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Chapter Text

Clarissa Edgecombe was not having a good summer so far. Her job was becoming increasingly stressful with rumours and speculation and suspicion running rampant in the Ministry. Everyone was on edge there, from higher ups to the lowest janitors, everyone had to tread carefully and keep eyes on the back of their heads – because you never knew who was saying what about you behind your back.

And now her daughter,  finally back from Hogwarts, was withdrawn and strange, refusing to confide in her.

People were saying such horrible things too. That You-Know-Who was back, that Dumbledore was a liar,  that the Ministry was corrupt - that Harry Potter had gone somehow... wrong. Every day there were some new rumour going about, this one worse than the one that came before it, and no one knew what to believe anymore. And that ministry woman at Hogwarts and what she'd done to that girl...

It seemed like bit by bit everything was going wrong. People were being promoted at the Ministry and others were being fired – just the other they they'd heard about Edgar, a wizard who'd worked in the cafeteria for the better part if fifty years, so long that he was practically part of Ministry woodwork now… about how he got fired. Why?  No one new. There'd been some complaints, apparently.

Clarissa was pretty certain it was because he was muggleborn.

Lot of muggleborns were being fired at the Ministry. And if they showed certain... sympathy for Dumbledore and Hogwarts - or Harry Potter - well. They got fired faster. And try as they might, no one could pretend it wasn't exactly what it looked like. It wasn't as if there were that many muggleborns working in the Ministry in the first place, so when one just got replaced by a pureblood or halfblood, well. It was hard to not notice it. Hard to not draw conclusions.

It was a nervous time for them all.

"So, how was school year?" Clarissa asked her suddenly sullen and short-spoken daughter. Marietta had grown so much – at least a whole inch – and there was something different about it. She carried herself differently. If she wasn't a witch and Hogwarts student, Clarissa would've assumed she had started doing sports. Clarissa cleared her throat. "Did you... did you stay in that after school club?"

Marietta looked at her with an unreadable expression. "School was fine," she said after a moment and nothing else.

Clarissa waited for her to continue but Marietta just continued eating. She cleared her throat again. "Is Cho in the club?" she asked.

Marietta didn't answer, turning her eyes to the food. The silence stretched awkwardly for a moment before she did speak. "How's work?"

There was something pointed about the way she asked it, that made Clarissa frown a little. When Marietta glanced up again, the look in her eyes was knowing – and maybe even a bit judgemental. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clarissa asked, leaning back a little.

"Nothing," Marietta answered. "I've just heard some wonderful things about it."

"Like what?" Had she heard something from her school friends – or from the former undersecretary?

Marietta poked her food with a fork. "Just stuff," she said, shrugging and watching her. "You know the Weasleys, right?"

Clarissa stilled at that. The Weasleys. She didn't have much to do with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office, but she'd heard about it. Arthur Weasley getting attacked – almost killed – in ministry. No one knew how, but apparently he'd still not come back to work. They'd given his job to someone else.

A pureblood she was pretty sure she'd seen once with Lucius Malfoy.

Clarissa composed herself. "Are they in that club with you, the Weasleys?" She asked. "There's what, three of them in Hogwarts?"

"Two – the twins graduated," Marietta answered and tilted her head. "Heard about their dad?"

The elder witch forced a smile. "I'm sure he will be fine, dear," she said. "What happened was just an accident and I don't work anywhere near the Muggle Affairs and –"

"They had to suspend him in stasis to keep him alive – he's still there," Marietta cut in. "He's like in this bubble where time doesn't pass for him, because couple more seconds and he dies. Because he's poisoned and they can't heal his wounds. So he's been a stasis bubble it since Christmas."

Clarissa stared at her, surprised. "Wha – how on Earth do you –"

Marietta shrugged. "So you know. Heard some stuff," she said and looked down at her plate. "I'm not really hungry and I have some homework I should get on with. Can I go?"

"I, uh – yes –" Clarissa stuttered and then watched as Marietta all but bolted off the table. Left alone, she stared at her plate, still full, and Marietta's plate, half finished, and wondered what on earth was happening to her life.

The next day at work, she very carefully asked if anyone knew about Arthur Weasley. Everyone knew about the attack, of course, but did really know what had happened. Because some sort of strange accident with muggle technology – something she had never bought anyway, not unless someone had brought a bomb in – was very different from being poisoned. It had a whole different, sinister, implications.

The Weasleys were the biggest known muggle sympathisers there were, and obviously close friends with Albus Dumbledore – and wasn't their boy best friends with Harry Potter? Arthur Weasley's accident had been long before they started firing people at the Ministry too. Just… how long had this whole thing been happening?

No one knew much about Arthur Weasley though. "I hear he's still recovering," Tessa from Transportation said with a shrug. "He was in St. Mungos for a long time, wasn't he?" Jarod, a clerk in the Accidents and Catastrophes said, but even he didn't know anything else. "It was some muggle doohikey, wasn't it?" said Diana in Creatures department.

No one really knew anything, and no one much cared. Clarissa didn't really know much about the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office, she'd carefully avoided making any contact with it because even before it was a damn good way to be demoted in the Ministry – she didn't know anyone who worked there, or what they thought. She was tempted to try and ask, but…

With things being what they were, it was probably bad that she was asking at all.

"You know, I hear they're going to fire Allison," Diana muttered her just as she was about to leave. "Just… watch yourself Clarissa."

Allison Heath, who worked in the central department had had for about twenty years – a good and efficient office manager. No one had ever had any complaints about her, except that she was maybe a little too efficient. Never took breaks, and as far as Clarissa knew, she never got sick either.

She was also a muggleborn.

Clarissa bowed her head and headed back to her desk, and spent the rest of the day worrying and jumping at every unusual noise in her office. It was another tense and stressful day.

They were all starting to be like that.

"Marietta," Clarissa started, a little awkward but determined. "Next year, you will quit that club, alright?"

Marietta looked up from the Daily Prophet, staring at her with disbelief for a moment. Then she leaned back. "How about you quit your job."

"Don't even start. Your little after school club doesn't bring the food on the table. My job does and it's hard enough without you making me suspect at the ministry," Clarissa snapped and then quickly composed herself. "Things are a little tense right now, dear," she tried again. "And what's happening at Hogwarts, it's just making me so worried. Hogwarts always been so political and I'd hate you to get stuck in the middle of it."

Her daughter just harrumphed at that and stood up, stalking off. Clarissa stared after her in astonishment and then stood to follow. "Marietta, don't you even dare – this is serious and –"

Marietta peeked in her room, and then came out and before her mother had the chance to walk around the coffee table, the daughter slapped something on the table's wooden surface. It made a heavy, resounding thump as it landed.

Clarissa stared at the item for a moment, uncomprehending. Then her eyes widened.

"Turn that to food on the table," Marietta said and straightened up, folding her arms.

"Marietta – what –" Clarissa started and then quickly straightened up. "Is this a joke?" she asked.

"No," Marietta said with a slight snort. "It's gold."

It looked like gold. A solid, unmarked bar of pure gold, it's lines and corners so sharp that Clarissa got the impression she could've cut herself with them. And it looked so real too, it shone like she'd always assumed real gold did. She couldn't help but reach out and touch it – it was hard and cool and very heavy in her hand. A solid single kilogram block of metal.

"Did you make this?" Clarissa asked, half laughing. "Marietta, you can't just transfigure something golden colour and think it's gold – that's not how it works."

"It's not transfigured. It's real gold," Marietta said. "Don't believe me, take it to the goblins. They'll verify it."

The elder witch frowned, testing the weight of the supposedly-gold-ingot in her hand. It felt so real. And more than that, she knew what her daughter looked like when she lied. This wasn't Marietta pulling a joke, this was a tense, annoyed Marietta who was telling the truth and expecting not to be believed, and being all the more annoyed for it.

Puberty and rebellion might've hit her daughter hard, but Clarissa still knew her baby girl.

"Where did you get this?" she asked quietly, setting the gold bar down.

Marietta shrugged.

"Did you – " Clarissa stopped, trying to figure out how to ask. "Did you take this from someone?"

"I didn't steal it – and I'm pretty sure wizards don't even keep gold like this," Marietta said and looked at the thing. "I actually wasn't sure why they made them like this before Granger explained that it was how muggles keep gold – and no, I didn't steal it from muggles either. It's was… a gift, I guess. We all got them."

"All who?"

"All the members of my after school club," Marietta said.

Clarissa's hand shook and she quickly rested the block of metal on the table. "And who did you get it from?" she asked.

Marietta didn't answer.

The gold bar sat on their living room table for two days, glinting in the light, before Clarissa mustered up the strength of will to deal with it. When she took it in hand, it was with every intention of just getting rid of it – after which she would, somehow, try and talk sense to her daughter. Whoever had put such weird, fantastical notions to her daughter's head didn't even matter – somehow, they'd gotten Marietta to believe this nonsense and it was Clarissa's job to make it right.

Except then the gold bar was in her hand, heavy and real. And what if…

What if it was real?

Clarissa didn't actually know how much pure gold was worth in the Wizarding World. Galleons were supposedly gold, but the exchange rate to muggle money was so low. She knew a man once who'd done the calculation – if galleon was actually pure gold, you could get about two hundred pounds from it, by selling it just as gold to a muggle. But no one ever had. Why? Because it probably wasn't actually gold – or it wasn't as much gold as it seemed to be.

So how much was actual pure gold worth in galleons?

She teetered on the edge of indecision for a while, staring at the gold bar. Then, steeling herself to… to whatever this even was, she dropped the gold bar into her handbag. She knew entertaining this charade was ridiculous and yet the suspicion sat there, in the back of her mind – along with the increasing danger of what if it was real? Because if it was, if someone had given her daughter a solid one kilo of gold then, oh god…

What did they want with her daughter, and what had she promised to them in exchange of the thing?

She'd be an idiot not to make sure, in any case. So, with the bar heavy in her bag and shoulders squared with determination, she head off to Diagon Alley with every intention of getting to the bottom of this.

There, it got worse.

"One of these," the goblin clerk said, accepting the bar and glancing it over with a jeweller' loupe. As Clarissa stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, wondering what sort of punishment there was for bringing fake gold to Gringotts was, the goblin set the bar down. "The conversion rate is be four thousand five hundred and eighty nine galleons. Would you like the funds transferred directly to your vault?"

Clarissa stared. "What?"

The goblin scowled at her. "Four thousand five hundred and eighty nine galleons," he repeated slowly. "I know the conversion rate was higher a week ago, but that was before people brought us forty of these things – the price of gold has dropped and it will continue dropping as more gold is brought in."

"I – there's been others?" Clarissa asked. "And they're all real? A-all of them?"

The goblin was extremely unamused by her. "Yes, yes, it is the purest we've had, and yes, it very fine quality but that doesn't change the fact that exchange rates vary according to demand and supply. If you're not happy with the conversion rate, you're free to take your gold somewhere else –"

Clarissa let out a choking noise. "H-how much was it?

"Four thousand five hundred and eighty nine galleons," the goblin said through gritted teeth. "Ask me again and I will deduct a fee for wasted time. Now do you want the money transferred to your vault?"

Four thousand and five hundred and – and – and that was three times her yearly salary – and Marietta had just given –

"No, I'm sorry," Clarissa said, coming to her senses. "I just wanted it verified."

"Very well," the goblin groused and handed the bar of pure gold back to her. "The price of valuing will be five galleons – Gringotts can automatically deduct the sum from your vault or you can pay here and now. What will it be?"

"Take it from my vault. I uh – thank you for your time."

And then the gold bar was sitting on their living room table again. Or it was until the realisation that an actual gold bar was just sitting on their living room table caught up with Clarissa and then, ridiculously, she threw a table cloth over it as if to hide it.

She stared at the lump under the cloth for a moment and then started to laugh hysterically.

Marietta snuck up into the room then, watching her cautiously from the doorway. "Mum?" she asked.

Clarissa laughed and laughed and then she was sobbing. "I – I didn't go to work?" she realised. "I was – I was supposed to head to work, I just stopped by at Gringotts to – to set this whole ridiculous nonsense straight and then – then – I didn't go to work at all. I didn't even – I just came back home."

"Um," Marietta answered, her eyes a little wide as she slowly came closer and sat next to her. "Mum, what did you do?"

"I – I had that thing," Clarissa pointed at the gold bar under the table cloth – and oh, she'd hidden it under a table cloth like that actually did anything! "I had it verified with the goblins. Four thousand five hundred and eighty nine galleons, Marietta."

Marietta didn't say anything to that, shifting where she sat awkwardly, and Clarissa turned her eyes on her. "Who gave it to you, Marietta? What do they want from you? What did you promise them?!"

"I didn't – just, listen," Marietta said, fiddling with her hands, biting her lips – and Clarissa knew that look. It was Marietta at her most serious and most conflicted, when she believed she was in the right and knew her mother wouldn't believe a word of it, and so was trying to look the best way to word it.

"Just tell me," Clarissa demanded and grabbed her hand. "What do they want from you? Do they want me to spy on the ministry, do they –"

"No, no, of course not!" Marietta said quickly. "I mean – sure I actually asked Captain about it, I told him about your job, and he offered, or sort of implied but it's actually happening now but –"

"What?" Clarissa asked, desperate and wide eyed. "Captain who?"

"My Captain – our Captain – just. Okay, just listen to me for a moment, okay?" Marietta said and grabbed her hand in return, serious and firm. "You know what Ministry did at Hogwarts, right? About that woman, Umbridge, the High Inquisitor?"

"Yes," Clarissa said, and her hands tightened on Marietta. She read the articles, about what the woman had done to the poor girl. "Did she do anything to -?"

"No, no, not me – that's not it at all. Just hear me out," Marietta said and took a breath. "That woman, and the Ministry they… they pretty much neutered the Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons. It was all theory, just theory, and not even theory it was just Ministry patting us on the head telling that there was no such thing as Dark Arts in the first place."

"Okay," Clarissa said, frowning a bit. She'd heard some about that – Marietta had complained about it. It had worried her a bit, but she wasn't sure what it had to do with this.

"So, we started our after school club," Marietta said. "The – uh – Defence Association. It was just about learning Defence Against the Dark Arts on our own, learning how to defend ourselves in case stuff happened – and with what's going on… well. We thought we could use it. Besides, no one wanted to fail our OWLs and NEWTs and that was what was going to happen with that woman. She wasn't going to teach us anything. So we were going to learn on our own."

Clarissa frowned. She hadn't even thought about that, though with things being as they were, it seemed so unimportant. "That doesn't sound safe, sweetheart," she said quietly. "Defence is taught by a trained teacher for a reason."

"Trained teacher, sure," Marietta muttered and shook her head. "We got better trained teacher than Umbridge anyway. We got Harry Potter."

Clarissa's hands clenched convulsively on her daughter's. "Marietta," she said hushed. "The things the papers are saying about him -!"

"Lies," Marietta said firmly. "I've never had a better Defence teacher, Mum. I swear, he's good, he's so much better than what the papers say. And besides – he cares. He just wants us to be safe. That's what he taught us. Shields and stuff. I can do Patronus now, Mum! A fully corporeal Patronus! Because he taught me – and Captain learned it at thirteen!"

Marietta shook her head before Clarissa could even try and think of something to say to that. "That's not it though," Marietta said. "We, the club, we… we discovered something. I can't just tell what, not yet, but… it's… huge. Bigger than all this stuff with the Ministry, bigger than You Know Who. Bigger than anything."

She reached for the table cloth and grabbed the gold bar, holding it up. "This is just the tip of the ice berg," she said and waved the bar. "I got six more of these, all of them exactly the same, all of them real. Everyone in the crew got them and they don't even really mean anything, we can get more any time we want."

Clarissa looked at the gold bar. She had six more? That was… that was an actual fortune. "But… how?" she asked. "Why? Harry Potter gave these do you for some reason, what was it?"

"Because he thought we could use them," Marietta shrugged. "I think he hoped we'd use them to bolster defences at home. Buy some wards and stuff, you know. Some in the crew, they cashed theirs in and they bought safe houses for their families, some of them out of country."

Clarissa stared at her, trying to keep up, but her mind was still stuck at the notion that Harry Potter had given her daughter, what… several tens of thousands of galleons worth of gold, just… because? No, there had to be a reason, an agenda, something he wanted from her – there had to be.

 It was a lot of money, and just thinking abut it made her head spin. But the mentions of wards, safe houses… that was so tempting. It was enough money that she could just quit her job, couldn't she? They could buy a plot of land maybe, in some quiet muggle village out of sight, and live peacefully in hiding. They could hide away and no one would ever bother them again!

Except…

"This crew," Clarissa said slowly. "They want you to stay with them, don't they? You can't just take this and vanish, can you? You have to go back."

"No, not really," Marietta said. "I mean, I will. Because I want to. But I don't have to, if I don't. I think there's couple who won't – these muggleborn boys. Their parents are pulling them from Hogwarts and going out of country, they're moving to the United States I think."

"Maybe we could do that too," Clarissa said, though the whole idea seemed so utterly fantastical that she didn't believe it for a moment.

"You can, if you want to," Marietta said so earnestly that it broke Clarissa's heart. "You'd be safe from all the bollocks that's probably coming."

Clarissa stared at her daughter with a sort of desperate disbelief and shook her head. "No, no of course not," she said and ran a shaking hand over her forehead. "So, what… what is this crew of yours going to do?"

Marietta hesitated for a moment, looking down at the gold bar between them. "Mum," she then said. "If you don't want to run and hide, um… I might have a job for you."

There it was. Clarissa swallowed and her heart seemed to freeze, but… there it was. Other shoe, falling. "What do I have to do?" she asked, steeling herself for whatever ultimatums she had to fulfil, to keep her daughter safe.

Clarissa stared. Around her and her daughter, the general hubbub of Diagon Alley continued on merrily, people chatting and laughing and hurrying about as they got their shopping done. It was almost bizarrely normal.

In front of them there was a shop front – a brand new shop front. "ENTERPRISE," was written on a sign above the windows in strict font, sharp and slightly angled. And it really was a font, not just lettering – and it was a familiar font, too.

Worse yet, behind the word, ENTERPRISE, there was a symbol, a rune. Clarissa used runes a lot in her work at the ministry – they were used in the Ministry's filing system after all – so she recognised it easily. It was sort of rounded and lopsided but it was recognizably othila.

It had been a while, sure, but Clarissa still knew the classics of muggle pop culture. Or rather, it's sci-fi culture. ENTERPRISE in Star Trek font was unmistakeable and behind it the rune othila was stretched and angled obviously so that it looked like the Star Trek logo.

"What the…?" Clarissa asked, glancing at Marietta in helpless confusion.

Marietta arched her eyebrows and grinned and then stepped forward. Baffled, Clarissa followed.

The shop was surprisingly normal looking on the inside – albeit a little barren. There were shelves but there were nothing much on them – some items of cloth and few pairs of strange looking boots, but nothing else.

"We're not in business yet, so it's a little empty right now. We're still working out what we're actually going to sell here," a voice said and young wizard stepped out from seemingly nowhere. He had bright red hair and freckles all over his face – a Weasley if Clarissa had ever seen one. "Hi," the young man said and offered his hand. "Fred Weasley. You must be Clarissa Edgecombe."

"Hello," Clarissa answered faintly and shook his hand, frowning a little at the yellow gloves he was wearing. They felt like latex and leather at the same time. "I, uh… Marietta says you have a job for me?"

"Well, a job opportunity," Weasley said with a grin and looked at Marietta. "How much did you tell her?"

"As much as she could handle," Marietta said, shaking her head and looked at her mother. "This place is owned by our crew –"

"Specifically, me, my brother and Lee Jordan, the deed's on our name. It's the Captain who runs the show, though," Weasley interjected.

"Yes," Marietta agreed, rolling her eyes. "And we need someone to… work here."

"Work here," Clarissa said slowly.

"Uh-huh," Marietta nodded.

"We're all heading back with the crew," Weasley said. "Mind you, we who graduated, we'll popping in and out probably, but mostly we'll be out there. So we need someone to man the desk here. We're hoping that someone would be you."

"Uh…" Clarissa answered blankly. "You want me to… be a store clerk?"

"Uh-huh," Weasley said and rocked on the balls of his feet. "I mean, it's probably going to be pretty dull – right now we just need someone to be here and talk to people who come in. You noticed the sign, right? I mean, you're a muggleborn – Lee and Hermione assured us that pretty much every muggleborn would notice it."

"Yes, I am and I did – and about that," Clarissa said frowning. "Is it intentionally… like that?"

"Brilliant, it works," Weasley said grinning. "And yeah, it is. You could say we're aiming for a very specific target audience here. The sign is supposed to be the hook."

"But…" Clarissa hesitated, looking around them at the empty shelves. "What are you selling?"

"Adventure and excitement," Weasley said and grinned even wider.

"We're looking for certain type of people," Marietta said with a shrug. "People who will notice the sign and come here."

"And then what?" Clarissa asked, swallowing, as behind them the front door opened and someone stepped in.

"Then we'll see if they're looking for employment," a new voice said, and Clarissa turned around to see a brown haired girl step into the store. "Hello, Ms. Edgecombe," she said and offered her hand. "Hermione Granger. Sorry I'm late. I'm here to interview you for the job."

"Right, okay, nice to meet you," Clarissa answered faintly, glancing between her daughter who nodded encouragingly, and Weasley who threw Granger a sloppy salute before heading back to the back room. "And… you really want to hire me as a store clerk?" she asked, just to be sure.

"That's the idea," Granger said, smiling kindly and motioned her to follow. "There are rooms in the back, we can talk more comfortably there."

Clarissa followed, Marietta close at her heels, as they headed to the back rooms – which turned out to be pretty much the entire building. There was a long corridor with doors on each side, and it ended in a spacious office. It was decorated with surprising finesse – with furniture Clarissa could vaguely remember seeing in Hogwarts.

"How did you…" she started to ask, staring at the familiar looking desk – thinking she'd seen McGonagall standing behind it – and the comfortable, worn armchairs – from Ravenclaw common room. Then she thought better of it.

Granger sat not behind the desk, but in one of the armchairs. Clarissa and Marietta sat in others. "So," Granger said, reaching out to take a sheaf of parchments from top of the desk. "Before we start, here. It's basically a magical confidentiality contract. If you want to work for us, you will be required to sign it – and if you reveal what you learn here for outsiders, there will be consequences to you."

"That's… quite the opening," Clarissa said faintly and reached for the parchments.

"I thought you'd appreciate the honesty," Granger shrugged. "Please, take your time reading it."

Clarissa did, even as Marietta shifted uneasily beside her and Granger took out a book and started writing something on it. The contract was fairly simple – and wholly confusing. In basic terms it just forbade her from sharing any sensitive information she learned while employed in the Enterprise. It covered the employees and the customers both, and everything else involved with something called the D.S.F.

"What is the D.S.F.?" Clarissa asked nervously.

Granger put her book away. "Acronym we decided covers the whole operation," Granger said and shrugged. "It stands for Defence Space Force. It's a bit b-movie sci-fi but it works."

Clarissa stared at her for a moment and then looked at Marietta who just shrugged. Then Clarissa looked back at the contract.

She'd thought… She'd thought many things, some of them horrible, all of them dangerous. But this sounded like had little to do with Ministry, or even… even You-Know-Who. It sounded a little like a Star Trek fan club, which was just ridiculous. She would've laughed, if it wasn't for the solid bar of gold in their house – that, and it's six brothers. So what was it, then?

Aliens, perhaps?

Clarissa almost laughed, but she couldn't, not with Granger – who had to be younger than Marietta – staring at her seriously, and Marietta sitting beside her, her back ramrod straight. Whatever it was, whatever it sounded like, it was still serious. It was possibly deadly serious. And Marietta was knee deep in it.

Clarissa sighed. "I'll sign it."

Granger eyed her silently for a moment, eyebrows climbing up. "Ms. Edgecombe, what do you think is going on here?" she asked curiously.

Clarissa hesitated, glancing at her daughter. "It's a recruitment office, isn't it?" she asked.

"… it is," Granger answered. "But I think you think it's for an army, don't you? You think we're staring some sort of… underground revolutionary militia here."

"Aren't you?" It would make sense – and it was brilliantly thought up too. A shop to attract muggleborns, and especially certainly minded muggleborns. Muggleborns who, Clarissa knew, had been slighted by the Ministry, especially so lately.

The ones with revolutionary new ideas got the worst of it, she'd seen it million times. The muggleborns who spoke of technology and computers and things like, well, space exploration. They got the axe the quickest in the magical world.

Ministry was waging a quiet war against people like them – and it had started to wage a war against Harry Potter too, though for different reasons. So, he was now starting to fight back, and his army would be made of the people Ministry had rejected. So they wanted Clarissa to man the recruitment office – put a nice former ministry employee on the front to make it nice and normal, while behind the scenes they attracted muggleborns and offered them the chance of future retribution.

There would be a civil war that would make You Know Who pale in comparison, and Marietta and Clarissa were right in middle of it!

"Ms. Edgecombe," Granger started to say and then stopped, thinking. Then she smiled wryly. "I won't say it's not bit like that. It is by necessity, because what we're doing here goes against everything the Ministry currently stands for. And yes, this is a recruitment office, but it's not one for an army. It's one for an organisation. We're looking for like minded employees, not soldiers."

"Employees to do what?" Clarissa asked.

Granger considered that, obviously looking for a way to word it without revealing anything. "To boldly go where no wizard has gone before," she then said and smiled.

Clarissa arched her eyebrows in disbelief at that.

Granger chuckled at her expression and then took something from between the pages of her book and handed it to her. It was a photograph of something very orange. It took Clarissa a moment to recognize it and when she did, her eyebrows went even higher.

It was a picture of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. A very, very clear and sharp picture, which was moving as she stared it – slowly, the Red Spot was turning under her eyes.

A magical photograph of Jupiter, taken as if from right on top of it.

Clarissa looked up again at Granger who just smiled and then at Marietta who was looking at her hopefully. Then she reached for the contract again. "Do you have a quill?" she asked, and her voice barely shook.

Chapter Text

It was both a little disheartening and alarming how easy it was to quit her job at the Ministry. All she had to do was to tell her superior, and that was it, really. They didn't even ask her why, didn't try to persuade her to stay, nothing.

"Please empty your desk before you hand in your ministry ID. Any personal items left behind will not be returned and will not be available for retrieval at later date, so please make sure to be thorough," her superior said and that was pretty much it.

If she hadn't had a… job already waiting for her, the nonchalant coldness of it would've probably broken her, the same way it had broken so many other former ministry employees.

"I'm so sorry, Clarissa," Diana from Creatures department said, sounding sympathetic but not in the least surprised. "It's not right, what's happening here."

"Yeah," Clarissa agreed. It wasn't right at all, and spark of some old, borderline ancient rebellion made her regret the fact that her beliefs about Marietta's crew had proved out to be wrong. Ministry was shaking muggleborns and wrongly minded half bloods off like they were bits of unwelcome dandruff, and it stung in some deep level where she could still feel indignation over these sort of things.

"Mind you, I wasn't fired – I quit," Clarissa said and shrugged. "But I guess it was coming anyway, wasn't it?"

"Hm," Diana nodded and folded her arms, now looking at her curiously. "Are you going to be alright?"

"I got another job waiting for me – that's why I quit," Clarissa shrugged. "There's a new store opening on Diagon Alley – they took me on as a store clerk."

Diana nodded slowly. "Do they… do they know you're…?"

"A muggleborn? They know," Clarissa said and shrugged. "I think I'll be fine there."

Diana looked a little dubious about that but she nodded. "Well, I hope it turns out well for you," she said and looked around in the office Clarissa was clearing out. "It's not going to be the same Ministry, you know," she then said. "Things are changing, Clarissa. And it's not for the better."

"Yeah," Clarissa agreed and put the last of her things in the box. She hesitated for a moment and then glanced at Diana, wondering if she should tell her about the Enterprise… but she thought better of it. The thing was innocuous and not precisely a threat to the ministry as it was now, but it was probably still better not to spread a word about it inside the ministry itself.

The people the Enterprise was targeted at would come to it anyway.

"Well then," Clarissa said and shrank the box of her things, putting it in her pocket. "I guess I'll be off then."

"Take care," Diana said with a worried looking nod, and then headed out. Clarissa did the same, and though she felt like holding her head up proud… she didn't.

The Enterprise was still empty when Clarissa headed there the next morning to start on her new job. There wasn't much activity either, none of the others – who might work there or might not, she wasn't too sure yet – hadn't arrived. So, nervous and curious both, Clarissa took her time looking around.

They hadn't told her she couldn't, after all.

Most of the rooms were like the office where Granger had interviewed her. Mostly barren, furnished with furniture that had to come from Hogwarts. In one room there were display cabinets she was damn sure she'd seen on some corridor in Hogwarts, one room had tables straight from Hogwarts classrooms, and of course, all the chairs were from there too. Worn armchairs and plush couches, even the benches and less cushioned chairs, they were all from Hogwarts.

How they'd all been transported to Diagon Alley with no one in Hogwarts noticing the theft, she had no idea.

There was very little hints about what services the Enterprise would be offering though. There was no store room, no boxes of what might've been merchandise – the closest there was, was a box of astronomy books but those…

They were muggle books, printed and precise with non moving photographs and the sort of informative graphs that wizards rarely if ever used.

There were hints and clues about the real purpose behind it all. The name of the store, the references, these books, the photo Granger had shown her… Clarissa knew what they pointed at. What she didn't know was how and how the gold bars – and the shop – really fit in it all.

A sudden influx of interest in magical space exploration was one thing, but the resources these kids had…

"Oh, good morning," a voice said behind her and Clarissa whirled around in alarm. There was a blond girl standing behind her, smiling absently up at her. "You must be the sales person. I brought a thing for the store."

"Oh?" Clarissa answered hesitantly. "Right, um. What did you bring?"

The girl had brought a painting – a magical, moving painting of space. It was a view of a luminous blue planet stretching out before the viewer, bands of darker and lighter blue shifting slowly as they watched. There were spots, Clarissa noted, of darker blue amidst the bands. Gigantic storms.

Occasionally, tiny bit of lightning seemed to flash on the planet's surface.

"Neptune," the blond girl said almost affectionately, as she hung the magical painting on one of the open walls. "Would you mind attaching this in?"

"It's beautiful," Clarissa said honestly, even as she took out her wand and spelled the painting to stay on the wall. "The top part is pretty desolate though."

"That's how space is," the girl said and stepped back. "Empty and desolate. Wait a couple of days and you'll see Triton though."

"Triton?"

"Biggest of her moons. Her orbit around Neptune is less than six days, so she pops in every now and then," the girl said with a smile.

Clarissa nodded slowly and stared up at the painting. Like photograph of Jupiter, it looked like it had been made just on top of the planet. And the things she said about Triton too – they sounded… accurate.

Like it was less a artists representation and more a from life depiction.

Clarissa swallowed dryly and looked at the girl. "You're part of the crew, then?"

"I'll be a Combat Officer once they settle on the rank system," the girl said. "I don't mind. Lieutenant Lovegood has a nice ring to it, I think."

Clarissa stared. The girl just smiled at her. "Er," she said finally and held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Lieutenant. Clarissa Edgecombe, at your service."

The girl's smile turned incandescent.

Lieutenant Lovegood – honestly – wasn't the only one who brought things in. Just hour later, a dark skinned boy came in carrying a moving model of the galaxy. He set the large glass ball up in the middle of the store on a wooden pedestal, carefully attaching everything in with spells so that it wouldn't be easily knocked down, and then stepped back, eying the large, shining orb with satisfaction

"There," the boy said. "I think that'll do nicely."

"It's… very nice," Clarissa said faintly. It was also probably worth it's weight in gold, and more. Astronomical models were expensive, especially these types. "Um…"

The boy turned to her with a grin and offered a hand. "So you're our new sales person? Lee Jordan, how do you do?"

"Clarissa Edgecombe," she answered, shaking her hand. "You're… one of the people who own the store."

"It's in our name," Jordan agreed. "Because we graduated and it's not too weird for Hogwarts graduates to try their hand at… enterprise." He grinned widely at his own joke. "But it's the Captain who calls the shots, really."

"So I've heard," Clarissa said, looking between the boy – because really, he was still a boy – and the galaxy model. "I suppose you'd know what we're actually selling here?"

"We haven't nailed it down yet," the boy shrugged. "The twins are working on something they want to be sold here – candies and stuff I think – and back at the ship people are coming up with… things that we'll probably sell too. But all we have right now is a general theme, really."

"Space," Clarissa guessed, quietly filing that titbit of information away. Ship.

"Yes," the boy agreed with a grin and then gave her a sympathetic look. "I know you're not yet in on all of this stuff – it must be so weird, sorry about that – but we can't really… bring you in, yet."

"Not before your Captain says so?"

"And before we figure out a new method of transportation," Jordan said. "So far, Hogwarts is the only way in and out and it's just a bit awkward, having to go to Hogwarts for entrance. Once we figure out a way to set up transport from here to there, things will be easier.

Clarissa blinked and looked around the shop. "I see?" she said, though she didn't. Way where? "I don't suppose you're talking about the Floo network?" she said with the faintest of hopes of normalcy.

"I'm afraid not," the boy said and patted her shoulder. "You don't have to worry about it yet, though. The shop won't really open before we have everything settled so you don't really have to deal with any of it yet."

"So what am I supposed to do until then?" Clarissa asked with bit of frustration. Hanging around a empty shop not doing anything was surprisingly grating, especially since she knew so little about what she was actually supposed to be doing.

"Hm," the boy hummed, considering. "Brush up on Astronomy and learn Runes if you don't know them yet," he then said. "That'll help you in the long run."

Clarissa stared at him in disbelief. "Runes?" she asked.

"Language of our people," the boy agreed solemnly

Marietta came in around noon, with Cho Chang and couple of boys, all of whom were carrying boxes of… something. "Hi Mum," Marietta greeted her with a bright, proud smile that made Clarissa's hear clench a bit.

"Hey Ms. Edgecombe," Cho greeted her too, with slightly more subdued smile.

"Hello Marietta, Cho, boys," Clarissa said, looking between them thoughtfully. Were it in any other setting, she might've thought it was a double date or something she was witnessing, and she would've bee beyond suspicious about the boys… but this was Enterprise.

They were all crew. And though she hadn't seen that many interactions between crew members, she'd begun to recognise the signs. She wasn't sure what it was, wasn't sure how to word it, but there was a strange, settled solidarity between members of the crew. They were something more and less than just friends.

They were part of something bigger than mere club.

"What do you have there?" Clarissa asked curiously, looking at the things they were carrying.

"Books, seeds, pots, some potions and so and so on – stuff to send back once we can," one of the boys said and shifted the box in his hands, offering his hand to Clarissa. He was wearing blue gloves. "Anthony Goldstein. Pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Michael Corner," the other boy said, also shaking her hand with a gloved hand. "Welcome to the DSF," he added proudly.

"Thank you," Clarissa said faintly while Marietta shifted where she stood in sheepish unease.

"Is that Luna's painting?" Cho asked then, noticing the painting of Neptune. "Oh, she managed to make it move!"

"Did she paint that in, uh," Goldstein hesitated, glancing at Clarissa and then away again. "At Hogwarts?" he settled on asking.

"Yeah, I saw her work on it. It wasn't finished the last time I saw it though – it came out pretty nice."

The kids eyed the painting for a moment before looking over the model galaxy. No one among them was surprised to see them, though – they'd all known they were there. It seemed that the crew was pretty well informed about the happenings of the Enterprise.

They too knew more about the place than Clarissa, who was supposed to be working there.

Clarissa watched them for a moment and then eyed their boxes they were carrying. "I guess you know where to put those, then?" she said, nodding at them,

"Yeah, we'll just put them in one of the backrooms," Cho nodded, glancing around. She then took the box from Marietta too before leading the boys to the backrooms, leaving Clarissa alone with her daughter.

"So… how is it going?" Marietta asked, a little awkward and a little excited both.

"So far not much has happened," Clarissa said and folded her arms, looking around them. Aside from the painting and the model galaxy, the place was still somewhat empty. "I'm… honestly, Marietta, I don't know what I'm doing here."

"Yeah, it's all still bit open," Marietta agreed. "Captain is still… well, we don't know if we'll see him this summer, and we're kind of waiting on him. And for some other things we're trying to figure out."

"Lee Jordan spoke about transport to… somewhere," Clarissa said and arched her eyebrows at her daughter.

"Yeah, that's one of the things we need to figure out," Marietta agreed. "Our only way in is in Hogwarts, and we want another here – and some other places too, probably, just in case. We just haven't figured out how yet."

"Hm," Clarissa hummed and thought about the bars of gold, the wealth they represented. And the doors that opened to the crew. "Fireplaces are out of question, I hear… have you considered Vanishing Cabinets?"

"We tried it, actually," Marietta admitted. "It pretty much destroyed the cabinets and we haven't been able to find another pair since."

Clarissa blinked at that, turning to her with surprise. The thing they'd tried them for had destroyed the cabinets? Just how far –

She stopped that train of thought before it could go on any further.  "Was… anyone hurt?" she asked worriedly.

"No, we just lost a command stone," Marietta shrugged. "Captain forbade anyone actually trying before we knew we could shuffle things through safely. Good thing, it turns out."

Clarissa nodded slowly. Well, at least their Captain had some common sense. "If it destroyed the cabinets," she said slowly, "why do you want another pair? Those things aren't cheap, even by your means." A pair had to cost more than thousand galleons. Several thousands, even.

"If nothing else we can set a pair between the shop and Hogwarts," Marietta answered. "It's not ideal but everyone agrees it will probably be better than nothing. But… Vanishing Cabinets aren't easy to come by, it turns out."

"No, they wouldn't be, they're nearly impossible to make, from what I hear…" Clarissa answered and ran a hand over her chin thoughtfully. "I've heard rumour that a shop in Knockturn alley has a Vanishing Cabinet, but I'm not sure how trustworthy that is."

"What shop?" Marietta asked quickly.

"Borgin and Burkes," Clarissa said and then eyed her sharply. "You're not going."

"Mum –"

"Marietta," she said. "You, are not, going. And whoever goes better not go alone."

Marietta made a face but sighed. Then she took out a the small white stone Clarissa had seen on her many times. She tapped it and then waited for a moment.

"I'm clear – what is it?" a male voice came through the stone.

"Mum says there might be a Vanishing Cabinet in Knockturn Alley," Marietta informed whomever she was speaking to. "In shop called Borgin and Burkes. She doesn't know how trustworthy the rumour is, but it's probably worth checking out."

"I know the place," the male answered. "I'll let the twins know, they can handle Knockturn Alley. Good job, Marietta."

"Captain," Marietta answered and tapped the stone again.

Clarissa arched her eyebrows, staring at the stone. Well, now she knew how everyone in the crew was so well and so quickly informed about everything happening in the Enterprise. "So that was Harry Potter?" she asked.

"Yeah," Marietta said, looking at the stone and then up at her. "You're probably going to get one of these stones soon, actually. Let me show you how it works."

Clarissa nodded, quietly wondering when Marietta had grown so tall and whether their lives would ever start making sense again.

That afternoon, the Enterprise got it's first customer. Though the shop wasn't really open yet, it's doors weren't really locked and so the curious wizard managed to pop in without any trouble, peeking into the store curiously.

"Um, hi?" he offered awkwardly. "I haven't seen this place before – is it open yet?"

"Not yet, but you're welcome to come in," Clarissa said from behind the counter – because that part of her job she'd at least understood. Talking to the people who were drawn in by the sign. "There's not much in here yet, though. We're still settling in."

"So I see," the wizard said, looking at the galaxy model and then at the painting Lieutenant Lovegood had left behind. "That is wicked. So is this going to be Astronomy shop or something?" he asked. "Your sign is brilliant, by the way."

Clarissa smiled. "Isn't it? What do you think about it?"

"I didn't think there were magical Star Trek fans before," he admitted. "But this once, I love being proven wrong."

Privately wondering if she should get a telly and vcr and brush up on her Star Trek knowledge too, Clarissa nodded. "Me too," she agreed and leaned her elbows on the counter. "So, are you interested in space?"

"Well, I guess? Haven't really thought about it much," he admitted, eying the galaxy model. "I mean, when I was a kid, I reckon I thought about it a lot back then. I had posters and stuff, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Star Wars, you name it, I had posters. But after Hogwarts…"

"I know what you mean," Clarissa said. Hogwarts, now that she thought about it, had in a way extinguished lot of her pre-Hogwarts interest too. Before Hogwarts, she'd wanted to be anything from archaeologist to an actor and a doctor. But then there'd been magic and she'd became a witch.

Now she wondered if there'd been little girls and boys who'd wanted to become astronauts and had became witches and wizards instead.

The Twins – meaning George and Fred Weasley apparently – brought the Vanishing Cabinet in before that evening, floating it right through the front door.

"Thanks for the tip, Ms. E!" one of them said cheerfully. "It took a bit of haggling, but we got it pretty cheap."

"Just the one?" Clarissa asked worriedly.

"They only had the one – the other's broken," the other said and grinned. "But we know where it is. Give us a couple of weeks and we'll have it fixed right up, and then we'll have direct line from here to Hogwarts."

"Sounds convenient," Clarissa said, watching them worriedly.

"You can head home, if you want to," one of the twins said as they floated the cabinet past her. "We'll close the shop before we leave."

"Alright," Clarissa agreed with a sigh. "Good luck with the cabinet."

"Thanks, Ms. E!"

So far working at the Enterprise had been both easy and utterly stressful. Clarissa still wasn't hundred percent certain what was going on, all she knew for certain was that it was big and it would only get bigger once the crew got the ball really rolling.

And the crew itself… well. Crew was an apt name for it. Granger had said that it wasn't an army, but she hadn't denied that it wasn't militant. Captain could've meant anything – chess clubs had captains too – but when you added a Lieutenant and Combat Officer into the mix, it became fairly military.

There was also the way they all moved and stood. They all had the same posture, straight and proud, shoulders held up levelly. There was also the fact that she was pretty sure they were all wearing if not actual armour, then at least some sort of protective padding under their robes. Armour, military standing and all this talk about space…

Funny how magic could be such settled and commonplace part of reality, but space travel seemed so utterly fantastical. She knew it wasn't – muggles had landed on the moon long before this – and yet it seemed impossible.

And yet somehow in Hogwarts it was becoming reality.

Clarissa took a breath and released it slowly. Ministry was growing darker and there were whispers of Death Eaters and Dark Lords and somehow in amidst of this all… her daughter had became part of a space crew.

Concept of reality was becoming rather relative, it seemed.

Chapter Text

Clarissa accepted a piece of candy from the twins exactly once and decided right there and then that it would never happen again.

"Wha - what is this, what did you do?!" she then bellowed from the ceiling as they grinned up at her.

"Weightless Wedges," one of them said with a grin and popped the lime green wedge in his mouth. Moment later, he too was floating slightly above the floor. With a slight, lazy kick, he was floating up at her. "Easy there, Ms. E, it's just a weightless charm."

"You can't just – you can't – this isn't –" Clarissa tried to say, even as she banged her head on the ceiling beams. Except, she didn't. It didn't hurt. With a frown she grabbed a hold of the beam and stared at it, then at the grinning little lunatic beside her. "Cushion charms too?"

"And it ends in feather light," the boy agreed. "So that no matter how far you float, you land softly. We're not actually looking to kill anyone here."

"Just to give them a feeling of what it's like to be in zero gravity," the other twin said, having joined them in the air. He was doing casual somersaults in the air, whirling in place, and as he did Clarissa could for a moment see under his robes.

The yellow gloves he wore apparently were part of a full get up – she could see glimpses of the same yellow material on his legs. That and red… padding? Whatever it was, he had it pulled all over the yellow suit he was wearing.

Red and yellow – or rather, gold and crimson. Gryffindor colours.

"Zero gravity," Clarissa said, bracing herself awkwardly between a pair of ceiling beams. "Really?"

"Yup," one of the Weasley twins said, grinning. "The others were talking about stuff like making a zero gravity room in Hogwarts for extra credits and stuff, but we thought this would be easier – and bit more accessible."

Clarissa stared at him and then at the floor under them. Then, very cautiously, she let go of the ceiling and let herself hover.

Now that she knew what it was, it wasn't… too bad. It felt a bit like vertigo though and she thought that if this went on she'd end up sick to her stomach, but with the initial panic over… it wasn't bad.

Accessible, though. That was another clue. "We're going to sell these in the shop?" she asked.

"Yup," the twins answered. "We've also got gravity versions – Lee's idea. They make it feel like you're walking around on less gravity – it's very bouncy, it turns out."

Clarissa thought of the moon landing, the old videos of astronauts bouncing around in the white scenery, and wondered if they'd actually been to the moon, somehow.

Then she felt her stomach complain.

"H-how long does this last?" she asked, bracing herself on the ceiling beams again.

"Five minutes," one of the twins said. "Why?"

"I think I'm going to be sick," she admitted.

"Captain wants you to cash these in," Lee Jordan said, setting a box in front of Clarissa who was blearily looking over her old Ancient Runes text books. She looked up and then down at the box and then – she stared.

The box was full of gold bars.

"Uh?" was her eloquent answer. "Um. Uh?"

"They're funds for the store," Jordan said and folded his arms, looking at the box like it was a nuisance instead of, well, a box full of gold bars. "Hermione pointed out that it might be a bit weird if the store didn't have vault and funds and stuff, so for appearances sake, we decided to set up a vault for the Enterprise."

Clarissa stared at him, then at the box full of gold and then up again. "For… appearance's sakes?" she asked faintly. "D-do you have any idea how much money this is?" At a glance she could see at least two rows of five so, at least ten gold bars. And what was it, four thousand and five hundred galleons per bar at Gringotts? That was… forty five thousand galleons. At last.

"It's a lot I guess," Jordan said and shrugged. "Money kind of stops meaning much when you don't have anything to buy though. Well, maybe you'll figure out something the shop might need. Just take them to Gringotts for now and open a vault for the Enterprise, okay? I'll be here for a bit so I can watch the store."

Clarissa waited for him to add something that might make sense of the whole thing. Then she shook her head and stood up.

She had just barely the presence of mind to cover the top of the wooden box with her scarf to hide the bars from everyone out and about before she headed out of the store. Even then it felt ridiculous, down right mental, to be just walking down Gringotts with a box full of gold.

How had this became her life?

"Yes?" the nearest goblin asked her rudely, eyeballing the crate suspiciously.

"I'm – I'm here to open a vault for a shop I work in, the Enterprise?" Clarissa asked, feeling like her head was full of wool. "It just opened little while ago on Diagon Alley. I have, uh – " she hoisted the box up on the goblin's high desk, making the creature lean back with disgust.

The goblin froze, however, when she showed him the gold.

"I want these exchanged for galleons," Clarissa said faintly as the goblin stared at the gold. "Um, if that's not any trouble. Please."

The goblin gave her a look and then took one of the bars and a jeweller's loupe and then examining the ingot closely. Then he set it down again before leaning over the box to look at her. "The Enterprise, was it? Tell me, Madam, where did you get these ingots?"

"F-from my employers?" Clarissa answered, her voice growing small.

"And do you know where they got them?" the goblin demanded.

"I'm not… uh… I don't, no."

"Hm," the goblin answered with obvious displeasure and eyed the box critically. "We will exchange these – but please let your employers and everyone else who has been bringing these in that Gringotts will no longer accept raw gold – not before we have had the chance to negotiate a proper, reasonable exchange with the source."

Clarissa swallowed. "Um. May I ask why not?"

"You're unbalancing the gold market," the goblin said with a irritated frown, even as he leaned away to get a large book and impressively long quill. "Now, what size of vault do you have in mind?"

"Well, it was inevitable," Jordan said to his stone while Clarissa tried not to look like she was eavesdropping. "We have been bringing in a lot gold, that kind of thing has an effect before long."

"Yeah. Magical world's economy is a closed system," a female voice came from the stone – Hermione Granger, talking from who knew where. "It has a certain baseline of resources that doesn't really change – and we changed it by bringing in gold from the outside. It was only matter of time before Gringotts put a stop to it."

"Can't we take the gold somewhere else?" a new voice asked, female Clarissa hadn't met yet.

"We could," Jordan said. "But that'll just make the problem more wide spread. If we keep at with what we've been doing so far, we might start disturbing the economy. Gold is the standard for all wizarding currencies – if we lower the value of gold too much… it will have consequences."

"Has magical world ever had a depression?" Granger wondered.

"Not like muggle world has. I'm more worried about hyperinflation, really," Jordan said.

"Translation?" Harry Potter's voice asked calmly.

"Rapid inflation – the rise in prices of goods – which then erodes the value of money, usually because to fight the rise in price of goods governments can just make more money, inflating the market even more," Granger explained. "It's bit complicated. Anyway, we're in danger of causing it by wearing away the value of gold which then might erode the value of actual galleons. We keep this up and this time next year it might take two galleons to buy something that costs a galleon now. Or more."

"Goblins are pretty good at keeping track of that sort of thing though," Jordan said. "That's why it's probably a good thing we've so far been taking our gold to Gringotts alone – they control the real value of galleon and since the surplus gold has gone to them and not to the market itself, it hasn't had effect on prices of things."

"But if we keep this up, it might," Potter concluded. "And if we start taking gold to some other bank, or to actual stores… it probably will."

"Yes, sir," Jordan said.

"Do we need galleons though?" someone asked. "The stuff we have, the stuff we can make… does money even matter to us anymore?"

"We're still part of the magical world," Granger said sternly. "We can't just ignore it and do what we want. We have the power to completely destroy the economy here – and that would affect so many more lives than just ours. We have to be responsible here."

There was a moment of silence, during which Clarissa pretended to read her rune book. As it was, she wasn't even sure what to think. Her mind felt muddled, like she wasn't actually part of this but watching it like it was a show on the telly. Somewhere in the back of her head a thought was going around circles and it wasn't helping much either.

They were just kids.

What kind of kids had the power to disrupt the whole economy?

"Captain?" Jordan said into the white stone after a moment of awkward silence. "It's your call."

Potter didn't answer immediately, but his sigh sounded through the stone. "The goblins want to meet me, correct?"

"They want to meet the source," Jordan said, glancing pointedly at Clarissa who tried not to blush. "That could be anyone."

"It could – but we're not going to make any future friends by lying now," Potter said grimly. "And I got a feeling we don't want to make enemies of the goblins. Right. I'll see if I can get away from here enough to meet up with them. Lee, Hermione, I trust you can accompany me?"

"Yes, of course," Granger answered.

"Whenever you want, Captain," Jordan agreed.

"Alright," Potter said. "Hopefully I'll see you soon, then."

The crew said their goodbyes and Jordan hid the stone under the labels of his robe, looking at Clarissa. "Well, looks like you'll be meeting Captain soon."

Clarissa nodded feebly.

Just kids, she thought, and for some reason that made her feel small.

Harry Potter arrived the next day, accompanied by two suspicious looking adult wizards – one of whom Clarissa knew by sight.

"So this is the place the twins got?" Alastor Madeye Moody said, casting suspicious looks everywhere, one eye looking this way and the other that. "Doesn't look like much. What are they going to sell here?"

Not part of the crew then. Were there really only children in that group?

"No idea yet," Potter answered, shrugging his shoulders and pushing his hands into the pockets of his muggle coat. Clarissa remembered him from the pictures on the Prophet during the Tri-Wizard tournament – there'd been one picture of him in ill fitting, ugly muggle clothing. It was nice to see that some of the surplus of gold they had had gone into getting proper clothes.

"Hello there," the unknown wizard said to Clarissa – and he definitely wasn't part of the crew. His robes were worn and patched up and he looked… ragged. "Do you work here?"

"Ah, yes – Clarissa Edgecombe, how do you do," she answered and shook his hand. "I just mind the shop here, though there isn't much to mind here, really."

"Remus Lupin," he introduced himself and smiled. He had a nice smile. "We're just showing Harry here to Gringotts. Were looking for somehow, however – is Lee Jordan here?"

"I think he's in the back," Clarissa said, looking between Potter – who was eying her calmly – and the adult wizards who, apparently, had no idea about what was going on. "I can get him for you –"

The door swung open then and Hermione Granger entered the shot in a whirl of robes. "I'm so sorry I'm late there was line to the Floo – oh, hello Professor Lupin, Professor Moody!"

"Hello there, Ms. Granger," Lupin said, arching his eyebrows. "I didn't know you were coming. You used the Floo?"

"Yeah – there's a place near my house where you can Floo from, but there was a family there, taking it and I got held up a bit," Granger said awkwardly and then grabbed Potter in a brief hug. "Hi. It's good to see you."

"Hello, Hermione. You too – and you're not late. We came in just minute ago too," Potter said, patting her back and then looking at Clarissa. "Could you please get Lee for us, so that we can get going?"

"Right, of course," she said, blushing a bit at having just stopped there, staring, and stood up. "I'll be right back."

"Just what were you summoned for when you need both Jordan and Granger with you?" she could hear Moody asking Potter suspiciously.

"It has something to do with the Enterprise. I funded them," Potter asked with an audible shrug and then the door closed behind Clarissa and she couldn't hear them anymore.

Quickly Clarissa hurried to find Jordan, wondering about it all. Granger had called the professors – she thought he'd heard something about Moody during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, but it had been such a hectic time at the ministry that she wasn't sure… were they really Hogwarts Professors? Why were they escorting Harry Potter around, especially if they weren't part of is crew?

"Mr. Jordan?" Clarissa said awkwardly when she finally spotted him in one of the offices, working on… something that looked like a building plan. "The Captain is here, with Ms. Granger."

"Mr. Jordan, really?" he asked and looked up, making a face. "You can just call me Lee, Ms. E, it's fine. Mr. Jordan is…" he trailed away. "Although I guess it has a ring. Mr. Jordan. Mr. Spock…"

Clarissa shook her head at his quiet grinning. "They're waiting on you in the store," she said. "I think they want to head to the bank straight away."

"Right, right," Mr. Jordan said and rolled up the plans he'd been sketching. He shrank them with a spell and then pushed the miniature blue print roll in his pocket. "I guess it's time to face the music."

Clarissa trailed after him nervously, thinking about all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Bunch of teenagers negotiating the future of economy with the goblins… it was a terrifying idea. The more she'd thought about it the worse it had seemed and now it was actually happening.

Being involved and yet not at the same time was absolutely terrible.

"Well then, if we're all ready now," Moody said. "Let's head to the bank and get this over with."

"Right," Potter said and then paused, considering Clarissa. "Ms. Edgecombe would you like to accompany us?"

"Er," she said, looking wildly between Jordan – who she'd kind of started to see as her boss – and Potter – who she had known but only now really realised was her boss's boss. And he was so young! "Why?"

"You work here. It involves you too," Potter said and glanced at Jordan. "Doesn't it?"

Jordan considered it. "Yeah, you should come with us to observe. It's probably going to be stuff you need to know, seeing as you'll be doing business between the Enterprise and Gringotts more than we are."

Clarissa swallowed and nodded. "I'll just get my cloak then."

Gringotts was somehow both more and less intimidating, when she entered it in company. Potter and Jordan didn't seem to feel much about it either way – Potter remained calm, Jordan seemed distracted. Granger was barely paying any attention at all – she had a book out and was leafing through it rapidly.

It was Moody and Lupin who seemed the most nervous – after Clarissa herself, maybe.

"We're here to see some manager about a shop," Moody said shortly to the nearest goblin.

"It's about the Enterprise and about our… funding," Potter said. "You had some concerns."

The goblin looked between Moody and Potter and stood up. "Wait," he ordered and then slid down from his desk, hurrying away. Moody scowled after him but Potter just shrugged.

"I guess we're waiting," the Captain said and looked at Jordan and Granger. "So how have you guys been?" he asked – as if they didn't talk all the time through the stones.

"Working," Jordan shrugged. "We're still trying to figure out good merchandise to sell at the store."

"I thought it was going to be a joke shop?" Moody said with a frown.

"It's a fun idea – but our target clientele are kind of away most of the year," Jordan admitted, scratching at his cheek awkwardly. "Turns out, joke shops don't do that well when all the customers are away at a boarding school. Did you know, Zonko's is only open during Hogsmeade Weekends at Hogwarts?"

Moody and Lupin blinked and considered it. "I hadn't even thought about that," Lupin admitted.

"Yeah. So we're working on something else," Jordan shrugged. "There's still probably going to be a shelf full of joke stuff once we've got everything worked out."

"I've been reading a lot," Granger said to Potter. "I found this old Rune book that I really need to show some people, I think it'll help a lot with their studies. It has everything laid out so clearly, it's really handy."

"Really?" Potter asked. "Sounds interesting. I probably should get a copy."

"I didn't know you took runes, Harry," Lupin said, sounding surprised.

"I developed an interest," Potter shrugged. "Turns out, Divination isn't as interesting as we thought it would be."

Clarissa hung back awkwardly as they talked about the shop and studies and whatnot, feeling somehow too old for it all even though Moody at least had to be older than her. When the goblin finally returned, it was almost a relief – even if he did with a dark scowl on his face.

"You'll be seen to in office Four," the goblin said. "Do not keep the manager waiting."

"Thank you very much," Potter said with a nod and then glanced at the professors. "You two don't mind waiting here, do you? I mean I hate to ask you but…"

"Yeah, it's kind of private," Jordan agreed quickly. "Sorry professors."

"No it's alright, perfectly understandable," Lupin agreed, though he looked worried. "If you don't think you'll need any advice."

"We got Hermione," Potter said with a smile and clapped her shoulder compassionately. "I think we'll be alright."

The three crew members then headed towards the goblin offices, Clarissa trailing after them. She couldn't help but glance backwards at Moody and Lupin and wonder how badly they were out of the loop when she was inside and yet still so very confused.

It was like there was a rift between these crewmembers – children – and their older teachers. Or maybe it was between this new generation and all the older ones. A rift which, without them even knowing it, was growing wider with each step.

Clarissa was starting to realise how dreadfully lucky she was to be on the other side of it, even if it seemed like the very ground under her feet was accelerating faster with each moment.

Chapter Text

Later Clarissa wasn't entirely sure what happened at Gringotts. There was a lot of talking – mostly by Jordan and Granger, with Potter sitting there rubbing at his forehead and not saying at much. The gist of it was this.

The crew had nearly unlimited access to any number of valuables they happened to need and no, they wouldn't be sharing the location with anyone.

"We understand your issue with the gold," Granger said. "And we have no intention of destabilising the market."

"Exchanging gold to galleons at Gringotts was just the easiest way to go about it," Jordan said with a shrug. "But we get that it can't go on."

"Problem is, we still need funds – we still need to exchange some form of valuables into currency usable in the wizarding world," Granger added. "We don't need it immediately – the Enterprise vault will supply us with all necessary funds for now."

"But we might need more in future. So what we're hoping is some sort of settlement of… trade," Jordan continued. "What can we bring in that's valuable enough for good amount of galleons, but which won't damage overall the economy."

The goblin stared at them like they were both lunatics, and Clarissa couldn't really blame him. She might have some inkling as to the resources and means of these kids, but to hear them talk about wealth like it was unfortunate necessity that had to be dealt with rather than the precious commodity it should be…

"You mean to say you have access to all potential forms of wealth?" the goblin asked suspiciously.

"More or less," Granger agreed.

"How?"

She smiled but didn't answer, looking instead down to her books. "These are the types of goods we can provide. Gold, silver, copper, platinum, iron…"

The list was long and what Clarissa could remember from her muggle chemistry, covered pretty much all known metals. The goblin stared at her with wide eyes and leaned back on his seat, taking the gold rimmed spectacles off his crooked nose to polish them before resuming staring at her.

"We also have access to any number of minerals, your usual gem stones and what not aren't a problem either, and we can alloy metals of course," Granger continued, looking over the lists on her books, running a finger over it. "So we can also provide things like steel, bronze and so on. Or any other alloy if you provide an example."

"Example," the goblin said, latching onto that. "You produce these things. You have the capability of producing elements."

That made the crew members pause, Granger stilling and Jordan sitting up straighter. They both looked at Potter who was frowning, rubbing at his temple now.

"It's not exactly production," the Captain said after a while. "But I guess it's close enough."

"Then they are fake?!" the goblin accused him, almost standing up in outrage

"Not fake," Potter said and sighed, looking at him. "Is the gold we brought you fake? Has it vanished yet?"

That made the goblin scowl and sit down again. "There is some sort of wizard magic involved," he said accusingly. "Things produced by wizard magic are of lesser quality."

Potter said nothing to that, just closed his eyes and dug his knuckles into his temple. He looked like he had mother of all head aches. "Hermione, tell him about the diamonds."

"Diamonds?" the goblin snapped, turning to her.

"In muggle world, scientists – I guess, alchemists would the word for it – can grow diamonds in laboratories," she said. "They are called Synthetic Diamonds and one way they are made is by starting with a seed of a diamond, and then adding carbon particles on it under high pressure and high temperature. And it's done by non-magical means.

"What we can do is similar," she concluded. "The result is still real. It just wasn't mined the old-fashioned way."

The goblin drummed his desk with his fingers for a while and then leaned in, staring at Potter. "And you can produce any element this way?"

"More or less," Potter said and opened his eyes. "Gold is the least of it, really. So, galleons are starting to be less a necessity and more a nuisance to us. But we still need them to deal with the wizarding world."

The goblin stared at him hard for a while. "You talk as if you're not part of that world anymore," he noted and made a face, distaste and shrewdness combined. "Gringotts will consider what you have to offer. There are materials we might be interested purchasing, even if they are… synthesised. We will contact you at a later date."

And that was about it. Potter stood up with a slight sway and with Jordan and Granger close to his heels, he headed out, Clarissa following them, feeling like she was invisible.

"Harry?" Granger asked, sounding worried. "Are you alright?"

"You're looking kind of pale there, Captain," Jordan agreed.

"My head's killing me," Potter answered, cradling his forehead in his palm for a moment before taking a deep breath and straightening up. "You think that was right, telling him what we did?"

"Well, it was the truth," Granger said. "And you're right, we won't make any friends if we start out by lying. If we're going to bring in more goods here, there's eventually going to be someone who looks into it a little deeper – and truth is in the atomic structure. It's obvious everything we make is artificial, if you have to way to check for it."

"Right," Potter said. "Right. Let's get out of here."

Clarissa trailed after them silently, wondering about it all, about money being nuisance rather than necessity, and just how wealthy these kids were, how capable. How powerful. It still made no sense to her, not only that they were but that no one seemed to be aware. Something like this should have supervision – and it was just… just these kids, doing this all, having all this power.

It was almost a relief to see the Captain doubting himself, if even for a moment.

"How did it go?" Lupin asked when they arrived in the Gringotts lobby.

"There's probably going to be other meetings," Potter said tiredly and looked at Granger and Lee. "You guys can manage from here on out though, right? You won't need me here."

"We should be able to handle it," Jordan said quickly.

"Yeah, we can do this," Granger said and touched Potter's hand. "You… We can do this."

Potter nodded and turned to Lupin and Moody. "I don't suppose I could go to my godfather's place now?" he asked almost wistfully.

Moody and Lupin exchanged looks. "Not yet," Lupin then said apologetically. "Soon."

Potter sighed and then followed the two adult wizards out of the bank. Clarissa stared after them, frowning. Before she'd thought that they were there serving as Harry Potter's, well, bodyguards. There were all those terrible rumours after all, so he probably needed them. Now though…

"Where is he being kept," she asked slowly, because she was damn sure that was what it was – being kept somewhere where he wouldn't willingly be if it was up to him.

"With his family," Granger said darkly.

"They aren't nice people," Jordan agreed, just as grim. Then he shook his head. "Come on, let's head back to the store.

The whole matter of the crew, the Enterprise, Harry Potter and Gringotts kept Clarissa's mind whirling for a long time after that day. There were layers and layers of unknown things that she had no idea how to untangle, and she kept thinking about Harry Potter, the Captain of his crew – being ushered away like… like he was a prisoner being escorted, rather than celebrity being protected.

Of all the things that happened, that was the one that stayed with her most. Because Harry Potter was… he was… he was a lot of things. And she'd never really thought about all the things he was before this.

The Boy Who Lived, sure, and that had a lot of connotations. He was a celebrity, every magical everywhere knew his name. That probably meant a lot of things she couldn't even understand – fame was a lot of pressure, after all. But nowadays he was also Ministry's number one target for sneers and slander, and they had been at it for couple of years now. It had started during that stupid tournament that had gotten poor Cho's boyfriend killed, and it continued even now.

She didn't read the Daily Prophet as closely as she used to, it just didn't feel the same now. But even so, she saw the jabs and jokes at Harry Potter's expense. He was boy who cried Dark Lord and the Daily Prophet found a way to make him the butt of every joke.

She was ashamed to realise that for the most part, she'd believed the lies.

"Marietta?" Clarissa asked one morning while they were having breakfast before work. "Could you tell me about your Captain? What is he like?"

Marietta hesitated, looking up at her. Then she frowned, thinking about it. "He's quiet," she then said. "Supportive. Nice. Firm when he has to be. Kind of indulgent lot of the time… mostly quiet these days."

"Indulgent?" Clarissa asked.

"Back where – back there," Marietta said. "You know, where we're a real crew, everything's so different there. Everyone is always so excited. It's like we have the space to be… more than we can be here, you know? We can just spread out and be. And Potter is like… he's indulgent with us. He lets us be."

"So… he isn't excited," Clarissa concluded with a slight frown.

Marietta considered that for a moment. "I reckon he gets more than enough excitement elsewhere," she then said. "He's mostly just quiet there. Peaceful, I guess. And I think he likes that."

Clarissa though about the boy – younger than Marietta – walking stiff and yet oddly worn down between the two professors, as they took him back to where ever their society kept their heroes when they weren't needed.

She wondered quietly just how much weight was on that boy's shoulders.

"I think I really want to see this ship of yours," Clarissa mused.

Marietta smiled brightly. "I really want you to see it too, Mum. It's beyond anything."

That following week, the crew started finally filling the store up.

The Weasley twins set up a frankly flamboyant shelf full of all sorts of joke candies and goodies. Not all of them were space themed, though. Weightless Wedges were the main attraction and there were Spacewalk Suckers too, but most were more traditional joke stuff – things that turned you into a bird, fake wands, and so on. Clarissa had a feeling that many young shoppers would come by checking the shelf, before summer holidays ended.

The twins also brought in a box of shirts and robes made of strangely thick fabric. They had space themed images – one t-shirt was like a opening into space itself, the image printed on it was so life like. They set up a rack for the clothes and suggested that Clarissa should switch to using the Enterprise robes.

"They're protective," Fred explained, testing the robe material between his fingers. "It's lined with small amounts of gold and silver, so they're spell resistant. It's a bit heavy maybe, but I think we'd all like it if you wore them."

Sweet Merlin, they even lined their clothes with gold.

Clarissa stared at the robes. They were gaudy in a weirdly artistic way. Image of a purple and red galaxy was plastered all over the robes. They were… kind of tacky.

"Could I get a set with just the Milkyway as seen from Earth?" she asked hopefully and Fred grinned widely.

She got her new robes the next day – a mostly black spotted with stars, with the Milkyway starting from the hem in the back, running around to the front and ending just at the shoulder. It was still kind of tacky. But it wasn't as bad as the full galaxy one.

They were heavy though, heaviest set of robes she'd ever worn.

"You don't wear robes like these," Clarissa noted to Lee Jordan, who brought some random space themed knickknacks to the store – glass spheres, solar system models, extremely accurate models of the planets…

"We wear armour," he shrugged. "And our robes are similar – just bit more high tech."

"High tech," Clarissa repeated, confused.

Jordan shrugged. "They need an actual power source. Can't exactly sell those here."

So, the shop filled out. Someone brought in selection of moving pictures taken from space – there was even a poster of the same picture Granger had shown Clarissa of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. It joined Lieutenant Lovegood's painting on the wall, and they worked fairly well together. The posters, Clarissa found, would also be merchandise.

Soon, the shop started to look like an actual shop, with all sorts of products on display. It still wasn't open though – there was still a "To Be Opened Soon" sign in the front, even though the display windows were now stocked with goodies and everything was priced accordingly.

Clarissa did the pricing herself. She was probably too lenient with it, but at least her prices were more realistic than what the kids would've priced things with. She was starting to finally belief their often repeated mutterings of money being nuisance – they'd pretty much lost all understanding of how much things were worth.

They wanted to sell their gold lined robes for sickles.

"Do you know how easy it is for us to make these things?" George asked. "It takes literally a push of a button."

"I can imagine, but if we sell our products for basically nothing, either people will be suspicious and never buy anything… or we'll have a empty shop in no time. And this isn't really a shop at all, is it?" Clarissa asked pointedly.

"Yeah, but still," Fred muttered, folding his arms. "We make these things to make people safe. That doesn't really work if no one buys them."

Clarissa gave them a look and then looked at the robes. "This is a novelty shop," she then said. "We sell novelty things. What people buy here, they're probably not going to wear day to day. Especially not since we're plastering the stars all over our clothes. Besides… they're all cut like Hogwarts robes and that's not exactly pinnacle of fashion."

The boys pouted a bit at that, their shoulders slumping. "I guess we'll have to wait until the school year starts. The girls are better with the design of stuff," George muttered.

Clarissa shook her head. "Or you could just make cloaks. Cloaks are easy and pretty much all look the same, and most everyone wears them," she said. "And don't put the galaxy on them. I know it's pretty, but no one is going to wear a thing with the galaxy on it from day to day."

As the shop got more and more finished, it started attracting more and more curious customers.

The muggleborns were easy to recognise – because they recognized the sign and it was pretty much always the first thing they commented on.

"I didn't think any wizards even knew what Star Trek is," a young woman said with a grin.

"Most don't," Clarissa answered with a grin – though she wasn't so sure. All the statistic always said that muggleborns were a very small minority in magical world, but Clarissa was starting to feel like those statistic were ever so slightly skewed.

At least everyone agreed on the fact that half-bloods made the bulk of wizarding population. They certainly made bulk of the Enterprise's prospective customers. The Enterprise's sign beckoned them to the door in and Clarissa welcomed them in and then she chatted with them about muggle science fiction and space and occasionally star trek though she could remember very little off it.

It took a few experiments before she got sly enough about asking about their employment status without seeming too obvious.

"I'm kind of between jobs," one answered with a shrug.

"I do little this and that when ever I can," said another.

"I'm thinking about looking into some simple jobs in the muggle world," said a third.

It was pretty much the same story with all of them. Some of them were bitter, lot of them were resigned – none of them were blind to the reasons. If they'd had jobs in the magical world, they'd been fairly recently let off and replaced by a pureblood.

Ministry's new, more traditional stand towards employments was insidiously spreading through the whole magical world. It was carried away on the wings of the Prophet, which had, in Granger's words, became nothing but propaganda lately.

"I mean, I do understand where Fudge is coming from," Granger said. "He's an idiot, but he became the minister for a reason. He's in a shaky position and so he's doing what he can to stay in that position. And right now, the safest bet he has… is with the people with money."

The purebloods, who were starting to push the traditional values agenda again. They were quietly cleaning the Ministry from those who didn't fit their agenda, and that view was spreading and Clarissa saw it on the face of every customer she had – the older the customer, the clearer the understanding.

It was like going back in time, only last time she'd been lucky enough to still be too young – she'd still been in Hogwarts when the purebloods had started gaining power, and still close enough to her parents to stay with them for most of the war. Now… things were different now.

And to think she'd believed the Ministry about what they'd been telling every since Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore had told the world that the Dark Lord was back.

With her eyes opened to that, though, they opened to other things too – things she'd been wilfully blind to for a while. There were lot of things she'd gotten terribly wrong about magic and the mundane – and she thought, grimly, that perhaps she'd been meant to.

"I mean, I thought I couldn't get telly or anything, magic would just make them blow up," one half blood said. "It was just something I got at my dad's place – he's a muggle, he has all the muggle things. But then I heard about how some crazy wizard squatting at a muggle's place, and apparently the place was just fine, so I thought, why not try it. So I did. I got a whole thing now, I got a whole movie set up at home. And it works fine."

"It does?" Clarissa asked with surprise.

"Yeah, I haven't had any trouble," the wizard said and shrugged. "I can even fix them with a reparo and everything, and it's good as new. Better even."

It was probably Hogwarts that taught them that magic and electronics didn't mix, Clarissa realised later. In Hogwarts electronics didn't work, not even something as simple as a muggle radio, and so the students learned that muggle technology and magic just did not mix and carried that lesson with them to adulthood.

Later, while out and about shopping for a new telly in the muggle world, Clarissa wondered if it was a coincidental side effect of Hogwarts wards – or if it was intentional addition to them.

She wasn't sure which was worse.

Chapter Text

Clarissa looked up as the door opened and closed at the heels of a customer. "I'm sorry, we're not open yet," she greeted them, as she always did, and then froze.

Lucius Malfoy stood on the welcoming mat – which welcomed him with a "Boldly Come!" Dressed in impressive robes with a cane in his hand, he looked around with a sort of displeased interest that made Clarissa's stomach turn.

"So this is the new establishment," the man said, tapping his cane somehow impatiently against the floorboards. He eyed the racks of space splattered robes and the photographs and posters on display, his eye rested on the galaxy model for a moment, a single eye brow arching before he turned his eyes to the shelves full of knickknacks. "An astronomy store. Hm."

Clarissa straightened her back a little as he turned to her. She forced a smile. "I'm sorry, sir," she said. "We're not open yet."

"Who are you?" he demanded to know.

"My name is Clarissa Edgecombe, I work here."

"Where are your masters?"

Clarissa clenched her teeth at that for a moment. It was the way he said it – like he was talking to a house elf. The Weasley Twins were in the back, working on the Vanishing Cabinet – Lee was at the ship. Harry Potter… who even knew.

"I'm afraid the owners aren't here, sir," Clarissa said and held her ground against his frown. "I can take a message if you have something to relate to them."

"Hm," Malfoy answered, looking her up and down in her Milkyway robe and then looking away, at the store again. "No need," he said and scoffed. "An astronomy store. We already have one on Diagon Alley. This one… I don't expect it to stay in business for long."

He whirled around then, robes billowing has he turned to leave. "Good day, madam," he said, and left. The welcoming mat bid him "Boldly Go!" fittingly enough.

Clarissa sat back down slowly and took few slow breaths to calm her rapidly beating heart.

He had no idea, not the faintest suspicion, she thought faintly. It worked. The shop worked.

It still took her a long time to calm down enough to get up again to lock the door and head back to inform the Weasleys about their recent most customer.

"Clarissa, just in time!" George exclaimed when she entered the room and grabbed her by the shoulders, drawing her closer to the cabinet that dominated the room. "We fixed it! It works!"

The cabinet's doors were flung wide open and inside – no, on the other side – there stood Fred Weasley, waving at her through the cabinet. From Hogwarts.

"You fixed it," Clarissa repeated. "It works."

"It works!" George agreed and threw a coin through the cabinet. Fred caught it in Hogwarts and then threw it back, before stepping through himself.

"It took some doing, but it works now," Fred said with a wide grin. "Honestly thought, the hardest thing we had to do was figuring out how to hide it in Hogwarts, seeing as we can't really put it in the ship – and it's just too damned awkward to hide it in the Room and then have to step out again and bring up another door and so on, it's just too much of a hassle. So, we twiddled a bit in Hogwarts to hide the cabinet just across the Room."

"The room?" Clarissa asked.

"The Room of Requirement – it's how we get to the ship," George said. "It took some doing – it wasn’t enough just to make it invisible, after all – but we got it done."

Clarissa swallowed a little at that. They shared information so freely with her now. It was both heartening and utterly terrifying.

"Now we're just waiting for the Captain and Hermione to hash out the details of everything," Fred said and clapped Clarissa on the shoulder. "We've almost nailed out most of the points, but the hiring standards are still bit up in the air. Once they settle on it… we'll start hiring."

Clarissa nodded slowly, staring at the Cabinet. "And what are we hiring them for?" she asked slowly. "Just to join you on the ship?"

"Hm… Not exactly," George said and eyed her. "It's bit bigger than just the ship. I mean, sure, on the ship too. But it's the whole thing that's the, well. The thing."

"DSF," Clarissa said.

"Yeah," Fred said and smiled. "It's going to be so much bigger than just the one ship, you know. It already is. Hermione can tell you more once they're done. Before that though…"

"Do you want to see D.S.S. Requirement?" George asked, grinning excitedly.

Clarissa's eyes widened and she stared at the cabinet. Across from it, in Hogwarts, she could see nothing but a blank wall.

See the ship. The cabinet was fixed now – she could go to the ship, now, and see what this all was about! She could see… see what had changed her daughter so much.

"I'd… like Marietta to take me?" she more asked than stated.

"Let's call her then," Fred nodded and tapped the command stone under the label of his robes.

"Um," Clarissa said to George while Fred informed the crew that the Vanishing Cabinets were finished and the way to the ship was clear. "Lucius Malfoy just came by. He looked around a bit in the shop and left. I think he bought the appearance."

George's eyebrows lifted. "Didn't say anything about the muggle stuff?"

"I don't think he realised there was muggle stuff," Clarissa admitted. There wasn't that much in the store – just some random novelty items, few Star Trek and Star Wars themed cups and such. "He didn't look around that closely."

George nodded slowly, thinking about it. "Good," he said after a moment and smiled. "We thought about putting up some Notice Me Not charms, you know. Thing about those though, they're damn noticeable when you know how to look for them. It's good to know we managed to camouflage everything just right."

"Aren't you worried about him?" Clarissa asked. She certainly was.

"It's shop owned by a half-blood and bunch of blood traitors – of course they're going to check it out. They'll probably keep an eye on the place," George said and shrugged. "We have ways around that one, though."

"Oh?" Clarissa asked.

George grinned. "You noticed that the store is… a bit long, yeah?"

Clarissa considered the floor plan. It was the store front, a long corridor leading to the big office, and rooms on each side of the corridor. It was, now that she thought about it, a bit long.

"It goes almost all the way through to the muggle side," George said. "There's a shop there too. And we own it."

Clarissa stared at him. "You… do?"

"Mm-hmm," George said and rocked on the balls of his feet smugly. "Old hair salon. Hermione's parents bought it just the other week – they're going to turn it to a private dentist clinic."

Clarissa stared. "Ms. Granger's parents?" she asked faintly.

"Muggles," George said and looked at the cabinet. "We haven't brought them in yet because, things being the way they are… it's just not too safe. The place is being renovated right now – during it, we'll crack a wall between us and them."

Oh. That was… "So, people going to the ship aren't going to come through Diagon Alley at all?" Clarissa asked. "They're going to come through from the muggle side?"

"Hermione's idea. She figured it would be safer that way. We still need a presence in this side – this is the side we can recruit from, after all, and we need to do business here too. But yeah, it's safer if we don't have suddenly huge influx of people coming to the Enterprise and never leaving," George said. "Bit less suspicious."

Clarissa nodded at that. It made sense. She'd never even thought about it. "I didn't realise this wasn't the only place the DSF owns," she admitted slowly.

George grinned. "We own six, actually. This is the only one we've been working on for now, there's just not enough people yet, but eventually we'll have places open elsewhere too. Hopefully by then we have direct way to the ship, and won't have to use Hogwarts anymore."

Clarissa swallowed. And just when she'd thought she had the scope of this thing nailed down…

Marietta arrived not much after that, and she wasn't the only one. Hermione Granger arrived too, with her ever present book in hand, muggle pen at the ready.

"Ms. Edgecombe," Granger greeted her with a smile which only widened as she saw Clarissa's new robes. "You're looking well, ma'am."

"Thank you Ms. Granger," Clarissa said, giving her obviously excited daughter a brief hug.

"Fred, George," Granger greeted the twins, looking at the cabinet. "I really thought it would take you longer than this."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Fred said with a sniff. "Really warms my heart that does."

Granger just shook her head at that. "You secured the cabinet on the other side?"

"Invisible, imbedded in the wall, covered in all sorts of charms, yadda yadda," George said with another sniff. "We were going to hide it in an actual room, but rooms are easy find and easy to break into. Walls are bit more inconspicuous."

"We need to hide on this side too," Granger said. "If someone gets into the shop they have direct access to Hogwarts."

"We're gong to ward the room, and once Requirement has another break, we're going to conjure a Cloak for the cabinet here," George said and folded his arms. "For now, I'm going to stay here, cover your backs."

"Commander Granger," Fred said, stepping back with on overly stiff salute. "You're cleared for transport, sir!"

Granger rolled her eyes. "Thank you, Lieutenant," she said and looked at Clarissa and Marietta. "You two ready to go?"

"Yes!" Marietta said excitedly, clutching onto her mother's hand. "Come on, let's go."

Clarissa hesitated. She kind of wanted to ask if it was really safe, if it was wise, what if something went wrong… but these kids had been doing this for weeks, for months probably. And her daughter had been there with them the whole way.

So instead she took a deep breath and nodded. "We're ready."

They stepped into the Vanishing Cabinet, and then through it.

It was rather anticlimactic emerging on the quiet Hogwarts corridor. Clarissa looked around, trying to reign in her nerves, as she looked up and down along the corridor – but there was no one there. It was weird, being there again – it had been so long since she'd been a Hogwarts student, but something of the castle always stayed with you.

It felt strangely like coming back home. It also felt a little like breaking and entering. She was fairly certain that were they caught here, it wouldn't be good for any of them.

And for some reason she suddenly found herself wondering, just who owned Hogwarts?

"Hold on for a moment," Granger said and then paced back and forth a couple of times while Fred Weasley cast a couple of spells at the corridor, checking it for people. Marietta leaned closer to Clarissa.

"You'll love this, Mum," she promised. "I swear, it's so amazing. There's nothing like it."

Clarissa swallowed and nodded, holding onto her hand as she breathed in almost forgotten but so familiar scent of the castle and tried to calm down.

Then, a door opened on the wall behind Ms. Granger.

And Marietta was right.

It was beyond anything.

The ship, Ms. Granger told her, had been named D.S.S. Requirement, after the original defence club they'd had. "It stood in the beginning for Dumbledore's Space Ship, because we were the Dumbledore's Army," Granger said. "But that might have some unfortunate connotations for the future, so it stands for Defence Space Ship now, and we are the DSF, the Defence Space Force. It's a little more neutral."

"Very neutral," Clarissa agreed. She'd been watching Star Trek with her daughter lately, and prefix of USS Enterprise stood for United Space Ship, which tied it to the Federation it came from. D.S.S. and DSF weren't tied to anything but the concept of Defence.

They could be coming from anywhere, from anyone.

She pointed that out to them.

"We thought about it, later," Marietta said. "About making it Wizarding Space Ship or Magical Space Ship. Or even tying it to UK. HMSS had a nice ring."

"I was the one who suggested Wondrous Wizarding Wessel, but I was shot down," Fred said with a sigh.  

"But chances are that some point in the future we'll run into muggles in space," Granger said. "Or even aliens. The fact that this ship exists is big proof that they're out there. Having that sort of tie back home… cause problems. So we decided that neutral was better."

Clarissa didn't answer. She was too busy staring out of the window of the corridor they were standing on.

There, right at their left side, floated an enormous blue expanse of a planet. It glowed against the darkness, vast and overwhelming and unspeakably beautiful. And right in front of them there was a semi skeletal structure of… something metallic, floating in space. It was big, even at this distance she could tell it must be at least several hundred feet in length.

As she watched, light flashed here and there on the structure – adding in on it.

"It's so far along already?" Marietta asked with surprise, stepping closer to the window.

"Not that far along actually – we ran into couple of problems which are slowing it down a bit," Granger said with a sign.

"Yeah, turns out the conjuration we have here isn't actually designed for big construction and constant work," Fred agreed. "It has to stop every eight hours to vent the excess heat. Which worked in the end fine, since during the heat venting we can use the conjurator for smaller projects – like conjuring stuff for the shop – but yeah. It's going a bit slower than we hoped."

"You mean – you're making that thing?" Clarissa asked, pointing at the thing. "What is it?"

"Space station," Granger said with a proud smile. "And a mining platform. We're hoping to finish it by the time summer holidays end."

"You're… you're making a space station," Clarissa said, and then it finally caught up with her.

They were on a space ship.

They were on a space ship.

"We're on a space ship," Clarissa said out loud, her voice very small.

"Yeah, Mum, we are," Marietta said and squeezed her hand. "Welcome to D.S.S. Requirement."

-

Clarissa was almost relieved by the time they headed back, through the magical door way and then the invisible, hidden Vanishing Cabinet and finally back to the Enterprise. Her knees were still shaking after the tour she'd been given on the ship, during which she'd seen… a lot of things she had no way of putting into words.

Things like what looked like quarter of Hogwarts Library. More furniture from Hogwarts than she could easily count. The mysterious conjurator which was source of all the Requirement's crew's wealth. Star charts and command centre and actual armoury and the power core and – and it was just a little too much.

"So, what do you think?" Marietta asked nervously, when they headed back home, the shop having been locked for the rest of the day – the twins were now transporting materials bought from Diagon Alley back to the ship where they could be duplicated with the conjurator eventually.

"I…" Clarissa started and then stopped, unsure. "It was amazing," she then admitted, staring at the command stone she'd been given. She could now communicate with everyone in the crew. She could even call Harry Potter himself, if she needed to. It was amazing.

It was also much bigger than she'd feared.

It was all starting to make sense now. It had always been so big, bigger than it had any reasonable right to be. The wealth, these kids, their incredible, terrifying plans… it was actually bigger than any of it.

The crew, Clarissa was starting to realise, probably didn't even realise how big it really was.

They had access to not only to space itself, but the tools to build an infrastructure of… of something huge. Something truly enormous. A wizarding space agency, Ms. Granger had said, but oh boy, was that not ever all of it.

They had near unlimited resources with their ability to mine planets and asteroids and moons. They had unlimited capabilities thanks to the conjurator and what Clarissa understood were the building plans of highly advanced alien race. That alone was a heady mix – but at the base of it all… they had muggleborns and half-bloods.

They had an enormous group of currently malcontent magicals, who she knew would grab a chance like this with both hands.

With this, the crew could – and inevitably would – build an empire.

They were building infrastructure – soon, they'd start screening and hiring crewmembers, who'd be quickly drawn into this truly alien culture the current crewmembers were already subsumed into. There'd be people, Clarissa already knew, who would want to live on the ship, or on the station, who'd want to leave earth behind. Magical world hadn't been kind to a lot of muggleborns – they'd be happy to leave it behind.

And then they'd have their DSF. They'd have their space force. And then, like Ms. Granger had said, there'd be muggles. Who were doing space exploration of their own.

It was the dream and nightmare of lot of muggleborns and half-bloods – the day the Magical and Non-magical would finally meet. It was coming, they all knew it – muggle technology would see to it. But Clarissa knew now – it wouldn't happen on ground.

It would happen in space. DSF would drag them all into a new era.

And they probably didn't even realise it right now.

Clarissa laughed and ran a hand through her hair. No wonder George hadn't been worried about Lucius Malfoy. Compared to all of this, Dark Lords and Dark Wizards seemed such a small concern.

Still, there'd be opposition. When the truth behind it all would break out, and the magical world – and the Ministry – would find out about space and the DSF, there'd be opposition. There'd probably be some very soon anyway, just because of who owned the store and who manned it – blood traitors and half bloods and muggleborns. The Ministry and the likes of Lucius Malfoy would start pushing back, even before they would know what they were pushing against.

Clarissa looked at her daughter, shining brighter than ever after their brief stint into space – brief visit to what Clarissa realised was going to be her daughter's life's work. Marietta was… she was a spaceborn now, same as everyone else in the crew. And maybe because of that, she couldn't see what was really happening, couldn't see what she and her crew represented.

They were beautiful and the traditionalist wizards would come after them, it was only matter of time.

And when they did, they'd have to go through Clarissa first.