Tuesday, July 8th, 2014. 8:05 AM.
Grimmauld Place, Borough of Islington, London, UK
Seven people and one house-elf were congregated in the Potter kitchen. Oh, and also one very security-minded folder representing The Ministry of Magic bureaucracy. All of the adults were short on sleep, and the two children were obliviously working on their own projects. The house-elf, delighted to be showing off in front of company, was producing breakfast food at a rate that made a Horn of Plenty look like a piker. Oh, and M.O.M. File was waiting for someone with a modicum of sense to open it. Hopefully it would be Kreacher.
The kitchen was not crowded at all, due to an Undetectable Extension Charm that had been built into it, sometime in the 1800's. The table had even stretched, giving Albus and Lily space to work without crowding the grown-ups. The Protean Printer was rapidly coming into final shape, with the Eastendalondon Pixies swarming around, over, and inside the magimachine. (Albus and Kreacher finally realized how badly Ginny had fooled them. They took it as well as could be expected).
Rolf and Luna were currently down at that end, getting acquainted with the clan. Albus was providing a running translation, while Luna examined a cooperative, but very ticklish, Missy Typewright. Rolf had headphones on while two other pixies spoke into the horn of what appeared to be an old Victrola. They were Herbert and Bertram, whom Ginny had met in passing the other night. They were hamming it up, posturing and orating. Rolf just kept listening and adjusting, rolling his hand at them occasionally to keep the flow coming.
Harry speared the last sausage link on his plate, waving off Kreacher's attempt to refill the empty space. He chewed, and finally swallowed, smothering what could have been an impressive burp. He and Kreacher grinned at each other.
Harry straightened the pile of notes he had been going through, looked up and spoke.
"People, just keep on with what you are doing, eating or drawing or... that." He waved a 'whatever' hand at the Scamanders and Albus. We've got some more people coming, and I don't want to start anything that might have to be repeated. Viktor, are you doing okay?"
Victor looked like a waxwork of Harry that had been left out in the sun. His nose was halfway to the proud beak it should have been, his brow was beetling, and his posture was hunching slightly.
"Da," he said, stolidly plowing through his third plate of breakfast, while catching Kreacher's delighted eye, and motioning for a fourth. No quitter he, apparently. "I haf nefer known Polyjuice to last this long, though. Who vas the maker?"
Harry nodded. "Best of the best. Not any real secret, though. Professor Slughorn has an exclusive, (and very profitable), contract to produce this supercharged recipe for the Auror's Office. Which," he added, glowering at a certain someone, "...my dear wife was not supposed to have access to...,"
"Six brothers," Ginny said airily. "You want to hide stuff from me, you're going to have to do a lot better than that."
"...nor was she supposed to be able to bypass my security." Harry finished.
Ginny snorted. "Right. Security. You'd do better to have M.O.M. File guard your stuff! Speaking of whom..."
Kreacher raised his hand eagerly. Upon getting a nod, he went to where the folder was lying on the table. Seraphically, he intoned, "Ya-dah, Ya-dah, Ya-dah!"
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"BETTER AND BETTER, KREACHER OLD CHUM. YOU'RE REALLY GETTING THE HANG OF THIS HOLE-AND-CORNER BUSINESS."
Kreacher waved it away modestly. The folder opened until it was flat on the table, then stretched, bringing its spine up off the surface for a moment. It then closed back until its talking surface was at a proper angle for conversation.
"STILL A FEW MISSING, HUH? NO WORRIES, I'M SURE WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. NOT. HEY, GINNY! HEY, LUNA! HEY, KIDS!" This last was projected in the air at the other end of the table.
"M.O.M. File!" they all chorused.
"No greetings for the menfolk, I see," Harry grinned.
"AH, BITE ME, COLONEL DYSLEXIA." (I've been promoted, Harry thought). "NINETY PERCENT OF THE ERRORS I HAVE TO FIX COME FROM FIFTY PERCENT OF THE STAFF. CARE TO GUESS THE COMMON FACTOR?"
"Nope!"
There wa a gentle knock at the front door, up in the hallway. Well, for Hagrid it was a 'gentle knock.' The house, on the other hand, dug in its support pillars, and refused to be moved back.
Lily darted up the stairs, and returned, holding Rose and Hugo Granger-Weasley by the hands. Rose immediately got stuck in with Albus, while Hugo was tempted away by the plate of breakfast Kreacher waved under his freckled pug nose. He was joined almost immediately by his father, who was given a bigger plate.
Hermione tsked as she came down the steps from the hall, "Boys, you just finished a perfectly good breakfast." As she looked away, Ron and Hugo exchanged a glance that almost audibly said, 'Bleh,' and went back to eating.
The Undetectable Extension Charm smoothly and easily modified the room, and it was going fine. Until there was a massive footfall outside the door, and Hagrid bent over and peeked in.
The room went very still. Not the people, the room. Then, the Undetectable Extension Charm took a deep breath, rolled up its sleeves, spit on its hands, and got to work.
Hagrid walked in upright through the suddenly large door, and made for what was obviously his spot. A section of the table had widened a good bit, and there was a Hagrid-sized chair sitting next to it. The floor had sunk evenly over the area under the chair and table, letting Hagrid scoot up and be at exactly the right height. This also put him at a better position to join any conversations without looming. The plate of breakfast that slid in front of him was the size of a manhole cover, and piled high.
Hagrid grinned almost as wide as Ronnie the Ghoul, (but with much less frightening teeth), and tucked in.
Behind Hagrid had been the Robins. Demelza and Nienna had gone unnoticed by everyone but Kreacher. The others were slightly surprised to find them in their midst, quietly eating.
Harry stood up. "That's everyone," he said. "Keep eating folks. Rolf and Luna, Ron, if you could join us?"
The three moved to take seats at the adult end of the table, Ron bringing his breakfast plate, and giving Kreacher a meaningful glance. Harry took a moment to cast an Imperturbable Charm between the adults and the children. He then continued, "Kreacher, could you call Clan Chief Typewright to represent his people in this?"
Seconds later the flat-capped, leather apron-wearing creature was standing in a formal position on Kreacher's shoulder. He was lightly holding on to the base of the house-elf's ear to steady himself.
Harry nodded. "M.O.M. File, if you would do the Notification, please?"
An enlarged view of the folder's cover appeared at one end of the room. On it, in bold red caps, was:
THE-INFORMATION-YOU-ARE-ABOUT-TO-RECEIVE-IS-SENSITIVE-AND-MAY-ONLY-BE-DISCUSSED-WITH-THE-OFFICER-(AND/OR-OFFICERS)-PROVIDING-SAID-INFORMATION-PURSUANT-TO-MINISTRY-OF-MAGIC-RULE-YADDA-YADDA-YADDA.
"Yadda-Yadda-Yadda," everyone repeated solemnly. The image disappeared.
"Good," Harry said. "I'm going to call this a Council of War. There's no better term, because I believe we are at war, whether we know it or not." He looked around the table grimly, "And I believe we are losing."
"We are going to take reports from everyone involved. We are going to get all of us on the same page, hopefully figure out what is going on, and try to formulate a plan of action."
"We will all have a lot of questions. Save them until the end, unless you have a crucial need for clarification, or crucial information the briefer is missing."
He closed his eyes for a moment, bone-tired, and drew the back of his hand across his forehead. No pain from the scar, he thought. Well, at least there's that.
Feeling a little better, he spoke. "We Aurors will go first."
