The manor house was nice enough, he supposed as the man made his way up the stone pathway through a garden that while lush was strangely spartan feeling, as though the life there was served no other purpose than to be there and be a garden. Rain gave the air a pleasant smell as the man's boots tread along the path, doing well to create a natural smell that many find pleasant enough, contributing to a scenic, if strangely barren, scene that seemed straight out of a work of fantasy.
The garden was nice, with its bushes and hedges and even a nice fountain in the middle of the courtyard, which reminded the man of another manor from another time. This manor was not quite the same however - for one, it was less. Not less seemly, or less good looking, or even lesser in quality. It was just, less. To the man, however, that mattered little, though he supposed that it mattered greatly to the men that lined the rows of government as they presided over the ones they once called thieves. What mattered to the man was the manor, and the once stately doors that stood just ahead of him.
One was open, and wide at that.
"Cue the ominous music." the man muttered quietly, smoke escaping past a battered looking cigarette that looked like it should have gone out half a mile ago.
His hood shadowing emerald irises that took in the stately door that was so invitingly open, the man sighed heavily as his mudcaked boots came to a slow stop, and fingerless gloved hands found their way to his hips and held a dampened belt, shifting with discomfort as damp clothes rustled about. He sighed heavily once again.
"Why are things always so damn difficult? Just once I…" the man's mutterings became grumbles as he meandered his way forward once more, cloak just barely whispering above his ankles as it comfortingly hugged his back.
Tossing the cigarette away as the man stepped inside the stately home, eyes that never shifted took in a grand entryway that was still lesser than another time. The stairway was double, and rounded their way down and around a set of double doors that would no doubt lead into a proper waiting room, with the stairways rounding their way up to another set of double doors that held the office in question. Above them all was a quaint chandelier, a very nice one really.
"Huh. Those are real crystals." The man said casually, impressed with the gaudiness of the the 'lord' of this manor.
Indeed they were, reflecting the light of gently floating candles as they flickered lazily, with the gold of the chandelier shimmering with the gently roaring fire of the fireplace that was on the first floor along the two sides of the entrance, leaning against two doors that led to the rest of the impressive home.
For all intents and purposes, the home was nice and perfect. Except, the double doors on the second floor.
One was open.
"Tch. I knew he beat me here, but damn. Smug bastard." The man whispered darkly, one hand on his hip as the other swung lazily at his left. His cloak whispered soothingly as he strode forward, trekking mud onto the very expensive carpet.
As he strode past, the man's hand glided up the golden handrails as he sauntered his way up, relaxed and standing straight up. The ebony stairs didn't even groan beneath his feet, which spoke well of either its charms or its craftsmanship. No doubt the lord of the home very much liked to look and feel impressive in front of whatever guests he may have had. Not that that mattered any longer.
"Knock Knock" The man said casually, leaning against the doorway as he took in the nice study.
Afterall, the lord of the manor was quite dead, sitting in his no doubt plushy chair and slumped over his impressively large desk, a bottle of firewhiskey near his head sitting there as if to say 'man this guy had too much of me to drink, damn lightweights'.
"Figures."
The man made his way inside, eyes shifting left to right slowly as his left hand rose to rub a chiseled jaw that was peppered with a very dashing five o'clock shadow, salted with bits of too-early grey. His right hand never left his belt.
"Well well, what have we here. Looks like you've had better days." The man said quietly, raising the head of the lord of the manor.
The man had a very large hole in his forehead, revealing the small pool of blood on the desk. Upon further inspection, there was a larger hole in the chair behind him, perfectly centered. The metallic scent of blood mixed with the smell of flowers in the room as the man took in the slight splatter on the chair, and the larger splatter on the wall behind him that surrounded another hole in the wall.
"Poor bastard. I'll just leave you to your headache then, sir." The man idly muttered, eyes still shifting first up, then down, then left to right then back again in reverse order, right hand never moving as his left let the corpse slump back down, head hitting the desk with an undignified whump.
The man took in the mirrors on the walls behind the desk, which reflected back the man in his charming roguish glory, a dark red shirt that looked well-worn above a very lucky pair of black trouser, the ends of which were neatly tucked into an old but well taken care of pair of traveling boots. The man's face was shadowed by his hooded cloak, which was very worn looking, with small tears at the ends that seemed more stylised than actually torn, though that could have simply been the fancy reckoning of the rouge that stared into the mirror inside a very nicely decorated study with a fireplace that carried the embers of a particularly defiant log.
Satisfied with what the man saw, he right hand dropped from his belt as he stepped around the desk, kicking the chair and the dead man over.
"Excuse me."
The man got to work quickly, opening the many many drawers in the man's desk, surveying the cabinets on the walls that never even squeaked.
"Who needs this many cabinets?" The man said incredulously, the room responding with nothing more than silence.
His cloak whispered amusingly as he rustled about, cursing as more and more cabinets ended up dry. Eventually, the man cursed loudly.
"Who has this many cabinets that are empty in a study of all things? Well, empty of anything good. Bunch of parchment and other useless scrolls that have scribbles on them. Literal scribbles! Look at this one! What was he drawing, a clock?" The man scowled, puzzling and puzzling and puzzling some more as he scratched his jaw and his cloak joyously rustled about.
Wait.
"Hold on a moment…" The man said quietly, now taking in the corpse with a critical eye.
The corpse, being a cadaver, said nothing of course. That did not deter the man.
"You've been holding out on me good sir." The man strode forward, once more surveying the desk as he approached, kneeling down to the side of the cadaver as his eyes stared a hole into the desk.
"Yep. Clever guy aren't you? Not clever enough for me." The man said cheekily, finding a stick alongside the cadaver's wrist that really wasn't all that impressive.
"I always sorta figured you were lacking in length, but lacking in rigidness and width too? Man you had a problem." The man mocked, though the cadaver said nothing.
"Tough crowd. Alright, let's get this thing open yeah?" He said as he took the stick over to the desk, his lips pursed in concentration as he very sillily poked the desk with the stick in certain places over and over in different orders.
"Bloody thing, I was never really good at this… maybe I should have paid more attention in school?" He paused briefly, considering as his cloak stilled, bemused. "Nah."
Suddenly, the man clicked his tongue. "Clever. Again though, not clever enough for me! Haha!"
He went in reverse order, and suddenly the wall that had a circle in it with blood splatters fell away, as though they had never been. Almost like-
"Magic, gotta love it sometimes." The man said happily, sauntering quickly over to the wall in anticipation of well earned loot-
"Son of a bitch!" Inside the false wall was a box, yet inside the box?
One bullet.
"Fuck me." The man cursed, impressed and pissed all at once as his cloak agitatedly moved about.
Suddenly, the man felt an overwhelming pressure on a bit of him that should never really feel so constricted. "Ah hell, how…?"
Quickly turning back, removing the lord's stick from his desk and putting it where it belonged, the man made sure that the wall, circle and blood and all stared back at him mockingly as it reappeared. He could practically hear the mocking laughter already. Grumbling about smug bastards and clever corpses, the man strode out of the study only to find himself surrounded by men and women wearing red robes and pointing pointy sticks at him, all of them glowing red on the end like a discount sparkler, about 6 of them total in a reverse V formation, with the point of the V being the furthest from him.
"Sir, you are under arrest for trespassing on private property, as well as breaking and entering into a Lord's home. Put your hands in the air, and come down the stairs slowly." The man at the point of the V barked out.
"Well well, Ministry's best and brightest eh? 'The boys and girls in nice and dull red'. Perfect for complementing Aurors and their smarts as well as their dashing uniforms." The man called back, casually slumping his right hand onto his hip as he gestured with his left, winking as he did so.
The men and women pointing their sticks at him did not care for that, by the way they gripped their sticks tighter and leaned forward just a tad. The Auror in charge spoke again, voice just a little slower and tighter now, eyes shifting right to left. "I will not ask you again sir, put your hands up and come down slowly. You are surrounded, but we will use force if we have too."
Normally, stern voices like that were enough to get people to realize the gravity of the situation. For the man? Stern voices like that? They never were good for much.
"Force? With what, those fancy sticks you guys proudly call wands?" The man mocked, and the Aurors seemed to take offense to that.
"Sir, you are surrounded by half a team of Aurors, with the rest of us outside. We have the numbers, and the firepower. Give yourself up." The Auror growled, his own wand now glowing red as he pointed it at the man.
"Firepower?" The man simply smiled, shaking his head as he lowered his head. Chuckling, he raised his head and green irises glowed with anticipation. "Firepower, get a load of this guy."
Before the Aurors could respond, the man moved his right hand quickly, raising it up and-
BANG!
With a sound of thunder, the Aurors were quick enough to raise a shield, though that did nothing to stop the chandelier from coming down and crashing down in front of them and sending gold and crystals out in a radius of deadly debris that was flying towards the Aurors.
The Auror captain or whoever he was however, had more smarts than the average bear. With a flourish the gold came to a still, and the crystals smashed against barriers around his men, exploding into colorful lights in a sort of fireworks display. While his men recovered their wits, the captain blinked away the spots in his eyes as the man called out again.
"Sorry!"
And he was on them.
The man slid in from nowhere, an old revolver in his hand that was too new for its look, and each shot that came from the weapon was a word.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
In three thunderous words, three wands were blown to bits as the man finished his slide, coming to a halt in front of stunned woman, his left arm coming up and suddenly her wand was cut in two, a silver hair poking out in the middle of the stick that was once much longer and pointier. The man jumped, using his legs to jump off the woman and doing a backflip over a red spell that was flying towards his back, sending a shot back.
A pained cry and the slight sound of splintering wood was the very satisfying response.
Five wands down, in the time it took most men to think of a plan in the first place. Only the captain kept his wand, glaring at the man.
The man simply smirked. "Not sorry!"
The captain raised his wand and shot off a chain of spells. This guy was no slouch. He had the training, the knowledge, the experience in both criminals and war-
His wand exploded, and his pointer finger was blown clean off as the old revolver spoke again.
The captain went down, howling, and the scene erupted into further pandemonium. The five other Aurors, down but not out, did their department credit as they moved to apprehend the man without magic. First from his right, a rather large man attempted to charge him down with a medium sized partner even as an athletic girl from at him from his peripheral from the left. Two shots came out at lighting speed, hitting both men in their right knees. As they quickly tripped over, screaming as they did so in shock, the main tossed his knife left as his head snapped towards the girl he had seen.
His knife landed in her bicep on her right arm, not quite where he was aiming but he would take it. She didn't go down according to plan though, and jumped at him anyway, gritting her teeth through the pain as she groaned throughout the jump. Ducking down, the man let her sail overhead and crash into one of the fireplaces with a scream as his hands moved at blinding speed to load another handful of bullets into the weapon, spinning around to send a shot straight into the right shoulder of a portly woman who had been flanking him, sending her spinning over and groaning in pain as she hit the floor, moving very slowly.
Satisfied, the man smirked only to cry out in surprise when a rather muscled man tackled him from the side, springing out from behind one of the couches with a war cry, sending the rogue and the Auror crashing to the floor and the man's firearm sliding away. Groaning beneath the sheer bulk of the man, he attempted to lift the strong man, though the man simply grabbed his arms and forced them into the ground.
"It's over." The Auror breathed heavily, applying as much force as he could into the man's wrist.
"You know, you really ought to redefine your definition of 'over' before you say stuff like that hotshot." The rogue snarked back before headbutting the muscled man, shocking him enough to let his left hand free. Quick as a flash his left hand came down and back up, sending a knife deep into the calf of the muscled man.
He pulled it free as the man screeched in pain, and flipped the knife in his grip, using the handle and thumping it real hard into the temple of the man. His eyes rolled up, and he slumped onto the rogue. The man let out a oomph as his soul briefly escaped his body.
"Christ man, would it kill you to eat a bloody salad?"
With a groan, the man pushed the slumped Auror over, coughing as he crawled over to his revolver. Grabbing it, the man groaned as he stood up. "Man, now I'm pissed."
He then proceeded to take a bolt of red into his ribs, sending him flying with a scream into the wall next to the other fire place. Groaning as he sat up a little bit, the man scratched his head with his left as his right tightly gripped his pistol still. "Yeah, that hurt."
"What the fu-" An unfortunate Auror, one of three who had come running back into the manor upon hearing their captain scream, stood slack-jawed for just a split second too long as a word came back, sending him head over heels as a bullet lodged itself into his right shoulder and down to the floor.
The rogue slipped forward, stepping on the Auror's wand as he engaged another Auror as the third Auror gave the captain first aid, reattaching his finger to the man. The rogue ducked as two spells flashed forward and over his head. He came up with his knife, but the woman was much more athletic than the other one, and much better looking.
'Why is it always the lookers that are good at fights?'
She ducked backwards, sending her left palm into his chest quickly and pushing him back, bringing her right palm up to cast-
With a wand that wasn't there anymore.
'Shame they aren't always bright'
She blinked, and he stuck her wand up her nose and caused her hands to fly up to her nose and as she screamed. His right hand, with the butt of this pistol, flew up and forced its way down, breaking her nose without sending her cartilledge up and causing her knees to buckle with a low groan as her eyes rolled back and she slumped forward into the rogue.
He held her tight, briefly enjoying her assets, and raised his right arm back up over her shoulder and spun the revolver along his finger until the barrel was pointed right at the third Auror, who was a wily man who had stepped in front of his recovering captain, his arm raised and casting a stunner at our hero, raising a shield straight after.
The stunner flew with perfect accuracy, but it hit the groaning bird in his arms and the rogue let her slump down and falling away from him as he let her go, sending two shots back at the Auror - one for his shield, and one for the Auror and the captain behind him.
The shield snapped under the pressure of a shield-breaker, and as the man reeled from the backlash he stepped back into his captain, who had put his hands up to steady the only Auror still standing with a wand. The second shot tore through the medics shoulder and through the hand of the captain, straight through the hand that had its pointer finger blown off then reattached. Insult to injury, the medic flew back into the captain, forcing the very painful hand crashing into his chest and causing him to scream again.
The medic and the captain groaned together as the rogue sauntered forward, stepping down onto the medic and forcing him further into the captain.
"Now, what were you saying about numbers and firepower?" He said, tapping his jaw as his right hand pointed the revolver at the two men. The captain simply gritted his teeth, groaning as the medic passed out from pain in response to the boot on the bullet wound.
"Sheesh, look at this guy, taking a nap. Not the time man, you really ought to train your men better Cap'n." The man snarked, thinking aloud. He shook his head.
"Low standards aside, you're coming with me pal."
Grabbing the groaning by his shoulder, the man picked him up and spun him around, using him as a shield and walking them across the now ruined entry over to the stately doors, both of which were now open. Stepping out onto the raised concrete porch into a renewed drizzle, the rogue began to shout.
"ALRIGHT, HERE'S WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN-"
He instantly cried out as he took a quick jab to the face from his left, causing him to drop the captain and be spun around, sending his face into the door frame and giving him a very nice shiner and pretty stars to dance in his vision as his right arm was restrained.
"Gotcha now, asshole." An Auror gloated, patting himself on the back for posting up near the door. The rogue shook his head, shakily saying-
"You really should have gotten my right better."
"Eh?"
BANG!
The Auror went down with a scream as the rogue turned his the revolver in his hand and used his pointer finger to send a bullet into the thigh of the Auror, the recoil dislocating and breaking his pointer finger, making the rogue groan and grit his own teeth.
"These idiots really ought-" He spiun away from the door frame as two jets of red slammed into it, sending splinters out into his shirt and bouncing off his cloak and sending him to the floor.
The two Aurors remaining covering the entrance surveyed the scene, wands pointed towards the door.
"Did we get him?"
"Dunno, stay spread out though. You go left and I'll go right."
"But I'm on the right side!"
"Shut up and do what I say rookie!"
As the two bickered with one another and slowly approached, crossing up, a voice came from the air.
"You know he was right, he was already on the right side."
"Wai-"
"FU-"
Two arms appeared, both with knives in hand, and the hands attached to said arms sent the handles into the temples of the two idi-Aurors, thumping their skulls nice and good and giving them some nap time, which Aurors really quite need. Really, he was doing these morons a favor.
The rogue shook his head, cloak slipping off his shoulders and becoming visible again with a snarky flourish. Sighing, he walked forward with a slight limp as he reached into his pockets, coming away with a lighter and a cigarette, lighting it and taking a long drag, releasing the smoke with a heavy sigh.
"Job well done, but man… oh come on."
The gate into the courtyard was now blocked with a very tall wall made of concrete that really wasn't there before. He would know, he checked. Angrily, clenching his teeth and lips locking his cigarette in place he spun around to the front door. The captain stood their on shaky legs, holding himself up against the door frame with his right injured hand, and his shaking left was outstretched with his companion's wand.
"Gotta hand it to you, you're quite the badass."
"You're done, there are wards all over the place, and that gate is the only way in and out. There are more of us on the way and you-"
"You know what, let me just stop you right there."
Our hero brought his gun up and fired two shots once more, shattering the poor captains left hand now and the wand, as well as burying a bullet in his knee and sending him back into the wall.
"Sit right there for a little, catch your breath."
The captain groaned, but still managed to say "You're still not going anywhere, that's a 12 inches thick and 12 foot tall solid block of concrete. You're done." He gasped out.
The rogue snorted as he regarded the captain. "Sure."
The rogue's were gold as he spoke, burning with heat and searing their image into the captain's mind, giving him a story that would never stop telling as long as he lived. Indeed, this poor captain would have to give the report orally, multiple times to multiple people and Department Heads from a comfortable bed at St. Mungos as they put his hands back together.
As our hero's eyes burned with golden fire, he spun on his heel and brought his smoking gun up, the barrel burning so hot the rest of the revolver began to sheen with a golden hue. Steam began to rise off the weapon, and the man, from the steady drizzle that was coming down. Flames licked up the sides of the gun until they glowed so bright the captain's eyes couldn't look directly at it anymore.
BANG!
Thunder boomed as the revolver spit out the last word in the conversation between our hero and the Auror captain, burying a bullet that was so hot that it seemed like a bolt from the sun itself into the concrete. The bullet left a massive hole that went cleanly through to the to other side, and the sheer heat of the bullet caused the concrete to spall, and then to shatter from the temperature difference in the rain and the fire.
As Harry Potter sighed and breathed out black smoke from his nose, he emptied the chamber of his revolver and loaded it again with a fresh mag. Then, with a flourish, he spun it with flair and holstered it at his right side beneath his belt. He walked past the crumbled concrete and through the gate, sliding his cloak up and around his shoulders nice and tight to combat the cold drizzle that had become a steady rain. After a few moments of walking, Harry Potter disappeared without a sound.
Next time, Auror Captain John Dawlish resolved, I'm bringing a fucking army.