Auror Team Four
I: Auror Team Four
“So,” Aramis sang, propping his elbows on Athos’ desk with a grin. “Did you hear who Treville just recruited?”
Athos, as a matter of fact, had not heard who Treville had just recruited, and he quite frankly didn’t care all that much. Aurors came and went all the time. Unless they knew some new spells Athos had never heard of or messed with the coffeemaker—a Muggle artifact Athos had requisitioned from the Misuse office, and was very, very protective of—he really didn’t bother getting to know anyone outside Team Four. “No,” he said.
Aramis grinned widely. “Wanna guess?”
Athos didn’t bother with a response.
Aramis sighed. “D’Artagnan!”
“D’Artagnan?” French name, Athos thought, but he didn’t think he’d heard it before. He frowned. “Who is that and why do I care?”
“Oh, you’re gonna break his little heart,” said Aramis, still grinning. “You really don’t remember? It was six years ago, but the whelp followed you everywhere. You’ve got to remember.”
The word whelp sparked a picture in Athos’s memory. Dark hair, a round, hopeful face, a small boy in black robes, red tie flapping in the breeze as he tried to keep up with Aramis and Porthos as they ran from that crazed hippogriff—
“Not the Gryffindor boy,” Athos said, remembering. “He can’t be old enough, can he?” D’Artagnan. He recognized the name now. He’d been the boy’s grudging mentor at school, assigned to him as part of the Inter-House Cooperation Program. Why the professors had decided to give a fresh-faced Gryffindor first year to the most bad-tempered Slytherin in the school Athos would never know, but D’Artagnan had followed the three of them, because where Athos went Aramis and Porthos followed, everywhere.
Athos had taught him how to duel. (Not serious dueling, understand—he taught the boy the Jelly-Legs Jinx, and Expelliarmus, and expressly forbade Aramis and Porthos from teaching him anything dangerous.)
But they’d always just called him the whelp, because he’d been six years behind Athos and five behind the other two. Athos did the math in his head. “Merlin’s beard,” he said, “he is old enough.”
Aramis laughed delightedly. “I hope Treville gives him to us for training. You should ask, you know. You’ve got a history with the brat and Treville thinks the sun shines out of your arse.”
“In Treville’s defense,” Porthos called from his own cubicle, “he did catch Athos after he accidentally drank that Stool-Loosening Potion.”
Athos ignored him. Something must have shown on his face, because Aramis’s smile faded. “You’re not going to ask to mentor him, are you?”
“No,” said Athos, “I will not.”
“Why?”
“Yeah,” Porthos said, abandoning all pretense of work and joining Aramis in Athos’s too-small cubicle. “I thought you liked the kid. You were all he talked about, after you left.”
Athos gave them both a withering look. “You really want to bring someone else into this?” He gestured to the tiny cubicle. “We haven’t had a case in two weeks.”
Aramis snorted. “That’s only because Capet’s getting sworn in as Minister. Once he’s in and Richelieu calls off the hounds, things’ll pick back up. It’s not like he actually cares enough about the crime rates to push for longstanding reform.”
“You’re spending too much time with Ninon,” said Porthos. Aramis shrugged.
“What?” he said. “It’s true.”
Athos sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think taking on a trainee is a good idea right now. Let someone else teach him. Do you really want him to get stuck with our bad reputation?”
They all looked at each other.
“No,” said Porthos.
“Definitely not,” Aramis agreed.
“It’s settled, then.” Athos leaned back in his chair tiredly, stretching his legs. “No trainees for Team Four.” The boy would be happier with another, more normal team. He’d liked the three of them well enough in school, but it had been years since then. They were all different. Besides, saddling the whelp with their reputation and their luck right out of school was cruel. Treville would wait before d’Artagnan offended some high Ministry official before he inflicted Athos, Porthos, and Aramis on him.
“I’m sad to hear that,” Treville said, rounding the corner. His formal robes were in their usual state of disarray, like he’d tugged them on as an afterthought, a half-hearted attempt to please the Wizengamot. “Are you sure, Athos? Team Four could use another man.”
Athos looked pointedly at his tiny cubicle. Between Aramis’s lazy sprawl and the width of Porthos’s shoulders, there was barely any room for Athos’s lettertray, let alone another person.
Treville glanced between them and sighed. “Very well. I’ll look after him, then, at least until I can stick him with someone else. I might not even keep any this year. You all took a year off between school and joining up, didn’t you?”
Porthos grinned. Athos winced. Aramis laughed out loud.
“Not a recommended experience, then?”
“I had a great time,” Aramis said.
“You ended up in a Russian prison,” Athos muttered.
“A Muggle Russian prison,” agreed Porthos.
Aramis replied with a very Muggle hand gesture.
“Enough,” Treville said, pinching the bridge of his own nose. (God, thought Athos, in a moment of horrible clarity, this man is my future. I will become this man.) “The rest of the Office isn’t as batshit insane as you—”
“Hey now,” said Aramis.
“That’s hurtful,” said Porthos.
“—so a year off would probably help most normal people adjust to the rigors of this office.” Treville took a deep breath. The Head Auror’s blood pressure always seemed to spike around Team Four. Athos could sympathize.
“I have something for you to do,” Treville continued, and Athos sat a little straighter.
“Not more bloody paperwork, I hope,” Porthos muttered.
Treville eyed him. “No,” he said. “I have an assignment for you.” He sobered. “Team Nine is missing.”
Athos frowned.
“Missing?” said Aramis, worry creasing his forehead. “How long?”
“Three days.”
“That’s four teams gone in as many months,” Porthos added. “First Twelve, then Six and Eight, now Nine? What’s goin’ on, boss?”
“That’s what you’ll be looking into,” Treville said. “I don’t want to panic anyone, least of all our new Minister, but this is a pattern. I can’t afford to lose more teams. Richelieu’s budget cuts have already trimmed us down lower than I’d like, and the things I’ve been hearing from some of the other departments, well.”
Athos closed his eyes. Four teams gone in four months. That wasn’t an accident, or a coincidence. It was a pattern. “You’re thinking that Dark wizards might be on the move again,” he said.
Treville gave him a hard look. “Keep that to yourself,” he said, which was all the answer Athos needed. “You’ll be going to Scotland. Travel light, travel fast, and check in as soon as you find something. If someone opposes you, get out of there, do you understand? And be careful. I don’t have the manpower to lose more good Aurors.”
Aramis grinned widely. “Come on, boss. We’re always careful, aren’t we, boys?”
---
It went like this:
Athos was older than Porthos and Aramis, and when he graduated he missed them terribly but was too proud to say it and too impatient to wait around for them to finish seventh year. His father had always told him that Aurors were little more than poorly-trained attack dogs, so Athos with his good grades, his bad attitude, and his firewhiskey habits, joined the Department of Mysteries.
That was Athos’s first mistake.
The second was, a year later, staying in the Department of Mysteries and letting Aramis and Porthos run around unchecked.
It took the better part of a year, one pro Quidditch ban, and seven international incidents for Athos to file all the necessary paperwork and find all the right loopholes, but he managed to get himself and his two morons into the Auror training program. (Treville was the only man in the entire Ministry crazy enough to look at the three of them and go, “I’ll take the lot of you.”)
They completed the three-year training program in one and a half, settled into Athos’s tiny cubicle, and promptly became the scourge of the Wizarding underworld.
(Athos wouldn’t go so far as to call them that, but every once in a while he does like to indulge Aramis’s airs.)
None of them ever talked about their experiences during The Year. It was pointless, Porthos said, to whine about the past when there were Dark wizards to jinx into next Tuesday.
Athos traded in political intrigue and power struggles, his family’s bread and butter, for a life as a very, very poorly-trained attack dog. His father hadn’t spoken to him in four years. Aramis stole all of his sandwiches, Treville yelled at them at least once a week, and Porthos had a lovely habit of napping on Athos’s floor, which made getting in and out of the cubicle a damn near impossibility. He still drank excessively—had to, with his teammates—and snarled at anyone who touched his coffeemaker, but Athos, he thought, was happy.
---
They arrived in Scotland with a crack and the feeling of coming through a long, dark tunnel. Green light beat down on them through the trees, wind ruffled their hair, and the noise and buzz of London became breeze and birdsong.
“Quaint, innit?” said Porthos, grinning. “How far d’you think we are from school?”
“Hogsmeade’s that way,” Athos said, pointing west. “Not terribly far, I should think.”
“We’re not in the Forbidden Forest, are we?” Aramis, as a general rule, hated forests. After that incident with the acromantula, Athos couldn’t really blame him.
“No. It’s a normal Muggle forest, as far as Treville told me.” Which didn’t mean that there weren’t magical things lurking in the trees. A team of Aurors had disappeared here. Something magical, man or creature, must have come through.
Aramis relaxed. “Team Nine, then? What were they doing out here?”
“Treville didn’t say.” Athos raised his wand and whispered, “Homenum revelio.” Light passed over the forest, rustling past leaves and clinging bush. “All clear,” he said.
“They were staying here?”
“Treville said near here, anyway. By the willow tree that looks like Celestina Warbeck.” Athos pointed.
“Holy shit,” said Aramis, staring at the tree. He put his hands out, palms tilted up. “It’s even got the right, you know.” He mimed squeezing.
“Tits,” Porthos laughed, copying Aramis. “What a lovely woman.”
Aramis hummed in agreement.
Athos eyed the both of them. “There’s no way either of you have slept with Celestina Warbeck.”
Their twin grins made Athos wish for a nice long drink of firewhiskey. “You know what,” he said, “I don’t want to know. I’m going to actually do my job, you two can stay here and fondle the tree if you like.”
“That would be rude,” said Aramis loftily.
“Very,” Porthos agreed. “What if she doesn’t wanna be fondled, eh?”
“You should really be more considerate, Athos.”
“I’m considering murdering the both of you and telling Treville a werewolf got you,” Athos muttered, loping away from them. They snickered, but got the hint and split up, casting about in the forest.
Athos kept his eyes peeling for the telltale signs of a struggle. Teams worked in three- or four-wizard groups. One Auror was always awake and watching the surrounding area, even if the others had stopped to camp for the night. If a whole team of Aurors had been taken, there would be evidence.
Scorch marks, trees blasted to bits, rocks, water, or fire in places where they shouldn’t be. Athos had once found a scene by following purple smoke. When Aurors fought, they weren’t subtle about it.
So far, he’d seen nothing. Not even a twig was out of place.
Athos frowned. Odd, he thought, and turned around. “Aramis!” he called. “Are there any charms or spells you know of that could make the forest look normal?”
“Transfigure it, you mean?” Aramis shouted back, somewhere to Athos’s left.
“No, like put the forest under an illusion.”
“Well there’s the Bedazzling Hex,” said Aramis, coming over a ridge. “But that’s not much use over a wider scale, it’s usually just for Invisibility Cloaks. Why?”
“This,” Athos said, sweeping a hand over the tranquil, pristine forest, “is too neat. If Aurors were taken here, there’d be some sign. Hell, if they even camped here we’d find something.”
“Something like a campfire?” Aramis said, at the exact moment Porthos shouted, “Hey, over here! I found something.”
They found Porthos standing in front of an empty clearing, hands on his hips, studying the ground. The faint scent of fire hung in the air.
“Watch,” said Porthos, and stuck his hand out into the clearing. Air rippled around him and his hand stopped.
“Cave inimicum.” Aramis studied the clearing for a moment, flicked his wand, and hissed, “Finite incantatem.” The air shimmered, and broke.
A campsite wavered into existence, a tent, a fire, some cookware scattered across the ground. The tent was slashed open, maps and robes and books Athos recognized from Treville’s office scattered about. The fire had gone out some time ago, and food had burned and congealed in the bottom of the pot. Aramis whistled.
“There’s still no sign of a fight,” Athos said, looking around at the trees. The campsite was in ruins, but there were still no hallmarks of Aurors fighting for their lives in the surrounding forest.
“Hoofprints, though.” Porthos nodded at the ground. Deep prints were cut into the earth, leading away from the site. “Two centaurs, maybe three.”
“Centaurs?” Athos frowned. “We’re not that close to the Forbidden Forest.”
Porthos shrugged. “There’s more centaurs than just the ones there. Not so many herds, but little roving bands. Most of ‘em are outcasts kicked out of the Hogwarts herd.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“They’d know better than to go for a bunch of wizards,” Porthos said, head tilted to the side. “’specially Aurors. They don’t like us much. If they were here they came before the camp was made, or after Team Nine was gone.”
“Could they have seen the fight and come to investigate?” Aramis asked.
“To see what they could pick off the dead, more like,” said Porthos darkly. “We can follow ‘em, if you want.”
Athos looked around at the destroyed campsite. He saw no bodies, no craters, no blast marks. If the Aurors had fought, and they would fight, all Aurors would, they hadn’t done so here. He shrugged. “Why not?”
Porthos led the way, stepping carefully over the tracks. As they went Athos would stop periodically to cast a Revealing Charm, checking for human presence, and Aramis followed last, dropping Preservation Charms every few meters to keep the tracks fresh.
Four teams in four months, thought Athos. He knew that the first team had disappeared somewhere in Cornwall, the second in Wales, and the third somewhere in the South Downs. There had to be some kind of pattern. One team of Aurors disappearing a year was not so strange. Even if Dark wizards had been scattered and few lately, they still had plenty of enemies. Shit happened.
But four in as many months meant that someone was preying on Aurors, and with a new, young, and quite frankly not very smart Minister of Magic taking office, Athos didn’t like what that implied.
His fingers brushed the locket at his neck absently. “Be ready,” he said, as the tracks led deeper into the forest and the trees grew closer together. “I don’t like this.”
Aramis drew closer to Athos’s back and Porthos slowed, letting them follow just a step behind. “Don’t need to tell me twice,” Aramis muttered. The light had shifted from green and golden to a few narrow patches of yellow and the rest dark gloom. The place felt like the Forbidden Forest, sleepy and magical, with just enough danger pricking the edges of Athos’s perception to remind him that the trees were often full of eyes.
The centaur’s trail led them deeper and deeper into the woods. “Hold on,” said Porthos, stopping so suddenly that Athos nearly crashed into his back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Tracks stop. Lumos.” Porthos raised his wand high, casting white light over the trees, and called, “Hello! We’re Aurors. We’d like to speak with you.”
For several long seconds, there was silence. Then, “We do not wish to speak with you, Auror. Leave this place.” An arrow whistled through the air and buried itself in the tree behind Porthos with a solid thump. “The next will not miss.”
Aramis very calmly raised his wand and pointed it at the shadows.
“Don’t,” Athos hissed. “Let him handle it.”
Porthos smiled. “I’m Porthos,” he said. “Friend of the Hogwarts herd.”
There was another moment of silence. “We have heard of you, Porthos, friend of Phepris.”
“I only want to ask a few questions,” said Porthos, still smiling. “And then we’ll be on our way. Will you hear me out?”
“We will hear you out.” And three centaurs stepped out from between the trees, bows loose in their hands. They didn’t look much like the centaurs Athos had come to know during his Hogwarts days. Those were handsomer, better-kept, and without a hunted, haunted look in their eyes.
These centaurs looked wild.
Athos inclined his head politely. Aramis, warily, did the same.
“We’re looking for some missing friends,” Porthos said. “Have you seen them? Four Aurors, three men and one woman?”
One centaur, her hair long and tangled, stomped a hoof. “We have not.” Her voice was high and hard. “We tend to stay away from your kind, Auror.”
“But you’ve been to their campsite.” Porthos’s tone was still light and friendly. He tucked his wand, still lit, into his back pocket.
The centaurs tensed.
“Easy, now, I know you didn’t attack ‘em,” said Porthos. “But someone did. We’re just lookin’ around, is all. We don’t wanna cause trouble for you and your herd.”
The female centaur raised her head proudly. “Your kind has always harmed mine, Auror. Phepris calls you a friend, but he knew you when you were a colt. You are a man grown. You come into my forest armed. You bring trouble with your very presence.”
“Look,” said Porthos, “I know you were at the campsite. I don’t wanna bring Reg and Control into this, but one of those missing Aurors? My friend Planchet. I just wanna know what happened to him. You help us, we’ll leave in peace. I promise.”
“His word has always been good,” one of the male centaurs murmured. He had dappled flanks and cropped hair. His eyes were bright and keen. “I will tell you what you wish to know, Auror.”
The female hissed, but the male silenced her with a glare. “We are banished from Phepris,” he reminded her. “He will not help us if we offend the Ministry.”
The other male muttered a nasty-sounding word, but neither centaur stopped the dappled male as he stepped nearer to Porthos.
Porthos grinned, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “Did you know it was an Auror camp?”
“We knew it was a wizard’s camp,” said the centaur. He flicked his tail. “When we arrived, we found that it had been enchanted. We did not try and break the enchantments, and left.”
“How’d you find the camp?”
The centaur eyed Porthos thoughtfully. “We saw the lights. This is a Muggle forest—any magic we see we search for, to make sure that the forest is still safe for us.”
They saw the attack.
“Do y’know who fired the spell? Or what kind it was?”
“It was a green spell, fired into the air. I do not know who cast it, except that it was cast again some distance away. We followed it.”
“To where? What did you find.”
The centaur waited a moment, considering, and said, “Not what you hope to find, I should think. Come. I will take you there.”
The female centaur spat. “Coward,” she snarled, and cantered off, the other male following behind her.
The remaining centaur sighed. “Forgive Circe,” he said. “She is young, and proud.”
Porthos, still smiling, waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. Lead the way?”
The centaur bowed his head, and set off. The three Aurors rushed after him, dodging trees and hanging branches.
“How does he do that?” Aramis hissed, eyeing the centaur.
Athos shrugged, a little helplessly. The one time he’d tried to reason with a centaur he’d ended up hanging by his ankles in the Forbidden Forest with an arrow in his shoulder. “He’s got a gift.” He has seen, over the years, Porthos befriend everything from werewolf cubs to clans of bowtruckle to foul-tempered hippogriffs. He’d kept an Augurey in his room for the entirety of fourth year and its moaning had driven all of Hufflepuff to distraction. Aramis had hated the damn thing.
The centaur led them through the deepest, darkest part of the woods, and then, to Athos’s surprise, out onto what looked like a moor.
“This is as far as I will go,” said the centaur. “The last beam of light came from out there. Good luck, Auror Porthos.”
“Thanks for your help.” Porthos bowed slightly to the creature. It regarded them all solemnly, then turned and disappeared back into the forest. “Helpful bloke, wasn’t he?”
Aramis shook his head, laughing. “Much nicer than the other one, at any rate.”
“I want to know,” Athos said, before their usual bickering and bantering could start, “how Aurors got from there,” he gestured back towards the forest, “to out here. Without any sign of struggle.”
Aramis’s expression darkened. “I can think of a few ways,” he said. “Who or whatever attacked them could have Apparated out here, for one.”
“Portkey?” Porthos suggested.
“Dark magic,” Athos murmured. He could feel it in the air. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he brushed against his locket reflexively.
The mood around him grew serious.
“You believe Treville,” Aramis said. “You think Dark wizards are picking off Aurors.”
“Makes sense.” Porthos’s face was sober. He, like Athos, had realized that if Dark wizards were involved, his friend Planchet was most likely dead. “Four teams go missing all together like this? Not even goblins would do something that risky.”
“I think someone’s trying to cut down the Aurors to get at Louis Capet,” Athos said darkly. “The timing fits, anyway.”
Wind whistled across the moor.
“Well,” said Aramis, “this is where I’d bring a body, if I’d just killed an Auror. Shall we?”
Together, the three of them spread out and strode across the moor. Here and there Athos began to see signs of magic. Patches of grass were withered and burnt. Chunks of loamy earth had been thrown into the air and scattered across the ground. Aramis found several deep cuts in the earth, Sectumsempra gone wide and wild, and Porthos found a torn, burned robe.
Athos was the one who found the wand. It was half-buried in mud and grass, and resisted when he pulled at it. Warily, he held it aloft.
“A wand?” Aramis came loping over to Athos’s side. Porthos was higher up, near a tree, casting around in the scrub. “Who’s, I wonder?”
“One way to find out,” said Athos dryly. He raised his own wand. “Priori incantatem.”
At once, the wand began to vibrate. He saw a bone form, then a rush of green light, several Reducto curses, and one stunning spell. The wand vibrated once again, hard, and fell still.
Athos worked backwards.
“That was a Killing Curse,” Aramis said quietly. “And then—a transfiguration?”
“Into a bone.” Athos was grim. He wasn’t holding an Auror’s wand, then. Aurors didn’t cast the Killing Curse unless they had to—it was still, for them, an Unforgivable. The owner of this wand had Stunned, and then fought, and then murdered, and then transfigured.
Porthos, face equally grim, came down the hill back to them. “There’s nothing out there but moorland,” he said. “Lotta places to hide a body.”
Athos gestured with the foreign wand. “This is one of theirs,” he growled. “Someone was killed with it.”
“One of ours?”
“Only one way to find out.” Aramis took a deep breath, turned, and raised his wand high. “Accio.”
Athos could never find out just how Aramis managed to get Summoning Charms—any charms, really—to work half as well as he did. But he never failed, not even now when he wanted to, and sure enough, bones came whistling through the air from across the moor.
They came to rest in front of Aramis, four in all, and Athos could have snarled in fury.
He closed his eyes. “Don’t untransfigure them,” he said. “We’ll take them back to the Ministry and let St. Mungo’s do it, the proper way.”
The others nodded. Aramis’s face was dark and blank. Porthos’s was twisted in rage and sadness. One of those bones was his friend.
Athos silently wrapped the bones and the wand in the torn robe, tucked it under his jacket, and Apparated, trusting Aramis and Porthos to follow.
---
“Oh, god,” said Treville, as soon as he saw Athos. “What did you find?”
“Transfigured bones, a wand that had cast the Killing Curse, and a burned robe.”
“How many transfigured bones?”
“Four.”
Treville whitened.
“I’m sorry,” Athos said quietly. Treville cared for each and every one of his Aurors. He took the time to train them all, to teach them what being an Auror meant, to help them adjust to the lifestyle and the paranoia and the things they sometimes had to do.
He felt each death keenly.
“Porthos is taking the bones to St. Mungo’s to have them untransfigured,” Athos continued. “Aramis is taking the wand to Ollivander’s. If he can’t tell us who the wand belongs to, he’ll at least be able to tell us who made it. We’ll find these people, sir.”
Treville looked him over. “You will,” he agreed, heavily. “That’s what worries me.”
“Sir?”
“Someone is killing my Aurors,” Treville said, and anger shone in his face. “Someone is hunting and attacking my people, and a new Minister sits in his office, oblivious to any problems that Richelieu doesn’t care about.
Athos, to his immense personal pride, didn’t twitch at the mention of the Head of the Department of Mysteries. “You think someone is trying to kill Louis Capet, sir?” Athos had reached that conclusion himself, but he wanted Treville to confirm his theory.
“I don’t know if they want to kill the boy,” Treville said, “or weaken the Aurors for some other purpose. But the World Cup’s only a month away, and the fewer Aurors there are to protect him, the better shot someone has at killing him and throwing Wizarding Britain into chaos. His father was murdered. I can see someone looking to repeat history.”
“Especially since Louis is rumored to be so foolish,” Athos said dryly. He had known Louis Capet for years. He was two years younger than Athos, but they’d been in Slytherin together, and even before that the Capet family and the de la Fere family had rubbed elbows. He’d always thought the boy snotty and empty-headed, but he had become Minister of Magic at just twenty-one. Even with all of Richelieu’s scheming and the power of celebrity, there had to be something between Capet’s ears.
Treville cut him a sharp look, but didn’t disagree. He sighed. “This discovery proves we’re being hunted. I’m going to turn this year’s recruits away, I think. We need their numbers, but I’ve lost fourteen Aurors since the winter. I won’t be responsible for the deaths of children.”
“I’ll take d’Artagnan,” Athos said, before he realized what he was saying.
Treville stared at him. “Three hours ago you told me you didn’t want the boy.”
Athos shrugged, and most determinedly did not flush. “I knew him in school,” he said. “He was—a smart kid. Clever, and a fast learner. He picked up the few jinxes I taught him—perfectly legal ones, by the way—within a few tries.”
“So you want to train him? In a warzone?”
Are we at war now? Athos had been very small during the last Wizarding War, but he remembered the fear, and his father’s reaction to the news.
“Sir, Henry Capet has been murdered, the Minister of Magic is dead, his wife’s in the chair now, she’s saying someone’s hunting Purebloods…”
“I would like to train d’Artagnan,” Athos repeated, firmly. “What if whoever’s killing us starts killing recruits? If they’re trying to cut down Auror numbers, they’ll go for the kids too.” He didn’t want d’Artagnan to die. He hadn’t seen the whelp in years, hadn’t written to him or heard from him, but Athos knew he didn’t want him to die.
(And he remembered that, even as a first year, the whelp had been able to keep up with Athos and his friends. He’d followed them into all of their stupid, dangerous adventures, and he’d been able to hold his own.)
Treville knew Athos was right. He sighed heavily.
“If it helps you decide,” said Athos, “he actually likes Porthos and Aramis.”
Treville laughed tiredly. “Well,” he sighed, dragging a hand through his thinning hair, “this is either very good or the worst goddamn decision I’ve ever made, including taking on you three disasters. Very well. I’ll admit d’Artagnan. He’s yours.”
Athos smiled. “Thank you,” he said.
The Head Auror was already walking off, shaking his head. “Just try not to get him killed!” he called over his shoulder.
Athos looked at Team Nine’s empty row of cubicles, and turned away. His fingers itched to hunt. “I’ll try,” he muttered. “I’ll try.”