Not So Friendly Fire

Something twisted painfully in James’ gut as his surname was levelled at him like a curse or something to feel guilty for possessing. He opened his mouth, determined to reply, when the door opened. In ducked a young woman a handful of years younger than himself – he was sure he recognised her. It allowed for a few moments to collect himself and James stood back, his fingers poised on the table top, listening as Selwyn chipped in. Victoire stiffened beside her cousin but said no more, apparently too unimpressed with the rebuke from Oliver to really acknowledge the consolation that she wasn’t entirely at fault – though James mentally rolled his eyes and conceded quietly to himself that she probably was.

James could only stare, utterly bamboozled as to why he wasn’t being listened to. He wasn’t dumbstruck out of a misplaced belief that he should be listened to – rather, he felt he was offering a fair suggestion of what their best course of action was. He blinked, shock letting his lips part and his brows furrow over his flashing, irritable hazel eyes. He swallowed, forcing down the bile of resentment that was bubbling up within him. He glanced at Victoire, whose lips had pinched into a look of incredulity. Alice’s gaze was studiously lowered and James felt a stab of anger in regards to the younger blonde.

“Tremaine is Robert’s man,” James replied finally, mulling over his words in the sardonic hope of not twisting Oliver’s. He’d decided that he wasn’t going to address that. Clearly there was ink in Connolly’s ears so he could think whatever he wanted. James wasn’t interested in that. He was more interested in making sure his house stayed standing and the Order intact within it. “That same man accused us tonight of near-murdering his master and your big solution to that is to walk into the Ministry and beg the pardon the Minister we’ve been accused of going against or, worse, his lapdog who’ll make you his B**** and bleed you clean of everything you have in return for helping you? You had better have a good bargaining chip for Krum when you go to him, otherwise our faces will be on wanted posters next to Swan’s by the morning.”

Alice stiffened considerably and James glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, barely turning his head before flicking his eyes back to Oliver.

“He’s going to try to kill her. That’s what I meant by the justice comment.” He clarified tartly. “Dead, we get no answers, but if we go after him I’m certain we’ll find her. He’s the better of us all when it comes to finding people so if we track him then we get Swan. That’s what I’m saying. If she’s difficult to find because she’s so inconsistent then let the pro do his work and we’ll follow him.” James licked his lips as he tried to order his thoughts and decide what was best to do next. “If you’re going to the Ministry then who are you taking with you as backup? We’re clearly not going to see eye to eye in any of this but I’m damned if you’re going alone into that rat’s nest.”

Part of James wanted to see Oliver’s arse kicked for no other reason than because he was irritated with him but he could swallow that feeling and be a little bit straight-forward about it. There was no sense in letting him go alone – regardless of how thorough he was and regardless of how annoyed James was.

“Maybe ask the witches anyway?” James suggested hesitantly, glancing at Oliver. “If Tremaine turns out to be all bluster, we’ll need eyes everywhere, really.”

Oliver nearly had to sit down when James spoke again, if only from sheer exasperation. As much as he wanted to cut in, he figured that it would probably be better to just let the man say his piece before moving in to reply. It was surprising that Selwyn suspected Ben had anything to do with it, but that wasn't nearly as surprising as compared to Potter's assumptions about him.

"Let's see," he began finally, feigning as though he was actually considering just passing over what James had thrown at him. In truth, he felt bad for Hazel, knowing that she had just walked into a mess. He offered a slight greeting nod in her direction before turning back and getting into what he really wanted to say.

"Now, it's entirely possible that you're being purposefully obtuse, but I seriously hope that isn't the case. The justice comment, as you called it, was not what I was referring to. But explain all you like. As for Michael, I should probably say again that he knows next to nothing about her. Out of all of us, Selwyn is probably the only person, besides myself, who has even a guess at where she is. Michael won't find her any time soon. But you are more than welcome to be the dog assigned to sniffing out Michael's trail. Be my guest.

"Until then, I'm not exactly worried about talking to them. Krum would be less help, and besides, Michael wouldn't have run straight off to find her while Robert is ill. That much is plain. If he's been back to see the Minister, it's more likely than not that he has explained, and I won't find myself murdered the instant I walk through the door. If they're not hospitable, then I absolutely have the best bargaining chip in that I have the most information about her. If they need to find her, at this point I'll be more aware of what's happening than her own husband, so let's not pretend they will wipe out the person with leverage. If they try anything shady, I can just keep the parts I know to myself. If anything, they should be glad I'm dropping by.

"If they refuse to work with us, I have no qualms about searching for her myself. But until then, we need someone with more resources, who will agree to let us retain control of questioning provided I give them the information they might need."

Shaking his head, Oliver just sighed and ran a hand over his face. "I don't care what you do, James. Search for her yourself, if you so wish. Just let me alone to take care of this. After that's done, we'll figure out the next step."

"Nope," Selwyn interjected of a sudden.

"While I agree about them taking Xenia seriously, that family wasn't named Lupin after Remus.  They're a real pack of wolves and we've seen before how rabidly they react to threats.

"You should take someone with you, not only because it'll be easier to persuade them with someone to back you up.  It gives you a witness.  There's a reason Aurors are always walking around in pairs but people like Tremaine work alone."

"And I already have some thoughts about next steps," he added.  "If Audriana's really gone rogue we need to set up protection for everyone's families, just for starters."

Teddy was late, but it was for what he considered to be a very valid reason. He had, of course, heard about the attempt on Robert's life. He had been one of the first notified as he was family. He knew an Order meeting would follow, and he knew what that meant. A lot of bickering over word usage, a lot of complaints, a lot of discussing what role the Order had in society without any results. But this attacks struck close to home, closer than he wanted and much closer than he felt comfortable handling with the allies he had accrued. He needed the help of someone rogue, someone who had proven to him that they were willing to act.

He stepped into the meeting room, looking pale and shaken. His eyes immediately found James - the brother that had ceased to be. He had heard nothing from James or Albus, and Lily had not been responding to his letters. Just a few years ago, Teddy had celebrated how, by losing his parents, he had gained a family. Now, he didn't have them. Didn't have a single part of them.

His throat ran a little dry when he saw Victoire. She had always had the effect on him, but it had only gotten more and more unpleasant. He wanted to chalk it up to the veela blood. He really, really did.

He glanced towards Oliver and Michael - Michael, a friend, a trusted ally. "Hello everyone. Sorry, I'm late. I..." No one expected or wanted a speech, but they were going to get one. "I've heard. I know what happened. And I've asked for a little help. If that's all right."

He glanced behind him. A familiar voice called, "Is that enough suspense for you, Ted?"

Teddy closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. "Please, just-"

Jack Dyllan stepped into the room, the room which had once been her domain. She cast an eye around and pointed - "Who cleaned the wallpaper? I couldn't do it, I was always rotten at housekeeping spells. It looks loads better-"

"Jack," Teddy said. The redhead sighed, and the remains of her once carefree, joker self subsided in lieu of the tired-old-soldier look she had adopted over the past few years. "Right," she said, clicking her tongue as she looked over the crowd. All fairly familiar, really, some more so than she would have preferred. Selwyn - the cheeky bastard. One of those guys you appreciated up until you spoke to him. And Michael, always someone she had trusted, even when she was uncertain about the Lupins. James, who had once upon a time been a best friend as well as a teammate.

Yep, this made this all the more awkward.

"Teddy said you might need some help taking some people in," Jack said. "I 'left'-" she air-quoted here, since the transition had never been made official "the Order so I could do what needed to be done without making anyone compromise our mission statement. I'm here to help."

Passing Selwyn a resigned look, Oliver sighed but deflated a bit. Regardless of whether they were on the same side or not, there was no guarantee that Robert or Eli - or even Michael when Oliver saw him next - would entirely believe that he had nothing to do with it. That the Order as a whole had nothing to do with what Audriana had caused. He was about to ask who was interested in popping over with him - Oliver certainly had his top two in mind - when the new arrivals stopped him.

He wasn't especially surprised to see Teddy, though it wasn't as though the author knew him well. But it was awkward timing, if only because he has opened his mouth and been surprised. Were they meant to ask who he had requested help from? Oliver had his own path for the rest of the night - well, day actually, given the time - and didn't really want to waste time. It wouldn't look very good if he showed up the next afternoon claiming to have no idea it was happening. That practically shouted 'untrustworthy,' and he knew it. If he was going to ask for help and offer his own, there was little time to waste.

Jack's entrance did surprise him somewhat, if only because he hadn't seen her in so long. A brief flicker of curiosity as to what Ariel was doing right then passed by him, but he waved it away mentally and tried to at least appear like he was paying attention.

"Brilliant," he put in finally, giving each a nod. "Needless to say we're glad to see both of you. To sort of play catch-up for a moment here, I'm heading off to try and speak to the Minister about detaining Swan for questioning after she's been found - instead of killing her like Michael claims he took off to do. James wants to follow Michael, so if that's us your alley, feel free to join him.

"Selwyn," he added, "are you up for a trip to the Ministry? I think we can give a good account of how she's been acting during the past few meetings since I think you were pretty wary of her as well. If not, maybe you'd want to, Jack? I'm sure you've interacted with the Minister more than I have.

"Also, if anyone is feeling iffy about both of those, we really should get the word out. Warn anyone who couldn't make the meeting, get protection out as was suggested, that sort of thing. Safety is the first priority, then comes finding her. I think it's clear that, if the Aurors aren't able to find her, we've got less of a shot. So let's warn folks before we try and send everyone on a - pardon the pun - witch hunt."

Either one would be helpful, Oliver was sure, but his only real hope was that they could come to a conclusion before he became so exhausted that he just wanted a break - and a rest - before trying again. It felt wrong to be selfish in that sense, particularly when everyone he had been talking to or arguing with for the past half hour could be in danger. He especially didn't like the idea of either of his flatmates taking a hit because he decided he wanted a nap. There just wasn't time. Taking up his wand from where he had set it on the nearby coffee table, Oliver glanced between the two of them and hoped for a quick decision.

Needless to say, Selwyn wasn't delighted to see both of them.  Or even either of them. 

In another situation, maybe he'd be happier to see Jack, but the girl - woman? He already had a problem with that distinction - simply couldn't handle not being in charge of anything.  And from the way she was acting, she was going to try her damnedest to take over here.

He considered making a fuss over her return.  Air quotes around the word left.  As though she never really been gone.  And doing what needed to be done.  What needed to be done? That was Jack all right.  Making herself feel better by alluding to adventures noone else had knowledge of.  It pissed Selwyn right off.

Just one problem, and that was that he'd been gone too.  Three years away would make him look the right hypocrite if he accused her, no matter how justified his reasoning.  This left him positively seething at the antics of their two newest arrivals.

"What needed to be done," he repeated. "What did need to be done?"

That was not a fuss.  Just an enquiry.  A totally legitimate, reasonable enquiry, too, considering how blatantly she'd dropped the hint.

Oliver's feelings were obviously completely different than his own, but there Selwyn could hardly fault him.  Anyone who'd had the number of people jumping down their throat as Oliver had in the past few minutes would look for friends anywhere.

"Certainly," he replied to Oliver's question, "I used to room with Krum, too, if that helps at all."

She was glad Ollie seemed to glad to have her around. Their relationship had become drastically different since Hogwarts, where they had been causal buddies when Ariel forced them all to hang out - neither had ever been particularly keen on breaking out of social circles, after all. But it had worried her for a long time that she might walk in completely unwelcome. She had left. Regardless if people believed that she kept tabs on the information, she had. It sucked that work and family and her own little projects had taken precedence. Mostly, she had just sort of... lost hope. Being involved in the Order was a duty, yes, but it should have returned some sense of peace or certainty that she was making a difference. When it stopped giving her that feeling, she had backed off.

Well, she had duties elsewhere.

Selwyn. Of course. The boy who had never really liked anyone. And if he did claim he liked someone, or was at least indifferent to him, he would jump at any occasion to criticize. She wouldn't delve into the reasons - she figured it couldn't be that deep of a reason. Probably some own self dissatisfaction. Criticism didn't hurt all that much when it came out of a need for superiority. She wouldn't sweat it - it wasn't like had lost a fan.

"I started a club," she said, sounding cheerful regardless of the strained grimace on her face. "We have some special projects. I can invite you to the audit, but I do have privacy reasons. There's a reason this isn't my must trusted network anymore - you can appreciate my wariness, I hope." She glanced around at anyone else. "No offense."

Freakin' duh. She would have run it through the Order if she thought it was worth it. They just... didn't get anything done. The Knight's Watch was too fragile a system to be made into polite conversation.

"Selwyn's got Ministry, I can help with Michael," Jack said, nodding at James. "I think I have some weight with him."

"If you knew about Audriana and you didn't tell anyone...  I wouldn't want to be you, Jack," Selwyn's voice was low.

"I especially wouldn't want to be you in front of Michael Tremaine.  This isn't the Room of Requirement, so how about you just tell us what all the cloak and dagger is about?"

Sometimes Selwyn thought it was a hard line to tread, being him.  He wondered if everyone had a line of their very own, or if he just beat himself up over nothing, or if one day, he'd have the courage to take it too far...

Courage, loss of control, they were the same thing. Look at Jack, she did it all the time.

Right now, though, was no time to be anything but controlled.  People thought veela were basically walking amormentia.  If you didn't live with it every day, perhaps you simply didn't realise how many different things were caught up in that thing people called love.

Not that Selwyn wanted Jack falling in love with him.  She intimidated him, for starters, so having her as a stalker would be really inconvenient. No, he wouldn't influence her that much, probably she wouldn't be susceptible to that anyway.

Affection. That was the trick.  He'd heard it could be done. The old veela would sit in a darkened room drinking thick, black coffee or absinthe in the evenings, and talking rapidly in the bastardised French of the veela clans.  And when you brought them their next drink, they'd stare hard at you until you finished serving, but if you were fast, you'd catch a sentence or two of the conversation, so Selwyn knew it was possible.  And at least he wouldn't feel like a fücking predator for doing it.  There was nothing wrong with making someone like you, was there?

Jack slowly turned her head towards Selwyn. He was so bent on finding her looking idiotic that he was missing basic facts. She let out a sigh and jerked her thumb towards Teddy. "Do you think I just jumped at the opportunity for an apparition date with moony here? Or do you think, maybe, he gave me the information? Trust me, if I knew about this ahead of time, Swan would be more than a little grouchy with me. We can schedule a coffee date if you want to further investigate."

This was why she didn't do the Order anymore. People like Selwyn get so stuck on settling some unknown score that nothing got done.

She sighed. "Very simply put, Michael's my friend. Banking on that to help our situation."

She glanced to Ollie, hoping she wasn't the only one who thought this meeting was being derailed, a bit.

"So, we gather intel from the Ministry, keep Swan alive, track her down... then what? Are we holding her here? Putting her on trial?" Jack wanted to make sure she knew the plan.

Oliver had to physically restrain himself from reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose when the bickering started again. Why did he actually think his council idea would actually work? The people attending his meetings seemed determined to send his plans in every direction other than the intended one, and it wasn't as though it was just one or two people doing so. He was new, Oliver understood that. He had not earned respect, and perhaps he never would. But when no-one else had been around, Oliver had stepped up, and if they couldn't handle that, they could take it up with him at some other time. He was seriously lacking the patience for it. They had been arguing for what must have been half an hour now, and yet it felt as though they were no nearer reaching a solution or an end to their meeting. How much longer was he expected to wait for them to accept that they had a plan and stop trying to change it?

Jack, Oliver felt, had a bit of an excuse. Not the 'I grew up with her, kind of so it's cool,' excuse, or anything like Alice's 'well, I'm dating Oliver so I can get away with things' ordeal. Mind, neither of them seemed quick to jump to such reasoning, so he had no reason to worry on either of those fronts. Jack had, however, missed the start of the meeting. So there was that, if nothing else.

"If a trial feels suitable, then by all means. Questioning if nothing else. Azkaban is absolutely on my radar at this point, if not at the front of my mind. If I'm being quite honest, though, I don't doubt that it will take some time to find her. That gives us plenty of time to figure exactly how to deal with it. We can vote on it if that makes it any better. But right now, it's nearing three a.m., the majority of us haven't actually made it to bed yet - or it seems so, given how irritable we all are - and we really need to get a move on. Those of us expected to work tomorrow, by all means go home and get some rest," Oliver requested, his gaze landing on Alice for a moment. "I won't ask that you give up your previous engagements. But anything you feel you can do to help, have at it. Just... do try not to get into any fights with Death Eaters if you don't think you can take them. The last thing we need is for more of us to get into trouble."

Turning to look at Selwyn again, he added, "Time to go, you think? Better to get there before everyone takes off."