Chapter One

The Viewing Box

Thirty-seven-year-old Harry Potter, Auror and Ministry worker, stepped into a small room with no torches. There was no where to sit, only four walls and a door, reminding Harry strongly of those viewing booths that police stations had for watching interrogations. Which is exactly what it was, only a better magical kind. The wall directly across from the doorway was completely invisible to him from floor to ceiling. On the other hand, were he in the interrogation room, he would only see a completely blank wall that didn't look any different than the others. It was a useful charm that kept those being questioned from feeling like someone was spying on them.

Few people even knew the Viewing Box existed. He'd never really had to use the room before now, but a new case had been given to him and he was to watch a witness being questioned. He had to find out the man's connection with this new vigilante group calling themselves the Blood Traitors.

He closed the door behind him and stepped up to the viewing wall. Light from the other room poured in, lighting his face and glasses. Inside in a hard, wooden chair sat a lone man in his twenties – though it was difficult to tell his age through all of the soot and dirt smudged on his face. He had a wide mouth and long, dark eyes, and his hair was an unnatural shade of blood red, cut in a choppy style that made it perpetually messy. Despite his baggy clothes, Harry could tell he had a lean, athletic build. More than anything – though his violent colored hair stood out – Harry noticed that he looked exhausted. Too tired for one his age.

The only door to the interrogation room opened to emit a tall, handsome black-haired woman of bulky build. She wore heals and a skirt under her open robes, making her look like a very feminine, and surprisingly pretty, rugby player. Her name was Agape Eishorbgy and she was Harry's assistant, in a sense. Born in Cairo, Egypt and schooled at Hogwarts, she spoke superb English and was very talented. He knew he could rely on her to ask the right questions.

"Hello, Sir," Agape said in a clear voice, setting her sturdy frame gracefully into the chair opposite the man, her back facing Harry. "I would like to say this will be brief, but it will not," she told him. "So let us get started."

Her voice sounded like it was in the room with him, even though the were separated by the wall. Another useful invention of the Viewing Box: it was easy to listen to every little thing said, even the slightest shifts in a persons voice.

The man watched her placidly.

"Please state your name for the record," Agape instructed.

He tried unsuccessfully to hold back a cough, and cleared his throat before obliging: "My name is Alton Drake."

"Well, Mr. Drake, I realize you have said all of this before, but I will ask you to tell me again about what happened yesterday in London," she began. "But first the Department of Defense would like to know exactly why you left your secure location."

"My secure location?" he croaked in a raspy voice. "Are you kidding?"

"You are Alton Theodore Drake? The same Alton Drake that was kidnapped from the Crossroads Pub in Wantchester by an anti-Muggle organization and detained by them for two months in a dungeon cell?"

"If by 'anti-Muggle organization' you mean the Optimates and by 'detained' you mean tortured and mutated, then, yes, I'm that Alton Drake," he said.

Harry could see he was irritated, as anyone would be, but he barely seemed to have the energy to to be annoyed. He was sitting in a slump in his chair as if it was difficult to sit up. Well, to be more accurate, he looked ready to fall out of the chair.

Agape was unphased by his comment. "Then you know that you are under protection of the Ministry for your own safety?" she said smoothly. "Augustus Schmitt informed me that he went over the policies with you himself."

"He did."

"Then, you know that you are under certain restrictions regarding where you go and when. You need to ask the Ministry for assistance if you want to leave the safety of the Bireley residence," Agape chided mildly. "That's just for future reference, Mr. Drake."

"I won't be needing it," Drake said. "I don't want the Ministry's protection anymore."

"Apparently." Agape looked down at her notes before continuing. "Right then. Lets get back on topic so that you and I can leave sooner.

"Please tell me why you where in London yesterday." Her pen was poised to write when he began.

He cleared his throat again. It sounded like there was a lot of debris to get rid of. Agape conjured a glass of water for him and he took it gratefully.

"I was there with some friends of mine," he said. "We where just looking for a place to eat. So we went to the Walnut Café – "

"Who were these friends?" Agape interrupted.

Drake paused and took a deep breath. Harry thought it wasn't as much a sigh as a cover for him to think of some names... or maybe whether or not o lie.

"Logan Bireley and Ferris Thorpe," he said, his pause almost imperceptible.

Agape wrote down the names. "Continue. You said you went into the Walnut Café?"

"Yeah. We were just eating, when we heard the explosion. We were all blasted out of our seats."

"Is that how you were injured?"

"Some of it."

"What next?"

"Well, everyone was screaming, and people were hurt, but I saw who the attackers were. So we went to stop them."

"By yourselves? That's very dangerous," Agape commented.

"Yeah," Drake said dismissively. "But we were pissed. It's not like we bloody did a lot of good. Other people were there fighting them too."

Agape interrupted him again: "That's not what I heard. Someone told me you and another man stood in front of a foreign woman and battled three Optimates to protect her."

Drake shrugged. "Must have been someone else."

"Who was the other man? Mr. Bireley?"

"I just told you it wasn't us."

"It was you, Mr. Drake," Agape told him firmly. "The woman identified you to us. She even knew your first name. She said you did a bad job in protecting her, but she seemed in pretty good shape to me. So who was the other man?"

Drake hesitated and watched her carefully. Finally he said, "Thorpe. But neither of us want our names printed on anything public so don't tell the papers or anyone."

Good cover up, thought Harry. This man was definitely part of the Blood Traitors if he knew how to battle Optimates. The Optimates (Optimus in singular form) were like the new Death Eaters; the Neo. The only thing they lacked was Voldemort.

"That's fine," Agape said. "You mentioned other people fighting. Who were they? Did you recognize any of them?"

"I have no idea who they were," he answered. "Most of them were covered in dust like us. I guess they were this group the Daily Prophet's been talking about recently."

"Do you know their name?"

"The Blood Traitors," Drake said impatiently. "Who else? The Order of the Phoenix doesn't exist anymore."

You're wrong about that, Harry thought. We're still around. Of course, not many people knew that these days.

Agape persisted with her questions. "So where was Mr. Bireley at that time?"

"I don't know. We got separated from him. Then I ended up getting knocked out by someone."

"And that's all you remember?"

"Pretty much," said Drake. "Afterward, I woke up in St. Mungo's and they sent me straight over here when they realized I was functioning well enough to be interrogated for five hours by ten different people. I must say, you're much more polite than that bloody Moore bloke."

Garrison Moore was Head of Investigations in the Department of Defense. Harry knew him pretty well – obviously – and Drake was right, he could be a real git sometimes.

"I would like to discuss one more thing with you, Mr. Drake, if you don't mind," said Agape, ignoring his last comment.

"I do."

"You had another person in your party. A woman. Who was she?"

"There was no one but me, Ferris, and Logan."

"She was a Muggle. Why was she in Diagon Alley with you?"

Drake watched her again without saying anything at first, then, "There was no one else with us."

"You didn't meet her there, perhaps, or – "

Suddenly the door opened and an old woman in prime robes entered with a Ministry worker.

"Sorry, Agape, I couldn't stop her," said the Ministry worker. "She's come for Drake."

"Well, she can't have him yet," Agape replied calmly.

Harry's brow furrowed. Who was this woman, Drake's legal guardian? He was in his twenties for Merlin's sake!

"Yes, I can, Miss Eishorbgy," said the old woman, pronouncing Agape's surname perfectly. "He's been here for over six hours."

Even Drake raised his eyebrows at this. "Hmm. Longer than I thought."

"Furthermore," the woman continued, "he was never fully looked over at St. Mungo's. He's still filthy and he's obviously exhausted. You had no right to take him in the first place, but you've certainly gotten all the information you're going to get from him." She looked at Drake and held out a hand. "Alton, let's go."

"Who are you?" Agape asked. "His solicitor? You have no right to take one of our witnesses away."

"I am Melencolia Snook. And you're absolutely correct," said the old woman. "But I have a medi-wizard here, that can." She stepped aside and called into the hallway, "Dr. Briefman, come see for yourself what sort of shape this young man is in."

A skinny man in white robes with a St. Mungo's name tag pinned to his chest peered into the room. "I'd rather take him straight back to the hospital and examine him," he said haughtily. "He looks in great need of a sleeping potion."

So they took Drake away.

Agape could do nothing. She looked at the blank wall as if begging Harry for assistance, but what could they do? They hadn't taken him here, so they had no idea he hadn't been seen to by a medi-wizard. Who was this Melencolia Snook, and why was Drake any of her concern? Harry took a deep breath. At least he had heard enough to convince him this man knew more about the Blood Traitors than he was saying. He would definitely be someone to look for later on.