The Ministry of Magic's Atrium had ceased to be a place of orderly business. It had become, in the space of a single morning, something closer to a marketplace mid-riot with overlapping voices and colliding bodies pressed against bodies.
"Dumbledore. Has anyone seen Dumbledore?"
A wizard who appeared to be from Uagadou with deep indigo robes, his Quick-Quotes Quill already scribbling furiously of its own accord above his shoulder stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck toward a colleague positioned nearer to the lift corridor, shouting to be heard over the general noise.
"Harry Potter is standing trial—there's no way Hogwarts' headmaster won't show his face. If we could get an interview beforehand! Even two minutes—"
"And Bryan Watson!"
The name rose from several parts of the crowd at once, as though multiple people had reached the same thought from different directions at the same moment.
"Word is he'll attend the hearing and speak in Potter's defense—has anyone spotted him yet? Tall, young, grey haired, purple eyed—someone must have seen him come in—"
"Breaking news! Breaking news!"
A lift descended into the corridor with a mechanical hum and spewed a dozen reporters who scattered in all directions like startled birds, each one already talking before they had fully cleared the car.
"From Senior Undersecretary Umbridge herself—she has announced that the Wizengamot will today hear charges against Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley for violations of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy, concurrent with the full interrogation of Harry Potter!"
Boom—
It was as though a charge of tremendous force had detonated somewhere in the center of the Atrium. The already-frenzied crowd surged and screamed as one—reporters who had been loudly excited a moment ago went red-eyed with uncontrolled frenzy.
"Who are Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley?"
One wizard—evidently unfamiliar with the tournament drama that had consumed European wizarding circles for the past year shouted the question into the chaos, and earned himself a quantity of contemptuous looks from surrounding colleagues that he appeared not to notice.
"Hermione Granger was Hogwarts' second champion in the Triwizard Tournament," a helpful bystander supplied, raising her voice over the noise. "Ron Weasley is the assistant she selected for the final task—and as for his family name, he is quite clearly of the Weasleys. One of the Sacred Twenty-Eight."
"This is a full-blown political conflict!"
A Daily Prophet correspondent shrieked with excitement.
"The Ministry has declared all-out war on Hogwarts! Dumbledore on one side, Fudge and Umbridge on the other—and Watson somewhere in the middle making everyone nervous! Can they hold the line? Merlin's beard, I cannot wait to see how this hearing ends!"
Albus Dumbledore. Bryan Watson. Cornelius Fudge. Dolores Umbridge. Harry Potter. Hermione Granger. Ron Weasley.
Seven names were cycling through the Atrium in every possible combination.
Invisible beneath the Disillusionment Charm, Lawrence was being steered through the crush of crowd by Bryan's hand on his arm.
Around him, the reporters' excitement was impossible to ignore and the thought struck him, with a small, startled jolt, that the wizarding world apparently had journalists too.
He listened as the people around him called out names—famous names, clearly—and these were the ones repeated most often.
The lifts in the corridor had all but ground to a halt. The reporters, in the concentrated urgency of their purpose, had surged against the call-box with such force that someone had torn it clean off the wall.
"This isn't going to work."
Bryan's voice was quiet and close, directed just at Lawrence.
Every time a lift car arrived and the gilded lattice slid open, the reporters at the front compressed and surged as one solid mass, and there was simply no gap to slip through.
After a moment's thought, Bryan shook a wand from his sleeve and gave it a flick. A silver serpent streaked away and vanished into the lift shaft.
"I've sent for someone to help—just a moment."
Lawrence could not see Bryan's face, but he gave a tense, careful nod. He swallowed.
He had believed himself thoroughly prepared—had steeled himself to witness extraordinary things. And yet now, confronted with the reality of the wizarding world, he found himself plunged into a stupefaction beyond anything he could have anticipated.
It had never quite occurred to him that hidden in plain sight, threaded through the very world he thought he knew with reasonable thoroughness after decades of living in it, there existed a community of this scale. People in their thousands, possessed of abilities that operated on entirely different principles from anything he had encountered. A government. A press. A set of political factions currently at each other's throats over the fate of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Nor had it occurred to him that young Master Watson—here, in this world—commanded a standing of such weight and consequence. More fearsome, even, than his Lordship's own formidable reputation in London's commercial circles.
Some ten minutes passed. Then, without particular announcement, several lifts descended simultaneously, and a large contingent of Aurors in stern formation surged out of the cars into the corridor.
They spread out in a trained line, and with considerably more authority than gentleness, began shoving and herding every reporter back from the corridor entrance, establishing a solid cordon at the Fountain of Magical Brethren.
"Let's go—" Bryan's hand tightened briefly on Lawrence's arm. "Headmaster Dumbledore should be in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement by now. We want Level Two, underground."
The Aurors had not detected Bryan and Lawrence beneath the Disillusionment Charm. Their attention was fixed on the cordon, where they stood in tense standoff against the loudly-protesting press. Bryan seized the moment and led Lawrence into a lift.
Phew—
The doors slid shut, and Lawrence let out a long, shuddering breath, dabbing repeatedly at the sweat on his temples.
Bryan let the charm fade from himself. His pale violet eyes found Lawrence—still Disillusioned and he smiled faintly.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Bryan said. "The wizarding world."
"Fascinating." Lawrence repeated the word back to him with a smile that carried rather a lot in it. "Forgive my frankness, Young Master Watson—it has been nothing short of astonishing. I half-believe I've been transported to another planet entirely and simply haven't been informed of the fact."
"Ha-ha—" Bryan gave a soft laugh. "On a normal day it wouldn't be anything like this. The Atrium is usually rather calmer. But you know how it is—word got out that there was a spectacle to be had, and spectacles draw crowds in any world."
Lawrence shook his head slowly.
A spectacle. That was one word for it. He raised his eyes toward Bryan's face, and what he found there did not entirely put him at ease.
He raised his eyes with worry written plainly across his face.
"I heard one of those reporters say that the Ministry putting Vernon's nephew and his friends on trial is a political conflict," Lawrence said.
He pressed his lips together; they had gone quite dry. "If things cannot be resolved through the proper process….is there a genuine chance of... of bloodshed?"
"I shouldn't think so, Lawrence."
Bryan's smile was mild, his voice soft—and yet beneath those soft words ran a current of something steely and unyielding.
"But someone is certainly going to come off very badly."
Ding—
"Level Two. Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, the Auror Headquarters, and the Wizengamot Administration Services."
The cold recorded voice finished its announcement, and the gilded lattice gate slid slowly open. Bryan took hold of Lawrence's arm and stepped out of the car.
"Ah—Headmaster Dumbledore—"
The moment he cleared the lift, Bryan turned and found Dumbledore standing in the corridor outside the lobby, facing toward the lifts.
Dumbledore still wore his black travelling cloak. His silver hair and beard were slightly disheveled, and exhaustion was stamped unmistakably across his face showing the look of a man who had not slept the night.
At the sight of Bryan, Dumbledore crossed to him quickly. He gave Bryan only the briefest nod before his bright blue gaze settled on Lawrence, and he allowed an expression of precisely calibrated surprise to cross his face.
"And this gentleman is—"
Though old, Lawrence's instincts were sharp. He understood at once that the figure before him must be the Albus Dumbledore whose name had been on the reporters' lips—the one aligned with Bryan's cause.
Lawrence's breath caught. He was not a man easily overawed—in his life he had moved among no shortage of the powerful and the great. And yet before this elderly wizard, whose years clearly dwarfed his own, Lawrence felt a pressure of an entirely different order settle over him.
Those eyes of Dumbledore's were extraordinary—a gaze with the quality of light passing through deep water, as though it could see straight through to the soul.
"Termalie Lawrence—"
The old butler drew himself up and spoke carefully.
"It is a great honor to meet you, Headmaster Dumbledore."
"Ah—and the pleasure is mine, Mr. Lawrence."
"I imagine this has all been something of a surprise. I hope we have not caused you too much alarm."
"It has been a considerable shock, I'll admit—though I am doing my best to adapt."
He drew himself very straight and swallowed, once.
Dumbledore gave a gentle chuckle, then looked across to Bryan.
"Lawrence witnessed certain events," Bryan said, his expression composed and easy. "Events connected to the cases involving Harry, Hermione, and Ron."
"Is that so?"
Dumbledore said this softly. His brows lifted slightly updating his understanding of the situation.
"Forgive my curiosity, Bryan—but how did you come to find Mr. Lawrence?"
"It's a long story." Bryan shook his head.
"To put it simply: Lawrence is a friend of mine from the Muggle world. After he witnessed what he witnessed, he wrote to me of his own accord—at that point he still had no knowledge that I was a wizard.
It was out of a kind of unease that motivated him, a sense that something was wrong that he could not quite account for. He set it all down in a letter and sent it to me. I followed the thread, and gradually came to understand the whole of what had happened."
Lawrence listened to this account and said nothing.
"I see..."
Dumbledore shook his head, exhaling slowly. Bryan had spoken in bare, measured terms—but it was quite enough for Dumbledore to piece together the essential truth of the matter.
One hardly knew whether to call it Cornelius' extraordinary misfortune or Harry's extraordinary luck.
That the Ministry's careful, sordid maneuvering brought together with such attention to leaving no witnesses, no loose threads—have been witnessed by an acquaintance of Bryan Watson, of all the people in all the world.
"And so today, you intend to—"
Dumbledore began, his expression settling into something grave and restrained.
"I trust you've spoken with Fudge again, Headmaster?"
Bryan's question was quiet and leisurely, cutting across Dumbledore's unfinished sentence.
A brief, weighted silence settled in the corridor. When Dumbledore spoke again, he seemed, in some way that was not entirely physical, older than he had a moment ago.
"Cornelius insists on installing his Undersecretary at Hogwarts as Deputy Headmistress. He demands an immediate and complete halt to the training currently taking place at the school. And furthermore..."
Dumbledore exhaled once more, heavily, and Bryan finished the sentence for him with an easy smile.
"And furthermore, that I be expelled from Hogwarts. So then—" Bryan regarded Dumbledore calmly. "What do you imagine I intend to do?"
"All the same, I would still hope that the transition might be managed as... gently as possible." Dumbledore's voice was careful, each word placed with gentleness. "For the sake of—"
"But they have committed serious violations of the law, haven't they?"
Bryan's gaze shifted sideways, toward the lift shaft—the gilded lattice, and the dark column of space beyond it.
Through the metalwork came the deep, resonant thrum of approaching cars from above, and with it, rising slowly through the background noise of the building, a warmth of magical signatures that Bryan clearly recognized: Harry. Hermione. Ron.
And behind them, the signatures of several members of the Order of the Phoenix.
He watched the lattice for a moment longer.
"Let's go, Headmaster Dumbledore." Bryan's voice had gone soft, silky and final. "It is time to bring this to a close."
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