Tom stepped out of the public fireplace in the Atrium, and several more people came through behind him a moment later.
It was Saturday, but the Ministry was no quieter for it. People moved in every direction, many of them dressed in styles that had no business being called British. Foreign wizards, quite a few of them, and more than usual.
Exactly as he had expected. News of the Picquery massacre had not taken long to travel.
This was not simply intimidation. It had moved something in people, stirred thoughts that had been sitting still. Since his escape, Grindelwald had operated with a directness that bordered on contemptuous. MACUSA had been ground face-first into the floor, repeatedly, and the best the Magical Congress could produce in response was newspaper columns and wanted posters. The bounty had climbed to five hundred thousand Galleons now, dead or alive.
It read more like a punchline than a threat. The separate reward of a thousand Galleons for actionable information was, if anything, the more credible figure.
Under the weight of Grindelwald's demonstrated strength, certain people had begun to move. The seesaw had shifted. The left side stayed quiet for now, but the right was already lifting. Former allies and unfamiliar new faces alike had begun quietly reaching out to old veterans like Rosier and Vogel. But without word from Tom or Grindelwald, none of them dared act. They sat in their homes and waited and did nothing visible.
Which made the French Ministry deeply uncomfortable. Obvious movement from Rosier and his circle would have actually simplified things. It would have given the Ministry grounds to act first. This perfect stillness was far harder to manage. Moving against them without cause would only drive them into open opposition.
Other countries were caught in variations of the same problem. They hesitated. They held back. And in holding back, they found themselves stuck.
Tom passed through the wand security checkpoint and made his way to Level Two.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was, by any honest accounting, the most powerful department in the Ministry. Arthur Weasley's Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office sat at one end of its sprawling reach, Wizengamot Administration Services at the other. Factor in the Aurors and Hit Wizards, and the department accounted for more than a third of Ministry staff, closer to half. It was probably why those two offices had been separated out in the first place. Without that division, the Head of Magical Law Enforcement would have outweighed the Minister himself.
A Ministry employee led him to Bones's office.
Inside, Bones was bent over a stack of documents, quill moving steadily, showing no sign of having slept. Across from her, settled comfortably into a chair with a cup of tea, was the leisure-loving Mrs. Greengrass.
"Good morning, Auntie."
Tom greeted his future mother-in-law first, then sat down and helped himself to the food without ceremony.
"I'm asking the two of you." Bones set down her quill. "Could you manage even a small amount of sympathy for someone who has been at this since last night?"
"Nobody made you," Mrs. Greengrass said, without particular concern. She slid a plate of what she considered the better pastries toward Tom. "What's so rewarding about all those documents? Even if you read twice as carefully and sign ten times as many, is a stack of paper going to help anyone catch Grindelwald?"
"It'll come down to Dumbledore in the end, won't it."
Bones smiled tiredly. "With certain things, the result isn't what matters. What matters is the attitude you demonstrate along the way. But you already know that. You just can't be bothered."
They were close friends, and entirely unlike each other. Bones was the kind of woman who worked as hard as anyone in the building, harder than most, and had earned the genuine respect of nearly everyone in her department. Mrs. Greengrass had taken a different view of things. Power was temporary. What she valued was family stability and the uninterrupted continuation of the family line. Because she never competed, never scrambled for position, no faction with ambitions could afford to alienate her. They courted her instead.
Neither approach was wrong. They were simply different.
Watching the two of them eat with apparent contentment, Bones conceded and joined them. Between bites, she outlined what Tom could expect in the meeting ahead.
"Besides Fudge, several other Ministries have sent representatives. We're providing the room, mostly. The actual negotiations are yours. Their situations differ enough that any joint discussion will only get you broad strokes. If Crouch were here, it might be different."
"It's fine." Tom shook his head. "In business, you don't try to extract the very last Galleon. I know that."
Bones looked at him for a moment.
He was thirteen. He spoke like someone who had spent two decades watching people make the mistake of not knowing when to stop. Even plenty of grown wizards never arrived at that particular understanding. She found herself briefly wondering whether being raised in an orphanage had something to do with it, whether difficulty early on simply accelerated certain kinds of thinking.
She considered, in passing, whether it might be worth discussing with the family. Raise the next generation of Bones children in an orphanage for a decade, then bring them home.
She decided against pursuing the thought.
At nine o'clock, Bones walked Tom to the conference room herself. Mrs. Greengrass had no intention of giving herself extra work, and trusted that Tom was not going to let himself be taken advantage of. She returned to her office and resumed her peace.
"Mr. Riddle."
"Mr. Riddle, it's been a while."
"Mr. Riddle, you really must consider our country this time. We had an understanding at your teacher's banquet, didn't we?"
Tom glanced at Bones, then turned back to the room with an easy smile.
Her intelligence work left something to be desired. These were not simply Ministry officials. A good portion of them were existing business partners, the same people who had been asking him for months when he planned to open branches in their countries, now having apparently decided to come and ask him in person.
"Rest assured," Tom said. "I'll do my very best to make sure everyone leaves satisfied."