"Do you work at Ollivander's? Because I've got twelve inches of wood for you to polish."

I hate nightclubs.

Without stopping, I planted a hand against his shoulder and forcibly removed him from my vicinity. His drunken ass stumbled back a few steps and was absorbed by the crowd.

For three reasons.

"Hey, gorgeous! You look like you need some Skele-Gro. You're missing my bone in your body."

My hand may have accidentally slipped as I passed, and I may have accidentally relocated the contents of his glass all over his face. I lost sight of him as he furiously tried to scrub the alcohol from his eyeballs.

That would be reason number one: the patrons. More specifically, the quality and concentration of said patrons. On one hand, you have the bar area, where recent Hogwarts grads and creepy over-the-hill Ministry powerbrokers are brought together by the prospect of alcohol and temporary companionship. On the other, you have the dance floors, roiling pits of humanity, all wandering hands and grinding hips. Personal space was nonexistent. People flitted in and out of my comfort zone, leering at everything from my neck down.

Which brings me to reason number two: required attire. All feminine garments must a) be backless, b) feature a plunging neckline, c) bare the midriff, or d) have an annoyingly short hemline. I'd gone with e) all of the above, AKA guaranteed admission. Even plastered with a roll of double-sided tape, I was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Not my preferred way to draw attention. Call me old fashioned, but I like it when people talk to my face, which is hard enough as it is.

But my apparent lack of modesty had gotten me past the bouncer, through the doors, and straight to reason number three: the mandatory wand check. It seemed a little excessive, stripping away my best friend at the entrance. "For the patron's protection," was the official statement I got. "When the alcohol starts to flow, those Unforgivable Curses…. yeah."

A brilliant candidate passed on the left, the one who deviated from his route to "accidentally" brush against my bare shoulder. He could do with a little dying. And the idiot following me, the one whose eyes were glued to my ass. He could do with a little suffering. And that group of… Okay, so they do have a valid point. Still, parting with one of my wands, even temporarily, was a little heartbreaking.

Anyhow, the important thing was that I had managed to gain access to the most popular club this side of the Thames: the Crucifix Lounge. And I certainly wasn't wasting this opportunity. Nursing a club soda within sight of the basement access stairwell, I was hoping to meet a certain Lounge regular, Mr. Kenneth Darby. Wealthy. Handsome. Respectable standing in the magical community. Enjoys wizard chess, Quidditch, and the occasional mass incarceration of Muggle-borns. You know, someone with a smidge of that bad boy charm.

The earpiece lurking beneath my long auburn hair crackled to life. Justin's voice flowed out of the speaker. "Spotted him."

Nova chimed in a couple minutes later. "Got him. In your proximity, Alex," she told me. "Two o'clock. Dance floor, next to the gogo dancer. He's all yours."

A quick glance in that general direction confirmed her statement. "Lucky me," I sighed, just loud enough for the microphone embedded in my choker to transmit.

I took a couple of deep breaths. The sooner I do this, the sooner it'll be over. The sooner I do this, the sooner it'll be over. And I dove into the tangled mess of flapping hemlines and sweating faces, doing my best to imitate the dancers around me. Come on, please please please look this way.

Nova came back online. "Relax! You're young, you're sexy, you're here to have fun. There you go, move with the crowd – Alex! He didn't mean to touch your – stop that! Just move along, move a –"

"Shut up, shut up," I growled, nursing my bruised knuckles.

"Touchy, touchy. Remember, eye contact! And smile like you mean it! All right, he's looking…"

There. Our eyes met. I unleashed my best come-hither smile and a small part inside me died. You know, that part labeled "principles."

But Darby's eyes ceased wandering and locked onto mine.

He swept into a little bow when he reached me, somehow avoiding contact with the dancers around us. I extended an arm, wrist bent delicately, allowing his lips to brush my fingers, letting his hand snake around my waist. Draping my arms around his neck, I leaned in, breathing a sensual whisper in his ear.

"Imperio."

The Floating Point wand, surgically implanted in my right arm parallel to the radius and ulna, conveyed the Imperius Curse from my palm to his left shoulder. He stiffened – DANCE - and started shaking his moneymaker like a drunken prom date. "Hooked him," I whispered, pulling Darby close, inconspicuously rummaging through his pockets. "Jackpot."

I could hear Nova's brilliant smile through the comm. "Nice. See you outside."

To keep up appearances, Darby and I held hands all the way out of the club, stopping only to pick up our confiscated wands. Then we waded through the hordes waiting outside, queuing for their turn in the little club of horrors.

Nova caught up with us as we emerged from the impatient crowd, oblivious to the dozen or so men eyeing her with intense interest. "Wow, he really is pretty," she noted, brushing a handful of blonde hair out of her face and giving Darby the ol' up and down with her baby blues. "Shame what we have to do to him."

I shrugged. "No big loss. Justin, we're out," I directed that last bit at my choker.

A set of headlights blazed to life across the street, turning towards the club. From the shadows emerged a magenta minivan, a suburban monster designed to transport a large suburban family and their weekly suburban grocery haul.

"Clothes!" I demanded as Justin pulled up to the curb. Robes emerged from the driver's window, dropping into my arms. I draped the cloth over what little I was wearing, and my uneasiness evaporated. It was good to be properly covered again. "Thanks."

Nova was slightly more mission-oriented. "Where's the cooler?" she asked, hauling the van's armored sliding door open.

The small entrance gave way to a studio-sized room that functioned as both an armory and an emergency room. The whole shebang was lined with armor plating and slapped onto a flight-capable engine. Arthur had outdone himself this time.

"Here." Justin fished a near empty vial out of the styrofoam box beside him and tossed it at Nova.

Sit. Darby sank into a chair, one of those stainless steel things designed to survive a nuclear blast and keep on truckin'. I broke out the handcuffs and strapped him in. Just in case.

Nova extracted the vial's remaining liquid with an eyedropper. "Remind me to make more," she sighed.

Open up. Darby obliged, allowing Nova to empty the eyedropper down his throat.

I let the Imperius Curse dissipate as the Veritaserum hit Darby's digestive tract. Then it was Nova's turn to work.

Control questions first. "What is your full name?" she asked.

"Kenneth Jason Samuel Charles Darby."

"What's your place of residence?"

"1138 Fallen Leaf Lane."

"What is your daughter's name?"

"Agatha."

Check, check, and check. Time to move on to mission critical topics.

"Where is the master list of Muggle-borns and Undesirables located?"

"In the Senior Under-Secretary's office at the Ministry of Magic, in the file cabinets against the back wall."

"Are there any other copies of the list?"

"No. The Under-Secretary likes to personally handle these cases."

"Who maintains the list?"

"The Registration Enforcement team. James Twombles, Tyler Crumper, Judy Harris, and myself."

"Is there any way to arrange a team meeting?"

"Yes. We have a weekly meeting Monday mornings at the Ministry."

Four days from now. Not fast enough.

Nova's thoughts aligned with mine. "Anything faster?"

"Not within standard protocols."

"Non-standard protocols, then? Specifics, please."

"If someone… embarrassing to the Ministry is detained, an emergency meeting at a randomly selected public location is called to determine potential courses of action."

"What qualifies as embarrassing?"

"Direct relatives of essential Ministry officials."

I looked at Nova and raised an eyebrow. "You down?"

Her cheerleader smile nearly blinded me and placed a hand on Darby's shoulder. "Of course! I'll dress him up!" She tapped her chin with lavender nails. "Now, where can we do this… you know what? I know just the place."

It was obscenely late by the time everyone was situated according to plan. Darby was once again under my Imperius Curse, suspiciously bulky under his robe. He paced slowly around an "unconscious" Nova, waiting patiently for his colleagues to arrive at the derelict railway station.

Three faint pops.

I swept the area through my telescopic sight and found three new players approaching from the west. I dropped my crosshairs on the left figure's sternum.

The flying carpet bobbed slightly under me, and I shifted to compensate for the movement. The barrel-mounted laser rangefinder on my CheyTac Intervention noted this shift and recalculated the distance (521.2 meters) between the barrel and my victim's chest. The sensors read in data, including humidity and air pressure, which was fed to the ballistic software on my mil-spec PDA. There, numbers were crunched and I adjusted the Intervention's crosshairs accordingly. "The rest of his team is here. You guys ready?" I transmitted.

"In position," Justin reported in.

"Mmmhmm," Nova responded without twitching a muscle.

The three wizards cautiously approached the meeting site. The woman called out to Darby, her voice captured and amplified by my directional mic. "Flash."

I had Darby give the correct countersign. "Thunder."

Darby's colleagues relaxed visibly at the correct countersign. Pleasantries were exchanged and they gathered around Nova, getting their first good look at her.

Shocked recognition spread from face to face.

Nova's eyes snapped open. "Fire in the hole," she deadpanned before sticking out her tongue, flipping them the bird, and Disapparating from the station.

Beneath Darby's robes, the receiver sewn into his vest intercepted the electromagnetic signal from Nova's remote trigger, activating the electrical detonator. The C-4 payload, distributed among several pockets, expanded in a cloud of fire and compressed air; the shockwave ripped open the plastic bags packed around the explosives, sprinkling the air with twenty kilos of ball bearings.

Welcome to Anti-Wizard Combat 101. Lesson number one: whenever possible, engage wizards via proxies to minimize risk. Friends, colleagues, and family relations work especially well.

I kept an eye on the aftermath. Darby I'm pretty sure was dead, judging by the pieces scattered about. One of the others, the one with half a skull, was probably also dead. The last two were sprawled haphazardly on the concrete, alive and breathing. Kind of. There were a few leaks.

Justin teleported into my crosshairs, a suppressed H&K USP nestled in his right hand, to present a .45 caliber solution to the survivor issue. The wounded male received a double tap to the brainpan.

Lesson number two: no quarter. Kill any and all wounded combatants; wizards have a nasty habit of healing themselves and/or others.

When Justin moved to execute the female survivor, my directional mic picked up her final words. "Blood traitor," she spat and broke the Taboo. "Voldemort."

The curse attached to that name immediately broadcasted her location to all hostile personnel operating in the greater London area, turning the railway station into ground zero for the local bathrobe brigade.

As the Snatchers began teleporting in around him, Justin calmly carried out the execution and, with a lazy flick of his Floating Point, uttered a single word.

"Redanimatus."

A sickly glow enveloped Justin's hand. Tendrils of grey erupted from his fingertips, intangible wires that snaked out and latched onto the corpses in his immediate vicinity.

It was disgusting. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually pretty comfortable with Inferi; I've seen Justin raise his fair share over the years. Typically, they're either a) the skeletal, sort-of-human-looking graveyard shambler or b) the post-autopsy, approved-for-general-consumption-at-wakes morgue product. The former ends up looking like a bad horror movie prop, the latter like your vanilla Inferius, with pale skin and cloudy eyes.

But, once in awhile, you have the bleeders, the ones that just haven't gone cold yet. Take Darby, for example. One moment, pieces of him were lying in an expanding pool of gore, nice and neat. The next, those pieces were in motion, spraying blood all over the place.

Three distinct pieces of Darby threw themselves at the first Snatcher to coalesce, tearing into the man with tooth and nail, eliciting a gurgling scream. The other three Inferi physically intercepted the incoming curses, forming an active defensive screen around Justin.

One of the Snatchers, a little sharper than the rest, burned down the female Inferius with the largest fireball he could muster.

Hello, target number one.

Breathe in. Breathe out and squeeze the trigger.

The Intervention's suppressor muffled the shot into something resembling a noisy nailgun, not loud enough to be noticed through the chaos below me. The .408 round punched through my victim's left orbital socket like an acetylene torch through paper.

Nova warped in to fill the gap left by the female Inferius, and I immediately dropped an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on the party. Once Nova got going, people tended to leave early. Justin tagged another Snatcher with a double tap right before Nova cut loose with her fully automatic AA-12 shotgun, an enormous thing that I suspected was half her bodyweight.

The Snatchers didn't stand a chance. Out in the open, no cover, no time to react. Her frag rounds disassembled a half dozen enemy combatants, and Justin immediately triggered another Reanimation spell, adding another collection of body parts to his little army.

Lesson number three: wizards excel at mid range combat. Only mid range combat. Up close and personal? The wizard's screwed; a wizard can't outdraw a boomstick, and there are no known hand-to-hand practitioners in the magical community. Widen the gap? The wizard's screwed; a sniper beats a spellslinger at distance any day. I can reach out and touch a victim at two kilometers; a wizard's lucky if he can hit the broadside of an Olympic stadium at that range.

It was at this point that the dozen remaining Snatchers realized they weren't the monsters in this story. I suppose they had been expecting a cuddly Order fugitive or a naive Hogwarts student, not an experimental Colonial death squad.

The survivors attempted to Disapparate. Nothing happened. I took the opportunity to pop another one in the head.

Panic overrode rational thought, and the Snatchers defaulted to fight or flight. Ten went with flight. I picked off four of them, each with a single round in the back. The Inferi ran the rest down with splattery results.

The last two chose fight and squared off against Nova and Justin.

Nova was the quickest on the draw, with a whispered "Trunco."

An explosion ripped through her victim's thighs, searing through bone and muscle, amputating both legs in a vague splash of red. A gut-wrenching scream emerged from his throat as he went down.

The second survivor turned on Nova, determined to avenge his friend's horrific injuries. "Avada - "

Justin's Disarming Spell interrupted the Snatcher. The wand landed neatly in my friend's hand and was immediately reduced to ash.

Left with no combat options, the Snatcher had no choice but to rush Justin empty handed.

Lesson number four: always separate the wand from the wizard. In situations involving violence, a wandless wizard is a dead wizard.

Justin carefully lined up his Floating Point and rewarded the Snatcher's efforts with a Killing Curse to the chest.

A pretty good night's work, all things told. Nova was looting identification cards from the Registration Enforcement Inferi when I landed the flying carpet. Justin and his Inferi were busy rearranging the deceased Snatchers, lining the pieces into neat stacks on the concrete platform.

My contribution was to patch up the maimed Snatcher. Sedate, arrest the bleeding, grow excess skin, seal the stumps. Easy peasy. I suppose I could have reattached the Snatcher's legs and ensured a full recovery, but I felt that a double amputation was better for the whole leave-one-alive-to-tell-the-tale narrative than an intact survivor.

Before the three of us piled into the minivan and took to the sky, Nova threw up a Funny Mark over the station. Voldemort and his ilk had their skull and snake thing. Whatever. We had our smiling poop emoji thing. The sedated lone survivor sat directly beneath the Funny Mark, propped up against Justin's stack of corpses, a friendly reminder to Ministry security forces to tell their families "I love you" before heading to work.

Nova distributed the looted identification cards as Justin piloted the minivan toward the Ministry of Magic. After some idiots hopped up on Polyjuice botched a break-in last September, Ministry security measures had gotten pretty ridiculous. ID cards were now required for access; each card was embossed with a pattern that shifted every half second and was carefully synced to the protective spells guarding the structure. Attempt entry without a card and kiss your civil liberties goodbye.

We arrived at the Ministry in time to join the morning rush. Justin dead dropped the minivan's keys in a prearranged public garbage can for our getaway driver, and the three of us seamlessly merged into the crowd of Ministry personnel streaming into a pair of nondescript public restrooms.

I wish the Ministry had chosen another front for their primary entrance. It would have allowed us to avoid the unsanitary consequences of combining the word "public" with bodily functions. I swiped my ID card across the worn stall's lock and approached the toilet with some trepidation, dipping my boot into the bowl. Okay, so I knew this wasn't actually a restroom, but hey, it's against human nature to voluntarily step into a toilet bowl.

My feet remained pleasantly dry. One concern alleviated.

My hand paused on the chain, and I took a moment to focus. The next part would be a little tricky.

I flushed the toilet.

I found myself standing in a fireplace (now that was some insane logic, connecting a u-bend to a hearth) and spotted the red-robed security guard manning the security checkpoint at two o'clock.

"Obliviate," I whispered. The memory charm hit him before he registered my presence. It took a second to append my face to his mental list of Ministry employees. He waved me through without a second glance.

I emerged from the fireplace into the Atrium, a large space occupied by a ridiculously conspicuous statue depicting a witch and a wizard sitting on a chair of humanity. Big, bold, totalitarian, adorned with painfully obvious symbolism and a "Noun in noun" slogan. Very Big Brother.

Justin found me first, followed seconds later by Nova. Her eyebrow developed a strange twitch when she saw the statue.

Oh no. I quickly grabbed her hand and lead her away from the Atrium, pulling her through the gates and into one of the waiting elevators. Justin was right behind us.

As soon as the doors closed, Nova broke open her purse and handed out the hardware. I nestled the KSG shotgun against my shoulder and pumped the action, chambering a shell.

"Level one, Minister of Magic and Support Staff," the elevator announced.

"Come on, this way," Nova whispered.

We made our way into the labyrinth of corridors. Passing Ministry personnel gave our firearms baffled looks, but none interfered with our progress. I wasn't surprised. There aren't many wizards who would recognize a gun, much less take them seriously.

Nova held up a fist, halting our forward progress just before the hall took a ninety degree turn. "Hold. We're here."

Three fingers extended from her fist. "Three, two, one…" she ticked off.

Nova rounded the bend, her KSG up and tracking. I was right on her heels.

As we stormed the room, I caught vague glimpses of desks, chairs, floating parchment, a dozen desk jockeys, and two security guards. Security got the first taser shells; both collapsed in a mess of spasming muscles. The paper pushers got the rest. The three of us worked our way systematically through the Ministry employees, downing everyone as they tried to escape.

Nova tagged the last conscious target and darted through the shower of pamphlets, making a beeline for the prominent mahogany door at the other end of the room. I caught a glimpse of the name Dolores and the word Under-Secretary before Nova blew the door off its hinges with a "Confringo!"

And lit off every Caterwauling Charm in our vicinity.

Shit, shit, SHIT! If Nova weren't so focused on the end goal and paused to think for two seconds, maybe it would occur to her that setting off alarms would be a bad idea. Decreases our chances of survival, so I've heard.

Well, that cut down our timetable rather drastically. "Justin, get them out of here, now!" I roared over the wailing alarms.

A pulse of grey, and the incapacitated Ministry employees jerked upright, suspended by invisible strings. Justin flicked his wrist, and the limp bodies shuffled awkwardly out of the room, away from us and towards relative safety. Which, you know, tends to be the same thing.

Nova stepped out of the office, ripped the daisy-chained pins out of a bandolier's worth of incendiary grenades, and heaved the whole shebang back the way she came. A string of detonations later, and Dolores had her own personal bonfire.

"List destroyed?" I asked as Nova walked by, briskly dusting her hands off.

She glanced toward the raging inferno. "I'd say so."

Well, time for my contribution then.

I waited for Justin and Nova to exit the room before saying, "Ignitus." Fire erupted from my Floating Point, a stream of plasma that reduced everything it touched to ash. I scythed the torrent back and forth across the headquarters of the Muggle-born Registration Commision, erasing the Ministry's anti-Muggle department from existence.

Justice via property destruction achieved, I sprinted after my friends, navigating the maze of corridors at reckless speed, half-expecting a Killing Curse at every corner.

None came. In fact, we made it to the elevators without encountering any opposition. Huh. Maybe we had overestimated the Ministry's security forces.

The elevator's golden grilles closed safely behind me, and the alarms faded away. Nova tossed me a crumpled wad of card stock and parchment. "Here. Got you a souvenir."

"Aw, you shouldn't have."

I smoothed out the report. A Eurasian lady with long auburn hair and hazel eyes glared back at me. I sighed. Of all the photos floating around, they chose this one. I can explain the shredded clothing and the bruises on my neck, I swear. See, there was this giant Devil's Snare, and all I had was this tiny lighter…

Attached to the picture was a short synopsis.

ALEXANDRA SINCLAIR

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood with unacceptable Muggle leanings. Known member of the Chocolate Mr. Whippy (?) terrorist group. Former member of Experimental Unit Sierra, Colonial Department of Mysteries.

FAMILY: Thomas Sinclair (father, Muggle), Irene Mori (mother, pureblood). No known siblings.

SECURITY STATUS: This person has been designated UNDESIRABLE NO. 66. Guilty of mass murder, acts of terrorism and sedition, breaking and entering, impersonating a Ministry official, illegal use of Acid Pops. At large, considered armed and extremely dangerous. Last confirmed sighting: Diagon Alley.

KNOWN ASSOCIATES:

Chocolate Mr. Whippy: Justin Chang, [NAME REDACTED]

Order of the Phoenix: the Weasley family, Cho Chang, Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Chocolate Mr. Whippy? It took me a moment to convert the British English to American English. Chocolate soft serve. Honestly, the quality of Ministry staff these days.

Okay, okay, I have to give credit where credit was due; besides that soft serve bit, the Ministry analysts had put together a fairly accurate report. They even got the Sierra designation correct; that information wasn't easy to come by.

"Undesirable number sixty six?" I complained. "I have a two-digit body count and I haven't broken top fifty? Who's number one?"

"Harry Potter" was Nova's reply.

Justin frowned. Um, let's just say he doesn't like Harry very much, not since those few months Potter dated his cousin. Now those were interesting conversations; they'd begin with Cho calling in tears after a fight with Harry and end with Justin cleaning his USP, staring at a lit fireplace. I'm still not sure how many times I managed to talk him out of hauling across the pond and murdering the Chosen Boy Who Lived.

I veered off that subject at top speed; shouldn't mention Potter to Justin lest there be homicidal consequences, especially now we were on the same side of the pond. "Right, so once we reach the Atrium, we should – "

A frigid shiver crawled up my spine, wound its way down my throat, and dropped into the pit of my stomach. A gloom descended on the elevator, a blanket of despair that smothered all thoughts and senses.

"Level Eight, Atrium," the elevator announced.

The doors cracked open, revealing row upon row of slimy scabbed hands and tattered robes. A lumpy woman in black and gold stood at the forefront, graced with a velvet bow and a passing resemblance to Jabba the Hutt.

Dolores Umbridge.

Flanking her were two men.

Death Eaters.

Fuck.

A twittering laugh emerged from Dolores. "You didn't expect to get away with this, did you?"

I winced. That was one high-pitched voice.

"Do you know what the Ministry does to – " Dolores's voice trailed off when she got a proper look at us. Her eyes bulged and her mouth gaped open, as if she had just swallowed something particularly sour.

Nova stepped forward. "Hello, Mother."