Watching the elegant man step smoothly out from the emerald flames of the fireplace, John's lips pressed slowly into a thin line. His breathing was growing increasingly tight and shallow, constricted by nervousness and something approaching awe.
His hands felt suddenly useless—large, awkward additions that he didn't know what to do with. Wherever he placed them, however he positioned himself, they seemed to fail utterly to express the proper respect and deference he felt he should be showing.
There was no question about it: the elegantly, impeccably dressed gentleman standing before him in his shabby kitchen was a man of standing and quality.
John had spent seven years working in the Greengrass family broom workshop. Over those years he had seen his fair share of important people passing through the workshop on various business.
There were the foreign buyers who came periodically to inspect the shop and place large orders. The Ministry tax inspectors who arrived unannounced to review the books and assess production. The young lords and ladies of the Greengrass household itself, visiting occasionally with their parents, dressed in the latest fashions from Twilfitt and Tatting's.
And even Mr. Greengrass himself—the patriarch of the family, the owner of the workshop, John had crossed paths with him once or twice at least over the years.
But John had to admit: none of the important men he had ever laid eyes on, for all their expensive fabrics and finely tailored robes, for all their haughty bearing and cultured superiority, could hold a candle to the distinguished air that seemed to emanate naturally from the gentleman standing before him now.
"I take it you must be Mr. John Cena?"
The middle-aged gentleman's voice was slightly hoarse—perhaps from travel, perhaps naturally gravelly yet it carried a warm, magnetic quality that immediately put one at ease.
What sent an unexpected flush of pure joy through John's chest, however, warming him from the inside out, was something else: That a man like this, a gentleman of obvious quality and standing, would address him as "Mister."
"I am—oh, I'm not—I mean, you can—you can just call me John, sir!"
John's heart hammered wildly in his chest, pounding so hard he worried the gentleman might hear it. His cheeks burned red with a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure.
He hadn't been called "Mister" by anyone of importance in years, if ever. The simple courtesy felt almost overwhelming.
"Ah, John…" The gentleman's smile was gentle, understanding, as if he recognized John's discomfort and sought to ease it.
"I do sincerely hope my visit hasn't caused you any trouble or inconvenience. But the two Shear brothers—they spoke very highly of you. They said you were a man to be trusted. And so…"
John straightened his shoulders reflexively at this praise, pride was swelling in his chest despite his attempt to remain humble. His voice took on a steadier, more confident note than before:
"Of course, Mr. Angris. I am completely devoted to our cause, sir."
"I have every confidence in you, John—" The man addressed as Mr. Angris removed his black top hat with a gesture, revealing grey hair, and extended his hand across the space between them.
They shook hands firmly. In his elation at being treated as an equal, John completely failed to notice the brief flicker of mockery that passed swiftly behind Angris's spectacles.
Angris made a leisurely survey of the sitting room. The freshly scrubbed floors. The hastily patched ceiling. The old furniture arranged with precision. The faint smell of cleaning solution still hanging in the air.
It took him no effort at all to deduce that this modest house had been scrubbed frantically from top to bottom very recently. The signs were everywhere for anyone observant enough to notice.
John stood stiffly at his side throughout this inspection, fidgeting uncomfortably like a nervous soldier waiting for his commanding officer's verdict.
Angris lifted his gaze slowly, letting it travel up the wall-hugging wooden staircase toward the dark mouth of the second floor.
"There's no one else home—" Quick-witted despite his nervousness, John immediately understood the nature of Mr. Angris's unspoken concern. He rushed to explain: "Yvonne and Bona—my wife and daughter—they're sleeping at a friend's house tonight."
"Please forgive my precaution—" Angris gave a small, approving nod, his tone remaining gentle and understanding.
"You must understand that we need to remain extraordinarily vigilant in these times. The Ministry under Amelia Bones is no longer the tolerant, forgiving institution I remember."
John nodded vigorously, his expression showing respect.
The casual off-handedness with which Mr. Angris referred to the Ministry itself and its Minister filled John with a kind of awe he could barely articulate.
"I came ahead of the others to assess the surroundings personally, to ensure this location is secure…" Angris continued, still observing the room. "No problems that I can detect. Good. I can let the others know it's safe to come through now."
He turned smoothly and reached into the chimney niche to retrieve the bag of Floo powder. His hand closed on it and immediately registered that it was nearly empty.
For just a fraction of a second, something flickered behind his composed expression. Then the moment passed. He maintained his pleasant smile, tipped a small measure of the remaining dust into the fire, spoke a clear destination, and stepped back gracefully.
Shortly afterward, announced by another rush of green flame, another man stepped out of the fireplace.
He too was clearly a man of refinement and breeding—emerging from the fire with a walking cane gripped in one hand, moving slowly and with aristocratic composure.
This second gentleman's grey eyes touched on John only for the briefest moment, before sliding away. He scanned the humble room with an expression of cool indifference. He made no move to take John's outstretched hand when he offered it in greeting.
Cheeks burning with embarrassment, John withdrew his rejected hand awkwardly and let it hang at his side.
Compared to the warm Mr. Angris, this second gentleman unsettled him far more. Because John caught on him the same scent, the same indefinable aura, that he had only ever noticed emanating from Mr. Greengrass himself during their few encounters.
The rest of the arrivals, thankfully, put John considerably more at ease and helped settle his jangling nerves.
First came the Shear brothers from the village—the ones who worked at the cauldron factory until it too had been shut down.
Despite being twins, they looked nothing alike—one was solidly built, the other wiry and years working the forges had scorched their skin to the same deep, coal-dark hue.
After them came a heavyset, middle-aged woman with grey hair pulled back in a severe bun. John had only a dim, fuzzy recollection of her—she had worked briefly at the broom workshop where he was employed, perhaps two months total, before quitting abruptly over some dispute about wages or working conditions.
What was her name? Margaret? Martha? He couldn't quite remember and felt embarrassed to ask.
"I only managed to notify this many people for now, Mr. Angris—"
The elder Shear brother—the lean one of the two, with black eyes spoke up apologetically. But John noticed that those usually sharp eyes had gone dull and lifeless.
Unemployment did that to a person, John supposed grimly.
"Thank you, Rolf—"
Mr. Angris, seated comfortably on one of John's creaking wooden stools that groaned slightly under his weight, inclined his head graciously toward the elder Shear brother.
The gesture, so courtly and refined, performed before a gathering of laid-off factory workers in a shabby house—sent an immediate ripple of startled murmurs through the small crowd.
"Allow me, first, to properly introduce myself to everyone present—"
Beneath the weight of many eyes upon him, Mr. Angris rose smoothly to his feet with dignity and smiled warmly at them all.
"My name is Hugo Angris. I am a merchant by profession, someone who has spent many years traveling between countries on business—buying and selling, making connections, building relationships across borders. But despite all my time abroad, I am, at heart, an Englishman born and bred."
He paused. "My childhood and youth were spent right here, in this country. In villages much like this one, among people much like yourselves. Like each of you, I love this land deeply. I love our wizarding world—"
"Mr. Angris is a kind and principled gentleman," the younger Shear brother cut in suddenly, his voice was blunt and earnest as always. "We met him quite by chance, actually—"
John glanced over at him. Nothing seemed different about him from usual—still the same dull-eyed, slow-to-think man he'd always been.
"Mr. Angris overheard us talking about what had happened to us—about the workshop closures and our families struggling. He felt genuine sympathy for our plight. So, he decided to help us however he could."
Wilhelm added this last part in the same unemotional tone he might use to comment on the weather.
Everyone in the cramped room had arrived this evening carrying some private unease. Those simple words from Wilhelm gave that formless unease a clearer shape it could settle into and examine.
"You're helping us simply out of sympathy, Mr. Angris?"
The middle-aged woman—the one who had once worked briefly at John's workshop before her abrupt departure asked with hesitation.
The same question had been stirring in John's own mind, though he hadn't had the courage to voice it openly.
A man of obvious station and polish—someone who wore gold rimmed spectacles and owned multiple fine tailcoats, helping a ragtag group of unfortunate unemployed souls out of nothing more than abstract pity?
Taking their side against the powerful Ministry? Or was it exactly as the younger Shear brother had said in his simple way: that Mr. Angris was simply an extraordinarily, exceptionally good wizard?
John turned this puzzle over privately in his mind, trying to make the pieces fit. He was not alone in this mental exercise. All around him, every person in the room began to voice their doubts in low, grumbling murmurs that created a buzz of uneasy conversation.
Mr. Angris showed not a trace of impatience or offense at this scepticism. He simply sat calmly, wearing his gentle, understanding smile, and listened to their concerns with every appearance of respect.
He let them talk themselves out, let the murmuring rise and fall naturally.
"First—allow me to pay my deepest respects to each and every one of you."
When the murmuring had faded to silence, when all eyes had returned to him, Mr. Angris spoke—and to everyone's absolute astonishment, he rose from his seat and gave them all a low, formal bow.
The gesture, so unexpected from a man of his obvious quality and breeding, startled the workers nearly out of their skins.
"Every person gathered here in this room tonight is a person of conscience—a soul possessed of something increasingly rare in our world: the spirit to resist injustice, to stand up for what's right even when it's difficult."
In the dim, flickering candlelight, Mr. Angris's voice grew suddenly passionate.
"Let me answer the very reasonable question that's been raised—why am I helping you?
In fact, you've misunderstood my position. I am not only helping you out of charitable impulse. I am helping myself as well."
Before their astonished, disbelieving faces, Angris spoke with visible, powerful emotion welling in his voice:
"I've just introduced myself to you all as a merchant and traveller. But let me tell you something more personal. My childhood and youth were formed entirely within the British wizarding world. I grew up here. I was shaped by this place, by its values and traditions."
His voice grew thick, almost choked.
"The wizarding world of my youth—oh, even speaking of it now, after all these years, stirs something profound in me. I miss it more than I can properly express. I miss it desperately…"
Somehow, watching Mr. Angris—a distinguished gentleman clearly past fifty years of age draw a handkerchief from his pocket and dab at the corner of his eye, apparently overcome with genuine emotion, John felt an echoing pang of grief bloom sharp in his own chest.
He had only been without his old life, his job and routine, for less than a month. And already he ached for it. How much worse must it be for Mr. Angris, separated from his homeland by years of travel?
"It was free," Angris continued. "It was fair. It was full of simple human decency. You worked hard, put in honest effort, and things got a little better each day. Your children had more opportunities than you'd had. That was all it took for a good life."
Mr. Angris gave a small sniff, pressing the handkerchief briefly to his nose.
"Whenever my new friends in other countries—whenever they asked me about my home, about where I'd come from, I would speak of it with my chest absolutely full of pride. Bursting with it."
His eyes seemed to shine with unshed tears behind his spectacles.
"I would look them directly in the eye and tell them with complete confidence and good conscience: the people of the British wizarding world are the most fortunate people in the entire world. Our Diagon Alley is the most vibrant magical marketplace anywhere. Our Ministry of Magic, for all its flaws, has a fundamentally human heart."
He spread his hands in a gesture of encompassing comparison.
"I have seen many countries in my travels. Lived in them for months or years at a time. France. Germany. Italy. America. Even as far as Japan. None of them, not a single one could truly compare to what we had here."
Every face in the crowded room was burning now, completely absorbed, drinking in his words like parched travellers at an oasis.
"I savoured the envy I saw in my new friends' eyes as I described this place—envious that I had been fortunate enough to grow up in such a great nation, in such a functional society. That I'd had opportunities they'd never known.
That feeling—that pride in my homeland—that was the thing I was most proud of in my entire life."
His voice rang through the room with surprising power, rising above the wind that pushed at the walls outside, rattling the windows in their frames.
"But now—what has become of the British wizarding world I loved?"
Mr. Angris looked out over them all, and the sorrow settled slowly across his face.
"Every last trace of that greatness—gone."
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