Fish and Chips and Broken Glass

It was lunch. Just lunch. Well, it was actually probably technically supper not quite 24 hours overdue. He had missed dinner last night because after Robert left the Ministry, he'd put in an all nighter at St. Mungos, swilled a cup of lousy tea on the way back to the Ministry, and had missed breakfast. It was now after 2, and he had decided he definitely was overdue for food.

So, he'd slipped away for some decent pub grub. One of his favorites was still good old fashioned fish and chips, and the Leaky was one of his favorite places for it. It had a lot of nostalgia for him. He had a lot of good memories about friends, pints, and fish and chips.

It was too early for a pint, really, as good as it sounded. So he had settled for a very unsatisfying cup of tea with the fish and chips, at a table not far from the fire. He wanted to ward off the winter cold. He glanced at the copies of the various newspapers left lying about by previous patrons. More swill. Swill and balderdash. Lord, was no one interested in not sensationalizing everything? He hated the newspapers' needs to speculate, gossip, and just plain lie. Anybody paranoid was sure to get worse.

"Should I have wrapped your fish in it, then?" Tom, the bartender, asked Robert, refilling his tea.

"Nah," Robert sighed. "It would be a perfect waste of some lovely fish." Tom laughed and headed back to the bar. Robert wadded up the newspapers and used his wand to flick them into the fire and land them straight into the center of the blaze.

Kingsley did not quite enjoy the quiet life. A long time ago he would have cherished such opportunities, but now he found that when he had little to do his mind would drift back to old memories. Past regrets. Lately he had taken to using a penseive, to deal with some of the worst memories. But he found that the best way to deal with it was to keep his mind occupied.

So, mostly for company, Shacklebolt had lately spent quite a lot of time every day at the Leaky Cauldron. Now that he was not wanted by the ministry, people seemed to be treating him as a hero once again, and were quite eager to talk to him. Today, however, it seemed quite empty at first glance. Shacklebolt did, however, see someone quite unexpected. “Robert?” he said aloud, as he walked towards him. “Haven’t seen you for some time.” That was true, anyway, Kingsley had only returned four months ago. Prior to that he had kept a low profile to avoid the marriage law.

"Kingsley," Robert was pleased to see an old friend. "Good to see you. Please--join me. I was just setting all the tabloids on fire." He glanced at his fish and chips and grinned. "Says a lot about a man when he gets hungry enough that fish and chips sounds gourmet, doesn't it? Can I order you something?"

Shacklebolt was someone that the Lupin brothers had always trusted, even when life had not treated Shacklebolt so kindly. Robert also knew that Khaat had a warm spot for Shacklebolt like few others. Robert approved.

He rather wished Shacklebolt had been around to assist him when Gideon Pierce had infiltrated the Ministry. He wished, too, that Kingsley had been around when Robert himself had been cursed and had nearly died from an attempt on his life. It had been a time when there were few people who truly understood exactly how dark the dark arts could get.

Robert wore the scars of the past year mostly on the inside. The only residue of the trechery against him now was that he was thinner. Quite a bit. He'd spent enough time to tone up, but any trace of a middle age spread was long gone.

He was sincerely hoping Shacklebolt was staying awhile this time. Robert was looking for people he knew still stood for the greater good and not necessarily for their own personal agenda.

Kingsley had not just been absent to avoid the marriage law. Few people, not even Robert, knew much about his personal life. But from time to time, Kingsley did have to attend those matters, and that was why he had been absent. He did not feel like telling Robert about this now, though.

“A butterbeer would be nice,” said Kingsley graciously. It was cold outside and he could have used a firewhiskey, but Kingsley did not drink much these days and it was too early anyway. “How have you been? Lot going on in the Ministry these days. It’s nice to see you alive and well.” He was referring to the incident with Pierce of course, but also to the recent accident in the Department of Mysteries. Robert clearly had his hands full, and Kingsley did plan to help. “I bumped into Lucius Malfoy on my way here, and he seemed to be under the impression that you orchestrated this whole accident and happenings with the muggles.” Shacklebolt snorted at that, but paused there in silence, clearly waiting for Robert to give him more information. Kingsley had never trusted the Daily Prophet.

Robert ordered the butterbeer for Shacklebolt.  

"Malfoy's a twit," Robert rolled his eyes. "Malfoy's always been a twit--but you know that.  I orchestrated no such thing with the muggles.  The only thing I honestly admit to doing is making sure that Gideon Pierce could no longer lie, steal, cheat and murder any more of our people.  And I will charge him with murder when I catch him--along with violating just about every other wizarding law on our books."  

Robert wasn't going to deliberately get into the year of hellish torture that Pierce's curse had caused him.  It haunted Robert, and he didn't wish to subject what that had been truly like to anyone.  Besides, Shacklebolt surely understood hell.  Understood what it was like. For Robert to discuss it, it was too much like preaching to the choir and completely unnecessary.  

The bartender brought the tankard of butterbeer for Shacklebolt, and Robert nodded for them to simply add it onto his own tab. The bartender warmed up Roberts tea and left.

"Kingsley," Robert said, "Pierce was responsible for cursing Thaor Elldir--and that was what caused Thaor to cast a curse on me, and caused Thaor later to kill himself.  Pierce is as responsible for Thaor's death as if he directly killed him himself. I've done some research on Pierce's family.  Seems his father was into some odd sorts of dark magic. Weird elemental stuff.  For all I know, Gideon's been perhaps playing with Daddy's spellbooks and buggaring things up. Elemental magic is not my specialty.  But something has certainly upset the balance between our world and the muggles.

"The only thing I can really tell you about the accident is that someone broke a mirror in the Department of Mysteries. A mirror that was specifically entrusted to the Department by Albus Dumbledore. Now, you and I both know that Dumbledore would not have stored an ordinary mirror, himself, in the Department of Mysteries.  What its significance was, and what might have happened as a result of its being broken--I surely do wish Dumbledore could tell us.

"You have skills I just will never have.  If there's anything you can do to help us unravel this, I would definitely welcome it," he said.

Kingsley didn’t of course believe anything Lucius Malfoy said. In any case, it was rather obvious that the Ministry wasn’t behind it. Robert probably held pro-muggle views, Kingsley had discerned that from the few times they had conversed on the subject, but he was too smart to try to engineer a merging of wizard and muggle world. Kingsley was sure that Robert had probably ordered the unspeakables to work double time to fix their little mess. Nevertheless, Kingsley was glad to get more information.

“Pierce,” Kingsley repeated. The name rang a bell, but he had never paid much attention to the man. “Sad to hear about Elldir.” Kingsley had not known Elldir that well either, but knew that he had been a rather torn individual. In either case he didn’t deserve that fate.

He drank the butterbeer. Kingsley was not feeling particularly hungry and Robert’s Fish and Chips didn’t look that appetizing anyway.

“A mirror…” Now that was interesting. Why would Dumbledore engineer such a magical device? And what was its purpose? When did he make it? Kingsley did not know the answers. He had, after all, only known Dumbledore for a short time. When he had first met him the man was already 100s. Who knew what he had done when he was young. Yet, not a day went past that Kingsley didn’t wish Dumbledore was still alive. “Well from what I can tell, it seems like Dumbledore sealed some type of undiscovered magic inside the mirror, and the unspeakables seem to have released and spread it,” Kingsley said thoughtfully.

"My concern about the muggles is that suddenly we've got folks that know there's a whole other world, and they're starting to get some sort of magical insights without direction or guidance. And that's dangerous. Its virtually putting weaponry into ignorant hands.

"I can't say that I approve of how they got this knowledge or that they're here--or coming. But--I think we'll have a bigger issue if they're running about, confused, untrained, ignorant, no knowledge or control of their abilities, completely shellshocked,....who knows what hell they'll cause?  Seems to me we need to offer them some support and guidance to keep them from buggaring up themselves--or us.  I'd like them not to make a bigger mess than things already are."

He sighed. He had no idea whether this was a temporary business or permanent. "If its temporary, we can obliviate them and they'll go back to normal. If its permanent, I don't see a choice but to try to cure them if we can, or, if we can't, to train them from hurting themselves or anyone else."

"And, then I'll have to deal probably with the Death Eaters, who, I presume, will go mentally off their rails with that whole pureblood supremacy business which, while I understand is important to them, is something I wish they'd stick in some place where the sun does not shine for the moment.

Shacklebolt had brought up valid and critical points about the mirror.  "I've seen the mirror-or what was left of it.  He didn't make it. Its an antique.  Its a Parisian ladies dressing mirror that dates to the Victorian era, from the very late 1800's, maybe as late as approximately 1900, give or take a few years. Its silver, with an unual, elaborate tetradecagon shape, supported by a silver column on each side so that it could sit independently on a dressing table. Each column has a somewhat Doric design, and at the top are these rather unusual jeweled, wired sphere shaped bouquets of moonstones--designed to sort of look like explosions of stars.  And the whole thing is set with hundreds of moonstones and small diamonds.  I can trace one that looks almost exactly like it to the Paris exhibition of 1900, but, I doubt they're the same.

"Its beautiful, yes, but certainly not Dumbledore's tastes.  Its far too early for him to create.  But your theory that he sealed some magic in it is certainly sound.  Why he chose that mirror we may never know.  Except maybe he thought it ostentatious enough that no one would bother with it.  I don't know.  Nevertheless, it does appear they've released something.  And it looks like all of humanity may be better if we can undo the damage somehow.  Hell, we can't even find the pieces of the glass. When the glass broke, the shards of the mirror just disappeared.  Not a one left.  They've just literally disappeared.  It may be that if we can get the pieces back, we can start to put things right.  You're welcome to see the frame of the mirror if you like. I do have a picture of the mirror from the Paris Exposition that looks like the one in the Ministry archives."  He got it out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it and handed it to Shacklebolt.


Antique Ladies Dressing Mirror from the Department of Mysteries (ooc: i included this so you can get a better idea of what Robert's trying to describe)

Spoiler:

“Nothing some obliviators can’t handle I’m sure,” Kingsley said, but not with a lot of confidence. He was experienced enough to know that this could get out of hand quite quickly. “Put a few aurors on it, if you must. I don’t think either the muggle world or the wizarding world are quite ready for each other yet… It hasn’t been long since purebloods tried to enslave the muggle world, it hasn’t even been long since a few of them tried to make muggle hunting legal. I think the muggles lack of knowledge of our world is safer for them, to be honest.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I misheard,” Shacklebolt said, as Robert explained and passed to him a picture of the mirror. It was definitely not something Dumbledore would keep around. “Well, yes, it certainly does not appear to be Dumbledores, but if he had it in his possession, even briefly, he probably knew something about it…” Kingsley murmured, thinking. Robert’s idea seemed like a long shot, but it was worth a try. If anything, at least Shacklebolt would be able to examine the whole thing once it was repaired. “That’s probably the place to start. I assume you have people looking?”

“I’m willing to offer you my full services to mend this situation,” Kingsley added. “And if the death eaters try anything funny, you know I can deal with them too.” He paused, then realized that he might as well apologize for having not been around. “I would have been around before, for what happened… But sometimes you have to take a step back from all of this and look at what’s happening a little closer.” He recalled reading a quote from some muggle. ‘Beware when fighting monsters that you don’t become a monster yourself. When you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.’ “I don’t want to follow Barty Crouch’s footsteps…”

“Speaking of which, there is something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh, I quite agree with you," he told Shacklebolt. "Keeping this from spreading much beyond the borders of England would be preferable. But since I don't know what's causing muggles to suddenly have powers they didn't have before, I don't really know how to stop it. If there is a blessing, it is that I am friends with a good many other of my counterparts in other parts of the world. Hopefully we can put our heads together for some sort of international cooperation on control of this chaos. Maybe."

He took a sip of his tea. The hell with tea. It wasn't what he wanted. "Tom," he called. "Can we make this a toddy, please?"

"Certainly," Tom said, bringing a bottle of firewhiskey over to the table.

"Hold the 'Hot', and just leave me the Toddy," Robert said. Tom just laughed and accio'd a couple of whiskey glasses.

"I wondered how long it would take you. Burning the candle at both ends again, are you?" Tom asked.

"Something like that," Robert said. He poured himself a drink into the glass and put the bottle on the table. He took a sip and looked back at Shacklebolt.

"You know, one of the things that made Dumbledore such a bloody genius was that he always knew far more than he said. And he left clues in the most maddening places. It worked well for him while he was alive, but its just frustrating as hell trying to figure him out sometimes posthumously. I'm doing what I can to see if he left us something to go on. And, right now, I'm hoping he might have left some bits in that pensieve of his. My wife was blessed enough to inherit it from him in his will. And there were a lot of his thought threads still in the waters. However, up to this point, she's found nothing useful."

"My own thoughts are that if it was truly of value, he'd have left some information about it either at Grimmauld or with some of his contemporaries left from the Second war. I don't think he'd have left them at Hogwarts. Towards the end, from what some of Remus's letters to me said, they all seemed to be scattering some of the more important bits about--just in case Voldemort got the upper hand. Its possible there is some cryptic something or another laying about that would help us. But knowing Dumbledore, it will be next to impossible to find--if it exists at all."

"I am certainly grateful for any help you can give. And you're right. Stepping back a bit helps to gain proper perspective," He remembered Barty. Sad business that had been. Him and his son.

"So, what else is on your mind?"