"Area under inspection. Unit standby."

The broken, mechanical voice descended into a haze of static before the handheld device from which it emanated fell dormant with a *beep*. Hooked onto the belt-loop of a pair of faded denim jeans, it hung where it was momentarily before a masculine hand descended on it, tugging it off of its resting place on the man's hip. It was lifted up to a face that was hidden in the dark overcast shadows of a large-brimmed hat, perky at the edges and a fresh beige hue. Dark golden hair spilled out haphazardly from underneath it, curling at the base of the man's neck where his upturned coat collar collected the undergrowth of locks.

"Roger that."

The voice that spoke from under the hat was a deep whisper, quiet and confident. The silence of the area amplified the man's words, carrying them further down the dank alley with the stale breeze that blew the smell of rotting trash up and down the walls of the two five-storey buildings on either side. The lights in the musty windows up to three storeys high were off. Two alleys down, a tussle broke out among the domestic felines, and loud yowling rent the stillness of the soggy, unimpressive night.

The man tucked the black walkie-talkie back into its case on the loop of his jeans. Turning up his coat collar stiffly, he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. Fumbling with the lighter in his other hand, it took him a few tries to achieve a flame, and once he'd lit the cigarette, he leaned back against the damp, moss-covered brick wall behind him and waited in the shadows. The single glowing point of stifled flame at the tip of the lit cigarette was the only distinguishable source of light for yards around. The alleyway was too deep and the night too starless for the meek street lamps to be able cast their yellow glow effectively into the far recesses of the city roads.

A few minutes of undisturbed quietude passed. The local brawl had stagnated and the cats of the alley two roads down slunk away into the night. Hardly a few seconds later, static crackled again, and with a *beep* the walkie-talkie buzzed at the man's hip with the sound of a human voice. "All clear. Move in."

"Gotcha." The man muttered into the device, springing to his feet with quick, fluid motions. With one last drag, he flicked the remainder of his cigarette onto the ground and crushed it with the heel of his heavy combat boot. He spat into the darkness behind, adjusted his hat, and, spinning on his heel, disappeared into thin air with a barely audible *pop*.

Hardly a second later two miles east of the lonesome downtown out in the middle of a field of tall grasses, a man suddenly appeared with another small *pop*.

The fellow with the beige hat and stiff collar brushed his coat and looked slowly around him. A yard or two away, a wide dirt road carried off into the east, cutting through the expanse of dry vegetation. A little pace before it disappeared into the black horizon, a vehicle of sorts was observable lined up along the side of the road; it was comparatively large and rectangular-shaped. The truck was parked along the edge of the dirt path, a lone symbol of civilization (except for the silhouette of a radio tower visible on the mountains far north) in the otherwise dead, dry outskirts of the lonesome town two miles west.

Perhaps there was nothing very suspicious about the vehicle in itself if one chose not to wonder about the nature of the reason of it being there to begin with, nor did it seem like the owners of this vehicle were around the vicinity, for the curtains were drawn and no light could be seen glowing from within. However, the man who had only just appeared on the scene seemed to find a reason to investigate, and towards this suspicious entity, this man with the beige hat and stiff collar began to make his way.

Trampling through the grass as quietly as he possibly could, the man was standing at the rear door of the RV in a matter of a minute, staring thoughtfully at the handle and occasionally peering surreptitiously through the barricaded windows. Nobody could be seen for miles around, and nothing inside the vehicle showed any indication of life. Looking down both ends of the road, he powered off his walkie-talkie and quickly reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a long, knobby stick about eleven inches long. He pointed it with certainty at his own head; almost immediately, the tip glowed white, and a near-invisible bubble slowly emanated from it, stretching to encompass the man's head and sealing off at the end once it was large enough to do so.

The man seemed to think nothing of the fact that his head was now inside of a very large bubble that had grown from the end of a tree branch, and was now pointing the very same bizarre stick at the door. With three soft taps, the lock could be heard to click and the door swung outwards in the slightest.

The man stepped in and quickly shut the door behind him.

There was a startled yelp and the sound of glassware rolling off a counter and smashing into pieces on the hard floor. Eyes still adjusting to the darkness, the man in the hat scowled and held up his wooden stick at arm's length, scanning his surroundings rapidly. A glow illuminated the tip of the extended stick and threw a shadowy light across the room. The counter along the back of the truck was cluttered to the brim with oddly-shaped jars and beakers, filled with liquids, precipitate and red powder. The entire place smelled overwhelmingly of cat urine and rotten eggs, which the man in the hat could only faintly catch a whiff of through the bubble around his head.

"Stay put!" He said sharply, and the other presence in the vehicle froze where he was, eyes wide. "Stay put, I–"

The man with the hat felt around his coat hastily, coughing a little as he did so, and presently was able to find what he was searching for. In his other hand was still the glowing stick, which he promptly pointed in the general direction of the other fellow.

"Hands up," the man said calmly. The other person in the room stood stock still in what seemed to be disbelief.

"I said hands up!"

Slowly, a pair of skeptical hands began to move upwards.

"Yusef Tran, isn't it?" the man asked. When there was no response, he shrugged. "Didn't expect you to admit to it. Would be pretty stupid of you to, and I hear from the others that you're one of the golden few who're cleverer than the crackheads they sell to."

No reply. The man looked about him, taking in the fallen-over pile of empty Sudafed boxes stuffed under the already minimal furniture, the surprisingly clean, carpeted floor and the gas masks only just visible in the corner of the room underneath a stained white sheet. "You keep this place pretty spiff I must say. What're you afraid of, the cops will think you're a slob?"

He was met with silence. He continued almost as if he didn't notice it. "Doesn't matter, all the better for me. You won't believe the kind of shitholes I break the law to acquire. Yours be a good catch. Mind showing me where you keep the goods?"

The man, taking a few stray steps around, encountered a dangling chain of sorts. Following it upwards with his gaze, he tugged on it, and a dusty light bulb flickered on on the ceiling. The man chuckled.

"Muggles, I tell you. Almost everything you own lights up. Never gets old."

Tran's face, now better illuminated, was white and haggard. He followed the man's movements with wary eyes, clutching the counter behind him. The man moved slowly, observing his surroundings carefully. He stopped suddenly, a questioning look on his face as he turned towards Tran. "Haven't you got this place rigged at all?"

Tran gave him a long look, and then rasped, "Who are you?"

The man's brows furrowed. "I'm taking over your lab with nothing but a stick and a bubble around my head, and my name is your most pressing concern? Priorities, mate."

"So you're not the police?"

"Police? No, I'm not. But put your hands up anyway, makes my job easier. You have any accomplices?"

He turned away, peering out the window.

In an unforeseeable move of rashness, Tran jerked sideways and lunged, grabbing something solid and black on the counter a few feet away from him. Knocking into glassware on his way, it was the clinking noises of glass on wood that caught the attention of the man in the hat. There were five, loud, consecutive crack as Tran aimed his revolver in the general direction of the man with lithe, steady hands and pulled the trigger just as the man turned on his heel; there was a shout of indignant rage and then quietude followed.

Tran slowly lowered his revolver. The place was quiet and still, the grass fluttering outside in the night breeze and the desertion of the area apparent in that the vicinity remained unfazed and unimpressed by the loud cracking of the gunshots. He looked in front of him, at the silhouette of the man he had just hit. The window behind him had not shattered; the bullets had found their mark. The figure shrouded in shadows moved forward. Tran prepared himself for the inevitable thud of an unconscious human body hitting the ground.

It never came.

Instead, the man in the hat stepped into the light, frowning deeply. Tran blanched and stared at the man with shock and outrage.

"What the devil … ?!"

"I should say," the man in the hat snapped, "What's the idea, eh? Chucking bullets at me … scared me half to death."

Tran attempted to back up in horror, but his back was pressed against the counter to a point where the wood was cutting painfully into his skin. As the man took another step forwards, he lifted his gun again and shot in desperate abandon.

"Honestly mate, cut it out," said the man in the hat, waving his hand in front of his face, dispersing what looked like a cluster of feathers that floated to the ground in delicate pirouettes about him. His other hand held up the glowing stick, and he raised it in front of himself. The bullets that Tran had shot were nowhere in sight, nor had the bullets lodged themselves anywhere else in the room; they couldn't have, because Tran was ace at shooting, and his bullets had hit their mark. They seemed to have vanished.

Yet the man was dusting off his coat in slight annoyance, untouched and unfazed.

Tran stared at the man and didn't notice when he dropped his gun.

"Right then," the man said grimly. He lifted the stick in his hand and gave it a flick.

Ten minutes later, the man in the hat was standing in the middle of the room, patting the pockets of his coat with distinct satisfaction. Yusef Tran lay in the corner of the vehicle, curled in a fetal position and unmoving. The hidden drawers under the counter were much lighter than they had been ten minutes ago.

There was a little pop near the window.

"You didn't snuff him, did you Doc?"

A third person had joined their party, and he was leaning against the wall of the vehicle, arms crossed and lips twisted in incredulous amusement. He seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Thirty-something with long, shaggy black hair falling into his face, the man looked like he had accidentally stumbled into the RV and was too bored to leave. He jerked his head to shake the hair out of his eyes.

'Doc' adjusted his hat. "No. He's asleep. I've modified his memory."

"That's illegal you know."

The man received a funny look at this. "Well now I'm just offended. Don't I get accredited for breaking, entering and stealing from a druggie?"

"That too."

Doc let out a sigh of happy satisfaction. "Good business. Good stuff. There was loads of it too. It'll last us another two months."

"I resent the inclusion you're implying, I don't know why you keep doing that. *I* am most definitely not a part of the *us*."

"We're a team Ed," Doc said, almost offended.

"You are a freelance wizarding "chemist" who steals from muggle drug-dealers," Ed pointed out, "I'm only called here because … why am I called to your crime scenes?"

"To cover my tracks," Doc grunted looking about him for misplaced items, "you news folks have seen this kind of thing a lot in your prime, you know what usually gets caught. And I like you. I think."

"Right."

Doc prodded an unopened cupboard door below the counter, frowning. Pointing his wand at it, he watched it slowly creak open and, standing to a side, peered within, letting the light from his wand illuminate the dank inside. When he was sure nothing was going to explode, he crouched to the floor and began to grope around.

Ed watched him warily. "What's the walkie-talkie for?"

"To communicate with my partner," came his muffled reply. A few seconds later, he pulled himself out of the cupboard and got to his feet, dusting his hands together. He frowned. "Speaking of which, did you see him around when you got here? He hasn't contacted me yet."

Ed shook his head. Doc's frowned deepened.

"Huh."

"Speaking of which, Doc," Ed said, "You hear about the Myers?"

A dark look crossed Doc's face. "I did."

"Nasty affair."

"Undeniably."

"Dumbledore had a fit."

Doc snorted, but not in amusement. "Well what's he going to do about it?"

"I don't know," Ed said calmly, watching Doc move around the vicinity. "Execute the plan. He had a chat with Meadows and Vance the other day. Things are moving along."

"We're not going anywhere unless we get more people," Doc replied.

Ed shrugged. "Dumbledore has a plan for that too."

"That load of batshit? He can't be serious. This isn't a gobstones club, we ought to be looking for more experienced folks. 'Young and passionate' my ass."

"Well that option is starting to run dry isn't it," Ed said dryly, "the old are experienced; it's precisely why they'd be clever to want nothing to do with it."

"And so we sacrifice our kids?" Dearborn raised an eyebrow.

"They're not kids."

"They are on the battlefield."

There was a sharp knock on the door.

"Ah," Doc said, "That must be him. Get that, will you Ed?"

Grumbling, Ed pushed himself off the wall and padded over to the door of the RV. Doc gave the room a last once-over as he heard the door open some distance away.

And then.

There was a hair-raising crack, and Ed was flung back away from the door and thrown against the opposite wall, hitting the floor with a pained yelp. With an answering shout, Doc turned sharply on his heel, heart thumping wildly as he searched the area frantically for the violent intruder, wand at the ready.

"What the fuck?"

"Get out of here!" Ed shouted from his position on the floor, gesticulating wildly at Doc. "Get out of here before–"

"DEARBORN."

No other voice in the world could have made Caradoc Dearborn jump three feet in the air and squeal the way he did now. It was all he could do to keep himself from abandoning his companion to fate and jumping out the window tail between legs. Instead, with a tremendous amount of effort, he swallowed very noticeably, eyes fixed on the darkness shrouding the entrance to the vehicle.

"Em, love?" he croaked, "Is that you?"

There was an answering scowl, the kind that would send full-grown feral hippogriffs scurrying to a corner. "I can't open this door. I'm going to blast it like I blasted the fucking window."

Doc exchanged a look of unhindered horror with Ed. "No no, don't do that, I'll be right there."

Stumbling over Ed's foot as the latter attempted to collect his strewn self from off the carpet, he hurried to get the door. The former cursed quietly, and the latter carefully unlocked the door with two taps of his wand, very cautiously opening it just enough for him to be able to peer outside.

He stuck his head out of the gap and was greeted with the sight of a tall woman with a frightening look in her coal-black eyes.

"Ah, Em. Good to see you," Dearborn said, attempting to sound as cheerful as possible.

The woman, 'Em,' blinked condescendingly. Arms crossed over her narrow figure clothed in a smart dress robe of deep green, she raised a shapely eyebrow at the sandy-haired head wedged between the door and its frame.

"Dearborn," she said with distaste. "Why I find you in the darkest, most suspicious reaches of Europe will never cease to be a source of morbid wonder for me."

"I'm on business–"

"The law begs to differ," Em cut in dryly.

Dearborn winced and scratched his nose. "Ah, well, even you've got to admit there's a little bit of amusing irony in that."

"If you wish to engage in criminal activities might I suggest a little discretion?"

"Em, you managed to dent the wall," they heard Ed grumble from inside of the trailer.

Em looked from Doc's face to the blackness of the space behind him and back. Her lips thinned, voice heavy with solemnity. "I need you two to come with me."

Doc looked like he had been slapped across the face. "You aren't turning us in, are you?!"

"Don't be an idiot," Em snapped at him sharply, "Azkaban doesn't have space to waist on pointless worms like you. I need you because Dumbledore has called."

Doc looked at her thoughtfully. "Dumbledore? Is this regarding–"

"Sh!" Em hushed him, looking about her discretely. She leaned forward, brows furrowed and said in a low voice, "He's managed to find us a place. He wants to carry out the rest of the formalities."

There was a stifled mumble from inside the trailer and Doc turned back for a few seconds before reemerging at the door. "Right. Give us a minute."

Five minutes later, three individuals were standing in the midst of the tall, dry grass a few feet away from the lone trailer on the side of the road. The wind had begun to pick up as the night progressed, and it whistled in through the vegetation with a low, excited moan. The eeriness of the night seeped through the movements of the grass, the dull flickering of the stars and the chill of the night that deposited little drops of frost and dew on the floor of the terrain. The moon was near-full and Caradoc Dearborn was looking up at it with a strange expression, fingering something in his pocket. Edgar Bones lit his cigar calmly and then nodded at the woman by his side. She pulled out her wand in response.

"Ready?"

Dearborn nodded. Emmeline Vance reached into her pocket and pulled out a faded copper coin. She tossed it in the air and aimed her wand; a second later the coin slowed its descent until it landed on invisible grounds in midair, glowing.

"Portkey ready."

Three hands reached forward to hold on to it.

"On the count of three," Emmeline said.

Ed frowned at her. "Portkey? Can't we apparate? Where are we going?"

"Hogwarts," Emmeline said grimly. And then, with a sudden pop, the two men, the woman and the coin disappeared into thin air.

The wind continued to howl.

"That's Emmeline Vance."

Sirius Black opened his eyes.

Slowly the rest of his senses came flooding back one by one; the world flickered into sight, the sound of the laughter of students and the pounding of feet up and down the cold stone corridor floor sharpened, the feeble breeze from the high-set windows blew strands of his hair into his face. With an effort to counter the inertia of uncaring boredom, he rolled his head off its resting place on the wall and looked at the shorter boy next to him.

"Where?"

Peter jerked his head discretely. Down the corridor a few paces away, a witch and two wizard were walking briskly in their direction, boots tapping loudly and purposefully. The witch that lead the trio had on a deep green set of robes that set off her raven hair. She was young and stern-looking, almost sour, but quite pretty otherwise. It would have been hard to pick her out of the crowd as one, but the ministry logo above her left breast, imprinted in dark blue, gave her away. The two men behind her did not look like they were ministry officials; indeed, the one with the rugged face and blond hair was wearing a suspicious looking overcoat as he slunk after her and the other tall, thin one had on a dusty shirt and a cigar which he was flagrantly puffing at from the side of his mouth.

They walked passed Sirius and Peter, whispering sharply to each other.

"...Meadows, she would do it, it was decided upon..."

"...no, Dumbledore's secret keeper, the place just belongs to her..."

If they noticed the two boys outside the Headmaster's office, they did not show any signs of acknowledgement as they continued to talk amongst themselves in quick voices. Indeed hardly a minute had passed before the gargoyle manning the entrance of Dumbledore's office jumped aside and Professor McGonagall appeared at the foot of the steps behind him.

"Ah," she said crisply. "Yes, he's waiting for you upstairs."

The three newcomers nodded their greetings at Professor McGonagall and entered through the door she held open for them. She glanced at Peter and Sirius with a sour look on her face.

"Stay where you are, he will see you in a minute," she said sharply. With that, she shut the door behind her with a loud thud.

Sirius turned to Peter and Peter turned to Sirius, eyebrows raised.

"What's an officer of the Department of Magical Law and Enforcement doing here?"

"Think something's happened again?"

"What if it has to do with the Meyers' case?"

"You don't think what you did was illegal do you?" Peter said, horror dawning slowly upon him.

Sirius gave him a withering look. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You did hurt the man," Peter pointed out in discontent, "You hexed him pretty bad."

"I made weeds grow out of his ear," Sirius said sourly, "it's elementary. He'll live. And besides, he deserves a lot worse."

"Yes," Peter said almost scathingly, which was rather bold for Peter, "because that's going to convince Dumbledore."

"You saying I shouldn't have done it then?"

Peter was silent.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, fixing a penetrating gaze on his face. Peter flushed slightly, opening and closing his mouth.

"You think I shouldn't have, don't you?"

"No." Peter said adamantly, almost as if he was convincing himself. Sirius raised his eyes to the ceiling in suppressed exasperation.

"Thought not."

But Peter still looked doubtful, and he bowed his head, frowning to himself. He was a pacifist; rash actions and bold confrontations did not sit well with him. Sirius was all about bold confrontations and rash actions. His was a caustic nature of sorts, simmering in wait for something to react to, jump out at. A spasm of anger shot through Sirius' body as he recalled the rapid succession of events that occurred that afternoon which led him to where he was outside Dumbledore's office, in deeper shit than he cared to acknowledge. It didn't matter how much trouble he got into for hexing a Ministry official. He would do it again.

And he couldn't understand why Peter wouldn't.

But Peter wasn't really involved anyway. He hadn't done anything, and Dumbledore could easily check that for himself; the imprint of the spell was on Sirius' wand, not Peter's. Peter was only in the wrong place at the wrong time. This ... this was all Sirius. When the green vines began to creep out of the tosser's earholes and wrap around his face and his eyes bulged in horror and sheer incredulity, when he screamed and ran out of the room cussing profusely and yelling repercussions, Sirius' had felt the begins of sadistic satisfaction and release for the pure rage boiling in his blood, and he had grinned.

He gripped his wand in his pocket, pursing his lips.

Sirius heard Peter squeak before he heard the heavy stone door of Dumbledore's office swing open with a shuddering groan, creaking as came to a stop. Professor McGonagall stood at the entrance enshrouded in deep amber light that made her spectacles gleam menacingly, arms crossed over her chest and lips thinned to terrifying proportions.

"Mr. Black," she said hollowly. "Mr. Pettigrew. The Headmaster is ready for you."