Archive of Our Own

The day may not have started out extraordinary, but it hasn’t exactly been ordinary either.

As mandated by the notice that arrived on his desk the previous evening, signed by the Secretary for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures himself, Lyall Floos into the Ministry from the small Welsh village he, his wife and son currently call their home. He can’t remember the last time he’d been in the office, usually taking his orders by owl and completing field reports from the comfort of his study. The change to his routine is merely disruptive at best, yet there’s a profound sense of discomfort at being in a place so densely inhabited by magicfolk after spending so much time in hiding.

Well – it isn’t exactly hiding though, per se. His and his family’s seemingly endless tour through all of Britain’s smallest towns and villages is not as much a reaction to the increasing attacks on Muggleborns, the political polarisation within the Wizengamot, the rise of the so-called ‘Knights of Walpurgis,’ as it is because of Remus’…affliction.

Five and a half years, eleven houses, seventy moons. With the most recent only two weeks behind them, another move is imminent lest the neighbours start to notice. But the boy has no friends. He’s reclusive, too dependent on books and his mother and, where Hope frets over being closer to her elderly parents, Lyall just wants peace.

He hesitates at the threshold of an elevator heading up before reluctantly stepping inside.

“Level Four,” he mumbles to the attendant, mindful of the crowd inside, colleagues he doesn’t recognise chattering quietly to each other, missives and memorandums fluttering about their heads like bees.

Perhaps he too has become reclusive.

They’re almost off, but before the doors can even close there’s a yell – “hold!” – and they’re shunted back open as commanded by magic. Outside, the rapid click of quick feet on marble slows to a respectable stride and a man steps in, squashing the already-tightly packed bodies further back. Nobody grumbles, though. No-one makes a sound.

“Level Nine,” he says, which is one floor down. The attendant doesn’t seem to care, nodding brusquely and leaning over to pull the cage closed behind him.

He’s tall, with a perfectly styled moustache and jet-black hair, grey eyes stark in the depths of his mean marble face. He wears a cloak of violet, a golden ‘W’ emblazoned on the breast pocket. For just a second, Lyall is back at Hogwarts, that golden ‘W’ having warped into a Head Boy’s badge, the purple robes now green, the man now clean-shaven and with longer hair.

“Orion?” he blurts out, unthinking. Their carriage lurches backwards, the Atrium shrinking to the size of a television screen, reducing from the enormous room Lyall knows it to be to a mere speck of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Then, they drop.

Orion Black fixes him with a sidelong stare. “Lyall Lupin. I’m surprised to see you here.”

“As I you.”

They had been classmates once, long ago. Two Head Boys from different Houses, moving in different circles, but entirely conscious of each other all the same. Lyall had beaten him in the Duelling Championship finals of 1946 with a Jelly-Brain Jinx. Orion had returned the favour twofold during their Alchemy exam. Their meeting again now is in no way a friendly reunion.

“I would have assumed you to be out in the field,” Orion says.

“I’ve been summoned to sign off on some paperwork,” Lyall answers truthfully. “I didn’t realise Jenkins was holding parliament today.”

Orion snorts. “Have you been living under a rock?”

Lyall might have bitten back an angry retort once, in another life maybe, when his hair isn’t turning grey before he's forty-five. He’s too tired, too well-versed in patience and keeping his temper, feels too guilty for the times he’s unleashed it before.

He gives no answer to the gibe, and Orion actually deigns to turn his head fully to regard him, pointed nose in line with his ear lobe, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh?” he says. “This is most unlike you. Has your seclusion leeched you of your wit?”

“It’s not much unlike me at all.”

“Interesting,” he replies. Then, after a pause, “Your family. I trust they are well?”

Ah, yes. Family matters a lot to Slytherins. “Yes,” Lyall answers, cautious. His parents are now retired, sitting pretty in Midlothian. He somehow doubts that Orion is asking after them though. Nightmarish visions resurface, barely a fortnight old – Remus in his cell, using chains now instead of rope, scarred from wounds dittany alone cannot fix.

“You’ll forgive my curiosity,” Orion continues. “You practically live off-grid nowadays.”

A fairly innocuous question, though Lyall knows it is not. All he can think about are the headlines in the Prophet – another Muggleborn missing – and Slytherin high school taunts.

"How is your wife?" Orion asks. 

“She is well,” Lyall answers. “And yours?”

“She, too, is well.”

They’re cousins, he remembers. Walburga, four years their senior in school. An arranged marriage – not as bad as the avunculate pairings from the past, but pure-bloods never mind consanguinity.

And then he remembers something else – a sensationalist article from some months back, a renowned birthday celebration for the heir around the same time as a Lestrange wedding.

“Your son,” Lyall says. “He just turned ten, yes?”

Orion twists his lips into a rueful smile, chest puffing out. “You read about that, did you? Yes, Sirius turned ten in November.”

“Mine turned ten last month.”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware you had any children. They’ll be in the same year at Hogwarts then.” Orion pauses for a beat, a sly glint to his eye, perhaps noting Lyall’s discomfort at the mention – Dumbledore has discussed it with them, but he’s not holding out hope. “Unless he shows no magical ability? It isn’t unusual. Children do tend to take after their mothers.”

“He does,” Lyall snaps, a little too quickly. Orion has, predictably, misread his shame. He’d rather his son was a Muggle, a Squib even, if it meant he weren’t…

“How fortunate.”

Their conversation grinds to a halt in tandem with the lift, on the lowest floor accessible by elevator. Level Nine – obviously the attendant has bypassed everyone else’s stops in favour of such a high-ranking member of the Wizengamot. Orion makes to step out but stops for a second.

“It’s good to see you, Lyall,” he says, then absently, with a forced crease to his brow. “You don’t look so well. Maybe you should go back to your wife and son.”

It’s such a drastic change of pace that Lyall finds himself at a loss for words. “Pardon?”

Orion turns to regard him, even placing a hand on his shoulder. His eyes, usually so cold, betray something…manic. An anxiety that would never normally break through a Black exterior. “You look tired, old friend,” he says, cool, calm, collected, but also vaguely threatening, speaking very slowly, as though trying to convey a hidden meaning that Lyall can’t put his foot on. “Maybe you should go home and leave that paperwork for another time.”

Before he can enquire as to why, beyond his apparently ill-health, however, Orion is gone, blustering down the corridor towards the secret staircase as though their exchange had never happened.

The attendant closes the elevator doors – “going up” – and Lyall merely shakes his head.

An extraordinary day it is turning out to be indeed.

x

As current head of the Spirit Division, Lyall’s office has the enviable location of overlooking the Atrium some four floors below. Next to that of the Beast Division’s Newton Scamander, three years past retirement age and still going, his sash windows afford him a nice view of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, jets of water reflected in the gold of the statues from which they spurt.

Across the way, in a similarly fashioned terracotta tower structure, he can just make out Cuthbert Mockridge at his desk, no doubt pouring over some Gobbledegook, and the perpetually closed curtains of Crotchety Nott’s office. He never was a friendly bloke.

With a sigh, Lyall sinks into his chair. He ought to come by more often, he thinks, if the swathes of paper sticking out of his bureau are anything to go by. It’s his assistant who usually handles most of it, but today she is nowhere to be found.

There, on the top, she’s strewn some files; a couple of letters from the Warrens in America regarding a haunted Raggedy Ann doll, foreign newspaper clippings on a tower in Mexico where a young girl committed suicide, a notice regarding three Muggles killed by what sounds like a vengeful ghost at Bank Hall in Bretherton. Then, some old case studies – presumably the paperwork he has to sign.

The Battersea Poltergeist – Solved. Lyall frowns. That one’s old, from the late 50s, before he’d met Hope. Screaming Bogey of Strathtully – Solved. This one too, back when he’d lived with his parents.

His eyes slip over to what she’s positioned at the top of the pile: Daninsky Case – Solved. Greyback Still At Large.

He reels, gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, the echo of his son’s screams in the night, broken glass in his bedroom, bed empty and the gashes through the wallpaper. Curtains fluttering open to reveal the shine of yellow eyes in the moonlight. Racing across the garden, and down into the valley, through bushes and brambles and coppices of cut-back trees, still wearing his slippers, and Remus, not yet six, writhing in the mud with that – that thing hunched over him.

It must’ve been misplaced – Lyall doesn’t deal with werewolves anymore – but he can’t move, can’t drag his focus away from the Polaroids that leer up at him now.

A ravaged village, four mangled corpses, two wolf pelts. The missive states that Count Waldemar had been infected by Imre Wolfstein, in turn infected by Greyback.

It always comes back to Greyback.

Lyall’s knees are trembling, whether from rage or terror, he doesn’t know. He shoves the file into a half-open drawer with more force than necessary, willing himself to breathe evenly. Maybe he should have taken Orion’s advice and gone home after all.

He’s just wondering whether it would be acceptable to pour himself a dram of whiskey from the decanter he keeps handy when he hears a shout in the corridor, followed by a crash. Probably Scamander’s suitcase playing up again. When is that old coot going to retire? It’s an occurrence everyone who works in this wing is used to by now.

“Newton?” he calls, bashing on their interconnecting wall with his fist. For once, he’s glad of the interruption. “You alright in there?”

But there’s no reply. With a sigh, Lyall rises to his feet, drawing his wand.

It’s then that he sees it.

Outside, above the Fountain – the Dark Mark.

He's only ever seen it in pictures. For a second, he’s sure he forgets how to breathe. A lone figure dressed all in black, hooded, looks to have summoned it from below. People are staring, probably screaming, but he can’t hear anything - there are muffling enchantments embedded in the window. A quick-thinking Auror strikes out with a Body-Bind Curse, but it’s too late.

They’re already coming in, hooded Knights manifesting through the Floo Network. Green flame glitters in their silver masks as they step through into the Atrium. Everyone has stopped now, frozen in place by the same dissociative fear that has rooted Lyall, until the guard at the Security Desk steps forward, wand drawn, and someone, he can’t tell who, fires off a bolt of pure vermillion and – oh my god, they killed him – he drops to the floor, dead.

Chaos erupts.

Witches and wizards sprinting across the concourse, goblins hobbling, too slow to escape. Flashes of light, red, blue, but mainly green. Eugenia Jenkins’ banner is set alight, her visage suddenly marred by Fiendfyre. High above, the second-floor windows shatter, glass raining down and Lyall panics, wonders how they’ve managed to get up there already.

But then he sees among those downstairs, those who he’d initially thought were innocent Ministry employees, a few turning cloak and greeting the Knights who’ve entered like old comrades – and he realises: They’re already here among us.

His eyes snap back to the office directly across from his, drawn by movement. Mockridge is engaged in a tussle with Nott. Below them, someone bursts through a window riding a broom only to be shot from a sky. Their body splashes into the Fountain, lifeless and limp.

Lyall closes the curtains. Steps away. It – it isn’t real. He can almost pretend as much, so long as he can’t yet hear the screams. They have procedures for something like this, he’s sure, but he can’t for the life of him remember –

In the corridor, a shriek. Lyall immediately casts Colloportus on his door. A better man might rush outside to help but he doesn’t have it in him. He’s no Gryffindor.

Terrified, he watches, as the handle rattles, stuck.

“Mr. Lupin!” someone yells, voice pitched high with fright. “If you’re in there, please let me in – I’m begging you!” It’s one of the interns. A weedy student from Brazil who’d transferred from Castelobruxo. “Merda – he’s coming! Please, please, help!”

Who? Who’s coming? There’s a singular awful moment where Lyall considers leaving him out there to die. He pushes the thought away as soon as it arises – Merlin, man, what are you thinking? – and wrenches the door open, pulling the boy in before he can protest, chancing a cursory glance down the corridor in both directions.

He immediately wishes he hadn’t.

Scamander’s door has been blown off its hinges, his desk upturned and papers everywhere. At the corner there’s a body – Lorrimer Chesterfield’s body – head turned towards him and eyes open in a perpetual stare.

Lyall slams the door shut and locks it, breathing hard, bile in his throat. “What happened?”

The boy – he wracks his brain for his name, finds it: Edwardus Lima – is shaking, face ashen-pale, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Walden Macnair,” he says. An executioner in the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. Lyall might have agreed with his views once upon a time. Before his son ran the risk of dying at his axe. “He just – he just started attacking us. He got Roy, and Miraphora, and Lo-Lo-Lorri…”

“Lorrimer. Yes, I saw.”

Roy and Lorrimer, monster-hunting partners. They’d been in the business for almost ten years. And Miraphora, another intern. God, how could this happen?

“Why?” Edwardus asks nobody in particular, hugging himself tight around the shoulders. “Why is this – what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Lyall says. “But we need to move. It’s not safe here.”

He moves to open the door again, wondering if they can make a break for it, but Edwardus grabs his wrist. “You can’t,” he hisses. “He’s still out there!”

Sure enough, when Lyall presses his ear to the wood, he hears footsteps, rapidly encroaching. Maybe they could Apparate…

“We can’t Apparate away,” Edwardus whispers feverishly. “I tried earlier. It didn’t work.”

Anti-Apparition Charms. They really mean to kill them all, like rabbits in a warren.

Lyall presses a finger to his lips, gesturing towards the back of the office with his wand. If they’re lucky, maybe Walden will pass them by, mistaking the locked room for empty.

But Edwardus mistakes his meaning and heads for the window, pulling back the curtains before Lyall can stop him.

“No, don’t –”

The sight of the Dark Mark elicits an ungodly shriek. It’s stark against the lightless Atrium, all bulbs and candles having now been blown out.

Walden’s footsteps, heavier and quicker now, stop right outside the door. There’s a pause, long and sickening, a muttered “Alohomora” that proves fruitless against Lyall’s charm – then the toe of a silver axe bites through the wood mere inches from his temple.

Lyall stumbles back.

“Edwardus,” he says. The boy’s gone quiet, his scream having fizzled out to a miserable cough. “Get behind me. Now.”

To his credit, he obeys wordlessly. A lifetime of duelling experience flashes through his mind followed, inexplicably, by a recent memory of Remus after dinner last night, reading aloud an extract from his new book.

“I, Moominpappa, am sitting tonight by my window gazing into my garden,” he’d recited, stumbling only once on the iteration of ‘Moominpappa.’ “Where the fireflies embroider their mysterious signs on the velvet dark. Perishable flourishes of a short but happy life!”

As a father of a family and owner of a house I look with sadness on the stormy youth I am about to describe. I feel a tremble of hesitation in my paw as a poise my memoir-pen. Still, I draw strength from some words of wisdom I have come across in the memoirs of another remarkable personage: ‘Everyone, of whatever walk in life, who has achieved anything good in this world, or he thinks he has, should, if he be truth-loving and nice, write about his life, albeit not starting before the age of forty!’

Yes, I really think I must yield to Moomintroll’s persuasion and to the temptation of talking about myself, of getting into print and being read all over Moominvalley! May my simple notes bring delight and instruction to all Moomins, and especially to my dear son, even if my memory isn’t quite what it has been.

What legacy does he have to leave his son if he dies here today? One of sadness and suffering, pain and persecution?

The axe swings repeatedly, smashing through the splintered door until he can see Walden’s icy glare through the gashes.

“Can you fight?” Lyall asks, noting that Edwardus too has drawn his wand, is holding it before him in a quivering grip.

“Not very well,” he admits. It’s better than nothing.

Lyall doesn’t wait to devise a plan, far too anxious that Walden’s wand might poke through the holes he’s made and kill them where they stand.

“Bombarda!”

The door explodes outwards, encasing their besieger in a flurry of sharp splinters. A Shield Charm springs from Lyall’s wand unbidden, protecting both him and Edwardus from the fallout, which is significant enough to break the bulb in his lamp, plunging them all into darkness. Edwardus brushes past him, making for the door, perhaps to run, but Lyall holds him back by then shoulder, mindful of Walden’s flailing axe.

It becomes apparent in that he’s charmed it to act of its own accord, keeping his own hands and wand free.

In between violent flashes of purple and green, he sees it dance through the air, chop-chop-chopping, trying to get at his head.

“Oppugno!”

His desk flies up, protecting him from the assault – the axe becomes embedded, buried up to the beard. Lyall throws the whole thing away, crashing through his window. At once the sounds of the Atrium filters in – explosions, crackling fire and searing heat, shouts, the crunch of broken marble.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Walden’s curse misses Edwardus by an inch, his stricken face stained emerald momentarily in the gloom.

“Expelliarmus!” he wails, but it’s unsuccessful, Walden’s grip too tight.

He casts Expulso, throwing Edwardus into the wall with enough force to smash through the plaster. He groans in pain, but it’s enough, the split-second distraction enough for Lyall to incarcerate him in a collection of conjured ropes.

“Incarcerous!”

Lyall takes the liberty then to shunt his wand out of his hand, snatching it from mid-air. He’s sufficiently incapacitated, but Lyall doesn’t want to turn his back, edging around the room with both wands raised until he’s beside Edwardus. The boy struggles to his feet, unhurt, but breathing hard as though winded.

“How many of you are there?” Lyall asks, but Walden doesn’t answer immediately. “Tell me!”

“It is not a question of how many of us there are,” he rasps. “But rather how many of you there are.” It’s a haunting prospect, one he must force himself to ignore.

“What are you here to do?”

Walden thrashes against his bindings then in such a startling manner that Lyall flinches away. His eyes and mouth and face are all frenzied, contorted with hatred. “We are here to undo what should have never happened in the first place,” he spits.

All of a sudden, the tower shudders, the marble floor beneath them tilting. Lyall scrambles for something to hold, but only finds Edwardus – they clutch each other and watch in horror as spiderweb cracks creep up the walls.

“The Dark Lord has risen,” Walden mutters. “All un-pure shall die.”

Lyall hears, impossibly, music from the Atrium. Nothing modern that he’d have any vague notion of knowing, but classical – Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No. 6’ in F major. Why it’s playing he has no idea.

“Stop!” Lyall bellows, even though he knows he can’t possibly be causing this. Walden only smiles, the path towards him barred by holes rapidly opening in the floor.

“Look out!” Edwardus screams and he reacts just in time, turning to see the silver axe pinwheeling through the window behind him like a boomerang. He ducks, narrowly avoiding decapitation, and the axe slices its owner’s bindings loose.

Grinning manically, Walden wrenches it from where it embeds itself in the wall, conjured ropes disintegrating to mist around him. A colossal boulder drops from the ceiling, the tower collapsing rapidly around them, Edwardus’ clutch on Lyall’s arm the only grounding sensation he has as the floor drops away – Walden’s laughter reverberates in his skull like a drum.

The last thing Lyall thinks of before the world falls apart and goes dark is his son.

x

And you, foolish little child, who think your father a dignified and serious person, when you read this story of three daddies’ adventures, you should bear in mind that one daddy is very like another – at least when young.

I believe many of my readers will thoughtfully lift their snout from the pages of this book every once in a while to exclaim: ‘What a Moomin!’ Or: ‘This, indeed, is life!’

Last but not least I want to express my heartfelt thanks to the people who most of all contributed to forming my life into the work of art it has become: Hodgkins, the Hattifatteners, and my wife, the matchless and exceptional Moominmamma.

He wakes minutes, maybe hours later, on a cold tiled floor to the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata. There’s a weight against his chest, maybe his own anxiety, but when it moves, he realises it’s a living thing – instinctively, he brings his hands up around him to grasp it, feeling soft, downy fur. Then, the thing squawks and he quickly unfurls his fingers, opening his eyes and coming face-to-face with a rather ruffled flightless bird.

“Ah, Lyall, my boy. You’re awake.”

A wrinkled face asserts itself in his line of sight and he blinks up into a pair of kindly hazel eyes. “Mr. Scamander?” he says. “I thought you were dead.”

Newt chuckles at that. “And I might’ve been if it weren’t for my Diricawls.” He gestures to the bird still perched on Lyall’s chest.

“Ah,” he exclaims. “Yes. Of course. Your…Diricawls.”

It’s quite an ugly-looking thing, its plumage pinkish-blue and its beak unnaturally protrusive. It’s far from the worst thing he’s seen Newt carry around with him, but still – he fails to think of how this bird could have saved him from being flattened.

“Otherwise known as dodos,” the old man supplies. It’s still not a name Lyall is familiar with. “Muggles believe them to be extinct but, in reality, they have the uncanny ability to Apparate, often disappearing and reappearing as a means of escaping danger.” That explains it then. “As it happens, those Death Eaters didn’t factor Anti-Beast Apparition Charms into their ambush. See, if I’d known you were in today, I’d have sent him to get you straight away. He brought me here as soon as the Dark Mark was conjured.”

“Right,” Lyall mutters. It’s a lot of information to take in. “Sorry – what did you say? Death Eaters?”

Newt sighs. “Yes. It’s what that rabble are calling themselves nowadays. You just missed their announcement but, don’t worry, the Aurors are dealing with it now. We’ve been told to sit tight until they’ve cleared the last of them out.”

“Where are we exactly?”

“The ladies’ lavatory. Fifth floor.”

It’s starting to come back to him now – he sits up abruptly, the Diricawl on his chest careening over with an indignant squeal. “Walden Macnair,” he says. “He – he tried to kill me, me and Edwardus.”

“Yes, yes,” Newt says, leaning over to pick his bird up from the floor. It flaps its useless wings at Lyall in some sort of weak recompense. “Edwardus is quite safe. He told me what happened, and we have Walden’s wand to prove it.”

Sure enough, the boy is in the corner, sitting with his head in his hands, being comforted by another young witch with silver hair. Newt, for all his oddities, seems perfectly fine as the fact that he’s just lost three members of his team – but, Lyall supposes, for someone who’s gone up against Grindelwald and survived, nothing is really that worrisome anymore.

He’s sure the image of Lorrimer’s lifeless face will haunt him forever.

“Is that it, then?” Lyall asks slowly. “Is it over?”

Newton wrinkles his nose. “Not quite. I imagine there’ll be questioning, and we’ll have to wait a bit before that for the ‘all clear.’”

They make a bit of a sorry bunch, an assortment of wizards from all across the fourth and fifth floors, sitting around on the damp floor of the women’s bathroom. There’s one Auror at the door, someone Lyall actually recognises from school – Bartemius Crouch. Under any normal circumstances, he might’ve gone over to say hello. As it happens, all he can do is sit in torrid silence.

“I can’t believe it,” he whispers. “I can’t believe they attacked the Ministry.”

“I know,” Newt says, equally as soft. There’s a sadness to his gaze, a sadness when he smiles, gently smoothing the feathers of his Diricawl. “You two were the last ones he picked up.”

Lyall suddenly feels very cold. “Everyone else is…?”

Newt shakes his head, vehement, unconvinced. “No, I don’t think so. There’ll be those who managed to get out. Those who fought them off. Pockets of us all over. I don’t think for a second we’re the only ones.”

“But we don’t know,” Lyall says.

“All we have to do now,” Newt states, “is wait.”

He doesn’t say the word ‘hope,’ but he doesn’t need to. The notion is written all over his face. Hope. His wife – he thinks of her at home, wonders if it’s a nation-wide attack. All un-pure shall die. His breathing speeds up because – what if he goes home and she’s not there? What if he goes home and they’ve done something to Remus? Is that what the notice on his desk was about?

Did they know?

Newt’s hand settles over his against the dewy floor. Gnarled, firm, fatherly.

“So,” he says. “We wait.”

x

The Atrium has been decimated.

Hours later and that’s where they’ve all been rounded up, evacuated via staircase – reams and reams of witches and wizards descending to the eighth floor. Nobody is able to leave yet, for fear that lifting the Anti-Apparition Charm will allow more of the Death Eaters in. It looks like the worst damage has been done towards the top. Level Two; Department of Magical Law Enforcement – Aurors, Hit Wizards, Witch Watchers. Level Three; Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes – Reversal Squad, Obliviators, Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee.

The Muggle Liaison Office and Muggle Relations.

Lyall sits on the floor in front of the rubble that was once his office and waits. Watches as people pour in from each stairwell. There are reunions between family members and friends under the Minister’s shredded banner. Implorations for those who’ve yet to arrive. Identification at the other end of the hall.

The noise is cacophonous. According to Jenkins’ announcement, the Ministry still stands strong. Casualties are not as bad as they could have been. Lyall takes one look at the number of body bags and snorts. Edwardus has been taken somewhere for treatment from a mediwizard – apparently he’d cracked a rib. He sees Newt over there too, speaking to an Auror.

In his wallet is a picture he keeps of Hope and Remus, one he runs his thumb along absently as he takes out a cigarette. He’d taken it when the boy had been four years old. A chubby child with freckles that came out in the sun and big, broad feet, he sits in his mother’s lap on the settee from their old Caerphilly house, both wearing the same imperfect, beautiful smile. It moves on a loop, Hope hiking the boy up by his armpits to press a kiss to his temple, him squirming with a laughter Lyall can almost still hear now, rubbing the skin that her lips have touched with all the petulance of a child.

His nose crinkles when he laughs, just like Hope’s. There’s no scar to mar his dorsal ridge. No scars at all.

Someone slides down next to him, and he jumps. It’s a man he doesn’t recognise, holding a cup of steaming liquid with no handle, and Lyall goes to pocket his photo, feeling suddenly very self-conscious. But he’s too slow to miss the man’s glance.

“Your family?” he asks.

“Yeah,” he replies curtly around the filter of his cigarette.

“I was having a look too.”

He fishes out a Polaroid from his pocket – Muggle, static, unmoving – and it’s of a short, stout woman standing in a field of sunflowers. She can’t be more than twenty, her smile sweet and bashful, hands on her stomach. “This is Molly. We just found out that we’re expecting our first child in November.”

“Congratulations.”

He remembers the feeling – the pride of a pregnant wife, a new baby, and his heart breaks at the thought of all that anxious expectation. The anticipation of Quidditch games, football games, whatever he wants to do, of the spells and spellings they’d figure out together. What it would be like to have a girl, to one day walk her down the aisle, to wonder if they’d be magical or not – either is fine – just as long as they’re happy.

“Would you like some?” the man asks suddenly and Lyall turns to see that he’s offering his cup.

“What is it?”

“Just tea,” he says. “In a styrene cup. Disposable – all the rage amongst Muggles nowadays.”

Lyall takes it gingerly. The hot liquid burns his fingers through the Styrofoam. “Disposable?”

“Yeah, so they can drink it while on the go. Then they chuck the empty cup in the bin. Of course, I haven’t thrown my cup away yet. It’s far too useful. Very popular in the States.”

Sure enough, the cup is fraying at the rim. He really ought to throw it away, but Lyall doesn’t care. He takes a sip. It’s lovely; it does nothing for his nerves. Sweetened with two, maybe three sugars, and a splash of cold milk, but with the unmistakable tang of magic. He realises, drinking this wand-made tea, that he truly has been spoiled by Muggle technology – nothing now beats his wife’s kettle.

He says as much as passes the cup back and, as soon as he’s taken it, the man grasps his hand. “I’m Arthur, by the way. Arthur Weasley. Wow, fascinating, I’ve never met someone who drinks tea from a kettle before!”

“I’m Lyall,” he replies. “Lyall Lupin.”

“Oh!” Arthur exclaims. “I know you. My brother’s a huge fan – he works in your division.”

Lyall feels his cheeks grow hot at the notion. It’s a not a very flashy job, what he does, but he does get the occasional journalist with his bigger ventures. “Really? What’s his name?”

“Bill Weasley. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him? He works on the fourth floor.”

His heart clenches. “Bill as in William…?”

“No, Bill as in Bilius.”

Bilius Weasley. Lyall has definitely heard of him. A youngster with the typical Weasley look, like Arthur – red-haired, green-eyed – and an odd fascination with the concept of omens. He’s often heard people talk of Bill getting himself killed one day on account of his quest to find the Grim.

But Lyall hasn’t seen him. He thinks of Lorrimer and Roy and Miraphora, and tries not to gag.

“I haven’t seen him,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.” Then, quickly, “It wasn’t too bad where we were.”

Arthur waves him off. “Don’t worry about it! I’m sure he’s fine. My brother’s an idiot, but he’ll be okay.” Lyall sorely hopes so. “Anyway, tell me about this ‘kettle!’ Does it run on eckeltricity?”

“Electricity,” he corrects with a small smile. It’s the first he’s managed today. “Yes, it does.”

“Fantastic!” Arthur exclaims. “What’s it like?”

“Well, it’s er, quite loud actually.” Arthur harumphs in bemusement, hanging on his every word. “There’s a filament in the bottom that heats up when you turn it on.”

“Very clever. I’ll have to get one, you know. Does the tea go inside the kettle?”

“No, no, that’s a teapot. With kettles you put the teabag into a mug, then pour over hot water.”

“Brilliant! Teapots are good fun but I’m not sure I like how they scream. I do love Muggle contraptions.”

It seems a damning thing to say in today’s climate. So damning, in fact, that Lyall glances around furtively to make sure no-one’s overheard. Arthur doesn’t appear to care.

Another wave of survivors is coming in, this time from the lower levels. A whole parliament of purple-clad wizards. Some of them are wounded, others, inexplicably, in chains, among them Abraxas Malfoy. He’s thrashing so violently that his hat falls off. Nobody stoops to pick it up for him.

“It was the Imperius Curse,” he pleads. “I’m telling you – let me go! You can’t treat me like this!”

Eugenia Jenkins leads the procession, massaging her forehead and keeping her face angled towards the floor. The whole thing has caused quite a bit of stir, these high-ranking law officials being manhandled like criminals. An Auror takes Abraxas’ wand, and he spits at their feet.

“It’s just procedure, sir.”

“I know what the procedure is!” he snaps.

From the assembled crowd there’s a flash of light, one that evokes short and sharp screams of terror, but it’s only a camera in the hands of a slack-jawed young journalist. “Darn it,” she mutters. “I thought I’d turned that off.”

“Oi!” the Auror bellows. “How’d the press get in here?”

There’s a mad chase, the woman disappearing into the throng of amidst cries of “Accio camera!” and “Get back here!”

“Bloody hell,” Arthur says, sipping at his tea like he’s eating popcorn at the cinema. “I knew Rita was a mad gossip in school, but that’s something else.”

“You know her?” Lyall asks.

“Oh, yeah,” he replies. “She writes for Witch Weekly. Mol loves it, though I suppose she’ll be moving on up in the world with a picture like that.”

Abraxas is dragged away, huffing and puffing and promising retribution at the hands of his father, much like all Malfoys do, and Lyall is struck by the absurdity of it all: turncoat judges and paparazzi politics at a time like this. In lieu of the minor fiasco, the mediwizards decide to conjure a gigantic hospital screen which is just as well because he doesn’t think he can stand the sight of all those body bags for much longer.

There’s a rather ferrety-looking man walking over to them then, one who Arthur greets as “Reggie! Glad to see you made it out in one piece.”

He has a clipboard and a nervous smile, hidden underneath a soft ginger moustache. “Hello, Arthur. Yes, I’ve been sent to round up witnesses for questioning. Er, I’ll be needing Mr. Lupin.”

“Right,” Lyall says, picking himself up off the floor and dusting down his trousers. “That’s me.” And while he takes a few steps forward with Reggie towards where a grumpy young Auror is waiting for him, he has the decency to turn back to Arthur on his way. “Thank you for the tea,” he says. “And I hope you find your brother soon.”

“It was my pleasure,” Arthur replies, beaming. “I’m sure I will. Thank you for explaining kettles to me!”

Lyall can only grin at him, abashed, as he’s led away.

x

“What do you mean ‘the evidence is inconclusive?’”

“I mean,” the Auror who’s interviewing him repeats, “that we don’t have sufficient information about the event to convict him.”

He’s a young lad, very broad about the shoulders but with a brutish, ill-tempered air to him, one that had Reggie running for the hills as he brought him over. Lyall isn’t entirely sure if this bloke – ‘Runcorn,’ his nametag says – is old enough to be an Auror, let alone a detective.

“I don’t know what other information you need,” he insists. “Walden Macnair tried to kill both myself and Edwardus Lima.”

“See, you say that,” Runcorn growls, leering at him over the desk between them. “But yours and Lima’s statements don’t quite match up.”

They’re in an office right off the Atrium. It hasn’t been trashed too badly but has no doubt been tidied up to act as an ad hoc questioning chamber, two chairs positioned opposite each other over a desk that's much too small.

“You’ve already spoken to him?" Lyall asks. "But he’s injured!”

“He gave his statement while treatment was being administered.”

He doesn’t have the patience or energy to waste questioning the validity of Runcorn’s methods, though it does set a sour taste into his mouth. “What about our statements doesn’t match up?”

“Lima says that Macnair never once fired the Killing Curse at you, only at him. Do you dispute this?”

Lyall thinks about this for a second, wincing at the recollection. Finally, he says, “No, I don’t.”

“So, we can say that Macnair never intended to kill you, only Lima.”

“That’s pure pedantry,” he snaps. “It doesn’t matter how many or who, it’s still attempted murder. Besides, there was still his axe –”

“Right,” Runcorn interrupts. “The same axe that also cut his bindings.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“We can say that the axe was aiming to cut him loose, not to decapitate you.”

“That’s preposterous – if I hadn’t ducked, it would have killed me.”

Runcorn sighs, pulling the kind of face that one might pull if they were forced to do something incredibly boring. “Maybe,” he says. “But we’re also not sure who threw the axe.”

Lyall almost laughs. “It wasn’t thrown! It was summoned!”

“But Mr. Lupin,” Runcorn drawls. “You can’t know that. You were facing forward, away from the window. Also, you had Macnair’s wand.” As if to elucidate his point, he presents it from his pocket, placing it on the table between them. A dark, knobbly thing – just seeing it makes him feel ill. “This is his wand, correct? How could he have summoned his axe without his wand?”

“Plenty of wizards are capable of wandless magic,” Lyall mutters.

“Walden Macnair has no capability of doing so,” Runcorn states simply, leaning back in his chair.

Lyall stares at him. “How do you know that?”

“Because we tested him earlier.”

“You’ve apprehended him already? What do you need me for?”

“He is not apprehended,” Runcorn says. “He is in our care. Apparently, he was under the effects of Imperius.”

His mind flashes to Abraxas Malfoy, the Wizengamot members in chains. “How? That’s not possible. He spoke to me.”

“And what did he say exactly?”

The words taste sour on his tongue: “The Dark Lord has risen. All un-pure shall die.”

Runcorn looks askance, clicking his tongue. “Yes. Much of the behaviour that has been described correlates to what we understand to be a mass Imperius cast by the same individual. These repeated phrases – it all makes sense.”

A mass Imperius Curse? Lyall shudders to think of any person capable of maintaining such a thing. “That’s utterly ludicrous. All those people – all those Ministry officials – there’s no way one person could have co-ordinated such an attack by themselves.”

Runcorn glares at him. “Are you implying, Mr. Lupin, that the Ministry itself had a hand in this attack?”

Lyall actually slams his fist down onto the table then, a rare jolt of rage coursing through him. Runcorn startles backwards in his chair. If they weren’t seated, Lyall might have an inch or two on him in height but sat here he feels quite small, thinner and wirier than the hulk in front of him. This reaction, one of a startled youngster, makes him feel marginally better for his shortcomings. “Goddamnit, man! This isn’t an interrogation! This is a witness testimony! I’m not talking about a government operation, I’m talking about individuals within the government.”

Runcorn recomposes himself in record time. “Mr. Lupin, please. We cannot go around declaring innocent people Death Eaters.”

“Lorrimer Chesterfield!” Lyall exclaims. “That’s conclusive evidence for you. He killed Lorrimer Chesterfield.”

“Chesterfield’s body was found at the scene, yes, but did you see Macnair kill him?”

Lyall groans. “I heard a scream – is that good enough for you? What of his partner, Roy Steel? Miraphora Mina?”

Runcorn ruffles through the file in front of him, brows furrowed. “We have no information on the whereabouts of Steel or Mina.”

“How can you not?” he mutters, blistering, before he can bite his tongue, picturing the rows and rows of body bags in his mind’s eye.

“The Aurors are stretched thin at the moment,” Runcorn responds coldly. “Once we have fully lockdown the premises and assured the safety of all those involved, then we may get to the bottom of this.”

Lyall hisses through his teeth, wondering whether it would be entirely imprudent to ask of Runcorn’s age. He and Reggie seemed to know each other from school, so he can’t be over twenty. Much too young to have completed the proper training, anyway.

“The last spell Macnair cast,” he continues, gesturing to the wand, “was revealed to be the Explosion Curse which, I would like to remind you, is not classified as Unforgiveable. This is what I mean when I say that we have inconclusive evidence. Nobody saw him commit murder, except Edwardus Lima, whom the mediwizards say is suffering from shock and post-traumatic stress. He may have been mistaken. It is entirely likely that Macnair was under the Imperius and, though his orders were to kill or seriously injure, he was able to override these commands in favour of using less fatal methods – a last-ditch attempt to protect his colleagues.”

…Lyall can’t believe what he’s hearing. He opens his mouth to protest, but Runcorn cuts across. “If more evidence regarding the fates of Mr. Steel and Miss Mina arises, we shall investigate in due course,” he says. Behind him, there’s a knock at the door  and Lyall just makes out Reggie’s terrified face peeping in, another witness trailing slowly behind him. Runcorn ignores him. “You are more than welcome to speak to another Auror on the matter at hand to reaffirm any doubts or queries you have regarding my investigation. But I warn you, it may take some time since, as I have said, we are currently short-staffed. Either way, Mr. Lupin, on behalf of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, I thank you for your time and testimony today. You are now free to leave.”

x

The Daily Prophet
The Wizarding World’s Beguiling Broadsheet of Choice
Thursday 30th April 1970

MINISTRY IN WHITEHALL UNDER ATTACK

DEATH EATER OFFENSIVE ACROSS WIZARDING BRITAIN

Wizengamot Meets To-night To Hear Minister for Magic Make Momentous Statement

x

It’s late when Lyall gets home. Their house isn’t connected to the Floo Network and whereas normally he’d walk from the nearest pub, this time he Apparates.

Inside, to his kitchen, where the stove has gone cold and there’s a bit of food on the side in a pan, wrapped over the top in clingfilm. A lukewarm cup of tea, the window open on a crimson sunset out towards the sea. Dark and light striking each other, vividly etching wild colours through the horizon.

Behind him, the wooden door creaks on its hinges, and he whirls around, poised to attack.

“Bloody hell!” his wife shrieks, hand to her heart. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t just – pop in anymore! We have a front door, you know. And what kind of time do you call this? I’ve already put Remus to bed. You missed supper!”

She must notice something then, something in his face, because she stops. She never normally stops – not once she’s started.

Lyall steps forward, tentative, and so does she. She’s a very little woman with thin bones, like those of a bird. He always feels as though he’s going to break her. When she breathes and she presses herself against him, it’s like he can feel the air rattling through.

He doesn’t realise he’s crying until she wipes his tears away.

“He was fiddling with the radio again,” Hope says softly. “He can change the channels now without touching the knob, as if he’s telling it what to do with his mind. There was something on the news about the Ministry of Magic. Attacks up in Holyhead, and London too. Nothing on the TV though. I didn’t know what to make of it, so I made him switch it off – but then you didn’t come home.”

Lyall finds that he can’t speak. Not beyond the first few words. “I’m so happy,” he gasps. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, but he doesn’t know how to answer.

In the doorway, there’s a shadow – small and lean cast on the linoleum floor. Remus stands there in his pyjamas, as safe and scarred as Lyall had left him that morning, one hand clutching a book, the other rubbing his eye.

“Da?”

Hope huffs into her husband’s shoulder. “I thought I told you to go to bed.”

“I was reading,” he says. He squints at Lyall, blinking rapidly against the light. “Da? What’s going on?”

It’s another question that he can’t answer right away. So, he opts for the only thing he possibly knows how to say: “I’m so happy,” he says again, cheeks sodden with tears. Remus instinctively steps towards him, in that way children are want to do when their parents are upset at anything that’s not them. Lyall pulls him into the huddle, positions him right between him and his mother, sinking almost to his knees. “I’m so happy to have you.”

“Da,” Remus protests, but it’s weak and barely there. “You’re getting me wet.”

Hope shushes him and roots them there, small but on her feet, stalwart against the tide.

x

The Daily Prophet
The Wizarding World's Beguiling Broadsheet of Choice
Friday 1st May 1970

BRITAIN AT WAR

Minister's Momentous Statement in Wizengamot

The following announcement was issued by at 12:10 a. m. : -
"Owing to the summary rejection by the Dark Lord of the request made by the Minister of Magic for the assurance that the neutrality of the non-magical populace will be respected, the Ministry of Magic has declared that a state of war exists between the Ministry and the Death Eaters as from now."

VOLDEMORT IGNORES FINAL ULTIMATUM

All this happens after a most callous attack upon the Ministry of Magic's offices in Whitehall yesterday morning at 9:30 a. m. At least twenty officials lost their lives in this attack. Many more were injured and there are still some missing and unaccounted for. In a momentous speech from the Wizengamot today the Minister for Magic Eugenia Jenkins declared that this country is now at war with the self-proclaimed Dark Lord. The Minister's voice trembled as she said: "Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins this morning. There is only one thing left for me to do and that is to devote what strength and powers I have left to ridding the world of Lord Voldemort."

The Minister's final words were, "I cannot tell what part I may be allowed to play myself. I trust I may live to see the day when pure-blood supremacy has been destroyed and a restored and liberated Britain has been re-established.” It is clear her thoughts lay with her predecessor, Norbert Leach, the first and last Muggle-born Minister to ever hold office, now sadly passed.

Sir Abraxas Malfoy, Leader of the Opposition, was a victim of yesterday's attack. He is now recovering in St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries from the after-effects of a particularly powerful Imperius Curse. He said: “The intolerable agony of suspense from which all of us have suffered is now over. We now know the worst. The hated word of war has been spoken by our Minister, and so in fulfillment of her pledged word and unbreakable intention to defend Muggles and their liberties.”

The Minister for Magic, who was greeted with subdued cheers, said: “When I spoke last night in the Wizengamot I understood that in some parts of room there were doubts and some bewilderment as to whether there had been any hesitation or vacillation on the part of the Ministry. I make no reproaches, for if I had been in the same position as hon. members on these benches and not in possession of all the information, very likely I would have felt the same. The statement I have to make this morning will show there is no grounds for doubt. (Cheers). We were in close consultation all day yesterday with the Austrian Ministerium. We felt that the intensified action that the Death Eaters were taking against Muggles allowed no delay in making our own position clear, especially given their similarity to those taken by Gellert Grindelwald and his Acolytes some forty years prior.”

A Changed Atmosphere

Sir Orion Black of the Opposition, who was also present at the attack, thankfully unharmed: “The atmosphere of the House has changed overnight. Apprehension reigned over our proceedings, aroused by the fear that delays might end in national dishonour. We have heard more than the word of war spoken; we have heard the war begin in the precincts of this House. I feel that I must, in the name of my hon. friends – I think I might say in the name of the whole of our people – pay tribute to the great restraint shown by the Muggles in recent weeks. (Cheers). The Minister has given us her word that the Dark Lord shall be overthrown, and so long as that relentless purpose is pursued with vigour, foresight, and determination by the Ministry so long there will be a united nation. But should there be confused counsels, inefficiency, and wavering, then other wizards must take their places. We share no responsibility in the tremendous task which confronts the Ministry, but we shall have responsibilities of our own which we are not to shirk. We will give whole-hearted support to the measures necessary to equip the Wizarding World with the powers it desires. This support, I pledge, will continue. In other directions we shall, according to our principles, make our full contribution to the national cause. May the war be swift and short and may the peace which follows stand proudly forever on in the shattered ruins of an evil name. (Cheers).”

Saving World From Tyranny

Mr. Septimus Weasley, Wizengamot Representative for Ottery St. Catchpole: “There is a feeling of thankfulness at this moment that, if these great trials are to come upon our islands, there is a generation of witches and wizards here and now ready to prove that they are not unworthy of the days of yore, and not unworthy of those great men, the fathers of our land, who have laid the foundations of our laws and the greatness of our country. This is not a question of fighting for the Muggles. We are fighting to save the whole world from pure-blood tyranny and to defend all that is sacred to every man. (Cheers). This is no war for domination, for magical aggrandisement or for magical gain. It is a war in its inherent quality to establish on impeachable rocks the rights of the individual. We look forward to the day surely and confidently when all our liberties and rights will be restored to us, and we will be able to share them with people to whom such blessings are unknown. (Loud cheers).”

Page 2: Lord Voldemort's Memorandum - "We have neither the intention nor have we put forward the demand to annihilate all Muggles."

Page 5: Rare Snapshots From Inside the Ministry At the Time of Attack, including Malfoy's last stand against the Imperius. 

Page 9: Aerial Warfare Question? The Ministry is now confronted with the latest and, unfortunately, not the last of a series of acts of brigandage which, if left unchallenged, will undermine the whole foundation of wizard civilisation.