Sirius grumbled and stepped back. The handsome face that had been filling the screen finally shrank to a normal size, revealing Remus Lupin and Albus Dumbledore behind him.
Dumbledore had his half-moon spectacles on and a lemon drop pinched between two fingers, studying the Muggle camera's construction with genuine curiosity.
"What a remarkable invention, Douglas," he said pleasantly. "A pity one can't transmit lemon drops through it. Our meetings would be considerably more productive."
Behind them, Dobby stood in a small, crisply pressed suit, fists balled at his sides, ready to cast the Network Uninterrupted Charm at a moment's notice. Douglas had developed that auxiliary spell specifically for cross-border communication like this.
Cairo's easy, sun-drenched energy bled through one side of the screen. London's living room had a different weight entirely. The contrast was hard to miss.
"Right, gentlemen." Douglas settled back in his chair and let the meeting begin. "Welcome to the first cross-continental monthly operations summary for the Marauders and associated parties."
He paused. Cleared his throat. Then added, with deliberate ceremony:
"This meeting is chaired by Mr. Douglas Holmes , distinguished Hufflepuff graduate, esteemed professor of Hogwarts, and honorary headmaster of Silvermane Academy."
Sirius rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt.
"We'll start with you, Padfoot," Douglas said, ignoring him entirely. "How's Marauders Power Company running?"
Sirius straightened immediately. The lazy smirk vanished, replaced by something he couldn't quite contain , pure, unfiltered smugness.
"Running?" He grabbed a long roll of parchment and snapped it open in front of the camera. "The only word for it is perfect."
"The Ministry orders haven't let up for a second. Every Auror has a set of our tactical communication earrings now. And that old fox Scrimgeour — the one who said he needed to review our products — turns out his body's more honest than his mouth. Day before yesterday he put in another order. Five hundred Stunning Flash Grenades."
Sirius grinned, all white teeth and satisfaction.
"Cash flow is extremely healthy. The first ten-thousand-Galleon profit has cleared completely." He leaned toward the camera. "And I didn't go easy on pricing, either. I told them the core magical resonance crystals are sourced from the East — extremely limited production , and the next batch will run at least twenty percent higher. Scrimgeour looked like he'd swallowed something foul. Paid anyway."
Douglas nodded. "Well done. Scarcity is standard practice in luxury markets. Cash flow is the foundation everything else is built on."
"And it's enough to cover the full material cost of the initial Wolfsbane batches," Lupin added from the side, "with a significant surplus."
His voice quieted the energy in the room. The camera shifted toward him.
Where Sirius was riding high, Lupin looked like a man carrying something. His expression was steady, but layered , the kind of composure that comes from weight, not ease.
"The first batch of the improved Wolfsbane Potion has been fully produced. Here in Britain, we've established a preliminary distribution network through Marcus and his Moonhowl House in Knockturn Alley."
His voice stayed low and even.
"The initial reaction from the werewolf community was suspicion. Resistance, even. They've been lied to too many times. Hurt by prejudice and false promises too many times. They didn't believe there was a free lunch , and ours isn't free, exactly, though it might as well be."
"But when the first round of trial participants confirmed the potion worked, everything shifted."
He paused briefly, as if pulling the memory back into focus.
"Fervor, Douglas. That's the only word I have for it."
"The referral structure you designed ," he caught himself. "The mutual aid promotion model, I mean, has had a remarkable effect. One cured werewolf brings three more. Five more. Sometimes ten. Registration numbers broke eighty within three days. That's nearly half of every werewolf the British Ministry has on record."
"Italy's even further along. Your groundwork there paid off , they already have a community of over two hundred."
Dumbledore interjected with a quiet smile. "Hogwarts's finest Potions students deserve significant credit. Under Severus's... reluctant approval and very thorough supervision, they ensured the initial production was both consistent and sufficient. The children are quite proud of it. They've called it the most meaningful Potions class they've ever taken."
Douglas caught the undertone immediately. He had a feeling things would not be smooth when he got back to school.
"My progress in Egypt is moving along as well. The tripartite academic cooperation framework between the Egyptian Ministry, Gringotts, and our side is nearly documented. What's left is the negotiating table."
He looked directly at Lupin.
"The real question, Remus."
"The first full moon. How did it go?"
The other end of the call went still.
Lupin was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Bill glanced at the screen twice.
"That night..."
His voice came out slightly rough, like each word had to be pulled up from somewhere deep.
"We gathered in the cabin deep in the Forbidden Forest , the one Professor Dumbledore arranged. Everyone drank the potion. When the moon rose..." He stopped. "No one transformed."
His gaze drifted somewhere past the camera.
"No howling."
"Only silence."
"Then crying. The quiet kind. The kind people try to hide."
"For the first time in decades, they had a full moon night that was just... theirs."
"Some of them talked until dawn. Telling each other their names. Their histories. The things they'd been made to forget."
"Some of them just sat by the window and watched the moon. The same moon that had taken everything from them, for so many years."
"Marcus ," Lupin's voice shifted almost imperceptibly. "That Hufflepuff. That tough, unshakeable man. He cried like a child."
Douglas said nothing. He listened, and he could see it , a room full of cursed souls, and the night they finally put the chains down.
"The training ground is near the intelligent wolf pack's territory in the Forbidden Forest," Lupin continued. "Professor Dumbledore's placed the strongest Confundus and Muggle-Repelling Charms around the perimeter. Marcus has shown real talent for organization , he's managing the daily operations for all the trainees. Everything is running."
He paused.
"But..."
His brow creased again.
"This is only the beginning."
"Yes." Dumbledore's voice was gentle, but it pulled everyone back to earth. "Only the beginning."
His kind face held something beneath the surface , a worry too careful to show plainly.
"You've all done exceptional work." A brief pause. "But it has attracted attention we would rather not have."
"The conservative bloc in the Ministry , Dolores Umbridge, particularly , has been making noise in the Wizengamot. They're claiming the werewolf community is displaying abnormal calm. Signs of organization. It's making them nervous."
"The Werewolf Employment Act is completely deadlocked. The opposition's position is that until the so-called safety concerns are resolved , fully resolved, to their satisfaction , werewolves cannot be granted legal employment rights. Even now that they can hold human form through the full moon."
Dumbledore sighed softly.
"Cornelius enjoys being called a bold reformer in the Daily Prophet. He equally fears being held responsible for anything that goes wrong." He spoke without hurry. "When the praise is loud enough, even the smallest criticism sounds like disaster. I'm afraid he'll move soon , something public, something that shows he's in control."
Sirius snorted. "Scrimgeour's another problem. He's ordering our equipment as fast as we can supply it, and simultaneously running a quiet reverse-engineering operation through the Auror Office's technical division. He wants to cut the dependency."
He shrugged. "He won't crack the core tech anytime soon. There's a generation's worth of gap there. But he's trying."
"They don't want anyone's hand at their throat," Douglas said. "It's a predictable move."
The easy atmosphere the meeting had started with was gone.
The satisfaction of everything they'd built , the cash flow, the cured werewolves, the political frameworks , all of it was still real. But it sat differently now, pressed against the complications closing in from every side.
No one's face was light.
➤ Next: The Professor from Hogwarts, Please Take a Seat!
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