We didn't light it but we tried to fight it

Sabina glanced at Claudia. Although she'd sent out the invitations, all she recognised were names. How could this vagabond possibly know anything about the workings of the Ministry?

"Vincent Majere," Claudia murmured behind a hand.

"I expect you'd know all about corruption, Mister Majere," she spoke up for the rest of the table to hear. "We know all about your policies while you were Headmaster at Hogwarts."

Ne'Os returned Vincent's look. Ne'Os had hated this man since the day he met him. It seemed that the man had a talent to be anywhere big things would be happening. He supposed that was something they shared. The thought of having anything in common with him made Ne'Os sick.

He gave the waitress a smile when she stopped at him "Bring me a glass of wine love I've already eaten," he said enjoying watching the girl's face pale at the thought of him feeding on someone.

"Oh he knows he is corrupt," said Ne'Os to the table "He holds similar company as I do. Which leads me to ask. Why invite people known to be lets just say on the darker side of the magical world?"

He leaned to the side slightly so the waitress could put his glass of wine in front of him. He took a sip and let the taste sink in before swallowing. He waited patiently for the conversation to continue.

Caelani smirked. Ne'os Emof was like a fifteen year old boy who'd just saved up enough money to buy a leather jacket or something. He had a chronic urge to keep bring up how badass he thought he was.

"Why not?" she asked. "At this point, it's not like you're any more of a threat to us than the Ministry itself."

Neville was starting to see how stupid this sounded. They all were sounding like kids. He admitted even he was sounding like this. They weren’t going to work like this. They can argue like this all night and nothing will get done. You may not like someone but in this situation you just deal with it, he was going to try. He may not be able to work with some of these people outside of overthrowing the Ministry but he could do this.

“Enough, we are sounding like a bunch of two year olds. We are all here because we all believe the Ministry needs to change. We need to work together otherwise it will fail,” said Neville. “To be honest if we want this to work we do need the media on our side and we have to win over more people because this is a rather small group to take over a government. I might be able to get one more person but I can’t guarantee that he’ll do it,” he said.

Vincent scowled at the woman. He recognized her, having seen her a couple times at the auror department. "I suggest you pay attention to real facts, Wandsworth, rather than just what the media tells you," Vincent replied, keeping his voice polite, but glaring coldly at her. "I would say that I have spent half my life working against corruption, although I'm sure some would tell you otherwise."

Vincent almost chuckled at Neville's lack of subtlety, he certainly hoped no one was overhearing. It was lucky the place was so crowded. "It is not possible," Vincent said lazily. "You'd have to get through quite a few aurors, convince the Wizarding World of our cause, and I suspect Jess Potter and his friends won't be too pleased either. Meanwhile, none of you have any power to speak of." Maybe if the Death Eaters were still around... They had always been useful pawns.

Dear Merlin, it was just like the Death Eaters all over again. When she was younger, Caelani had thought it was because wizards like Majere and Emof lacked imagination. They needed new, more innovative people to show them the light.

Now she realised they were just really jealous of anybody with more power than them, especially if that person was a woman.

"By all means if it's that impossible, leave us," she said. "I'm sure if you went and told the Ministry that story they could even find some decent clothes for you to wear for being such a good little mole."

She turned to Neville. The former Order member was sweet, but his concern was misplaced.

"Oh, sweetie, this is normal. Trying to deal with dark wizards is like trying to herd cats. You'll get used to it eventually. And I thought the media was on your side?"

Neville glared at group. He could just walk out right now and not look back. He could fallow Ernie and Susan to a different country. He had no ties to England. The Order meant nothing to him anymore. He knew how to handle dark wizards.

“If you are talking to be I’ve handled dark wizards and witches for a very long time. I’ve been in more duels then I would like,” he said hoping he didn’t sound like a jerk if it wasn’t towards him.
“If you’re talking about Susan I will not use her like that to she has made it clear she wants no part of this. She doesn’t want her life on the line anymore. She’s already been attacked once, she’s even leaving the country,” Neville stated. He was starting to see that he was going to have to get support because this group was way too small. “This size of a group doesn’t stand a chance. If this is going to be the size of the group I should just walk out now and keep death threats away from me,” he said. He knew from experience that a small group going up against a large group will lose with great amounts of deaths.

Sabina cleared her throat, Caelani's cue to shut up and let her handle the situation.

"Gentlemen," she began placatingly. Calli had never learned the value of pretending to be submissive.

"I suspect you are both labouring under a misapprehension. You haven't been asked here in an advisory capacity, nor because you are the only allies we have. You're here because we don't know whether we can trust you. Why else would we choose this particular restaurant?"

She held a portion of chicken aloft on her fork and spoke again before delicately slipping it into her mouth.

"You didn't imagine this was the entire extent of our operations, did you?"

Franklin helped himself to his food, only eventually speaking when the media was brought up by Neville. "The media, or the daily prophet anyway, has recently taken an anti-ministry angle," informed Frank, who was responsible for the change. It had certainly boosted readership; Ordinary people weren't very happy with the ministry after all.

"Since we control the opinions of people to a certain degree, all we need is a little spark to get things going. The Ministry is weaker than it appears, and if the people actually protested against Mr.Lupin, his resignation would come quite quickly."