Chapter One

Dennis Creevey twirled his teaspoon around his coffee cup, watching as the sugar lumps dissolved one by one into the black liquid. He cupped his hands around the china, drawing it closer to him, and stared out of the misty café window, out at the rain. It always seemed to rain here, he thought as he checked his watch.

"Three minutes late," Dennis muttered.

Dennis frowned, then took another sip of his coffee. It was unusual for his boss to be more than ten seconds late and generally, when he was, that spoke of trouble. Lots of trouble. The last time Dennis's boss had been late for work, the Prime Minister's office had been infested with Dementors.

Sometimes, Dennis would wonder what he had done to be given what people in London referred to as the Antarctica Placement. Wales was home to retirement homes, mountains and endless amounts of sheep, but not much else – apart from trouble. It rained a lot and half of Dennis's life was spent filling out forms for whatever damage their team had caused. Working here was a hard job, but … whatever faux-pas he had made in his first few months, Dennis was glad he had made it.

"You look pretty lonely, honey," a voice to his left said.

Dennis jumped slightly, then turned around to see the waitress in the café smiling at him.

She was twenty-odd years old and had died blonde hair. Her face was slathered with an excessive amount of foundation and her eyes were heavily made up. She dressed in line with what Dennis presumed the style these days was, with skinny jeans, an 'indie' jumper and several woven bracelets around her wrists. She was probably a university student, Dennis guessed, working to help pay for her upkeep.

Dennis shrugged, turning back to his coffee.

"Mind if I keep you company?" she asked, battering her eyelashes at Dennis in a way that made him feel vaguely uncomfortable. "I mean, you've been waiting for half an hour already. I don't think they're coming." She gestured to the steaming, unclaimed cup beside Dennis. "I'm Katie."

Dennis checked his watch again. Five minutes late. This was getting serious.

"If you're worried about my shift," Katie continued, "I've just finished. It's no problem really—"

"Sorry," a voice came from behind the waitress. "He's waiting for me."

Both Dennis and Katie turned their heads around to be met with the face of a smiling, black-haired young man. Harry Potter stood in front of the two, his suit immaculate apart from the slight looseness in his tie. Dennis couldn't help but feel slightly amused when Katie looked star struck at the man.

"Ah," Katie said, flushing slightly. "Uh, sorry." She fumbled for her pad of paper. "Can I get you anything?"

Harry titled his head to the side, as if confused.

"Didn't you just say your shift finished?" he asked.

Katie blinked twice, then flushed again, before scuttling off. Harry watched her go, his face becoming more and more amused each second that passed. Then, he took a seat down next to Dennis. There was a second's pause before any of them said anything.

"That was cruel," Dennis commented, taking a sip of his coffee.

Harry shrugged.

"I needed her to go away," he said complacently. "That was the easiest way."

Dennis shook his head and then pushed the cup of coffee across the table to Harry, who grinned and took a large swig of it.

"I still don't get how you can drink black coffee," Dennis commented as Harry replaced the cup on the table.

"Better than Skelee-Gro," was all Harry replied with.

Dennis sighed, then took a sip of his own coffee.

"You were late," he eventually said. "You're never late. Why?"

Harry froze, his hands wrapped around the coffee cup and his eyes on the table. Then, he looked up and met Dennis straight in the eye.

"I found them."

Dennis blinked twice. Then he smiled.

"I'll tell the team."

Jack Harkness watched Gwen Cooper as she bolted out of the bar where he was sat, sighing slightly. Gwen was the type of person Jack felt he would be able to trust with his back and, if they were hiring, Jack would have liked to have on his team. Gwen had had a nice, inquisitive mind and, once they got over her stubborn belief that aliens couldn't exist, she would have been a shoe-in. But they weren't hiring and Torchwood had to remain secret.

It was a waste, really.

Jack sighed, preparing to pick up his stuff and leave. Sitting in a bar in a WWII greatcoat was attracting a tiny bit more attention than he would have liked.

"Two beers please," came a voice to Jack's left.

Jack blinked twice.

Sitting in the seat where Gwen had been just moments before was a man. He was dressed in an expensive suit and his posture spoke of a rich background that did not fit in the slightest with the atmosphere of the pub. He stood out more than Jack, and that was saying something.

The man was good-looking and, Jack could tell, possessed an inordinate amount of charm. From the dazzling smile he had sent the barman to the polite gaze he was holding on Jack currently, it was certain it was a practised trait.

"Pleasure to meet you," the man said, holding out his hand for Jack to shake.

Jack stared at the hand before checking around him. He hadn't accidentally walked into a gay bar again, had he?

"I was just leaving actually," Jack said, standing up.

The man placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I think you're going to want to stay," he said.

Jack shook the hand off.

"Look," he said. "As charming as you are, I have somewhere to be."

The man shot him a funny look, then, as if realising something, burst out laughing.

Jack was suddenly overcome with the uncomfortable feeling that the man was laughing at him.

"You think," the man gasped. "You think that I'm coming onto you?" The man shook his head. "Sorry, mate, but you're not my type."

That was when Jack's eyes finally noticed a significant piece of jewellery on the man's ring finger. Married. Oh. Well, not that that had ever stopped him before, but…

Jack turned around to walk away.

"You don't want to do that, Captain Jack Harkness."

Jack froze mid-step. He titled his head to the side, then turned around.

"Who did you say you were again?" he asked.

The man smiled.

"I'm Harry James Potter – spelled as it sounds in case you want to run a check on me – and, Captain Jack Harkness, you're going to want to stay for one simple reason."

Jack raised his eyebrows doubtfully, but didn't reply to the prompt.

The man named Harry James Potter smirked.

"I found Gray."

It was disgusting.

Gabrielle scrunched her delicate face up in repulsion, staring at the object in front of her. Silver-blonde hair hung down by either side of her face before being cropped at chin-length and her deep blue eyes peered out from under a haze of uncut fringe. Beside her was Justin, the second in command of their unit, who looked disturbingly unperturbed by the sight in front of him. He had brown hair and was of muscular build, but his reaction to the sight before him couldn't have been more different to Gabrielle's. If anything, his expression spoke of fascination – something which Gabrielle refused to even attempt to understand.

Eleanor Branstone, the third member of their unit present stood in front of the both of them, holding a lump of blackish flesh in front of them like a trophy. She was wearing a lab-coat that differed from a doctor's only in that it was navy, not white, and her black hair was held up out of her face by a tight bun. Tucked behind one of her ears like a pencil was her wand.

"Ellie," Gabrielle said very slowly, her eyes not leaving the lump of flesh. "I'm going to say this only because someone has to – not because I necessarily want to know – but, what the hell is that?"

"This thing?" Eleanor asked, waving the object at Gabrielle and grinning when her blonde companion recoiled away from it in horror.

"No," Gabrielle said sharply, scrunching up her nose. "The other repulsive lump of flesh in the room."

"Don't be rude about Justin," Eleanor quipped and, before Justin could respond, continued, "as for this lump of flesh, I have no clue."

"So why are you showing it to us?" Gabrielle pressed.

Justin, whose eyes had been pinned on the flesh as if memorizing its very structure, pushed himself off the desk he was perched on and walked over to stand by Eleanor's side. He placed his brown eyes on Gabrielle before replying.

"Ellie's showing it to us because we don't know what it is," he explained. "Think back, Gabrielle. How many times have there been where we have been completely at a loss as to what something is?"

"I get that," Gabrielle protested, walking to inspect the object more closely. "That doesn't stop this thing from being downright disgusting."

The lump of flesh that Eleanor was holding had a certain gory quality to it. To Gabrielle, the closest thing she could compare it to would be a deformed human kidney, but the colouring was off.

"It's too dark to be a kidney," Eleanor stated, catching Gabrielle's drift immediately. "But it seems to have a similar purpose – filtering the blood. We're not sure what it is, or why it was found in our victim's body, but we're sure it's not human."

"Does it match any of the species in our database?" Justin asked, peering closer at the lump of tissue in fascination. Eleanor lowered the kidney-esque object down onto the table and peeled off her gloves.

"No," she answered. "But I sent some samples down to the Lovegoods. See what they can make of it. Merlin knows I haven't got a clue."

Eleanor shook her head, then fished her wand out from where she had tucked it behind her ear. With a calm flick, she levitated the object into a box and then sealed it.

"Good riddance," stated Gabrielle sardonically.

"I'm going to go store this," Eleanor said, holding up the box. "It's not of much use to us until we get some info on it."

Eleanor disappeared down a narrow corridor leaving Justin and Gabrielle alone in the room.

When Gabrielle had first been recruited into the unit, she'd been seventeen and fresh out of Wizarding education. She'd had no experience under her belt to speak for, despite having been trained in duelling by her sister since she was twelve, and had been shocked speechless by the Complex where she was supposed to work.

The entire Complex was lit by artificial lights, but unlike Hogwarts, they were styled to look like muggle light-fittings. The atmosphere of the area was a purely efficient one and the solid walls with little decoration had taken a while to get used to. Even now, the distinct muggle-esque feel the rooms had made her feel uncomfortable at times, even though she'd been working there for three years.

There were three rooms in the complex: the medical centre, which Eleanor could claim as her domain; a storage room that had been enchanted several times to fit more stuff than should be physically possible; and the main room.

The main room's purpose varied and so it was designed to suit this. Most often, it was used for paperwork and planning, so there was a decisive admin feel to it, but at times, the desks were pushed back, the chairs were banished and the space was used for sparring. Each consecutive spar was more vicious than the last and there was no telling when they were going to occur.

Recently, though, their unit had been in a sort of downwards spiral. Things had been quiet. Disturbingly quiet, actually, and Wales was starting to live up to its reputation as a nice, quiet place to settle down. Even the backlog of paperwork – which had been quite extensive – was non-existent and their unit had started to be assigned basic Auror work, like investigating murders.

It was in carrying out this work that the kidney-but-not-a-kidney had turned up. It had been in the groin area of their victim, tapped into the Aorta and Vena Cava like a transplant would be. And they were suddenly baffled as to what it was and how it had gotten there.

Eleanor had immediately deduced that it didn't seem harmful, but had yet to accurately pinpoint its purpose. And that was the most exciting thing to happen recently.

It was almost depressing, Gabrielle decided, that she was starting to miss the days of the possessed sheep.

Gabrielle sighed and smiled slightly when she noticed the slightly dazed look on Justin's face. He was infatuated, she had realised on her first day working, with Eleanor. It was plain as day to anyone with eyes – which meant that only Harry and she had noticed.

"Right," Justin said, snapping out of his daze. "We should get on with some paperwork."

Normally, Gabrielle would have groaned, but this time she smiled.

"We don't have any," she stated.

Justin blinked.

"What?" he asked intelligently.

"We don't have any paperwork," Gabrielle repeated. "The last time anything interesting happened was when—" Gabrielle would have continued, but she was cut off.

CRACK!

The reactions were instant.

Gabrielle whipped her wand out of its leg holster, spinning around to face the direction of the noise. She could sense that Justin had done the same and, far down in the storage room, Eleanor would have probably reacted exactly the same way. The magic for a particularly nasty hex was at Gabrielle's fingertips, ready to be used, when she saw who it was. Lowering her wand, Gabrielle sighed.

"Well, if it isn't Dennis the Menace," she stated, dropping her wand back into its holster. "I was this," Gabrielle held her fingers up, an inch apart, "close to hexing your backside into oblivion."

Justin, too, was putting his wand away. He shook his head.

"What are the rules of apparating into HQ?" he asked rhetorically.

"Attempt it at your own risk!" came a shout from deep within the Complex, presumably from Eleanor as she stored the box.

Dennis Creevey stood before them, grinning slightly.

"Lovely to see you too, Gobby," he said to Gabrielle, whose face flushed at his nickname for her. Dennis turned to face the second-in-command. "Hey Justin," he said. "I have news."

Justin shook his head again.

"Look, Dennis," he said. "I already told you that I don't care how hot the nurse in the local hospital is, I am not going back there after—"

Dennis, however cut him off.

"No," he said hurriedly. "The Boss found them."

Eleanor's face peeked out of the corridor. Her green eyes were pinned on Dennis with ravenous interest.

"You mean..?" she started, but drifted off.

Dennis nodded.

"Yep," he said. "The Boss found Torchwood."

So, first chapter here. Ready and waiting to go. I'm overwhelmed by the phenomenal response I got in terms of Alerts, but c'mon guys, drop a review! I promise I'll be nice…

So, yeah, please review as we are now coming to the main plot.

Oh, as for the ages of Harry's team:

Harry – 26
Dennis – 23
Gabrielle – 20
Eleanor – 23
Justin – 26

So, this is me done.

-Kaputt

PS: Review!