Cast Aside

Conflicting Orders and Angry Dinners

A/N I need to take a moment to thank Lexvida who left me the most amazing review on A03 at the end of July. It got me so gassed up I found my muse and over the last month, I am excited to say that I have finally finished this fic! I have the last scene of the EP left to write and that's it. The story itself is finished. I am planning on posting once or twice a week until it is all up. So thank you again, Lexvida. If you are reading a fic, a WIP and you don't usually comment, DO. Comments are so amazing to read and sometimes they just might be what gets your author going again. I hope you enjoy this last arc! It gets a little heavy so buckle up!

Chapter 35

As a pureblood wizard raised as isolated from the muggle world as any other, Kingsley had graduated Hogwarts with very little knowledge of what the rest of humanity was capable of. His tenure guarding the muggle Prime Minister then, had been something of a revelation. He'd seen handguns on the other security, even seen what they could do. Once they'd even toured a military installation for a muggle remembrance holiday. The overall impression had been that pushing the muggles to a conflict would end in tragedy for wizard kind.

He blamed the lack of decent Muggle Studies classes for the casual way their society dismissed their non magical fellow men. It was a potentially deadly mistake.

After his meeting with the Prewetts and their nuclear scientist, Kingsley felt sick. He was going to make it his personal mission to get the spells they were working with into the hands of the British Unspeakables. Their scientist had been insistent that they not share them, secrecy paramount to his own people's safety. Kingsley understood, but knowing how vulnerable they were to such terrifying weapons technology that was in the hands of most major muggle governments would keep him up at night. Granger's veiled assurances did little to ease his nerves. If his suspicions were correct, their plans could render anything she thought she knew null.

After their meeting, Kingsley had gone back and forth about what to do. Mere months ago, he would have gone to Dumbledore. Their plan was extremely risky, but if successful, it would end the war. When he still believed that to be Dumbledore's goal, he would have imagined the old man doing whatever he could to help.

Now, help was the last thing Dumbledore would offer the people he now viewed as rivals.

This left Kingsley with a rather pressing problem. The Headmaster had set four barely of age wizards to watch the Prewetts. If they managed to follow them to Malfoy manor, Kingsley could easily see them disrupting somehow, causing catastrophe.

He needed to find a way to convince the boys to ignore their orders. But they were eager and devoutly hung on Dumbledore's every whim. Only Sirius had any reason to doubt the old man. Had he shared his doubts with his friends or kept them to himself? If he had shared, would his friends listen to him?

Training hard to be an Auror, the young master Black happened to still be in the office that evening. Stepping out of the Ministry elevator and into the Auror office, Kingsley strode casually towards the trainee bullpen.

"Black." He barked at the younger man and indicated his own office door when he looked up. Sirius glanced around at his fellow Auror hopefuls and stood to follow. Once they were both safely ensconced, Kingsley waved his wand, locking the room and ensuring no one could eavesdrop.

"Kings?"

Clearing his throat and reaching into his bottom desk drawer for the bottle of fire whiskey he kept there for hard days, Kingsley eyed Sirius carefully. "Have you thought much about our last conversation?"