The Wizard Hunt

Hermione was sitting on the sofa in the main room of the Mitreni safe house as Ron shut the door to the second bedroom. The Muggle may not have been terribly big, but his drug-induced sleep certainly made him dead weight, and Ron was breathing a little heavily. Ginny sat next to her. They both wore equally thoughtful frowns.

As the door to the bedroom clicked shut, Hermione looked up at Ron and smiled warmly at him. He felt his throat tighten a bit, and the boulder of jealousy in his chest shrank to a pebble. He was still suspicious of her desire to go to Bulgaria, but when she smiled at him like that, he forgot a lot of his concerns.

"Well," he said with an insolent grin, "it looks like the three of us are sleeping in here, now." He was a bit annoyed to give up the only other bed in the place to the Muggle, but there was nothing to do for it.

"I'll sleep in with Harry," said Ginny.

Ron felt the heat rising in his face. "Like hell you will."

"Are you afraid we're going to shag like alley cats in his condition, Ron. Honestly!" said Ginny exasperatedly. Hermione giggled.

"Uhh...guess not," said Ron, feeling a bit foolish. "But I'll sleep in with Harry just the same. There's something in there with him and I want to keep an eye on it."

"What is it?" asked Ginny, annoyed. Her voice was angry. "And what is it you three have been doing the last couple of months? And what the hell brought you all to Romania, and..."

Hermione shook her head tiredly and said, "Maybe now is a good time for some explanations."

Ron suddenly felt himself in the throws of a jaw-popping yawn. When he was finished he said, "Well, let's keep it short, shall we. We need to sleep through today and then send Ginny back home tonight."

"Bullocks to that," said Ginny indignantly. "I'm going with you three."

"Bullocks to that," said Ron stubbornly. "You are not even supposed to be here and you almost got yourself killed. You are going back to Mum."

"Heaven's sake!" said Hermione, rubbing her temples.

"Like hell..." began Ginny.

"Could someone help me to the sofa?" said a small voice from the direction of Harry's bedroom.

Ron's turned and saw Harry standing in the doorway looking like he would fall over at any moment. In an instant, all three of them were helping him to the sofa. Hermione waved her wand over him as she checked his healing progress. She muttered in satisfaction and pride at her own work. All three made protestations that he should be abed.

Once he was seated, he waived his hand dismissively, "Can't sleep with that...thing... in there. I heard Hermione say something about explanations, so I thought I would come and hear some." He was looking pointedly at Ginny.

Ginny looked shamefaced and Ron grunted in satisfaction.

"That's a good place to start," said Hermione brightly to keep another row from starting. "How did you find us, Ginny?"

Ginny shrugged. "It wasn't that hard, actually. Bill and Fleur were staying with Mum and Dad when I saw Hedwig arrive with a message for Bill. Bill left the message lying on a table for a minute and I got a quick look. It was the one you wrote, Ron, asking about Gringot's contacts in Bucharest and Romania generally. I was out the door the next morning."

"Damn," exhaled Ron, impressed. "Mum's probably having kittens right now over you."

"Probably," laughed Ginny.

"How did you know the street we were staying on in Romania?" asked Harry with a painful grimace. Hermione propped another pillow under his back.

"That was fairly easy, as well," said Ginny with a mischievous grin. "I knew Hermione would make a beeline for the biggest and best wizarding library as soon as you all arrived in the city. I knew she would research whatever you were after. I just waited on the street outside the front of the library until I saw her. It took about two days, but there she was." Hermione looked shocked and Ginny patted her arm.

"We'll have to be more careful about our habits," said Hermione. She plopped down in a somewhat dejected manner on the floor across from the sofa where Harry and Ginny were sitting.

"Definitely," said Ron as he folded his long legs and sat next to her. He put his arm around her shoulders for comfort and he felt her lean into him. He couldn't even detect that kernel of jealousy anymore.

Ginny continued, "I followed Hermione from the library to where you stayed. Then I saw the three of you leave yesterday afternoon so I followed you until you split up. At that point I decided to follow Harry." Ginny colored prettily as she said it.

"My invisibility cloak," said Harry with a grin.

"Yeah," continued Ginny. "I lost you, so I backtracked and tried to find Hermione and Ron, but I couldn't find them either. After an hour of wandering around, I decided to walk around Bucharest for awhile just to see the sights..."

"In a strange city by yourself!?" interrupted Ron, feeling worried anger well up again.

"Yeah, and what of it?" challenged Ginny. "I had never been in Bucharest before. I knew I wouldn't find the three of you, so I figured I'd walk until dark. I hoped you would have finished whatever you were doing by then, and then I'd just go to your flat and knock on the door."

Ron was about to say something scathing when Hermione put her hand on his knee. That drove the words right out of his mind.

"But you couldn't find us, could you?" asked Hermione.

"No," answered Ginny. "I walked up and down that street twenty times but every time I was sure I was in the right place, everything started to look wrong. Then I'd wander for five or ten blocks before circling back."

"Confundus Locatus charm," said Ron proudly, looking at Hermione's hand on his knee. Almost imperceptibly, she scooted closer against him.

"I guess," said Ginny. "While I was looking for your building, I ran across Malfoy and those Death Eaters. They would have seen me and gotten me, too...if Augustine hadn't grabbed me."

"Who is he, anyway?" asked Harry, turning towards Hermione. Ron felt a fleeting disappointment as Hermione's hand left his knee to be folded neatly in her lap. She was getting ready to explain.

Before she started, she pulled out her wand and placed a simple charm around them against eavesdropping, just in case the Killer Muggle woke up.

"He is a knight," said Hermione simply, when she had completed the charm.

"Oh well, that's good," said Ron sarcastically. "Because for a minute there I thought he was a Psychotic." Ginny and Harry giggled.

Hermione looked at Ron with a grin before continuing, "Well, honestly, I think he might be that, too. He seems to have a dangerous fascination with Ginny."

"Yeah, he thinks her name is Sally or something," said Ron worriedly.

Ginny looked pensively at the floor, saying, "I think that he thinks I'm his family or something. His sister. Did you here him talk about his mother and father?"

"What did he say?" asked Harry a little more fiercely than necessary.

"I had asked him if he knew who Voldemort was, and he said several terrible things about what he would do to Voldemort," explained Hermione.

Ron felt his stomach growl. "Yeah, that wasn't half bad was it?"

"True," said Ginny. "But when I asked him why, he said it was for his mom and dad and me."

"He's a nutter," said Ron simply. "We knew that."

"Well, Ron," said Hermione, "I think it's more complicated than that. I think You-Know-Who did something to him. Maybe he killed Augustine's family. You saw his Dark Mark."

"What about that?" asked Harry quietly. "I didn't think Muggles could get that."

"Apparently they can," said Hermione. "Or maybe we are just not dealing with an ordinary Muggle."

"We knew that, too," said Ron. His stomach growled again. "So what did you mean about him being a knight?"

"Well I don't know if the word 'knight' applies presently. Let's just say that he is part of an Order of ... fighters... is the best thing to call them now. The Order was originally a group of knights under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church."

"What was the name of that Order, you said?" asked Ron. "The order of the Architects?"

Ginny giggled and Hermione exhaled heavily saying, "Order of the Archistrategos."

"Yeah that," said Ron. "The Order of the Whatsits?"

"It is a religious reference to an angel..." began Hermione.

"And they kill wizards?" asked Ginny.

"Sort of," said Hermione. "Let me explain. It is a long story."

Hermione sat composing her thoughts for a moment. Ron knew this might be a long explanation, so he stretched his legs out in front of him to get comfortable. Ginny tossed her hair aside defiantly and rested her head on Harry's shoulder. Harry looked surprised for a moment, but quickly had his arm around her.

Hermione began, "Do you remember in Third Year when we studied witch hunts and burnings and things of that nature?"

The three of them made varying degrees of acknowledgment. "Like witch what's-her-name, who was burned seven times," said Ron.

Hermione nodded. "Well, our lessons on that subject were incomplete."

She looked at the three of them and they looked back blankly. She sighed and said, "The problem is that there were Muggles, an entire group of them, actually, that were extremely effective at killing witches and wizards."

This elicited satisfyingly appropriate levels of consternation.

"Wait a minute," said Harry skeptically. "Are you telling me that Dumbledore allowed them to teach us something that wasn't true? That doesn't sound like him."

"Oh what they taught us was true, it was just incomplete," said Hermione convincingly. "I did research on it in Third Year in the Restricted Section of the library. Professor McGonegal had sent me for a book on Transfiguration. I wasn't supposed to dally, but we had just had that class on witch burnings and I found the way the witches and wizards escaped from the fire to be fascinating. So while I was down there, I thought that I would look up something about it really quick. I came across one record about a 'Vatican Knight' who was credited by reliable wizard observers with killing five dark wizards who were terrorizing Muggles in the West Country in 1156 AD."

"No way!" breathed Ron.

"Oh yes," said Hermione. "I got more curious after reading that so I did a little more research while I was in Rome on holiday with my parents, and in the Restricted Section when I could.

"The long and short of it is that the Order of the Archistrategos was founded by the Roman Catholic Church during a time when there was a frenzy of witch burnings in Italy around 1000AD.

"The Vatican was concerned because they knew three things. They knew that innocent people were being killed who were not witches or wizards. They also knew that not all witches and wizards were bad. And finally they knew that real witches and wizards were getting away unharmed, some of whom were Dark Magic users.

"Therefore, the Vatican looked into various ancient records, including the Bible and early Judaic and Christian apocryphal writings, and found a way to identify and, if necessary, kill witches and wizards."

"That doesn't make sense," said Ginny in anger. "A lot of wizards and witches are religious people. They are Christians or Muslims or whatever. Some, especially Muggleborns, are practicing Catholics. Our Great Grandmother was a devout Catholic and she was pure blood, right Ron?"

"Yeah," said Ron. He was really starting to feel hungry. "But most witches and wizards stay away from organized religions. If the Muggles knew they were witches and wizards, they would brand them as Devil Worshippers or something."

"Well," said Hermione, "like a lot of things in Church history, the Order, as I'll call it, got away from its original purpose. It was originally a group that was to identify wizards, and then make them swear they weren't seeking power or working for evil purposes. If they discovered that a wizard or witch was doing something like that, they would kill them."

Ron felt his stomach rumble and he noticed his pack was nearby. He reached out and dragged it over to himself. He began rummaging in it for some of the Muggle snacks he had packed.

"How could they, Hermione?" asked Ron distractedly. "Muggles are powerless against wizards."

"Oh and the fellow in the other bedroom was powerless?" asked Harry. His weak voice bespoke how powerless their unwanted guest had been.

"Well, no. I guess not," said Ron. He pulled out some Muggle candy bars they had acquired and passed them around. "But they are a lot weaker than us for the most part."

"That's true, of course," said Hermione, biting ravenously into a candy bar that Ron had given her.

"But he wasn't powerless, at all," said Ginny with a shiver, leaning into Harry. "Augustine was like a force of nature. He moved so fast I could barely see him, and you saw what he did. When he first grabbed me, I was powerless. He knew exactly how to keep me from using my wand, and he was so strong!"

"Quite taken with Augustine, are we?" chided Harry.

Ginny shivered again.

"Well, I don't know how they do it, really," said Hermione. "I know it has something to do with religious power. A type of magic, I guess; and the Relic of St. Michael the Archangel."

"And that is..." asked Ginny.

"Well, you heard him, Gin," replied Hermione. "It makes him resistant to magic, fearless, and he can't be misdirected. It makes him a very powerful warrior. I bet he can detect magic with it, too."

"But no Muggles really know about us," protested Ron. "Why do they need an Order like this?"

"I don't know, Ron," said Hermione shaking her head. "I think that is another reason to go to Rome to find out. Because I think the parallels here are too much to be mere coincidence."

"What parallels?" asked Harry with obvious trepidation.

"Well first, Harry, Augustine's family was killed like yours. By the same dark wizard that killed your family. He is sworn to kill that wizard, apparently, just like you." Hermione stopped here and fell deep into thought for few moments.

Ron nudged her with his shoulder. "Go on," he said gently.

"Oh, right," said Hermione. "And I think we need to keep Ginny with us."

"What!?" asked Harry and Ron together.

"Right!" said Ginny triumphantly.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" said Hermione matter-of-factly. "Augustine's fixated on her somehow. She gives us a means to...find common ground with him."

"Right..." said Ginny much less certainly.

"Right," said Hermione as if the matter was settled. "And the third parallel...well, that's the most difficult to explain, actually."

"We're listening," said Harry after Hermione had drifted off into thought again.

"Sorry," said Hermione. "See, many of the sources I read said that the Order of the Archistrategos was merely a rumor. Some other sources said that if they existed at all, they were disbanded early in the Fourteenth Century by the Pope at about the same time as the Knights Templar."

"The Knights What-lar?" asked Ron, his words muffled by chocolate.

"That's another story entirely," said Hermione, looking at the chocolate dribbling onto Ron's chin with reproach. "However, there was one book I read in Rome, which was an official roll book of the Church from 1899 AD. It was a comprehensive description called the 'Compendium of the Orders and Societies of the Latin Rite of God's Catholic Church.' Apparently the Vatican offices had ordered the compendium assembled to make sure they could track all of the active societies and so they would have dependable histories of the defunct societies. It was extremely thorough and detailed about each Order, both active and inactive at that time. It's pages were so thin that they were like tissue. You had to turn the with rubber tongs, but it was still about a foot thick! And the library was huge! The Vatican has perhaps the greatest library of ancient texts in the world, and it smelled..."

Hermione had a beatific look on her face and Ron chuckled inwardly. To Hermione that library must have been paradise. He nudged her again to get her back on track.

"Oh right! Sorry," said Hermione as Ginny and Harry grinned at her. "Well, anyway, that book had a picture of the mark that Augustine bears on his arm. The caption said the mark is called the Relic of St. Michael the Archangel. That's how I recognized it when we were fighting him.

"But when I read the Compendium, I thought it was really odd because it was very vague about the Order of the Archistrategos, itself. It just said that there were only two members: a 'director' and an 'instructor.' It also said that 'knights' and 'relics' were forbidden circa 1322AD. It also didn't list a termination date for the Order."

"Why's that interesting?" asked Harry.

"Well," said Hermione, looking thoughtful, "my guess is that Augustine would not qualify as an instructor or director. He is a fighter. And I find it odd that this Order would institute a 'knight' at just this point in time, don't you?"

"What do you mean?" asked Ron blankly.

"I mean," continued Hermione exasperatedly, "right now, as Voldemort has threatened the Wizarding and Muggle world.

"Look at Augustine. He can't be more than ten years older than us. He's fairly...new. Plus, I don't think that the Order would, after hundreds of years, suddenly - and apparently illegally - institute a new fighter and give him the Relic of St. Michael the Archangel, for no good reason."

"Merlin!" breathed Ginny. "That is an unbelievable coincidence."

"Who is this St. Mickey, anyway?" said Ron as he began to tear into another wrapped candy bar.

Hermione took a deep breath. "He was the Angel of God who cast Satan out of heaven."

Ron felt a chill go up his spine, and he swallowed the gob of chocolate in his mouth heavily. It tasted like ashes.

Harry and Ginny had suddenly become very still.

Hermione continued, "According to Christian theology, Michael is one of only two Angels that are given names in the canonical Bible. One of the Angels is Gabriel, who is the messenger of God. Then there is Michael, whose name means 'he who resembles God.'

"There are prayers to St. Michael that are supposed to be said in times of Battle, or at the time of death. Christians believe that Michael protects dying people from the last temptation of the Devil at the moment of their death."

Ron swallowed again. "Creepy," he said quietly.

"All of these traditions stem from the way in which Michael became God's most powerful angel. Some of this is more Christian Mythology, as opposed to Theology, but the story goes like this.

"At the beginning of time, before creation, the Devil was known as Lucifer, which means 'Light Bearer.' He was also called the 'Morningstar' because he shone so brightly among God's Angels. He was God's most powerful and beloved angel.

"But when God decided to create the universe, and to place Man at the crown of that creation, even to be ahead of the angels, Lucifer became jealous and spiteful. He was also envious of God's greater power.

"Therefore, the Devil tried to unseat God, and God ordered him cast out of heaven. The Devil tried to fight God along with other angels he could woo to his side.

"St. Michael the Archangel was God's strongest angel besides Lucifer. Michael loved God's creation and especially Man. He remained devoutly faithful to the Creator, and God entrusted Michael with defeating the Devil and the fallen angels.

"Michael led the angels who remained faithful to God. It was a seemingly hopeless battle in which more of the powerful angels, who also had greater numbers, were arrayed against the forces of heaven.

"Michael clashed with Lucifer personally and would have been bested. But at the last moment of his extremity, and this is important, Michael called to God for help. Because of Michael's faithfulness and trust in God, God gave Michael the power to crush the Devil. Michael then won the battle with Satan, crushing him underfoot like a serpent. Michael cast the Devil and his followers into Hell for eternity. God then raised Michael to be his highest and most beloved angel."

Ron felt a flutter in his stomach as Hermione completed her tale. It was not hunger.

"That's why another name for Michael in the early Church was Archistrategos, because Michael led God's Army and became the highest angel. Archistrategos is Greek and it means, 'Highest General.'"

Hermione finished her tale and sat quietly looking at her hands in her lap.

"Wow," breathed Ginny.

"Yeah, I know," said Ron softly.

Harry was still and silent, but he watched Hermione intensely.

"Who do we know that most resembles the Devil?" asked Hermione sadly.

"Yeah..." said Ron, feeling that the little house had suddenly become quite dark and cold.

"And who do we know that has to fight a battle with that Devil," asked Hermione again.

All three of them looked at Harry.