InsaneJournal

Who: Fabian Prewett and Sirius Black
What: Plotting and planning
When: Thursday evening, 22 January, before the Order meeting.
Where: Fabian's flat in London
Warnings: Mild language.



Fabian was still in the process of catching up on his sleep after the long night out at Dorcas' over the weekend and hosting her until Lily had fetched her out to the Potter estate. He looked a bit worse for the wear to Sirius' eyes, but performed all the ritual duties of a gentleman host: the offer of a drink and a small nosh of fruit and cheese. When they were settled in Fabian's two chairs--all he had room for in the open area of the downstairs part of his loft other than the dining table and the piano that dominated the space--Fabian swirled the tumbler of whiskey he'd poured.

"So let's talk about this trap, and Lady Noir," he said, staring into the glass.

When Sirius had suggested the trap, he hadn't yet had anything in mind, though that didn't mean he wasn't eager to talk about it. He held his own glass in one hand and sat, lazily, glad for a chance to be somewhere other than the castle and Hogsmeade, which was where his time away from the castle usually called him. Often at the Hog's Head, where he enjoyed Bilius's company.

"I just think that it's a good time to figure out who she is and where she is and make her aware of who we are and what we're doing here. If my cousin were still alive, I'd peg her for the bint, but thankfully I got rid of her long before she could do real damage." It wasn't often that Sirius spoke of killing Bellatrix Lestrange, but it had been enough years past that he could without it bothering him. And if anyone didn't mind such a casual reference, he figured it was Fabian.

"But since she's not, we need to know who she is. Or at least where she's coming from. Both literally and figuratively. Alecto Carrow is out. She can't string a simple sentence together to save her life, let alone act as Lady Noir does. I hate to say it, but Noir has a modicum of class, and Carrow does not. We might be working with someone we've never encountered before."

"I don't know that there's going to be more to her than murder and the standard purist claptrap: blah blah blah mudbloods blah blah blah blood traitors blah blah blah kiss my arse because old man Nott put my name in his silly book blah blah blah." The last Fabian spoke in an exaggerated drawl that could have belonged to a number of their elderly relatives, some of them mutual.

He rolled his eyes and continued in a more normal tone, "I was afraid it was her, you know. Bellatrix." She had been Bella once, to Fabian, back when they were all schoolchildren, but those days had been long gone before Sirius had ended her life in the Lestrange vault. "That she had done what Voldemort did. Made a horcrux or three. It was what I was originally willing to raise the Order against. I don't think so now, though. She'd've killed someone by now, up close and personal, none of this pussyfooting about with poisoning people and sending fourth-class baggage to assassinate her enemies." But he was watching Sirius to see his agreement or the lack thereof.

"I'd say we should go through the genealogies for likely candidates, but really, we've got nothing. We don't even know for certain that this is a woman."

They didn't even know for certain if this Lady Noir was a pureblood. That could complicate matters even further, though Sirius chose not to mention it. "If it was Bellatrix," he said after a moment, "I'm sure I would have been her first target and wouldn't be here sitting talking to you now either because I'd be dead or back in prison for killing her again."

He paused for a moment to sip his drink. "What we need is to get a face-to-face with her," Sirius said. "Or him, if you think it's a bloke, though I can't think of any purist arse who'd parade around as a woman to make a point. If anything, it would be the other way around. I think the fact that Lady Noir is purporting to be a woman is telling us that she is a woman."

But where to start? That Sirius had no idea. There were a lot of angles. "We could take out an ad in the Prophet and ask for her to join us for drinks down at the Hog's Head," he joked.

Fabian shrugged to Sirius' comment about Noir probably being a woman; it was less that he doubted Sirius' analysis than that he had no native instinct to trust anything that she announced about herself. It all required verification as far as he was concerned.

"I wonder if she answers journal wards? The thing is, I can't imagine she'd answer one from one of us." Fabian's brow furrowed in concentration. "So we'd need to gimmick something up with someone whom she might answer one from. And then, possibly go in polyjuice or the like." His tone said he was throwing the plan against the wall to see if it stuck more than seriously proposing it.

He rubbed his jaw. "It might just take the right one of us to ward her," Sirius said. "For example, you, me, Gideon, even Dorcas -- we're ex-cons in the same way a lot of others are, just for the other side of the war. Maybe we give her a reason to want to talk to one of us and see what happens. At least it would be step one." He paused, swore under his breath. "That does bring up the idea that she's talking to people on the network that we can't see. I don't like that idea at all."

Fabian shrugged, less alarmed by the concept that Lady Noir was talking with her followers in the same way the Order was communicating than resigned to it. "That's what we do. If we can do it, I tend to assume that they can as well. She's got to be talking to her followers and recruiting somehow. Journals are the easiest way to do that nowadays." He frowned thoughtfully and took a sip of his whiskey. "I was going to say that we might consider focusing our ex-con attention on our fellows in that situation, but there's no reason to assume she's even recruiting former Death Eaters. At least not the ones we can speak to for certain."

"There's no reason to assume much of anything," Sirius muttered. This wasn't like the last time, where it was clear what was happening and who had a hand in it. But poisoning, problems at Hogwarts, public lists, assassination attempts? It was the start of something but nothing yet concrete.

"Well that's just it. Alice said the attempt on Jo--or Cresswell, or both--was 'connected with Lady Noir' but that could mean a lot of different things. Was the murderer working under her orders? Or was it just a murderous bastard who was inspired by one of the little lists that made it to the front page of the Prophet?" They'd already discussed how Cresswell and Jo's names had been on the lists, like their own, so Fabian didn't repeat that point. "Or blackmail or the Imperius." They had seen it all in their time with the Order.

"If one or the other of us acts to lure them out, we're likely to get the followers, not the mistress. So direct communications seem to be the likely answer. The question is, what might she want from us?" His eyebrows arched in Sirius' direction.

Sirius didn't want to think very hard about what someone like Lady Noir might want from one of them or what they might be able to offer her. It was like what had happened with You-Know-Who during the first war and Peter Pettigrew. At least. Sirius wasn't stupid enough to think it hadn't happened with other people. "I get the feeling there isn't much organization. It's possible this person who tried to kill Jo and did kill Cresswell was just inspired. The question is, how many others will be inspired like this as well, and how can we put a stop to that?"

He looked down at his drink and then downed it in two quick swallows. He breathed out slowly. "I imagine she would want us to do something for her and not just ask questions. That's the problem, right? What are we willing to do for her?"

Fabian gave Sirius a look that suggested he was ready to take ten points from Gryffindor. "What are we willing to lie and say we'll do, you mean? The problem is that you and I aren't credible. We're known public figures and our politics have been publicly stated." He huffed out a breath that was not quite a sigh as he came to the obvious conclusion. "The person we need for this is the one person we absolutely cannot get: Gideon. Who has been locked up on a farm in Yorkshire for seven years and who occasionally talks about how much he hates Dumbledore for his part in throwing us into Azkaban.

"I could sell it, too." Speculation crept into Fabian's tone as he felt for the right answer. "He's bitter, he's angry, he hates Voldemort for what he did, for how he destroyed everything, he's seen the light, the error of his ways, et cetera." His voice changed, resignation creeping in. "It's a moot point, though. Gideon's made it clear this is not his fight and he's not in."

Sirius gave it a moment's thought before leaning forward a little bit. "Then what do we have to do to make it clear to Gideon that it is his fight?"

Fabian's eyes narrowed and an expression that Sirius had learnt to associate with imminent violence during their long years on that island in the North Sea flashed across Fabian's face before he locked it down. "Bugger it all for a lark if I know. When I told him about Dorcas being hit, he all but blamed her--blamed me--for her attack. Said he didn't mean it afterwards, but it's the gist of everything he's ever had to say about the Order to me. When I talked to him about re-upping, he told me I was looking for trouble. When I told him we--" a gesture encompassed himself and Sirius "--would be the first ones they'd look at when there was trouble, he told me primly that they'd never find anything at his. And when I reminded him that the Auror Office wasn't above putting a thumb on the scale where people they already knew were guilty were concerned, he changed the subject. And I don't even want to talk about our last conversation.

"I told Moody at the last meeting that he's earned his rest, and he has. And that I didn't want him at my back if he didn't want to be there. I meant that." Fabian pushed himself to his feet and began pacing in the narrow space between the chairs and his fireplace. "And with Dorcas--it's almost as if he thinks that re-upping the Order is about him and me somehow, and that by taking the decision to act, she's taken a side in some personal quarrel he and I have. Which I mention," he said, turning back to look at Sirius, "because you'll be in the same fix if you try to bring him in.

"Maybe was a time when someone could have got to him after we came back. Now, though?" Fabian shrugged and put up his hands. "My guess is it's too late."

It was strange how Sirius could see both sides of this coin. If he hadn't had Remus at the time (with James bugger knows where being a right prat and selfish arse about it all), it was very possible that Sirius, too, could be an apathetic recluse who preferred doing nothing to doing something. So he understood that, from Gideon's perspective. However, he understood it so far as the world being a 'just fine' place without problems like Lady Noir and Dorcas's attack and little Slytherin troublemakers poisoning their classmates. But when that line was crossed? He didn't understood the apathy, if that's what he should call it.

He nearly growled, then reminded himself that Fabian seemed angry about this for the both of them. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Maybe all we can do is propose the idea to him and see what he says and if he's a prick about it, we abandon him and come up with a new plan. I don't know." Sirius scratched the hair at his temple. "The problem is that twenty years ago, everything made sense and everything fell into place. Now, nothing does. We're not fighting a visible, organised, bastardly foe. We're fighting at thin air, practically, and we don't know what's coming and from what side." He cleared his throat.

"If Gideon doesn't think it's his fight anymore, than it isn't. I know a little something about brothers who don't take a stand or aren't willing to put forth the effort." He held up a hand. "It's very different, I know, but there are things Regulus could be doing right now, too, but instead he's sitting back and watching everything play out at his feet like he's some god allowing his people to have free will."

"You know my feelings about your brother's Ministry." Fabian generally made an effort not to rehearse them at length to Sirius out of friendship and respect for family feeling, and precisely because he, too, intuited that there were parallels between the Blacks and the Prewetts. "I detested Bagnold at the time, but his inaction is making all those policies of hers I hated look good. If I can figure out a way for you to light a fire under him and get him moving, you'll be the first to know. As for Gideon," there was another long pause, in which Fabian halted his restless motion in front of the fire, "it looks as though I'm the problem, or the stumbling block, for him at this point, or at least a problem. So maybe you talk to him and I think of other ideas. Or we move straight to the other ideas."

"I'd be willing to talk to him, but it doesn't seem to me like there's much chance he'd be willing to listen." Sirius hesitated for a moment. He didn't like having an idea or a plan and then having to start all over again before even trying. "What else can we try?"

Fabian had a look on his face that was familiar to Sirius: the wheels and cogs inside Fabian's head were turning furiously while he considered the possible options. It took him a moment to come up with the right answer. "We enroll Tonks, determine a cover identity that will make her recruitable, and run an op through the Auror Office with Frank and Alice holding the reins. We do any unofficial backup and support that's needed. I wouldn't be sorry to see the bitch taken down all legal and proper.

"In fact," he said, picking up his glass from the table between the two chairs, "I'd like to see Lady Noir put through the circus of a Wizengamot trial, the way they did to us. In addition to everything else, it'll put the fear of Merlin in all the petty cowards who kill and torture for fun as long as they think they can get away with it. And then, of course, she'd be in Azkaban." Fabian raised the glass to those two ideas and had a long sip. His well-known aversion to homicide in the field was not always about kindness.

"While we're trying to get that going, we look into other ideas. Including direct contact with one of the two of us, as we've already discussed. Which brings me to another point: I need to know someone will pick up the reins of the Order if somebody gets to me, even just the way they did Dorcas. That needs to be you, Sirius."

Sirius groaned. He didn't like the idea of his cousin being involved in something like this but he wasn't sure how to say it without sounding like a complete overprotective ass. Besides which, she wasn't even officially an Order member, and he wondered if they would be able to get enough people on board with using her if she just join joined now.

But he listened to the entire plan, wracking his own brain to see if he had any thought that could positively contribute to the conversation. Just when he was ready to comment, Fabian ended with such a ridiculous suggestion that Sirius couldn't help but laugh. "You're lucky I already finished my whiskey," he joked. "You really had me going there. I'm the last person anyone needs in charge of anything. That's why we voted you into that position, remember?" He shook his head, thinking he'd come back round to the subject later, and offered his thoughts on Fabian's non-Gideon plan.

"Let me just make sure I'm understanding this correctly. You want to bring Dora into the Order and immediately put her to work as a double agent. While I get that it's easier for her with her abilities, I'm hesitant for two reasons." He held up a finger. "One, at this point she isn't in the Order and it might be difficult for everyone to trust her with this kind of task right from the off. And two, I don't like thinking of my little cousin in that much danger. Regardless of whether or not she can hold her own, which I know she can."

He cleared his throat. "Other than that, I like the bit about the bint going through a circus and tucked safely away in Azkaban."

"You asked me for ideas. I'm just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks." Fabian ran his free hand through his hair, which was getting longer again. "I'd rather have someone with more experience, never mind the inside trust with the Order, doing that job. But we're short on people we can put on it. Still, if it won't work now, we put it in our pockets and think of something else." He let the question of Tonks' safety as a member of the Order go; he felt much the same way about his own nephews even though Bill was now the same age Fabian had been when he'd been sent down.

"And Sirius, I wasn't joking. Somebody needs to be ready to step up if I end up in Mungo's or worse. You might not be the first choice for the long term, but you can hold the Order together either until I get better, or, should it come to that, until someone else can step up. You've got Remus and Lily behind you to keep you on track. That's more than I've got keeping me on track right now.

"Or if you can't, at least tell me you and Remus and Edgar will keep a close eye on Minerva. I expect there to be some kind of attempt by the Board to unseat her, and possibly an attempt on her life if that fails, in the spring. Imagine what trouble we'd have if they put some Noir-friendly purist in charge of the school."

Most of the people who could be recruited are the age that Sirius and Fabian were when they joined up, and Sirius was younger than Fabian. Why that meant it was difficult for them to want to recruit, he didn't know.

"I'll always keep a close eye on Minerva," he said carefully. She was one of the reasons he was still alive and hadn't gone off the rocker after Azkaban. "I know Remus feels the same way." He sat back and let out a sharp breath. "Yeah, mate, of course I'll step up if something happens to you. But I'm going to hope that nothing happens to you, if you don't mind."

"Thanks. I'll take all the hope--and the help--I can get staying in one piece and free. And not just so I can fight the good fight."

Fabian's eyes strayed to the clock and he huffed out a long breath as he set his glass back on the table. "It's getting toward meeting time. We ought to head up. Maybe something at the meeting will spark a better idea, because Merlin knows I seem short on them tonight."

"As long as we don't spend the entire time arguing…" Sirius said as he stood and straightened his robes. "If anything, we regroup after the meeting and come up with a best idea. All I know is something has to be done." He'd had the same conversation only about different circumstances earlier with Remus. Sirius just hoped he didn't have to keep repeating conversations before something was done.

"On that," said Fabian as he moved to get his jacket, "we are in complete agreement."