milk-white legs. An indication of just how connected Evelyn Earnshaw-- now Evelyn Wilkes-- really was.

"They're gorgeous on you."

"You really think so?"

"I do," he replied, echoing his words on the altar. Only this time he was sincere, and both of them knew it. "But," the smile on his face was playful, "what did you have to do to get them?"

Scene shift: two soldiers looking across at each other, the dull, hacking thud of helicopter blades intersecting their conversation, cutting it like a mortician performing an autopsy. All clear. The light blinks from red to green, and instead of traffic pouring over tarmac, the paratroopers plummet through the air. Freefall; air and land rushing up against skin until- three two one- the ripcord is pulled and the white billowing wedding dress of parachute balloons into the sky.

Closeup: the parachute, thin, filmy layers one on top of the other, clasping the air inside their folds.

Focus: The layers: soft, silken, seductive...and made of nylon.

This is why nylon is more valuable than gold, but not quite as valuable as certain kinds of information.

In these days of war, invading the enemy is more important than looking stunning on Saturday night.

To the government, anyway.

She smiled. "A lady never tells her secrets," she shrugged with the immoral ease of the rich. There is something hedonistic about having money and not being ashamed about it.

"Let's just say...even if a few paratroopers have to do without, it's well worth it."

No-one can give me the air that's mine to breathe.

(x)

Blood looks black in the moonlight.

Blacker than leather, blacker than ebony, blacker than cola spilled on mahogany.

Like oil.

Evelyn Wilkes did not need moonlight for her blood to seem like oil- the pipelines that gathered oil from the beating dual hearts of Iran and Iraq spread, blue-black veins, underneath her white skin. She was the mother-goddess, the nurturer, Hera and Ashtoreth and Isis and Iduna. Her offspring was industry: the heavy clank of a goods train, the impatient honking of a car, the inexorable rattle of a tank, the clipped rotor noise of a plane taking off-- these sounds replaced the tears and laughter of a child at her side. She looked at civilisation itself and felt a warm swell of pride-- it belonged to her, every grimy cog, every automated factory, every swirl of greasy smog; it was her legacy.

She was the heiress of the Earnshaw Oil Companies, and oil is known as black gold.

Oil is more valuable than nylon, and to Grindelwald, it is more valuable than certain types of information. Oil is the Muggle's magic. It powers tanks, elevates aeroplanes from short, stubby, lifeless cigarette cases into spectacular birds, it lights their fires: it warms their hearts.

Grindelwald was an intelligent man who believed know thy enemy.

So he placed his finger on a tattered map of the world and slowly traced the arteries and veins and capillaries that supply the hand of Britain.

His fingers have caressed the bloodlines that streak under miles of fresh, tender earth and uncompromising sand and frozen tundra and he has traced each pulsing tubule to it's source. His eyes have found the three major pipelines, drawn in flesh pink, without which Britain would be drier than sand, thirstier than a man in the desert, and he has found that two of the three all belong to one company.

Earnshaw Oil.

He wants to leave Britain drier than sand and thirstier than a man in the desert, primed and marinated like a chicken leg for the inevitable onslaught of Hitler's troops. Operation Sealion: winning the war in one fell swoop, one lazy rush of men and machinery and le jeu est fini.

Grindelwald had dreams of a German-speaking world.

This is why Mr. Gerald Wilkes, faithful follower of Grindelwald, is married to Evelyn Earnshaw.

This, however, does not explain why Ms Evelyn Earnshaw, free-thinking, ambitious and none too subservient, wanted to be married to Gerald Wilkes.

January 1942
Liverpool, England
All the the anger and the eloquence are bleeding into fear

(x)

There are many who would say she married Gerald for love.

They would be wrong.

It was a happily fortuitous day for Grindelwald when Gerald Wilkes was assigned to handle the Earnshaw case. No--that would be a mis-statement, as it was the result of many months of carefully planned disobedience and insubordination. Pericles Fudge, Head of the temporary Muggle Liaison Office, was pushed just a little every day until he finally handed Gerald the least desirable task in the Ministry.

Disclosure.

Mr. G Wilkes sat across from Fenton and Evelyn Earnshaw and smiled, the brightness of this expression augmented by his loud, broad, red tie. It was a smug, unnerving smile, out of place in such a serious meeting.

"All you have to do is sign here, Mr. Earnshaw." He produced a contract from his top pocket and slid it across the table.

"Preposterous!" Mr. Earnshaw was not pleased in the least. "How did you get past my secretary with such a ludicrous story?"

"I didn't, Mr. Earnshaw. I Charmed her into letting me in."

Mr. Earnshaw snorted in derision, glancing at his daughter as if to protect her from this madman. "You want me to believe that you're a wizard and an emissary from the Ministry of Magic? Dear boy, do let me get you some help."

"That won't be necessary, sir. I'm perfectly well balanced," he said through gritted teeth. Even the smile looked forced. "I'm a Muggle Liaison Officer. Yes, I can prove my claims, if you are so inclined."

Gerald Wilkes was not a subtle man. He wore too much orange and lime green and red. He got far too drunk on social occasions. He talked far too loudly. He was often impolite. This is why he made an excellent spy. Throughout his twelve year tenure with the Ministry of Magic, during the height of the Grindelwald scare, Gerald Wilkes's record remained above, or rather, below, suspicion.

"Do so."

Holding the eye of Evelyn, Gerald Wilkes reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wand.

"Orchideus!" With a practiced hand, he handed the flowers produced to Evelyn with a wink and settled back in his chair to observe Mr. Earnshaw's reaction. "They're not quite as beautiful as you, my apologies, Ms. Earnshaw."

"Bloody hell!" The oil magnate sat back in his leather armchair, looking deflated, tired, and all of a sudden, very old.

In contrast, it was like Evelyn Earnshaw had been given a fresh breath of air. Her eyes were alive, her cheeks glowed, and her fingers knotted in excitement. Gerald favoured her with another smile; he needn't have, and he knew it. He had Evelyn Earnshaw in the palm of his hand from the first syllable of his parlour trick, or so he believed. The very rich were the easiest to manipulate. With a deliberate effort of will, he shifted his attention back to his secondary, and Ministry-sponsored, objective. If Grindelwald's plans came to fruition, Fenton Earnshaw's decision would scarcely matter.

"Why are you telling me now?" He waved an arm in an ambiguous gesture.

"Because, sir, you need our help, just as we need yours."

Disclosure:

A procedure that has been in place since the Magimuggle Rift, used when co-operation is either needed from or by the Muggle population.

Step One: Inform the objective of the existence of the Magical World, to the extent that is necessary.
Step Two: Prove aforementioned existence.
(i) If successful, proceed to Chapter VII: Interacting With Muggles
(ii) If unsuccessful, initiate type II Obscurus & Reparo.

Events in the Muggle and Magical Worlds rarely follow such a rigidly dichotomous key, which is why most Ministry officials use their Muggle Relations handbooks as kindling.

"Grindelwald is after England. He--,"

"Grindelwald?"

A sweet mountain town in Switzerland, a nondescript place, without even the click of tourist's cameras or the quaint idyll of a chalet to separate it from the million other little valley villages just like it.

It is the winter and the snow is falling.

Instead of snow, Oliver von Gablenz sees the ashes of his people.

It is not easy to be the only wizarding family in a town of a few hundred. In response, the von Gablenzs clung desperately to their heritage. They celebrated winter equinox and summer solstice with the greatest solemnity, and their gatherings were marked-- not with revelry-- but with the sombre retelling of their history.

Günther, Viktor, Ava, Walther, Greta, Friedrich, Otto--

All von Gablenzs.

All burned at the stake.

A sombre march of ancestors which came alive and performed a grotesque dance for them every celebration.

On one clear and brisk June morning in 1349, the Muggles burned a fifth of the population of Grindelwald. There was a wind that night; it seized the ashes that had settled like a soft carpet underneath the stakes and flung the macabre remains into the air to fall as snow, which covered the windows, roofs, and fields of the town.

For two hundred years, nothing grew on the land where the ashes had touched. For two hundred years, Grindelwald bore the curse of a generation lost to flame, but they did not learn a lesson.

It is the summer of 1669, and a plague sweeping through Grindelwald has left 788 Muggles dead.

Ramona, Katrina, Boris, Julia--

More blood.

They blamed the magicals.

They always blamed them.

'Never forget', they told him, and he never forgot.

( All my innocence is wasted on the dead and dreaming, Grindelwald said )

Gerald Wilkes opened his mouth and told them this story, adapted to fit the audience. "Pity the child who has no escape from the ties that bind," he repeated the Leader's words. "Pity the child, though not forever."

Mr. Earnshaw moved back imperceptibly, a slightly nervous look shadowing his face. "And then?"

"Pardon?" Wilkes asked blankly.

"What-- happened after that?"

"The people of the village left him alone, and he grew up isolated--reading books, listening to the radio, making up stories in his head. A peaceful, if mundane, existence."

Until. There is always an until.

"And one day he walked into the centre of the town, Summoned the descendants of the Witch-burners, and murdered them all."

Schmidt, Schueler, Hartmann, Engelberger, Giegerich, von Armin, Pickert--

"Blood for blood, he said."

'Your blood for the blood of my ancestors
An ocean of blood could not cleanse your sins'

"After that, they called him by the name of the town that he had Purged."

Grindelwald. Grindelwald. Grindelwald.

There are processions and chanting outside his small home; protesters with reflected fire in their eyes. Inside them is history; their veins are weighed down by it. They are the descendants of the Burned. They have been waiting, and now a match has kindled the flame within--

Gerald Wilkes made an attempt to look apologetic instead of avenged. "You must understand, they had been carrying around the resentment for years, centuries, even. The Pureblood families have lost many to the torch and the sword. They felt helpless for too long. It was inevitable."

And then.

In Germany, the highest ranking Nazi leadership is realising the Jews aren't the only subversive race they have to contend with. The Grindelwald Massacre is an answer to their prayers. Joseph Goebbles, Hitler's most trusted aide and Minister for Propaganda, knocks on the unpainted, rustic wooden door of the von Gablenz home to ask if Grindelwald would consider murdering for National Socialism and not just petty revenge.

Fenton Earnshaw looked close to apoplexy. "A-astonishing...I'm- quite at a loss... What does this have to do with me?"

"England must protect her lifelines-- the Earnshaw pipelines in Iraq and Iran must be secured against magical threat. We will need your full co-operation...and discretion...in this matter, of course."

"Of course," he repeated, absently, his eyes drifting to the door.

"So we have an agreement? In fact, I happen to have the appropriate forms right here." He slid them across the table to Fenton. "To be filled out in triplicate, of course."

"Of course." Mr. Earnshaw hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I will ask my lawyer to look over these first-- though I don't have a bloody clue how to explain this."

Gerald handed Mr. Earnshaw another form. "Then you'll need one more Discretionary Pact. I'll need them by Wednesday."

"You're--," he clutched at the table. "Coming back?"

"Indeed. We will need to work quite closely in the future, in fact-..."

"I'm a busy man, Mr. Wilkes," he said, almost gratefully. "I don't have the time to-..."

"I will, father."

Fenton Earnshaw turned to glance sharply at his only daughter. "You, Evelyn?"

"That would be wonderful, actually." Gerald Wilkes fought to contain a smile of triumph and didn't quite succeed.

In the egotistical way of women the world over, Evelyn chose to interpret this as a sign, not that Gerald had achieved the first step in a secret and quite possibly traitorous mission for Grindelwald, but that he was infatuated with her.

"It's settled, then."

Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?

July 1942
London, England

(x)

War is not on the List of invitees at Goblin Market, and the bouncer was very strict about the List.

It did not peep, shadow-like, at patrons when they gazed at their fading reflections in the gargantuan gilt-edge mirrors that reflected the light and nothing else. It found no home in the glass tables, or in the highly polished silver buttons embroidered onto sumptuous stiff blue material which matched the velvet curtains.

It is, instead, buckled down and whipped, a tame puppy to be kicked periodically by Robert Finch, owner and self proclaimed War Profiteer.

Just like, thousands of miles away, Oscar Schindler.

Only Robert Finch won't lose his nerve.

It is like:

A hundred little children shoved in a back room, bent over a rudimentary sewing machine in that nameless third world country creating clothing that will later be sold to pampered American brats with their daddy's credit card and problems like zits.

However eagerly the spokesman denies their existence, they are the reason why their brand is on the Forbes list.

Robert Finch is unapologetic. He sees only two paths:

(i) The war exploits you.
(ii) You exploit the war.

Don't Waste The Crusts, the posters said.

In the Goblin Market, they threw away the entire loaf of bread.

Capitalism is patriotic.

The richest wizards and witches of London wore entire vaults of heirloom jewels to the Market-- where else would they be worn? Rubies and emeralds and imitation diamonds so ancient they were more treasured than the real thing glinted on necks and fingers and wrists, giving off a faint perfume:

House-elves mindlessly scrubbing the silver to a sheen.
The ghost-breaths of ancestors, of skin touching metal and leaving its mark.
The supernova desperation of something beautiful and glorious and helplessly mortal.
Magic so ancient it is blood and bone.

Evelyn Earnshaw was one of the first Muggles to ever set foot in Goblin Market, a record gained only by virtue of the fact that the clientele that the restaurant catered to were vehemently Pureblood. Robert Finch really didn't give a damn about the War, Muggles, or bloodlines that were more difficult to read than maps of the London Floo Network. His concerns were purely green in nature, and Purebloods had most of the green.

In his world, it was just an unhappy coincidence that environmental lobbyists used the same colour.

The blue-uniformed waiter cast a disapproving smile at Evelyn as she began to order. He was a wizard, after all, and there was pride to be maintained. "Very well. Is that all?" He cut her off icily, turning his attention to Gerald, his glare lowering only slightly in intensity.

Those who stand next to coal miners get soot on their clothing.

Evelyn simmered and expected Gerald to say something.

She was, after all, privileged among her kind.

Her kind.

He was utterly silent.

The roasted water chestnuts were mildly soggy, the duck in plum sauce just a tad too cool, and the usually delightful almond soufflé simply not up to par. There was nothing expressly wrong about the meal, just the suggestion that they were unwelcome. The wine was the one element of their meal that was absolutely perfect-- red liquid poured into oversized crystal chalices and drunk with the entire palm of the hand supporting the weight. A decidedly voluptuous feel, like a woman, as Gerald would say.

Gerald Wilkes smiled at the confused and hurt expression on Evelyn's face. Her silver-blue dress, her Amsterdam diamonds--none of that meant anything in the world she was about to marry into, and she was just beginning to find that out.

He leaned forward and took her hand, red wine in his eyes and on her pale hair. "Evelyn," he said, earnestly, sweetly. "Evelyn, my love."

"Yes, Gerald, dear?" She replied, if a little impatiently.

"Marry me." He reached inside his breast pocket and produced a ring that was, by all accounts, rather stunning.

The waiter who had been observing them discreetly nearly choked.

Evelyn wasn't very far behind him. "B-but...we've only been together for six months."

Unspoken: and already I'm tired of you.

"We really shouldn't rush into things so impulsively, Gerald, darling, don't you think?"

Unspoken: oh, dear God don't make me say no outright.

"But it's ever so lovely of you to ask. I do love you, Gerry."

Unspoken: why the bloody hell did you ask me? I don't love you, isn't that obvious?

Gerald Wilkes forked the last of his sliver of duck into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully and then tightened his grip around her aristocratic fingers. "That wasn't a request, Evelyn," he said, with grim satisfaction. "I said marry me."

"Whatever do you mean by this! Gerald, let go," she kept her voice low, still clinging-- abjectly, aristocratically-- to propriety. "Really! Do let go, you're hurting me."

He dug in his fingernails, and she yelped, more out of surprise than pain. "Listen, you little Muggle," he said, his tone as blandly pleasant as the expression on his face. "I'm going to tell you how things are and how things are going to be. Nod once if you understand, Evelyn...and keep that charming smile on your face. We don't want the fellow diners becoming alarmed."

"Bugger it all, Gerald, stop this--,"

"Shut up, Evelyn," his heavy-shoed foot moved and pinned her leg quickly, the action hidden by the tablecloth.

"That's suede you're stepping on. I'll never get the stains out."

"You ought to be worrying about yourself rather than your shoes." Gerald shook his head and chuckled. "You Muggle aristos are really a laugh. I thought our Pureblood families were bad, but you've got them beaten," his voice turned nasty for a moment. "Back to business. My dear, I've tried this the easy way and coddled you, because that's what my Leader ordered. I'm really tired of babying the Muggles."

"Your Leader...?" She asked, faintly.

"The man who is going to lead the Wizarding World, and more specifically, me, to prosperity and power, Evelyn. Grindelwald. The Leader. Whatever you prefer," he shook his head. "Though you shouldn't even say his name; you're not worth it. Don't look so shocked-- there are some British magicals who truly appreciate Grindelwald, despite our government's policies."

Evelyn tried to move backward in vain. "You're a traitor," she hissed.

"Those labels don't matter! You're in no position to be calling me names-- your gall never ceases to amaze me. Now, for the last time, do shut up and let me talk, Evelyn, or I will hex you," she paled at the very mention of magic, as he knew she would. "The thing is, Evelyn, the Leader doesn't believe in forcing people into anything...so he's giving you a choice. Now, my dear, close your eyes and think of the most beautiful thing in the world. I mean now, Evelyn. That's right."

Behind her eyelids, gargantuan machines drill into the earth with mechanical whispers, the brown soil spraying upwards in fountains of moist fertility, Mother Nature herself parting to allow spurts of living, breathing oil to gush to the surface and overflow in black fountains.

Metal minces through black gold and churns churns churns.

Gleaming distilleries of glass and steel evaporate the oil, and warm welcoming basins receive petroleum products: petroleum jelly, naphthalene, methane...

The jets of oil spurted up synchronously with the beats of her heart.

They were one and the same.

"I know they're your oil refineries," Gerald said, satisfied at her slight start. "Oh yes, you really are that transparent when it comes to your first love, Evelyn. Oh no, keep those sweet eyelids shut... Your factories are the heart that pumps oil into Britain, and the Leader wants to suck Britain dry. Now, imagine bombs raining down on those factories, a match held to one of the pumps filled with oil, one little spark...and there would be nothing."

Evelyn shuddered.

"The fires would burn for days, weeks, months."

She tried to twist free.

"And even when they're gone, nothing can be the same."

"No," the woman relaxed in his grip, looking into his eyes sharply, a realization of sorts coming to her. She had not been the toast of London society for nothing. "What do you want from me, Gerald? What do I have to do to stop it?"

"Don't sound so jaded, Evelyn." He let her bruised hands go and leaned back in his chair. "As I said before, the Leader has given you a choice. Be against us and watch the fires spread...or be with us and keep your factories. The oil is almost as precious to us as it is to you."

"And marry you."

"Yes, that's a clause. There are certain-- loyalties-- ensured with a magical marriage...and besides, the Leader can't keep an eye on you himself," he smiled smugly. "A marriage of pure convenience, you needn't worry about that."

"It's hardly a choice."

Gerald shrugged and dabbed at his lips with the napkin. "It's the most generous Grindelwald can offer."

Evelyn Earnshaw would do anything to protect her oil refineries.

They were flesh of her flesh, dearer than children.

"Marry me, Evelyn."

Gerald Wilkes was counting on this.

"Yes, Gerald, I'll marry you."

But he forgot one crucial fact.

There is nothing more fearsome in nature than a mother protecting her children, and Evelyn Earnshaw was no exception.

(x)

Act II
( Tales of Foreign climes )

Well, I am an idiot walking a tightrope of fortune and fame
I am an acrobat swinging trapezes through circles of flame.

September 25th 1942

(x)

The ballerina wore red.

She bent, lower and lower, till she was at an impossible angle, her back curved like an old woman's collapsing spine, her red dress-- more red than a razor's kiss, more red than Lenin's soul-- trailing around her feet like silk blood flowing from her broken body, the gold stars sewn into her bodice twinkling like the edges of bone protruding through flesh.

One brief moment caught in eternity where she was a masterpiece by Dali, one second where she was nothing more than bones and skin and rotting flesh, one freeze frame where she was Art itself-- and then.

They tossed candies and roses at her feet.

She understands the phrase fading like a flower.

She performs the same piece every night, and she loathes it with all her soul.

She performs the same piece. It is politically correct.

They tossed roses, and she gathered them by the armful and spread them over her dressing table, and soon her room is filled with the sugarspun odour of dead flowers. The roses are perfect: they are sensuous and red and sublime, and they last only one day. Every evening her maid enters and sweeps the wilted, discoloured fragments into a black bag and empties them in the street, where the brown turns to white as they are covered by frost.

She cannot eat the bonbons because she has a figure to maintain, and so she keeps them in her drawer. It overflows with confectioneries: sugar-frosted, filled with heady burgundy liqueur, flaked with hazelnut-- white and brown and cream wrapped in iridescent plastic, tied with ribbon of every imaginable colour. It is the Coat of Many Colours, it is the rainbow that is formed when light refracts through the tears of Soviet Russia. The ants feast on her collection and the chocolates disintegrate into puffs of nothingness, while on the streets thousands starve.

They come like cattle, packed into the carriages of trains to escape the famine of the countryside, only to die on the streets of the city.

But there is none of that on stage. There is only death. There is only Art. There is only opulence.

It is the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow, and they come here because every night, on command, the ballerina dies and is resurrected by their applause, once more to walk and talk and laugh and lie, and it is all because of them.

The first row in the Bolshoi theatre is filled with members of the Party.

The ballerina raised her head, broke into a white smile, and bowed bonelessly. "Da svidanya," she cried, placing a languorous hand to her lips and blowing a kiss into the air.

It is the 25^th of September, and as the ballerina takes her second bow, Hitler's panzerkorps are supposed to be trundling over Russian soil and taking that most coveted strip of land: Azerbaijan.

The Mecca of the oil industry.

In 1942, a record 25.4 million tons of oil flowed from the fields of Baku into the tank engines and home fires and aircraft tanks of Russia, who all defended 'each position, each meter of our territory, up to the last drop of blood'.

Oil is the Muggle's magic, and Hitler's hailstorm to crush Russia was being beaten back.

The leaders of Soviet Russia can afford to watch overpriced ballet performances because they are in possession of the information, and the information, more valuable than gold, is why Hitler cannot paint swastikas on the oil refineries of Azerbaijan.

The man they have to thank for this is sitting in the audience next to a young woman in a scarf, gloves, and dark glasses.

She looks like Greta Garbo.

She is a spy, and a much better one than her husband.

"What did you tell Gerald?" Dolohov asked.

"Earnshaw Co is one of the main outside contractors for the USSR's oil industry war effort. I told him it was company business," Evelyn leaned closer to her handler. "He doesn't think I'm capable of betraying him...and, anyway, any sort of talk about oil bores him half to death."

Dolohov laughed rather fondly. "He doesn't have any idea how formidable you are, does he?"

"He's not secretive-- it's easy to get him talking," she brushed off the compliment. "Can we talk here?" She asked, surreptitiously glancing at the absorbed expressions on the faces of the people next to her. "It's too crowded, if anyone hears--"

"Nobody will. I have a Silencing Charm up." Dolohov reached into his coat pocket and fumbled for a lighter. "Don't be so nervous. Everything will be all right. The Germans are on the run, thanks to your information about Grindelwald's plans, and soon the USSR and her allies will triumph. You are a true patriot, Evelyn."

She stiffened. "I'm not doing this for Britain, Dolohov; I'm doing this for my oil."

"Well-- the Seven Crows thank you."

(counting crows)
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for girls
Four for boys
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret
Never to be told.

They weren't officially called the Seven Crows. On their Obscured brass nameplate down an almost deserted corridor of the ruby-starred Kremlin, were the words Commissariat for the Promotion of Magimuggle Equality, but someone had called it the Seven Crows, the Russian Politburo's untold secret, and the name had struck.

It was an organisation as old as the Bolshevik party itself, a government within a government.

It is an era of equality, of classlessness, of Marxist ideals, and the Organisation of the Seven Crows tries frantically to disseminate and enforce them among the magical population.

Evelyn Wilkes tightened her grip on the handle of her seat, feeling the expensive fabric of her gloves begin to tear under the pressure. "Words are all very well," she said coldly, "but I want action. I've given you what you want, with great risk to myself and my refineries, and now it is time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain...in the manner that we discussed before this arrangement began."

"Wouldn't it just be easier to kill him, Evelyn?" Dolohov enquired wearily.

Her expression was set in stone. "If he's murdered, my oil wells go up in flame. If I lose my oil, Dolohov, I will make sure you lose your war."

The Commissar felt a slight chill at her words, but attributed it to inefficient heating. "It will be done, Evelyn."

"I've given you his weakness. All you have to do is exploit it."

The ballerina took her final bow, but the show never ended.

They burn my hands
Scar my face
And blind my eyes
I'll steal your breath
And throw away
What I despise.

October 1942

Lover's Charms
Paris, France

I wanted to destroy something beautiful

(x)

World War II.

Horror. Pain. Suffering. Death.

The absurdist's inspiration: is anguish philosophy? Is there a meaning to human existence? Are we condemned to wander godlessmeaninglessloveless through the narrow, concentric streets of life?

Samuel Beckett is born.

The philosopher pauses and transmutes into the drunkard.

The seediest gay wizard bar in Paris was open, all damp red flickering lights and the palest of pale blue curtains. A weathered unlit neon sign proclaimed it to be Le Griffe D'or- The Golden Claw. It took little imagination to realise what 'claw' was slang for. Quite obviously, one of the owners had a warped sense of humour.

There are whiskey stains on the satin, cigarette holes in the black-and-grey chequered tablecloth, and the faint smell of seeped-in cheap wine rises from the floor. Gerald Wilkes sat on a deflated barstool and ordered a drink. A Peach Marguerita, garnished with the standard, ubiquitous garish orange umbrella.

The bartender slid the cocktail toward him indifferently.

"You shouldn't have those here," a voice interrupted, in French, from behind him-- a silvery, slippery, silky voice. "They're real shit."

"Oui?" Wilkes turned slowly to find-- an angel.

No.

A boy with the face of an angel.

A young boy, seventeen or eighteen at the most, wearing smudged mascara, silver bracelets, and clothes that were a shade too tight. The red glow of papered-over lamps glittered in his deep blue eyes, reflected in the black hair that fell serenely around unwarmed skin. A tawdry, desultory sort of sensuality crawled over his flesh, one born of desperation and fear. A wartime whore.

The boy tilted his head and smiled, retrieving a frail cigarette from a shirt pocket. "Got a light?"

Gerald rolled back the wheel on his mauve lighter and pressed the lever down with a click: the flame caught instantly. He held it to the frail cigarette, watching it flicker as the boy inhaled sharply and then exhaled in a cloud of grey. "What's good here, then?"

He spoke through a haze of silvery smoke, his voice ashy. "The company. And the gin."

"I'll definitely look into your recommendations," the Englishman commented idly, intrigued by the young man.

Nothing angelic but the features of his face.

He smiled acidly. "I certainly hope you can afford better company than your selection of alcohol seems to suggest."

Gerald drew a few raised eyebrows from established patrons with the force of his laughter before extending one spindly hand to snatch the cigarette from the lips of the angel. "I'm not in the habit of picking up people whose names I don't know."

"Nicolas. Nicolas Lestrange," he slid into the barstool next to him fluidly, a quick nod to the bartender resulting in a heavily-iced gin and tonic being slid over the counter. "Is my name all that you require?"

"For the moment, Nicolas."

"I would think you'd be more careful," he responded easily, downing the rest of his drink in a smooth motion.

Gerald raised an eyebrow. "And why's that?"

"Well, you're in German-occupied France...and you're not SS, or French, despite that wonderfully-engineered Calais accent. In fact," he looked him up and down. "If I were to guess from the pinstripe, I'd say you were English."

"What an interesting idea." Gerald took a speculative sip of the marguerita and tried to avoid grimacing. He set it down with a shrug, aware of the boy's sudden interest in his hand. "What is it?"

"A very lovely wedding ring, Mr. Englishman," he said, lightly. "How long have you had it?"

"Two months. Give or take. She's a lovely girl."

Nicolas regarded the older man for a moment, leaning in. "Lovely. But a girl. That is the problem?"

"We did not marry for love. It-- suited each of us at the time."

"Ah, English society!" He raised his eyes heavenward in a gesture much too octogenarian for such a young man.

"Something like that."

The whore placed a delicate hand on Gerald's thigh. "Look at us, sitting here and talking about your wife!" His fingers slid up ever so slightly. "When there are a million other topics to...discuss."

Two hours later, in one of the grimy little suites perched on top of Le Griffe D'or, Gerald Wilkes, in the irrational throes of passion said come with me to Rome.

There were a hundred other men he could have chosen for the same purpose.

It was mere stupidity that let him to choose Lestrange.

Later on, when he looked back, Gerald Wilkes would be unable to decide whether this was the greatest mistake of a life filled with great mistakes. In either case, it was a turning point, one of the few Robert Frost moments that occur in every life.

Nicolas Lestrange was not about to refuse, but even if he had wanted to, the irony of Gerald taking him- catamite, sodomite, perfect candidate for the wrath of a homophobic British God- to the Vatican was far too alluring.

If only he knew why he was being taken, he would have enjoyed the irony even more.

If he knew what would happen, well--

Then he would have been Cassandra Vablatsky.

I had a splitting headache From which the future's made.
Vatican City
October 1942

(x)

The Church bleeds on the sinners.

From every window, the red of saints dying and murdering for their Lord is captured by the sunlight streaming in and regurgitated over each unwashed soul that enters the hallowed precincts.

Each being is a sinner, tainted with original sin, descended from Adam and Eve, and so none escape unpunished.

Cassandra Vablatsky had already been punished enough, which was why she had allowed Sylvia Zabini to bring her to this place of, of all things for a person of her kind, religion. Sylvia had brought her because she knew something that Cassandra did not. The Vatican was a haven, a warm maternal embrace, not simply for the righteous, but for the persecuted.

She also happened to have an Uncle in a very high position.

This is how two very different, tangential stories intersect.

Gerald Wilkes walked into the anteroom where the secretary had told him quite curtly to wait and stopped dead. "Miss Vablatsky?"

"Gerald!" The stately young woman regained her poise remarkably well. "How lovely to see you. Here. In Rome."

Dot-dot-dash.

Translation: What the bloody hell are you doing here, Wilkes?

"Quite lovely, indeed, to see you here, in beautiful Rome." The Englishman could play that game as well. "I haven't seen you in England since last year."

Dash-dot-dash.

Translation: None of your business, Vablatsky.

It is Morse code, and they are experts, coding and decoding and encoding and recoding with the ease of children. Secret messages fly between them, wrapped underneath the polite conversation being made. It is a skill possessed by all who wish a career in the Ministry of Magic, or, in Cassandra's case, are marrying into it. Gerald is not a subtle man, but that is not to say he isn't secretive. Especially with his boss's son's fiancée.

Gerald turned to reassure Nicolas that everything was still on track, but that hardly seemed necessary.

Nicolas and Sylvia were looking at each other.

"Nicolas Lestrange," she says.

"Sylvia Zabini," he responds.

They have met before.

At which point Gerald interrupted them, placing a proprietary hand on Nicolas's shoulder. "Zabini. I take it you're a relative of the Archbishop, then, Madame? Oh, I'm Gerald Wilkes, as we're all introducing ourselves." He shook her hand briefly. "I work with Miss Vablatsky's Cornelius Fudge in the British Ministry."

"I'm the Archbishop's niece," Sylvia said absently, though her eyes were still on the Parisian whore. "You have the most atrocious French accent, Mr. Lestrange- what is it that you do?" A trace of a smile crossed her lips.

Gerald interjected smoothly once again. "I'm afraid that's classified, Miss Zabini, though I don't mind telling you that Nicolas here has been a valuable asset to the British Ministry...and the Allies. We were hoping that the Archbishop could-- keep him safe for a little while."

"How amusing. That's exactly why I brought Cassandra here." Sylvia laughed easily, shaking her head at Gerald's story.

"I wasn't aware Miss Vablatsky needed to be kept safe," he said casually, watching Cassandra's face for a reaction. "Surely you'd be quite protected in England, Madame, given the family that you're marrying into."

She smiled fixedly, a worried look flitting over her blue eyes for a moment. "Cornelius is gone, Gerald. The Special Operations Executive doesn't have a bloody clue where he is."

"I thought he was in Vichy, helping with the French resistance? Surely Pétain wasn't fool enough to turn him over to the Germans...?" The man raised an eyebrow, annoyed at the fact that he wasn't informed of this before-- his contact in the Ministry was really falling down on the job.

"No, no, there's nothing definite. Just-- he failed to check in with our outpost there, and we haven't heard anything from him since. None of our other people in France have heard anything, either. It's like he dropped off the face of the earth," she said matter-of-factly, shaking her head. "And he's not dead-- I'd know, if he were."

"And now dear Cassandra is a target," Sylvia exclaimed disgustedly.

"The Fudges have refused to protect you?"

Wilkes had always been far too frank.

Cassandra gave Sylvia a pained look and shook her head. "It's-- complicated, Gerry...well, you'll probably hear this when you get back to England, so I might as well tell you. I'm a Seer, you understand."

The first wave of Grindelwald's march, twined with Hitler like a serpent, devastating the magical populations of Europe and beyond. Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, Hungary, Egypt, Romania, Belgium... There was barely time to react to the blitzkrieg. It should have been simple to overthrow Grindelwald's troops-- a few bitter wizards, bound together with nothing more than petty malice-- but they seemed to know where they were going to be attacked before the attack happened.

Indeed they did.

Grindelwald's most precious possession was not his unruly, undisciplined excuse for an army but the ranks of Seers that were under his control. Drawing energy from each other, spending sleepless days and nights till they all passed in a haze of pastpresentfuture: the most efficient Intelligence operation the world had ever known.

The backlash against Seers had been unprecedented in England. Those with the true Sight were hurled into cells with roadside charlatans and gypsy pretenders dressed in turbans and glass beads. Some escaped, of course, those who didn't register themselves with the Ministry, who preferred instead to hide their talents and smother their gifts in the vain hope that it would save them. It rarely worked-- the Inner Eye would not be shuttered so easily, not in such a historically significant time.

They woke from vision-haunted nightmares sweating and screaming, and all it took was one phone call from a terrified neighbour to sentence them.

They collapsed in supermarket aisles, on the way to work, while drinking lager at the local pub, racked by dreams that could find no other outlet, and were carried away, limp and yielding in the Unspeakable's arms.

They went insane and began shouting their messages from street corners and buses, wild-eyed prophets quickly gagged and bound.

Cassandra had started sobbing and screaming in the middle of a newsreel, her eyes blinded by rushing images of a new God, a blue-eyed God who spoke to snakes and was about to murder for the first time but not the last... ('the blood of Salazar Slytherin runs in my veins')

It was no wonder Cassandra Vablatsky was running.

"It does not suit them to protect me. It would be-- impolitic, I believe, is the word Anna and Pericles Fudge used, and they are consummate politicians." There was no hiding the bitterness in that tone.

"I'm sorry, Miss Vablatsky."

A vulture circling, scenting death on prey.

"My condolences."

"It's horrible, that's what it is. Absolutely unsporting," Sylvia declared. "Just because a few Seers from our side defected to Grindelwald, we can't just label the whole lot of them. It's exactly how they tossed all of us out of England the moment Mussolini declared war. I'm a patriotic Briton, Mr. Wilkes; my Italian last name doesn't change that. Why can't they see that the actions of a few people shouldn't reflect on us all?"

There was a stiff silence in the room after that outburst.

"Well, we do what we can. Though it is not always enough," Gerald allowed, careful not to stray too greatly from the approved path.

"Hardly! I--..."

A secretary entered and caused Sylvia to stop. "The Archbishop will see you now," she said, to Gerald.

"Thank-you, madame."

our currency is flesh and bone
October 1942
The Vatican

(x)

'je suis.'

In French, the verb for to follow is the same as to be.

Nicolas thought this boded rather badly for the whole state of affairs in France. Hitler was in control of France-- there was a supposedly free French state established in Vichy, but General Pétain was nothing but a Nazi puppet.

I follow. I am.

He believed the future lay elsewhere, beyond the boundaries of France.

"Wait out here, Nicolas. I'll be back presently," Gerald promised, and followed the secretary into an office.

'un avocat.'

Then again, the French word for avocado and advocate were the also same.

Maybe it didn't mean anything at all.

"How's the racket, Zabini?"

"The same old same old, Gerry." The priest reclined in his oversize chair and regarded the two men shrewdly.

Gerald Wilkes lit a cigarette before saying anything, waving one arm to clear the smoke. "Your niece is quite the anglophile."

"It is good to have that attitude within the walls of the Vatican, Gerald," the Archbishop said, almost apologetically. "The Catholic Church has never been a great supporter of Mussolini and his allies." The priest spread his arms in the universal gesture of helplessness. "I look towards the East and I see bloody Red Russia-- and the fascists don't seem so bad. Now what is it you want, my dear sir?"

"It's more a matter of what you want. I trust you had a chance to observe the most pleasing little delicacy who was with me in your waiting room?"

"A whore? Really?" Zabini raised a thick, smooth eyebrow. "Strange. He didn't strike me as one-- and I have a nose for these things."

"I'm sure you have more than just a nose for them, Zabini," he said, dryly. "Does he appeal to the other senses? I thought he was suitably pretty-- though I guess something is better than nothing."

"The Church is rather-- unenlightened-- in these matters. As is the British government, I believe."

"Quite. He's a-- gesture of goodwill, just one of many which my Leader has promised. You'll, of course, try your best to save his soul?"

The Archbishop licked his lips. "Oh, my very best," he promised, with a wink. "And in return, Gerry?" He wasn't inept enough to assume that the 'gift' came without a hefty price-tag.

"The Unspeakables are getting restless. Aurors, too-- using the Imperius like a Summoning Charm. Ninety percent don't survive interrogation," he shook his head. "We can get our people out, Zabini, but nobody will accept them. The Vatican needs to drastically change its asylum policy." He made his point by striking the table. "Can you do it?"

The Archbishop made the sign of the cross. "God willing, dear boy," he laughed. "God willing."

The future is mine and it's no disgrace
Because in the end the past means nothing.

November 11^th 1942
The Urals, USSR

(x)

Oil is the Muggles' magic.

Hitler wanted to leave England thirstier than a man in the desert, drier than the Sahara.

But more than that, in November1942, he wanted to suck Red Russia dry of her black blood. He had wanted Azerbaijan, mammary glands of Mother Russia, and his invincible troops had fallen short.

Ribbentrop had promised that "when the Russians run out of oil, we'll bring them to their knees," but von Paulus, his esteemed General, had failed to curtail Russian supply.

Because there was a spy in their ranks, but they didn't know it.

The Führer crumpled up a black and white photograph and tossed it on the floor.

Grindelwald picked it up and smoothed it out, shaking his head at the fact that none of the figures moved. "You shouldn't destroy memories."

Hitler spat. "If only I could!"

The photograph is a slice of the memory: Hitler smiling proudly, his Generals offering him a silvery dish piled with cake.

The Memory:

A surprise party.

Hitler's Generals open the door and take a dish from a servant's hands, bringing it to their Führer amidst music and the loud, amused chatter of voices.

The room falls silent, and then Hitler laughs.

It is a cake in colours of green, blue, and brown: the colours of the Earth, baked in the shape of the Caspian Sea and the lands surrounding it.

Hitler takes the proffered knife and slices in, carving up mountains and shoreline and pasture.

He places Azerbaijan and its oil industry, more valuable than information, onto his plate and bites into it.

They are Gods, all powerful before this sugar and flour simulacrum, so confident that they will soon be sinking their teeth into soil and not pastry.

"It was a little-- premature," Grindelwald suggested, tucking the photograph into his top pocket. He slid a finger into his collar and attempted to loosen it somewhat-- the German uniforms had never suited him.

"I look like a fool!"

The wizard shrugged. "We all look like fools sometimes. We must try and regroup, that is important. We must have the oil."

Hitler looked into Grindelwald's eyes for a moment and saw a similar obsession reflected there-- one of the few similarities that forged the link between them. He nodded. "We must have the oil. We must starve our enemies."

But Grindelwald wanted more. He traced the pulsing veins of oil on the map of the world and dreamed of setting them on fire. He would make the world an inferno, a phoenix, and out of its ashes a new civilisation would be born. No oil to give the Muggles magic, no fuel to burn wizards with, no heat within their souls.

But however desperately Grindelwald wanted the oil, Evelyn Wilkes wanted it more.

Dolohov did not believe that, which was why he was foolish.

He held the information she so desired out to her in a brown leather case, just out of her reach. "I have it."

"Give it to me, Dolohov," she hissed, her voice carrying clearly in the mountain air of the Russian Urals.

"It took considerable peril on the part of my operative to get this," he said idly, still not moving the valise.

Evelyn nearly snarled, all charm school manners forgotten in the cold and fear. "And I took 'considerable peril' to get you your information about German troop movements on the Eastern Front! I'm taking 'considerable peril' to be here now! Give me my due, Dolohov, or I swear..."

"You'll what, Mrs. Wilkes?" He asked, calling her by a title which infuriated her. "Come now, let's be reasonable. Our surveillance of Gerald Wilkes has revealed some startling information-- he is better connected with Grindelwald than we believed. In fact, he might well be one of the top Wizarding agents in England."

"Your point being?"

Dolohov smiled slowly. "Surely you cannot expect us to use this information for such a petty purpose during such a grandiose time? In the greater scheme, Evelyn, your small revenge on your husband is of little consequence. He could be an invaluable source of information to our governments."

"If he is arrested for espionage, Grindelwald will know he was betrayed, and he will destroy my oil wells," Evelyn's hands shook with unspent rage. "Do you understand, Dolohov? My oil will burn!"

"I'm very sorry, Evelyn," he said, almost regretfully. "But I have to renegotiate the terms of our agreement. This is information of national significance, and I cannot allow it to be wasted on such a personal vendetta. There are larger issues to concern us-- we must be patriotic."

Evelyn was not a patriot. The only idea she owed any allegiance to was that of oil.

She nodded her head and made no reply as Dolohov walked away and his figure blurred in the mountain fog.

Three days later, Dolohov was found dead in the guest rooms he had been renting. The local police ascribed it to thieves, but the strangest fact was that, of all the valuable items quite obviously in plain sight, all that was found to be missing was one small, innocuous brown leather case.

Which, even more strangely, ended up anonymously on the doorstep of Bartemius Crouch, Sr, Assistant Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the British Ministry of Magic.

(x) Act III ( Armistice

Or

The more things change, the more they stay the same )

dealing in death is the nature of the beast
November 12^th 1942

(x)

On November 12^th, 1942, several events occurred:

1) Guadalcanal, one of the most bloody and vicious battles of WWII, began.

2) In the ungodly predawn hours of the morning, Gerald Wilkes was woken from a surprisingly blissful sleep and shoved very rudely to his feet by five Officers of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement (several of whom he played Quidditch with on the weekends) and arrested on the charge of violation of Article 7, subsection iii) of the Wizard Code of Conduct.

3) Due to this fact, German spies throughout England were panicking.

4) Evelyn Wilkes née Earnshaw smiled, despite the fact that grimy wizards in cheap robes saw her in her semi-sheer silk nightgown.

5) Sylvia Zabini and Nicolas Lestrange, hand in hand, were sneaking out of the borders of Vatican City, headed for an Allied sanctioned new life in the USSR that had no stain of the old.

6) Archbishop Zabini was lying on the floor, unconscious. He woke four hours later with a mild concussion.

7) Grindelwald was starting to get extremely agitated.

One mistake is all it takes
and your life will be a waste

November 1942

(x)

Gerald Wilkes sat behind the bars of his jail cell and regarded his wife.

"You betrayed me," he said, his voice above all surprised at his own fallibility. "But-- the spells, woven into the marriage ceremony-- they--,"

"They failed, Gerald. Determination can overcome your cheap parlour tricks. Besides," Evelyn shook her head and tossed a file stuffed with paper towards him. "That's who betrayed you, Gerald, though I wish I could have done it myself."

He opened the file and looked at sheets of paper written in the cramped, fluid handwriting and signed in the careless, easy flick of the wrist that he had come to ascribe to none other than his lover. Letters betraying his every action, his every word, his half-mumbled ramblings when they slept coiled around each other to the Russian Marxist Muggle-huggers.

Proof of a lust-affair.

Photographs, receipts, mascara stained shirts.

Letters written in blood signed Nicolas Lestrange.

Siren.

Singing the sweetest song and luring sailors to their doom on the jagged rocks.

And all the time he was in love (and in collusion) with Sylvia Zabini.

Dolohov's agent.

Mata Hari.

The paper ripped under his rage as he hurled the file across the confines of his cell. He buried his fingers in his hair, blood rushing to his cheeks and neck, skin blistering. He looked up, wild-eyed, afraid, abashed, hateful-- all at once. "You!"

"It was your doing, my love," she mocked laughingly. "You and your weakness for painted up Parisian trollops. What were the names of the others? Edouard, Jean, Regis-- how could you resist Nicolas?"

He can see her words in a Daily Prophet headline. Skeeter's pen slavering all over words like parisian painted-up scandal trollop temptation.

"How did you-- do it?" His voice was faint.

"He was an agent of the Seven Crows. It was not my doing." She saw the question in his eyes and her chuckle deepened. She could not resist seeing his arrogance crumble. "Let's just say the Seven Crows owed me a favour."

Gerald was up against the bars, unable to reach through the magical wards and wring her neck-- what he wanted so desperately to do. "You've been spying on me!" he yelled, causing the prison guards to clear their throats.

"Shh, not so loud, my dear-- I might have to start making accusations of my own... Be grateful," Evelyn's voice hardened, "that I'm not bringing you up on treason. It's only violation of the Wizard Code of Conduct."

Gerald laughed bitterly. "You really are an ignorant Muggle, aren't you? That's far worse than treason to England!"

There were two divisions to treason in the Wizarding world.

i) Treason against Britain.
ii) Treason against Wizards.

There are no gay magical bars in Britain.

This is because being gay in Britain is treason against the Wizarding Race, a violation of Article 7, subsection iii) of the Wizard Code of Conduct and punishable by the Dementor's Kiss.

The reasons for this, according to the Ministry spokespeople, are "simple and purely biological."

Flash back to the 14^th Century.

One in every four people is dead or will die.

Ring-a-ring of roses, pocket full of posies

The Black Death sweeps through Europe like a Lethifold in the night, suffocating and slinking away.

A-tishoo, A-tishoo, we all fall down

One sneeze could mean the end.

Plague is a Muggle disease, and magicals are immune.

Privilege always engenders resentment.

They began burning witches and wizards, and so the Muggles continued, leaving a trail of ashes through the 15^th, 16^th, 17^th Centuries...

The Magicals had been small in number to begin with, but generations decimated by Muggles had quartered their ranks. Frantic to bolster spiralling birth rates and fluctuating Wizarding populations, the British Ministry launched a campaign to promote procreation, and in conjunction, Article 7 of the Wizard code of Conduct was amended to make homosexuality a punishable offence.

Human rights took a back seat to human survival.

They termed it: Counter-propagational activity.

Darwinism triumphed.

Ironic that the British Ministry called on the same principle as Grindelwald.

This is why, five months later, Gerald Wilkes was sentenced to death by Dementor's Kiss.

This is why the Russian oil kept flowing while the magic froze in German tanks, and the "hailstorm" to crush the USSR delivered only just enough ice for a decent glass of whisky.

This is why Germany lost the War.

People are far too reluctant to believe that sex influences the fate of nations.

They opened the doors of the gas chambers and threw the children in. "Oh!" I said. "I've never seen anything like it before in my life. It's absolutely terrible." My guide said, "You get used to anything after a while." SS Member- Interview in 1960s

January 1943-April 1945
The Beginning is The End Is the Beginning

(x)

It is the Winter of 1943, and the oil in the German tanks is freezing.

They rumble to a halt. Without the oil to spread magic into their armoured skins and metal dashboards, they are just ungainly and lumbering machines. They are icy coffins painted white to melt against the Russian snow.

On earth, there is no contrast of white on white.

The Russian tanks and aeroplanes, still fuelled, are bold and vivid against pale blue sky or paler white land.

I am the Winter Sky,
she whispers. I am the white shadow, stretching higher like the snow feathered mount of Everest, like the wings of angels. I am the Russian Motherland.

There is no oil with which to slip out of her embrace. She squeezes the Germans tighter and tighter until they cannot breathe and their lips turn blue with the cold. She leaves them hungry and thirsty and exhausted, like corpses wandering the Siberian plains with nothing but the clothes on their backs as the mad prophets did back in the time of Holy Rus.

Only the Germans communicated with Headquarters, and the prophets communicated with God.

Hitler ordered them to their death, an endless row of swastikas slowly spinning into crosses over graves, and the Russians laughed, because for them, oil flowed more freely than vodka.

On 31^st January 1943, General von Paulus, leader of the march eastwards, champion of Operation Barbarossa, walked up to a Russian command post and surrendered.

A Red tide, coloured by victory and not blood, swept through Eastern Europe, and countries were liberated under the glorious name of Stalin. Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia-- all flew the sickle and hammer with a gratitude that would, in only a few years time, be drowned by corruption and oppression under the same banner that had freed them from Aryan dictatorship and invited them into the fold of Marxist equality.

Iran and Iraq continued to pump oil into the greedy mouth of Britain, through flesh-pink veins owned by Earnshaw Oil.

On April 20^th, 1945, Hitler places a gun to his temple and, holding the hand of his lover, pulls the trigger.

Grindelwald deserts a crumbling Empire. It is the coliseum with rotten pillars, and the grand gladiatorial games are being played out. Pristine white marble walls are caving in on those who watched as men murdered each other like animals.

His Seers are gone.

He is blind.

On April 22^nd, 1945, Albus Dumbledore raises his wand against the Leader, and Oliver von Gablenz does not even raise a hand to stop him.

He is tired, too tired of carrying the weight of history on his shoulders, and now it rolls off his back like water (like oil...)

Atlas shrugged.

The war is won.

For now.

The world comes to the brink of War again:

3 Years Later, on 28^th June 1948, in Berlin

11 Years Later, on 29^th October 1956, over the Suez Canal

17 Years Later, on 25^th October, 1962, in Cuba

and so on.

But that is in the future.

Now :

Nicolas and Sylvia Lestrange return to Britain and try to find democracy.

Instead, many years later, ironically enough, their son finds a boy who calls himself a Lord and speaks of changing the world with a tongue laced with fire.

Gerald Wilkes sits in a cell in Azkaban and stares at a crack in the flagstone with no expression.

Life, for him, is uncomplicated.

It is not murder , the British government says, many years later, when a time where civil rights and not survival can be discussed. He was left alive.

On his certificate of imprisonment, next to the word 'CRIME:' in bold, are printed the words: Counter-Propagational Activities and not High Treason.

The names of the members of the spy network which he so successfully ran, his knowledge of Grindelwald's plans, the codes, cyphers and dead drops-- they are buried within his now-useless mind.

A system that would have come crashing down, had the word spy even been suggested about Gerald, saving hundreds of Allied lives.

But Evelyn hadn't breathed it.

Grindelwald would burn her wells at the slightest sign of her betrayal; it was their agreement.

She was ready to close her pipelines and leave England thirstier than a man in the desert, drier than sand
--but Grindelwald never asked her.

The Red Army marched closer to Berlin, and American troops were crawling all over the dying corpse of the Third Reich like maggots, and all thoughts of flying the German flag over Britain burned to a crisp like 6 million Jews in extermination camps with exotic resort names like Auschwitz and Dachau and Treblinka.

388,000 Britons were killed during the Second World War, in excellent company along with:

i) 20,000,000 Soviets ii) 600,000 French iii) 406,000 Americans

And that's just some of the Allies.

A lesser woman than Evelyn Wilkes née Earnshaw would have spent sleepless nights wracked with guilt over the exact number of people who had been slaughtered because of her refusal to betray her husband's role as a spy.

However, she was not a lesser woman.

There was no moral choice.

There was only oil.

More precious than gold and certain types of information.

And far more precious than people.

(x)

For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate
Is it bright where you are?
And have the people changed?

(x)