By late September, the sun had barely crested its highest point before it began to flag.
The light that spilled across the square was soft and drowsy and the crowd gathered there seemed to wilt beneath it, lulled toward sleep.
Tom, the owner of the Leaky Cauldron, had turned out a food cart and was moving through the demonstrators, handing out sandwiches and water.
More than half the Aurors had been dispatched elsewhere. Those who remained were stationed at intervals around the platform, keeping watch over the civilians sitting on the ground.
In a quieter corner of the platform, Luna had settled beside Harry and the others and was sharing with Harry and the others what she knew of the Johns' family—and how she had sedated the real John with a sleeping draught, then used Polyjuice Potion to slip into the march in his place.
"That night I saw Lucius Malfoy at Yvonne and Bona's home. I suspected there might be some sort of scheme in motion."
She passed over the part where she had gone to the Ministry in the middle of the night and reported to Professor Watson and continued directly.
"I consulted Father. He supported the idea of my taking John's place in the march. He was the one who obtained the Polyjuice for me—"
"Your father is incredible—"
Ron's face was full of admiration.
"If I tried something like that—any of that—my mum and dad would have my skin. They'd probably take turns."
"That would be the correct response, Ron."
Sirius, who had been listening in silence with his arms folded and his jaw gradually tightening, uncrossed his arms.
"You saw for yourself how dangerous this was.. If Bryan hadn't arrived when he did—" He stopped. "There would have been enough wounded to keep the Healers at St. Mungo's busy for the better part of a fortnight. And some of them wouldn't have needed Healers at all."
"Sirius!"
Harry's mind was elsewhere.
"If Luna can confirm that Lucius Malfoy was behind this—" He leaned forward slightly. "Can the Ministry act on it? Can they charge him?"
"It won't be easy—"
Sirius was quiet for a moment before answering.
"For the Ministry to charge Lucius Malfoy, they need hard evidence, Harry. Evidence that would hold up. Not a witness account of a person whose face was changed, in the dark, during a conversation Luna overheard."
Harry looked unconvinced and opened his mouth to press further, but Hermione cut to the heart of it,
"What Luna's told us isn't enough to arrest Lucius Malfoy. You didn't actually see his face, did you, Luna?"
Luna blinked her silver eyes slowly and gave a small, considered nod.
She had already thought of this herself.
Harry slumped back in his chair; his expression was dark.
Sirius had nearly died, and the man responsible was still walking free. The injustice of it was unbearable.
Then Harry remembered his brief altercation with Draco just a short while ago. He was about to bring it up but Luna and Lavender's presence made him hesitate.
"Sirius."
Hermione glanced quickly at Professor Watson, who was settling the bill with Tom, her expression was flickering with something incomprehensible. Then she turned back to Sirius, her voice was tentative.
"Professor Watson had the Ministry summon all those workshop owners here. What do you think he's trying to accomplish? Ordering the factories to reopen so that the workers can have their livelihoods back?"
Harry shook off the dark mood at once, leaning forward. The same question had arrived in his eyes before she finished the sentence.
"Is that actually possible?"
"I'm afraid not—"
Sirius's answer was a cold splash of water.
"Underhanded as it is and we all know what this move is really aimed at, there is no law against those pureblood families loyal to Voldemort shutting down their own workshops. The workshops belong to them. If they choose to close them, the Ministry cannot compel them to reopen."
One by one, the fireplaces around the square began to flare, and Aurors emerged escorting a succession of well-dressed, aristocratic-looking wizards into the open air.
Harry watched their faces as they arrived. Every one of them had expressions of unease like an ill-fitting garment. They did not seem surprised by the crowd filling the platform. But they cast wary, guarded glances toward the figure at the centre of the platform.
"Malfoy's mother."
To Harry's surprise, Narcissa Malfoy who had only just left with Draco was being brought back by an Auror.
She swept her gaze around the platform the moment she emerged. When that gaze reached Harry's group, it stopped for a fraction of a second.
And turned to ice.
Then moved on.
"Welcome, welcome—"
Many in the crowd were startled and baffled by the warm smile Mr. Watson wore as he greeted these members of the upper echelons. Given how serious the incidents had been, surely he should have had nothing but contempt for them?
"You are all pillars of wizarding Britain and I am truly sorry to have taken up your valuable time on what I know has been an unexpectedly complicated afternoon."
Bryan had left the anxious civilians behind him. Wearing a 'friendly' smile, he strode to the centre of the square, arms open in welcome to receive these magnates—lords of industry and commerce who had dominated every corner of wizarding Britain.
And yet the warmth was not false, exactly. It was simply operating on a Among them, Narcissa and the rest of this group—all connected to the Sacred Twenty-Eight by blood or marriage, however indirectly regarded Bryan Watson with careful eyes laced with confusion.
They all knew perfectly well that Watson did not welcome them.
Bryan paid no attention to their dour faces. His smile remained what it was.
"I must also thank you for responding to my invitation and the Ministry's, for coming together today to discuss how we might restore the fortunes of wizarding Britain's trade and commerce."
Narcissa lowered her gaze, keeping her eyes downcast to conceal the wariness Bryan Watson stirred in her.
It was difficult to fathom, even now that the wizarding world had produced this particular man.
One who was by every measure she could think of to apply: magical power, Intellect, Political acumen, Cunning, genuinely formidable.
The Malfoy family had been in the Dark Lord's service for over twenty years.
There was no question that the Dark Lord was a terrifying wizard. Among the Death Eaters and among many who were not Death Eaters, he was believed to be the most powerful wizard who had ever lived.
Narcissa did not entirely agree with that claim, though she was careful about where and how she held that disagreement. She did concede that the Dark Lord stood among a handful of the absolute strongest wizards in the world, living or dead.
In raw magical force, at his height, he was almost without parallel.
Those who could be counted as his equals were Dumbledore—and the man standing before her now, Bryan Watson.
But if one were to weigh cunning and wisdom together, Narcissa's honest assessment was this: in his early years, Voldemort had perhaps been a genuine match for Dumbledore and Watson.
But over time as his power expanded and his followers multiplied, as the victories accumulated and the fear he inspired in others deepened, he had grown accustomed to ruling through cruelty and dominance.
He had found that these tools worked, and had relied on them increasingly, and had allowed the other tools to wither. In other qualities, he had fallen behind both Dumbledore and Watson.
Between Dumbledore and Watson: they were perhaps evenly matched in raw ability, though even that was difficult to assess with certainty.
But Dumbledore's near-rigid adherence to rules and order had become over time a kind of self-imposed constraint around his own wrists.
Watson, on the other hand…
Narcissa's eyes lifted fractionally from the table surface. She watched him for a moment, this young man whose age alone was difficult to settle with everything else about him.
He never shied from displaying his extraordinary power. When he chose to act with force, the force was unmistakable and designed to be seen, designed to establish something.
And yet each time he wielded that power to compel others, there was always, already in place, a perfectly legal and defensible justification. Something that could be pointed to. Something that left no room for reproach that could actually land.
He valued interests. A quality that was pure Slytherin. But he was not greedy; he was skilled at building coalitions of mutual benefit.
And so, any number of moves that should have provoked resistance that should have triggered the defensive instincts of people and institutions with everything to lose had instead accumulated broad popular support. That was the measure of his intellect behind them.
His political acumen spoke for itself.
The business of strong-arming Amelia Bones into the Minister's seat told you everything you needed to know about how he moved.
The truth of how Fudge and Umbridge had been removed however carefully the Ministry had attempted to bury it, and however successfully they had managed it in the eyes of the general public was no secret to those with the right connections.
From everything that had unfolded during Harry Potter's trial, it was clear that Bryan Watson had seized hold of Fudge and Umbridge's secrets long in advance.
And yet he had waited. Held it in reserve. Bided his time with a patience that most people could not have sustained, waiting for the precise moment when the leverage would do the most work.
Looking back across it now, it seemed very likely that the increasingly poisonous relationship between the Ministry and Hogwarts, the sequence of escalations that had seemed at the time like the natural deterioration of a strained political relationship had been engineered by Bryan Watson with himself as the hidden hand.
Narcissa stole another glance at the young face of the man who was conjuring a long table and a row of chairs from thin air, a relaxed smile on his lips. Something flickered in her eyes.
What beggared all belief was that this powerful, terrifying wizard was barely in his twenties.
In that respect, the Dark Lord himself, and Dumbledore, and even the silent figure at Nurmengard whose existence was rumoured in certain circles and never discussed in others—none of them could compare to Bryan Watson.
A once-in-a-millennium prodigy. A genuine monster of talent.
An almost incomprehensible concentration of talent and intelligence in a single young person who had, so far, pointed all of it in directions that happened to align with law and order and the protection of the weak.
"Please, sit—Mrs. Malfoy—"
Willing or not, the summoned wizards had little choice but to take their seats. Bryan's eyes held their smile as he turned to Narcissa, who had been lost in thought.
"We may be some time. I do hope the surroundings aren't causing you any discomfort?"
"Not at all, Mr Watson—"
Playing the difficult guest was not wise at this moment. Narcissa inclined her head toward Bryan, drew out a chair, and sat.
The picture that resulted was extraordinary.
On one side of the conjured table: a great mass of shabbily dressed civilians seated on the bare cobblestones of the platform—they were workers and farmers and small-trade people from magical settlements scattered across Britain, still carrying the dust of the afternoon on them, some of them still holding the half-eaten sandwiches Tom had provided.
On the other side: a row of elegantly attired pureblood aristocrats, ill at ease in their excellent robes, watching with guarded eyes and carefully blank expressions as they waited for the moment Bryan Watson would choose to strike.
The two sides looked at each other across a distance of perhaps ten feet and several centuries of accumulated social distance.
What a picture it made.
The journalists were snapping furiously, capturing the scene that was surely destined for the history books.
Some had already composed their headlines in their heads—ready for tomorrow's front page of the Daily Prophet.
"Then—"
Bryan stood with his back to the commoners, facing the wizarding aristocracy of Britain. The smile faded slightly from his lips.
"Let us begin."
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