Disclaimer: Neither Harry Potter nor Alex Rider are mine.

June 2003

Alex Rider had thought the holiday to London was a terrible idea when Edward and Liz Pleasure had first suggested it. He had pointed out the existence of MI5, which had been contradicted with the presence of Tom. When he argued that he hadn't contacted Tom since first moving to America, Sabina had said that it was about time he did. The unspoken argument that he had enemies in Britain had been met with the unspoken rebuttal that he had enemies on most continents, with the possible exception of Antarctica. So, they had rented a large house, and two days after their arrival, Sabina had dragged Alex to a park, where they hovered by a large tree while Sabina texted frantically and finally Tom Harris had turned up.

He said 'Hey, Alex.'

Alex wasn't entirely sure how to reply. He muttered, 'I'm sorry.'

'Well, you've no reason to be.' said Tom, sounding more frustrated than Alex had ever heard him before. 'It's not like you suddenly stopped replying to any of my messages, deleted your Facebook, stopped using your phone and moved to an entirely different continent without telling me. I had to find out from Ms. Bedfordshire!'

'Jack died!' Alex found himself almost shouting, 'Jack died, and it was all my fault, but it's not like you'd care, you think all that MI5 stuff was great, boasting about getting shot and everything. You don't understand – it's dangerous, I'm dangerous, its's not just some game.'

Then they had a massive argument, made worse by the fact that Alex couldn't remember ever arguing with Tom Harris before, until eventually Tom said abruptly

'Never mind. It doesn't matter, just please never do that again.'

Alex wasn't sure he entirely agreed, or that Tom did himself, but Sabina was looking desperate. He guessed it must have been her idea to get in touch with Tom, and he owed her something for the nights she'd spent waking him from dreams, and her continuing defence of him in school despite his tendency to react to anyone coming within two metres of him as a violent threat requiring neutralisation, a fear which was particularly difficult to deal with in school corridors.

That was how the three of them ended up back at the Pleasure's rented house, watching a terrible romantic comedy (Sabina's choice), when four masked men burst into the room, armed with guns. For a moment, it seemed as if the world had frozen. The teenagers stared at the men, and the men stared at the teenagers. Then one of the men pointed at Alex, and said

'It's him. Get him.'

Alex reacted instantaneously. He had been sitting on the floor. Now, he seized hold of the arm of a chair to pull himself up, and used the momentum to propel himself across the room. He collided with one of the men, sending him straight into a wall, with a nasty crack. This left three. He seized the gun out of the man'ts unresisting arms and swung it with all his force into another's head. But their leader had reacted now. He had grabbed hold of Sabina and was holding a gun to her head. The remaining man did the same to Tom.

'Do you want to risk it?' asked the leader, as Alex weighed the gun in his hands. 'Anyway, you won't be able to save both of them. I doubt you'll save either.'

'If I go with you…' said Alex, frantically weighing up other options in his head, and coming up with nothing, 'Promise you'll let them go?'

'No, Alex!' said Sabina. 'Don't be stupid!'

'Of course.' said the man. 'Just send the gun across the floor to us.'

Alex did so. Then the man said 'Alright.' He nodded to his partner, and Alex saw his finger tightening on the trigger. Alex lunged towards them, a sense of desperate panic rising within him. Then, impossibly, the man's gun – and that of his partner, just vanished. Alex didn't have time to think about that until later. He reached the man, and knocked him out with a vicious punch while he was still gazing in bewilderment at the hand that, until a moment before, had been holding a lethal weapon. Then he did the same to the other man.

There was a silence while Tom and Sabina helped him tie all four men up. Then Tom said,

'What the hell was that? Their guns just…vanished. Do you think they meant to turn themselves in?'

'Why would they do that?' asked Alex shortly. He felt just as at sea as Tom. They searched the men, to see if they had for some mysterious reason put their guns away, but found no evidence of them.

'We should phone the police.' said Sabina, who sounded slightly shaky, 'And my mum and dad.'

Alex had absolutely no desire to phone the police; there was always the danger they might search his records, particularly as the motive for the men's attack seemed to be connected to his past activities, and although Mrs. Jones had promised him they had been expunged, Alex could find no compelling reason to trust her. However, the alternatives to this were to

a) ask Liz and Edward what to do, which would lead to the police being called anyway.

b) keep the men in the house indefinitely, which would be both impractical and unpleasant.

c) let them free, leaving them able to attack again.

d) get MI5 involved, something which he was definitely unwilling to do.

This left calling the police as the only practical option. There was just one problem –

'What do we say?' Tom asked. 'I mean, if we say their guns just vanished, they're going to think we've gone mad.'

'Let's wait until they wake up.' Alex decided. 'They're securely tied, and we can ask them why they came here.' Inwardly, he was running over the possible enemies he knew he had who remained at large. The list was rather long.

They secured the door, and Alex fetched several large knives from the kitchen as a precaution, in case any other unwelcome visitors should turn up. The Pleasure parents were not expected back until at least 11pm, and it was agreed they'd phone them at 10 if the men still hadn't woken up.

After this, they sat and ate crisps in silence until Tom said

'Wow, Alex. You should try that technique in the rugby field.'

They were laughing, and it just seemed to almost be normal again – not even present normal, but almost normal like it had been before Alex had gone to America, when there was a knock at the door.

The mood tensed instantly. Alex silently gestured to the others to conceal themselves, then, grabbing hold of a knife, he went to the door. When he opened it, there was a young man standing there, who looked to be in his early twenties. He was wearing a suit jacket, which contrasted bizarrely with his jeans, polka-dot shirt and trainers. He grinned when he saw Alex, his expression faltering slightly when Alex did not return the gesture. He said

'Good morning. My name's Neville Longbottom, and I'm a Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I've come about some very unexpected underage magic which emanated from your house about an hour ago. Can I come in?'

Meanwhile, Harry Potter, one of the Wizarding World's leading aurors at the age of only 22, was sitting in a top-secret Ministry meeting. He, Kingsley Shacklebolt (the Minister for Magic), Gawain Robards (Head Auror), and Joan Ogden (Department of Magical Catastrophes) had been staring at the same sheets of paper for a considerable length of time. Occasionally, they all looked up and eyed the others, to see if they had thought of something to say. Then they all resumed their contemplation of the paper.

Finally, Kingsley said 'Well.'

They all looked at him hopefully.

'I shall liaise with the Muggle Prime Minister. This threat may concern him, and he may bring fresh eyes to the picture.'

'Is that really necessary, Minister?' asked Ogden. 'After all, there is no definite threat, and we don't want to cause an unnecessary panic. Besides, he's a Muggle – what possible help would he be?'

Robards gave a grunt which might have indicated agreement, or dissent. It was hard to tell, and Robards never clarified. He did this whenever anyone raised a point in debate. It was one of his many irritating habits.

Harry struggled to control his annoyance. 'There's evidence that Dark Arts materials are somehow being smuggled into the country from Bulgaria. We know there are still many Death Eaters lying low – just look at Lucius Malfoy! Besides, we have to give the Prime Minister information, we owe it to him after the war!'

'We don't have to.' Ogden replied sniffily. 'I might remind you that your predecessors' – she nodded to Kingsley – 'met with the Muggle leader rarely, if at all. These new fortnightly meetings are an entirely unnecessary threat to Wizarding secrecy and independence, necessitating the bringing up of minor points of policy which cannot –'

'It's not minor if they're planning to kill Muggles!' Harry interrupted, 'It's pretty major, especially for the Muggle Prime Minister.'

'Harry!' said Kingsley quellingly,'and my meetings with the Minister are not the topic of this discussion, Madame Ogden.'

Harry seethed silently. The endless meetings were the worst part of his rapid rise within the Auror department, especially when they so often involved civil discussion with those who had colluded with Voldemort during his reign, but had been pardoned due to the necessity of not imprisoning the entire Ministry of Magic. It meant endless checks on attempts to track down, or to charge escaped and suspected Death Eaters, and while the rational part of his brain recognised the necessity of this to avoid any miscarriages of justice, it was hard to be so calm when murderers such as Rookwood had their trial endlessly delayed.

The four of them resumed their silent contemplation of the table.

Madame Ogden finally said, 'Can we not compromise? As I recall, one of the leaders of the Muggle Secret Service was connected to the Wizarding World through marriage; we could tell him, as he will inevitably find out once the story is leaked to the Daily Prophet, as it is bound to do.'

No-one could really contradict this; in the past months, practically every secret meeting and file the Ministry possessed had been leaked to the press. No-one was quite sure how, although Harry had a strong suspicion that Rita Skeeter might be involved. In the past years, riding on the success of her biographies of Dumbledore and Snape, she had moved away from ordinary gossip and towards political gossip. However, despite increased knowledge of her Animagus disguise, she was proving very difficult to catch in the act.

Ogden continued, 'That way, fewer Muggles need know, and as he is not the Prime Minister, he will not be able to commit any rash acts.'

She was possibly refering to the Prime Minister's threats to send in the Muggle Army with machine guns if the Wizarding World didn't get its act together, although as this had followed the death of more than twenty people in a resurgent Death Eater attack shortly after the war's end, Harry had some sympathy for his point of view. Most of the wizarding world had not understood the threat originally, and when it had been explained they had been astounded at the lack of respect it suggested. Besides, he felt there was an obvious flaw in Ogden's theory.

'What if he tells the Prime Minister anyway?'

'Or simply marshalls his own forces in attack, without bothering with authorities?' asked Robards, making a rare excursion into the world of speech. Kingsley gave him a slightly unnerved look.

'Useless, I'm afraid.' he said. 'Alan Blunt retired from the Muggle Intelligence Services last year, and his replacement has no knowledge of magic at all.'

'We could tell both of them?' Harry suggested, with a slight sense of glee at the expression of horror which crossed Ogden's face when she heard this statement.

'A good idea, Harry' said Kingsley, grinning at him. Ogden let out a spluttering sound of horror. 'Shall we put it to the vote?'

Ogden voted against, of course. Robards also looked displeased, but apparently did not feel strongly enough to risk voicing an opinion, and instead abstained.

'Right.' said Kingsley,'I'll arrange to contact them both at some point tomorrow. Meanwhile, Harry, you continue investigating to see if we can find any more leads. Who will he be working with, Gawain?'

Robards looked thoughtful. You could see the cogs working as he considered whether it was better to appear incompetent, and say Harry could choose who he liked, or risk demonstrating any sort of bias through his choice of Auror. Eventually he said

'I think Harry should work alone,' neatly avoiding both issues.

The meeting completed, Harry apparated to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, where he might be able to track down Ron. It had shut for the day, and when he went in only George and Angelina were there. Angelina was examining a couple of Daydream Charms with unnecessary interest, while George was sitting bolt upright at the counter. They both looked slightly ruffled.

'You could have knocked!' George complained, and seemed about to say more when there was a loud explosion from the street, followed by screams. They rushed to the window, only to see a mass of people running towards the Leaky Cauldron. Harry made for the door, followed closely by George and Angelina. They fought their way through the crowd running in the opposite direction, until finally they reached the cause of the disturbance. Half of Gringotts Bank seemed to have collapsed, flames licking around the crumbled pillars, while a group of masked wizards stood around it, blocking the escape routes. They seemed to be letting some people out, but holding others back. The three of them ran towards them, drawing their wands.

Mrs. Jones sat at her desk, highlighting random phrases in a stack of papers with an orange highlighter. In front of her, Ben Daniels was sitting, trying vainly to hide his increasing boredom and impatience. This tactic of delaying all conversations was one she'd learned from Alan Blunt, and enjoyed putting into practice. It was particularly entertaining watching all the different tactics people used. The agent she'd seen before Ben had read half of The Times (sports section, opinions and lifestyle) while waiting.

She was considering a meeting which the Prime Minister had asked her to attend the following day. This seemed very short notice – as an intelligence chief, she was accustomed to being the one calling last minute meetings (due to hiterto unknown threats), and felt slightly affronted that this time it was the other way round. The Prime Minister had refused to tell her the reason for the meeting, and had seemed quite irritated about it himself, although that might easily be due to the fact she despised him, and was fairly sure the feeling was mutual.

She sighed, and dismissed the matter from her mind.

'So, Agent Daniels. There is someone in London I'd like you to investigate…'