Sorry guys, no witty comment this time.
Do I really have to say I don't own Harry Potter? I do? Fine.
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Chapter 2 - The Price of Peace
Harry sighed as he carefully slinked through the crowds of Diagon Alley. It had been four months since the evaluation, and Harry and his team were cleared for active duty. The question that had initially caused some tension between them had been pushed from their minds entirely. In fact, Harry had never been happier; he was back in the field, and he had just proposed to his girlfriend of four years, Ginny Weasley. However, currently his mind was not on holy matrimony, but on the mission that he was currently on. A merchant in Knockturn Alley was suspected of dealing items of a questionable nature, and they had just acquired a warrant to search his inventory.
Harry walked down the dank side-street to the infamous Knockturn Alley, maneuvering its filthy pathways to find his target: a small, dirty man hawking items off of a table between two lots.
"Interesting wares you're selling, Mister Kroker," Harry said conversationally as he approached the man. "Mind if I have a poke around?" he continued, holding up the search warrant. Kroker chuckled nervously before blindly firing a stunner at Harry before bolting away. It was only due to his seeker reflexes that Harry managed to block the spell and chase after the fugitive. "He's on the run!" Harry shouted into his badge, signaling his squad mates. "He's heading for the apparation depot!" Forcing himself through the crowd, Harry tried to catch up to his smaller objective.
Ron, being the one closest to the apparation point in Diagon Alley, kept watch for Kroker. He saw the smaller man weaving through the crowd, and Ron went towards him, but he Kroker ducked around him and fled to the edge of the apparation point. Swearing, Ron drew his wand and fired a stunner, hitting Kroker in the back and rendering him unconscious. Smiling triumphantly, Ron bent down and wrapped handcuffs around Kroker's wrists. Harry and Hermione arrived from differing sides of Diagon Alley just as Ron revived Kroker..
"Did you get him?" Harry asked, panting and heaving.
"Yep," Ron said as he hauled Kroker to his feet.
"Great," he panted. "You two send him back for processing; I'll go contain the mess in Knockturn." Nodding in acceptance, Hermione and Ron took Kroker into the apparation zone and vanished with a pop. As Harry walked back to Knockturn Alley, he reached down and spoke into his badge. "This is Potter requesting a containment crew be sent to the area between lots one-one-seven and one-one-nine in Knockturn Alley ASAP," he said before picking up the pace. It would not do to go through all that work trying to obtain the illicit paraphernalia if someone stole it while he wasn't there.
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After a containment team had secured the area surrounding the abandoned items that Kroker was selling and began documenting the various items, Harry went back to the apparation depot and returned to the main Atrium of the Ministry of Magic and made the long circuit back down to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and more specifically the interrogation room where Kroker was being held.
When Harry found the appropriate room, he saw Kroker sitting solitarily in the main section while Hermione stood with a frown in the observation area.
"What's with the face?" Harry asked when he approached her. Hermione sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand.
"It's Ron," she muttered. "The idiot stunned Kroker to stop him." Harry immediately knew the meaning of the statement and groaned. One of the rules of being an auror was not to fire spells around civilians unless in a life threatening situation, and as squad leader, Harry has had to reprimand Ron more than once for forgetting this rule.
"He's lucky he didn't miss," Harry grumbled darkly. Suddenly, the door opened to show a different auror a year junior to Harry and Hermione. "Cromwell? What are you doing here?"
"Umm…" the auror Cromwell hummed, clearly hesitant to continue. "Wilkins said that I was handling the case now, and that he needed you two at the Department of Mysteries ASAP," he said. Harry and Hermione looked at each other in confusion before muttering their thanks and leaving for the Department of Mysteries.
When they arrived there, they found the Hear Auror waiting for them, tapping his foot impatiently.
"It's about time you two showed up," he snapped. "Follow me," he barked, turning around and going deeper into the Department of Mysteries. Harry and Hermione obediently followed, their footsteps echoing in the dark, intimidating hallways.
"Sir, what are we doing here?" Hermione asked.
"Not here, Granger," Wilkins said cautiously, "this isn't the kind of thing you can talk about in the open." They reached a door and Wilkins opened it, ushering Harry and Hermione into the room that led to all the other departments in the Department of Mysteries. After the room had stopped spinning, Wilkins approached one door deliberately. Instead of a handle, there was only a small hole where it should have been. Wilkins drew his wand and slid it into the hole like a key. "Expecto Patronum," he whispered, and the door flashed white briefly before the locks holding it closed clicked open. Wilkins extracted his wand and held the door open for them. Beyond was an area that resembled the office area of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, although with a darker color scheme. Wilkins led Harry and Hermione to the Head Auror usually sat to see a man sitting behind the desk and Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt standing beside him.
"Sir," Harry and Hermione said, respectfully saluting the Minister and former auror.
"At ease," Shacklebolt said. "I'm sure you're both wondering why you're here," he continued, voicing their unasked question. "To answer that, may I introduce to you Robert Farlen, head of the Magical International Counter-Terrorism Operations division."
"MICTO for short," Farlen said, speaking for the first time. "Please, sit," he invited, gesturing to the two chairs opposite of him. Unsure of what to make of the situation, Harry and Hermione both sat down in the indicated chairs. "I'm sure that you're wondering what the hell's going on, and I'm going to explain it to you. Minister, Auror Wilkins, do you mind giving us some alone time, please?" Farlen asked politely. Wordlessly, both Shacklebolt and Wilkins left, closing the door behind them. "Excellent. Now, for a little history lesson.
"Minister Shacklebolt knew that having an ill-prepared army of aurors is one of the myriad of reasons why the Ministry collapsed during the second reign of Voldemort. He also knew that, try as they might, an auror force dedicated to protecting the general populace could not effectively combat an organized terrorist attack. Therefore, one of the first motions that he passed once being elected permanent minister was the conception of MITCO, an elite counter-terrorism organization specifically created to locate and eliminate terrorists before they become an unmanageable threat like Voldemort or Grindewald. Currently, we only have influence in the United Kingdom, Australia and parts of Canada and the United States, but we are hoping to have worldwide jurisdiction soon. Any questions?" he asked, looking between Harry and Hermione.
"Yes," Hermione said. "Why did you bring us here?"
"For recruitment," Farlen replied. "Our agents do not simply pop out of thin air, we have been recruiting from the auror corps for as long as we have been functional."
"So why did you pick us?" Harry continued the questioning.
"Why not you?" Farlen responded. "Your past reputations for putting down dark wizards aside, you two have become two of the best aurors that the Ministry currently has."
"So why did you just invite us, and not our third squad member, Ronald Weasley?" Harry pressed on. Farlen sighed and laced his fingers together.
"Ahh yes, Weasley," he said. "One of the prerequisites for entry into our little organization is you have to have a certain level of devotion, one that Weasley does not have." Farlen opened a drawer and reached in, producing two sheets of parchment and placing them in front of Harry and Hermione. "Do these look familiar?" The aurors looked down at the papers and saw that they were the psychiatric evaluations that they had taken. "Mister Weasley chose `no' on his test, while you chose `yes'. This shows that you have a level to devotion to your country that Mister Weasley does not have, a devotion that is critical to being a successful part of this organization." Harry and Hermione looked at each other silently, not knowing how to respond to this.
"Say we accept…what do we get?" Hermione asked, turning back to Farlen.
"If you accept, then you will gain the security clearance of an Unspeakable, automatically providing you access to all but the highest security documents and areas. You will be provided with new and experimental technologies that may or may not be released to the public, as well as a rather nice increase in pay, to the tune of two hundred thousand galleons a year," Farlen said casually. Both Harry and Hermione's eyes widened in shock at the large amount of money offered. The concept of being paid almost one million pounds a year was a difficult concept to wrap their minds around. But still, it sounded too good to be true.
"And what's the catch?" Harry asked, shaking his head to free him from his stupor.
"The catch…" Farlen repeated, trailing off. "The catch is, no one can know what it is you do. The effectiveness of this division relies on its anonymity, so if you accept, you will both sign a binding magical contract stating that you will not speak of any aspect of this division with anyone that you do not know is an active part of it, not even your spouses. That means that no one beyond the Minister himself and your co-workers will have any idea what it is you really do. Also, you will be required to be ready to prepare for a mission at any time during the day or night. Can you accept those two terms?" Farlen asked, peering at the two young aurors before him.
Again, Harry and Hermione looked at each other. They couldn't really be expected to lie to their friends and family, could they? On the other hand….
"I accept," Hermione said with a tone of confidence. Farlen nodded in acceptance and turned to Harry, awaiting his answer.
"I accept," Harry echoed Hermione, although without nearly as much confidence.
"Excellent," Farlen said, taking the two evaluations off of his desk and replacing them with contracts and two blood-red quills, a device that Harry was quite familiar with. Figuring that he might as well get it over with, Harry grabbed the blood quill and quickly scribbled his signature, ignoring the sting as it etched his name into his flesh, overwriting the dull mantra of "I must not tell lies" carved into his hand. However, while the cut healed, the red ink remained on the contract. Hermione grabbed her quill and, bracing herself for the inevitable pain, quickly signed her name on her contract as well. "Everything seems to be in order," Farlen said as he rolled up the two contracts and placed them into his desk. "Welcome to MITCO, Agent Potter, Agent Granger," he continued, shaking Harry and Hermione's hands. As one, they all stood up and exited Farlens' office, where Wilkins escorted them back to the auror offices.
"It's strange," Harry said as he and Hermione straggled behind Wilkins, "but I feel like I just signed my soul away back there."
"Yeah," Hermione agreed. "But, whether we knew it or not, we chose to be a part of this when we chose `yes' on that evaluation four months ago."
"Yeah," Harry sighed tiredly. "I guess that's the price of peace," he said before they broke into a jog to catch up to their former superior. "Sir, what will we tell Ron and our families about our…situation?" Harry asked.
"Tell them you got promoted, or reassigned," Wilkins said as they entered the main auror office, "anything but the truth." Without another word, Wilkins returned to his office, leaving Harry and Hermione to return to their cubicles, where Ron was already sitting.
"Hey, where did you guys go? Cromwell said that you two had a meeting with Wilkins," Ron said as his two friends and partners sat down at their desks.
"Oh, it was just some stuff about the Kroker case, nothing important," Harry said, plastering a smile to cover up his lie.
It would be the first of many to come.
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So, what do you think of chapter two?
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