Fandom: Harry Potter

Rating: G, gen

Disclaimer: the wizarding universe and its British representatives belong to J.K.Rowling. The island of New Holland belongs to the city of St. Petersburg; its wizarding population is, however, all mine.

Notes: story written for fernwithy's challenge Dumbledore's Grid. Thanks to my mother for the idea to use New Holland.

It was forbidden to Apparate from anywhere near Nevsky, and not without reason. There were too many people and cars and too few quiet places. And yet somehow Katya forgot all about that. Again.

Of course, normally she wouldn’t have needed to Apparate from Nevsky — her usual routes bypassed Muggle-heavy places. It was just that today, since she was going to New Holland anyway, she decided to shop for Muggle books first. Katya’s inherent laziness always made her combine all possible errands into one day — and at the end of that day she was usually fit for nothing.

Elbowing her way onto the trolleybus after a twenty-minute wait and trying not to let any of her parcels slip away, Katya was ready to say that she already was fit for nothing. Certainly not for the meeting with Max and his merry band.

However, she promised to Max that she’d come, and Katya Chernovodtseva always honoured her promises. Even if afterwards people regretted making her give these promises.

When she stumbled off the trolleybus and breathed in freely after twenty minutes of being squeezed, pushed and pinched, the rain was still drizzling, but she wasn’t in the mood to fish for the umbrella in her backpack. She fixed the left headphone more firmly in her ear — another passenger pushing past her had almost tugged it out — and, turning her player on, marched resolutely towards New Holland.

Katya hurried as much as she could, eager to get dry and to be able to levitate her parcels, and yet when she finally crossed the channel and entered the walls of New Holland, she almost stumbled and swore under her breath. Her player switched off — the walls here were too thick and too saturated with magic to permit using any electronics. Luckily, she was going further towards the Bridge, where she’d be able to get her music back, but for now she regretfully took the headphones out and tucked them under the open collar of her jacket.

Two middle-aged witches in traditional robes passed by, looking her over with suspicion. Katya supposed she must have looked a fright, her Muggle jacket wet, her hair in disarray after she had thrown her hood back. She switched the parcels onto her left arm and shook her wand free from her right sleeve. A quick Wingardium Leviosa, and she immediately felt much better.

Two minutes, and she was already hurrying past the Scoop, looking neat and dry and eyeing with regret the half-empty coffee-shop which floated over that small body of water in the centre of New Holland. Maybe later, on her way back, she decided.

Ever since St. Petersburg Ministry offices moved out onto the Long Lake, New Holland became much quieter — but the Bridge, which Katya was already approaching, still teemed with life. This large construction was planned and built in the 1930s, the wizarding architects of the time being as eager for experiment as the Muggle ones — it was difficult to stick too much to traditions in the Stalin era. However, there wasn’t much place for the Wizards to experiment in — St. Petersburg was built in the time when the wizarding culture in Russia was in deep retreat, and it was always too well planned to leave much place for hidden streets. That was why the famous Sergey Poletayev offered the idea of the giant Bridge, rising from New Holland and passing unseen over a couple of Muggle streets and then over Great Neva, high enough to let the ships pass through and wide enough for several rows of modern buildings.

The buildings did not look so modern now, somehow reminding a lot the Muggle Stalin Empire style, but they were still well-planned, spacious, almost every room connected to the Floo Network and every house having an Owl Post station on the roof. To live on the Bridge was prestigious — certainly far beyond Katya’s means, — and above the usual shops on the first floor a lot of these buildings were taken by various offices, companies and such.

Somehow even Max managed to secure an office here, though Katya preferred not to think about the ways he found money to finance his famously independent newspaper. Maybe her Ministry salary wasn’t much and she could always use more money, but at least what money she had came regularly.

Max’s building in sight, she paused and sighed, composing herself. She still felt uneasy over her continuing association with him, but since she had already agreed to come today, it would be better to hear what he had to say first and get nervous later.

When she came in, the office was half-empty; besides Max she could only see a couple of wizards in the next room hunched over the coffee pot. As always, it was difficult to understand whether everyone else already had left work or hadn’t come in yet.

“Katya!” Max exclaimed, rising from his desk, a picture of gentlemanly manners. “Come in, have a seat. A cup of tea?”

“No, thanks,” Katya said resolutely, setting her parcels down on the sofa near Max’s desk. If she agreed to tea, she’d have to wait for at least half an hour until he got to the point. “What was it that you wanted to discuss so urgently?”

Max’s face instantly switched to businesslike expression. “Britain.”

“Britain?” she repeated, startled. “Since when are you interested in Britain? And anyway, I have nothing to do with international relations. You need the Moscow office for that.”

“But you know English,” Max noted.

“So what? Lots of people know English, both wizards and Muggles. What do you want from me?”

“See, Katya,” Max said in a soothing tone, “they have a difficult situation right now in Britain. The British Ministry of Magic is very reluctant to admit the threat from that Voldemort guy…”

“Max,” Katya said slowly and reasonably, “don’t lecture me. I read international press and I read your editorials. I know all that already.”

“You read my editorials?” Max beamed at her. “Well, then you already know the importance…”

“I know that you don’t have enough material to fill in that newspaper of yours and so you stick in retellings of world news intersperced with your personal philosophy or something. I don’t know, first, why you would have any special interest in Voldemort, and second, what I have to do with that.”

“The anti-Voldemort fraction needs support,” Max explained, turning back to business. “And since they aren’t exactly official, they aren’t picky about where they get this support. This organization of theirs, the Order of the Phoenix, offered us to send them someone who’d be given opportunity to see things, to get first-hand information about what’s going on— “

“Will they pay the correspondent’s expenses?” Katya interrupted curiously.

“Not exactly. They will offer accomodation, naturally, and travelling means — after all, they hope our articles will attract more Russian volunteers. But the newspaper provides the rest.”

If you could disregard beamy smiles and occasional oiliness of voice Max was a tolerable guy. He made Wizarding News into a paper almost as widely read as the official Wizarding Petersburg and even quoted in Moscow Ministry offices, though mostly with highly disapproving comments added to the quotes. Katya respected that and tried to ignore everything else. “I still don’t see where I come into that…”

“Don’t you? I want you to be our man in Britain, naturally.”

“Max,” Katya said and took a deep breath. “Max, didn’t you forget something? I’m not a reporter!”

“No,” Max agreed. “But you’re our prime expert — Russia’s prime expert — on magical terrorism. Voldemort and his people are terrorists, that’s certainly clear, so you’re the best person to send out there to form an opinion.”

“Max,” Katya felt a headache coming, “I’m Russia’s only expert on magical terrorism. Russian Ministry does not acknowledge magical terrorism as a threat here, and you know it as well as I do.”

“I do,” Max agreed easily. “However, they are needed. You were the first to say that, weren’t you? And judging from the reader response your article generated, you’re not the only one to think so.”

Katya grimaced a little. “It shouldn’t have been an article.”

“Well, we could’ve just printed your Ministry report, but the response would’ve been much less. Katenka, people don’t read official reports if they aren’t paid for that. In fact, sometimes they don’t do it even then.”

She did not answer. Last winter, seeing her report on Chechnya wizarding education and the possibility of magical terrorism there suppressed and all her subsequent attempts to raise the question swept under the rug, Katya leaked a copy of her report to Wizarding News. She still could not regret this. However, Max convinced her to write an article preceding the full report — to stress the main points more clearly, he had said then; using a pseudonym, of course, — and paid her for that. And that sat uneasily with her, even though she liked writing the article, and the money came in very handy — there were some books, and a beautiful cat figurine in that Indian shop…

Max looked at her pensively. “You’re a good writer, Katya. We both know you can do that.”

“I have my job,” Katya offered, annoyed that her voice sounded a little weak. “I can’t have it threatened.” Not that Max ever did that, but the possibilities kept preying on her mind.

“You can take a vacation. When did you last have one — two, three years ago? You’re a workaholic, Katya. I like that, and I’m not threatening your job. No one ever learned the sources for that article — did they?” he asked, suddenly leaning towards her over the table.

She shook her head. “No. They asked me questions, of course, but with so much paperwork in triplicate it spreads all over the building, so it could’ve been anyone…”

“Exactly.” Max nodded, satisfied, and leaned back in his chair. “You’re safe. The weather in Europe is better than ours right now — tell them you want a month off. They’d be only happy to let you go.”

That was probably the truth. During the last five years it started to become less and less… fashionable for Ministry employees to be interested in their work. Katya’s way of concentrating intensely on her task confused her immediate superiors, and she could never manage to be diplomatic enough with them to get things done her way; most of the time she just wanted to shake them. Really, Max was often much easier to deal with.

Katya almost snorted, realizing the direction of her thoughts. Somehow she managed to become uncomfortable in both the mayhem of the Wizarding News office and the bland predictability of the Ministry. Perhaps a vacation in the country full of terrorists was just what she needed.

“They’re going to send a Portkey for you,” Max offered, feeling her changing mood. “Well, I think the idea is not to make you compromise their location, but it means you won’t have to apparate across all the Baltic Sea. And it’ll be useful for you — where else will you get experience in dealing with terrorists?”

Katya smiled slightly. Why was an annoying journalist the only person to believe that magical terrorism could be a problem for Russia? “All right,” she said tiredly. “Owl me Monday evening — I’ll need time to arrange a vacation.”

She listened to what else Max had to say with half an ear. He gave her a dossier which she stuffed in her backpack and then promised to owl the rest. Katya wandered out, thinking about what she was going to do and, as always, regretting the decision she has just made. She went past the Scoop, forgetting all about the coffee, apparating home straight from the gates of New Holland.

* * * * *

Katya sat in the pub called “Leaky Cauldron” and frowned into her butterbeer. Despite never travelling anywhere without a book, when she waited for something and was nervous about that, she usually wasn’t able to read. Right now, though, she suspected, it was all to the good — after all, she had to keep looking for the person who was to pick her up.

She did not even know the name of that person, and that annoyed her. Irregular arrangements often did — that is, they made her nervous, and that was annoying. She portkeyed onto a busy wizarding street near this pub and came in, as instructed, taking a table for herself and leaving the Portkey, a brightly patterned handkerchief, on the table so that she could be recognised.

The butterbeer was nice, but she regretted not having asked for a cup of tea — its familiarity might have served better at calming her down. Looking at her own fingers drumming on the table, she almost jumped when she heard a male voice nearby. “Miss Chernogo… Chernovo…”

“Chernovodtseva,” Katya said authomatically. Hers was an old wizarding name from the Northern enclaves which still remembered Novgorod traditions, but sometimes she got tired of spelling it out loud.

She looked up and blinked at the extreme redheadedness of the man standing over her. She should have noticed him earlier. Then again, what did it matter? That Voldemort of theirs would hardly be singling out for attack a Russian witch in the middle of a busy pub.

“Bill Weasley,” he said and offered her his hand. She shook it, though it made her uncomfortable when men offered their hand first. Maybe it was traditional here, she reminded herself — after all, one exchange semester in Durmstrang did not make her an expert on foreign manners. And he seemed polite and friendly…

“Have you waited long?” Mr Weasley was asking meanwhile.

“No, not really,” Katya answered, picking up her backpack. “Shall we go? I’m not entirely clear on the details of my stay here…” she admitted.

“Ah, yes,” Mr Weasley said, leading her outside. “For safety’s sake we did not want to release too much information — even the walls have ears, you know.” He chuckled as if that proverb was a joke he had first heard today.

“Naturally,” Katya agreed politely, “but now that I’m here…”

“Now that you are here, you’ll be staying at our headquarters, so you’ll be able to observe our work. I’m afraid it’s Unplottable, so you’ll only be able to come and go escorted by one of our people.”

Katya just nodded, remembering her stay in Chechnya and her shock at seeing the defenses around the wizarding school in Grozny for the first time.

“And I’d better warn you now,” Mr Weasley added, “you’ll be asked to sign a binding contract not to reveal personal and secret information.”

He looked at her as if expecting an argument, but Katya just nodded again. That made sense — and besides, even though, perhaps, it showed the lack of a proper journalistic spirit, she was much more interested in their actions and plans than in who exactly those people and their families were.

“In that case,” Mr Weasley said, grinning at her, “please touch this.”

He was offering her an empty bottle. Katya grabbed its top and they portkeyed together while she was still wondering over strange objects people picked as Portkeys.

* * * * *

The house they were staying in wasn’t even that old — Katya had seen older ones, especially in Kiev and even Moscow, — but it was rather gloomy. It clearly was someone’s family home.

She had found it interesting in a disturbing kind of way — the whole organization somehow seemed very personal, people coming from all kind of backgrounds and occupations. What linked them together? The loyalty to their leader, Albus Dumbledore?

Katya tried to imagine the same kind of organization back home, but it made her uneasy. Such a leader, especially in unstable Chechnya, would quickly transform into the new enemy. How did the English avoid this? Perhaps they were just used to unofficial organizations, she decided finally. Something like this in Soviet Russia would be quickly stamped out by the Ministry for fear of attracting the Muggle government’s attention.

Someone — in her first days here Katya, as usual, had trouble distinguishing people, especially since there was a lot of them coming and going — told her that Albus Dumbledore was offered the position of the Minister and refused it. Looking at the man, Katya could well believe it — he seemed to be suited for the eminence grise role best of all. However, it was frustrating; she was gaining no useful information whatsoever by wandering around the house, watching and listening.

Finally on her third day in England a stately witch called Emmeline Vance — thankfully, Katya already started recognizing faces — asked her for a cup of tea in the living room. Apparently that passed for an official meeting here, Katya understood by Miss Vance’s tone, but she was glad of it. She just wanted to make plans and ask the really important questions.

English tea was really quite good, Katya decided while Miss Vance inquired about how much she liked her stay here. It all sounded like she was a vacationing guest or something, but she had no intention of being less polite than her hosts, so she smiled and nodded and answered that yes, she was very comfortable here.

Then Miss Vance made a long pause and, when Katya looked at her inquiringly, smiled. “You are probably waiting for me to get down to business, aren’t you, Miss Cherno—“

“Oh, just call me Katya,” Katya interrupted her.

“Very well, Katya,” Miss Vance sighed, not a little relieved, Katya imagined. “In that case I must ask you to call me Emmeline.” She took out a quill and a clean parchment and said, “So, do you already have any ideas as to what you want to see and do?”

“Oh yes,” Katya admitted, “I most certainly do.”

The quill paused in the air, prepared to write.

“Most of all I would like to… go out with your people, so to speak. To see how they react at a specific threat and deal with its aftermaths. And…”

Waiting for her words to be written down, she finally decided to voice another idea that kept resurfacing in her brain. “I heard you have your Ministry employees in your Order. I’d like to speak with one of them. I won’t touch upon personal details,” she added hastily, seeing the doubt in Miss Vance’s — Emmeline’s — eyes. “This will be mostly for background and opinions on political situation.”

“All right then,” Emmeline nodded. “I’ll ask, and perhaps one of them will agree to talk to you.”

“Thanks,” Katya smiled at her. “I understand — of course you can’t make people to talk to me.”

“Well, some of our people would talk to a journalist only under orders,” Emmeline said with a wry grin. “Our Daily Prophet wasn’tr exactly… helpful all this time.”

Katya laughed. She had read enough of Daily Prophet. In some aspects it was even worse than Wizarding Russia.

All in all, she decided, discussing her further plans, she rather liked Emmeline Vance. The witch certainly had a sense of humour — and managed to stay professional at the same time.

* * * * *

Voldemort’s followers were ridiculous. Katya rather hoped that any possible future terrorists in Russia would also obligingly mark themselves so as not to pose problems for the investigation.

However, they were also ruthless and senselessly cruel. Visiting a Muggleborn Wizard’s home after their attack, she was suddenly glad that she had always disliked Flooing — that made murmuring a charm against the rising sickness in her throat an almost instinctive action.

She was no journalist, not really, but she had an experience of convincing people to come to her side; so, watching the Order wizards and witches cleaning, looking for traces and containing the damage she was already mentally composing the words that would make people in Russia understand the reality of terrorism.

There would be some who’d fight for any paying customer, including the Order of Phoenix, she supposed, — wizards and witches from the poorer regions of Russia were eager for money, — but she hoped also to attract people who, like Katya herself, realized the danger and wanted to do something to stop it.

“So, what do you think, Katya?” Bill Weasley asked her back in the Order headquarters.

“I think that your people evidently had a lot of experience dealing with this. And so had the bad guys,” she added a little morosely. “Anyway, I am impressed and I hope you will get more volunteers coming. It’ll be useful for both you and us.”

Bill glanced at her inquiringly after her last words, but the only thing he asked was whether he had any news from Russia. The Wizarding News already had a couple of lead-in articles, and Max’s owl said that a couple of people wrote and asked whether the British were hiring. Katya relayed those news to Bill and wandered to the room with the highest number of armchairs to try to relax before dinner.

“Are you busy?” someone asked suddenly, but Katya managed not to jump. In this house someone always appeared suddenly, whether turning round the corner or just entering the room. It was that kind of a house.

“No, not really,” she answered, looking up at the newcomer. It was Kingsley Shacklebolt, a tall black wizard she had only seen at meetings, since he always seemed to be busy elsewhere.

“Good,” Shacklebolt said, sitting down in the armchair opposite of her. “I was planning to talk to you.”

“Talk to me?” Katya repeated, surprised.

“Well, Emmeline Vance said you wanted to talk to a Ministry employee,” he said patiently.

“So I did,” Katya agreed, turning towards him with interest. “I’m glad you agreed to.”

“Well,” he answered, “since you agreed not to use personal details, I was intrigued by the special interest towards Ministry employees.”

“May I know what department you’re in?” Katya asked, unwilling to offer reasons for this interest, even though he probably expected her to give some explanation.

“Aurors. So you see, in a way this all is my professional responsibility.”

“Ye-es,” Katya said thoughtfully, looking him over and comparing him with the Wardens in Russia, “but isn’t there, you know, a dichotomy? I mean, you should be chasing dark wizards on your work hours, and not in your spare time with no law to back you up…”

Damn. She was starting to think this interview was a bad idea. There was no way she could use it in her article, and since it amounted, more or less, to personal curiosity, she was fumbling and feeling unable to shape her questions properly.

Kingsley Shacklebolt shrugged. “I’ve been a bit worried that this will come out and I’ll have problems with the Minister, but we’ve all got rather good with covering ourselves, so it’s quite likely this problem won’t come to light.”

“Yes, but don’t you have a loyalty to your job?” Katya asked, more sharply than she intended.

“I do,” he answered calmly. “To my job, which is catching dark wizards. Not to a bureaucratic institution.”

“And not to Albus Dumbledore?” she challenged. She did not really know why she was trying to… provoke him. Perhaps his calmness in dealing with the thing that kept troubling her was just annoying.

“Personal reasons aside, Albus Dumbledore is the wizard most likely to give us a victory over Voldemort and his followers. You’ve seen what they can do.”

Katya moved to the edge of her armchair, looking intently into his eyes. “And what will come after the victory? What’s to stop Dumbledore from becoming the next Voldemort? He has an army already, after all. I’ve seen such things before — men who led others towards the victory cannot let go and become certain that only they know how to arrange everybody’s life afterwards. Bureaucracies, whatever their faults, have inner stability. Ministries operate under the same rules while Ministers come and go. What will happen after your victory, Mr Shacklebolt? Will the members of the Order become next Death Eaters?”

His face was very still, and she was afraid that she’d gone too far. The memory of the aftermath of that Death Eater raid was still with her, and he probably had seen many more such scenes. And yet… she still believed wholeheartedly in what she had just said, and was glad to finally voice the thoughts that worried her since her first day with the Order of the Phoenix.

“It does happen, you know,” she added in a gentler tone. “People start to fight for the noblest reason possible — for freedom, for safety of their families. And yet their reasons, their organization — everything is personal, and so it changes. Usually to the worst, since those people aren’t bound by anything but what they consider right or wrong.”

She fell silent, watching his face for a sign of reaction, any reaction. He was a bit too good at concealing emotions, though. When he started to talk, his face was still impenetrable and his voice even.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Perhaps a new danger awaits us after the victory. But you see, Katya, I have looked at the evil and I have seen no choice but joining those who would fight it. Perhaps my choice will bring new problems and someone else will have to deal with the results of my mistake. But at least this evil we’re facing now will be stopped.”

He rose and nodded at her. “It’s time for dinner,” he said. “If you have any more questions, I’m afraid they’ll have to wait.”

Katya’s eyes followed him towards the door. It would’ve certainly been easier, she thought dejectedly, if she had been a real journalist. They had looked at the evil, Kingsley Shacklebolt had said — and she knew exactly what he meant.