Harry Potter strode quickly through the halls, hoping with every fiber of his being that no one was patrolling the corridors at this time of night. The soft blue light of the moon cast dark shadows across the stone, giving him some cover. However, the shadows would be useless if he were to encounter one of his men. Though, what were the chances of that? Pretty good chances apparently.
A young man suddenly turned the corner, gazing down tiredly at a file, thick with paper. His brown eyes seemed set on the documents before them, but the sudden intake of breath did not escape his notice. Brown orbs snapped up quickly and fell on the green eyed wanderer.
"Boss? What are you doing here so late?" He asked in a low voice, running a hand through his dark brown locks. Harry grinned, guilt gleaming bright in emerald eyes.
"I uh, fell asleep." Harry said with a crooked smile, straightening up in attempts to match the man's height. "What are you doing here Solomon?"
Solomon Vinset was a tall man with dark hair and dark eyes. He had a broad chest and a friendly smile, though it could be rather alarming when first meeting the man. He wasn't the most agile or quick of the Aurors, but he was brilliant at spotting small details and getting information out of suspects.
"Reading a file, Johnson case from two weeks ago."
"Oh yeah, Jessica was having some problems with that. I hope she didn't interrupt your vacation time." Harry said, remembering the difficult case.
Trent Johnson had been murdered in his home and the only suspects were those in his family, unless of course someone managed to get through their warding. However, Trent Johnson had been a rather paranoid man, and it was doubtful that someone should get through his defenses, leaving only his wife and two sons as suspects.
"If she had it wouldn't matter. I became bored quickly as you can only do so much when visiting grandparents." Harry smiled and nodded, not fully understanding the feeling but deciding it would indeed get boring quickly.
"So did you find anything for the case?" Harry asked as he started to walk down the hall with Solomon at his side.
"Yes actually, I think someone should look into his second son's background, see if he had anything to do with You Know Who a couple years back, or perhaps had some sort of encounter."
"What makes you say that?" The raven haired man asked, genuinely curious.
"Well Trent wasn't exactly the most noble of men, and his body in these pictures shows sign of abuse before death, so I'm thinking the son might have used some of the old methods of torture, those used by the Death Eaters, to punish his father before killing him." Solomon shrugged. "It's a long shot, but if you look at the scaring and bruises, then assume the son healed them to remove evidence, it's a possibility." Harry nodded thoughtfully. It was a possibility, perhaps the truth. Seeing as it was the only lead they had so far, Harry decided he would assign someone the next day to look into the son's background.
"Alright, we will have to look into that, thanks Solomon." He said with a happy smile. The brunet inclined his head with the shadow of a grin.
"No problem. Now, I really should be getting home. Before I go, did anyone manage to tell you about the meeting tomorrow with the head of the department of Magical Games and Sports?" Harry smacked his forehead.
"Dang I forgot all about that. Thanks for the reminder Sol. Have a good night!" Once the crack of apparition dissipated, Harry to turned on his heals and appeared home.
It was something of a manner, but on the small side as couldn't call it a regular house because it was to big. It was one of the Potter homes called Athen Acres, with tall blue painted walls and a dark roof that acted as a mirror against the bright sun. The sloping hills all around were a shinning green, with flowers glittering like gemstone in random places. The only civilization to be seen was the distant village of Little Hangelton, which emitted a happy golden light every night. Harry sighed happily as he gazed over the land into the deep orange horizon. The time was a little different here, where as at the Ministry it was already dark, at home Harry could enjoy the sunset a little while longer.
"Harry?" A voice called. The raven haired man turned to see a bushy haired woman walking out from his home, deep blue robes billowing behind her in the wind.
"Hey Hermione." Harry greeted once she got closer. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you of course! Where were you?"
"Uh at work..." he muttered.
"Oh goodness Harry you weren't avoiding Ginny again were you?" Hermione exclaimed, glaring at the green eyed man. "I don't understand what has gotten into you!"
"No seriously I was at work doing, you know, work." Harry said quickly, trying and failing to hide his guilty expression.
"Oh Harry." Hermione moaned, shaking her head.
"So why else did you come here?" He asked, changing the topic. It was obvious she didn't just come because of Ginny.
"I wanted to ask if you know why we are supposed to meet with Lee Jorden tomorrow morning for a meeting." The bushy haired girl said with a slight frown.
"Wait you are meeting him to? I thought it was just a few departments, not going all the way to the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Maybe he wants to bring a dragon into the country to make Quidditch more intense." Harry offered with a small grin, leading the way back to the large home, Hermione right on his tail.
"No, I don't think so, otherwise the Prime Minister would have to get involved and, as far as I'm aware, he hasn't been spoken to recently."
"So what else would he want?" He asked. Just then a certain redhead ran into the room, her long hair flying as if in a strong wind.
"Harry, some rude jerk is in the fire place!" Ginny announced with a scowl. Harry knew she would be angry that he came home late, but this was even worse. Whoever called must have really pissed her off.
"Alright Gin, who is it?"
"No idea!" She yelled, throwing her hands in the hair. "But he's lucky that I don't hex his slimy tongue right out of his mouth!" Harry thought.
"Did he have a weird accent?" He asked after a moment.
"Yeah." She muttered, crossing her arms. "Rip his vocal cords out." She added quietly. Harry chuckled.
"That's Martin, I should go see what he wants. I'll see you tomorrow Hermione."
"Alright see you Harry!" She called before pulling Ginny out into the porch. Harry stared at the pair for a moment before shaking his head and walking into the living room.
It was huge, with a large sloping ceiling and a glittering chandelier in the middle. The walls were a light cream with several magical painting upon the walls. The one right above the fire place was of a stag and a doe, both leaping happily through tall grass and dodging thick trees. Under the white mantel and in bright green flames was a man's head. He had shaggy black hair and a deep scowl etched on his pale features. His dark eyes were shaded underneath thick eyebrows, making Harry pause for a moment, as he saw the thin face of Severus Snaps behind the scowling mask. Shaking his head, Harry approached.
"Hello Martin." He greeted as he knelt on the shag carpet.
"Harry you best put a leash on the girl friend of yours." Martin said with a small sneer. "Accused me of spying when I first came through and didn't announce myself, simply looking around." Harry smiled.
"Sorry about that, she doesn't know about your aversion to yelling."
"Or speaking loud in general." The man muttered darkly, his gravelly voice grinding like metal in Harry's ear. He didn't talk about it a lot, but everyone in the Ministry knew that Martin had had some sort of accident recently, creating scars all around his neck. They knew not to aggravate him or really talk to him in general, as it would both cause him pain and he had a mean set of curses up his sleeve.
"Oh well, what brings you here?" Harry asked into the silence. He internally grinned, this being the third time he asked that.
"Names from Kingsley. He wants you to look into them, make sure they don't have anything dirty in their past, the normal."
"Ok, do you know why?" The raven haired man asked as he got up to look for a quill and parchment.
"I guess they are coming in a month or so if we agree to something." Martin stated blankly. Harry shrugged.
"Alright, what are the names?"
"Bertha Ida, Germany. Amadi Temitope, Africa. Yazhu Chou, China. Marko Danailov, Bulgaria. Abel Kirill, Russia. Samantha Billings, America. Augusta Lemings, Poland. Andre Duchamp, France. Oliver Stan, Canada. And Grant Colin, Scotland. You got all that?"
"Where's the South Americans?" Harry asked, reading over the names.
"They are doing some other thing with Japan and Australia, we have to deal with those guys."
"Huh, alright. Know why their country of origin is needed?" Harry asked, hoping to get an answer for at least that question.
"No. Now I must go, see you tomorrow." And Martin was gone, before Harry could even say a quick goodbye. He shrugged with a slight smile, knowing Martin didn't much like human interaction.
Harry looked over the names again and sighed. Knowing he wasn't all that tired just yet, he got to work, striding into his office and pulling out all the records he had access to from home and hoping to at least find something on the names. He was honestly surprised how much he found, but all the information did was confuse him.
A good half of the people were active in some Wizarding sport, mostly Quiddich but some also were apart of Dueling Championships and other activities. Samantha Billings was a Metamorphmagus, while Grant was a registered animagus. In other words, all had some sort of special skill or ability that would benefit greatly in... something. Plus, they all had a name in their society, or at least that's what he assumed, considering over half had been present in their news papers at least twice from the data he had access to. Looking around at all the books, Harry was glad he was able to get a computer to work in Athen Acres. It made life a lot easier, especially considering some Muggleborns had thought to use computers for easier communication between countries. Yep, lots easier.
"Oh please tell me we aren't meeting him anytime soon." Ginny moaned as he walked up behind him and spotted the name of Abel Kirill. He was one of the people on the list who were famous for a Quidditch career.
"Why, you know him?" Harry asked curiously.
"Sadly. He's beater for the Devdan Darth Quidditch team. He kept aiming at my head when I played their team." Ginny said, now looking at the other names, pointing to the others she recognized.
"Why all the names?" She asked after a moment.
"No idea, all I know is I need to find out a bit about their backgrounds."
"Well tell me about them!" Ginny stated, throwing herself into an armchair beside him.
"Well," he started, adjusting his collar. "Bertha Ida, Amadi Temitope, Yazhu Chou, Marko Danailov, and Abel Kirill are Quidditch players, or play some other active sport. Samantha Billings and Grant Colin can change their form in some way. Um, Augusta Lemings, Andre Duchamp, and Oliver Stan don't have a lot on them so I don't know about them."
"Do you know how old they are? Any connection is a usefully one." Ginny stated, smiling slightly at him. Harry blinked, surprised that he did not think of that. He quickly turned to the computer, hopping to find the answer.
"They are all either 23 or 24. Hey, that would make most of them three years older than me."
"Let's look into that then! In there anything that would connect people from different countries that are three years older than you?"
"Uh, the only thing that comes to mind is the Tri Wizard Tournament. The other contestants were all three years older or maybe four and were from differ countries."
"Maybe they are doing a World Wide Tri Wizard Tournament, but not for school age kids." Ginny said, jokingly.
"Ha, that would be something." Harry said with a grin.