The night is dark...I don't own any of this except the plot and those folks I invented. There is a long
Author's note at the end.
Chapter 10: The Hunt for Red
****************************Malfoy Manor******************************
5:20 am
August 3, 2012
A loud BOOM echoed through the house as the front door exploded inward. Instantly a team of Aurors spilled into the foyer of the house. A small house elf clothed in the Malfoy house colors of black and silver went flying backwards as crimson stunner bolt impacted his chest. Ten black-cloaked figures fanned out, and sounds of stunners echoed off the walls as another house-elf, the companion of Spinner, Draco's new house elf, was stunned in the kitchen.
"What the fuck, are you arseholes doing in my house?" Draco snapped as he tumbled out onto the second floor landing, his wand in hand. "PROTEGO" a red bolt, then another, whined off his shield. At the bottom of the stairs, a hooded figure waved the wands down.
"Draco Malfoy" the Auror announced, "we have a warrant for your detention." The rest of the Aurors fingered their wands anxiously. "It was signed by Warlock Springbolt of the Wizengamot this morning." The Auror dropped his hood to reveal the wiry gray hair of Dawlish.
Draco's gaze grew calculating, "let me get dressed" he replied with a sudden air of acceptance. Dawlish agreed with a nod, and sent two of his Aurors to wait outside of Draco's bedroom.
Returning to his bedroom and closing the door, Draco quickly threw on a pair of worn jeans and a t-shirt, and tossed a dark robe on over that. With a glance at the door, Draco went to the back of his walk-in closet and waved a hand over the back wall. A small door slid open and he flipped a switch. A small, glowing device sat in the hidden compartment, along with a small bag of Galleons, a stack of muggle cash and various identifying papers. None of the papers were emblazoned with the name he had been born with. Draco pocketed the cash and papers. Reaching into the back, he pulled several weapons from the innards of the hidden safe and secreted them about his person. A loud knock hammered at his door, and he knew he was out of time. With a final, bitter shake of his head, he touched the glowing object and vanished in a fall of color and a rush of sound.
A second later the Aurors at the door got tired of waiting and broke it down. Curses were shouted out the door as they found an empty room waiting for them.
**********************Hogwarts, SG1 Headquarters************************
7:30 am
A bleary Sirius Black sat in company with Harry, Hermione, Fred, George, Ron, Luna Shawn Asten, Albus Dumbledore and Tonks around the briefing table. With a glance around, Hermione flicked her wand at the walls. The doors to the room shut and locked, and a white flash briefly lit the room. "Securus" Harry said as he touched a small orb set into the white tabletop.
Yellow beams shot out from the high corners of the room, sweeping the space. The beams paused on each person before continuing on. After they had finished examining the room for invisible adversaries. None found; Harry motioned to Tonks and Sirius. Sirius didn't waste time with preamble, not today, he went right to the heart of the matter, "early this morning, a rump session of the Wizengamot, that did not include the Chief Warlock due to possible conflicts of interest, removed the investigation into the status of Agent Weasley from the jurisdiction of SG-1 and associated personnel. Further..." Sirius paused a beat "a no-knock warrant was served on Draco Malfoy, for questioning as he is her normally assigned field partner." Shocked muttering greeted his words.
Tonks took up the refrain bitterly. "It seems that the warrant that was issued was issued over the signature of Warlock Springbolt." She gestured towards Dumbledore. He sighed and looked at the rest over tops of his joined hands.
His light blue eyes were troubled as he carefully considered his words, "I was not considered to be impartial in this case. As to Warlock Springbolt...he was not supportive of Arthur's election to Minister."
Tonks nodded, "as well, Lupin, Alastor and I were not notified about the warrant or the decision of the court as we are also considered tainted with our familial relations, until after the decisions had been made. Well technically Mad-Eye isn't related..."
She shrugged and then her dark eyes grew hard. "As of 0535 hrs GMT, Draco Malfoy is considered a fugitive, and full arrest and detain orders have been issued for him in Great Britain and all British territories, as well as requests for detainment in all allied countries. Warrants were also issued be served on Grimmauld Place, Godric's Hollow and the Burrow for the detainment of all senior members of Special Group One." She smiled grimly, "However due to the fact that the vast, vast majority of the Auror and MLE personnel in general, told them to go to hell, shortstopped that effort. And as soon as we heard about the efforts, about twenty minutes after Draco's took flight unfortunately, we squashed the warrants. If Draco had just let himself be taken in... "
"He couldn't Tonks." Hermione snapped, "You know damn well that SG operatives can't afford to be taken into custody. Especially him, after the threats against him."
"Yeah I know." She replied and took a sip from a mug of black coffee at her elbow. "Unfortunately the investigation of both Draco's flight and Ginny's status is now directly in the Minister's hands...or rather should I say in his special investigator's hands." Using her cup as a pointer she indicated Sirius who just nodded.
"Yeah, Harry I learned last night about Ginny's new status, but I didn't know about the raid. I was coming here in the mourning to discuss finding her, but..." Sirius looked at Harry helplessly. Harry nodded and sighed. "Additionally," Sirius added, "I am being overseen tightly by Dawlish and several other Aurors, I can't half-arse the investigation like Kingley did when they were hunting me." Harry nodded again and closed his eyes tiredly for an instant.
He looked about the room, stopping on Dumbledore. "This isn't the end? Is it?" Harry asked, but it was more of a statement than an actual question.
"I am afraid not." Dumbledore agreed, "However you will find that Hogwarts is still the safest place to be. I am afraid that the castle might not take kindly to uninvited guests if it comes to that." His eyes cut to Tonks, "It occurs to me, Nymphadora, that this seems too preplanned to be coincidence. I would suggest that you task some of your...trusted agents to discretely look into this manner."
At the end of the table nearest the door, Ron looked pained. He glanced at Sirius and then down at Harry. "Damn it Harry, it's Ginny, we need to be ones looking for her, not Sirius...No offence Padfoot, but we're the spies here, you're Dad's investigator for when he can't get hands on himself."
"I trust Sirius, Ron." Harry replied softly, "we have other fish to fry, that I suspect may lead us to the same place. Ok?" Harry tried to placate his brother, only to receive a glare in turn. Eventually Ron frowned and looked down into his coffee, not agreeing, but agreeing to table the argument until later. Harry sighed to himself and absently flicked his wand. The lights dimmed slightly and a projection of a building in a suburban office park sprung into being over the table.
Fred stood and muttered a spell. A thin beam of red light shot out of the end of his wand, and he used it to indicate the building. "This is the Rupp Metaphysical building in Salem Massachusetts. At one time Malfoy Industries controlled the company through a majority of public stock and after a couple of dummy corporation cutouts. Lucius Malfoy to be precise."
George waved his wand at the projection and it changed into a wire diagram of the ten-story building. "As you are all aware by now, the device used at the world cup utilized a crystal similar to the Philosopher's Stone in form and function...We do know that whatever crystal was used at the World Cup in that bomb was shattered, and analysis has revealed that it was not the prototype Project Green Sun crystal that was stolen several years ago." He flicked his pointer to a series of rooms in the basement of the building. "As of seven years ago, it was reported that they were working on an energy storage crystal. Or at least they were until Lucius was driven into hiding. At that time, their research into crystalline energy sources suddenly stopped...supposedly."
"However, thanks to Professor Dumbledore," Fred continued, "we have a list of materials that Nicholas Flamel used in his original stone, and several of these materials have continued to be shipped to the this location and in fact have increased in quantity over the last year or so."
"So is this a smash and burn?" Ron asked, his tone still holding an undercurrent of hostility, "we go in and blow up the place?"
"We can't Ron." Hermione replied as she pointed at the basement. "If they perchance have a crystal energized, even a more or less defective one like that used at the World Cup, it would kill everything in a several block radius. And it just so happens that there's a children's hospital right on the edge of this office park." She sighed, "and it just so happens that the security is tight enough to keep us from going in sub rosa. That is without a bit of help." She flicked her wand at the image of the building and it changed to a rotating image of a young, sandy-haired, light-eyed man. "This is Fredrick Marshall. He's sort of a prodigy, top of his class at Springfield Academy of Wizardry, top of his class at Salem Institute of Sorcery, with a doctorate in Advanced Arthimatic Theory and Metaphysics. He's good at what he does." Hermione gained a sheepish look on her face for the moment. "He's even followed up on a couple of my dangling threads in my published works." She shook her head.
"But that's not the point right now." She went on, determinately, "In the years since he graduated he's become a bit of a party boy. He frequents a club in Boston called..." she rolled her eyes, "Merlin's Hippogriff."
Harry glanced over at Hermione, then at the rest of the group, "Officially, I am moving all resources over to this mission, and handing over all files on Draco and Ginny to the appropriate authorities." Harry looked pointedly at Tonks, and then to the room at large. "Hermione and I will take the Salem mission. Fred you have mission prep and support for us. Luna you're with us as well, I guess Molly gets the kids again. Ron, you and George stay here, you will be looking into Draco and Ginny's cases as well as officially looking into any shipments from Rupp Metaphysics into Britain in the last...oh two years. Ok, lets go."
********************Boston, MA, Wizarding District**************************
* Drop Dead Gorgeous- Aerosmith
10:43 pm (East Coast Time, 3:43 am August 4, Hogwarts.)
August 3, 2012
A pair of young witches, one blue eyed, one brown sauntered into the club under a large, flashing neon sign of Hippogriff wearing a starred hat. The brown-eyed one flicked her fingers at the bouncer before he could say a word. His eyes grew glassy as they passed, clearing once they were in the club. Catching, Hermione's eye Luna nodded towards a sandy-haired wizard dancing with a tall, brunette witch.
"Bookworm and Moonbeam have the target." Hermione whispered under her breath to Harry and Fred. She and Luna moved to the dance floor and started dancing with each other, gradually easing towards Marshall and his partner. The song changed, and Hermione and Luna danced closer and closer together, each competing to catch Marshall's eye.
I'm getting a touch turned on, Mione. Harry sent over to her as he watched the pair of them from the bar. He laughed as he saw the sudden grin flit across her face. The bartender glanced at him suspiciously and Harry waved him off. The bartender turned back to his drinks as a noisy group at the other end demanded service. "Confirmed Bookworm." Harry muttered, he picked up his drink and sipped it, "Q? What do you have?" A soft, slightly metallic rustling of invisible wings answered his question."
"I'm not getting anything from Hedwig Jr., Leo." Fred's voice replied in all of their ears. "We don't see any known Death Eaters. Of course Merlin knows how many that bastard actually has." The shrug was evident even in his voice. Harry's eyes flicked up near the ceiling towards the hiding spot of the invisible metallic owl. Fred's voice took on a oddly thoughtful tone as he considered the relayed imagery from their remote Surveillance Owl. "You know Ron needs to see the recordings of this...it'll make his year. Maybe I'll just put it up on the big ball in the living room..."
"Q..." Luna whispered, her hand naturally flowing up to cup her right ear for a moment. Her ice blue eyes flickered for an instant, as she weighed the proper response to her brother-in-law. Eventually she decided on annihilation, "Do you like, Heliopaths...I do...I wonder what you'd look like as one? Hmmmm?" Hermione rolled her eyes she spun in place.
Harry sighed, and eased his left hand under his coat, to rest surreptitiously on the hilt of his wand. "Ok, we don't have all night...Go, Bookworm." Hermione's brown eyes flicked to his across the room, held there for a heartbeat and then with a tiny gesture to Luna, the girls started slowly and languorously moving together, the pair of them attracting almost every male eye in the club, including and especially their prey. His dance partner looked rather annoyed, until with a sudden blank look, she walked away. Across the room, Harry casually continued his hand movement as if he were working out a kink and returned to his drink.
Somehow, by means of natural and paranatural charms, Luna and Hermione ended up dancing with Marshall to the vast annoyance of the Y chromosomed contingent of the crowd. The two of them split apart, Hermione dancing behind him closely, with Luna in front, her eyes daring him to watch her. He did so, with a hungry, longing look in his eyes.
He never felt the whisper soft touch of Hermione's fingers as she planted a small button under his collar, especially not through his beating heart. Finally the song ended, and the pair slowly sauntered off, Luna mischievously tracing her index finger down his cheekbones as they passed. Marshall followed them with his eyes all the way through the neon lit dimness to the bar, where the pair, coincidentally leaned against it right next to Harry to place their orders. "Jack and Diet Coke," Hermione replied to the bartender and pointed to Luna, "she'll have a gillywater martini." The bartender nodded as he bent to fill their drinks. He dropped them next to the girls and headed down to the other end of the bar, where he began to chat up a small, bottle-blond, twenty-something girl who was obviously a regular. "It's planted Harry." Hermione whispered as she turned her back to the bar and leaned on it easily.
A brief wisp of a nod answered her. "Do it Q." Hermione ordered under her breath, and in a large hotel room, several blocks away, Fred moved aside a mostly empty pizza box and waved his wand over a presently blank crystal screen next to the one currently showing the dim, smoky interior of Merlin's Hippogriff. A instant later, a vivid, crystal clear image of the front of the Rupp Metaphyics building miles away in Salem appeared. Fred touched a button on a shining, metal remote and a searing fireball shot into view on the newest screen. Seconds later, a seemingly large fire erupted in the lobby of the building.
"How long Q?" Harry whispered as he watched Marshall dancing with some new girl, a rather tall redhead, wearing a rather short skirt.
In the hotel room, Fred checked a clock and ran numbers in his head. "The wizarding branch of Pinkertons is kinda slow...give'em about...now." In the club and on Fred's monitor Marshall stopped and took out a small vibrating device. He visibly cursed as he headed for the disapparation point for the club. "That's right Mr. Marshall, there will be no companionship in store for you tonight except lefty.
Hermione rolled her eyes as Luna let out a soft giggle. A muffled CRACK came from the direction of the disapparation room. "Ok, he's there. He's disarming the wards to get in...got it." Fred said triumphantly, "we have the ward signatures, we are good to go." Drinks were finished and Harry laid a twenty on the bar. With a large, dung-eating grin on his face, he led the two girls, one on each arm, out the door of the club and into the night.
**********************London, Near Trafalgar Square********************
4:45 am
August 4, 2012
A weary-eyed, blond-haired young man sat in a corner booth in this all night coffee shop, tantalizingly near the Ministry of Magic itself. His longish hair was unbound, much of it falling forward to occlude his face. The clothes Draco had on were the ones he had escaped in from his house almost twenty-four hours before. He just nodded as the waitress came and refilled his cup. A copy of the early edition of the Daily Prophet was in his hands, he had charmed it so the pictures would freeze and not give him away. Looking on the pictures of the devastation at the World Cup, now just three days in the past he sighed. Turning the page, he glanced up, and about had a stroke.
A calm, collected Albus Dumbledore was sitting in his booth, across the table from him. "I would recommend the scones." Dumbledore said as way of greeting, "they are particularly good with raisins." Draco didn't bother to hide his rolling eyes. Dumbledore twinkled a tad bit in return. This early morning, the greatest wizard of the age, maybe, had his long hair pulled into a silver tail, with a gold ring gathering his beard together in front. His normal, flashy wizard robes were gone, replaced with an old, black leather jacket worn over jeans, and what were probably dragonhide boots. The jacket was open enough to show a t-shirt with a large depiction of a dragon eating a wizard. The WWW shirts had an automatic charm to stop moving when outside of wizarding areas, so the image was quiescent. He absently pushed his half-moons up his nose as he took a sip of his coffee. "Nice place. Alastor and I used to stop here when we were due at the Ministry." Dumbledore reminisced briefly and sighed.
"What do you want old man?" Draco growled with only a touch of bitterness flavoring his tone, his eyes rolling slightly. "And how did you find me, Potter and Granger haven't even found me yet?" Draco took a sip of just short of scalding coffee and grimaced.
"While I may have taught them, many, many, things, I still hold many secrets." Dumbledore replied with a slight smile. He took a drink of tea and a bite from a scone and relaxed into his seat.
"You didn't answer my first question, Dumbledore." Draco snapped; his smoky eyes darkening as he glared across the table. "I'm not about to turn myself in to the Ministry, I'd be dead before the next dawn." He leaned forward over the table. His eyes cut left and right looking for anyone watching them. "I did what you wanted, old man. I met with my damn father, I told you about him, I did everything you wanted and look where I am now."
"You knew the risks, Draco." Dumbledore rejoined calmly, "Are you sure you won't have a scone? They are quite good. Not as good as the elves provide at Hogwarts of course..."
"I don't have time to talk about fucking scones old man." Draco snapped. The waitress and a couple of customers turned to them, only to quickly turn away at Draco's glare. Draco started to stand, only to sit back down abruptly as a sudden, irresistible compulsion overtook him. "What?" Draco hissed, "what else?"
Dumbledore's glasses fell down his nose, and a brief tingle on Draco's skin gave him notice of a sudden bubble of silence surrounding them. Ice blue eyes bore into his, measuring his very soul. "I never implanted you with the trap memory, the Order will protect you Draco, even from the Ministry itself if need be. Six years ago, you did not betray the light, and helped defend Hogwarts. In return, she will keep you safe should the occasion warrant." Dumbledore paused, as he took a small package from under his jacket and slid it across the table to Draco. "You have one more mission for the Order Draco, and your Wizard's debt, the one that your father abandoned to me will be released. The one your Grandfather incurred and he took on with his death."
Draco glanced over at him, speculatively, "What?"
"Find Ginny," Dumbledore replied simply, getting to his feet and placing a battered, black fedora onto his silvery mane of hair, "Despite your differences, your father will still want to take you back, he has no heirs since your mother's...difficulties."
"And if he kills me instead?" Draco snarled back snarkishly, "what then?"
"At least your debt will be resolved. Good day." Dumbledore vanished between two eye blinks, and not a soul in the restaurant other than Draco even noticed.
**************************Rupp Metaphysical, Salem MA********************
0015 hrs EST August 4, 2012 (0515 Hogwarts time)
A pair of ghosts danced in the night, not even a shadow nor a muffled footfall betraying their presence as they slipped past a brightly lit guardhouse at the gate of a ten foot chain-link fence surround the building and its parking lot. The lot was empty this early in the morning, with only a beat up pickup truck and a slightly newer Toyota sedan occupying the spots nearest the guardhouse.
Both guards were muggles, and neither had any idea what really went on in this building. Both of them thought this was merely another small science company, similar to those surrounding it in the business park. The pair of them were merely window dressing to the surrounding muggle businesses. After all, most of them had security patrols and fences so Rupp did as well to blend in. Muffled conversation from the pair drifted into the night about the small fire that had broken out in the office earlier tonight. Mr. Marshall had come by and told them it had been some unknown worker trying to sneak a smoke and had dropped a still burning ember into a trashcan, where it smoldered for several hours before lighting up. No one said they were the smartest of guards.
Marshall on the other had figured it had been some experiment gone awry, as the fire had started in the only upstairs wizarding lab. He had quickly used an oxygen-displacing spell to douse the flames before leaving to go home alone. All the while muttering about having to let those two girls go he had seen at the club earlier.
What he didn't know was that the brunette from tonight was even now shattering his security wards, without so much as a flicker on his detectors. Hermione stopped about ten feet from the building and silently held one hand up, fingers splayed. She closed the hand into a fist and behind her, Harry sunk to one knee as he spun to cover their back trail. A suppressed handgun was in one hand, a wand in the other as he pointed them out at forty-five degree angles to his body. She glanced back at him; he nodded and motioned with his head towards the ward wall.
Muttering a spell under her breath, Hermione described a doorway in the air in front of her and a heartbeat later, a faintly glowing archway appeared, hanging in the air. Hermione slipped through the opening and dropped into a crouch, ready to cover Harry. He eased through the opening, and with a hard, downward slash of his wand, the doorway disappeared. "Bookworm and Leo are past the outer perimeter." Harry whispered into the mike at his lips.
"Confirmed, Leo" Fred replied from his post in a black, unmarked van, parked about a half a mile away in a long-term parking lot. He checked the two crystal screens relaying images from the two surveillance owls he had aloft, both of which were showing green-tinged images of the area. He glanced over at Luna, who glanced up from her post long enough to give him a slight nod. Her eyes held a slight, golden glow as she had her senses stretched out. She gave a sudden jump as she felt an familiar sensation.
"Bookworm, Leo." Luna snapped into her headset, "Once you opened a hole in the wards, I felt the same things from the building as I did at the World Cup...be careful." In the van Fred gave her a questioning look and immediately returned to his mechanical owls, redoubling his efforts. Outside of the building, Harry and Hermione froze and dropped down together, back to back. Their wands and eyes were scanning the night for anything out of place.
"I...um have nothing Leo." Fred said eventually. He shrugged, it wasn't that he distrusted Luna, any of the family would gladly trust their lives to the others, but there was no evidence of anything amiss.
Let's do it Hermione. Harry decided as he rose from his crouch and ran to a blank section of wall of the building. The area he had chosen was out of the way behind bushes and sparsely lit. Somewhere in the night, several birds fluttered into flight. Open her up, Mione.
Hermione eased past him, and raised her wand once more. "PORTALIS" Just like behind the Leaky Caldron thousands of miles away, the bricks of the wall quickly and silently rearranged themselves into a small doorway into the building. The duo slipped inside just before the bricks returned to their previous confirmations with a whisper of grating stone.
Inside the building, it was almost pitch black; the hall was sparsely barely by tiny lights near the floor. Two pairs of eyes flicked through a series of odd blinks, and two pairs of eyes SHIFTED, pupils growing oval before opening fully. Suddenly to their enhanced cat vision, courtesy of Harry's primary and Hermione's secondary animagus forms, the room lightened to near daylight, with the colors shifted slightly into the red. A faint tracery of beams crisscrossed the hall, and in front of the elevator doors at the end of the hall, a latticework of beams guarded the entrance to the lower levels.
With a glance into a small pack strapped to his thigh, Harry jerked out an old friend. He smiled at Hermione as she tucked into his chest. With a practiced flick of his wrist, they vanished, whatever light there was in this dim hallway passing right through them. The secret of the cloak was that it bent light around it, so as to pass the image of what was behind the cloak to one on the other side. It did just as well with the light beams guarding the corridor. There were other ways of becoming invisible of course, and both of them knew them, but most did not accomplish the goal with the ease that Harry's inherited cloak did.
This brings back memories. Harry whispered as they inched down the hall together.
Yeah, too bad we are too busy to try to relive them right now. Hermione returned with a cheeky grin dancing in her eyes. Harry gave her a slight squeeze of the arm he had around her waist in response. Finally reaching the elevator doors, Harry flicked his wand and they shot open, to reveal an empty shaft. He crept forward until he stood looking down into the empty elevator shaft.
Looks like about two stories...easy. And with that, Harry stepped off into the abyss. He fell rapidly for an instant, until with a muttered spell, his fall slowed drastically and he landed lightly on the concrete floor of the shaft. Hermione dropped next to him an instant later and pointed her wand up. She flicked it sideways and the doors above closed, plunging the enclosed space into darkness.
With a casual wave of a hand, the doors to the bottom floor opened and bright light spilled in. Instantly, both of them felt the small hairs on the back of their necks raise up, and an involuntary rush of power lit their eyes, at the sensation of utter wrongness coming from up ahead. A quiet scraping of boot soles on the tiled floor echoed in the silence. Diving forward, Harry grabbed Hermione about the waist, waved back at the elevator doors closing them quietly and tossed the cloak back over the pair of them, all as they were still in mid-air.
Harry lay on his back in a corner; Hermione curled tightly to his chest as under the cover of the cloak they both watched a cloaked and hooded man come around the corner wand in hand. He was unmasked, but they both recognized him immediately. Marcus Flint, the former captain of the Slytherin House team, and current member of Lucius Malfoy's band of terrorists, thugs and general evil-doers. No wonder we couldn't find him in Britain, he was over here. What do you want to do? Hermione asked.
This. A bolt of red light rent the air and Flint collapsed to the floor without a sound. Harry stood and pulled Hermione to her feet. With another abbreviated motion of a wand, ropes bound Marcus and a final wave, silenced him. Harry plucked the Death Eater's wand from his unresisting hand and snapped it in two. "Incendio" He whispered and the shattered pieces burned to ash. Stashing Marcus in a convenient broom closet, they turned the corner and ran towards a heavy steel door at the end of the hall.
Hermione slid to a halt, grabbing a flat black steel disc from her waist pack. She slapped it against the lock of the door, FIRE IN THE HOLE. Fire flared from the disc, and BANG, a large hole was blown through the door. The heavy steel door swung open slowly and Harry dove in and to the right, Hermione followed almost immediately to the left.
An unearthly, somewhat sickening green glow lit the lab. Stainless steel workbenches lined the walls. Cauldrons of bubbling potion ingredients, smoked to themselves on one side of the room filling the room with a thin haze. On the other side of the room, with an odd purple light shining down on them, several large crystals were growing. Visible via a large window in one wall, a half dozen cages held dozens of large, gray rats. But none of that was the reason they were here.
In the center of the room, surrounded by a cage of fire, six, faceted, black stones sat on short pedestals. Three more pedestals were sitting empty. All six of the crystals pulsed in time to with each other, and a low almost groaning sound seemed to come from them.
Hermione ran over to a desk and filing cabinet in one corner and started riling through them. She pulled files and folders out quickly, scanning each for an instant before tossing it aside, either to the floor with most of them, or for a select few into a small pile. Finally satisfied, she shrunk the selected files and slipped them into her fanny pack. "Ok Harry, that's it."
Harry pulled two final objects from his gear and set them on the ground just outside the vertical, flaming bars. Both of them were conspicuously marked on one side, "this way towards the bad guys." Harry followed the printed advice and pointed them towards the crystals on their stands. "Ok they're set Q." He looked over at Hermione to confirm, she nodded, "Do it."
Outside in the van, Fred pushed a button on his console, and for the briefest amount of time, the sky lit with a yellow flash, as a loud ripping sound sent napping birds to flight in the trees surrounding the building. The pair of Muggle guards in the security shack stumbled out of their small hut, and looked up with matching befuddled expressions as a fading glittering light marked the demise of the main security wards for the building.
In the lab, sudden alarms rang out as Harry and Hermione apparated out. Two seconds past, then one of the two surprise packages flared to life. It vibrated wildly, and started glowing a dull red. On their pedestal stands, the black crystals started shaking, bouncing on their stands. BANG...BANG...BANG...BANG...BANG...BANG...one after another all six of the crystals shattered into dust. Ten seconds after that the second device lit, and the entire room, flared white. The light faded, only to blaze up instantly again as the entire room was engulfed in flames.
**************************Boston, Logan International******************
0200 EST (0700 Hogwarts Time)
The four of them, Harry, Hermione, Luna and Fred sat in their van, waiting for it to be loaded onto a RAF plane. The RAF crew had no idea that it was a wizarding intelligence unit; they thought it MI-6 or CIA. Over to one side, a crystal ball was projecting an image of Ron and George into the air.
"We're on the way back mate." Harry reported to the redhead, "We destroyed all the crystals that were completed, and the lab as well. They were missing a few, we have no idea if they were completed or not, the records that would indicate whether or not they had more than six done were missing. Hermione grabbed everything else of interest." Harry gave the slightest of eye rolls, "we do have enough to add yet another charge to the list against Lucius of course. There might be more, we haven't really had time to look into what we grabbed. How are you doing there?"
Ron shook his head, "still no leads on Ginny or Draco I am afraid. Fred and Shawn checked out a muggle warehouse in Norfolk where several shipments from Rupp were received over the last two years and according to records still in storage, but there was nothing. Not even a dust bunny. Bloody waste of time for the most part, I'll go and check on a couple of places that supposedly received goods from there next." He looked down at a note on the tabletop in front of him. "Hermione, Dumbledore stopped me on the way in, and asked me to pass on a request for you to go to Alexandria instead of coming home directly. Supposedly Dr. Jones has uncovered something at the library that you might be interested in."
Hermione grinned at the thought of being asked to go the Alexandrian libraries and nodded. "Sure Ron, I guess I can handle that, if Harry can handle the kids for another day."
Author's note (note all of this is entirely my opinion and if I have offended anyone, please let me know and I will make amends.)
July 20, 2005
Well after the...that was HBP, I still held hope. I held hope that my ship had not sunk, that all would be revealed in time...I was correct. As of today, the night has fallen in cannon, and for that I am truly sorry and heartbroken. I am sorry for many reasons not the least of which was that a great literary character was pulled down into mediocrity. And that what could have been, what should have been will never exist. I am truly sorry that I evidentially am delusional and that I obviously do not know true love or friendship. I guess that I have looked in the wrong places all these years.
I was planning on beginning a book to "repair book 7" and that still may be written...someday. However for now I will concentrate on this universe for it seems one of the few bastions where the light still shines, however dimly. (I feel there is no need to rewrite book 6, I already did so.) As I type this, my stomach crawls and my heart pounds and my heart shatters.
Once I got a review for Lions...the reviewer stated that he was amazed how in character I wrote Harry and Hermione. It was easy, they were with each other, now that will never happen in the works of Miss Rowling and for that the world is a poorer place tonight.
I am not promising when I will write the next chapter for this story, but I do intend to do so. A world where Dumbledore was never killed like a dog and were those whose main mode of conversion was the argument did not suddenly and inexplicably fall in love. I write this in anger, and for that I am sorry. I apologize to those who disagreed with me on his pairing. My anger is not at them, nor in all truth with Jo Rowling. This is her universe in the end and I have been very glad to play in it. It has been fun.
To all of my fellow authors and readers of this genre of Harry Potter, well it was a good run, and one that should not stop just because its run in cannon did. Mourn the passing of your ship but do not change your lives or your beliefs because of it.
Now as to the story. There will be elements of this story that seem to greatly mirror events that will eventually
happen in cannon. In fact, it looks like I got many, many things right, just not the main ships ;-) There are also
elements that will seem to have been written to bash certain characters, and that is and will be not the case. In fact
one that might be seen as a direct assault was written months before HBP came out and was planned almost a year ago. As
of now this universe is truly AU and that's cool, because all of the stops are coming out.