Three's a Charm

She watches the current test -the one she sincerely hopes doesn't reveal any more issues and will be the last- of one of her projects like a hawk.

It was a prototype golem, currently walking around the Room. Remus was off to the side watching it as critically as her. She needed to be certain of its design before she invested fully into what the end goal materials they were supposed to be made of, but that was part of why she was testing it with cheaper materials currently.

Finally, she looks over at Remus, “Well, it's definitely fluid in its motion. I suppose since we've tested that a couple times already to work out all the kinks that it's time to move onto the next part.”

He nods, “Mm. I didn't see any flaws either, and since you already got that far the last two times and it was the second part that gave you problems, then yeah, I'd say it's time to move on.”

She nods and turns back to the golem as she focuses. The Room responds in moments, creating some fake Death Eater mannequins that it makes appear with popping noises like they're apparating in. The moment they start casting at the golem, it snaps into action.

A voice echoes out of it even as it makes a magical shield and deploys a temporary anti-apparation and anti-portkey ward around it, using the same ability to circumvent ward breaker mirrors she gave the DMLE so they can't interfere with their jobs, “Hostilities detected. Surrender or an appropriate force based on hostility level will be used.”

When none of the fake Death Eaters surrender, it starts firing stunners around as well as closing to use its blade, but as they ramp up their attacks, so too does the golem respond harsher and harsher. When she sends a mental message to have them start trying to use lethal force on innocents, namely herself and Remus -though their spells aren't actually lethal obviously, just test spells for it-, the golem snaps into action. The golem has a magical runic converter, which takes in ambient magic and changes it to Patronus fire, so when the fake Death Eaters fire ‘unforgivables’ at them, the golem quickly gets in front of them with superhuman speed and creates a shield of it to stop them.

Then it starts using lethal force of its own. The only ‘Death Eaters’ it spares are those that surrender, who are just stunned and tied up with conjured rope. It sticks close to the ‘innocents’ it's meant to protect though, so its blade doesn't see any more use. When it's all said and done, the golem starts to go around with the fake portkeys to DMLE holding cells it has, sticking notes on each of their ‘crimes’ on each before it activates their fake portkeys all at once when it's done with the command, “Justice be done.”

The fake Death Eaters ‘portkey’ away, or that's what the Room makes it seem like, she knows it's just getting rid of them. When they're gone, the voice echoes out of the golem again, “Hostiles neutralized. Returning to patrol.”

She nods as she tilts her head vaguely towards Remus even as she continues watching the golem go back to walking around, “That time it worked as intended. Shift to the next phase of testing.”

At her words, some buildings appear as well as ‘innocents’ in the form of mannequins in and around them, making something like a scaled down Diagon Alley. When the Death Eaters pop in, the start of the scene basically repeats, except this time the golem pulls out some marbles enchanted to erect temporary shields when they hit the ground and tosses them at the buildings, it's voice echoing out at the same time even as it starts to engage with the ‘Death Eaters’ again, “Citizens are encouraged to retreat under temporary wards for their safety. Repeat, citizens are encouraged to retreat under temporary wards for their safety. This unit cannot provide the same level of protection otherwise.”

As the test fight plays out, the battle is more hectic, just from the number of things the golem is attempting to protect, but it does its job pretty damn well. It prioritizes the ‘people’ attempting to go to the temporary wards, covering them as they retreat, and from there it only has to protect the buildings occasionally since the ‘Death Eaters’ are more focused on it, though since there's only one there are a few ‘casualties’ among the fake civilians and most of them are from when the ‘Death Eaters’ first appeared.

It ends roughly the same as well though this time the golem first scans any ‘injuries’ on the ‘civilians’, using magical scanning and something similar to the magical program she'd put in Hei's newer medical pouch to decide whether they had serious enough injuries to warrant ‘sending’ them to Saint Mungo's or if they just need some potions before it moves to send the ‘Death Eaters’ off. When that test has successfully concluded, she resets everything, and it all plays out similarly with the exception that the ‘Death Eaters’ just try to hold it back and focus more on the buildings. That doesn't really get them good results, between the temporary wards and the golem flitting around as necessary. It mostly makes the ‘battle’ take longer, though they do score a few more ‘kills’ then during the last test when they were focused on the golem.

She smiles in satisfaction when it's over, then nods, “Alright then, next test.”

With this one, she activates a couple more of the golems around, including the elite commander unit. They immediately join the previously activated golem on its patrol of ‘Diagon’ as smoothly as if they had been there from the beginning. This time when the ‘Death Eaters’ attack, while things mostly play out the same, she glances down at the slate connected to them, double checking that the commander unit is successfully connecting to the sensory inputs from the others and is directing them as needed. It had been a pain in the ass to develop something like a magical AI by studying the Sorting Hat and other similarly intelligent items as well as the diadem's intelligence boosting properties, but it was absolutely worth every second. It's honestly a little… brutal how quickly and efficiently they both deal with the ‘Death Eaters’ as well as protect the ‘innocents’ to be honest. There isn't a single ‘casualty’ among the fake innocent people some of the mannequins were meant to be unlike the previous times.

Then she shifts to the second to last test, resetting everything. Most of it plays out as it had before, but this time she has ‘Death Eaters’ disguised among the innocents who retreat to the temporary wards on the buildings. The commander golem detects the harmful intent within the wards it's also connected to and immediately divvies up the other golems under its command as needed, sending some to go into the buildings to subdue them, lethally if necessary.

Everything works out beautifully, and as one last test she has the Room include both ‘Death Eaters’ in disguise as well as just angry ‘innocents’ to make sure the wards and commander can tell the difference between the intent to harm ‘innocents’ from the former and just the vague want to make the ‘Death Eaters’ pay by the latter. When that plays out correctly, to cap off the final test, she takes advantage of the golems being made of significantly cheaper materials to have the Room help her test their ability to disintegrate themselves when they've been damaged too badly, to prevent the secrets of the golems from falling into enemy hands. She tests it both vaguely, and in having the Room do more and more damage to the golems to see if there's ever a point where their ability to sense their own damage level and destroy themselves is destroyed before they can enact it or if unattached pieces may be left behind.

Thankfully, between the fact she used a Protean Charm on them as a whole so that any lost pieces will still disintegrate with them and the Potter secret of a quench in a mixture of oils and Dragon’s blood to embed their magic into their very makeup and not just in their runes, even damage to the runic matrix that controls both aspects doesn't stop them from self destruction. She had contemplated possibly giving them the ability to try to include someone in the disintegration to try to give them the ability to take a Death Eater or two with them, but she'd eventually discarded the idea, not fond of the notion of something going wrong and an innocent person getting caught up in it. Even without it though, the secrets of how they work are pretty well out of the reach of the Death Eaters in her opinion. Especially since she had also layered a Fidelis over their runework, something which makes anyone not in on the Fidelis view their metal as perfectly smooth, even in parts where their runework is on the outside instead of hidden within for some reason or another.

Remus shakes his head, “You know Calanthe, I don't know what's scarier, these golems you made, or the fact they're so dangerous because you had the insane idea to create something of a central core of the Potter Family Combat Trainer and link them to it to be able to draw on its experience for combat rather than training purposes.”

She shrugs, “If I get my way, this war won't look anything like the previous one. People will be safe. They won't have to be scared at every moment of the day of an unexpected attack or that they may get mind controlled. Speaking of not being scared actually, I had an idea while I was home for the holidays.” Remus gives her an exasperated look, and she quickly raises her hands, “Which I just made a mental note of and tucked away! I wasn't thinking it over or anything!”

He shakes his head, “Alright, so what was your idea?”

A grin like a Dragon that got the Abraxan spreads over her face, “Are you familiar with Uno Remus?”

He nods, “I asked Misaki about the rules later out of curiosity after I saw you three's game, yes. Why?”

Her grin widens, “I was thinking about Uno Reversing Voldemort.”

He tilts his head, brows furrowing, “In what way?”

She's positively giddy, “I would need some help from the Unspeakables to test it, since they're the only ones currently able to do tests involving the unforgivables, but I was thinking about casting a taboo on the first part of each of the unforgivables, fiendfyre, and the spell to conjure the dark mark and linking a group of the final form of the golems to it, and if I can get enough just linking a commander who can dispatch groups to multiple places in case they try a simultaneous assault to circumvent it, so that any time they try to cast any of them, a select group of golems will portkey to them using the coordinates the taboo spell spits out when it gets broken.”

Remus’ eyes blow wide, “Calanthe that-! … Merlin kid, you aren't kidding about this war looking nothing like the last. You're going to have them on the ropes damned quickly at this rate!”

Her voice is a snarling purr, once again unknowingly reminding Remus of her nickname, “Good.” She moves over to the recording equipment, “While there are parts that need editing, I'll include that part of our discussion in the video when I sent it to Amelia to show her the golems so she can maybe get in touch with the Unspeakables for me to possibly get their help in testing the taboo on the unforgivables and stuff.”

Remus nods, “Not a bad plan. And honestly, after that showing, I'm sure she'll approve of the plan of you guys sneakily replacing the regular statues in the Ministry atrium fountain to some of your golems. And she is in charge of Ministry security so she absolutely has the authority to do something like swap them out to improve security, and without telling anyone to boot. Don't know what you guys will do with the regular statues though.”

She shrugs, “I've already explained what the final product of the golems is supposed to be, the materials they're supposed to be made of, and essentially she's going to give them to me as payment to cover the cost of the materials I'll need to make them properly. Especially since it's not just going to be the ones in the atrium she'll be purchasing, there will be more around the building. While the current statues are solid gold, the material cost will not be cheap, so even with that, depending on exactly how many she orders, I'll either owe her money back to make the difference, or I'll actually be taking a loss since while that… embarrassment of a showing during the Hogwarts siege forced them all to finally realize how terrible all those budget cuts to the DMLE have been, with the upcoming war, she can't really afford to divert any of her funding to paying me the difference, and given the stakes, I honestly don't mind.”

Remus nods thoughtfully, “That's fair, but won't they notice the swap?”

She shakes her head, “I'm going to gold plate those ones.”

Remus makes an ‘ah’ of understanding. Satisfied at the almost finished product that the golems are, she already begins mentally shifting her focus to wrapping up the final touches her other project needs and to making something similar to the Room of Requirements in trunk form. Mostly just to have it do the brewing she'll need done. She feels she's fairly close, but there are still a few details that are eluding her.

She nods in satisfaction. The ward scheme was finally done. It was a little complicated, but with the ambient magic to Patronus fire converter she'd already made for the golems, it was significantly easier. The whole reason she needed it was so that the ward would be able to have similar properties of Patronus fire, though the complication had come from targeting its protection towards innocents in general rather than simply her. There was an additional complication in the form of bringing arrested to trial, but she'd eventually gotten around it by focusing the Patronus fire from the ward on keeping their magic from escaping their body, essentially letting the body it was contained in inside, but in something of a secondary bubble within the bubble of the wards themselves.

It would function somewhat similarly, with an added benefit of being able to burn the Imperius out of anyone under it without hurting them. 

She'd already spoken to Amelia and one of these wards would go up on the Ministry, but she also already had plans to install ones over Diagon, Saint Mungo's, and Hogsmeade as well, not to mention the Chamber of Secrets since the Hogwarts wards don't extend down to it. That wouldn't cover everything of course, but that would cover the major centers where magicals gathered as well as a potential method of circumventing the Hogwarts wards.

She would not let Voldemort and his lot resume their reign of terror and leave people dreading each day and what would come of it. She had personally reached out to the non-magical government to fill them in more fully on what was going on, mostly to warn them as to the terrorist attacks Voldemort and the Death Eaters would likely commit, so they were as prepared as they possibly could be.

It said… an awful lot about how much Fudge, who was currently holding onto his office by the skin of his teeth -though less due to his own skill and mostly due to people on the other side invested in having him in office stonewalling attempts to remove him-, refused to see reason that he hadn't even warned them that it was a possibility, even if he didn't believe her. They'd asked for details of what they could expect, but she'd just handed over a copy of the book Remus had published about the war, since it wasn't really something that could be summarized right much shorter than that, which she'd straight up told them. They'd seemed a bit irritated, but they had gotten back to her later and that had disappeared under grim gratitude for letting them know what was coming as well as admitting that even during the last war they hadn't known even a tenth of what the book said was happening back then.

While even they didn't expect it to happen, they were worried about Voldemort maybe Imperiusing someone high up like the non-magical Prime Minister or bombing government buildings, so given she'd mentioned the ward she was working on, she also already had a commission from them to put some up over buildings of particular importance. They'd undoubtedly be ecstatic to hear the ward was done, and barring wanting to test it to make sure it really could remove things like the Imperius without hurting the victim, which they'd undoubtedly be perfectly alright with waiting on, it was ready to deploy.

She nods firmly then turns her attention to working out the last kinks in getting a Room of Requirement into a trunk. It was way more magic than was generally believed one could put on a space expanded trunk, but for that, she'd turned to the knowledge her family had that had let them put more into the filing cabinet then was believed possible. She'd actually already worked out the ritual for the Room, surprisingly as it was, even to her, so now she was entirely focused on working out how to mesh it with her family's knowledge of putting more magic into a space expanded item then what the upper limit was currently believed to be.

She had to work it out soon. The clock was ticking on how much longer she would have. That much was obvious to her from what she's been able to learn while observing Voldemort using her vision inducing trick with the Horcrux. She'd been thoroughly scanned just to be safe, and the sparks from when she cast Patronus Inventiones on it seemed to be from it keeping the magic of the Horcrux from tainting it, so she was in the clear as far as that went, since it didn't pick up any of its foul magic to begin with. She'd originally used that crystal to absorb the signature of the diary oh so long ago so Amelia could sweep the Ministry building just to be safe since the fact it was a soul container meant that Horcruxes from different people had different signatures. But since the crystal didn't have any active connection to Voldemort and the Horcruxes since it was recorded from a destroyed Horcrux, it couldn't work for her Inventiones visions.

She's also started to get a handle on controlling the Inventiones vision ‘zooming out' as it were to show where the vision was taking place. She'd realized when she was using it to get the info on the ritual for the Room of Requirements that the reason it did that even though she wanted to hear what was going on was in part because she wanted to know where Voldemort was, her burning desire to end him before he could hurt more people fighting with her desire to know what he was doing. She was starting to get better control over the direction she'd been unknowingly and unintentionally giving it up until then. Hei had also been sending her things to help her improve how long she could hold her breath as well, since he actually had experience with that, both from the Heaven's Gate war, and just from Contractors with gas based abilities in general. Just exercises and the like, but even at the upper limit of what she could achieve with non-magical means, it wasn't very long.

Which was precisely why she'd started looking into magical means of extending how long she could. Namely, she's started looking into runes she could tattoo on herself to help her hold her breath longer. That wasn't nearly as difficult as recreating the Room in trunk form, so it was going pretty quickly. She's actually already worked out a set that, if she tattooed them, would increase the efficiency of her body's use of the breath she took in, but she was still in the process of checking them over to make absolutely sure it would do what it was supposed to, since she would… hate to find out when it was too late that it would not work as intended and maybe even kill her in some way.

That being said, even that probably wasn't enough, so she was already looking into other things she could do to help.

Her eyes slip closed as she thinks over what else she can try to do to mitigate the damage Voldemort and the Death Eaters will try to do.

This will not be like the last war. She will not let them run around unchecked and terrorizing innocent people.

She carefully circles around the ritual, triple checking everything. She sees absolutely nothing wrong with it though, so she decides to take the plunge.

As she steps over to the center of the ritual circle, careful not to smudge any lines, she can't help the way her eyes drift up to the face of the massive statue. She'd chosen to do the ritual to recreate the Room in a space expanded trunk in the Chamber in the hopes that by doing it there, the magic being used to make the Requirements Trunk would be absorbed from the magic lingering from the thousand year old Basilisk living here for so long, into the trunk itself and help enhance what she needed for the golems.

As much as people often say Salazar Slytherin hated muggleborns, she'd actually unintentionally accessed some journals from all of the founder's when she was trying to get the Room to tell her how it was made. His only problem with them had always been the potential security risk they posed. Which is entirely understandable given that while it would undoubtedly shake the pureblood supremacists nowadays, he was actually a muggleborn himself. One who had struggled with lingering guilt with unintentionally tipping off some intolerant non-magicals to what a magical who had noticed his developing magic and stepped in to help him was.

And the Chamber… the Chamber was actually meant to be something of a last stand refuge for the students. There was actually a Parseltongue password that, when spoken, would open doors warded to keep out non-magicals all over the castle for them to flee down. Even the Basilisk… she actually feels a bit guilty, knowing what she does now, about the fact it was meant to be a protector. That being said, given what she had heard from it, her mutters about blood, and death, and all that, she's fairly confident that she had gone mad. Especially if she was willing to hurt the very children she was supposed to protect.

She takes a deep breath, then almost unknowingly murmurs in Parseltongue, “Salazar, give me the strength I need to protect our kind from your insane descendant… ”

She shakes her head, a bit bemused at herself for speaking to a statue, then settles down in her place in the ritual circle and begins. Time is… weird when she does. She once again gets swept away in the strange orderly chaotic ocean like she had so long ago when she'd done the first step of making Hei's new mask, but time seems to simultaneously creep at a snail's pace and rush along in the blink of an eye.

When it's done, she gasps back to herself, finding her body covered in sweat, but. But in the center of the ritual circle was the trunk, and while she's exhausted, she scrambles up, rushes over, and slides her fingers over the latch -which she'd set up to be sort of equivalent to pacing the corridor-, opens it when the seam appears and sticks her head inside, and when she does, a huge grin stretches over her lips. It had, indeed, rearranged itself into a perfect replica of the Potter Ancestral Manor that she'd asked for, and she was peering down the stairs at the lawn leading up to it, the opening surrounded by a fake blue sky and bathed in artificial sunlight.

She still can't help but feel a flicker of guilt for doing it to Horace, especially without telling him or asking out of fearful worry he would refuse her request, but now she just needs to get him inside, and she already had a plan of asking him to double check her preservation wasn't interfering with the magic on the materials she needed for the potion. Especially given how expensive both the Dragon and Basilisk parts had been. The thunderbird stuff wasn't cheap either, all of the materials she's been purchasing and stockpiling were expensive, but it wasn't as expensive as the other two.

Regardless of the fact she feels a bit guilty about doing it though, she has to do it, so that her new Trunk of Requirements would have a memory of his expertise to draw on to brew the altered Dragon Thunder Thread potion he'd given her the recipe for that she needed, since the golems were going to be plated in silver imbued with its power, and the elite commander golems were going to be solid Dragon Thunder Thread silver.

After that, she just needed to show the trunk how to craft the golems, though honestly it should be able to pick up the know how just from being able to get an imprint of her skill and her schematics for them, and as long as it had materials and wasn't creating those, which she wouldn't let it do for the Dragon Thunder Thread and golems, then it could make them without any outside input. Something of an autonomous factory.

It would still cost one hell of a pretty penny for the ingredients, but with the fact the Room definitely had a memory feature, it could focus on the brewing without distractions, even if she asked for another configuration. Hell, the Trunk of Requirements may even be able to get a copy of the Room of Requirements’ memory if she brought it to the Room, though it would probably require her to open it inside of the Room.

Regardless, it was the final piece of the puzzle to getting the amount of golems she was looking at.

She already worked everything out with Amelia, and the goblins had already agreed to let her station some on the lead up to and in the atrium of Gringotts to cover Diagon while things were still being somewhat hidden since there was still a rift on believing her about Voldemort's return, so the only thing left was Hogsmeade, but she did purchase a sizable plot of land for the housing and other businesses for the students attending the Hogwarts Mastery University, and it was doing so well now that people probably wouldn't think anything of her putting up ‘statues’ around the parks and walkways and the like, especially with the fact her family was actually known to be a bit eccentric, and it was close enough to the rest of the small town, even the outskirts, that they'd be able to respond incredibly quickly to an attack.

Other than that, she just needed to attend the meeting that was already scheduled in half a month in May for testing putting the taboo on hard to block spells like the unforgivables and fiendfyre and also the spell to conjure the dark mark.

Everything was coming together to be in place to minimize the damage before Voldemort could even come out publicly.

She looks over at the Unspeakables, “Just to double check, you guys remembered to warn the Aurors about the testing so they wouldn't freak out about the monitoring ward on the Ministry going off, right?”

One of the two men smiles at her, “Don't worry Lady Potter-Black, we made sure to let them know.”

She nods, then looks down at the tablet like slate, “Good. I'm ready on my end, so whenever you are.”

The man nods and turns to the other. He nods back, then lifts his wand towards the dummy, “Avada-” Immediately her tablet pings and a group of golems appear in the telltale whirl of a portkey, one directly between the Unspeakable and his target, Patronus fire shield already engaged, “Kedavra!”

The Patronus fire shield catches it easily, and a voice emanates from the one right between the casting Unspeakable and the target, “Lethal hostility detected. Surrender or these units will respond with similar force.”

The Unspeakable immediately holds his hands up and she quickly taps on the controls on the tablet-like slate linked into the golem network for both monitoring and control purposes. Immediately the group of golems exits fight mode as she sends the signal for a completed test so they don't actually try to arrest the Unspeakable and will log his ‘crime’ as the test it was.

The group of golems scan around, sending information to the commander unit standing in the group to the left of the test dummy, which she only knows because of the magical tablet since she'd purposely designed the golems to all look the same so the commander couldn't be picked out and off. After a beat, a voice echoes out of it, “No further hostiles detected. No civilians in need of assistance detected. Returning to base.”

Immediately they all activate their permanent portkeys to return to where they're kept in a hidden area within the DMLE.

The tests continue on, successfully triggering the portkeys again to call the golems for the other two unforgivables, fiendfyre, and the spell to conjure the dark mark. With the first three, each time the golems successfully catch the spell before it can hit the target, even on follow up tests to see how close the cast has to happen before the spell can land before the golems appear. With the other two unforgivables, because of them only being one word and the fact she practically had to set the taboo to be the full incantation to make sure the broken taboo portkeys wouldn't trigger for something else, when the caster is close enough to the target, it will land before the golems can intervene. That being said, the Unspeakable practically had to be point blank before the golems couldn't even have one snap out a Patronus fire shield on their arm and fling it between the Unspeakable and the target dummy.

The killing curse and fiendfyre both had two word spells and no one had any business saying the first of the two for anything, since while there technically were other spells that used ‘Avada’ and ‘Pestis’, not a single one was good or legal, and they were fairly obscure anyway.

The incantation for the dark mark was one word as well, but considering it wasn't a hostile spell, that didn't really matter. 

With it all said and done, she gives the Unspeakables a satisfied look, “Well, I do believe it's working as intended and we can go fully live with it.”

One of the Unspeakables smiles at her, “Mm, so it seems. This time… the war isn't going to go anything like last time, is it?”

She gets a more vicious smile, “Not if I can help it.”

The other Unspeakable nods, a little jerkily with slightly teary eyes, which makes her wonder sadly who he lost in the last war, “Good. It's about time those bastards stop getting away with everything.”

She hums in agreement.

Calanthe exhales sharply, eyes flying open at the information she just learned. She stares at the wall for a few moments, then rushes off, quickly making her way to Remus’ classroom. Given school ended a while ago, she hurries into and through his classroom the moment she gets there before bursting onto his attached office.

He looks up in surprise, partly raising, “Calanthe? What's wrong?”

She opens and closes her mouth a couple times, well aware that there's every possibility that Dumbledore has put things in place to spy. Finally, she settles on how to convey her news, “You know that…. super secret thing that you did a huge scan of me on to make sure it wasn't negatively affecting me that only Misaki, Hei, Amelia, you, and Sirius know about and when it was vaguely mentioned to Peter, even with the fact the Pettigrew family's oath of loyalty is to me now and I got rid of his dark mark, after what happened with my parents and everyone else he was forced to betray he outright refuses to know anything confidential and crucial? I just used it a bit ago, and Voldy is gonna hit the Ministry tonight. I'm getting in touch with Amelia now, but you may want to warn the Order as well. Since on one hand, I know no one has ever been a match for him, but the sheer amount of things he could try to do to take over….”

He sucks in a sharp breath, then immediately finishes rising and starts over to the fireplace, “It's late enough that there's a decent chance Amelia has left the Ministry and can receive a call, but there's parchment and ink in my desk if you need it.”

Even as she reaches into her mokeskin pouch, she calls back a thanks. Getting her phone out, she immediately pulls up her contacts and finds Amelia in seconds and hits call and brings her phone up, “Come on, come on…” As it rings, she feels incredibly impatient, but a rush of relief goes through her as it connects. Amelia barely has time to start saying her name in greeting before she rushes to speak, “Amelia! Sorry to interrupt, but Voldy is hitting the Ministry tonight.”

The older woman sucks in a sharp breath, “Tonight?”

She nods habitually, “Yes. I know there's not many people who have been capable of going toe to toe with him, but while he's personally aiming for the prophecy, he's already ordered his men to raid the Ministry files. They intend to batter down the wards since it's become abundantly clear that none of them can enter ever since I put the Patronus Ignis ward up, and as powerful as it is, no ward is invulnerable. While the golems may be able to do something, it's better to have people on standby in case they start seeing some trouble to back them up.”

Amelia's voice is clipped, not in irritation or anything, but just in pure business mode, “Quite. I'll alert the Aurors and get in touch with the Unspeakables. It's their job to protect the Department of Mysteries, not to mention their territory. It's up to them how they want to deal with him raiding their Department, since even if he's primarily after the prophecy, I can only imagine how bad things can get if he raids it further.”

She breathes out a rough sigh as she presses the bottom of her palm to her face between her eyebrows, “Yeah, no kidding. I imagine you need to get off the phone now, but just be advised that Remus is getting in touch with the Order now.”

Amelia hums, “Understood. I'll speak to you later Calanthe.”

She murmurs, “Yeah, talk to you later Amelia.”

The line goes dead second later, and she looks over at where Remus was still kneeling by the fire, head inside. She walks over to him and taps his shoulder, and he pulls his head out to look at her in question, “Got in touch with Amelia, she's alerting the Aurors and getting in touch with the Unspeakables now, since even if he's primarily after the prophecy, there's no telling how much damage he could do if he gets his hands on other things from the Department of Mysteries.”

Remus nods, “I'll pass that along.” Then he smiles wanly, “You may as well head down to dinner. It starts soon and you've done your job in alerting people.”

She sighs, “Yeah, guess I have. Still a bit frustrating not to be able to help further.”

He smiles back sadly, “That's because you're used to being at the forefront of conflicts rather than relying on other people.” He shakes his head and waves towards the door, “Go on Cub, I'll be down shortly.”

She nods and starts towards the door, mulling over what exactly will happen tonight.

She can only hope her golems are enough to swing things in the Aurors’ and everyone else's favor given Voldemort himself will be there.

Even with the fact Amelia had called her back after everything was said and done last night to let her know that with her golems around and the Aurors just backing them up, they had managed to successfully drive the Death Eaters off and there hadn't even been any casualties on the Aurors’ side and even received a similar report from Remus, she still can't help but feel somewhat grim as the newspaper owls come in the next morning.

She's not surprised in the slightest at the headline simply reading ‘Lady Calanthe Potter-Black spoke the truth. He's back.’ and the frontpage photo beneath it, taken from someone's memory of Voldemort himself, in the atrium of the Ministry, surrounded by the golems that had been masquerading as the statues in the fountain as well as half a dozen other golems and backed up by a group of Aurors, Amelia included.

It was a wizard photo taken from someone's memory, so Voldemort stares at Fudge and the group of Ministry employees that had arrived at some point for a few moments before looking back around him at the group. His eyes narrow for a moment before he disapparates away.

It's not the first time the prophet had printed a photo of him, but that one had been of him at the graveyard taken from her memory, and the people who didn't want to believe it had merely insisted she had been confounded or something. Which was ridiculous, given that if she had, the photo would've been misty and blurry, not as crystal clear as this one was. Regardless, given Fudge himself had seen him, and was in the shot himself, people would find it significantly harder to deny it now.

She supposes if there's any silver lining to this, it's that it should make things easier in the Wizengamot. Things have been… odd since Fudge started denying Voldemort's return, with the people she'd gotten under her thumb from the fact she could reveal their names on the list of those who had been stonewalling justice for Sirius getting more and more bold against her. They'd had some notion that since she was currently considered crazy by a good chunk of the wizarding world that they could wiggle out of things, but while those had been delusions to begin with, that ‘opening’ they thought they had was now very firmly closed. Not that it mattered a whole lot. She'd known she wouldn't be able to swing votes to try to set up the Ministry actually examining the issue, so she'd just been focusing on things that would help the inevitable war effort, not that any of them had realized what she was doing, since it was more along the lines of things like pushing more funding to the DMLE and the like. It's been abundantly clear that it genuinely made them nervous that they couldn't tell what she was after with her moves they couldn't tell were related to the war.

She'd have to…. remind people about how bad a Wizengamot that had been more concerned with making sure the Ministry didn't look foolish than with giving Sirius his trial was for them all, particularly with the war restarting. That would probably necessitate releasing the names of all those that had been stonewalling her, but that was alright. She hadn't wasted the time between then and now, she had already vetted a sizable number of families to replace them with Amelia, Andromeda, and Horace's help. 

Off to her side, Cedric -who while seventeen last year was still only a sixth year and was only just finishing his seventh- snorts, then says somewhat loudly to the quiet hall in general as he looks around, lifting the newspaper in one hand, “So the Ministry is finally having to accept the truth, but really, how many people here actually denied it and didn't believe Calanthe? Or what they saw with their own eyes in the fact Calanthe was not in either the center of the maze when it came down, or on the platform the winner was supposed to be portkeyed to?”

There's more than a bit of laughter, and over at the Gryffindor table Ginny calls back, “Right?! We aren't idiots like Fudge! And it's not like we're strangers to danger either! Voldy and his Death Eaters won't cow us like they did the previous generations!”

That makes the laughter redouble and more than a handful of voices shout agreements.

The mood afterwards is… much lighter than she was expecting. There's something of a grim undertone, but it's been there all year so it's not exactly new. Which isn't surprising given the vast majority of the school believed her from the beginning. That Voldemort is back isn't news to them. It's been their reality since last year. They've all just been waiting for things to fully kick off. She hadn't even had to say anything regarding the fact that Voldemort was trying to take advantage of the fact the Ministry was denying his revival. After having seen him flee from her last year, and the Ministry's rather loud denials, talk amongst the student body quickly had them collectively coming to that conclusion themselves.

She looks up at the windows, a faint smile on her lips. Ginny wasn't wrong. If there was one silver lining to the games Dumbledore has been playing at Hogwarts in recent years, it's that her generation is… almost alarminglyused to danger. It's not something that will make them cower and flinch, and between the debate club, the Student Council, and even the entire mess with Fudge denying Voldemort's return, Umbridge, and the subsequent siege, they weren't much inclined to being as sheep-like as the older generations. While how that came about was in no way good, and it may be a bit… egotistical since it's her own generation, it leaves her hopeful about the future of the UK’s wizarding world, of what this generation can achieve.

She's done everything she could think of in her power to lessen the damage and devastation Voldemort and the Death Eaters can cause, and this… this right here was why. To not only protect innocent people, but also their happiness. She's not a miracle worker. She knows full well there will inevitably be people who die in this conflict, she can't save everyone, but… but maybe everything she's done will make it enough to minimize the toll.

All of the effort so far was more than worth it. To protect not just innocent people, but also their joy, like the people around her, laughing in the face of danger. It's not like they didn't understand the danger coming, even the firstyears had gotten a taste of it, what with Umbridge and the siege, despite how much her and the other older students had tried to keep them out of things to protect them. The second years had the hard truth of the tournament, initially rather fun, right up until dragons were brought out, only for it to end with them seeing Voldemort's resurrection and attempt to kill her at the end. The third years, well, they'd been in their first year when the Dementors had been brought to Hogwarts and given Kiss on Sight orders for Sirius, who was that same year proven to be innocent. The fourth years had been in their first year when the Chamber of Secrets was opened and the Basilisk released. The rest of them, her fellow fifth years and above, have been there for all of it. It wasn't the same as a taste of a full blown Civil War, nor the reign of terror Voldemort and his lackeys waged, but if she gets her way, they won't have to get a full taste. And even if they haven't felt something of that magnitude, it didn't change the fact that they were all far too familiar with danger.

But they laugh anyway. Laugh in the face of incoming danger.

If she has her way, they'll continue laughing.

Calanthe sweeps her gaze over the members of the Wizengamot as she stands after getting permission to speak, “I would like to remind you all, that if we vote to purge them from the Wizengamot, then this body will fall below the minimum required sixty votes to do anything, even a vote to proceed despite vacant voting seats as that would have to go through before anything else. As our entire government is built like an upside down pyramid, that will swiftly be followed by our entire government seizing. To that end, before any sort of vote regarding suspending them all and holding trials to expel them permanently from the Wizengamot occurs, I motion for a vote to temporarily adjust the rule requiring at least three quarters of the Wizengamot to be in attendance to even vote to proceed without missing members present.”

She sweeps her gaze, looking dead at each of the members that will possibly be expelled soon, “And for those of you thinking about voting no in the hopes that it will force us to go through you one by one and you all can save each other, one, you're automatically discluded from any such trial and therefore you would all be suspended permanently while the Wizengamot could do nothing, and two, and also more relevant for those of you who feel like you could profit off our government seizing up,” Here she sweeps her gaze over the multitude of proxies that the more… radical pureblood supremacists have had to send in their place since the implementation of the Patronus fire ward, which they couldn't even contest without publicly admitting they held harmful intentions towards innocents, or more precisely for them, anyone not of pure blood and even then only those that subscribe to their doctrine, since the very same day it had been deployed, Amelia had explained exactly what the new ward does. Though, the fact none of them have shown up since was practically an admission of guilt and everyone knew it. She can only assume that the proxies just wanted everyone ‘beneath’ the purebloods to bow down, since that in and of itself wasn't necessarily harmful, “I would like to remind you that in such an event, the non-magical government steps in and takes over. And in case you're thinking of literally fighting them off…”

She smiles and turns to Amelia, “I would like to make a request of the Interim Minister for Magic to be allowed to submit a demonstration to the Wizengamot.”

Amelia nods, eyes interested, and at her motion, a few people in the stands get up and in an ordered frenzy, they quickly have a mannequin set up in full view of everyone, as well as a man readied 25 meters(1) from it.

She glances over both the Wizengamot and the public stands, “We will be putting up a sound muffling spell as this can be rather loud. As you can see, the mannequin is being layered with multiple protection spells, which the average magical cannot do, but this is to drive home the demonstration.”

A moment later, the spells finish going up, and she gives the man a nod. Without hesitation, the soldier the non-magical government had loaned her, because they actually were all for the wizarding world having its own government since they were fully aware there were undoubtedly a multitude of issues they knew nothing about as they were unique to magicals, raises his rifle, currently set to full auto. It only takes a couple seconds of fire to eat through all of the layered shields and start tearing into the mannequin and he stops firing.

There's a pin drop silence when the demonstration is over. She turns to the Wizengamot in general, most of them gaping at the soldier, his gun, or the mannequin, “In such an event, with magicals becoming outright hostile towards non-magicals, they would deploy their military, which contains over one hundred and fifty-seven thousand soldiers and for whom this gun, what this type of weapon is called, is the standard equipment. And that's not even including specialty equipment, nor higher fire power. Which they would bring to bear in force if necessary.”

The pin drop silence continues, quiet enough that she hears more than one throat swallow. As she looks around, she sees more than one ashen face, more than a few people sweating, more than a few gaping mouths.

Knowing she'd driven her point home, she clears her throat, “With the demonstration out of the way, I motion for a vote to adjust the rule that the Wizengamot must have at least three quarters of its members in attendance to only requiring three quarters of the membership not suspended in the vote against those regarding the Sirius Black incident until we have gotten through all of the trials and replaced those that get expelled, with a caveat that the suspension of the rule ends within a year so that no one gets a… foolish notion of purposely dragging the proceedings out to increase their overall personal power under this suspension perpetually by simply never finishing voting in the replacements.”

Amelia looks around as she straightens her monocle with a faintly trembling hand, “Any rebuttals?” No one says a word, nor lifts their wand to be recognized to speak, “Then the motion to vote passes. All those in favor of a year long adjustment to the rule that three quarters of the full Wizengamot be changed to three quarters of the Wizengamot without counting the seats currently in question over the blocking of Sirius Black's case, please tap your wand to ‘yes’ on your voting plate.”

Around the room, taps against the little metal squares on the table in front of each of their seats sound out, and after the votes come in, Amelia turns back to her with a bemused smile, “Well Lady Potter-Black, I do believe you have just made history in swinging the first ever unanimous vote of all members in attendance in the Wizengamot.” Then she shakes her head as Calanthe sits back down, “Proceeding back to the prior issue, all those barring suspect members in favor of temporarily suspending said suspect members from the Wizengamot, please tap ‘yes’ on your voting plates.”

That one isn't as clean cut, what with things like people trying to save allies, pureblood supremacists who undoubtedly think to profit off of members more inclined to look after their own interests rather than justice, or even just those with more ridiculous reasons, like not wanting new blood brought onto the Wizengamot.

Even with that though, it still passes with a majority vote, and those who had been stonewalling Sirius’ case despite all of the evidence are immediately suspended. They'll have a certain amount of time to come up with their defense, so none of the trials to permanently expel them from their seats on the Wizengamot happen that day, and there isn't much else after that in general to be honest.

She holds on to her decorum as she heads through the Ministry and over to floo to her London apartment. She's hardly there before she's stepping into the Vanishing Cabinet heading to the Tokyo apartment. Given that it's around midnight there, she's as quiet as possible as she enters and pops the food Hei left in the fridge for her into the microwave, slumping tiredly on the counter as she watches it tick down so she can stop it before it hits zero.

In all honesty, it would probably be more reasonable in general to stay over at her London apartment or something given she's got things she needs to do there, but she's already away from Hei and Misaki three quarters of the year. She does not want to be dragged away from them any more than necessary, even if they rarely actually saw each other with their conflicting sleep schedules. There was a certain comfort in just knowing that they were in the same country, even if it doesn't totally make a whole lot of sense given her Vanishing Cabinets.

She's just turning to take her food to the dining table when she ends up jumping in surprise to find Hei leaning against the doorframe behind her. She winces apologetically, then keeping her voice down for Misaki, murmurs out, “Sorry, did I manage to wake you?”

He smiles reassuringly, as he moves over to the fridge to quietly pull a drink out, “No, I was having trouble falling asleep and heard you start the microwave. Figured if I was up anyway I should come say hi.”

She frowns faintly, “Were the muffling spells I put on the apartment not working as well at keeping the city sounds out?”

He turns with his drink, leaning against the counter, still smiling at her, “Nah, just some regular insomnia.”

She hums in understanding. On one hand, it's good to know that the spells were still doing their job, but on the other hand, there's not much she can do about run of the mill insomnia, since while there are sleeping potions, it's generally not good to use them for something as minor as that. It can all too easily lead to developing a habit of reaching for them whenever you have trouble sleeping, and if you take them too often it can cause the body to start to grow reliant on them.

He tilts his head, looking at her thoughtfully, “You seem tired.”

She shrugs as she digs into her food, Basilisk meat from the taste of it, given that after the results of her study with Hermione's parents had come back and been published as well as the revelation of her soulmates gaining magic, since it was generally better to say such things oneself rather than letting someone else reveal the truth and potentially twist it, and since the easiest way to prevent the demands for the Basilisk meat was to just claim it was already gone and do their best to make that be absolutely honest, it had gone back on the menu, much to Hei's delight since he was so weirdly attached to it, “Little bit. Wasn't anything major or strenuous like a fight, just an awfully long day at the Wizengamot arguing over suspending and possibly expelling those assholes that were more concerned with the Ministry and Wizengamot looking bad them doing their damned jobs and letting Sirius have a trial.”

He hums in understanding, “Bunch of corrupt idiots. Glad they're getting what they’re due for such nonsense.” She huffs a laugh. Hei tilts his head again, “Although. Now that I think about it, how'd you even manage that? Didn't you tell me after that meeting with the purebloods at Malfoy's that if too many more families were lost to the Wizengamot, it would totally seize and all that?”

She shrugs, “Got them to temporarily suspend the rule that at least three quarters of all of the Wizengamot seats, even those that have died out, need to be in attendance to motion to begin without the missing members, which means nothing else could happen without that vote. The Wizengamot is supposed to have ninety people, most of them the carefully magically balanced family inherited seats, but a handful that have been equally as carefully kept separate so as to not throw it off that have been handed off to the Ministry as a whole. Since we need at least two thirds to do anything, the minimum is sixty, but those numbers have dwindled to the point that there's only about sixty-seven seats still filled. So under normal circumstances, if the Wizengamot loses even seven more seats, it's done for. Especially since the prior Wizengamot was resisting my attempts to get those seats refilled, even with the fact I had a good chunk of them under my thumb before that whole Voldemort denial smear campaign, they may not have dared go outright against me originally, but they sure dragged their damn feet, since those old buggers had gotten used to them being empty and have proportionally a bit more power by being one of sixty-seven instead of one of ninety.”

He shakes his head, “That place really is incredibly corrupt.”

She snorts, “Tell me about it.”

He tilts his drink back and forth thoughtfully, “...I'm going to start involving myself more than just poking around now that this war is fully breaking out.”

She tilts her head, “I kinda figured you would soon. Did you want me to get you a starting point like a base, or would that interfere with how you go about things and it would be better to start from scratch?”

He hums, “It wouldn't interfere, no. Besides, most of their houses would be under unplottable wards wouldn't they? I'm confident I could get a starting point anyway, but it would be significantly harder without one.”

She nods, “Alright, I'll get some coordinates from Lucius for somewhere you can start with and set up a portkey for you.”

He smiles in gratitude, then smoothly takes her plate after she rounds the kitchen island heading towards the sink. He drops a kiss to her forehead after she looks up at him in confusion, “I won't be able to get to sleep for a while longer anyway from what I can tell, so go get some rest. I'll clean it.”

She blinks rapidly, but she knows better than to try to argue with Hei, so she just leans up to press a kiss to his cheek, “Alright. Goodnight then.”

He smiles at her, “Goodnight Calanthe.”