Chapter 2: A New Enemy
Harry's ears were still ringing as he crouched down behind the cart and took stock of the situation. "Ron, Draco," he shouted, "Get me a direction on that blast. Hermione, start on crowd control. Ginny, you get the kids." He scanned the area as his people hurried about carrying out the orders.
"Dad!" James called, as he, Albus, and Lily rushed around a corner and slid behind a pile of rubble; their wands drawn. "What happened? I heard the blast all the way over at Fortescue's."
"Stay there, kids," Harry told them as his cell phone chirped and his friend of thirty-odd years came on the line. "What have we got, Lieutenant?"
"Looks like an old fashioned boomer, sir," Ron reported. "Overcharged Blasting Hex set for a time delay, linked with a couple of blocks of your standard C4. Damn, I'd say someone really wanted to make sure that they left a mess. It's got a triple redundancy setup; a secondary Blasting Hex was imbued in a crystal to act as the blasting cap for the C4."
"Roger. See if you can get a signature reading on it."
"I'll try my best, Harry. There isn't much left though. Just some crystal fragments and some wiring attached to a lump of dud explosive. Just be glad the plastics didn't go off or there wouldn't even be that much."
"Yeah, tell me about it," he muttered snapping the phone shut. "James," he called.
"Sir?"
"Get on the line to the Ministry. I want Auror sweeper teams here ten minutes ago, and see about booking us a conference room. I've a feeling this is going to be a nasty debrief. Oh, and good job, son." Harry had blown a gasket when his son applied for Auror classes, three years ago. But even with James graduating early form Hoogwarts and completing Auror academy training in a time nearing the record set by the current Auror Captain Potter twenty years ago, Harry'd had reservations about his son joining the Corps.
"I didn't spend half my childhood and most of my adult life fighting these evils just so you could jump into it. Do you know how many people I've had to bury in my life?" he'd yelled, his voice cracking.
"I know, Dad, but even so, didn't you fight those same evils so that people could be free from the tyranny that was Voldemort? Besides, " James added quietly, his voice little more than a whisper, "You won't be around forever."
The elder Potter sighed, defeated. "You're right. Your mother's going to kill me for saying this, but yeah, you're right. And what do you mean, I won't be around forever," he'd grinned at this then said, "I've still got at least fifty years left in me for the Corps."
"Dad?" James called, jolting Harry out of his memories.
"Yeah, James?" he asked, as he blinked, turned and looked back at his eldest son.
"Auror teams are on their way, ETA five minutes. Medical wants a casualty count, I was able to book Conference A for the team's debrief in an hour and half, and Kingsley wants to meet with you when we get back to HQ."
"Damn, that's never a good thing."
"Tell me about it," James agreed.
"Hang on a second," Harry said as his phone chirped again, Draco coming on the line this time.
"We've got an anomaly here, Captain," Draco announced immediately. "It's certainly a Blasting Hex, but I can't get a signature on it. I dunno, it's like the variables for the power factors, et cetera were uniform. The only time I've seen a signature this neat was in a textbook. It definitely isn't human."
"Affirmative. Copy that to the spell labs in the Department of Mysteries, and then let's wrap it up here. Medical wants a body count by the way; could you throw me an estimate of the figures?"
Draco sighed heavily, swore, and answered. "There are a lot of concussions and broken bones. I'd say about fourteen wounded all told, civilians, six dead, two of whom were off-duty MLE officers headed to the pub."
"Shit. Who were they?"
"Jenkinson and Perkins."
"Damn. I trained them. They were barely twenty."
"I know. It's a bloody shame. Do you want me to inform their next of kin?"
"No, I'll do it. Debrief at the Ministry in an hour in Conference Room A."
"Understood. I'll get the word out."
"Thanks." And with that, Harry snapped the phone shut for the second time, shoved it in his jacket pocket, and vanished, with barely the faintest whisper of wind.
