Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

June 25, 2006. Hogsmeade Village. Hog's Head.

Shadows swayed and fell as the door closed behind Professor Vector. There were few patrons in this evening, fewer still who paid her any mind. She took nothing with her to a corner table save that she came with: a stack of sixth-year essays, and atop them a fold of creased brown parchment with stick figures ducking brooms in slapstick patterns around its margins. Charmed just sloppily enough to be plausibly amateur. Of course.

She sat alone at the corner table by habit more than mood, wand in idle motion over a produced teacup. She once more unfolded the topmost parchment, the latest issue of Widdershins Weekly, and smoothed it out. No fine print. Nothing official. Just deniable playful margins and the ever-anonymous sign-off of '-WW (no, not that one)'.

Some of the staff had tracked it since early 2004 when it first started showing up in castle corners, in library nooks and brick-wall niches, slipped behind bulletin boards and folded into textbooks. Professor Linton had hated it from the first, of course, even when it stuck to Ask Widdershins (Q: What's the best way to avoid detention without lying? A: Time travel. Failing that, befriend a Slytherin) and articles as:

A Brief Ranking of Staircases That Try To Kill Us and
What Your Sorting Says About How Uncomfortable Your Family Get-Togethers Are and
Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ranked by Professor Stability and
An Open Letter to Prefects: Are You Okay? (Blink Twice for No) and
We're Not Judging Who You Sit With. (Except We Are).

That last had been particularly on the nose, in Vector's view. There was, after all, one particular student group in the castle who'd quietly invited just that sort of speculation for years now. Every professor in the castle knew of them, even if the students themselves had never said the name. Technically, there was no such group. But then, technically, there had been no Marauders once, as well.

Not that the Contraries were anything like the Marauders.

Vector eyed the page. This issue was different. No schoolyard needling. No gossip in guise. The latest Widdershins article was something else entirely:

On the Ethics of Disappearing - and Other Traditions That Made Sense in the 15th Century
-WW (no, not that one)

Vector read slowly once more. She didn't skim.

Let's begin with the obvious. The Statute of Secrecy is old.

Not old in a charming way, like a family heirloom your mum brings out every summer to regale you about your someday inheritance. Not old in a rugged way, like our enduring Professor Binns. Not old in a reverent way, like a Roman ruin or the books Madam Pince'll hex you for touching. The Statute is the kind that was built for a world that doesn't exist anymore. The Statute, of course, insists that it still does.

The Statute was built for doors. Time, as my Muggleborn friends keep trying to explain, is increasingly fond of Windows.

(If you know, you know.)

There was a time when dipping into the backroom made sense. There is a certain roguish charm in dwelling behind the curtains, in the toilets, and beyond the back-alleys. Wizards were being hunted, in a time when magic was synonymous with heresy and fire and drowning in village ponds. Muggles aren't particularly proud of that time either, mind, as their doctors still thought in terms of draining pints of blood to cure melancholy, smearing powdered lead in their hair and calling it fashion, and designing pianos that played by poking cats in the tail. No one is proud of anything they did in the 1600s. Ask the French.

That is not this time. It hasn't been for a very long time.

Before I go further, let me be clear: this is not, strictly speaking, a condemnation of Muggle Studies, per se. It is more an observation that our curriculum rests somewhere between five decades and fifteen centuries out of date. Which is to say, we've managed to miss the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, vaccines, and the notion that the moon might be interesting for more than simply pointing telescopes at. The exact range depends on the professor, the weather, and how recently someone has reminded them that the telephone is not, in fact, required to be wired any longer.

We live in a world of satellites, search engines, cyber security, and mass multiplayer online games. (Yes, those are all different things. No, I can't explain them here. Go ask a Muggleborn. Preferably one born after 1980.)

The divide between magical and non-magical isn't a wall. Information leaks. People talk. Wizards fall in love with Muggles. Some Muggles are smart. Some Muggles are very smart. The idea that a globe full of Muggles paying attention could remain unaware of an entire parallel society is, frankly, the kind of fantasy that even Disney would consider too childish to commit screentime to.

(And if you don't know what Disney is, please for the love of Merlin go make friends with a Muggleborn.)

Look: I'm not advocating we dismantle the Statute overnight. I'm not naive.

(Okay. I'm probably naive. But I'm not wrong.)

The question isn't whether the world will notice us. It's whether we'll still be pretending not to notice them when it happens.

Vector sighed, though not in disapproval. Not quite. She knew exactly which of the five had penned this. Merlin knew, she'd marked enough of their essays. All wrote readily. That was the thing about the Contraries: they didn't shout. They simply sat - together - even when gossip said they shouldn't.

First came the two: the Rosier cousin with his courtroom diction and immaculate cuffs, and Bosco who thought so long and spoke so late that topics had moved on without her. They weren't alike, but neither flinched from the other, and in the early years, that was rare enough to matter.

The third, Kade, arrived by suspicion. He spotted the pair in third year and grew convinced they were planning something - something Slytherin, probably, and therefore interesting. When he finally confronted them, they weren't. They were just... sitting. So he sat too.

Silvertree, the fourth, ran the numbers, liked the odds, and claimed her seat as a kind of protest.

And finally, the fifth - Mulford - who'd been bright-eyed in circling since the beginning, until one day he simply chose to sit.

They didn't part. They didn't budge. They stood their ground and waited for the world to catch up.

Gryffindor didn't lead the charge this time - though one wore the lion. One was an eagle. Two, snakes. And the badger, of course - the one that rumor held had nearly been Slytherin. To some minds, of course they didn't roar.

When a gossip column in the Prophet cast its shadow on them in fifth year, they responded with a letter - polite, unsparing - questioning the ethics of targeting underage students in print. With citations.

Most of them had clean academic records, though of at least two, Vector suspected that was more by contrivance than by truth.

Vector sipped her tea. The dancing figures on the margins of the parchment gave mock salutes as more brooms sailed past them.

Most of the students read this newsletter. Most of the staff pretended not to - including, Vector suspected, Linton. Even if that was only to find fault in it.

Linton. The Ministry appointment to the new Magical Ethics course had been disappointing in more ways than Vector cared to catalogue. She'd hoped for nuance. They'd sent someone she instead suspected they'd simply promoted away from the Ministry.

She folded the parchment, slipped it back beneath the essays, and lifted her chin to gaze across the room at the various patrons of the Hog's Head. Most were speaking in low, amicable day-to-day calm and quiet, the ambient rhythm of slow drinks. Voldemort, after all, was nearly ten years dead. Peace held.

And somewhere out there, wrapped in the stillness of summer, five soon-to-be seventh-years read a map some of their elders were only beginning to realize existed.

Chapter Text

September 1, 2006. London. King's Cross Station.

Rosier

Pale smoke curled over the back of the Hogwarts Express where it stood in pristine anticipation on Platform 9 3/4. As it had for decades prior and as it would for decades hence, the train waited for its bounty of children pouring in from both barrier and less conventional means. Owls hooted. Cats shrieked. First-years looked variably bright-eyed and nauseated and sometimes both. Older students peeled off toward familiar flocks, and parents gave send-offs both patronizing and perfunctory.

At the very edge of the bustle and barking of the crowd, a seventh-year boy stood. His green-trimmed dark robes fell in a crisp, collected manner over a posture that followed suit. Neither trunk nor bags rested anywhere in sight; he had long since stowed them. His darkly angled, thick brow lent him an imposing look that had most younger students offering a slight berth. At least, those who hadn't had older siblings whisper in their ear and give cause for more curious looks instead. He resisted the urge to close his eyes against those.

Cassian Rosier paid little mind to the crowd at large, save to offer polite nods to occasional peers. His attention returned invariably to the barrier, in long sidelong looks. He made no attempt to conceal his focus. There was no need to. Nor did he check the time. The delay was predictably unpredictable, a pattern not broken in a half dozen years.

With a sharp pop, another teenage boy appeared beside Rosier. There was no flinch. Not this time, anyway.

Rosier barely shifted, his gaze remaining on the barrier. "Mulford," he greeted in an even tone. Right on schedule.

The green-clad Marius Mulford straightened his cloak about his shoulders, gently elbowing Rosier in the process. Where Rosier stood prim and trimmed, Mulford looked like he'd spent the morning swiveling between mirror and wardrobe. His lightly curled brown hair was tousled in an elective manner, and so too his cloak left slightly askew even after its nominal adjustment. Rosier felt no need to look to confirm this.

"Really, Cassian?" Marius answered, voice richly amused. "Surnamed, after everything we've suffered? Exams, gossip, the emotional fallout from those House unity parties-"

"Mulford."

"-and the Prophet's slander, Marlow's endearing espionage attempts-"

"Mulford." Rosier didn't raise his voice, but let the syllables stretch with intent. The rhythm was in motion.

"-the late-night debates, that one time you personally annoyed Kai into joining the dueling club-"

And two, three... Rosier counted another beat in his head. He knew how this song went.

"Mulford."

"Well now you're just timing it."

Rosier allowed a fractional curl at the corner of his mouth. "Marius," he gave at last.

Marius nodded to that, satisfied now that all was well in the world. He turned to the bustling platform. A few passing seventh-years caught his eye; he offered them a disarming wave and smile. "Well then," he said aside to Rosier. "Read any particularly soul-destroyingly dry legal tomes this summer?"

Two, actually, Rosier considered. There were also the Muggle novels Kai sent, but he never mentioned those. Before Rosier could quite begin a reply about the legal texts - thoughtful, the tilt of his mouth and eyes suggesting it wouldn't be a quick answer - another voice cut in from off to the right of them both.

"He didn't annoy Kai into joining the club, you know," came from a light-haired Ravenclaw girl who'd been wrangling a battered trolley. Anselma Silvertree waved her wand in quick flicks as she levitated a stack of papers back into order. "Joining was always probable, for her. The only anomaly was timing. 'Annoyed' suggests she did it to spite him, which isn't really how I would describe the incident."

"Incident?" Marius said in amusement. "Merlin, Anselma, you make it sound like a scandal."

Anselma arched an eyebrow. "It was a scandal." Privately, Rosier agreed.

"You mean learning that Kai was, in fact, a teenager?" Marius asked, eyes flicking to Rosier.

"I did apologize," Rosier said, not looking at either of them. His eyes were on the barrier again.

"Only after dooming the duelists for years." Marius' tone was mock-tragic.

"She performed well enough early on, by club standards. But I'd hardly call it dooming," Anselma put in. "And Cassian's role was more provocation than annoyance, anyway..."

"I did not provoke her," Rosier put in mildly. And we all would have known if I had.

Marius folded his arms loosely, curl of lips wry. "You called her a ledger, Cassian."

And unfortunately, she heard 'boring', Rosier finished in his head. It was not his proudest attempt at ribbing, in hindsight.

Anselma finished stacking her parchments, bound them with a flick of her wand, and turned back. "Regardless, it's history. She's late again, it looks like. Where's Marlow?"

Rosier answered her by inclining his head toward a knot of first-years standing around the sun-warmed and freckled Gryffindor seventh-year like a throng of the Pied Piper. Marlow Kade was only half-changed into school garb - his cloak hung loosely over a colorful Muggle T-shirt. He hefted another trunk with casual strength, earning baffled first-year stares as he slid it smoothly into place.. He turned back with a grin and said something that made three of the kids burst into laughter.

Marlow's ease with the populace at large had been something that puzzled Rosier, in younger years. It was only in more recent ones that Rosier weighed Marlow and Kai as not so different and Marlow merely more outgoing with it: both bulldozed past posture and age and name in their own way. More with irreverence than disrespect.

Watching the scene, Marius tilted his head. "How-" he asked, not for the first time, "-was he not made a prefect?"

After patting one of the first-years on the shoulder, Marlow turned to head the way of the trio, still wearing a warm manner.

Rosier took the question, never moving his gaze from the barrier. Surely by now... "McGonagall may have overlooked what he did to Silas Avery in fourth year - but that didn't mean she didn't know."

"Frankly, she should've made him prefect for that alone. Kai too, for that matter."

"Avery was formally disciplined," Anselma put in. "Public apology. To say nothing of that him saying the word at all made him an unperson in his own House for half a term." Her lips pursed, then she quickly added, "Misuse of magic is unfortunately common enough without condoning vigilantism." McGonagall's lack of endorsement therein, perhaps. At least, Rosier imagined so and Anselma seemed to agree.

"Avery pulled his wand first," Marlow corrected as he strolled over, having overheard enough to know the old shape of it.

Then, Rosier's posture subtly shifted, for the barrier let through a familiar shape. The other three glanced to him in turn, then to follow his attention.

The last of their number came through, though bearing no Hufflepuff colors as yet. Kai Bosco pushed her trolley through with a squeaking complaint of old wheels. She was still in Muggle attire, wearing a jean jacket, hair combed, and just enough effort to count as ready. Her eyes swept Platform 9 3/4 in seeking. She locked eyes with Cassian Rosier first of them, as she always did. It had been so since first year. Before the others had gathered. Back when the alcove table in the library was just a quiet place to be quiet, and neither of them had needed to explain why they were there.

"You don't have to sit with me," he'd said, the first time.

"Don't have to not," she'd answered.

Now, the plain manner of Kai's expression softened toward a ghost of smile. A slight questioning lift of brow across the span of the platform: You alright? Cassian answered with a tipped nod.

Some slender thread of taut tension in Cassian loosened as he folded his hands behind his back. He hadn't been waiting for her the way one waits for someone to arrive. He had been waiting for the rhythm of things to resume. For the day to take on its proper shape.

Kai turned next to the others - a nod for Marlow, a quirk of the mouth at Marius's flourish, a quiet tilt of head at Anselma that likely stood in for warmth. Then she moved on, already focused on stowing her luggage. She would meet them on the train.

Marius, still wearing his own grin of greeting, planted his hands on his hips and glanced around. "Well then. Shall we?"

"The compartment feels smaller every year," Marlow tossed over his shoulder, turning on heel to go.

Cassian's mouth tugged at the corner.

Anselma was halfway through exploring the feasibility of Expanded train compartments before they even boarded the Express.

---

Marius found their compartment. Unnecessarily, but habitually, he held the door and gestured the other four in with a sweep of his free hand. It was tight-moving on the train, but many students had tucked in by now, and so a pattern of weave could be found.

The window seats went to Kai and Cassian as per tradition, if only because they were the least likely to get up and wander off amid the trip. Marlow sat beside Cassian this time, Anselma beside Kai. Only then did Marius himself scoot into the compartment and close the door behind him.

"The train is getting smaller," Marius echoed of Marlow earlier, casting an amused glance between the benches. His gaze paused near the window before he sidled to squeeze in beside Anselma, who allowed more room when Kai preemptively shifted as well.

Cassian surveyed the platform beyond the window. Only a few stragglers remained. A first-year boy hugging his mother, among them. Cassian looked away. Soon, they would be off.

In his peripheral, Kai glanced past Anselma to Marius. "Last year, at least. You alright?"

"Born to the seat, Snake Charmer."

Kai exhaled through her nose, but Cassian heard the amusement in it and was privately relieved. Her eyes met his, for the shared history in the phrase. She rested an arm near the window. Her jacket was worn at the elbows. He'd never seen her replace something before it frayed.

The phrase had not been a kindly one in their first year or second - nor had it originated from Marius. No. More than a few had gotten certain ideas about the quiet and odd Hufflepuff Muggleborn who sat with a Slytherin Rosier - cousin line or no - a mere two years after the war. Cassian himself had overheard more unkind implications than he'd ever known how to answer at the time, and so had not answered.

Him the gossip mill had known what to do with. Manipulative. Hufflepuff lackey. Drawing her in for optics.

But her? She'd barely even noticed the gossip at first, and when she did notice Snake Charmer start making rounds in snark, she'd been more bemused than hurt. Within a few years, it stopped being an insult anyone bothered with. Within a few years more, Marius had reclaimed its use as jest, for reasons that escaped Cassian.

Parchment rustled in the compartment. Anselma, of course. Cassian didn't look. Not until she spoke.

"So, did anyone see the August Widdershins?" Anselma asked. And such was what she had in her lap, drawing varying glances from both benches. Cassian hadn't read it yet, but the margins were already flaring with those ridiculous broomstick doodles.

Anselma's question was a trick of sorts. They all read it. They all politely ignored the elephant in the room of that they were the main suspects for authors - and yet none of them claimed authorship even to one another.

Marius leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he glanced at it. "You know, it doesn't make much sense. Widdershins Weekly, in monthly installments!" he said with a mock-showhost affect. Marlow, lounging opposite him, offered a playful sweep of hand to match the cadence.

"Widdershins Monthly doesn't alliterate," Kai commented.

"What about it?" Marlow asked Anselma. "June was something," he added with a frown. "The Disappearing article."

Yes, Cassian thought. It's almost as if the author is someone in this compartment. Half the articles - especially in recent years - strayed too close to concepts the five debated among themselves to be coincidence. Cassian himself had initially thought it was an older student, maybe even a disillusioned professor. Less so of late.

Cassian's theory was Anselma. The only real mystery, to him, being that she hadn't taken credit. She most persistently asserted to broaden the circle of conversation, and while the humor wasn't her usual style, Anselma understood the utility of satire. Kai's humor was dry enough, but she was more reactive than instigating in these matters. Marlow wouldn't have bothered with under-the-table means. Marius didn't write manifestos. He defused them.

"'How I Took a Muggle Summer Class And It Went Fine,'" Anselma read off of the August issue.

Definitely Anselma, Cassian thought of his theory. But his eyes shifted to Kai. "That was your idea."

Kai's brow furrowed. "Yeah," she said simply. "Not bothered if someone gets it in their head that spending time around Muggles isn't awful, though."

"Well, the author's obviously not Muggleborn," Anselma commented. She glanced up, briefly meeting Cassian's eyes, and he wondered what she was playing at. "It's got wizardborn perspective."

"Are we sure it isn't just some fifth-year Ravenclaws?" Marlow asked offhandedly, gesturing to the parchment. "Emeline Fosse, maybe. Don't they have a Muggle literature club?"

The elephant in the compartment loomed large, Cassian thought. No one was saying it, but everyone knew it.

"Whoever they are," Kai said quietly, "I think they're clever. And they don't let it become cruel-spirited."

"They're also probably flunking Charms," Marius put in, eyeing the shoddy dancing-stick-figure charmwork on the margins of Anselma's held issue.

"Or canny enough to muddy the waters," Kai offered plainly to him, eyes flicking to study his face. Given her preference for directness, Cassian wasn't sure if she meant the charmwork or the conversation circling it.

"Could always pin it on Flitwick," Marlow put in with a grin.

Anselma, looking at the parchment still, hummed and tapped halfway down the page. "Misspelled paprika."

Cassian couldn't decide if she sounded annoyed. "They are getting closer to being plain about things," he finally said. There was a mouth-pursed pause, and then he said, "They didn't cover Anselma's theories in June, but they came close."

"I would rather someone wrote about it where people were reading. So long as they get it right."

Kai, reading over Anselma's shoulder, suddenly smiled faintly. "Says there'll be a listing of suggested Muggle summer classes in London, in the spring issues." The nudge toward wizard participation in such had been her idea, in a form, though she'd never been sure how to broach it.

"Still your idea," Cassian said. He finally allowed himself a pointed comment: "Either the author is a fly on the wall to our conversations, or they're very coincidentally aligned." His gaze flicked over expressions around.

Anselma glanced up at Cassian again, a flicker of frown crossing her face before she said, "Obviously. I actually spent most of last night building a comparison chart of potential authors-"

Marlow had blinked at Cassian's assertion. A slow grin was forming on Marius' features as Anselma spoke. But before Anselma finished and before either of them could say anything, Kai spoke.

"It's not all that strange if it is coincidence. We're not special. We're just early. It could be half the castle. Especially those with Muggle family."

Cassian hesitated. She wasn't wrong. But his experience of Widdershins still leaned that it was one of his friends. And if that led to blowback... He turned his head to the window, straightened his sleeves.

"Yeah," Marlow said. As the other Muggleborn in their group, Marlow spoke to this easily. "It doesn't take anything but someone whose Muggle mum has a blog, and them thinking a little about it."

Kai's jaw tightened, and her gaze dipped to her hands. For there it was. It wasn't the first time she'd said it, but Kai followed Marlow's words with what had in one quiet fifth-year conversation become the foundation of all thought that followed:

"Yeah. You can't obliviate the world."

Chapter Text

September 1, 2006. Hogwarts Grounds. Hogsmeade Station.

Kai

In the Contraries' earlier years, older students commonly glanced to the heads of the carriages whether they meant to or not. Some had pretended not to. Others had looked with long and quiet stares. Over the years, it grew less and less noticeable, as the students of the Battle of Hogwarts graduated and left behind only those for whom the carriages still seemed to move on their own. Kai was one to whom the threstrals remained unseen. Anselma probably would have said something if she saw them. Marius and Cass never seemed to.

Kai had seen Marlow glance toward the front of a carriage, even before they shared Care of Magical Creatures as elective. It had been Kai's most anticipated class until she actually took it. These days, she preferred reading about creatures to the grimy reality of caring for them. But she still took the elective. Kai was disinclined to quit.

She hung back a little as they moved from train to carriage, watching Marlow and Cass in a quiet way, for any fresh tilt of attention. None came. Anselma led the procession, and she showed no special attention either.

"Come on, lady Snake Charmer. Don't get left behind." Marius was a few steps ahead, but only just. Kai walked at his flank.

Kai's smile was quick, small, warmer than she wanted. She looked down at her feet, willing it off even as she felt a fondness for the way he said it. The original meaning of the phrase was so far behind her as to be effectively pointless. When Marius said it, it sounded like Yeah, you hang out with Slytherins, and who gives a shit? Still, it was a phrase that only ever came from him. And she couldn't much imagine it from anyone else. And coming from a Slytherin - this Slytherin - it had layers.

"I'm coming," Kai assured quietly, with no shift in pace of stride. Her eyes flicked out toward the dark lake, where the first-years would already be rowing. She didn't remember who she'd been in the boat with - her Sorting night had been a sea of names. But she did remember the thrill that had run through her when one of them mentioned there was a squid. Followed by her confusion of how a squid - a deep-sea-pressure-dwelling creature - survived in a lake. Magic.

"Sorting feast first, squid toast later," Marius said, tone knowing, more level.

A little called out, Kai glanced at the back of his head, eyes narrowing even as her lips tugged. "I wasn't going to," she said, a little quickly.

"Yet," Cass put in from further on.

It had been a ritual in second year, and slightly less common in years thereafter. She'd heard a rumor that the squid liked toast and decided to check. It became weekend afternoons by the lake: tossing toast, not always talking, never alone. It'd also been where she'd nearly hexed Avery the first time, when he'd insulted Cass - and her by proxy.

Kai filed into the carriage after the others - aside Marius, who stood the threshold and let himself in last per usual. This time, Kai sat beside Cass. It was a quiet comfort she didn't have to think about. Cass didn't fill space that way. Not warm or distracting. Undemanding. They'd shared a library table before they shared words, and even now, proximity between them was never awkward.

Across from Kai and Cass, the other two sat, and it was them Marius slipped in beside. Marlow was talking now - something of a Muggle sporting camp done in the summer, his hands animating as he spoke - but Kai's attention wandered. It always took her a moment to settle when the energy grew high. She looked toward the window, and to the starry sky beyond it.

Quietly, she wondered if she'd already have owl post by tonight. Her thoughts circled home, to the debris of past overindulged hobbies, near-cult affections, overexamined leaflets of questionable content.

It hadn't been a quick disentanglement with her mother at King's Cross. Religious societies. Parenting groups. Email solicitations. The influences loomed - not dread, exactly, but the kind of itch that made her skin crawl.

It wasn't that her mother was credulous. It was that she didn't think she was. Which was often worse. And so with three seasons of the year away from her, Kai felt keenly the sense of leaving someone exposed - and someone she'd always had to come back to.

Kai absentmindedly fidgeted, fingers coiling and loosening in her lap, organizing the thoughts as they began to stack higher and higher.

"What do you think, Kai?" Cass's voice interjected on her thoughts, accompanied by a subtle shift of posture that was nearest a nudge he ever gave. "Can wizards play football?"

Kai blinked. Football? Soccer? It was almost absurd - especially coming from Cass.

She glanced about the carriage to find levity in the expressions of the others. Oh. A States joke, maybe? She wasn't sure, had tuned out. Living Stateside was almost a decade behind her now, but she still sometimes tripped.

"American or soccer?" she asked Cass, to be sure.

"American," Marlow answered for him, "Obviously."

"High injury rate. Full-body tackles." Cass' deadpan emerged more readily with Marlow. Cass understood him better. "Perfect for adolescent wand-carriers."

"You'd have to run shield charms with every goal," Marlow said, leaning back.

"Not the worst way to teach basic defense," Cass replied, glancing to Kai, offering the thread.

Marlow followed his gaze and grinned. "See? That's curriculum innovation. Between that and Kai's gun-sense for dueling, next we'll be importing cheer squads."

"Finally, a reason to attend Quidditch matches," Marius said, and then guided the question back toward Kai. "Come now, Kai, wizarding American football would be glorious, wouldn't it?" Marius suggested. "Still safer than wizarding baseball. Especially for the crowd."

Kai let out a breathy chuckle. Her gaze flicked from Anselma's arched brow to Marius' warm regard, before finding refuge in his shoulder instead. She felt a familiar, ridiculous, fluttering wondering of what answer he was hoping for. Kai's fingers tapped together in tangible grounding. "American football is slow to progress until it isn't," she supposed, thinking back on the last summer she flew out to her dad's. "Kind of like Quidditch, except the game can't end five miles away in a cloudbank."

"Exactly." Marius said, pleased. Kai fought down a smile in response.

The carriage rocked gently on an uneven portion of the path.

"Both are often more social events than observational," Anselma offered. Kai wasn't sure if Anselma was pulling the focus off her on purpose, but appreciated it regardless. "Though there is something to be said of the strong tribal tendencies in both."

Trust Anselma to turn a joke into a sociology paper in two sentences. Kai didn't mind. She liked listening to Anselma build ideas up, like watching someone write a book in real time.

Anselma continued, "You're also all talking like Quidditch and American football are comparable, but that ignores a lot in their structures. Quidditch involves acceleration more than positioning."

There was a beat. Marlow blinked, then snorted. Kai exhaled through her nose. Anselma had moved the spotlight well away. With a chalkboard.

None of the Contraries played Quidditch. Well. That wasn't quite true. Marlow had been a Chaser for two years before giving up his spot to a younger student in favor of Charms tutoring. The rest had watched from the stands, or not at all, without ever wondering what they were missing. And it was with a creeping prickle of remembered humiliation that Kai recalled she'd not even called her broom off the ground in the first two weeks of first-year flying lessons. Even now, the memory of scouring the library to try to find some reason for her failures sat with her in discomfit. If something didn't make sense, she had to fix it. This one had never fixed cleanly.

Beyond Kai's attention, the conversation had moved on again.

"-unity songs lately," Anselma was saying. "Better that kids hear that than some of the songs on record, even if it is predictable. It's still got a history of frontloading House stereotypes."

"The Hat doesn't really need help with that, no?" Marius said from where he leaned with loosely crossed arms, eyes light and jovial.

Kai was never entirely sure how to read Marius. She knew his seriousness better than some of them, but it was rare. And rarely public. He smiled, and she thought it sincere in a way, but sometimes it seemed more like someone had once told Marius he smiled well and so he'd never quite stopped. That was something Kai understood even if she failed to emulate it.

It was never a capacity Kai had perfected - she didn't smile for her mother, just nodded and moved on. She'd never mastered the flourish. Not with brooms. Not with faces.

Marlow countered Marius heatlessly. He leaned his head, elbowed Marius. "People've been getting better about it. Haven't you noticed more mixing tables? We've got copycats."

"I'm not sure it's emulation so much as perception of permission," Anselma suggested. "And we didn't invent cross-table seating. It happened before."

"Less with Slytherin," Kai said quietly, and the others glanced to her. "Used to be they sat like they weren't sure they were invited and the rest sat like they weren't sure they could be." She'd noticed it most in a moment of early second year, in the Great Hall, when one of her dormmates had commented and alluded - subtly, but itchingly - that at least Kai didn't bring Cass to the Hufflepuff table. Didn't subject him to it, more like.

She'd never liked how Moira talked about Cass. First like he hadn't been eleven too, and later like he didn't live his summers with a Ministry-appointed guardian. Not that most students knew the latter, she allowed. Still, Kai had held her ground. And it had made her a foreigner anew in her own dorm room for the better part of a year until she'd made clumsy, overthought attempts to patch the air. Not with Moira, not really. Moira had moved on eventually, accepted that Cassian wasn't deorbiting Kai, but she and Kai had no fond rapport.

Cass inclined his head, in her peripheral. "It is different," he allowed. "In the Slytherin common room, that is. Recent first-years are..." He trailed off, rare for Cass, searching for a phrasing he couldn't quite find. "...They belong well."

"They're normal eleven-year-olds?" Marius suggested, a faint warmth of humor to undertone. "Really, it's almost terrifying. Cassian and I used to be the rebels, and now we've little snakes lining up for autographs on the first night."

Kai frowned. Really? Marius played, but she couldn't much picture him signing autographs. Never mind Cass doing it. She tried to picture it. She really did.

"Not literally," Cass commented aside for her clarity.

"Except the once," Marius corrected, a finger raised in counting.

Cass blinked slowly, recalibrating through Marius' absurdity. "Advice isn't the same as an autograph."

"Sure, but you don't exactly hate being asked," Marlow put in. Kai wondered at his confidence. She wondered what Marlow had seen that she hadn't.

Cass gave him tilt of head. "Because it's better than watching them take notes from Avery."

Oh. That.

"Fair. Still, you could at least sign the autographs with flourish."

"I'm not Marius," Cass said, "And there's no autographs."

Marius put in, "And a pity it is. Borderline scandalous." The words had a rote quality to their play, though. Marius' eyes flicked to meet Kai's, catching that she was watching him amid his gesturing. His eyebrows twitched up slightly in acknowledgement. Never one for much eye contact, Kai nonetheless let herself study his eyes for a beat, two, before nerves gave in and she looked out the window.

They were almost to the castle, and so almost to the point where their paths would diverge among House tables again. Anselma was saying something - of that no one here much had liked Reoc, and so his graduation last year had been more celebration than regret. But Kai's mind was drifting again in the shadow of the castle, back toward inevitability and obliviation and a sense of foreboding that she couldn't quite fight.

It looked less like a wonder these days, and more like a cloister at the end of the world. If we can't do anything real, what happens to this world?

---

In the Great Hall, the five of them parted ways. House tables called, red and yellow and blue and green. Marlow was the first to split off, though not before tossing a wave back. Cass too parted early in a manner rehearsed. Marius followed after, adjusting his cloak.

"Alcove, tomorrow?" Anselma asked Kai at the threshold, in rare indulgence of the obvious. She was looking at the Hufflepuff table with an unreadable expression.

Kai nodded. "Always," she said quietly, leaning to bump shoulders with her friend.

Anselma gave her own nod, then said, "Looks like Shackleford's sitting with the other prefects this time."

Moira was, yes, Kai noticed. She glanced to the Ravenclaw table, where some were already trying to wave Anselma over. "Yeah. See you later, Selma," Kai said, and Anselma looked at her once before heading off to sit beneath the blue.

The ambient hum of conversation in the hall was itching. Kai navigated along the Hufflepuff line for an open seat. She found one when two of her other dormmates parted to make room for her between them, not taking no for an answer on either side.

To her left, Nadine Ashworth. To her right, Tilda Twill - which Kai privately thought was an overly alliterative name to give to a child, but Tilda never seemed to mind. Between the two of them, Kai had something like friends in her dormroom. And then there was Moira. And then, across from Kai, Nadine, and Tilda...

Imogen Pell, dark-haired and reading a copy of Witch Weekly, looked up as Kai settled onto the bench. Her smile was snap-quick and scandalous, by Kai's measure, and thereby provoked an internal sigh. "So. Rode the train with Rosier again?"

"Yeah," Kai said, eyes falling to the distraction of a fracture in the wood-grain of the Hufflepuff table. It wasn't the first time Imogen had asked. "And the others." She didn't bother clarifying that. Anyone in Hogwarts knew who that meant.

"Only every year since they were twelve," Nadine put in, reaching across the table to pick a little flint off Imogen's sleeve with long fingers.

"Yes, yes, it's sweet," Imogen said, head tilting to try to examine Kai's face and seeming frustrated that Kai offered nothing. Kai's gaze flicked down the table as someone's charmed fold of parchment went spinning. Imogen persisted: "You're still telling us you're not snogging him?" Her voice was a fair blend of skeptical and fascinated.

"He's my friend," Kai said, expression ticking as she weighed and dismissed the very mental image. She didn't bristle, not anymore, but nor did the implication stick a landing. Especially not after fourth year when half the castle had spontaneously decided she and Cass were such, and proceeded to ride the idea into the ground.

"More co-conspirators, Gene," Tilda suggested in a stage-whisper. "Besides, it's not him she likes."

"It's not-?" Imogen's head swiveled to other tables in fresh speculation.

"Can this wait for the dorm room?" Kai asked quietly, neck pricking with the hum of voices around.

Nadine paused, eyes flicking to Kai's face. "Sorry," she said, and meant it.

Kai's fingers had begun a quiet, slow tap on the edge of the table. She stilled the hand and moved it to her lap.

Imogen's eyes went wide, speculative and scheming, but she snapped her magazine open anew and just sharply said, "I'll hold you to it."

"If you want," Nadine added, and then said, "So, new Ethics professor this year. Linton retired. Finally." And so she was directing attention up to the staff table.

Kai followed her gaze.

Headmistress McGonagall sat central, as ever. Kai had never known another, though in her early years at Hogwarts, older students had spoken about the old one - Dumbledore - as though he were a mountain that had vanished from the horizon. Kai supposed maybe he was, being as it was that he was on books, chocolate frog cards, and everything else that could have a moving image applied to it. Kai wondered if McGonagall felt her predecessor like a shadow or mourned him as a friend or simply moved in what must be done. Kai trusted McGonagall much as she could any authority, but it was more from distant reliability than rapport.

Kai wondered if McGonagall knew who wrote Widdershins. She seemed the kind of person to notice everything and rarely tell you whether she agreed. Kai just didn't know whether that silence meant approval, allowance, or looming judgement.

Kai's eyes moved down the table. Flitwick was away - the first-years would soon be herded in and the Sorting Hat brought out.

But all the other familiar faces of the staff table were there. Rhys Vane, professor of Defense for three years now - a record. He was on the mid-aged side, an early-balding former Auror, and insufferably intent on nudging Kai toward the same track - Auror. Aerlen, professor of Transfiguration, Kai's actual favorite class. He was precise, patient, unruffled even in her early years, when she asked questions that compared magic to Muggle chemistry. Sinistra, Kai's at-first-interim and eventually permanent Head of House. It was different than Sprout, certainly, but Sinistra never made one feel stupid if there was a serious matter to bring to her. Sprout had of course been replaced by Longbottom some three years ago. Funny, confident, heroic - almost every student liked Herbology if only for the teacher. Professor Claremont, Muggle Studies, reading some Muggle nonfiction book that looked distressingly like the sort of thing Kai tried to keep her mother away from. None of her friends' favorite teacher. Vector was there, sharp-eyed at one end of the table - Kai and a few of her friends had taken Arithmancy and not found it lacking. Near the other end of the table, the increasingly aging Slughorn of Potions. He'd sworn he was retiring every year, and failed like clockwork.

In her sweep of attention over the more commanding and austere familiar figures, Kai almost missed the new face. And then she wondered how she had, for the person sitting in Linton's old seat was... different.

She was young, for one, but not a graduated peer Kai recognized. Kai's first absurd thought was that the new professor looked more like a lost Star Trek: Original Series ensign than anyone Hogwarts usually hired. She had a poised atmosphere to her smile and eyes and bearing. Longbottom said something a bit off to her left and she smiled and laughed politely. Maybe it was just the robes, Kai thought - too bright, too yellow, against a sea of black. And maybe she was being unfair in her misgivings.

The new professor looked out across the hall again, eyes darting to and fro, smiles given. Her eyes met Kai's by chance, and she gave a small wave and wider smile before moving on.

Ah, Kai thought, unsure where to weigh it. She's the fun kind. Behind Kai, first-years were ambling into the Hall behind Flitwick.

"She seems... spritely," Kai said quietly, eyes turning back to the Hufflepuff tabletop.

To her right, Tilda snorted and leaned closer to Kai, speaking across her to Nadine: "I told you she'd say something like that."

Nadine slid a knut past Kai, who exhaled in long-suffering amusement.

"Rumor has it she's a squib," Imogen commented from behind her magazine.

Kai paused at that, eyes flicking back up to the staff table again despite herself. If she was, what did that mean? What did it not mean? What might it mean for her? Kai's mouth twisted, memory pulling sharp. The Sorting Hat had shrugged off her Slytherin-adjacency without pause - too Muggleborn, too soon, Slytherin too-sharp still for her. But someone always had to be the first of something.

Suddenly the performative friendliness seemed less saccharine. It seemed more like a wager.

A hush was falling over the hum of the crowd now, for the first-years were assembled and the dusty old Hat rested on the stool. Students' attention wavered between the Hat and away; its last couple years of songs had been fairly standard, but no one broke tradition by breaking the quiet it was due.

The slit of the Hat's mouth parted in a way that to Kai seemed almost cheeky, and it began to sing:

Four founders sang me into shape,
With four old truths to guard the gate.
I wore their hearts and shaped their aims,
And watched you turn them into games.

Brave Gryffindors who leap before,
They're asking what they're leaping for.
Sharp Slytherins with clever plans,
Yet still surprised what's on their hands.

Wise Ravenclaws who seek what's true,
While rarely ask what truths will do.
And loyal Badgers, strong and kind,
Yet falter when they're misaligned.

So wear me now - I will not bite.
I do not sort by wrong or right.
I find the shape your magic leans,
The start of you, not what it means.

So wear me still - I'll find your thread,
But know the weaving's yours instead.
I do not bind. I only mark,
It's you who makes the world go dark.

It had fallen quiet for only two heartbeats before the Great Hall rippled with murmurs. Bit morbid, Kai thought, and yet... She glanced over her shoulder to find Anselma briefly looking her way too. Anselma's lips were quirked in a surprised, amused sort of way, for the deviation in the Hat's pattern. The loudest table was Slytherin, before the wave passed, echoes of disgruntlement still stinging in a subtle way. Someone at Gryffindor's table actually whistled, causing a few chuckles to spiral and break the tension.

The Sorting began. Kai watched in a sidelong way, trying to remember the names, sure already that she'd forget half of them before the Sorting was over. She knew without looking that Marlow would be clapping for every first-year no matter their House.

Not paying close attention during the Sorting was a time-honored tradition of Kai's since first year. As she'd been early called - Bosco - she'd been left to sit through the lot of it while still stewing over the Hat seemingly thinking she was too weak or incapable of the first House it had actually considered for her. She didn't think it had considered Ravenclaw, anyway - Kai had declined that one out of the gate, having spent too many hours in Diagon Alley the week prior listening to her mother talk with other wizarding parents, listening to her mother gush of how Ravenclaw sounded perfect for Kai. So, not Ravenclaw had been her mantra, to the Hat's amusement.

She hadn't really had preconceptions of Slytherin. No. Not until the Hat commented that it might be too sharp for her, and had moved on to yelling Hufflepuff before her thoughts could catch up enough to ask what that meant. She understood now, or thought she did. It hadn't said she couldn't belong there. Just that a Muggleborn in Slytherin, two years after the war, might be more statement than student. More target than peer. The Hat had chosen safety. Not hers, Kai thought.

"What's that kid wearing?" Imogen snorted, for she was watching the Sorting more than Kai was.

Kai turned to look. She vaguely thought they were in the Ls now, but her attention had drifted too much to catch the name in confidence. He was a small boy even among the first-years, blond-haired and with an oversized neon-green wristwatch which, Kai supposed, was what had drawn Imogen's attention. "Just a watch," she commented as he ascended the step. "What was the name?"

Tilda to the rescue: "Tristram Little. Sat with me and my little sister on the train, actually."

Not a surname that meant anything to the rhythms of the school. Kai's lips tugged to the side as she watched the Hat slide over his head. "Yeah?" she offered absentmindedly, allowing the opening for chatter if Tilda wanted it.

"Yeah. Cool kid, really. His mother's an accountant, think he said. Dad's a... what was the phrase? Soft engineer? No, that-"

"Software engineer," Kai supplied without looking away from the kid. "Works with computers." Muggleborn, then. His time under the Hat was taking a little longer than some - not uncommon with Muggleborns, she supposed. Kai started to turn back to the table.

"SLYTHERIN!"

The Hall went very, very quiet. Who went to Slytherin was usually predictable, in a way. Clockwork. But Kai barely noticed the silence or its break for how her own mind was suddenly buzzing with a static cramp of clear thought. The next name was already being called. She turned again, eyes tracking the Little boy to the Slytherin table, and then past to how they were receiving him. Readily enough. Readily enough, clapping politely, and so Kai wondered if the sudden break of the rhythm of the Hall was only in her head. Her gaze caught upon Marius, for he was looking at her in an odd way, a serious way, a quiet way, before he turned to make sure a seat was open for the newcomer, lips spreading in some levitied gesture of welcome. Further down the table, Cass clapped along with his tablemates.

Kai turned back to the Hufflepuff table, wide open air of the Hall suddenly feeling far smaller.

Chapter Text

September 4. Hogwarts. Charms Corridor. Spare Classroom.

Marlow

Swish and flick was muscle memory, scarcely a thought to it as Marlow Kade rearranged the space to his liking. Someone had moved all the furniture into a far corner since last term. Some summer brewing, maybe. Marlow didn't dwell on it. He just moved through the room with a mechanic's stroll, guiding desks into place, scourgifying lingering dust, humming to himself as he did so.

Flitwick had been by a few minutes ago, but only briefly, to nod at the setup and vanish again. Marlow's assistance with the Charms tutoring wasn't anything new. He was trusted and useful in it. It slotted nicely alongside his NEWT-level studies where other time-slots had slackened. He was no Anselma or Marius taking what seemed half a hundred courses. Really, Marlow figured some NEWT-students could probably be excused for trying to sort out some time magic to get to all their classes. He idly wondered if any student had ever tried it, then snorted. Probably.

Marlow clustered a spiral of desks near the middle of the room, then settled a few further scattered, and then finally placed two in what he dubbed the 'Kai-Cass' corner in his head. Not because he'd ever tutored either and not because either had ever attended, but for the shape of the thing. There was always that one kid who didn't want to be in the middle of the room. Marlow would know, seeing as they comprised half his friends. Another flick of wand guided the window curtains open, because it was a lovely day out. Frankly, Marlow could've tutored outside just as well. He had once or twice last year, though that had been flavored to charmed snowmen near Christmas.

The door creaked. Marlow turned, wand still amid fixing up. Little early, isn't it? Not that he minded, but he hadn't quite finished setup yet. But he checked to see who'd arrived, raised his free hand in a wave.

Arlene Otters. Gryffindor, his own House. Third year, Muggleborn. A part of his tutoring last year, too. She wasn't so much struggling with Charms as underconfident, Marlow thought, but he didn't put a fence up on the difference. If she wanted a place to feel it out and not be perfect, that was just as well.

She didn't notice his wave. That was a little unlike her. Hell, half a thousand-yard-stare. Marlow didn't much like that thought, as it was the kind of thought that usually meant someone deserved to be hexed. Merlin knew he'd done it a time or twelve.

"Your desk's there if you want it," he said, casting a charm toward said table that sent a few fizzing fireflies of light spiraling to circle and circle above it before scattering. Arlene usually liked the front of the room, no matter how Marlow set it up. "Or you can pick another. Early bird's dibs." He said it lightly enough, turning back to scourgify the window.

"Kade," she said. Some of his pupils went for surname. She was one. Still, the voice was off, hollow, closer too. When he glanced back, she was leaning her hip on another of the desks. Her stare was like the one Kai sometimes got. Not one to which Arlene was prone.

"Alright there?"

She looked halfway to crying. Marlow bit his tongue and waited, posture open but unpresuming.

Arlene's fingers tightened into a fist on the desk. "I... just came from my first Muggle Studies class," she said. "Thought it'd be fun." A small pause. "Maybe a little odd."

Oh. Oh brother. Oh, what I wouldn't give for Claremont to retire. But Marlow said nothing, even as he bobbed his head in a nod, sheathed his wand, and moved to lean against a desk nearer to her. Let her talk it out, he figured. No assumptions yet. I'm trying.

Arlene's mouth and hands worked in rough fidgets, trying to find the shape of her frustration. She looked up at Marlow with wet eyes and burning ones, more heat than he'd ever seen in her.

"It was... like they were teaching us to study Muggles," she finally said, then clarified, "Yes, that's what the class is, sure, but I mean... like animals in the wild. 'Fascinating behavior patterns!' 'Astonishingly clever!' You know. Like we're different species. Her talking about the internet... was like we should be amazed Muggles don't set themselves on fire."

Yeah. Sounds a bit like when Kai and Selma and Cass took it, thought Marlow grimly. He bit his tongue again, but this time spoke shortly after, lowly: "Yeah." His eyes flicked to the door, but it was a nominal thing; his next words came regardless. "You're not crazy." No one said it to him that first time. Not until Kai and Selma got into talking about it in the alcove like it was obvious.

Her eyes rose with that, burning ire in her jaw, her eye, the whole of her posture. "I didn't say anything. Merlin - for God's sake - Kade, they were nodding along! It's mental!" She shrugged her bag onto the desk she leaned against, looking very much like she wanted to hex something. "I thought I was going crazy."

"No," Marlow put firmly to that, plunking it in like a levitated trunk. "You're not crazy, it's bollocks, it's nonsense, it's..." He'd begun shaking his head. "No, you're not wrong. Claremont's an idiot."

"I'm in this class all year. I'm going to go mental," she scathed in a glance to Marlow. "I- this is ridiculous!"

"It is," he confirmed.

"And you people are the only ones in the bloody castle talking about it!"

Marlow's brain did a record scratch. Wait, what? The room seemed just a shade more solid, the walls leaned in. "'Scuse me?" he asked, bemused, cautious. Unless she somehow means...

Her eyes snapped to him, first with her own confusion and then with a headshake. "I-well. I guess that's just gossip, maybe. Pell in Hufflepuff says you and your friends write... you know. Widdershins." She didn't quite look at him as she said it, had a sheepish quality to it like she thought she might be wrong.

Marlow was pretty sure there was an audible dial-up sound in him trying to figure out responding to that. Because yeah, he was pretty sure it was one of his friends. He had no idea how it'd gotten in anyone else's head for sure. Should he lie? Deflect? What would Cassian do? Wait, no. Maybe?

"Oh," Marlow said, feeling a little dumb and backfooted in it. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. "Pell said that, huh?" Cass maneuver. Exceeds Expectations. His thoughts were squeaking a bit on it, because he had no idea how much Arlene gossiped or not and he was not ready to be the one who threw his friends back into the gossip mill.

Not again, anyway.

Arlene, cooling in her irritation, pegged the delay in his response. She glanced to him in bemusement. "Yeah. She said she'd been talking with Fosse in Ravenclaw and they'd realized the paper started around your fourth year, when, you know," she said.

Oh. Oh bloody hell. Well when you put it that way.

Fourth year had been interesting in a lot of ways. The Anselma-definition of interesting more than Marlow's. Marlow hadn't noticed Widdershins until the year after, but if it had started that year - when half their year had been practically stalking Cassian and Kai... Well. February had certainly turned up the heat, what with all the nonsense notes plastered over every wall, anonymous hex-hints and love-curse jokes. It had been awful.

Something must have shown in Marlow's face, because Arlene said, "Is it true, then?"

The dial-up sound was back. What to do? What do I do? Marlow thought to redirect or sidestep again, Cassian-style, but somewhere on the way to his mouth, it became:

"I dunno, maybe." Which somehow felt worse.

Her expression faltered a little. She actually bought it, and what came of that was worst yet of what would test Marlow today. Arlene's shoulders settled. She glanced away to the window, face falling. "I just... whoever writes it. Feels like they're the only one in the castle who's not stuffing their head on things."

Marlow blinked and bit his tongue. "Yeah," he said, struggling for what else to say. "Does feel that way sometimes."

She looked back to him, gaze searching. "You know they're right, don't you?"

Marlow, irritating to himself in it, mutely bobbed his head. He was rarely the idea guy of the group. That was Cassian or Selma or Marius - or Kai, went without saying. He wasn't the one with the fancy spun-up talking about the 'population problem' theory Selma tossed about or Kai's 'first contact' comparisons, or citing magic-Muggle liaison precedents like Cassian. And he had no idea what the hell Marius got up to that made him so Muggle-literate despite being a pureblood.

Marlow was just Marlow. And so Marlow bobbed his head.

"I just..." Arlene glanced to the window again, then back to Marlow. "...You don't know who writes it, then?"

"No," Marlow said. That much was true, at least. It wasn't that he didn't care, so much as it didn't matter which of the others was. Someone was hammering sense into the wizarding world's blockheads, and that was good enough for him. Or it had been. Before he could think the better of it, Marlow heard himself saying, "Why, you - uh - want to talk to them or something?"

Internally, he winced. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

She straightened a little, attention renewed, even as Marlow silently facepalmed. "Yes," she said simply. "At least to thank them. And... maybe ask what they think we can do."

Well. That wasn't the Arlene he remembered off the last year. She wasn't entirely changed. Little more teeth over the summer, maybe. That was easier to focus on than what she was actually saying, for a moment.

Marlow scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah. That'd be a good question," he said, before immediately realizing she may on some level expect him to deliver it. Carry it up the chain. Be the owl. He frowned past her at the wall. As if the bricks might spell out something. How to fix a world that didn't think it was broken. Kind of would be a good question, wouldn't it? Paper's good and all, but...

He couldn't quite picture how the others would take it, but he figured maybe some of them were thinking it too. Kai, at least. Maybe Marius would find it sporting? Anselma, probably. Cassian was the real question. Cassian tended to weigh things in twenty layers of liability and fifty miles of no man's land. Which, sure. Brakes were important, probably.

Before either Marlow or Arlene could say more, the door cracked open again. More students spilling in for the study. Marlow rocked a nod to Arlene in a that'll do sort of manner, only belatedly wondering if it looked instead like I'll take care of it.

Absolutely bloody brilliant.

Probably fine, he tossed into a mental bin for later. Marlow raised his wand for a final round of straightenings.

Back to work.

---

Going to the alcove in the eastern end of the library wasn't exactly like going home, but it was pretty comfortable. It was a table tucked back in beyond the stacks, further from the usual suspects of study tables, hidden away like a secret. Marlow didn't think he'd have found it if he hadn't followed Cassian and Kai to it in third year. That was a sheepish memory. Still made him wince.

A Gryffindor girl of his year had been the start of it, had mentioned up in the common room that 'Rosier and Bosco' were sneaking around in the library and seen awful close to the Restricted Section. Marlow, rougher around the edges back then, hadn't had much of an opinion other than to think the two were a little weird. Cassian had looked like the types of kids Marlow hated in primary school. Kai would have been a little forgettable if she hadn't hung out with Cassian; She'd been the kind who seemed like she was daydreaming in class half the time and spent the other half doing things like asking Sinistra if Muggle satellites impacted magical Astronomy. Marlow had marked that much, but she was still background until the library rumor.

To this day, Marlow couldn't say what his plan was in following them. He'd figured to eavesdrop and make sure they weren't planning something vicious.

And then he had eavesdropped... and they'd been discussing movies. Movies. Apparently Kai'd written with Cassian over the summer and somehow that had ended up with the latter - thirteen, pureblood, Cassian Rosier - attending a showing of Spider-Man. And when Marlow found them in the back corner of the Hogwarts library, they'd been in the middle of a segue from discussing Transfiguration homework to nerdily debating the magical feasibility of spider-powers.

It had put Marlow through a mental reset. Apparently 'suspicious behavior' sometimes meant debating arachnomancy.

And then he'd put in his own comment before he quite thought it through. Five minutes later, he'd sat down. And that was that.

As he came in today, it was only Cassian there so far. So, Marlow claimed the seat beside Cassian without much ado. Kai couldn't hog him all the time. Space beside Cassian was neat and well-organized and free from the theatrics of Marius or Anselma. Not that Marlow didn't have his own moments. But aside that.

"Marlow," Cassian said, not looking up from his essay-work.

"Cassian," Marlow said as he settled into his seat. He tugged forth a sheaf of notes from Charms-work. So many diagrams, so much theory-work. But he felt the rhythm of it well, better than the dry history or transfiguration work. Well, he thought Transfiguration was dry. Kai'd nipped back on it once or twice.

Arlene's words were still in his head, though. What they think we can do. Marlow leafed through the parchments. Maybe when everyone's here, he figured. It was a practiced tradition to start a debate in the alcove before sundown, even if it wasn't usually Marlow that started it. Maybe he'd be the one to do it this time.

Selma arrived next, sat across from Cassian. So many books. That she was taking a NEWT class in History of Magic was still something Marlow boggled over. He hadn't known one could do that, or that anyone did. History. As a NEWT. Voluntarily. Naturally, when Selma set the books down, it was with words on her tongue: "Tarth is better than Linton, I'll give her that."

Tarth being the new squib Magical Ethics professor. The one that kind of looked like the sort who volunteered every weekend and brought biscuits to get-togethers.

"Oh?" Marlow asked, squinting up. Gryffindor-Slytherin of the class was tomorrow, so he hadn't seen her in action yet.

Selma's eyes flicked sharply up to Marlow, sure and attentive. There was also a curve at the corner of her lips, which usually meant trouble. And then she dropped: "Kai asked a question in class today."

To Marlow's left, Cassian's quill paused. Marlow himself thought, Oh, bloody hell.

"What was it?" Cassian now.

There was a devilishly pleased glint in Selma's eyes, the kind of pleased that meant she'd been waiting to tell them. "Professor Tarth uses a discussion format. The day's topic was the ethics of mind-impacting magic. Which is naturally a hazardous ethical umbrella. Some students brought up memory spells and when it would be ethical to use them - questionable as it is, therapeutic uses were raised. And then Kai asked Professor Tarth whether Memory Charms hadn't been banned because banning them would put the Statute itself on ethically shaky ground."

Well. Welcome to Hogwarts, Professor Tarth. "How'd she take it?" Marlow asked. "Tarth?"

Selma tapped the top of her book-stack. There was a sense of a drumroll in it:

"Tarth assigned it as a homework essay question."

A beat.

"Can she do that?" Marlow heard himself ask.

"She did." Selma didn't shrug, but it was in her voice.

Cassian finally responded to say, "Ah." His quill hadn't moved in several seconds.

They were still sitting in the pregnant quiet after that, quills eventually beginning to scratch anew, when Marius made his arrival. He glided out from the stacks and dropped into the seat beside Selma. His own book-stack wasn't quite to the level of Selma's, but came a little taller than Cassian's and likely Kai's, more from the variety of his needed NEWTs than any academic ferocity. "Evening," Marius gave with a warm mellow, sweeping an arm wide in his settling to avoid elbowing Selma amid her homework.

Finally, Kai, who came in her usual amble. Kai had a funny walk, though it wasn't anything Marlow had ever poked. Not unbalanced, but like she was always halfway between thinking about gravity and trying not to be noticed doing it. There was one seat left at the table's end, next to Marius, and so that one she took.

"Evening, Snake Charmer," Marius extended to her with a widened smile, shifting his books to ensure her space.

"Evening," Kai answered, eyes doing that down and around thing that she seemed to think was subtle. "Everyone have a good day?" she asked.

It had somehow gotten worse over the summer. If they're still doing this by Christmas, Marlow thought, I'm shoving them into a broom cupboard lined with mistletoe and charming the bloody door shut. But he bit his tongue and let the others answer her first, and left the two of them their illusions. Or delusions, as the case may have been.

Cassian glanced up for a check-in and a nod before going back to his essay.

Selma said, "I told them about Tarth," to no surprise from Kai.

That had Marius turning and lifting his brows, though. "Oh?"

And so he was filled in too, and when Selma finished, Marius let out a breath of a laugh in amused bemusement. "Well then. Did the Ministry send someone competent? Shacklebolt finally grow a spine?"

Marlow blinked. Little sharper than Marius' usual.

"Shacklebolt does have to negotiate with the Wizengamot." Cassian's words came in a head-tilted aside. "Even Albus Dumbledore could not unilaterally command power blocs."

Marius' leaned his head to his shoulder - toward Kai, of course - and mused, "It's also possible that Tarth played the long game. Snuck through under Wizenmagot noses." He sounded almost impressed.

"Then what if they pull her out?" Kai asked. Her voice was reserved, inward-turned.

"For what, assigning homework?"

"Marius," Kai said, tone a little more pointed than usual.

His hands came up in surrender. "She'll last the year, unless she does something truly scandalous. The only thing the Ministry hates more than a rapscallion..." Marius mimed weaving of a quill. "...is paperwork."

A few quiet chuckles came of that. Kai nodded in hers, but didn't look fully convinced. Marlow didn't blame her.

Then Marlow found Kai glancing to him, for she'd finally clocked his missed check-in. "What about you? Alright day?"

Marlow didn't answer right away. After that stretched a few moments, suddenly all of the rest - even Cassian - were looking to him. What to do, what to do. Arlene's words tugged at the back of Marlow's mind, and what came out of his mouth was, "Had a third-year come by early today. First Muggle Studies."

Cassian and Kai's expressions were twin flickers of Ah, while Anselma grimaced and Marius gave few little nods.

Marlow bit his tongue, then, "She... asked what to do."

A pause. "What are we doing?" he asked. A few blinked. Cassian straightened. Marlow forged on, frowning into the midst of them. "We talk about it a lot, sure, and there's Widdershins, and that's all well, but if half've what we're saying is real, shouldn't we be doing something?"

He rested a forearm over his Charms-work, idly tapped and watched his fingers as he let them play catch up. Half a minute passed.

"Probably," came from Kai, though she shifted a little beforehand. Her voice had that brittle edge that usually meant someone was getting hexed, but there was no one to aim at here.

"And what would we do?" Cassian set aside his quill, folded his hands, and met Marlow's rising eyes. "What do you see us addressing?" Coming from Cassian, that felt practically like a handshake.

Before anyone quite processed it, Selma was already unfurling parchments. Marlow blinked up. Is that a diagram? There was a moment of quiet processing around the table as she spread out three parchments. Then Selma said, "Well, there's three particular-"

"Wait, you've already charted?" Marlow asked, baffled. Why didn't you say anything?

"No," Selma frowned up at him briefly and then gestured to the parchments. "But I do keep track of some of our discussions." Refocusing, she continued: "The issues break into three core umbrellas. The first, of course, is the contact problem." Selma glanced to Kai, passing the thread.

Bloody hell, Selma.

Kai quietly nodded, raising her hands flat to animate the convening of them as she obliged: "Two train tracks. On one of the tracks, wizardfolk who think lightbulbs are new. On the other track, Muggles who think you're either play-acting or mental if you claim you're a wizard. No paradigm. No framework. You can't explain a secret world to people who think secret worlds are for nutters. And once you do - other issues."

"Such as the mind-whammies," Marlow said, echoing off prior debates and the obvious.

Selma nodded. "The second umbrella, of course, is the population problem." The 'population problem' was Selma's baby. She was practically aiming to found her own field around such like it. "We're not a nation-state. Not in any functional sense, population-wise or any other way. No personal-political separation. We're a small town. An ethnic enclave. Micronation at best. At worst, a cult." Her tone was taut, but unapologetic.

"I think I hear some of my ancestors crying," Marius commented, relaxed back in his seat, but with an eye more attentively angled than usual.

"The third umbrella is, well, damage control," Selma said, quieter than usual.

It was a melancholy quiet that descended over the table for that. No one rushed to fill the air. The silence tasted like old fear, and not enough answers. Because no matter how often they discussed, no matter how many options they weighed, no matter how much they hoped otherwise, the fact remained: even in the best case scenario, contact was liable to bear viciousness of one kind or another.

Cassian's attention traveled to Kai, then Marlow, then to the tip of his quill.

Marius crossed his arms, one hand lifted to sway about in a lazy gesture. "So, the plan is: orchestrate a first contact worthy of the Federation of Planets-" Marlow blinked. Marius knows Star Trek? He almost rolled his eyes when Marius' gaze flicked to Kai before the Slytherin continued. "-convince the Wizengamot to join the seventeenth century at minimum, persuade the rest of Earth not to panic about the underground society with amnesia grenades, and hope everyone settles for mutually assured delusion as a starting point."

He glanced to Selma, then Kai. "How long was it we thought, again, before this starts by accident?"

"Twenty years, optimistically," Kai said, eyes falling to the tabletop.

"Very optimistic," Selma said, brief and apologetic in her smile to Kai.

Marlow frowned down at his hand, fingers pulling into a fist much like Arlene's had earlier. "Well then come down from orbit and let's figure a bloody plan," he said.

Cassian, quiet for a time now, straightened his sleeves and refolded his hands after, like he was preparing to deliver a verdict. "We have no immediate control over outcomes or government," he said. "Anselma's second and third umbrellas are beyond feasible reach. If Widdershins-" Cassian paused on the word, as though naming something sacrosanct. "-is any example, then the first umbrella may well be within our reach."

"Humanization," Kai said quietly. "Softer collision if each side's seeing people first."

"Widdershins is still just a rag," Marius commented, but he leaned back his head, hands ruffling through his hair. "Maybe it gets wizards to realize Muggles aren't zoo animals, but there's still billions of Muggles out there who're..." He gestured to Kai, beckoned with a hand.

"Likely to hear 'witch' and tell someone at the bar later that they met 'one of them Wiccans', or else realize there's people with murder-sticks and memory-sticks and... yeah," Kai said, nodding acknowledgement.

"Exactly. No Widdershins on the internet. Just in the Hogwarts bathrooms."

"Then we focus on the wizarding side for now," Marlow said. "And we'll figure out something about the Muggle side."

"We'll figure it out. Wizarding for now," Cassian agreed, brushing at his sleeves. "Widdershins continues, presumably. We can see if Tarth has the character she appears to. We should consider for other ideas in the meanwhile, more ways to proceed."

Selma was already quill-out and writing.

Cassian glanced to Marlow. Marlow bobbed his head to it. That'll do.

Chapter Text

September 11, 2006. Hogwarts. Ravenclaw Seventh-Year Girls' Dorm.

Anselma

A sooty owl stood on the back of Anselma's desk chair, leg lifted with the stubborn patience of a lifelong civil servant. She let the letter she carried plunk against the girl's head. Pepper, named by Adrian years ago, was long since accustomed to the ritual of finding Anselma buried halfway down a pile of books. The Ravenclaw tower's tall windows and blue curtains filtered already cloudy afternoon light.

The owl wavered her leg again, wings ruffling in mild exasperation. The letter thumped lightly on Anselma's ear.

"Wait..." Anselma said, quill suspended mid-sentence. She assessed the most recent paragraph of her History essay. Alright. Wait, no, the phrasing is off. She crossed out a sentence and tried again.

'While it is customary to frame the 17th-century witch panics as examples of Muggle hysteria, this interpretation omits the role of wizarding indifference - and in several notable cases, complicity - in the escalation of public fear.'

Pepper tugged at Anselma's hair with her beak. Anselma's bun loosened.

"Alright, yes, let me see-" Then Anselma pivoted to untie the letter from Pepper, who gave a relieved hoot for it. Anselma flipped over the envelope. No wizarding stationary. Naturally not. Just a plain white envelope. It was from Adrian, after all, and so she smiled in the way she always did when her brother breached the wizarding barrier. Something about it reminded her of their Morse code antics as schoolchildren. While Pepper took off the short distance to the desk-side perch, Anselma turned back to open the envelope and draw out the fold of notebook-paper. Your penmanship is maddeningly clean, she thought with mild envy as she unfolded the sheet over her essay. You and Cassian would be a force.

She settled in, paper crooked open and half her brain still chewing at the essay.

The letter read as follows:

Hey there, Squirrelbrain,

You're probably already buried in the Restricted Section or trying to figure out how to transfigure your homework parchments into sentient assistants. Still. Someone has to knock on your riddle-tower.

I've been thinking about that potion you mentioned. The one you were struggling with? I glanced through Mum's old Potions books, but I didn't see anything about that one. Still, you said it kept turning out dull? Like, technically fine, but missing something?

So I got to thinking about sauce reduction. Stay with me.

When I first started professionally, I used to reduce it too far. You follow the steps, let it simmer, get the texture. Kill it. Technically edible. But flavor's not just chemistry. Judgement. Got to know when to stop, not just what the book says. Maybe you're trying to match the rote too closely. I know you get up in your head sometimes. Time to fall with style.

Anyway, if it's a useless thought, so be it. I know sometimes you're halfway to solving your problems just by writing them out.

Send news. Not just grades. I'm still working on that custard thing I ruined in August. Mum says she'll help me charm some biscuits for you and your friends next week. Blink twice if you want them to not be whizzing around. Just be biscuits.

-Adrian

P.S. I talked to Dad and I think you're right about Kairiel. We're still turning it over. Sounds like something a doctor could've caught, maybe. Do you think she wants help?

Anselma skimmed the Potions part with a small smile - she had solved that, yes, but she always appreciated her brother's attempts. She knew he tried, and Merlin knew he'd been her tutor-by-owl in Potions all of first year. He knew some of their mother's books front to back. He was intuitive. He was brilliant.

He was a squib. Non-magical, like their father. Like half of her too, by blood, by bone, by upbringing. And she suspected that if given half the chance, Adrian would have understood potions more intimately than any pureblood ever would.

Anselma lingered on the postscript.

Do you think she wants help?

Her first instinct was to analyze it. To break the question down to its parts, chart it out upon parchment, and stare it into submission until a solution suggested itself to her. She nearly reached for parchment. But she didn't this time.

She thought instead of her profile of Kai, of what she'd sent Adrian. The pauses under personal stress, the drifting attention. The maintenance-level patterns Kai had in keeping her things. The grounding behaviors, the executive friction. Avoidant spirals that never quite hit dysfunction but always skirted the edge of it. Introversion, social fatigue, personality could have explained some of it, but not all of it. Not the pattern.

No singular behavior was diagnostic. But the sum was consistent. It made her ache, just a little.

She'd asked Adrian to cross-reference with known Muggle diagnostic frameworks. Executive dysfunction. Possible masking of autism or attention-deficiency or anxiety. Non-clinical trauma adaptations, just in case. And he thought she wasn't wrong to ask.

Anselma wasn't going to do anything about it. Not right now, she decided, even with her hand halfway toward a fresh parchment. She curled back her fingers. Not without data. Not without Kai, Anselma had to remind herself. Again. Even if Kai did want help. It was harder, sometimes, not to solve a person like a problem. Anselma didn't know what help meant yet. But she knew, sure as the Earth went around the sun, that Madam Pomfrey didn't either. Not for this.

Anselma breathed out, looked up from the postscript at last.

The letter was folded aside, notebook paper's lined opacity setting oddly against the essay parchment's golden grain. She put it further back away, tucked below her privacy-charmed list of Widdershins-author suspects that she'd further annotated after the evening of decisions a few days ago. That list sat atop the growing stack of First Umbrella notes.

The Widdershins suspect pool remained broader than she would have liked, but only because Anselma had been disinclined to dismiss possibilities out of hand. The others seemed to find it useful to keep the author anonymous. All Anselma could think was that it could handily be a group project. She understood the premise, of course: plausible deniability. The paper could technically get someone in trouble, but weren't they already all in now?

She couldn't move without data. The others would just turn it into another round of winking and deflection. But she could still sort the clues. And pretend she didn't know already.

If I can get the author in private, maybe they'll open to the group. Cross-contribution. It was her theory. And she didn't believe it.

The door of her Ravenclaw dorm creaked, making Anselma pause in reaching for the parchment. It was just Peony, headed to flop upon her bed with practiced melodrama. She hadn't seen the ruckus firsthand, but the essentials had circulated: one Gryffindor, Peony's notes, and a Transfiguration cheating scandal. Anselma had offered to help compile prior infractions for the professor. Peony had just stared at her a moment before declining.

Anselma looked away from Peony on the bed. She was probably alright. Unwinding, as Peony sometimes did. Anselma didn't press. Some people moved differently, and unlike with Kai, Peony's patterns never crossed the line from common to concerning. Peony burns hot, not deep. It was just how she reset.

So, Anselma turned back and pulled out the suspects-list.

Name: Kairiel Bosco
Motive: Yes. Ethical alignment with Widdershins content near-total. Tends toward protective engagement. Prefers critique, not above confrontation. Possible initiating motive in February 2004 Valentine's incidents. (Note: Cypress wand not diagnostic, but notable.)
Writing Match: Possible
Analysis: Style is creatively fluent, variable. High abstraction. No known note-taking. Retention inconsistent (likely due to executive friction, not disinterest); recall similarly variable. Prefers discreet, targeted acts over broad public projects. Ambivalent about visibility.
Verdict: Moderate possibility.

Name: Marlow Kade
Motive: Yes. Mentorship instinct. Strong protective drive.
Writing Match: No
Analysis: Style is straightforward, conversational. Limited abstraction. Mimicry plausible given exposure, but lacks noted interest in stylistic precision. No evidence of note-taking. Retention high, recall unrefined. Prefers action or speech to reflective writing.
Verdict: Unlikely.

Name: Marius Mulford
Motive: ??? No explicit ideological investment, though persistent engagement with group discourse suggests otherwise. May obscure motives purposefully.
Writing Match: Possible
Analysis: Stylistically chameleonic. Creatively fluent, high abstraction. Retention and recall excellent. Known openness to public engagement. Lexical overlap between Widdershins and alcove discussions persistent. Pattern of minimizing or deflecting discussion of Widdershins may indicate strategic distancing.
Verdict: High possibility. Strong stylistic match. Motive remains obscured.

Name: Cassian Rosier
Motive: Yes. Long-term career interest in inter-magical/Muggle policy suggests strong personal investment. High risk-awareness. Possible initiating motive in February 2004 Valentine's incidents.
Writing Match: Possible.
Analysis: Writing is controlled, formal, technical by default. Moderate abstraction. Capable of satire and dry wit, typically deployed in speech rather than text. Comfortable with legalese; less so abstraction. Expresses cynicism and institutional critique similar to Widdershins tone, but typically avoids public provocation.
Verdict: Moderate possibility.

The probable answer stood out.

The only question Anselma could not satisfy was that of why. She picked up her quill, but only to hover over the suspect list.

Why would Marius write Widdershins? Why would he hide it?

It didn't seem like him. Or rather, it did in too many overlapping patterns. Marius liked a stage. Liked ideas, liked disruption. This wasn't just his style - it was his wheelhouse. So why hadn't he claimed it?

It seemed like the manner of thing he would long since have broken form to confess before now, likely with a toast. He engaged in every group debate, often from a contrary - Anselma's eye twitched - angle, and remembered more of those conversations than Anselma would have credited him for when he joined them properly back in fifth year.

Peony's shoes hit the floor with a thunk. Anselma twitched, found the entry on the suspect list again. Just Peony. Right. Now, Marius...

He'd been Cassian's friend before then - loosely, in a dormmate fashion. And to some degree Kai's as well, if one counted ambushing Kai in the library stacks with unsolicited discussion prompts based on the aisle. But he hadn't actually joined the group until the Prophet gossip column broke. And then he'd already been sitting there with Kai in the alcove when the rest of them arrived, like he'd always been there. Kai had a reply to the Prophet half-formed and had already owl'd her father for sources on Muggle journalistic ethics. Marius had been grinning across the table like he'd passed her the match, then politely looked away while she lit the fire.

Anselma wasn't stupid. She could do the math on a plausible motive, but it struck her as so straightforward, so quaintly sentimental, that she resented its neatness. If he'd done it for Kai, he'd buried it with two years of rhetorical shell games. There was no tactical reason not to claim it. No credit or favor he seemed to want.

Reluctantly, Anselma quilled it in under his name: Possible initiating motive in February 2004 Valentine's incidents.

If it is him and it is his reason, he is ridiculous.

---

Anselma took the opportunity to go to the alcove early today. Cassian was often the first there and Anselma wanted to speak to him without distraction. She made her way promptly to their eastern library haunt, books in arm - one of them carrying, folded between pages, her most recent Widdershins notes and First Umbrella annotations. It wasn't unlike her first approach, back when Cassian and Kai and Marlow were that improbable trio of Slytherin and Hufflepuff and Gryffindor who clustered together at the end of the Hufflepuff table at lunches and ignored the side-eye.

For Anselma, the choice to sit with them had been socially experimental in nature, though not cold. She'd already long since grown exasperated with the flimsiness of House dichotomies and disillusioned with the false boxes the wizarding world imposed on itself and her brother and anyone else that stepped sideways. So, one day, she'd simply risen from beneath the blue Ravenclaw banners and sat down beside the three without ceremony.

"You're missing a House," she'd said.

She had thought they might find it funny, but it hadn't landed very well. They'd let her stay anyway.

Anselma stepped out from between the library stacks to find Cassian at the table, as expected. Cassian was nothing if not reliable in his patterns, a metronome of quiet constancy. And for Anselma, there was no pageantry in taking the seat across from him. She set down her books and began to pull out her parchments almost immediately. One motion after the next, aligning and overlapping notes in front of her. If he twitches, I win. Not that this is a contest. He'd be easier to work with than Marius, though. Time to fall with style.

This probably wasn't exactly what Adrian had in mind when he wrote that.

Without looking up, she asked, "Are you the author of Widdershins?"

Cassian's quill paused mid-sentence. It was not an abrupt motion so much as that of someone realizing they'd come upon an unexpected detour sign.

Anselma adjusted her parchments, moving her list of suspects - still charmed for privacy of eye - to the top of them. She moved her stack of books off to the side with a flattened hand.

"No," Cassian said, after several moments. There was a puzzling undercurrent beneath it. Almost suspicious, searching. Anselma respected it, in a way. Then: "You're not?"

"No," she answered, swift and simple, and more than a little annoyed to confirm he'd suspected her. Widdershins was respectable in the abstract, but some things could have stood to be written plainer.

The Slytherin's quill remained still. Anselma glanced up at him, reassessing. Cassian was looking at her, with that angular face and heavy brow that made half the first-years think he was terrifying instead of simply being a legalistic enthusiast. Anselma supposed that was its own kind of terror, but not the type first-years were prone to account for. She waited.

Cassian drew a slow breath and then straightened his sleeves. "There is liability in being the author of Widdershins. Not extensive. The paper itself is anonymous, technically non-malicious, arguably satirical. Difficult to discipline without setting a precedent."

It was a probe, in Cassian's fashion, offered like a courtesy.

"So the Ministry wouldn't go after a student over it?" asked Anselma.

"The Ministry loathes embarrassment," Cassian answered. His gaze sharpened. "If not you..." He glanced aside to his own books. "Then someone else. You have a suspicion," he determined.

Anselma knew his bias, figured out quickly where his thoughts were leaning. "Kai is less likely," she said.

"Then?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Anselma wasn't usually given to dramatics. Weeks of deduction had led her here, and tonight's internal audit had done the rest. It felt obvious now, inevitable.

Cassian tilted his head, waited.

And yet Anselma couldn't find it in her to put the word forth. Not when it was her friend. Not when Cassian didn't seem to realize himself. Anselma wasn't sure exactly what lay between Cassian and Kai, but she didn't think it romantic. Cassian hadn't shown any romantic inclination to Kai that she could measure. Cassian hadn't shown any romantic inclination to anyone that she could measure. But that didn't lessen the tension that made her tongue hesitate. Accusing Marius might make Cassian flinch protectively, if nothing else.

But he didn't. "If it isn't you or me or Kai and it isn't outside of us," he said simply, expression growing contemplative, "then it's Marius."

It wasn't that Marlow didn't count. It just wasn't his realm.

Anselma nodded, a small motion. She hesitated, then added, to that, "He likes Kai."

Cassian's expression betrayed nothing, which meant he was likely turned inward in survey. So Anselma gave him time to be so, whilst carding among her parchments. Unnecessary, but permissive.

"...I knew he was flirting with her in third-year," Cassian commented, narrowing his eyes faintly. "But that seems... excessive as a motive."

"I agree," Anselma said. There was a hesitation, and then she pulled her wand for a flick at the suspect parchment. With a weight of hesitation, she slid it across to him for inspection, and inspect it he did.

There was a long, pregnant pause when his eyes finally found Marius' position in the list and surveyed its damning confidence. Cassian's gaze drifted lower. There was a shallow tick at the corner of his mouth as he surveyed his own entry on her list. Not quite a smile, but close as Cassian usually came.

His next words were low, contemplative: "The earliest Widdershins articles were almost nonsense. Satire of the squid. Wandwood personality quizzes. A letter to Battle-of-Hogwarts veterans." His hands folded. "And not a cruel one."

"I have no idea why he's doing it," Anselma said, too flat for her own taste. "But if it is one of us, he's the only one who makes sense. Did you not hear him last Monday? He sounded like a Widdershins article with legs."

Cassian listened. Cassian was always good at listening, with that attentive stillness of inventory taken. And then he said: "We should assume the possibility. But we don't confront him yet. Not unless Widdershins shows unnecessary escalation."

Anselma frowned at that. "If we're trying to work on the First Umbrella, we should be coordinating with the author, not-"

"And if he doesn't want to be found, Anselma? If his motives aren't simple, then it remains that he has kept it from us for two years without failure. If he doesn't wish to be discovered, are you prepared for the possibility that he has accounted for that?" His eyes dropped back to the suspect list. He tapped a finger on the entry for Marius, invoking her own descriptions against her.

She could appreciate the premise, but she didn't like it.

"He's seventeen. He's hardly a chessmaster," Anselma asserted. "The most probable answer is the simplest one. He's a seventeen-year-old boy with a performative streak."

"It's plausible," Cassian allowed, tone calm, yet not dispassionate. "Which is why we proceed with care. If he hasn't revealed himself, it isn't out of bashfulness. If he hasn't revealed himself by choice, he doesn't want to. That is not the mark of a show-off. Least of all in Slytherin."

Anselma stared at Cassian, but there was no give in the boy's expression. There rarely was. He seemed metalforged by assuredness, it seemed to her, and thereby out of step with that he was seventeen too. So was she, but Anselma left that aside as she reached out to retrieve the suspect list.

"Alright," she said, more brusque than intended. "So he isn't a show-off. Then what is his game?"

"We don't know," Cassian said, tone brooking no argument, lawyerly in affect.

He continued, "It is entirely possible he's doing it..." There was a prolonged pause there, Cassian nearly closing his eyes. "...to impress Kai." He sounded almost long-suffering at the thought. "It is entirely possible he has other reasons. It is entirely possible it entertains him. It is entirely possible that he truly believes in what he is doing. It may even be all of the above."

"Then why wouldn't he say anything?" Anselma challenged.

Cassian didn't answer right away, eyes venturing to where his quill rested. His lips thinned. Anselma knew him well enough to see the calculus in it.

"He's Slytherin," Cassian said at last, as though that explained everything. And perhaps it did, to him. His head tilted down at an angle, a thinking gesture.

"...And?" Anselma asked, dubious and a little annoyed at Cassian falling back on the stereotype. "That's it?"

Cassian, uncharacteristically, almost looked annoyed in turn, mouth pinching. He raised an eyebrow in manner sardonic. "Breaking: Pureblood Slytherin has been discovered distributing anti-Ministry publication," he said in a dispassionate irony. "See page three."

Anselma hesitated - and then her voice fell low in response. "Not a week ago this hour, we casually discussed that we can't control the government, Cass." She rarely used the nickname, Kai's originated nickname, but it felt appropriate now. "We're a little past fear of headlines."

His head tilted. "Accepting risk is not the the same as courting it. If Marius is the author, his reasons aren't necessarily at odds with us."

"You don't sound sure of him," Anselma countered. And she watched. Because surely he knew it, as her own suspicion of Marius sharpened. Marius was chaos wrapped in charisma. Cassian knew it. So, what was he choosing? Tolerance? Complicity?

Cassian's expression hardened. Internally, a younger part of Anselma wanted to flinch, for she saw something in him in that moment that was every bit what the first-years saw, cold-eyed and heavy-browed and taut-jawed and tense. He closed his eyes. "I have accepted for over a year that it might be one of us. Possibly even you," he said, voice carefully even.

His next words were sharper. "Why do you think I would extend to him any less than I would to you?"

That gave Anselma pause, even as her mind smarted against the reminder that he'd suspected her. You don't think I'd write better than that? flickered in her thoughts. But aloud, she said, "I don't understand why him being Slytherin would preclude getting him to work with all of us."

Cassian's eyes reopened. Quietly, calmly, he asked: "What would you do, Anselma, if a teacher asked, in front of a disciplinary board, and the answer could cost you your future prospects?"

The moments after were quiet. Where initially Anselma's mind rebelled, increasingly the wall loomed. But Anselma's mind didn't prefer a no-win. In half a minute, her eyes were narrowing. In another half minute, she was tucking the suspect list away and pulling out one of her First Umbrella notes. Because she did have a possible answer to this. She slid it across to Cassian.

Cassian read. Cassian's eyebrows elevated in slow motion, into a sheer disbelieving silence. The corner of his mouth twitched, halfway between admiration and horror.

Cassian stared at the parchment for at least ten heartbeats before - in a tone that didn't seem sure whether she was brilliant or mental - he said, "Former DA members?"

A beat.

"Former DA members?" Cassian repeated, like she'd handed him a grenade disguised as a teacup. Privately, Anselma tallied the moment of having made Cassian repeat himself. His fingers twitched against the edge of the parchment, as though unsure whether to set it down or thrust it back across the table.

Anselma answered. "Formed under high Ministry scrutiny. Well aware of its shortcomings. In many cases, intimately aware of the Daily Prophet's shortcomings. Principled, in many cases. Professor Longbottom is down in the greenhouses. Several work in the Ministry. Granger, notably, especially." Her voice was quiet, calm, patient by her standards. It's not all complicit bureaucrats and stained records, Cassian.

"Anselma," Cassian Rosier said faintly, and he almost sounded his age in that moment, possibly even younger. A faint touch shrill, even. "This list includes Harry Potter."

"I haven't written to any of them," Anselma said, though her tone did betray that she'd considered it. "But you asked what I would do if questioned on Widdershins. You wanted ideas on the First Umbrella, last Monday. We need to think in allies, no, Cassian? That means someone who's actually graduated, at least, and someone who isn't bound to their position by Ministry benevolence. In layman's terms, summon a bigger fish."

Cassian was silent.

He straightened his sleeves. He looked down at his quill. For some reason, he straightened his sleeves again. "Not without consulting the others," he finally said. "If we reach out to any of these, even Professor Longbottom, there's no pulling that back."

"Alright," Anselma said, enthusiasm on the rise. She straightened in her seat. Finally. Cassian on side was the hard part, in her mind. Soon enough the rest would-

"But we let Marius keep his authorship for now. If it is him," Cassian interrupted her thoughts.

"Or we could just ask him to drop the act and work with us," Anselma countered.

Cassian's eyes narrowed in fresh displeasure. "He is working with us."

Anselma's own manner cooled, though more in a resigned frustration than irritation outright. Marius was the one keeping secrets. Shouldn't that be bothering Cassian? "Kai likes him," she said, only mostly sure of that, before she could fully think through her own words. "Doesn't it bother you that he might be performing?"

Once more, Cassian was quiet. His hands folded against another smoothing of his sleeves. His eyes angled toward the stacks in thought. And Anselma gave him the space to think. Eventually, Cassian said, "Then we inform her of his potential authorship."

Anselma relaxed back in her chair. It wasn't quite her preference, but it felt like the beginning of Cassian swaying to her line of thought. "Alright," she agreed. "We'll tell her. Later," she added, begrudgingly. At the edge of her thoughts, concern skirted. Would Kai feel betrayed? Relieved? Or maybe nothing at all? Anselma didn't know.

Cassian tipped a small nod. After one last, long stare at the First Umbrella DA-list suggestion, he slid that parchment back across the table to her. "We'll discuss this with the others too, later," he said, tone taut.

As Anselma folded it, she felt a flicker of satisfaction.

Chapter Text

September 11, 2006. Hogwarts. Music Room Side-Storage.

Marius

"Incendio," and the fourth draft of the evening went up in flames. One would think it would be more satisfying to set things on fire, but pryomania had skipped Marius Mulford's generation of the family. Marius watched the parchment blacken and curdle to cinders upon the dusty floor of the music side-room. Rather a metaphor for his everything, wasn't it? Oh yes, Widdershins continues, presumably. No pressure. None at all. Let's just solve world peace with by-lines on bathroom parchment.

The scent of the burnt ink and parchment was fetching, at least. Maybe when Cassian and the rest decided it was time to expand to Muggle outreach, he could make a perfume out of it. Salem eau de Cologne. He could bottle it up, label it so, and sell it to disillusioned Muggle conspiracy theorists. 'A hint of ink, trace of fire, and just a whisper of oh yeah by the way the Men in Black are real and it's us and we use the flashy thing like five-year-olds with festival toy wands.'

It wasn't like the Muggle world had any pre-existing fears of traumatic, violent, invisible insurgency. Oh, wait. What was the date again?

Not that most in the wizarding world knew the date. Or cared. But the Muggle world did. Marius still remembered second year, a week or so after the date, marked like a fingerprint in his mind. He'd been in the library - not looking for Kai, but if he happened upon her, then well then! And then he'd found her, in the history aisles, looking at some odd-material letter and an unmoving newspaper clipping. Kai, even with her background, had found out in a letter from her dad in Colorado.

And of course, Marius, fool he then, had strolled over, leaned on the shelf beside her, crossed his arms, and said something like, "Researching to write home? Blimey, no half measures."

She hadn't answered. Not right away, not like she usually did in their delightfully inane discussions dating all the way back to a first encounter prior. She'd glanced at him, not fully turned her head, and then offered him the clipping without a word. He'd taken it, glanced at it. Read it again. And he'd been thrown not by the tragedy, but how little of the context he understood of it. Missed the trees for the forest.

He'd handed it back to her, probably mumbled something stupid, and then walked away. He'd moved on with his day. But it had stuck in his head like a rattle in the closet, that crippling realization of just how much of the world didn't matter to his. Tut tut, Muggles, why are you crying? Shut up back there.

Marius flourished his wand, summoning up the next parchment to hover beside him as he began pacing anew beside the covered pianos.

Back to the archive with the memory waddling. Distractions, distractions, he had a shadow revolution to run. Merlin, did Cassian think he was French? Guillotines were probably out of style and there were more than a few historical wizards who'd managed to work around the whole head removal thing. Not that most wizards seemed to be using theirs anyway.

Marius flicked his wand toward the parchment again, brandishing the willow instrument like a quill. A small title column appeared on one corner of the page: Top Five Wizards Who Lost Their Heads (And Another Five Who Didn't Need To).

Too much? Marius was halfway to another incendio for good measure before he decided to let that one stay for now. He'd already incinerated four. Perhaps should check the tea leaves for those pyromaniac tendencies after all.

August had been a breather issue. September had room for some teeth.

A few more edge-columns were bandied forth with slow, cursive wand motions. Conducting. Because he was in a music room. Obviously. So ridiculous even a boggart would peek in, blink, and walk out. But wasn't that the point of Widdershins anyway? A rag so ridiculous that fear forgot to bring biscuits.

Marius stilled, canted his head. Not bad, actually. He spun up a new column:

Reader Quotes:

"A rag so ridiculous, mum forgets to bring biscuits." - Sun-Tzu, probably.
"More educational than Muggle Studies, and tastier too," - A Third-Year Cramming To Many Electives To Remember Lunch
"Overpaid, overfed, overwritten, and over here," - A Prefect. Just Pick One.
"This helped me get out of detention once. Thanks, Widdershins!" - Anonymous

With a satisfied nod, Marius glanced to the large, glaring empty space meant for the main attraction. He resumed his pacing. Thoughts danced through his mind. Was there anything recent he could pull on? He'd considered the scathing Hat song at the Sorting Feast, but not really found a particularly interesting way to spin it into an article. Blimey, but that was something. I think Avery choked on air.

Tarth was new, but she was also out. Marius did not, generally speaking, try to pull claws on specific names. Criticizing Claremont's Muggle Studies was one thing, fairly well-earned, but what had Tarth done to earn any critique or reference in the paper? Oh, look, a squib. If you hold very still, maybe she won't not hex you, so stop staring at her like she's a blast-ended skrewt, you bloody morons.

There was, naturally, the whole Three Umbrellas thing. One for civilization-level oncoming train wreck, one for wizarding world self-delusion, and one for a moment of silence at the absurdity of their cause. Yes, Anselma, let's bring umbrellas to stave off and contain political cosmic horror. Usually Marius didn't purposefully consider lifting precise ideas off the debates and round-tables in the alcove, but his anonymity felt like a joke at this point.

The others all assumed it was one of their circle. Well, Cassian did. Marius would bet galleons that Anselma had full psychological dossiers on them, and he did not want to think about that or ever see them, thank you kindly. Kai... Marius was kind of nervous that Kai was actually onto him. Not that he minded. Or not that he would mind, if she was. He hadn't decided yet whether being seen by Kai would feel like vindication (or retroactive forgiveness for plagarizing half her ideas) or like getting caught starkers out in the cold.

Though, he mused, if it was Kai, it might also be like getting mugged by someone with excellent taste.

Or, well, like all of his friends realizing he was all puppet-strings and no puppet.

Anyway.

Marius swiveled back to the hovering parchment, wand in a conductor's flux anew. He traced into the large space on the page: A Beginner's Guide to the Federation of Planets & the Romulan Empire (Which One We're More Like Will Surprise You!)

He stared at it for a beat, two.

"Incendio."

He watched the title curl, blacken, vanish. Was it a bad idea? Was it not? The ashes curled and drifted to the floor, landing in smug grey smiles. "Scourgify." And away they went. The art of disappearing indeed.

Next class was soon. Marius stowed his wand, ruffled his hands through his hair.

---

By eveningtime, Marius couldn't tell whether he was enthused to get to the library alcove or dreading it. Every evening since last Monday, Anselma had come with more ideas on routes and rhythms of staving off the budding proto-apocalypse, Kai had brought her own musings, Marlow had talked about just talking to the kids more - Oh, yes, the Slytherin common rooms invite sleepovers to discuss impending self-destructive tendencies. Well, they do, but... never mind.

And Cassian had done what Cassian did best: took everyone's mess and traced up their ideas into something half-sensible.

Marius was often last to arrive, today no different. The other four were gathered about the table, the end fifth chair left open to him. To one side, Anselma and Marlow. To the other, Cassian and Kai - of course. Oh, he'd not been jealous at any point, per se, but there was definitely an occasion in third-year where he'd wondered to himself how Cassian received so much of Kai's calm attention purely by virtue of existing and Marius- well, he wasn't bothered so much of it anymore, but he'd had an occasion.

He had, after all, been the one to tell Cassian of his screw-up around the ledger-dueling-club incident, despite not even being properly in the circle at the time, because he'd been present for the ledger exchange and had eyes.

She had been brilliant to watch at the dueling club, though. He'd never been one for bloodsport (not that there was any), but Marius didn't much think he'd mind if Kai was involved. Safely.

Marius slid into his seat, loose-limbed as a weathervane and just as open minded to the end of the table he'd partaken. He looked up to survey the delights of the round (square) table. Oddly enough, it didn't look like anyone was actually studying. Odd. Usually someone was at least amid the pretense of it, or playing the game of please for the love of Merlin let me finish this essay before you start an existential debate. Instead, Marlow was leaned back in his seat, looking like he'd been stuck on a Huh for at least five minutes (bless him), Cassian was staring at his folded hands as though they had personally offended him (normal), Anselma was staring at Kai as though she had personally offended her (unusual), and Kai was looking at the table and avoiding eye contact altogether (not uncommon, but worth note).

Not the time for a normal greeting. Maybe? Was it? Marius stretched after setting his books down and folded his arms. "Evening, Snake Charmer," he tossed out toward Kai for normalcy, even as in his peripheral he measured the temperature of the table.

Marlow glanced to him, but more notably, Anselma - Anselma glowered.

Whatever it is, I didn't do it. He was pretty sure, anyway. Wait- He glanced toward Kai again, did a mental rewind of the last few nights. He hadn't said anything wrong, had he? Careless? Bad? Maybe? Nothing sprung to mind.

Kai glanced up sidelong at him and it was a weird look. Kai wasn't always the most readable - though Marius liked to think he'd grown to read her fairly well - but this look was almost uncomfortable. And that still didn't seem quite the calibrated word. Meek? Agitated? Marius couldn't decide on a read, and the first heartbeat of quiet had become two. Not long enough for strange yet, but for simmer.

Then, off to Kai's left, Cassian unfolded his hands and straightened his sleeves. Cassian cleared his throat and turned his thick-browed gaze to Marius. Before Marius could quite decide what to do with the speculative edge in Cassian's eyes, the other boy said, plain and crisp, "Kai's told us she's been the one writing Widdershins."

"Oh," Marius said reflexively, like a man who'd just been handed someone else's homework assignment. He glanced to Kai with fresh appraisal, and she was not meeting his eyes. Oh, you absolute cypress-wanded softheart, he thought. The grin formed anyway. "Well then, is that right?"

"Mmhm," Kai hummed, still eyeing the table.

Feeling he was missing context, Marius flicked out a hand and invitingly gestured to the rest at the table. "Well then." Great, he was repeating himself now. "Is there a reason you look like you're waiting for detention over it? No prefects here, last I checked. Or has someone been promoted?"

Cassian folded his hands up against his nose and mouth. Well, that was a rare enough pose. Cassian usually reserved that one for first-years with uncomfortable questions, or for that one time a Hufflepuff fifth-year had sincerely offered him a Valentine's gift.

In other words, it was Cassian body-language for I cannot believe I am in this situation and I don't know how to escape it with mine or anyone else's dignity intact.

Which was fascinating. Oh, he knows she's lying. Marius' grin crept higher.

Marlow folded his arms loosely and, bless him, Marlow glanced to Marius and said, "Selma and Cass had it figured. Who's writing, that is." Expectably, Marlow sounded rather done with the whole matter. Marlow had rarely engaged the author-circling with any serious investment. "Think it came off a little like they were accusing her." He shrugged.

Except they weren't accusing her. They tapped the author. There was an uncomfortable prickle on the back of his neck at that, but Kai was still sitting there like a damned martyr, and Marius thought well enough that he could put the pieces together. So she jumped between.

Kai's eyes flicked to Marius again and she shifted in her chair, so busy not looking at him that she was practically radiating it.

Behind his own unease, there was a little dance of delight in the back of Marius' mind. Oh, she knows it's me.

Anselma was still eyeing him. If looks could kill. But aside from that, Marius was having a fine evening of trying to decide what to make of Kai's absurdly guileless play-acting.

Cassian lowered his hands to fold on the table once more. "Kai," he said, eyes closed, voice gently cutting through the air like a low piano key. "You are not a gifted liar."

"I-" Kai started, looked up, faltered. She may have been inexpressive at times, but she had no poker face.

"You really aren't," Marius hopped in, leaning forward to cross his arms on the table. Outing painfully bad lies, after all, was a job for the Slytherins at the table.

A good portion of him wanted to leap out of his skin and skedaddle, but that would mean missing out on the ridiculousness of all of this - to say nothing of leaving Kai to whatever Anselma's problem was. "So," he said, casual as a card trick. "How long have you known?" But only to Kai. His head was canted in such a way as to let Anselma's glare hit the side of his head and bounce off undetected.

"...Since fourth year," Kai muttered, to a double take from the peanut gallery.

Marius himself paused for half a heartbeat. Pardon? Since the start?

On the other side of her, Cassian made a quiet huh sound under his breath.

"What since fourth year?" Marlow asked, apparently not quite following that it wasn't Kai.

"Marius is the author," Anselma said, and oh she sounded a fine mix of exasperated and vindicated. Her next words were to Kai. "You knew!?"

Kai's posture shifted subtly, becoming more closed off, though keeping the sheepish edge. "The wandwoods quiz," she finally said. "Had some of the same wording from when I first met him."

Ah, yes. That first day of classes, first year. All the other students had been off scouring the Charms and Transfiguration sections to find ways to be less terrible. Marius, in his bored wanderings, had found the Muggleborn girl in a dusty back-aisle that no one sane ever bothered with, reading up on wand lore as though that was something one simply did at their first day of Hogwarts.

He'd seen the flinch when he first addressed her, sensed the expectation that he meant to make fun of her. Instead, it had become the first of many, many library-encounter discussions that he'd certainly not tried to replicate in any unreasonable measure.

She remembers that too, Marius pretended not to think, while simultaneously trying not to panic of what other innocuous phrasings he may have recycled at one point or another. If she knows that way, who else might?

"Well then." Hadn't he said that already? Marius leaned back in his seat. For lack of else he wanted to address in the immediate moment (or ever, if he could help it), he glanced to Anselma. "There you have it. Ten points to Hufflepuff." He inclined his head toward Kai.

Anselma focused on him. Oh, right. Her glower had lessened, but was still present. "Why didn't you say anything?"

A flicker of irritation found root in Marius. "You didn't seem to mind when it was your ideas getting out into the world," he said airily, twiddling his fingers off into the air.

"But you could have said something now. We're all working together on this - aren't we?"

"Oh, yes," Marius said, frustration stirring anew, even as he smiled and spread his hands in a manner of shrug. "We're doing everything we can. Let me just write to the Prophet about-"

"You don't have to tell everyone! You could tell us," Anselma hissed. "Merlin, you showed up to Kai trying to fake it for you and you couldn't even say it then."

Kai glanced up at that with a frown. "It isn't like that," she said quietly.

Kai. A flicker of guilt twisted around Marius' irritation.

Marlow leaned in then, elbow on the table. "Alright," he said, in his own gruff quiet. "Selma, mind if I...?"

The Ravenclaw's eyes flicked to Marlow, then away. She shook her head and shrugged.

That was enough for Marlow, who rubbed the bridge of his nose before dropping the hand to look at Marius, whose smile didn't quite feel well-worn at the moment. "Marius. You're writing it, yeah?" he asked.

Marius' smile tightened, and then he shrugged. "In parts and pieces."

A beat passed.

"In monthly issues," he added, to Marlow's tired stare.

Cassian - back in his hands-folded-to-mouth posture - gazed steadily and silently toward Marlow in a manner almost beginning to ease of edge.

Marlow gave a steady nod, then held up a finger to Marius before looking to Kai next. "Kai. Why'd you claim it was you?"

Why did you? Marius wondered himself.

The answering shrug was small, sheepish, a little tense. "...I thought I could talk to Marius after, sort it maybe," she said quietly. "Not..." Her hand gestured shallowly toward Cassian and Anselma. "...I dunno. I didn't want to make him say anything if he wasn't ready."

"And if he was never ready?" Anselma asked, annoyance still there.

Sheepish within, Marius found himself in odd consensus with Anselma on that one.

Kai shrugged again. "Figured he should have the choice."

Marius was struck by the oddest feeling of sitting starkers in his seat. His lips kept trying to tug at the corners, but didn't really quite seem to know where they wanted to end up. Naturally, that was how Marlow found him when Marlow turned back.

Marlow's jaw shifted a little. He glanced to Kai, then back to Marius anew. "You don't have to tell us-" On the far side of him, Anselma tipped her head to examine the brick of the wall. Marlow went on. "-but... why didn't you tell us? Or is it just the sort of thing that got started and then wasn't a big secret until it was?"

There were a lot of ways Marius could answer that. Most of them jokes. Several would get him hexed by Anselma. At least two might get him hexed by Kai. Probably a half dozen that would make Cassian litigate. The options were endless, really. He opened his mouth, closed it, poise shifting elegantly to realign his posture to something that felt more well-positioned and magnanimous. They were going to throw him out of the alcove, he was sure. They'd seen the spiderweb now, all webs and no spider, and Anselma was just the quickest of them to take its measure. Incendio, incendio, incendio, he thought, a little hysterically for his taste.

But then there was Kai, looking at him quietly, patiently, plain-mannered and unruffled. He met her eyes briefly and found himself being the one between them to break the contact sooner for once.

"I didn't want to make it about me," he eventually said. "Once it wasn't a joke, anyway."

That settled around the table. It wasn't that Marius found the quiet after his own words unnerving. No. It wasn't even that long of a quiet, regardless. One, maybe two elephants, yes? No problem. No problem.

Cassian and Anselma exchanged a glance across the table. The former raised his brows slightly. The latter shook her head.

"That makes sense," Marlow said evenly, shifting his posture to loom less upon the table.

And Kai? Kai just nodded. She leaned to the table and shifted to let her elbow lightly touch Marius' arm even as her gaze ventured to the woodgrain.

Once more into the abyss - Cassian straightened his sleeves, which was Cassian for drumroll, please. Marius' fellow Slytherin straightened. "Do you want to continue Widdershins, with us?" he asked, looking to Marius.

His own manner was a little twitchy for his liking as Marius gestured with an arm. "If you want to help tuck contraband behind bathroom seats, who'm I to say no?"

"Marius," Kai said quietly.

"...But alright then," Marius said, very much needing to go set more drafts on fire and maybe reconsider the stupid Star Trek article.

Cassian spoke with clinical plainness. "It is entirely possible that risk will come of this. Therefore, for the record - I am the author of Widdershins." And then he tipped his head toward Kai in their signature, infuriating telepathy.

Internally, Marius felt suddenly paralyzed. Oh.

Kai caught Cassian's look like a tossed book. "I'm the author of Widdershins," she echoed, lips tugging in a ghost of a smile.

Marlow snorted tiredly, but he threw in, "Yeah, alright, I've been writing Widdershins. Have to do something with the spare time this year."

Anselma massaged her temple. "If I were writing Widdershins, it wouldn't sound nearly so bloody ridiculous."

"No appreciation for the theater?" Marius tossed, half olive branch, half grin, feeling half-distanced from his own words too.

"Enough appreciation," she muttered, and shook her head. "Fine. Alright. I'm the author of Widdershins. You need an editor, regardless."

Cassian's mouth ticked at the corner.

Et tu?

Four pairs of eyes didn't quite converge on Marius, but they bounced and lingered in turn, the offering made. An open palm in the air. Well then. Knights of the Square Table it is, isn't it? Marius had the oddest sense that he was looking in from above the table more than sitting at it. Adrift.

Well, best get the sail loosened. That drifting feeling tightened toward something giddy, dazed, dizzy.

Marius did what Marius did best: he spread his hands in the air like he was summoning an audience.

"Welcome to Widdershins Weekly," he said with a grown grin. "We publish once a month."

Chapter Text

September 15, 2006. Hogwarts. Slytherin Common Room

Cassian

As a rule, Cassian Rosier did not often socially engage within the Slytherin common room. He had long mastered the art of being seen there without ever quite being part of it.

In the soft-lit subterrain, groups gravitated and coalesced in low murmurs. Those who wished to be left alone were generally permitted it. There was a quiet dignity to the den of the snakes, sharp-edged and practiced. Less sharp-edged now than in his first year, fewer echoes of bloodline politics spoken like gospel.

Cassian felt no great pull toward his dormitory bed when the dark-leather couches offered sufficient solitude and ease. He could read upon one end and let the talk of others recede into white noise. For all of the tensions of Slytherin, ambient atmosphere rarely soured unless someone specifically meant it to.

At an angle across the room, on a more remote bench than he usually chose, Marius was reading as well. Unusually quiet, for Marius. No flitting from group to group. No weaving and slithering within the common room to provoke chuckles. He did not seem distraught. But Monday had taught Cassian something: he didn't know Marius as well as he thought.

Cassian hoped Monday's ordeal was behind them. Paused between chapters of his text, Cassian turned over the peculiarity of that day in his mind with ill ease.

He had not expected Anselma to come armed with thoughts of pressing the Widdershins author. What had come of that unfolded poorly. No more need be said of it.

He had not expected Anselma to suggest making allies of war veterans and golden heroes for their cause, either. It wasn't until he looked upon the list she gave him that Cassian realized just how much a cause it was. Cerebrally, he had known. He himself had said the words, hadn't he? 'We have no immediate control over outcomes or government.' A clean and true sentence. He had known, conceptually, their goals and their grievances.

After all, everything of the Umbrellas was born of two core concepts: First, Muggles could record, remember, and redistribute at an exponential rate, with no noticeable signs of slowing. Second, wizards did not even have the vocabulary to discuss the issue.

And the wizarding world was not paying heed to the risk. It was ignorance. It was arrogance. It was distraction. Cassian, at his fairest, suspected that the few adults who did pay attention simply had no answers either. The problem was no longer secrecy alone. The problem was the very scale of the problem. There were days when Cassian feared that most wizards might simply choose to lock down harder, never emerging from the aegis of their wards again.

Some days, he wasn't so sure he would choose differently. If it came between Muggle backlash and his friends? Between Ministry backlash and his friends? But then, Anselma had answers to that, or so she believed.

Cassian's fingertips traced the edge of the page he was not reading.

Harry Potter.

No longer did Cassian experience the inappropriate urge to chuckle. He had when Anselma placed the name before him as though it were benediction rather than bloodguilt. Does she truly think a letter with 'Rosier' upon it would find favor? That the Golden Hero would read past that name?

No, he was not looking at the page anymore. Not really. He was eleven again, in a corridor too near to Gryffindor's tower, hearing a pair of red-clad fourth-years not bothering to whisper as they said they were 'keeping an eye on Rosier' - because 'Harry would have'.

He'd held no more than cautious neutrality toward the lions. Until that moment. Afterward, he had simply pretended Gryffindors didn't exist at all - Marlow aside, later - and let his eyes slide over Potter's name whenever he found it in the history books.

Except the once.

Except the once.

He had been reading through postwar released files, the kind unearthed quietly and late. In one, there had been reference to Potter, nearly expelled for underage magic. The suggestion implied, between the lines, that he may well have been if Albus Dumbledore had not intervened. If Albus Dumbledore had not advocated on his behalf.

Of course someone had stood for Potter. Someone had bent rules, spoken up, summoned witnesses. Someone had insisted Potter deserved the benefit of the doubt. And the system had listened.

Of course it had. Potter was Potter.

Potter hadn't been assigned a Ministry handler for 'observation'. Potter hadn't needed to explain that he wasn't like them.

At his fairest, Cassian suspected that Potter probably hadn't even asked for any of it. The world had just stepped in. The wizarding world loved its redemptions, but only with the right shape.

Cassian was no one's golden boy. Just a Rosier with good grades and no disciplinary record, which everyone assumed was suspicious anyway.

And now Anselma looked at Cassian every hour in the alcove as though to ask are you ready to bring up the DA list now? As though Cassian was supposed to pick up a quill and write to Harry bloody Potter. As if Cassian himself weren't a liability for being anywhere near the parchment.

What would they even write?

Good tidings, Mrs. Granger
If you haven't noticed, it is a mere matter of time before Muggles experience explosive awareness of wizardkind and wizardkind responds with panic. Given we have no immediate control over outcomes or government, would you mind condoning our underage attempts at a subversive cultural coup?
Signed,
Rosier & Friends

Cassian snapped the book in his lap shut more violently than intended.

The air moved to Cassian's left, followed by the thump of someone sitting on the couch, near enough to be invasive.

"The book offend your honor, Cassian? Not dry enough?"

Cassian looked up to find Marius beside him, halfway already to lounging in that nonchalant way that Cassian had long-since written off far sooner than he should have.

"Or too dry even for you," Marius mused languidly. "You stared at the same page for almost five minutes." He tilted his head. "You're brooding."

"I was thinking."

"Same thing."

How did I never suspect him as the author? As a fellow Slytherin, logic ought have dictated Marius as Cassian's first suspicion. Instead, Cassian had allowed himself to cordon Marius into the role of jester even as his dorm-mate wrote circles around the castle. And Kai had known. Cassian hadn't.

What else had Cassian missed? What more dangerous factors might he be blind to?

"I was done reading," Cassian said, a little dismissive.

Marius lifted one foot to rest on the other knee. "Rosier," he said, tone quiet, tone ribbing.

Internally, Cassian twitched. He knew what Marius was doing.

The timing played out, and Marius repeated, "Rosier."

"This really isn't necessary," Cassian said, closing his eyes against a thin prickle of humor, unwelcome but insistent.

"Rosier," came in amused, drawn-out syllables.

Cassian had the flicker of a mental image of thwapping Marius on the head with his book, like a bloody Gryffindor at roughhousing.

"Rosier." And then Marius waited.

The rhythm was known. The song was made. The cadences had swayed and bloomed and the structure of the thing laid forth, and all that remained was for Cassian to not dance out of step. Wearily, he played his part and said, "Well now you're just timing it."

An amused huff came from Marius. "Cassian," he said, and so the usual game had been turned back upon Cassian, as though Marius had ever been the one to withhold camaraderie. "Well then, is it-"

Before Marius could finish, a small figure moved into their peripheral. Cassian turned his head, eyes settling on Tristram Little. The Muggleborn Slytherin, these past few days sans that odd neon watch he'd arrived in. Ambient magic made for dysfunctional technology. Cassian privately hoped it had not been expensive, and thought poorly of whichever Ministry liaison had not seen fit to warn the Little family in advance.

Beside Cassian, Marius shifted his posture to one of openness toward the kid.

"Excuse me," the first-year said. The boy was short. Cassian didn't remember ever having been that small at eleven. Marius may have been.

Briefly, Cassian glanced past Little, a swept survey of the room to check if some older student had put him up to this. Such was a common rhythm. It did not seem to be the case now.

Cassian looked him in the eye and shifted into a more attentive posture.

"Sorry," Little added, glancing between them. "I just- I just got back and... the prefects were out. I wasn't sure who to talk to, but..."

"It depends on what the problem is," Cassian said, when the boy seemed unlikely to continue. I thought I saw Hagen only a little ago. The prefect boy in their year, often floating the perimeter, but not now. Cassian studied Little's expression. A faint discomfit, maybe? He didn't trust his read with certainty. "We're not prefects, but we can answer questions."

Marius stage-whisper-added, "They would have made him a prefect, but he already walked too much like one."

A little smile tugged levity to Little's expression before it dropped away. His eyes favored Marius between the two of them, which was familiar enough that Cassian was untouched by the implied shying. "I'm just not sure who to talk to," the boy began again. "I was in the corridor, and one of the prefects from Hufflepuff spoke to me..." He shifted his feet a little. "...and she said some things about... that I should be careful about older students in Slytherin."

Beside Cassian, Marius inclined his head in a way most would miss. From alcove conversations, Cassian knew to associate it with a preempt of sardonic rant. None such came. There was doubt in this reading too - was he reading in Marius what he wanted to see, or his reading thrown by Marius having more to him than Cassian had thought?

"That isn't something a prefect of one House should be telling a first-year of another," Cassian said, thereby drawing the boy's eyes back to him. There was an ill curdling in the back of his mind, a pondering of what exactly the Hufflepuff prefect had said. It wasn't that there were no grounds for a Muggleborn Slytherin to be a point of uncertainty. It was that there were far too many ways that warning could be delivered to instill anxiety instead of awareness. Cassian would be surprised if he himself hadn't been one of the Hufflepuff's targeted mentions - if there were specifics made.

There was that look in the boy's eyes now, the one Cassian had prior labeled as discomfort, and this time Cassian thought perhaps it was more guarded. "Is it true?" ventured Little.

The vaguery sent icy papercuts of doubt through Cassian's skin.

"What? That you should be careful?" Marius put in, which was just as well, for Cassian didn't trust his own read of what the boy truly wanted to know.

"...No," said Little, a small knit forming between his eyebrows. "I'd read the history books before school," he added, in a clarification that stung with the grim awareness of what he'd likely read. "But - the prefect. She said..."

Cassian sat back, adjusted his sleeves.

"She said they- you- Slytherin. That Slytherin..." His voice faded.

With heavy thoughts, Cassian picked up the thread and permitted himself to guess. "She said that Slytherin would weigh your background. Or something of that nature."

Little's gaze lingered on Cassian's as he nodded, something in it more challenging than shying - not hostile, but yes, his read earlier. Guarded. Cassian held the look without flinch.

"There will be those that do," Cassian said evenly. "Within Slytherin, there will be a few for whom no proof of belonging will ever be sufficient. Outside Slytherin, there will be those who weigh your being here more than your background. Some will read meanings in, assumptions about your person or what you mean for us. If either sort makes themselves known, then you will know the people whose respect is worth your barest concern."

Little stared at him, then finally looked down to his feet. One of his shoed feet shifted on heel.

"My mum's expecting me to write about school, what House I'm in," Little said, voice snagging on the word House. "She has the history books too. I don't know what to tell her."

In the corner of his eyes, Cassian saw Marius fight down making a face. He suspected if Little hadn't been eleven, Marius may have had one of his more scathing asides. Cassian couldn't blame Marius for the temptation, nor Little for his frustration.

What, honestly, would begin to reassure his mother?

"You're getting on with your dorm-mates, no?" Marius put forth, even as a hand came up for a half-made rustle of his own brown curls. "A place to start. Just maybe don't lead with 'Mum, they all sound like they've stepped out of a posh pub and don't believe in t-shirts.'"

Not the cordoned jester at all.

An undignified snort broke from Little, and the beginnings of a smile. "I don't know," the boy said. "She might find it funny if I wrote that. She found Diagon Alley a little odd." He paused there, looking apologetic - his eyes darted to Cassian.

Cassian resisted the urge to close his eyes. Dryly, he said, "Was it more the hats, or the raptors being sold to eleven-year-olds without falconry permits?"

Thank you, Kai. The latter had been one of the first joking recollections Kai had ever made to Cassian. The very first thing she had asked her family's Ministry liaison about after receiving her Hogwarts letter. Not about books. Not about magic. Not about Hogwarts. About that almost-innocuous line: owl OR cat OR toad. She'd apparently made a puzzled remark: owls required permits.

That had, apparently again, come after asking the liaison if he was a solicitor.

Little's posture shifted at Cassian's words. The boy looked almost unsettled to find out Cassian possessed humor, which Cassian considered just slightly unfair. "It was all of it," Little supposed. "Starting with it being behind a pub. The animals. Dad almost went down a side-alley and that got... weird. Mum said the ice cream shop was the only thing that felt ordinary. The bank wasn't - Dad found that odder."

"What, not enough dragons in Muggle banks?" Marius put in.

"The goblin wasn't joking about the sound?" Little asked, voice rising in rapt curiosity.

"As a rule," Cassian said, "Goblins do not joke. Least of all in Gringotts."

A new voice cut in. Silas Avery's shadow fell near Little, though he kept the Muggleborn boy at a remove. "They do their job," Avery said with a feigned lightness. He arched a polished brow to Marius and Cassian on the couch, then to Little a few steps away. "What's this, then? Early admissions for the Cross-House Welfare Society?"

As Cassian glanced toward Avery, Tristram Little went taut-tense, his eyes briefly locking on to Cassian's.

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Avery?" Marius said, not even looking up from a sudden and consuming need to examine the back of his own hand.

"Little, wasn't it?" Avery asked with a distinct catch on the surname, a sharpening of its consonants. "These aren't the best to follow suit of. Hardly ever here. And when they are, it's mostly to second-guess the Prophet or stage interventions for Hufflepuff's public image."

"Ah, and here I thought you liked interventions," Marius murmured in a tone of bemusement. "What with all the reputation-washing you've had to do."

Little was taking a half-step back, as though beginning to sense he'd found himself in the middle of seventh-year discords.

Cassian put in, "Did you need something, Avery?"

Their dorm-mate was still glancing irritably at Marius. When Cassian offered the out, he turned to offer a thin smile. "Ah, yes. I bear news. Or have you heard? Professor Linton is coming back to 'assist' Professor Tarth in teaching Ethics. Can you imagine her embarrassment? I think I'd retire on the spot, wouldn't you?"

Ministry intervention already?

Avery's smile widened. "I can't say I'm surprised, after what she let your friend talk about. Very Muggleborn thing, though, questioning the Statute. Wonder what would happen if she takes it too far. Do you think they might break her wand?"

Beside Cassian, Marius went still. Cassian didn't let his face give anything away, but something clenched behind his ribs. Break her wand? He didn't think they would.

Not yet. Not now. Not on so little premises.

Before either of them could say anything, Avery was already walking away, his venom spent. Little had vanished off amid the spite - no, he was off a ways, talking to the prefect Hagen now. Just as well.

"They wouldn't," Cassian murmured aside to Marius, because his friend remained still in a way that Cassian couldn't decipher with certainty anymore. He likes Kai, Anselma had said, and Cassian still didn't know quite where to place that, seeing as he'd filed it away as obsolete years ago. He hadn't planned on it being relevant into the now. Not the pressing issue at the moment.

But Marius didn't say anything. He just shook his head.

---

The next evening in the library alcove, Cassian arrived first. He often did. Across from him, soon enough Anselma in her frequent seat. Marlow beside Cassian today, which he didn't mind. When matters had an occasion to grow heated, Marlow proved a balm upon all parties. His de-escalation of the budding argument between Anselma and Marius on Monday had been, by Cassian's measure, handled with great gravitas and merit.

Marius and Kai arrived in quick sequence and took seats without comment. It was noted by Cassian and quietly folded away. If Avery's words hung within Marius as they periodically did in Cassian, Marius showed no sign of it.

Was he imagining Anselma's eyes coming up toward him, amid her own work? Cassian checked. No. She was reading, taking notes. Nothing untoward, no glances of pressure. Not yet. Cassian returned to his own business.

The table was unusually quiet, even for study, for the first hour or so together.

And then Anselma tilted her head down the table toward Marius. "I have some ideas for articles," she said.

So it begins anew. This had become a regular occurrence since Marius' authorship was outed. Oh- they all had made the occasional suggestion. It was Anselma to come with lists.

Marius, sitting beside her, lifted a receiving hand in loose splay of fingers. "Let's see it, then. We can only go up from A Brief List of Everything You're Not Taught Because It Makes the Ministry Look Bad."

"It was a working title," Anselma said as she passed him a parchment.

Quiet descended as Marius eyed Anselma's article proposals. Eventually he asked, "What is 'P-H-P'? Do I want to know?"

Cassian frowned, trying to measure for himself what it might be. Initials? He ran through plausible options in his head for P surnames, effortfully and purposefully skipping over 'Potter'. His quill rested at a pause between his fingers.

"Isn't that something to do with acidity?" Kai asked without looking up, still half-distracted in her Transfiguration work. "Muggle wording, though. Wait, no, that's pH."

"It's code," Marlow said, frowning.

"Code?" Marius asked, tone rising a note in bemusement. "Like 'SOS'? Or... hacking?"

That pulled Cassian's thoughts away from initials, more toward the escapism books Kai sent each summer. It could be that, he thought. Some sort of computer-system, like in that cyberpunk book.

Anselma seemed to be fighting down an odd expression. Her lips twitched, and her hand came up to curl against her lips. Cassian had the sneaking suspicion that most of them were off on guessing.

"No," Marlow corrected Marius with a shrug. "It's a language. For computers. What's the context?"

Marius lifted his eyebrows down at the parchment. "If Muggles can understand PHP, they can understand Potions."

"Oh." Marlow scratched the back of his neck. "I... don't think enough people would get that one."

Frustrated by his own lacking comprehension, Cassian asked, "What do you mean, language for computers?" Don't computers just use the local area's language? Why the initials?

"Wrong kind of language," Kai said for him, glancing over to offer some relief.

Anselma glanced to Marlow, then leaned in here. "Computer languages are special to the task. Like runes or rituals. They are used to instruct computer systems." She shook her head. "I suppose it might be hyperspecific for use in a wizarding publication - even for Muggleborn readers - but it functions as a cultural window in itself."

"How is that?" Cassian probed, still unsure.

"Because Muggles joke about not getting PHP," Marlow said with a quiet snort.

Marius was leaned back in his chair now, ruffling his hands through his hair. "I'm not sure we should be front-paging Muggles Can Learn Potions, much as I'd love to see Linton's face. Just a little heretical. But if we can figure out another name, and you write the basics of the idea out, alright."

Though Anselma nodded and was turning back to her own space with a concentrated frown, the name of Linton skittered across the space of the table like a sharpened nail on the wood.

Several seconds passed.

Kai said quietly, "He's going to undermine Tarth."

Loose murmurs of agreement coalesced around the table, at the tail of which Cassian found Anselma looking up across the table at him in that questioning way. Maybe he was imagining it, but to his perception, her eyes said the DA list now? Cassian found his eyes sliding toward Kai. 'Do you think they'd break her wand?' Avery's taunt echoed in the back of his mind.

"I have a thought about that," Anselma answered Kai.

Marius and Marlow, none the wiser, each glanced sidelong from their resumed homework. Kai too turned, head at a shallow angle of glance.

So Anselma continued: "Our concerns are real. So... we need to start talking to people who might care. And who have actual authority."

Cassian set his quill aside and began to straighten his sleeves. He didn't need to look to know the others were beginning to make their own connections of her meaning - or at least her implication. The process of righting his sleeves was sufficient for Cassian.

"What, are you planning to write to Shacklebolt?" Marius asked, lips curving into a crooked grin.

"Approaching veterans of Dumbledore's Army, actually." Anselma was all enthusiasm and no pause. Beside her, Marius rapidly blinked in a manner of Pardon? and even Kai's brow began to twitch in re-calibration. Next to Cassian, Marlow started to raise a hand, then dropped it. Anselma went on, unbothered. "Granger. Longbottom. Maybe Lovegood. Possibly even-"

"No," Cassian said, voice soft and just this side of mutinous. "Not Potter."

Anselma looked up at Cassian with a frown, not following the thread of his protest. "Well, maybe not right away, sure, but-"

"Blimey," Marius said, amid his own bemusement. "Why Potter? Isn't he just an Auror these days?"

"Yes, but-"

"Married, a few kids," Kai said quietly. Cassian felt the weight of her gaze toward him. "Doesn't he usually decline non-business mail, anyway? It was in the Prophet a few years ago."

Thank you. Cassian stared at his folded hands, hoping upon the rest of his friends' sense to win out against Anselma's cudgel.

"Not right away," Anselma repeated, after nodding to Kai in the edge of Cassian's vision. "I preferred the idea of Granger, Longbottom, Lovegood. Granger's in the Ministry. Reformist through and through. Longbottom is here at Hogwarts, accessible. Lovegood - look, like it or not, the Quibbler might actually back us up. We need allies. Who better than people who have already seen the Ministry's issues at their worst?"

She leaned forward, voice lowering. "As for Potter? I know how it sounds, but... if he chooses to pay attention, the Ministry has to, even if only to save face. He's Potter. Instant credibility. And he's known Ministry and Prophet scrutiny thoroughly. And he led the DA. He taught kids to defend themselves. He-"

"I don't think our issues are quite at the level of needing to train child soldiers," Marius commented aside, earning an annoyed glance from Anselma.

"-if nothing else," Anselma pressed on, "He might help get the others to take us seriously. Even if he doesn't want the spotlight." She sat up straighter. "If we want to approach the First Umbrella, people is how. Talking to people. Talking to adults that people will listen to."

"All well until they pat us on the head and tell us to go back to our NEWTS," Marlow said.

"Or tell us to stop," Kai put in, quietly.

Anselma turned to her with a frown. "Why? Granger at least, she's Muggleborn, she-"

"Has children," Cassian finished for her, straightening his sleeves. He hadn't thought through this angle of protest before, but now... "That must be weighed in anything we would ask them to consider. They may have been visionaries in their time, but people with young and vulnerable children incapable of Apparating or even controlling their magic yet... are unlikely to be in any great hurry to imagine grave danger on the horizon."

"Or it could make them act faster," Kai allowed to Anselma, eyes briefly meeting with Cassian's. Her lips tugged in what he took for reassurance that he didn't feel.

Latching onto that, Anselma said, "Then it's a matter of reaching out the right way. We have time to think about that. We don't have to lead with the worst possible phrasings. Or the most... complicated figures." It was a tone of allowance, begrudging enough for Cassian to be unsure of it.

"Well then," Marius said. "I suppose I'll have to save my best Potter-fanmail signature for another day."

That earned him an almost wry look from Kai. "I'd half believe you've practiced one."

"Well, if he ever wants a signed copy of Widdershins, I wouldn't say no."

The topic of Potter receding to jest for now. Cassian could live with that.

Marlow folded his arms as he put in, "I dunno, do you think he reads Widdershins?" He sounded like he was joking, but...

"I'd bet a sickle at least one of the former DA does," Cassian said, offering the words like an amused sigh. There was a slight tug at the corner of his mouth. I doubt it. And yet. He folded his hands, thoughts drifting - Avery in the common room, to Tarth, to Kai. "Granger, Longbottom, Lovegood," he tasted the names, then looked up across the table to Anselma. "You aren't wrong. There is merit in considering them." And how he hated that merit.

Her eyes caught his with what Cassian thought might be relief. "Then we consider them," she said.

It was a concession of delay, in Anselma's manner.

Cassian hoped so, anyway.

Chapter Text

September 18, 2006. Hogwarts. Magical Ethics Classroom.

Kai

Kai Bosco was not thrilled to see Professor Linton's return, for what it implied and for what it meant in practice. The 'assistance' for Tarth was so nakedly bureaucratic nonsense that Kai suspected it'd offended Cass's sense of decorum on principle. As for the professor himself... Kai tried to not let her attention wander.

Linton's voice - rambling and roughworn to the point of rickety - made Binns sound flush with vitality in compare. The old wizard stood at the head of the Ethics Classroom like a swaying curtain caught in a draft. He was hunched and wrinkled as a sloughed snakeskin, veins pronounced under the glassiness of him. It wasn't simply that he was old. No. Age was no trouble. It was that he wasn't there in any way that felt meaningful.

The room was split into two rows of benches, absent desks. On one side, Ravenclaw's sixth and seventh years, including Anselma near a far window. On the other, Hufflepuff's. Kai, being the latter, shared a bench with a few of her dorm-mates - Nadine and Imogen, though both sat closer to each other than to her. Kai leaned slightly forward, tracing one thumb with the other in her lap. A small rhythm of grounding.

Linton droned:

"-and so, we understand thereby that the Statute of Secrecy is not a matter of ethical uncertainty... no, no. It is an understanding reached. A boundary, not born of fear, but of wisdom. That Muggles and wizards live in different spheres of the world... The hard-earned truth... that peaceful coexistence requires... careful separation..."

Yes, Kai thought, that's part of the problem. Her mind was starting to drift. Distantly, she wondered if his purpose here was to bore them into apathy. She doubted it was anything so strategic. The man remained dull, either way. Last year, he'd once spent twenty minutes on discussing goblins and wand-rights before remembering that the day's topic had been love potions. He hadn't been much better at discussing those. No one had been able to look their classmates in the eye when leaving, that day.

She wondered if he read Widdershins. He'd made a few absentminded criticisms last year that made her think perhaps he did.

Linton wheezed, low and dry. Behind him, Professor Tarth - now again yellow-clad in soft-looking robes, poised carefully - wore a polite smile amid his speech. The speech felt as though it had been going on for hours already. Time had begun to crawl somewhere around the third invocation of 'wisdom'.

"...Muggle-repelling charms, concealment policies... they're not troubles... no... but answers... Answers to a singular question: how do we protect Muggles from magical dangers against which they have no defense?" Linton cleared his throat, having found a moment's lucidity. "It is mercy, not arrogance, that keeps us apart. Muggles should not live in fear of powers they cannot understand."

All for safety, no? Not theirs, Kai thought, but floundered for a better rebuke in the moment. Marius probably would have had something clever on that, Kai considered. Her eyes followed the scattered chalk impressions on the blackboard. Probably several comments from Marius, if Slytherin were here. 'Hogwarts: A Guide to Babysitting Poor Muggles. How's that one, Snake Charmer?' She could almost hear the grin around the nickname. Kai's lips twitched. He'd seemed loosened up since the authorship came out. He was still Marius. But a curtain had opened.

Linton persisted. "It's quite simple, really... mm... The Statute has preserved the integrity of magical society for over three centuries. The traditions of wandcraft, of healing, of stability... and indeed, the care of the magical creatures we share the world with..."

He trailed off on that one. Linton had always loved to bring up the recent house-elf and other reforms, as though they were a robe he wasn't quite sure how to wear.

"It is easy... when you're young... to misunderstand. To fail to appreciate the dangers of exposure to Muggle society. To mistake curiosity for courage.... Let me be plain. We are not Muggles with wands... no... we are something far... Different. Apart... It was Grindelwald's war that made this clear.... His vision... reckless... romantic... doomed. It taught us what happens... when magical power presumes a place in Muggle affairs. And so we thereby understand that the Statute is wisdom..."

Grindelwald. Who went on to ruin the wizarding world's ability to even talk about the Statute.

To Kai's mounting dread, Linton circled back then, having lost his place in his speech. Kai glanced past him again, but Professor Tarth's angular features gave away nothing beyond thin smile. Still folded into polite composure, she offered no protest. There was no softness, no signal, nothing that Kai could read with certainty.

Kai glanced sideways at Nadine, then to the chalkboard beyond Linton's sway, then to her own hands where they fidgeted with the fabric of her robes.

There was something in the way Tarth stood that bothered her. It was as though she was a balloon tethered to the corner, instead of animate as she'd been last week. Tarth had exceeded Kai's worries at the Sorting Feast, in a few pleasant weeks of good classes. She'd been lively in last week's debate, sharp and inviting, asking questions half as though she meant to learn something too. Now, in Linton's shadow... she stood like she was part of the wall. Had she bent to bureaucracy, or was this survival anew?

It bothered Kai. As did Linton's bumbling mutterings. She waited a few more seconds, to see if anyone else would say anything into the cast shadow of Grindelwald on the topic. None did.

Kai lifted her hand.

At the benches around her, a few students glanced sidelong - especially Nadine of Hufflepuff, closest to Kai - and some shifted subtly away. As if proximity might invite her to cause extra homework or worse. Such had happened before, Kai allowed. If Linton saw Kai's hand, he gave no sign. To look at him, it seemed more likely that he simply didn't notice. His voice had grown airy, his eyes half-lidded and inattentive to the room at large. He kept ambling through his repeated speech.

He really should be retired, Kai thought, brow furrowing a little as she studied how he struggled to even hold himself up. He'd already looked old and wearing down last year. This was... well, a part of her felt sorry for him. Another part wondered if he'd volunteered to be here or not.

"Professor," Kai finally said, hand still raised.

He rambled a few lines further before peering up at her, ill-focused eyes studying hers. Somehow, when he saw who was speaking, he looked more tired still. "No questions yet," he mumbled, stepping back behind the lectern to find his notes and presumably his long-lost place in his speech. Tarth shifted her weight slightly, beside the board.

Kai pursed her lips.

Before she could say anything, Professor Tarth cleared her throat. "Professor Linton," she said with a mild smile, "we do typically make space for discussion in these sessions."

Oh. Perhaps not so curtailed after all. Kai's mind quietly moved toward the theory of survivalist posture.

Professor Linton blinked blearily in Tarth's direction. "Oh...is that so?" he muttered, in the way of someone who might have heard it before, but hadn't filed it anywhere important.

"It helps with grounding in the material," confirmed Tarth, tone gentle and measured.

Linton blinked slowly at that, then turned and made a gesture to Kai, a sort of go on, then.

Kai sat up, but her gaze drifted past him as she spoke. "I simply- Professor, I understand the reasoning of the Statute. But what if it is no longer sustainable? Not only ethically. In practice?"

The elderly professor's quiet extended for so long that Kai began to wonder if he had heard her at all. He finally said, "Unsustainable? Why wouldn't it be sustainable?"

Kai let her hand lower to rest in her lap. Her fingers loosely knit and shifted together, for she sought to untangle her own ideas to present them right. It began by feeling like her own ramble. "A hundred and fifty years ago, Muggles had basic telegrams and telephones. A hundred years, radio. Then television. Fifty, satellites... and tech enough to send men into space and bring them home."

She shifted in her seat, thoughts circling with a growing momentum. Keep going, keep going. "Thirty years ago: early internet, early mobiles. Ten: texting, the Web. Five: phones that could use the Web."

"These days? Sites where they can talk to everyone they know or half the ones they don't. Anywhere in the world, instantly. Same with video, with pictures. Whole libraries. It's like they've... built hives. Of machines. Computers, that is. They're like instant owls, or shared pensieves, kind of floo calls... All of it, in one. In their homes. In their pockets. And that's just this year. What they might have in five more? Ten? Twenty?"

In the corner of her vision, Kai saw a Ravenclaw boy - Rhys Thayer, a frequent voice in debates - frowning, lips moving as he parsed her words. He turned his head to his own hands with a look of intense concentration. Just beyond him, Anselma was watching the professors, from the look of her. Gauging the room, perhaps.

Kai's words trailed, her gaze unfocused as she wandered further into her own thoughts. "Do you really think Muggles won't... outpace us in remembering? Sharing? That they'll never figure it out in enough numbers to make stopping it ridiculous?"

She'd said it first two years ago, just to her friends. Kai ended quietly on, "You can't obliviate the world."

The ensuing quiet felt brittle. Anselma met Kai's turned glance, gave a nod. The rest... Kai couldn't quite tell if anyone had taken it in yet. Most of her peers were glancing at one another or looking off elsewhere. None seemed eager to break the silence.

Up by the lectern, Professor Linton stood with his lips slightly parted. Professor Tarth's arms were folded now, her calm smile held with more effort than prior.

"Is- Can they really do that?" came a question from beside Kai. Nadine.

Nadine Ashworth glanced around the room, then settled back on Kai. A nervous chuckle rose in her. "The- pocket floo-call thing. Doesn't that need a lot of eleka-tricity or something? Wires and all?"

"Not really," Kai said, brow furrowing. Don't you see now? "They have to charge them with the wires, but... then they carry them around. Lots of Muggles have them. Most Muggles now, I think. Not everyone, but... more all the time." She glanced to Nadine for brief eye contact, seeking even a flicker of understanding.

A gruff throat-clearing came from Linton now. "Yes, well, that's - ahem - we're all aware of Muggle phones, Miss Bosco," said the old professor, with a vague wave of hand. "We're quite aware of Muggle gadgets. Motorcars... televisions... microwaves... these things come and go." He gave a sniff, nodded with a growing confidence. "Every decade there's some new obsession. And Muggle-repelling charms... illusions - quite standard, really. More than enough to manage such things."

Imogen Pell, who rarely volunteered in class, shifted her weight to lean onto one hand as she spoke. "What if she is right, though, Professor? I mean, it isn't impossible, is it? Some Muggle catches their kid's accidental magic on video and puts it up on Youtube or something."

Kai glanced to Imogen sidelong. She hadn't expected support from that corner.

"Youtube?" muttered a Ravenclaw in the far corner, to a peer's verbal shrug.

Another sounded a touch more certain. "It's one of the Muggle sites Bosco mentioned. Moving pictures, yeah. Like telly, but anyone can put things on it. Music, animals doing stupid things, home videos like Pell said."

"We've got moving pictures," someone else said, bemused.

The more certain Ravenclaw replied, "Yeah. Muggles can show theirs to the whole world at once, though." They sounded almost thoughtful.

Up at the front of the room, Professor Tarth's lips curled. Kai couldn't be sure, but it looked suspiciously like Tarth was biting back a real smile.

Linton, by contrast, just looked lost.

Elsewhere on the Ravenclaw side, Thayer finally spoke up. "Isn't it just about improving the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes? Scaling up preemptive strategy, maybe. This- 'Web', it has to have locations - vectors?" He said 'Web' like it was a creature or dark artifact, Kai observed in resigned amusement. Thayer went on, "The Obliviators know how to manage what reaches Muggle news. This is just more of the same, isn't it?"

"Sure," Anselma put in, twisting back to look at her Housemate. "It's a matter of training a million Obliviators in caching, hard drives, screenshots, and Muggle nerd intensity."

"We could..." muttered a Hufflepuff boy near the front, his voice uneasy, "...just make it not work or something. Maybe?"

Kai stilled, fingers curling tight in her lap. "Besides being against the Statute," she said, a little heat entering her voice, "I think if we suppress Muggle tech advances, forever, we've already stopped being good people."

The Hufflepuff boy frowned, then turned back away.

Across the room, Anselma was staring at the Hufflepuff who'd spoken with a stricken widening of eyes.

Fresh quiet descended, uncomfortable and thick in the classroom. Linton hadn't stopped shuffling his speech notes for some time now. Kai wasn't sure he was even following the conversation anymore.

Thayer spoke, turning to Kai pointedly now. "Well, then what's your alternative?" His tone tightened into sharper probing as he asked, "Expose us? You think Grindelwald had the right idea, then?"

Someone's breath caught, somewhere behind Kai.

"Of course not," Kai retorted quicker than usual, hands curling stiffly, gaze skirting to the floor. She started to tap her heel against the ground, forced herself to stop. The rhythm felt too close to panic. Chills passed over her skin as she traced how Thayer's own thoughts may have gone that route, because that was not a way she and her friends could afford to be taken. Grindelwald. End the Statute. Rule over Muggles. No.

Never that.

"Sounds like it to me," he said, with a quick shrug. But he sounded almost sheepish, to Kai's uncertain ear.

"Grindelwald!" Professor Linton croaked, suddenly animate again, as though the ghost had dragged him up from the molasses of memory. "It was Grindelwald's war that proved the need of the Statute! Proved the danger... the sheer folly of interference-"

A few students audibly shifted in their seats. A few mutterings passed about.

Kai's voice broke in, tone heated as she addressed Thayer. She'd never interrupted a teacher before. "If the only futures you can imagine are... hiding forever or playing god, then the problem is with your imagination."

The words felt a little too sharp, the moment they left her.

Linton sniffed and wave a wrinkled hand. "That will be quite enough interruptions from you, Miss Bosco. Five points from Hufflepuff... and I think a detention is in order..."

What?

Kai stilled, staring at him blankly. She'd never had a detention. Not once. For that? She'd barely raised her voice. Kai felt the heat settle behind her eyes, prickling closer to embarrassment than regret. It could have been that no one was looking at her, but it felt like everyone was. I'm not sorry. Her scalp crawled with cold discomfort anyway. Where her hand had come to rest against the bench by her side, her fingers twitched and tapped.

Kai glanced side to side. No one was looking at her. Beside Kai, Nadine's hand fidgeted on the edge of the bench. Even Anselma simply glowered at Linton. The rest looked uncomfortable.

Tarth's own eyes moved to Linton, her expression unreadable. For a moment, it looked as thought she might speak, but then she simply met Kai's searching eyes and gave a slight nod. Acknowledgement? Grin and bear it? Agreement with Linton? Kai didn't know, thoughts still fraying like a torn cobweb.

"Sir..." It was Thayer again, voice crisp but a shade quieter. "I... was under the impression she and I were debating."

Thanks, I think, Kai thought, but her eyes were on a triangle of dust near the foot of the next bench forward. There was a faint burn in her face still, heat of not-quite-shame.

The old professor blinked up at Thayer, then shook his head dismissively and looked down at his papers again, as though the further interruption had never happened. He was done with Kai, and with Thayer too.

Should have waited, Kai thought, uncertain. Or asked? More a question... less bite. She knew that pushing back in the wrong way could just make some prickle, just as she knew that some would prickle no matter how they were pushed back. Cass would probably say we can't afford to alienate the Thayers of the world, she thought grimly. Even if the Ravenclaw hadn't been making it easy.

Kai glanced across the room to Thayer, but he was already attentive to Linton's newly itinerant speech. Appeared to be, at least.

The lesson went on as though nothing had ever happened.

---

"You got a detention," Marlow repeated, nodding along to the tilt of the world. It wasn't that he was slow, no - he tutored after all, well by Kai's awareness. He liked a moment to think things over, though, at least when they weren't things that could be dealt with head-on. He turned from Kai with a shake of head, facing out toward the lake. "Bloody hell."

Kai sat on a rugged stone near the shoreline, one knee drawn up crooked. Both Anselma and Marlow were near at hand. The Slytherin boys were in a class of their own, this hour. No doubt they'd have their own thoughts on the detention, later. Kai could almost hear Marius already. 'Well then, it's hardly a real detention. Not much of a rapscallion, are you?'

Further out upon the water, ripples still stirred from where they'd tossed toast for the squid. The last cut of it lingered in Marlow's hand, browned and crumbling. Some had been thrown by wand's aid, but Marlow never minded the manual method.

He squared up for the last fling. "Sounds like Linton," he ended up saying.

Kai huffed quietly in agreement.

Up away from the water's edge, Anselma turned a stone over in her hands under a pensive gaze. "It's a minor infraction, really," she said. "Your record is innocuous."

It felt better to hear it from Anselma, clinical and certain. Even as it still smarted.

Marlow lurched dramatically, and the toast slice went spinning out in an arc toward the depths. One shake of his hands and he glanced back to Kai. "Thayer, though..." He made a face. "Comparing you to Grindelwald? Really?"

"It's what they're going to say, isn't it?" Kai said quietly, glancing over to Anselma and then up to Marlow. "When the Prophet makes a new volley. Or when we do bigger things."

"It's probable," Anselma answered, tone frustrated, words drawn up with a rare reluctance. "His is the biggest name tied to discourse around secrecy and exposure. One poorly phrased thought and..." She flung the stone she was holding off to the side. "Well, it's like something Cassian said the other day. The Prophet's likely to be more invested in what it looks like than what we're saying."

In unhurried steps, Marlow came to sit cross-legged on the ground between the girls, nodding as he did. They'd been here a hundred times. "Sounds like Cassian. So, what then? Is that where the DA thing comes in?"

Kai wasn't sure what to make of Anselma's DA-contact idea. All too well could she picture them being brushed off or the older generation just not getting it. They fought Voldemort, after all. What's the internet against a mass-murdering dark lord? Most of the DA weren't even Muggle-adjacent, barely had a foot in that world for context. Granger, maybe. But she'd done as most Muggleborns did - stepped mostly into the wizarding world and stayed there.

Not that Kai could think ill of that too much. She wasn't sure she would choose differently, if only because her ties to the Muggle world were so weak in compare to her wizarding ones. Except for her mother who needed her.

Kai pushed that line of thought away, uncomfortable in her own mind's prickle against it.

"-I understand the idea," Anselma was saying when Kai's eyes flicked up. "I've drafted a few possible letters now, I'm not sure who we ought to contact first. "

"Why not Longbottom?" Marlow asked simply.

Why not? Kai thought, glancing to Anselma. She pondered, wondered if maybe Anselma found the idea of someone she could write to safer than someone she could talk to. Or perhaps that's just what Kai herself would have let herself think. It could sometimes be easier to engage at a remove.

"Makes it feel realer, doesn't it?" Kai ventured into space of Anselma's frown. Both of the others glanced to her, and so Kai shrugged. "Like diving into the deep end. Once we talk to someone... really talk to someone... that's not Widdershins and classroom questions anymore. It's..." Her fingers fussed with the hem of her cloak. "...feels like childhood's end, I suppose."

Marlow leaned his head and let out a low, long exhale. "Huh," he murmured. "That's... a way to put it."

Anselma was still quiet, uncharacteristically so. Slowly, she nodded. "Yeah. We still have to do it," she said. "I just..."

They waited for her. The infrequence of Anselma's hesitations made the times they did occur feel like a storm brewing.

"I don't want to do it the wrong way. Marius likes putting stupid jokes in Widdershins," Anselma muttered, "But he... might be right. Half of what I write sounds off. Possibly. I don't think he's wrong about... tone." Anselma's tone in the moment was sluggish, begrudging.

Kai frowned down at her own hands. That was the way of words, wasn't it? They could become traps laid for no matter the foresight.

The sparring between Marius and Anselma over edits had waxed and waned over the past week. Not too many cooks in the kitchen - but one wanting sour and the other wanting spice. Kai had tried to think of something to suggest for the paper. Every time she was halfway to proposing something, she realized one of them had already listed it off already.

Maybe that was part of why it'd been so obvious she was lying when she claimed she was the author. She hadn't sounded like someone who'd written Widdershins. She'd just sounded unsure.

Into the quiet, Marlow said, "Alright." He sounded like he'd decided something. And he had: "Then I'll talk to him."

In hindsight, Kai wondered why she hadn't weighed the option. Marlow was the one who spent the most time around teachers out of class. That aside, Longbottom was his Head of House. It made sense.

"You will?" Anselma said, straightening, eyes narrowing in thought. "Alright," she said, in echo. "Do you want my notes?" And there was Anselma again, her voice sharpening on the whetstone of thought ready to go kilometers in minutes. "I can condense the First Umbrella notes - and maybe the Second and Third, if you think it might be pertinent - as well as the underlying-"

Kai was struck by a brief, unhelpful mental image of a cartoon character laying track half a heartbeat ahead of a moving train.

But Marlow was the one to take the beat, raising a hand. "I'll just talk to him," he said, calm and steady. "Merlin knows I've heard it all enough times. I can take this one, Selma, or at least try to see how he might be thinking about it."

"Makes one of us who speaks human," Kai muttered quietly. It earned a snort from Anselma and an amused, crooked smile from Marlow.

"Cassian could handle it," Marlow suggested, though he sounded halfway to retracting it as he said it.

"If you want it to sound like he's before the Wizengamot," Anselma said. "Marius, maybe?"

"He's..." Kai trailed, eyes shifting out toward the lake. "... he probably could," she allowed. Better than me. It wasn't that Marius couldn't speak human, she figured. It was more a matter of him getting out of his own way to do it. Though, thinking on it now, Kai thought the idea of him trying to explain the matter to Professor Longbottom had its merits. She could almost picture the animation of his features, the brows too-raised in playful expression. It's better when he smiles because he means it.

"Maybe if you went with him, yeah?" Marlow said, for some reason. For some reason, Anselma shook her head in the corner of Kai's sight.

Kai frowned over at them, but they were just looking at one another - Marlow with an impish sort of I didn't do anything half-shrug and Anselma still shaking her head. So Kai ran back over the exchange in her head, momentarily wondering if she'd missed something before she did the math and then proceeded to stare into the empty space between the two in a quiet failure to process.

"So, you'll talk to Professor Longbottom?" Anselma checked, abandoning Kai to her stare into the middle distance.

Marlow nodded. "Yeah. Give me a day or two. I don't want to find him at a bad time."

"He rarely has a bad time."

"Still."

Finally, Kai's thoughts caught up to Marlow's earlier insinuation. Her gaze dipped toward the pebbled earth beneath them. Her eyes closed, leaving her with only the sound of the wind on water and the spiral of her friends' chatter away from the precipice of things to come.

Chapter Text

September 23, 2006. Hogsmeade Village. Three Broomsticks.

Marlow

If Marlow Kade's read was any good, Cassian would rather be anywhere but the Three Broomsticks. In his friend's defense, the group didn't go to Hogsmeade often. In third year, it had been novel. Then, fourth year had happened and they'd been quite done with places where others gathered in droves. It was a sporadic thing, nowadays, but they'd wanted a break in routine this morning.

So, flagons in the only full-wizarding town in Britain.

Marlow himself sat at ease. Selma was pretending to relax, though the parchments in front of her didn't look especially relaxing. They bristled with marginwork and underlines, such that Marlow wasn't sure the original writing could be called legible. Beside Selma, Kai sat with both hands around her flagon of Butterbeer, staring into it as though trying to read the future in the froth. They were all a bit quiet today. Different rust on the same gears whilst glasses clinked around them. All knew of the Ethics lesson by now. All were worn by the fact of Linton's existence.

And there was Cassian, utterly still, hands folded. He had no drink. Nothing at all but sleeves askew and a tired stare fixed on the middle of the table.

The target of his attention? A loose scrap of parchment lay spread out, with animated broomstick squiggles spiraling around the edges with maddening playfulness. One of the brooms occasionally veered too close to the edge and vanished with frantic flailing, before reappearing by peeking out from behind the title lettering. Marlow had helped Marius with the charmwork this time, for longevity. It looped and they looped, and a part of Marlow wondered if it wasn't some hazy metaphor of some kind.

The September issue, finished yesterday. Marius had shown up to the alcove with a rough draft of it and they'd pulled it into one piece together. He wasn't here yet, but Marius' - and Selma's - fingerprints were all over the mood.

WIDDERSHINS WEEKLY
In Monthly Installments | September 2006

Welcome to the Wizarding World: Here's Your Wand, Your Owl, and Your Amnesia Spray
-WW (no, not that one)

As your friendly neighborhood Widdershins writer, it is my honor, privilege, and ongoing moral quandary to welcome Hogwarts' newest batch of first-years to our venerable institution - where the staircases are capricious, the ghosts don't knock, and the rules are both sacred and spontaneous.

If you require help in navigating Hogwarts, see the map on page 2. Then immediately dispose of it, as it will be inaccurate by the time you're halfway to Charms.

Struggling with passwords? At least you're not in Ravenclaw. If you are in Ravenclaw... good luck.

Confused about House points? Here's the secret: It's not about the rules. It's never been about the rules. Learn the professor. Learn the prefect. Behave - or don't - accordingly.

A few tips for a long (and ideally uneventful) Hogwarts career:

- Keep your wands holstered unless someone truly, deeply deserves hexing. Use your judgment. Ideally, possess some.
- Keep your owl fed. Otherwise, it will sample the fingers of your Housemates while you debate how to phrase "I love History of Magic" in a letter home without committing perjury.
- And should you, by year's end, feel the urge to Obliviate all your primary-school friends who still know you wet yourself… don't. Memory Charms are not your job. That's what adults are for.

Welcome to Hogwarts. You'll probably be fine.

In other parts of the paper, a handful of other articles:

- Top Five Wizards Who Lost Their Heads (And Five More Who Weren't Using Theirs Anyway)
- A Simple Guide To Muggle Computers (Using Potions Metaphors)
- Top Three Ethics Topics That Make You Look Deep While Avoiding Detention
- The Ancient and Noble Tradition of Hiring Your Uncle (Does Anyone Have One I Could Borrow?)
- Yes, That One Girls' Bathroom is Haunted, No, You Aren't Brave For Peeing On The Floor In It (Yes, Someone Actually Did That)
- Top Ten Ministry Positions You Could Fudge Your Way Into by Age 30

Marlow glanced up from it to check Cassian's expression again. Still unreadable in that distinctly Cassian way - which usually meant some internal calculus was in full swing. Marlow wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or involved divining legal fallout. Get a drink, Cass, he thought, but he bit his tongue.

"It's probably fine," Kai said over her Butterbeer. An idle finger traced patterns in the condensation on the side. "June was harsher, really."

Glancing up from her notes, Selma put in, "If anything, we could have afforded a more serious article. This is still more playful than preferable. Especially the humor lists." It hadn't been the first time she'd said such about the issue. It probably wouldn't be the last.

Marlow had a feeling Selma and Marius were going to be properly butting heads sooner or later.

"Can't be all teeth, Selma," Marlow said, leaning onto the table, fingers curling around his own drink. "That's the whole thing, isn't it? Smile with the bite?" He glanced to Kai, then Cassian.

Finally, Cassian parted his hands. He reached out with a precarious arch of fingers to tilt the parchment to better face him. One finger brushed against a line of the text. "It reads with a very Slytherin tint," he said mildly.

"What, because it mentions perjury?" asked Kai. Her fingers fidgeted at the rim of her flagon, tapping along the edges of it.

Cassian's lips tugged at the corner. "Perhaps. Or the House points tip."

"It's true, though."

"Still very Slytherin-sounding."

"Perhaps it's a time for Slytherin thinking, then," Kai supposed.

For a moment, Cassian seemed ready to disengage. There was a steely narrowing of his study of the article. Then, he closed his eyes and said, "Ah, but then we might be bereft of Hufflepuff pastries."

Kai's tone was mock-innocent. "Slytherin could just buy the pastries."

"Well, yes, but Hufflepuff controls the sugar supplies." Cassian twitched up an eyebrow, as though realizing mid-sentence that he was having fun.

Anselma didn't look up from her notes this time, but Marlow snorted. They used to do this more often, Cassian and Kai - tossing back and forth House stereotypes like two siblings trying on funny hats. They were so deadpan in it that the first few times Marlow had seen it, he thought they were actually sniping at one another. Now he knew it was just a game between them, perhaps one of their oldest. It was steadying to see them at it again, when everything else was on the spin.

While they continued in that, Marlow twisted to glance back toward the door. A trio of younger students jostled through it. Arlene in their midst, looking more chipper than she had those weeks ago in the classroom.

He'd been hoping to give Marius and Cassian both a heads-up that he was approaching Professor Longbottom later today. Marlow turned back to his drink. Apparently, he'd be waiting a little longer. Marius had said he was coming. He hadn't said how roundabout the route would be. Which was just like Marius.

"We'll leave the party arrangements to Slytherin, at least," Kai was saying.

Selma murmured without looking up, "Gryffindor can handle the entertainment."

Not to leave a house unspoken for, Marlow put in, "Ravenclaw's got the thing where every meal course gets explained."

Cassian inclined his head, as though this was utterly sensible. "Hufflepuff can knit the tea-cozies."

Marlow gave a slow shake of head. It was better than Cassian brooding over the paper.

Then Marius swept into the seat beside Marlow as though he'd materialized from nowhere at all. The green-threaded cloak he wore clung askew from the wind outside. He sat, glanced to the Widdershins issue in the middle of the table, and then up to the lot of them. "Well then," Marius said, a grin on the rise, "That's one down for the year."

"It could have been more pointed," Anselma said without missing a beat, and without looking up from her notes. Marius didn't even glance at her.

Cassian reached out to fold the whimsical parchment closed and moved it toward the slight cover of Anselma's notes. Moments later, a gaggle of students swept past the table from the door. Cassian waited, then said, "It's a good September issue."

Naturally, Marius looked toward Kai, who evidently wasn't getting out of giving feedback. She gave in readily with, "It's solid. The Memory Charms bit… I think that'll scandalize a few, though." Kai's ensuing smile toward her Butterbeer was subdued.

Marius lifted his brows over a cheerfully crooked grin, though it faltered a tad when she didn't look his way.

She'd barely met Marius' eyes since Marlow made that comment by the lake. Somehow, I made it worse, Marlow thought. He gave a small shake of his head and took a drink.

"Not nearly enough," Anselma tacked to the end of Kai's words, but Marius had already leaned back in satisfaction.

Marlow bobbed his head once, confirming in his own way. Then he noticed Kai's eyes rising past Marius.

There was a flicker of Ravenclaw-blue. A folded copy of Widdershins landed on the edge of the table, not quite slapped down, but something cousin to it. It was still held at one end. Rhys Thayer. Ravenclaw, prefect. Seventh year, pureblood. Until Kai's experience in Ethics class a few days past, Marlow would have marked him as alright, but the whole Grindelwald comparison was a souring thing, and this didn't seem to be shaping up to be much better.

"What exactly is the point of this?" Thayer asked, voice tight, his focus pinned on Kai. He flapped the copy of Widdershins again, like he was wielding it as evidence. "Debating magical law through anonymous mockery? Isn't proper discourse."

Debating seemed a strong word for the Obliviation-ribbing in the piece.

Kai hit a stall of the sort she was prone to. Her hand held tight around the flagon, her face pinched in indecision.

"No, of course not," Marius said faux-lightly, "Proper discourse is comparing your classmates to mass-murdering madmen."

The Widdershins copy shifted again. "So it is one of you?" countered Thayer, jaw tight, refusing to engage Marius' jab. "Or all of you. Everyone knows. Why the pretense?"

"The newsletter is anonymous," Cassian said coolly.

Thayer let out a short breath. "Right. And it just happens to ceaselessly parrot everything half of you bring up in Ethics every week?" Marlow found it reaching as Thayer added, "The signoff is even his initials. Flipped." He gestured to Marius.

Unseen by Thayer, but seen by Marlow, there was a faint tick at the corner of Marius' mouth and implicated widening of his eyes. Oh, bloody hell. Really?

"Or it is a reference to any of the many, many magical and Muggle publications with those initials," Marius said, tilting a glance up to Thayer. "There a reason you're having such a vexing morning?"

"For what it's worth," Kai said quietly, "Sorry for snapping at you in class."

There was a glance up from Selma, who'd mostly been ignoring Thayer thus far. She didn't speak now, but her lips pinched.

Thayer paused, the edge waning in his posture. He looked at Kai eye-to-eye now and held up his copy of the issue. "Taken," he said, accepting the apology with a small nod. Then he waved the paper. "Look, I don't care which of you writes this. You're not thinking it through. Maybe you don't want to go the way of Grindelwald - but what makes you think someone else won't read things like the June one and lean in? You're catastrophizing. Mocking. You're not actually suggesting any solutions."

Marlow shook his head a little. He started to sit forward, thinking to break the tension, maybe talk the finer points of satire's role in this kind of thing. In some way or another. But then there was movement off to his left - Selma.

Selma straightened, starting to reel up. Marlow saw Cassian's eyes flick toward her, and he figured they both measured the moment anonymity might falter. But then Selma only said, "Alright. Then what would your solution be?"

"Let the Ministry do its job," Thayer said, with hesitation. "That's the whole point, isn't it? We have departments for this. They're trained for it. They know what lines not to cross. You lot-" He gestured about at them with the paper. "-you write like everything's falling apart, and Bosco talks like it. You don't think they've thought about this before?"

Your funeral, Marlow thought, for he knew intimately where this was going to go.

"I do think they've thought about it," Selma said. "Second Wizarding War incidents. Quidditch World Cup breaches. Magical creature sightings. Mail owl taggings. Incident reports from the Obliviators' office have doubled every year since '96. So yes, they've thought about it. They've filed it. And then they did the same thing they always do: treat it as manageable in between buried articles about their office being under strain."

Thayer stared at her, jaw working.

"The solution is this, right here," Kai said, fingers and gaze tracing the tabletop near her flagon. "Maybe exposure happens sooner. Maybe it happens later. But if we can't even talk about it..." She shrugged."... then some hour, maybe next week, maybe thirty years from now, a billion Muggles see a dragon caught on video and we all get caught with our pants down."

The boy didn't speak immediately. His brow furrowed, heavy with frustration. "Still not a solution."

Not wrong. But we're still at the getting-on-the-broom bit.

Across the table from Marlow, Cassian began to straighten his sleeves. Poor Thayer didn't know the tell, but around the table, a few of the group subtly adjusted postures. Cassian folded his hands anew. "The paper is anonymous," he repeated of earlier. "Any resemblance to our own comments is purely coincidental. However, for the sake of argument. First, an honest accounting of the Statute's longevity is in order: it will not last forever. To assume otherwise, to not prepare otherwise is dangerous. Second, we must reject the worst options: increasing Muggle surveillance or infiltrating them to improve Obliviation efforts. These are at best unstable. At worst, ethically indefensible."

"And so it comes to the real solutions, which exist in the middle of these. Namely, preparing ourselves for the possibility of a future where the lines between the magical and Muggle worlds are far more transparent. That may mean educational reform. Ministry reorientation. New departments, even. But it begins with admitting there is an issue."

A fork clinked to the floor a few tables away.

Thayer stared at Cassian. The copy of Widdershins slipped from his hand onto the table. "You make it sound clean," he said, voice taut. "Like there wouldn't be panic. Or worse." The next motion he made was a halting step back, away from their table. "Barely a solution," he muttered, before turning to walk away.

Marlow watched him stride off toward the back of the pub, into a throng of other seventh-years laughing around a few tables they'd dragged together.

"You didn't need to apologize to him," Selma commented to Kai, who simply shrugged.

"Is the sign-off really your initials upside-down?" Cassian asked Marius, with the weary cadence of preemptive long-suffering.

Marius grinned, far too cheeky for the answer to be anything but yes. "It is called Widdershins," he pointed out, spreading his hands like that explained everything.

Amused murmurs circled the table. Cassian, in particular, brought his folded hands up to rest against his mouth and nose for endurance.

"It's kind of hiding in plain sight," Kai muttered, lips quirked in amusement.

Marius, still leaned back, pantomimed a theatric bow to her. "It's what Widdershins does best, Snake Charmer."

And with the nickname, Kai was back to examining her drink intently.

Better now than never, Marlow supposed. He glanced to Selma, then leaned forward with an elbow on the table. "Alright, so-" he said, and heads inclined to him. "-I'm going to see Professor Longbottom today. Try to get a read on... that."

And they were off - soothing Cassian's nerves, downloading Selma's notes into Marlow's brain, and turning plans into action.

---

It'd been a while since Marlow spent much time in the Greenhouses. Taking care of plants wasn't awful, but he didn't favor the idea like some. Better than Kai, at least. Kai wasn't the sort to squeal bloody hell if stinksap or the like got on her, but she would be in an incurable mood for hours after. Marlow didn't mind that part half as much. Just wasn't his class.

In the early evening hour, Marlow stepped into Greenhouse Three. He kept mindful of his footing in making his way toward the shed at the back. Shed, sure, but everyone who had glimpsed the inside knew the Herbology office was nearly as dignified as any other professor's domain. Magic of things on the inside versus things on the outside. There was probably a metaphor of some kind in there. Marlow shook his head.

He gave a knock on the shed door. Nearby, a flowering plant opened its petals as though it were peering toward Marlow. Marlow eyed it for markers of being the dangerous kind. Finding none, he gave it an acknowledging nod before glancing back to the door as it opened.

No professor directly at the door. Longbottom must have opened it from further in. Marlow stepped past the threshold, only to pause when a writhing potted plant nearby stretched a tendril toward him. It had a look of Devil's Snare, and so Marlow shifted to give it a wider berth.

"Oh - just a Flitterbloom, Kade. With you in a moment." Longbottom's voice rose from just behind a shelf that he'd disappeared around as Marlow looked up.

Marlow entered properly and the door gently closed behind him. The Herbology office was a lived-in one. There were the shelves Longbottom stood among, with a mix of thick tomes side-by-side with bins of trowels and potting soil samples. The walls pulsed with life, flowering and vined and blooming with bulbous fruits. In the far corner, Longbottom's desk was cleaner, but only by comparison. Furled essays piled between two pots. A cordoned off corner held a supply of ink and quills - and a dozy-looking green toad whose sidelong gaze went right through Marlow.

Marlow gave the toad a nod. The toad blinked once, unimpressed.

And then Professor Longbottom stepped out from between the shelves, dusting his hands on a well-worn cloth. He'd only replaced Sprout a few years ago, so Marlow hadn't learned from him for long. It seemed an odd thing, Marlow figured, going from a brief stint as an Auror to shoveling soil at the back of a greenhouse. But maybe he'd had enough of fighting in the old days, or maybe Longbottom was more a little like Marlow - satisfied watching kids get better at things.

"Didn't expect to see you today, Kade," Longbottom said, smiling lightly. He tucked the cloth into his belt.

There wasn't quite panic in Marlow, not today, but he still wasn't quite sure where felt right to start in the moment. He shifted a foot. "I was hoping to ask you something. I've got a few- well, that is to say, I've been thinking about how to- that is, talk to you about something. Not as Head of House, exactly. Or not just that."

The answer came calmly. "Would you like to sit down?" The professor studied Marlow before turning to walk toward the desk. He paused at the back corner of it, fingers resting on the edge before he removed his hand and sat. Longbottom looked relaxed, whether he really was or not. "Either way, take your time."

Marlow took a few steps, then rounded the opposite chair to settle in with a thud. Yeah, sitting took some of the edge off. He rested his hands on his knees. "I've got people," he finally said. "And I think we might be out of our depth. I don't think we're wrong. But we're... well. It's bigger than us."

There was more he didn't say. That half the time he wasn't sure if he was a part of us so much as someone who kept showing up anyway. But maybe, he thought, doing things like this was something. Be the owl. He suppressed an urge to chuckle.

Longbottom nodded thoughtfully, as though Marlow had said anything useful at all.

So Marlow ventured further: "I don't know how to say it right, but it's..."

When his silence settled into something solid, Longbottom nodded for some reason. He took a breath in, nodded again as he sat up straighter. Then he was reaching for that corner of the desk he'd tapped, sliding open a drawer behind the desk.

Upon the grime-smudged desktop, a scrap of parchment gently landed between them. The edges danced with slapstick brooms and stick-figures. At the top of the page, bold calligraphy read 'On the Ethics of Disappearing'.

"I don't want to presume," Longbottom said, "But does this help?"

Marlow's mind went into a momentary loop as he eyed the June issue of Widdershins. His brow twitched into a frown. He's read it? He had it in his desk? What was more, it looked like it had been written on. A few phrases in the main article had been underlined. Two of the scrawlings around the edges looked like different hands.

Marlow's quiet felt like it was going incriminatingly long, and so he started with, "Something like that, yeah."

Longbottom simply sat back and waited. He didn't seem to be fishing for any kind of confession. He wasn't even looking at Marlow at the moment - his eyes went past Marlow, his look thoughtful. Maybe he was just giving Marlow room.

So Marlow said, "We're trying to talk about things that no one seems to want to. About secrecy. About Muggles. About... what happens if we don't talk about it." In the back of his mind, Marlow heard the echo of Selma saying damage control, as if the oncoming collateral damage of a Muggle-magical clash were something one could begin to think on clearly.

"And you came to me," Longbottom said. His tone wasn't dismissive. If Marlow wasn't wrong, it sounded almost like a quiet reckoning in an adult's skin, like Longbottom was observing that course of things from the outside. Longbottom scratched his jaw, then nodded. "Well, if you want to try to talk about it, I'm listening. These others-" There was a touch of humor to others, suggestion that Longbottom knew damn well who he meant. "-can come too, if they want to."

This was not how Marlow had seen this going. Not that he'd quite imagined how it might go. If anything, it felt like Longbottom was ahead of him. Ahead of them, even.

Suddenly Cassian's ideas about scrutiny seemed both apt and incomplete.

"I'd have to talk to them," Marlow said, eyes falling to the June Widdershins again.

"Of course."

"We-" Marlow started again. "It's hard to explain." He bit his tongue in frustration, tried to sort the right words. "I came to you because- well, the thinking was you know what it's like. To not..."

"...Be taken seriously," Longbottom finished when Marlow didn't, his tone almost rueful. The professor glanced to the toad at the edge of the desk, then back to Marlow. "If you'd told me when I attended Hogwarts which side of the desk I'd be on for this, I don't think I would have believed it."

For lack of better to do, Marlow bobbed his head in a nod. He wasn't sure he was the one leading this conversation at all, felt on the backfoot.

On the other side of the desk, Longbottom reached for the open drawer again. He shifted and shuffled some parchments in it before finally drawing out a lightly crinkled unmarked envelope. This landed atop the June issue, and then Longbottom pressed it a little further toward Marlow. "I don't want to presume," Longbottom said again, "But I was asked to hold onto this for the author of the paper. If you happen to know who it is."

Marlow stared at the envelope. For the author? In real time, his mind shifted gears from wondering if the DA-contact plan was sensible to wondering if he and his friends were the ones behind on the thought.

"Might have some idea," Marlow said, a little floored and hollow-feeling. He squinted up at Longbottom across the desk. "You..." He trailed off, the question losing shape even as he tried to reach for it.".

Longbottom folded his hands in his lap. "I wasn't expecting you to come to me first," he admitted. "But I do know what it looks like when students don't know if they can trust adults with something. Some of you more openly than others."

The chuckle that came from Marlow was a disoriented one. He lifted a hand to scratch the back of his neck as he glanced down at the envelope. They'd spent all that time discussing who to go to first, and now Marlow was trying to decide where the emphasis fell in Longbottom's admission. Didn't expect Marlow to go to him? Didn't expect one of them to go to Longbottom? Or was it the first bit? Marlow didn't know what he'd expected at all. A warning? A rebuke? Longbottom had handed off a letter like he trusted them not to burn something with it.

"It won't always be talk," Longbottom continued. "If you're serious, it'll get messier. But it starts with talking. Though. Do remember to prepare for your NEWTs."

"Yeah," Marlow said, reaching out for the envelope. He turned it over. Still no markings. "Wouldn't want to flunk our way into things."

A snort. "That's the spirit."

Marlow stood, tucking the letter into his robes. "I'll get that to them," he said, lips curling back as he wondered if that counted as a confession or he'd already crossed that road several minutes ago. "I think I'll be coming back."

The professor nodded in understanding.

"Thanks, Professor. And- guess we'll be seeing you."

"Don't thank me yet," Longbottom replied, watching Marlow with a look just that side of tired. "Just... be sure you know where you're stepping."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

September 30, 2006. Hogwarts Grounds. Lakeside.

Marius

Marius Mulford had few complaints, at least ones worthy of spectacle. No one, it turned out, particularly bothered about the whole author matter after the Knights of the Square Table. None of his friends, anyway. Except when Anselma had opinions on phrasing. Or tone. Or design schema.

But other than that.

Thayer and Shackleford hadn't tried dragging Marius or the rest before the Headmistress like misbehaving kittens. Then again, as a cat Animagus, the Headmistress probably knew a thing or two about dragging around misbehaving kittens. Not that the Contraries were at all feline-adjacent. Save perhaps Cassian's sulking. And Anselma's plotting. Or Kai's.... anyway. Or Marius' habit of bothering the quiet ones on principle.

Marlow definitely wasn't a cat, at least in any way Marius could think of.

What was he meant to be fretting about again? Nothing? Right. Remarkable. Whatever Kai had been brooding about last week seemed to have lifted. She was no longer avoiding him like a Weeping Angel (which she'd since explained to him - and he was glad did not exist). There'd been a whole few days where she'd not laughed at any of his jokes. Not even a little huff of air. Which usually meant she was either furious or deeply distracted. But all was fine now.

And Marius had a letter! A letter from a fan, one might say. From Lee Jordan. Gryffindor, yes, one can't win in all things. But still a trickster demigod of a pantheon Marius could appreciate, even if the slapstick legends lacked a certain gravitas.

Life was good.

Then, as was often the case when life was good, someone said, hey, maybe we should make a student club, and life grew dark and full of terrors.

Kai sat cross-legged beside Marius, her voice quiet. "What kind of club would it even be?" They were all in a loose circle in the grasses, with the lake off yonder. Toast had been thrown. Toast for the tentacle god. More important, Kai sat beside him afterward, today.

Precisely! Marius thought to the question. Somehow, he didn't think the Headmistress would approve a club called the Statute of Secrecy Breach Waiting Room. Society for Intermagical Relations and Practical Awareness? No, too long. Breach Bunker Society? Too doom. Society for Questioning Utter Idiotic Delusions? For the acronym, maybe. He'd workshop it later, on the off chance they acquired permission. For now, he leaned back on a hand and looked to Anselma, who'd raised the idea in the first place.

Anselma frowned, her own momentum seeming to catch on the question (unusual). Then, "I know we're of two minds on Widdershins itself. Even the appearance of inviting more hands to touch it yet is... messy," she said, then visibly grimaced, as though she offended herself by falling upon so pedestrian a word choice. "But maybe a debate club? Muggles have those. There's precedent."

"If you want it to be all Ravenclaws, simply say so," Marius said blithely, grin quirking. "And don't forget how bogged we'll be in Are Firebolts retro yet and such affairs."

"It's a plausible option," Kai said, nodding to Anselma - who was naturally giving Marius a long-suffering look, as was her preference and prerogative.

Between Anselma and Cassian, Marlow lifted his hands. "We could go more direct and have it be about Muggle things. But I'm not sure that wouldn't end up looking like Muggle Studies all over."

"How do you mean?" Cassian asked.

"Half the castle doesn't take Muggle Studies serious in the first place. And... well... I don't know that talking about Muggle things among wizards wouldn't just circle back to..."

Marius offered as example, in his best impression of a Muggle museum tour-guide, "And here we have a Muggle telly program. Charming, isn't it?" He could almost see the eyes going blank. If people even showed up.

"Fosse runs a Muggle book club," Kai pointed out.

"Yes," Marius allowed. "Wizards do books, Snake Charmer. Books are palatable. Less scary than electricity and lava-lamps." He grimaced, then waved a hand as he added, "Not that we could do things with telly regardless. Short of rerouting ley lines with jumper cables."

A death knell for technology. That snag kept tossing about his mind like a rubber ball. They couldn't bring in sample Muggle technology to try to show off the fun side of things. If they could - well then! Marius' ideas would have been endless. And probably would have inevitably led to their imagined online accounts being banned or blocked. No, not for that reason. Though I don't discount the probability.

But no. No technology in Hogwarts. So, no animal videos. No Neopets or dodgy browser games. No World of Warcraft - which would scandalize wizards only slightly, right? Only slightly.

The trickier part was the flipside. No, he couldn't bring the Muggle world in. But he also couldn't work out a way to get the wizarding one out. A tentative thought, of course, considering it technically amounted to Statute-breaching contemplation, but someone had to be thinking about the idea. It was on the agenda, no? Breach the Statute, Reform the Ministry, Launch cursed wizard-Muggle Neopets, all in a day's work for the Society Advancing Very Elegant Utopian Sedition.

"Yeah," Kai said, of Hogwarts tech-allergies. Her eyes lowered to the gravel, as though beginning to sift through it to turn mud to gold. Marius tipped over a mental hourglass.

Cue her saying something brilliant in ten minutes or so. Give me fifty Kais, it'd be solved before breakfast.

Cassian folded his hands in his lap, head turning back to study the castle. "I doubt Headmistress McGonagall would let us organize anything that involves students leaving Hogwarts." His expression grew intense (Brooding. It's called brooding, Cassian, when you glower at stone like it stole your biscuits.) His brows pulled together in a weighty glower at the distant Hogwarts towers. "That would be the ideal tenet of such a club. And the least likely for us to acquire permission for."

The weight of the improbability. Even Anselma didn't have much to say to that.

"Doing nothing is out," Marlow said, fingers tapping on his knee. "We could always ask. Worst she can do is say no." He frowned down at his hand. "All of this is up against that we're graduating, too. If we want to leave anything behind, now's the chance."

"We could always follow Jordan's advice," Marius said, the words out of his mouth before his brain caught up with his mouth. The others were looking at him, so he grinned, eyes flicking to Kai. "Kai here's gotten only one detention this year, barely. What's risking a few more along the way? They're not going to break our wands for talking about things, no matter what Avery's sniffing."

There was a beat. "Avery said what?" Marlow asked, just ahead of the same question forming on Anselma's lips.

Cassian looked like he'd swallowed something sour (normal). Kai didn't look much better, though what with her history around Avery, that was hardly surprising. He'd been the one to teach her the least popular word in the wizarding world since '98. The one Kai and Marlow had hexed him for lobbing at a first-year, back in their own fourth year.

Time for a showing, then. Marius gave an exaggerated shrug to assure his audience that all was well. "Avery has it in his head that we'll have our wands snapped if we so much as breathe near the Statute. He looked like a self-important kneazle when saying it, but then, I repeat myself."

Marius had tossed the idea about after. It was absurd. Probably.

"It isn't impossible, depending on how matters escalate," Cassian said.

"A little dramatic, don't you think?"

"No." Cassian leaned his head, looking steadily back at Marius. "It wouldn't happen for the reason Avery thinks. Not for speaking. Not reasonably."

All of them were looking to Cassian now, the man of the hour. Kai in her quiet way, half-hunched in a way that would have usually had Marius teasing her up out of it. Posture of a willow sometimes, Snake Charmer. Whomping Willow, when you go dueling. Marlow's steady attendance and Anselma's sidelong sharpness were given to Cassian. So Marius glanced out toward the lake lazily and just listened as Cassian explained the four-hundred-and-thirty-sixth way that all of their grand schemes were going to horribly backfire.

It was Marius' favorite series.

"We aren't just talking about an imminent threat," Cassian said steadily. "We're talking about one most wizards refuse to face. Even when they do, they won't understand it. What they will understand is that five students seem oddly comfortable discussing a breach of the Statute. And there's no avoiding it - if we take on Muggle preparation for the First Umbrella, we'll be skirting the edge of the law."

"The question isn't whether they'll break our wands for speaking of the collision. It's how far we're willing to go to prepare for it." Cassian spread his hands. "It is entirely plausible we contemplate future paths that may cross the line from scrutiny to criminality."

This is the kind of conversation Pensieves are for, Marius thought. Incendio. His hand came up to card through his hair. But yes, job for the Slytherins to remind the Contrary Knights of the Square table that their plans suspiciously resembled cultural insurrection. Or something adjacent. It depended on which umbrella one spoke of. He didn't need to imagine how the traditionalists would react. He had an entire childhood of overheard Ministry dinner parties to reference.

His father had expressed opinions on the matter on many occasions. What he didn't know about Widdershins authorship didn't hurt him.

"Sounds like a problem for later, with how little we're doing yet," Marlow put in plainly.

When Marius glanced over, Cassian's expression was amid a whipsnap from chastened to considering.

"The probability right now is low," Anselma said, straightening up amid a glance to Cassian. "I don't deny the possibility, but it remains speculative."

Before anyone could say anything more on the matter of Avery or Azkaban aspirations, Marius' internal hourglass emptied. The last sand grain fell. And Kai, as she was prone, dropped her minutes-in-waiting mulling upon them in thunder absent lightning:

"Penpals."

...Pardon?

The others didn't entirely look like they were getting it either, though Anselma's expression edged toward intrigue. Marius turned to look at Kai, who was fidgeting with the hem of her cloak and frowning intently down at the dirt. You are allowed to smile when having ideas, Snake Charmer.

"What, Kai?" Cassian prompted.

Kai glanced up at him, then around, down again. "Marius is right."

Often, but... why this time?

"Wizards do books." Kai paused. "But they also do letters. We can't bring Muggles here. We can't bring useful Muggle things here. But we don't have to. We could bring their voices here. There's Muggle websites. For pen-pals. They set up profiles... explaining interests, things they'd like to learn or talk about. Some use e-mail, sure, but there's plenty who use post. I... signed up for a few once," Kai explained, in the tone and manner that Marius associated with her mum breathed excitedly down her neck until she did.

Kai didn't often talk about the woman, but she sounded exhausting when Kai did.

Kai continued, "We could have some Muggle family look over listings and print off likely ones. We could even maybe figure out getting someone to put up listings for our side - students who want penpals. That could be part of a... Muggle-Magic Culture Club, or such? And under that... umbrella, we could probably squeeze in debates, talks, things. Talking about Muggle things more than magical ones. Trying to, anyway. It wouldn't be perfect, but..."

"That's... huh." Marlow nodded. "Do you think we'd... be allowed to do that?"

"Outgoing letters would almost certainly be reviewed by staff," Cassian said, though he'd sat taller. "Are you sure it wouldn't come off too strange to the Muggles? The cultural gaps could appear... significant."

What a charming way to phrase 'the Muggles might be concerned when a wizard mentions their mother doesn't believe in phones or that ending up in the Hospital Wing due to student disagreements is ordinary'.

The shrug Kai gave charmed Marius. "We just prepare a guideline story. Everyone's mother was a Luddite. Or something Amish-like. It's close enough."

Well, when you put it that way, it's a little embarrassing, isn't it? But Marius' thoughts stirred. He'd already made summer excursions for his... less family-approved Muggle-learning pursuits. He'd never, curse him, thought about corresponding with Muggles regularly. It seemed an obvious blindspot, in hindsight.

Anselma spoke. "Cultural exchange. Potential letter sharing. Club discussions. We could probably collaborate with Fosse's book club for crossover interest. The... problem is Claremont."

Right. The Muggle Studies' teacher. Marius had learned more from sneaking into a Muggle library (where someone had asked if he was a cosplayer, to which he'd said yes before he knew what one was) to peruse the encyclopedias than he ever had in the one year he took her more aptly named 'Muggle trivia' class.

"She'd want to be the one supporting any club vaguely tied to Muggles," Marius surmised. "And... everyone would avoid the club like stinksap duty."

"Then we don't ask Claremont." Cassian turned over a hand, thin fingers pulling his sleeve straight with slow precision. "We ask Professor Tarth."

"Tarth?" Marius and Kai echoed as one. Since when is she relevant to Muggle things?

Marlow rubbed the back of his neck. "She's not exactly on the subject. Why Tarth?"

"For one," Cassian said, sleeve-straightening in earnest now. En garde. "She is the rightful professor of Magical Ethics, and so her presence would likely encourage debate discussions if they did occur. Linton may be 'helping' with her class, but it would be unlikely for him to even be interested in heading an unfamiliar club. Second," and for some reason Cassian gave them a long-suffering look, "Professor Tarth is a squib."

...Of course.

"You think she'd get it," Kai said, earning a nod. "And before Linton showed up... she was... involved. Before Linton started back."

Cassian inclined his head. "She has been navigating her position."

"Squib's close to Muggle lifestyle," Marlow said thoughtfully. "What do you think she did before teaching here?"

Enter me, stage left, Marius thought, raising a hand in graceful offering. "Word has it that she was, that is- receptionist in a Muggle hospital. Clipboards. Ambient lighting. Noble post." He twiddled his fingers.

A few nods were bandied, then Anselma said, "Do you think she could act as our sign-off?" The question, of course, was for Cassian.

There was a faint tug at the corner of Cassian's mouth, which was tantamount to a declaration of war. "I would be very interested to hear any arguments against Professor Tarth being an acceptable candidate to oversee." He glanced down at his sleeves, but didn't touch them again. "If it is acceptable, I will speak to her about the club idea on our behalf."

No one objected. Likely because no one wanted to interrupt Cassian's warp-ten heading into the bureaucracy nebula. Or, just as possible, everyone was too busy imagining Cassian's Slytherin poise versus Professor Tarth's professionally sharp smile.

Marius would buy tickets.

---

Ever since third-year, dueling club days had quietly become Marius' favorite. And Marius wasn't even in the club officially. Professional spectator that he was, Marius graced the club with his presence with all the gravitas of one awaiting the attention of a fan and grapes, sitting upon a bench out of the way. He pretended to read.

Out there among the duos, Kai was already at it again. His earliest attendance hadn't been her first time here, so Marius maintained that the proximity between her start and his arrival had been purely coincidental.

Out in the corridors or in the classrooms, Kai often moved quietly, like a shadow that didn't care if you noticed it or not. She read, she walked, she dropped room-rearranging comments, she left quiet chaos in her wake. But in the dueling club, wand in hand? She wasn't flashy. She didn't flourish. She simply fought, like she'd been invited to a western standoff and her opponent to a fencing tournament.

Which was to say, she had that idea Marlow had once dubbed gun-sense - she'd deemed before first year's end that a wand was a weapon, first and always.

"Shouldn't point it at something unless you mean it," she'd said, once, and thereafter said of dueling club, "Wands are the first weapon against wands."

Marius wasn't sure who she was preparing to go to war with, and he wasn't going to follow that train of thought to its likely and alarming stations.

Naturally, Marius often found himself preoccupied with the fact that all of this meant she moved like she did right now:

In a sweep of robes, Kai stepped forward into the dueling line - all quiet, deadly serenity, the kind of drama you only noticed once it had passed. Inevitable. Like a snake slowly, slowly easing itself from within the brickwork, slow and silent and sinister. And like any snake worth fearing, when that Gryffindor across from her took his spot and the duel began proper, she'd be quick, clean, and final.

Someone sat on the bench next to Marius, interrupting his reading. Definitely reading. He was on.... page fourteen. Reading.

Marius looked over to find Emeline Fosse at the other end of the bench. She glanced up at a friend who was moving to join the duelists, then back down to some book she'd pulled out from her bag. Not a wizarding book, that, no. It was the Muggle sort: terribly thin covers, a slight gloss to them, cut into a fine rectangle of stackable fiction. The seating choice appeared incidental - she glanced at him only briefly, nodded politely, and went back to her book.

Unlike him, she was reading.

Not that Marius wasn't reading. Obviously.

"Well, what's the book of the week? Or does it go by months?" Marius asked. Muggle Books Monthly, a new book every week, he added in his head, to dissuade the risk of making the joke aloud.

Fosse glanced over again, holding her page with a finger as she let the book flap closed. Vibrant, violent orange and black dominated the top two-thirds of the cover, suggestions of buildings and explosions and gravel. And maybe a... bird? Marius wasn't certain. Below the image, white-on-black: The War of the Worlds.

And Wells. That sounded distantly familiar.

Worlds? Right then. Marius, having dedicated much of his Muggle-related excursions last summer to the noble matters of Star Trek, felt utterly prepared to engage. So he said, "Science fiction, is it? Spaceships, phasers, boldly unfashionable uniforms?"

There was a pause from Fosse, who then frowned at him like he'd shown up to book club with a coloring book. "Phasers?" she repeated. And then, glancing over him once more, she clarified, "Wait. You know what a phaser is?"

Marius grinned in delight. "Phasers set to stun," he replied lightly, sweeping a hand toward the duelists as someone's timely stunner spell went off. Not Kai, didn't matter.

"But-" Fosse stared at him, "-how?" She stared at him like he'd just announced he kept a Muggle vending machine in his bedroom. Which didn't sound like a terrible idea, come to think. His father would probably protest.

The adjustment of his cloak was gratuitous. But then, so was Marius. Presentation won the day.

That said, Marius decided against elaborating on the intricacies of covertly exchanging Galleons for Muggle money and booking Muggle hotel rooms for increasingly dubious stated reasons. His first attempts had prompted more than one night clerk to look at him like he was planning a heist. There'd also been the papers issues. And the age issues. And then his mystification with the key cards, which refused to behave like either keys or cards. To say nothing of once he finally managed to get into a room and confronted the cryptic box that refused to show him anything but static until he pressed buttons in an arcane ordinance. His earliest summer methods had been... adventurous.

Instead, he skipped to his later, more reliable method:

"Peered in on a Muggle shop this summer, selling tellies and things. Curiosity, of course. Old man there had the show running. Only a time or two," Marius amended. Per week.

That version still had flaws, it would seem, for Fosse responded, "A Muggle shop? But you're..." She hesitated, visibly working through that sentence, finally seemed to process that she was being just a little rude. She said, "Sorry. I just- I would have thought Anselma, or Kade or Bosco of course, but..."

Marius let out a huff of air. Rude. Accurate for most Slytherins. But rude. "What, too green to go to a Muggle shop?" he asked with faux-offense.

"No... it's just- you." Fosse said, brows drawing together in what might have been actual sincerity. "I knew you were with them. I didn't realize..."

...Well, that is the show, isn't it? Marius shrugged off appearance of being needled, turning to look toward the duelists again. "Well then, congratulations on checking the footnotes. Ten points to Ravenclaw." And that was that, wasn't it?

The club's members drifted, though, the end of the afternoon near. One boy in blue-lined robes called over, "Emmy, come here a moment, could you?"

She glanced at Marius, nodded the conversation's end, then moved up and away, though she left her bag by the bench and her book on it.

While Marius only passingly looked for her, he did glimpse Kai occupied by a knot of third-year Gryffindors, looking to be explaining something to them in all seriousness. So, Marius stayed where he was.

He glanced toward the book.

He glanced toward Fosse and her friend.

He glanced toward the book again.

Then, nonchalantly, he reached out and slid over The War of the Worlds. He turned it over carefully to inspect the back. Dramatic blurbs. Then, flipping it back over, he gently opened the first few pages, peering quietly.

He turned pages, occasionally glanced over to check for Kai. He made a check toward Fosse, too, just in case.

On one page of the foreword, he paused and reread. A panic caused by some Muggle broadcaster reading it off on the radio as real news? Marius' lips curved in amusement. It sounded like the sort of thing wizarding pranksters would get up to, if they had a mind to. He started reading the section again, even as Kai's shadow fell upon him.

She didn't say anything yet, which Marius marked as odd, but a slow-budding thought overtook that in his mind. A fiction, portrayed as reality, on live broadcast. A panic stirred.

"Marius, I was thinking-"

What if it were flipped? Muggles love fiction, magic fiction. Stage it. Marius frowned down at the page. A wizard broadcast. For Muggles. Make it look like telly? Or maybe there's something better yet, online?

"-well, wondering, really, if you'd like to go walk down by the lake..."

He stared down at the page, enthusiasm on the rise. Radio's too old. Make it a game, a play-act. Make it a story. Tell the truth so loudly they think it's a joke. They won't believe it. Until they do.

"Hm? Yes, brilliant," he said, half to her, half to the idea.

He finally glanced up and gave a crooked grin. Didn't we do squid toast today?

For some reason, Kai was examining the floor, brow faintly pinched. "You sure?" she asked, and now Marius was decidedly less sure what he'd agreed to.

It was Kai, though, so whatever it was, it was probably fine. So he closed the book, slid it back toward Fosse's things, and said, "Utterly, Snake Charmer."

He followed, wondering how many Muggles one might reach with a weekly dramatized broadcast, and how in Merlin's name he might smuggle such a thing out of Hogwarts. He forgot to ask why they didn't bring toast. Or anyone else. He'd figure it out. Probably.

Chapter Text

October 3, 2006. Hogwarts. Magical Ethics Professor's Office.

Cassian

The door to Professor Tarth's office resembled a broom closet in both form and impression: plain, unassuming, distinctly lacking in polish. Not uncommon. The wizarding world often embraced a certain dated ruggedness. It seemed particularly... pointed, however, when applied to the threshold of the sole squib professor at Hogwarts.

Cassian Rosier stood outside the door.

Before the discovery of Jordan's letter to the Contraries, Cassian would have considered someone else more suited to this task. Someone else still may have been more suited. But adults were watching their group now. And Cassian, self-aware enough as he was, didn't doubt they knew he was involved. Cassian doubted Professor Tarth had DA ties. But her appointment's timing - right beside the June article Professor Longbottom kept tucked in his desk - was curious.

The adults watched them. Maybe, in some way, condoned them.

Including Cassian?

He didn't know. So he took up the mantle of approaching Tarth about the club sponsorship. His second reason was minor, but not meaningless: to see if he could.

A part of him wondered if some would see it as an implicit threat: a Rosier alone in a room with a squib. It was not a power dynamic he'd ever considered toward a teacher before. But he had weighed it. He'd heard the old caretaker, Filch, bemoan students hexing or kicking his cat too many times for it not to sink in eventually:

Filch's only power to protect his own in Hogwarts lay with the goodwill of those around him - and the occasional predictability of bureaucracy.

Cassian held no illusions. Any kindness in the caretaker had wilted long ago. Whatever semblance of power he could have, he clung to like a dying man.

That Tarth navigated her position with care did not surprise Cassian.

He lifted a hand and knocked on the door.

His hands clasped behind his back as he half-turned, avoiding the impression of facing the door head-on. A nearby portrait gave him something to look at. Two cats snoozed side by side, one occasionally kicking in dreams. That latter cat - long-haired, black, fussily groomed - had become a familiar wanderer through the castle's frames since its arrival.

He was no Kai, but he could almost hear her wondering aloud whether portraits liked existing at all.

Most seemed to not mind. The cat, at least, looked content.

In his peripheral vision, the door opened to reveal Professor Tarth.

From the first, he'd noted her quiet deviation from typical Hogwarts aesthetic. She wore lightly colored robes often, certainly, but there was a quality to how she held herself that was... not quite wizarding in a way Cassian struggled to put his finger on. It wasn't that she wore no hats - not all of the staff did. It wasn't the lack of magical paraphernalia on her person - that could be overlooked. It was... something else.

He didn't know. Perhaps simply the poise of one who had learned professionalism in another world altogether.

The door was halfway open when she finally looked at who was outside her door. Cassian kept his gaze on the cat painting for the remaining, polite measure of time - then second-guessed it. Would not looking immediately seem evasive? Would it appear rude? Would-

"Mister Rosier." She said the name with a certain lightness. He caught a curve of smile in the edge of his vision.

"Professor Tarth," Cassian returned, eyes abandoning the cat portrait to meet her gaze. She held the picture of quiet, professional ease. A few years younger and less sunnily dressed, she may have passed for Slytherin.

He continued. "There's a matter - possibly under your subject. I was hoping to speak with you. If now is an acceptable time?"

There, then - a slight widening of her eyes, and then her smile deepened. "Now is acceptable," she said, stepping back and leaving the door open.

That was well enough.

But as Cassian crossed the threshold, he had the distinct and disorienting impression that he had somehow stepped out of Hogwarts and into some foreign domain. Her office matched her poise. Professional, clean, and just out of step with the rooms of other professors. The walls bore a blend of magical and Muggle artwork. Metallic cabinets lined one wall, and along another sat a neat stack of bins - plastic, some faint memory informed Cassian. That was the word.

Her desk looked ordinary, at least. The bookshelf behind it held a mix of magical and Muggle tomes. And on one shelf, behind the desk: a glass tank, its bottom layered in sand. Inside, an earthy-scaled creature lay loosely coiled.

"A western hognose," Tarth offered, following his glance as she took her seat behind the desk. She nodded to the guest chair. "Please, Mister Rosier."

Cassian wasn't sure whether it was sincerity or sleight of hand that let her say his surname without flinching. There were still one or two professors who went out of their way to avoid it entirely.

He sat. "That's the one that plays dead, isn't it?" he asked, politely curious.

"Yes," she said, and cast a glance toward the tank. "A rescue. A Muggle reptile house closed down. Most animal shelters won't take reptiles. He would've been put down."

And that wouldn't have been fair, would it?

Cassian glanced past her again, toward the tank and its dozing denizen. Something about bringing a pet snake to Hogwarts struck him as bold, but therein Cassian suspected that was his paranoia more than prudence. Some brought snakes. It was uncommon and often unpopular, but not unheard of.

He returned his attention to Tarth.

"Put down?" he asked, voice mild, but interest real. There was a quiet, subtle itch under his skin, perhaps for the sheer seeming unfairness of the matter. Symbol of his House or not. "It's a mundane snake, isn't it? Couldn't it be released?"

Her answer came easily enough. "In most areas, it's illegal to release non-native reptiles. Too great a risk to the ecosystem. Even a harmless species might spread disease, upset local populations, or simply starve. If shelters can't take them, and no one adopts them, euthanasia is... standard."

Her gaze drifted partway back to the tank, but she let the Muggle logic stand on its own.

Cassian found he did not much like that answer, even if it satisfied his need for the practice to have reasoning. "If they remove the snake from its native home in the first place," he said "can they not send it back?"

There was, too, a needle that lodged in the back of his mind. Even a harmless species may be too great a risk to the ecosystem. And what, then, of the ones with wands? With power over memory and death?

"Most pet snakes are bred in captivity," Tarth explained. "Even if released into their native habitat, many wouldn't survive."

She folded her hands atop the desk, though in a more relaxed manner than Cassian himself may have managed. "I'm glad to discuss this with you, Mister Rosier... but would you like to begin with why you're here?"

Cassian glanced down to the edge of the desk, adjusting the line of his sleeve. "Of course, ma'am." He lifted his gaze again. "I've come to ask whether you would consider supervising a new student organization."

Her smile ticked anew, just enough that Cassian wondered if it was at his phrasing.

Tarth gave a small hum and parted her hands, even as they stayed close together. "I assume you're not here on behalf of a replacement for the Wizard's Chess club."

That had been a saga of last year, before her arrival, though it circulated readily in Hogwarts gossip: the former club had disbanded after the chessmen went on strike due to a Gryffindor's mischievous charmwork. The siege of the first-floor boys' bathroom had lasted three weeks.

Her tone wasn't unfriendly, though her eyes were alert enough to tell Cassian another story. "What name did you have in mind?"

Cassian drew a tidy bundle of two scrolls from his robes. "We hadn't settled on a name, though several options are under consideration." There is the fallback, if she needs...

He didn't mention that most of Marius' suggestions formed acronyms of variable desirability. Cultural Awareness with Letters and Luddites. Muggle Orientation Branch Investigating Linking Exercises. Society Offering Stationery. Marius had called the last one 'aesthetically minimalist'.

He set the two scrolls meticulously side by side on the desk in front of him. "We're proposing a student society focused on... communication. More precisely, cultural exchange."

He paused to study her expression. Tarth simply raised a brow in an encouraging manner, so he continued: "Between magical students and Muggles. Through letters."

Cassian untied one of the scrolls and unfurled it to offer across the table. As she took it and glanced down, Cassian explained:

"That's... an outline of the proposed structure. Muggles maintain programs to facilitate semi-anonymous correspondence with strangers - often international. Gaps are already expected in language, belief, or lifestyle. We believe that we could begin with students voluntarily writing letters to Muggles who've expressed an interest in atypical or unfamiliar communities."

"We would, of course, establish guidelines to ensure letters remain within expected bounds - tonally and topically - from the Muggle point of view."

He gestured to the scroll in her hands.

"The club itself would be less about the letter-writing and more about sharing what comes of it. The misunderstandings. The insights. It would be..." Cassian's throat caught a little on the pitch, "...fun. Possibly awkward, potentially enlightening. Likely all three."

"There's interest, already. I believe it would appeal to students who feel disconnected from how we teach about Muggles, or simply wish to... expand their horizons."

She continued reviewing the scroll. Cassian classified the quiet as a tolerable one, even as he turned over a private concern in his mind.

Would she mark it as strange for a Slytherin, a Rosier, to propose such a club? Would she suspect he had ulterior motives?

Well, I do. We do. Simply not in the traditional sense. He curled his fingers against the arms of the chair.

Perhaps he should have let one of the others bear this meeting after all. Kai, maybe. Or Marlow again? Perhaps if she declined now, it would be because of him. If she did, would she allow it if someone else asked? If he stepped back?

Cassian straightened one of his sleeves.

"This is a very thoughtful proposal," Tarth finally said.

Is it?

There was a long pause, and then Professor Tarth said, "There is an argument to be made that this falls under Muggle Studies. Did Professor Claremont decline?" Her tone was terrifyingly polite and warm-mannered.

"Professor Claremont's class focuses on anthropology," Cassian said carefully, the shape of Anselma's words fitting oddly in his mouth. He hoped that was the right word. Thank you, Anselma. "The society would be centered on the human element, which we felt was more closely the purview of Ethics."

He felt particularly seen by the professor, in the pause before she spoke.

"And who is we? What students would be heading this?"

Cassian wasted little time. "Kairiel Bosco of Hufflepuff, Anselma Silvertree of Ravenclaw, Marlow Kade of Gryffindor, Marius Mulford of Slytherin... and myself."

Using Kai's proper name felt like a small heresy. He knew she didn't care for it, would have preferred something plainer. But formalities.

Tarth considered the first scroll again, the outline, and then furled it slowly. Her attention shifted to the second scroll near Cassian's hand. She nodded toward it. "And what is that?"

"Drafted guidelines. Suggested rephrasings of magical terminology in Muggle-adjacent language, advisory notes on scam avoidance, and a template for student profiles to be created externally by a designated liaison." Anselma and Marlow had been the most useful in assembling that, though Kai made suggestions as well.

He slid that scroll across to her too, then folded his hands on the table. His attention turned briefly past her toward the hognose in the tank. The parchment crinkled. Tarth reviewed.

"Scams," Tarth repeated, a new note in her voice that Cassian didn't know how to interpret. Her brows did a mild lift and lower, as though the word were a ripple that she needed to crest. Not disapproval or concern, Cassian thought, though he doubted his read. Uncertainty? Surprise?

She smoothed that scroll on the desk before her. She said mildly, "This is your hand, Mister Rosier. But not, I think, your words. Not in Muggle fraud."

Cassian straightened. "No, ma'am. Marlow - Kade, that is. His father works in a tech shop. Mobiles. Silvertree and Bosco also made suggestions. They said such is less common in the post, but... not impossible."

"It seems as though they may have been better equipped to broach this idea," Tarth said, and the words sounded like a question.

"Any of them would have done well," Cassian allowed, inclining his head. "I do not deny that I am... less versed in Muggle affairs, compared to the others." Even Marius, to his mild annoyance. The delay in his next words drew long. Cassian could not tell where he stood with her. Not comfortably and not certainly.

He smoothed a hand over his sleeve. "If you would prefer, I could ask one of them to come by and discuss it with you."

Whatever she heard in that, Cassian did not know what to make of how she turned her attention to furling the second scroll. He did not know what to make of how she glanced up to him with a brief and uncharacteristic frown. It didn't seem to bode well.

I should not have come.

"I will need a name for the club, when I take this to discuss it with the Headmistress," Tarth then said, striking Cassian's doubt as though by Stunner. "Normally, it wouldn't be necessary, but this is a unique situation. I would also need a name for the student head. Are you representing this group, or has someone else been chosen?"

His mouth felt dry, his fingers energized. Cassian said, "We considered a few options for a head. It came down to Kade and myself." The optical answer is obvious. "I will assist Kade in it."

Let the lion roar and the serpents slither. That was the idea, no? Thought perhaps only in Cassian's mind. He had been Marlow's and Kai's first choice. Marlow had been that of Anselma and Marius. Breaking the tie fell to Cassian, and he had no desire whatsoever to deal with a Daily Prophet article this year titled Rosier-Headed Muggle Infiltration Club Arises at Hogwarts - Fact or Fiction?

The look Tarth gave Cassian struck him as almost amused... if not for the shadow that crossed it shortly after. She studied him. Discomfort took root in Cassian. What was she seeing?

"Marlow Kade for the head then," she said, moving right along, reopening the first scroll and reaching for a pen - a pen? - to note in the margins. "And a name?"

"We weighed options. Tentatively, our favored one..." Cassian tilted his head, "...was The Postscript Society." Layered with just enough double-meanings to privately amuse and exhaust his friends.

"Post script," Tarth echoed, separating out the words. Her pen shifted as she added the name to the parchment. "Very well." And then she looked up again, meeting his eyes with that same steady ease she'd offered him the whole way through the meeting. "Was there anything else, Mister Rosier?"

She's with us. Cassian sat forward slightly. "Not at this time, Professor. Thank you - for hearing me." I hope this doesn't put you in more difficult a position than needed.

She simply nodded. There was that study again, and then she said, "I do have one more thing I would like to say."

Chills arose on Cassian. This was the part he'd expected. The warning, likely. The consequence. A-

"Mister Rosier," Tarth said, "If any of you need an adult to speak to, going forward, my door is open. That includes you. Do you understand?"

He inclined his head, precisely enough to hide the breath he took. Thoughts circled and scattered like startled birds.

What does that mean?

"You mean... about the club, Professor?" Cassian asked, uncertain what answer he wanted.

Something passed in her eyes, something Cassian was almost inclined to name as frustration. Too strong a word, perhaps.

"That too, of course," Tarth allowed. Her manner seemed relaxed, patient, open. What was in her eyes? Surely not pity. "But I meant in general."

"I... isn't that what Heads of House are for, ma'am?" Bemusement settled over him like loose chainmail. Though he couldn't imagine Slughorn making such an offer without it being well-oiled.

What is her angle?

Tarth closed her pen, set it aside, and began rolling the scroll once more. Without looking directly at him, Tarth said, "It is," in a way that still managed to sound like disagreement.

Half Slytherin, even as a squib. Not for the first time, Cassian wondered if there wasn't something to Marius' jested idea that she'd infiltrated Hogwarts under the Wizengamot's noses. He found that easier to contemplate than what she was actually offering.

"I understand, Professor," he said, as though through a curtain.

There was vague awareness of thanking her, of being excused, of the door closing behind him.

Cassian stopped after two corridors to study an empty painting of a refined lounge. A yapping grey terrier darted in, chased a long-haired black cat through it into the next portrait over.

If any of you need an adult.

If you need an adult.

And Cassian did not know how to need that.

He already almost was one, wasn't he?

---

When Cassian arrived to the alcove some time later, Anselma and Kai were busy in discussion on one side of the table. Marius and Marlow - altogether absent as yet.

"It isn't like the Prime Directive," Kai said, arms crossed, head tipped toward Anselma. "The Prime Directive's about non-interference, yeah, but it's to let a society to make its own choices, decide its own direction. And it assumes a tech difference. Which, sure. But this is... different."

Anselma wasn't the more devoted of the two to the franchise, but she turned to Kai, fully engaged. "It's comparable to the debates over whether the Directive applies. Has tampering already occurred? Yes. Will there be harm without revelation or intervention? Undoubtedly."

Cassian sat in his usual spot across from Anselma. He didn't need to ask. Comparing the Statute to first-contact metaphors in the Muggle fiction had been commonplace in their debates for years.

Kai glanced at Cassian, question rising in her eyes, but then she murmured, "Moment," and glanced back to Anselma. "It's a different issue, though. We're not the Federation, and it's not the Directive. We're..." Her expression twitched toward a grimace. "...Gary Mitchell, at best. We're Q, at worst. Population thing, right?"

Q was the trickster wizard one, Cassian remembered. Gary Mitchell… he couldn't recall. The slow arranging of quills gave him something to do while he waited for an opening.

The paling of Anselma's expression was new. "Game theory..." she murmured, half to herself. She shifted one of her parchments and reached for a quill to underline something on another.

Kai frowned, lips pursing. "How're you meaning?"

Anselma sat back in her chair. Whatever was on her mind, she looked far too uncharacteristically dour for Cassian's taste. "We're missing an umbrella," she said, staring at her parchments like they'd betrayed her.

Cassian's hand paused partway toward his quill. The three weren't enough? What had they missed?

He offered, "We've accounted for ripple effects," in a cautious manner, still not sure who George Mitchell was and still lacking enough context on Q to know whereabouts the girls were in their thoughts.

Whatever Anselma meant, Kai seemed to get it. "Oh. Oh." Her voice grew soft, horrified. She sat back slowly. "...How did we not see it?"

"See what?" Cassian inclined his head. He suddenly felt rather tired.

"We were too busy looking at the other side," Anselma told Kai, looking toward Cassian after. "...We've discussed how Muggles might fear us. That's the easy angle, after all. It's the one we're taught about in History of Magic, and it's obvious and it will be true for some. But... what comes after? If the Statute falls. What replaces it, in a world where Muggles and wizards both acknowledge the other?"

Cassian let go of his quill, folding his hands. "Plausibly exploitation," he supposed. That was the other wizarding fear, when it wasn't fear itself.

"Take it a step further," Kai said quietly. "If we're not compressed into hiding, but split out and dispersed. Let's say Muggles don't try to destroy us. Don't exploit outright. Let's say they take the middle path."

"Game theory," Anselma said, tone subdued, eyes intent on her parchments. "Not a society. A pantheon."

"Game theory?" Cassian prompted, folded hands coming up to press against his lips. Pantheon. So... worshipped? An itch of dread crept up his neck.

"Our society is held together by secrecy. If that breaks, then outside interests might start mattering more than internal ones - to individual wizards, I mean," Anselma said. "Maybe there's cursory magical society, but if it's integrated... then well, it doesn't matter what we wish was true, we're not equals. Not in power potential. And Muggles aren't stupid. Enough will notice that. Any wizard inclined to becomes a local patron, if the curtain comes down."

Her lips thinned. "Patron, saint, menace, mascot. Depends on the place. Depends on the wizard."

"We've barely figured out how to treat magical creatures," Kai put in, voice hollowing. "You think we're ready for Muggle masses offering us celebrity by birth?"

"So, game theory," Anselma picked up. "If the first three umbrellas are contact, population and immediate fallout... then the fourth is the pantheon problem... Our descendants won't be playing against Muggle technology. Not yet, anyway."

"They'll be playing against one another."

That came to rest on the table between the three of them. Cassian had almost forgotten he had news to deliver on the club. The quiet horror made their prior fears seem pale. It remained distant for now, but the idea loomed in a manner that had his thoughts drifting back toward the idea of whether it wouldn't be better to find some way to reaffirm wizarding isolation forever.

He closed his eyes.

He wondered if the only way forward would break both societies forever. If Grindelwald's ghost would win no matter what they hoped. Perhaps the Statute doesn't just protect us from Muggles or Muggles from us, but us from ourselves.

Bitterly, he wondered if the world of the new Fourth Umbrella would be a world for a Rosier, not a Cassian.

Kai broke in on his thoughts to quietly say, "No. Some will be playing against one another. We'll just have to find a way that the rest remember they're people. And a way for enough Muggles to remember that too, for it to matter."

Cassian exhaled against his hands. He nodded, without opening his eyes. He gave it another measure of time to see if she would say more. When she did not, he forced himself to open his eyes and adjusted his sleeves. An ache lingered in his jaw from the former press of his hands. But he needed to focus on the now. The meeting.

The air still tasted stormy.

Chapter Text

October 8, 2006. Hogwarts. The Great Hall.

Kai

The scents of toast and roasted tomatoes hung in the air of the Great Hall. Murmurs of morning gossip and owl wings rippled like background static. Seated at the end of the Hufflepuff table, Kai Bosco laid the day's paper open beside her plate. A few glances came from her friends - the Contraries' choice to sit here at breakfast was well known. Slytherin didn't quite know what to do with the prospect of the group at their table, Ravenclaw inevitably turned it into an inquisition, and Cassian had some quiet complex about sitting with Gryffindor. So, sometime in third year, they'd started sitting at Hufflepuff.

And everyone knew Hufflepuff folded faster than the French in the face of breakfast and friendship - never mind both. A comment Marius had once put in on the House-stereotypes game.

Kai's attention was on the headline.

The prickles that ran along her scalp felt subtly cold.

THE DAILY PROPHET
October 8, 2006

"You Can't Obliviate the World": Hogwarts Student Raises Questions About the Statute
By Liam Fletchworth

A recent classroom exchange at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has prompted quiet discussion among educators and Ministry observers, after a seventh-year Hufflepuff student raised pointed concerns about the continued viability of the International Statute of Secrecy.

The moment occurred during a Magical Ethics class discussion late last month, in what one student described as a "routine lecture... until she asked a question."

"These days," one student recalled her saying, "you can't Obliviate the world."

While some students reportedly welcomed the comments as part of an engaged classroom environment, others described the conversation as "tense."

"She made it very clear she wasn't calling for exposure or control," said one seventh-year Prefect who requested anonymity. "She just asked whether the Statute can hold, and what it costs us to keep it standing."

The class was led by Professors Linton and Tarth, both of whom declined to offer comment. Hogwarts administration also declined to issue a formal statement, though one internal source described the matter as "a matter of academic weight, not one of disciplinary concern."

Another Hogwarts staff member, speaking off the record, offered: "You can't Obliviate the world? Well, we've done quite a fine job of it for centuries, haven't we?"

Ministry officials have issued the following statement:

"We encourage prudent thinking at Hogwarts, but we also expect all magical citizens to remember the Statute is not a guideline - it is law."

At the time of publication, Miss Bosco had not offered comment to the Prophet.

The last line Kai lingered on, before turning to absently prod her fork at a bit of sausage. A twist of unease coiled beneath her skin, closer to embarrassment than she would have liked. I have nothing to be embarrassed about. But the sense of being seen burned, low and quiet.

Is that really how I said it? she contemplated. In print, it sounded more like some mad wannabe-oracle.

Theft of her newspaper ensued - Marius reached across the table to turn it about and have a peer over it. She wasn't sure if he didn't get his own copy out of laziness, or as a minor, ongoing slight against the Prophet. She didn't mind, either way.

"Speaking off the record," Marius said in over-cheer. "Charming. Fancy a sickle on who it is?"

Cass shook his head from where he was seated beside Marius. "No. It's Slughorn." His tone held an unspoken, weary obviously.

Hardly news. Kai had only learned of it later in their school years, but Cass had apparently been the long-term target of a quiet, ongoing campaign by Slughorn to draw him into "proper society" circles. From Cass's diplomatic phrasing on the topic, Kai suspected the Contraries in general were not among Slughorn's favored students. He'd never been overtly uncouth in class, but once all of his Slug Club hopefuls had declined - except Marius, whom Kai suspected went simply to mess with Slughorn - the professor's attitude had grown subtly more prickly.

To boot, he had no taste for Widdershins - his was one of the few classrooms where copies were outright confiscated, even if he never formally addressed the matter.

At least, not in class. Through Cassian and Marius, Kai knew that Widdershins was... subtly discouraged in Slytherin spaces. Lacking in class, among other implications.

Kai privately hoped some read it anyway.

From Kai's left, Anselma raised a fork in gesture. "It's just Slughorn. He'll retire eventually."

"He's going to make it rough for Slytherins to join the club, yeah?" Marlow asked from Kai's other side, a frown in his voice.

Marius' face broke into a grin, all amusement and all teeth. The face of play. Kai could hear his words almost before he spoke. "Oh, I'm sure he'll be thrilled about wizards writing letters to Muggles. Right up there with Slytherin Muggle telly night."

You'd think they'd like some Muggle telly, really, Kai thought. The Godfather, maybe? Or House, if they liked that sort of shenanigans. She hid an amused twitch of lips by finally taking a bite of sausage.

"He may tolerate it," Cass said, tone more bleak than usual. He'd been in a mood since his talk with Tarth, and the lack of answer from the Headmistress on the club hadn't improved him.

Kai glanced up toward the staff table. No sign of the Headmistress at present. No Slughorn either, nor Longbottom, nor Flitwick. The odds and ends, mostly - Vector, Claremont, Linton. No Tarth either. If anyone may have been curious to see now, it would've been her.

The breakfast staff table was often a hodgepodge. How some staff managed their teaching schedules, Kai would never know.

Marius picked up the thread again, but Kai's attention lingered toward the staff. Her thoughts trailed toward a wondering of whether they would be approved at all. They'd probably spark another article, wouldn't they? And after this recent one, it wouldn't be just a letter-writing club, but a letter writing club involving the-girl-who-said-the-thing. Couldn't be helped.

What was McGonagall thinking? Would she approve it? Maybe with conditions. Probably with conditions. Kai idly wondered what the staff discussed in back-room talk, what was said between poured tea and student dramatics, shielded behind stone and passwords. The Contraries knew to be careful about talking about certain things around portraits. More than the staff had ears.

Would they discuss this? Maybe Slughorn ran his slimy fingers over it even as they broke toast.

In a flutter of wings, Anselma's sooty owl Pepper landed on the table between her and Kai. A pair of small tins rattled against the wood. Biscuits again. Anselma's brother - Adrian, that was - sent biscuits every other week or so. Apparently, he worked in some Muggle bakery, though to hear Anselma talk he sounded more like he'd rather be cooking stovetop than baking.

Anselma freed the owl of her parcels and a letter, and off Pepper flew from the table, tip of her wing ruffling the side of Kai's head in takeoff. The frazzling of hair drew up a hand, though Kai only paid half-mind to smoothing it down. Pepper, always with the hair...

"Extra biscuits for Cassian," Anselma commented in a glance over the letter, and she slid one of the tins across to him. "Sends his apologies about Pepper losing yours last time."

The tin received a serious, quiet gaze from Cass as he met the passed tin partway across the table. Drawing it the rest of the way toward him, Cass's acceptance straddled the cautious dignity of someone unsure whether he was being bribed or adopted. Always so serious.

Sometimes she wondered if he remembered how to be a kid at all.

The tin creaked open. The scent of ginger and whatever else Adrian liked to experiment with drifted across the table in warm morning's scent.

Kai's thoughts drifted back toward the club.

Just letters, and even this we might have to fight for. What in the world are wizards going to do when the breach starts? Her attention shifted back to her plate, mind turning a new old way.

The breach felt inevitable. Like trying to hold out in a hurricane with a houseboat.

The newly dubbed Fourth Umbrella hadn't been all that much a surprise to Kai, even before Anselma defined it. She'd never believed the old order would lay down quietly, even as the Statute burned down around them. And wands were always the first weapon against wands. So of course it would come to wizard against wizard, while the Muggle world blinked twice and tried to figure what, exactly, they were looking at.

It was almost comical, in a quiet way. Not an alien invasion so much as hearing sounds in the basement and opening the trapdoor to find a deadly pillow fight - feathers everywhere, curses flying, and not a sensible cause in sight.

Kai's own rolled-up newspaper bopped her lightly on the nose, courtesy of Marius before he handed the paper off to Marlow for his turn. She glanced up at him, but he offered only an innocent wag of brow.

There was an almost-smile that didn't quite reach Kai's lips. It felt like it did, warm and soft in a way she tried to cover by refocusing on her plate.

Ever since the lake-walk with him, she'd been thinking. And doubting, and thinking, and doubting more still. About whether she'd read the nickname right, and about Marlow's implication, and about... all of it.

She wasn't angry, didn't quite hold it against Marius, but it'd been... not quite what she hoped for. The part of her that still hoped hadn't entirely figured out what to do with that yet.

Halfway to the lake, he'd started in with fresh questions about internet particulars and pen-pal logistics. Typical, earnest, and cheerful - and sincere-smiling, so at least there'd been that. All she'd been quietly testing in the wake of processing Marlow's remark never quite materialized.

Maybe he goes the other way, Kai thought, frowning faintly over her pumpkin juice. She wouldn't hold that against him. Didn't know how to find out, either. Maybe it was just not her. Maybe Marlow was wrong.

Then Anselma, without looking up from buttering another slice of toast, cut in: "The other quote's got to be Thayer, no?"

A hum came from Marlow, presumably as he reached said quote. "Sounds like it. You know, he dropped by my tutoring room yesterday - had a Charms book recommendation."

"And twenty questions?" Marius asked.

Marlow gave a confirming sound and nodded. "I..." His voice turned considering, slowed out enough that Kai glanced over. He held the paper broadly open over his plate, but his eyes were tilted up toward the subtle orange fog that passed for sky on the Great Hall ceiling.

"...I think he's... catching the Third Umbrella," he said. "He's where we were last year."

Damage control. Fallout.

Kai's fingers, newly returned to her fork, curled tighter.

Last year had been a bitter one. They hadn't had the umbrellas framework for their talks then, not yet, but they'd circled and circled the same storm. The same sense of an increasingly plausible looming end-of-days with no good or safe answers in sight. There had been moods. Louder arguments, once or twice, including once when Cassian and Marlow spiraled into a proper spat over whether wizards or Muggles were in greater danger, and neither took the side anyone else might have expected.

There'd been a few days where silence reigned because it was simply easier than trying to roll the stone of Sisyphus uphill, always and ever realizing at the top that a pressure-plate waited to fling it back down upon them.

Wings whispered overhead, and then a school barn owl landed cleanly on the table in their midst. A bundle of tiny scrolls was tied to its leg.

With professional manner, the owl lifted its leg toward Cass. He'd finished his breakfast, and so was convenient for it. Cass tended to the messages promptly, wordlessly, still wearing that look about him.

Kai watched him for a moment longer than she meant to, brow pinched. She worried about him, quietly, but she didn't know what to do with it. It wasn't often Cass wanted to talk, least of all when it was more than the two of them.

"One for each of us," Cass announced, passing out the small scrolls in a clockwise manner.

Kai took hers, second to last, unfurling it for a look.

To Kairiel Bosco,
You are requested to attend a brief discussion this evening at seven o'clock in the Headmistress's office.
Kindly arrive punctually. The password is Thistlewine.
- M. McGonagall

"Seven o'clock?" Marlow asked, voice pitched low beside her. Nods answered from around the end of the Hufflepuff table.

The barn owl ruffled its wings, hopped away from their plates, then took off in a clean arc.

Across the table, Marius leaned back on the bench, eyes tracking the owl's ascent. "Well then. Feels really proper, doesn't it? All official." His voice held that sort of brightness reserved for when he didn't quite mean it. Kai glanced up to study his face, but he was off and away in attention.

Beside Kai, Anselma sat very, very still. "I need to prepare my notes," she murmured, sounding halfway there in her head already. "This has to be about the club, sure, but- maybe it isn't? Maybe Longbottom's spoken to her. We can explain about the Umbrellas. She may have insights. We could find out what the adults are actually discussing about all of this."

"I think," Cass said, carefully folding away his summons, "that we should proceed in seeing what she wants, first."

"I can still prepare my notes," Anselma said firmly, eyes returning to her plate. She was already shifting beside Kai, preparing to be up and away.

Kai set her fork down, but her fingers restlessly traced the edge of it still. A full day of not-knowing, a full day to dread it. Kai didn't know whether to hope for the club being approved.

A part of her braced for the idea that they might have to proceed under the table.

And with the adults knowing they might.

She curled her fingers tighter, causing the fork to clink against the plate. Worry tasted sour on her tongue, electric down her spine. Even if we are allowed, will it be enough? Will it be in time? Will enough even care?

---

The corridor leading to McGonagall's office seemed longer with every slow step Kai took. It was cool and grey, with sconces that burned lower and rustier in color than those of the main halls. She took a roundabout way in the first place, early to begin with. This part of the castle was quieter at least. Fewer portraits, or at least oft-sleeping ones. Kai wondered if the portraits ever pretended to sleep. To what degree they thought. Hopes, dreams, motives, wonderings. If ever there was a painting that had more in common with HAL than else. What would that even look like?

She didn't like thinking about it. Which often meant she did anyway.

Kai leaned against a corner, stonework bluntly nipping into her shoulder. A chill clung to the wall, grounding her as it leeched through her sleeve. She'd wait here, she supposed. The others would come from one of these cross-ways or another, and then they could head up together to find out what McGonagall wanted.

The ghost-soft steps behind her might've been missed if she'd had time to get lost in her own thoughts. Kai twisted.

Cass came by the same way she had, it would seem. He'd called his robes to order, green trim ever-present. The dark of his eyes made Kai wonder often, how much was trait and how much was poor sleep. It seemed more than prior years, but she'd learned that asking after his health tended to garner much the same reaction as offering a cat a vitamin.

He caught her eyes and raised his brows. Kai answered with a shrug, but she turned to lean her back against the wall instead, silent opening for him to take space beside her.

He did.

There they stood for several seconds, like two variable grackles perched side by side against the stonework, Cass with his hands behind his back and Kai with her arms folded before her.

The breach of quiet came from Cass. "Do you know anything about hognoses?"

The snakes? Kai frowned. "Sure. Why?"

"Tarth keeps one. I found it... particular."

There, then, was something. Kai didn't know what. "Snake, mm?" Her lips twisted to the side. "I would have guessed a cat. Maybe a bird." Maybe some pretty little parrot - that seemed the sort for Tarth.

Tarth didn't exactly give off the usual look of Muggle-adjacent people who kept snakes. Not that there was a type, Kai supposed, but if there was a type... it didn't seem like Tarth. But she'd already misread Tarth too many times to be entirely sure what to make of the squib. Not sure how to read her in the wizarding context. Not sure how to read her in the Muggle one.

Cass nodded. "She said it was a 'rescue'. Is that common?"

"Yeah. Plenty of rescues. Less with reptiles. Usually dogs or cats. Or sugar gliders, if you want something that needs more therapy than you do."

Kai would know. Her mother tried to adopt a pair once. A beat or two later, Kai found herself regretting the phrasing, though. Would Cass take it as her implying he needed therapy? I mean...

Kai shut that thought into a mental box and shoved it into a mental closet.

The talk lapsed after that, for Cass didn't seem to know what to do with that and Kai didn't rush to fill the silence. She glanced down the corridor idly, finding no sign of their friends yet. Quietly, Kai asked, "Do you think it's about the club?"

Silence.

Cass's answer came careful, slow, measured. "I don't know. If it were, she could have simply called in Marlow. Or myself. That it's all of us..."

...May mean something more or different. Kai frowned down at her feet, swaying a shoe out from beneath the sweep of her robes. To do with the article? Longbottom? Widdershins, somehow? Kai hated this part of anything, waiting for a blow without even knowing the shape of it.

She murmured, "Yeah," when Cass didn't go on.

He nodded.

"It'll be alright," Kai said, unsure which of them she meant to reassure.

He nodded again.

Trying to ease off the glum atmosphere, Kai pushed an inch off the wall and swayed briefly his way to bump his shoulder with hers. "Really. Worst case, we'll figure it out." No use fretting. She ignored that she was.

The nudge pulled a shadow of smile from him. Faint, but there. Cass turned his heavy-browed gaze to her properly, inclining his head. "The actual worst case," he measured forth in unduly severe tone, "is that Anselma actually brings prepared notes."

They shared a long-suffering stare, each daring the other's austerity.

Kai snorted despite herself. Beside her, Cass chuckled, near-silent.

"You have contingency plans if that occurs?" Kai recovered to ask, but her tone held the comfortable undercurrent of role-play now. The old game of Houses was afoot.

Cass hummed affirmation, perfectly serious. "You brought biscuits and pumpkin juice for distraction?"

Kai spread her empty hands before refolding her arms. "Naturally."

Minutes passed, the pair lapsing into a peaceable side-by-side quietude. Each took their turn glancing down the corridor for the others, but absence remained. Both were terribly early by any reasonable measure.

A temptation gnawed at the edge of Kai's mind. She'd never considered it before now, not really, but well - Cass and Marius were dormmates. Perhaps Cass had some idea of whether Marius... Kai frowned at the opposing stone wall. It wasn't simply that Cass was a boy, though that made the idea of asking a little odd. It also seemed like a breach of some manner, especially if the answer were undesirable.

Now probably wasn't the best time. Still.

Kai glanced down the corridor around the corner again. No one that way either.

Her gaze slipped down to her feet. It wasn't the right moment. It probably wasn't the right person. But Cass wouldn't laugh. She knew that much.

"...Say, Cass..." she ventured, tone mulling.

The shift in his attention came more felt than seen.

The weight of the question sat on her chest. Why'd she started speaking without an actual plan? Quiet panic flared like a fly caught in a frying pan. What would she even ask?

So, Cass, do boys gossip like teenage girls?

Distractedly, she wondered if they did. And then she became momentarily preoccupied by the scandalizing mental image of Cass behaving so.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should ask Anselma instead. Or Marlow. Or Pepper. Pepper at least would simply mess up her hair and be done with it.

"Hm?" Cass prompted, unpresuming. Therefore, with the intensity of an interrogation lamp.

What do I even ask? The panic roller-coastered through her mind now, spinning loops and lurching off the tracks into full Final Destination catastrophe. Stupid film. She'd hated that one, but her mother had been on a horror films kick and it'd been at the theater.

A half a dozen versions of the question criss-crossed her mind in scattered sparks and reassembled like mad-libs into: "Do you think- do dormmates- Slytherin- that is- I mean, well, I suppose Marius probably- but..."

In the corner of her eye, did she imagine Cassian straightening? She only half-noticed. Kai more wondered if someone might conveniently appear out of the stonework to hex her. Maybe the stone itself might open into a prior-undiscovered side-passage.

Cass took his time while Kai's brain simmered in the aftermath.

Then, slowly, in a tone that in most people would have been accompanied by twitching eyebrows, he said, "Kai... are you trying to gossip?"

"...Not exactly. But... sort of," Kai said, eyes firm on the floor beneath her again.

There came a thoughtful hum. He smoothed a hand over one of his sleeves.

"Ordinarily," he said, the mock-play of the words aiming for light and landing nearer to awkward formality, "the going rate for gossip to a Hufflepuff is at least two biscuits and a cup of pumpkin juice."

A pause.

"But I'll settle for a quiet treaty. This conversation never happened."

Kai blinked and glanced over at him. His eyes were closed. "...Sorry," she said.

He exhaled through his nose. "Just ask," he said wearily, though his mouth tugged into something faint and crooked. It seemed like permission, and maybe doubled for forgiveness.

The question still felt difficult. Her gaze returned to her feet for safety. "Do you think Marius..." Frustration looped back in for how to finish the sentence. At her side, her hand brushed her wand-holster. Do or don't. "...might fancy me?"

Quiet.

Another exhale. "I have no explicit certainty," Cass said, and Kai's heart started to sink. Embarrassment budded warm beneath her face. But then Cass continued in the same even cadence: "However, my sources are strongly in support of the possibility."

Kai frowned at that, even as her heart did a little flutter. That wasn't a no. "Your sources." She risked a glance over.

His eyes were still closed. "One that keeps notes, you might say."

That held in Kai's mind for all of five seconds before her brain bungee-ricocheted toward one bewildered conclusion: Cass and Selma have... talked about this?

When she didn't speak, Cass opened his eyes and glanced over. Any lingering discomfort receded into an almost wry tilt of his brow, almost teasing. Before he could say anything, his gaze shifted past her.

From the adjoining corridor behind Kai, a shadow emerged. Kai turned toward the peripheral figure, heart hitching, half-terrified it might be Marius in the flesh. But it wasn't any of their friends.

This was an adult, and one Kai didn't recognize.

The witch wore silvery-grey robes in a cut Kai took for militaristic - form meeting motion, formality meeting utility, fashion meeting pragmatism. Such one could duel in. That struck Kai first, before she studied the woman's face. Too young to be matronly, too old to be green, dark hair spun up in a dignified manner.

Kai and Cass straightened away from the wall, though they had the newcomer's attention.

She studied their faces and robes and trim. Then: "Miss Bosco, Mister Rosier."

Before Kai found her voice, Cass stepped half a pace forward beside her. "You've got us at a bit of a disadvantage," he said, tone mild but polite. "Miss...?"

"Alexandra Ferens," she answered, stranger no more. "You will be joining us, then."

A part of Kai didn't like the sound of that. McGonagall's meeting? She glanced sidelong at Cass. If he recognized the woman's name, his face gave nothing of it.

Ferens continued, voice smooth and even. "Prompt. Good. I imagine the rest will be along shortly?" There came a shift in her posture, her brow tightening just a degree. She turned her head back the way she'd come. "Gideon, really?"

Another adult appeared from the corridor, this one a man in more colorful red-and-blue robes, ink-stained and ruffled. A quill flicked over an open book in one hand. Another parchment drifted alongside him, furled like a bird suspended on a string. "Coming, coming, Lex - my, we've still ten minutes, haven't we?"

"They'll be along," Kai quietly put to the earlier question, gaze drifting uncertainly between the pair. "Miss Ferens... I'm not sure I understand..."

And so Ferens' gaze came back to Kai. "Auror," she said crisply, though not unkind. "And this is Gideon Renshaw, from the Muggle Liaison Office." Her voice held no judgement - only plain informative manner. "I expect you can guess why we're here. If not-" A pause, just long enough to soften, "-you'll understand soon enough."

Designated liaisons for the club, perhaps? Kai wondered, trying not to frown outright. But why an Auror?

"Gideon," Ferens said mildly, "Would you-"

"Yes, yes," the man replied distractedly, already ambling the way of the Headmistress's office. His spare parchment lazily drifted behind him like a kite.

Unease rooted in Kai as Ferens returned attention to her and Cass. She wanted to speak to them alone? Why? Kai's spine prickled. For a breath, she was eleven again, listening as a Hufflepuff prefect tried to kindly, carefully explain that Cass wasn't 'safe'.

For a moment, Ferens simply looked at them. Her eyes lightened, Kai thought. Then the Auror said, "You're the ones who wrote that letter to the Prophet two years ago, aren't you?"

Kai and Cass exchanged a side-glance. Kai nodded. "Yes," she said, the single word sounding a little like challenge and a little like question. She remembered the weeks after they sent it. How the Prophet had printed a half-backstep a month later, hedging so hard it nearly reversed its spine. How that had been the turning point - not for the adults, but for them. For the Contraries. That moment when they stopped being that weird group and started becoming a name younger years whispered like a dare.

The adult smiled, thin in a way. "Citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Daily Prophet," she said, "was... inspired."

Press Complaints Commission. Union of Journalists. UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Kai added in her mind. Anselma had included a few others Kai couldn't even remember.

Cass lifted his chin slightly. "Are the Declaration's principles unreasonable for wizarding life?"

For the span of a heartbeat, Kai could've sworn Ferens's expression tilted toward something like sympathy - or was it pity? She couldn't tell, and that somehow made it worse. Perhaps the adults are paying greater mind after all.

They never got her answer. Ferens looked past them and said, "Ah. That'll be your friends, then. Shall we?"

The Auror turned, her silver-grey robes catching the light of a torch as she strode ahead.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

October 28, 2006. Hogwarts. Magical Ethics Classroom.

Cassian

Near the back of the Magical Ethics classroom, a Muggle tapestry depicting a silver owl hung tall to Cassian's left. The patterns spiraled around the owl in a feathered, kaleidoscopic manner, leaving it the only fixed point in an otherwise still burst of mundane geometric design. The owl gazed sightlessly down at Cassian, judging him, weighing him, and finding him just as wanting as he found himself.

It'd been meant to be simple, he'd thought. Pick a few pen-pals, write to them, and then return to troubling over what to make of Anselma's findings a few days past. He didn't know how to express to his friends the fear that rooted in him when he listened to her read aloud about the Eyes of Caduceus. Pureblood squibs who rose and fell. Squibs who envisioned a world without magical purity. It made his blood cold to imagine how some of his relations might hear such things. How others, if they walked free, might act on them.

There were far too many ways bringing attention upon squibs could go far, far too wrong.

But this hour was owed to the club, and to the conquest of correspondence.

The Postscript Society had assembled for the evening, quills scratching and parchment rustling beneath the hum of voices. No sign of Kai yet, but the rest of the Contraries were scattered about the room, mingling with the dozen or so others who'd joined the club.

No sign of the origami dragon today. Marlow, in all his infinite wisdom, had seemingly charmed the thing into keeping to the library instead of tailing Cassian through the school.

Cassian slid aside a parchment in his lap and studied the pen-pal printouts he'd been avoiding. An array of Muggle listings blurred beneath his gaze.

Tasha // 17 // USA
Hey hey! I'm all for My Chemical Romance, eyeliner, and AMVs. I play guitar (badly lol, but I try), wear too much black, have way too many bracelets. Looking for deep convos and maybe swapping burned CDs?

Vince // 16 // Germany
Gamer + tech nerd, certified noob-slayer. Big into Runescape, Halo 2, and modding my PC for fun. Looking for chill gamer penpals. If you play WoW, bonus points.

Many of the other listings followed similar chaotic patterns. ALL-CAPS, emoticons, and hyperactive slang assaulted his senses. He willed the paper to yield something less loud, more sensible.

Noob-slayer? Cassian tried to assume it wasn't meant literally. And why set the CDs on fire?

There were entire phrases shortened to senseless acronyms, some of which Cassian tried to decode contextually in a margin before his patience gave out. He would ask Kai or Marlow later.

One girl described herself as 'a Rory with a dash of Veronica', which Cassian suspected might be some Muggle star-sign-related classification, based on comments he'd overheard from Imogen and Tilda earlier. Another boasted of being a 'Gaia thread mod', which Cassian thought might somehow be related to Greek symbolism, tailoring, or computers - Marlow had mentioned 'mod' as a computer-related term. Yet another pen-pal gleefully bragged of owning a 'mutant Draik', which Cassian took to mean either a rare lizard, an electronic device, or an unfortunate condition.

To say nothing of the egregious misuse of punctuation throughout.

Where was the listing for someone interested in the nuances of law? Or, failing that, someone who respected the written word?

He was meant to choose a few to write to, but the prospect seemed daunting.

Did Renshaw just... print all of the listings regardless of content? Cassian wondered glumly. In a brief glance up, he spied the brightly-robed Liaison sitting with the Slytherin first-years, enthusiastically answering some of their questions. Shouldn't he have at least vetted them for grammatical competence? Or basic cultural compatibility?

Professor Tarth would have been more discerning, Cassian thought, but she'd been drawn into a meeting elsewhere.

All around the classroom, Cassian could hear excited murmurs as other students looked over their own handouts of listings to choose from. No one else seemed to be having trouble. Several were already writing. A group of Hufflepuff girls giggled near the lectern, entirely at ease. None of them near as adrift as Cassian. He stared down at Tasha's listing again. Swap CDs. He didn't even have a CD player.

The next bench over, Rhys Thayer of all people sat beside Marlow. He held his own listings near the Gryffindor's as though comparing conflicting maps.

"I'm not sure I understand what this one - Marco - means by 'emo'," Thayer said, a note of frustration in his tone. "Is that another computer acronym?"

At least Thayer struggled some.

Marlow leaned over and frowned. "Think it means 'emotional'? It's a haircut thing or something? I'm not sure," he admitted. Sitting up straighter, he called across the room: "Pell! What's 'emo'?"

A few heads lifted. Some Muggleborn kids chuckled and a few whispered.

Imogen Pell tossed a braid over her shoulder as she looked up from the lectern. "Like goth, perhaps? Honestly, no one really knows, but-" Then, she paused thoughtfully, and - to Cassian's horror - she gestured toward him, with his usual charcoal robes and heavy-browed gaze and world-weary expression. "Like Rosier, I guess?"

A few quills paused mid-scrawl. The rustle of parchment went deafeningly silent, for a heartbeat.

The only thing worse than wondering what in Merlin's name Imogen meant was the way her words reminded everyone else in the room that Cassian existed. He distinctly did not lower his head, instead keeping his face carefully blank as various students across the room tried to decide if humor was on the table or if the Rosier bloodline was about to finally rear its head.

At least, that's what he imagined, reading it in their wavering smirks and winces. As if I would throw a fit for so petty a reason.

Slade Robbins - Gryffindor, decorated in one of those nauseating celestial Wheezes sashes - snorted. "Oi, Rosier, what eyeliner do you use?"

None.

Marlow cut in without missing a beat. "Same kind you use, Slade." The Gryffindor in the sash clutched a hand to his heart in mock-pain.

Anselma glanced up from a bench near the Hufflepuffs, her lips parting as if to respond. It was just as well, since Cassian meant not to.

A light throat-clearing came from Renshaw, who rose from his place beside the first-years. He looked between Marlow and Imogen. "Now, that's not quite a complete answer." Heads turned toward him across the room. Renshaw knew things, at least, even if he hadn't properly filtered the pen-pal printouts. "'Emo' is short for 'emotional'. It's a Muggle youth subculture, often associated with music or fashion - typically black clothing, dyed hair, and makeup."

Marius, propped languidly against the front wall, shot Cassian a wink and a grin that were far too amused. Cassian sincerely hoped that the next Widdershins wouldn't include a subcolumn on eyeliner.

My hair color is natural.

Above Cassian, the owl on the tapestry offered no opinion. It watched, silver and silent, too lifeless to draw attention in a wizarding school.

The Liaison gave Imogen a pointed smile. "Given the fashion's tendency toward dark clothing, I daresay most wizarding children fit the look, at least superficially."

And yet somehow Imogen had still pointed to Cassian. Happenstance.

Laughter arose again from a few students - including Imogen, who didn't look the least bit put out at being corrected. Thayer nodded thoughtfully, never once turning about to look at Cassian. Presumably he simply wanted his answer. Anselma had already returned to her own writing.

Cassian resisted the urge to frown, sensing Renshaw meant to be helpful. The explanation still meant that half the classroom likely now thought of Cassian in the same mental grounds as emotional and dark eyeliner. With attention shifting mercifully away from him, Cassian glanced back down to his own listings. He crossed 'Tasha' off, as she had mentioned eyeliner.

It wasn't that eyeliner was a threat vector. But Cassian wasn't taking any chances.

He needed something to filter the list, regardless.

He scanned further down the list: anime, into the stars, no drama, just vibes, and whatever Linkin Park was. It wasn't a park he'd ever heard of. Cassian crossed out a few more names. One 'Kim' outright confessed to being emo. Cassian appreciated the honesty, even as he crossed her off. He was unsure what Xanga was, and so crossed out a listing that mentioned it as well.

Eventually, he narrowed his options to three:

Callum // 18 // Canada
Into The OC, Green Day, and quiet nights. Mostly here to meet people outside of my high school hallway. If you like reading books no one else has heard of, classic RPGs, or cool zines, hit me up. Prefer snail mail over email.

Aria // 17 // Italy
Want to practice my English I love basketball, manga, and drawing little doodles in the corners of my letters. I like when people send decorated envelopes - my cousin says I should be a cartoonist.

Leander // 17 // UK
I write with fountain pens + seal my letters with wax. No, really. Into all things old-school: classical music, rainy days, reading in libraries. Love history, poetry, and anything vintage. Please no texting - proper letters only. Let's pretend it's 1896.

Cassian studied Leander's listing for a moment longer than the others. He suspected that Marius would've found a joke to make about the 1896 remark - likely that wizards already were pretending so. Something of that nature.

Callum and Leander weren't perfect, but they seemed unlikely to be put off by his interests. He wasn't entirely sure what Green Day and The OC were, but based on context in other listings, he suspected they had something to do with music. That could potentially be a threat of 'emo' based on Renshaw's explanation, but nothing else in Callum's listing raised concern.

He was less certain about Aria, but her listing wasn't off-putting. He could appreciate the desire for self-improvement, which he told himself was good reason. Practice of language offered a clear framework for communication.

In Cassian's periphery, Kai appeared and settled down a comfortable distance down the bench from him. Her sleeve brushed his as she reached for her own quills and ink bottles. She had her own listings in hand, he noted when he glanced up - Tarth had placed a stack of the printouts near the door for late arrivals before leaving things to Renshaw for the day. Cassian and Kai traded a glance, and almost imperceptible nods as was their way, before lapsing back into quiet. Ever unassuming, Kai's presence. That was part of its comfort.

"You're late," Cassian said, eyes returning to his own marked-off listing.

"Peeves," Kai explained, and so the world made sense again.

Cassian straightened his sleeves, then reached for his parchment and the writing board leaning against the bench. If his prospective correspondents wanted 'snail mail', decorative envelopes, and 1896-style exoticism, then by Merlin, he would provide. He would not be dismissed for underwhelming post, illegibility, or a tendency to use punctuation for expressions when well-chosen verbiage would serve as well or better.

The deep black feather of his quill swayed over the parchment like a war banner.

He elected to begin with Leander, who seemed the most straightforward of his options to satisfy. After a moment's hesitation, he selected an addressal he deemed suitable for a stranger: Sir - In the spirit of mutual curiosity and goodwill, and then proceeded into the letter proper. He wrote at length about Franz Schubert, and made a detailed inquiry as to which historical periods Leander found most fascinating. After due consideration of his own, Cassian began to write extensively on-

"Cass..." Kai said quietly, "...That's two separate letters, right?"

His quill paused. No? He studied the parchment and considered that perhaps some of it could stand to be relegated to a follow-up. "It's a draft. And he did request letters in the style of the 1800s."

In the corner of his sight, Kai chewed her lip before gently saying, "Alright. Just - if you write too long... he might be intimidated out of writing back."

That made sense, he supposed, glancing over the parchment again. Still, he did like Franz Schubert and felt that section was justified - from both a classical music and historical standpoint - to demonstrate he fit within Leander's stated parameters for pen-pal selection. Perhaps I'll leave the historical details for later, and first determine his own favored classics.

"Cass," Kai said quietly, now peering over his shoulder. She had such a tone, subtle though it was, that Cassian immediately felt wary. "The... um... opening paragraph."

He frowned and glanced down.

'I have the honour to address you, though as yet unknown to you in person or precedent, in the hope that this letter may serve as the formal commencement of a correspondence mutually agreeable. Should you wish to proceed, I shall be most pleased to receive your reply, and will consider any such letter as signifying assent to the spirit (if not the letter) of continued discourse.'

"What?" he asked. It is polite.

Maybe it was a little formal, he considered, but he didn't want his pen-pals to be put off by anything too pushy or presumptuous. Cassian had little taste for letters from strangers - too often they were from family members he wasn't meant to hear from, or from Ministry officials on uncomfortable matters, or simply pure business. The only real exceptions were the Contraries, his friends, with whom he had rapport already.

"Cass, when they say they want letters 'like the 1800s'," Kai said, and he could tell she was trying to be gentle again, "They... don't mean it quite that way. Just... write like you'd talk. Well - sort of. You... you don't need to put down terms and conditions. They're just looking forward to letters through the slot. It's already going to be parchment - they'll find that fun and unusual before they even open it. But if it... sounds like that, well. They'll either think you're making fun of them or... deep in the theater."

Cassian frowned down at the parchment and reread the paragraph. "Ah." The back of his neck warmed.

The idea of the Postscript Society had seemed far simpler at a remove. The notion that some Muggles liked to write letters too. Here, now, it seemed fussier, what with the lols and the Draiks and the emos and the Linkin Parks and now the style as well.

He tilted his head toward Kai as he studied the parchment. "Kai," he said, uncomfortable thought striking him. "Do you know what 'emo' means?"

"Sort of," she replied, her attention already amid a sway back to her own listings and papers.

Reasonable. Kai rarely had nuanced awareness of fashion matters. Anselma was better for that. But he had no desire to ask Anselma. "Is it applicable to my person?" Cassian asked, injecting as much dubiousness as he could manage.

Kai's initial silence was not reassuring. Nor her glance to the deep ebony of his quill.

Her fingertips twitched against the bench between them, before Kai said, "I think it's more something that some people like. Just kind of how they approach... teenager things. It's not really something you are unless you want to be. Mostly."

That appeared closer to a yes than Cassian would have preferred.

He returned his attention to the letter for Leander. "You think this should be half its length, then?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah," Kai said, scratching something off on her own listings. "And... maybe try writing it like you're talking. Imagine you're speaking to me or Marlow - or maybe Marius." Kai paused, considering, then added, "And as a starting point, probably reconsider any word that would appear in a Ministry summons."

Warmth returned up the back of his neck as he made what seemed a very belated connection. "Ah," he said simply, to which she thankfully said nothing at all. In the corner of his eye, the silver owl watched with threadworn eyes.

He wondered if Leander would find the parchment charming or strange. He hoped Leander wouldn't ask what kind of school he attended. The Society had guidelines for answering such, things he'd helped design, but it struck him as demeaning to have to commit inches of space to a lie.

Before the club convened for the day, Cassian finished the letter to Leander. He took the other two listings with him for later.

To Leander,

I saw your listing and thought we might get along well. I am also drawn to older things - I spend much of my free time reading in libraries and have been told I have old-fashioned tastes. The fountain pen and wax seal detail caught my attention especially, since I use similar myself. I have even learned to use a quill and inkwell.

You mentioned classical music and poetry. I am particularly fond of Franz Schubert's work, though I'd be curious to hear what composers you prefer. As for historical periods, I find myself most interested in Medieval Spain and early Rome, but I'd like to know what draws you to history in the first place.

I hope this finds you well, and I look forward to hearing from you.

With regards,

Cassian

P.S. If you also enjoy epistolary structure or vintage letter formats, I'd be interested to hear.

He added the postscript after parting ways with Kai.

---

There was comfort in things as blunt as language exchange and fountain pens. In a list of strangers, none of whom knew his name or would remark on it if they did. The wizarding world was rarely so generous. Its past had more teeth than even it often paid mind to.

The next day found Cassian on far more severe business, for the matter of squibs continued to rear in his mind. The Eyes of Caduceus. The others were enchanted with the idea, even if they knew all too little of the group's particulars and less of how it ended. Cassian didn't need the particulars to feel a touch of cold to his spine as he considered the Eyes' theories.

It had only been eight years ago, after all, that the Ministry itself had been pressed enough to justify the Muggleborn Registry. Muggles and squibs hadn't fared much better. Likely wouldn't, should history turn anew.

And it would, between the Fourth Umbrella and the Statute's uncertain fate.

The Ascetics were one problem. But the moods and manners that had bred Voldemort's following were not gone. Most of the worst in Azkaban, perhaps. Not all.

Rhetoric of the like that of the Eyes could still put a target upon every squib even without the society itself being extant.

For this reason, Cassian leaned against the stone wall two turns of the corridor beyond the Slug Club's gathering-space. He stood as collected as ever, hands folded neatly behind his back. He was not a member of the club and did not wish to be. But if anyone accessible might know more of the Eyes of Caduceus - and, Cassian suspected, their violent dissolution - it would be Horace Slughorn.

So naturally, Cassian had asked Marius to handle the question.

He could have waited in the dorm, but Avery was in with some bellyache born of a Potions mishap. The downside of listening to Avery whinge outweighed any fleeting entertainment of seeing the boy spout green bubbles every time he opened his mouth. Such sadistic glee suited Marius better, as well. Despite what some suspected, Cassian derived no pleasure in pain and less in humiliation.

Disproving a foolish argument, however, was another matter. Inapplicable in this case.

Someone came from the direction of Slug Club. Cassian glanced up, but it was only Thayer - thin and towheaded prefect of Ravenclaw. A longtime Slughorn favorite, by Cassian's understanding.

"Rosier," the other boy said in surprise. He stopped a few paces off. The smile he offered seemed more perfunctory than pleasant.

"Thayer," Cassian replied, waiting for him to move on.

Thayer lingered, eyeing Cassian too thoughtfully for his preference.

"You know," he said, "I've never quite made sense of it. You perform well in class. You're well-spoken. And, to be frank, you could use help - making connections, I mean. Given how things stand. Did Slughorn not invite you?"

"Professor Slughorn and I don't always see eye to eye," Cassian offered after a moment to consider. An understatement, if ever he'd given one.

Thayer raised an eyebrow. "It's connections, not betrothal, Rosier."

"Professor Slughorn has always been generous with his invitations," Cassian pivoted to say evenly, gaze shifting away from Thayer. And Slughorn had been so - he'd invited Cassian at least thrice a year since he was old enough for the old wizard to consider. "I simply find attendance neither a necessity nor a guarantee of good character."

"That may be," Thayer said slowly, tone more skeptical than bristling against the barb. "But it's not others' good character you'd be going to guarantee, now is it? You do know what the Board of Governors is saying of late, don't you?"

"If the Board has begun evaluating students based on party attendance, then they're in worse straits than last decade."

"You don't get it, Rosier." Thayer took a step closer, tone almost frustrated. "I'm on your side. I like the Postscript Society - I think it's an interesting idea, and I even think I know what you're really trying to do with it."

Cassian studied a portrait across the corridor, where two knights jousted in the shadows of sunset.

Encouraged by Cassian's lack of words, perhaps, Thayer went on, "The Board's had dozens of letters in. Most asking why students are being encouraged to write to Muggles. But to hear my mother say it, more than a few have written about you. They don't know anything about you. You're the second name on an uppity letter to the editor, if they know anything. You're a Rosier."

How easily a name outpaced else. He held his posture, as always.

"What, exactly," Cassian asked without looking away from the portrait, "do you think I'm trying to do?"

Thayer stepped nearer, enough that Cassian didn't care for it. The Ravenclaw said, "You and I both know there won't be any new departments. No reforms at the Ministry. There's international pushback, especially in the States. My cousin at Ilvermorny says even mentioning Statute reform gets you flagged. I think you're hedging your bets for when another war happens. For if the Statute fails."

It was almost a souring thing, how ready Thayer seemed to believe that a Rosier couldn't plan for peace without strategy in disguise. Not that the club lacked strategy.

But there was reassurance, too, in a way. If Thayer saw writing to Muggles as an indulgence, then he'd be less trouble than if he grasped just how far ahead the Contraries' eyes spied.

Even so, it was disappointing for Thayer to fall on so shallow a read. Cassian had expected better from him.

"An interesting theory," Cassian said quietly. "So, what manner of pen-pals did you find to write with?"

Thayer lifted his chin as he blinked - a recalibration playing out in his expression. "Musicians and artists, primarily," he said crisply.

In other words, someone who plays guitar poorly, perhaps a few amateur photographers, and maybe an exotic 'HTML enthusiast', Cassian translated. Really, did Thayer think he hadn't been looking at similar listings?

Still, Cassian indulged him. "I see. I've opened correspondence with a lyricist autodictact, a polylingual illustrator with a decorative hand, and a historian with refined epistolary taste." The phrasing felt ridiculous even as it left his mouth, but Thayer had started it.

There was a beat in which Thayer said nothing. He blinked once, the corner of his mouth twitching against a smile.

"You'd enjoy Slug Club more than you think," Thayer finally said, not unkindly. He shook his head.

It was Cassian's turn to go quiet, frowning. It wasn't that he enjoyed wordplay wrapped in silk. He simply preferred it to the open offer of teeth. "I expect I'd enjoy many things," he answered noncommittally.

Thayer watched him a moment more, then glanced back as Marius rounded the corner. He looked to Cassian agin. "Until class tomorrow," he said, with a nod. "Rosier."

And he was away, footsteps measured against the stone. Cassian watched him go, in the corner of his eye. Hedging bets for another war. The worst was the wondering of if perhaps he should. Of whether he'd discounted the prospect of things turning to violence.

Cassian leaned away from the wall to fall into stride alongside Marius, who'd paused in waiting for Cassian to go with him the other way.

"No good," Marius admitted, after they passed the last wakeful portrait. "It was odd, really. I told him I'd been researching something and wanted to ask after it. Old Slughorn shooed me out like I'd insulted his mum."

Odd. "You weren't even able to ask?"

"Tried knocking after. Waited a bit, but then he opened up the door and said he wasn't taking questions today."

Perhaps the Professor was keener to Marius' jester-manners than the Contraries had thought? Cassian didn't know. "It sounds unlike him. Are you sure you didn't ask oddly?"

Marius quirked a brow in Cassian's periphery. "I was perfectly polite. Called him Sir and everything. Proper lad."

Somehow, Cassian doubted that, but he'd allow it until proven otherwise. He paused within the corridor, thoughts drifting back to Thayer's words. Slughorn might decline one Marius Mulford. Would he decline Cassian?

Or Rosier?

"You're brooding," Marius informed him, having circled back on heel when Cassian stopped.

Would it be obvious, if Cassian tried to go and speak with Slughorn now? Would it muddy the potential for answers? He had no strong rapport with Slughorn. He was still of the Contraries as well, he knew, but so was Marius. Both of them kept invitation to Slug Club. So, Slughorn's dubiousness had limits. Slytherin enough to not close doors unnecessarily, whatever the matter was that saw him turn out Marius tonight.

If he approached Slughorn, it would be a sort of offering. It would be an implicit suggestion that he needed Slughorn, needed aid to let merit make up for the poison of his name even if he never said as much. Yet, if Marius could not ply Slughorn... Well, Kai couldn't. Marlow wouldn't. Anselma could try, but Cassian had his doubts.

Who among the Contraries could walk that world, when Marius tripped in it? Cassian misliked that a sort of logic led, perhaps, to him.

"I'll attempt to speak with him," Cassian said, eyes turning from Marius. He was in no mood for antics.

Marius stepped nearer. "If you're sure."

He wasn't, but Cassian had no intention of saying so. He felt cold in no way he could attribute to the corridor's chill. His hand itched for a quill that wasn't present and wouldn't have helped him besides. He smoothed a hand over his sleeve. "I'll meet you in the dorm," he said.

Each step away from Marius seemed dimmer than the last. There was no certainty of success in this, but Anselma's searching for more about the fate of the Eyes had found nothing. Tarth, though a squib, seemed too young to know anything about them. Filch, if he knew... well, none of the Contraries had good odds of learning anything at all from him. Obscure knowledge of upper-class social circles was the domain of one man in known quantity.

In a way, Cassian almost missed the simplicity of the pen-pal printout in the Society meeting. Those, at least, had held their wants and wishes plainly.

He passed dozing portraits toward Slughorn's office. In one of the paintings, a long-haired black cat watched him through sleepy, half-lidded eyes.

Cassian came to the door of the Potions-master, knocked twice, and then stepped back to wait. He folded his hands behind his back.

A nearby portrait murmured sleepily about curfews.

From within the office, there was a faint rustle and clink of glass, followed by quiet. It extended enough that Cassian held little doubt: Slughorn had heard and now deliberated, as was his way. Even without close rapport, seven years informed Cassian well in the moods of his Head of House.

The door creaked on its hinges to reveal Professor Horace Slughorn, spectacles perched low on his nose. He looked wary, and then subtly tired as he recognized his guest.

"Ah. Mister Rosier." He sighed. "I suppose this is about what your friend came to ask after?" His tone remained cautious, reluctant in a way Cassian couldn't account for. Cassian, after all, had little lens for the way Marius had inadvertently channeled Tom Riddle's greatest hits. But the old wizard chose to open the door a fraction wider. "Five minutes, Mister Rosier."

"You have my thanks, Professor," Cassian offered as he stepped in. "I regret missing your invitation tonight." It was true enough now, as it may have made this less awkward. "My studies have kept me quite busy."

Slughorn gave a faint hum of acknowledgement as he stepped aside and then shut the door with a soft thump. The office smelled strongly of old parchment and something caramelized. The remnants of an evening's pleasures lingered - empty glasses, silvery plates, and a few likely tokens that might or not have been subtle bribery.

"Oh, I'm quite aware of your academics," Slughorn said, moving to lower himself into an armchair. "Professor Vector especially spoke well of your Arithmantic work just last week. 'Quite meticulous', were her exact words. And I must say, you have that distinctive Rosier bearing about you. Your great-aunt had much the same manner when she was here."

With no idea what to say to that, Cassian simply inclined his head.

Slughorn nodded, seeming unsurprised. He folded his hands over his stomach, though almost immediately raised one to stroke his mustache instead. "But I'm sure you didn't come to merely explain an absence. You've something on your mind, Mister Rosier. I wonder if it's the same 'wondering' your friend Mister Mulford tried - and failed, I might add - to inquire after earlier this evening. You'll forgive me if I'm a touch... particular about certain topics."

Cassian studied Slughorn for a quiet beat. He wondered, in an allowance of fairness, how many scars of the war were hidden upon the adults. He'd read enough of the court proceedings after the war to guess he glimpsed only the shadows of the truth there.

"I imagine so, Professor," he replied. "But it really is only a piece of history. In truth, I expect to learn it ended poorly. If I may - do you know anything of the Eyes of Caduceus?"

The answering stillness came more as a tightening than a snap. Slughorn looked as though he'd picked up a letter and found the handwriting uncannily familiar. "Now there's a name I haven't heard in decades." He seemed to relax, though. Whatever his particulars, it wasn't the Eyes he was leery of, then. "Not many would even recognize it these days."

In that, Cassian read the likelihood of their full dissolution. Slughorn didn't seem the type of wizard who would be pleased by the existence of such a society.

The old man continued, "The Eyes of Caduceus were... ah, now there's a fascinating case study. Peculiar doesn't quite capture it, really. You see, they were pureblood-born squibs, yes, but here's the remarkable thing - they weren't ashamed of it. Most unusual for the time, you understand. No obsession with wand acquisition. No talk of lost legacies. They were intellectuals, refined even, yes."

He gave a small chuckle. "Of course, they kept... shall we say, questionable company. I recall - oh, it must have been '38 or '39 - that they'd actually invited Muggles to lecture at their gatherings. Can you imagine? And then, naturally, Grindelwald came sniffing around. Whether he courted them or they courted him..."

A hand waved dismissively. "Well, that depends entirely on whom you ask. After that, the whole group was quite firmly told to disband. Most complied. Some vanished. A few... well, one hears stories, of course. Nothing official, you understand, but there were some rather unfortunate circumstances surrounding certain members. I wouldn't want to speak ill of the dead, naturally."

Cassian's eyes narrowed briefly at that. He had expected something of that nature, but was disappointed by it nonetheless.

Slughorn fixed an eye on Cassian. "You won't find much about them in the standard archives. Why the interest, Mister Rosier?"

"Curiosity, Professor. Sympathy, if you would. I do not imagine it has always been safe for squibs to associate in such a way." Cassian misliked the words even as he said them, even as he believed them. Not fair, is it?

He turned his head, eyes traveling the well-decorated walls of the office. Various photographs hung on one, in particular. Central among those, one of Slughorn enthusiastically shaking hands with an Auror with dark hair and a scarred forehead. It only made sense that the war-hero was one of Slughorn's, Cassian thought, looking away again.

The professor continued, onward.

"There were rumors, naturally, that some remnants tried to reconvene in the '60s..." And then Slughorn trailed off, eyeing Cassian freshly, as though now reconsidering the boy's claim of curiosity. Remembering, perhaps, that he spoke to a member of the Postscript Society, and a Human-Rights-Declaration-citing Contrary besides. He leaned forward in his seat, then rose, gesturing to the door. "If you're wise, Mister Rosier, you'll treat it as a curio. Something to be noted, perhaps, but not emulated."

The Professor gestured to the door and so Cassian took a step toward it, sensing the impending dismissal.

"A word of advice, if I may, Mister Rosier. Banners tend to burn, you know, regardless of who's holding them. Best to keep one's options open, as it were." Slughorn said as he let Cassian out, the door creaking once more.

"Of course, with the Board asking questions these days, a young man in your position might find the right introductions rather... beneficial. Social capital, you understand. I do hope you'll consider my next invitation with greater... flexibility. A mind like yours, combined with the Rosier name - properly positioned, of course - well, I could introduce you to some truly influential people. The right connections at the right time, you understand."

Schubert had died penniless, so thought Cassian as he passed the threshold. Some made their mark, their influence, long after they had passed. He hoped it would not be the Contraries, not the least because the world could not afford it.

Outside, Cassian tilted his head back as the door closed behind him. He moved his hand to absentmindedly smooth a sleeve as he released a breath. Better than expected.

Not particularly helpful, in the end. Attempted to reconvene in the sixties. Still, likely mostly gone if not died out by now. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. Perhaps more disappointed, for the implicit trade he'd made: Slughorn likely expected him to show up to the next invitation.

And the Eyes remained more complication than salvation.

Cassian suspected all too strongly that the wizarding world would tear itself asunder before readily sharing in scholarship.

Chapter Text

October 30, 2006. Hogwarts. Hufflepuff Seventh-Year Girls' Dorm.

Kai

'You're the only one I can really talk to...'

'You're all I have now. I wish you didn't have to be so far away...'

'The landlord came by again yesterday. I told him you're doing brilliantly at school, but I don't think that's what he wanted to hear...'

'Sometimes I wonder if you're the only reason I'm still here...'

Kai held the letter loosely over her knee. She sat cross-legged on her bed's yellow-check blanket, between a splay of books in the middle and a folded quilt at the end.

Hufflepuff's dorms were always cozy, warm, soft in all the ways that should have felt like comfort. Tilda's corner was cluttered with folded dresses and potpourri. In Imogen's, a collection of colorful moving pictures covered the wall like a collage. Nadine's space was arrayed with books and colorful quills. Moira's... well, Moira's looked like Hufflepuff gone to bootcamp, in comparison.

Some of her dormmates were around. Over on Tilda's bed, she and Imogen laid side by side on their stomachs, a copy of Witch Weekly shared between them with lazy smiles. Nadine sat at a desk, quill busily scratching at an essay. One whisper of sound against the quiet mood of the room. The sound faded into the static-numb hush of Kai's thoughts.

The only thing Kai could focus on was the fibrous texture of the letter, subtly irritating against her fingertips. Her head bent toward it, but she wasn't really looking at it. Her mother's words swam beneath her eyes. She'd read them twice. She didn't need to again.

Kai folded the letter. Bitterness and guilt circled, both submerged beneath a bland and shapeless doubt that came of knowing she'd have to write back.

The feeling wasn't new. Years ago, 'Look after each other, yeah?' her uncle said. Back in Colorado, when they were packing too little and too swiftly for Kai to make sense of it. At the time, nine and lost, Kai'd latched onto the words like a maxim. It made sense, when nothing else did. And when it stopped making sense, she still clung to the shape. Loyalty, but she needs me, but, but, but - such things spun cobwebs through her veins.

The letter slipped from her fingers. It shouldn't have felt so immense. Not next to threats looming beyond the walls. Not beside the soft maybe-hope in the ideas of the Eyes of Caduceus. The world awaited. The world needed. And Hogwarts felt so very distant from all of it.

Footsteps pounded in the hall beyond the dormitory, too fast and too heavy. Distantly, Kai recognized the rhythm more than registered it.

She couldn't even deal with a single letter. So much for saving the world. What if that same paralysis infected all else? Nothing for it but to try. Sometimes, she didn't know if it was determination or resignation.

Kai curled and released a fist.

The door to the dorm opened with an uncommonly violent thunk. Nadine's quill stopped. The others looked up. Kai twisted, but she perhaps needn't have - Moira Shackleford was already almost upon her, moments after the door swung closed. Stillness hung over Kai like a second cloak. No flinch. And Moira rounded the bed to face Kai head-on, brown eyes burning with irritation and a pinch of what might've been fear.

A crinkled scrap of parchment fell atop the letter from home. Moira had held it in a fist, but the dancing margins remained ever-telltale. Kai knew Widdershins anywhere.

Had Marius finished this month's, then?

Kai glanced at the crumpled newsletter, and then up to Moira, leaning back slightly to better study the prefect's face.

"What the bloody hell is this, Kairiel?" Moira hissed.

Kai looked back to the wrinkled Widdershins, familiar weariness settling over her shoulders. She'd never liked the name. Kairiel. Colored by too many strangers pausing or cooing over it. To say nothing of motherly adulations of my little angel gone on too long.

Moira jerked her hand at the paper. "Not enough to question international law in class - now you're attacking the Ministry and... and..." She snapped her hand back to her side, fist clenched.

She still thinks I'm writing it? Kai frowned, gaze flicking up briefly, but she said nothing. The Contraries agreed, after all. Plausible deniability. And it made sense, she supposed - after the Daily Prophet article, she'd become the most visible of them.

Though she couldn't help but wonder what Marius had written now. Attacking the Ministry? That hadn't been the plan. Marius and Anselma had discussed topics just the other day. Historical parallels, maybe a gentle dig at bureaucratic botherments.

The silence from the others was deafening. They too had learned to weather Moira's storms. Why she'd become a prefect over Nadine or Tilda, Kai would never know.

Parchment creaked as Kai reached to unfold the October issue.

WIDDERSHINS WEEKLY
In Monthly Installments | October 2006

A Brief History of Throwing Baby Out With the Bathwater
-WW (no, not that one)

When I was a child, my cousin once vanished my beloved stuffed elephant. Naturally, I put it to my father that the only sensible response would be to vanish my cousin. As my father typically lacks the kind of wisdom that comes of not being six years old, I was rather surprised when he disagreed. His solution was to teach my cousin not to vanish toys, rather than vanishing my cousin.

I found this not only disappointing, but frankly utopian.

Of course, I am not without my historical supporters. So, a decade on, I shall prove my father wrong once and for all.

First, of course, I must mention books. Not only the biting kind, although those at least have the decency to retaliate. Throughout history, people have noticed that books tend to cause ideas. Naturally, the obvious solution is to burn them. It's hot, it's dazzling, and after five hours spent staring into a bonfire, no one will be able to read anything anyway. Foolproof. The fact that dangerous books continue to exist merely proves they haven't burned enough of them yet.

Second, every decade or so, someone decides the solution to Dark Magic is to ban Dark Magic. The Ministry has banned the Unforgivables no fewer than seven times since 1734, each time with increasing confusion when people continue casting them. The sixth ban included sternly-worded pamphlets. Men after my own six-year-old heart, the dark wizards of the time responded by vanishing them. The Ministry officials, that is, not the pamphlets. The pamphlets were re-printed alongside the seventh ban.

(Those without murderous impulses, meanwhile, managed quite well without the pamphlets.)

Third. Around a century ago, Muggle Americans realized that alcohol causes poor behavior. Since people never behave terribly without alcohol, they decided to ban it. The results speak for themselves. To this day, Americans remain sober and sensible.

(For the more sheltered reader, I must clarify: No. No they do not.)

American wizards, being even more sensible than their Muggle counterparts, banned Gigglewater, Butterbeer, and looking directly at alcohol advertisements. The success of this policy can be measured by the complete absence of any American wizarding problems in the historical record, save for the occasional Hair-Thickening Charm Incident, which has plagued unsuspecting hikers on the Pacific coast for decades and left more than one bear tragically tufted.

Well, the alcohol ban failed, but sixty-nine House points for effort. Possibly deducted again for the bears.

British wizards learned from this mistake by banning Firewhisky precisely never. This explains why the Weird Sisters keep getting back together, despite repeated petitions from the public.

Fourth. During the Black Death, some took to publicly whipping themselves - evidently tired of keeping it in their bedrooms.

(First-years, don't ask; third-years, kindly stop explaining.)

As expected, the plague persisted. Still, when solutions require thought, there's always flagellation as a substitute. Modern parallels include the annual "Fourth Year Initiation" movement, where young wizards attempt to prove their stoicism by standing in the rain reading Magical Me aloud until someone cries (usually the reader).

Fifth. Following the Great Pixie Infestation of 1879, the village of Little Whinging elected to eliminate all small, winged creatures from their vicinity. This included pixies, fairies, butterflies, and Mrs. Wilberry's prize-winning hummingbird collection. The pixies returned the following spring, but at least the village was spared the horror of pollination.

There are infinite ways to solve a problem without fixing it. Some wizards go live on tops of mountains, seeking purity through asphyxiation. They, at least, have the decency to only afflict themselves. Every other year, someone has the bright idea to simply destroy all the bad things, until the entire project collapses into a shouting match over whether trousers count. The Department of Mysteries likely maintains a full-time committee dedicated to defining "bad," which has been in continuous session since 1456 without reaching a conclusion.

I never did manage to vanish my cousin. It took months of effort from my father, but my cousin did eventually stop vanishing my toys. For better or worse, that means I still have my cousin. He's now a clerk at the Ministry, where his talent for making things disappear is finally being put to good use - mostly on duplicate reports and the desk plants I keep sending him.

Oddly enough - presumably because I am no longer six years old - I like that outcome.

(Though I still miss my elephant, mind.)

Leave it to Marius, Kai thought, to find a way to make a go at a mocked-up version of his cousin and annoy the Ministry at once. Still, it's not that awful, is it? The Ministry fielded worse. Moira was over-reacting. ...Right?

"Don't you have any sense?" Moira was saying.

Kai felt she'd missed the first half of a rant while reading the article.

Moira persisted: "'Only satire' only goes so far. The bits about Dark magic? Mocking multiple magical governments? Dreadful innuendo? The... disrespect is... Have you lost your mind?" She looked like she wanted to pick up the parchment again, if only to throw it.

"The point's not wrong," Kai said. But might come off targeting the Ministry more than the Ascetics... She wasn't sure it would do to irritate the Ministry - more than they likely already had - instead of the actual threat. The Ministry wasn't the real enemy so much as easier to mock. Most of the time.

Given that Marius' family worked in the Ministry, she wouldn't put it past him to have gravitated so by chance as much as intent.

Moira sharply rolled her eyes and took a step back. "Right. Well I'm sure you'll be thrilled you made your bloody point when the Board shuts down your little club and starts asking what the Headmistress is letting students publish." Her hand jerked again.

Kai stayed silent under that, staring at the wrinkled parchment. Her shoulders lowered a little. Around the margins, bent broomsticks aimed at desperately dodging stick-figures. They looked less playful, this time. More frantic. Is it too much? Still, nothing said. Explaining would only burn it higher. Apologizing would be a lie.

When offered nothing - because what was there to offer? - Moira exhaled sharply. She snatched the parchment out of Kai's hands - and Kai let it go without resistance.

"You'd do well to hope this rubbish gets cleaned up. Don't you realize the Board examines prefects when students are out of control? I'm going to-"

It's not wrong, Kai thought. Even the Ascetics aside, everyone seemed to want everything but to think about how to survive the potential end of the Statute. Sure, her talk of it had made the Prophet, but only in-between headlines about cauldron standardization, interviews with supposedly reformed junior Death Eaters, and deep-dives on wizards centuries dead. No, the Widdershins article wasn't wrong. Maybe mistimed, if one didn't realize it meant to aim at the Ascetics.

"-better if it were called Widdersnipes, what with how your lot seem to hate everything-"

Internally, a part of Kai wilted at the prospect of looming shadows with too many questions and too glowering eyes and all for not much accomplished. She let that weariness submerge, pressed it toward the same place meant for when loyalty and guilt intertwined too tightly, too intimately. We don't hate this world. We want to save it, for everyone. But Kai didn't know how, not really. Not in time, and not without the world falling apart in the process. And certainly not here, really.

And what would happen to her mother if secrecy collapsed and the world went mad? That thought was pressed away too.

Moira was still ranting, Kai vaguely noted. "-think they'll leave the rest of us alone?"

"Moira..." Tilda's voice rose from the other side of the dorm.

Moira's gaze flicked toward the other bed, then back to Kai. Kai wasn't looking at her anymore. Her eyes turned back down to the uneven fold of the letter near her knee. Silence stretched, only to be broken by a huff from Moira before she turned to stalk back toward the door with Widdershins balled in her fist.

More silence.

Then, Imogen piped up, voice lilting and curious, "Was there really dreadful innuendo?"

"Was it clever?" Tilda asked, leaning into the breach. "Or just the usual broomstick and wand jokes? How awful are we meaning?"

Despite herself, Kai exhaled in amusement. She leaned her head into an upturned hand. "Black Death and whips," she said.

She waved her free hand in a you do the math sort of way before letting it fall again. When Marius said he was including the Black Death and Flagellants, this hadn't been what she'd imagined. Kai wasn't sure what she had imagined. Something more reserved, maybe more akin to the June Widdershins. Less Jonathan Swift with teeth.

The next silence was heavy with the other girls processing.

"Huh," Tilda finally managed. "Suppose it's always the quiet ones."

Always the... And then Kai closed her eyes. ...Thanks, Marius. It wasn't the strangest assumption ever made of her, so she supposed she could live with it. Mostly.

"...Whips?" Nadine asked, clearly confused. Kai supposed she'd let the other two explain the relation if they wanted to.

"Honestly," Imogen muttered, "Worth it, if you get in trouble over that."

Merlin's beard, Kai thought, don't let that be what gets us expelled. Her fingertips traced the edge of her mother's letter, soft sound of the friction setting the back of her neck to itch. Then again, maybe if we were expelled we'd be in a position to do something real.

---

When Imogen's explanations for Nadine became too much for the creeping secondhand embarrassment beneath Kai's skin, Kai excused herself for an early evening trip to the library. Grey corridors felt lighter than the sunny, charged atmosphere of the dorm, even when tension clung to Kai like a shadow. Orange sunlight filtered through the occasional high window, and pumpkins with glowing eyes watched Kai's progress.

In the library, the tall, endless shelves were a comfort, always and ever. Always and ever did she gravitate to the shelves of creature lore.

In some ways, trying to understand other people didn't feel all that different to trying to understand other living things. To try to see why a kelpie did what it did or an Obliviator did what they did. Or a dragon or an Auror or a dementor or even a Death Eater. As if, if one could find the right key, maybe comprehension would let them build better foundations than what had come before. But how could a world that produced Death Eaters be fixed? The wizarding world was too small, too powerful, too isolated, too proud. And, ultimately, too afraid.

Not that the Muggle world was without its troubles, Kai supposed. Even if there'd been no Obliviation or power difference at all, she didn't think integration would've been a smooth prospect. It never was.

Kai's hand hovered over the books, searching for something new. One tome with a golden and feathering spine let out a low snore. The sound hitched as her fingers passed near, then settled back into dozy rhythm.

She pulled down a tome named Denizens of Distant Skies: A Discourse on Flightful and Frightful Magical Fauna. Nearby, a ghost drifted between the stacks, carrying an armful of spectral books.

Cradling the book in an arm as she opened it, Kai leaned against the meet of two shelves to read. Great shapeless and half-ethereal leviathans that never descended from the upper atmosphere, painstakingly studied. Footless birds caught in eternal flight over South American plateaus. Thunderbirds of North America, with a footnote on their role as one of the House emblems of Ilvermory. Great winding serpents and listless scaled qilin of the east. An ancient sighting of a creature with eyes so great that their wink came like a blink of a lesser moon. More.

Kai flipped through the pages. A wondering passed of who'd last held this, read it, studied it. Had anyone else at all, this year? The last? Perhaps someone who'd stayed in Care of Magical Creatures to NEWT level, though those varied in their motives. For some, it was part of a Potioneer's interest. For others, this and that of conservation or protection. Why am I still here?

"You know, Snake Charmer, you're in some danger of being predictable." The familiar warmth of the voice cut through the listless hum of her thoughts.

She glanced up from the book. Some steps down the aisle from her, Marius leaned against a shelf, his head tilted and hair charmingly askew as he tried to evade the sniffing attention of a wandering pamphlet.

'Spoken by someone who's never broken a rule in her life.' His nuisance words of the other night echoed as Kai closed her book. "What? The aisle?" she asked, for lack of else.

He gestured with a hand, made a half-bow that he used to simultaneously slip further away from the nosy chunk of literature. "Just so. Find anything interesting, then? Or is it back about to bunyips and billywigs?"

"Still looking for that space dragon," Kai deadpanned, lips tugging. It'd been a joke in second-year that had become an unofficial competition between them, up and down this aisle. They never found signs of such a thing. It would've been lovely in a way, though. Sometimes, she still wondered if magic existed beyond this world. The library seemed ever lacking for that.

He gave a slight nod, smaller than he was usually prone. "Would be nice, wouldn't it? Forget broomsticks. USS Merlin to warp 10!" The lilt of his voice sounded halfway to wondering for himself. He seemed truer in it, less affected.

It'd been sometime around the start of fifth year that he'd come in with dozens of Star Trek references. Kai hadn't the slightest idea where he'd found any of them - when she'd asked, he'd just said something to the like of 'A wizard has his ways,' and that was that.

"Wizards'd probably irritate the Kobayashi Maru," Kai supposed to him thoughtfully, turning to place the book she'd been reading back on the shelf. "Or at least need to redesign it."

"Not sure it's all that impossible to trip us, is it?" Marius countered, and she heard him closer now, which made the back of her neck prickle in warm awareness. When Kai turned, he'd moved further along the opposite shelf toward her, away from the restless flittering of the pamphlet. He made a broad, encompassing gesture with one hand. "No-win scenarios? What's it the umbrellas are, if not that? The lot of it."

Kai didn't have a ready response to that. It's too much and we're doing too little. Her gaze fell, indistinct thoughts piling before she could begin to define them. The shadow of Moira's irritation curled tightly about her shoulders. "Suppose so," she said, frowning in distraction at the idea.

"Of course, it's all a bit of a mess, but that's hardly new," Marius said after a beat. Then, out of nowhere: "Tribbles. It's like tribbles. What's a tribble against Wheezes nonsense getting loose in the corridors again? We've greater nonsense for breakfast, and with greater magic-babble nonsense to solve it besides."

"Yeah," Kai allowed, lips quirking as she glanced up to him again. He'd only a faint smile this time, alongside crossed arms and a crooked up brow. She wanted to banter back, but nothing came swift to mind.

Cassian had seemed confident enough Marius fancied her, but any temptation to try flirting again was dampened by the sheepishness of her last attempt. That ridiculous guidelines comment that she'd felt bold about in the moment and ridiculous after. It hadn't been mean, but in leaving the alcove that day, Marlow had commented in amusement aside to her, 'So, what happens if Marius watches Pirates?' to which Kai had no answer and only dawning horror.

Something else, something else... Focus, Kai... She nudged back on the flustered thought.

Kai shrugged. "Saw the new Widdershins. Speaking of things loose in the corridors."

His eyes brightened. Marius tilted forth a little. "Well then. Thoughts?"

Kai hesitated. "Think it made a good point," she said. Doubt hovered on her tongue, even as she closed her lips.

His smile faded slightly. "...But?" Marius invited, too perceptive when he wished to be.

She glanced down again, twisting a foot from side to side on its heel. "Ministry probably won't like it."

"They rarely like anything, it's true."

"McGonagall might not like it either," she ventured.

For a moment, nothing. Then, Marius let out an odd sound, half-amused and half-surprised. "Worried about trouble, Snake Charmer?"

Kai shrugged. "Worried... about trying to keep what things we have," she admitted. "We've just Widdershins and Postscript, and Merlin knows half the wizarding world outside doesn't much like either, probably." And if we're made to stop either, what then?

"Well, if we were out to be liked, reckon we've made a few wrong turns already." A note of frustration rose in his voice, though.

No, Kai agreed. It was never about being liked. But failing because of it...

A fluttering thing came, then, a parchment bird flapping on slow, clipped beats of wing. It circled over the stacks before dipping down to persistently peck at the side of Marius' head until he finally caught it out of the air.

Kai watched as Marius unfolded it.

"Well then. Speak of the dame."

A frown from Kai then, reflecting back a moment before: "McGonagall?"

Marius nodded, his own theater fallen away save for an incredulous raise of brows. "She wants a word. You don't suppose...?"

"You... do have a recognizable writing voice," Kai murmured, even as she stepped away from the shelf closer to him. "You- you're not in trouble, are you?"

"Likely not," he said, but the scoff in it sounded off.

McGonagall would be fair, wouldn't she? Maybe it was... overmuch, but... was it? Kai glanced to the fold of parchment, glimpsing what seemed a very short summons. "I'll go with you," she said firmly. Then, softer, "If you'd like."

There was a bit of a frown in it when he glanced up at her, almost assessing.

"What?"

"You're not about to try hopping under the train for me, are you, Kai?" he asked, tilting a brow. His words were wry where his expression wasn't. The parchment he slipped down into a pocket of his robes.

"Of course not," Kai said automatically, even as her face warmed. ...Not this time, anyway. "But we're all in this. That's not changed."

"Ah, yes. The Knights of the Square Table," Marius muttered with a nod, glancing down the aisle toward the wider library.

...The what? Kai blinked, then resigned herself: just Marius being Marius. "What do we slay?" she asked.

"Nonsense, mostly." He waved a hand, already turning. "Well then. Shall we?"

On their way out of the library, Madam Pince gave them a glance. More Marius than Kai, Kai thought. More than once the librarian had shooed them out from between the shelves mid-discussion, her expression suggesting she expected to find disheveled robes and flushed cheeks instead of Star Trek parallels and space dragon snipe-hunts.

Kai wasn't sure she wasn't projecting a little, reading that meaning into it. Someone had to assume they were having a torrid romance, and it clearly wasn't going to be them.

It wouldn't be awful if adults saw them and assumed pining instead of political subversion.

Or both, maybe.

It was evening-time: late enough for most to be retiring to dorms if they hadn't, early enough that it wasn't quite curfew. So, while Marius and Kai passed a few other students, it was fewer still that paid them any mind.

In one corridor, a pair of Ravenclaws huddled together over an open book. Tucked discreetly in the folds of the pages, a ratty corner of dancing-edged parchment showed, half-visible. Widdershins. One of them glanced up curiously as Kai and Marius passed, quickly closing the book and nudging her friend. The other whispered something that sounded like 'heard about that debacle with the bears'.

Kai and Marius reached the gargoyle statute that marked the Headmistress's office. Marius offered the password - Begonia - and the gargoyle leaped aside to admit them. The office was quieter and less crowded than last they'd stood in it. When they'd first learned of the Ascetics.

McGonagall sat behind her desk, very clearly marking a copy of Widdershins with her quill. On a nearby shelf, thoroughly marked essays sorted themselves, shuffling between a dozen piles.

As the pair approached, she looked up with a calm, unreadable expression over her glasses. She didn't seem the slightest amount surprised to find two students instead of one.

Just in case, Kai forced herself to meet the older woman's gaze evenly.

"Ah. Miss Bosco. I see the note reached more than one recipient." The Headmistress drew her wand and gave it a flick. A second chair spun up on the far side of her desk. "Very well. Sit."

There was a moment of something like a game of chicken - Marius glanced to Kai and flicked a hand out as though to say ladies first, a gesture Kai missed entirely in her preoccupation with trying to read McGonagall's face. Eventually, Marius just circled the first chair to sit and Kai followed suit after.

By then, McGonagall set aside her quill. "This is not a disciplinary meeting. No detentions will be issued. No points will be lost."

"Then...?" Kai asked, when Marius failed to say anything.

In the chair beside her, Marius rested his chin on an upraised palm. He only barely avoided slouching. How he managed it, she had no idea.

McGonagall pressed her spectacles back upon her nose. "I have heard considerable discussion regarding today's newsletter edition. More than several past ones combined." She looked pointedly down at the the copy on the table before studying Kai and Marius in turn.

"Well. That's-"

The Headmistress tilted her head. "Mister Mulford," she said evenly.

"...Yes'm," he answered, even as he caught Kai's sidelong glance and offered a crooked smile that Kai found nervous.

McGonagall watched him for a moment. "I'd thought perhaps we wouldn't need to discuss it, but it appears I was mistaken. Widdershins Weekly is quite a piece of work."

Marius sat unusually still for a heartbeat. He started to lean forward again, grin rising, lips parting. But then McGonagall met his eyes and he stopped.

He really can't help himself. Kai wasn't sure if the thought was fond or resigned. It felt like both, a lightening that came of him being predictably urged to project levity.

Mcgonagall continued. "The club you and your friends run is neither invisible nor anonymous. And Widdershins has regularly tread a very particular line. I would be remiss if I failed to provide guidance. I do not need a confession. I need-" Her gaze moved briefly toward Kai, "-two students to understand that publishing ideas, even anonymously, is not absent consequence. You've built a bridge to the Muggle world. A fragile, ambitious, well-watched bridge. Even careless words could endanger it."

Kai glanced to Marius, whose manner had lost the grin, the affect, and all other play. Anything he'd meant to say melted away.

Ill ease coalesced in Kai, settling as cold upon her shoulder blades. More eyes, always more eyes. Her fingers pressed into her arms as she crossed them. She glanced back to McGonagall, then away. On a shelf, she glimpsed the Sorting Hat at rest. Kai wondered if it'd known the ways the Contraries would go after it placed them.

"I'm offering you trust," McGonagall said. "Continued freedom to write. I know very well who writes Widdershins." Her exacting attention turned upon Marius anew and he sat up straighter. "Should a certain author wish to submit future issues for editorial review, he may leave them to me, quietly. In return, I expect responsibility and care. The alternative being that others may pursue such oversight regardless of cooperation. Choose your words wisely. And with mind for that there will be first-years reading, undoubtedly. This is your warning. There will not be a second."

The quiet after left Kai's breath feeling shallow, her attention half-distanced. Monitoring again. First the liaisons for the club and now the Headmistress for the newsletter. More oversight meant less freedom to act. What good were they if only approved thoughts were welcome? But then, that had always been part of the trouble. It would be easier if we were graduated, maybe. But then, less protected too.

As above, so below: walls were a boon and bane to both the wizarding world and to Hogwarts itself.

Kai still felt how little they were doing like a tether suddenly found alarmingly slack. Even this to fight for.

"Understood, Headmistress," Marius said quietly, his usual flourishes of tone notably absent. His expression held in an uncommonly serious way, one more often seen in exams than in conversation. All of his masks weakened, it would seem. Though Kai wasn't sure that was the truth of his solemnity. Something seemed off in it that she couldn't put words to initially.

It was the fingers, she realized. He'd run a hand through his hair and she'd almost missed it. Nervousness beneath the calm. For the situation? Or something more? Kai didn't know.

"I hope so, Mister Mulford," McGonagall said, seemingly at least half as dubious as Kai. Then, the Headmistress looked to Kai, and she added, "Miss Bosco."

Thinking herself prompted, Kai said, "Understood." She flexed her fingers against the arm of the chair. McGonagall seemed about to say something more, though.

"Ah-" Marius cut in distractedly. Kai followed McGonagall in looking to him. "And my request, Headmistress?" A faint note of concern tinged his curiosity.

Request? Kai wondered, but Marius just quirked a brow when he caught her frown at him. Later, she chose to interpret it as.

McGonagall looked steadily at him. "Your father has signed off on it." She said it in such a tone that suggested - whatever Marius' request was - this was a surprising development. "As have I, provided it does not interfere with your behavior or academics unduly."

Marius's face split into a grin at that. "Wouldn't dream of it."

The Headmistress's austere weariness spoke in the faint line of her mouth.

Shortly after that, McGonagall released them into the corridor. The hallways felt more breathable after the Headmistress's office. Marius trailed behind Kai this time. They didn't speak until they'd turned a third corridor away from the gargoyle. Even then, the first sound was Marius letting out a breath.

"Well then," he said, picking up his step to walk alongside Kai. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Kai frowned. "Wasn't it?" she asked quietly. Being watched, more and more, loomed in her mind. Hundreds of restless adult eyes, in her mind, and below them all the shadow of her mother. She pushed that away.

Marius shrugged. "She didn't turn me into a stuffed elephant, did she?"

A chuckle escaped Kai. "I suppose not."

He grinned in delight, gave a playful wag of his brows. "We can only go up, from that possibility. The true danger against which all others may be measured. What's the saying, again? A Headmistress never forgets?"

"Well, she doesn't," Kai said.

"Nor does she miss much, alas."

Kai nodded to that, briefly quiet after. When they'd turned another corner, she asked, "What was your request?"

"Oh." He glanced to her. "I'd not gotten around to saying, had I? I'm to be the newest apprentice at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Ruggedly knavish, isn't it?"

Wheezes? Kai's frown returned, though more puzzled than distraught this time. When had he even applied for something? And why hadn't he mentioned it? "I didn't know you..." She trailed off. ...Liked prank things?

"Neither did I," he said without missing a beat. "But, all's new experiences, isn't it? Unless they turn me into a cobra. Though I suppose a king cobra wouldn't be so terrible."

"Think you're more a kingsnake," Kai said absentmindedly, frowning at the stone floor as they walked. What do you mean 'netiher did I'? What are you...

"I do think you just called me nonvenomous. Think some would disagree, don't you?" He briefly held out three fingers in a W. Presumably for Widdershins.

A pause, then Kai retorted, "Immune to lots of venoms too."

"Still, not dangerous."

"Colorful enough to look it. When you want to, anyhow."

---

[thought I bookmarked it]

SENT: "anyone have the blinking link?"

[did my comment get deleted?]

SENT: "anyone else's saved threads messed up?"

[weird, it was here earlier...]

SEARCHING...

---

The conversation dwindled off there with a snort and smile aside from Marius. They walked in quietude from there, comfortable in the dim. Kai's thoughts pulled inward again, toward Moira who was likely back in the dorm by now or to the letter still waiting among Kai's things. Toward scenarios where their careful bridges crumbled, where they were left with nothing but toothless letter-writing and spellwork jokes while the world hurtled toward a culture clash to end all culture clashes. The Hogwarts corridor seemed claustrophobic, innocent though it was in Kai feeling that they planned from inside a snowglobe.

Marius's voice lifted in a teasing tone, familiar cadence that pulled her back from the recesses of thought. "Did you ever decide how you were going to get in trouble?"

In trouble? Oh. Her thoughts spun loosely at the question, then latched onto, "Not sure I need to. If Moira thinks I wrote that last one, and she does... well, everyone probably thinks I've got very specific ideas about medieval plague responses."

Marius tilted his head, genuinely puzzled for a beat. Then, he let out a delighted laugh that made Kai's face burn even as she gave a wry, resigned smile. His own grin was absolutely wicked. "Ah. The whips. And here I thought you were worried about McGonagall turning me into a pincushion."

"I can worry about multiple things." Warmth crept into her tone, even so, in the renewal of banter.

"I do apologize for besmirching your pristine reputation, Snake Charmer."

"Don't." She could sense the budding escalation in his tone.

"Perhaps I should have leaned more on the educational implications."

Her smile tugged wider. "Marius," she chided, nothing sharp in it.

"Oh, come now, Snake Charmer. I'm in Slytherin. Trust me - between the dungeons and the dark arts, there's far worse reputations to have."

"Now I really don't want to know."

"I do wonder about what they say of Ravenclaws and their research methods."

"Marius..."

"And, well, Gryffindors have traditionally creative interpretations of chivalry and reckless bravery."

"Marius, no."

"They do say Hufflepuffs are hard-working and-"

The same determination that had made her insist on accompanying him to McGonagall's office flared again. No more letting him have all the fun. Before he could persist with something ridiculous like enduring or unafraid of toil, Kai interrupted him with, "And we're brilliant at finishing what others start."

Marius's mouth opened and then closed again. He blinked at her like she'd just hexed his brain. Something shifted behind his eyes - a flicker of genuine surprise.

Kai took the small win. Harder in talk, but sometimes boldness felt better. I could be bolder still...


Many kilometers away, a very different conversation unearthed.

---

ERROR - THREAD NOT FOUND

[I swear this thread had 200+ replies this morning...]

CHECKING CACHED VERSIONS...

[Fucking mods...]

ATTEMPTING TO ACCESS BACKUP ARCHIVES...

GOOGLE CACHE - FILE CORRUPTED

[What the hell? The cache is scrubbed?]

BLINKING_MAN.MP4 - FILE NOT FOUND

SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVE SOURCES...

[Come on, someone always saves everything.]

CHECKING MIRROR SITES...

[Come on, come on...]

FOUND - MERCURY_FILE.DOC

[Better than nothing. Basement-dwelling hero.]

DOWNLOADING...

[Bloody hell, where's the rest of it?]

---

bluebeam42 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 2:43 AM
Okay, weirdest thing ever just happened. I was in the Slough Tesco car park around 6 PM. I swear to god I saw a man in a trench coat vanish. Like, gone. No car, no nothing. Looked like he was reaching into his coat pocket, then POOF. Vanished. No smoke. Just... not there anymore.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?? Not joking. Not drunk. 100% sober and pretty creeped out.

---

truthguy00 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 3:01 AM
Gov't teleportation tech. 100% confirmed. Search DARPA. They've been testing teleportation since the 80s. Bet this dude was a test subject.

---

y2kwatch – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 3:44 AM
I've seen this too, was working. Bristol city centre. Man in a long coat, looked Victorian, standing under a streetlight, checking a weird compass thing. Looked around, tapped his shoe twice, and vanished. Wasn't on any camera I checked afterward. CCTV recorded NOTHING. Like he edited himself out.

They're not government. They're older.

---

glitchgirl04 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 4:09 AM
Yo, I have a clip. Low-res, caught on my friend's phone. You can't see the guy but you can hear the vanishing pop. She thought it was a car backfiring. But we were in a park. No cars.

Uploading to Yousendit since YouTube is being a pain. Link: [DEAD LINK]

---

bluebeam42 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 5:12 AM
@glitchgirl04 YES. That pop. That's what I heard. Like air sucked in fast.

Also, anyone notice static on phones/electronics nearby? My phone froze when it happened. Friend's MP3 player started playing something weird. Coincidence?

---

greymouser662 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 5:12 AM
[Removed by administrator.]

---

mercurygate – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 5:31 AM
Electromagnetic displacement would explain the electronics glitching. Whatever tech they're using creates a localized field disruption. Have any of you checked for residual magnetic readings afterward? I'd bet money you'd find anomalous signatures.

Also, @y2kwatch - Victorian dress isn't random. These people might be part of some old institution. Government, maybe, but older than DARPA.

---

brunswickeye – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 5:58 AM
@mercurygate You're thinking too small. You're all describing the same phenomenon reported in old occult journals. 19th century "aetheric travelers"... people who walked between dimensions. The "blinking" is a reference to them existing half-in and half-out of observed time.

This isn't new. It's reappearing.

---

mraster – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 6:23 AM
Look, I was working security at a retail park in Norwich in '98. Saw a guy in robes (not a costume, actual robes) arguing with a woman. She was holding a stick, pointing it at him. When I yelled, she looked at me, and they both vanished.

I got fired for "starting rumors." I'm telling you, these people are out there. They HIDE in plain sight.

Got some more stories too, but brb, knock at the door.

---

droeshout – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 7:01 AM
Y'all notice how many owl sightings there've been in cities lately? They follow the Blinking Men. Birds don't act like that unless they're trained.

---

mercurygate – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 7:18 AM
@mraster A stick? You mean like a wand?

@droeshout Urban owl sightings have been increasing since 2003. I've been tracking RSPB data. But you're right - their behavior patterns are... unusual. Nocturnal birds active during daylight hours, carrying objects, appearing in groups where they shouldn't. It's almost like they're... working.

Has anyone cross-referenced Blinking Men sightings with unusual animal behavior reports?

---

Admin Mod (SiteAdminGary) – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 8:45 AM
Reminder to follow community guidelines. Keep posts speculative and respectful. Also: No harrassing users you believe to be "blinking men." One user has already received threatening PMs.

Thread remains open for further discussion, but keep it classy, folks.

---

nightshift_worker – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 9:02 AM
@SiteAdminGary Wait, someone's getting THREATS over this thread? That's... actually more suspicious than the vanishing men themselves.

Why would anyone threaten forum users unless there was something real to hide?

---

mercurygate – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 9:15 AM
@nightshift_worker Exactly what I was thinking. Also, has anyone else noticed the thread keeps getting moved between forum categories? Started in "General Weirdness," moved to "Conspiracy," now it's back in "General."

Almost like someone doesn't want it easily findable but doesn't want to delete it outright.

---

mercurygate – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 9:41 AM
@anonymousguest498 "Made us forget" - you mean like organized memory modification? On a mass scale?

That would explain why these sightings feel familiar but also impossible. Like we collectively remember something that was deliberately erased.

Edit: Did that comment get deleted?

---

bluebeam42 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 10:23 AM
Guys, I'm getting weird PMs too. Not threats exactly, but someone asking very specific questions about the timing, location...

Should I be worried or...?

---

newaccount_nov01 – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 10:45 AM
@bluebeam42 Don't give them any details. Trust me on this.

Actually, everyone should probably take this conversation somewhere more private. These mods are acting weird and who knows who else is watching.

I've set up a temp IRC channel: #blinkingmen on irc.freenode.net

We can talk more freely there. DON'T REPLY TO PMS

---

mercurygate – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 11:02 AM
@newaccount_nov01 Good idea. This thread's getting too much attention from the wrong people.

For anyone joining IRC - I've been compiling historical records. 1892 London fog incident. 1934 Edinburgh "mass hallucination." 1967 Cornwall "weather balloon" crash. Lots of stuff in the 90s. Same patterns, different decades.

This has been happening for over a century. We're just the first generation with cameras in our pockets to catch it.

See you all on IRC.

---

zeroentropy – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 11:12 AM
IRC is wild.
Mercury's either the best lorebuilder on this forum or he's straight-up leaking from some tabletop campaign that takes NDAs way too seriously.
Either way, I'm grabbing popcorn and a Faraday cage.

---

[Thread Locked by Admin]

SiteAdminGary – Posted: Oct 30, 2006, 11:15 AM
Thread locked due to users attempting to coordinate off-site harassment of individuals. Community guidelines clearly state that conspiracy theories cannot be used to target real people.

Further violations will result in permanent bans.

Chapter Text

November 4, 2006. Hogwarts. Music Room Side-Storage.

Marlow

It's not really skulking about...

About an hour after the Postscript Society's latest meeting, the Contraries reconvened. They glanced over shoulders before following Marius through a narrow door to the music room. Down the hall, a suit of armor clanked in complaint at some unseen annoyance.

It'd started with Cassian pausing outside the Ethics classroom, murmuring that they ought to talk privately. Should've been Marlow saying it first, really, but he'd been too distracted by mounting frustration after the club.

"Really, the alcove's not that private," Kai'd commented. And so Marius had offered some alternative.

Marlow wrinkled his nose when the next door opened. Maybe he'd been expecting too much fastidiousness from Marius, he thought upon seeing the dust. The other four went ahead of him into the music room's side-storage. By the time he walked in and Selma closed the door behind him, enough dust had been kicked up that he could blame it for the sneeze building in his nose. Didn't even know this room existed. Not that music was something he'd gotten up to.

Felt a little stuffy inside, even before they piled in. No lights in it until Marius briefly drew his wand to send a few glowing orbs to spin overhead. Bit noir. Off where an organ took up half the wall, Marlow glimpsed a scattered dusting of ashes on the floor.

The room was cramped with the five of them in it, circling around a blue-sheet-covered piano in the middle, others along the sides, brass, and other miscellany. Cassian already had his wand out for a precise set of cleansing waves to sweep the dust into nothingness. There'd been a moment when Kai reached for her wand to help, but a series of sneezes seemed to have rendered that unwise. Her hand pressed over her own nose, head turned away.

After a theatric sway of arm and flutter of green-trimmed robe, Marius leaned against the wall. "Where the magic is done," he said with a lazy lilt of tone.

"This is where you write Widdershins?" Selma's skepticism was dryer than the room.

A devil-may-care shrug. "It's the only place I found without portraits that also didn't have pairs stumbling in to snog every other hour."

"Cramped in here." But she let it there, shifting aside to let Cassian's sweep of wand work along the wall.

An uncomfortable beat of silence extended. Seemed like the club meeting weighed on everyone. Or rather, the glaring absences of half the club after the flurry of owls at breakfast this week. And more so this morning.

"Are we..." Marlow glanced down to a wrinkle in the fabric atop the covered piano. "...sure the Statute's in danger?"

"Of course it is," Selma said immediately, only to scowl when she glimpsed Kai and Cassian exchanging a glance. "It's a when, not if. Tomorrow, two weeks from now, twenty years from now. Even if twenty years from now, we're already behind for the best case scenario."

If someone'd asked Marlow how the world would end when he was ten, he might've said aliens or war. He wouldn't have counted on the bloody internet - though the war still seemed possible. And Kai or Marius would probably have cast wizards as the aliens.

Cassian looked over from his spellcasting. "It's probable. Even if our timelines are off, change is coming. Whether the Statute dissolves or transforms remains to be seen."

"Yeah," Kai agreed quietly. "But... are we really doing anything?" Her hand traced the edge of one of the piano as she glanced between Marius's roost along the wall and Selma's stance over by some lumpier instrument. Some manner of wizarding horn with too many pipes, from the shape under the sheet.

"Widdershins..." Marlow started to say, annoyed that he couldn't bring himself to even mention the club just yet.

The dramatic splay of hands from Marius was almost predictable. "Widdershins is still just a rag," he said. He'd said it of his work once before, but now the utterance had nip in it. "A rag that's lucky if it survives the year, never mind if it actually helps anything." And the hands dropped with that.

Quietly, Cassian stowed his wand and shifted to stand closer to Selma. "I think we need to revisit our planning," he admitted. His hand fell to brush his sleeve. "The club was a good idea. But the reality we're witnessing is it being permitted into uselessness."

Marlow glanced around the circle of faces, all wearing variations of the same frustration and resignation. If Widdershins wasn't working, if the Society was hemorrhaging members... He bit his tongue, unsure, then tried: "I'll rally up the club-members, see if I can't get some to come back."

"What was that?" Kai asked, frowning. "The drop-off was..."

"Half of Hogwarts had letters in," commented Selma, tone speculative. "The families that work in the Ministry, mostly."

"So, half of Hogwarts," Kai said dryly.

"More two-thirds," Marius suggested, smile briefly crooked.

"Did you get a letter?"

"Ah, yes. Then sent my own off to my cousin. Pity he doesn't actually work in the Ministry, but maybe he'll have some idea of what's going on."

"What did yours say?"

"Vague, really," Marius admitted. "Discouragements against 'destabilizing' influences. Really, it's a miracle Father signed off on the Wheezes matter. I'll have to buy Algernon flowers."

Selma frowned, then turned to Cassian. "You don't think... it seems likely something's happened."

That made Marlow's blood chill, if only because something could mean just about anything in their situation. "You mean with the Ascetics?" he asked. Didn't see any such in the paper.

That received a shrug - more dubious than dismissive, from the twist of Selma's mouth.

Cassian's head inclined in thought. Never would Marlow say it to his face, but ever since the whole emo affair, it'd been hard not to think Imogen had a point. The look was there, especially as Cassian brooded over saying: "I know the Magical Congress in the States has been agitating about Statute-related grievances. They mislike Hogwarts allowing us to discuss it. It's plausible that there's been other pressures we aren't seeing. It's plausible that it's something else entirely."

"Any changes in press releases from the Obliviators' office recently?" Kai wondered, fidgeting over one hand with the other, tapping the back of her hand.

A shake of head from Selma. "Dry and standard. Not that transparency is lauded in the Ministry."

What else could it be? Marlow wracked his brain for things unconsidered.

"What about Gringotts?" Marlow wondered, drawing a glance from Cassian. He rested a hand on the edge of the covered piano, traced his fingers against the wrinkle in the sheet. "Odds are, if there's any non-humans already paying attention to things..."

"Well then," Marius said, scratching the top of his head with a hand, then ruffling his curled hair after. "I'm not eager to put possible cyber-goblin rebellion on the list of things to worry about."

After a brief delay, Cassian murmured, "Now I'm worrying about it."

"I'll leave that to you for now, then." Marius shook his head. "Not the faintest bloody clue how to approach it."

"Someone probably does," Selma said ominously.

Unsettled silence anew.

"I just..." Kai finally moved to lean against the wall near Marius, lips drawn thin. "I'm not sure how much impact we're actually having. Widdershins is still our best and biggest, and it's doing something-"

"Thanks," Marius said wryly aside, earning an apologetic shrug before Kai went on.

"-but this is so much bigger than Hogwarts."

Cassian and Selma each nodded, and Marlow found himself following suit, before he realized Marius wasn't. He had a thought of why. You already figured that.

"What about your plan?" Marlow asked Marius, looking at him intently now. The Slytherin had been quieter than usual this week. He'd not pressed it when Marius mentioned his so-called Wheezes apprenticeship to the full group, but if there was something new on the table, surely that would raise spirits. "You had some idea for the Muggle side, yeah?"

"Risky," came the vague answer. Marius shrugged and folded his arms. "And more of half a plan."

Risky plan involving the internet? he thought, remembering that day Marius had come to him with the ridiculous dance and posturing. The idiot had borderline been preening, like he'd thought that'd get Marlow to go for some hare-brained scheme. What are you on about?

"What plan?" Cassian asked, wary but even-toned. Rare that he leaned so, but Cassian ended up settling against the wall near Selma, eyeing Marius directly.

"Marius," Selma cut in just as Kai seemed about to, half-turrned. "If you have a new idea, then for the love of Merlin, put it in front of us. Skip the foxtrot, would you?"

It took all Marlow had to bite his tongue to keep from jumping to say anything, not sure if he wanted to ease Selma's bite or agree with it.

Marius waved a hand. "We're still trying to build bridges with toothpicks and nonsense, either way." He shook his head. "Wheezes. It gets me to Muggle London. Diagon Alley's next door to the rest of the world. Access. Afraid that's more or less two-thirds of the plan."

Comprehension settled in a few - Selma in particular narrowed her eyes in interest.

Kai muttered, "Will they even let you go elsewhere?" Marius gestured to her as though to say exactly, but Kai'd already fallen into that look she had when she got lost in her head.

"He is seventeen," Cassian said, pushing back the concern, "Access to people outside of Hogwarts is valuable. As for what the last third of your plan involves..." He cast a searching glance about the walls before studying Marius anew. "You're contemplating crossing a line, I suspect."

The way Marius simply shrugged in response, as good as a yes. Explained the reticence, perhaps. Doesn't explain what the bloody plan is. What, is he going to start a wizarding blog? Beside Marius, Kai frowned down at the floor, mulling manner intensifying.

"He might be followed," Selma said. "Of course, there's ways around that. Ways around those ways around. It depends on how determined a tail would be."

Marius nodded. Cards kept close, it'd seem. A silence stretched again for it.

"Right. Well, I'm not sitting idle here. What else can we do?" All business, Selma.

Cassian straightened his sleeves. "We continue looking for ways to understand the ideas of the Eyes of Caduceus as something practical. It's still one of our more interesting considerations for a post-Statute world. But we're still thinking far smaller than we could be. There's something else we haven't considered. Something that might be just as important."

"Which is?"

Something else now? "Haven't got enough?" Marlow asked. There was something like apology in the glance Cassian gave him before answering.

"Preparing to speak with magical beings. Goblins would be one, naturally. I suspect they already have investment in the Statute's likely fate. Centaurs and merfolk, though nominally beast by choice, would likely be of interest to speak to, between foresight and cultural interest. If they deigned to speak to us."

"Professor Firenze. I could try approaching him." Kai shifted a shoulder, her manner uncertain. Everyone knew better than to expect anything plain out of the centaur, even if he was amicable by the standards of his kin. Her lips twisted briefly. "Merfolk helped build the Statute's viability. It... would be interesting to see if they think it can be made to survive now."

Those words put a pause on the room, a jittering hesitation that scratched between them.

Voicing the shape of the hesitation fell to Marlow: "What if it can?"

"Then we still live in a society busy telling itself it isn't a cult," Selma answered, out the gate.

"We cannot be unsympathetic to the possibility," Cassian said, brow tight. "It isn't just about us. Every magical creature will be at risk if the Statute fails."

"Some of them won't mind so much," was pointed out by Marius. "There's already been problems with a few vampires trying to set themselves up as Muggle celebrities."

"Tight competition," Kai deadpanned. She folded her arms, and then she and Marius held almost the same pose side by side - which Marlow resisted the urge to shake his head over.

Marlow took a breath, then, trying to focus. "Cass is right, though. Should we..." He licked his lips. "If it can be saved. The Statute. Shouldn't we consider it?" We could avoid all of the trouble. No fourth umbrella, no third umbrella... no... well. The population problem, sure, but Selma's working on that. Maybe we've been looking at it backwards. Maybe it would be better to try to keep it?

"It's unlikely it could be," Selma said, eyes meeting his only briefly. There was a tightness about her lately when she spoke of it. He wasn't sure where it'd come from, but Marlow had a feeling she'd wrapped herself in a need to believe.

"I don't know," Kai admitted. "But we have seen the numbers, haven't we?"

Still leaned upon the other wall, Cassian smoothed a hand over a sleeve. "It becomes a question of what our core objective is. Humanization, we said before. I would assert that this remains a strong interest no matter the Statute's fate. There is a deep divide of empathy and intellectual interest across Muggle-magical lines. Bridging that remains within reason, either way."

Thanks, Marlow thought, shaking his head. At least Cass is talking people, even if it's dressed up.

"Well, if it's like that, then why aren't we working on wizarding-creature relations? They're almost as scrambled," Marius asked in a contrary note.

Cassian met his counter with, "We choose our battles. Besides, Liaison Granger and her alliances in the Ministry have greater momentum in that area than we could begin to catch up on. They could be allies, perhaps - because there is overlap, yes."

"The Statute will fail," Selma put in now, a little sharply. Her hand rested atop the piano in the middle of them. "Whether by accident or by sabotage - the sheer numbers will outpace reliable upkeep. Wizarding innovation is not that strong, especially where Muggles are concerned. Even if it weren't bound to fail, it's only pushing problems further along the road. Secrecy hasn't been a positive for wizarding society."

"...Clarify?" Cassian again, now speaking the dubiousness that had settled over the room like a weighted blanket. It wasn't the first time Selma had spoken to wizarding society's faults. She'd even been nodded to, after all: the second umbrella. One of the things lending to a problem if the Statute broke. But this...

What's gotten into her?

Selma's hand lifted, sharply gesturing to the wall of the room, then the door. Her eyes brightened with fierce intent. "Let's be plain, for a moment, about what this castle is. It's a taming pen for young magic users more than it's a school."

"Selma?" Kai ventured uncertainly.

"What? What precisely do Muggles call it when their neighbor sends off their kid to an institution they're discouraged from speaking about, on the grounds that the kid is 'dangerous'? Because I promise the phrase they'd think of isn't boarding school." Her voice scathed out the last two words.

"What is your point, Anselma?" Cassian asked with careful calm. "Because we are dangerous. Like it or not."

Selma was quiet for a moment, staring at the covered piano. When she looked up, something had resolved in her expression.

"You don't make dangerous things less dangerous by throwing them all in a box, muzzling them, and hoping they work it out," she replied. "You want to know why there's no wizarding psychology, Marius? It's because we've got a self-made cycle of breeding dark wizards and mad ones in equal measure. What few come out a little sane get used to manage the rest. The Statute isn't safety. It's a choke chain."

"Selma... where is this... when did you..." After a few stumbles, Marlow scratched the back of his neck. Bloody hell, where is this coming from?

Kai folded her arms, seemed to shrink inward, really. Marius, silent beside her, looked stormy as ever Marlow'd seen him - but he'd also nodded once as Selma spoke, which made something tighten warily in Marlow.

For a long moment, no one said anything at all. Marlow still felt scrambled, too behind Selma's leaps to quite know how to calm the choking mood of the room.

"Anselma," Cassian said, "We know. The population problem. Our world is not without its troubles. But desiring the Statute's end isn't the answer either. That shouldn't be a goal unto itself."

She stared at him, seething in the clench of her jaw. "The Muggle world isn't going to applaud our existence if they find it. Humanization? How are we supposed to humanize this?" Another gesture to the castle in general. "Every other decade, we're trying not to fall apart under some maniac. We obliviate Muggles left and right. We spend more time reading about how to hex enemies than we do about perspectives beyond the castle. We're not ready."

"Then what?" Marlow muttered. "What? Give up?"

Selma blinked at that, which he found a little hypocritical. "No. But this is bigger than just humanization. We can't just do small things and hope it works out. We need to accept that we're...." She shook her head, fighting with words visibly.

"La revolution?" Marius offered dryly, almost testily.

Marlow let out an incredulous half-chuckle, only to be dumbfounded when Selma said:

"Well. Yes."

She turned her head, gaze imploring.

Even Cassian didn't seem to have an outright answer to that, standing still as stone beside her. Marius's brows lifted, and Kai beside him simply stared at Selma, frozen. It took several seconds for Marlow to remember to breath. Even that felt painstaking.

She's got to be having us on, right?

When no one spoke, Selma pressed: "You do realize it's what we're already doing, don't you? Widdershins is already undermining the Ministry and normalizing questioning the Statute. Talking about it in public? We've known for a while now that we might face backlash. We've just kept our acts small because we're still thinking like students playing at it instead of accepting that what we want is at odds with what our government wants. What do you call that if not revolution?"

Do you hear yourself? You just talked about mad wizards, and now you want a revolution atop the Statute problems? Marlow rubbed the back of his neck, glanced to Cassian in hopes he wasn't gone on this. Still unreadable. Back to Selma. "There's a world's difference between knowing the world's going to change and throwing the baby out-" Marlow gesture to Marius. "-well, like he just wrote! McGonagall is working with us. The DA, too, by the looks."

"Or they're managing us because they see us as Anselma does," Cassian said softly.

Kai braced a foot against the wall. "We have more theories than goals. Hardly revolutionary." But there was a hesitation in her voice, a catch.

Marius, surely you-

But Marius glanced aside at Kai and gestured about the music storage room lazily. "Why'd we come in here again? Feeling ineffectual? Plans?" He gave a shrug of a shoulder. "Sorry, but I think we're one foot in."

...Well. Marlow couldn't bring himself to disagree with that. The halved club, the sense of uselessness. They'd not exactly come in here for tea and biscuits.

"What if we just make everything worse?" Kai asked quietly, staring at the floor.

Yeah. That. In the ensuing quiet, Marlow stared down at the old sheet atop the piano.

The movement of Cassian straightening his sleeves drew every gaze in the room, some more intently than others. Like an anchor in the group, a soft chime of steadiness. He looked at Selma momentarily before turning toward the rest. "We face a failure of specifically defined objectives. Humanization, while comfortably broad, may be allowing us a measure of self-deception."

To Marlow's surprise, Cassian looked to him next. "Marlow. I owe you an apology, of a sort." Huh? "You were the one who first thought we should do something. But I never did learn your-" he glanced briefly aside to Selma, then back to Marlow "-view of what you saw us addressing. I'd like to now, if you're willing."

Marlow blinked. He remembered, of course - Arlene flustered with the ridiculousness of Muggle Studies. The anger he'd felt, the floundering frustration.

"I... don't know. I just..." He glanced around at them. "A kid came to my tutoring halfway to tears. Just wanted to get people talking," he said, reluctant for how the words in his head started sounding like Selma in places. "Or at least be the sort people could hear talking about things that are frustrating or frightening them. I guess it's true. Selma's got a point that it's a bit of a madhouse here. There's things - the Statute, Obliviation, Muggle Studies - that walk right into heads, and if you don't take to the idea, you're left standing there thinking you're mental."

Cassian nodded slowly. "Largely, plausibly more the realm of reform than revolution."

"Complicated by the Statute's expiry date," Selma put in.

Marlow scowled in frustration, though he felt it more at everything than her. "I- Selma, I do trust your thinking on the numbers, I do, but-" He bit his tongue, but she looked at him now with a crooked-up eyebrow. Onward: "-I don't give a bloody damn about the Statute or not. I don't want the kids getting thrown under the tram when it comes down. That's what I want, whatever else we're about."

Unhelpfully, Marius murmured half to himself, "Ah, so it is the Statute Breach Bunker and Waiting Room."

"Will you cut it out?" Marlow turned toward him in annoyance. "Do you have the faintest bloody clue how awful it's going to get if Secrecy fails?"

Marius's eyes flinted as he leaned away from the wall. "Do I know? Why, I haven't the faintest bloody idea. Don't mind me, I've just been the only one doing anything for two years while the rest of you are just realizing we've been running a revolution on scrap parchment."

"Marius-" Cassian started to say.

Then, Selma: "It was hardly revolutionary back then."

Shouldn't have snapped... "Selma, that's not-" Marlow straightened now, robes swaying as he moved away from the piano to start stepping around toward them, hands rising in attempt to soothe. He hadn't meant to push it into a quarrel. "Bloody hell, now even he's not enough in it?"

Meanwhile, beside Marius, Kai's gaze leapt between faces, manner increasingly pensive. A few times, her lips had parted, but nothing ever emerged.

"It was hardly revolutionary-" Marius answered Selma, almost leaned over the piano now, "-because that was the bloody point. People read things that make them laugh or feel in on the joke, Anselma. They don't read about how we're all neck-deep in the lead-up to bloody cataclysm."

"I..." Kai's voice, then, just when Selma and Marius looked ready to have at. Marius paused before Selma did, though it ended up with both looking at Kai.

"Can I..." she tried again. Her hands tightened against her arms. "I... I don't want to assume. But I think we're all circling the same sort of thing."

"By all means, let's hear it," Selma said, so sharp that Marlow flinched. His knuckles brushed the piano edge as he itched to say something like Ease off, but he wasn't sure that wouldn't make it worse.

Kai looked up and met Selma's eyes firmer than she tended. The gaze still fell before she spoke. "I think... Cass was only half-right. It's not just self-deception keeping us cautious." She exhaled. "Maybe I'm just talking for me. But... well. I'm afraid. And I think some of you are. About the Statute. And...yeah."

And Marlow didn't know what to say to that. He wanted to be there for the kids. He didn't want to think about the bit where he was still barely seventeen himself. There was a flash of Selma's eyes. Marius... well, in any other circumstance, his pinched-brow look might've been comical, torn seven different ways between acknowledgement, laughing it off, and looking at Kai or not.

How did anyone begin to prepare for three centuries of secrets crashing into daylight?

There wasn't really any readying for Cassian to be the one to say, "I think so too."

Looking at him, at how stiffly he held himself, Marlow recognized in but a moment the cost of it. His grey eyes had a retreated look to them, staring into the middle distance even as he helped Kai offer everyone else an open door to be afraid because he'd answered first. Nothing for it right now, but maybe later Marlow would fish the origami dragon out of wherever it had hidden in the library and toss it back at Cassian. Not much for a hand on the shoulder or like. Think you sometimes forget you're not alone, though.

When Marlow looked again, there was wet in Selma's eyes, though it didn't break free, and he wondered if that was what he'd taken for spark a moment ago. She crossed her arms sharply, but Cassian's acquiescence seemed to have given permission - she nodded, once.

"A little," Marlow muttered, trying to open up the space again if nothing else. When Marius failed to speak, Marlow hesitantly picked up the thread Kai'd left hanging. "I wish there was just something we could aim a wand at. That this wasn't all impossibly big. I wish there was a spell to fix it, make it so it won't be such a mess. But there isn't. We know it's going to be bad. Best case, and Merlin knows what the worst is. I don't want to hope for it to come smoothly. I want... I just want as many people as possible to get home safe. I don't have the faintest idea of where to start in that. But I don't think I can do it alone. Not without getting lost on the way."

Finally, a small nod from Marius. It was enough, Marlow thought.

That gave him the strength to look at Selma and try to meet her, too. "I know there's rot in this. That it could be better. That there's a whole world out there and someday we'll have to stop pretending we're not part of it. I just... don't want breaking to be its own end."

Selma crossed her arms and leaned away, back toward another piano. A few of the group jumped a little when she bumped the keys instead. She stepped forward again. "I understand that," she said. "I do."

That began a loosening within the storage room, like a shrill note begun to fade off.

Slowly, Marius leaned his head to one side and then the other. "You know," he sighed. "Most seventh-years stress over NEWTs or mentorships or snogging."

Another chip in the mood, that. The side-glance Kai made to Marius and away was so dodgy and something neighboring annoyed that Marlow almost snorted. He refrained.

Cassian, it seemed, had no such reservations. "How many NEWTs are you taking, again?" he asked Marius, tone perfectly innocent. "And Wheezes for a mentorship. Seems you've got two-thirds of normal seventh-year concerns well in hand. We'll trust you to manage the ordinary full seventh-year experience."

A brief beat passed in which Marius's expression shifted between flummoxed, betrayed, and - with a brief raise of brows - considering. Selma gave in to the moment with her own snort, which allowed Marlow's chuckle in turn. A glimpse of Kai's expression found her staring at Cassian in bafflement. He didn't look at her whatsoever.

Tension flowed from the room like a breath. The kind where the chest's still tight and the skin still tingling, but the body's remembered what the mind resisted.

In the wind-down, or perhaps to rescue the topic, Kai glanced around. "I was thinking earlier... I know we've said Tarth probably doesn't know about the Eyes, but would it hurt to ask? She's been supportive in other things."

There was something odd in Selma's expression at the name, but Marlow latched onto Kai's offered rope-toss.

Cassian dubiously commented, "Perhaps."

"We can try her." Marlow paused, thoughts still dragging on the prior talk. "And... speaking of talking to other people. It might be that there's other magical communities more willing to talk about this, yeah?" He glanced to Cassian, even as the others looked to Marlow himself. "The States are shite about it, always been. What's it they call Muggles there?"

"No-Maj," Selma supplied in tentative allowance.

"Muggle sounds better."

That earned a snort from Marius.

"It's actually rather common elsewhere, in variants," Selma said.

Marlow shrugged and moved on. "Anyway, they've always kept really separate between wizards and no-Maj. They're different there. Might be other places with different ideas still on it, no?" He glanced around. "Hard to say that we can properly reach out at Hogwarts, but maybe we could find out. We need more ideas. We're too close together on this, might be."

That had Selma straightening, looking thoughtful. Kai outright had a small smile on the uptick. When Marlow met Marius's eyes, it got him a nod and a shrug. Brick by brick, something more solid to walk on.

Already, Cassian was growing serious in the eye again. His announcement still swung heads around: "I will begin accepting Slughorn's invitations wholeheartedly."

Not sure how you managed that without sarcasm, but alright. "Slug Club?" Marlow said in bafflement echoed on the others' faces.

"Ignorance doesn't help us," Cassian stated. "We have no control over government or outcomes. That's still true, but it's incomplete. If we're truly concerned about the Statute's future, humanization efforts, or other groundwork, then someone needs to understand what those in influence are thinking. Slughorn's network is a start - Ministry officials, powerful families, international contacts." Cassian's jaw tightened. "We can't afford isolation and dependency. Nor, as this morning has demonstrated, to be in the dark."

"I'll try talking to Professor Firenze," Kai reiterated from earlier with a focused frown. "For a start. And look more into beings and beasts in general."

"Ah," came from Marius, "So Cassian's schmoozing and Kai's after straight answers from a centaur. Any bets on who calls uncle first?"

There was a collective exhale. To Marlow's surprise, even Cassian's lips quirked in amusement.

What relieved him even more was Cassian raising a brow to Kai and saying, dry and deadpan, "If you wish to trade, then by all means."

"I'll remember you fondly, Cass," came the equally dry retort.

"What, can't talk to people, Snake Charmer?" Marius asked Kai.

"I can."

"Like you're off to the gallows."

"Thanks."

"Naturally."

Selma towed the mood back. "I'll investigate international magical cultures more closely, and help Kai with the creature research. Many of the societies in question demonstrate similar Statute-induced flaws, but others have... unique sets of flaws."

"Just don't use that phrasing if you write to them," Marlow suggested. It earned him a sour look before her expression cracked and she shook her head despite herself. Between the other four's pursuits, he was starting to wonder what he ought to be doing. Sure, salvaging their failing club, but that seemed small beside Cassian's suave agent routine or the girls' library raiding. Or Marius's... plans in London, whatever they were. Merlin, I hope it's not foolish.

As for Marlow?

He just had to try putting the club back together with Spellotape, he figured.

Chapter Text

November 4, 2006. Grimmauld Place.

The kitchen cupboards creaked closed as the last of those currently filing in made themselves at home before seeking a seat in the dining room. Extra chairs gathered around the table. Scrolls and letters scattered at various points across the surface. A distinct tension grew, of those who usually did not meet in this way unless matters grow dour.

"Thank you for hosting this on short notice, Ginevra," said Kingsley Shacklebolt as he settled into his chair, adjusting the parchments before him. "Is Harry...?"

"Settling Teddy and James," Ginny Potter replied, glancing toward the stairs. "He'll be down in a moment." She turned back to the table, her expression grim. "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough that we're here instead of letting the usual channels handle it," Hermione Granger answered, her bushy hair hastily pinned back as she reviewed a thick folder of reports. Beside her, Ron Weasley sat with raised eyebrows, his magenta Wheezes robes mostly hidden beneath a traveling cloak.

A shadow fell across the table as Minerva McGonagall took her seat with characteristic precision. "I cannot stay long," she reminded Kingsley curtly.

"I was expecting a larger group," Kingsley admitted. "Though given the circumstances..."

"The circumstances require some discussion," Minerva replied firmly. "While you've been gathering intelligence on children, those children have been doing the Ministry's job for you. Ms. Silvertree's forecasts-"

"-Are not comprehensive," Hermione cut in. "Accurate, but there are gaps. Understandable, given their lack of resources." She scanned the parchments again. "Honestly, given their lack of resources, this isn't awful."

The sound then, soft thumps, of footsteps coming down the stair. "Three attempts in one day," said Harry's voice from the kitchen. "These kids have no protection against Ascetic targeting. We're talking about students who have been named in the Prophet, whose ideas are being used to justify attacks, and they're walking around Hogwarts like any other teenagers."

McGonagall looked up sharply. "They are still my students, Potter. I won't have them treated like criminals in need of guards."

"He saw Auror Ferens's report," Ginny said. "And I know you did too. How many more attempts before one gets through?"

"Exactly." Harry emerged from the kitchen, rounding the table to sit beside Ginny. "They're not criminals, Professor. They're targets. There's a difference."

Hermione leaned forward beside Ron. "Harry's right about the security risk, but it's more than that. Even for the faults in Ms. Silvertree's analysis, there's a serious failure of existing Ministry contingency planning. Especially after last week's breach."

"Right," Ron snorted. "Because half the bloody Ministry's too scared to admit a bunch of teenagers saw problems they missed."

"Indeed." Kingsley sighed. "The saboteur incident has worsened everything. And we still have the question of these students to address."

At a sharp glance from Minerva, Kingsley raised a hand. "It's not simple. Attempting to shut them down risks driving them underground. We already know the Ascetics see them as potential allies - their recruitment approach is sophisticated, targeting exactly the kind of idealism these students represent. But engaging with them openly legitimizes revolutionary discourse that most of the Wizengamot will not listen to."

"Maybe that's exactly what we should be doing," Harry said. "They need to know someone's listening, that we're not just... I don't know, watching them like they're dangerous. I was their age when the Ministry decided I was lying about Voldemort."

"Harry's right," Hermione said, shuffling through the copies of the umbrella notes. "The question isn't whether to engage with them. It's how to guide them constructively before external factors force our hand."

"Mrs. Granger is not incorrect." As she adjusted her spectacles, Minerva waited for attention to heed her. "These children trust me, barely, but they're losing faith in us by the day. Our first approach involving an Auror was a misstep I expect we'll regret."

A knock, then, and the sound came of the door opening. "Sorry, late!" came an initially loud, but then apologetically lowering call from Neville Longbottom. As he walked into the dining room he eyed around for a seat. "I miss anything?"

"Not much," Ron offered. "Just that we've got five students, including a bloody Rosier, off trying to save the world while dodging Ascetic recruitment letters."

Neville blinked down at that, then he sat. "Right. He paused, considering. "Though... it's rather impressive, isn't it? Everyone else is either panicking or pretending nothing's happening, and these students are actually trying to do something constructive. Maybe we should be encouraging groups like theirs, spreading the idea. Better they work with us than get pulled toward the Ascetics."

Ron frowned. "What, bring them in officially or something? Teenage revolutionaries get seats at the table if they're clever enough?"

"Worked for our lot, didn't it?" Ginny asked, grinning across the table at him.

Silent until now, at the far end of the table, Draco Malfoy adjusted his posture. "The established families are taking a wait-and-see approach," he said carefully. "The Parkinsons are asking pointed questions about Ministry competence. The Greengrasses want assurances about stability." He paused, meeting Kingsley's eyes. "If we appear to be managing the situation strategically rather than merely reacting, some might fall into line. Stop treating these students as surveillance subjects and start treating them as strategic assets."

"Hermione and I have already begun exploring options," Kingsley acknowledged. "But they're becoming symbols regardless of our preferences."

"They need to know they're not alone," Harry said firmly.

"They need protection from their own effectiveness," Draco countered. "Their ideas are too prescient. That makes them dangerous to people invested in the status quo."

"Security first," Kingsley said as the tension cooled. "We can't help them if they're hurt. Mr. Weasley, regarding Mr. Mulford-"

"Yep. George and I are already on it." Ron shrugged a shoulder. "Might give us a direct line to their lot, too. At least it's not-"

"Ronald. Knock it off." Ginny glowered across the table.

"What?" He glanced up and down the table. "I'm not allowed to find it a little odd that the Rosier kid-"

"Mr. Rosier's academic and disciplinary record is exemplary," McGonagall interjected preemptively, her tone brooking no argument. "Which is more than I can say for anyone currently seated at this table."

A few hesitant chuckles broke the momentary tension.

"Fair point, Headmistress," Ron admitted sheepishly.

Kingsley cleared his throat, after casting a raised eyebrow toward McGonagall. "Let's discuss specifics. Security we'll circle back to, before we move on to discussing the Statute breach. Harry, you've suggested direct engagement. What does that look like?"

Harry rested his hands on the table's edge. "I talk to them. Not as an Auror, just... I tell them what it was like. Being that age, having everyone either ignore you or treat you like you're mad. Maybe if they know someone understands..."

"While signing autographs?" Draco suggested with dry humor.

"Prat," Ron muttered.

Harry shook his head, then looked at McGonagall. "What do you think? Would that help, or...?"

"Professor Tarth believes they're all under considerable stress," McGonagall replied after consideration. "She's offered them support, but none have accepted. They don't seem inclined to approach Professor Longbottom again either."

"How is Madeline adapting to her position?" Kingsley asked.

McGonagall's expression turned wry. "You failed to warn me she would assign essays analyzing Statute vulnerabilities as regular coursework."

"Then she's managing well."

After a moment's pointed stare, McGonagall continued. "Unfortunately, I believe most of them are unaccustomed to seeking support beyond their immediate circle. Given their recent interrogation by Auror Ferens, you'll understand my reservations about introducing them to an even more famous Auror."

"So don't summon them," Ginny suggested. "Mulford's going to be working with Ron and George anyway - that's our opening. Harry wants to mentor? Fine. Visit Neville, catch them naturally."

"Professor Slughorn still maintains correspondence with you, doesn't he, Potter?" Draco observed. "There's your excuse for visiting Hogwarts if you're determined to play mentor."

Ron gestured toward Draco. "Why don't you approach the Rosier boy? You're both Slytherins, both from old families..."

"Oh certainly, Weasley," Draco replied smoothly. "I'm sure that conversation would go wonderfully. 'Hello, Cassian. Your mother and uncle participated in multiple murders. My family also participated in multiple murders. We have so much in common.'"

Ron winced visibly.

"I could... well, Harry and I should probably talk this through properly," Neville offered diplomatically. "Figure out how to approach this without making it feel like another interrogation."

Kingsley nodded slowly. "One step at a time, then. First, we ensure their immediate safety. Then we determine how much truth they can handle about what they've uncovered."

"They haven't simply 'uncovered' anything," Hermione said with intensity. "They've identified a genuine crisis and they're trying to address it properly. The least we can do is make sure they survive doing it."

The room fell silent for a moment, the weight of that statement settling over them all. Outside, a November wind rattled the windows of Grimmauld Place, and somewhere in the distance, a streetlamp flickered out.

Chapter Text

November 5, 2006. Hogwarts. Library. Contraries' Alcove.

Anselma

Deep within the Hogwarts library, tucked back beyond the thick shelves of ancient tomes, the Contraries' claimed table bloomed with research. At least, the attempt of research. Anselma rarely considered trying adequate, but such she found herself in this day. Two students versus the whole of wizarding society's disinterest in documenting anything they needed.

With all the boys absent, Anselma and Kai claimed the full alcove table. Books scattered across the surface between them, open and closed. Most of the tomes were aged, yellow, or fraying. A few more recent almanacs fell within the mix. Along the wall near Anselma's side of the table, a slender hourglass rested at an angle, grains steadily slipping into the bottom.

There'd been a time earlier when it seemed like Cassian might join them to attempt homework, but after one look at the budding stacks, he'd wished them well and made for his dorm. Much for him to finish before Slug Club later in the evening. Marlow, off hunting down club members who'd skipped, though knowing Marlow hunting was probably the wrong word.

And Marius well on his way to London for the first afternoon of his apprenticeship.

And I fully intend to find out what he's been doing when he returns. Merlin, but she found Marius infuriating, no idea what Kai saw in him. He wanted to be revolutionary seemingly for its own sake, or the fun of it, and Anselma had no patience for either. The joke shop almost felt like the last straw. Really, what did he expect to be able to do from there?

He played at revolution, Marlow thought it was too far, Cassian had too many cautions, and Kai... Kai remained disappointing. Shouldn't she know better? What's the wizarding world as it is ever done for her? We could fix it.

Anselma didn't know what fixing it looked like yet, but she figured if the rest got in line, maybe they could figure that out instead of wringing hands about the dangers. A world without walls between the magical and non-magical, to begin.

For now, intelligence gathering. That at least had seemed like a good enough idea. No inch of the table showed. Not under all the books about societies foreign and non-human both. Their essays and quills hadn't even come out yet today, all attention bent to the renewed purposes found the evening prior.

"Wizards are irritatingly private," Anselma muttered, rubbing her temple. The tome immediately before her depicted a hand-drawn eastern wizard in colorful robes holding up a covered basket to a Muggle. In a looping fashion, a snake popped up out of the basket and startled the Muggle. "First mention of the Statute I've found in this lot-" a gesture to the table's bounty of books "-and it's snake-summoning charms getting banned because wizards turned in the snakes to a Muggle bounty."

The delay in response was typical, Anselma might've noticed in a fairer mood, but frustrated with the prior evening's discussion and with the fruitless research, fair wasn't on her mind. She's probably not even paying attention. Probably mooning over Marius, because Merlin knows we need... Why did Cassian-

Across the table, Kai's fingers restlessly traced back and forth over a half-turned page. She frowned thoughtfully over her tome - a far glassier blue one - as she murmured, "Didn't Muggles mess with that bounty too?"

Not why I mentioned it, but yes.

"They did, yes," Anselma admitted. Back to focusing on the wizard problem, though. "There's just too much here about how spells are a little different. Sometimes about different hats or robes, maybe unusual familiars. Why don't wizards write about how they think? Tell me every wizard in the world isn't....ugh." The words came achingly frustrated. How is it such a rare topic? Don't they care?

"At least wizards write about themselves at all." Kai slid a hand along the edge of her newest page. "Suppose there's not much in the way of writing under water, but everything I've found so far on merfolk is written by wizards, and not very well, either. Sure, they can only talk underwater, but... I don't know how to approach them. There's some allusions to trials, but it varies by tribe. There's also a reference to another book here, but that book doesn't say anything about talking with them. I checked it earlier. Maybe I need another section?"

Really, the magical being matter is probably a dead end. Half of them don't talk to us, half of those and the rest will probably just run off into the fog the moment the Statute fails. Hardly allies in the making.

"Might be overthinking it?" Anselma said absently, closing her own tome A Brief Account of Magical Life in the Indian Subcontinent. Which would've been more accurately titled as I Took a Holiday and Wrote Some Notes. She pushed it away and reached for a similarly titled tome on Japan. Once more into the wizarding preoccupation with anything but the information she wanted.

Surely someone has imagined rejoining Muggles? Surely someone didn't like the Statute? I hardly imagine every wizard in the world happily went along with the idea. Sure, there's been savageries of sorts everywhere, but surely there's somewhere wizards and Muggles got on better?

"What are you saying?" Kai asked uncertainly, unaware of how far elsewhere Anselma was. Upon finding a small nick in a page, Kai drew her wand for an intent-eyed repair of it. Parchment crinkled and smoothed with the cast. "Just... dive in the lake and try talking to them? I don't even know if Black Lake colony was involved in the Statute's creation. Still... maybe..."

"...Yes... Yes..." Anselma flipped pages, trying to take a measure of whether this book would be useful. Already did she see a long and lauding section on how dishonorably Statute-breach was held. Something, at least. Then, she properly registered Kai's words and glanced up. "Wait, just dive in? No, of course not. That'd be bloody mental. Don't they drown people?" Then again, it would get immediate results. No, it's Kai. She'd probably insult them by accident? Possibly.

Kai shrugged. "Yeah. But they talk to people too, don't they?"

"Sure, if you're Dumbledore." And you are not Dumbledore, even if you both like tangents.

"Well maybe Dumbledore just dove in and talked to them. I don't know." It sounded more like Kai was on her way to convincing herself than Anselma expected. Then came the note of curiosity. "Says here they make all sorts of tools with underwater flora and fauna."

The others will probably kill me if she dives into the Black Lake. "Including weapons." ...But it is Kai. If she dives in, it'll be because she's doing that sort of thing again. Not precisely my fault. Still, Kai, stay out of the lake.

"Yeah, spears and the like. One of the other books said they use percussive implements too." Kai started to rise from her seat.

Anselma straightened in hers. "What are you doing?" If the others ask, I tried to stop her. Even for all her attempts to understand Kai's stranger patterns, she still faltered.

A gesture to the stacks. "Going to brush up on underwater magic, useful spells. Think there's a few different ways to breath underwater, and if their diplomacy does turn out to be combative, it'd be better to be-"

"Kai-" Leaning forth across the table, briefly glancing toward a whisper of paper in a nearby aisle, Anselma whispered, "You can't just go diving into the Black Lake alone on a hunch."

"That's why the preparing," Kai said, shrugging and frowning at the corner of the table. "Not like I'm going to do it tomorrow, but if we want to try for their insight on the Statute..." She swayed back toward the table to Anselma's relief, resting a hand on a black tome near the edge. Eye contact came, but briefly. "Selma, the research method isn't working. Don't you think maybe we should be thinking other ways? Like..."

I'm all ears if you have an actual idea besides becoming fish-food. The Japanese book snapped closed, fanning Anselma's frustration. Where were the books for people who didn't start at the Statute was a good idea?

Kai shrugged. "Portraits, maybe?" Her gaze ventured, then lingered on a ruggedly dressed witch ghost meandering between bookshelves, taking down translucent tomes to toss upon a tall stack in her arms. "Ghosts?" The word curled oddly on Kai's tongue, like a realization in real time.

...Ghosts. Why didn't I think of that? Anselma sat up straighter, eyes widening. "Sir Nicholas was knighted by Muggles. Pre-Statute era, but still..."

"The Friar healed Muggles. Won't shut up about it sometimes." Annoyance at the delayed epiphany sounded strongly in Kai's voice. Usually she tended more monotone. "I bet we could ask him what he thinks about it all."

"Baron's probably unhelpful... the Grey Lady... I could try, but I think it'd be more useful to ask her about ghosts who were contemporaries of the Statute's beginning." Anselma started stacking the books she'd finished with, a growing intensity to her thoughts. Ghosts. Obviously. Not much more forthcoming than some wizards, likely the same preoccupation with mystique, but if anyone could offer new ways to investigate, it would be them. And it's better than the others blaming me if Kai tries to die in the lake.

"Actually," Kai said, turning to help with organizing the mess of books. "I think I saw the Friar down by the kitchens earlier. We could go see if he's still there... if..." And then she paused, glancing to the hourglass near Anselma.

Plenty of sands still in the hourglass when Anselma looked. Still a couple hours off from Professor Tarth's office time... Really, she'd felt like she was in on something in having been one of the few who didn't seem confused when Professor Tarth mentioned her office was open if anyone wanted to talk. It'd seemed obvious enough to Anselma - of course the squib who'd worked in Muggle places might look out for students differently than wizarding ones did.

That had been yesterday, after the club meeting - directed at Thayer, Anselma thought, for her Housemate had been awfully broody in his choices of questions. Muggle wars, Muggle politics, Muggle problems, eventually escalating into a club-prickling, "'Weapons of mass destruction'. What the bloody hell do you think they'll think we are?"

"Still a few hours," Anselma said of the hourglass, grabbing it to pocket before she moved to help Kai return books. Between the two of them, most could be put away soon enough.

Anselma didn't think the weapons thing had come from Thayer's pen-pal letters. More likely his family over in the States that he brought up enough. Well and truly did he seem to be burying himself in what the Contraries had once termed the dread stage - now the third umbrella of fallout. Though given last night, she supposed all of them had never left that stage. Thayer was simply fresh to it.

If we could get him out of this grumbling, he'd probably be useful, she thought. It wasn't that she minded Thayer. It was that he minded everyone else, often loudly.

So did Anselma, but who was counting?

A few Slytherin students slipped past Anselma as she shelved the last of her book-stack. Hagen and Avery, she noted on an absentminded glance. No thanks. At least Reoc Carrow wasn't around anymore, graduated last year. He tamed Avery at least as much as Marlow and Kai's wands had, sure, but he'd made Hagen worse. Between the three of them, Carrow's last two years had been an informal Muggleborns are the Clever, Aren't They? campaign, alongside its brothers of Look How We Know House-Elves Cook and We Do In Fact Enjoy House Unity Parties.

Hagen had cooled off in Carrow's absence. Unsurprisingly, Avery had simply stopped feigning interest. Good riddance.

Anselma headed off toward the creature lore aisles to find Kai.

Hardly had she rounded the corner when Kai found her, coming the same way. Anselma felt some relief that Kai hadn't gotten distracted in the aisle. It had happened before, though she supposed that usually happened more when Marius was around. Honestly, how the pair even found time to study when they spiraled into tangents in the aisles was beyond Anselma. But, no Marius today. That thought resolved into a private note to arrange more study sessions with Kai on Marius's apprenticeship days.

"Down by the kitchens, you said?" Anselma asked, of the Friar's ghost.

"Last I saw," Kai hedged, but nodded.

"Then, let's."

The corridors felt different when they had purpose beyond avoiding homework. Anselma found herself walking faster, mind already forming questions. If the Friar proved as talkative as usual, they might actually learn something useful.

They found a ghost near the kitchens, rounded and sad-smiling, but it was only Misty-Eyed Martin, who the girls quickly backpedaled from before he could begin tearful relation of his incomplete magnum opus.

When they eventually found the Fat Friar, he was indeed still near the kitchens. He sat upon a bench of an adjoining corridor with another ghost. A barber, that one, if Anselma remembered correctly. A bad one, judging by his teeth. What sort of wizard bothered becoming a barber, anyway? But then, what sort became a friar? That didn't make much sense to Anselma either. It was part of why, perhaps, she hadn't considered the ghosts before. So many of them had died stupidly, when they did relate it. And so many of them had lived so very blandly, leaving behind the world the living now had to clean up.

The Friar looked up and smiled as the girls approached. A joyless smile came from the barber ghost too, ratty teeth under raggedy, dirt-caked hair. Anselma could've done without his smile.

"Students!" said the Friar cheerfully.

The barber groused, "Y'lost?"

"No, no, these are seventh-years, Philip."

"Dun mean they'ren't lost." The barber rose from the bench. "Students," he said, and it sounded dismissive. After muttering under his breath, he turned to drift through the wall behind him, leaving the Friar behind.

The Friar shook his head. "Don't mind him. His deathday was only yesterday, you see. He's quite cross that his nemesis is still alive."

"Nemesis?" Kai asked with a brief frown.

Despite herself, even Anselma skeptically tacked on, "Wasn't he a barber?"

"Indeed so. One would not think a dispute over hairlines could become so cutthroat." The ghost smiled fondly at them. "Are you lost? I do give good directions, I'm told."

"Actually," Anselma sought to redirect, "We rather hoped to speak with you. If you wouldn't mind terribly." Even if you would mind, really. "We had some questions. Not about the castle, really. About you."

Uncommon among some of the ghosts, but the Friar's eyes brightened at the concept. "Ah! The pox, perhaps? A grim chapter, that. Yet one close to my heart, I'll not deny." he wondered.

"Not precisely," Anselma said, just as Kai said, "Yes." The girls traded a glance, Anselma frowning and Kai shrugging. Anselma gestured to her. Your House ghost, your problem if he wanders off topic.

Kai took half a step toward the ghost, drawing his attention to her. "Yes, the pox. But... more than that, really. Not just the pox, Friar. We wanted to know more about... what life was like then. Between wizards and Muggles. Before the Statute."

His eyes, still sparkling with joy at their curiosity, widened in surprise. "Oh, I see. Curious students! How wonderful." A transparent hand came up to trace his chin. "I don't know that anyone's ever asked me that. Not in a very long time."

He looked between them curiously. "Might I ask why? Doesn't Binns cover such topics?"

"He does," Anselma's hand raised in a sort of shrug. "It's just..." Have care. "...academic interest. For our independent research. NEWTs being as they are."

"Ah. Well, then where to begin?" The Friar patted the bench beside him in invitation.

Kai was the first to sit, fidgeting with the sleeve of her robes. Anselma took up the other side, after pulling out a fold of parchment and a self-inking quill. It paid to be prepared.

"I have told you of how I cured some of the pox, haven't I?" the Friar asked Kai, who nodded once. "Hm. Well, in my time, of course there wasn't any Statute, naturally. We still kept our heads down. It was the wisdom. Your- what is it? Yes, the Trace and similar magics were not so hardy then."

"Hardy in what way?" Anselma interrupted, quill poised. "You mean they couldn't detect underage magic as well?"

"Precisely! I suppose I'll start there - it's part of why I joined the church, you see."

"How?" Anselma asked, bemusement creeping up. What does that have to do with...

The Friar's cheerful look dimmed and he shook his head. "We were all - wizarding folk, that is - far more spread out. Oh, yes, we had our leaders and our wandmakers and our apothecaries - and of course, Hogwarts. But it was far looser an association. Joining the church gave me means to listen. And sometimes, to find a frightened child with fire in their blood."

"Would-be Obscurials," murmured Kai, provoking Anselma the rest of the way to her own epiphany.

"In a manner." He nodded sadly. "Finding young ones could be quite troublesome. Muggles weren't the only ones making poor maps, you know."

He smiled, small and seeming to reach for the joy again, manner warming with the distraction of thought. "Some of the maps I've seen in recent years are a marvel, truly. You know, young Edwen Audrey of Hufflepuff tells me that Muggles have paintings of the world, wrought by machines of the heavens! Though I do wonder why they need so many. In my day, we had one or two maps and we were grateful for it. Of course, it mostly just said 'Here be dragons' in the corners, which wasn't particularly helpful when the dragons were actually in the middle bits. I remember like it was yesterday when Hannah Finchley told me of her acquaintance Copernicus, interesting fellow, and-"

Kai shifted where she sat. Anselma glanced at her - she was staring at her hands, but her shoulders had gone rigid.

"Friar," Kai said, still not looking up, "the children you did find. What... what were they like?"

He paused. "Frightened, mostly. Confused. Many had been told they were possessed, or cursed." His voice was gentle now, seeing something in Kai's posture that Anselma was still parsing. "But resilient, too. Children often are."

"Did their families...?" Kai's voice trailed off.

"Some understood, eventually. Others..." The Friar shook his head. "It was complicated times, my dear. Different fears then."

Anselma watched this exchange with growing comprehension. Of course. Muggleborn. She's thinking about what it would have been like for her.

After a distant-eyed trailing off, the Friar shook his head. "The cloth was a reliable way to keep an ear out for young ones. As I said, only one reason. The other, well... Oh, we had many discussions on the church, Friar Hinley and I. How he loathed when I pulled rabbits from the communion cup! But, it made the children laugh."

"Discussions?" Anselma asked, glancing aside.

"Oh, yes," said the Friar brightly. "We'd a fine mix of penitence in our orders within the cloth. I - well, I looked for the children, yes, and tended the pox. But Friar Hinley was... what is that charming phrase I heard Audrey use the other day? 'All in'. Do students also say 'all out'? Regardless, all in. Charming phrase. Hinley was that."

"How so?" She glanced to Kai, who still sat silent.

"Oh, he could go on for hours! He thought perhaps Noah to have been a wizard. Christ, too, and that caused terrible arguments, yes, yes, quite terrible."

Anselma's quill paused on the page. That was... not the direction she'd hoped to find. This sounded almost worse. Prototype Pantheon problem. Micro-factions in association to Muggle affairs? There was distant allowance that her father was nominally Catholic, but wedding a witch had put oddness to that. Who knows if they were wizards? I've never seen anything to that effect.

She focused on the Friar. "Arguments with whom? Between you two? With other priests?"

"Other wizarding priests, yes, naturally. Hinley believed in stewardship. Of dominion over all that creepeth and crawleth. The Scriptures gave us much to speculate upon, especially when what crept upon the earth breathed fire. Another of Hinley's, that. Oft were there arguments over what that meant between magical and Muggle. 'Each within their own realm', some said. 'All as brothers and sisters', said others. Still more focused on manners of stewardship. Responsibilities. Bloodrights. Many such things."

He shook his head. "Dreadful days, sometimes. I suppose that's not the sort of thing you came to ask about."

"What about non-magical priests?" Kai asked.

The Friar blinked. "What about them?"

"What... Did they have anything to say on this? Did any of them know wizards were...?"

And this is why we bring Kai along, Anselma thought, still scratching out notes. At least when her attention's up.

"Oh." The Friar brightened in understanding. "Some. Not many, but some. Of my brothers, a few guessed. Brother Augustine caught me levitating communion wafers once. Nearly turned blue. Chuckled after. Let's see... There was Ser Charles Pogue. He traveled-"

"A knight knew?" Anselma asked, curious. I suppose Sir Nicolas was knighted, but that was different.

"Indeed! Sir Pogue fancied himself a dragonslayer. Hinley found great amusement in helping him appear successful at it." The Friar's expression darkened. "Until Ser Pogue was eaten, of course. Hinley repented greatly after that."

"Eaten?" Kai echoed, expression faintly resigned as she asked, "By what?"

"Dragon, naturally. Hinley could make the small ones flee, but he rather overestimated his abilities with a Hungarian Horntail."

Anselma frowned. "So some Muggles knew wizards existed, worked with them, but still... played tricks on them?"

"Not tricks, precisely. Those were Hinley's... more adventurous youthful days. Sir Pogue was in on the whole affair."

A snort came from Kai, causing the Friar to grin in turn.

He cleared his throat. "But yes, some Muggles knew. It was the sort of thing one knew, but might not speak of, you see. The church leadership rarely cared for us, if not for the reason you might think. Oh, they'd say heresy, yes, but... well, as Hinley put it, many simply didn't like that we could offer things they couldn't."

"Sounds like Friar Hinley had rather a lot of opinions," Anselma commented. Why couldn't he have had unfinished business?

"Oh, he very much did. He outlived me. Of course he did. Even became a cardinal!" The Friar frowned in annoyance. "I would've made a fine cardinal, you know."

Kai nodded, which was just as well, since Anselma resisted the urge to sigh.

"Did..." Kai glanced each way down the corridor, then looked to the Fat Friar. "Friar, do you know if anyone didn't want the Statute to happen?"

I was going to ask that, Anselma thought, surprised and a little put out. Still, she moved her hand down the parchment and tilted her head hopefully in listening.

The Friar gave the pair a long look, bemused for only a moment before his pale countenance grew thoughtful. "Do they not talk about that?" he wondered. "I'll have to have a word with Binns... Hm. But yes, there were disagreements. I wasn't there, being here, but I heard the Ministry sent delegates to King William and Queen Mary."

"They teach about that." Anselma frowned down at her parchment. "Or that it happened, at least. They asked for Muggle law to protect wizards, didn't they?"

History tells it as though that were the last straw. But what about France? Spain? Anywhere else at all? Surely they didn't stop at two stuffy monarchs.

"Mm," the Friar affirmed. "They begged, in truth. The monarchs answered with smiles and silence, as I heard it. The arguments in the Wizengamot were fierce. There was the faction that wanted to war upon Muggles, yes, that was the dominant counter. So many Obscurial children in those days, so much anger..." He shook his head sadly. "We had a few decades with very few first-years. Quite dreadful."

Kai's head turned down, her hands fidgeting.

Cue for Anselma. She's gone for a bit... bother. "What about other opponents?"

"Oh, several! The Malfoys, of course."

Of course?! "Malfoys?" Anselma's quill froze. On the far side of the Friar, Kai frowned.

"Indeed! Some of the most outspoken opponents in England, though not for reasons you might approve of," he added hastily. "They criticized the choice of delegates, complained that wizards had failed to distinguish between Muggles of 'good breeding' and common folk..."

"So they minded only that there wasn't a clause for exclusivity," Anselma said, irritable at it. Of course. On the right side of history, they manage to be on it for the wrong reasons. What a talent.

The Friar made a face, but nodded. "Their change of heart was quite the scandal. Took years for people to stop talking about it."

Her quill moved furiously. "Any others? What about outside England?"

For a moment, the Friar remained silent. A glance up found him looking confused, then pensive. "You seem rather invested in all this. Are you quite certain this is just academic interest?"

Anselma felt heat rise in her cheeks. "We're just... thorough researchers."

"Hm." The Friar didn't look convinced, but his expression brightened. "How wonderful that students are taking such interest in ecclesiastical history! I don't suppose you're considering religious life? The Church could use more young people, though I admit the celibacy requirement might be off-putting. We didn't have that rule in my day, of course. Well, we did, but nobody paid much attention to it."

Through his transparent form, Anselma and Kai traded long-suffering glances. Kai's pinched against amusement.

He cleared his throat. "Well, if you're looking for opposition to the Statute, there were others. The Ottoman wizards largely opposed it, though they had their own troubles. The Venetian families were absolutely furious - trade relationships, you know, built over centuries."

His eyes brightened with the memory. "Hinley used to read me the most extraordinary letters! The Ethiopian wizards sent a delegation all the way to London to protest. Imagine - traveling all that distance just to tell the Ministry they'd worked alongside their priests since the time of Prester John and weren't about to stop now."

Kai tilted her head, manner going pensive as she was prone. "How many others?" she prompted.

He paused thoughtfully, his expression growing more uncertain. "Oh, quite a few, though I'm afraid I don't recall all the details. There were letters from Cathay and Hindustan - something about emperors and court wizards. Hinley mentioned they seemed quite put out by the whole business. Those ones were particularly baffled, if I remember right - they'd never hidden from their rulers."

"What did Hinley think of all this?" Anselma asked. Seemingly the one between you two to pay more mind.

The Friar shook his head with a small smile. "Many of us in the church opposed it as well. Even Hinley, in his later years. He used to say the letters from abroad helped change his mind - seeing how differently other places handled these things. 'Perhaps,' he'd tell me, 'we're solving the wrong problem entirely.'"

"What about Muggle leaders?" Kai asked. "Did any of them oppose it?"

The Friar blinked. "Oppose what, dear?"

"The Statute. Did any Muggle leaders oppose wizards going into hiding?"

If they knew about it at all.

"Oh." The Friar looked genuinely surprised by the question. "Well, Pope Innocent XII did, actually. Wrote to the Minister of Magic twice, if Hinley was to be believed. Something about..." The Friar paused, frowning in concentration. "'Authority exercised in darkness, without benefit of proper counsel or divine approbation,' I think were his words. Hinley was quite impressed by the phrasing."

Anselma's hand had gone completely still. "The Pope knew?"

"Oh, they almost always do." The Friar blinked. "Don't you know? It's traditional - there's always been a few who knew. The Pope, some kings and queens, prime ministers in more recent years..."

"How many?" Anselma's voice came out strangled. How is it handled?

"I'm afraid I don't know precisely. But it's traditional, you see."

"Traditional," Anselma repeated faintly. Like other wizarding 'traditions'?

Kai was staring at the Friar with wide eyes. "Friar... do some Muggle leaders still know? Now?"

"I should imagine so, though I couldn't say which ones." He looked between their shocked faces with growing alarm. "Oh dear. Have I said something I shouldn't have? The Baron was ever cross last time I mentioned it, come to think."

"No," Kai said quickly, though her voice sounded odd. "No, you've been very helpful."

Meanwhile, Anselma's thoughts rushed. How many Muggle leaders know? Are they threatened? Controlled? Obliviated? How many? Which countries? How extensive are the backchannels? How-?

"Friar," and this came from Kai, quiet and odd, "Do... Did some Muggle leaders support the Statute?"

The silence stretched enough that Anselma looked up from the mess of her notes to find the Friar looking at Kai with something like understanding.

The Friar frowned a little. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "But I wouldn't be surprised."

Quiet between the girls again. When Anselma shifted in her seat, she felt the hourglass in her pocket. "Oh. Tarth," she murmured, staring down at her notes. When had she stopped writing?

"Right," Kai said, similarly hollow. "Professor Firenze's class will be gathering soon too."

"I hope I haven't troubled you greatly," the Friar said gently, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. "I do miss my flock, and am gladdened to speak of those times. Different times." He rose from the bench, transparent robes rustling. "Good luck in your evening. I really must find Mr. Gortho, myself. He gets terribly moody on November evenings."

"Thank you, Friar," Kai said, her voice barely above a whisper.

As the pale silhouette drifted away through a wall, Anselma stared down at her notes, but the words were blurring together. Her hands were shaking slightly.

"Selma?" Kai's voice seemed to come from very far away.

The Statute wasn't just about hiding from Muggles. It was about controlling the narrative. And if Muggle leaders had always known, knew now...

Anselma stared down at her notes, but she wasn't really seeing them. This was another flaw in her vision, she realized. Distantly, she thought Kai was saying something, but her ears were ringing. The Statute could explosively fail at any time, to the internet and communications networks. She already knew that. That was the problem, or had been. Unpredictable catastrophic failure. Unpredictable.

What was the phrase Marius had once used to mock their planning? Mutually assured delusion?

Muggle technological acceleration may have been a fact of the world, but it took on vibrant new color. Whether they meant to or not, Muggles had built mutually assured delusion already.

After all, if secrecy broke on Muggle terms, it could travel around the world before wizards even knew it was happening. And the message could be anything at all.

Anselma slowly narrowed upon the possibilities, chill crawling on her spine. Had her hands always felt so cold?

Three options aligned in her mind, all horrifying. No matter which is true, we've been thinking about this completely wrong.

The first. That wizards realized the threat and actively sabotaged Muggle agency. That it went far beyond press releases about gas leaks or gas explosions into manipulating elections, obliviating leaders, more.

The second. That wizards didn't know, bumbled along with self-assured backchannel management. While Muggle leaders sat across from them with a societal grenade that they could pull the pin of at any moment.

The third. That wizards knew and actively worked with Muggle leaders to maintain secrecy. That the status quo was a shadow governance supported by magical and mundane self-interest, beyond any measure any Muggle had ever imagined.

"Selma?" Kai asked, voice growing more concerned. Her hand was on Anselma's shoulder, gently squeezing, trying to soothe.

A fourth might be the worst of all: that the Contraries were right all along and no one was truly in control. That centuries of institutional momentum had created a system too complex for anyone to direct, careening toward chaos while everyone assumed no one needed to check the reins.

We need to verify this. One ghost's memories, even the Friar's... Perhaps he was mistaken... More ghosts. After Tarth, perhaps.

Even revolution seemed shaky now. Revolt against the Ministry? And then what? Hope the Muggle leaders didn't take offense to it? Force the Muggle leaders into compliance? And that was without accounting for international wizards.

Humanization? The word felt small, but she grasped it even as she reached up to rest her hand atop Kai's reassuring one.

Sometimes, it was hard not to solve people like problems.

The hourglass jostled in her robes again when Anselma began putting away her notes. She pulled it out - empty. Drat. "Tarth's hours." She stood quickly, shrugging away Kai's hand, though their fingertips squeezed together briefly before the parting. "Good luck with Firenze," she said as Kai rose too, stilted tension lingering.

"Yeah. And... you with Tarth. You alright, Selma?"

Anselma glanced up from tucking away the hourglass again. She found that look Kai had at times, eyes averted and attention off, pinch of concentration to her brow. No time for whatever was in her head, though. "Yes. Meet you in the library after."

And then she was off down the hall to Professor Tarth's office, hoping the squib might have more useful answers than the dead.

Chapter Text

November 5, 2006. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Marius

Approximately two hours into his first shift at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, Marius had not been turned into a snake, a teapot, a crumpet, or a cardigan. All things being equal, this seemed like a victory, if not for that the Weasleys made him wear hideous magenta shop robes. At least the color didn't clash with his brown hair as it did with their red. There'd been a moment, fresh in the door, when George offered to fix that failure of ruddiness. Another victory to avoid that.

The bar for 'successful day' had dropped considerably since he'd started plotting the end of magical civilization as they knew it.

Four Fanged Frisbees loose in the shop had tried to abscond with Marius's fingers. After seven years at Hogwarts, dodging objects making attempts on life and limb came second nature. It was almost as though the castle had been preparing him for a career in customer service all along.

There was a dark side to Marius's victorious un-transfigured state. George and Ron Weasley hadn't done anything to him. Well, George certainly hadn't. Ron hadn't even much spoken to him yet. Between the two, not even a Muggle whoopee cushion - which they had busied him with stocking alongside other mundane prank items in the first hour.

The only thing worse than not being pranked in the domain of George Weasley was not being pranked yet. It was like being invited to dinner by a family with an eligible daughter and hoping it was only a social affair. The apprehension was the real torture.

There was probably a prank in being assigned to go hang up Obliviate This merchandise.

In the back room, full of its writhing shelves, George heaved the box into Marius's arms. "There you are. Put your back into it, mate."

That was the other thing. Every time he'd tried to use his wand, they'd handed him something instead. So maybe they were pranking him after all? See how long until the Slytherin cracks to manual labor? It might've worked on a lesser snake.

The prospect of swooning tempted him. This is not what I signed up for, he thought. Ignoring that he had, in fact, signed up for it.

"Right. Just carrying a few planets," Marius retorted with a flash of grin. On the sashes in the box, cartoonish planet Earths spun gaily around nauseating nebulas. "When's break again?" He hoped he hadn't asked too many times. Though really, what was time anymore? He was living in a bizarre liminal space where he was simultaneously a Hogwarts student, a part-time retail worker, and a would-be architect of magical-Muggle relations. His schedule had become as nonsensical as everything else in his life.

"Oi, on with you!" Ron said from further in. "George, give me a hand with this, would you? The Champing Chairs are-"

"Right you are!" And George eased past Marius and around the shelf.

How are scarves and sashes so bloody heavy? As Marius turned to carry the box out into the shop, though, he glimpsed something in the bottom of it. Looked like one - probably more - of the Desk Crasher Deluxes. Paperweights of all things, for the deceptively neat new merchandise display near the front: Say goodbye to that delicate mahogany, and possibly a few toes!

Marius tilted the box, felt several of the weights slide. So this was the prank - death by paperweight in a joke shop. There was probably some poetic justice in that, though he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it. Besides the whole 'plotting to overthrow centuries of magical tradition' affair.

'It's how they show affection,' Marlow had said, and Marius decided that at least it wasn't alteration of his finer features. Wasn't, however, getting him any closer to Muggle London.

The box almost dropped as Marius dodged another flyby of a Frisbee. The things I do for la revolution. He was not, however, thinking about all of Anselma's nonsense yesterday. Really, what was she thinking? Was she trying to crack the lot of them? No sense of easing in, none at all.

The paperweights first, Marius decided, setting the box on the ground near the display. The enchantment on the weights was a bit ridiculous, really. They got heavier the longer they were individually lifted, guaranteeing they'd be dropped sooner or later. It meant that Marius had to very quickly fish them out onto the display, risking nails and fingertips if he wasn't quick enough.

The paperweights themselves were deceptively plain colorful rectangles with encouraging phrases on them: You can do it!, Hang in There!, You've Got This!, Carry On!

Whoever buys these is mental. But the shop had been in business for nearly a decade now, so perhaps all wizards were mental and Anselma was right after all. He slipped the last Desk Cracker Deluxe onto the stand, fingers pulling hastily away from it. What would the others say if he went through all this and lost a finger to a Wheezes creation? Especially one that didn't even have teeth. Marius glanced to check the positions of the Frisbees. Three had taken up snarling perches on the food shelves, not far from the Whizzing Wasabi - Take the piss out of friends and foes alike!

The shop bell jingled as Marius lifted the box again. He turned to take the sashes over to the Obliviation Station, which Marius hoped to Merlin Kai never saw. A glance toward the door caused a hiccup in his step.

The whistle above the door blew a raspberry as a hawk-nosed former Slytherin stepped in, glancing around and meeting eyes with Marius. Oh. It's Reoc. Joyful. Marius pointedly turned to continue on toward the sash stand, ignoring that he saw Reoc Carrow starting toward him. What in Merlin's name is he even doing here?

"Marius! It's been a while, hasn't it?" Carrow said, falling in beside him on the way to the stand. Where was a Fanged Frisbee when one was needed? Weren't they supposed to harass customers? Especially Slytherins, ideally? Besides Marius, of course.

"It has, hasn't it?" Marius answered, setting down the box near the stand. A shake of head. "I'd almost forgotten your face." And a delightful two seasons it was.

Though apparently forgetting things was the theme of the day - how had he missed that George Weasley was literally selling his underground revolutionary newsletter? Right there, a full Muggle-style newspaper-dispenser of Widdershins Weekly editions half-hidden behind the stand, marked Free to Good Home. Alright, not selling it, but selling it in spirit.

Carrow folded his hands behind him as he watched Marius take the celestial Obliviate This! sashes out of the box. "Heard you were working here. I thought I'd come by to say hello. How is everyone? You know, your Muggleborn friends and the like? I heard about the club. I must say, I think it's a fantastic idea, really. If I hadn't graduated last year, I'd have loved to help with it."

Then thank Merlin you graduated. Less than a minute and Marius already missed having forgotten Carrow existed. "Ah, well, we already have a good amount of help. Besides, you're doing real work now, aren't you?" Marius turned back.

Before Carrow could answer, he 'accidentally' tapped the spinning Earth on one of the sashes. The Earth and its moon spun up into the air and cut off Carrow's response with loud, high-pitched Swedish singing and animated dancing. Had there ever been a lovelier sound? If only all of life's awkward conversations could be resolved with enchanted celestial objects and inexplicable Scandinavian musical numbers.

When the sash stopped, Carrow cleared his throat. "Yes," he said importantly. "I'm working at the Daily Prophet now, actually. I was wondering if you would be open to an interview about the Postscript Society."

Marius accidentally bumped one of the Earths again. Honest accident this time. Or at least, there was no Kai around to call him out on the self-deception. Though really, if magical celestial objects wanted to spontaneously burst into song every time Reoc Carrow tried to speak, who was Marius to interfere with the natural order of things?

Last sash hung, Marius straightened and offered Carrow his best faux-pleasant smile. "Well, I'd have to ask the club's leader, you see," he said, feeling no guilt whatsoever at throwing Marlow under the tram. Inflicting Reoc Carrow's nonsense pursuits on anyone and everyone else was a time-honored tradition. "Would be untoward to jump in front of Kade, now wouldn't it?"

A look of brief annoyance crossed Carrow's features, but as he'd hoped, Marlow's Muggleborn status probably won out in the journalist's mind. Appearances were everything and more to the git. "Untoward indeed. Then perhaps after your next shift here, once you've had a chance to speak with Kade?"

"I can make no promises, of course." Marius picked up the empty box and started toward the back room again, hoping that passed for dismissal. Near the counter, he glimpsed Ron Weasley writing something in a ledger. Would've sworn he saw the man glance over at him and Carrow. Anytime now, Frisbees. Reoc doesn't need all his fingers.

Thankfully, Carrow didn't follow. "Alright. I'll see you around, Marius. Tell your friends I said hello."

Oh, unfortunately I think I will. Misery loving company and all that sort. He freed a hand from the box for a dismissive wave. "Do try the Wasabi," he called over his shoulder. "Really gets you in the yellow journalism spirit."

Leaving that one for Carrow to figure out - he doubted Carrow had ever heard of the phrase - Marius passed Ron and headed into the back room. Though he almost did a double take when he heard Carrow ask Ron how much it was for a Whizzing Wasabi. Honestly, Carrow would probably fly a broom into the vacuum of space if he thought it'd make him look 'earthy' and 'reformed'. Ever since early Hogwarts, soon after the war, he'd been so bloody eager to prove he wasn't that kind of Carrow - Marius had half-expected him to start wearing Muggle band t-shirts in fifth-year.

There'd been a few months where he'd tried to pull Cassian into such nonsense, naturally. But then Carrow had realized - in all the wrong perceptions of it - that Cassian already had two actual Muggleborn friends in Kai and Marlow, which he'd proceeded to try to find insufficient compared with pretending to have such friends. Because apparently authentic relationships were less valuable than performative ones, which honestly summed up everything wrong with people like Carrow. And possibly everything complicated about people like Cassian, come to think of it.

Though if Marius was being brutally honest - which he tried to avoid on principle - wasn't he doing his own version of performance? At least Carrow's performance was obvious.

Marius rolled his eyes and set down the empty box atop a chair. The chair immediately began to snap shut on it, making him flinch. Right, the Champing Chairs. Why was everything in this store so bloody bitey? He started trying to free the box, unsuccessfully, as George swung past him to lean against the wall. No help came from his employer at all.

The Champing Chair clamped tighter the harder Marius pulled.

"Accio." George's spell called a messily scrawled book to him, which he began flipping through while Marius tugged-of-war with the Chair. Flip. Flip. Flip. Rustle. Apparently watching employees battle furniture was just another Tuesday at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

Marius stood back, glaring down at the Chair as it gnawed on the edges of the box.

"Marius," George asked, turning the book toward him and offering an open page, lips half-parted in a grin. "So, what do you think about this Whizzing Wasabi variant?"

His head turned toward the page of horridly undignified scrawl. Was it required of Gryffindors to write like they lived under siege? Though honestly, given recent history, perhaps they actually had. "Um," he said, delaying.

On his other side, Ron came to lean against the archway between the shop and the backroom. "Are we doing this, then?" he asked George, eyebrow cocked as he eyed first Marius and then the poor box. "Oh, don't worry about that one. Once it gets something, hardly ever lets go. Still working out the kinks."

Marius took a step back from the gnaw-some Chair. "Are we doing what?" he asked, trying not to sound nervous at the mischief in Ron's tone.

"Well, you're not exactly here to learn about Whizzing Wasabi, now are you?" George asked with a snort, withdrawing the book and closing it with a theatrical snap.

"Pardon?" Were they... did they... how much did they actually know? And why were they bringing it up while he was trapped in a room with carnivorous furniture?

"Bit obvious, mate," Ron shrugged a shoulder, biting back a laugh. "You've checked the clock five times in an hour and asked about breaks every time you've been back. Could be a slacker, but, well."

Well, what? Well, slackers don't usually spend their free time plotting the downfall of magical secrecy? Well, most part-time employees aren't secretly revolutionaries?

"Also, you write a bloody political newsletter," George said, tossing the book back toward the shelf and catching it to ease in with a flick of his wand. "Did you think we'd assume you fancied learning retail?"

"I-" Marius straightened and planted his hands on his hips. Apparently his cover as 'unremarkable student in need of pocket money' had been about as convincing as Carrow's reformed Death Eater child act. Given he'd gotten the apprenticeship through Jordan's letter to the Widdershins author, this shouldn't have been surprising. In hindsight, he wasn't sure why he was surprised, especially after seeing the copies out by the Obliviation Station. Nothing said 'we know about your secret newsletter' quite like literally dispensing it in your shop.

After clearing his throat, Marius asserted, "I'm perfectly capable of retail."

Ron snorted with laughter. "Mate, you think I don't know what it looks like when someone's angling to sneak off? I spent seven years in a dorm with Harry Potter."

His parents would be so proud - their son, as subtle as the most famous wizard in Britain.

I don't sneak. I orchestrate, Marius reassured himself.

"Look," George said, crossing his arms, "Whatever you're planning to get up to, we don't care. So long as it's not the Dark Arts."

"Is it?" Ron asked seriously, in a way Marius couldn't decide whether it was mock or sincere. It earned an eyeroll from George.

Marius crossed his arms. "Do I look like I'd fancy the Dark Arts? I write, I don't do bloody-"

"Okay, okay, mate." Ron held up his hands. "No need to get your robes in a twist."

"Bit of a diva, isn't he?" George stage-whispered to Ron.

A diva? He was having a perfectly reasonable response to being a Slytherin accused of Dark Arts while trapped in a room with a Champing Chair and conspiratorial Weasleys. If that made him a diva, then half of Slytherin had it in their capacity.

"He and Percy'd get along brilliantly, wouldn't they?"

"Least until Percy had to decide between asking his autograph and critiquing his work."

"Might have to invite Percy around sometime." Ron glanced back to Marius with obvious delight. Marius looked between the two of them, trying to work out if he felt insulted or complimented by the teasing. Who was Percy, anyhow? It sounded more like the name of someone who'd get along with Algernon than with Marius.

"Anyway," Ron said, "Just don't get yourself killed. We have enough paperwork as it is."

"Besides, it'd be terrible for business! We've only just cracked the Slytherin market with SnideSnaps."

(SnideSnaps Quills - Snap judgements. Instant insults. Deniably polite.)

Ruffling his hair with one hand, Marius looked between them again. "If you wouldn't mind making sense, I'd like to get back to work, now- this has been a delightful tangent, but-"

"Oh no, no work needed," George said with a dismissive wave.

Marius blinked. Were they... were they essentially paying him to not work? Then he remembered: Gryffindors.

George continued, "You work for a couple hours, then the rest of the time is yours, I reckon. If anyone asks, you're practicing market research. No one ever asks what it means, and if they do, you can make up just about anything."

Ron nodded sagely, eyes twinkling. "It works brilliantly, really. And if you need a fallback, just say you lost a few Dungbombs. Tends to make people scarce faster than a Howler at breakfast."

Marius stared at the Champing Chair and what remained of the box it was chewing on. If he weren't utterly mistaken, it seemed almost like the pair of redheaded ne'er-do-wells were not only enabling his plans but actively encouraging them. That couldn't possibly be right, could it? How did they know? Was it that obvious? Still. One couldn't look a gifted flying horse in the mouth. "Well then," he said, words failing him beyond that.

This wasn't in the plan. Do they mean to follow? Hard to say, that. He'd keep an eye for it.

"Reckon we broke him, George?"

"Think it's the sneaking bit. Might've taken the fun out of it. Capers and the like."

"Well if that's it, we can always make him use the back door. Still broken, yeah?"

"Still leads into the upstairs loo," George confirmed.

"Well then," Marius repeated, pointing past Ron out into the shop. "If you don't mind, I'll be taking that break." Belatedly remembering he was an apprentice, he added, "With your permission, Mr. Weasley. And Mr. Weasley."

"George," George corrected. "Mr. Weasley is our father."

"Blimey," Ron said, screwing up his nose as he squinted at Marius. "We're bloody old now, aren't we?"

I'm not answering that. "I'm sure you're both quite refined. I'll be-" Marius started to sidle past Ron. The last thing he needed was to get trapped in a conversation about the Weasleys' midlife crises when he had actual crises to attend to.

"Look both ways after you cross the street!" George called cheerfully after him.

"It's before, isn't it?" asked Ron.

"Right, well, look frequently. Can't go wrong with that."

Marius almost took a Fanged Frisbee to the face as he glanced back to offer a quick wave to the pair who were descending into ribbing anyhow. In the glance, he thought he saw Ron pull out some coin and turn it over in his hand, making some remark to George after. Maybe they were betting on whether he'd actually make it to the street without losing an appendage to their merchandise.

The edges of the Frisbee scathed over his ear and hopefully didn't take any of his hair with it. The last thing he needed was to be missing part of his face in Muggle London. Besides, what would Kai think?

Not thinking about Kai right now, thank you. Even as he blissfully ignored the line of thought, Cassian's words echoed again. 'We'll leave the ordinary seventh-year things to you.' Definitely hadn't meant what it sounded like, even though it certainly had.

The whistle above the Wheezes door blew a raspberry as Marius stepped out into Diagon Alley and made for the Leaky Cauldron.

---

The familiar beep door chime of Hartwell's Electronics cast its spell on Marius. All around, the buzz and murmur of various tellies did the rest. The predictable hum of Muggle technology felt almost meditative.

Quick wandwork in the Leaky Cauldron had temporary altered Marius's robes into something more Muggle-passing, plain in a way he'd never be seen by anyone who knew him ordinarily. He'd been out the door before letting anyone have too long a glance, not that anyone seemed to be watching closely. No tails that he'd noticed, either, though he'd circled a block and cast a Notice-Me-Not in an alley to be sure.

Still, Carrow's appearance lingered in his mind. A Daily Prophet journalist showing up on his first day at the Weasleys'? Quite the coincidence or quite the timing. He glanced over his shoulder as the door closed behind him. No one seemed to be acting untoward out in the street. But that didn't mean anything when wizards might be involved. He'd not named the Ascetics in Widdershins, though, and it was hardly likely they'd connected him with the newsletter besides.

He couldn't be positive that no one knew of his summer visits to Hartwell's, but it was too late to fix that in any capacity. First time here outside the summer, really. He could've gone to the library, he'd reasoned on the way. But the desire to visit the old man had won out, and Caleb had the computer upstairs. So really, why not?

Marius gave a small tug at the bottom edge of his red jumper. Really, the look and feel were quite odd, even still. But there was Caleb, sitting behind the counter, still balding and still sleepy-eyed as he peered over inventory on a clipboard.

The shopkeeper looked up belatedly to the chime, gave a nod, started to look down again before he did a double take. "Oh, Marius." His cheeks dimpled. The stool he sat on creaked as he shifted forth. "Wasn't expecting to see you until the summer holidays, at least. Come in, come in."

Come in he did, walking up to lean on the counter. "Alright there, Caleb? How's the leg?" Marius asked, brows lofted.

"Ugh. If the doctor spent as much time sorting it out as they do poking about with it, I could run a marathon." Caleb shook his head, still smiling faintly. "Not that I ever ran one before it started being trouble."

The grin and chuckle came easily as Caleb himself laughed quietly. "Right," Marius said, "Hope it's not trouble for me to come by?"

"Oh, never. Why, just the other day, I was telling my wife... well, you're a good lad."

Think McGonagall would choke if she heard that. Kai too, come to think. The irony of being considered a model citizen while actively plotting revolutionary activities was not lost on him. Putting on his best good-lad face, Marius crooked a little smile, "Any chance I can borrow your computer for schoolwork again?"

Amusement lit Caleb's eyes. "Schoolwork, mm?" he said.

"Proper schoolwork, this time," Marius clarified. Really, it'd only been the once he'd said the like and gotten caught up in messing about with a flash game quite by accident. Other times, he'd never bothered with any pretense.

Caleb nodded to the stair. "As you like. My grandson's up there with his friends, but they won't mind." He cleared his throat and turned back to the inventory list. "I've told them about you - why don't you pop up and introduce yourself?"

Grandson? Caleb had mentioned such before, but Marius hadn't chanced to cross paths with the boy. "Jamie, right?" he checked, to a nod from the old man.

A flutter of nerves caught in Marius as he headed for the stairs. Three summers of mucking about trying to understand Muggle things didn't mean he knew much about being around Muggle teens, outside a few chance interactions. He wondered what Caleb had told them about him. After all, the old man hadn't the faintest idea about magic.

Focus. He still needed to do the actual research, start sorting the whys and hows of seeding out understanding of the wizarding world. Fact as fiction. And that meant understanding the bloody internet better.

Murmurings of talk and the hum of a fan caught his ear on the way up the steps. A whiff of an air freshener, as he ascended.

"-simply saying, I don't think that one's real. Too many people would have to be hiding far too much for it to be an inside job," said a first boy's voice, quiet and steady-paced.

"You just don't like the recent conspiracies is likelier, innit Leo? You tune right on out if it happened after 2000," said a second more cheerful one.

If only you knew, Marius thought, nearly missing a step. Of all the conversations to walk into, it had to be one about conspiracy theories. The universe's sense of humor was becoming genuinely concerning. The biggest conspiracy of all has been running quite successfully since 1692, thank you very much.

"Hang on, that's not Grandad-" said another voice.

And then Marius came up and around, just as the owner of the third voice spun another rotation of the office chair at the desk. The other two boys had pulled over a few simpler chairs Caleb usually kept pushed behind a table.

The one in the spinning chair - presumably Jamie, given Grandad - wore some lightly grubby sporting shirt. Football, Marius would hazard a guess, though he'd expended most of his caring for sports on Quidditch and not nearly enough on his Muggle excursions. Which was probably going to become a problem in about thirty seconds when they inevitably asked about his interests.

Jamie raised his eyebrows. "Alright? Who're you then?"

Nerves soaring high, Marius stepped forth at the top of the stairs, doing his best to look comfortable and like he'd been in this space as often as he had. Didn't quite know what to do with his hands, though. They eventually settled by his pockets. Merlin, these clothes are odd. "Marius Mulford," he said. "Pleasure."

He brought one hand up to offer it to Jamie, alongside a grin.

Jamie's mouth drew an amused quirk briefly, even as he took the handshake. "Jamie Hartwell," he said good-naturedly. "You're the one who Grandad's trying to replace me with, then?"

"Hardly," was out of Marius's mouth quick enough, edged with amusement to meet Jamie's own. Though honestly, he wasn't entirely sure what role he'd accidentally fallen into in Caleb's life. Surrogate grandson? Favorite customer? Not that he'd ever bought anything.

One of the other boys offered a hand, arm full up with wristbands and things, shirt one of those gray logo-type ones. "Sam. You're the theater kid, then?"

"Just so," Marius said, which made Jamie roll his eyes for some reason - though the expression seemed amused, not annoyed, so he left it be.

"You're in theater?" asked the last of the boys. His clothes were by far the oddest. He had on what seemed like three layers, with a blazer over a sweater of some sort (Marius thought the word might be hoodie), and a burgundy scarf besides. Merlin, rather bundled, aren't you? The overdressed kid offered his own hand. Nice wristwatch, though.

Theater was something Marius had learned early and often to be a get-out-of-trouble-free term, when mannerisms clashed (though he'd inadvertently learned 'cosplay' worked in some circumstances). So, as he took the third boy's hand, Marius nodded. "To thine own self be true," he said in a playful tone. "Yes, quite."

The boy brightened in considerable interest as they shook hands. "Leander Meredith. Leo's fine." As their hands parted, he asked curiously, "Which theater?"

Oh. No one had ever asked that bit. Marius felt a sudden flaw in his cover. But he hadn't lived in the Mulford household for seventeen years to fall to so simple an oversight. No, no. His mind raced. Couldn't be too specific to London - Leo seemed possibly familiar with local stages. "Ah, little place that belongs to my cousin," he said. "Down in Slough."

"Your cousin owns a theater?" Leo straightened and Marius glanced to the others.

"It suits him," Marius said, angling to limit the lying. Algernon would be suited to a theater. Really, his cousin could be so overmuch, at times. Before Leo could find a follow-up question, Marius spread his hands and hurried to say, "Apologies for interrupting. Pleased to meet you-" He nodded to Jamie. "-and the both of you as well." The other two.

"No trouble," Jamie answered with a shrug, giving the chair another spin. "You just dropping by to see Grandad?"

"Asked to borrow the computer for schoolwork, actually."

Sam glanced past Jamie to the device: pale and box-shaped and arrayed upon the desk, monitor glowing with color. Several tabs open, from the looks. The active one held a paused video, slightly blurry in the still. "Reckon we were using it still," he said reluctantly.

"I'm in no hurry," Marius hurried to say, raising a soothing hand. Even though he was, in fact, on a time constraint. Politeness usually helped ease things along.

"What're you studying?" Jamie asked, still in the chair, sitting back at Marius's reassurance.

Well, that he could answer, at least. "Internet research. Communications systems, primarily."

"What kind of communications, then? Email, or...?"

"Is it for a theater matter?" Leo asked.

"No," Marius said to that, then reconsidered. "Not precisely, that is."

Sam idly messed with one of his wristbands, rotating it around his forearm. "How's that?"

"It's about how communications spread," Marius said. "Like, erm- War of the Worlds. It's a sort of- hypothetical project of seeing how such a thing might occur in the modern day."

Leo brightened, small and thoughtful smile on the rise. "Like the broadcast? That's brilliant, actually."

"Bet you that's how the governments would handle actual first contact." Sam glanced up and over at Jamie, his manner fishing. "Or cover it up."

"Oh, come off it, Sam." But Jamie sounded amused.

First contact? Marius raised an eyebrow. He knew what it meant, of course. The concept wasn't solely science fiction in nature - he knew that much from Kai. Or rather, that it wasn't solely a Star Trek matter. But, well, market research - what did this lot think of it? "What do you mean?" he asked Sam, causing Jamie to groan and Leo to palm his face.

The fidgeting with the wristbands paused. "Aliens, obviously," Sam said, shifting in his seat. He considered Marius, then glanced over his shoulder. "Grab a chair?"

"There's not aliens," Jamie said, shaking his head.

No, but there are wizards.

Leo watched as Marius sidled between them to go fetch a chair. "It's deeply unlikely that any aliens, should they exist, have discovered and reached our planet."

"No? But there's been those videos from astronomers lately-" Sam started to say.

"Blurry videos," Jamie protested. "Honestly, Nessie's more likely than aliens."

True.

"The government definitely knows, anyhow."

"The government's not that competent."

Competence is relative.

Leo shrugged. He glanced again as Marius pulled a chair alongside him and sat down with one foot crooked up on a knee. "Most 'sightings' have scientific explanations, or can be attributed to human tendencies toward pattern-seeking."

"Dull. What do you think, Marius?" Sam asked, eyes widening in ally-seeking at Marius.

Going off the sideglance Leo cast at him, Marius suspected himself graded on any answer. "Aliens," he said, drawing out the word for a delay. "Well, I think if they're not around, going to find them would be quite fine, wouldn't it?" Easier still, that he meant it.

"Sure, unless they're the chestburster sort." Jamie, that.

"The what?"

Three pairs of eyes descended on him. Leo's look was the least odd - Jamie and Sam appeared outright scandalized. An exhale came from Jamie as he spun in the chair again. "Right."

"You've not seen Alien?" Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Your parents not let you watch horror films or something?"

"He could just not like horror," Leo said mildly. Right, so Alien was apparently a horror film, which explained enough about chestbursters for him to probably not want to watch it. Unless Kai liked it, possibly.

Marius felt slightly adrift. Caleb usually chose the shows here. "My father, actually. Doesn't keep a telly in the house."

"You don't own a telly?" The scandal was in Sam's voice now. He looked between Leo and Jamie, traded a glance with the latter. "That's mental. We've got to sort this."

Where were you three years ago when I was looking for bloody Star Trek? Marius leaned forward in his seat, smiling easily enough. "Alright, then. So, this Alien - is it a show, or?"

"It's a film," Sam said, as if explaining something fundamental. "Ripley? Sigourney Weaver?"

The names meant nothing to Marius, but he wasn't about to admit to more gaps. "I have seen Star Trek," he offered.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the pivot. "Which ones? The old series? Next Generation? Voyager?"

"Or DS9?" Leo added, earning an eyeroll from Sam.

"Next Generation," Marius said, leaning forward with fresh enthusiasm at the surer ground.

"Well, that's something," Jamie said with a grin. "You could come by and watch it with us, if you'd like. Some night or another. We've got loads on DVD."

Wouldn't mind if I could, but these are one-off afternoons. Bother. And, well, the whole revolution matter. His gaze drifted along the wall. He'd become so caught up in the moment that he'd nearly forgotten - none of these three knew there was a wizarding society soon to be caught with its pants down. Or for that matter that a wizard sat with them.

"What sorts of things do you do?" This was Leo again, giving Marius a brief nudge with his elbow. "Is it mostly the theater, or...?"

What did he like to do? The question gave him pause - Marius wasn't sure anyone had ever asked quite so frankly. The swiftest things to mind were this telly shop, tracking Kai down in the library stacks to talk nonsense ideas, and-

Before Marius could think the better of it, he said, "I write satire, actually."

And all the attention came back around. "What, like Jonathan Swift?" Leo asked.

"Do you like Monty Python, then?" Sam added, hopeful again.

"Monty Python, yes," Marius said, his tone pitched just right between knowing and modest. He'd caught fragments over his London wanderings - overheard quotes, glimpsed references - but the pieces never quite assembled into a coherent whole. "The... comedy troupe."

But he'd never actually seen it, and that time even Leo didn't seem to know what to do with him. In the end, most of his Muggle knowledge came from wizarding sources or Kai (who'd never really mentioned it) or Marlow (who rarely brought up his Muggle interests). The rest from Caleb and his computer or telly, and sometimes a Muggle library. But it wasn't as though that had a Beginners section for British Cultural References You Should Know.

Something about his tone must have given him away, because Jamie was studying him with newfound curiosity. "You've not seen it?"

Marius spread his hands and shrugged, affecting an unbothered look.

It was Sam who asked, a growing frustration in his tone, "What about The Office?"

Whose office? Marius sensed the The in play, but he had no idea what they meant. "Is that a film?"

Jamie blinked. "You having us on, mate?"

Sam shifted uncomfortably. "Your dad sounds a bit strict. Doesn't he let you watch anything?"

"No telly at home, remember?" Marius said with an easy smile, but he could feel the conversation shifting beneath him.

Jamie exchanged a look with Leo. "Right, but you must go round mates' houses and that."

"Does your dad mind you being here?" Leo asked quietly.

Oh. Oh. They thought... what exactly did they think? That he was some kind of runaway? He had gotten that before, on his earliest excursion to Muggle London. A hotel receptionist had tried to phone child services about him.

Something in their expressions reminded him of how Marlow looked when he was trying to work out if someone needed help but wouldn't ask for it. They were trying to rescue him from something, weren't they? Bloody Gryffindor Muggles.

"Perfectly reasonable question," Marius said smoothly. "My father's quite busy with work. Doesn't much mind where I spend my afternoons."

Which was true, technically. His father would have to notice his existence first to mind anything about it.

If it weren't for the still-blowing fan, one could've heard a pen drop in the quiet then. A few elephants to be counted in the quiet. One, maybe three. Marius's eyes slanted off to study his own knee.

"Right," Sam said eventually, not quite meeting Marius's eyes.

Leo cleared his throat. "Need the loo," he said, heading for the stairs.

More silence followed that Marius wasn't quite sure how to break, still not fully understanding how it'd begun in the first place. Beyond the sound of the fan, he thought he heard talking downstairs, but he couldn't make anything out.

"So," Sam said eventually. "You'll be coming around more, or nah?" He nodded to a telly in the corner. "I've got loads of DVDs we could show you. Caleb's got some too." It was endearing, in a way, how Sam had seemingly decided Marius needed rescuing and films were the chosen method.

And yet for his skepticism... A grin sprang up on Marius's face. "Think I'd like that alright." The offer was so completely ordinary in tone that he didn't think twice about it until after.

"You know," Jamie said, more seriously, "Grandad's always going on about you. Says you're a good lad. You're welcome round whenever."

The phrasing made Marius straighten. "Weren't I already welcome?" he asked, going for a lighter tone.

Jamie and Sam exchanged another look. Drat.

"Course," Jamie said quickly. "Just... you know. You still want to use the computer?"

Before Marius could answer, footsteps on the stairs preceded Leo's return. Leo gave a small nod, then went to sit. "Asked Caleb about the aliens thing," he said, in a sudden seeming interest in the topic. "He reckons there's too many witnesses to weird things for there to not be."

"Sounds like Granddad," Jamie answered, eyes flicking to Marius and away. "I suppose if there's aliens, it could be like that thing we were looking at earlier, too."

Marius started relaxing. Nice safe slide back into this alien preoccupation. Really, it was almost bothersome, though. He began wondering if whatever he tried wouldn't be mistaken for aliens instead. Though honestly, that might actually have been easier to explain than 'we've been here all along, just very good at hiding.'

"The blinking bloke?" Sam sniffed, rubbed his nose. "That's not aliens, that's advanced tech. Teleporters or that."

Teleporters? "Blinking bloke?"

"Bit mad, really," Leo said aside to Marius. "Some man supposedly vanished in a car park-"

But Sam cut in, grin creeping up. "It's on video, even."

"Only the sound." The distinctive crack of Disapparition, probably.

"But there's those documents as well, innit? Someone's definitely covering something up."

What documents?

Jamie had spun in his chair. "Oh, forget the audio. You've got to see this, mate, it's mental. Someone's made all these fake documents. Probably the most elaborate hoax ever." The internet windows minimized and he started clicking through folders. "Found them on this forum last week."

Amused despite himself, Marius leaned forward to see better. "Better hoax than Nessie?" he asked playfully. This was actually perfect research - watching how Muggles reacted to elaborate hoaxes about hidden societies. Were they skeptical? Fascinated? Did they want to believe?

"Far more effort in it," Leo admitted.

"It's brilliant," Sam said. "Definitely a cover-up for the teleporters."

"Some nutter's been posting them everywhere," Jamie explained. "All over different forums and that."

Marius snorted, curious despite himself. So this is the sort of thing we might be doing, if we were out here. It seemed like the manner of thing Anselma might get caught up in, were she Muggle. Likely not Cassian. Perhaps Kai? Marlow'd find it a laugh, now wouldn't he?

His thoughts froze as the file came up, however. Handmade. A copy. Not the genuine article. But familiar enough. A chill prickled over his skin.

After all, what British wizard didn't know what the Daily Prophet looked like?

Dated last year.

At least this article was only about a hippogriff flock interrupting a Quidditch game. Could have been worse. Could have been about the war, or blood status politics, or any number of things that would have made this infinitely more complicated.

The only other coherent thought Marius had was: Well then. Beaten to the punch, aren't I?

Chapter Text

November 5, 2006. Hogwarts. Slytherin Seventh-Year Boys' Dorm.

Cassian

I will begin wholeheartedly accepting Slughorn's invitations. The words - his words - weighed uncomfortably on Cassian's mind. Not because they were false. Not even because - as his friends might suspect - Slug Club was an unpleasant burden to shoulder. No, Cassian's discomfort stemmed from another place altogether.

The reasons he'd given for the choice - connections, listening, allies - were only half the story.

He had no intention of telling the others the rest. Not yet. Anselma had brought to the forefront the dangers of wizarding society. Choke chain. Whether his friends sought reform or revolution, when Anselma's words echoed in his mind, it was as a circling of slavering shadows.

Sitting at a dark-hued desk in his dorm room, Cassian surveyed a carefully made list.

Most Concern

Kai's Family
Dustin Bosco - Muggle
Samantha Reeve - Muggle

Kade Family
Stuart Kade - Muggle
Shannon Kade - Muggle

Silvertree Family
Helen Silvertree - Witch
Jonathan Silvertree - Muggle
Adrian Silvertree - Squib

Least Concern

Mulford Family
Ignatius Mulford - Wizard
Clementine Mulford - Witch
Algernon Toskthorne - Wizard

Tatton Family
Osmond Tatton - Wizard
Isolde Tatton - Witch

Two of the families, at the very least, needed less concern. Marius's family held old wizarding land, well-warded. They had little need of protection, never mind any means Cassian could readily provide to them. Never mind if they would have appreciated the gesture, besides. The Tattons, Cassian's former host family, were similarly able to self-defend. Not that he was certain anyone would target them at all.

Doubt in listing his host family had arisen and been set aside. That there was little love lost between him and them might be lost on an outsider.

Three families weighed more certain vulnerability. The letters that had been sent, however, meant some witches and wizards were wary of the Contraries. Destabilizing influences. And wary people could be unpredictable.

Cassian knew that better than some.

His friends were afraid? That moment in the storage room when he'd laid down his own wariness hung in his thoughts. But theirs were fears of the Statute falling. Fears of grand and shapeless things. Fears of things far less tangible than a wand in the night.

He could not cease their fear. But perhaps he could find one less thing for them to grow anxious over.

Over near the emptied biscuit tin from Adrian, one envelope stood ready. He'd never written to Adrian save simple thanks before. This thanks had been longer and included a response to a letter Adrian had never sent. Aware that Anselma had mentioned Adrian's academic interest in potions and spellwork, Cassian had concocted a polite response to an inquiry about magic that could be cast on places - including defensive warding applicable to homes with Muggles. He'd stared at the letter for nearly ten minutes after finishing it, trying to decide if Adrian would think he was mental, threatening, or simply mis-addressed.

To Adrian,

Thank you for the biscuits. They were much appreciated, and Pepper already forgiven becoming lost with the original batch.

I hope things continue to progress well at the bakery. I'm glad to hear you retain a sharp interest in the theoretical applications of spellwork, particularly as relates to your mother's alchemical work. I found myself wondering if you'd ever given consideration to localized magical applications - charms and wards that can be anchored to locations or persons rather than objects.

Such defensive applications are quite fascinating from an academic standpoint. Muggle-compatible protections, for instance, present interesting challenges. Standard residential wards assume magical occupancy, but examples exist that account for non-magical inhabitants while maintaining effectiveness. If your mother possesses no books on the topic, I am given to understand that there was extensive documentation of such spellwork during the last war.

If this area of study interests you, I'd be happy to recommend some of the texts I've encountered on the topic. There are several that address both technical and practical considerations, should the latter be of interest.

I trust you are well.

With regards,
Cassian

P.S. Anselma has seemed burdened of late. More so than usual academic pressures would account for. I confess I'm not certain how to be of help to her in the matter. I suspect you might have better insight than I.

Presuming that Adrian took precautionary note from the letter, some aegis extended to the Silvertree family.

Moving along. Cassian had no rapport or reason for rapport with Marlow's family or Kai's. The biscuits from Adrian gave an excuse. He had no idea how Marlow's family might view him, never mind unsolicited mail about spells they had no means to cast anyway. The same problem applied to Kai's family, and that was without considering the ocean between him and her father.

Kai's father presented a distinct problem altogether, living in Colorado. MACUSA had not been quiet about disliking the Contraries. The Magical Congress didn't need to turn attention upon her father as a whole. All it would take would be one individual willing to arrange an accident. And Cassian did not trust some of the wizards of the world to be beyond it.

Perhaps, he thought, grim in remembering his hallway encounter with Thayer, part of planning for peace is preparing for war. The idea sat with him, likely and unpleasant, as Cassian pressed folded hands against his mouth. Being confined to Hogwarts was deeply troublesome for this.

He needed someone outside.

He needed, loathe he to think it, an adult. If you need an adult.

Not Tarth unless he had to. Besides that a squib might not be able to help the situation, the gentle manner of her offer still made his thoughts bristle warily.

The door to the dorm opened. Cassian swept his list into the recesses of his robes and refocused on the essaywork beneath it. Behind him, two pairs of footsteps came in. Too early for Marius. That left Hagen and Avery. Only four Slytherin boys in their year.

Not a word from Hagen - the prefect preferred his quiet in the dorm. Usually, Avery would have gone to pester him anyway, or lounged on his bunk and loudly talked until someone gave in and acknowledged him. Outside the dorm, everyone assumed Marius was the irritating one to share a dorm with. Clearly they'd never imagined being locked in a room with Avery.

Cassian breathed carefully through his nose as Avery's steps - distinctive, too-light - continued to approach him.

"Well, Rosier, I hear the stationery club's falling on hard times," Avery said. The vague pressure of his hand on the back of the chair made Cassian work to not clench his jaw. "How's the rest of the Rosier Rehabilitation Society taking the news?"

The initial instinct was to be silent and wait for Avery to go away. The crude name for his friends and the mockery of the Postscript Society certainly heightened the desire. "My friends are quite well. Thank you for your concern."

He felt a faint tap at the back of his chair. A hand subtly shifted toward his wand beneath his cloak, just in case.

Avery tapped once more, then asked, "You do know no one cares how many Muggles you write letters with, don't you?" His other hand swept dismissively toward the essay on the desk. "Tell me, do your friends ever mention your family when you're not around? I imagine it comes up quite a bit. 'Poor Cassian, he can't help what he is.'"

"Speak for yourself, Avery," Cassian said, cooler and quicker than he meant to. Then, measuring his tone more carefully: "Though I'm curious - you seem remarkably invested. Keeping close tabs?"

"I do speak for myself," Avery said, ignoring the probe. "Respectable position lined up in the Ministry. No scandals, no grand gestures. Meanwhile, you're... what? Still performing the reformed aristocrat? Do you practice that noble suffering in the mirror?" The smile arrived in his tone. "I did figure it out, though. Why the particular calling. Not such a puzzle after all. Muggles won't know the name, will they?"

"Whether one knows the name or not is irrelevant." Cassian began to slide his essays away. "Though your interest in my career choices is... touching."

"Look at you - still convinced you're different from the rest of us," Avery said, moving away from behind his chair to lean against the wall near the desk. "Come now, Rosier, we're practically brothers. Second and third to come through the Program. The difference is, I had the sense to be grateful for my second chance. But you? You had to make it a calling."

The Magical Children's Reintegration Program. Even Avery rarely went so far as to raise the topic. It had practically since first year been an unspoken treaty: neither would acknowledge that neither went home to their parents at the end of the year. It was technically over for both of them now, both of age.

It didn't feel over, and Cassian didn't think it would until he reached King's Cross and had to find his own way to his real home. If it was confirmed returned to him. If it felt like a home at all.

"Do you have a point, Avery?" Cassian asked. "Or are we simply comparing approaches?"

Avery glanced over at Hagen, perhaps checking for an audience. The prefect was either ignoring them or very pointedly pretending to. His attention returned to Cassian. "My point's simple enough. When MACUSA starts making formal complaints about Hogwarts students 'destabilizing international relations,' who do you think gets the blame? Not the Muggleborns - that would look bad. Not the pet-project squib teacher - they'll drop her quietly. No. They'll go to the expendable one with the convenient family history."

He shrugged and continued. "Muggle Liaison office? They'd sooner hire a vampire. You think they're going to put someone with your name in charge of telling Muggleborns they're magical? The irony alone would kill them."

The last of his essays away and envelope collected, Cassian turned a brief glance to Avery. He'd let the words wash around him, heard them, even as he focused on the task. A hand smoothed over a sleeve. "How thoughtful of you to worry," he answered. "Though I remain optimistic about the future relevance of such expertise." Optimistic was certainly a choice word, but he side-stepped Avery and his barbs.

On his way from the dorm, Cassian inclined his head to Hagen politely. So, Avery's minding the international magical politics too. It's coming from multiple sources.

Before the door closed behind him, the first of Avery's fresh comments began: "You'd think seven years would teach someone reality, wouldn't you?"

Few students paid Cassian mind as he walked the curving hallway toward the Slytherin common room. A few sixth-years passed. A second-year - a boy who'd followed Cassian around last year, all but taking notes on his posture - took one glance at him and offered a polite smile. Cassian returned that with a nod.

He'd almost reached the egress out into the castle when lighter footsteps and a smaller voice came up alongside him.

"Excuse me, Ros- er, Cassian?"

It was Little. Cassian slowed and stepped out of the path toward the exit, offering the Muggleborn boy a study. "Tristram," he allowed with a nod. After time in proximity at Postscript, names had come easier. Especially when Tristram and Octavius - one of Little's dormmates - had gravitated to him before and after the meetings, for reasons Cassian still refused to contemplate.

Neither had come to the last meeting. Though after Thayer's outburst, Cassian thought that might be for the better.

"I... wanted to apologize," Little said. At Cassian's deepened frown, he clarified, "For missing Postscript Society." Something pinched in the boy's expression - it looked like he was about to say something more, but none was forthcoming.

"You're under no obligation to attend." Really, he'd not been that surprised. So much of the club was older, Cassian had half-expected the first-years to feel out of place no matter what he or anyone else offered.

"It's not-" The boy hesitated, something grim enough in his expression that Cassian's chest tightened. Little shook his head. "My mum wrote. She doesn't like... she said if I want pen-pals, I don't need to be in any... club, for it." His eyes flicked to Cassian amid the pause.

Cassian folded his hands behind his back. "I understand. Would you like for me to let Marlow know?"

Frustration lurched upon the boy's features. "It's not- I want to go!" he said. "Octavius wants to too. I tried telling Mum that you're not like that, you're-" And then he faltered, but cold understanding had already wrapped about the back of Cassian's neck.

Amid a subtle straightening, Cassian searched for words to answer. His throat tightened around them. Little's mother wasn't here, but her shadow hung over him, in the shape of wondering what he could possibly have said if she was here.

"She simply..." Little started again. "She says some people only want to be around kids like me because it makes them seem nice. Like they're trying to prove something, and I'm merely..."

The air felt thin. "Her concerns are understandable." Cassian heard himself say the words, more than he prepared them. He'd said similar things before, after all. "It is probably wise if you heed her."

Little's head tilted up, expression cracking with confusion and doubt. "Are- What do you-?"

"It is probable that insistence on club participation could make her more uneasy, if she already believes you are being pressured to it."

"But she's wrong!" Little snapped, turning a few heads before Slytherin blisffully remembered its rule of pretending not to eavesdrop. The first-year frowned up at Cassian. "Isn't she?" he pressed. "You and Marlow said the club was about talking to people, not... what Mum thinks."

"From your mother's perspective, those are unlikely to be mutually exclusive." Cassian glanced sidelong to the exit along the wall. Perhaps he shouldn't have helped Little the once. Should have left it to Marius, perhaps, or tried harder to find Hagen. The first-year had grown a brittle trust. What to do with it, Cassian had no idea.

"Then how do I tell her she's wrong?" pressed Little.

"You don't." Cassian stared past the boy's shoulder. Thin lines of tension ran through his own back, around his neck, down his arms behind him. His fingers felt cold with tight knit.

"But I have to."

Cassian's gaze swept to meet Little's. "No. You don't. You are not responsible for your mother's perception of the club, nor my association to it. You are not responsible for your mother's justifiable concerns."

Little folded his arms, manner growing petulant and testy. "But I like the club. I want to go, with Octavius too. I don't want to stop, I don't want Dad writing to McGonagall about my House, I don't-"

About his House. Distantly, Cassian wondered how McGonagall would begin to answer such a correspondence. Some said that the Hat took choice into account. Cassian wouldn't know - it had barely touched his head before it deemed him Slytherin, and Cassian had never allowed himself any depth of wondering about alternatives after that. Though when his host parents had asked before Hogwarts, Cassian had said and not quite believed that any House would be fine.

It had felt safer than saying he simply wasn't sure.

"Your parents' concerns are not going to cease in a letter," Cassian said, voice lowered. "Not one. Unlikely one from you. You said you read the history books, did you not?"

"Yes, but you said-"

"Then listen to what I am saying now." He held himself carefully still when Little flinched at the interruption. "Your presence in Slytherin is not unprecedented. It is, however, unprecedented in recent history. Recent history that gives your parents cause to be concerned. I do not think I would disagree with their position, were I in their place."

Little scowled at him. It was one of the finer aspects of the child's character, Cassian thought, and perhaps one of the reasons the Hat had not declined to place him here - even when uncertain, the boy firmed, rarely flinched. He wondered what other Houses the child had stalled between.

Somehow, he thought it more than one.

"Everyone wants to pick for me," Little said, lowering his voice as he stepped closer. "Dad's trying to get my House changed... can that even happen?" He shook his head. "Mum thinks I'm hiding under my bunk to sleep or something. Every other professor's asked if I want to talk, but no one actually wants to hear it. I'm fine, but no one's letting me be."

Distantly, in the shadows of his own first year, Cassian remembered a few professors wanting to talk. That had never sounded like they wanted to hear, either. Kai had never asked to talk. She had simply sat across from him in the alcove, done her homework, and never made a fuss.

Cassian subtly loosened his hands behind his back. His fingers remained chilled with the former grip. "What about," he asked, "Octavius?"

Little frowned, then glanced down to his feet. "Octavius said his mum's offered to write with my mum."

Potentially promising, Cassian thought, but didn't say. He considered. Octavius's was a halfblood family. Traditional family ties, but more remote, likely estranged in the last generation. Blood traitors would have been the phrase, his mind uncomfortably supplied, in a voice that sounded too much like his own mother's.

Pressing past the thought, Cassian said, "And what do you think about that?"

"I don't know. Not sure how Mum'll take it."

An idea crossed his mind, then. "Do you think she would prefer to speak to parents who aren't wizards or witches?"

Little frowned up at him. "What, like someone's Muggle mum? I'm not sure..."

Cassian considered. Kai's mother... may not be the wisest choice. It was the first thought and the first dismissed. Rare they discussed it, but he knew enough of her home life to suspect that Samantha might give a worried Muggle parent the wrong impressions. That unfortunately severely reduced the mums to choose from, since Anselma's was a witch and Marlow's long passed.

"I was thinking of Anselma's family, actually. Her father teaches physics. Her brother is a baker. There is also Marlow's family. His father works in electronics, and his sister... I believe she is still in university?" Cassian's voice dipped apologetically in his doubt.

"So I could..." Little shifted a foot back and forth. "...ask them, maybe? Or ask her if... or... I don't know."

"Marlow said he would be in the Great Hall this evening," Cassian offered. "If you want to ask him. I'm not sure of Anselma. She might still be in the library."

"What about Bosco?" asked Little. "She's Muggleborn too, isn't she? They say she's your best mate."

Cassian did his best not to blink at that. It was true, after all, but that didn't mean he liked the gossip mill's interest in them any more than he had the six years prior. "Anselma and Marlow's families have spent more time around wizarding affairs than Kai's. Besides that, Kai prefers privacy."

Little eyed him for a moment, then stepped back, a smile hesitantly easing up. "I'll find Marlow and ask him, then. He's club head after all, isn't he?" he added to a nod from Cassian. "And don't worry. I'll get my mum to understand. You'll see."

"That's really not necessary," Cassian said, stepping back himself. "Good luck with Marlow. Pardon me, Tristram - I should be going."

The first-year waved a hand, already turning to seek out Octavius across the common room. From a glance, he was busily waiting on a turn to play wizard's chess with a handful of first and second years.

No one paid much mind as Cassian finally left the common room.

---

The walk to Slug Club proved quiet and uneventful. Quiet, that was, beyond the elongated detour Cassian made to put his letter to Adrian in the keeping of a school owl. He waited until it began to disappear into the darkening evening sky before descending from the owlery and back almost all the way he'd come toward Slughorn's office.

Between Tristram and the owlery, he wasn't early. Ordinarily, that would have gone against his instincts, but Cassian still didn't care for the evening that awaited him.

He stepped into the room and was greeted by the scents of pineapple, sugar, and - he suspected - faint alcoholic tints nearly immediately. Technically, Cassian had once overheard Slughorn assuring McGonagall that all beverages were appropriate to students. Never believed a word of it.

There was the professor now, standing between a sixth-year Slytherin girl and a seventh-year Gryffindor boy. He had one hand on the latter's shoulder, while chattering excitedly about something or another. Throughout the room, other students flocked, as well as a few guests. It wasn't every Slug Club meeting that guests came, but rumors had filtered out over the years of more than the occasional stop-in from a researcher, a philanthropist, a veteran, so on and so forth.

Cassian glimpsed two, today. One olive-skinned witch in a silk, intricately-patterned robe, speaking to a pair of Hufflepuffs who didn't seem like they were quite convinced about being in this room in the first place. The other guest Cassian almost missed - a messily-dark-haired wizard with his back to the crowd. Despite the social avoidance that Cassian couldn't blame him for, he seemed engaged in a casual rapport with an unusually bright-eyed Thayer.

"Ah, Mr. Rosier!" Slughorn said, patting the Gryffindor on the shoulder before leaving that pair behind. His exclamation drew a few glances to the doorway, including from the witch in silk, so Cassian inclined his head politely. The professor swept up a glass of something that Cassian privately hoped wasn't alcoholic on his way.

"Professor," Cassian said, as he neared. He raised his hand to accept the glass.

The Professor's hand clasped lightly on his shoulder, guiding him further into the room. "Excellent to have you, my boy. Welcome, welcome." A few students they passed nodded to Cassian. A few even smiled, though some in what Cassian found more resembled a survivor's wryness.

"Mr. Rosier, was it?" asked the witch, who'd pardoned herself away from the Hufflepuffs to step closer. Cassian found Slughorn rotating him to face her, much to his discomfort. "I am Madam Mrinalini Raghavan. It is a pleasure to meet you." She returned his earlier bow of head, though hers was more precisely angled, with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to navigating such encounters.

"Cassian Rosier, Madam." He offered a hand, which she seemed to consider before giving a firm, brief shake.

Slughorn glanced brightly between them. "Quite the popular young man this evening, I suspect," he said, and Cassian wasn't certain he liked that prospect. "Madam Raghavan's a magi-linguist, been most gracious as to come to Hogwarts while visiting the country. I was just telling her earlier about the Postscript Society - she was most curious."

She was? Cassian turned back to her. Her expression remained calm and thoughtful as he said, "I'd be more than willing to answer questions about it, if you still have any."

Seeming satisfied in having played his role, Slughorn stepped away.

Raghavan watched him go from the corner of her eye before looking back to Cassian. "I heard of it only recently. I am here to visit the British Ministry, you see, and there has been considerable discussion of your initiative there."

"So I've heard," Cassian said, more uncomfortable now. The owl post to Ministry families spoke to it.

"I am curious," Raghavan said. "Is there a particular reason this was structured as a formal club, rather than individually pursued correspondence? In my experience, most Muggles treat such exchanges as personal enrichment."

"Some do," Cassian allowed, glass in his hand interfering with the desire to smooth his sleeves over. "I'm told, however, that cross-cultural correspondence is also sometimes encouraged in Muggle schools as an extracurricular activity. It is not unprecedented."

Her eyes sparkled in a quiet amusement. "Indeed, not unprecedented. But perhaps it is unprecedented within these particular walls."

Cassian regarded her evenly. "Do you disapprove of the club?" he asked, more plainly than he may have had the evening entire not set him on edge.

"Oh - no, not particularly. In fact," said Raghavan, "I suspect that Jyotirvidya Ashrama may be quite intrigued at the idea of developing similar programs. We have been exploring various approaches to... broadening perspectives."

That is... "One of the Indian schools of magic, yes?" Intrigued?

"Indeed. And so, I ask again. Is there a reason you sought such structure for it?"

Cassian studied her, the buzz of other conversations seeming to fade as he sensed this was more than casual curiosity. What did intrigued mean? Coordination? Oversight? Replication? "We thought that other wizarding children might appreciate institutional support for developing friendships beyond their immediate communities."

There was warmth in her eyes, he thought, or perhaps amusement again. It was difficult to tell, both for the blur of cultural tendency and the doubt deep-seeded in him. Raghavan watched him as he watched her. She said, "Then why with Muggles? Why not with other magical schools?"

Why not? Because I am a Rosier? The flinch of thought was nonsensical and he knew as soon as he had it. Her question was sensible.

"Why not with Muggles?" Cassian said, more pointedly than he meant to. "Why should we presume we have any less to learn from Muggles than we do from one another?"

It was also, it seemed, a little louder than he meant to be, because Cassian abruptly realized that most of the conversations around had gone quiet. He kept his focus on Madam Raghavan, and her expression had not changed in the slightest. Slowly, slowly, talk in other corners resumed. Too slowly for Cassian's taste.

"An excellent question," Raghavan said, stepping slightly closer and lowering her voice to a more confidential register. "One wonders why it has taken so long to ask." There was a subtle edge beneath her diplomatic tone. "I am not questioning the wisdom of your approach, Mr. Rosier - quite the opposite. Perhaps you should consider expanding beyond Muggle correspondence. International magical cooperation may offer perspectives you have not yet encountered."

She paused, letting the implication settle. "You may find such exchanges quite enlightening, particularly given your... apparent interests."

He answered with a careful bow of his head, still off-balance.

"If you'll pardon me," she continued with renewed diplomatic smoothness, "I believe there was another student who wished to discuss their own cross-cultural interests."

"Of course, Madam."

And then she brushed past and Cassian was left holding his drink and feeling quite unsteady. A few minutes passed in which no one bothered him. He drank. It didn't taste strongly, though now Cassian thought he may not have minded if it did. International magical cooperation.

Before he had proper time to consider the idea, Thayer arrived alongside him, with a drink in hand.

Thayer sipped. "Rosier." There was an odd, perky note in his voice that Cassian couldn't place. He nodded off toward the corner where he'd been speaking to the dark-haired wizard. "If you're collected, I've been asked if you wouldn't mind a word."

Cassian glanced over to find the other guest accepting a drink from Slughorn, then nodding as the Professor stepped away. There was something about the hair that itched the back of his mind, but with the man still turned away, he couldn't place it. "A word?" he echoed.

Unhelpfully, Thayer said, "Oh, yes."

Before Cassian could get out with who?, Thayer was already pulling away to chat with a Ravenclaw girl.

Cassian sipped again from his drink and set the emptied glass on a tray. He rounded other circles of conversation with care, trying not to appear snooping. Not that, he supposed, anyone here would have been particularly surprised by any level of eavesdropping. Instincts for such affairs ill-refined, he suspected Marius did fare better here than he did, on an average occasion. A part of him wouldn't have minded his dormmate's presence.

Before he made it all the way to corner, the man there finally glanced over his shoulder toward the crowd, manner searching. His eyes met Cassian's and his lips quirked in a sort of smile that on any other face Cassian may have taken for commiserating.

Cassian's blood ran cold as he glimpsed the scar half-hidden in bangs, the undeniable visage. Was he still walking? Had he stopped? Was he breathing? Cassian wasn't sure.

He must have still been walking, for he found himself inexplicably closer to Harry Potter as the Auror offered a hand.

"You're Cassian Rosier, then?" Potter asked. Then, unnecessarily, he added, "Harry Potter - though I expect you already worked that out. Heard about your letter-writing club from Hermione. She's been muttering about it for weeks, actually. Something about 'obvious solutions' and 'why didn't I think of that'."

Belatedly, Cassian realized he hadn't taken the offered handshake. Everything rang with distance as he did so. Did his hand feel as cold to Potter as to him? "Yes, sir," was what came out of his mouth.

An odd expression crossed Potter's face. Had Cassian somehow offended him? Cassian's mind began racing for where he'd gone wrong.

"Don't - please don't call me sir. Makes me feel ancient. Harry's fine. I do hope Thayer didn't make this sound odd - he said you were his friend."

Setting aside that Thayer's friendship was news to Cassian and subject to great doubt besides, Cassian attempted to process Harry's fine.

"Thayer is a member of the Postscript Society in good standing." What am I saying? "He said you wished for a word."

For a moment, Potter turned his head, sipping from his own drink. Cassian took the opportunity to decide if he was still breathing. It seemed like he might be. What was going on? Why was an Auror here? Was this about the Ministry interest? Was he about to be warned? Had he gone too far?

"Right, well," Potter said, "Bit loud in there, isn't it? Never could stand these sorts of dos. Mind if we..." He gestured toward the door with his glass.

"Of course, sir," answered Cassian, even as his nerves screamed in escalating panic. He all but missed Potter's wince at the repeated sir. For one nonsensical heartbeat, he wondered if this was a prelude to an arrest. Surely not. Private warning, then?

Cassian glimpsed a few faces as he followed Harry out. Slughorn waved in delight. A Gryffindor frowned at the pair of them. Then there was Thayer, who looked too pleased with himself for Cassian's taste. Cassian felt nauseous.

Out in the corridor, the comparative silence roared like a windstorm.

Potter turned back after Cassian closed the door behind them, leaning casually on the wall with a hand in a robe pocket. The man looked at Cassian briefly, then away, like he was trying to sort something out. His gaze flicked over as Cassian smoothed a hand over a sleeve, which Cassian responded to by folding his hands behind his back.

"You know, Hermione's been going on about your club for weeks. Says it's exactly the sort of thing Muggle Studies proper should be doing." Potter let out an amused breath. "I heard about the letters from families. You'd think parents would prefer kids writing letters to practicing dueling, but..."

Cassian stared at Potter. Distantly, a logical part of his mind remembered relevant facts. Longbottom's reassurance to Marlow. Lee Jordan's letter. Auror Ferens' mention of Granger quoting Widdershins in the Ministry.

His mind shied at this last leap.

"You would think," Cassian ventured cautiously, echoing Potter.

"Saw your letter to the Prophet two years ago, too. Telling them off," Potter continued when Cassian didn't. He leaned his head against the wall, warmth in his voice as he went on. "Merlin, think Ron and I spent three weeks trying to avoid Hermione because she kept reading parts of it aloud. 'Ethics of targeting minors in print,' and the lot. Not that it wasn't brilliant. If we'd thought to write something like that back then..." Of all things, Potter almost grinned. "Well, knowing us, we'd probably have made it worse. But there were definitely a few times we could've used someone willing to tell the Prophet where to stick it."

Cassian glanced away. "The letter to the Prophet was predominantly by Bosco, Mulford, and Silvertree. I only edited."

To Cassian's mild scandalizing, Potter snorted. "More than Ron and I would've done."

Cassian wasn't sure what to say to that. A part of him wondered briefly if Potter thought himself too good for editing, but that seemed at odds with the man in front of him. "I am aware of your entanglements with the Daily Prophet," he offered. "I have read extensively on Ministry related occurrences at the time."

Briefly, he wondered if that would be taken poorly. A questionable area of study, somehow.

"Read a lot about me, have you?" There was something off in Potter's tone, almost rueful. "You'd be surprised how many people have made jobs out of studying my teenage disasters. Think there's three series of books and a play, now. Half of them get it wrong anyway." Potter didn't sound happy about it - more tired. There was a beat of quiet, then without looking at Cassian, Potter said, "Suppose you'd understand what it's like, having people assume things before they've even met you. Bit exhausting, isn't it?"

Cassian's thoughts froze in their progress, like so many leaves amid falling that now hung suspended despite heavy winds. Suppose you'd understand what it's like.

An odd sensation gathered behind Cassian's eyes, warming his face even as it sent a spiral of defensive prickling over his skull. "That's hardly-" he started to say, but then... Hardly what? Hardly true? He'd read of Potter's history, of the Prophet articles, the basilisk accusations, Triwizard Tournament suspicions. Hardly comparable? Far be it from him to think the Boy Who Lived wasn't preempted by assumptions. "The difference is people expected the best from you."

He regretted the words as soon as he said them, throat going tight. They were far too plain, sounded almost accusatory to his own ear even though they were soft-spoken.

"People expected great things from me. Not sure they were ever settled on better or worse."

And Cassian didn't know what to say to that.

"Still not quite the same, no," Potter added, an unreadable note to his voice. "Took me years to realize how unfair the whole thing was. Everyone in Slytherin getting painted with the same brush because of... well, because of families like yours, I suppose. Sorry. That came out wrong. What I mean is - it isn't fair that everyone assumed the worst about you lot just because of what your parents did. You were kids."

Cassian frowned at that. Wary, half-suspecting he was being tested in a way he'd often navigated his host family, he said, "While unfair, given recent history, concerns are not unjustified."

A blink from Potter. "Hang on - concerns about what, exactly? That you might turn out like your parents?"

Dubious of the ground he treaded, Cassian answered, "No. But given the extent of-"

"No." Potter had straightened, frowning himself now. "Look, I've heard this sort before. From myself, actually. 'People are right to be suspicious because whatnot'. It's rubbish. You were nine, never mind anything else."

Cassian stared at Potter, trying to find the test, the trap. But he couldn't, not without calling Potter a liar.

"Wait," Potter suddenly said, something dawning in his tone that set Cassian's nerves sharply on edge. "Who's told you that?"

Cassian didn't look at Potter.

When Potter spoke again, he'd leaned back against the wall. "Suppose we've gotten a bit off track," he said, though he didn't sound to like shifting the topic. "Look, I didn't come here about that sort of thing. Not like that. Just- well, sure, some of the Ministry's not pleased about what you and your friends are trying to do. But not all of us feel that way."

There was distant recognition of the small irony that Anselma's desired allies had apparently had eyes on them all along. Are we supported or managed? Is there a difference that matters?

What to do with those allies, Cassian didn't know, especially when words like revolution still echoed in his ears from the group's talk. At least he'd pulled Anselma back from the edge of that. Cassian hoped, anyway.

"We aren't trying to make enemies," Cassian said carefully, though a tired edge crept in. "The opposite, truly."

"I know," Potter said. "And it's kind of brilliant. Even if the reasons are... well, it's a lot, isn't it?"

If you need an adult, echoed in Cassian's mind as he turned to face down the corridor. "It is."

"You know Kade's been to see Neville, hasn't he? Good lad. Point is, you've got people. McGonagall, Neville... they're in your corner. Said you lot are brilliant students."

That drew a frown from Cassian. It was far too late for his mind not to start connecting the dots. You are not alone. And he didn't quite know how to believe that. Managed? Supported? Which to believe? None yet. "I understand."

"Right, then..." After a moment or two of silence that seemed like it might be awkward to Potter, the man straightened away from the wall. "I should probably get going - promised Neville I'd stop by, didn't I?"

Professor Longbottom again, seemingly still close with Potter, unless they convened for other reasons. Despite his reservations, Cassian had come to respect the Herbology professor's quiet competence and the way Longbottom never stumbled upon saying Rosier. Even though he of all people would have had every right to, by old whispers.

The gesture Potter made to the door was more a shrug. "Slughorn probably figures we'll be talking a while. He'll think something came up. You can probably escape going back in there if you want. Though honestly, can't say I blame you if you don't."

The prospect of going back in did loom heavy. Cassian simply nodded, considering a new tome of law he'd recently found in the library. Estate law. That could be interesting as an alternative. Having spent seven years in a dorm with Marius, though, he thought the better of mentioning his definition of fun to Potter.

Potter smiled at him, starting to turn down the corridor.

For a long moment, Cassian stared at his retreating back. If you need an adult. When he took a step, he felt a sudden, reminding jostle in his robes that sent a jolt of alertness through him. The idea possessed him, sharp and tight and terrifying.

Managed or supported? But then, there may not be a better chance.

Then Cassian was running down the hall after Potter before he could convince himself not to. "Wait- Mr. Potter- I- Potter!"

Potter stopped swiftly enough and turned around, eyeing him curiously.

Cassian slowed to a stop in front of him, feeling flayed before he'd even said anything. Cold air swept against every inch of him that peeled bare under the Auror's calm curiosity. He reached into his robes and pulled out the list of his friends' family members, still folded over from when he'd hidden it from Avery.

Unable to bring himself to words, Cassian simply held it out to Potter, who took it and opened it.

For a dreadfully long moment, Potter didn't say anything as he read the list.

"Right," Potter said, something heavy in the word. "How long have you been carrying this around?"

"Not long." A touch of guilt twisted over Cassian's bared senses. Why hadn't he thought of it sooner?

Potter's eyes were on him, he felt as much, but Cassian stared past him at the wall. Did Potter understand what the list meant? Perhaps he should explain better. Perhaps-

"You shouldn't have had to think of it at all. But you did, and that's good. Right. I can help." Potter began folding the list, tucking it away into his robes before a glance back at Cassian.

"With all of them?" Kai's father lingered in his mind.

Potter gave a dry half-smile. "I know a few people."

If you need an adult. And Cassian wondered if being one meant knowing when you needed one.