#kadavu fantail

[birdstudies]

October 13, 2024 - Kadavu Fantail (Rhipidura personata) These fantails are found in the dense underbrush of forests, usually near water, on the islands of Kadavu and Ono in southern Fiji. Usually foraging in mixed-species flocks, they feed on small insects, capturing them in the air or picking them from foliage. While not much is known about their nesting behavior, they have been recorded breeding in October and November and building small cup-shaped nests with hanging tails from fine fibers. They are listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN due to habitat loss and degradation in their tiny range caused by fires and agriculture.

[thelastswallow]

Fantastic Birdlife of the The South Pacific; A Field Guide

In the interesting my current resolution to “finish everything” (More BBT coming) here’s a long gestating Harry Potter/ Thunderbirds crossover, which is admittedly somewhat confusing in the modern era.

Summary:In the year 2050, Hugh Creighton Ward is sent by the ministry to a small island in the Mid-Pacific to recover a stolen piece of British magic.

The Ministry’s representative at the Fijian Consulate in Suva is a seasoned diplomat and therefore does not show any anxiety when Lord Creighton-Ward announces at breakfast that he will accept the American’s request. Displays of concern are left to his predecessors, who scurry between the apas cloth hangings, tapping angular noses and rubbing embroidered eyes, and to the consulate house elf, who wobbles the teapot as he pours the earl grey into his Lordship’s cup.

Instead, the consul decapitates his soft-boiled egg before arching an eyebrow and saying, “Are you sure, Your Lordship?”

Lord Hugh Creighton-Ward takes another bite of his bacon – flumed in daily from London, rather disappointing, he had been hoping to try the local fare – and chews deliberately before swallowing, “Quite sure.”

“We can provide you with a Nimbus 10,000, the latest model, and, of course, an escort,” says the consul. “It would be the safest way to travel.”

Twelve years in the diplomatic corps and a lifetime in the British aristocracy mean that Hugh can refrain, with only the mildest difficulty, from an exaggerated eye-roll. Bringing the consul’s suggested escort of half a dozen jumpy ex war-wizards seems the quickest way to turn this fracas into a calamity. And flying five hundred miles over open water by broomstick seems the quickest way to sunburn and a head cold. “Thank you, but no.”

“Or say the word and I can have Vishal saddle the kanivatu.”  

Hugh winces. The bruises have faded, but the memories of his night ride on a roc named Dulihan, to deliver a precious amulet into safe hands during the war, remain fresh. If he remembers rightly the kanivatu is an even larger species than its western cousin.  

“No. I think I must take him up on his kind offer.” He glances down at the invitation. It has been prepared with some care. It cannot have been easy in this day and age for him to lay his hands on parchment. Only a blot on the tail of the ‘Y’ indicates that the writer is unfamiliar with the use of quill and ink.  “He has taken trouble to be courteous. I must do the same.”

“But your Lordship, if it comes to… if we should need to intervene… You cannot be really planning on going up in that death trap?”

Hugh spears another chunk of bacon. “It may be fun.”

>>> 

Just before noon, the consul accompanies him to the pier. With him are two under-secretaries, whom the consul insists, are purely functionaries. The wizards’ muscles strain against their robes. Their wands are singed like seasoned duelists’. The consul has not given up the hope that Hugh might accept a bodyguard.

At noon precisely, the buzz of engines announces the arrival of his ride. The aeroplane lands on the choppy water, like a wasp landing on a picnic. It nimbly manoeuvres between the docked yachts and comes to rest at the edge of the pier. Its silhouette too reminds Hugh of a wasp, with a nipped in waist and two pairs of matched wings.

A handsome man in his middle years steps out of the plane. His hair is gathered at the nape of his neck in a neat tail and he wears both a pistol and his wand in a holster beneath his buff pilot’s jacket, in easy reach should he need either. When he speaks, it is in the clipped tones of one who has strived to lose all trace of his natural accent. “Lord Creighton-Ward.”

So the rumours are true then. Hugh is far too schooled in the game to show surprise. Nevertheless the sight of the man uncaps the torrent of memories, Marrakesh, the stag’s head, the long trek through the wasteland. “Kyrano.”

Luca Kyrano passes a steely eye over the Consul and his companions, who both now seem to be willing themselves small enough to disappear inside their robes. “Will you be travelling alone?”

“I think you have taken care of that.” Hugh walks past the two quivering jellies and the open-mouthed consul. “Shall we go?”

Once aboard, Kyrano invites Hugh to sit and strap himself in with a gesture. He slides into the pilot’s seat himself. He seems as comfortable with the muggle technology as he ever did on a broomstick, guiding the machine out into open water and then opening up the throttle, so they are soon soaring into the forgetmenot blue sky.

“Our flight time is three hours, Your Lordship. Please let me know if there are any questions I can answer for you.” Kyrano says in a voice that invites just the opposite.

Instead Hugh contemplates the sea and the sky, and the novelty of this truly enjoyable muggle way to travel. It’s faster than even their fastest broomsticks and up here, with nothing but the sea below and the sky above he can begin to see the appeal.

But presently, his mood turns sour, as his thoughts turn again to the mission ahead. He had told the consul he was here to act as a voice of temperance and reason, and the consul had agreed whole heartedly as one does when one thinks one is speaking to an assassin. But the truth is Hugh had come in hopes of being a mediator, even though he has never known Jeff Tracy to be anything less than stubborn to a fault.

Will ten years have softened him? Somehow Hugh doubts it. But can he be brought to see reason?

“We are on our final approach now, Your Lordship,” says Kyrano.

The little volcanic island is just a speck on the horizon. The tracery of magic around it is an artful thing indeed. Spells over spells, built up in layers just like a wasp’s nest. Without Kyrano to guide him in, he could have scoured the sea for days and not found it.  

“We call it the MIDAS net,” says Kyrano, “The Magical Intelligence Defence System.”

“It’s very impressive,” says Hugh as the plane begins to dip in altitude. “Your work.”

“And one other’s.”

Kyrano has a daughter. He had asked Penelope about her the last time she was home.

“Who?” She had responded sniffily. “Oh, that Kayo girl. She’s alright, I suppose. She plays chaser for Griffindor, but she’d be rather better as a beater.”

He asks Kyrano about her now.

“Tanusha is well, thank you, Your Lordship.”

“And is she happy at Hogwarts?” There is no way to phrase the question without it seeming like a trap.

“She is.”

“Then why-?”

Kyrano offers him a tight smile. “We keep an excellent ’24 Cognac. If my duties permit I would be pleased to share a glass with you this evening. You have been invited here in the spirit of transparency and friendship. No doubt your masters would prefer expediency and tradition, but I think you are unique enough among your peers to keep an open mind. Please do, Sir.”

He refuses to be drawn further or to say anymore until the seaplane has landed and pulled alongside the dock. “Mr Tracy will meet you at the house. Follow the path, it will lead you straight there. Just beware of falling coconuts.”

The walk along the path to the house is very pleasant, the jungle canopy guarding against the worst of the tropical heat. Tracy’s building works have admirably preserved the native wildlife. Birds move through the jungle, and Hugh, who has always been an amateur ornithologist, can hear the squeak of the Polynesian Triller and the song of the red-vented bulbul. The call of the stitchbird, stops him in his tracks. It is out of place anywhere but New Zealand’s North Island. He glances up.

From a perch up high in the canopy a pair of bright blue eyes meet his own. There’s a gasp and the eyes vanish back among the leaves. The trilling of the bulbul becomes more urgent. Then suddenly he’s under fire.

His wand is in his hand before he can think. The first projectile he catches, so it hovers in mid-air at the level of his nose. The second he is clumsier with, so it soars back into the trees and explodes in a shower of purple goo.

“Awww!” The tree gives an extremely un-bulbul-like groan and with a cracking of branches, a small jelly and custard covered monster slides down the trunk, wiping goop from his eyes.

A moment later, a second little boy, even smaller than the first, makes a rapid descent from another tree. “Gordy!”

Hugh plucks the second water balloon, this one seeming to be filled with mushroom soup, out of the air and sets it safely down on the ground. The smaller of the two boys is trying to help his companion, who is berating him, “Alaaan, I told you to be a Kadavu fantail. We’re too far north to hear a stitchbird.”

“S-sorry, Gordon.” Little Alan wipes custard out of Gordon’s eyes with the end of his own t-shirt. “I can’t do the fantail.”

Hugh hunkers down. “And who might you be?”

Little Alan slides behind his brother – they cannot be anything but brothers – and stares out bashfully at him, his eyes wide as saucers. Gordon stands with his knees braced and his hands on his hips. He sticks his tongue out at Hugh.

That’s when a hail of firecrackers explodes in the trees all around him.

By the time his hearing has recovered and the glare has gone from his eyes, the two boys are only laughing, shrieking wraiths disappearing through the trees.

He dusts the grey powder from his jacket and continues his walk.

The island’s single main dwelling is certainly large, but also warm and welcoming in the way wizard’s  houses – with their penchant for medieval kitsch - rarely are. Sometimes, Hugh wishes he could trade the tradition of Creighton-Ward Manner and all its eldritch history for somewhere with central heating. He had suggested they install it last year, just as an experiment, in the east wing, but Gappy, their house-elf wouldn’t hear of it, and had taken to beating himself with a flatiron until the subject was dropped.

He emerges out of the jungle and onto the patio of the main house. Two more boys sit cross-legged, playing chess by the poolside. A third, in a wide brimmed cap, has his feet dangling in the water and is reading a hidebound scroll. All three look up as he appears. The tallest of the three boys nudges the smallest, just has his bishop beats a pawn into submission. The younger boy jumps up without a word and runs into the house.

Just then, an exuberant blackcurrent-smelling blur sails past him, whooping, and cannons into the water, making an enormous splash.

“Gordon!” The red-headed boy scowls, his face a constellation of freckles. He has only just managed to rescue his scroll. “Knock it off!”

Gordon surfaces, laughing like a hyena.

A patter of running feet behind him and the littlest of the five boys dives into the water, feet first with a screech of delight. This time, Hugh cannot avoid the gigantic splash.

“Alan!” The red-head tumbles over in his rush to get away from the poolside, landing hard on his bottom.

“Whoops!” Alan grins from ear to ear as he surfaces.

There is a soft yet somehow still forceful clearing of the throat. All four boys turn towards the open glass door and Hugh is reminded, just a little, of four dogs who hear their master’s whistle. The man Hugh has come halfway around the world to see stands in the doorway. The dark-haired boy has run to fetch him, and lurks uncertainly behind him now.

“Out of the pool, you two.”

“Aww, Da-ad!” But Gordon is already swimming for the ladder.

“Dad, he nearly damaged my Babylonian Scroll.” The freckle-faced boy removes his cap and runs his hand over a shock of red hair that would do any Weasley proud.

“But he didn’t. Now, go help your brothers clean themselves up.”

“But…” The boy seems ready to howl at the indignation of this, but a mild look from his father changes his mind. “Yes, Dad.” He throws a towel over little Alan as he follows him into the kitchen.

“Scott?”

“Yes, Dad?”  

Scott is wrestling the chess pieces – tetchy at not being allowed to finish their game – back into their box. He is the oldest of the boys, and his limbs are already starting to stretch out and his voice to dip and whine like a violin being tuned. He looks much like his father. Very soon he will be a heartbreaker.

He is also watching Hugh with a fierce intensity, so intense, in fact, that he lets a knight poke him in the thumb with its sword. It squirms free and careens across the tiles towards the bushes. Its brethren, excited by its escape, tip over the box and spill out across the table, setting off in pursuit.

“Oh shi – shoot! Sorry, Dad.” Scott takes off after their little congress, dives into the bushes.

“Virgil, go tell your Grandma our guest has arrived.”

“Yes, Dad.”

And that just leaves his father.

Ten years, the war, or simply the challenges of raising five boys have turned Jeff Tracy’s hair grey, but his handshake is firm as ever.

“Hugh.”

“Tracy,” The old joke, the edges sanded down by countless repetitions, is given new meaning by the passage of so many years.

“Good of you to be the one to come.”

“I don’t see that you left me much choice.”

“You could have left it to Hardcastle or one of his ilk.”

“Nonsense. I have grown quite fond of Hardcastle. I wasn’t going to let him fall prey to you.” He smiles a tight smile to show that he is joking, at least a little. “The Ministry is baying for blood, Tracy.”

Tracy’s gaze slides sideways until he’s staring out at the little triangle of sea visible through trees. “My blood?”

“Or a suitable substitute.”

“I suppose it is pointless asking why the British Ministry of Magic thinks it can stick its beaky nose into all this. I am an American citizen.”

“An American who has stolen a piece of British magic.” He pauses long enough to glance towards the bushes. “Five pieces in fact.”

How had it come to this? How did one go about losing five underage wizards? Even five underage wizards with a father as sly, resourceful and just plain slippery as Tracy.

The answer, it seems, lay at least partially in those old enemies of statecraft, carelessness and bureaucracy.  

When the oldest boy had turned eleven he had received his Hogwarts letter, but when he had not turned up at platform Nine and Three Quarters at the start of term, it had been assumed he had accepted a place in New York’s Greymalkin Academy instead. Apparently, Greymalkin had assumed the same thing about Hogwarts and neither school had bothered to check with the other.

Astonishingly, when it came time for the second eldest to start school, everyone had made the same blunder all over again. It was only now, on the cusp of the middle child’s eleventh birthday that Deputy Headmaster McCorkle had met Principal Snuff at The Genevan Hippogriff Derby and it had become apparent that no one knew where the Tracy boys were.

There had been panic. Flocks of owls flew between London and New York. Flurries of messages passed between the Ministries of International Cooperation, Magical Law Enforcement and Accidents and Catastrophes as each tried to work out who was to blame for losing two underage wizards. Why hadn’t New York registered they were missing? Why hadn’t the Ministry detected any use of underage magic?

But this was nothing to the pandemonium that ensued when it was discovered where the Tracy boys actually were. With their muggle father, it transpired, living on a private island in the middle of the Pacific.

Not only had Tracy moved there with his sons, he had brought with him two wizards. One, Luca Kyrano was a former auror. The other, Hiram Hackenbacker was fresh out of Hogwarts and was, by all accounts, one of the most brilliant students the school had seen in many years. Between them they had made the island unchartable and had woven a net of protective charms around it so dense that it could give Hogwarts itself a run for its money.

Within this net of protections, it was rumoured, Jeff Tracy was teaching his sons magic.

When it had come to light that this mad muggle had not only set himself up in a magical fortress but was training his sons in unlawful magic, the thing had spiralled from being a diplomatic snafu to a major international incident. The Minister had to be called back from his holidays.  People were calling for the Aurors’ office to raid the island, seize the boys and drag them to Hogwarts. Others were calling for their father to be arrested and tossed into Azkaban. Even now, delegations from 12 different countries were at the Ministry shouting each other down about what should be done. The French delegation wanted to know why Tracy Industry personal devices still worked even in Charms Class at Beauxbatons? The Swiss wanted to know why the Ministry had been as lenient as to allow Tracy to keep his memories of the war in the first place. And the Chinese wanted to re-open the investigation into Tracy’s wartime activities. Surely one muggle could not have diffused a curse that had taken the lives of 14 trained aurors?

In the middle of all the hubbub, Headmaster Longbottom, an old friend, had approached Hugh and asked him if, for the sake of the children, he could intervene. In his role as confidential agent for the Ministry of Secrets, Hugh had thus far been well placed to observe the scandal, but had not been directly involved. Now, he suggested to the Minister, one morning over tea, as an old friend of the family, he might be able to quietly intervene with Jeff Tracy before the whole thing spiralled further out of control.  

To say he was a friend of Tracy’s was actually rather an exaggeration. He had known him once, fifteen years ago and had always thought him a decent sort, for a Muggle. It had been during the war, that terrible time, the worst in his memory, when dark magic had spilled out of control, feeding and feeding upon the muggles’ race to nuclear extinction.

He had been working for the war office at the time, and Tracy had been a captain in the American Air force. Tracy had been stationed in the Azores, tracking down what he thought was a biological weapon, while Hugh had been in pursuit of the witch Gimelgram, whom he believed was behind a very nasty flaying curse. They had butted heads on the island plenty of times, Tracy forever trying to weasel into his investigation and Hugh, forbidden, of course, to reveal his quest or his origin to this muggle, until that fateful night.

“You’re a wizard, aren’t you?” He remembered very well Tracy’s words as he waited for him in the doorway of his hotel room. “I need your help.”

As the two of them made their way on foot through the jungle, Hugh had quizzed him on who had revealed to him the secret. Tracy had just shrugged and listed the pieces of evidence that had led to him concluding that the wizarding world existed on his own.

As it turned out, both men’s intelligence had been correct. A group of deathdealers were constructing long range missiles in a disused textile factory in the middle of the jungle. The payload would be Grimelgram’s pox, a simple and efficient way to deliver it to the heart of every city in the civilised world.

It was the first time Hugh had seen magic and muggle technology brought together to such devastating effect, though it would not be the last. And if Tracy hadn’t been there that day he is still not sure he would have been able to disarm the warheads in time. Over the course of the war he had needed Tracy’s help several times to deal with threats posed by muggle technology to the magical realm and he had come to like, if never entirely trust, Jeff Tracy.

And of course, in the aftermath of that first mission it had been Lucy who had been brought in to tidy up.

Lucy Whitefox had been a classmate and dear friend. They had come up as Griffindors together and Lucy had caught the critical snitch against Ravenclaw the year Hugh had been team captain. When she had arrived on the Azores she had been newly appointed to the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, Special Branch which, at the request of The Old Man himself, George Weasley had agreed to head up.

She had been quite frank with both of them, telling them they had endangered millions of lives and if they didn’t wait for backup that the next time she caught them doing anything so stupid she would hex them into thinking they were a matched pair of Indonesian love birds.

Tracy had just grinned and said, “Ma’am, when you’re right, you’re right.”

Not long after Hugh had been called away on another mission, but he continued to work with Tracy from time to time, employing his expertise in the art of muggle warfare. And he knew that Lucy would work with him on cases too.

It was only after the war, however, that he had heard that Lucy had married Jeff Tracy, had one son already and another on the way. She had resigned from the ministry and gone to live and work in America, working with him in his fledgling enterprise.  

Hugh had written Lucy letters and promised to visit them the next time he came to New York.

The next he heard she was dead.

The ministry had wanted her interred in Godric’s Hollow, buried with the full honours of a war hero. Tracy had demurred. Instead she had been buried in a small Presbyterian church near her birthplace at Inverness. ‘That way, everyone who knew her can come and say goodbye’ he had written in his letter politely thanking the ministry and definitively declining the offer.

Hugh remembered watching him and his five boys at the funeral and wondering what would become of them. He had never imagined it would be this.

“You’re playing a dangerous game here,” says Hugh. “You must have known the Ministry would have to react. We have laws.”

“Against the practice of underage wizards in uncontrolled environments, I know,” says Tracy. “But this is not an uncontrolled environment. It’s properly warded, there are no civilians here. Kyrano and Brains both have teacher’s licences.”

“You…”

“I was deputised by the Minister for Magic herself.”

“That’s not the point.”

“One of your most famous battles of the last century happened at Hogwarts. You can’t argue that it’s safer there than here.”

“Lucy shouldn’t have told you about that.”

“You told me about that.”

Jeff sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “This isn’t going to get sorted standing out here. Why don’t you come up? Dinner’s on and I can show you the house. You’ll find it interesting.”

And so for a while things are back to chilly civility. There’s a perfect grey goose martini waiting for him, and a tour of the house. Jeff shows him the features and Hugh makes sure to hide how impressed he is, at how magic and materials science are working hand in hand together. There’s the delicious smell of mahi-mahi and sweet potato mash coming from the kitchen, which Tracy says is being prepared by bots, apparently a sort of artificial house elf.

“Boys, come and set the table.” Their father calls from the bottom of the stairs.

Gordon, washed and dressed and blackcurrant free, is the first to bound down the stairs, still grinning from ear to ear. The middle boy, follows.

“Go and set the tableware,” says their dad, “Carefully. Gordon, no climbing on shelves. Let Virgil or Scott get the glassware from up high.”

Gordon ignores this. He bounds over to Hugh. “Hey Mister,” says the little boy, tugging his sleeve, “What’s in your pocket?”

He has Lucy’s eyes, Hugh realises, brown and soulful, but bright with mischief. He remembers those eyes well.  

George Weasley had remembered them too. George also remembered Lucy’s kindness, her diligence and cleverness and the way she would sometimes spell his morning croissant to explode in a shower of confetti when he bit into it. Which was why, right now, Hugh’s pockets were overflowing with exploding frogs, musical jellybeans and radioactive gum drops.

“Gordon, leave him be.” The older boy comes and tries to drag his brother away. He has his mother’s eyes as well. Right now they are filled with concern, the eyebrows knit tight over them. “Sorry, Sir.”

As he tugs on his brother’s sleeve an anxious fluttering breaks out, like a small bird, in Hugh’s breast pocket. He opens his jacket enough to let the frantic letter escape. It dances excitedly in the air, tapping the boy’s nose until he takes it in his hand, whereupon it collapses with a relieved sigh. This then is Virgil, the boy whose acceptance to school has brought this whole sorry business to a head.

Virgil frowns at the envelope. “Thank you, Sir.” He does not seem inclined to open it and at that moment a Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes Dung Beetle decides to take flight out of Hugh’s trouser pocket and little Gordon leaps after it with delight.

“That’s an invitation to Hogwarts, young man. Have you heard of Hogwarts?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Your mother went there. Did you know that? It’s the best wizarding school in the world and one of the finest places to learn Quidditch, and in Hogwarts you are sorted into one of four houses, based on your best qualities.” He sounds like a damn promotional pamphlet. Penelope would be embarrassed to be seen with him, not that she isn’t already.

He remembers the scalded look she gave him when he had expressed the hope that she would follow in his footsteps and be a lion. “Oh Daddy, how tedious. I’m not going to be a dreary old Griffindor. How am I going to get anyone to trust me if they think I’m a self-righteous, do-gooding Griffindor? Why, even being a Hufflepuff would be better. At least then people would think I was dull and stupid. If I want to understand the worst of the worst, Daddy. I must be the worst of the worst.”

It is humiliating to be lectured in statecraft by one’s own 11-year-old. But so far, Slytherin seems to be working out well for Penelope. She certainly has that goblin fellow following her around like he was a faithful house elf.

“Anyway, you’ll like it there,” he finishes. “My daughter certainly does.”

“Yes, Sir,” says Virgil, doubtfully.

Dinner is a subdued affair, or it would be if Gordon hadn’t discovered a packet of lava mints among George’s treasure trove. He spends the rest of the meal trying to sneak mints into his brother’s drinks. After trying this one too many times, red-headed John leaps to his feet, produces a holly wand from out of his pocket and with a flick of it, transforms the packet of mints into a gold and green love bird, which perches in the rafters and will not come down.

It's a precocious piece of transfiguration for a 12-year-old, but Hugh can see his father is not best pleased at this ostentatious display. “John, sit down.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

Scott the chess-player is old enough to be rebellious, not to be cowed like his brother. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I didn’t say that he did.”

“He shouldn’t have to apologise for doing magic.”

“I didn’t ask him to.”

“Do you know why it’s not okay to use magic in front of strangers, young man?” Hugh leaned across the table.

“Because Mug– ordinary people are afraid of magic,” said Scott, “And wizards are afraid of ordinary people finding out, because if they knew the power might slip out of the hands of the elite. It’s just Plato’s Philosopher King argument.”

“But it’s redundant to pretend we live in a world that lacks an elite.” John says. “We don’t live in an ideal, egalitarian society any more than we live in Plato’s republic.”

“Voltaire would say a society governed philosopher kings is an idea society though,” says Virgil.

“Daaa-aad,” says Alan, or rather shrieks, because Gordon’s just dropped an incredible expanding centipede into his mahi mahi.

“All right, you lot, that’s enough showing off. Clean off your plates and go upstairs.”

Disappointed and truculent at being packed off upstairs, the boys nevertheless do what their father tells them.

When they’re gone, Hugh loosens his hold on his astonishment. “Tracy, what have you been teaching them?”

“Well, not Derrida yet, clearly,” says Tracy, with a laugh. He laid down his knife and fork. “Now, I imagine you want to have a very serious talk with me. Shall we take a walk? I’m afraid in this villa, the walls have ears.”

It’s a lovely evening, there’s cool breeze coming in off the sea and a simple charm keeps the mosquitos off.

“I’ve been thinking I would send Scott and John to Hogwarts next year,” Jeff announces to the air.

Hugh grinds his teeth. “Your sense of humour requires work, old man.”

“It’s true. They’ve been on the island for four years. They need socialisation. And mixing with kids their own age will be good for them.”

“And their course work?” asked Hugh, imagining the two boys being dropped into a Hogwart’s class.

“Oh, I don’t imagine that they’ll be so advanced that they’ll be very bored. Your little girl enjoys it, doesn’t she? She’ll be about John’s age.”

Voicing his opinion of Penelope’s time in Hogwarts, that she’s treating it like a game she’s trying to win, does not seem helpful at this juncture, so instead he says, “What are you trying to do here, Tracy? You knew you were flouting our laws. You knew that ultimately the Ministry would target you. What’s so important that you had to pull a stunt like this?”

“Latin.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hogwarts doesn’t teach it. As far as I can tell, no wizarding school does.”

“And that matters to you, does it?”

“It’s vital. Magic is a science built on words. Every spell in the western armamentarium is derived from Latin and yet most wizards don’t even understand what they’re saying. I mention accio, accire, accitus and folks just stare at me blankly. You’re depriving your students of the most basic foundations of how their technology works.”

“That’s not…”

“Hogwarts hasn’t updated its curriculum in three hundred years. In some cases it hasn’t updated its teachers. It hasn’t faced a serious review of its practices in more than fifty years, because your elder stateman all have the same nostalgia, for ‘the old school’. Its practices are archaic.”

“Now, hang on.”

“Hugh, you keep a large section of your population in the dungeon. Another section of your population in the kitchen. That generally isn’t a hallmark of an enlightened society, which you would know if anyone ever bothered to teach wizards history.”

“And for that reason, you’re flouting the law? Setting yourself up as an enemy of the state? Building fortresses and consorting with rogues and renegades?”

To his surprise, Tracy laughs. “You’re not going to tell me that my association with Kyrano reflects badly on me? He’s a vaunted auror who The Old Man himself nominated for the Order of Merlin. I’m a ne’er-do-well Muggle who uses technology for dastardly purposes.”  

That technology, as much as anything else is what’s making the ministries of the world spooked. It reminds them all too much of the war. The thought that the veil of their mystique could be penetrated by a single, persistent muggle is almost intolerable. That the same muggle might be drawing wizards to his cause, outright terrifying.

“We’re not out to destroy the roots of your society.” Tracy seems to read his mind. “But we want to make sure nothing like the war we just lived through can happen again. If you want me to go to London and testify ��”

Hugh snorts. “They’d never let a muggle testify at a Ministry hearing.”

“Then Kyrano can go. They must listen to him. The old man owes him a debt as well, or do you not remember?”

How could he forget? It was during the long night of the war when it seemed to them all that it might never end.

They had mounted the stag’s head upon the curtain wall of their fortress in Marrakesh and Bleyfire, mad even in those days, had announced via words written on every stone in the city, that he would cook the Stag’s body and eat his flesh if the forces of the allies did not surrender by dawn.

Marshall Abbot had gone herself to London blessed by every charm for speed her unit could conjure, so that the news could not break in London before the Old Man could hear it from her lips.

Hugh was with the unit but not of it, he was an irregular, a confidential agent. The word that was never quite on anyone’s lips, yet never quite off it was ‘spy’. And as the unit had sat together in barracks, wondering what was to come, trying to comfort each other, Hugh had found his feet leading him down the road, to the small hotel in the town square where Tracy was billeted.

In Tracy’s little room they had shared a bottle of Scotch and speculation. What would the old man do? He could not capitulate, so there would be no surrender. Would he throw the allies against Bleyfire in a hopeless charge, have them break themselves against the walls of his fortress like waves crashing against a rock. Or would he do nothing, let Bleyfire continue with this grotesque display, destroy the morale of their troops and the spirit of their leader in one perfect blow.

They talked of their hopes for the future, now fading. Tracy told him of how he had once dreamed of someday standing on the moon, before the decimation curse, carried heavenward on a rocket, had blotted it out. Hugh talked of one day visiting the Merfolk, as his mother had done. They spoke of how neither would ever bring a child into this world caught in the teeth of war.

And then suddenly Kyrano had been there, apparating between them, though apparating here should have been impossible. He had snatched up Tracy’s glass and drained it before saying, “There is work to be done tonight, and you are the two men to do it.”

Hugh had known of the legendary auror, few didn’t, but had no notion that Kyrano might be aware of him, or the unusual ally he had in Tracy. But that night it had become plain that Kyrano must have been watching them both very carefully for some time.

“But why us two?” Hugh asked, when Kyrano had finished explaining a plan so suicidal it had Tracy grinning from ear to ear, from joy or terror, Hugh did not know. “A whistle from you and a dozen trained aurors would come running.”

“I do not need a dozen trained aurors. I need a wizard trained in the arts of subtlety and deceit. I need an outsider with an outsider’s perspective and an understanding of muggle technologies. I need two men prepared to gamble everything on one toss of the dice. This is the last real act of the war.”

Hugh had risen to his feet, but Tracy simply set his glass with a clink. “Hugh and I will help you, you know we will, but you’re going to need to tell us what’s in it for you. The war can expend our lives without blinking, but not yours. Why are you throwing your life away?”

Kyrano hadn’t blinked. “Bleyfire is mad, but this act, this calculated cruelty, this terrible wounding violence, that is the work of another, a hooded figure who stands in his shadow. That is my debt to pay. He’s my brother and I must stop him.”

And so, they had, on the longest night of the war, crossed the cursed wasteland. Without Tracy’s knowledge Hugh would have been defenestrated by Daedalus curse. Without Hugh’s special skills they might have all drowned in phosphine gas. But it was Kyrano who faced Jasper Flayskin, the man who had butchered fifty wizards in Salem. Just before dawn they had faced Bleyfire in his inner sanctum. He was as mad as Kyrano’s assessment, spewing flecks of yellow spit as he fired off the crazed, inventive curses that had made his name. It had taken all three of them to put him down.

Aftwards, Kyrano had been too hurt to move, so Jeff had helped him cut the stag’s head down off the wall. As the afternoon sun beat down, they returned the stag’s body to his parents.

Of course, the old man owes Kyrano a debt. He owes one to Tracy to, and to Hugh, which is why Hugh is allowed to be here, to ask for clemency for his friend in hopes that he sees reason.  But the Old Man’s patience has limits.

“It’s because of that debt that I’m here. It’s because of that debt, it’s me not a team of war witches, stepping on your neck and wrenching your children away from you by force. There’s only one way this can go.”

“It doesn’t have to be. Not if we had you on our side. You could make them listen. You have the ear of the brass, the old man even. We could convince them…”

“No. That’s not going to happen. Jeff Tracy, on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, you must cease your enquiries into the wizarding world and relinquish your children at the appropriate time to pursue their magical education in an appropriately safe location.”

“And if I decline?”

“We will erase your memory. You will forget all knowledge of magic and the wizarding world. You will think your sons have received a prestigious scholarship in a British boarding school. You will be delighted for them and let them go without argument. They will of course be returned to you for the summer holidays.”

“I see. It seems you leave me no choice.”

Hugh inclines his head, relieved that Tracy sees sense and is going to be dignified about it. Threats are unpleasant enough but he does not wish to cause this man or his sons any undo pain.

And then the strangest thing happens.

A bird swoops down through the trees and alights on Jeff’s shoulder. The bird looks almost exactly like a peregrine falcon, but he’s never seen one in such southern climates and never with such striking silver grey plumage.

Then the bird turns its head. Its silver eyes glint and he realises what manner of creature the bird is.

A moment later a barn owl drops out of the trees and lands on Tracy’s other shoulder. A golden eagle, it’s plumage as silver as the peregrine’s, alights on the tree branch above his head, and is joined in a moment by a smaller osprey.

“Good Lord.” The wren patronus is the last to dart out of the trees. It sits on Hugh’s finger and cocks its head at him in an inquisitive manner. “How is this possible?”

Then the boys make their presence known, rushing into the clearing all at once. They crowd behind their oldest brother, who has his wand out and pointed at Hugh. The Peregrine watches Hugh with intense eyes.

“I think you better go, Sir.” There’s barely a shake in Scott’s voice. “Please.”

“Scott, put your wand down,” says Tracy. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not. I won’t let him threaten you.”

“Lord Creighton-Ward is only trying to protect you. He’s not going to hurt you.”

“He’s not erasing your memory. He’s not.” The boy is on the verge of tears. “You’re our dad.”

Virgil puts his hand on Scott’s arm. “Scott, do as Dad says. You’re scaring everyone. Tell him, John.”

“Yeah, Scott,” says John.

Scott lowers his wand arm, though his eyes are a sharp as the falcon’s.

The wren hops off Hugh’s shoulder and onto the palm of little Alan. He giggles, delighted, as the bird mimes plucking seeds of his hand.

“Did you make that?” Hugh kneels, so he’s at the boy’s level.

Shyly, he nods.

“How?”

The little boy laughs, as if this is the silliest question in the world.

“We taught him,” breathes redheaded John in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Who taught you?”

Scott shrugs.

Hugh looks up. “Tracy, this is, this is incredible. What you’ve achieved here – ”

Tracy bows his head. “I can take almost no credit. But you see, Lord Creighton-Ward, Lucy didn’t want her sons to be brave, or kind or ambitious or clever. She expected them to be all four of those things.”

Hugh stands. His hands are shaking. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave now. You’ve given me much to think about.”

Kyrano flies him back, they exchange barely a word. Hugh is formulating how he will make his argument.

The Old Man will not like it. The old man has something of a blindspot for his old school. Hugh will talk instead, to The Old Lady. She will insist upon inspections, but she will love an idea like this. And she is the only one he knows who can make The Old Man do anything he does not want to.

That summer and every summer after, he sends his daughter to holiday on Tracy Island to see what she might learn.