April 19th, 2002

Teachers' Lounge, Hogwarts School

Nathan slammed the door behind him as he stalked into the room. With a flick of his wand and a flash of light, he sealed the door, trapping the senior members of the Order of the Phoenix in the room with him. He saw, to his satisfaction, that his parents gulped nervously as he approached the head of the table. As he took his seat, he glared down the table, his murderous gaze locked on the elder Potters and on Kingsley Shacklebolt. "I hereby call this meeting to order," he growled, a hint of a feral snarl echoing in his voice. "Now, what the ever-loving shite were you thinking? Or were you not when you decided to abduct a serviceman from a military base in an allied country? You broke international law yesterday. And for what, exactly? Enlighten me."

After a moment of stunned silence, he hissed, "That was not a request."

"We had to!" James exclaimed, caught off-guard and more than a little frightened by the fierce scowl on Nathan's face.

Lily hurried to elaborate on her husband's statement. "If we hadn't done what we did, Harry wouldn't have come back at all."

"How, exactly, does this justify an act of war against a, presumably now former, ally? MACUSA will not stand for what you did."

"Not only that, Mrs. Potter," McGonagall said, irritably, "you may have lost us our only chance at convincing him to help. Did you hear his words when he arrived? He was very clear that he no longer cares."

"What do you mean, we lost the chance to convince him? We brought him here so we could show him how bad things actually are. We wouldn't have a chance at all if we hadn't brought him back with us, and the needs of the many outweigh the wants of the one."

Murmurs of agreement swept through the lounge at Lily's words. Nathan closed his eyes in fury.

"You may well have brought us into a second war, mother. How is that catering to the needs of our population?" Nathan demanded angrily.

"The colonies don't have the guts to attack us. We're the strongest magical nation in the world!" Dorcas Meadowes crowed.

"We used to be the strongest magical nation in the world. Before your former leader allowed the worst Dark Lord in centuries become a threat again. Before your incompetence let that same Dark Lord get stronger than he had ever been before his disappearance. Before he shattered magical Britain into tiny pieces and swallowed them up one by one. We have few, if any, allies left to defend us, and only a handful of combat-capable witches and wizards. MACUSA could eradicate us from the face of the earth, because Hogwarts is all that is left of our nation. And now they have a reason to act against us!"

"Why don't we deal with this issue at another time, when we have all had time to calm ourselves?" Kingsley Shacklebolt interjected.

"Why don't we see how you do defending the secret passageways, Shacklebolt?" Nathan snapped. "They wouldn't have been able to provoke MACUSA without your illegal portkey."

"There's no way that's fair!" Mundungus Fletcher squawked. "Demotin' a man for sometin' he di'nt do?"

"He possessed an international portkey, created for travel to and from MACUSA territory, without the legal authorization or MACUSA's permission. That would get him a prison sentence in normal times, Fletcher!" Nathan shouted.

"Dese ain't normal times. Leave 'im be!" For the first time in many years, many of the senior members of the Order of the Phoenix agreed with the shady character. Nathan's eyebrow twitched irritably.

"What are we going to do about that snake statuette thing Harry had with him?" James cried over the noise after a moment's thought.

"Snake statuette...thing?" Fletcher was caught off-guard by the forceful change in subject.

"It's an ornate S-shaped figure of some kind, patterned like a snake. Harry used it to incapacitate several of our number before he was finally Stunned," James explained, slowly.

"That… actually sounds somewhat familiar," Ron Weasley murmured. "Did anyone here get hit by it?" The room, mercifully, was much calmer than it had been a short moment before.

"I did," James said. "It felt… I don't have any good point of comparison. Imagine… getting hit by a bolt of lightning that doesn't seem to stop. A bolt of lightning that only gets stronger and stronger as time goes by, twisting your perception of time, consuming more and more of your awareness, until the only thing left to experience is the pain…" He shivered at the memory.

Ron looked up vacantly at the ceiling as he thought. A few seconds later, he said, "It's some kind of ancient Egyptian spell focus, designed to cast only the one spell. I remember… Hermione telling me about it." He deflated sadly.

"Do you remember anything about it bypassing shield spells?"

"...No, I don't. Why?"

"Before I got hit, I saw Harry use it on Minnie. It was like she had never cast a protego charm," James said, ignoring McGonagall's indignant hiss at the nickname.

"How the eff did he get sometin' that damn old?" Fletcher interjected, intrigued.

"We'll have to ask him that," Nathan said at last. "And hope he decides to answer our questions truthfully."

"Why wouldn't he?"

"Because we've backed him into a corner, and he will do anything he can to escape our grasp."

"What can we do to prevent that?"

"Can we please get back on track!" Katie Bell finally shouted. "My group has a lot of things that needs to be covered, and we all have places to be in fifteen minutes! You can sort out your boy problem after we've ensured we're going to survive the night! Merlin damn you all."

"Alright. To wrap all this up," Nathan said with a decisive nod, "Ron, look into that snake focus. I want a report in three days, everything you can find. Fred, test it out on some targets. See if we can use if for anything else. Daphne, get us some intel on what MACUSA is planning. If they are planning to go to war with us, I want time to talk them down.

"Katie, what do you have for me?"

She took a moment to collect her thoughs. "It's bad. We've lost three more to Vanishing Sickness, Madame Pomfrey is at her wit's end trying to keep it contained. We may also have an outbreak of Cerebrumous Spattergroit to contend with. It's too early to tell, and no-one wants to get close to the patient while she's contagious, whether it is or isn't the worse strain.

"To compound that problem, while Professor Sprout was able to repair Greenhouse Seven, but the plants that were inside it are a total loss. Under normal circumstances, she'd have, if not outright purchased replacements, recommended a group of NEWT Herbology students head into the forest to find substitutes, but with You-Know-Who's army having taken up residence somewhere within… It won't be long before medicinal potions become much more costly to make, and our stores are dwindling fast with the outbreaks.

"That's not factoring in the lack of skilled brewers, either. Snape's gone, who knows where he went if not to kiss his master's arse. None of the students have the skill to mix potions like that yet, and we have no-one to teach them. The few loyal witches and wizards that survived the attack on Saint Mungo's only had to administer potions, not brew them."

Katie took a deep breath. "We need to seriously consider evacuating."

The horrified silence, at last, was broken when Nathan said, "Where, exactly, would we evacuate to? The rest of Europe is under Voldemort's control. China, Russia, India, Korea, and Japan want nothing to do with any European powers, under any circumstances. They made that painfully clear two years ago, when they each killed the entire team of delegates, Australia doesn't have an organized magical society to protect us from the native horrors while we prepare defensive wards, and we just attacked MACUSA!"

"Then we negotiate with them," Daphne said softly. "We send Harry back to them, and beg their forgiveness for our transgression. We explain that James and Lily were not working for us when they abducted him, and plead for amnesty from Voldemort."

"HELL no!" Dorcas hissed with fury. "I refuse to bend my knee to those upstarts!"

"Yeah, we don't need no stinkin' Mucus slime tellin' us where we can 'n can't go!"

"Alright," Ron snapped. "Listen here, you lot! The Order of the Phoenix is all but gone. Hogwarts is running out of supplies. Morale is at an all-time low, and here we are bickering like children and categorically refusing what may be the only option available to us. If we can't come up with a working plan of action soon, we might as well just march out with our arms tied behind our backs and surrender to the Dark Lord right now."

Nathan quickly took control of the meeting in the ensuing silence, proclaiming, "Group leaders, I want to talk to all of you tomorrow. Clearly we all need some time to cool off a bit, as much as I hate to admit it. Meeting adjourned."