France smells of cold stone and orderly gardens — a country that prefers its chaos folded into neat envelopes. Itachi met me in the Minister's antechamber, cloak pulled close as if to hide the single motionless shard of night that is his presence. He had the look of a man who'd already rearranged several inconvenient facts to favour him; I enjoy that look.
"We've tightened security protocols," he said, voice soft as paper. "Contracts in place, fronts established. The Auror headquarters in Paris will make an excellent training ground if we can control the leadership."
I smiled at the simplicity of it. "Control the leadership and the rest will follow the rhythm. People are sheep if you teach them the right songs."
We walked through the ministry together. Marble, brass, and the faint hum of bureaucracy: the machinery I prefer to oil rather than break. Itachi's appointment has given us more than titles — it had given access. Doors that were once reluctant now opened like sleepy mouths.
In the ministerial office I laid out the plan. "Make the Auror Office a training corridor," I said. "Replace the overt missions with drills that mimic crisis response. Slip our instructors into the rotation. Normalize our curricula. We will build loyalty under the guise of professional development."
Itachi inclined his head. "I have a candidate in mind for the head of the Aurors. He is exacting, proud, and predictable. He will do as asked if persuaded that it is in the Ministry's interest."
Persuasion is one avenue. There are others. I did not relish bloodshed or spectacle; finesse is my métier. But sometimes the world requires a finer edge.
We arrived at the Auror headquarters mid-morning. Officials hustled as if small emergencies were the only thing keeping the world from dissolving into gossip. I walked straight to the head of the Aurors — a man of broad shoulders and a narrower mind, the sort who trusts forms and procedure. He stood to greet me; he bowed because etiquette still matters, even in a war.
We exchanged the polite phrases. He was earnest, blunt, good at boxes. He did not know the shape of the knife I held. He had not expected it.
Itachi stood beside me, and for a long heartbeat he simply watched. Then, with a motion as quiet as a closing book, he offered the man a memory — not by explanation but by gentle, inexorable suggestion. I will not describe the mechanism; to speak of method would be to instruct. What I will say is the result: the Auror chief's eyes unfocussed for a fraction, and when they refocused the man smiled with a new, very particular calm.
"Sir," I said, low, "we need a programme to elevate readiness. We need drills that mirror the worst-case scenarios and a cadre of specialists to teach them. Will you support a pilot scheme in Paris?"
He nodded. "If it improves performance, yes. I will implement it." He sounded relieved at the choice he thought he had made.
The thing about leadership is this: orders cascade. A head who believes in a policy will ensure its particulars are executed by the people beneath him. Loyalty follows routines. Routines follow good reasons. Give men a reason they want to believe in, and you have them.
Within weeks the Auror Office became my training ground. Official memos — stamped, bureaucratic, bland — requested 'temporary partnerships' with outside specialists. Those specialists were my instructors, men and women taught in my rooms and sworn to my causes. The drills were realistic enough to test skill and ambiguous enough to condition obedience. We taught containment not slaughter, rescue not reprisal; it was a moral language the public would accept and the Ministry could not reasonably refuse.
I watched as it unfolded: officers signed up, rotations were scheduled, promotions quietly favoured the names in our ledger. Itachi kept his hand light. His work is the move no one notices until it is too late.
There were moments, of course, when a man hesitated. A lieutenant balked at one exercise's moral framing and asked questions that made the room uneasy. We handled him as men handle small obstructions: a reassigning, a gentle suggestion of career benefit elsewhere. It is remarkable how little resistance remains once you give an alternative that does not feel like punishment.
In the evenings I would meet my core and report progress. "The Auror Office is responding to incentives," I told them. "We've placed trainers, set curricula, and steered promotions. The minister believes this is necessary for national security. And the man at the head of it believes he is acting in the public interest."
Tam nodded, quiet approval like a blade acknowledged. Arianna's eyes glinted; she liked the precision. Itachi, as always, stayed a motionless question in the corner of the room.
We had to be careful. Dumbledore's Order watched with hungry eyes. If we appeared to co-opt the Aurors openly, we would become tyrants in the press and martyrs for their cause. So we kept the face of it legitimate. Rescue drills. Civil protection. Disaster response. The people who read the headlines would applaud the Ministry's improved readiness, and the very people applauding would be the ones who learned to follow my instructions without ever knowing why.
The war I intend to fight is fought on many fronts. This one was not a clash of spells but of institutions. Replace the guards and you change the law. Change the law and the people living under it change with it. The Aurors would become a force trained by my methods, taught my priorities, and loyal to the narrative I controlled — not because I had forced them into it with cruelty, but because I had given them a mission that suited their better instincts and calibrated their obligations one small step at a time.
When I left Paris, the city glittered wet and sharp. We had taken another chess square without blood spilled in the streets. Progress is measured in the quiet; the noisy tidings belong to men who mistake volume for substance.
We are moving pieces into place. The war will begin when the public believes it has to begin. Our job is to make that belief inevitable.