The Importance of Being Earnest

by 2whitie

Summary:

Molly Weasley's second cousin was a Squib. He knew about the Wizarding World, had grown up knowing the importance of the Statute of Secrecy. This was no great matter for anyone, until it was.

You see, the Artemis Fowl that came back after three years was fundamentally different from the person who had left. And his parents were the only people he mesmerized to not notice.

Chapter 1: Chapter One

"Novelty and Security: the security of novelty, the novelty of security. Always the full thing, the whole subject, the true subject, stood just behind the one you found yourself contemplating."---John Crowley

It looked like I didn’t have any other options, so I grabbed the doily off the table and used it to clean the inside of the mug. Tonight--and maybe tomorrow--were clearly going to be takeout nights, but that was going to get old quick. Helpful as faculty housing this semester was, there was a bunch of stuff that the academy didn’t cover, and I needed to get a grocery list going--and that wasn't happening without the help of caffeine.

A bit of scavenging turned up a faded tea bag, and in a few minutes, I was pouring boiling water over something entitled "Morning Mix."

There was a knock at the door. "Mr. Prewett?"

"It's open."

Dean Guiney strode into the suite, nodding perfunctorily at the twee living room/kitchenette. "You're settling in, I hope?"

I sighed internally. The Dean was not known for succinct conversations. "Very well, yes. Just getting comfortable before the school year begins."

"Good. Excellent. I just wanted to talk to you about one thi--Are you drinking Morning Mix? No. Throw on a jacket, pull on a jumper--whatever you have unpacked. You don't want that weak stuff. I've got a loose-leaf in my quarters. We'll chat on the way."

Luck had nothing to do with the fact that all of my coats were already unpacked. The Irish climate rarely took notice of the sun, and carried a chill regardless of Mother Nature told it.

"---can get you?"

I didn't realize that the Dean had been talking. I took a stab at an appropriate answer. "Invoices, spreadsheets, annual expense reports, records of assets gifted to the school. That kind of stuff is generally very helpful. I really need to establish a baseline of how much the school both makes and spends in a year."

The Dean nodded knowingly. "I'll have it sent over. The fact you're even asking for this stuff shows that you're a huge improvement on the last guy. He had a sort of, well, lazze-faire attitude towards the whole thing."

"Your last accountant was lazze-faire…about money?"

The Dean shrugged uncomfortably. If I was a betting man, either the last accountant was a nepotism hire or he didn't want to outwardly admit to not really needing to keep a close eye on money when your students numbered among the richest in the world. "I trust you will be able to straighten the books out."

Translation: Fix everything, give me something to show an angry board that nothing is wrong. I decided to change the subject. "Are there any students interested in this sort of thing? I could show them the ropes, give them a TA credit or something."

The Dean sighed, and we both scaled the last hill before descending onto the main campus, where classes were held and students slept before he spoke. "Many of our students will express interest, because their parents are in the business industry. No one will actually sign up, because their parents own the business industry. But I’ll see what I can do."

Instead of going the going through the main entrance, we nipped around to a small side door, which led into a respectively sumptuous office, full of leather and air-conditioning.

The Dean stopped, abruptly. I nearly ran into him, and barely bit back a curse before I saw why the Dean has stopped.

There was a boy in the office, waiting. My hands began to sweat. No. No. No. Not here. This isn't how I want to go.

"Mr. Fowl," the Dean said, barely getting the words past his clenched teeth. "What can I do for you?"

"You can sign this." The teen--was it even a real teen-- rotated his touchpad into its display position. "My proposed schedule for the year. Let us both be honest. The more independent studies I do, the happier everyone is. Do not ruin a teacher's day by putting me in their class. My idiotic classmates make their days miserable enough."

"Your classmates aren’t idiots," said the Dean automatically, scanning the display in front of him. "Mr. Fowl. You didn't sign yourself up for anything but independent studies. While I understand--,"

The kid all but bared his teeth. For a single second, I entertained the idea of heroically pushing the Dean out of the creature's way, going all Buffy on the guy. In that moment, I was a kid again, sticky with sherbet, listening to my great uncle's vampire stories.

I hadn't thought the Dean had any connection to the wizarding world, but now I was sure. I didn't bother keeping myself current on wizarding issues, but my father periodically sat me down and ran me through what he called "DADA for Squibs." I knew even fully trained wizards took the threat of dark creatures seriously.

The moment passed, and the Dean prattled on, oblivious. "…you, of all people, know the importance of socialization…"

The teen--creature--Artemis--was unimpressed. "We can do this now, or we can do this later. I will have project proposals on your desk by the first day of school."

Dean Guiney pinched the bridge of his nose, and I could see the cluster headache bunching up his temples. This was not a new argument. They had disagreed before.

I felt a sting of doubt. Perhaps I was wrong and this was just a creepy child who never learned to play nice with others. Growing up, there was no mystery; magic filled in the cracks of the unknown. It had taken a lifetime in the Muggle school system to see the unknown for what it was, but every once in a while, nervousness forced me into the childhood habit of seeing magic in everyday quirks.

"Just…," the Dean looked at me helplessly. He took the touchpad from the teen. "Mr. Fowl. Have you met Mr. Prewett?"

The slim teen shifted his attention to me, gave me a once over, categorized me as unimportant. "Pleasure."

"Mr. Prewett is going to be our new accountant," said the Dean. "He is looking for someone to help him with the books. You’d need to work with him closely and learn how to compromise…I would be much more amendable to all of these solo projects if you became his TA."

Chapter 2

"And he didn't age?"

"Not a single day." I took another bite of stew. "I thought he was just exaggerating, but I checked the internet and-,"

"The eenternit?" my cousin-in-law interrupted. "What's that?"

I suddenly felt a rush of sympathy for my parents, who had spent their entire lives explaining what must have seemed like elementary concepts to their Squib child. This, I decided, was karma. "Um. It's kind of like an infinite library that anyone can visit, as long as you have a certain object. And the stuff in it isn’t always educational. Records, pictures, stuff like that."

Before he could ask another question, my cousin popped in with a bowl of wheat rolls. "Arthur Weasley! WHAT did I tell you about interrogating poor Edward about Muggle things?"

"It was relevant dear! Edward was telling me that he went to the efernet during his investigation and-,"

Molly dumped the bowl on the table and swiveled towards me. "You followed a vampire? To its lair? By yourself?"

"No, he comes to my place-,"

Arthur spat out his water.

"Let me back up," I said hastily. "I used the internet to look up a picture of this kid two weeks before he disappeared." I pointed at one of the photos on the table. "Luckily, he's from an old money family, so it wasn't that hard. This was a picture of him at a theoretical physics conference."

Both of the Weasley's leaned forward, careful to avoid touching the photograph. Apparently, one of their kid's friends had already explained the concept of a picture that didn't move, but they still seemed to think that one false move would break the image.

"And this is from a month ago."

Both Arthur and Molly moved to the next photo--I'd grabbed a screenshot from a recent news reel. The Fowl Family had held a press conference to announce the missing heir's return, and the feel-good story had been picked up my multiple news outlets. Admittedly, I wasn't the best with ages, but it was absurdly clear to anyone with a functioning pair of eyes that Artemis Fowl II had not aged.

Molly pulled the picture closer. "Well, he certainly looks the part."

Arthur rubbed his lower lip. "It’s not that I don’t think there isn't somethin' magical going on here. Between this aging thing, and well, to be frank, his problems fitting in with the world around him…," he trailed off.

I began soaking one of the wheat rolls in stew. "Not a vampire?"

"No, it's not tha--Percy!"

A shuffling sound in the next room materialized into who I assumed was one of Molly's kids. He had clearly just come home from work. Judging by the late hour and the rather stiff collar around his neck, I thought he might work as some sort of magical solicitor. "Who's this?"

"Manners, Percy. You remember Uncle Justin? You met him once. This is his son, Edward."

I found myself on the receiving end of a rather calculating look, focused through unnecessarily severe pince-nez lenses. "You can't be much older than Charlie. What house were you in?"

"Colfer in primary. Secondary school didn't do houses," I said mildly, waiting for the penny to drop.

It didn't take long, although, to his credit, his reaction was understated compared to many wizards I'd met. "Really? Hmm. Do you know if--,"

Arthur cut his son off before anything hugely offensive was said. "Why don't you tell Edward about recent political movements in the vampiric community?"

His son puffed up, and I had the inkling that I might need to ask after a spare bed if this ran as long as I thought it might.

"Fascinating topic, vampires. Controversial too. Ever since the 1995 policy against taking any real action against vampires was codified, there have been disagreements within the wizarding world and vampiric Society on the best way to move forward. Some believe that it is best for vampires to live among other vampires, others are of the point of view that vampires should receive the same legal protections as wizards. It isn't an debate cleanly divided upon species lines--many vampires do not wish to integrate into a society that is ill-equipped to meet their needs, while others want their offspring to attend Hogwarts."

I took a bite of the softened bread and read between the lines. "The faction that doesn't want to integrate into wizarding society. Do they want to be isolationist or do they live amongst humans, err, Muggles?"

Percy raised an eyebrow. "I would hope that the answer wouldn't be Muggles. We could argue about status all day and night, but they are undoubtably magical creatures. I can't imagine a situation where a vampire lives among Muggles without the Statute of Secrecy being invoked."

"What if a Muggle kid got turned? What would happen then?"

"That wouldn't happen," Percy said, with a wave of his hand. His bright green eyes lost their interest. "It is a cultural taboo to turn any children, but especially, especially Muggle kids. There's a whole host of issues there--again, I'd have to have you for a full night to really go through it all, but the main issue really comes from the transformation of it all. Vampires are magical creatures with a parasitic nature. If a wizard gets turned, the magical nature is already there. If a muggle got turned? Well…if a muggle child got turned…."

He looked to his father.

Arthur said nothing, just looked out the little window.

Molly's lips thinned. "If the child survived, there would be Hell to pay."

Notes:

Me: Awesome, I'll put this chappie up for the crossover day during Fowl Fest 2022
FowlFest: "Crossover with one of Colfer's other works"
Me: Oooop. Welp.

Chapter 3

I woke up that morning to a soft hooting outside of my new bedroom. A Flourish and Blotts owl stood waiting on the sill, which, along with delivering a few texts on vampirism that I'd ordered from Flourish and Blotts, reminded me that I owed my parents a phone call. The time difference between Ireland and South Africa had broken me of the habit, and I was sure they'd be pleased to hear from me.

It was a good thing that a separate owl had delivered owl treats to me last night. Otherwise, this might have been awkward. I brought the owl a small saucer of water and a treat, both of which the bird seemed grateful for. I gave it a small scratch as well, which the bird tolerated for all of five seconds before it flew away, winging its way back to England.

A big part of being a well-adjusted Squib was drawing firm barriers for yourself. No one planned on having a Squib, it was an unfortunate surprise that displayed itself after your head had been filled with promises of dragons and charms. It took your heart and smeared it all over the ground, but the hole in your chest didn’t have to remain open. With supportive parents, friends, and a determination to find excitement in the Muggle world, scabs could form. There was no point in wasting away for a world that you could never be a part of, but acting as if it didn't exist was an exercise in self-flagellation.

One of my barriers was refusing to read any Wizarding publication that didn't pertain to me, specifically. I didn't keep up with Quidditch, I didn't read books on Wizarding history, and I didn't subscribe to any magazines. When I told my parents this, my Mum said something along the lines of "Not a Ravenclaw, then."

But seeing as vampires were now very much my problem, all bets were off.

I hunted around for a bit of parchment to hide the covers, then set off for the library.

Rich kid schools always had nice libraries; a new collection for every "adjusted" grade. I've never been much of a reader, but the libraries never cared. They always welcomed me back with open wings and warm smells, and let me take whatever I needed.

St. Bartelby's had a nice library.

I found a small study carrel far away from a group of giggling year 9s and settled down for a few hours of reading. When you live at the place you work, you get to work the hours you pleased.

The Vampyre, read the introduction to the smallest book in the stack, is classified by the Ministry as a Dark Creature. This author means to provide a mere overview of the Ministry's interactions with the known Vampyre colonies in and around Great Britain. This is not a guide to interacting with the creatures, since untrained wizards should never attempt to do so without a healthy supply of garlic and a knife soaked with an anti-coagulant potion…”

"Mr. Prewett," drawled a familiar voice."

I slowly looked up. There, innocent as you pleased in a perfectly pressed St. Bartleby's uniform, was Artemis Fowl himself.

I couldn't help but focus on the boy's pale skin, black hair, and eyes too old for his face. Now that I knew a little more, it seemed ludicrous that the Ministry, or whoever dealt with rogue magic users, hadn’t already dragged the kid in. He had a certain flat affect about him, something brimming under his skin that I'd only ever seen when magical folk strode through the Muggle world. It was something like movie-star charisma, but less amorphous. More solid. It came from the power sparking under your skin, the knowledge that every step you took, you held magic in a non-magical world.

A younger me would have punched him in the face. Then, fueled by anger born of fresh loss, I would have punched him again. But I wasn't a younger version of me; I was the me of today, who knew the terrible price the boy had paid to be included in the magical world, and the only real emotion I could conjure up was pity.

Something flickered in his mismatched eyes. "I was told to come find you."

I placed my book aside. "Did you and the Dean work something out?"

"Obviously," he drew out. He didn't elaborate. Instead, he thrust his sharp chin towards the brown paper covering my book. “Is hiding in the library reading presumably scandalous titles my first lesson in becoming an accountant?”

"It is important to have a work-life balance," I said dryly, wondering if his vampirism would prevent him from ever growing past his current teenage height of 5'4. "But no. I wasn’t given notice that you had actually accepted the…proctorship, so I don’t actually have anything for you to do.”’

Artemis tilted his head. “So I am released?”

Didn’t I read something about vampires needing some sort of invitation to move freely into and around human settlements? “Yes, of course. You are free to go.”

Then, since there were plenty of, well, living students at this school, I hurriedly tacked on a “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

He gave me a humourless smile. “Well, that’s an easy request Mr. Prewett, because I don’t know you at all.”

Chapter 4

White button-up + dark green jacket I texted. Towards the back.

I put my phone down and began to tuck into my dinner. I didn't want to invite a Ministry official into my place of employment/temporary residence, so I picked the town's local pub as our meeting place. I would've picked someplace even farther, maybe even in London, but this man was Mark's brother, who was in our Squib groupchat. If Mark vouched for him, than he was good people.

"Mr. Prewett?" came a voice from behind me.

I turned around. "Did you apparate in?"

The man smiled sheepishly. "Only to the back door."

I extended my hand. "Edward Prewett."

"Tom Connell. Pleasure."

I gestured to the seat in front of me. "Please, please."

The man gave me a little smile and did so. We made polite chit-chat, he asked what was good here, and I told him that nothing was good, but the chicken and rice was the best of the bad. He asked about my work, what school I went to, what team I rooted for, all the essentials. I complimented him on his excellent Muggle attire, and he confided in me that ever since Mark had kids, he spent far more time in jumpers than robes.

"Probably a good thing for someone in Muggle relations," I ventured.

He rolled his eyes. "You would think. Half of my colleagues view the muggle world as more of an exercise in thought than anything else." He took a pull of beer. "But if what Mark and Arthur Weasley says is true, some of the dark creatures don't think it so theoretical."

I showed him everything I had showed Arthur, and threw in my observations from earlier in the day from the library. I could see him taking it all in, processing it all. He didn't seem convinced, but he didn't seem not-convinced either. He asked me a few questions that I knew the answer too--demeanor, pallor--and a few things I didn't--family relations, friendships, change in attitude. I could see the variables changing behind his eyes, moving and transforming with every new tidbit of information he received.

Finally, he came to a decision. "I don't think there's enough information for the Ministry to get involved. Yet." He put his hand up before I voice any of my many, many rebuttals. "I'm not saying you're wrong. The lack of aging concerns me, but he could just be a late bloomer. The pallor is less concerning, since, well, he's Irish. And I'm not sure his attitude is relevant either, since, under the information you gave me, he had to have been turned a few years ago, not decades. So his odd demeanor and speech patterns can't come from being generations old."

"But all of it taken together, especially with his complete disappearance from the public eye for three years-,"

"--Is why I'm not telling you to drop it," Tom with a levelling glance. "It's weird. It might just be that. Weird. An oddity that only makes sense when you have all the pieces. Which is why I want you to keep an eye on that boy. Text me with any more observations you see, and I'll add them to his file."

He paused, and I could see him trying to decide how to phrase what he was going to say next. "And of you see anyone from the magical world contact him, you call me. I don't care what hour it is, or if it’s just a lost owl. You call me, you tell me everything you see, and then you run. Run to the Weasleys, as fast as you possibly can. You have no idea who you are dealing with."

Chapter 5

I leaned over and checked the caller ID. It was Mrs. Wilde, the secretary who guarded the school's administrative offices with the passion of a dragon guarding its hoard. To ignore her was to court death. I pressed the green button. "Hello?"

"Artemis Fowl is here in the lobby asking for you."

This was a surprise. We weren't scheduled to meet until 3 p.m, and I couldn't think of a single reason that he would voluntarily spend time working on the project I had given him, which, for the record, was dull, even by my standards. And I didn’t think Artemis was stupid enough to try anything with so many people present to act as witnesses. "Tell him he to come on back."

There was a long pause. "I can tell him that you are unavailable."

No you can't, I thought. Not if I'm right and he's a magical creature with supernatural hearing. And knowing him, he wouldn't even bother to pretend like he had a normal human's hearing. "I see you too have met before. Thank you for the out, Mrs. Wilde, but it's fine. Send him back."

I shifted into the headspace that I used for thinking about all things magic, which now included Artemis Fowl. After a moment of thought, I hit RECORD on my computer's microphone. Just because the wizarding world relied on quills didn't mean I had to.

The Artemis Fowl that stood right outside my office--he didn't place one toe in my office, interesting--was not an Artemis I had met before. I had met the future CEO of Fowl Enterprises, an abrasive adult who didn’t care to pretend at being a teen, and, quite possibly, an immortal choking on the mortal world's restrictions. This Artemis wasn't any of those, not completely. It was the most complete version of him that I had ever seen.

I realized that I had completely missed out on what he was saying. "Come again?"

"I said, I need a favor."

None of the literature I had read indicated that vampires traded in binding covenants or magically enforced favors, but that didn't mean it was safe to do so. First off, I only had access to the wizarding world's equivalent of pop science books--informative, but not scholarly or up to date. Hogwarts would have such books, but I wasn't permitted to request anything from there--those books were reserved for 'those with the greatest and most immediate need" i.e. people who actually had magic. Second, even if I did have access to the Hogwarts library, I would be limited to books written in either English or Spanish; neither of which were the primary languages in countries to which the vampire affliction was endemic, so no primary sources for me. Finally, I didn't know what I didn't know.

I sighed. I suppose there was no harm in seeing what he wanted. Might be interesting. Might be telling. "What kind of favor?"

"I need a babysitter," he said bluntly. "I need to go into Dublin for my photography project, and I can't leave school grounds during school hours without an escort. So. A babysitter."

This would be more believable if the photography teacher hadn't told me that Artemis had already turned in a completed portfolio. Which begged the obvious question: Why did he want to get me off school grounds? "It's Friday. Why can't you just wait a few more hours and get your personal driver to take you?"

"The light won't be the same," said the teen. "I need to leave now. And speaking of my personal driver, he is waiting at the school's gate and is ready to take us. I do hope you can come. I don't think Mrs. Wilde will willingly come."

The coldness that began to seep through my body wasn't fear or anger; it was understanding. I knew a threat when I heard one. Somehow, he knew that I knew, and he was giving me a choice: go with him, or something utterly untraceable would happen to Mrs. Wilde.

I grabbed my phone and began typing out a message to Tom. "When do we go?"

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Don’t look at me, I didn’t vote for the evil mango.

Anyway, for related reasons, I needed something to comfort me and I remembered how much I like brainstorming for this fic. I have a solid ending in mind now!

A Bentley was waiting for us as we exited the front door, and despite the circumstances, I felt a spark of excitement.

I hadn’t known about cars growing up, for the same reason most children don’t know about Dodos, textbooks on quantum mechanics, and the carbon credit tax debate: I’d never seen one, I didn’t need one, and I’d never heard of one. Need to go short distances? You apparate. A medium, but well-worn distance? Floo. A far and exciting distance? Rent a portkey.

Even after I found out I was a squib, I didn’t really think of cars as a way to get around. Mum apparated me to the local muggle school in the morning, as well as any place I needed to go. It wasn’t until I became a proper adult, with a savings plan and places I wanted to go outside of the bus’s reach that I began to consider the idea of a car as something that I might want, as something that could be a status symbol. And this car was a status symbol.

I slipped my mobile back into my coat pocket, hoping that the SOS text had gone through. Hopefully, Tom would be able to rouse the calvary and get me out of this mess before Artemis decided that we were far enough from the school for him to pull whatever vampiric stunt he was going to pull.

I supposed there was still time to head it all off. “I hope you didn’t put this photography project of yours off because of my assignments.”

Artemis didn’t even look at me. “I liked your assignments more.”

He wasn’t even trying to lie well.

Once we got to the Bentley, a man whose muscles had outgrown his skin long ago stepped out of the driver’s seat. His suit had the same expensive cut as the car, and before I could make awkward introductions and try to warn this hapless driver about how he needed to get out of here right no—

“Young Master, Mr. Prewett.”

“Butler,” said Artemis, in the warmest tone I had ever heard from him. “It is good to see you.”

Huh. So, the “Butler” Artemis had occasionally made a passing reference to was actually a butler. I had thought he was an uncle or older cousin or something.

The tension in my stomach began to blossom and spread through the rest of my body. If stereotypes were anything to go by, Butler—the family butler? The family driver?---had probably raised Artemis more than his actual parents had. And you don’t kill your father-figure.

You do, however, enlist him in schemes to lure unsuspecting individuals into a secondary location to drain the blood you need to stay alive.

Butler cleared his throat menacingly. “Is there something wrong with the car, Mr. Prewett?”

I got the message, and stepped into the car.

***
As soon as we were in the car, Artemis handed me a chilled bottle of water. I didn’t want the water, but I did want something cold to hold onto.

Before we even began to move, Butler lowered the screen separating himself from Artemis and I. “Do you have an exact location for your photography project?”

Artemis nodded while opening his laptop. “I sent the coordinates to your mobile.”

“And Mr. Prewett needs to come, why?”

Interesting, my panicking brain noted. They’re not completely on the same page. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of this without me dying or the Aurors taking Artemis in.

“I have to have a teacher with me if I leave school grounds during school hours.”

Butler gave Artemis a hard look, and I used the awkward pause to quickly check my mobile. The text had been sent. Good. Maybe, with evidence of some vampire turning kids, the Ministry of Magic would actually do something and find the perpetrator.

“Security has tightened since the last time,” Artemis said, a tad resentfully. “I actually need a teacher to physically accompany me to any location off school grounds now.”*

This answer seemed to clear up whatever reservations Butler had about my presence, and when we drove up to the entrance and a security guard checked the truck, checked Butler’s ID card against the list of Adults Allowed To Take Artemis Fowl II, Heir To A Huge Fortune off campus, and verified his reason for leaving with me, the massive butler—really, why did he need so many muscles to clean suits or fetch tea or whatever—did not seem to have any qualms about what we would be doing.

The drive to Dublin was not long, and it was made even shorter by me trying to reconcile all the information I had. Artemis had needed to get off school grounds. He had threatened to take someone much more helpless than me if I didn’t go. Whatever this was, he was more concerned about it than he was about his position at St. Bartlebys.

Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t trying to kill me specifically. Maybe, he had been ordered to meet up with his sire, and I genuinely was just a means to an end to get out of the school.

I tried to think up possible outcomes in my head, then figure out a way to guide each of them in a way that would end up with both Artemis and I alive. We’d spent enough time together that I’d sort of gotten attached, and even if I was pretty sure he was leading me into some sort of vampire-related shitshow, it wasn’t his fault. Not really. He wasn’t supposed to be part of the magical world at all, let alone a victim of a condition that even an adult had a hard time dealing with.

I felt the cool water against my hand, and forced myself to calm down. The Ministry was coming, and they could get this all sorted out. Not even they would be heartless enough to not take pity on a child thrust into an unimaginably difficult situation.

The car came to a stop in a fairly crowded area of the city, a street crammed with shops, pubs, and historic apartments. Butler got out first, made a loop around the car, then let Artemis out. I started to get out as well, but Artemis just held out his hand in a oddly formal position, to indicate that I needed to stay put. “I’ll be right back.”

I looked at his empty hands. “You could at least have brought a camera. Given yourself some plausible deniability.”

He froze, and mismatched eyes both came into focus. He gave me a long, searching look, like he was finally looking at me, really looking at me for the first time.

“Don’t let anyone get hurt,” I managed to say. “Promise me that no one will get hurt.”

And that, of course, was when the screaming began.

 

*I like to think that after Artemis left his school trip to steal a painting in TOD, the school actually did follow-up with his parents, that might have been intercepted if Artemis and Holly weren’t running for their lives from trolls. There is nothing in canon to support this, but part of the inspo for this fic is how wild Artemis’s life must look like from the outside.

Chapter 9

Artemis dropped a single curse word, heavy with feeling, then ducked out of the car and began to run. Up in the front seat, Butler did the same.

In the years to come, I would come back to this moment, this single second in time: sitting in the back of a car, a bottle of water in hand, listening to the screams. Sometimes the details were falsely clear, sharpened by the details I would come to learn. Other times, they were fuzzy as the day I gained them, obscured by panic and the slow realization that not only was my view of the world inaccurate, but it was wholly incomplete.

I could have stayed in the car. I had gotten Artemis out of the school—my little part in his game was over. I could have kept my head down, ignored everything, and thanked my lucky stars that I was inside what seemed to be a very fortified car. I could have simply waited for it to be over. After analyzing all the evidence, Auror Davidman would eventually inform me that I should have done just that—stayed in the car and waited.

“If you had just stayed in that muggle contraption of yours,” she would sniff during my eventual debriefing, “none of this would have happened. The Door would have stayed shut.”

I could have called Tom. I could have stayed in the car, and used the safe space to call my contact in the magical world. Had I done that, I might have learned that yes, he had received my texts, but he wasn’t bringing the calvary. Voldermort, He Who Must Not Be Named, the Dark Lord, whatever he was calling himself—had begun to infiltrate the Ministry, and Tom didn’t know who he could trust. He wanted the job done right, so he was going to do it himself.

“If you had just called me,” he would tell me from his hospital bed, “I would have stopped you from going with the men in the ministry robes.”

If I had gotten out of the car, but stayed out of the way. If I had gotten out of the car, but focused on distracting the muggles. If I had gotten involved, then backed out when it was clear I was in over my head. If I had stopped The Door from opening. If I had refused to let Artemis through The Door. If I had refused to let Butler through The Door. If I had pretended to go along with the whole thing, then flagged down the Ministry—the real one—the first chance I got. I should have, I could have, I might have.

Artemis never shared his opinion about my actions. I don’t think it it's because he doesn’t have an opinion—I have yet to find a subject that Artemis won’t opine upon— he’s just too much of a pragmatist to think it a productive use of his time. What is done is done, que sera que sera, et cetera.

Butler is the only one to have never found fault with my actions that day. He said as much, while I was in my own hospital bed, recovering from the stab to my gut. He wasn’t a man of many words, but he quietly informed me that, given the information I had, I made the best possible choices I could have.
____
In that moment, that fatal, fatal moment, I dropped the water bottle and jumped out of the other side of the car. Whatever I may have suspected Artemis of—vampirism, immortality, kidnapping, lying to get off of Bartleby’s campus—I don’t think he was expecting to run into…whatever was going on outside. And, in spite of everything, he was a kid under my watch. If he got hurt, it wouldn’t be while I cowered in a car.

Outside was chaos. Screaming, stampeding, the smell of fear, the whole nine years. I smelled sulfur and electricity.

I crouched behind the car, then peeked out. Artemis, still in his school uniform, ran to catch up to his butler, who was firmly striding against the press of the crowd. He didn’t look like someone who had no clue what was going on, and was just too nosy for their own good.

Was this all because of him?

Lightning cracked in the clear air, and then, after a brief repositioning,I could see what everyone was running from. In the middle of the air, a small rip began to open itself in the air. The edges were jagged, made of energy in its purest form, far beyond any magic I had ever seen.

Mortals—magical, muggle, or creature—were not meant to see this. Whatever this was, it was beyond my paygrade. And if it was beyond mine, a person who actually knew the facts of the magical world and had picked up a few things even in exile, then it was definitely beyond Artemis Fowl.

I was beside the car, and then I was five, four, three people behind Artemis. I reached for him, and missed. I yelled, and couldn’t be heard. I shoved the flailing lady in front of me to the side, gripped the back of his schoolboy jacket and yanked . He immediately fell back into me, and I pinned his arms into place so that he couldn’t move.

Before I could say a thing (or get mauled by his butler, bodyguard, whatever), the tear opened farther, and for a single second, I saw infinity, then a figure stepping out of forever. And even I, a being of no magic, knew that to touch the creature was to die.

It was tough to look away from this pure magic, but I’d had plenty of practice. Most of the crows was gone. It was Artemis, pinned against me. It was the butler, two seconds away from realizing that Artemis wasn’t right behind him in the crowd. And it was a few stragglers, getting away from the not-safe-for-life force materializing in the street.

I made a decision.

Before Artemis could panic, I leaned down so that I was speaking directly into his ear. “I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t know your game, or what you want here. But if you grab that creature, you will die.”
”

Through the grip I had on his arms, I felt him pause and gather himself. I couldn’t see his face, but even if I could, I doubt I would be able to figure out what he was thinking. Perhaps he was about to call for his butler, or turn around and smack me into unconsciousness.

Whatever factors he was weighing, he didn’t take long. He tilted his head up, and in a deadly calm tone, said, “We need to get silver on that creature, or it will be the one to die.”

Silver. It all came back to silver. I knew this was a vampire thing.

Questions later, life-saving silver-based rituals now.

I released Artemis, then pushed him forward. He stumbled, then broke into a run.

I could feel the energy sparking off of the figure in the rip in reality. It didn’t feel like magic—magic warmed your insides, cooled the bones, or smelled like fresh paper as it danced upon the skin. This, whatever it was, was at war with the world around it. It burst, popped, and pulsed, all at the wrong time, at the wrong temperature.

My ears began to hurt, just like they did on an airplane. Pressure. I realized. The pressure around us was rising.

To this day, I could not tell you what happened. At least, not in the right order. Butler grabbed Artemis, or Artemis grabbed Butler. Someone got a thick bracelet of silver on the creature. A creature of Revelation fell onto the streets of contemporary Dublin. Thick, curling horns grew out of a stone-colored humanoid, covered with furs and scales. It crashed to the ground, or maybe it rolled onto the ground in a neat maneuver. Maybe it did both.

It did collapse, that much I do remember. And before it passed out, it looked directly at Artemis, and in a tone deeper than malice, he breathed, “You. Human. The boy from the volcano. The boy from the old world.”

Chapter 10

As if Artemis hadn’t moved mountains to save it, the gray creature snarled and swung one of its long, muscled arms at the boy.

Artemis didn’t move---he didn’t have to. Faster than I could process, Butler stepped out from behind me, put himself in between Artemis and the creature, caught the creature’s arm, and flung him into the ground in a single tightly choreographed movement.

I hadn’t spoken with too many butlers in my life, but I had spent the last few months with the ridiculously rich students of St. Bartleby’s, and had watched every season of Downton Abbey with my college roommate, so I was pretty sure that the most butlers weren’t also martial arts masters. And the way Artemis had spoken of this Butler when I’d asked him questions about his home life had given me the impression that Butler was either an old family servant, an older cousin, a father figure, a partner in crime, or some mixture of the four---not a loyal knight, martially enforcing Artemis’s will on the rest of the world.

Must be a vampire thing.

The slight pause gave me a chance to study the creature. He was covered in what looked like a natural armor or interlocking scales and plate, with horns, teeth, and the beginnings of a tail. There were runes painted all over his body, some of which looked freshly renewed.

It spat uselessly at Artemis, who was well out of range. “Boy,” he growled again. “From the volcano.”

Instead of responding, Artemis looked at me. It did not invite me to guess what the creature was talking about. It was a specific, searching look, one that asked what I thought about unknown worlds and concepts usually confined to the imagination. I know that look, because I've always known that look.

Can you give an excuse to the nice Muggle stranger what we mean when we say Quidditch?

What did you think about that play---wasn’t it amusing how wrong the Muggles are about magic?

Is it okay if we talk about Ministry politics in front of you? It’s okay, we can talk about something else. You know what, how was school? Tell us about that Physics class you’re taking.
We’ll have a nice Christmas here at the house. It’ll be better off if we do it here, just us. We’d normally go visit your mother’s side, but, well, you don’t need to hear their ignorance.

“I think he’s upset about whatever you pulled at the volcano,” I told him firmly. Without flinching. Without reacting. “You might want to sort that out.”

It’s always nice to surprise people as arrogant as Artemis. I took a mental picture. If I got out of here alive, I was going to make the rare magical request to place this memory into a penseive, then into a frame, so that I could view it at my pleasure.

Artemis turned back to the creature and switched to a different language, one that, judged by the creature’s body language, the creature understood. It sort of sounded one of the African languages my parents used for work. Igbo, maybe?

They went back and forth for a bit, and it didn’t seem to go anywhere. At one point, Butler had to start restraining the creature, because whatever Artemis was saying made it furious beyond belief. And Artemis wasn’t doing much better---with every second that passed, it became clear that he knew just how urgent the situation was becoming. Any longer, and a whole lot of people were about to come back to see exactly what had caused all of the chaos, and find out about the magical world.

Artemis closed his eyes in irritation, made a final comment, and titled his head towards the car. Butler, who had apparently been following the conversation, threw the protesting creature into the trunk.
“There’s water in there,” said Artemis, upon seeing my appalled expression.

“Yes, that’s the problem with what just happened,” I said, with more sarcasm than was probably professional with a student that I was supposed to be supervising, under vampiric duress or not. “But yeah, I guess it’s a good thing there’s water in there.”

Artemis shrugged the objection off. “Do you mind calling the school? It might take an hour or so to transport him to where his, ah, siblings are waiting, and I’d prefer to not have my visiting privileges revoked yet again on top of causing an international incident.”

If Artemis was going to be a part of the magical world moving forward, he would need to know to not jinx himself, for at that moment, a burst of light exploded the cobblestone beneath his feet into shards. Butler immediately grabbed him and practically threw his charge into car through the still-open door. I tried to follow suit and Butler gave me the same treatment, hurling me into the car like a naughty cat by the scruff of my neck the minute I got without range of his huge arms.

Somehow, even while trying not to panic and disentangle myself from Artemis and the Bentley’s leather seats, I felt the sky go dark. I looked out the window, right as Butler slammed himself into the driver’s seat and activated some security measure that darkened the windows, and saw the symbol that had been all over the newspapers I’d been receiving from the Wizarding world.

A giant skull.

Unfortunately, all of the Gnommish translators that allow you to add it to your fonts in Word are for very old versions, and don’t work anymore. Otherwise, I was planning on having Artemis and the demon have a conversation in the Gnommish font. If anyone wants to get on making a new version, that would be very cool. Basically, their conversation would have boiled down to “Screw you, human scum” and “You are coming with me to Haven, you don’t have a choice.”

Chapter 11

“Death Eaters,” I breathed.

Next to me, I felt Artemis untangle himself and sit up at the edge of the Bentley’s leather seats. I could practically feel his gaze on my back, sharp and intense. “Death Eaters?”

I tore my eyes from the sky and looked him in the eye. I wondered how wrong I was, about everything. I wondered how right I was. “Death Eaters.”

Ahead of us, Butler floored the gas. I couldn’t tell if the jerking of the car was a result of the sudden acceleration, the cobblestone road, spells striking the car, or a mix of all three. I braced myself against the seats, feeling every moment where the car lost contact with the ground.
Artemis did the same, all while managing a peek out the windows before the protective shields slid over the glass. The skull reflected out of his mismatched eyes; recognition did not.

He shifted his gaze towards me. “Death Eaters?”

Either he was a world class actor, even under the stress of attack, or he really, truly, knew nothing about the magical world.

I didn’t know what I hated more in this specific moment: the Death Eaters, the Statute of Secrecy, or this dumb kid. Everything, that’s what I hated. Everything. Everything, everything, everything.

No point in pretending anymore. I freed up one hand so that I could have the luxury of pinching my nose, then called out to Butler, “The green lights are lethal. If they even brush you, it’s game over, no coming back.”

Ever the professional, Butler didn’t miss a beat. “Can they go through glass?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. Unforgiveable curses weren’t something my parents really talked about---everything I knew about them, I knew from discussions about how impossible it was that that Potter kid lived. “I think you can dodge them. And I don’t think they work on anything immortal or undead.”

I turned to Artemis. “This is awkward, but I have to ask.”

Artemis raised a single eyebrow.

“Are you a vampire?”

The entire car managed to be silent for a full fucking minute.

“….What?” asked Artemis.

For a long time, I had always been comforted by the belief that nothing would ever be as embarrassing as finding out that I was a Squib. But it turned out that I could be more embarrassed. Because finding out I was a Squib was embarrassing, sure. But it was embarrassment mixed with shame, horror, and self-loathing. It wasn’t pure, distilled, 100% proof embarrassment.

I no longer had that comfort.

This, this, was the most embarrassing thing that had happened to me.

I thought I might begin leaking stress tears. I didn’t know what was happening right now. We were fleeing Death Eaters. There was a creature of stone and hate in the boot. I had just broken the Statute of Secrecy. I wasn’t going to be turned into a vampire. I didn’t know why I was here at all, if it weren’t for vampire-reasons. We were being shot at. Artemis knew I was a Squib; Artemis didn’t know what Squibs were.

Artemis Fowl didn’t know what Squibs were because he wasn’t a vampire. But if he wasn’t a vampire, then…

My stomach clenched. I knew, but I had to know. “You don’t know what a Death Eater is, do you?”

Artemis shook his head.

“They’re a bunch of terrorist wizards.”

Just like Butler---and it would be fascinating to figure out who influenced who, if the chicken begat the egg—the teen didn’t miss a beat. “Why are they here?”

Butler took a sharp turn down what, judging by the jarring series of free falls, might have been an improvised street.

“Until literally two seconds ago, I thought they were here for you. Last I heard, Voldemort’s been recruiting vampires right and left and, well, it doesn’t seem like you’ve been keeping your nose clean.” Then, remembering the cruel musings I’d heard regarding the legality of the Fowl’s business dealings, I added a “Magically, I mean.”

I gestured at the trunk, just in case the genius didn’t get the point. I hated everything about this. Everything, everything, everything.

“Can they be shot?” asked Butler. “Are they shielded magically?”

“I don’t know.”

To his credit---really, once the acute embarrassment of this entire situation wore off, I’d be asking questions about the exact relationship between him and his Butler named Butler. I felt as if I had earned a few personal questions---Butler didn’t bother making me feel more useless than I already felt. Instead, he tried for a more general question. “Are we best attacking them or evading?”

“Evading,” I said automatically. Then, an idea, a Hail Mary. “How far are we from Dublin Castle?”

“Less than a minute.”

It was the only thing I could think of. “We need to go there. Right now.”

And because I could feel a fount of questions forming----“There’s a side door. Say the code phrase, and it won’t open into the castle, it’ll open into this place called Diagon Alley. Wizards everywhere. This group follows us, they’ll get taken down immediately.”

“Wizards,” said Artemis. It wasn’t a disbelieving tone, just a moderated one. “Like Merlin?”

Something struck the back tire, and the resulting explosion propelled the car just a slight bit farther before the back end of the car dropped onto the ground. Butler took a gun out of the glove compartment, flicked the safety off, and cracked the door open.

As if waiting for an opening, a ball of white light whipped itself into the car door and blasted it off its hinges, sending it flying into a nearby bush. The door wasn’t halfway through its arc before Butler fired three shots, one after the other, one high, one low, and one in a completely different direction.

From the third direction, I heard a scream of pain, then the distinctive crash of a body hitting pavement.

“Move,” he rumbled. I didn’t need to be told twice. I scrabbled out of the car, saw the side gate, and ran as fast as my legs would take me.

Most major cities in the U.K. had an entrance to Diagon Alley that didn’t need magic to operate. When I was little, my parents drilled every location into my head, in case I ever got separated from them in the Muggle world. And when I was older, they kept the drills up, because it was the only magical safety net they could give me against the dangers of the great unknown. Creepy person following you in London? Head to the designated pub. Get mugged in Manchester?
There’s a really odd-colored trash-can near the football stadium---push the lid inwards and jump in. Too much to drink while having a night out in Bangor? You should be ashamed of yourself, but even while wasted, wander over to Penrhyn Castle.

And if you’re in Dublin and need help, go through the side gate at the Castle.

I could hear Butler behind me. I kept running. I heard Artemis yell something about being short. Something whizzed by, close enough to take the hair off my neck.

I kept running. The side gate was so close. One step, two steps. Water, no, blood, began to run down my leg. I didn’t know the source. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the sky.

I slammed my hand against the side of the gate, gasped the code phrase---Aurum Est Potestas---and drop-kicked the door open.

Let me just say: For the rest of his life, Artemis Fowl II will never be as confused, befuddled, or outright thrown as he was when the accountant from his school asked him with his full chest if he was a vampire.

Chapter 12

I’d never used the Dublin door before, so I was mildly surprised to find myself popping into an ice-cream shop instead of a street. Two children scraping the bottoms of their sundae dishes looked up, then froze, spoons halfway to their mouths, legs mid-swing.

Before I could explain, or, better yet, ask them for an adult, any adult, a force that could have only been the massive Butler tackled me from behind, slamming my entire body into the shop's tiled floor.
The impact sent stars throughout my entire body—vision, spine, legs, lungs. Every part of my body took an equal amount of shock and pain. I tasted cleaner. I couldn’t think of anything to do but lift my head, inch by inch, but as I tried, an enormous hand shoved it back into the floor. Seconds later, I felt another, smaller impact, smelled the scorched air of battle spells around us, and knew that the man had saved my life.

I drew a painful breath in. “The kids,” I gasped.

“Under the tables,” Butler murmured. He rolled me over and checked my pulse. As he was doing so, I looked over through my still-shaky vision and saw Artemis next to me---Butler must have shoved us both into the ground, one on each side of him---trying to push himself off the ground, then collapsing back onto the cold flooring.

I began to realize that I was beginning to dissociate out of my own body, morphing into a dispassionate observer to the events around me. I floated up and watched myself, battered and bruised, lever myself off the ground with a padded chair and help Artemis to his feet. I gestured at the children to leave, to be anywhere but here. I saw myself yank the St. Bartleby’s jacket off of Artemis and throw it into a bucket that I recognized as an incinerator---the white shirt and tie could have been part of the Hogwarts uniform, and there was no need to advertise his maybe-a-muggle-status—then gasp out a Death Eaters after us to the kindly looking man peeking up from behind the ice cream bar.

I saw myself push the teenager out of the ice cream parlor into a rather officious looking building, hoping against hope that the sort of place with pillars of veined marble would have security, then crouch behind one of the large plants in the lobby. The children from the shop must have ran out and raised the alarm, because people weren’t shopping—they were quietly scuttling into what seemed like pre-planned hiding spots, like they were Londoners during the Blitz.

As I began to come back to myself, Artemis tapped my wrist, and pointed at the shop from where we had come, smirking.

I couldn’t see any reason to smirk, any reason at all, until I saw what was happening to the Death Eater that had followed us through the door. They had been caught mid-flight by Butler, who was currently in the heartwarming process of ripping the figure off their broom. The massive Butler knocked the hooded person out with some sort of pressure point, threw them on the ground, and then, clearly determining that the person’s danger came from their ability to cast spells, split the man’s wand into one, two, three, four sections.

The bodyguard then did the same thing with the wizard’s hands.

All the screaming must have finally alerted the local government that something a terrorist was firing deadly spells off in an ice-cream parlor, because right after Butler had ensured that the Death Eater in question would not be throwing any magic around for a good long while, wizards in purple robes began to swarm.

“Ministry of Magic,” I murmured to Artemis. Then I gave my charge a once-over, looking for any obvious injury. He couldn’t be much better off than I was, right now, everything everywhere hurt. Then I realized what I should have realized earlier, the second we began to hide behind the giant office plant. “You’re taking this all rather well.”

Artemis shrugged, and pointedly didn’t take the opportunity to monologue.

I narrowed my eyes. “Get thrown into magical portals everyday, do we?”

Artemis simply raised an eyebrow at me. Which, no. We’d spent enough time together during his TA block that I knew the difference between “being aloof because he thought school was beneath him” and “being aloof because he didn’t want to answer what really should be a simple question about his life.”

This was absolutely the latter. Maybe what I had mistaken for vampiric immortality was the sort of battlefield maturity one would get from being a child veteran of the wars of Narnia or Middle Earth or Camelot or someplace equally fantastic and violent. He clearly had some involvement in something magical. Whatever it was, it wasn’t standard wizarding.

He turned away from me and began to look at different things in the Alley. Wand Shops. Broomstick Shops. A bookstore with an ad for a new guide to Potions. A sweetshop where bon-bons doing the can-can in the window. “Is this a world of magical humans? Like wizards or magicians?”

“Sort of,” I said, thinking of all the giants and mermaids and dragons my mother had told me as a child.

“Are you a wizard?”

I winced. “No. My parents are. It passed me by. It happens occasionally. Rarely.”

He turned back to me and focused on me, really focused, in a way that I’d never seen him do before. I didn’t know what he was looking for. A reason to keep me around, maybe. He waved a small hand at Butler, without looking away. “Are you going to get into trouble for bringing us here?”

Yes, I thought. Even as an adult largely divorced from the magical world, I knew how seriously the Statute of Secrecy was taken. Azkaban was the punishment for wizards; for Squibs, a powerful memory charm that re-wrote your earliest memories.

My hand began to shake. The rest of my body soon followed. I’m going to lose the last bit of magic I have, that I know.

Butler quietly joined us.

I won’t even know my family anymore.

“The Ministry of Magic—the wizards in purple,” he added, for Butler’s benefit, “Are they the ones that enforce the laws?”

And the ministry won’t even let my parents contact me. I’ll look at them, and I’ll see strangers.

Artemis snapped his long fingers in front of me. “Hey. Hey. What color is the sky?”

“Blue,” I said, through unfeeling lips. God, I wouldn't even remember why everything in my body hurt right now. Multiple fights, going into shock at least twice, running for my life. “Blue.”
I heard that they don’t even let you keep your real name. “Blue,” I rasped.

“Blue,” agreed the teen. He grabbed both my shoulders. “I need you to tell me right now what to say. Don’t worry about me–I’ll sell it. Just tell me what to say so you won’t get in trouble.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I managed. “They’ll just read your mind.”

Artemis and Butler gave each other a long look. “Is mind-reading automatic?”

“No.”

Artemis nodded, decisively. “Then we just have to give them a reason to not read minds. Be as open as possible, tell a simple story that everyone wants to hear that no one can refute. What’s the best reason why three people with no magic would be in a magical alleyway?”

Slowly, my brain came back online. This was good. This was fine. Someone else, even if it was a teenager that was apparently not a vampire and not going the kill me with the help of his Butler was taking over. All I needed to do was help get us three out of this and back into the Muggle world, back to the school, back to a normal life of budgets and burnt coffee. I dragged this oddly competent teenager that I was responsible for and his family servant into my mess, and, even if Artemis had threatened me to get me off campus, which, looking back, knowing what I know now, did he really, I was the adult. I was responsible for him, and I needed to get him back to the school in one piece.

“All three of us are Squibs,” I said. "All three of us are Squib friends. We were having dinner together when we got attacked. We panicked, then came here. Diagon Alley."

“Squib?” asked Artemis.

“People from magical families raised in the magical world who don’t have any magic of their own.”

The teen nodded, quickly. “What’s the level of connection between this world and the, um, normal world?”

“The Muggle world,” I clarified. If we were going to pull this off, then he needed as much terminology as possible. “It's not completely closed---there's some overlap. Kids from non-magical families with magical kids—muggleborns. Squibs like me. Some people have jobs that mostly interface with the muggleworld.”

“Can Squibs from other parts of the world speak to each other?”

“Yes,” I answered. “They do, all the time.”

“What about Squibs from Russia and China?” asked Artemis, which seemed oddly specific. “Any bans, travel restrictions, anything like that?”

“I don’t know of any, but I don’t exactly keep up with the magical world. They do their thing, I do my thing.”

Artemis patted me, as if I was the child and he was the adult, then stood up, catching the attention of one of the Ministry wizards in purple searching the area. “Are they gone, are we okay?” he called out, in what sounded like Russian-accented English. “The ones in black, are they gone?”

Two of the wizards in purple peeled off and approached us. One looked faintly aristocratic, with pointed features and a long nose. His partner couldn’t have been more different, with a squat hearing, thick glasses, and a general messiness that seemed to infect everything around him.

The short one tapped the three of us with his wand, and a thin purple light covered the three of us. Impressively, neither Butler nor Artemis reacted, which was impressive, and spoke to a level of control under extreme stress that I would think about later when I had the time and space needed to crash out.

“Clean,” the short wizard said.

The tall one nodded. “Names?”

Before I could pipe up, Artemis was already reaching into his pocket. “I myself am Stefan Bashkir. This is my uncle, Colonel Lee. We are visiting, exploring."

He provided an ID, and Butler did the same. And either those ID’s backed up what the teen had just said, or it was some sort of psychic paper like on Doctor Who because both Ministry agents did a tiny nod, they type of gesture all government employees make when all the paperwork lines up and everything is exactly as expected. They then turned to me. “And you?”

“Edward Prewett,” I said, watching for the recognition. I got it. “I’m a Squib, and so are my friends. They wanted to visit Diagon Alley. We were just coming in when Death Eaters attacked us.”

Both wizards exchanged a look. I crossed my mental fingers. Nothing to see here. Just a Russian teenager and his Chinese friend in the military, who just happened to also be friends with a shaking Brit in a lumpy sweater with at least five scrapes on his face.

“You were just hanging around the entrance to Diagon Alley when Death Eaters came out of nowhere and attacked you?”

“We were not, how do you say, hanging around,” said Artemis irritably. Butler grunted his agreement. Clearly, this was a routine the two had done before. “We were lunching in Dublin with Mr. Prewett before exploring your Diagon Alley. We were attacked when we got close to the entrance.” He turned to Butler. “Your English is better than mine. You explain.”

“Your English is fine,” reassured the tall one.

“Men in black cloaks attacked us,” said Butler/Colonel Lee severely. “Do you know who they are?”

“I think they were Death Eaters,” I broke in. I didn’t have to fake my fear, exhaustion, or confusion. “They chased us through the Door. Colonel Lee saved us. We need to tell everyone to stop using the Dublin door. People need to know it's not safe.”

The two looked at each other, then ushered us to a more discrete corner of the building’s lobby. Artemis and Butler looked at me, and I nodded. They probably didn’t want the wizarding public overhearing our conversation.

The short one did a different scan on the three of us. “Squibs,” he confirmed. “Nothing beyond trace magic in any of ‘em.”

The tall one cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. From what Yaxley just told us, whoever fought back wasn’t using magic.”

Then he yanked out his wand and fired a green spell straight at Artemis’s chest.

Chapter 13

There was a moment of absolute silence as everyone in our curious little group watched the green light strike Artemis’s chest, fail to find any sort of purchase, then slide off his body harmlessly, like rain off a glass window. Artemis looked as surprised as I’d ever seen him, but he was a difficult read, and I no longer entertained any fantasies about understanding him at all. I knew Butler even less, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was caught in a moment of secondhand shock at the sudden switch from harmless diagnostic spells to something so obviously dangerous. There were the wizards too---I now has serious doubts about them actually being from the Ministry----who had just seen a powerful spell broken by someone they believed to be a Squib.

And then there was me.

I had questions. A lot of them. About Artemis, magic, the wizarding world, and maybe worlds I didn’t know about. But I could ask them later. What I knew in that moment was that I was a teacher, responsible for the children placed in my care. And now I was also a witness.

The moment ended, and my body moved.

I grabbed the tip of the tall wizard’s wand and flung it as far as I could, then swung my fist into the side of his head. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t neat. But it was unexpected, and it gave me room to shift my weight and throw my full weight at his robed midsection.

We crashed into the marble flooring together, and it took much less time than I hoped for him to recover. He grabbed at my head, then my neck, then the collar of my jumper, trying to whip my head into stone. He succeeded, once, and the my temple burned with pain. Then my legs kicked in, and I buried them in his stomach, the advantage of his height completely lost now that we were scrabbling on the floor together. I got a second knew into his stomach, and that must have been the moment that he remembered that he was a Death Eater, that he had come to Diagon Alley to kill someone, and that, in a moment of Slytherin preparedness, he had brought a knife.

I didn’t see it, not in his clothes, not in his hand, not even the moment it plunged into my gut. I didn’t even have a moment of realization like they do in the movies, when the hero sinks to the ground, a splotch of red spreading out from the point of impact. I was just on the ground one moment, fighting, and on the ground in the second second moment, feeling acutely uncomfortable.

Acutely uncomfortable. How very British.

The tall wizard raised the knife again, but he never got the chance to stab me a little more lethally. Instead, his shorter friend was bowled right into him, like a ball into a pin, and in the last moments before blood loss took me out of the equation, I was treated to the beautiful sight of Butler clapping both into unconsciousness.

***

When I woke, I was floating in a cloud. Which was nice, because I’d always wanted to be in a cloud. It was drier than I thought, and smelled of lemons and warm stone.

“Hmmmm,” I hmmmed happily. “Hmmm.”

The clouds parted and a medi-witch poked her head in. “Welcome back, Mr. Prewett. How are you feeling?”

“Fluffy Clouds are nice,” I said. “Soft.”

The witch gave me a smile, but it seemed a bit strained, which was weird, because she should be just as happy to be in the clouds. “I’m sorry?”

She pulled out her wand and waved it at me. A purple symbol materialized above my head, along with a red one over my torso. “Oh. Well, that explains that.”

I hmmed at her happily, then fell backwards into the clouds.

***

“Mr. Prewett? Hey, hey, I just need you to swallow this, and then you can go right back to sleep.”

The witch-in-the-clouds tipped something into my mouth. It was cold and tasted a bit like the matcha lattes that the St. Bartesby’s kids love and I despise.

“Good, good. You’re doing great.”

I swallowed, then tried to push myself up a little, only to find that I was too tired to do anything but look around. This time, my surroundings looked a little less like a cloud and more like an infirmary. I looked down, and felt a wave of disappointment.

“I’m not in a cloud,” I said, feeling a bit dumb.

The medi-witch smiled. “No---,”

“I’m in a dream,” I told her firmly. “You don’t have to help me, ‘cause…’cause I’m in a dream.”

The medi-witch pulled out her wand again, and the same two symbols appeared. However, this time, the red symbol above my torso was a lot fainter.

“No, no, no,” I said, trying to make this dream-medi-witch see the uselessness of healing me. “This is a dream, so you can, I don’t know, help other dream creatures. Like sheeps.”

“What makes you think this is a dream?” the witch asked. “How do you know this isn’t real life?”

I tried to gesture to myself, but all I managed to do was plop my hand onto my chest. Stupid dream. “This is a dream…because I only wear robes in dreams.”

Message given, I closed my eyes, and wished on all the sheeps for a restful sleep.

***

The third time I woke up, I knew where I was. I was in some sort of infirmary in the magical world, complete with thin white sheets, privacy curtains, lemon antiseptic, a table with a glass of crushed ice. I was calm, warm, and absolutely on the best painkillers I’d ever felt.

I cleared my throat. “Hello?”

Chairs were pushed around, and then Artemis Fowl II yanked the curtains back. The teen had two steaming mugs of tea in his hand, and he handed one to me. I propped myself up into a sitting position and took it. One splash of milk, one sugar cube, just how I liked it.

I closed my eyes and focused on how nice it was to drink tea, to be able to drink tea, to feel its warmth and comfort flooding my body. I took a second sip. Just as good as the first. Then I wrapped both hands around the mug and just held it.

“Nice uniform,” I said.

Artemis looked down at himself, seemingly caught off guard. “Oh. Yes.” He straightened the blue and bronze tie around his neck. “Once we got to the school, they confiscated everything I was wearing.”
“The school?”

A wizard that could only be Albus Dumbledore—the Albus Dumbledore---appeared behind him. “Hello, Mr. Prewett. Your cousins tell me that you are a teacher yourself in the Muggle world? How wonderful. From one educator to another, it is my absolute honor to welcome you to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

A/N: Told y'all Prewett was gonna get stabbed.

A/N 2: Yes, there will be an explanation for how Artemis survived a killing curse. No, he is not Boy Who Lived Part 2---I have a much simpler explanation in mind that will propel the last leg of this story.

A/N 3: Yes, I put Artemis in Ravenclaw. The reason why he got sorted at all will be explained later, but for everyone interested in the reasoning: he’s…just not a Hufflepuff, and he’s too jaded to be in Gryffindor, even if he does think that the ideals of Gryffindor are important. Books 1 + 2 Artemis would absolutely be Slytherin. However, as the books go on, Artemis is ambitions and cunning, but he uses said traits in pursuit of new inventions, investments, and objectively projects. No Slytherin would ever go “Hey, my Mom is sick…I’m going to jump into the timestream to solve the problem, along with a few other ones while I’m at it.” That is some teenage Ravenclaw insanity right there. Plus, if you gave him one word to describe himself with, it would be “genius.” Which is something that would be more important to a Ravenclaw.

Plus, for what I have in mind, putting Artemis near the Slytherin house, even as a background plot, would bring everything to a screeching halt.

Chapter 14

The painkillers weren’t just the best I’d ever had---they were the best anyone had ever had. And I knew this, because I didn’t immediately pass right back out after meeting Albus Dumbledore.

Much as I preferred to forget all the magical expectations that filled my mind as a child, it was hard to forget, or even get away from a figure as pervasive as Albus Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore; Headmaster of Hogwarts, leader in Transfiguration studies, influential alumnus of Gryffindor House. Albus Dumbledore, head of the Wizengamot, member of the International Confederation, political icon in pro-Muggle, pro-magical creature circles. Albus Dumbledore, face of the My First Wand guide, hero of the My Adventures with Mermaids radio special, and the most common card in my childhood collection.

I wondered what had happened to my collection. Mum stopped my from burning it when I was twelve, and I haven’t seen it since.

Finally, my hazy mind realized that he was waiting for me to answer, and that I had been staring for an awkward period of time. “Pleasure,” I responded casually, as if I hadn’t been recently found out my TA wasn’t a vampire but was tangling with rock-monsters from other worlds, fought Death Eaters, broken the statute of secrecy, gotten stabbed in Diagon Alley, and was now at the very school I’d been barred from as a child. “It’s…it’s a pleasure.”

God, these painkillers were great.

He beamed at me. “The pleasure is all mine, my boy. If the school year weren’t in full swing my now, I would be placing an order to Kitchen for a full pot of tea and scones, so that we could have a proper chat.”

I tried not to focus on the crumbs and morning mist dotting his velvet robes.

“However,” the old wizard continued, “not only is the school year in full swing, Hogwarts is about to begin the hosting of the Triwizard Tournament. We will have wizards arriving from our French and Eastern European sister schools, to engage in a bit of competition and cultural exchange. As Headmaster, there are many meetings about this that I cannot skip, no matter how boring they are or how badly I wish to.”
He placed his hand on Artemis’s shoulder, who had been uncharacteristically quiet this entire time. “Mr. Bashkir has assured me that he will watch over you. And he isn’t the only one---your friend Mr. Lee, Mr. Connell from Muggle Relations, and your cousin, Mr. Weasley is also here.”
He gestured generally behind the curtain, where I imagined an entire council was waiting to judge my actions.

“Rumors are swirling, and stories are spreading. I’ll leave you to prepare for the official statement you may have to make to an authorized investigator. I’ll likely have to make. I’ll try to catch up with you after dinner.”

With that, he backed out of the curtained-off area. Nobody spoke until we heard a door slam shut.

Artemis immediately threw the curtains open, and I saw the rest of the school’s infirmary. It didn’t look too different from the one at St. Bart’s: a few beds, a clean scene, large windows, rolls of bandages, piles of neatly folded terry cloths. Butler in one of the far chairs, also dressed in wizarding robes, and it took me a few beats to recognize that they were darker and more tailored than mine. It took me a few more beats to process that someone had transfigured our Muggle clothing into wizarding robes, creating overcoats, shirts, and trousers out of our respective jumpers and tailored suits. Tom and Arthur were on the other side of the room, wearing the purple robes of the ministry.

And in the middle, on his own, as always, was me.

Artemis pressed his fingers together, as if he were an adult calling a boardroom to order. He looked towards Tom and Arthur. “What did he mean by an “authorized investigator?”

Well, no one could say the little pain wasn’t direct.

“I don’t know if that’s what we need to--,” began Arthur, and Artemis immediately turned away from him and looked at Tom. “Is it a legal classification?”

It was nice to sit here, tucked in a bed, too comforted by painkillers to be upset, and watch other adults have to deal with the absolute nightmare that was Artemis Fowl.

Tom gave him an eyebrow, then answered, “Yes. It’s someone who is authorized to ask questions and testify before the Wizengamot.”

“Which is?”

“It’s a mix of a legislative body and a court of law. It makes binding decisions.”

Artemis tapped his two pointer fingers together. “Can just anyone become an authorized investigator?”

“No,” said Arthur, and I realized that subtly, he was now taking cues from Tom as to how to talk to Artemis. “You have to be a member of the Wizengamot itself, a member of what wizards call the Sacred 28, or an Auror.”

“A wizard police officer,” Artemis clarified. At Arthur’s nod, he moved on. “What’s the Sacred 28?”

“Basically nobility,” answered Tom, before Arthur could respond. Knowing my cousin-in-law, his answer would have been long. “And before you ask, Arthur is a member, and so is Prewett over there, but he’s a Squib, which cancels out his ability to testify.”

An average teenager might have balked at that. But Artemis went to St. Bart’s, which tended to admit people who either had muggle titles, or didn’t have them because they dimply couldn’t be bothered to buy one. Everyone there spoke the language of privilege, and no one would have questioned why some people were gifted opportunities while others were shut out for no real reason other than birth. And beyond that, Artemis was one of the most pragmatic people I had ever met, even factoring in adults. He wasn’t the type to grandstand about the unfairness of the world; he just accepted it as a current reality and moved on, making a mental note to possibly revisit the problem later.

There was something in there to be uncomfortable about. I’d wait until the meds wore off.

Artemis turned back to Arthur, then looked at his patchy robes. “Will this Wizengamot ask you to testify?”

Unlike Artemis, Arthur was genuinely idealistic. But he also knew how snotty the wizarding world was, and the sort of people who would arrange the investigation of Aurors attempting to kill people an unimportant as Squibs. “Probably not, no. Dumbledore, though, he’s the man they might ask.”

Artemis nodded, satisfied. “So we need to have our stories straight by the time he comes back.”

“Yes,” I said, managing to work up a bit of anger at the teen. He’d put us all in this position, after all. Sort of. “I think we do need to start telling stories. And explanations.”

Artemis opened his mouth, probably to say something that would force me to punch him, student or no, but Butler stepped in. “Artemis,” he warned.

Artemis sat back.

“So, the only reason I’m involved at all is because Ed here asked about you,” Tom said, pointing at Artemis. “And when whatever happened in Dublin happened, Ed texted me again, and I began to grab a few friends who wouldn’t mind handling something a little bit of the books. And then we all hear that there are Death Easters in Diagon Alley chasing a bunch of Squibs. By the time I got there, Ed was out of it, other Ministry members were trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of Squibs that had just beat up wizards---which, by the way, will be used to justify harsher measures against non-wizards, thanks for that---and I had to explain to a few people how I knew that there was about to be trouble with Squibs.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Artemis, intrigued by the chaos he had unwittingly caused.

Tom gave him a dirty look. “The truth. That a friend of my Squib brother texted me, saying that something bad might be going down and I didn’t want to get the Ministry involved if it turned out to be nothing.”

Maybe they’d formed some sort of antagonistic relationship while I was out. Or maybe he’s a normal human being who is too annoyed to keep treating Artemis with kid gloves.

Arthur butted in with his customary paternal kindness. “I just want to say, I’m glad you aren’t a vampire. That would have been right messy.”

Artemis sputtered, then swiveled around to face me. I tried not to cringe. “Just how many people have you,” here, he began to count on his fingers, “one, talked about me with, and two, told I was a vampire?”

He seemed more upset about the former than the latter. “Just these two. And Molly, I guess.” I craned my neck around so I could see Arthur properly. “Does Percy count?”

Arthur considered it. “Nah.”

“Arthur and Molly are my cousins,” I told Artemis, as if I had any reason to defend myself at all. I wasn't the one who made a game of acting incredibly conspicuous at every opportunity. “I just wanted a second opinion about if it was possible you were a vampire. They said, ‘Maybe, but get more information.’”

Butler mumbled something from the other side of the room.

“So I waited and got more information, and went to Tom. And then he said, ‘Maybe. But get more information.’ And then a few weeks later, you came into my office, and I thought you were threatening me into leaving to Dublin with you. And now, here I am. With a stab wound. Tell me where I went wrong here. Tell me, the muggle accountant whose involvement in this entire mess boils down to reporting concerns I have about a student that I was forced to supervise so that he could get a TA credit, how I am at fault."

“Why…why would you think I was a vampire?” asked Artemis, incredulously.

Butler coughed. It wasn't in Artemis’s defense.

“Because you are so creepy that I actually went to wizards to make sure that you were just creepy, and not an eternal creature of the night,” I said bluntly. “You speak like you’re an adult. You disappeared for years and didn’t age. The school nurse told me that you’re always in her office with a migraine during full moons. I barely see you eat, and I never see you outside. You asked for permission to enter my office until I gave you blanket permission to enter for TA purposes. People get a weird tone in their voice when they talk about you. Forgive me for being concerned about the possibility that you had been attacked by a vampire and your family was covering for you.”

Artemis actually looked a little taken aback, and I felt a little bad about maybe touching on something that he was sensitive about. Then he asked, “But if you thought I was a vampire, capable of casting dark magic and, I don't know, drinking your blood and turning you into a thrall, why did you come with me to Dublin?”

I’d love to say that it was the meds forcing me to be so unprofessional. But the warmth from the mug was seeping into my hands, I was safe, I was talking about magic to people who didn’t have a problem or diminished expectations of me due to my Squib-ness and Albus Dumbledore had just told me that I was a “fellow educator”. So I think I was just beginning to crash out.

“I want you, Artemis Fowl, to rewind in your head, our conversation in the office.” I said. “I want you to remember exactly what you said. Now, imagine you are me, and a possible vampire tells you, and I quote, ‘I hope you will willingly come, I don't think Mrs. Wilde will willingly come.’ What do you do, to ensure that your colleague doesn’t get, oh, what’s the word--,”

“Exsanguinated,” said Butler, helpfully.

“Butler,” said Artemis, wounded.

I snapped my fingers at Butler. “Exsanguinated.”

Tom put his head in his hands. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake—”

“But then why did you then help out in Dublin?" Asked Artemis, mood bubbling dangerously close to frustrated, "Why not just let the dark creature get zapped into oblivion by those Death Eaters?

I didn’t even have to think about the answer, which, looking back, is how Artemis knew it was true. “Because you are a child.” I said firmly. “And I’m an adult. And that’s all there is to it.”

“Even if you were a vampire,” Arthur broke in, looking sadder than I’d ever seen him, “That wouldn’t be a reason to let you die. You being a vampire...that’s a reason to help you.”

Artemis just stared at him.

I don’t know what I looked like in that moment, but I think I was as sad as Arthur. And I didn’t dare look at Butler. I didn’t want to.

Finally, the teen cleared his throat. “Our story.” He made the same snapping motion at Tom as I had at Butler a minute earlier. “Your version of events has witnesses that aren’t Death Eaters, so lets stick with that. Mr. Prewett here was visiting Dublin with two Squibs, myself and Butler---,”

Tom raised his hand. “Back up. What did happen in Dublin?”

“None of your business,” Artemis and Butler said in unison.

I looked at where the knife had gutted me. “I actually think it is my business.”

“You aren’t the only group with a…oh, what’s the term you use, Statute of Secrecy? Let’s just say I invoke that, but for another group.”

Tom began to object, but Artemis waved the point he was about to make out of the air. “If you want me to promise on something important, I will, but I will say this: what was going on in Dublin, the reason I needed to be in Dublin, had everything to do with The Other Group, and nothing to do with the wizarding world. The only reason Mr. Prewett was even there was because I received an alert that something catastrophic was about to occur in Dublin, and I needed to get to Dublin as fast as possible. I could not leave school to Dublin without an escort, which is why I asked Mr. Prewett to accompany me. There is simply no compelling reason for me to talk about the Other Group, other than to say with complete certainty that they are not involved.”

Tom raised his hands. “Look, I appreciate that you think that this Other Group doesn’t have any ties to the Wizarding World, but, with all due respect, you’re wrong. The Death Eaters were lying in wait for you.”

“Then it had to be from your side,” Artemis said firmly. “I mean, apparently half the wizarding world was discussing me and my blood-sucking habits.”

I ignored the dig and took a sip of my mug. “Before we start the pissing contest, I think we do need to know: are you a member of the Other Group? Because you never actually said. And that might be relevant.”

Artemis blinked, just then realizing that he hadn’t actually mentioned this crucial detail. “No, I’m human. I’m just friends with a few members of the Other Group.”

Interesting, I thought. Even the most arrogant pureblooded wizard wouldn’t deny that Squibs or Muggles weren’t human. Sub-human, less-human, less-worthy, maybe, but not non-human. So whoever this Other Group was, there was a clearer distinction.

I thought about the pride Artemis took in being Irish. I thought about hills, and other worlds. I thought about rocks, and places where time didn’t move linearly, full moons and creatures that needed permission. And suddenly I had a new suspicion. And unlike last time, I’d keep this one to myself.

Before the others could catch the teen’s slip-up, I said, “Are you sure that no one in the Other Group is in contact with the Death Eaters?”

“Not likely,” Butler interjected. “I’m not saying that there couldn’t be a traitor to the Others in play. I just don’t think, given the unexpectedness of the Dublin issue to begin with, that a real, substantive message could have been sent from a traitor to the Others to the Death Eaters.”
Artemis tugged on his striped tie again, and I wondered why he was in a school uniform instead of a robe-version of the St. Bart’s uniform. "Devil’s advocate?”

Butler scooted his chair closer, and I wondered how many times they had done this. What Artemis's non-St. Bart's life was like.

“An…Other gave information to Death Eaters about the, ah, newcomer’s arrival, and that’s why they were in Dublin.”

“The Death Eaters didn’t seem overly interested in the newcomer we met in Dublin. They were interested in the three of us.”

“Maybe it was a ploy to draw you and I out?”

“Easier ways of doing it.”

Artemis jerked a thumb at me. “A way to draw Mr. Prewett out?”

“Far, far easier ways.”

“So it wasn’t about the creature in Dublin, it wasn’t about our involvement with the Others, and it wasn’t about Mr. Prewett,” Artemis mused. “What about the location? Would they have attacked anyone in that location?”

I looked at Tom and Arthur, who both shrugged.

“Alright,” said Artemis. “Back to the point. Here’s the story: A while ago, Mr. Prewett talked to you, Tom, about a suspicion about an Irish student he has. You told him to wait, watch, and tell you if he saw anything else weird. Unrelatedly, he wanted to spend time with two Squib friends of yours, a Mr. Bashkir from Russia and a Mr. Lee from China. We were having a fun time in Dublin, about to visit Diagon Alley. When everything went to absolute hell. You got us into the Alley, we were followed, and then Death Eaters tried to kill us. Simple and to the point. And it’s one we all have to remember, because when we tell it to Dumbledore, and then he tells it to your Wizengamot—,”

“----And the Wizengamot reviews Dumbledore’s memories of our testimonies,” put in Tom, agreeing with Artemis for once.

“---It has to ring true,” Artemis finished. “Is everyone in agreement about what happened?”

Everyone nodded and sat back. I frowned, feeling as if everyone was forgetting something important.

I might have remembered whatever was bugging me if the doors to the infirmary hadn’t been thrown open, and a trio of Gryffindor kids around Artemis’s age hadn’t rushed, two of them supporting their dark-haired friend between them.

Arthur jumped to his feet. “What’s going on here? Harry?”

The girl gave a little wave to Arthur and repositioned her unconscious friend. “Neville was practicing a Wide-Awake potion in the common room. It exploded, and then did the exact opposite.”

Arthur ran over to help the kids get their unconscious friend into one of the beds, and as he did so, I realized that the redhead was one of Arthur’s kids, Randy or Ronald. Once you get a certain number of cousins, you stopped keeping track.

“We tried rennervate,” the girl chattered nervously. “And then a general healing potion. We didn’t want to try anything else wi…where’s Nurse?”
She looked around the room and lit up. “Oh! Hello! It’s Mr. Connell, isn’t it?”

Tom gave her a smile. He was no longer Tom, the tired Ministry worker caught up in something messy; he was Mr. Connell, a young professional in the Civil Service. “Miss Granger, right?” He turned to me. “Miss Granger has reached out to our office about programs for Muggleborns. She’s one of the brightest witches in her year.”

Miss Granger blushed, and now that the dark-haired kid was settled on the bed, Arthur turned around with a proud smile on his face. “Not just in her year, mind you Mr. Connell. Dumbledore says she’s set to be one of the brightest witches in the entire age, bar none.”

Ron got himself disentangled from his unconscious friend. “Dad!”

Arthur smiled and pulled him in for a hug. “Ron. Remember your cousin, Ed? Your mum’s second cousin?”

I gave a little wave. Ron gave me a confused wave back.

“He’s here after a bit of a misunderstanding in Diagon Alley. Just healing up.”

The girl looked straight at Artemis, and I saw the gears in her head turning. “So you must be the Squib in the Alley with him! Malfoy’s usually full of absolute garbage, but sometimes there’s a bit of truth to it all.”

Artemis held his hand out. “Stephan Bashkir.”

I could tell the accent threw Tom and Arthur—hah, see what I have to deal with---but the girl simply beamed and took his hand. “Hermione Granger. That’s Ron, and that there on the bed is Harry. And wow, that’s a Ravenclaw tie---are you staying for a while?”

Before I could jump in and say something along the lines of no, never, we want the wizarding world to remain standing, why would you invite the worst person everyone knows to the most chaotic group everyone knows, etc, Artemis straightened up, and the full consequences of being unconscious when some initial decisions were made came to haunt me.

“It’s nice to meet you Miss Granger. While Diagon Alley was…what’s your word for it…apologies, English is my third language..”

Kill me now, I thought.

“... Unusual and, um, frightening, your Hogwarts has been very nice. Very welcoming. And until the matter is resolved, Mister Dumbledore has done a very nice thing and asked me and my friend Mister Lee to stay.”

Chapter 15

A bit of timeline cleanup:

The first few chapters of this fic (Edward’s first day at St. Barts, having dinner at the Weasley’s, meeting Tom at the pub), all take place over a week. The “incident in London” happens towards the end of October. I’ve been writing this fic with that timeline in mind…and then realized that I never actually made that clear. (These are the types of mistakes that are made when you write a fanfic over a period of years and some chapters are posted without any editing whatsoever and others are meticulously checked against earlier chapters and wikis. I disgress.) So, the Triwizard Tournament has been announced, but Halloween has not happened yet. Hope that helps!

The nurse came back a few more times in the afternoon. Each time she did, the runes above my injuries glowed fainter and fainter until they barely showed up at all.

“Two of these before you go to bed, Mr. Prewett,” she said, pushing a few tinctures into my arms, “and two in the morning, before you eat anything. After that, you should be right as rain.”

“Thanks,” I said, and placed them on my bedside table. Each dose was in a corked glass bottle with bits of sediment collecting at the bottom. It was hard to picture them in my cottage’s medicine cabinet, perched right alongside the Tylenol, Advil, and Zoloft. I felt my fingers unconsciously begin to search for my messenger bag, phone, laptop, all the things you grab when finished with your Doctor’s appointment.  “Am I officially discharged?”

The nurse looked supremely uncomfortable at the question, and a quiet suspicion about Dumbledore’s conversation with Artemis was confirmed. The Headmaster’s statement that we were ‘free to stay’ was simply a polite version of not free to leave.’

I counted to three, and took a deep breath.  Artemis and Butler may be used to secret missions and magical stunts on the weekend, but I wasn’t. I did exactly as I was supposed to---told the Ministry about a suspicious situation and watched out for my student to the best of my ability. Anything else—anything Death Eater, Hogwarts, Wizengamot, inter-magical world politicking---anything like that, was none of my business and out of my pay grade. I’d made sure there wasn’t a rogue vampire turning muggle children, I’d stopped Artemis from getting murdered, and I’d gotten healed up. By literally anyone’s measure, I’d done my part, my due diligence, and should be allowed to go back home to Dublin, go back to pretending that magic didn’t exist. But I couldn’t just say that---you couldn’t just mouth off to a wizard, even if your anger was entirely justified. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale--

“Mr. Prewett’s work…his jobs…his boss…waiting to speak to him,” said an accented voice, interrupting my building anger. I opened my eyes, and saw the nurse turn around to stare at Artemis. The teen gave her the wide-eyed look of an innocent teen, trying to be a grown-up and care about things like work and travel buddies. “Due to the…oh, what’s that word that you English like…struggle-fight in Diagon Alley…we cannot…we have not…made calls. Told people things. Hidden things.”

Stefan began to shake his hands at Butler, asking for Butler’s Colonel Lee, who apparently had a much better grasp of English, to communicate his meaning to the nurse. In turn, Colonel Lee nodded sagely, full of understanding, and said, “My friend is trying to say that if we are to stay, we must be given the opportunity to make arrangements in the muggle world. Or else people are going to wonder where we are.”

Stefan Bashkir nodded. “Secrets important. Life important. Both important.”

This was ridiculous. Surely no one was actually falling for this little show. Surely someone would remember that Stefan Bashkir’s accent hadn’t been this thick an hour ago, or that Colonel Lee had been a fairly passive individual up until now, rarely inserting himself into any conversations or discussions. Stupid little skits like this were just dragging our already too-long stay here out. I tried to make eye contact with Tom, to somehow tell him with my eyes to end this now so we can start working on getting us out of here but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was staring at Artemis, as if he was just beginning to figure something important out.

Colonel Lee placed a comforting hand on Stefan’s shoulder, the absolute picture of a mentor comforting his stressed pupil, then tilted his head in, as if inviting us all into a conversation. “We really don’t need much time---Stefan just has to call his brothers, and Mr. Prewett and I need to talk to our bosses about using our vacation time. Paperwork, you know.”

It was the last comment that did it. Magical or mundane, nothing is more universally unpleasant than a bureaucratic backlog, and there are few humans who wouldn’t give up the shirt on their back to spare another red tape or an overlong queue. She stood up a little straighter, gave us a little nod, and said, “I’ll speak to the Headmaster for you. He’ll know what to do.”

***

Our Dumbledore-approved babysitter was much more helpful than anticipated. When told that the great wizard was sending “a personal friend of his” to help me pack up a few of my belongings, I pictured an out-of-touch gasbag dripping in velvet and jewels that wouldn’t know how to ride the Tube if his life depended on it. Instead, we were apparated into my cottage’s living room by a younger man about my age with thin robes, fading hair, and a gentle voice utterly at odds with the extensive scarring all over his body. I liked him immediately, and I could tell Artemis did too, because the teen dropped his “confused Russian squib” act right after the five of us---myself, Artemis, Butler, Tom, and the man landed appeared right on top of my unmade bed.

“He was going to figure it out anyway,” the teenager had said, with a shrug, stepping right off the bed, completely unfazed by the teleportation. “And the point isn’t really to hide who I am. The point was to provide a consistent story in front of someone whose memories the Ministry might view. Where do you keep your duffels?”

I looked at the man who had introduced himself as Remus Lupin, who was hiding his surprise at the Russian teenager’s abrupt transformation into an Irish aristocrat well. “Is Hogwarts temperature controlled?”

He shook his head, bemused.

“It’s right in the closet,” I told the teen. “Along with all my jumpers, if you wouldn’t mind grabbing a few.”

Tom jumped off the bed right after Artemis. “You have any motion sickness tablets? John says he always needs them after spending more than a night in the wizarding world. Something about the barriers messing with the skyline.”

I suppose John, his squib brother who made his living guiding tours up Everest, would be rather sensitive to minute changes in environment. “In the cabinet.”

Butler and Remus stepped off the bed last, and I took a minute to appreciate just how weird our little group was. Artemis, an rich Irish teenager who danced between the magic and mundane with careless finesse; Butler, a world-class martial artist who followed Artemis to hell and back for some unknown reason; one of Dumbledore’s friends who no doubts had ties that went all the way to the top of the wizarding world; Tom, a scrappy wizard with more anger than magic who would (if what I heard in the groupchat was true) punch his own superior in the face if it meant stopping the Ministry from messing with Squibs.

And then there was me. An accountant.

Butler tapped Tom’s shoulder and motioned to the door. “I’ll show you where the headmaster is.” He then turned back to me and said, “If anyone asks, Artemis got violently ill while in Dublin. This upset you very much, because you are a very good employee who realizes it’s a bad thing when your student is puking blood, and in your concern, you called his parents. His parents were so thankful that when they decided to take their darling don to the fancy resort they always go to while a family member is recovering from sickness, they asked you if you wanted to come. The Headmaster will feel very bad for you and give you all the days off you need without counting it against your vacation.”

Artemis nodded sagely. “I feel terrible.”

Remus lifted an eyebrow at Artemis, intrigued. “A resort?”

Artemis shrugged and grabbed my favorite fleece-lined jumper before placing it in the duffle. I felt touched that he recognized which one I wore the most. “It’s not the sort of place that will give out names when people call---oh, that’s mine.” He pulled his mobile out of the dress pants he’d been given as part of his Hogwarts uniform. “Hello, Captain.”

I didn’t know what language the person on the other end of the line was speaking, but I didn’t need to in order to understand that whoever it was, they were pissed. I winced in sympathy, but Artemis, who probably lived most of his life being seethed at, just grinned.

“Just a second,” he said, pressing the phone’s speaker to his shoulder, then looking at Lupin. “I’m assuming you have a translation spell, yes?”

Remus nodded and raised his wand, but Artemis lifted his hand to stop him before the man could cast. “This spell---is it a universal translator, or is it limited to certain languages?”

Remus titled his head, thinking the answer through. “In theory, it’s limited to languages that the spell has seen before. In practice, since wizards all around the world use it, it is unlimited.”

Artemis nodded his thanks and switched over to the language that the person on the other end of the line was using. “I’m being watched, but their translation shouldn’t extend to Gnommish. What’s going on?"

Any fondness I had for the teen at him remembering which jumper my favorite was evaporated upon, once again, being kept out of the loop. I wouldn’t be able to use my laptop or cell phone at Hogwarts, so I angrily grabbed some binders, papers, pencils, and calculators---all the things I’d need to be able to do my job by hand. I was packing my stuff up because of him---the least he could do was keep me informed.

Remus didn’t join in my anger—he merely shrugged, although I saw a bit of thoughtfulness flicker through his eyes at the language switch, and I remembered that one did not become a “close personal friend of Dumbledore” by being an idiot. He wasn’t pushed away so much as he chose to disengage himself, walking over to my bookshelf, perusing the titles.

“Well, I didn’t love the idea of leaving the demon in the trunk, but when you get chased into a world of human wizards, your options are limited.” 

I guess it wasn’t the worst idea to bring a few books. I didn’t have my full collection here, but there were a few things on the shelf I’d been meaning to get to, and if being forced to stay at Hogwarts as a non-magical adult wouldn’t get me to read them, nothing would.

Remus tapped my one-pound copy of The Possessed. “I rather liked this one.”

“You read muggle fiction?”

“I don’t usually live in the Wizarding world proper---I mean, other than a stint at Hogwarts last year. I spend most of my time in a cottage not unlike this one in Yorkshire, and, funnily enough, the little village bookshop doesn’t sell magical scrolls or arcane tomes.”

I turned the fat volume over. I didn’t even remember buying it. “What did you like about it?”

“They want me to stay for a bit, but they’re letting me out to grab a few things. Clothes and such. Yes, of course I’ll take one of Foaly’s trackers, who do you take me for? Yes, if you can get an Iris-cam in my bedroom in the next hour, I’ll wear it.” (3)

“It’s about a group of friends in an isolated town who, because of an artificially heightened political atmosphere, are persuaded to murder one of their own,” said Remus. “I read it in a week, convinced that the author was a Squib, or a wizard writing a warning to the muggle world. But then I spoke to the shop owner, and it turned out that it wasn’t about wizarding politics at all. It was about the Russian revolution. But mostly, it was about humans, and what we do to each other, and how great ideas and great speakers and great faces let us minimize death into nothing more than a mass grave.”

He placed it in my hands, then stood up. “If you have to pick.”

Behind us, Artemis to be making his voice artificially light. “Of course I’ll bring you a souvenir. I saw a candy shop while I was there, so maybe a bag of exploding, troll-shaped truffles.” (4)

The teen said a few more words that I could tell we some form of parting, then hung up. Without missing a beat, he dialed a second number. “Mother, I’m sick---no not really. But the school is going to call and ask.” He looked at Remus. “I cannot speak for long, but someone is going to drop by and explain.”

Remus looked at me, completely askance. I shrugged. Let someone else deal with the little terror for once.

I rooted around my embarrassingly messy cottage for a bit longer, tossing in toiletries and personals anytime I came across them. Artemis got off the phone a few minutes later and, to his credit, did an admirable job both arguing with Remus and organizing my duffel so that more items could fit.

“Of course you’ll be informing my parents where I am,” I heard Artemis say, in the sort of way most of his peers did when informing us less-well-off teachers about what we would and wouldn’t allow them to do. “Do you normally kidnap minors and force them to live in school and learn magic without informing their parents where they are? Why is my situation different?”

And on and on they went. There was no way to tell Remus that Artemis argued with everyone, even the people he ostensibly liked, and that the fact that he was letting counterpoints be made was Artemis’s version of friendship. At some point, the argument was somehow settled, and Artemis showed that he had, in fact, been eavesdropping on myself and Remus’s earlier conversation, by asking Remus about his “brief stint at Hogwarts.”

“I was the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher,” the man said. He paused. “Until it came out that I am a werewolf.”

Before I could open my big mouth and ask something hugely offensive like aren’t most of the werewolves on the side of the Death-Eaters? Artemis waved his fingers at me. “Did you know?”

I shook my head.

He looked at Remus. “Is it supposed to be obvious?”

Remus huffed. “No.”

Artemis threw up his hands in complete disbelief. “So you had no idea Remus here was a werewolf---even though he is one, and its apparently common knowledge, but you thought I was a vampire, to the point that you told people in the wizarding government about it? Unbelievable.”

***

Once we got back to Hogwarts, Remus offered to round up a few of the children he once taught---the same kids we’d seen in the infirmary earlier, apparently---and give Artemis and Butler a tour of the school.

Before I could ask to join, Tom announced to the others that he wanted to show me, an old friend of his brother, the Quidditch pitch and pulled me outside until we reached a well-manicured field that reminded me a bit of the American football my uni roommate forced me to watch.

I’m not as smart as Artemis, but I knew he didn’t want to talk about a sport that I stopped caring about after eleven. But it did seem to be one of the farthest points away from the castle, so I went ahead and asked why I was still here, and hadn’t been hustled back into the muggle world, or, if they were generous, a muggle hospital right after the fight in Diagon Alley.

“I’m a Squib,” I pointed out dryly.  “There’s no way you Wizards actually care whether I live or die.”

Tom didn’t argue. He knew better. When I was a teenager, his brother Luke had come down with a particularly bad case of pneumonia, bad enough that his parents had contacted the Ministry and asked if a Healer could help. The Ministry didn’t even pretend to think about it before saying no and giving an absolute bullshit justification about resources. Luke survived, but after that, stopped coming to Squib meetings for a while, preferring to live entirely in the Muggle world for years. It was only after Sampar ran into him at St. Andrews and got him good and drunk on some spiked Butterbeer that Luke rejoined our loose-knit group and added himself to the group chat. And given his veiled references to how Tom felt about the entire situation, I had a feeling that Tom wasn’t too precious about the Ministry’s honor.

“We—the Ministry---don’t care,” he confirmed. “About your health, I mean.” He spat. “But we can’t send you back to the Muggle world, not with all these questions in the air. The Aurors want to know why you and two unknown Squibs were the targets of Death Eaters and the Ministry wants to know how a Squib was able to deflect a Killing Curse.”

He kicked at a few flowers growing on the pitch. “You’d think the concern would be on the “Killing Curse” bit, but well, you know.”

I did know. “They want to know how a Squib got the better of a Wizard.”

Tom pointed his finger at me in agreement.

“So, why Hogwarts? Why not, I don’t know, a hotel or something?”

“Compromise. The Weasleys offered the Burrow, but some purists at the Wizengamot said that “living with blood-traitors would improperly influence your testimony about the wizards that may have attacked you,” Tom answered, giving a pretty passable imitation of an incredibly snotty politician. “Which then started a fight between the usual suspects. Which then led to Dumbledore offering up Hogwarts as a place for the three of you to stay until everything got sorted.”

We began to lap of the pitch.

“So, like, what’s his deal?” Tom finally asked, clearly looping around to Artemis. “Like, we all know he’s not a vampire. And we,” he gestured at the two of us, “know he’s not actually a Squib, that he just found out about magic a few minutes before getting swarmed by the Ministry. And he’s taking it all really, really, really, really well. You’d think he’d known about this all along, that’s how well he’s taking it. Him at that Butler of his. They just nod at everything. You’re going to have to stay here? Sure, just let us provide excuses to the Muggle world. You have to stay at a magic school? Sure, can you grab my Muggle schooling so I can do both?”

“He’s just like that,” I assured him. “He truly does not give a single thought to what anyone thinks about him.”

“And his butler?”

“Literally nobody knows.”

***

This chapter was rough to write. It went through nearly four drafts before I just threw up my hands and decided that I hated everything and it just needed to be posted. I hate to write such an OC-heavy chapter, but I think it is needed to inform the last little arc of the story. 

 

Notes:

On the Artemis Fowl Timeline: In between TLC and TTP
On the Harry Potter Timeline: In between PoA and GoF.

Apologies in advance for any obvious Americanisms. Love how I keep writing fanfic for Irish and British series.