A/N: There you go, chapter two has gotten a new look as well. Esme Kali Phantom helped with the spell when I first wrote this long ago, so I still want to say a big thank you! Okay, enough outta me.
Disclaimer: DP and HP belong to Butch Hartman and J.K. Rowling respectively. If I were them, I would not be writing this would I?
'Thoughts'
"Speech"
In a fair-sized office along a mostly empty corridor, four people stood before a fifth person seated at a nicely carved wooden desk. The room was lit solely by the low fire that crackled away in the fireplace. The fireplace was located in the wall directly behind the desk, which threw the seated figure's front into shadow, lending the person an eerie air about them.
The four seemed to disregard the atmosphere, the flickering shadows of amber and black that danced on the walls were ignored. Their focus was on the seated person.
"You said you had a job for us?" asked a tall man with a deep voice. Three other people stood beside him, all four of them had their features mostly hidden by the low level of flickering light. The man who spoke had slightly rough features, though the firelight smoothed most of the angles of his face.
"Indeed," replied Umbridge in a slightly sinister tone. She surveyed the people before her, peering at them over her interlocked fingers. "You four are loyal, trusted, Ministry employees. You are also some of the finest Aurors here."
The tall man seemed to puff up. Raising his fist to his chest he bowed a little, though his head was still at a higher level than hers. "We are yours to command," he said in a vaguely militaristic tone.
The shortest of the four Aurors fidgeted, shifting a touch from foot to foot, barely perceptible unless you were watching closely. Though trained to catch dark wizards, the dancing shadows and serious atmosphere were beginning to affect the shortest Auror, stirring the imagination.
"Excellent," Umbridge purred. "Your mission is to find and capture a creature called a 'halfa'. The ghosts have heard of it and they say it's powerful." Umbridge fixed them with an icy stare. "I want it bound and gagged in front of me. Unfortunately, I have no idea of its location."
The man on the far left spoke up suddenly. "Then how are we supposed to catch it?" Umbridge clucked her tongue impatiently and favoured the man with a condescending glare.
"Really, Shacklebolt, use your brain! Simply use a spell that will locate a single, large amount of spectral energy. I would have done it myself, but a search of this magnitude would eat up far too much of my time and I'm busy with others matters." Kingsley Shacklebolt bowed his head, embarrassed. She brought her attention back to the tall one. "Tebbes, I'm leaving you in charge of this."
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured and bowed again. "We will not disappoint you." Leading the way, his new team followed him out the door.
Umbridge watched them leave, but did not let her polite half-smile become a fully fledged smirk until the soft click of the door closing reached her ears. The amber and black continued to twirl around each other in a mock ballet.
The room was bathed in soft, magical light coming from a single brazier that hung from the ceiling. A large map of the world was pinned to one of the walls while the other three were blank. This room was used for the specific purpose of locating things, though quite a few members of the magical world could not be found this way due to natural abilities or making themselves untraceable by using an Unplottable charm. The four Aurors felt safe from prying eyes because it was two in the morning; the Ministry was mostly deserted. A few workers were still around, but no-one was on their floor. Rift Tebbes raised his wand and opened his mouth.
"Why are we looking for spectral energy?" Dawlish interrupted. Tebbes bit back a sigh of frustration and turned to the other man.
"Because," he said as if Dawlish were a five-year-old, "for only the ghosts to know of it, it must be a creature of the spectral plane. So to find it, we look for a single, large spike of spectral energy. Got it?" Dawlish nodded, looking like he had been struck in the face with something. "Good."
Rift raised his wand again. "Arcanum find et ectium!" he cried. As soon as the last word left his mouth, the room got brighter. The large map on the wall was lighting up with hundreds of tiny pinpricks of glowing light. Most were the normal white or grey of spectral energy, but, oddly, there were a few different coloured specks of light in America. The other three people in the room rose to examine the specks.
"There's a fair amount of energy here," the shortest said, pointing to a spot of green light. "Do you think that could be it?"
Kingsley came over and stood right beside her, eyes glued to the map. "It can't be," he announced after a couple of minutes. "See here, another spot, exactly the same size." He pointed to another speck of green, not far from the first. "Sorry Tonks, keep looking." Tonks sighed and resumed searching.
Minutes passed in silence, broken only by scuffling footsteps when someone changed position. Dawlish began tapping his foot impatiently. Scowling, he leaned closer to the map, eyes narrowed in focus and frustration. "This is taking forever!" he growled.
"Forever?" Kingsley repeated, "We've only been searching for ten minutes!"
"And we're not done yet, so shut up and keep searching!" Rift half yelled, trying to keep his voice down.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Tonks. The others rushed over, jostling each other a bit in their haste.
"What, you find it?" one of them asked.
"I think so," she said excitedly. "Look here!" She pointed towards a large, bright speck of green light. The others crowded a little closer, straining their eyes to follow her outstretched finger.
"What makes it so special from the others?" Rift asked, curious but partially sceptical. She had already called a false alarm and seemed like the kind of person to do so multiple times. Tonks kept her eyes trained on the speck so she wouldn't lose it. She knew that if she took her eyes off it, she'd probably never find it again.
"Because this speck was really small a minute ago," she answered without looking up.
"Okay, I don't follow," Kingsley said in confusion.
"Well," Tonks began, "I was searching, like we're supposed to, and I came across a really tiny speck. I wasn't sure if I was seeing things, so I kept watching it. All of a sudden it got bigger, like it exploded!"
Rift nodded. "It certainly is odd, but is it the halfa?"
"Hey, look! It seems to be pulsing!"
The three behind Tonks looked at each other, all coming to the same decision. "Mark where that is and go prepare," Rift ordered, his brown eyes blazing. "We're going for a little overseas trip."
"Aaaah, that hit the spot!"
Sam looked at her friend, disgusted. "How many innocent animals had to be sacrificed to make all those burgers you ate?" She had her arms crossed and her amethyst eyes were staring hard at Tucker, who was blithely ignoring her. After years of hearing the same protests over and over, Tucker had become a master at tuning them out and brushing them off, though Sam never gave up or backed down. Not even after the first Lunch Lady fiasco that had come about because of her anti-meat ways.
Danny rolled his eyes, far too used to this behaviour from his two best friends to bother getting involved. Suddenly his ghost sense went off, a blue wisp of icy breath escaping past his lips involuntarily. Now on the alert, he looked around for the ghost. Sam and Tucker stopped bickering when Danny's ghost sense had activated and were both on the lookout as well. A streak of green flashed by so closely that its slipstream ruffled Danny's hair.
"There!" shouted Tucker, unnecessarily pointing at the green blur rapidly getting further away.
"Wow, it's fast," Sam remarked while standing up. "Quick Danny! Hurry, before you lose it!" Danny nodded, Tucker and he both hopping to their feet.
"All clear, dude," said Tucker, after making sure the alley three feet away was clear.
Danny quickly sped into the alley, foregoing his battle cry. Still running, Danny let the familiar white ring of energy appear at his waist and split, going ghost and flying up. Floating high above the buildings, he scanned the area. He could see a green smudge racing around. "Sam wasn't kidding when she said it was fast…"
Harry gratefully accepted the breakfast of toast and eggs that Mrs. Weasley set in front of him. His hair was a mess, untameable as usual, and he looked like he'd rather still be in bed. Ron, sporting a similar expression, sat down beside him, yawning, with Hermione following, much more awake.
Mrs. Weasley bustled about getting breakfast for them. When plates of food had been set in front of Ron and Hermione, the mother of nine gathered up all the cups, plates and cutlery used by others who had already departed the house with a wave of her wand and levitated them to the sink. Giving her wand another couple of waves, the sink began to fill up with hot, soapy water. When it was full, the dirty items set about washing themselves, creating a background hum of moving water, soft scrubbing and gentle clinking.
"Morning guys," said Ginny from across the table. She received mumbled replies from the boys and a bright 'Good morning!' from Hermione. Huffing at the boys she asked, "Guess what we're doing today?"
At this, they both looked up to stare at her. Harry had a guarded look about him while Ron moaned. "Don't tell me we're doing more cleaning…"
Ginny just gave a pained grin. A dull thud was heard as Ron's head hit the table. A muffled and half-hearted exclamation of pain emanated from him, though he didn't move.
Suddenly the doorbell rang, prompting Mrs. Black to start screeching. Harry heard Mrs. Weasley mutter, "I've told everyone, time and again, not to use the doorbell!" as she swiftly walked past on her way to the door. The four teens hurried after her to see who it was.
They weren't all that surprised to find it was Tonks. She always forgot not to ring the doorbell. Mrs. Weasley ushered her inside and lead the way back to the kitchen, studiously ignoring the screaming picture. Harry and the others quickly rushed back to their seats so Mrs. Weasley wouldn't think they were spying. Both adults entered, Mrs. Weasley going back to washing the dishes while Tonks remained standing, a serious look on her face. All in the room noticed her uncharacteristic expression and looked at her expectantly.
"Is something wrong, Tonks?" Ginny ventured to ask, breaking the strange and awkward silence that the kitchen had suddenly adopted.
"Not really," Tonks replied absently. She looked squarely at Mrs. Weasley. "Though I do have something to speak to the Order about."
A/N: Right, that's chapter two down. I was unhappy with this chapter when I originally wrote it, but I like it a fair bit better now.
It's just under 2,000 words. A little shorter than I had hoped, but I found that I couldn't stretch it any further. I added plenty of new paragraphs and modified a whole heap of others. I hope that you, like me, find this newer version an improvement over the original. I'll be rewriting chapter three as well.
Review and let me know what you think. I love hearing your thoughts! Constructive criticism is much appreciated, though flames are not.
~FantomoDrako