Chapter Text
“By the way Harriet, my mom said you’re invited to the Quidditch World Cup with us, what with the ally thing. My parents rented out a box for our allies and business partners. I know you’re not really into flying, but it would be nice if you could come.” Daphne asked one day after dueling practice..
“Of course I’ll come!” Harriet said, pecking her girlfriend on the cheek despite them both being rather sweaty from the exertion of practice. “And it’s not that I’m not into flying, it’s that I’m not into brooms.” she added with a smirk. “I think Grandpa Fairchild will clear me to fly with others soon. I’ll make sure you’re my first passenger. Unless you’d prefer someone else to be the guinea pig.”
“I trust you, Harriet. And great, in that case mom said to ask if you’d like to take a room in our tent or make your own camping arrangements.”
“A room in your-” began Harriet before her eyes had a moment of soft glowing that Daphne had learned meant the Eye was telling her something. “Right. Wizard tents. A room would be excellent. So I don’t follow quidditch that much, who’s gonna be playing?”
---
Fleur Delacour sighed as she stood in the International Portkey Terminal in Calais. Normally the Calais terminal was busy, as France and Britain were each other’s biggest trading partners, at least in the magical world, and many European merchants with wares destined for the British Isles found it cheaper to use public portkeys than to pay for a direct jump. But now it was filled to the brim with wix from across Europe, Asia, and Africa, eager to make the jump to the London terminal before heading on to the World Cup.
She honestly didn’t even particularly want to go to the World Cup. But her family had been invited by one of their business partners across the Channel, and it would be rude to refuse. And she was planning on being in Britain for the Triwizard Tournament, since apparently that was a thing. She’d gotten a letter about it from Madam Maxime a couple of days ago. It had been an interesting read; she had emphasized that it would be extremely dangerous, but in the postscript she had said she believed if anyone could survive it, it would be Fleur. Fleur suspected there was more going on, especially since the Headmistress said she thought Fleur could survive it, not win it. But with the postscript all but begging Fleur to join, she supposed she would.
It took about half an hour of waiting for their portkey to be ready, which was enviable to most but highly unusual for a Delacour. But eventually there was a familiar yanking feeling and Fleur delicately landed on British soil. Well, British flagstones. Gabby was jabbering about the British terminal, which earned a fond eye roll from Fleur. Honestly, it was basically just the French terminal but with the signs in English.
They made their way to the VIP departures terminal and took the portkey they had reserved to the stadium. They arrived on a hill, and even Fleur was impressed. Not by the stadium, of course, but by the sheer number of wix milling around and the quantity of cultures being proudly displayed. Quidditch was a mostly European sport, but it had fans worldwide, and it showed, even just in the types of tents. There were geometric, muggle-looking things everywhere, of course, but many wizards used this as an opportunity to show off their country’s culture and/or their own personal wealth. There were all manner of portable buildings around, from European castles to Iroquois longhouses to what appeared to be an entire seven story pagoda.
And the Magic. The air was so thick with magic Fleur could practically taste it. It was a little overwhelming, and she was only a quarter veela; she couldn’t imagine how much more intense it was for her mother. There was magic of all kinds and levels around, from kids shooting stinging hexes at each other to the giant double-headed eagle that was lazily circling above the Russian section of the camp (which she assumed was an illusion, or a statue charmed to life).
“[Okay, we’ve got a few hours before the match starts, so have fun exploring!]” said her father. “[Gabby, stick with one of the adults-” Fleur couldn’t help but smirk that she was finally counted among that number “-and we’ll meet at the entrance to the booths at six. If anybody needs me, I’m going to go find the Greengrasses. The British section is right over that way. Have fun!]”
Gabby immediately dragged their mother off towards whatever had caught her eye, and Fleur simply paused to take stock of the situation and orient herself. The hill seemed to be at the corner between the British, French, Bulgarian, and Irish sections, which Fleur assumed was for the convenience of the hosts, their economic partners, and the players of the match. Her first instinct was to go to the French section, but she discarded the idea almost immediately. The point of coming along was to push her out of her comfort zone, and it wasn’t like she had anyone she would be particularly happy to run into there. She’d didn’t really have any friends, if she was being honest with herself. When she’d been younger, she was afraid people only wanted to be friends with her because she was a Delacour, and when she was older she was afraid people only wanted to be friends (or more) with her because she was part veela. Combined with Fleur always putting her studies first, by the time she realized she was lonely, the cliques were formed and she had a reputation as a stuck-up bitch.
So with no good reason to go into the french section, and figuring she’d meet some Brits soon enough, she headed towards the Irish section and just decided to wander until it was time to meet back up.
---
Harriet had a neutral expression on her face as she stood in the corner of the Greengrass box and scanned the room as she waited for the match to start. Daphne was off shaking hands as the host family’s daughter, Blaise was with his mother as she courted her latest suitor, Tracey didn’t care about quidditch, and none of her other friends were on good enough terms with Lady Greengrass to be invited. So she stood in the corner and sipped her glass of water and resisted the temptation to do anything to liven the scene up.
“Hello, how are you?” said a woman with a heavy French accent, and Harriet turned to assess her. Must be a Delacour, they were the only French on the guest list. Too young to be Apoline, and too old to be Gabrielle, which meant this was Fleur, not that she’d admit to having figured that out already.
“[Hello, I’m doing alright. My name is Harriet Potter, might I have the honor of knowing yours?]” Harriet responded in French. Fleur blinked in surprise, and Harriet smirked.
“I am Fleur Delacour. You are the girl everyone thought was dead, yes?”
“[No, not everyone. I have never once believed I was dead. And I’m sure there are a great number of people who have no idea I ever existed or continue to do so. But yes, a number of people believed me dead for a decade.]” Harriet responded playfully.
Fleur cocked her head and stared at her for a few seconds. “May I ask you a… direct question?” Harriet raised an eyebrow but nodded. “I am part veela. We are creatures of fire, and so I can sense that you too are a creature of fire. Normally I would think you are veela, or part veela, but I have heard of your parents and know neither of them have veela blood.”
“[That’s not a question, Fleur, just a series of observations.]” Harriet said with a smirk, while she cast some privacy spells with a twitch of her wand.
Fleur huffed in exasperation. “You know what I want to know. But if I must ask, why do you seem like a creature of fire when as far as I know, you were not born one?”
“[Well, I’m afraid that’s a bit of a secret. I hope you and your family will be discreet about it, although there’s not much I can do if you aren’t. But I’ll tell you something interesting as a gesture of goodwill. The Triwizard Tournament will be held this year at Hogwarts. However, it’s not going to be a normal tournament. See, of the five voting members of the organizing committee, two are idiots, two are compromised, and one is Madam Maxime. It’s called a tournament, but in reality it will be an assassination attempt.]” Fleur stared at Harriet eyes wide. A featherlight legilimency probe found that Fleur almost dismissed that save for a suspiciously worded letter from Madam Maxime. So the Headmistress of Beauxbatons had suspicions. Interesting. Harriet had told Fleur that to amuse herself, but it could be the foundation of a very interesting political play. In the future. “[So, who do you think is going to win today?]” Harriet smirked as Fleur’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion at the sudden change of subject.
---
South African Minister of Magic Cyril Mabuza smiled as he shook hands with the Irish Minister and congratulated her on her team’s win. It felt like he’d been doing nothing but working and politicking ever since Mandela had been freed. Of course, it was necessary work, magical and muggle politics were much more closely tied in South Africa than in many other countries, but the apartheid system wouldn’t collapse on the magical side just because it had on the muggle side, although it would be put under considerable strain. Thus, he had been working, and magical South Africa had held their first multi-party and multi-racial elections just a few days after their muggle counterparts, and Cyril was now proud to be the first Black Minister of Magic since the South African Ministry had been founded.
And it was all worth it for this. His country hadn’t been allowed to participate in international Quidditch since the 40s. And sure, South Africa had lost to the Tamils in the first qualifying round, but they were included! That was progress! And here he was, hobnobbing with the other Ministers and Presidents and not being held at arm’s length or shunned completely. For the first time in what felt like forever, he could relax. Well, relax a bit, he was still in public with the political elite of the wizarding world.
Then a woman Cyril was pretty sure was the Director of Magical Law Enforcement in Britain ran in. “May I have your attention please!” she shouted with a magically enhanced voice, and Cyril swore quietly. Never a moment of peace. “There is currently a situation developing in the American section of the camp; at least one auror has been injured and the fighting is ongoing. There are currently anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards around the entire camp. Please gather your security details and follow Senior Auror Scrimgeour, he will lead you outside the perimeter of the wards. We will be in contact as soon as we know more.
Cyril sighed. His first international visit as Minister and the Americans start a riot. Just great.
---
Fleur was with her family and a number of others at the Greengrass tent when they got word that there was fighting in the American section of the camp and there were wards against escape across the entire campground. As everyone panicked and began gathering their things to evacuate on foot, Fleur noticed Harriet Potter catch Daphne Greengrass’s eye. There seemed to be some sort of nonverbal communication going on because Daphne subtly pointed her wand at the front of the tent. There was a loud bang and Fleur flinched and turned towards the sound. There was nothing, but when she turned back to glare at Potter and Greengrass, Potter was gone.
---
Auror Tonks swore as she dodged a neon blue curse from one of the white-robed figures, only to dodge into a disarming spell from his buddy. Her wand flew out of her hand and into asshole number two’s hand. “I need backup!” she shouted, before yelping and ducking as she heard the first wizard shout the incantation for the killing curse. It occurred to Tonks, in a strange, detached way, that there was a significant likelihood she would die here. Then she heard a growl and suddenly the second wizard was being held by his neck and shook around like a ragdoll while the first one shrieked as a burning tent wrapped itself around him. The dog-headed man pulled Tonks’s wand out of the wizard’s pocket and tossed it to her before dropping the wizard to the ground and stomping on his wand.
Holy shit, thought Tonks as she cast an incarcerous on the second wizard on the off chance he wasn’t dead. She’d just been saved by Anubis. The whatever-Anubis-was turned to go deeper into the American camp. “Hey, thanks for the save, you need backup? I got separated from my partner.” Anubis turned to look at her, and for a moment Tonks felt completely exposed. Those eyes were damn unnerving. Maybe it was because they were human eyes in a canine head. But then Anubis nodded and they moved deeper into the camp together.
Tonks rapidly learned three things about Anubis. First was that he did not need her help. In fact, Tonks was pretty sure he brought her along to protect her, given the number of times he cast a shield charm to protect her, or in one case used a Knockback Jinx to push her out of the way of a Killing Curse.. All the curses and hexes he took had little to no effect. A cutting curse that would have cleaved Tonks in half barely nicked his skin. He took a blasting curse to the back of the head that did little more than singe his fur before he turned and cast a pitch black curse at the caster that caused him to collapse and start screaming (the coroner would later report that that particular man had died from his guts being filled with carnivorous maggots). Which all led into Tonks’s second observation.
Second was that whatever Anubis was, he/it was crazy powerful. He was doing all this with pinpoint precision, exotic magic, and no wand. It was hard to tell how the American Death Eaters were dying because of their weird hoods, but based on the screams it was usually slow and painful.
And that led to Tonks’s third observation: Anubis was absolutely brutal, but only towards the enemy. In fact, he (Tonks decided to go with he until told otherwise) went out of his way to protect anyone who wasn’t in a pointy hood. Mostly that consisted of shielding civilians and prioritizing attacking the people attacking them, but as they fought on Tonks noticed that he toned down the goriness around them, especially children. Instead of Decapitation and Entrail-Expelling Curses, Anubis would simply make the attackers collapse to the ground (sometimes twitching and shouting, other times writhing and screaming), send them tumbling into the sky as if they were rejected by gravity, or sink into the ground like an anchor in water.
Tonks did pull her weight, of course, or at least try to. She focused on stupefying whoever Anubis had his back turned to, even though he seemed to be aware of everything going on around him, and on giving evacuation directions to civilians, since she still wasn’t sure if Anubis could talk.
Tonks wasn’t sure how long it took but eventually a giant, burning cross appeared in the sky, which Tonks assumed was the American Dark Mark, and they didn’t find any more hooded fighters after that. The bastards probably had portkeys keyed through the wards. She sighed. “Thanks for the help, big guy. Look, I hate to drag you into bureaucracy, since I’m guessing the entire point of being a vigilante God of the Dead is to avoid paperwork, but my boss will kill me if I don’t at least ask if there’s a way we can contact you. For a debriefing and stuff.” Anubis looked at her with those unnerving green eyes, then snapped his fingers and Tonks had to bite back a laugh as he handed her a muggle business card. On one side was hieroglyphics, and on the other was a rune that Tonks was fairly sure had something to do with communication, but which otherwise stumped her. “Great thanks, are you going to stick around to-” Tonks looked up and the man/creature was gone. “Guess not.”
---
Colonel von Schlesien felt nauseous as he drifted through the air above the crowd of evacuating heads of state. Not because of what he was about to do- assassinations were par for the course for a ZSS officer- but simply because flying while disillusioned, on a broom that was also disillusioned, was an extremely disconcerting experience.
He gazed down at the crowd, invisible eyes searching for their target. No, that’s the Kenyan Minister, that one’s the Brazilian… there he was. Cyril Mabuza. Two South African aurors flanked him, one of whom was white. That was unfortunate, but if he was guarding this fraud he was likely a traitor anyways. Normally he would kill his target with a killing curse, for maximum lethality and minimum collateral damage, but it was impossible to aim with complete precision when your wand is invisible, so he gathered his magical power and shot the strongest blasting curse he could at the South African Minister.
There was a bang and a series of screams as the curse landed, and von Schlesien only took a moment to make sure the target was dead before casting the flaming cross signal and flying off into the night. By the time he arrived back at the safe house, the coup would be complete. South Africa would once again be a bastion of civilization on the Dark Continent, and Gellert Grindelwald and the ZSS would have a safe base of operations.
---
The day after the Quidditch World Cup, Fleur came down to brunch after sleeping in to see her parents deep in conversation over the morning paper. “[Mother, father. What does the paper have to say about what happened last night?]”
“[The riot in the American section was a distraction for the British Aurors.]” her father said grimly. “[Someone assassinated the South African Minister of Magic, and there was simultaneously a coup back in Pretoria. Aurors loyal to the apartheid regime were working with members of the ZSS.]”
Fleur frowned. “[So the American racists were working with the German racists and the Boer racists? Is that normal?]”
“[No, it isn’t. Which is why we think there was someone else pulling the strings.]” her mother replied.
“[Who? To get groups from three continents working together like that, it would take… a Dark Lord…]” Fleur trailed off.
“[Exactly.]” her father said with a sigh. “[Whether you go to Britain for that idiotic tournament or not, I recommend you focus on combat magic this year.]”
---
Albus Dumbledore frowned as he read the news of the coup in South Africa and the chaos at the World Cup. This had Gellert’s fingerprints all over it. But he hadn’t revealed himself, which unfortunately meant Albus would have to come forward with his escape now, to control the narrative rather than have people make the link between Gellert and the coup later and ask why he kept silent. He sat down and began writing a speech. This would take delicate wording.