He was supposed to be in bed. No, in a hot, hot shower, scouring the blood and dirt from his skin. No, even better! He was supposed to be stuffing his face with roast turkey and mash, eating until his stomach threatened to explode.
But no. Ronald Weasley was sitting in the Headmistress' office, picking at a scab on his face and waiting to be updated on the situation. He really needed to request some time off.
His two best friends, Harry and Hermione, flanked him as he slowly tried to dissolve in his comfortable seat, silently willing his body to descend into the soft velvet lining and become one with the universe. McGonagall paced in front of the trio, worrying etched into her slightly-lined face. She absentmindedly pushed back a few strands of grey hair, and Ron was suddenly back at the first day of school, when her hair was jet black and her face severe but unwrinkled. Time changed everything.
"I have called you here today," she said abruptly, whirling to face them, "because there is an important operation underway. Not," she continued, fluttering her hands at the trio's protesting faces, "anything that has to do directly with you, or even the war. But because this affects Hogwarts, and thus to a good degree, Mr Weasley, I thought it would only be fair to let you know before they arrived."
"They?" asked Hermione. "Who are they?"
"You have heard of the Codex nominis, Miss Granger?" questioned McGonagall, turning this time to look out the window. On the wall, the portrait of Dumbledore suddenly looked very intent on the Headmistress' face.
"Yes, of course," said Hermione, looking slightly confused. "The Codex nominis, or the Book of Names. It's the book where the names of all magical children are written down for Hogwarts."
"Correct," said McGonagall, striding to the window and putting her hands on the sill. She stared into the night, apparently absorbed in watching the stars flicker. "What else do you know about?"
"Well," started Hermione slowly, "there's not much more to know. The Codex is pretty simple and practical; there's a bewitched quill that automatically detects the birth of all magical children all over the UK, extended to a few kilometres off-shore. All cultures in the magical world have them; the Chinese call theirs the Shu Ben Ming Dan, the Romanians the Carte de Numi, or roughly the Book of 'those' to be called. Not all countries have them, because some are too small to have their own schools, and some countries have more than one, like France or the United States."
"What's this got to do with us or Ron?" asked Harry, speaking for the first time. Ron slumped further into his chair, not wanting to hear about his latest batch of responsibilities. It wasn't that he minded doing work- he was older now, and this was war- but he really needed a few days off to unwind. What came out of McGonagall's mouth next, however, made him sit straight up in his seat.
"Our books are infalliable," the older witch said softly, her head drooping slightly, "but we are not. Some of the children written in our books never make it to our schools."
"Well, yeah," said Harry thoughtfully. "I imagine some parents don't want to let their kids go."
"There is that," murmured McGongall, pointedly not looking at the portrait of her oldest friend, "but there are some we miss. They never recieve a letter to go to a magical school. The Muggleborns, I mean, not the magical children- they can recieve training at home. But some never get the chance to attend."
"How?" asked Hermione weakly, after all the information had sunken in.
"People move," said McGonagall, turning around and limping to her chair. "And if they move too far away, the schools cannot reach them. It's always been rare for a child to move so far away that a letter cannot reach them by owl, but it happens. If a Muggleborn child is born on one continent, or far enough away that letters get lost or owls get too tired when they move, the school and Ministry, by law, cannot push the issue. If someone does not recieve their letter by the Monday before they are to begin school, they are never informed."
"What happens to them? Why haven't we ever heard about this?" demanded Harry angrily.
"For a long time, after we removed ourselves from the Muggle world, we did not know. We did not see, in our arrogance, that there might be children that we missed. We didn't find out until a little while before the 1500's," said McGonagall tiredly, burying her hands in her face. "And when we did find out, the Ministries of the world all agreed that they should never find out, because it is difficult to train people in magic as they get older."
"How did we find out?" questioned Ron, suddenly alert.
"There was an incident in France," sighed McGonagall, putting her elbows on her desk and resting her chin on folded hands. "A group of pureblood elitists attacked a Muggle village. One boy, around the age of eighteen, managed to bring down the roof of his house on their heads and set it ablaze, killing them and saving his village. It turned out that the boy had been born in England, but had crossed over to the Continent a short time thereafter, and his letter never made it to him."
"But our owls go across the channel all the time," frowned Harry thoughtfully.
"Yes," said McGonagall, "but your owl doesn't have several hundred letters to deliver in a general area. Some children also die, Mr Potter, and so for a long time, we merely thought those children passed away."
"So what's these kids and the books have to do with me, and indirectly with the war?" asked Ron tiredly, trying to be polite. McGonagall smiled at his slightly.
"I know you're tired, Mr Weasley, so I'll make this brief. These children have always been known as the Degarés; in English, the Lost Ones. Very few in the Wizarding World know of them; the Wizengamot are the only ones who always know what they are- other Ministry officials are alerted of their existence from time to time." She blanched at the thought of what she had to tell them next, but continued on, steel wrapping itself around her words. "The Death Eaters have learnt of the Degarés, and we have learned that they are planning on tracking them down and killing them. To be blunt, I'm going against the Minister's 'suggestions' and taking them to safety. I have here a letter," she said, gesturing to a piece of parchment, "that states that all Degarés that could be found, have been found, and they are being sent to safety. Ten of them will be coming to Hogwarts for protection."
Ron turned a fetching shade of green.
"And yes, Mr Weasley, you will be tasked with overlooking them. They're all adults," she added, "the youngest of them being 19 and the eldest is in their fifties. I'm not asking for you to be their baby-sitter, but I will need you to keep them in line, and probably introduce them to some concepts within the Wizarding World. They will recieve nominal training in different subjects, none of which will concern you. However, we are going to keep their secret a secret, for lack of a better term, so they're coming here under the guise of added security, so you will have to draw up patrol schedules. When they arrive, I expect you three to help them find proper rooms and such, and help them get acclimated to life at Hogwarts."
Ron frowned; his favourite chair had been taken by none other than Alastor Moody, and he was forced to lean against a wall, trying to smother his yawns with varying degrees of success.
Across the room, a group of adults were huddled in the corner, most of them looking to be suspended in an air between excitement and different levels of illness. They kept looking over their shoulders furtively, glancing at the assembled group of Order members and Ministry officials who littered the rest of the room. There was a thick feeling of discomfort in the air, radiating from both crowds.
Ron barely paid attention as McGonagall began her speech, explaining the situation to those who had been unclear on the whole matter. He watched wearily as each of the newcomers stumbled across the floor, until they formed a small mass in the middle of the room. They began to introduce themselves, nervously giving their names and ages and other random bits of information that Ron only half-heard. He counted the group, and frowned. There were only nine, and he was sure that McGonagall had said ten. A flash of bright colour caught his eye as the group began to dissapate, and he saw that standing between a tall tan boy and a sickly-looking older man was a girl, the only one, who matched his glance with a blank look.
His first impression of her was that she was very short; she barely reached the shoulders of some of the other people grouped around her. The second was that she had red hair, the cause of the flash, although it wasn't nearly as bright as his, and that she wore hers in a loose bun. The third was that she wore boys clothing; she seemed to be drowning in piles of dark denim and cotton fabric. But the thing that really got his attention was her face; she looked as if she had eaten very large rocks that morning, washed down with shards of glass and brambles. He'd never seen anyone, male or female, with such a hard, stony face.
"What is your name?" asked McGonagall, firmly but kindly, smiling at the short girl.
"Cprawper," she mumbled, staring at her sneakers. McGonagall frowned and asked her to repeat herself.
"I said my name was Copper," she said loudly, and Ron was taken aback at how high and scratchy her voice was.
"Well, Copper," came the gruff voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt, "tell us a bit about yourself."
The girl sighed and fidgeted, lacing her fingers together. "I was born in Virgina," she started, making a face at the blank looks around her. "It's one of the states in America. The colonies," she clarified. "I'm nineteen, have graduated from school, I worked at my dad's sports store in Leicester. I like to play football, I work out sometimes, I like to smoke. There's really nothing else." She looked back down at her feet, her slightly tanned skin clashing badly with her red hair.
Ron began to drift off again as the next person, a gawky, hatched-nosed lad, began to give his name and other bits of personal information. He dozed as McGonagall thanked them for coming and then explained exactly what would be happening for the duration of the war.
The Lost Ones [Ron noticed that the girl bristled when addressed as so] were to be trained, as he had been told before, to a small degree. They would be placed in any empty rooms of their choosing, given a small stipend for their troubles, and would officially be at Hogwarts to help with security. As she wound down, McGonagall smiled softly.
"And with that out of the way," she said, "let us mingle and get to know our new guests." With that, the two ranks broke, and the Order members and staff began their interrogation of the newcomers. Harry and Hermione intercepted the rather ill-looking elderly man, but Ron was content to laze against the wall and slowly but surely begin his descent into oblivion.
He was daydreaming of his mother's mash when he was bumped into, forcing him to stand upright. "Sorry," mumbled the red-haired girl as she brushed by him, heading towards the exit.
" 'ey," he said crossly, grumpy from being woken. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Professor McGonagall said we could go find our own rooms," she said curtly, bending down and searching through a pile of bags Ron had overlooked. "I'm going to go to my room," she continued, picking up a battered-looking knapsack and an worn leather satchel, "and settle in. I'm tired."
"Oh," muttered Ron, feeling bad for snapping at the girl. "Here, hold on a second, I'll help you find one. Hogwarts is a maze." The girl looked at him thoughtfully, then nodded. Ron grabbed Hermione's sleeve and told her that he was escorting one of the Lost Ones to their room. She nodded impatiently, adding that she and Harry were planning to take Ron to the Three Broomsticks later, so to hurry back, and Ron herded Copper out of the room.
They walked in silence for a while, the girl staring off into the distance and Ron trying to bring up some sort of light-hearted conversation between the two of them. Finally, Ron turned to Copper, clearing his throat.
"So," he said genially, "what do you think of Hogwarts?"
She turned her head towards him, her hazel eyes sharply considering him as she began to formulate a few questions of her own.