The alarm went off in the Ontario Ministry of Magic just as Nancy Fireball was taking the first bite of her sandwich. She nearly choked swallowing it, simultaneously getting up and disapparating from the lunch room, heading for her boss's office.
Athena Claymore was already casting an illusion charm to make her robes look like muggle clothing when her assistant appeared with a pop, suddenly standing in the only corner of the office always left clear of clutter and intended for that very purpose.
"Clothes!" Athena reminded the younger witch. It wasn't necessary: Nancy had already stepped out of the apparition spot and was casting the same charm her supervisor just had. Within seconds, they both stood in jeans and black t-shirts.
"First ones in over a month," Nancy said, nervously playing with her wand.
Athena nodded grimly. The alarm in the appropriate ministry of magic sounded whenever British wizards or witches entered a province. The enchantment to pull off this warning system had been so complex that it had taken three of the best witches and wizards in the country five days to pull it off, but it was a vital precaution: England was struggling with the most dangerous wizard in decades if not centuries, which meant an influx of refugees but also the possibility of dark wizards coming to get a foot hold in Canada.
Nancy took a deep breath and turned to the wall behind her, picking up one of the many mirrors hanging on it. "Auror Office? Are you on your way?" she asked.
The face of a young wizard, a student assistant by the looks of it, appeared on the mirror. "Yes, Mam. Protocol R1, five Aurors with disillusionment charms on."
"All right, I'll see them there. Well, not see them. You know what I mean. Thanks." She put the mirror back on the wall and turned back to Athena.
"It could still be refugees," she said hopefully. "It probably is. Those Death Eaters nut jobs hate muggles, right? They're not going to want to come on a plane."
Athena nodded and forced a smile. "Absolutely. No need to worry yet, all right? We know things aren't getting any better over there, so odds are we're going to continue to get a trickle of people who finally decide they're better off leaving and somehow manage it without getting caught. All right, the abandoned room off the luggage area."
And with that, she turned on her heels and vanished. Nancy took another deep steadying breath and followed. The aurors on site would have shield charms protecting them the whole time, and she already had her own up, but she still found it terrifying to go greet and probe potential dark wizards who might react violently.
She had become an investigator assistant with jobs like helping people find their cats in mind, not this. She'd only volunteered for the refugee check assignment because someone needed to and nobody else would. She just couldn't steady her nerves the way Athena did.
The Death Eaters had not yet tried to get into other countries since their leader had come out into the open, and there was no reason they would suddenly try it now. They were in a status quo over there now that they had seized power, because they were still busy looking for Harry Potter. They couldn't afford to dilute their forces by spreading across the World yet.
This reasonable line of thought barely took the edge off Nancy's apprehension; fear and reason, in her experience, were often not on speaking terms.
She apparrated, as planned, in a small unused room just by the last luggage carousel in the international baggage collecting area in Pearson International airport. Athena was already there, ready to open the door to let the two of them out.
"What IS this room, anyway?" Nancy asked. She didn't know why she was suddenly curious about that. She supposed her nerves were procrastinating dealing with the potential Death Eaters.
Athena shrugged. "Extra storage, I think. Maybe for lost luggage. I don't know. Ready?"
Her supervisor's clipped tone did nothing to reassure Nancy. She swallowed and nodded.
Athena opened the door and the two witches joined the crowd in the baggage claim area, senses on high alert, shield charms up and in Athena's case, eyes glued to a magic detector disguised to look as a muggle electronic agenda.
"This way," Athena said, walking briskly towards the middle of the area. "There's not a blip in the other direction. Hopefully it's them so we can get this over with… not like that one time last month."
Nancy couldn't help scowling a bit at the memory. They had criss-crossed the area about twenty times, following the magic detector's directions and constantly running into Canadian or American wizards before they had finally found the British ones: a family who had stopped to eat before coming to the luggage claim.
"Remember:" Athena said quite unnecessarily, "look for cloaks or really bad attempts at muggle clothing. Don't know WHY Europeans can't get that stuff right, but lately, I'm glad of it. Makes it much easier to spot them."
Nancy saw them first. They appeared to be a family, waiting by the carrousel and looking a familiar mix of terrified, relieved, and utterly lost. Their clothes were actually not that bad: the father wore purple parachute pants and a neon green silk shirt, but the mother and her three children had done a much better job looking like they inhabited the same decade as the crowd around them, making it look like she was indeed muggle born. Nancy pointed them to Athena. "They look okay," she said tentatively. "Not evil, I mean."
"We have to be closer for the sneakoscope to work," Athena replied. "I brought a foe mirror, too, and we'll ask the usual questions."
They walked up to the alleged family and Athena, after a brief look at her pocket foe glass, smiled and addressed the mother. Nancy hung very slightly back, hand in the magically expanded right front pocket of her jeans, ready to draw her wand. This was the trickiest part: be welcoming and reassuring because the new arrivals could be shell shocked refugees in desperate need of help and a bit of human warmth, while being ready to fight in case they turned out to be Death Eaters who happened to be very good at fooling simple dark detector tools.
"Hi!" Athena said, her voice much calmer than Nancy felt. "My name is Athena, and I'm in charge of helping refugees arriving in Ontario. I'm so sorry, I'd love to just welcome you with open arms, but we need to take a few precautions."
The witch gave a very shaky nod. "I understand," she said in a voice that was no steadier than the rest of her. "I.. I'm Mary. Mary Cattermole. I'm muggle born, but I swear, I didn't steal my wand, I…"
"We'd never, ever assume you did," Nancy interjected. "We wouldn't. Because that's crazy."
"Indeed we wouldn't," Athena agreed. "All right. I'm going to ask you to follow us to that bathroom over there; it's always out of order because we use it to transport refugees like yourselves to a secure area. No intolerance to portkeys?"
Mary blinked. "I… I didn't know there was such a thing," she said.
"Well, it's rare, but we have to check," Nancy said. "Just in case. You know how it feels like you're yanked by your middle? Even though you're not REALLY getting yanked physically, it still hurts some people's back, and it gives some people vertigo. But yeah, it's only like one in twenty thousand. Floo Powder allergy's the one that's pretty common. One in a thousand, I think? That's why we avoid it, actually. Anyway, you're all good?"
Mary nodded feebly. Her husband still didn't say anything, nervously looking around with his hands in his pocket. Nancy assumed one of them was closed on his wand. The children were hiding behind their parents.
Nancy and Athena led the family to the "out of order" bathroom, invisibly followed by five aurors. The aurors removed their disillusionment charms once they were out of sight of the crowd, causing the Cattermoles to startle badly and all three children to scream and bury their face in the nearest parent's pants. The boy had been closest to his father, and was able to nearly wrap his whole head in purple fabric.
"It's okay!" Nancy said soothingly. "They're just here to keep us all safe. Except when we run into bad people. They don't keep THEM safe. They keep us safe FROM them. You know."
Athena cleared her throat and showed the group a roll of toilet paper she'd just partly unrolled on the floor. "Everyone grab this please, and I'll activate it. Now, I have to tell you that if you fail to arrive with us at the Ministry, we'll have to assume you have bad intentions and we'll come after you to arrest you. Do NOT let go. Hold the kids, all right?"
Mary and Reginald nodded and grabbed the young ones before grabbing a handful each of the portkey and making the children do the same. Nancy and the aurors grabbed their handful too and with a nod, Athena pointed her wand at the roll, which shortly began glowing blue.
Athena counted down. "Three, two, one…"
The portkey activated and transported the group across the city to the inside of a fortified, locked, windowless and stark interrogation room at the ministry.
"Sorry," Athena said again, sweeping the familiar room with her eyes. "I know this sucks. It'll be done soon, okay?"
Reginald Cattermole gave a jerky little shrug. "Do the kids have to stay?"
"They do. They could be adults in disguise," Athena answered. She took a bottle out of her handbag and showed it to the family. "This is veritaserum. Will you agree to take it to answer some questions?"
"You mean we don't have to?" the husband said.
"We'll take it," Mary said, her voice slightly high pitched. "Reg, let's just do what they say, okay?"
Reg chewed on his cheeks for a second before he shrugged and nodded. It wasn't like they had anything to hide.
Athena smiled. "Thank you. And just to be fair…" She uncorked the bottle, conjured a small glass, poured a measure of veritaserum into it and drank.
"My name is Athena Claymore," she said. "I work for the Ontarian Ministry of Magic as an Investigator. This is my assistant Nancy Fireball; she gets a motor mouth whenever she's nervous. They are members of our auror group," she added, pointing at the five people who had so scared the Cattermole when casting off their disillusionment charm. "We want you to feel sure we're not going to harm you, so ask us any question you like," she concluded.
Reg and Mary Cattermole blinked at her for several seconds before one of the kids pulled on her mother's arm. Mary bent down to her and the girl whispered something to her. Mary chuckled, shrugged and patted her shoulder.
"Just one?" she asked.
"As many as you like," Athena replied. "The thing is, if we start thinking you're stalling, we'll think you're up to no good."
"Er… Alright," Mary said. "My daughter wanted… wanted to ask whether you ever... err… pass gas in public." She turned red. "Is that okay to ask?"
Athena blushed too. "Every time I disapparate, actually," she said. "It... follows me at my destination. That's a clever question," she added. "Not dangerous, but very tempting to lie about unless you're under the influence of a truth potion."
Nancy did her absolute best to keep a straight face. This quirk of Athena's was well known in the department, prompting nearly everyone to always meet her at her office rather than have her apparate in theirs. And the small room where they had apparated had, as expected, been perfumed by the time Nancy materialized in it.
Everyone else smiled or in the case of the kids, outright laughed.
"That's good enough for me," Reg Cattermole said.
Mary didn't look as sure but nodded anyway.
Athena conjured five more glasses, filled them with veritaserum and floated them to the family. Reg and Mary drank and their children imitated them.
The rest was routine. She asked their names and ages to make sure they were who they said they were, asked a lot of pointless questions to give the legilimens aurors trained to detect when someone was resisting a will altering potion or spell the time to do just that, and asked them why they had come to Canada.
They passed with flying colors.
Once it was all said and done, Athena smiled and sighed in relief. "All clear," she said in a ringing, authoritative voice. She turned to Nancy. "Passports?"
Nancy, smiling and looking very relieved, handed over five blank business cards. Athena turned back to the Cattermoles.
"I'm sorry you had to go through all this," she said, "but it's all over now. Welcome to Canada. We have a refuge set up where you can go, easiest way is to set up a portkey for you but if you prefer, we can take you there; it's just a short drive. You can stay at the refuge as long as you need; they'll help you find employment so that when you're ready, you can go find your own place, but there are quite a few people who have elected to just stay there so far, and that's fine too."
One of the children tugged on their mother's sleeve. "When do we go home, Mum?"
The other two looked up at Mary Cattermole's face expectantly as well. Nancy cleared her throat and knelt to be at the children's level. They turned towards her, looking far more worn than children should ever be. "As soon as it's safe," Nancy said brightly. "We don't really know how long that's going to take, but as soon as it's okay for you to go back home, we'll help you get there right away. Okay?"
The children gave halfhearted nods. Mary and her husband leaned on each other and gathered the kids in a loose hug.
- A year later -
Ron Weasley emerged from one of the fireplaces in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic with his nose buried in a letter he'd received this morning from Hermione. She had just started her seventh year at Hogwarts, and was detailing everything about the school – what was different from their sixth year, what was the same, who were the new and returning teachers and who else was doing a seventh year, and of course since it was Hermione, how Winky was doing.
Ron was just reading about the new Sorting Hat song when he collided into someone.
"Sorry!"
"Sorry!"
Ron looked up just in time to see Reg Cattermole trying to sidestep him. His eyes widened and he grabbed the maintenance wizard's arm. "Oy! Wait!" he said.
Cattermole turned and blinked at him, then cocked his head and frowned slightly. "Do I know you?" he asked.
Ron hurriedly stuffed Hermione's letter in his sleeve and extended his hand. "Ron Weasley," he said. "Er… I…" he rubbed the back of his head and became interested in the tip of his boots. "I transformed into you last year when we needed to get in here," he said in one breath. He looked up then, feeling somewhat better after confessing. "I swear, we had no idea about your wife. Did you guys get out all right?"
Cattermole's eyes widened. He shook Ron hand. "You broke Mary out!" he exclaimed. "And everyone else, you made everyone run for it!"
People were milling around them, hurrying to get to work and ignoring them.
Ron broke the handshake and nodded. "They didn't catch you, then?" he asked again.
Cattermole shook his head, smiling. "Mary said to grab the kids and go, and that's what we did. We managed to get to Canada. Much better than Azkaban! I best be going. Cheers!"
Ron snorted as Cattermole trotted off. "There's a tourist slogan for you," he muttered under his breath. "Come to Canada, it's much better than Azkaban!"
Maybe it was just the relief of finding out what had happened to the Cattermoles, but he found the idea so funny he was still chuckling about it when he reached his cubicle in the Auror department.
Fin
Author's Notes
I just wanted those guys to be okay, and for Ron to find out they were, really.
Refugees are a very sad reality that's come to the forefront recently, and I always wish that anyone who needs help would receive it anywhere they look for it. The real World is unfortunately more complicated than this story, but I wanted to write an overall happy story, so I idealized the scenario. Would that I hadn't needed to.
Thanks for reading, and please review! This thing is my first Harry Potter story, I'd like to know I didn't mess up too badly...