Mischief to manage - chapter 16

Christmas Tale... times two

Nick Fury sat in his office, going over papers. While being the head of the largest intelligence agency in the world had many benefits, he could easily do without that much paperwork. Especially considering that half of it was pointless. Right now he had to read through a deal with Stark Industry regarding new coffee machines. How did it even get to his level was beyond him.

Scratch that, apparently each machine would have hidden weapon storage inside.

His monotonous work was interrupted when Agent Hill ran into his office.

"Sir! We have a problem." She informed him at the entrance.

"What now?" Fury groaned.

"We finally got the full damage report from the Archive robbery."

"And?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?!" He roared.

"Nothing was left. Somehow the thieves took everything. Every single paper. There wasn't even a speck of dust remaining."

Fury collapsed into his large and comfy chair. This was bad. Scratch that. This was a disaster. The Archive was a physical copy of every single computer data S.H.I.E.L.D. possessed. Everything from their agents' files to the not-so-legal data on various important people to proofs of extraterrestrial life. The room itself was sealed and allowed entrance to three people only. The Archivist and himself. It should've been able to withstand several nuclear missiles being detonated right on top of it. Not to mention that it shouldn't be possible to move this amount of data in such a short time.

"How did those mother…" He didn't finish, seeing agent Hill glare at him. "How did they manage to move it all?"

"We have no idea Sir. One person distracted the front guard. At first, she got past them. The report mentioned that she apparently tripped next to the guards' cafeteria, triggering the alarm. This caused many guards to start chasing her. Barton led the hunt, but they ultimately lost her in the woods. We suspect that it was planned and the others used the commotion to get to the entrance."

"Hm… It doesn't explain how did they steal the whole archive without anyone noticing. It was about the size of the white house. How can one steal a white freaking house?!" Fury was furious. This was a disaster. The whole S.H.I.E.L.D., the entire government, and several foreign countries were at risk. The data someone stole right from under their noses from probably one of the most secure facilities in the world…

"We suspect enchanted. The woman was some kind of shape-shifter. She changed into a monkey but apparently wasn't very adept at that if Barton is to be believed."

Fury's eye widened at that. Suddenly, everything fell into places. He cursed his lack of foresight.

"Thank you, agent Hill. I will be taking it over personally. Priority Alpha Zero, code Black Bishop."

"Understood Sir." She nodded and left, leaving the file on his desk.

Nick Fury groaned. He hated it when this happened. And especially when it happened to him personally. He walked to the safe on the wall and entered a code. The interesting thing was that he didn't enter the full code.

62442

Now normally, someone would expect to find many things in Nick Fury's wall safe in his private office. A red Fez definitely was not such a thing.

"Do not speak." He muttered the activation phrase and disappeared with a quiet Pop!.

He appeared in a dark corridor with only one door at the end. The walls and floor were made of smooth black blocks that seemed to almost absorb the light. Fury walked to the doors, but instead of opening them he turned right and walked straight through the wall.

"Welcome to the Department of Mysteries. How may I help you?" The receptionist greeted him in a bit dreamy voice. She didn't wear the standard unspeakable robes and her face was revealed.

"I need to speak with Croaker." Fury informed her.

"And why would you need me?" A voice came from behind him. "I felt the portkey activating." The unspeakable informed him before he could even ask the question.

"I don't have times for games Saul. Get me to Algernon or I will leak to Augusta who really broke her favorite teacup." Fury threatened with all seriousness. "We have a level X leak."

The friendly demeanor disappeared from Saul's face. "Right." Without any more discussion, he led Nick past the reception and into the long corridor with many doors. They didn't stop to greet any of the unspeakables and nobody tried to really question them. The look on their faces scared any to-be greeters. Finally, they arrived at yet another flat wall. Saul touched the brick close to the wall with his wand before walking through the wall.

"Nicky! Long time no see! How's your mother?"

"Skip the pleasantries. We've got a level X leak. And magic was almost definitely involved."

Algernon Croaker, the oldest of the three Croaker siblings sighed. Unspeakables and S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't really see eye to eye. While the heads of both groups tried to remain cordial there were bound to be conflicts.

"What happened?" He asked in a solemn voice.

Fury tossed a folder onto his desk. "Someone robbed the Archive. All of the physical copies of S.H.I.E.L.D. data was taken. Every single file. Somehow they did it in bright daylight without anyone seeing anything. Or remembering seeing anything." He added to underline the problem.

"You don't think it was one of ours, do you?" Croaker asked offended.

"No. But there was a Metamorphmagus involved. One that is also an animagus. Monkey."

"If so, he or she is unregistered with the ministry." He muttered while quickly going over the file. "Definitely magic. The technical data from the corrupted feed is too scrambled for anything muggle. There were at least four different magicals there." He informed. "Well, three magicals and something." He corrected himself when he saw the next page.

"What do you mean by something?"

"Well, while one of them distracted the guards, the other three made their way to Archive proper. They took turns in disabling security using magic. The way they are scrambled, I can see three different signatures." He pointed to various lines of code in the file. "Most of the items were scrambled in the same way. In one of three ways. Two are common types we see often. One is something…" He didn't finish.

"And you got all that from just a simple data from scrambled cameras?" Fury asked in disbelief

"I'm not the Head of Department of Mysteries by my good looks." Algernon joked.

"Fine. What now? They got every single file from the Archive. With magic, it's probably child's play to collect them and smuggle them out."

"Yeah, but my question is why did you to us? MACUSA has its own department."

"The witch that served as a distraction during the whole debacle cursed with a thick British accent. And British curses. Plus there is another thing." He produced a photo from his pocket. It was a symbol. A skull with a snake coming out of the mouth.

"They left a dark mark!?"

"No. Not directly. But it's a strange coincidence that not even a week before the robbery three of my agents were caught with it on their forearms."

"Bugger." Saul, who remained silent until now cursed.

"So Death Eaters infiltrated a muggle intelligence agency?" Algernon asked in disbelief?

"That's what I suspected. I quickly removed any computer data to avoid potential leaks, but before I got to the Archives to destroy the last trace this happened." He said while pointing to the case file.

"The question is whether it was someone who worked for them, or against them."

"You suspect Dumbledore and the Order?"

"I'm not sure. Right now I am more worried about the third signature. There is something… I don't think I've ever seen this output before. It's… The best comparison I can find is while others are like when someone tries to child's toy into the direct current, this one is like they plugged it into a bloody nuclear plant!"

"So either way, we have a big problem on our heads now." Fury groaned. "I will speak with ol' Headmaster. If it was him, we can do damage control. If not, we have a big problem."

"Not necessary." Saul pointed suddenly.

"What do you mean?" His brother asked confused.

"The way they took it. I think they didn't really steal everything."

"You are kidding? Where it would go then?"

"Why it was never there." Saul chuckled darkly. "They used a very overpowered version of the time-reversing spell. They basically returned the room the way it was first built."

"To cover their tracks. This way we would not know what they took and what was destroyed. But didn't this spell require like…"

"The analogy to the Nuclear Plant is once more very apt in this situation." Saul supplemented.

"Bugger me. This is going to cause more headaches than I thought." Algernon complained.

"I don't get one thing. Why the time spell?" Fury asked. "There must be some easier ways.

"The benefits are twofold." Saul started to explain. He seemed unnecessarily giddy about that. "First, reversing the spell is pretty damn hard. The Law of Equal Counter means that you would need to put the same amount of power into it. Repairing the damage of fiendfyre is easier as you don't undo the curse. Even the vanishing spell is easier to undo when you have a magical signature left. This brings us to the second point. The spell doesn't leave much in terms of magical signatures. There is only a very distorted version in the air. Whoever did it was a professional at erasing tracks."

"Don't mind these crazy eyes of his. Saul loves time magic." Algernon had a smirk planted on his face. "But he does raise a valuable point. We need not bother with common thugs. This was professional work."

"What kind of training would one need to be a ghost in this age?"

Remus ducked under a snowball, tossing one himself. It sailed in the air. He almost got his target, but Harry spun out of the way the last second and responded with a curled one. This one didn't hit the intended target, instead smacking Sirius right in his head.

"Oh come on!" He groaned. "Not everyone has this enhanced reflexes y'all seem to have!"

"Stop complaining and give me more snow!" Amelia, who was next to him, joked. Her red hair was safely hidden under the large fluffy hood of her jacket.

"Yes, Bonesy." He responded with a mock salute. Sirius himself looked close to a walking snowman with how much of it stuck to him. Indeed, he turned into his animagus form and started to dig in the big pile of snow, making it all fly in her direction. When he got to dirt, he quickly turned back and stared at his masterpiece. Amelia now looked pretty much the same as him.

"Sirius Orion Black the Third!" She screamed.

"Oh no." Loki grinned. "She is pulling out the number. Even Lily never pulled out the number at me."

She started to walk toward her boyfriend, but only after two steps she yelped and stiffened. "Ah!" She let out a very undignifying squeak. "It got under my jacket! It got under my jacket!" She screamed in a very high-pitched voice.

Neville and Susan (who was now in on The Loki Deception) stuck out their heads from the snow fortress the three of them built. The kids laughed at the scene. Remus started to roll on the ground laughing but quickly stopped when the snow got under his coat as well. Only Loki seemed completely unbothered by the cold. He and Harry that is.

They played some more before moving to the nearby hill for some Sleighing. After all of them returned to the house, a cup of hot chocolate awaited. Kids had some marshmallows in theirs. Amelia had sneaking suspicion that Remus added something stronger to his, but didn't comment. Overall the atmosphere before Christmas/Yule was cheerful.

Draco wiggled in his chair in his father's office. When he arrived for the Christmas break, he was stuffed here first thing and told to wait for Lord Malfoy by a very timid elf. It was clear that his father punished it recently. There were no decorations and the whole room looked dark and gloomy. The whole place screamed 'power and influence'. On shelves all around there were books on laws, traditions, and trade. Some were also filled with strange devices.

Finally, Lucius stormed into the office in his official robes of Lord Malfoy.

"You stupid brat!" He shouted at his son. "I told you to befriend the Potter heir and get him on our side! I did not tell you to become one of his lackeys!" Lucius slapped his son harshly before taking a seat behind the desk.

"But…" For just a second, Draco wanted to explain himself but quickly changed his mind seeing his father almost seething. "I am sorry Father. I humbly ask for your forgiveness for my missteps and failure in judgment. It was not my intention to negatively impact the image of House Malfoy."

"Because of you, I lost the Greengrass girls. You became a pushover and let Slytherins walk over you. At your age, I already gathered my own group. You sully the Malfoy name by acting like a mere sycophant to a half-blood." In years to come, Draco would look back at this rant and snort. Now, he was terrified.

"I…" He tried to say something, but his father drew a wand.

"Fulmino!" Normally, this spell was used for quick bursts of power. Lucius kept it low on power but instead constantly sustained it. "At least your pug of a betrothed was useful. Thanks to her memory of the Potter brat fighting I managed to reverse-engineer the spell. It's no cruciatus curse, but from what my… subjects said it's close enough."

He kept the spell going for several minutes while his son rolled on the floor in pain, feeling every muscle constantly contract. Finally, the pain suddenly lessened and Lucius lifted the spell.

"I want you to fix your mistakes in the coming term, starting with Potter. Show him who is the top Snake in the house. Or I will study the effects of that spell more thoroughly. Now, Get out of my sight!" He dismissed his son.

Harry, Loki, Remus, Sirius, Amelia, and Susan sat together for the Yule Dinner right at the sunset. The table was small and filled with various tasty dishes. Each of the participants had to prepare something to put on the common table. Susan (with some help of her aunt) prepared a salat, Amelia brought a homemade cranberry sauce, Sirius had fun making roast potatoes and Remus spent the whole afternoon the previous day by making fruit juices. Loki and Harry worked together to prepare Asgardian Stuffed Boar.

The pig took almost half the table and oozed with fat. It had a golden apple in its mouth and slices of vegetables around it. The whole thing was generously doused in honey (recipe called for mead, but Father and Son decided that it should be family-friendly).

Loki took his little trickster hunting for the first time the day before. They did practice for two years, but it was the first real thing. The two of them tracked the boar for several hours until finally, they caught it. As per tradition, no magic was involved in the hunt. Harry had to do everything by himself. Loki only assisted, offered guidance, and would intervene if danger presented itself. Harry got the boar with a perfect knife throw. When the two of them returned with the dead prey, other Marauders cheered. The girls looked a bit put off by the sight of a dead animal, but now that they tasted it, they didn't seem to complain anymore.

"...And then I created these banners on each of the tables. They were supposed to look like the real thing but in the hindsight, the ethereal aura only added to the effect." Harry grinned. "By the end, everyone involved scored their houses fifteen points each." He finished his tale, earning a chuckle from the adults and Susan.

"That reminds me of this one time James and I decided to try and smuggle Lily a spider into her bag. Except we couldn't find a big enough spider, so I transfigured one." Sirius started.

"Except since you were legs at the transfiguration, the spell wore off before she opened her bag." Loki supplemented.

"What did you use as a base?" Asked curious Amelia.

"Ekh… Em… Um…" Sirius suddenly looked anywhere but in her eyes.

"He used his underwear," Remus said amused.

Everyone exploded laughing.

Nearby, there was another table set for their house-elves. There were a total of six between them. They also had their small gathering where the little ones could enjoy and mingle and exchange tales about serving their masters. The public, unharmful ones that are.

Draco sat alone. His parents 'had to' leave for an important ministry banquet where children were not welcome, so he was left to his own device. The table was full of incredibly expensive and complicated dishes that most people never even heard about. It would be enough to easily feed all of his Slytherin Year-mates. And there would be leftovers.

He ate in total silence.

Dobby dutifully provided him with whatever he wanted to taste before he even voiced his concern. There was no need for words and Draco was not taught to thank the servants. They were here to serve and only that.

There still was no sound

The blond boy almost had his goblet filled with pumpkin juice, but at the last minute decided to actually have butterbeer instead. It wasn't exactly a 'Christmas' drink, but he didn't care either way. It's not like there was anyone there to judge him. He drank one, followed by three more. Draco didn't really have an appetite that evening.

A single crow of a raven could've been heard from outside.

Draco sighed. He wished that at least once he would have a full family for Christmas. Or even just his parents. Maybe only mother? At this stage, he would've even tolerated his betrothed. Heck, even Longbottom's toad would be better than solitude. At least he would have a reason to speak to someone.

Marauders never much cared for Yule gifts. That being said, everyone always received several delightful things. It didn't need to be expensive. It was the gesture that mattered. As such, Harry made each of them a necklace. This year, for the first time he connected usefulness with elegance and decorated each with a power rune. Remus received a simple light charm that would let him read in the dark easier (even with his super-sight from the wolf side), Sirius had his enchanted with the cape-billowing charm that in theory should work on his dragon-hide coat, and finally for his father he made one that when activated would display a small illusion of the two of them. The last one actually took a few weeks to get right. Harry knew the basics of runes, but he needed to borrow a first-year introduction book to runes from Hogwarts library to solve a particular problem of an image showing up reversed and not clear enough. He didn't have time to make functional ones for Amelia and Susan, so he settled on good looking runic tiles. Amelia had Urus (power) and Susan Ehwaz (luck). He felt it somewhat appropriate for the two women. Neville received a bracelet for a change, with a runic circle on a metal plate. The circle was basically his name engraved clearly on the outside, but Harry promised him that once they learned the proper art of runeforging he would enchant it better.

He received a basked of his favorite sweets, a book about quidditch, and a leather bracelet with tusks from his first kill weaved in it. Form their guests he got another book and a pile of old Captain America comics. Both of them he loved. There were other gifts, but not really important. Like each year, there were many well-wishers that wanted to thank him for vanquishing Voldemort. After the letters were read, he would spend several hours writing short 'thank you' letters. It was a tradition since they got rid of the stupid mail wards. Oh! And Neville got him a mug charmed to spell 'the best godling friend' when Harry was alone. It was obvious that Neville did the spell himself, as well as the writing. Mostly because of the paint smudges, but everyone still agreed that it was a great gift. Harry especially enjoyed it because it was undeniable proof that Neville was learning.

"Harry!" Susan ran to him when he was about to take a stride through the forest.

"Hi, Sue. You liked the necklace?" He asked when she caught up to him.

"Yeah. It's nice." She smiled. "Um… You know that aunt told me about you and your dad?" She asked timidly.

"It's not hard to guess given that you're here." He joked.

"Well, I was wondering if it would be okay to ask some questions about it. She'd told me the gist of it, but I…"

"Sure. Ask away." Harry interrupted her. He already expected something like that and was surprised it took so long.

"Who besides people here know about… that?" She quickly shot the first question.

"I'm not sure. There are a few of dad's associates that he met over the years. And there is Neville. I have a suspicion that at least Granger and some 'claws will figure it out by the end of third year at the rate it's going."

"Why?"

"I did kill a troll in my first term. It's not actually a good start of 'being inconspicuous'," he joked.

Susan giggled at that. "I guess not. Can you… can you show me some of your tricks?" She asked

"I'm a trickster after all." Another joke swiftly slipped his tongue. Harry extended his hand with an open palm. A silver flame appeared. It started to dance. For a moment, it seemed to form into something close to human shape before it changed into a barking dog. The animal started to run through the air, barking happily. At some point, the small animal circled Susan's head. Suddenly, it shot up and smashed into something, setting it on fire.

"Try harder next time Padfoot!" Harry shouted into the empty space. At first, nothing happened, but then the reality shimmered and a Sirius appeared in front of them.

"Damn. I thought this would work."

"You aren't getting me under the mistletoe with a girl. Nope. Not going to happen. No…" He stopped when he saw a grin forming on his uncle's face.

"Are you sure?" Sirius asked, pointing up. Harry hesitated but did look up, only to find mistletoe hanging over him and Susan.

"Moony!" the boy shouted.

"Try again." Came a feminine voice.

"Auntie!" Susan shouted embarrassed. Then she smiled and turned to Harry. There was this mischievous grin on her face. Young Potter was about to ask her something, but she quickly leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips before running off.

Harry just stood there, confused. His brain stopped working for a good minute before he blinked a few times. "What?"

Draco quickly went through his gifts. They were all expensive, big, and obvious. Most of them retained price tags. It was like a competition. All of his father's close associates sent him something. They wanted to win Lucius' favor by spoiling his son. The man didn't care either way.

There was the newest broom, a very expensive Swiss watch enchanted to always match the current time, several White Ravens (probably not from any legal store given their dark nature), and a moving picture of his betrothed sending him kisses. He was tempted to burn the last one.

He dutifully pillaged through the gifts under the watchful eye of his parents who took pictures for image's sake. Finally, he stumbled upon a small box with no name tag. He opened it and found a leather bracelet with a metal plaquette on top. There was a black runic circle. There was no mention of who was this from.

Draco handed it over to his mother so she could cast some detection charms. When it came clear, she picked it up and looked over the runic circle.

"Someone engraved your name here. It's rather nice decoration, but not very practical. I would risk assumption it's hand-made though."

"Useless piece of junk." Lucius sneered.

Draco snatched it from them before they could dispose of it. "Still, it would be rather offensive to dispose of such a gift, no matter who made it."

"Fine. Remember what I told you about school." He threatened. Draco gulped.

"Yes, father."

Later, when he was sitting in his room alone, Draco toyed with the bracelet and the box it came in. There was just something… It was different from everything else he received so far. He kept mulling it over and over when a small square piece of paper slipped out of the box.

Merry Christmas Cuz!
A Friend

A/N Well, this is it. Next chapter done. I hope you liked it. I definitely consider the second part to be one of my bests.