Whoa, it's been practically two months since I published the last chapter. My bad, everyone. I had a lot of writer's block and trouble with motivation while writing this chapter, not to mention the job, vacation, and family things that took up so much of my time this summer. That's not an excuse, but I'm sorry that it's kept you waiting. There are a lot of people who have been reviewing, following, and favoriting this story. I think a get an email every day where someone has done one of those three things, so I'm just going to say thank you all. You're wonderful. I hope that I didn't disappoint you all with this chapter.
"Harry, are you sure that this is the place?" I asked doubtfully, my eyes surveying the building in front of me. He had told me that our destination would be disguised, but I didn't quite think it would look like this.
What Harry had described to me as the gateway between the wizarding world and muggle London turned out to be a dilapidated shop on Charing Cross Road. It was a tiny little place wedged between a record store and a bookshop, with a front window display so coated in dust that I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. There was a sign over the window, but the words had faded so that they were illegible. The paint on the door was chipped and peeling, so that the only thing about the shop that seemed to be in a decent condition was the doorknob. It was, I decided, almost suspiciously shiny.
"Yeah, this is it," Harry said. While I had been staring at the shop, he had been paying the cabbie, but he stepped around the back of the cab calmly. He smiled a little as he looked at the shop, which I found simply astounding. It wasn't really a place worth smiling at. "Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron, London's most popular wizarding pub."
I looked up at him. He looked like he was being sincere, but this place looked like no pub that I had ever seen. I didn't know if I really wanted to enter it. In fact, everything in my body seemed to be telling me not to go inside, that this was not a place for me. At a pointed look from Harry, I stepped over to the door and placed my hand on the doorknob. Instantly, the breath seemed to disappear from my lungs.
I jerked my hand away and gasped.
"What? What's wrong?" Harry demanded, looked around for some kind of threat. When I didn't respond, he seemed to realize what was happening. "Oh, yeah. The muggle repelling charms. Sorry, Kate, I forgot all about those. They put them up so that muggles won't just walk in on accident. Here, let me get that for you..."
He opened the door, and I, with some doubts, stepped inside the building. Instantly, it transformed from a dusty shop into a perfectly normal-looking pub (albeit a dark and shabby one). We walked past a bar, a staircase, and numerous tables (which I seemed inclined to bump into along the way). Little groups of people chatted idly, holding drinks in their hands. In one far corner, a drunk little man was trying to get his companions to sing a drinking song with him, but his words were not comprehensible. Harry pointed me past all of this and to a back door, which opened to reveal a little courtyard. I paused uncertainly in front of the door, but Harry waved me through impatiently.
Silently, Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and began to tap it on the back well of the courtyard. Then, there was a grinding sound as the bricks rearranged themselves to form a sort of doorway. I gaped, open-mouthed, at the sight in front of me, while Harry gave me an amused look.
"Are you coming?" he asked. His eyebrows were arched. He looked like he felt very superior at the moment. I didn't even care; I nodded mutely and followed him out of the courtyard and into the magical world.
I had never in my entire life loved a place like I like I did Diagon Alley in just those first few seconds that I had been there. As I followed Harry through the crowd, I must have been gawking. It was something out of a Disney film or a children's book, a surreal street lined with shop after shop that all sold the most unusual wares. The people that waded in and out of the stores, oblivious to the pouring rain, were dressed in robes in every color of the rainbow. There was a store that seemed to be a broomstick shop, and another devoted entirely to quills, inks, and parchment in a variety of unusual shades and designs. There were a handful of places that seemed to sell robes, and pet shops that prominently featured owls. It took all of my self-control not to immediately run to the old fashioned ice-cream parlor or the book shop that advertised spellbooks in the front window.
Some of these places sold things that I couldn't even begin to identify, strange instruments made of metal or glass and animal parts and foreign herbs displayed in shop windows. I felt like I could walk up and down that street for the rest of my life and never understand all of the things that I saw.
"Are we really in London?" I wondered aloud, turning to Harry with an awe-struck expression. He nodded with a tiny smile on his lips. "I can't believe it. Are you sure that we aren't in Narnia or Wonderland or something like that?"
"Of course not. Those places aren't real, Kate," Harry informed me, gesturing all around him. He seemed to be having fun altering my perception of reality, so good on him. "This place? Diagon Alley? This is real."
I nodded my agreement and turned away, entranced by a shop display close by that featured a miniature fireworks display that raged in front of the window, sparks in all different colors that formed a huge variety of shapes. Through the glass, I could hear them whistling and popping, but they didn't stray from the display into the rest of the shop, which seemed to be just as wildly colorful. Wondering what kind of place it was, I looked up at the overhead sign, which read Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes; above it, there was a picture of an identical pair of redheaded boys with cheeky grins and top hats.
"So this is the plan," I heard Harry say, though I wasn't really paying attention to him at the moment, as I was too busy staring at the fireworks. They were much more interesting. "We're going to start at Madam Malkin's, which is the best place to get robes in the alley, because it'll close soon. After that, we'll get you a pair of shoes and the other things that you think you need. I was planning to meet friends at the pub for dinner tonight, and I think it would be best if we went ahead and ate with them. We're already here. Kreacher won't have anything ready."
"Sounds fine," I agreed, still focused on the window display. I was wondering how much the fireworks cost, and if they would be a good present for my brother's birthday. We weren't allowed to shoot them off in Little Whinging, but we had relatives in the country that would let us. It was then that I realized that my purse was probably sitting in an alley, along with all my money, personal items, and mobile.
Hell.
Harry ushered me away from the fireworks and into a shop nearby: Madam Malkin's Robes for all Occasions. It wasn't very busy at the moment, except for a pair of young girls who were looking over a selection of fabrics. The proprietor, who I assumed was Madam Malkin, was a white-haired, squat woman who looked up immediately when Harry and I walked through the door. She grinned broadly and walked over to us, leaving the other customers alone.
"Mr. Potter! It's an honor, as always," she greeted warmly, beaming up at Harry, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Who is your friend, and what can I do for the two of you today?"
"This is Kate F-..." Harry began, before hastily backtracking. "This is Kate, my new assistant. I got recruited into taking her shopping."
"Oh, and how's that?" the woman said, intrigued. Harry, I thought suddenly, would be a celebrity among the magical world. After all, he had killed the man who was basically the wizarding version of Hitler. Everyone would be interested in what he was doing, who he was with, and where he was going. I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or not.
Harry shrugged. "She's a Squib. Doesn't own any proper robes, and she can't exactly where her muggle clothes to work at Auror Headquarters. I thought I would help her out with that."
Um, what am I exactly? I wanted to ask. I didn't know exactly what a Squib was, so I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not, but I didn't think I liked being known as Harry's assistant.
"Oh, dear," Madam Malkin said, smiling at me in turn. She seemed so friendly that I couldn't help but smile back. "Well, we can fix that, can't we? Come along, dear, we'll get your measurements..."
She had me stand on a little stool while a magical tape measure floated around me, which measured me in every direction possible while the madam wrote down the numbers hastily. When that was through with, she directed me towards a rack of ready-made robes in the correct size. She talked cheerfully the entire time ("We rarely custom-fit casual robes anymore, you know. Now, that's mostly for the Hogwarts students and dress robes. Why, when I first opened...") and helped me select four sets of robes that she thought would be the most flattering on me. One was a pretty sky blue color, one was a springy green, one was a chocolate brown, and the last was a much more dramatic purple. Once they were chosen, Harry counted a number of coins out from a little pouch and Madam Malkin put the robes in a little shopping bag that seemed deceptively small for the amount of clothing inside. She handed me the bag and sent us on our way from the shop with a cheerful little smile.
"Why do witches and wizards wear robes?" I wondered aloud, swinging the bag idly as we walked to the next shop. "Muggle clothes are more practical. Robes seem like they would get in the way of everything, and they just aren't as versatile as a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt. Why bother with them at all?"
Harry shrugged. "Tradition, I guess. The wizarding world doesn't really care much for change."
I almost scoffed at that answer. Tradition was well and good, but it simply didn't seem practical to wear robes all of the time. As a whole, wizards didn't seem to have many thoughts to practicality. They were a people who didn't use automobiles, wore long and heavy robes, and had a different currency than the rest of the country. Only a handful of people in Diagon Alley seemed to wear clothes like the ones I was used to seeing, and most of them seemed to be in young. Technology that I had always taken advantage of was not yet mainstream in the magical community, and some devices still hadn't been made compatible with magic. Perhaps they had magic to simplify things for them, but it seemed strange to rely so much on what seemed to be a fickle ability.
There were still more shops to go in and more things that I would need to achieve some semblance of normalcy: shoes, pajamas, undergarments, and toiletries. Harry mostly left me in the care of the shop assistants at the shops, usually heading discreetly to a corner of the shop or finding a chair to sit in while I tried something on. He said little to nothing about the things that I picked and never commented on the price of anything. He honestly didn't seem to care about the money, handing over coins without any argument at each shop.
After we finished all of the shopping, we stood in front of the shoe shop (where boots and sandal floated in midair, and occasionally whacked shoppers in the head if they weren't careful) awkwardly, going over an unwritten checklist of the things Harry seemed to think that I would need.
"Are you sure that you don't need anything else?" he asked me for the second time. Apparently, he had a desire for me to spend more of his money than I already had.
"Yes," I said, a little bit agitated. I didn't feel good about not being about to pay for my own things, and so I had deliberately limited myself to what I needed and didn't need. Once Harry had explained the monetary system, I had taken care to buy things that were a good price. I would have thought he would appreciate my efforts, but it seemed that he didn't.
He checked his watch and nodded. "Fine."
We went back to the Leaky Cauldron, where Harry paused and scanned the room for a moment before he took off for a corner table with renewed speed and enthusiasm. It was a large table, obviously meant for a larger group of people, but it was occupied solely by one young woman with her head buried in a book. Her hair was brown, a few shades lighter than my own; she looked remarkably similar to the brunette in Harry's photo album, though she seemed to have tamed her hair and grown into her teeth since many of those pictures were taken. She looked up as we came closer and smiled at Harry before giving me a very thorough once-over.
"Harry, I didn't think that you would make it," she said, closing her book with a little thud. She was talking to Harry, but she was still scrutinizing me, as if I were a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out. "You know, given the situation..."
Is that all that everyone is going to call this? A situation? I thought in annoyance, until the thought crossed my mind that I hadn't seen this woman at the Auror Office earlier. How exactly would she know about my situation? I looked uncertainly at Harry, but he hardly seemed to be worried about it. In fact, he was pulling out the chair across from her and sitting down.
"We were in Diagon Alley to get Kate some things, and I thought that we should just come on out. I already told Kreacher that I was going out tonight, and he won't be prepared to cook for both of us. " He shrugged and looked sideways at me, and I realized that I was still standing up. I took the seat next to Harry's and smiled awkwardly at the woman.
"So, you must be Kate Foster," the brunette said, not unkindly. She smiled at me and extended her hand across the table. "My name is Hermione Granger. It's nice to meet you."
The name was faintly familiar, like something I had heard or read years ago. Probably because that's exactly what it was. I remembered, suddenly, that Harry had occasionally mentioned his best friends Ron and Hermione. Since this was Hermione, and she had appeared in so many photos with the ginger from earlier, I assumed that the Auror was Ron. I also realized that someone – Harry or Ron, maybe Neville – must trust Hermione deeply if she already knew about the situation at hand. That meant that I should probably trust her, too.
"It's nice to meet you, too, Hermione," I said, trying to be sincere. I shook Hermione's hand and gave her a tight smile. "That's an unusual name, you know. I don't think I've ever met another Hermione."
"I'm not surprised. It's not all that common of a name. Hermione was an obscure character in Greek mythology and in Shakespeare," Hermione mentioned offhandedly, stowing her thick book in a satchel sitting on the ground. In my experience, people who mentioned things such as mythology and Shakespeare so offhandedly were either very intelligent or insufferably pretentious, or possibly both.
At that point, the conversation lulled. I was rather happy when Ron and Neville showed up in the pub doorway, both looking more tired but no worse for wear than when we had left them at the Ministry. Neville flashed the three of us a terse smile as he took the seat on my other side and said a low greeting, but Ron groaned as he slumped into the seat next to Hermione.
"Harry, mate, why didn't you ever tell me about all of the paperwork an Auror has to do? I never would've signed up for this job if I'd known there would be that much to do!" he complained, running his fingers through his red hair. "Honestly, there are a million better things that we could be working on than writing out reports that no one is going to read! We could be out looking for leads, or trying to figure out the Syndicate's next move, or just about anything besides sitting there in the office!"
Harry and Neville seemed to shrug in unison. "Welcome to the Aurors, mate," Harry said. He sent me a sideways glanced and seemed to realize that I was confused, so he added, "Ron's new to the office. After the war, he went to work with his brother George at the joke shop up the street, but he's come to work at the Ministry. He's going to be Neville's replacement."
"Oh?" I said, raising an eyebrow. Neville was quitting the Auror Office? Huh, he had seemed so good at it.
"Yeah, I'm going to be a professor," Neville said brightly. He sat up a little straighter in his seat and smiled a little. He seemed very proud of himself and excited. "I'm going to teach Herbology at Hogwarts. Er – that's the study of magical plants. Like botany, I guess, except..."
"Magical," I finished for him. He nodded enthusiastically, and I smiled. They might like that I was completely oblivious, but I could follow what they were saying just fine. "That sounds interesting. Congratulations on the new job."
Ron grunted something about the Ministry and paperwork, and in response, Hermione smiled slightly. They were obviously a couple; it was plain from their body language and the way that she kissed him lightly on the cheek. At the touch, he immediately sat up straighter, a red blush spreading from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. He seemed embarrassed by the display of affection but also pleased with himself, too, especially as Hermione laced her fingers through his in the way that only a significant other can. I noticed that there was a modest engagement ring on her finger, displayed prominently as they held hands.
"Is Ginny coming, then?" Harry said after a long moment, breaking the moment of silence easily. I wondered who she was, but then, I didn't really know any of these people, so it didn't make a difference. Obviously, though, she was important to Harry, because her attendance seemed very important to him.
Neville shook his head. "Nope. Got an owl from her at the office saying that the Harpies are practicing every night this week for their big match against the Tornadoes next week."
"Think we should go on and order? I'm starving," Ron said, looking over at the menu above the bar longingly.
As if on cue, a perky blonde girl about our age walked over to our table and smiled brightly at the five of us. She had a little notepad in her hand, the type that I recognized as a typical waitress notebook for keeping up with orders. All of the others seemed to know her, since they had a nice group greeting, and I found out that her name was Hannah and she had been one of their classmates. Hannah asked us what we would like to drink, which resulted in Ron and Hermione bickering a little about whether he would be getting a firewhiskey or a butterbeer (Hermione won) and if we would like something to eat as well. Once we had placed our orders, Hannah slipped off to place the order and came back with a tray of butterbeer.
"So, the big day's coming up," she said conversationally to Hermione as she handed each of us a bottle.
"Nine days," Ron and Hermione chimed in unison, Hermione with a smile and Ron with a funny little grimace that men usually wore when they talked about getting married.
"I can't believe that it's taken the two of you so long to get married." Hannah shook her head in faux agitation. "I think that most everyone in our year knew that the two of you were meant to be together since first year. Well, everyone except Lavender, that is. It's taken ten years, of course, but it turns out that we were right all along. Your wedding is going to be the must attend event of the whole year, you know. You couldn't pay me to miss it."
With that, she flounced away, leaving us to our drinks, and I began to think about this tight-knit little community that I had stumbled into. Everyone seemed to know each other, and they all seemed to know each other well. As I watched my companions take and joke lightly, it occurred to me that they were close. They were close in a way that I could never be a part of, and I wasn't even sure that I would ever understand it.
It was going to be a long night.
Someone was knocking on the bedroom door, and that was a problem because I didn't want to be woken up. I groaned and rolled over in bed, pulling the pillow over my head in an attempt to drown out the noise. This bed was comfortable almost to the point of being magical. It was sort of an ironic thought, given that I was in a wizard's spare bedroom and it was entirely possible that the bed was magical, but at the moment I was too focused on not being awake that I didn't spare a moment to think about irony. The night before, I had tossed and turned in the bed for hours thinking about everything that had happened. It seemed like I had only just gone to sleep when someone started knocking on the door.
The door knob clicked, and I realized that whoever was outside of the door was coming in. I did not want Harry to come into this bedroom this early in the morning, because then he would see me in my new and scanty pajamas and my wild hair. I grew up as the oldest of three children, with a tenacious stepmother, and I currently shared a flat with two roommates. I was used to people trying to come into my room at the most inopportune moments. Therefore, I did exactly what I was used to doing when my brother or sister or roommates tried to wake me up.
"Go away, Harry!" I exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and hurling the pillow at the door. I watched it sail through the air and collide with the person standing in the doorway, causing him to topple over. That person was not Harry.
I wasn't sure if it was a person at all. It made a little groaning sound, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went to have a closer look. Lying on the floor was a wrinkly little creature not much taller than my legs, with a snout-like nose, bulging, blood-shot eyes, and bat-like ears with long white hair sticking out. It had two legs and two arms, and it wore a knotted piece of cloth vaguely resembling a diaper and a bright gold locket around its neck. From the creature's appearance, I assumed it was male and maybe old.
"Oh my god, I'm sorry," I murmured, barely able to stop myself from blurting out that I had never seen a creature like this before. Hesitatingly, I offered him my hand to pull him to his feet. "I thought you were Harry. Who...Who are you?"
"The muggle doesn't know who Kreacher is!" he said in a creaking, high-pitched voice. The creature sat up and waved away my hand, laughing unpleasantly as he slowly rose to his feet. "Kreacher is Master Harry's house-elf. Master Harry sent Kreacher to wake up the muggle for breakfast." He looked at my startled, uncertain expression and smiled the way that an unpleasant old man might smile. "The girl is only a muggle, doesn't know about house-elves..."
"You're right, I don't know anything about house-elves," I agreed, a little bit stunned. I would not be able to go to sleep after this. "So, you're the Kreacher who does Harry's cooking and cleaning, right?"
Before Kreacher could answer, Harry himself turned down the hallway wearing his Auror uniform. "Good, Kate's up. I was wondering what all the racket was about." His eyes lingered on me for a moment too long, making me remember that the pajamas I was wearing (while cute and the current fashion amongst witches were a bit scantier than I would have preferred). I crossed my arms over my chest defensively as he continued. "Listen, you ought to hurry up and get dressed. Kreacher's made a great breakfast, so whenever you're ready, you should come and eat. We don't have a lot of time before we need to be at the office."
I would have been happy to do that if they would only leave. I gave them both a pointed look, which Harry took to mean that I wanted him gone. He shut the door, and I walked over to the wardrobe to select my wardrobe for the day. I pulled out the green set of robes and a pair of shoes Harry had purchased for me the day before and changed quickly, before heading into the kitchen to have breakfast.
There was a wonderful spread in the kitchen, but I wasn't very hungry, so I grabbed a two slices of toast and slathered them in marmalade. Harry was sitting at the kitchen table already, pouring over a newspaper called the Daily Prophet that I could only assume was the popular wizarding paper. The front page headline was The Crucible Syndicate Strikes Again; under it were the words Aurors flounder in attempts to Catch Syndicate. I ate my toast wordlessly, and watching Harry as he occasionally turned the pages of the paper. When he did, I would get a glimpse of his frowning face.
When I was done eating, I barricaded myself in Harry's bathroom to get ready for work. Once my hair was tamed, my teeth were brushed, and I had put on the little bit of make-up, I opened the door to let Harry finish up getting ready. He ran a comb through his black hair (a futile effort, really) and then brushed his teeth, which took him a lot less time. He found me back in the kitchen, where I was watching Kreacher clean up the breakfast dishes.
"We're going to Apparate today," Harry informed me as he slid a house key into one of the hidden pockets of his robe. I nodded absently, watching Kreacher as he carried a stack of plates and pans as tall as he was to the sink. When I had offered to help him clean up, he had seemed mortally offended, and now I knew that he really didn't need help with anything. "Is that alright?"
"Of course it is," I mumbled, even though it really wasn't. I let him grab onto the sleeve of my robes, and suddenly I was no longer in the kitchen – I was in a grimy little bathroom in an unknown location.
Five minutes and two toilet flushes later, Harry and I waded through a sea of people to one of the Ministry of Magic's many lifts. The building itself was magnificent, with marble floors and a fountain-sporting Atrium where we entered, but I was shuffled immediately to the far end of the Atrium without getting a good look at anything, so that we could catch a lift to Harry's office. It was astounding to me that a place with twenty lifts couldn't possibly have one available on this floor, yet as I opened my mouth to say something about it to Harry, one jutted to a stop ten feet away from where we were standing. It came so fast that I wouldn't have been able to process its arrival on my own, because from the moment its doors opened, people started to pour inside. Harry, resolute and professional, guided me quickly into the elevator with one hand on my elbow.
"Is it like this every day?" I asked, smoothered against the side of the elevator as more people filed in. There were easily a dozen people in the elevator, though one of the others looked like an attendant of some kind.
Harry smiled. "No. It's usually worse."
Well, wasn't that wonderful?
The doors were beginning to creak to a close when one more man managed to slide right in between them, squeezing into the space that separated me from the door with a victorious grin. At first, I thought it was Neville, because he had almost the same hair color and build and seemed to be the same age. I was wrong. While this man had sand-colored hair, Neville's was more firmly on the blond spectrum. His eyes were blue, not brown, and his face was freckly. Also, the two of them looked nothing alike.
"Harry," the man greeted, grinning like a fox at Harry. He had a distinct Irish accent, the kind that made me think of all sorts of culturally stereotypical things. He looked at me briefly out of the corner of his eye, but then he went right back to focusing on Harry. "Alright, mate? I haven't seen you around in a while."
"Been a bit busy lately, Seamus," Harry said, but he was wearing a sociable expression similar to the one that he wore around Ron, Hermione, and Neville, if slightly more reserved. They were friendly with each other, but they weren't exactly best friends.
"Oh, yeah. I bet they've been working you like a house-elf on the Syndicate case." He nodded a little and paused in his speech. When he opened his mouth again, he seemed considerably less cheerful, but far from as uncomfortable as I would have thought. "It's a crazy world, isn't it? We can't even go ten years without some lunatics dressing up and trying to murder everyone."
The lift jolted to a stop, doors opening to a new floor. A voice came on over a hidden speaker, announcing that we were now stopping on the seventh floor, which was home to the Department of Magical Games and Sports and housed the offices of the British and Irish Quidditch Headquarters, the Official Gobstones Club, and the Ludicrous Patents Office. One older man stepped out, and the door closed to a view of him walking down a cubicle-lined hallway.
Harry took this as a reminder that I might need to know what floor we were actually going to, and turned to me. "The Ministry of Magic building is actually located underground, and we'll be rising almost to the top to get to the Auror Headquarters. In case you get lost around here, just know that Headquarters is on Level Two. Got it?" I nodded to show that, yes, I did get it. "Good."
"Oh, so the Auror Office has gotten a new member," Seamus said jauntily as the lift stopped on the next floor. He looked me over from head to toe, curiosity plain in his eyes. Curiosity, yes, but was it my imagination that I saw something else there two?
Whatever I thought I saw, it made me pause before I could answer. "Well, not exactly," I muttered, at a loss for words. It occurred to me that I hadn't actually heard my cover story, which was bound to make this interesting. I tried to look discreetly to Harry for help.
"Kate here is the Auror Office's new secretary," he offered. Yesterday, I was an assistant; today I was a secretary. It was an upgrade, yes, but still not as significant of one as I would have liked. "Temporarily, of course. With everything that's happened so far, the higher ups have decided that we can't waste time and resources on minor details like paperwork."
I managed a smile for Seamus, one that he seemed eager to match. "Yes, I'm here until the Crucible Syndicate case is closed," I elaborated, going with the flow. "I've never been to the Ministry before, you know, so Harry... though I guess I should call him Mr. Potter here, shouldn't I?... has kindly agreed to help me get used to things. We're old acquaintances." The moment I said it, I knew that I shouldn't have. Would Seamus be curious? Would anyone else in the lift notice that? Fortunately for me, Seamus didn't seem to notice anything odd about my comments.
While I was rambling, we had passed two floors, putting us on Level Four, and we were going up. The lift had begun to clear out, so that the only people besides Harry, Seamus, and me were the attendant and two men intent on their own conversation about something having to do with the Minister.
Seamus stuck out his hand for me to shake and pumped my arm once with a grin on his face. "I'm Seamus Finnigan, from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. It was nice to meet you." The lift stopped again, announcing that we were now on Level Three, headquarters to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. "Well, this is my stop. I'll be seeing you around, then. Goodbye, Kate." He nodded at Harry, and then he was gone from the lift.
"Did I do alright?" I asked Harry in a low voice, looking over at the others in our compartment. The attendant was leafing through some magazine called The Quibbler, turning it upside down suddenly and looking at it interestingly. The two men in the corner were still having an intense discussion. They seemed to be having a disagreement, which I thought was good because it kept them from paying much attention to what we were saying.
"You did fine," he assured me, an odd expression on his face. Had I really done fine, or had I said the wrong thing? He shook his head a little, as if to shake off an unwanted thought, and looked over at the three men, too. Harry leaned in closer to me, and I was suddenly aware of how fast the lift was moving to the next floor. When he spoke again, I was sure that no one else would be able to hear these words. "The key to going undercover is to keep it simple, and tell as much of the truth as possible. If anyone asks, you are Kate Hart, temporary secretary to the Auror Office. You grew up in Little Whinging, where the two of us met. You are a squib, and this is a temporary job to help pay your way through university. Other than that, use your best instinct, but remember what you tell people. Understand?"
"Yes," I said in a squeaky little voice as the lift stopped and its doors began to creak open.
"You have now reached Basement Level Two, home to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including Auror Headquarters and Wizengamot Administration Services. Have a pleasant day."
I really hoped that I would, but it was starting to seem doubtful.