Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
Day Two, early
It turned out to be a very long night indeed. Remus had cast an alert spell that gave him the time of sunset using old seaman’s definition of nautical twilight, based on the point at which you can no longer distinguish between a white thread and a black one. In more precise terms, it was the point at which the center of the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. A second alert was generated for nautical dawn. Based on a few bits of math on a scrap of parchment, it meant that the night, or at least the dark, had been approximately seven hours long, going by their current clock. He set a third alert for tonight’s nautical twilight, so they could measure out the day with some degree of accuracy. He knew by his tempus spell on arrival as compared to the time of twilight that there had been at least ten hours of daylight, but tonight’s alert would be conclusive. They’d get a sense of seasonal changes once they had time to work out some of the science of their planet. If all else failed, time would tell.
He'd managed to get a solid ten hours of sleep, which he was grateful for. He’d spent the last couple of days going short, stress and worry keeping him awake long past the time his exhausted body wanted to rest. During the remainder of their extended “night”, he’d spent several hours in the library, looking for the Compass Rose ritual he remembered seeing. It took him a few hours, and the stack of books he’d set aside for later reading was something he’d no doubt be scolded for. He’d had to keep dragging himself back on task after something fascinating caught his attention, threatening to send him down a different rabbit hole. He ensured his “for later” pile was tagged with his name so they wouldn’t be disturbed, continuing his search.
Finally locating it in a book from 1621 titled “A Guide for Adventurous Explorers”, he set about copying the ritual down, noting the supplies needed, and pocketing the book to ensure whomever was heading up any exploration got a copy of it. They really did need a librarian to ensure the books remained accounted for and didn’t get misplaced in all the upcoming commotion.
And taking a moment to think about “whomever was heading…”, he realized it was time he and Harry took a step back. They’d been more or less in charge by default, what with it being their idea and so few of them, it had been natural to take the lead. Then things grew exponentially larger, and they’d lacked the time to find the right people to do a handover to. Well no, they’d been so swamped it hadn’t really occurred to them, but even if it had, there was no way to do so until now. Remus had no intention of taking on any more long term authority than his still surprising to him job as headmaster allowed. His responsibility was going to be the school, and his ability to provide any scholarly information requested or required. There were nearly four hundred people that had put their faith in this undertaking, he was highly unlikely to be the best resource for any of their upcoming projects.
At least temporarily, they were going to need a lot of directors, and an overall organizer to keep track of personnel and project statuses. He supposed he could be a director for something narrowly focused, like education, but not the overall organizer. Not Harry, either. Harry was amazing, but he was only seventeen and Remus knew him well enough to know he’d hate being in charge of anything lasting more than a couple of days. He’d probably be quite content to simply be useful. Sirius would avoid responsibility like the plague, and while Neville was a herbology prodigy, he may not want all that weight on his seventeen year old shoulders either.
He knew it would be hard to remove himself from authority completely. He liked to know what was going on, but understood that that didn’t make him special, everyone involved wanted to know what was going on. He’d talk it over with Hat, Sirius, and Harry, but he was fairly certain they’d agree with him; it was time to find their subject matter experts and put them in charge. He had a suspicion of who the overall organizer might turn out to be, but that was completely dependent on how many people were acquainted with Percy Weasley.
Remus thought he could keep himself quite busy with Hogwarts alone. For instance, there was going to have to be some serious thought given to the castle as a school. The many bonded house elves had been what made keeping up with cleaning and maintenance possible and without them, well, he had feasibility issues.
Sighing, he drew a blank sheet of parchment towards himself, and started on a tentative list of topics, drawing from previous lists and adding new thoughts. He’d pass it along be added to or debated. He starred those he thought might need to be handled first, but ultimately, he was going to cede those decisions to others.
He folded the parchment and tucked it away, then stood and headed for the kitchen. He was going to need quite a bit of tea to face the day, he thought. Might as well dig out one of their pre-filled tea urns and a supply of mugs.
*-*-*-*-*-
Harry had lain awake for several hours. It was over. Well, not over, but there was no going back, and no more wondering what new catastrophe was about to crop up. As of now, he didn’t have to feel like there would never be enough time to get critical things done. For better or worse, the future started with the present. He wanted to put all the stress and worries behind him, but his brain didn’t agree and kept obsessively drowning him in thoughts of what he should have done, what he could have done better, and what he had failed miserably at.
He tried to be adult about the situation, logically knowing that maybe it could have been done differently, but it wasn’t. Maybe he could have handled things better, but he didn’t. He worked to internalize that acceptance, self blame was only useful in learning to do better. Falling back on a mediation approach he’d learned while studying for his OWLS, he finally dimmed the mental noise to grumpy mumbles, enough to allow him some sleep.
He had no idea what time it was when he finally opened his eyes, he didn’t much care and didn’t bother to check. Cracking open his door to see, it was still dark in the room which meant they were still acclimating. Regardless, he was wide awake and ready to do some thinking. Recalling the previous evening, his whizzing brain and less than kind to himself thoughts, Harry knew it was time to get out of any kind of leadership role. Arguably, he never should have been in one and he knew that, too. “I did it because I thought I had to,” he said quietly to himself, “but I was wrong.” Yes, he’d had the idea, yes, he was in the right place at the right time to make it seem logical and as things had progressed, circumstances had tripped every one of his buttons, setting off his need to just get things done. Considering the matter, he guiltily acknowledged it was an okay response to have when it comes to homework or running errands, but he should have bowed out days ago and stopped assuming he was the only one who thought of this or that. “I’ll do better,” he said, determination in his voice.
Regardless, he was out. He’d talk to Hat, Sirius, and Remus about turning any part of his mess over to those with better and bigger picture knowledge. Decision made, he headed for a shower and a set of clean clothes.
*-*-*-*-
Slowly waking up, Sirius rolled over on his back, paws in the air. Probably not a good sign he was transforming in his sleep, he was well aware it was a stress response and a way to avoid dealing with things. On the other hand, it wasn’t like he could have actually done anything about the stress, right? Maybe in this case spending time as Padfoot was helpful in keeping himself on an even emotional keel. The last few days hadn’t been easy for anyone involved.
He’d spent what seemed like never ending hours frantically trying to get back to England, back to Remus and Harry, unable to find a magical community with an open floo. He’d finally faced the fact that he was in for one long ass broom flight and headed for Gringotts in Bucharest. He’d been airborne for several hours and his warming charms were not holding up well, so he was flying lower than was probably advisable when he saw what turned out to be Charlie sending up distress flares. With Charlie’s broom out of commission, they’d had to ride tandem into Bucharest, only to find the local Gringotts branch belching fire and an enraged dragon on a rampage. They’d landed briefly, long enough to take a couple elbows to the face and to be near trampled by a panicked crowd, Charlie taking the worst of it with a shoulder to elbow cut that kept reopening despite repeated application of Episky. It wasn’t a charm Sirius was great at, and it was in too awkward a spot for Charlie to get his wand correctly maneuvered, so they’d had to just wrap it and make tracks back into the air, heading for Istanbul instead. There they found an empty bank but an open floo, and walked through to Gringotts London, where he was finally close enough to get a Patronus off to Remus, and Charlie sending one to his dad. Remus had them head to Hogwarts, with a Patronus from his pup coming in shortly thereafter.
From then on, it had been a wild ride of reactions, with Sirius sticking to Harry like glue. Harry wanted to go to London? He’d make that happen. Need to meet the Prime Minister? Why not, let’s go. Harry wanted to go to a Candy factory? He was down for that. Chocolate? Oh yeah, let’s! In retrospect, it was clear he maybe should have had his hand on the wheel a bit more. Harry was a fantastic kid, but thinking the last few days over, not once did he factor in other people’s input in anything other than with a passing moment’s thought. And the key there was that Harry was still a kid, for all that he was an old soul. Honestly, Harry could manage himself pretty well, but when you scaled up his situational reactions to the responsibility level he’d been dealing with the last few days, it wasn’t a good mix. He’d done the very best he could, and Sirius wasn’t going to knock him on his decision making, not at all. Harry’s very best was pretty damn good, but there were… gaps. Sirius had missed them too, which meant he was no more suited to taking charge of things than Harry, so he needed to find a tactful way to ease Harry and himself back to being just another villager with a pair of useful hands.
Rolling to his feet, he gave himself a good shake then padded to the shower, transforming as he went.
*-*-*-*-
Neville astonished himself by sleeping a solid twelve hours. Generally he was seven hours and no more, couldn’t sleep in even if he wanted. It was no doubt due to his working straight through the first twenty four hours of the crisis that led to his current well rested state, knowing their ability to keep themselves fed had initially rested solely on his shoulders. He drove himself relentlessly, both the critical nature of his task and his desperate desire to not think about his family situation keeping him focused and moving forward. As their numbers grew, he’d gotten assistance in various ways from others who’d been sent out to pick up various items and hardware, but so far as he was aware, nobody was working in a systemic way, covering what was needed from soil needs to planting needs to harvest needs. Others had no doubt gotten a chunk of it, or bits and pieces her and there covered, but he suspected what they’d missed would soon become apparent.
Fortunately, when Harry had sent him on his way, he’d been thinking along those same lines, asking him to make sure if he needed fertilizer to make sure it was covered, if he needed specialized additives, make sure they had it and to further make sure whatever was used to create those additives was also procured. He wasn’t hoping to show the planning committee up, because of course not, but he was rather looking forward to the time when they realized something vital had been missed. His storage area was a thing of beauty, he admitted to himself with a small smile, and he really wanted to see the looks on their face when he opened it up.
He’d grown up in a house that His Gran had never bothered to learn much about. Her son, his dad, had inherited it from his great uncle, another Longbottom who’d been a dedicated plantsman and one of Neville’s personal heroes, despite never having met him. Gran had moved into the house when his parents had become… incapacitated. Nothing had indicated she was ever aware of the pocket dimension that had been installed in the attic by said great uncle.
In an effort to stay out of his Gran’s way and as far away from Uncle Algie as possible since his early childhood, Neville had spent much of his time exploring it’s depths. There were stacks of crates inside, each thoroughly labeled with a photo of the plant or plants it contained in stasis as well as enormous crates of various seedstocks, and Neville really needed to have someone look at those preservation charms, because no way should they have lasted this long. Each also had a complete record of everything known about its native environment, growing conditions, age to maturity, uses at various stages of growth, and a multitude of other facts.
Playing amongst all that plant related lore had fostered his love of being surrounded by green, growing things, and gave him a direct connection to his Longbottom ancestor who shared that passion. Plants came easily to him. He’d taught himself to read from the documents on those crates, and couldn’t remember a time he didn’t have something plant related simmering in the back of his consciousness.
Aside from the horror of the crisis that had prompted the frantic rush, he had felt a current, no, an entire ocean, of excitement. Harry’s gold had allowed him to go crazy in a way he’d dreamed of for what seemed like forever. He could design his dream setup, acquire plants he’d heard of but never had a chance to experiment with, and more. After detaching the pocket space from the attic, he’d reattached it to the interior of a rather nondescript trunk, then worked himself beyond exhaustion to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. He had an Circe bedamned amount of blood, sweat, and tears invested, and his entire lifetime had been spent unknowingly preparing himself for this task. He was feeling beyond grateful for Harry’s funding and currently he wanted nothing more than the opportunity to get himself set up and then lose himself completely in work. Let others plan whatever, he wanted to go bury his hands in some dirt as soon as possible.
He had no regrets in cutting off his family, aside from his parents. It had been Neville who had taken the time to talk to the Healers about new theories, ideas for providing stimulation, or ensuring favorite items were provided. His Gran had been content to “do her duty” of a socially required visit every Sunday afternoon, otherwise sparing them not a thought. She did love being in charge of the Longbottom fortune, though. Yeah, he wasn’t going to miss her or her brother, but he was going to miss his parents. There wasn’t any way he could have brought them with him, he knew. There was no specialized medical care on hand and he couldn’t bear the thought of them suffering even benign neglect. No, better that they had stayed with their long term healers. It was hard, thinking about it. They’d never really been present in his life, but their hands were always warm when he’d held them, and just sometimes he’d imagined a flash of recognition when they looked his way. They’d been lost in their minds and had never found their way home, a teary thought he’d always tried not to dwell on.
*-*-*-*-
Arthur Weasley woke up, looking across the room to see Percy still asleep, then rolling onto his back and crossing his arms behind his head. Bill was next door, and he hoped all his children were taking the time to recharge themselves. Percy was such a creature of habit, Arthur thought fondly. He’d drop off to sleep in a wink and wouldn’t move if a herd of thestrals invaded the house. He’d wake up exactly seven and one half hours later, precisely. Had done that since he was about four and seen his first planning calendar, he remembered the goggle eyed amazement in his boy’s eyes as he’d sat turning the empty pages. He’d narrowed those same eyes in thought then asked Arthur for a quill and never looked back. But schedules were about to go cattywhumpus and their lives were all about to become very busy, and yet very not. The twins had Pack!ed up their shop, but he didn’t think anyone else in the family had a living space or home with them. They were going to need to build from scratch, and he was very much looking forward to that, once they had the go ahead. Until then, it would be a lot of ideas, planning, and dreaming.
Getting away from the monstrosity the Burrow had become was welcome, but escaping his contracted marriage to Molly Prewitt was absolutely euphoric. Molly had spent years getting nonsensical ideas and charging headfirst into things with all the grace and destruction of a rampaging rhino, screeching and flinging howlers about all the way. She’d look around the house and start lobbing charms without regard for architectural integrity, leaving Arthur to come home from work only to have to clean up the mess and keep things from collapsing. Had she reined in her spending, there would have been money to do things properly, but every time she got her grasping hands on a galleon, it flew out of her purse faster than a racing pigeon.
It was Arthur who did the grocery shopping with hidden money, Arthur who worked extra shifts to cover schoolbooks and shoes, and Arthur who taught the children basic life skills. He loved his children, and wanted them to have the best opportunities he could provide, although his youngest two were a problem. Probably because they weren’t his youngest two. Molly’s Aunt Muriel was a spiteful old biddy, and she had ensured he knew what Molly had been doing all those evenings with her “knitting group”. He’d known that well before she told him, he was a pretty observant sort of fellow both by nature and training; many thanks to his father and Gringotts for that. Had he not been, he supposed he’d have to be grateful to Muriel, it had made his recent actions surprisingly easy to live with. Molly had spoiled those two beyond his ability to redeem, his words passing between their ears like so much puffs of air, their actions dismaying and sickening by turns. He didn’t know who their father actually was, hadn’t bothered to find out. But when the current opportunity fell in his lap, well, what else would a retrieval specialist to do but take advantage of it?
Somewhere amongst all the misery that was the early years of his marriage, Arthur had been notified that it was time to take over from his father Septimus as Gringott’s Special Consultant. Arthur had been training with his father for years, knowing that day was coming. It wasn’t terribly often that the Special Consultant got to retire, it was even less frequent than the oncoming Consultant was fully trained on arrival to the position. His tenure as Consultant had fulfilled the Weasley’s obligation to Gringotts that his great grandfather had incurred when he’d defaulted on a debt that required five generations of service as restitution. Bill had unknowingly completed the last generation of debt by becoming a curse breaker under Gringott’s banner.
His final mission from Gringotts had been completed three days ago, when a message came in regarding the youngest Weasley boy. He hadn’t exactly been happy about it, but when he read why it was required, he carried out the sentence with Lady Justice holding his wand steady. With a long term stun and an unused room in the cellar of the Burrow, it only took a final notice me not charm on the basement door to take the first step on setting himself free.
He had been relieved that none of his children would be summoned to the Consultant position, it wasn’t an easy life. Most of his teenaged years had been spent in training with his father and since assuming his father’s post, the last twelve had been spent hiding his Gringott’s affiliation and missions under his persona of an honest and affable man. He didn’t know if that persona was real or not, well, the honest part certainly wasn’t, but it had been so trained into him from age ten on that he had no idea if it could be dropped. He didn’t really care, though. He had the children that mattered, he’d rescued Percy from the corrupted Ministry, told Dumbledore to suck it, and sent Molly and Ginny through the portal with a helping hand and an entirely false promise that he’d bring the rest along shortly.
He’d spent yesterday assisting his friend the Prime Minister, filling him in on mission details that hadn’t been included on previous reports from Gringotts, writing reams of notes on current political players and their backgrounds, essentially leaving behind a blackmail book that would serve the Prime Minister for years to come. They’d been mates for many years, sharing a beer here and there when the opportunity had arisen. He regretted having had to keep that friendship on the quiet, he rather thought Percy might have quite liked the man and his wife, had they been able to spend time together. They certainly would have provided better guidance than Fudge. He scowled at having been prevented from keeping Percy out of that sphere, it was going to take some time to undo that damage and allow his middle son a chance to grow into his best self.
“Well, that’s enough dwelling on the past,” he thought to himself. Time to move on. Not bothering to check the time, but with every effort to stay silent, he headed for the shower.