[center][b]2nd December, 1999 – Aldenberg Manor
David Howell[/b][/center]

For the past few months, they had been quiet. There had been few leads to go on, since they were unable to know what sources to trust and, David suspected, because they could not face any further losses. The anonymous Death Eater was set to change that, he supposed: the potential for a true, reliable source at the heart of the cancer was a tempting one, and no mistake.

Even Aldenberg had given up the fight for caution, as far as the man could. From the moment the meeting had officially ended, he had abruptly stood up and started making his own contributions, arranging with Kyle what intel they required. David, whose function was less apparent, retreated to his room.

David had been among the Ashes since its very conception, a sort of heirloom passed on from the Order. He had been involved in this war over half his life, now, and he had seen his fair share of the toll. Even the mansion in which they nowadays lived reflected it. Its internal magics created bedrooms for its guests as they were needed according to its own sense of Aldenberg aristocratic logic. The Host, the Infirm, and the Women were provided proper lodgings, and the less-esteemed Everybody Else was to be found off in the East Wing, where Aldenberg had once commented that the house-elves used to reside. Counting their number was as simple as counting the bedroom doors. At one point, David had seen Dhillon’s door melt into the wall in front of his eyes, swallowed up into the house - just hours before Ronan broke the news that he had fallen in battle.

His room was a simple affair, and there was frankly little that could be done with it to improve it. Apart from, perhaps, giving it a good clean: the bed had literally not once been made during David’s tenure, and he had taken to sleeping around the large crystal ball at one end, so as not to have to find somewhere else to store it: the writing desk, the room’s only other real feature, was covered in almost more teacups than it could support, many of them in stacks of six or eight. The others did not trust Divination. He had been asked enough times, especially at Hogwarts, to simply make a prediction, as though the future was written in the sky and plain as day for all those with the right sort of telescope. Needless to say, whenever he tried to explain that it didn’t work like that, awkwardness had ensued.

Still, for all his head’s misgivings, he had a good feeling about their potential source. It was as though there were two possible versions of events, one door leading to good fortune, and the other to ruin, and only the good door was open. Put more simply, he had a good feeling about it. Of course, he hadn’t bothered to tell the others about it. Without some evidence, a good feeling meant little to them, although, to his count, he had been right many more times than he had been wrong. To try to glean a little more, he gazed into the tea leaves of his most recent cup, but couldn’t make out anything out at all beyond dregs in a cup. With a groan, he realised that he was literally predicting the existence of some tea: the rendezvous would be, after all, at a café. Insight wasn’t always especially helpful.

There came a sharp knock at the door. [i]One-two-three.[/i] The signature knock of Albert Aldenberg - one didn’t have to be a seer to know he was at the other side. Sure enough, there he was in the corridor, eyes only just visible below the low doorframe. 

“Yeeeeeees?”

“You are with me tonight, David. We will observe from a short distance, and if anything is amiss, we cast nothing but shield charms. It will be close quarters and we can’t afford friendly fire. Understood?”

“Yep. Do nothing, hope for the best. If sub-best, we’re on damage limitation.”

“That is not how I would have put it, but yes, in essence. We’re leaving in ten minutes. Be ready.”