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Mwwhahahaha. Chapter 2. Busy. Love you. Hope I remembered all of your suggestions, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ishuca.
Enigma: Prologue
Chapter 1
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 2
~*~*~*~*~
Ron and Harry hurried to the briefing room and slipped in quietly before the meeting began. As he sat down, Harry noticed that it was only top Ministry personnel—which meant that they were here to discuss classified information. There was Ginny, Fudge, Percy, Snape…
Sirius cast a quick glance over and gave Harry a brief nod and grin before turning to the rest of the audience.
“As you know,” Sirius began as the buzz of the group died down. “The Americans have been very generous with their supply line, and the use of their resources during this war. However,” Sirius gestured with his wand, and a map appeared. “Here is where the supply ships started out from.” He marked three points off of the New England coast. “Convoy SC122, carrying food, herbs, wood for our wand makers. Convoy HX229, carrying powdered milk, meat, and Caligromancy parchment, Convoy 229A--”
“For Merlin’s sake, man!” Fudge interrupted irritably. “I don’t want a damned inventory, I want to know what’s happening!”
Sirius shot Fudge a dirty look and folded his arms against his chest. “Overall, there are 141 merchant ships; gross weight approximately one and a half million tons.” Fudge opened his mouth, and Sirius interrupted him with a sharp gesture. “No, we can’t Apparate our supplies in because of the Anti-Apparition wards around Hogwarts. Even if we could, the sheer volume of the cargo we would need would exhaust us. Now, Death Eater forces were last placed here, here, and here—” Sirius pointed to three general areas in the North Atlantic, and frowned. “Unfortunately, they seem to be in a direct barricade to our supply line.”
“How many Death Eaters are there?” Fudge demanded. “Where are they precisely?”
Sirius glared at Fudge. “We don’t know.”
“But we broke their code,” Fudge whined, standing. “Surely you know where they are.”
“Their last known whereabouts are here,” the map changed colors as Sirius pointed to it, ignoring Fudge’s outburst. “But that was Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?” Fudge sputtered. “That was two days ago! Why don’t you have more solid coordinates?”
Sirius shared a sardonic glance with Snape and faced Fudge patronizingly. “No idea. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Our intelligence has been cut off. We’re in a complete blackout.”
Fudge gaped and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his sweating forehead. “You mean to tell me… that the largest concentration of cargo sent across the Atlantic is now heading straight towards a Death Eater barricade, and we don’t know where they are??”
“Mrs. Longbottom,” Snape sneered as though the name pained him, “how fast are our ships traveling?”
“They are moving at approximately 660 kilometers per day, sir.” Ginny answered.
“There it is, Fudge.” Snape pinned the Minister under an icy glare. “At the speed they’re moving, it will take the convoys approximately four days before they enter operational range of where we last had the enemy.”
Fudge sputtered for a moment, pacing and wringing his hands before he turned back to Sirius. “This blackout, will it be over in four days?”
Sirius sighed, jumping up onto his desk and sitting cross-legged. “It’s possible.”
Fudge sneered. “Well, all things are possible, but is it likely? Is it likely that you can break this code, this—what do you call this? Ivy?” At Sirius’ nod of assent, Fudge continued. “Will you break it before our convoys come in range of the Death Eater forces?”
“We’ll give it every priority.” Sirius spoke through gritted teeth.
Tap, taptap, tap.
Fudge glared at Sirius, pulling himself up and puffing out his chest. “I know you’ll give it every priority. That was not the question!”
Tap, tap, taptap, tap.
Sirius shrugged, taking a deep breath before looking at the Minister. “We may be able to break it.”
Fudge whirled around to face Ron and Harry. “Is that what you all believe?”
Tap, tap, tap, taptap.
Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair and grabbed the pen Harry was tapping against the table out of his hand. “We… know a lot more about Ivy than we did last time…”
“If he says so, Minister,” Ginny prompted helpfully, “it’s probably true. You can trust his opinion.”
Fudge glared at Ginny and then turned his angry eyes on Harry. “What do you have to say, Potter? Can you break Ivy in four days?”
Harry gave Fudge a sardonic smile. “I thought I was just here for show, Minister?”
Fudge scowled. “Just answer the question, Potter. Can you, or can’t you?”
“Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?” Harry asked Fudge, a small smirk twisting his mouth.
Percy jumped forward hastily. “You have to forgive him, Minister,” he interfered. “He’s been on sick leave—he doesn’t know exactly—”
“Ah, yes,” Fudge sneered. “Nervous breakdown, wasn’t it? I don’t know what you think you can contribute—”
“The charm they’re using to pass messages back and forth is a combination of Caligromancy, Ancient Runes, and in some cases highly advanced Transfiguration.” Harry answered. “It’s a very complicated magical system centered around Caligromancy Knots, and Ivy is its ultimate refinement.” Harry shrugged. “We aren’t talking about the Times’ crossword.”
“What are we talking about, then?” Fudge rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Ah, Hermione would be able to explain this better.” Harry mumbled. “Okay, look. They use a talisman to tie the magic used to create their code. With their Knots, the plain text of a message gets clustered up in the magic and gets turned into… gobbledygook. Nonsense. And that nonsense is turned into several runes. There’s someone at the other end—wherever the message is headed—who has another one of these talismans to decode the Caligromancy knots, and they use it to change the message back into plain text. That’s what we’re up against.” Harry sighed. “This talisman that they have—you strike a magical chord with it any number of times, and it will always come out different. It has…” Harry paused and tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. “It has about 115 million million million ways of starting. But the special ones, the ones used by Voldemort and his Inner Circle? Those have an extra Knot, and that changes it to 4,000 million billion different starting points. The Caligromancy system with four knots is Ivy.”
Fudge sank back down into his seat slowly, looking at Harry blankly. “I don’t understand,” he murmured.
“Oh, don’t worry!” Ginny exclaimed cheerfully, waving her hand. “I didn’t understand a word of it either!”
“So, how did you break it?” Fudge wondered.
“I can’t say,” Harry whispered, stiffening in his seat. Sirius looked sternly at Harry, and then pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket. He took a deep breath and slung his legs off the desk.
“I have clearance from Dumbledore, Harry,” Sirius stated. “We can show him the Museum.”
“The Museum? Are you sure?” Percy asked.
“What museum is going to help us?” Fudge spat.
“It’s where we keep all of the contraband, Cornelius,” Snape gave him an oily smile.
“You see,” Harry said with a burning light in his eyes, leaning forward. “We have one of those talismans. We call it Enigma.”
~*~*~
Sirius led the group down to the dungeons in silence as they absorbed all of this information, and pressed his hand in a small indentation in the wall, whispering a password that made the wall swing inward. Harry went straight to the Enigma talisman while the others took a moment to look around the large room. While Ron and Harry traded turns trying to explain the Enigma talisman to Ginny and Fudge, Snape wandered about the shelves of objects, cataloging all of the contraband in the sanctuary.
“Sev?” Sirius looked up from the discussion of the Enigma talisman to frown at Snape, but Snape waved his concern away and continued stalking the room. As the room was completely devoid of any dust, Snape assumed that the house elves were allowed in to clean, and a piece of torn paper on the floor caught his eye. The house elves will punish themselves for this little oversight. Snape smirked and picked the paper up. His eyes widened as he realized that there was a protection charm scrawled on the paper and looked about the room in sharp, quick movements. He looked at the glass cabinet closest to the paper he had found and opened the door, stopping when he saw a blue velvet box, which had a torn seal.
A talisman for power augmentation, Snape arched his eyebrow as he pieced the seal together and read the subject of the box. He looked around quickly once more and opened the box, only to find it empty. Curious indeed. Snape slipped the torn remnant of the seal into his robe pocket and rejoined the rest of the group as the technical discussion of the Enigma talisman came to an end.
“How fast did you break it?” Fudge inquired, smoothing down his hair nervously.
Harry looked at the other man distrustfully. “It was broken in 10 months.”
“Dear Merlin.” Fudge clenched his hands into fists at his side.
Harry steepled his hands and rested his chin on his fingers. “It’s bad enough that you would ask us to find a needle in a haystack, but what you’re asking is for us to look in tens of millions of haystacks for a single pin. And people call me insane.”
“But can you do it in four days?” Fudge hissed between clenched teeth.
“I’m Harry Potter. Give me a key, and I can do anything.” Harry looked calmly at Fudge and shrugged.
“That’s it!” Fudge exclaimed angrily, scoffing in disgust. “I need to have something to drink!” Fudge stormed out of the room, leaving Sirius to look reprovingly at Harry and quickly bring the meeting to a close.
They all left the Museum, and Sirius locked the door behind them with another whispered word. Ron shook his head, looking at Harry in amusement. “You’re a load of trouble, you know that?”
“Don’t listen to Ron,” Sirius commanded, lifting Harry off his feet with an enthusiastic hug. “The old idiot needs to be shaken up a bit. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” Harry laughed, hugging his Godfather back fiercely.
“The prodigal son returns,” Snape sneered poisonously. “We are all blessed.”
“I’ve missed you too, Professor Snape,” Harry said, arching his eyebrow.
“He could kick your arse, Harry! He’s in Central Intelligence now!” Ron hissed in Harry’s ear as Sirius clutched his arm.
“Congratulations on your promotion, sir.” Harry murmured neutrally, shaking off Sirius’ grip.
“Indeed. It was merely a formal recognition of my responsibilities.” Snape glowered, leaning forward to stare into Harry’s eyes. After a moment, he stepped back, and arched his eyebrow. “Hmm… I should have expected no less from you, as for the past month you’ve been sitting in a padded room making friends with Gilderoy Lockhart.” Snape gave Harry a scathing smile. “Was the code such a strain upon your feeble mind?”
“I’m sorry, were you the one who broke Ivy?” Harry queried calmly. Snape smirked and inclined his head before leaving the hallway. “Well, it’s nice to know some people haven’t changed.” Harry scoffed. “Still fleeing the room like an overlarge bat before I get more than a word in. Thank you for the support, by the way.”
Ginny gave him a weak smile and flung her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry Harry, but one word from him could mean our removal from Auror Intelligence! And besides, you can hold your own against him.”
“I’m rusty.” Harry shook his head before looking around and falling into a hesitant silence. “Where’s Hermione? I thought she would be in here for sure.”
Sirius waved his concern away. “She’s either Fire Chatting with Dumbledore or already busy trying to break the new code. She’s the one who discovered they changed the Rune Charms they’d been using, you know?”
“I didn’t know, but I should have guessed.” Harry shook his head. He yawned and stretched, his neck and shoulders popping from the tension. “Oh, I’m exhausted. Traveling usually doesn’t wipe me out like this!”
“Hey,” Ron patted Harry’s shoulders. “I told the house elves to settle you in your old room. You remember it?”
“Ron, I had a nervous breakdown; I didn’t get Obliviated.”
Ron flushed painfully. “I know that, you git! I was just—argh!” Ron shot Harry an irritated look and rolled his eyes. “I’m going for dinner,” he finished, and took off down the hall.
“Well, it’s nice to know people still love me,” Harry said with a grin, and yawned again.
“I promised Nev that I’d be waiting for him when he came in, so I’m going too.” Ginny grinned and threw her arms around Harry’s neck. “It’s wonderful seeing you again.”
If you see Hermione, Gin, will you tell her…?” Harry faltered to a stop as she nodded her assent and made her way down the hall.
Sirius laughed and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You go ahead and rest, Harry. I’ll bring you dinner in a little while.”
“Thanks, Padfoot,” Harry murmured gratefully. “I’ve missed Hogwarts.”
“It does grow on you, doesn’t it?” Sirius winked and went across the hall into another room. Harry was too busy trying to assimilate the information he’d learned in conference concerning the Ivy blackout, and if he were at all honest, he would admit that all he wanted to do was sleep.
~*~*~
Sirius had been walking the grounds for about fifteen minutes before Severus appeared at his side, and he sighed as they stopped, watching the other wizards scurry across the grounds on their errands. The sun had begun to set, casting the view before them in hues of gold and pink, and he watched out of the corner of his eye how the golden haze reflected on Severus’ face.
“How many people know about Enigma?” Severus asked suddenly, and Sirius frowned.
“A dozen, maybe.” Sirius turned toward Severus, and Severus smirked, tugging on a stray lock of Sirius’ hair.
“Make me a little list?”
Sirius pulled back slightly, his eyes intent on Severus’ face. “Why? What are you doing, Sev?” Severus pulled out the piece of torn seal out of his pocket and handed it carefully to Sirius, whose eyes flared wide as he realized what it was. “Do you think,” Sirius murmured in a low, raw voice as he looked back towards the sunset, “that there’s a spy in Hogwarts?”
“There’s always a spy, Sirius,” Severus stated coolly. “The question you should be asking is how much does the spy know? And how badly can the Order of the Phoenix be damaged by their knowledge?”
~*~*~
TBC…
ishuca.Enigma: Prologue
Chapter 1
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 2
~*~*~*~*~
Ron and Harry hurried to the briefing room and slipped in quietly before the meeting began. As he sat down, Harry noticed that it was only top Ministry personnel—which meant that they were here to discuss classified information. There was Ginny, Fudge, Percy, Snape…
Sirius cast a quick glance over and gave Harry a brief nod and grin before turning to the rest of the audience.
“As you know,” Sirius began as the buzz of the group died down. “The Americans have been very generous with their supply line, and the use of their resources during this war. However,” Sirius gestured with his wand, and a map appeared. “Here is where the supply ships started out from.” He marked three points off of the New England coast. “Convoy SC122, carrying food, herbs, wood for our wand makers. Convoy HX229, carrying powdered milk, meat, and Caligromancy parchment, Convoy 229A--”
“For Merlin’s sake, man!” Fudge interrupted irritably. “I don’t want a damned inventory, I want to know what’s happening!”
Sirius shot Fudge a dirty look and folded his arms against his chest. “Overall, there are 141 merchant ships; gross weight approximately one and a half million tons.” Fudge opened his mouth, and Sirius interrupted him with a sharp gesture. “No, we can’t Apparate our supplies in because of the Anti-Apparition wards around Hogwarts. Even if we could, the sheer volume of the cargo we would need would exhaust us. Now, Death Eater forces were last placed here, here, and here—” Sirius pointed to three general areas in the North Atlantic, and frowned. “Unfortunately, they seem to be in a direct barricade to our supply line.”
“How many Death Eaters are there?” Fudge demanded. “Where are they precisely?”
Sirius glared at Fudge. “We don’t know.”
“But we broke their code,” Fudge whined, standing. “Surely you know where they are.”
“Their last known whereabouts are here,” the map changed colors as Sirius pointed to it, ignoring Fudge’s outburst. “But that was Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?” Fudge sputtered. “That was two days ago! Why don’t you have more solid coordinates?”
Sirius shared a sardonic glance with Snape and faced Fudge patronizingly. “No idea. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Our intelligence has been cut off. We’re in a complete blackout.”
Fudge gaped and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe at his sweating forehead. “You mean to tell me… that the largest concentration of cargo sent across the Atlantic is now heading straight towards a Death Eater barricade, and we don’t know where they are??”
“Mrs. Longbottom,” Snape sneered as though the name pained him, “how fast are our ships traveling?”
“They are moving at approximately 660 kilometers per day, sir.” Ginny answered.
“There it is, Fudge.” Snape pinned the Minister under an icy glare. “At the speed they’re moving, it will take the convoys approximately four days before they enter operational range of where we last had the enemy.”
Fudge sputtered for a moment, pacing and wringing his hands before he turned back to Sirius. “This blackout, will it be over in four days?”
Sirius sighed, jumping up onto his desk and sitting cross-legged. “It’s possible.”
Fudge sneered. “Well, all things are possible, but is it likely? Is it likely that you can break this code, this—what do you call this? Ivy?” At Sirius’ nod of assent, Fudge continued. “Will you break it before our convoys come in range of the Death Eater forces?”
“We’ll give it every priority.” Sirius spoke through gritted teeth.
Tap, taptap, tap.
Fudge glared at Sirius, pulling himself up and puffing out his chest. “I know you’ll give it every priority. That was not the question!”
Tap, tap, taptap, tap.
Sirius shrugged, taking a deep breath before looking at the Minister. “We may be able to break it.”
Fudge whirled around to face Ron and Harry. “Is that what you all believe?”
Tap, tap, tap, taptap.
Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair and grabbed the pen Harry was tapping against the table out of his hand. “We… know a lot more about Ivy than we did last time…”
“If he says so, Minister,” Ginny prompted helpfully, “it’s probably true. You can trust his opinion.”
Fudge glared at Ginny and then turned his angry eyes on Harry. “What do you have to say, Potter? Can you break Ivy in four days?”
Harry gave Fudge a sardonic smile. “I thought I was just here for show, Minister?”
Fudge scowled. “Just answer the question, Potter. Can you, or can’t you?”
“Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?” Harry asked Fudge, a small smirk twisting his mouth.
Percy jumped forward hastily. “You have to forgive him, Minister,” he interfered. “He’s been on sick leave—he doesn’t know exactly—”
“Ah, yes,” Fudge sneered. “Nervous breakdown, wasn’t it? I don’t know what you think you can contribute—”
“The charm they’re using to pass messages back and forth is a combination of Caligromancy, Ancient Runes, and in some cases highly advanced Transfiguration.” Harry answered. “It’s a very complicated magical system centered around Caligromancy Knots, and Ivy is its ultimate refinement.” Harry shrugged. “We aren’t talking about the Times’ crossword.”
“What are we talking about, then?” Fudge rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Ah, Hermione would be able to explain this better.” Harry mumbled. “Okay, look. They use a talisman to tie the magic used to create their code. With their Knots, the plain text of a message gets clustered up in the magic and gets turned into… gobbledygook. Nonsense. And that nonsense is turned into several runes. There’s someone at the other end—wherever the message is headed—who has another one of these talismans to decode the Caligromancy knots, and they use it to change the message back into plain text. That’s what we’re up against.” Harry sighed. “This talisman that they have—you strike a magical chord with it any number of times, and it will always come out different. It has…” Harry paused and tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. “It has about 115 million million million ways of starting. But the special ones, the ones used by Voldemort and his Inner Circle? Those have an extra Knot, and that changes it to 4,000 million billion different starting points. The Caligromancy system with four knots is Ivy.”
Fudge sank back down into his seat slowly, looking at Harry blankly. “I don’t understand,” he murmured.
“Oh, don’t worry!” Ginny exclaimed cheerfully, waving her hand. “I didn’t understand a word of it either!”
“So, how did you break it?” Fudge wondered.
“I can’t say,” Harry whispered, stiffening in his seat. Sirius looked sternly at Harry, and then pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket. He took a deep breath and slung his legs off the desk.
“I have clearance from Dumbledore, Harry,” Sirius stated. “We can show him the Museum.”
“The Museum? Are you sure?” Percy asked.
“What museum is going to help us?” Fudge spat.
“It’s where we keep all of the contraband, Cornelius,” Snape gave him an oily smile.
“You see,” Harry said with a burning light in his eyes, leaning forward. “We have one of those talismans. We call it Enigma.”
~*~*~
Sirius led the group down to the dungeons in silence as they absorbed all of this information, and pressed his hand in a small indentation in the wall, whispering a password that made the wall swing inward. Harry went straight to the Enigma talisman while the others took a moment to look around the large room. While Ron and Harry traded turns trying to explain the Enigma talisman to Ginny and Fudge, Snape wandered about the shelves of objects, cataloging all of the contraband in the sanctuary.
“Sev?” Sirius looked up from the discussion of the Enigma talisman to frown at Snape, but Snape waved his concern away and continued stalking the room. As the room was completely devoid of any dust, Snape assumed that the house elves were allowed in to clean, and a piece of torn paper on the floor caught his eye. The house elves will punish themselves for this little oversight. Snape smirked and picked the paper up. His eyes widened as he realized that there was a protection charm scrawled on the paper and looked about the room in sharp, quick movements. He looked at the glass cabinet closest to the paper he had found and opened the door, stopping when he saw a blue velvet box, which had a torn seal.
A talisman for power augmentation, Snape arched his eyebrow as he pieced the seal together and read the subject of the box. He looked around quickly once more and opened the box, only to find it empty. Curious indeed. Snape slipped the torn remnant of the seal into his robe pocket and rejoined the rest of the group as the technical discussion of the Enigma talisman came to an end.
“How fast did you break it?” Fudge inquired, smoothing down his hair nervously.
Harry looked at the other man distrustfully. “It was broken in 10 months.”
“Dear Merlin.” Fudge clenched his hands into fists at his side.
Harry steepled his hands and rested his chin on his fingers. “It’s bad enough that you would ask us to find a needle in a haystack, but what you’re asking is for us to look in tens of millions of haystacks for a single pin. And people call me insane.”
“But can you do it in four days?” Fudge hissed between clenched teeth.
“I’m Harry Potter. Give me a key, and I can do anything.” Harry looked calmly at Fudge and shrugged.
“That’s it!” Fudge exclaimed angrily, scoffing in disgust. “I need to have something to drink!” Fudge stormed out of the room, leaving Sirius to look reprovingly at Harry and quickly bring the meeting to a close.
They all left the Museum, and Sirius locked the door behind them with another whispered word. Ron shook his head, looking at Harry in amusement. “You’re a load of trouble, you know that?”
“Don’t listen to Ron,” Sirius commanded, lifting Harry off his feet with an enthusiastic hug. “The old idiot needs to be shaken up a bit. It’s good to have you back.”
“It’s good to be back,” Harry laughed, hugging his Godfather back fiercely.
“The prodigal son returns,” Snape sneered poisonously. “We are all blessed.”
“I’ve missed you too, Professor Snape,” Harry said, arching his eyebrow.
“He could kick your arse, Harry! He’s in Central Intelligence now!” Ron hissed in Harry’s ear as Sirius clutched his arm.
“Congratulations on your promotion, sir.” Harry murmured neutrally, shaking off Sirius’ grip.
“Indeed. It was merely a formal recognition of my responsibilities.” Snape glowered, leaning forward to stare into Harry’s eyes. After a moment, he stepped back, and arched his eyebrow. “Hmm… I should have expected no less from you, as for the past month you’ve been sitting in a padded room making friends with Gilderoy Lockhart.” Snape gave Harry a scathing smile. “Was the code such a strain upon your feeble mind?”
“I’m sorry, were you the one who broke Ivy?” Harry queried calmly. Snape smirked and inclined his head before leaving the hallway. “Well, it’s nice to know some people haven’t changed.” Harry scoffed. “Still fleeing the room like an overlarge bat before I get more than a word in. Thank you for the support, by the way.”
Ginny gave him a weak smile and flung her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry Harry, but one word from him could mean our removal from Auror Intelligence! And besides, you can hold your own against him.”
“I’m rusty.” Harry shook his head before looking around and falling into a hesitant silence. “Where’s Hermione? I thought she would be in here for sure.”
Sirius waved his concern away. “She’s either Fire Chatting with Dumbledore or already busy trying to break the new code. She’s the one who discovered they changed the Rune Charms they’d been using, you know?”
“I didn’t know, but I should have guessed.” Harry shook his head. He yawned and stretched, his neck and shoulders popping from the tension. “Oh, I’m exhausted. Traveling usually doesn’t wipe me out like this!”
“Hey,” Ron patted Harry’s shoulders. “I told the house elves to settle you in your old room. You remember it?”
“Ron, I had a nervous breakdown; I didn’t get Obliviated.”
Ron flushed painfully. “I know that, you git! I was just—argh!” Ron shot Harry an irritated look and rolled his eyes. “I’m going for dinner,” he finished, and took off down the hall.
“Well, it’s nice to know people still love me,” Harry said with a grin, and yawned again.
“I promised Nev that I’d be waiting for him when he came in, so I’m going too.” Ginny grinned and threw her arms around Harry’s neck. “It’s wonderful seeing you again.”
If you see Hermione, Gin, will you tell her…?” Harry faltered to a stop as she nodded her assent and made her way down the hall.
Sirius laughed and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You go ahead and rest, Harry. I’ll bring you dinner in a little while.”
“Thanks, Padfoot,” Harry murmured gratefully. “I’ve missed Hogwarts.”
“It does grow on you, doesn’t it?” Sirius winked and went across the hall into another room. Harry was too busy trying to assimilate the information he’d learned in conference concerning the Ivy blackout, and if he were at all honest, he would admit that all he wanted to do was sleep.
~*~*~
Sirius had been walking the grounds for about fifteen minutes before Severus appeared at his side, and he sighed as they stopped, watching the other wizards scurry across the grounds on their errands. The sun had begun to set, casting the view before them in hues of gold and pink, and he watched out of the corner of his eye how the golden haze reflected on Severus’ face.
“How many people know about Enigma?” Severus asked suddenly, and Sirius frowned.
“A dozen, maybe.” Sirius turned toward Severus, and Severus smirked, tugging on a stray lock of Sirius’ hair.
“Make me a little list?”
Sirius pulled back slightly, his eyes intent on Severus’ face. “Why? What are you doing, Sev?” Severus pulled out the piece of torn seal out of his pocket and handed it carefully to Sirius, whose eyes flared wide as he realized what it was. “Do you think,” Sirius murmured in a low, raw voice as he looked back towards the sunset, “that there’s a spy in Hogwarts?”
“There’s always a spy, Sirius,” Severus stated coolly. “The question you should be asking is how much does the spy know? And how badly can the Order of the Phoenix be damaged by their knowledge?”
~*~*~
TBC…