Percy Weasley and the Great Cauldron-Bottom Caper

PERCY WEASLEY and the GREAT CAULDRON-BOTTOM CAPER

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Chapter One: Wheels within wheels

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Today

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Arthur Weasley's family represented the last and most junior branch of the Weasleys: at once the cadet branch, and the only surviving branch. Battle, murder, and sudden death had done for many of them; yet it was the adherence of Arthur's line to the church by law established, in stark contrast to the faithful recusancy of the elder lines, that had perhaps done most to preserve them. The Prewetts had, unlike the RC branches of the Weasleys, survived until Catholic Emancipation, although beggared by fines to an extent even greater than that suffered by the Weasleys; yet Molly's twig of that ancient stock was, like Arthur's branch of the Weasleys, one that had been nominally C of E for some generations. (The Blacks and the Cliffords of Chudleigh alike regarded this conformity with considerable disdain.)

Consequently, Percy Weasley, pace the 'Ignatius' that had been so cruelly tacked onto his names at the font, was not a member of any organised denomination: he was Church of England. Accordingly, his theological notions were more than slightly ill-defined. But he was increasingly certain of this: that the situation in which he now found himself was, simply, Hell.

Was there a conspiracy of some sort now mounting, to destroy the hard-won peace? There was.

Was there the strong likelihood of corruption, disaffection, and treason within the Ministry? There was.

Did it centre upon something dodgy regarding cauldron bottoms - something that Percy had yet to determine? It did.

Was he now, unwillingly and indeed inexplicably, involved inextricably with a group of Unspeakables - at least, he presumed, hoped, they were Unspeakables - nameless and faceless, cloaked and disguised beyond discovery, who were expecting him to somehow break up whatever threat was now upon them? He was, and he very much wanted not to be.

Were his friends and family - even George, even Ron, even Harry - avoiding him, brushing him off, interposing the most transparent of excuses when he sought them out? Indeed they were.

Were his suspicions and dreads incommunicable to anyone save the mysterious spymasters - codenamed 'Mycenæ', 'Sparta', 'Argos', 'Pylos', and 'Crete' - to whom he now reported? They were.

Was Luna - Luna - the only person, save Penny, who appeared to have time for his whispered allusions: and to believe them? She was.

Yes. Assuredly this was Hell.

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In the Year of the Great Victory

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Bredon Hill broods over the Vale, and is veiled in history: history both magical and Muggle. The ancient camps and hill-forts of the Britons - and the Legions that overthrew them - stand yet, although time and treason have long brought low the fortifications of the ancient Earls of Warwick. Old Queen Bess gladly traded certain manors to the See of Worcester that she might obtain Bredon, and antique courts-leet - even the inquest into the death of Maud, Dowager Countess of Warwick, in 1301 - were held before the King and Queen Stones in misty years long gone, the stones lustrated and whitewashed before the law-deemings began. The Holy Well of St Katherine yet flows with sacredness, and from atop the great summit, England and the Marches unfurl like a tapestry of great price, woven of myth and history, of magic and poetry, warp and woof of Housman and of Archer, spun and threaded by John Moore. Severn and Avon bow their heads beneath its far, remote, imperious gaze, the nymph Sabrina unwontendly grave, bold Shakespeare's Avon mute as a swan. Nonjuring conjurers, Cunning Folk who stayed on to aid their Muggle neighbours, have long lived in Bredon's shadow.

It was an altogether fit and proper place for the meeting, far from Muggle eyes, of the Sovereign and 'her General Monck': the new Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

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It is a testament to the innate contrariness of human nature that, almost before the news of Voldemort's defeat had reached the Wizarding public, new factions formed, nascent political parties. Those who wished to preserve the heart of the secrecy regime - although denying, in perhaps not very convincing accents, any prejudice towards the 'half-blood' and 'Muggle-born' members of the community - first chose to name themselves 'Ordainers', and derided their opponents as 'Levellers'. What their opponents called them in return, was not generally proper to be repeated.

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Harry, like Kingsley, like Minerva, had far too much to do in the first days after the victory, to 'worrit' - as Hagrid put it - over party and faction. The burgeoning quarrel between the two groups that an especially inspired Luna, in print, had labelled the 'Hedgers' and the 'Ditchers' (names that remained long after the formal creation of the Traditionalist and Moderate Parties as such, the former being proud to regard itself as forming a 'hedgerow barrier against threats to order' and the latter glorying in its determination to 'ditch' the unsavoury aspects of the old, closed society), hardly impinged upon him. Somebody, after all, wanted to help Kingsley with the mundanely gory details of disposing of the dead - and in such a fashion as neither to inflame resentments nor to permit later necromancy - and rebuilding the fabric of Hogwarts; and there was, after all, his work on the Magical War Graves Commission. The fabric of society could wait.

But of course, it could not, not really.

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On the seventh day after the defeat of Voldemort, for the first time in the history of British Wizard-dom, the Wizengamot met to declare its dissolution in favour of an unprecedented Convention Moot.

To his everlasting annoyance, Harry found that this was a duty he could not evade. He, Ron, Hermione, Arthur, and all the surviving members of the Order, were summoned by writ to attend as members, to shape the new course of the Wizarding world and to enact a new constitutional order.

Kingsley had prepared his ground carefully, with Arthur as his deputy. The Convention Moot was to be, as the old Moot - now being called the 'Rump Moot' - had been, unicameral, more akin to the Three Estates of the auld Scots parliament than to the English model; but the Convention would consider whether the Moots that came after should have an upper and a lower house. And like the Convention Parliament of 1660, its primary task was to promulgate a Restoration Settlement and call a new Moot in accordance with the new - or restored - polity.

In this battle against the forces of reaction - like snakes, they had been scotched but not slain - Kingsley deployed all his weapons. The first of course was the popular revulsion against anything that smacked of the Death Eater mindset. The second was the presence of Harry (under protest) and the other Victors, from Ron to Neville to Andromeda Tonks to Old Sluggers. The third was the Declaration of Bredon, which he and HMQ had hammered out a few days after the victory.

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The Declaration of Bredon 1997

Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, Scotland, and Magical Ireland, Lady of the Isles, Duke of Lancaster and Normandy, Lady of Mann, Empress-Magical of Wizarding and Princely India and of Her other Realms and Territories beyond the seas, Defender of the Faith, &c, to all our loving magical subjects, of what race, status, magic, degree, or quality soever, greeting.

If the general distraction and confusion which is spread over the whole kingdom doth not awaken all peoples-magical to a desire and longing that those wounds, which have so many years together been kept bleeding, may be bound up, all We can say will be to no purpose. However, after this long silence We have thought it Our duty to declare how much We desire to contribute thereunto, and that, as We can never give over the hope in good time to defend the right and ameliorate the sufferings of Our Wizarding and Muggle subjects alike, which God and Nature hath made Our bounden duty, so We do make it our daily suit to the Divine Providence that He will, in compassion to Us and Our subjects, after so long misery and sufferings, remit and put Us into a quiet and peaceable possession of the Light, with as little blood and damage to Our people as is possible. Nor do We desire more to enjoy what is Ours, than that all Our subjects may enjoy what by law is theirs, by a full and entire administration of justice throughout the land, and by extending Our mercy where it is wanted and deserved.

And to the end that the fear of punishment may not engage any, conscious to themselves of what is passed, to a perseverance in guilt for the future, by opposing the quiet and happiness of their country in the restoration both of Crown and people to their just, ancient and fundamental rights, We do by these presents declare, that We do grant a free and general pardon, which We are ready upon demand to pass under Our Great Seal Magical, to all Our subjects, of what race, status, magic, degree, or quality soever, who within forty days after the publishing hereof shall lay hold upon this Our grace and favour, and shall by any public act declare their doing so, and that they return to the loyalty and obedience of good subjects (excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by the Wizengamot). Those only excepted, let all Our loving subjects, how faulty soever, rely upon the word of a Queen, solemnly given by this present Declaration, that no crime whatsoever committed against Us before the publication of this shall ever rise in judgement or be brought in question against any of them, to the least endamagement of them either in their lives, liberties or estates, or (as far forth as lies in Our power) so much as to the prejudice of their reputations by any reproach or term of distinction from the rest of Our best magical subjects, We desiring and ordaining that henceforward all notes of discord, separation, and difference of parties be utterly abolished among all Our subjects, Wizarding and Muggle alike, whom We invite and conjure to a perfect union among themselves, under Our protection, for the resettlement of Our just rights and theirs in a free Moot, by which, upon the word of a Queen, we will be advised.

And because the passion and uncharitableness of the times have produced several opinions of faction, by which magical beings and Muggles are engaged in parties and animosities against each other, which, when they shall hereafter unite in a freedom of conversation, will be composed and better understood, We do declare a liberty to tender consciences, and that no man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences of opinion in matters of faction which do not disturb the peace of the kingdom; and that We shall be ready to consent to such an act of the Moot as, upon mature deliberation, shall be offered to Us, for the full granting that indulgence.

And because, in the continued distractions of so many years and so many and great revolutions, many losses of estates have been made, for which reparations are most justly due, We are likewise willing that all such reparations, and all things relating to such damages, shall be determined in the Moot, which can best provide for the just satisfaction of all magical beings who are concerned.

And We do further declare, that We will be ready to consent to any act or acts of the Wizengamot to the purposes aforesaid, and for the full satisfaction of all arrears due to those serving under the command of the late lamented Albus Dumbledore, of the Right Honourable Kingsley Shacklebolt, Our Minister for Magic, and of Our right trusty and well-beloved Harry Potter, and that they shall be received into Our service upon as good pay and conditions as they now enjoy.

Given under Our Sign Manual and Privy Signet-Magical, at Our Court-Magical in Eyre at Bredon-Hill, in the Octave of Roodmas, in the six-and-fortieth year of Our reign.

Elizabeth RI

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The Crown and Wizengamot Act 1997, the Claim of Right (Scotland and the Isles) 1997, the Bill of Rights 1997, the Indemnity and Oblivation Act 1997, the Act of Settlement 1997, the Treason Act 1997, the Test Act 1997, the Wizengamot (Constituencies and Elections) Act 1997, the Magical Education Act 1997: all these and more were speedily passed by the Convention Moot and its successor, the 'Phoenix Moot' as it came to be called (as much for its character as having risen from the ashes as from the loyalties of its majority). The Hedgers had held out hope that, at the very least, the Great Rebellion that Tom Riddle had led, and Riddle's personal history, now revealed, would redound, in the end, to a revulsion against exposure to the Muggles; yet the result was not precisely as they would have wished. It was true that there was no formal repudiation of what Hermione, cleverly, named 'the principle of discretion'; yet the worst excesses of the old secrecy regime simply melted away like snow in the sun. Muggle family members were expected to be discreet about Wizards in the household, of course, and the existence of the Wizarding world was hardly spread across the pages of The Times; still, there was no persisting in blood-prejudice and draconian segregation when Magic itself seemed to reject these follies.

And so it had done. Even as the Convention Moot was sitting, the near-sentient magical buildings of the ancient Wizarding world had reappeared after centuries of concealment: in the countryside, of course, as at the Royal Wizarding Agricultural Society's HQ at Bubbenhall Abbey; at Hogsmeade, where the ancient Wizarding university of Domdaniel, closed since 1692, re-emerged from the fabric it had ever shared with Hogwarts (and whose fellows, thus entitled to be called 'professor', had always staffed the school), in all its ancient pomp; and in London most of all.

Restoration London in all its restored glory: the Duke of Kent's Steps running down to Merlin Walk, all around the green and ever-flowering glories, charmed and charming, of Mungo's Park, the grave, chaste, Palladian frontages of Mercia Square and the Classical proportions, trim as a Wren's nest, of St Cuthbert's, Mercia Square, the elegant arch of Crutchedfriars Bridge and the mix of Queen Anne and Georgian graces in the houses of Fore Square; the industry of Dye Urn Alley, the crowded shipping of the Isle of Crups and the Fleet Basin, down the docklands; the galleries and the theatres and the concert halls, and the jolly, vulgar music halls as well, all the vibrant culture, high and low alike, of Friary Garden, Dreary Lane, and the West Bar. The ever-flowering glories, charmed and charming, of Chiswick - the Royal Herbologic Garden - and its satellite in the country, Balcombe Court. All the effervescent life of peacetime London, after the vanquishing of the long Dark, sprung anew from long wintering.

Restoration London. The old institutions had, like princesses in an enchanted sleep, been kissed by peace and righteousness, wakened and brought back to life by that kiss. Upping Street was no longer under Fidelius, though properly secure, and its fabled Number Twelve was once more to be the home and office of successive Ministers. The rule of law was being rapidly re-established, in justice and in truth, truth mighty above all things and prevailing, and, once past Plea Inn Bar, all along Ess Street and into Inn-Chancery, the lawyers already hummed and bustled like a hive of happy, golden bees. The RWCJ stood proud and tall again over its fabled gardens, the Stern Street Magistrates Court was again waiting briskly to handle the jollifications and sleeping-it-offs of Boat Race and Fair, and the Old Donjon, built on the relics of earlier minatory structures at Oldgate, by its very presence and the awful majesty of its high halls and sounding courtrooms, where even in Summer there was coolth, stood ready once more to deter the most solemn crimes, the crimes it was built to try and to assess. From Wynd Row, strait ways led to the halls of exercised power, in this Restoration world. Law and liberty, the power and the glory, the arms that secured peace, the knowledge that directed them: all were once again to be deployed honestly and fairly, for the common weal, by the common consent, the people's will. Liberty under law, force bridled by freedom's foundation and the ancient laws, in a world made new. The institutional memory of the Wizarding world was in hand to be restored, and the Moot again sat in due pomp and presence, in the Palace of Thornminster, its Dial Tower looming over all and Long George sounding the hours, its answering Boudicca Tower anchoring the other end of the palace, housing the Moot Records Office and all the history and precedent of Wizardry: history that must be learnt from, lest it be repeated. The great ministers of state would return now to their ancient seats, King John's Gate for the Gnome Office, Kinghorn House for the Scottish Office; Hit Wizards and Hit Wizards Parade; Auroralty House. Daysbridge Barracks and the Ordnance Warren brimmed already with quiet confidence, alert, ever ready, power defensive and defending, leashed by law, the watch-Crups of the Constitution. An honest and accepted excise and scheme of taxation was in hand, represented by Wiltshire House, which also housed as it had ever done the General Records Office alongside the Department of Outlandish Revenue. Its eyes to the heavens, the Nephomantic Office once more watched cloud and weather and sky for the benefit of all, shipper and farmer and all who depended upon these. Severn Street House and Furness House proclaimed, respectively, the sleepless guard of the Unspeakables and the restoration of honest and open government and of relations with the wider world, and foreign Wizard-dom would now once more send its envoys, accredited to the Court of St Aldhelm's: the American ambassador, openhandedly magnificent at the embassy on Square Nore Grove and at his country seat of Walker House, had already arrived. The Home Counties now anew concealed the graces and favours of Hawtreys and Thorneygrove and Chivenoaks.

The outward and visible sign of their triumph was to be seen in the reopened Fortescue's and the refounded Ollivander's, in Madam Malkin's shop front and the shelves of Flourish and Blott; to be scented in the flower stalls and fruit stalls and heard in the costermongers's cries all along Hedge Row; to be breathed-in with the sharp scent of printer's ink and law calf, the crispness of vellum and parchment, on Polygon Alley, hard by the ancient Church of SS Peter & Paul Agonistes, which, abraded by the vulgar tongue of centuries, had given Polygon Alley its name. One found it all along Boyle Row, at Twillfit and at Peeves & Fawkes, at Peakes & Ravenclaw and Scrimgeour Filch Avebury and Figg & Wimple. One found it in the oysters and the mixed grill at Somerton's, in the chops at Timson's in the Mere, in the leather and varnish of Geo Aracobb & Sons, Bootmakers, and in the reverent bustling-about and aromatic lather of a trim and a shave at Jno F Deemster's palatial tonsorial establishment. And, most of all, in chains of office and casual pomp, one saw these monuments of victory embodied in the pitched roof of Livery Hall and the banquets of Burgage House, in the ealdormen pacing gravely along the halls of Corporation Hall, and in the restoration of the proud and ancient guilds, from The Master and Wardens and Brethren of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin and of St Catherine of the Mistery of Potters and Crockers and of Basketmakers of the Wizarding Realm of the Three Kingdoms, to the Worshipful and Ancient Company of the Art-magical and Mystery of Navigators and Pilots of the Blessed Fraternity of SS Christopher & Brendan. Even in the swiftly resumed pop concerts of Brentside Stadium: the Weird Sisters, the Rollright Stones ('You can't always scry what you're wanting ... But sometimes, you scry what you need'): one found the daily, common evidence of victory and peace. Of liberty.

And to the Wizarding world, even as the Convention Moot deliberated, the Lords Spiritual returned, and the non-juring folk, and the Cunning Folk who had rejected the secrecy regime of '92 in favour of remaining with their Muggle neighbours in peace and charity. New blood, old ways made new again, old prejudices destroyed.

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Today

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'For most of its existence, the (imperial, that is, union) Wizengamot and its predecessors at Winchester (formerly, at Avebury), at Falkland, at Machynlleth (formerly, at Caerleon), and at Tara of the Kings, included the Lords Spiritual, ex officio, as members. The Moot is in this as in many regards different to its Muggle counterpart at Westminster and that parliament's predecessors, in that its members have always tended to represent certain interests without regard to geographical constituencies, and no Reform Acts have been felt desirable. Hogwarts School has always had its own members; the University did and now does again; there are members elected by St Mungo's Hospital, by the various Guilds and Livery Companies, and so on. This was not changed, but was, rather, reaffirmed as well as judiciously reformed, in the post-insurrection Settlement.

'It is with that Settlement that, rather to the shock of many, Wizard-born and Muggle-born alike, that the Lords Spiritual reappeared on the benches of the Moot.

'There had been brief periods in the past when all or most of the clergy had been non-jurors in one or another sense, or had withdrawn from the arena wholly: the Peverel - Peverell - Peverill Rebellions, beginning with that of the third William Peverel of Bolsover Castle (the first William Peverel was a half-Saxon bastard of William the Bastard's - or, "the Conqueror's" - getting), were one such instance, as were the Gaunt-Swynford-Beaufort feud, the resultant York - Lancaster Wizarding War, and the Whig - Jacobite Blood Struggle, for more on which, see these notes on the Statute of Secrecy 1692.

'The Whig - Jacobite Blood Struggle, as an extension of yet another feud within the ruling house, itself caused horrific political upheaval in the Moot, and it was in effect a Rump Wizengamot that sat from 1692 until 1807, when, with the death of Henry 9th and 1st of the House of Stuart, a number of secular members accepted George 4th ("and 1st") as his tanist and were reconciled to the Hanoverian Succession. (It has been said that this factor alone, with or without the absence of the clerical estate, was what left the American Wizards independent whether they wished to be or not. As is well known, the Statute of Secrecy, by its mere existence, long stifled the rationalisation of Wizarding borders and governments, which even now do not comport with Muggle bounds and political reality on the ground.)

'It was, however, the Statute of Secrecy as such that occasioned the removal of the Lords Spiritual from the Moot, just as it was the Statute of Secrecy that led to the closing of Domdaniel (although its organisational continuity was preserved by the self-perpetuation of the Fellows of Paracelsus as a body corporate) and very nearly put paid to Hogwarts School as well. The clergy, to a Wizard, refused to accept the Statute of Secrecy, on the grounds that it amounted to a capitulation to the "pureblood" extremist faction and was, moreover, an unconscionable abandonment of mutual discourse, aid, and charity as regarded our Muggle neighbours. As a body, they left the Moot, and, as a body, the rump of the Moot declared them as having been deprived of membership in perpetuity.

'It came as a shock to even the most historically-learned Wizards and Witches when, hard upon the Great Victory, and immediately upon the new constitutional settlement's being adopted, the Great Ledger was seen to update itself and summonsing owls were magically despatched with letters patent of election to Wizards whose very existence was largely unknown to the Wizarding World, or to Wizards who were, if they were known, accounted as being of little importance. The shock was redoubled when, at the next sitting, some 102 Wizards appeared at the bar of the Moot in response, and revealed themselves as the long-absent Lords Spiritual of the main religious bodies of Great Britain and Ireland, ranging from the Bishop of Salisbury (and Wizarding Archbishop of Wessex and Primate of All Britain) to the Chief Rabbi. In addition to those who were Muggle clergy, the Wizarding clerics and prelates included Wizards who passed amongst Muggles as farm labourers, physicians, gardeners, dons, solicitors, a Tory MP, writers, journalists, Writers to the Signet, barristers, farmers, fishermen, gentlemen of leisure - amazingly, a few yet remain in the Muggle world - trades union leaders, Naval officers, Army officers, one retired member of the England cricket side and official of the MCC, shopkeepers, bankers, butchers, two Other Ranks, a dispensing chemist, a thatcher, a plumber, and several hereditary peers. All had, in keeping with the traditions of the Cunning Men, lived and made their way amongst and amidst the Muggles, aiding them on the sly and helping to protect them from the worst of the past half-century's Wizarding disasters and upheavals.

'If nothing else, the Wizarding World may congratulate itself upon the strength of its charms and spells. As is true of the appearance that Hogwarts presents to passing Muggles, the churches and cathedrals of Wizard-dom are thought even by the most perceptive Muggles - such poets as Wordsworth, such painters as Turner - to be mere ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang. Fountains, Rievaulx, Cambuskenneth, Tintern, Kirkham, Killone, Lindores, and a thousand others, reveal themselves only to Wizarding eyes in their continued and undiminished splendour, in the same way as in which Dunfermline and Linlithgow, Wallingford and Corfe, are reserved to the wonder and awe of the Wizarding Court....'

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Harry's first weeks after the Victory had, Percy reflected, been febrile, let alone hectic. With the rest of the Order and the DA, he'd been conscripted into rebuilding their world, called by writ to the Moot and given what amounted to a battlefield commission as an Auror (mere NEWTS and mere training could come later, and had done, as well as a Domdaniel MMA), and chivvied from pillar to post. It had been Harry who had participated with Kingsley in the Great Clean-Out and the interrogations, who had broken to Dean Thomas (and to Seamus, who would not leave Dean's side) the truth of Dean's parentage and the murder of Dean's father by Death Eaters. In the years since, he and Ron had overseen the transformation of the Aurors into a true armed force of unsurpassed loyalty to the Crown and people, arranging with Hermione for the rump of the old DMLE to take on the role of a truly professional police force, even as Harry and Ron had transcended both responsibilities. The hereditaries and the Lords Spiritual sat in the Moot with the rest of the now elected members, but might adjourn into their own Grand Committee, as a sort of upper house, and this was, everyone discreetly refused to admit, a coup of Kingsley's, appearing to grant the old guard Hedgers a sop whilst actually assuring that Harry - sole heir to the ancient families of Black and Potter alike - could never get shed of serving, as he would have done had he been under the unrelished necessity of standing for election. In addition, of course, given the sympathies of the Lords Spiritual, no possible combination of Hedgers, hereditary and elected both, could ever command a majority for passage of anything darkly stupid.

Naturally, it had also fallen to Harry to negotiate a new concordat with the Goblins (and the other Magical Beings as well, to be sure). Harry was no diplomat - far from it - yet this had not told against him: rather to the contrary, in fact. For the first week after the victory, those in the know had lain awake of nights, dreading a new Goblin Rising, and one in which the Goblins had some claim of right. Yet in the end, things had resolved themselves rather better than anyone had had the right to expect. Harry had apologised for the deceptions to which he had been driven, but made clear to the Goblins the exigencies that had done the driving, and sketched out briefly what the consequences of Tom Riddle's victory should have been to the Goblins and all other non-human beings. And with all the bluff honesty of a Gryffindor - and his Slytherin side well to the fore - Harry had found an acceptable formula that allowed both sides to save face. He had pointed out that few Wizards were capable of wandless magic, which all Goblins naturally commanded, but 'if the Brotherhood lot want to use crutches when they can run, that's their lookout', he supposed, and in any case, that was an internal matter for the Goblins to decide. He then went on to note that Griphook, to whom he had always been unfailingly respectful, had been acting more as a member of the Brotherhood of Goblins than as a loyal servant of Gringotts and Goblindom when the crisis came, and, well.... The result had been something all sides could wear: a Gringotts representative on the Moot and at the Treasury, Moot seats for directly-elected Goblins if the Goblins so chose (and similar arrangements for other Magical Beings, which all but assured that the Goblins would not so choose), a Wizarding seat on the Gringotts board, at Deputy Director level, and a general amnesty on all sides that united in blaming rogue elements of the Brotherhood for the late tensions.

Old Ragnok might privately continue to resent Wizards generally and Harry especially, and sympathise with the Brotherhood's aims and views, but in public, at least, his conduct, and that of the Goblin nation, was irreproachable. No one, after all, argued with the Master of the Hallows. The Resurrection Stone was said to be lost, and the Elder Wand to sleep in the folded hands of Albus Dumbledore in the White Tomb, but those who had eyes to see and ears to hear had also wit to realise that, if the Sword of Gryffindor had the power to appear where it listed, how much more did the Hallows. And never before - not when Albus himself had held the Cloak in care and wielded the Wand of Doom - never had the Hallows been united under one Master who was, as well, the heir of the Brothers Peverell. Percy, like most of the upper echelons of the magical world, human and nonhuman alike, had more than a suspicion that all three of the Hallows, whether Harry liked it or not, would appear in Harry's hand and on his person when needed, as much as Godric's blade would jump to the hand of any true Gryffindor who was in want of it.

Thus, hither and thither dividing the swift mind, did the husband of faithful Penelope call upon his cunning. Save that, Percy rather glumly reflected, he was decidedly not the crafty Odysseus Laertides, beloved of Athena, of cunning mind. For what after all had he done in the war and after? He had spurned his family for nothing worth, for mere place and preferment, and his repentance had come very late. Too late, for Fred, at least, and for his own relations with Fred. He had then spent months on end trying to make himself into a twin-simulacrum for George, an inferior facsimile of Fred: until, one day, in the shop, George had hugged him, rib-crackingly, with tears in his eyes and his voice, and thanked him even as he broke it to him that he needed Percy to be Percy, and that it was time that he and George both accepted Fred's death and moved on.

No, Percy mused, Penelope's husband he might now be, but cunning Odysseus he was not. And it was simply ludicrous that the faceless handful who had drawn him into this wilderness of mirrors should have named him -

'Agent Ithaca.'

Percy whirled 'round, wand in hand. His interlocutor did not so much as react.

'And you are?' Percy had long since given over trying to distinguish the mysterious ones who had claimed his loyalty. That this person, voice and body unidentifiable, was one of his new masters, was not in doubt: Harry and Bill had themselves warded his office and his house, and no one save the presumed Unspeakables for whom he was risking it at the sharp end, could have had a hope of appearing here unremarked.

'Today? You may call me "Argos", Agent Ithaca. Have you anything to report?'

'As I have reported,' said Percy, with some asperity, 'I have not. Cauldrons continue to be imported and passed for sale and distribution, or consigned to ministerial departments or to Gringotts, that pass or exceed all standards. Yes, including the thickness of the bottoms, before you throw that up.' Percy had never told anyone the roots of his obsession regarding cauldron safety standards. Even Penny knew only that his boggart was Snape, berating him and threatening his prefect's status, over a Potions mishap; he had never elaborated that the cause, in his boggart-vision, was a faulty cauldron. 'They meet all standards. The cauldron-bottoms are magically inert and harmless, and, if anything, above standard for strength and thickness. The sides -'

'I believe we may dispense with the side, Ithaca. As to the cauldron-bottoms, I am in a position to tell you that we have intercepted a suspect shipment and verified the composition. It is not something the Ministry would think to look for. Between two thin plates of lesser metal, which ones depending on grade, the bottoms are made of solid gold. Alchemical gold, I may add.'

'G- what? But why? Why would anyone smuggle alchemical gold into this country, in these quantities?'

'That's rather your task to find out, Ithaca. I cannot say you've done impressively well in carrying out that task.'

'Now, see here -'

The occulted figure waved his protest aside. 'Sadly, we've no choice but to add to your tasks. Perhaps this, at least, will not be beyond your capacities, such as they are. There appears to be a group of Wizards - most or all of them, apparently, what were formerly called "purebloods" - who are interested in this gold. No, we are reasonably certain that they are not the ones smuggling it in: they seem to be planning to despoil the spoilers. You will be receiving - and you will be accepting - an invitation to join them. They too seem to have learnt the merits of disguise, which is rather more than Riddle's rabble ever managed to do. They are rumoured to go by false names as well: ones drawn from the Matter of Britain. You are not to waste time on their identities: you are to assist them in tracing the smugglers. When they are ready to pounce, then and only then will you warn us. In the interim, we will meet with you when it's wanted: do not attempt to make contact with us. I, or Sparta, or Pylos, will be in touch as needed. I strongly advise you not to wonder even in your thoughts about Mycenæ or Crete: they've much more important things to do than hold your hand.'

And without so much as a civility, the Wizard who called himself 'Agent Argos' vanished.

______________________________________________

Not far away, the group to whom Argos had referred - the 'group of Wizards - most or all of them, apparently, what were formerly called "purebloods" - who are interested in this gold' - was awaiting him. They had not to wait long. Within five minutes of leaving Percy, Draco Malfoy - the whilom 'Argos' - strolled negligently into the room, smirk firmly affixed, and seated himself at the round table.

'Coventina. Gwen. My lords and gentlewizards.'

'Well - "Sir Gareth"?'

Draco chuckled. 'He has his orders. Or bait, if you prefer. Send the ever-prefect-like Percy an owl, and we'll have our "Sir Bors" here at this Table Round, with his bum sat in the rather broiling Siege Perilous at that, within the hour. Frightfully easy to manipulate, Gryffindors.'

The senior members of the group, who were known within it as 'Ambrose' and 'Aurelian', simply looked at him without speaking, even as the lady called Coventina despatched a summons to Percy Weasley. Malfoy blushed and ducked his head. 'He'll be here. End of report - sir.'

'Much better,' said Aurelian. 'As you were, then.'

'Although what the Fisher King will make of it all,' said Malfoy, mutinously, 'I don't care to think.'

The youngest member of the group laughed. 'I'm sure Ambrose and Aurelian will manage him.'

'Thank you, Galahad. That will suffice.'

A few miles away, Percy, his face white and set, was watching a dot on the skyline that was swiftly approaching and resolving itself into the form of an owl.