01227 The Party

Clear, bright moonlight poured over the Seine, silvering every ripple and lending a few more shimmering to a river that already carried the dazzling neon of this international capital of romance.

Red and gold and electric blue, the signs and streetlamps and café awnings were all broken into trembling pieces on the black water, so that the whole river seemed to be slowly turning in its sleep.

Arm in arm, a Muggle couple who had just stepped out of an ancient Greek-style, cross-shaped building strolled along the riverbank, basking in the breeze of early night, which had not yet turned cold.

They made their way toward the steel tower standing against the night sky, passing a riverside park where the trees stood bare and black beneath the lamps, and a row of cafés in the local style with their wicker chairs, their small round marble tables, and waiters in long white aprons moving between the diners with trays held high.

Then they came to a building utterly out of keeping with the pearl-like brightness of the city, and the boy was the first to halt, casting a startled look up at it.

From the outside, it appeared to be an abandoned hotel.

Once, it must have been grand.

Its proportions were still elegant. But the outer walls had flaked away under the assault of the years, leaving them mottled and decrepit. Every window sash had been torn out, and the empty openings set into the teetering walls were like rows of pitch-black eye sockets.

A glance or two was enough to fill anyone with dread. Even the pigeons, which crowded every other ledge on the street, kept well away from it.

The boy looked away, uneasily, toward a row of wooden fencing rooted in the grass a few steps off, where bold, red-lettered signs warned passers-by:

Unsafe building. No entry. Trespass at your own peril!

Without meaning to, he tightened his grip on the girl's hand and edged a few steps off in the opposite direction, putting her between himself and the dark windows.

"Oh, don't be silly, Charles. That place was already standing there when I was born, and in all these years nothing has ever happened to it. Not a fire, not a collapse, nothing. It just sits there being ugly."

The girl seemed to be a local, and she explained with a grin, plainly enjoying his discomfort.

"It was here when you were born?"

The boy clicked his tongue and looked at his girlfriend in surprise.

"Probably long before that, even."

The girl shrugged.

"My dad used to say the same thing when I was little. He said it was old when he was a boy."

The boy glanced at the iron tower close at hand, then let his gaze sweep a full circle.

As far as he could see, apart from this old building that still faintly showed traces of its former opulence, there was nothing nearby but bustling commercial streets: bright shopfronts, crowded pavements, taxis nosing through the evening traffic.

Every square metre around here must have been worth a fortune. It seemed a strange place to leave a ruin standing.

"Well, all right, then."

The black-haired, dark-eyed boy curled his lip.

"Rich French people. They'd sooner let a whole hotel rot than sell it to somebody."

He stared a few moments longer at one pitch-black window on the second floor, and then shivered for no reason at all, a cold finger of unease was crawling down between his shoulder.

"Come on, let's go. That place gives me a bad feeling. For all we know, it's haunted inside."

"Oh, there are rumours like that, you know."

The girl tugged him along by the hand, laughing.

"Do you want to hear them? There's a bit about a lady in grey, and it's very good."

As the two strolled farther away, the girl's teasing laughter faded gradually into the wind, and behind them the dark building went on standing in the moonlight.

"Don't forget—constant vigilance, Sirius!"

The sudden growl at his back made Sirius jump.

He hurriedly straightened up from where he had been lounging against a gilt-patterned window frame, one shoulder propped on the carved wood and his gaze drifting somewhere over the heads of the crowd, turned, and glared resentfully at the wizard behind him.

"Every major political figure in Europe's wizarding world is gathered under this roof, Alastor. Look around you! There are enough wards on this place to stop a dragon, and enough Aurors in the next room to stuff one. Anyone who tried to attack it would have to be out of their mind!"

"Our opponents are exactly a pack of madmen, Sirius."

Alastor rapped his cane against the floor, once, with a crack like a pistol shot, and he, too, turned to look out over the opulent, elegant hall.

It was a room built to dazzle.

Beneath the radiance of a crystalline chandelier, finely dressed witches and wizards clinked glasses amid the revelry. Silk robes rustled over the parquet; jewelled clasps and diamond pins flashed; the tables screeched beneath roast pheasant, glazed hams, pyramids of pastries and rivers of golden wine that kept refilling their own glasses.

"Tsk, tsk—"

Alastor clicked his tongue again. His face, covered in centipede-like scars, twitched, and the blue magical eye in its socket was too bored even to swivel.

"Still, it's a dull business. The world's in flames, and the politicians, in between saving it, can't resist a song and a dance! If the Dark Lord walked in the door right now, half of them would offer him a canapé."

"So that's why Bryan and Dumbledore chose not to come, I suppose—"

Sirius stretched until his shoulders cracked, and laughed.

Before tomorrow's final preparatory meeting of the Joint Task Force, the heads of the Ministries of Magic of every nation party to the Defence Treaty had, of course, to gather under one roof and celebrate the momentous occasion together.

The man standing in the spotlight now was the Vice-Chairman of the International Confederation of Wizards, Vipor Dreghorn.

This stern old stickler, who in the world's eyes never cracked a smile, was perhaps lifted by the joy of the occasion; or perhaps good fortune had simply loosened something in him.

His collar was as stiff as ever and his robes as black as a funeral, yet he kept raising his glass to those beside him, to President Quahog of the American Magical Congress, to Minister Bones.

The other vice-chairmen holding the Confederation's seven seats were doing everything they could to host the dignitaries of each nation, gliding from circle to circle with fake smiles, refilling glasses, introducing strangers, murmuring in half a dozen languages.

Looking out across the gilded, resplendent banquet hall, the only two who did not fit its harmonious atmosphere were Sirius and Alastor.

They were not guests of the Confederation; they were attending the banquet as Minister Bones's bodyguards, and the only bodyguards to be granted such a distinction at all.

After all, Alastor had already been tapped as operations commander of the soon-to-be-established Joint Task Force, which made his presence politic as well as practical.

And Sirius—on the strength of his glorious record of thirteen years in Azkaban—had won himself a ticket in as well. The Aurors brought by the heads of the other nations' Ministries had been put in a smaller hall next door.

"A function like this must be dreadfully dull for the pair of you."

A little while later, Minister Bones finally found a chance to extricate herself from Vice-Chairman Dreghorn and the other ministers of magic who had crowded around her hoping to strike up a friendship.

She crossed the floor toward Alastor and Sirius, who had gone to the window for some air, and asked with a smile,

"Especially you, Sirius. I'd wager you can't wait to get back to Remus's place."

Sirius, in dark-green wizard robes, hands in his pockets, wore a cheerful smile that looked almost heretical at an event where everyone else wore a mask.

"Remus, Tonks and the others have been rehearsing the wedding these past few days, Minister, and dodging all that bother is exactly why I didn't ask for leave. Seating plans, flower arrangements, whether the ribbons should be cream or ivory… I'd take a banquet over that any day. At least here nobody asks me my opinion on napkins."

"Ah, and here I thought you'd insisted on coming because you were worried about my safety."

Minister Bones chuckled, a dry, amused sound, then turned to Alastor and said warmly,

"Perhaps you ought to come round with me and get to know a few of the wizards in this hall, Alastor. Minister Fonseca is dying to meet you, and the Swedes have a great many questions. You won't be able to avoid dealing with them in future."

"No offence, Minister—"

Alastor roared at the top of his voice.

"But if being operations commander means making nice with politicians, I'd rather spend another year in a wooden trunk!"

Even Minister Bones was amused by the sudden outburst, and the corner of her mouth twitched.

She was about to reply when she saw Alastor and Sirius, in perfect unison, knit their brows slightly, their gazes fixed on something just past her shoulder, one hand each slipping back into a sleeve toward a wand.

Amelia turned to look and saw a waiter walking toward them.

And all three of them could tell, from the waiter's lowered head and hunched shoulders as he walked, that this unremarkable-looking man was doing his utmost not to draw any unnecessary attention.

"Pardon the interruption, madam—are you Minister Bones, of the British Ministry of Magic?"

There was no one in this hall who did not know Amelia, who in a time of peril had fought to turn the tide of the British wizarding world's decline. Even so, the waiter bowed before her and asked once more, as though the question were a password.

Amelia scrutinized him. After a long moment, she nodded. "I am. What is it?"

"Mr. Barnah would like a word with you, Minister Bones. He is upstairs."

"Barnah?"

Her brows arched sharply, making her look a good deal more imposing, and her gaze settled on the waiter.

"I hadn't heard that he would be attending this banquet."

Behind Amelia, alarm flared simultaneously in the eyes of Sirius and Alastor.

In unison they stepped out from behind Minister Bones and, without revealing a thing, moved up behind the waiter on each sides, ready at any instant to deliver a thunderous blow to this suspicious man.

Yet the waiter, though he had obviously noticed their movements, seemed oblivious to everything; he merely bowed slightly once more.

"You will also need to bring Mr. Black and Mr. Moody with you, Minister. This is Vice-Chairman Watson's plan."

"Bry—"

Sirius blurted in shock, but, realizing at the same moment that it was unwise to shout Bryan's name across a crowded hall full of the world's most influential wizards, he clamped his mouth shut hard.

"Don't try any tricks, boy!"

Alastor's magical eye was locked straight on the waiter, humming now at last, and he growled in a low, grinding voice.

"I've been lied to by better men than you, and I put every one of them in a cell. If this is a trap, you'll be the first to find out how it springs."

But the waiter would say no more. He only held himself in that slight bow.

Amelia narrowed her eyes and studied him closely for a few moments.

Then she surveyed the still-boisterous banquet hall, the glittering chandelier, the laughing ministers, the swinging music, and after a few seconds of pondering, said.

"Very well. Let's go. Take us to see Barnah."

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