An Unexpected Visit

Oliver should have felt relieved when Alice ran inside, but that just meant he was left alone to make the decision of what to do with this man who now lay across the sidewalk in apparent pain. He narrowed his eyes at the comment about his former house, entirely unsure how the man knew so much about him. Obviously he knew enough to start breaking through the wards, which would have to be changed, and that meant that Rookwood knew more than whatever he had just learned about Alice. Probably about the whole Order, really.

"You're a piece of-"

"Oliver!" A voice called from down the road. Tobias was striding towards them, but when he saw what was happening, he slowed to a stop not far off. "I thought there was a meeting..."

"There is. After we ran into this," Oliver frowned, gesturing towards Rookwood. "And now, he wants to just run away after accosting Alice and myself."

"He sounds hilarious," the captain's chuckle was humorless.

Giving a nudge that was really more of a kick to Rookwood's side, demanding that he get up. "What would be hilarious, though, is the image of their faces if I said I'd let you go. Now get walking before I hex something you care about more than your hand."

It had been awhile. Jack had fallen out of the Order, mostly because she had pretty much given up on any society that happened out in the open, where politics could muddy her vision. And despite how secretive both the Order and the Death Eaters had meant to be, it always seemed their business was out in the air. Good society and recent victories, however, had given Jack the smallest ounces of hope, enough that when a meeting was suddenly called, late at night, she instantly wanted to help. She sent out a Patronus to Kip, alerting him to be on standby should any trouble arise, and apparated to Number 12.

Jack, still dressed in her field clothes, approached quickly, hurrying down the hallway with as much speed and quiet as she could simultaneously muster, ears straining for the sound of voices. She followed them, and immediately upon entering asked, "Ollie?" She came into full view of the room and eyes fell upon the Rookwood patriarch. She knew him well enough, regardless of hos personally. Every long-time Order member knew every long-time Death Eater.

Obviously, humor would probably not help the situation.

"This looks like the beginning of a thrilling Who-dun-It."

Obviously.

She looked back to Oliver. "What's going on?"

Ah, so he wasn’t free to just leave. Augustus clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in dissatisfaction. His marching orders were inside. Handy, in truth, but his desire to go toe to toe with the boy was waning, perhaps because it was much more fun to pray on the innocent and weak than it was to do battle with equals. Only, now Augustus was the weak. Not necessarily innocent, however much he wanted to play that game occasionally.

Bringing him inside, he couldn’t help but feel, was an error. The Rookwood was nothing if not fond of running his mouth off. He was going to end up tempting the Hufflepuff into killing him, if he wasn’t careful. He couldn’t do that – simply because he felt that his side of the family would be poorer for his son being in charge. Moreover, his daughter-in-law’s life would be poorer for it. Not to mention that of his grandsons. So really, he should have thought this one through. But don’t bother feeling sorry for him.

With a nonchalance that simply did not work for the slight strain of the situation, Augustus got to his feet and, hands in pockets, strode up the steps and into Number 12, Grimmauld Place. A wave of nostalgia enveloped him as soon as he did, too. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He could only recall Grimmauld Place in the small of his mind, as though he’d been there once before the Blacks had died out, when he was a child. He was probably wearing long socks then, too.

He doubted it, though. Sincerely. No, this was the sort of nostalgia all purebloods got about old houses. He could sense the hum of magic, latent but lingering in the walls. He lingered in the foyer, waiting for direction and then strode lazily into the living room where he found the furniture bizarrely at odds with the house. But then, anything other than a museum like edge to it would have been out of place. There weren’t nearly enough cobwebs, either.

Dropping himself down leisurely onto the sofa, Augustus spread his arms across the back of it and lifted his feet up onto the coffee table. It gave an unpleasant squeak at the pressure and Augustus rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath about the Order and their inability to properly decorate. It could have at least done with a piano of some kind and a descent suite. But no, they insisted on a drab affair. Lorcan might have been a dirty half-breed but at least he had style – for new money, too.

But, more interestingly, the Order was arriving. The Anderson woman was nowhere to be seen. She was probably crying somewhere, furiously trying to reorder her mind. Augustus was doing the same – reordering, that is. He had a nice little box for Order members, their names and faces. In went her and Connolly. In went the face of the man who had arrived first and in went— Jack Dyllan. Classic. Sometimes, the cast rarely changed. And was that a Potter he spied, lingering by the door? Weasley? Merlin, but which one? Was that the Veela’s one? Augustus had no idea. He wasn’t nearly as obsessed as the Malfoys were with the Weasleys. He’d personally always had more issues with the McLaggens.

“It’s a terribly dull story you wouldn’t even believe,” Augustus waved his hand leisurely through the air as he spoke to the redhead. “I fired a curse, he gave me his blonde, I broke the blonde, he broke my wand, I punched him, he kicked me ... very dry and typical. However! I still got my way and now I’m in your house. I feel as though now … now it’s going to get much more interesting.”

"Fu¢k, fu¢k, fu¢kedy, fu¢k."

There was a crack of apparition from the kitchen, where these meetings were usually held, followed by Selwyn's charming greeting.

"I was in the middle of things, guys."

The makings of a rant was cut off as Selwyn moved through to the parlour and beheld the situation there, though.

"What the fu¢k is he doing here?" he demanded. "Are you all fu¢king insane?"

Selwyn spoke four languages, he usually had more than enough vocabulary to draw upon if he wanted to express himself, but tonight his fury appeared to have reduced him to just one word.

He drew his wand, looking from Oliver to Jack and back again. The mere fact she was there showed nobody really knew who was in charge anymore.

"Either of you say the word. You know it has to be done."

Oliver shot a glare at Augustus's explanation, shaking his head. Turning to Jack, he gave her a look that clearly asked if he ought to just put some sort of silencing charm on the Death Eater. Before he could properly correct the story, others showed up, including the younger Zabini boy, who had only recently asked to join.

Selwyn, however, made Oliver frown darkly. "There will be none of that. Git that he is, he could prove useful."

Oliver sent a second glance in Jack's direction, this time a wary and unamused one. Apparently it didn't matter that she had publicly stepped down during one of the meetings. Or that Oliver had purposefully changed how meetings were run and where they were held to mark the difference. Yet he still met a wall of resistance when he was making a point to prove himself.

Moving past Selwyn with another shake of his head, Oliver stopped in the kitchen to pick up and wet a cloth to wipe below his eye in hopes of calming the injury there. It wasn't bad enough to worry about using some spell to get rid of it, so he didn't bother and instead moved back into the main part of the house.

"Has anyone seen Alice?" He asked. "Rookwood's not got a wand anymore so I'm not that worried about doing away with him. Easily outnumbered and whatnot. But we need to decide what to do about the Death Eaters now that they're trying to break through our bloody wards."

Jack flicked her eyes skyward at Augustus' story. Of course.

Gabby Short was stumbling upon the scene - he had been planning a night off, and a few shots of tequila had already made it in his system when he got the call. The sobering charm was working slowly, and he wondered briefly if someone had put something else in his drink, because this was a sight.

"Bloody hell."

Selwyn had arrived at the same time, and his thoughts were along the same vein. He suddenly pulled his wand out, though, and Jack's own wand came out, trained on him in a ow, defensive manner. Jack might have taken her time for the Order, and her opinions could differ, but she had a warrior mentality, the training of a soldier. And a solider waited for commands.

Jack nodded at Oliver's words. As much as she had been exasperated by the Order's lack of action, she still held her ground that killing was the nuclear option. That was what set them apart from the Death Eaters. She turned to look at Oliver, to give him a bracing I-got-your-back-bro sort of look, and met the gaze of someone a little offput. She quirked an eyebrow and glanced back to Augustus - she could deal with that later.

"Want us to move him further inside? Lockdown mode?" Jack asked, jerking her chin at the Rookwood man.

With the same morbidly curious expression on her face as that of children at zoos, their features crushed against the glass of enclosures, Victoire Weasley was staring at Augustus Rookwood.

He continued to sit on the sofa leisurely, his body language relaxed and his facial expression caught somewhere between neutrality and amusement. His eyes flicked briefly to her and she averted her gaze, missing the amused twitch of her lips.

When the door revealed a slightly potty-mouthed, wand-happy Order member, Augustus raised a brow and glanced at Ollie. Another man followed in, with a similar if more subdued reaction.

The wand was a bit of an issue. Augustus searched within himself for a bit of strength and put on a backburner the magic to create an, albeit weak, shield charm.

When Ollie spoke, a little bit of tension left the shoulders of the Irishman and he exhaled through his nose, setting his jaw slightly harder in order to maintain his façade of calm. Then Jack took out her wand. Oh good.

“Connolly understands,” he chuckled, tipping his head back to rest on the sofa. “It would be a tad messy to kill me. I’m afraid someone would actually notice.” Whether anyone would care, though, was an entirely different consideration.

Alice appeared in the doorway, ashen, her little hands curled around a cup of tea. Augustus passed a smirk in her direction. He could have sworn he saw her flinch. Good.

What Ollie said afterwards caught his attention, though, and distracted him from the desire to torment the little blonde witch. Equally, the prospect of going further into the house was exciting, but at the wards comment, Augustus couldn’t help but tease.

“How do you know the Death Eaters are trying to break through the wards?” He inquired with a false tone of interest. “It could just be me. It could be incongruous, a red herring, that I am a Death Eater. This could be entirely personal. Impish little scamp that I am, it might just be me interested in your bloody wards. As it is, you might benefit from laying a few more. I know a witch who would be happy to oblige you. You’re welcome to drop her an owl, if you’re ever interested. In fact, she lives with your brother, Potter, doesn’t she? Perhaps you could ask.”

James stiffened from where he was stood next to his cousin, his hand straying to the inner pocket of his robe where Augustus spied the dark haired man’s wand. Equally, that wand would do, even if he still had his eye on Alice’s. He needed a wand. That was all he needed. Then numbers wouldn’t do them any good at all.

"He should go to the Ministry," James piped up. "I'm sure the Aurors would just love to see him." The Potter man stepped forward, a sadistic smirk teasing at the sides of his lips. "And then you know what that means, don't you Rookwood?"

Dementors.

This time, it was Augustus' turn to stiffen. He swallowed the knot of fear that had bound up in his throat He dropped his arms down from the back of the couch and for a moment the look of nonchalance was lost. Then, he seemingly gathered himself - or, at least enough to say: "I have a use, Potter. That at least makes one of us."

Selwyn hadn't lowered his wand. Oliver's reaction hadn't come as much of a surprise, but why was Jack pointing her wand at him? Isn't this what she wanted?

"Can someone fill me in on what exactly that use is?" he asked.  "We're always letting these rats go, saying they have a use and they come back and bite us on the arse."

"Logic dictates that we stop the plague right now."

He nodded toward Jack's wand hand.

"And you're hardly in a position to object.  You're the one saying the Order's full of pussies.  That you're the only one who can do what 'needs to be done,'" anyone could have heard the quotes that dropped neatly around the words as Selwyn repeated what Jack had said during their last meeting.  

"Well, here's your chance, Jack.  Put him down if you think you're hard enough.  You don't even have to use the killing curse.  Plenty other spells would do the trick."

If there was one thing Oliver wanted, it was to just shut everyone up. The language being used was unacceptable for starters, but he also had to listen to people bickering over what to do now that Augustus had been brought in. He had expected them to be happier that he kept the Death Eater where they could see them, rather than letting him go, but apparently that was not the case. When had a call to a meeting ever turned so rapidly into death threats and a visible divide between members? Oliver couldn't remember the last time that had happened, but he also couldn't claim to have been around as long as some of the others.

"You," Oliver turned on Rookwood, pointing a finger at him, "Shut it." Then, far less abrasively, to Jack, "If he keeps it up, we may have to."

Of course, James had a plan that Oliver actually didn't dislike for once, and the author looked up in muted surprise. "Not a bad idea," he put in, shooting another warning glance in the Death Eater's direction. "Right now, it seems like the only one of you worth keeping around after this meeting is most definitely Potter. Until we actually need you, it would be wise to keep your mouth shut. Then I might not change my mind when we're done here."

To say he was astounded by Selwyn's violent reaction would have been a slight understatement. Mostly, Oliver just wondered if something had happened between them in the past. Yes, Oliver was furious for what happened to Alice. But he knew better than to get rid of their only direct connection to the Death Eaters. They had Ben and Theo, but those two could only risk so much without getting caught. Oliver wasn't about to risk that. Even if it felt strange to say that he would risk this other man's life in place of theirs, it was the unfortunate truth.

"Alright!" he said finally, his voice louder than he actually intended it to be. "Everybody needs to just calm down. Don't you see what a problem this is? Nobody will stop long enough to realize we're all on the same side! So just sit down and listen."

He watched as a few people reluctantly followed suit, and in the space between his outburst and the next thing he said, Oliver moved to Alice's side, holding out a hand. She had just been attacked, and he wasn't about to force any contact on her, especially when he still didn't understand. Offering a grateful smile when she took it, he led her over to one of the chairs and let her take it, standing at one side.

"Answer me this. Which is a bigger number?” Oliver asked seriously, looking around the room. “One? Or three?”

He paused for a moment, taking in the confused and perhaps slightly annoyed expressions of those who met his gaze. Finally, Tobias rolled his eyes and put out, “three,” almost sarcastically.

“Three.” Oliver repeated. He nodded, lifting his arm to set it on the back of Alice's chair, then turned to look at everyone again. “No. Not three. One. One group – one faction – together against the Ministry, the Death Eaters, and anyone else working against us. It’s not about winning anything or defeating anyone. It’s about protecting the ideals we know are right and ensuring the safety of those who can’t do so for themselves. One collective bunch, all deciding to just shut up for once and do something instead of arguing over how many people are going, or how badly someone might ruin their clothes, or whatever else,” he went on, clearly unimpressed with the typical happenings at their meetings.

“This group was founded to take action. To do things where others were afraid or when nobody else could. If you aren’t interested in that, you can leave. I, for one, am tired of just reading about people who choose to be heroes. Or hearing about them, or watching them, or whatever else. I want to be one of them. I refuse to be a so-called leader and then sit around while others fight. And you can choose for yourselves whether or not you want to be a hero, too. If that doesn’t suit you, get out now. Go home and wait for someone else to do the dirty work. Just know that, whoever is around to do it, I’ll be in the battles with you.

"Until then, however," Oliver continued, looking at each person in turn, "I need to have people who are willing to discuss things rather than fight about them. So how about we come up with something that will help us defend ourselves and will help us be more prepared, hmm? I don't think we'll want Rookwood in the room when we decide on those things, though. So," he concluded reluctantly, "Jack might be right. IF you all can agree to act like adults, we'll need a way to ensure he won't be able to run back and tell anyone about it. Suggestions?" he asked, turning to her.

Selwyn turned it around on her, but she locked her jaw shut. As much as she wanted to put him in his place and tell him off, she knew it could only work against her. Firstly, it would dissolve exactly into what she hated, which was arguments that simply prevented action. Secondly, she felt more guarded about her own efforts after her coffee meeting with him, and she had resolved to pretend as though her extra-curricular efforts did not exist. And thirdly, he was arguing something she had no real say in. She was going to take orders from Oliver while he was fit to lead. And he was proving himself able.

It was strange. In school, she had been the righteous one among her, Ari, and Ollie - not that they had ever truly been a trio, but she would have been lying if she said she had not anticipated more time between the three. Now, both she and Ari had spent their time doing their own private thing and Ollie had stepped up.

So, rather than responding to Selwyn and keeping the whole cycle going, Jack did something much harder and just stayed silent. It paid off when Oliver took over. Gabby was looking between everyone like they had gone mad and gratefully flopped down when asked to. Jack, with a raised eyebrow towards Augustus, chose her spot very carefully as she moved to sit on the opposite end of the couch with him. He was not someone she underestimated, but she also knew her own physical skills had been finely tuned with Quidditch and Unspeakable training, and she would bet in her own favor in any sort of physical scuffle between her and Augustus. She angled slightly towards him, primed to jump up and hex him if need be. She gave him a smile. "This is cozy," she quipped at him.

Oliver spoke, and her eyes remained trained on Augustus. As Oliver spoke, she found her head turning to look at him, always keeping Rookwood in sight, but very interested in what her school-hood almost-friend had to say. She had not remembered this bravery, this gusto, but she certainly liked it.

He turned to her and she nodded, thinking. "Well, I think James had a clever idea. Obviously, we'd only want trusted Aurors taking him in, as we can't just open the doors to anyone, so perhaps while we get ahold of some of our allies, we move him into the kitchen. And, while we do wait..." She paused, weighing her words. "I mean... Veritaserum could prove useful. Get to the bottom of this red herring business, figure out if something else is coming. I stop minding people's right to privacy when ours has been invaded." She glanced at Rookwood. "And I've been dying to know what he really thinks of my haircut."