Under a Dragon Moon

UNDER A DRAGON MOON

by Wemyss

a Sequel to Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

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Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

- Lord Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli)

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

- Gibbon (memorably quoted by the American rebel Patrick Henry)

History is Philosophy teaching by example.

- Thucydides, per Lord Bolingbroke's attribution

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

- Sir Karl Popper

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6. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

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When we sleep, when we dream, we are at once in both realms, and in neither. In all realms, and in none. We are in the marches, the borderlands, the debatable lands between what is and what is not - or is not yet: far from the fields we know.

These are the dreams and some of the days of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, as the crisis of the ages overshadows them, and the world's last night.

But which are whose, now? And which are dreams, and which, days? What is future, present, past? What is true vision, and what, nightmare?

To this question they return no answer. They do not answer it; they do not ask it. They hardly know to ask. They do but dream, and dreams, of course, need not hold coherence, sense, consistency.

They had failed, once before, failed themselves and their world, failed Albus, failed all. They had failed in their waking lives after coming so near triumph in dreams. Now the too-vast orb of the world's fate was poised, balanced, trembling, upon the merest point of agate, suspended, pendant, pending upon their choices. And they slept. A hundred miles and more from each other, they slept, and met in dreams, and in dreams was decided the future of the world.

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'Well, that went well, I don't think.'

'Not at all, McLaggen. You have done as I wished. You have served our cause. You have sown dissension. It suffices - you see, I am not so hard a taskmaster. That is where Tom Riddle was a fool, the filthy halfblood. Come; enter in, and take your place in our councils. And receive your next task: for you shall, even now, be sworn of the fools's Privy Council, or they shall show themselves to be mockers of their own laws, reduced to mere tricks and technicalities in their precious Moot. Come. You have done enough that you are not disgraced; join us now without fear, and be duly honoured.'

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The accession of the Tudors had ended the reservation of magic to the Crown as the ultimate argument of kings. In England, throughout the island, and across the Channel, it became now the tool, not only of the magnates, but of all who would strive for mastery, even in petty quarrels known but to half a village.

And this was dangerous.

Still more, it was increasingly tied to the pernicious doctrine of blood status.

History does not repeat; no: it rhymes. And hatred and fear are ever the faces of one debased coinage.

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'I see that Nev has indeed "dished the Whigs": I suppose he'll be returning soon.'

Theo frowned at his copy of the Daily Portkey, more commonly called the Daily Port-Decanter for its political leanings. 'I shouldn't be too certain. It seems that they have gone forward with advancing the date of the Quidditch World Cup.'

'Um. The Balkan states have been pushing for that, as hosts. Determined to be remembered as something other than Riddle's refuge.'

'There will be trouble. Mark my words. And we'll be the ones - you and Draco will be the ones, primarily - to sort it.'

'Then,' said Harry, firmly, 'it'll damned well be sorted.'

Hermione and Narcissa shared a coolly amused glance. It kept them from worrying so much about Ron and Draco and the errand Horace Slughorn had set them.

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Witchcraft had aye been a component of statecraft in Scotland, and that James who would succeed the last of the Tudors was a man deep in its toils from his birth - and before.

Certes the Ruthvens and the others who drew so many nets of conspiracy around the tragic figure of Mary, Queen of Scots, were in the pay of Elizabeth of England; and it is as true that Elizabeth was, as she had been since the suspect death of Amy, Lady Dudley, trapped and trammelled in the spider webs so cunningly strung by William Cecil, the Lord Burghley. And the Ruthvens o' Gowrie never wanted encouragement to work ill, by means magical or Muggle.

It was John Dee - Dee of Mortlake, that ominously-named village; John Dee, the first 007, spy and court Wizard; Dr Dee, Du, of the Welsh branch of the House of Black, like all Blacks dangerously handsome and insinuating, and choked with pride, 'all but royal', the heirs of Rhodri Mawr, the great prince of Wales - it was John Dee who created the magical jewel in which Patrick, the third Lord Ruthven, and his eldest son William Ruthven, the fourth Lord Ruthven and first earl of Gowrie, invested so many hopes of power, and which that man Patrick did carry on his person what time he and his puppet Darnley compassed the murder of Davie Rizzio.

And it was William Ruthven of Gowrie as well who forged and maintained the Casket Letters with which he brought down the Queen's Grace of Scots, his own sworn sovereign, and that same Ruthven of Gowrie it was who was the main force in the Ruthven Raid that sought to kidnap James 6th and hold him as a figurehead for their conspiracy. And so was it that man William Ruthven who masterminded that masterstroke that fell at Kirk o' Field, in which the untrusty Henry, King Consort of Scots, Darnley, was served out dead by his former co-conspirators, found dead far from the exploded house with never a mark on him, a clear and unmistakeable victim of the Killing Curse.

Jamie Sixt', when he came king, well kenned the quality of these same Ruthvens. They had driven away his first love and cousin, Esmé duke of Lennox. They had sought his mother's abdication what time they kidnapped and outraged her. They had murdered his father and secured the judicial murder of his mother. And John, third earl of Gowrie, and his younger brother Alexander, were of that same getting, well he knew.

Yet James Stuart was aye the slave of two lusts, for gold and golden lads alike. On 5 August in the Year of Our Lord 1600, the young king was drawn from his hunting by Alexander Ruthven, who gave out to the ever-suspicious king a tale of goblin gold that would not have fooled a child, and begged King James to come away with him Gowrie House, away in Perth, with as few men as he could well manage.

And this the king did, knowing the Ruthvens though he did, and Muggle men wondered at it that he did so. These same Ruthvens had slain the king his father, who had foolishly sought the Crown Matrimonial in place of his place as Mary's consort, in the teeth of blood-prejudice; they had assumed arms that hinted at their wish to take the very crown of the kinrick of Scots; their crimes were innumerable. But Alexander Ruthven was a comely youth of twenty summers.

History does not repeat; yet does it rhyme. Fear and hatred were aye faces of ane clippit groat.

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'Madam Speaker.'

'The leader of the Preservative Party.'

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It was clear enough to James, King of Scots, that the treasure that Alexander, Master of Ruthven, had promised him was not one that could be coined in gold. When that fair young man invited him to ascend with him to a bedchamber, James could no more resist than he might have withstood Imperio or a draught of Amortentia. Of what came after, all men know: the seizing and binding of the king; his cries for aid from the upper window; the attempts of the Ruthvens to persuade the king's men that he was gone away; the melee on the stairs, and the death of the earl and his men at the hands of the king's men, and upon the dagger of James's page and favourite, Jock Ramsay, later earl of Holderness, of Melrose, and of Haddington; the execution of Alexander, Master of Ruthven. And like all the plots undertaken by the Ruthvens of Gowrie in the English interest, it had a sting in the tail: for James, like his father Darnley and his mother Mary the Queen, was left suspect of complicity in a plot of which he had been the victim, even as Elizabeth of England was forever caged by the Cecils with the bars of guilt attributing Amy Robsart's death to her devising.

And it was the curse of James, 6th of Scotland and 1st of England, ever to be betrayed by his favourites.

History does not repeat: rather, it rhymes. Hatred and fear are the faces of a single coin.

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'Oi. Cousin Ferret. What d'you make of this, then?'

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'... a parliamentary trick, Madam Speaker, and a shabby one at that.'

'Order! Order!'

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'Hagrid, me ould darlin'!'

'Seamus, how bist?'

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Draco and Ron were deeply absorbed in their search. When they had portkeyed to Clifford, they had seen the ancient mound that had been the motte and the ruined masonry that was all that was left of the Castle to Muggle eyes, under a pewter sky, the old growth of tangled hedge and tree and creeper dusted lightly with snow; and had been satisfied: the charms were holding, even now, borne up after all these centuries by the immovable wardstone, deep-carven with rune and Cross, that yet bore the foundations of Clifford Castle, lowering over the River Wye.

Their first order of business, passing the wards and seeing the Castle revealed in all its preserved glory, hidden from Muggle eyes, was to cast wards of their own, as strong and secure as two of the most powerful Wizards in Britain - bar Harry himself - could cast. Only then, concealed from all sight and knowledge and guarded against any threat, did they cast warming charms, there in the iron-cold air.

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There was ample reason why Dean Thomas, celebrated as he was as the premier portraitist of his generation, was still more celebrated as the Wizarding world's answer to George Stubbs. Seamus, secure in his post-War status, had not contented himself with being a well-known director of Ogden's as the cover for his true role as a very senior intelligence officer indeed; Seamus, Irish to the core of his being, was also an increasingly notable breeder and trainer of racing Aethonons. He, and the indispensable Rubeus Hagrid, had between them sparked Dean's interest in, and profound knowledge of, the pegasi of the Wizarding world, and that knowledge and that fascination had propelled Dean into prominence as the painter of choice for the racing fraternity.

But Hagrid's presence today at Killderg on the Fairy Water, one of Dean's and Seamus's residences and the site of Seamus's stud farm, was more serious than commonly. With the political upsets now roiling the Wizarding world, in Britain as on the Continent, Hagrid's stopping by was, ostensibly, a natural response to rumours of increased security at Duletree, the crown of the steepling season, and, in fact, a surreptitious meeting between a Dean who was, after all, as much Arithmancer to the Treasury as artist, a Seamus who was, at the end of the day, the deputy to the Chief Unspeakable, and a Hagrid who, at bottom, was the founder of forensic magizoology.

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'Madam Speaker, for all the - I will use the word - shabby machinations of the government of the day and the former front bench of this party, I am at the very least the leader of the second largest opposition party in this chamber. As such, there is no warrant for my exclusion as a member ex officio of the Magical Privy Council: none whatever. With respect, Madam Speaker, I owe it to the principles of constitutional government, to the dignity of the Moot, and to the party I have the honour to lead, to demand - to demand, Madam Speaker - that this precedent be followed. I -'

'Madam Speaker!'

'The Minister for Magic.'

'Does the Hon. the leader of the Preservationists truly persist in demanding that he be sworn to the Magical Privy Council?'

'Madam Speaker, I do.'

'Then,' said Nev, grimly, 'I ask that all here do witness that I am innocent of the consequences.'

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Within the tallest tower of the shell keep of Clifford Castle was the library, its tomes preserved by a lacing of charms.

'Oi. Cousin Ferret. What d'you make of this, then?' Ron was compelled to ask this a second time, as Draco had gone to earth in the Potions manuscripts.

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'Just you print it, Xeno,' said Nev, with deceptive mildness, 'and leave consequences to me. You're not the proprietor of t' Quibbler just now, man, you're printer of t' Diagon Gazette, published by authority.'

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On the same day as the appointment of Cormac McLaggen, MW for Arrochar and Leader of the rump Preservationists - the Hedgers - was gazetted, the first of the national sides who would participate in the Quidditch World Cup began their preparations to travel to Plitvice.

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'Well, well, Cousin Weasel. It seems our personal grail was taken away long ago.' The place where the volume of lore for which they had been searching was vacant; the biblio-indexing charm that had been cast - who knew how long ago - said as much. And it revealed also that it had gone with Fair Rosamund, as part of her possessions when she had removed to Woodstock at the behest of Henry the king.

'Woodstock, then, I reckon? Or Godstow Nunnery?'

What answer Draco might have given was lost: for it was at that moment that a vile-tempered Welsh Green stooped upon the great twin-towered gatehouse, roaring challenge.

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The Gazette employed the ancient formula:

The Queen has been graciously pleased to declare that the undermentioned shall be sworn of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council:

Cormac Æneas Tiberius Agrippa McLaggen, MW, Member of the Wizengamot for Arrochar, Argyll & Bute. Leader of the Preservationist Party.

It was official now.

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The Churchills of the Otterys had been divided time out of mind between Slytherins and Gryffindors, as courageous as they were cunning, as ambitious as they were audacious. Even the most loyal of them had never been a Hufflepuff.

If, Draco reflected, he and Ron ever got out of this, they'd have the devil of a time at Woodstock, where Marlborough had slapped Blenheim Palace down - quite deliberately - upon the razed ruins of Fair Rosamund's bower and maze.

'Kill it or drive it off?'

'Why don't we simply bloody flee the damned thing? Or is that against your Gryffindor Code?'

Ron snorted, and conjured a hedge of witches's-brier, the Crup-rose, and of the thorny frog-rose, Rosa magi-gallica, around them. 'You're the sly Slytherin, cousin. Was this damned thing triggered by a ward we missed -'

'I don't miss wards - down, you fool! -'

'Or were we seen? And if so, is it more cunning, o child of Salazar, to - damn it, that was close - to destroy it, drive it away, or bugger off?'

Another great gout of flame crisped the conjured hedge into ash. 'I don't think we've time to argue it. Scarper! Come on, you great berk!' As the dragon rose again to stoop upon them, they Apparated away, feeling the tearing of anti-Apparition wards that had not been there when they had arrived, punching through them only with the raw power that told any watchers - of whom there must be at least one, now - just who it was who had been searching Clifford Castle.

That's torn it, thought Draco, as he was squeezed through the æther and vanished with a resounding crack.

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The oath for a Magical Privy Counsellor has not changed materially over the centuries. Cormac McLaggen cared little for oaths; only for power and place. And he had never been particularly attentive to magical theory.

You do swear by Almighty God, and upon your Honour and Magic, to be a true and faithful Servant unto the Queen's Majesty, as one of Her Majesty's Magical Privy Council. You will not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done, cast, conjured, or spoken against Her Majesty's Person, Honour, Crown, or Dignity Royal and Magical, but you will lett and withstand the same to the uttermost of your Powers, and either cause it to be revealed to Her Majesty Herself, or to such of Her Privy Council as shall advertise Her Majesty of the same. You will, in all things to be moved, treated, and debated in Council, faithfully and truly declare your Mind and Opinion, according to your Heart and Conscience; and will keep secret all Matters committed and revealed unto you, or that shall be treated of secretly in Council. And if any of the said Treaties or Counsels shall touch any of the Counsellors, you will not reveal it unto him, but will keep the same until such time as, by the Consent of Her Majesty, or of the Council, Publication shall be made thereof. You will to your uttermost bear Faith and Allegiance unto the Queen's Majesty; and will assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Pre-eminences, and Authorities, granted to Her Majesty, and annexed to the Crown by Acts of the Moot, or otherwise, against all Foreign Princes, Persons, Prelates, States, Wizards, Beings, or Potentates. And generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true Servant ought to do to Her Majesty. So help you God.

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'You've splinched yourself.'

'Rubbish.'

'Oh? Did you shave off an eyebrow whilst I was otherwise occupied, then?'

Ron laughed at him. 'Cousin, that eyebrow was burnt away. And you might want to conjure a mirror yourself, and look at what's left of your hair - and I'm not referring to how it's receding. This time.'

'Bugger,' said Draco, in a truly heartfelt manner.

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In the last desperate years before the Secrecy Statutes, power and blood had become all in all.

And it was aye the curse of James, 6th of Scotland and 1st of England, ever to be betrayed by his favourites - and to betray them in his turn.

So it had been with young Jock Ramsay, earl of Holderness, of Melrose, and of Haddington, whom the king, betraying, had removed as the prop and support he could best have relied upon. So it was with Robert Ker, or Carr, who betrayed his one true love, Sir Thomas Overbury, for preferment, and who, as earl of Somerset, saw his wife, that darkest of witches, Frances Howard, compass the death of Overbury and the blackmailing of the king. And it was the lad for whom James set Somerset aside, his 'dear wife and son' George Villiers, duke of Buckingham - the title a minatory reminder of the betrayal of Richard 3d - who poisoned the aged king with potions and plasters.

It was the age of dark potions. The Affair of the Poisons in France - the foul and fell murders that so shook that kingdom, effected by the darkest arts and linked ominously to ritual Satanism, child sacrifice, and the Black Mass - was the final fury of the storm that was laid at last by the secrecy regime. The English Civil War and the usurpation of William and Mary in place of the Stuart kings were deep-dyed with the stain of witchcraft as statecraft; the Campden Wonder, investigated by Sir Thomas Overbury's nephew and namesake, was a cautionary tale for the ages; the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey by the earl of Pembroke was an episode in the long resistance of Dark Wizards to the supremacy of Church, Crown, and law; but it was the depredations of Exili and the marquise de Brinvilliers - who was wife to a Gobelin at that - of La Voisin and Dauger and Mme de Montespan, that very nearly caused the closure of Beauxbatons, transformed it as the price of its survival into a feather-minded finishing school, and at the last provided the final impetus to the adoption of the International Code of Secrecy and the national statutes that gave it effect.

Blood and power were all in all: and they had their unsought and unrelished end and reward.

History does not repeat. It rhymes. Hatred and fear are obverse and reverse of the one base coin.

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'Godstow first, d'you think?'

'May as well,' said Draco, shivering. 'We're nearer there than Woodstock - I think. That Apparating took a good deal out of you, I imagine.'

Ron sniggered. 'But not out of you, of course. Right. Where precisely were you aiming for as a destination? Woodstock or Godstow?'

Draco was unwontedly honest. 'Away. Just that: away.'

'Hmm. Well, if that's Begbroke churchyard, I'd say we damned nearly split the difference.'

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Crises, in the Wizarding world, tended - and yet tend - to come, not as single spies, but in battalions. Even so, the first, sad news in the Daily Portkey did not seem to herald a crisis, even to so suspicious and spy-obsessed a group of readers as the Victors of the late war.

Quidditch coach Whitsun dies at World Cup

By Gaius Gonville in Korenica, Croatia

Uganda coach Giles Whitsun, who was capped thrice for England during his distinguished career as a Chaser for the Appleby Arrows and who went on to become one of the most innovative tacticians in international Quidditch, died yesterday in hospital after being found unconscious in his rooms. Whitsun, who was but 73 years in age, had coached the Patonga Proudsticks for two decades before his selection, in 2001, as coach of the Uganda national side. Uganda's wholly unexpected and inexplicable elimination from the Quidditch World Cup on Saturday had sparked - not for the first time - riots at home and calls for the lynching of Whitsun as coach and of team captain and Seeker Jubal Hannington Ekkere; Whitsun, who had indicated some asperity with his team's performance on Saturday in post-match interviews, had hinted that the pressures of international Quidditch, a succession of crises in Uganda Quidditch, and the intemperance of fans had caused him to consider retiring. It had long been speculated that this health was not what it was, and many had attributed this to the enormous pressures Whitsun faced, exacerbated in recent months by his side's spotty play and a series of crises that included accusations of corruption, several enquiries, and the loss of three players to the ban on performance-enhancing potions.

Whitsun gained his reputation as a coach - and his invitation to take the reins in Patonga - through his astonishing transformation of the Karasjok Kites from a minor side with a faded history into a regular contender in international play....

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'Mr Deputy Speaker!'

'The right Honourable the member for Arrochar and Leader of the Preservative Party.'

Cormac McLaggen surveyed the packed Chamber with a sardonic smile.

'Mr Deputy Speaker, it is with great reluctance that I rise to a matter of serious political import on this day of mixed excitement and sorrow. I begin by joining the Minister in expressing condolences to his family upon the death of the Uganda coach - and former England standout - Giles Whitsun; and I join the Minister also in expressing hopes for the -Britain side in the World Cup, reminding the Moot that several of the players are indeed Scots.'

'Hear, hear!'

McLaggen's eyes were lit now with cruel anticipation. 'Yet, Mr Deputy, I must ask that this Moot turn its attention to deeper and more ominous matters. The public prints have been thus far silent; yet I must tell the Moot that there is reason to believe -.' His face reddened alarmingly, and he coughed. 'There ... there is reason to believe that, that ... foul play ... I have learnt....' Now the hectic flush was gone from McLaggen's face, replaced by a deathly pallor and a sweating. 'I learn that - that - that -' - and he collapsed, falling prone into the gangway that separates the front benches.

A clamour arose, against which the Deputy Speaker's cries for order were futile, as the Members for St Mungo's - as a teaching hospital, it was as much a constituency as were Hogwarts and Domdaniel with their School and University Seats - pushed their way forward to give him what aid they could contrive. McLaggen was convulsing now, blood and magic spurting from his very pores, as the Moot panicked. Poppy Pomfrey and Hippocrates Smethwyck, the Members for St Mungo's, erected a Healer's Shield around him and did what little they might do; but it was too late. With a final, bone-breaking convulsion, his body shattered, and he died.

In the confusion, no one had thought to have the galleries cleared. It had not mattered in any event. The man responsible for luring Cormac McLaggen into effectively committing suicide was in his seat in the Moot itself, concealing an extremely satisfied smile.

'ORDER! The Member for St Mungo's!'

Poppy took the recognition to herself. 'Mr Deputy Speaker, to all appearances, the late Member for Arrochar has died of the Traitor's Curse.'

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The dramatic death of Cormac McLaggen was inevitably the major news of the day. Even so, the obituary for Giles Whitsun in Acta Diurna, the Wizarding Times, held pride of place amongst the deaths so commemorated that next day.

Obituary: Giles Whitsun

Rather a gentleman than a player, who moved brilliantly from dominating on the pitch to revolutionising Quidditch coaching

Giles Pellinore Lamorak Whitsun, who died in harness as coach of the Uganda national side at this year's Quidditch World Cup on Sunday, was perhaps the most revolutionary figure in Quidditch since Daisy Pennifold. A brilliant if quirky, and always enthralling, Chaser for Appleby, he was thrice capped to play for England during his days with the Arrows. But it was as a coach that Giles Whitsun made his mark as a Quidditch innovator.

The third son of a Quidditch-mad Northumbrian rector, Giles Whitsun showed early promise on his house team - Hufflepuff - whilst at Hogwarts. In four years as a starting Chaser, the last as captain, he played to a standard rarely matched, much less excelled, by numerous older professional fliers. He also learnt lessons in loyalty that assisted him to remain untouched by the controversies of first-class and international Quidditch in after years - and that may perhaps also have added to his burdens when he found that loyalty imperfectly reciprocated in the cutthroat world of professional sport. Recruited by the Arrows immediately upon his leaving Hogwarts, he ...

'Quite the innocent,' remarked Narcissa. 'One wonder what the late member for Arrochar was trying to say - in breach of his oath as a Privy Councillor.'

... is survived by his wife, Ermengarde, and their three surviving sons, Guy, Nigel, and Tully. Giles Whitsun was 73.

'Damn,' said Harry. 'What the devil was that bugger McLaggen getting at, then?'

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The crisis in the Moot had had two effects already. The first had been that the Victors had been able to return freely to Blighty, as Draco and Ron had done in search of the Grete Booke of Castell Clifforde. The second was that they had been forced to suspend, not their search only, but their investigation into their own planned deaths by dragon-fire.

It was soon to have a third.

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It was, oddly, the Curator - commonly referred to, to Hermione's annoyance and the apparent satisfaction of its pied typesetters and printers, who had certainly worked for the title, as the Crurota - that broke the news.

Whitnus: it was merdur

· Ugnada coahc was posioned with poiton

· Kiling 'teh sort of thign Deah Eatters did', say Aorusr

Jeremiah Prestwich Wadham in Piltcive

The Crurota can reprot taht Craotina Auorrs confrim that thye are tretting the daeth of Glies Whistun as murerd. Teh Quittidch Wold Crup and the feacepul rurla arae of Plivtcie arre nwo the csene of a masvise manhnut. Thee Ugadna cooach and fromer Abblepy star, woh died on Snuday, wasp oisoned inn the in inn witch he was styaing....

On the same day, 'Gorgeous George' Girvan, the notorious appeaser of the War years and general object of contempt - save in his own constituency of Knockturn and Candlebell South - took improper advantage of the privileges of the Moot to accuse the Government bench of having compassed the 'murder' of Cormac McLaggen, doubtless by means of Harry's power and Draco's cunning, and threw in for good weight the suggestion that the murder of Giles Whitsun was connected.

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What time George Girvan and his REVERE party had openly accused Neville as complicit in the death of Cormac McLaggen, that indomitable Minister had already arrived in Italy, even as Ron and Draco had returned to Godstow in pursuit of Fair Rosamund's manuscript.

With the sudden cooperation of the Italian authorities in the Zabini investigation in Cavalese, it was high time that Harry and his force in being were moved to the new and burgeoning crisis in Croatia, at the Cup.

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The lobby and the tabloids were stuck in, now. The Sol had fuelled the furore with its soon to be infamous headline, Catch 'Em, Aurors!, and its insinuating subhead, Coach Giles slain in posh World Cup Digs - What did his side know and when did they know it? Well?

This was by no means to be the worst of it. The broadsheets did their best to eschew sensationalism. The Cup coverage in the blushing-pink pages of the Fiscal Times found its typical angle: 'Murder of Uganda coach by poison affects potions and apothecary shares. Gambling allegations also affect market; some difficulties foreseen for Gringotts and goblins'; The Astrologist, in its 'The Wizengamot: Bare ruin'd choirs?' issue, took a magisterial view ('A murder at the World Cup' and 'Moot crisis').

But the floodgates were well and truly opened, and any attempt to dam the flood was as doomed as ever the efforts of Canute's courtiers.

All that Neville could do was to give the Great Wizarding Public the assurance that Harry - and Draco with him - was On the Case.

Everyone, it seemed, wished to have a piece of Harry and Draco, or of the reflected glamour of a Murder at the World Cup. The Western Daily Patronus first began it, in an edition that swiftly became a collector's item, by claiming them as 'Britain's best' and 'Somerset's own': 'The murder enquiry centred upon the death of Uganda coach Giles Whitsun has now been put in safe hands....' So excited were they - and not only by the assignment of Harry and Draco to the case: Whitsun, as the article noted, had long been sought after by the West Country sides - that they were forced later to run a correction, having naturally slipped into speaking of the pressures of international cricket, rather than Quidditch ('We regret the error; we do not, however, regret, as some few correspondents have suggested that we ought to do, that our paper is so attuned to Muggleborn Wizards and Witches and their interests, and so impatient of "pureblood" exclusivity, that we could fall so naturally into such a "Muggle" way of writing...'). The Sarum Journal ('Established 1279'), in its coverage of the funeral at the hidden Old Cathedral at Old Sarum - the Whitsuns lived in Imber, when not in Uganda, and Nigel Whitsun was a Beater for Wimbourne - reported the widow Ermengarde Whitsun's expression of 'relief that Wiltshire's own Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter' were to take charge of the investigation.

Although the sober elements of the press tried to hold back the tide of fevered speculation - the FT, for example, confined itself to remarking upon the consequences to the apothecary market and to the bookmakers's odds on the Cup, in both of which capacities Terry Boot was being daily badgered for interviews - the tide rose.

'Poison-detecting' devices became all the rage. This caused Severus to rant and rave as only he could do, finally demonstrating the nostrums's worthlessness by setting one off with a cup of tea in a live WWN broadcast. The Daily Portkey congratulated the myth-busting; the Curator called it the 'New Ventriloquism'. The Department of Magical Games and Sports and the governing bodies of national and international Quidditch were forced to cease turning a blind eye to the teams's own 'medicinal' brewers and the inevitability of players's receiving 'homebrewed tonics' from their Grans before major matches: a root and branch campaign against performance-enhancing potions was swiftly, if in some quarters reluctantly, undertaken, and random Veritaserum interviews became the boggarts of many players.

Even in the States, where the suspicious death of Giles Whitsun was not at first considered news, even by New York's West Indian and other Commonwealth population, 'Wizarding' in general and Quidditch in particular being considered a British affectation, the matter became a topic of debate and public interest. In the Bronx, in the basement of St. Brendan's rectory, eyes widened as they caught sight of the notice in the (lowercase) Wizarding pages (buried between the financial pages and the classifieds) of The Irish Times.

As for the United Kingdom, they seemed to be in the grip of public mania.

And through it all, Draco and Ron worked to trace the manuscript that had once been held at Clifford Castle.

________________________________________

They emerged into the iron air of January from the apparent ruins of Godstow Nunnery, falling bruised and shaken upon the shattered grass of Port Meadow in Wintertide, gasping for breath in the freezing air.

'Well,' said Draco. 'There's only one thing we can do.'

'Have a pint at the Trout?'

Draco looked at Ron for a long moment, then smiled. 'All right, that's two things. And the second is calling Harry in.'

________________________________________

The Islesman had been as typically sober as a General Assembly of the Scots Kirk. Hogwarts this and Hogwarts that, Hogwarts and Pride of Portee remember Giles Whitsun, Oliver Wood recalls a mentor.... Sobriety was in short supply outwith Auld Reekie and the Kinrick o' Scots.

The Silly Season had come early for some publications; for some, indeed, it lasted year 'round. Accio! had - plumbing the depths of shallowness - simply plastered the sexiest of its snaps of Harry and Draco on the cover; the story - 'Hunky Harry and Dishy Draco head for Croatia - and a murder case!' was the thinnest justification imaginable for the near-pornographic photographic set that was the real business of that particularly glossy rag.

It was morally superior, even so, to the truly vicious gibbering of certain other prints. The Daily Owl - alongside its breathless exclusive, 'Oliver Wood speaks out on Quidditch Cup corruption, fans, gambling - and murder!' - unabashedly shrieked the headline, 'Quidditch coach slain by swarthy foreigners'.

Worse still was the dawning realisation that the facts were so grim as to make it impossible to rein in the likes of the Owl. The West End edition of the Evening Pennon, without so much as mentioning the editorial King Charles's Head of London property values, was forced to give greater prominence to its report, 'Focus in Giles Whitsun QWC death enquiry now turns to match-fixing claims and gambling rings', than to its exclusive interview with 'grieving Nigel Whitsun'.

The Non-Aligned - taking its usual superior tack as regards the Cup itself ('Other than spectacle and murder, why should you care?' and 'There's still the cock-up at the Moot') - pushed Probius Prisk's most recent view (Prisk notoriously flipped from month to month on whether or not Harry was the incarnate bulwark of the Liberties of the Subject or - as had been the case when the paper had been forced to climb down over its campaign to legalise Ninevehean Fnurpweed - a budding Voldemort), that 'Just you watch: They'll blame the "wogs" and BoG for Whitsun - unless Potter and Malfoy can stop the usual bigoted crowd'. Even Kneazle Lovers Weekly ('if it purrs, we care') was by now reporting rumours that Giles Whitsun had been murdered by or at the behest of a Goblin gambling syndicate, and there was every prospect of a new rebellion if this carefully whipped-up hysteria mounted further.

There was one sovereign specific against the hysteria, and that was the course Neville had prescribed. The Gazette, that had so recently carried the announcement that Cormac McLaggen was to be sworn to the Magical Privy Council, now gazetted two new appointments:

Appointment of Royal Magical Commissions

Lord Enchantellor's Department

The Queen has been pleased, by warrant under Her Majesty's Royal Sign Manual, to appoint the Rt Hon HJ Potter, OM, MPC, MW, and the Rt Hon D Malfoy, OM, MPC, MW, to be Assessors in the enquiry into the death of the late Giles Whitsun.

________________________________________

Harry and Draco left Buck House, having received from HMQ grandmotherly affection, wise advice, their Commissions as Assessors, and a jar apiece of heather honey from Balmoral, and hastened homewards. Ron met them at their door, and followed them inside with barely suppressed exasperation.

'Hermione and Draco agree,' said he. 'The magical signature is masked, but, if we can't know who, we at least know the bugger's of only middling power. But the wards and protections and that? Strong as a dirty nappy, mate.'

Harry nodded, almost abstractedly. 'So they are likely tied to the strength of the artefact, not the caster. Draco? Ron? Any familiarity, any sense of recognition of the magical signature?'

'No,' said Ron. Draco screwed up his face: 'Very faint. Very - distant.'

'Right. And to date, what. Dragon. And at Godstow -'

'Snakes and adders, and.' Draco flinched. 'Fiendfyre.'

'In a nunnery?' Harry was shocked.

Draco shrugged, himself perplexed; but Ron shook his head. 'No, mate. Not in the nunnery itself - I mean, the part that was hidden from the Muggles during the Dissolution and still carries on. The abbess, Mother Edith, well: like Minerva, that one is. I'dn't try anything dark in her precincts. 'Sides, Rosamund herself still ghosts the place.'

'You talk to her?'

'We tried,' said Draco, rather coolly. 'We appear not to have met her exacting social standards.'

'Balls,' said Ron. 'Sister Hilda, the Prioress, told me she never speaks, bar saying "Amen" at Mass. Point is, Harry, all the uglier protections are in the part of the place that was given over to a private residence after the Dissolution. So....'

'Hmm. All right. So far, then, dragons, serpents, and Fiendfyre. The Gryffindor element and the Slytherin beasts. Anything else I want to know?'

'Ron's quite right,' admitted Draco. 'It's not the Wizard that we can't defeat. It's the protections from that damned book. I make certain that that's where the power and the character of the wards comes from.'

'Then it's as well, isn't it, that I'm the last Peverell, a Parselmouth, and the Master of the Hallows. Well, on your feet, if you're coming.'

'Coming where?'

'I plan to get thee to a nunnery, love.'

________________________________________

The news that Harry and Draco were indeed to be charged with bringing Giles Whitsun's murderers to book calmed the public. It did not wholly retrieve the situation.

The Flying Post, to be sure, returned to its own stable, merely reporting that the murder had meant that Duletree was tightening security for the Wizarding Grand National, with extra Porlocks to guard the Aethonans and high hopes that the concerns would be resolved before the April meet; and the Western Bard made much of the Welsh antecedents of both Harry and Draco, look you, 'taking Welsh wisdom to the World Cup murder case'. There was some cheer to be had: the Curator was forced to correct the misprint of Giles Whitsun's surname ('it is of course Whistun') and several errors in a truly idiotic Comment by its most moronic contributor, Gunnora Boyntree deGrolies.

Yet there were too many dubious characters with an undeclared interest in keeping mass panic alive for it to be let die, and too many opportunists to let it rest. La Magie, predictably, in its Supplément Sportif, simply headlined its report, Albion: toujours perfide, and in keeping with the Draconian maxim, 'Luna sees lunacies', the Quibbler took the line that the Moot crisis was a bungled Rot-fang Conspiracy coup attempt, and that the murder of Giles Whitsun was intended to distract the government at a critical time - which, as was typical of Luna, was eerily perceptive for all its topdressing of stark, staring idiocy. The Daily Prophet ('The Magical World's Greatest Newspaper'; 'Magical Britain Unbowed') represented the faction that was putting the boot in: 'The Moot yet in crisis, Giles Whitsun slain, the Ministry as headless as Hogwarts Nick - and Harry and Draco off on Balkan junket'. The second front, managed - did the publishers of either newspaper but know - by the same fine hand, was represented by the 'daily paper of the Left', the Knockturnal Star ('incorporating the Daily Squib - for peace and socialism'), which headlined the matter thus: '"Pureblood" drone dies - and BoG, Squibs, Muggleborns, and workers feel the heat of the Old Bill; Ministry cover-up begins'.

________________________________________

'Sister Frevisse.' The ghostly figure made a reverence to the Abbess, silent as ever. 'You have been with us now many a year, under our Rule, and we - I and those who have had the rule of this house before me, and all your sisters in God - have found no fault in you. These gentlemen - Mr Ronald Weasley, Mr Draco Malfoy, and Mr Harry Potter -' the ghostly Sister Frevisse startled at the name, but looked with widened eyes, not at Harry, but at Ron - 'would ask you a few questions. I am assured that they are worthy Wizards, brought here by no idle curiosity, discreet and of good repute. I must ask you, Sister: will you, in your obedience, speak with them?'

'Yes, Reverend Mother: in obedience and under our Rule. You command. I will answer. I shall answer.' Her voice was a distant music.

'Thank you,' said Harry, gently. 'You were known in the world as Rosamund of Clifford, the Rose of the World?'

'Yes, my lord.'

'I am no lord, sister, nor great man, to be so addressed.' Draco frowned in dissent. 'I am but Harry Potter, in service to the Crown.'

'You, my lord? I - I mean no offence. But my lord, my Harry, when I was in the world ... he could for likeness have been the very brother in blood of the tall lord who stands by you, his hair like fire.'

Ron blushed.

'Yes, well,' said Harry, carefully not smiling, 'Ron is of a very old family. Let's leave it at that. Sister - Frevisse, is it?'

'Yes,' said the Fair Rosamund, yet fair after all the long flight of centuries. 'I am in Oxfordshire, after all.'

Draco clicked his fingers. 'Of course: the Norman form of Frideswide. Naturally. Sorry; do go on.'

'Sister Frevisse,' said Harry, 'there is a threat to the realm - yes, and to Holy Church as well, I believe - that may be turned back by the information in a certain manuscript once held at Clifford. Do you know the book I speak of?'

'I do, my lor- - good sir, rather. It is possible that I might help you to secure it. Yet I fear it will avail you but little. For no man, be he king or mage, has been able to read it since one who died before I was born.'

________________________________________

'Lovely,' said Harry. 'Bear, martens, otters, weasels, fox, wolves - Christ, dormice, if you could wake 'em - but, we simply couldn't have had this to hand in summer, could we? Oh, no, we had to hold this in sodding winter. "Springtide" be damned, this is a bloody Arctic wilderness. There's not a bloody adder in miles with whom I can exchange intel, damn it all. Oh, no, we must hold the Cup here for political reasons, the jobsworths all said, and we mustn't hold it in summer because of the Muggles, the security wallahs said, we can charm the area and force the blooms, they said -'

'Act Two, Scene Three,' drawled Draco. 'Enter our hero, stage right, whinging....'

'Oh, get knotted, you berk.'

'Love, you really do not do well abroad, do you? Best keep you in home paddocks, I think.'

'Anyone,' said Remus, placidly, 'who believes that travel broadens the mind, has never heard a British family discuss their last hols on the Continent. Harry, my lad, I will say that you are being a trifle Dursely-ish about this, mind.'

'Ouch,' said Ron, as Harry looked at Remus in horror. 'Point to the surrogate godfather.'

_________________________________________

Harry was nonplussed, but would not show it. 'Sister Frevisse, it may be that there is one who may yet read it. Will you aid us in finding the book?'

'I am bound in obedience so to do.'

_________________________________________

'Of course the pitch is named for Nikola Tesla. He's the best-known Wizard to emerge from ... well, it wasn't what the Muggles called Croatia, then, it was Austria-Hungary: you've heard the story of the Habsburg Wizard who asked a Muggle about the mobs in the street, and was told it was for the Austria-Hungary footer match? He nodded, and asked, "Ah. Who are we playing?" -'

'Remus,' said Harry, warningly.

'All right, all right, the point is, Tesla was and is the local Wizarding hero hereabouts, Serb though he was, and despite the, ah, other problem....'

'"Other problem"? Given the ethnic love-fest that the Balkans have ever been, what could be more damning than being a Serb in Wizarding Croat country?'

Draco smirked. 'Well, until Remus, he was rather regarded as the only fastidious and genteel werewolf in history, you know.'

'That explains a good deal, actually,' said Hermione, looking thoughtful as she recalled precisely how odd a cove the great Tesla had been.

_________________________________________

'Churchills, Winstons, and Drakes,' mused Draco. 'Remarkable. No wonder they plopped Blenheim down just there, at Woodstock.'

'Rather more to the point,' said Harry, crisply - he was extremely unhappy to finds himself where they now found themselves, and correspondingly curt - 'auntly Villiers, Buckinghams, Beaumonts, de Coucys, de Briennes, and Latin kings of Jerusalem and Constantinople. With that cutthroat crew it's hardly a surprise that the volume should have ended up here - thanks to various Blacks and Dees.'

Ron simply looked at the grim, dank surroundings of Azkaban. 'I sodding hate this sodding island.'

_________________________________________

'Really,' said Narcissa, in tones quite as cold as the cutting wind without, 'I do quite understand Harry's frustration. We - or, rather, you - are engaged in serious work, attempting to prevent contemplated murders, avenge those already effected, and avert a new war and the possible ascendancy of yet another Dark Moron, all against the backdrop of a Constitutional crisis at home. It's no wonder that Harry finds himself short of temper: after all, it must be tiresome indeed to be required to save the world every quarter day. Harry, dear, perhaps you had best leave this to others?'

Harry bridled, and just managed not to glare outright at his mother-in-law. 'Thank you, Mother Malfoy, but I believe I am quite competent to carry on, and perhaps one of the five or so of us best qualified to do. If you will excuse me, there are some owls I must send.' And he stalked out, very much on his mettle.

Narcissa and Draco exchanged smirks. 'You see, darling, that husband of yours is quite manageable.'

'I know that, Mummy. It works every time.'

Tonks snorted and started to speak; her mother beat her to it. 'He doesn't want managing, Cissy, and you ought the both of you to realise that. He wants action. Harry never complains about what the Litany calls "battle, murder, and sudden death", it's the minor annoyances that goad him.'

Tonks grinned. 'He'd rather be Crucio-ed by a new Tom Riddle than deal with nettles, that one.'

'Andy, really.' Narcissa was coolly amused. 'I should have thought by now that Tinker had caused you to reflect, and dealing with Lupin had informed my niece, that men always want managing. For their own good, of course.'

'Of course,' said Hermione, equally dryly.

'Oi,' said Ron, protesting.

'Shush, dear.'

Ron shushed.

Draco and his mother once again smirked upon each other: only to jump guiltily when Harry's disembodied voice, tart but not unamused, sounded. 'Aunt Andy, it's not the "battle, murder, and sudden death" I'm currently nettled by, it's the "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion" that annoys me. And I'm torn between amusement and annoyance at realising how poor some people's tradecraft has waxed. Listening charms, Extendable Ears, Invisibility Cloaks ... may I suggest some rather more constant vigilance?'

'Berk,' said Draco, over Harry's distant laughter.

'Don't whinge, love,' said Harry, as smugly as ever any Malfoy or Black had managed.

After two successive references to the Litany, there was really only one thing Remus could say. 'Good Lord, deliver us.'

This time, when Ron began sniggering, Hermione did not manage to shush him.

_________________________________________

'I sodding hate this sodding island,' said Ron, once more, with feeling.

_________________________________________

During the years of Harry's childhood exile amongst the Muggles, his Babylonian captivity in the Dursley house, the disembodied Tom Riddle had hidden amidst the forests of the River Valbonë vale, in deepest Albania: the most savage and backward place he could well find, a haunt of vipers and vampires, of wolf and werewolf, hag and hex, where old Illyrian pagan notions held out in the mountain redoubts, the Church was persecuted where it yet existed in Hoxha's despotism, and the few Muslims - who largely populated rather the south and centre of the country than its north-eastern fastnesses of blood feud and sorcery, and preferred towns to wilderness - were in the main Bektashi panentheists, and practitioners of a correspondingly heterodox magic.

The area was secure in Voldemort's day: all Albania was hermetically sealed at the paranoid orders of Enver Hoxha, to whom power was all. To this day, the area remains largely off-limits to Muggles and Wizards alike. It was not to be thought of that, even yet, Albania should host the Cup. But the Balkan Wizarding League were nonetheless eager to mend fences with the West, and cleanse themselves of their associations with even the exiled and discorporated Voldemort; and so, to Ron's horror and vocal outrage, and over his protests both as Minister for Magical Games and Sports and - more importantly - as Chief Editor of Wizden's, the Cup had been moved forward to accommodate the political considerations of better ties with the Balkan statelets.

Not even Ron had felt any pleasure of vindication when it had all gone so terribly wrong, and Uganda coach Giles Whitsun had been murdered amidst accusations of poison and Goblin sedition.

_________________________________________

'Bugger it,' said Harry. 'I detest doing this, I really do. But there's nothing for it but to do so.' Draco, always aroused by raw power, tried unsuccessfully to conceal the sudden wave of lust that crested in him, knowing what was afoot.

The Hallows are wilful, even more so than Godric's sword: they have a mind of their own, even more so than do most magical artefacts. For all that Harry had kept only the Cloak, as the heirloom of his family, the Ring - whole again - and the Elder Wand had an unnerving tendency to appear on his hand and in his hand when he had need of them: the Master of the Hallows is himself subject to their will.

Harry's lips moved silently as the three shivered in the chill, drear fogs. He was rehearsing what he should say. After a lengthy moment, he spoke aloud.

'I, Harry James Potter, son of James, descended in right line of Ignotus Peverell, heir-general of Antioch Peverell and Cadmus Peverell, Master of the Hallows, heir also of the House of Black, seek for the good of the realm that book that was of Walter Clifford and of Fair Rosamund. Accio!' The Elder Wand moved, and was still; and black as a raven and stooping like a hawk, an ancient tome flew at them from within the shuddering walls of Azkaban, which rocked on its foundations as Harry caught it, Snitch-like, with deceptive ease.

'Right, then. Let's scarper. Because - Ron? - I sodding hate this sodding island.'

_________________________________________

'I still say,' said Harry, 'that if we were forced to hold the Cup final at a place known for tamed werewolves, Gubbio'd've been the better choice.'

Remus smiled. 'No one in this lot would make a very good fist of being a Franciscan, you realise.'

_________________________________________

'Ah,' said the Fat Friar, with a vinous chuckle. 'Honorary Hufflepuffs, all. Yes, yes, even you, Mr Malfoy: you've all of you shown superlative loyalty to the school and to Wizard-dom. And, insofar as you are all of you in some way or another of Godric's own descent, I salute you as kinsmen, as well.'

'K- kinsmen?'

'Indeed. A Hufflepuff I may be, but one of my grandmothers was a minor connexion of my lord the earl, Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk, and the other was kin to Godric. Come, come, did you think it was by chance that the cycle route through Bungay and its adjacent parishes on the Waveney was called the "Godric Way"? Although I suppose the old place is better remembered nowadays for the Grim that terrified the village in, when was it, 1577 or so? Yes, yes, I think that was the year -'

'So you are Friar Bungay,' said Hermione, with some awe.

'The dear Mother of God preserve us, child, has that been lost in the years or thought a secret? Dear, dear, this will never do. Your brother in Christ, Thomas, known in the world as Thomas of Bungay, of the Order of Friars Minor, at your service.'

Harry let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. 'Did you, truly, work with Roger Bacon, then, sir?'

'Indeed I did, young brother - and I implore you, no "sir", if you would. I am but a mendicant friar, one of Our Lord's troubadours, and no knight or great man nor even a priest to be so graced with the honorific.' Draco hid a smile, remembering Harry's own words to Sister Frevisse, the former Rosamund Clifford. 'Yes, of course I had the honour of working in natural philosophy with Brother Roger: oh, that was an exciting time, when the ferment of thought worked in the vat of the Church, and gave us the new wine of learning. And Brother Roger - why, the man was as full of wit and subtle learning as any Dominican.'

'Well. Er. Brother Thomas. A certain manuscript has come into my hands, partly through the Blacks, and through their Welsh branch, a manuscript that is said to have belonged to Dr Dee. There are those who say it was written by Roger Bacon - that is, Brother Roger. I. Could you ... would you ... may I have your opinion?'

'Of course you may, dear boy, in all charity. Oh, my. Yes. Yes, indeed. I understand there is a copy loose in the Muggle world as well.... Named amongst the poor dears for the chap who acquired it and presented it to some Muggle place in the New World, I believe - what was his name, again? He married the daughter of the Arithmancer, George Boole ... dear me ... you, my boy, ought to know that - she was far more a radical, red revolutionist than your cousin ever was, but they knew one another -'

'My cousin?'

'Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, Beatrice - not Beatrix, the bunny animagus, or perhaps I ought say, "animaga", although Wizarding Latin is a sore trial to anyone who cares for the beauties of the Classical tongue - Beatrice Potter, from the Squib branch that settled in Gloucestershire, the MP's daughter who turned down Joe Chamberlain and married Sidney Webb instead. Never would allow people to call her Lady Passfield, oddly enough, though of course she was, after poor Ramsay gave Sidney a peerage. At any rate, she was a Fabian rather than an outright Marxist, was Beatrice, but she certainly knew - yes, of course, that's it, Ethel, Ethel Boole, and the Polish chap she married was Wilf Voynich. Of course he was. Nice chap, full of ideals but no sense of how to effect 'em: well, there, there, young men will be headstrong, although I can't imagine that expelling him from Durmstrang and snapping his wand was at all the right course to take.... How he acquired a copy of Brother Roger's work in the Muggle world I've no idea, but - I'm sorry, what was your question again?'

'I think you've answered it,' said Harry, rather faintly. 'This truly is Roger Bacon's manuscript that no one has ever deciphered - I mean, the Muggles haven't?'

'Sure-ly, as we said in Suffolk when I was a stripling. And of course the Muggles will never be able to read it, nor will most Wizards. But you can do, can you not?'

'Harry? Harry, you never said that you -'

'I wasn't certain that I really was, Hermione.'

'How can -'

'Potter, are you telling us that this is written in -'

'Wait, wait,' said Remus, who had also realised what Draco had tumbled to. 'Roger Bacon - a Light Wizard and an RC religious - was a Parselmouth?'

'Naturally,' said the Fat Friar, beaming. 'Harry's not the first Light Wizard to be one.'

'But - a monastic who spoke with snakes?'

'My dear Draco! We're not Carthusians - or Austin friars. Brother Francis, as our exemplar, spoke with all creatures, wolves, birds, asps, basilisks, werewolves ... well, you take the point. Can you imagine Brother Francis or any who follow his Rule being too proud to speak with Brother Serpent simply because a snake is less popular with the natural man than is Sister Dove?'

_________________________________________

The ancient Southwolds market town of Dursley, in the valley of the Gloucestershire Cam, was a wool town in its day, and a centre of woollen and textile manufacture. It is probable that it was the industrial infrastructure of this otherwise sleepy town that brought to it the bicycle manufacturer, Pedersen, and the Listers who would create the stationary engines company that would later merge with Petters. It was the charm of the place, unmarred by industry, that drew to it a youngish and already sybaritic don on a walking tour, in the summer before the Kaiser's War.

The youthful scholar, already running a bit to stoutness, departed Dursley with rather more precipitation than had marked his ponderous arrival, and the reason for his funk and flit was soon known from Stroud to Stinchcombe. Given his sedentary habit, both the cause of his hurried departure - not to say, levanting - and the turn of speed he displayed in vanishing so swiftly and unnoticeably, were remarked upon. There were those who maintained that the sleek, well-fed don, with his sleeked-down straw-coloured hair, ginger-blond walrus moustaches, and gooseberry eyes, had seduced the daughter of the landlord of the Lamb and Flag; others, who had perhaps better taken the measure of the pompous but curiously innocent traveller, and who unquestionably knew the publican's daughter better, had little doubt that the daughter had done the seducing. Be that as it might, the man was vanished overnight, with none quite able to remember his name, college, or University, somehow, and there was a baby on the way to be provided for. The Lamb and Flag was a free house, but its landlord was a tenant both for his pub and for his cottage of the Estcourts, the long-time lords of the manor. When the lad was born, he was given the Christian name Horatio, for his father, whose surname was lost, and the surname, simply, of 'Dursley', and the Estcourts assisted the lad's grandfather in his upbringing.

Horatio Dursley grew to man's estate in his eponymous village, being schooled at the local grammar and playing a vicious form of Rugby for the town. Thereafter, he was taken on by the RA Lister Company, and rose swiftly through its ranks, being regarded as the model of narrow commercial probity.

But a merely commercial rectitude in Horatio Dursley was proof only against overt dishonesty; he was very much capable of unslaked ambition and the meanest actions consonant with technical legality. There were therefore those who were not at all surprised when, in 1935, Horatio Dursley removed himself - and, it was suggested, although it could never be proven, a few valuable trade secrets - from Lister's employ, and departed the town of his birth (and which knew and let him know that it knew the scandal of his birth) for a position with the machine-tools-and-drill manufacturers, Grunnings Ltd. The apparent price of his disloyalty was a very remunerative marriage to the chairman's ill-favoured and sour daughter - but his sole heiress - and a move to distant Surrey, to take charge of the new works in Staines. It was typical of his luck that Petters Ltd should move to Staines after the Hitler War, and then merge with RA Lister: it was as if all his sins were being visited upon him at once.

But that was in the future. In 1935, a time in which having any work at all was a boon, Horatio Dursley and his new wife, the former Marjorie Grunnings, were clearly on the rise. Perhaps that was enough to explain his departure from the town of his birth, for all that his daughter, named for her mother, would return to Gloucestershire (although not to Dursley, but, rather, to Fairford), feeling its pull, to spend her days in a haze of alk, domineering, unearned increment, and the Fancy. Yet there were those in Dursley town who wondered if Horatio's Flit, so like his father's before him, might not be related to a very peculiar incident that befell late in 1934, when a very peculiar woman, queerly dressed, with straw-coloured hair and gooseberry eyes, had arrived in the town, enquiring, she said, after a lost nephew. No one knew what had passed between Horatio and the strange woman, although that nescience did not prevent the spreading of many a tale, but it was certain that it was not many months after the appearance of the disconcerting Mrs Lovegood that Horatio double-crossed RA Lister & Sons and shook the dust of Dursley town from his feet, vanishing into the Staines suburbs with his new and markedly unpleasant wife.

_________________________________________

'The Potter lot, I gather? Welcome to Cowbridge.' The elderly gentleman in the town clerk's offices was brisk but kindly. 'A little genealogical tourism, I take it? No, no, I'm not clairvoyant, I'd a minute from our MP and our AM both. Mr Potter? Ah, that would be you, then. Yes. You're rather well-connected, my good young sir. What brings you to Y Bont-Faen?'

'My mother's family. I was orphaned at an early age, and my grandparents had predeceased my mother. Their surname was Evans.'

'And half Wales might say the same, aye. Now, which Evans would that have been then? Evans the chemist, Evans the schoolmaster, Evans the farmer? Evans the collier, Evans the pilot, Evans the butcher, Evans the -'

'I'm sorry, I don't know, actually. He'd have been the Evans who had two daughters, Petunia and Lily, if that helps.'

'All right! That it does, young Mr Potter, that it does.' The old man was suddenly animated, and disposed to be garrulous with it.

'It's Harry. If you would, just call me Harry.'

'Well, then, Harry-o, I'm glad to be telling you I knew your grandfather well, he chewed bread for our ducks, as they say, very close he and my da were. And it's to Llanblethian you'll be wanting to go before anywhere. I'll take you alongside myself. Ah, yes, I mind your grandfather well, and your - it was Lily that I heard was killed, that was your mam, was it not? Aye, a black shame that was. I knew her well, I was just about between the ages of your grand-da and Pet, and, well, takes all sorts, but I never was much for your aunt Pet.'

'And half Wales might say the same.'

'Aye? Dear, dear, and I'll wager she married that Dursley. Bigger liar'n Tom Pepper, I was always thinking: oh but he was chronic. But Lily bach, oh she was a dear one, and your grandparents, well.' The old gentleman was hustling them past the War Memorial and the Horse and Groom (to Ron's dismay, as he was pining for a pint). 'Into the runabout with all of ye and against we reach Llanblethian, I'll tell ye all the clonc I recall of them. In you go, now. Ah, that's got her started, comes up a treat with a bit careful handling, all these council vehicles want a light touch. Now for Llanblethian, then, it's a lovely place, and as for what it was in your grandfather's time, well! That was before all this build-up, aye, and your grand-da was a big man here. Eyes like the lower half of the Dragon Flag, I ought to've known when you asked me that you were his grandson, aye indeed. And a smile for all, and cwchyn - that's ginger-headed - as your long friend there. They were crachach, your grandparents, I mean in the old sense of the local gentry, the true great and good - bloody sheep in the road, motoring hereabouts is a terror, I tell ye - the best of us. Evans the Vet, your grandfather was, and all he ever cared to be, being the third son, but oh the people hereabouts loved him. Now, his elderest brother got the lands and the middle-un had the church, and don't you be thinking they weren't good men, they were, your great-uncle was a warm man but a good landlord and even the RCs and all us Chapel admired Old Vicar, kindest man you could imagine but your grand-da, still, anyhow, it was your grand-da was best loved. Mind the road surface here, there's a bit roughness - oh, dear, did you hit your head then? Anyhow, loved animals, did your grandfather, horses most of all but sheep and all sorts as well, and once he was set on being the vet'n'r'y, there was no holding him. Mind, his mother was a Kemeys, and there was a gentry family who'd no care for anything anyone thought but themselves, and if they wanted a thing, why, they had it, and did it, and not a fig for what anyone thought, and your grandmother was a Jenkins, her da was a don at Jesus, away at Oxford, and he worked with your grand-da on animal biology - quite the scholar was your grandfather, aye, and published amongside the learned men all. After the Hitler War - hold on, I'll get that gate - oh, thank you. Mind you close it proper. All in? On we go then. After the Hitler War, Major Evans - that was your grand-da's da - came back - he'd been in India for the War, and seen the Vet Corps vetting the cavalry and all, and pack mules I don't doubt, and all in the Burma jungle - well, back he came from away, and I tell you, the tales he told your grand-da and your great-uncles, why, whichever of 'em had been the third son'd've been fired with determination to be a vet'n'r'y. Your great-grandfather told the tale many a time of how they'd ha' been doomed altogether in the jungle without animal transport, where tanks and the like couldn't go and supply lorries and air-drops were right out, and it's no wonder at all that your grand-da became a vet.

'Ah. Here we are then, aye. We'll stop at the church and you can see where your great-uncle had his living. And your grandparents are buried in the churchyard. If he'd not been so set on staying a vet, your grand-da's be buried in a great tomb and have a statue in the market square in Cowbridge, I can tell ye: Dame Dorothy nor Sir Raymond've had had a look in if he'd stood for Parliament as we all begged him time and again to do. There's them that say the Liberal Party would have survived if he had done, and he'd've been its leader, but he was always saying that Wales nor the country needed him to physic 'em, and he could do more good in his station, dosing bulls and helping with the lambing. Aye: that's where they rest, young Harry. I'll be waiting in the church porch against you come back.'

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Friar Thomas of Bungay had referred, as most did, to the manuscript as being Friar Roger Bacon's, as in a sense it was. Yet before Harry and his company had departed, the Fat Friar had made its history very clear.

'Oh, yes, of course, it was the Book of Castle Clifford in Curtmantle's time, and then the Book of Godstow when Rosamund took the veil. By the time of the third Henry, of Winchester, Henry Curtmantle's grandson, it had been passed to other hands, and of course Brother Roger was a Somerset man, whose family suffered as many upheavals in the reign of Henry the Third as they had done under John Lackland. Brother Roger did not overwrite what he was given, but rather expanded it, and the book is itself automagically updating; it's but only that none that were could read it, you know. You will find an extended history of the matter in Brother Roger's Opus magus, in the sixth volume. The technique - adapted from collaborative Wizard poetry, initially - is called, Palimpsestina. Naturally, your volume is neither an actual palimpsest nor a series of sestinas. Do, my dear brethren and sisters, make your hearts easy, I implore: Brother Roger but added his knowledge to that he had received in the Clifford Book; he would not suffer knowledge to be lost, nor yet overwritten.'

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By 1936, Horatio Dursley was the proud father of a son, Oswald, and was awaiting with impatience the birth of his second child. This news had trickled back to Dursley town through the commercial community, as had the satisfying news that neither RA Lister nor Petters would deal with Grunnings so long as Horatio Dursley was employed by that firm. Later in that year, the word came of just why - and for whom - it was that Horatio had named his son 'Oswald', when Horatio was mentioned in the press as a member of the British Union of Fascists. He had been drawn to the new party by his overwhelming sense of victimisation, his inability to find fault in himself and his consequent presumption that every thwarted hope of his was attributable to the plots of others: he was a natural believer in conspiracy theories. When to this was added the unofficial boycott of Grunnings by those he had betrayed and insulted, and all the upheavals of the Twenties and Thirties, from the General Strike to the Depression to the threat of war and the Abdication Crisis, it was no wonder that he became a radical. When the blusterer and coward who so obsessively longed for a respectability that the circumstances of his birth had denied him in the town of his youth, saw his name in the public prints in relation to the Battle of Cable Street, it was equally no wonder that he abandoned his overt fascism, drew in his horns, and denied to his dying day that he was the Horatio Dursley in question. He devoted himself instead to securing a place for his son Oswald at a very minor, Victorian boarding school with pretensions to being a public school, and to indulging his daughter beyond any bounds of reason. And when war came, he managed to secure recognition of his Grunnings billet as being in an 'essential industry', and to avoid even the whisper of service.

Oswald Dursley, in turn, upon leaving Smeltings as unalloyed and unrefined dross, managed to evade any chance of being sent to Korea in the last months of that war, or, worse yet, Malaya or Aden, and did his National Service as quickly, safely, and sloppily as he could manage, and as profitably: the opportunities for a Pay Corps subaltern with no qualms about the black market were extremely lucrative in the BAOR. He then hastened back to Blighty, home, and, if not beauty, a 'successful' marriage, and set about recreating as far as possible the tenor of Horatio's life.

However, the same traits that had made Smeltings and the Army more than glad to see the back of him, blocked his 'career' with Grunnings. He couldn't be made redundant: his father and his mother's father barred that possibility. But not even they were fool enough to indulge him with responsibility. He had entered upon his National Service as a subaltern, and he had left as a subaltern, distrusted by all and disdained by everyone. The same was true of his years at Grunnings, in which he was given a sinecure - and left in it. Like his father before him, he devoted himself instead to securing a place for his son Vernon at that same very minor, Victorian boarding school with pretensions to being a public school that had moulded him, and to indulging his daughter beyond any bounds of reason.

The resulting characters of Vernon and Marge are too well-known to require further description.

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'Who the devil is Lord Lambourn, and why is he asking me to luncheon at his club?'

'What?' Draco snatched the letter from Harry's hand. 'So they're renewing their frayed family ties, are they?'

'What?'

'You have seen Lord Stod Withers on your choccy-frogs cards, I trust? Well, his grandmother was a Potter; Lambourn's his, what, something-times-nephew. Lambourn's son, who has the courtesy title of Lord Aintree, also turned out to be a Wizard, he's about Remus's age, went to Beauxbatons, they were keeping their heads down rather so long as Tom Riddle was about -'

'His mum was a Potter? Withers's mum, that is?'

'Grandmother, Harry: it was his grandmother. Stod Withers's mother came of an old, East Anglian, gentry family near Newmarket, better known to historians for keeping stupefyingly detailed records of their daily correspondence, back to the Wars of the Roses, than for any magical talent. Oh, come, now, surely even you have heard of the Pastern Letters?'

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END

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