Not So Friendly Fire

Selwyn listened to the explanation in silence, resisting the temptation to interject with witticisms as this was a grave moment if only because Audriana still had access to the house.

"I know you probably don't like to be reminded but if you'll allow me to exercise my suspicious mind for a moment, Mike, from what you've said this doesn't sound like she was intending to poison him at all," Selwyn said.

"Oh! I've no doubt she administered the poison, but I don't think she intended to kill Robert," he added quickly, before the other man could object.  "Think, there are half a dozen spells that can kill a man in seconds besides the killing curse.  Poisoners are half-hoping their victim won't die."

"Furthermore, don't you think it's awfully convenient that her 'attempt'" - here Selwyn flexed his fingers to indicate what he thought of that - "was 'thwarted'" - another pair of quotes - "by a Death Eater?"

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Sewlyn as he spoke, considering the possibility that the other man might be right. In the end, though, he knew that he wouldn't even put it past her to decide on something but then have a rather terrible plan. It wasn't the first time she had tried to convince people to do something a bit absurd and without any real assurances that it would work.

"I can't say I'm surprised, actually," Oliver returned. "As far as I know - and we do have Ben in there to keep an eye on things - the vampire has no qualms with Robert or the Ministry at this point. If they made some law that Muggles were all invited in to visit or something, then they would undoubtedly have some problems. But then, so would I. We don't need the conflict that would bring. So at this point, it seems far more likely that she really did mean it.

"After all," he added with a darker frown, "she's been against Robert specifically from the start. That's what created our divide, to say the least. She wanted to go after him, and apparently she just decided to take matters into her own hands. She's never been the best at figuring out every step of her plans, though, as we've seen. She probably assumed they didn't know her or just forgot that she should have done something to hide who she was. The woman just doesn't plan things all the way through. Which, really, is ridiculous given her past."

The Weasley-Potter cousins entered looking fairly rejuvenated and it made Alice narrow her eyes and consider that her coffee still wasn’t yet strong enough. Victoire and James had been having a cousin night and had been in the midst of eating sweets and playing video games when the call had been made. They were in their pyjamas, too, and were grateful for the offer of a hot drink which the other blonde which relinquished into the air upon seeing them.

James accepted the cup with a grateful smile and took a seat next to his cousin whom Alice offered a mug of hot chocolate. Victoire’s hands clasped around it and she thanked Alice before taking a sip. Sitting down herself on the other side of James with a cup of tea for Ollie when he was ready for it, Alice brought her own to her mouth and watched as the narrative of their being there was gifted to them.

Alice’s brows furrowed and she glanced at Ollie as he spoke, not quite able to believe that Audriana – the woman who had been kind-looking albeit a little bit brusque in her manner – could have done what Michael was suggesting she had done. If Ollie believed her, then it must’ve been the case. James looked a little bit bemused.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit of a leap?” He inquired tartly. “She was anti the Minister therefore she must have tried to kill him. That’s a bit dramatic.”

“How can you be sure it was her?” Alice asked softly, setting down her cup. “I don’t mean to suggest you’re not telling the truth but, to be blunt, do you have any hard proof that it was Audriana that did it?”

Victoire, however, was unimpressed. “In what capacity are we meant to care about this aside from the fact that we’re now being, once again, threatened by the Death Eaters? I hardly think you and the Lupins have the right to call yourselves Order members anymore. So, she attempted to assassinate the Minister – well, we’re not Aurors.”

James passed a mild look in his cousin’s direction and Alice lowered her eyes studiously, ignoring the glare that Victoire put to both of them.

“No, I mean it.” Victoire insisted. “Aud has put us in a sticky situation for the Death Eaters. That’s the bottom line. So that’s the issue. If we’re here, meant to be worried about it, then what are the Death Eaters intending on doing that is so dire? Hm?”

Oh, how things had changed. Michael saw clearly that the Order had become very little more than a social clique for those who would only verbalize what they believed in.  Not aurors? Obviously.  In the not so recent past, the Order fighters could best any auror Michael ever knew.  These were children who hated a wake up call.


He looked with contempt at the blond woman.  "You don't have to believe me. Nor do you need to care.  Go back to bed, then. Its all good, apparently.  But for the record, I've been with the Order since its outset--longer than you've been alive. Membership rules have never required me to be in good social standing. You can all just..." The tea kettle interrupted him with a shrill whistle. He took it off the heat and slammed the kettle onto a cold spot on the stove. "Take the news however you like.  You will anyway. Never mind, then. I'll kill Swan myself."


He turned and headed out of the kitchen. The way it was looking, he'd been an Order member since before they were born, and he'd likely still be in the Order long after they were gone. They, most certainly, didn't have much time before the Death Eaters would be hunting trouble--lots of it.

He understood the idea of being cautious. That made sense. But after seeing what Audriana had suggested before, how was he the only one who could figure out that it really and truly did make sense. Some of these people hadn't been at the meeting where Audriana essentially laid out her aims, which made it harder. Before he could comment on it, however, Michael left the room.

Oliver turned a hardened gaze on the group still there, including Alice, unfortunately, before lifting an eyebrow to show just how unimpressed he was. "I don't know if it's just ignorance, or if you lot just haven't been at meetings enough to have discovered her character. But she has a reputation for acting without thinking. I don't particularly care if I wasn't around to find out exactly why the Lupins stopped attending meetings. None of you saw him when he came in, and none of you seem to understand that several people saw her and identified her. She openly claimed it was from the Order as a whole.

"I wouldn't have called anyone here if I didn't believe him. Angry Death Eaters are obviously a problem, and that's something worth preparing for. But now I have to go convince Robert to arrest her instead of killing her. Provided I can get to them before they've found her and done her in. She deserves to be questioned and locked away.

"So how about next time we consider the fact that he wouldn't have shown up here unless it was important. Do we want to actually decide what to do about the Death Eaters or how to find Swan? Or should I just go?"

“Oh calm down,” Jamie found himself saying before he could help himself.

Two pairs of eyes turned to him and the Potter man blanched, realising he’d just brought this all on himself, turned the attention to him, and now they would be expecting an answer – which Jamie wasn’t entirely sure he had for them. Victoire had sniffed affectedly at Michael, apparently now too prim to care for his temper when her own had flared. Alice’s presumably good-natured question, earnestly desirous of seeing the best in people, had been shot down in flames and now it seemed all cool had been entirely lost. Jamie was hardly now the sort of man to sort that out. Yet, here he was.

“The fact of the matter is that we were not told that so yes, I’d say it would be ignorance that these comments stem from,” James bit back, finding his strength as he got to his feet. For a moment, he looked almost like a leader again. If you squinted, you could imagine the Weasley next to him with a shock of red hair and if you narrowed your eyes just a touch more you could almost say she was Ginny and it was a few hundred years before – or, at least, it felt like that – and she was alive, just, and James was … well, their hope. He’d been a lot of people’s hopes. The list of people he’d let down was equally as long.

“Justice is not really high on the list at this moment in time, is it?” James retorted against the better judgement of the voice at the back of his head telling him to sit down and shut up. “He’ll beat us to it because killing her is a better motivation for finding her than sparing her the green end of a wand. No, let him do the hard work. Put a couple of people on his trail and once he finds her, interrupt and pick her up before he gets to carry out his task.”

“Ollie,” Alice endeavoured, setting down her cup, but James overrode any chance of her mitigating the situation or, heaven forbid, trying to apologise for her part in the blonde double-act that drove out Tremaine.

“Look,” James tempered, holding out his hands, palms down, fingers splayed. “The Death Eaters aren’t very creative, vampire at the helm or not – Minister’s ear or not. If Tremaine told you anything about what he thinks they will do then it’s probably best to tell us all now. If they’re coming here then we should either make a stand or take what’s useful and scatter. If they’re going to wait and creep up then we have time to prepare. But if you want to go, by all means,” James gestured to the door, “run off.”

Selwyn leaned back in his chair.

"Victoire needs to learn to guard her mouth, but Mike needs to learn to rein in his temper.  And we all need to stop generalising," he said.

"You really think he's going to try to kill her?"

The chair legs struck the floor with a crack.  Bloody Michael and his bloody... well, Selwyn didn't know what it was, but he'd have guessed either Unbreakable Vow or Blood Bonds to the Lupin Line.

"Yes, if he'll really try to kill her, you need to stop him! Don't worry about Audriana, find her later if we keep her alive now."

"Besides, I was at her meetings, we definitely need to question her.  But don't let Michael do it.  Don't let any of the Lupins do it.  Get someone who has an iota of self control."

Oliver didn't always see eye to eye with Selwyn, but in this case, it seemed like they were on the same page - or at least closer to it than usual. James had clearly either misunderstood what Oliver meant, or didn't care to accept what the author was trying to get at. He glanced at Alice, feeling a bit guilty for being on the opposite side of the argument. It clearly wasn't going to stop him now that he had gotten worked up over it, though. This was something that they needed to handle, whether James liked it or not, and if Oliver was meant to be some sort of leader among them, he couldn't just back down when he was so certain that it needed to be done.

"I sincerely hope you aren't intentionally twisting my words, Potter," he returned, lifting his chin in a bizarre (for him, anyways) show of attempted leadership. He wasn't about to turn over control to someone who clearly didn't know what was happening within the group.

"That isn't at all what I meant, and you know it. If we aren't going to get anywhere with this meeting, I intend to head straight to the Minister, or even to the Deputy Minister if that's the only person I can reach at this hour. I'm aware that you aren't quite caught up on things, but I'm nothing if not persistent. This will be seen through."

Looking to Selwyn, Oliver nodded. "Once we have some clue as to where she is, undoubtedly we will have to figure out the best way to get truthful answers. I think it's safe to say you've seen how inconsistent she is," he added, offering a sigh of exasperation. "We need to maintain some sort of control over the situation. If we aren't the ones keeping track of her, Merlin knows they might not bother getting answers. Michael was utterly furious when he came in. Accusing the lot of us of going against the Minister. This isn't some game, and it was clearly life-threatening. Near-death experiences don't endear someone to you, so I can't say I blame them for being angry. It won't help anyone, though, to act so suddenly, and merely out of anger."

"I put my money on Bentley What's-his-name. That's the one she was sharing the spotlight with at her little party," Selwyn said.


"He's come into money, hasn't he?  Could finance her get-away, maybe even all the way out of the country." 

"Otherwise, I know some... shall we say, witches of ill repute... who could let me know if she turns up in Knockturn or somewhere."

"What would be really nice would be if we had some of her blood.  I suppose it would be too much to hope Aud would be into needlework, though?" he finished.

Hazel knew that she had to show up on that order meeting but dhe couldn't bring her little sister with her. The so called grandma was busy today with her own bithrday things and she had no time to watch after Aqua. So Hazel had to find a babysitter which she after few calls found.

When the babysitter arrived she did teleport or so herself for order meeting place. She knew she was late today. So she really wasn't sure what exactly was going on here right now. She tried to stay unnoticed. Not to draw much attention to herself. Before she says anything she wants to be sure what is going on here. She tried to listen everyone words carefully. She hoped that she won't be scolded because of being late.