Chapter 8
“Good morning, Alex.” Victoire greeted, pleasantly. It was a beautiful Saturday, and she was about to get some answers. “How are you?”
Alex looked up, panicked. “Um, hi Vic.” He glanced beyond her. “And Dominique, and Rose. Uh, Georgie didn’t say you were coming.”
“Must have slipped his mind,” Victoire sat down next to Alex. He winced. “I hope you don’t mind-”
“I do.”
“-but we have a few questions.
“Please, no.” Alex muttered. He looked down at his books. “Is this going to take long enough that I need to close the book?”
“Probably not,” Dominique said soothingly. “Just a few questions and we’ll be on our way.”
“Why do I feel like I don’t have an option,” Alex said. “MJ warned me about this. Alright, hit me.”
“Sorry, what? MJ warned you?” Victoire said, aghast.
“Oh yeah, she said you lot have set your eyes on her and Lu for some reason. I assume this about them?”
“Not at all,” Victoire said.
“Not really,” Rose corrected. “But I feel like they’re involved in it, somehow.”
“Oh boy,” Alex muttered. “Okay, yes. What can I do for you?”
“Your father,” Dominique said, and then hesitated. Suddenly all of them remembered why they weren’t planning on doing this in the first place. Fortunately, Alex was a good sport.
“You want to know why he’s missing.” He guessed. They all nodded, and Georgie winced.
“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, mate.” He said. “I just remembered this is a personal topic.”
“It’s alright, I’m kind of used to it. You’re lucky you didn’t go for Pete, he might’ve killed you.” Alex joked. “Um, yeah.” Alex cast his eyes to the sky. “Look, I’m definitely not supposed to tell you this, like, my parents swore me to secrecy definitely, but my Da’s been missing for a month now, and even though my mum told me not to say anything, I really want to find him. My da, and the others, you might want to look into what they were doing during the war,” He hesitated. “I think that’s all I can say.”
Victoire and Dominique shared a glance, but Rose beat them to the punch. “We know they all worked at the ministry during the war, even your father. But none of them were active members of the Order of the Phoenix or the Deatheaters. They weren’t really doing anything during the war.”
Alex glanced at them. “Did you consider the possibility of a third group?” He asked. Victoire blinked. A third group?
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Alex glanced around, and then lowered his voice. “My dad, he worked at the ministry during the war, doing things that were definitely illegal, and definitely would’ve gotten him killed under the new regime. Things that saved a lot of lives. He and the others, they never got recognized for it, and that’s the way they wanted it to be. But they did, and that’s whose missing now, people from that group. And,” He hesitated again. “And they’re almost all gone, all of them. There’s no one left to tell the aurors, and we kids were sworn to secrecy, if we know about it at all. I’d tell the aurors myself but they’d never believe me.”
“Why?”
“There’s no evidence. There’s no evidence except for my word, and a lot of things that line up if you know the right stuff, but I don’t. It’s like a puzzle, you can’t put it together unless you have the right pieces and they’re taking all the pieces out. There’s a lot more going on here than you know, Weasleys, but it’s getting to the point where Department 14 can’t handle it.” He winced. “Um,”
“Department 14,” Dominique said, “Is that the name of the group?”
Alex shook his head. “When I say sworn to secrecy…” He trailed off. “Look, I don’t know much, and I can tell you even less. But I do know people who can help you.”
“Alright, who?” Victoire said, irritated. “And if you say you can’t tell us, so help me-”
“The Sinclair girls,” Alex said. “Their parents were the first to go missing, and their parents were the heads of it. They’re been missing since mid-July, a few days before Aunt Penny went missing. They know the most, the letter they got this week, I know it told them something important, something they won’t share with the rest of us.”
“The rest of you?”
“You Weasleys have your family and we have ours,” Alex said. “Ask Lucy, she’s nicer than MJ, probably won’t kill you. I’m done now, get out of here before I sic MJ on you.”
“Right, thanks Alex.” Georgie said. “I mean it mate, thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. Help them find my dad.” Alex said. He sighed. “And don’t tell them where you got your information from, okay? Not the Sinclairs or your parents when you tell them.”
“It’s our secret,” Victoire promised, before pulling her cousins away.
Dominique yelped. “Hey, Vic!”
“He said he’s done, he’s done.” Victoire said firmly. “Let’s go outside to discuss this,” She pulled her cousins out of the castle. “Okay, here’s a good spot.”
“Department 14,” Dominique said instantly. “I think I’ve heard our parents talking about it, but not by name.”
“Okay…” Victoire said. “What do you mean?”
"They were talking about it a few years ago, I was probably 10. You were already at Hogwarts, and the rest were in bed.” Dominique said. “I came down to get water and heard Uncle Harry say that the minister knew some things didn’t add up, but didn’t know what. Uncle Charlie asked if maybe there were people messing with things from the inside, and Uncle Harry said that was likely but they couldn’t figure out who. Then they saw me.”
“Wait,” Rose said. “Uncle Charlie asked that?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because Uncle Charlie was the last person to have contact with Uncle Percy, who was friends with all the people from Department 14 during his Hogwarts days. I find it hard to believe that he didn’t at least know that his friends were doing all of this.” Rose said. Victoire shook her head.
“Uncle Percy betrayed the family, during the war, Rose.” She said. “He got in a fight with Granddad because the minister wanted him to spy on the family and he was okay with that. That’s why he was estranged.”
“You’re parroting a second hand story from twenty years ago,” Rose snapped. “At least consider this, it adds up.”
“No it doesn’t,” Victoire disagreed.
“Yes it does,” Dominique said softly. “That’s why all these mysteries keep popping up, they’re all tied together. Think of it like this: Uncle Percy graduated at the same time as all of his friends, including the Sinclairs, and a year later Voldemort rose. They all freaked out, because they were like 19, and some of them, Uncle Percy included, made crazy choices. But then they got it together and worked in the ministry in the war, doing whatever Alex said his dad did. After the war Uncle Percy went missing, and they realized they could get in a lot of trouble or be in a lot of danger from lingering Deatheaters, and so they didn’t come out about it, but kept quiet. And now somebody’s found out, and they want something from them, probably related to what they did during the war. But nobody is left to tell them, at least nobody that would be believed. It adds up, the Sinclairs, Uncle Percy, the missing people, it’s the same mystery.”
Georgie hummed. “That’s a long shot, Dom. Like a very long, very hard to make, shot. But say you’re right, or say Alex is right and there is some secret group and a conspiracy surrounding them. What do we do next?”
“We have to talk to Lucy Sinclair.” Victoire said firmly. “Whatever may be true, I’d bet anything she knows.”
“She wasn’t exactly open to chatting the last time,” Rose pointed out. “How do we get her to now?”
Victoire thought, the distant dredges of a plan coming together in her mind. “I have an idea,” She said. “It’s not very creative, but it should get the job done.”
“What do you have?” Dominique said. “I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“We wait a few days,” Victoire said. “See if Alex tells MJ or Lucy. If he does, they'll come to us. If not, next week, maybe Wednesday, we have Georgie, Freddie, Jamie, and Eli play an absolutely massive prank. It has to be after curfew, and get a lot of attention. We need the head boy and head girl there.”
“So Lucy can’t call MJ,”
“Exactly. I can ask Teddy to assign Lucy and I to the same shift, and then when the prank goes off, Dominique and Rose can join me, and we can ask her the same questions we asked Alex. Hopefully she’ll answer us, if not, at least MJ won’t be around to kill us.”
“What do you think of us coming tearing out of the Forbidden Forest screaming about a centaur uprising instead of a prank?” Georgie asked. “That’s been on the to-do list for a while now.” Victoire sighed.
“I don’t care what it is, as long as it gets the job done, okay?”
“Got it.” Georgie said. “I’ll go scheme, just tell us when you get the patrol schedule set up.” He darted off. Dominique groaned.
“That’s an awful plan, Vic.” She said. “But I don’t have a better one.”
“Tragic,” Victoire said. “Mine it is.”
“This is going to go horribly,” Rose muttered.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Victoire said. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s not going to end the world, just get us some answers.”
“I guarantee you this will go worse than you think,” Rose said. “If only because Jamie is involved and he’s got Potter luck.”
“I think the Delacoeur charm will balance that out,” Victoire said. “It’ll be fine.”