Your wand is in your hand almost before you hear the screech of the alarm. You leap from your desk and rush to the portkey-pole. The alarm—something like a cross between a kettle and an alarm clock—shrieks and whistles as you grab it by the handle. You tap it to the pole, priming the portkey, and take a moment to examine the alarm's emissions. Red sparks shoot from it, forming into squares in the air before they fade.
The system is simple enough, even for a new Auror like you to remember. Green for crimes against property. Yellow for crimes against Muggles. Red for violent crimes, crimes against wizards and witches. Within Red, you have circles for non-magical crime, lines for indeterminate crimes, and triangles for violent crimes. Squares are rare, but you remember quickly their significance: murder.
Jefferson grabs the pole. Sergeant Rodriguez follows, pausing a moment to tap out a notification on his signal mirror. He grips the pole with his left hand, and draws his wand with his right. You and Jefferson look to him for direction.
"It's murder, that much we're certain of," says Rodriguez. "Keep your wands out and your eyes sharp. The report's only twenty minutes old, so expect a hot scene. Stun first, ask questions later. Portus."
You feel the familiar yank of the portkey in the center of your being and moments later land on your feet in a big, marble-floored lobby. Great pillars of stone spring up from the floor and reach up to a dark-stained wooden ceiling. The floor is littered with the remains of desks, chairs, and several Muggles. The back door has forcibly pulled clear of the doorway and is making a temporary living as a carpet, telling the ceiling "Employee Access Only" with serifed typeface.
Behind you is once a glass wall, cracked, and a great glass spinning door, shattered. The glass wall has embossed letters frosted into the surface, and you read "Chase" clearly, even from the inside. You lift your wand and scan the room while Rodriguez takes point and Jefferson puts up the notice-me-not wards to keep further Muggles out. Tell-tale holes from piercing curses mark the walls, pillars, and furniture around the lobby. It doesn't seem like much of a sporting arena, though maybe it was easier to "chase" things before someone tore it up with piercing curses.
"Jefferson, what kind of building is this?" you ask. Out of the three of you, Jefferson the half-blood knows the most about the Muggle world.
"It's a Muggle bank," says Jefferson. "Muggles use banknotes—like personal checks or letters of credit—instead of galleons, and store them in banks like this. The vault should be in the back, either on this floor or one floor below. They don't build as deep as we do."
You nod. You've heard it before, about the banknotes, but it never made sense to you. You don't really know how Jefferson can tell all these Muggle buildings apart. They all look the same to you. Your scan is finished, and you report. "Looks like a duel happened here. Traces of dark magic, dueling magic, and some sort of chemicals in the air. They don't seem like potion ingredients I'm familiar with. You can't smell them, can't you?"
"Gone," says Jefferson, picking up an L-shaped piece of metal from the ground and eyeing it suspiciously.
"What's gone?" you ask, turning to get a look at what he's holding.
Jefferson snorts. "This is a 'gun.' It's like a wand, but for Muggles. Very dangerous. In addition to noise, they generate a small amount of smoke when used. They throw bits of metal, called bullets. Guns vary in size and shape from 5 inch long ones like this to ones the size of—"
"Jefferson, Chu, come take a look at this," shouts Rodriguez from the back.
You and Jefferson hustle through the doorway into the Employee Access Only, which you think is an awfully strange name for a room. You step carefully over the bodies of a few Muggles and find yourself in a large conference room, by the looks of it. The damage is more severe here, but there are no bodies, except for a robed figure on the ground by the back door of the room. Judging by the close-cropped pink hair, the wand in hand, and the hole where the bottom half of his torso should be, this wizard is the victim who set off the wards.
Your eyes scan the rest of the room. You see Rodriguez isn't alone. He's arguing with someone: an English Auror, by the robes. He's a slim, long-haired man in a red uniform with unkept hair and striking green eyes. Behind him stands another Auror, with blonde, slicked-back hair, a scar across his cheek, and no left arm. The argument is heated, and Rodriguez waves his hands furiously as he talks.
"—on our turf, right here in Boston. That makes it American Federation territory, so you Brits can keep the fuck out of our way. This is my crime scene."
The dark-haired man looks unperturbed. His British accent is grating. "Again, be that as it may, we detected that the person who did this is a servant of Voldemort, so per ICW Code 9.2(f), this crime falls under the jurisdiction of the British Ministry. Your government signed the treaty regarding Voldemort's followers—"
"I've never heard of anything like that! This is bullshit. I'm not going anywhere until I hear back from my Lieutenant, and neither are you—"
Something tugs at the back of your perception. You stop paying attention to the close attention to the argument and look at the damage gouged into the walls and floor from the spells that flew around this room. The victim was definitely a top-notch duelist if his curses could chip marble. Judging by the damage to the back wall, the killer mostly used piercing curses. Several of the chairs show signs of transfiguration, and the two halves of the table were definitely something four-legged and furry before they were cut. This room was scarred everywhere… except for the back door. The door was iron, but spells like this should have easily tarnished and warped it.
How strange. Stepping closer, you see that the door and an area around it are free of any sort of damage. In a duel like this, nothing escapes damage by accident. Someone was shielding this place. By the looks of it, this dead guy was absorbing or blocking any spell that went this way: no small feat, given the spells likely being thrown around. He probably died for it, given where he fell. What was worth losing a life for? What was he protecting?
There's only one way to find out. You twist your wand, and with a silent spell, force the door open.
Jefferson gasps.
The trembling children bring back memories from that case a year ago. You clutch your wand with rage and horror. Five of them huddle in the corner, eyes wide and filled with fear. One is sobbing quietly, her hands over her mouth, trying to hold in the noise. The oldest one—he can't be more than Jeffrey's age—stands and stares you down, his bloodshot eyes betraying his fear.
"Who—who are you?" he asks, his trembling hands balled into fists. "Where's mommy? What happened?"
There were no survivors that you saw. His mother is almost certainly dead. Your tongue is thick in your mouth, and your words are trapped below consciousness. What do you say? Look at his clothes—he's a Muggle! They're all Muggles, and now they know.
You know standard operating procedure. This is a Muggle who has seen magic. They're only children, but even so, the rules require you erase his memories of today. You are legally obligated to remove the memories of his last day with his mother. You shoot Jefferson a pained look. He knows what you're thinking already.
"It has to be done," he says. "We can't break the Statute for just because he had a bad day."
In that moment, you hate him. You hate his knowledge of Muggle devices, you hate the way he takes his coffee without sugar, you hate his fashion and his comfortable Virginia accent. You hate his wife and his dog and his laugh that reminds you of your cousin. You hate how callous he is, how unfeelingly he tells you to do it. You hate him, yes, but most of all you hate that he's right. Jefferson does things by the book.
You're the best with mind magic. Mother always said you had a certain soft touch about you that lent itself to finicky Charms work. You raise your wand to the starting position for a memory charm. The boy will be better off not knowing. He'll be better off not remembering. You tell yourself the truth, you remind yourself that Muggles can't know the truth. These children must be made to forget. They wouldn't want to remember this anyways, would they? Just before you cast, you feel a hand on your shoulder.
"Let me handle this," says Jefferson. His voice brooks no contradiction.
"Thanks," you mumble. You turn away and blink the tears out of your eyes. The bastard took the weight off your shoulders, but you can't feel grateful. Not really. You take a step towards the door.
"We have to erase the whole day," you continue. "We don't know how much they saw. Erase the full day. Their last day with their mother."
"It's for the best," you tell him.
"They can't know," you tell him.
"We must," you say, and realize you're in the lobby again, leaning against a marble pillar, and Jefferson can't hear you.
The Statute of Secrecy is necessary. You protect the world from chaos worse than any Dark Lord.
You're not doing anything wrong.