Harry fell to the floor as something cold and slimy whipped past his shoulder. With his glasses broken, his wand lost, he was defenceless. He called out.
"Ron! Ron! Where are you?"
He twisted around on the damp floor, only to find his best friend lying face down on the floor, his ginger hair matted with blood.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Harry screamed, groping his way towards Ron, but something blocked his way. A cloaked, hooded figure drifted creepy closer to him, lifting a scabbed hand, it touched Harry's trembling face.
"OK, guys, he's had enough. STOP!" yelled a familiar voice out of nowhere. Harry collapsed and lay on the cold, golden floor, different from the one before, panting from a adrenaline rush.
"Potter! Get your ruddy arse off the floor and come here!" shouted Katie Bell, the Head of the Auror Department. "You, too, Weasley!"
Ron had been leaning casually against a wall delving into a bag of Muggle sweets he had taken a liking to. He pulled a face at Harry, reluctantly put down the bag of Twizzlers and shuffled over to where a fuming Bell was waiting.
"Honestly, Potter!" she said, once Harry and Ron had reached her. "You fell to pieces back there! It was even laughable, for a man your age!" Harry supressed a snort, he had only just turned twenty.
"I can't have you acting like that, Potter. Especially... with the circumstances..." said Bell, trailing off the end of her sentence. Harry flashed his curious green eyes at her. "What circumstances, Ms Bell?"
It still felt weird calling her that. Harry and Katie had played on the Gryffindor Quidditch team since Harry was eleven, but when he had became an Auror at the tender age of seventeen, things had changed.
Bell sighed. "You'd better come into my office. Potter, Weasley, I have a special assignment for you."
Ron's face lit up. Harry grinned. Whenever the word special came up Ron always turned into a six-year-old.
Harry and Ron followed Bell into her office. It was untidy but had a cosy feel to it. Papers and books were scattered over her desk, which stood proudly photos of friends and family... and a group shot of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Harry smiled fondly at his photo-self. Bell sat behind her desk and conjured two wooden, straight-backed chairs out of thin air for Harry and Ron. They sat down.
"Now..." said Bell, ruffling some papers. "This is an undercover assignment. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is located in Forks, Washington, USA. It is widely known that a gang of highly-dangerous sparklepyres are habited there. Your task is to find these sparklepyres and destory them."
"Um, Ms Bell?" said Ron timidly. "You say "sparklepyres" what exaclty are they? I've never heard of them before. Are they some kind of vampire?"
Bell closed her eyes with a look of horror on her face, Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"No, Weasley. God, no. These are worse than vampires. There are a number of distinct differences between the sparklepyre, which is also known as a Meyerpire, and a real vampire. You will have a guide, but I will run through the basics. The sparklepyre does not have fangs, nor do they sleep in coffins, they don't burn when they step into sunlight, instead, they sparkle--"
The rest of Bell's sentence was lost, as Harry and Ron erupted in roars of violent laughter. Bell sat, unamused, as tears ran down Ron and Harry's faces, they were bent over in their chairs, clutching their waists for dear life. Once their laughter had turned into hiccups, Harry got enough breath to say. "Hahaha! Hiccough! Ahem. You are joking, right, Bell?"
"I'm deadly serious, Potter." said Bell in a stern tone.
Ron and Harry stopped hiccuping at once and stared intently at Bell, intruiged. She coughed and continued.
"I've arranged for you to stay in a small apartment whilst you plan how to destroy the sparklepyres, to look less suspicous, you may take people with you. I have enrolled you both in Forks High School, where the sparklepyres attend."
"Sorry, Miss," interrupted Ron. "But.. how? Me and Harry are both way too old to be in school."
"Oh, come on, Weasley, you don't look that old!" said Bell irritably. "I want you to get as much information as you can on the sparklepyres before you take down their leader... which I believe to be the highly popular salesman, Billy Mays."
"Billy Mays?" said Harry. "Never heard of him..."
"Me neither," said Ron.
"But, Ms Bell," said Harry. "Why do we want to kill these sparklepyres? What have they done to us?"
"Don't you know, Potter? Goodness!" sighed Bell. Harry felt a ripple of annoyance. He felt thirteen-years-old again, Sirius Black was on the loose, and everyone knew why he was after Harry. Apart from him.
"The sparklepyres are planning to take the Wizarding World down! Enough said!"
Harry and Ron both nodded seriously.
"So." said Bell. "Do you accept you mission?"
"Yes." said Harry and Ron simultaneously.
The next thing Harry knew, he was stumbling through a busy airport with his friends, Ron and Hermione, and his fiance, Ginny. It was raining outside as they fell into a taxi and rumbled off into the storm.
"Ooh! Is this it?" asked Ginny, who was leaning out of the window like an excited puppy. "Is this the school?"
Harry looked out of the window and saw a large sign bearing the legend Forks High School.
"Yes, Ginny dear, but we're going to the apartment first."
As the car squelched through the mud Harry pressed his forehead against the cold window of the car. Sure, he had killed Dark wizards before, but this was something he had never expierienced. It was all so... alien. Yet, somehow, the feeling was slightly familiar. Harry turned his head to look at his friends in the car. Ginny was sat next to him, her pretty face lit up with excitement. Hermione was buried in Bell's guide to Sparklepyres, and Ron was at another bag of Twizzlers.
Honestly... Harry thought. How did he end up with then? Harry smiled and whispered: "I'm very glad I did..."
Once they arrived in the apartment, Ron dropped his bags and dived for the bathroom. Hermione sighed and started unpacking her suitcase. There were two bedrooms. Ginny waggled her eyebrows at Harry. He grinned.
"So, Mr Potter, is there any preparation we need to do before we make our terrifying journey into Forks High... and find the sparklepyres?" asked Ginny, sauntering up to Harry and wrapping her arms around his neck.
"Well, Katie said that we needed to watch a Muggle video to get an idea of what they looked like. Though she described them as inhumanly beautiful, so it's not like they'll be hard to miss. But we better watch them anyway." Harry pulled two Muggle DVDs out of his bag. "Twilight and New Moon, Hermione's at the books..."
Hermione looked up, anguish was written all over her face. "Books? Books? You can't call these books! It's a monstrosity! It makes me want to stop shaving and join feminist ralleys!" She then buried herself back into the large paving-stone-slab novel, mumbling angrily.
Ron had come out of the bathroom, looking worried and muttering something that looked rather like please don't stop shaving, Hermione he slumped onto a sofa next to Hermione and put her arm around her. She complained feebly but turned a pretty shade of pink and leaned on him. Ginny made vomiting noises behind him.
"We'd better get this on if we want to get a good night's sleep," said Harry, Ginny waggled her eyebrows at him again and winked. Harry felt himself blushing and Ron's eyes on his back has he pushed the DVD into the player. Ginny, who took after her father and loved anything and everything Muggle, sat down on another sofa and patted the space next to her for Harry.
Two hours later, they were still debating whether the sparklepyre, Edward Cullen, looked anything like Cedric Diggory.
"I'm telling you, Ginny!" argued Harry. "He looked so much like Cedric – it was creepy!"
"Harry, Cedric was actually good-looking!" the redhead retorted. "That Edward guy looked all pale and rape-face-y."
Suddenly they both burst into peals of laughter, rolling around on the sofa.
"Anyway..." said Ron. "I'm going to bed," he announced. "Come on, Hermione..." he tugged on her sleeve. She looked up, irritated. He widened his eyes. Eventually she got the hint, jumped up, bid Harry and Ginny goodnight and scrambled excitedly into a bedroom.
"Oh God, oh God..." groaned Ginny. Harry chuckled. "We'd better get to bed, too. Or else we'll be shattered in the morning."
Ginny widened her eyes in a way that made her look astonishingly like Ron, she smirked, and led Harry into the spare bedroom...