Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Gringotts, the Leaky Cauldron or anything else in JKR's wonderful world. Except for the little pebble just in front of the front doors of Hogwarts. I put that there. I might own that. Maybe. But probably not.
Chapter 23: 009¾
Narcissa shook her head in wonderment at what she was reading. Karl Marx was an idiot, she decided, or a fool or blind to reality, or a combination of any or all of the above. To believe the workers of the world could rise up and seize control to establish a nation of equals where no one had any more power than anyone else; where everyone did their fair share, and all enjoyed the fruits of their labors. She almost wanted to laugh.
He must have led a very sheltered life to not notice the reality of human nature. Yes, most of the people just wanted to work and make a better life for themselves and their families, the sheeple as Harry called them. Yet he totally ignored the existence of two other classes of people: the wolves and the parasites.
The parasites were just as the name suggested: those who would contribute nothing but would take and take and take from the sheeples hard work. They were nothing but a drain upon society. She had met far too many of them in her life to not know of them. In ways, to her shame, she had been one of them.
The wolves were, in a way, another kind of parasite, one with a need to control, to gain power over others. They preyed upon the sheeple and used the parasites. Those too, had she known.
Lenin had been a very good example. Extolling the virtues of Marx's writings, he had raised himself up as a leader, promising a heaven on Earth for the masses. What had been one of the first things he'd done after the revolution had been won? Created secret police to eliminate any dissenters and threats to his power and control.
She sighed. That was the human race for you, for good or ill, magical or non. There would always be somebody who wanted to be in control, to lord it over…
A pair of hands sliding into view at the top of her vision across the table in front of her interrupted her self-study of different governing styles and practices as a soft voice said, "Good afternoon, Lady Malfoy. My name is Special Agent Fitch in Her Majesty's Magical Secret Service, and I was hoping the two of us could go someplace a bit more private and have a little talk."
Damn it! Harry said this is the way they would do it, but I never thought it would actually happen and especially hadn't expected them to find me in the muggle world if it did!
Between the fingers of the hand to her left she could see the tip of a wand protruding out from the palm like a sixth finger, not clenched in the hand but still very usable. A quick stunner and she could imagine a scene where she appeared to pass out, a call for an ambulance and she ended up in a windowless room, chock full of veritaserum and telling everything she knew to some nice people asking a lot of questions she didn't want to give answers to.
Uh, no. Let's not.
The other hand was pushing a black leather identification wallet towards her by the fingertips. From what she could see the ID in it verified what the voice had said. Of course, the only kind of wallet like that she'd ever seen was in a movie so who knew? The corner of her mouth quirked up at the first name on the card, however. Really?
Without moving or looking up, she extended her magic outwards, feeling for…yes, there they were, wards. Anti-apparation and anti-portkey more than likely. Mister Fitch and company, and she was certain he wouldn't be acting alone, didn't want her leaving under any condition other than theirs. But they had to be wand created. She couldn't see them going to the trouble of having actual ward stones buried around the library. That meant they were weaker than the stone powered ones, though still powerful enough to stop common apparation or portkey travel, which left her room to maneuver. Since there was no way she was going to go with him under his terms, she had to regain control of the situation.
Let's see how well I can bluff.
She raised her eyes to look at the man seated across from her. Round faced, clean shaven, in a long-sleeved button up shirt, he appeared to be middle aged, with a slightly receding hairline. Totally unremarkable, she would probably overlook him in an empty room. She glanced at his ears and though she had to look hard, saw what she suspected. Sometimes, watching movies was quite the education.
"No, I don't believe I want to do that." She told him…and wandlessly and silently summoned his wand into her hand. A slight widening of his eyes was the only indication of his surprise as his wand leapt across the gap between their hands, letting her know that if they had a dossier on her, and they obviously did hence this meeting, it didn't include Harry's lessons in it. "Like you, Agent Fitch, I don't want to chance any breaches of the Statute so if you would please nod your head so the rest of your team will know to stay right where they are, we can have a little chat right here without drawing any attention to ourselves."
He did so as he said, "It appears we are a little lacking in knowledge of the extent of your skills, Ma'am."
She smiled. "So it would appear. Now, just out of curiosity, how many others are there, not counting the ones outside listening in with that little earbud you're wearing." No overt indications but she could see the surprise in his eyes at her knowledge of just what the flesh-colored little wire coming over the top of his lobe and into his ear and not quite covered by his hair was, and that she was aware of anyone outside.
He cocked his head a minute fraction to the left as he thought for a moment, or listened, she wasn't sure which, before saying "Four."
She deliberately didn't look around to see if she could spot any of them as she smiled at him. "How delightful! A five-person team just for me? I feel honored you think so highly of me."
"You're a Black and that family has always been somewhat…unpredictable. We knew you were a resourceful and knowledgeable woman and didn't want to take any chances you might get away from us." He said, surprising her with his sincerity.
She smiled at him again. "Thank you for the flattery. Unfortunately for you, that is exactly what is going to happen. Tell me Agent Fitch, have you ever heard wards collapsing as they are broken? Break an anti-apparation ward and it sounds a lot like crystal shattering, a lot of crystal…loudly. Whereas an anti-portkey ward shattering sounds like a really deep gong, the kind that rattles your bones when it's hit. The reason I ask is because I have a portkey on my person, one charged to be as powerful as possible. Since that was by Harry Potter that is very powerful indeed. Should I speak a certain word it will activate. Should I suddenly fall unconscious it will activate. Should I do any of three other things, it will activate, and we shall see if Harry's power is enough to punch through the wards you have placed over this building."
"You certainly seem to have been prepared for such a thing." He said pleasantly.
"Harry and I both have a lot of enemies," she explained, "some of whom wouldn't be as nice when they try to kidnap us as you have been."
He smiled and nodded once. "Thank you."
"So." she stated. "Here is what is going to happen: I am going to get up, gather my books and return them to the front desk and then I am going to leave this building to a point where I can leave." There was no change in his expression as she told him what she was going to do. "However," she said, looking him in the eye as she slid her hand across the table and over his, sliding his wand under his palm, and his eyes showed the surprise at that move, "there is a nice little park just across the street which I feel fairly certain is out from under your wards where we can have that friendly little talk you wanted to have, in say, fifteen, twenty minutes? Without, I might add, the need for veritaserum or legilimency and obliviation." She gave him a small smirk. "I rather like the way my memories are right now and would not appreciate someone messing around in them."
She stood up then and began gathering the books she pulled from the shelves. "And Agent Fitch? If you bring a recent satellite photo of what used to be Malfoy Manor, the answers I give to your questions will even be truthful." With a smile she turned and walked away.
She didn't make a big show of looking around, just the usual casual scans of someone walking somewhere would make. Only one young woman, leaning her head on her hand, even glanced up at her as she turned the page of the book she was reading before turning her gaze back to it. Of the dozen or so people she saw sitting or walking around the interior none of them appeared to be paying the slightest attention to her. Which was what you would expect from people who did that sort of thing for a living.
She set her pile of books on the front counter, said goodbye to the librarian, and walked out the front door. Normally she would have hailed a taxi for another sightseeing tour around the city but today she crossed the street and entered the small park she had mentioned to Agent Fitch. It had several paths, along which were painted cast iron benches and in its center was a tall fountain. She walked around far enough so she could see anyone approaching, placed a warning ward with a casual movement of her hand in case anyone approached from behind, and took a seat.
She was seriously going to have to talk to Harry about making the kind of portkey she had described to Mister Fitch. She doubted it would be needed against Mister Fitch and his kind, now, but those enemies she talked about were still there. She was just glad they had tried to take the way they had, with her cooperation, and not by grabbing her off the street. If he had called her bluff their plan would have worked perfectly. Harry wanted to meet these people and she now had a chance to see just how honorable they were. If they were polite and went along with her plan, maybe they could work things out.
She inhaled deeply and felt a slight breeze caressing her skin. Emma had been right: it was a wonderful day out. In the unseasonably warm, but not hot, late March sunshine, she sat in the corner of the bench, placed her arm up over the back and crossed her legs. Looking down, she once remembered how she thought it unladylike to wear trousers, but the lightweight black slacks she now wore were cool and comfortable and blended in well in the non-magical world. A white satin top, a pair of black heels and nobody would guess she was a witch who at one time always wore robes.
She casually looked around, taking in the view, especially along the street in front of the library. With a slow shift from right to left she scanned for a large vehicle that wasn't there. In the movies there was always a van or lorry parked close by where an operation was taking place, with equipment and backup inside. She didn't know if that was truth or…
Her eyes skipped over a section of the street. If she hadn't been expecting it, watching for it, she never would have noticed. She raised her view and swept over and above the spot. No problem. She swept in the other direction aaanndd…she skipped it. Okay, that certainly acted like a notice-me-not. She used an old technique she had learned in astronomy class years before: don't try to look directly at a dim star, it won't work. Look just to either side of it. And there it was. It was hard to get details, not being able to look directly at it, but she could see what looked like a non-descript white van sitting parked next to the curb a hundred feet left of the library entrance. So, she was right.
She smiled, raised her hand and waggled her fingers at it.
It was a good ten or twelve minutes before she saw Agent Fitch crossing the street and she used them to think of questions she wanted the answers to and thinking on questions he might ask and how she might answer them.
As he came up and sat at the other end of her bench she asked, "Is that really your first name?"
He grinned at her. "And a good afternoon to you, too." He stated in an amused tone. "I'll have you know I had that name long before an upstart clothing store chain started using it. They don't even pay me royalties. My friends call me Abe."
"Well, Mister Fitch, I am terribly disappointed in you."
He grinned. "How so?"
"Aren't super-secret agents supposed to announce themselves, like "the name's Fitch, Abe Fitch"?"
He laughed outright this time. "Agents who do that aren't super, secret or maybe not even alive for very long."
She grinned back at him. "James has been doing it for years."
"Yes, and he has Q to give him all those really neat gadgets to help him get out of all the trouble he gets into by doing it. We only have a B and about all he gives out is paper and pencils to take notes with. Besides, most of the people he says that to are the pretty ladies and I don't think my wife would appreciate that very much. No, the good agents are the ones who don't get noticed."
"Well, you certainly do that quite well." She told him. "My first thought when I first looked at you was, I wouldn't notice you if you were standing in the middle of an empty room."
He tilted his head in acknowledgement. "Thank you. It's nice to know all my hard work pays off."
"You're welcome. Now the rules to this little conversation. We both want to know things we both consider classified information. Let's both try to keep the 'uhh, next question please' responses to a minimum. We're not going to get anywhere if we refuse to answer each other's questions."
"I'll try."
"Next rule, I feel any wards going up and I'm out of here, I don't care who hears it or what happens, I'm gone."
He nodded. "Perfectly understandable."
"Good. Alright you ask the first question."
"What? I don't get to make any rules?"
"That's your question? And no, you don't. My game, my rules."
"Is Emma Granger alright then?"
She managed to keep the surprise out of her expression at the question, not really considering they might be keeping an eye on her as well. "Who?" she asked in a confused tone, then changing to one of sudden comprehension. "Oh! You mean the barmy bitch with a penchant for performing coitus interruptus."
She couldn't help it when she looked at him, she burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, but if you could see the look on your face." He looked totally gobsmacked with wide eyes and mouth hanging open.
"She does? I mean, really?" He managed to ask when he got over his shock. She was glad she could crack his in-control façade.
Getting her laughter under control, Narcissa nodded. "Yes, she does, but don't ask me how because half the time I don't know. But it certainly makes for an interesting love life." She settled back into her corner. "Now, why are you so interested in her?"
He didn't hesitate. "She is Hermione Granger's mother, a high-profile person in the war, we tried to keep an eye on the two of them and failed miserably. Harry Potter lived with her after the war, someone we want to keep track of because of his importance, and the two of them vanished off the face of the Earth without us noticing. Bit of a sore point with the higher ups, that." He stated with a grin. "Then he shows up with you on his arm, but we don't see anything of her for several months when the story of how she put a hole in the leg of a young snot is splashed all over the front page of the Prophet. Some of our people were worried for her."
She thought there might be more to it than that but decided to let it go. "Thank you for your concern. Yes, she's fine. Other than some of her hobbies for which I have not turned her into a toad, she's really quite well. She just doesn't like magicals very much. And since you did show concern and ask about her first, I'll let you have another question."
The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. "Thank you. In that case, what is Lord Potter-Black planning?"
Her smile was more of a smirk. She had anticipated a question like this. "What makes you think he's planning anything?"
"Since he reappeared, he's grabbed the Wizengamot by the throat and is shaking that august body for all he's worth, advocating repealing old laws and making new ones, changing others. He's building an alliance in that body and working hard to do it. He had a series of meetings with several Diagon shopkeepers and within days they all started selling new lines of goods, non-magical goods."
So, Harry was right again: the muggle side of the government was spying on the magical side. The 'Mot was public knowledge, reported in the Prophet, but the alliance and meetings would have had to have been from somebody watching him and reporting what they'd seen. Interesting.
He continued. "Now separately none of that means a lot. However, he was never political when he was younger and avoided the spotlight as much as possible. You put all of them together and it seems like he's working to a plan. But what kind of plan is it?"
She smiled back at him, delighting in the question. "You don't expect me to answer that, truthfully, do you?" Her smile broadened. "Well, he's planning on destroying the magical world."
His smile vanished in less than a heartbeat. "You can't be serious." His statement was hard and flat, and she could see why he was an agent. Maybe no licensed to kill, but just as deadly as the fictional character.
"Look around you, Mister Fitch." She swept her arm around, indicating the park and the city beyond. "Show me an example of 1850's London. Other than maybe this park, I challenge you to show me one example of that time."
Brow knitting in puzzlement, he did as she asked, not quite understanding why she had, but willing to comply in order to find out. After a minute he pointed across the park. "That building there. It looks to be from the proper time."
She didn't bother looking around. She'd spent time observing her surroundings while awaiting his arrival and knew which one he was pointing at. "Is it though?" She queried. "If I were to enter it, would I find gaslights for lighting and fireplaces in every room for heating in the winter? Or would I find electric lights and central air? Indoor plumbing and flush toilets or an outhouse? Computers, tellys and telephones? Tell me, Mister Fitch: is that really an 1850's era building or just the façade of one? A shell kept as a reminder of an earlier time but hollowed out and rebuilt to modern times?"
He had relaxed a bit. "A shell, if not an outright reproduction."
"Then where is the 1850's London?"
"Gone." He stated, shrugging as he did so. "Lost to time."
"Destroyed." She corrected him. "Whether by time, or war, or redevelopment, or just social changes, it has been destroyed. Replaced by newer more modern things. That's life. Without destruction, whether the gentle kind of time just passing and things decaying until something else takes its place, or suddenly catastrophic from a bomb falling from the sky, destruction makes way for changes, new growth, ideas."
She had leaned forward towards him when she had begun her monologue. Now she leaned back against the bench and looked at him. "But we both know where we can go and find those 1850's, that lost London. A place where time has stopped, where nothing has changed in over one hundred and fifty years. A place stagnated and stratified, surrounded by a world of constant change, a place that believes itself so much better than the constantly changing world around them."
She paused for a moment, thinking, then sighed. "If that changing world finds us now, the destruction of the magical world will be like the Blitz." An eyebrow cocked upwards at the reference. She shrugged. "I've been doing a lot of reading the past few months. The Blitz is a good metaphorical comparison to what will happen if the muggle world finds us, and we're forced to comply with all the laws, rules, regulations and bureaucracies that we'll have to obey. Her Majesty's government will probably kick everyone out of the Ministry straightaway if they don't throw them all in prison first, they'll be so angry, aghast and appalled at what they find there. The prejudice against Muggleborn alone that is so codified into law will demand it, never mind that against the other magical races. Don't even think about what the Lords might do when they lose all the power they have now. I wouldn't put it past some of the idiots to try and start an insurrection, and I'm not just talking the Dark side of the spectrum, the Light and Gray have theirs too."
"None of that even begins to cover how the majority of magicals feel about muggles, the purebloods especially. Remember the Troubles? If you think Protestant against Catholic, with the IRA thrown in just for fun, was bad, imagine what muggle versus magical would be like. Or even muggleborn against pureblood, which is not that hard to conceive. The government will likely try to recruit muggleborn to help run things because they're more familiar with that world and the first time they try to tell a pureblood what to do we'll be lucky if it doesn't turn into a pitched battle."
He huffed. "You've got that right." He looked hard at her. "So, what you're saying is he's trying to destroy magical society a piece at a time so it can change to meet the new reality."
She nodded. "Slowly, but not too slowly. We don't have a hundred and fifty years to let time do it, and we don't want to blow up the whole thing at once. We have to change people's minds, the way they look at things, the way they look at the world around them, because that world is so shockingly different than what they think it is, if they're forced to confront it without knowing what they're going to see, they'll have a nervous breakdown. I did."
He gave a surprised little movement. "Really? How so?"
"I spent a month in this world without a wand and I never needed it. I had seen so many new things, done so many new things, I never realized I had lived an entire month without needing it. Never even noticed, that was how easy it was."
"So, he's going to force feed everyone the facts and figures of the non-magical world."
"He's going to educate them, to open their eyes." She corrected. "He's going to give them the chance to see what this world has to offer. To see that in ways it's better than our world. At least equal in others. It has a magic all its own in the technology it uses. Magic will always have its uses, but they have to understand the muggles can duplicate a lot of it, and I believe once they become aware of us and can study magic, they'll learn how to duplicate even more. But we can learn just as much, if not more, from them. It must be an exchange between equals however, and that is what Harry is trying to achieve."
"That's quite a progressive view, Missus Malfoy."
"It's outright heresy to many of those in power." She replied. "They're the ones we have to convert, or at least remove from that power. And please, call me Narcissa."
"You do realize, I hope, what he's doing is going to cause a lot of problems."
"There are always problems when two societies clash." She reminded him. "The biggest problem is going to be integrating two societies where one looks down on the other for not having magic and the other not believing in magic at all. Changing the magical side's mind will be harder than vice versa."
Fitch chuckled. "That it will. Being muggleborn as I am and living in the mundane world while working in the magical one, I totally agree with that. The mundanes are willing, even want, to believe, most magicals are not. We'll have to see how Lord Potter's plans work out."
That's going to depend a lot on how far you're willing to help with them. "I have a question for you, now."
He smiled pleasantly. "Ask away."
"How did you find me? Harry and I both agreed a scenario like this was possible once I believed that the mundane government was spying on the magical world, but we were both firm in the belief it would be in that world, not the mundane, simply because of who and what I am. I take different routes to get here because I enjoy seeing the sights of the city. I doubt very much anyone on your side would expect to find me in this world, but I do admit I probably made the mistake of coming at about the same time every week. You, however, were here waiting for me and don't deny it. You have a team, you have a lorry, probably with all sorts of spy things and radios and such in it and you were ready to put up wards. So, how did you do it?"
"My dear Lady," he chuckled, "people have been accidently tripping over you since last summer."
It was her turn to be surprised. "Accidently? What do you mean?"
"It actually starts several years ago, with Mister Potter." He put his elbow up and over the back of the bench, clasped his hands together and crossed his legs as he went on to explain. "We had become quite interested in him during the war when it became evident that he was playing a pivotal role in it against Riddle. Once he had defeated him, we kept an eye on him as a possible future operative. He was a half-blood, but he was in a position to get to people we couldn't, high ranking people. We had hoped to be able to recruit him to help us get a handle on the upper power brokers in that world. It depended on what he wanted to do. If he wanted to throw himself into trying to change it, we would have approached and helped him. If he had secluded himself and avoided people, we would have respected that. Anything in between would have been fine. Then he went walkabout, off on a world tour. Being a national hero, as well as a valuable asset if he wanted the job, we asked other ministries and magical governments if they could keep an eye on him for us while he was in their countries."
"That's a nice story, but what does it have to do with me?" she asked. "After the trials we had nothing to do with each other."
"True." He agreed. "But that request is what lead to you being found last summer."
They had known she was with Harry last year? Why had they waited so long then? Better to listen and maybe find out.
"We had known where you were and what you were doing when we got the report you had walked out the door, evidently of your own free will, with the person known as the Shadow Man…"
"Gray Man."
"I beg your pardon?"
"He told me he preferred the name Gray Man when he took me to Harry." She said with a shrug. "The Shadow nickname wasn't his idea."
He grinned. "Interesting. Why did you go with someone with such a reputation?"
"He offered me a pouch full of gold for my services." She grinned back, speaking truthfully. "But we're getting off track."
"Yes, yes we are." He agreed. "Anyway, we knew where you were but since the loss of your status and wealth, our interest was very low in your activities. That was until we received a request from the French authorities, the mundane authorities, to help them to possibly identify a woman associated with one Mister Harry Potter."
This time it was her eyes that widened as she sat up. "How did they get involved?"
He spread his hands. "We're not certain. Probably one of those bureaucratic bungles where the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Maybe they misinterpreted our request of several years before and put it to both sides of the house, maybe we didn't mark it as magical only. Maybe it was just a mistake, and somebody just misrouted it. Things like that happen. Fortunately, this time it worked in our favor."
"About a month after you vanished, our mundane counterparts in France were working on what's called a facial recognition program for their computer files. Do you know what that means?"
His voice sounded curious. She had already shown she knew more about the mundane world than what they ever expected, he was probably asking to see if he had to explain it. "I know about computers; the library has a nice one I've learned to use. I suspect facial recognition is something to do with identifying someone by comparing pictures of their face."
He nodded. "Exactly. You take a picture of someone you want to identify, scan it into the computer and then the computer compares it to a database of pictures you already have. Several companies around the world are working on it. If they can get it to work, you could take a job that would normally take hours or days and reduce it to a matter of minutes."
"It sounds like they did if that's how they found Harry."
"Still a lot of problems with it and it's probably years from being truly useful, but this time we got lucky. It seems to test the program they sent someone out into the city of Paris to take pictures of random people to make up their database. When they ran their pictures through the program however, they got a hit. A real one. Somehow, their program decided it could use the main database of the agency as well and up popped the likeness of one Harry James Potter."
She got the implications immediately. "From a picture of him you sent them years before when you'd asked them to watch for him." She laughed. "That sounds so like him. He says he has more luck than anyone he knows, but it's either really good or really bad. If it was of him in Paris, where was it?"
"Outside the Louvre. They had a very good full face shot of him but there was a woman beside him, whom he was holding around the waist, with her face turned into his shoulder. The recognition program wasn't nearly good enough to tell who she was from a profile shot, and she wasn't anyone they had on file. So, they let us know he was there, sent us the picture and asked if we knew who she was and what we wanted them to do with them."
She remembered the day. They had gone to the famous museum in the early morning and spent the entire day looking at old masterpieces, including of course, the Mona Lisa. He had made her laugh by stating he had seen that very same smile on her, every time she thought about how well he shagged her. She had never looked in a mirror afterwards but felt he might have a point. The thought had occurred to her 'Had Leo and Mona been getting it on?'. It had made for quite the discussion as they left the building and she remembered kissing him on the cheek as they did.
But Abe was continuing. "Now, you have to realize, we hadn't seen or heard of him in several years, much less knew he was out of the country. Who the woman in the photo was we had no idea and were about to put her down as someone he had picked up when one of our photo analysts, who was female and not even involved, happened by a group discussing it took one look and told them to 'think of her as a blonde'." He chuckled. "You can imagine the face palming that when on." She could and smiled at the thought.
"But that opened an entirely new line of inquiry: Why were you with him, where had the two of you been for a month, how had you gotten there, what were you doing and most important of all, where were you now?"
"By the time we got the picture several days had already passed and the two of you had vanished, so we started searching for you. At the same time, we started trying to backtrack you and find out where you'd been and what you had been doing." The corner of his mouth twisted up into a wistful grin. "I must say, there were quite a few envious people as the picture of your adventures began to come together. It was almost easier to find out where you'd been than where you'd gone. It was soon quite evident that you were on vacation as the trail went farther backwards and into Italy."
He grinned. "In the meantime, someone with some brains pointed out that the two of you had been going Mundane the entire time, why would you change now? Since no magical means of transport had been found, we started checking the airlines and ferries and when we got to the Chunnel, we hit pay dirt. From there it was easy to track you down to your hotel, but you'd walked out the front door the day before. We couldn't find any taxi or bus service you may have taken so we figured you had apparated home. That was the last we heard of you until New Year's. After that it has been rather easy to keep an eye on you what with your visits to Diagon and Hogsmeade."
Since most of those visits were business, Emma had elected to stay home, and she could see why he had asked about her. "But then you found me here." She prompted.
He spread his hands again. "Pure serendipity. A month ago, one of our researchers came to the library to look some things up for a completely non-related project. She lives only two streets over from here and it wasn't unusual for her to come here. Imagine her surprise when she looks up from her project a couple of hours later and finds a certain Lady sitting not five feet away from her, engrossed in what is evidently a project of her own. She calmly asked to use the phone at the front desk and alerted the office to your presence then went back to her project. We had two people in the library in fifteen minutes to watch you."
"I'm surprised you didn't try to invite me to a little chat then."
He chuckled. "Unlike the movies, an operation like this isn't set up in minutes and with you, and the reputation the Black family has for using dark magic, we didn't want to take any chances on missing you. We had it all carefully planned out, with alternate plans for several different variations, and you still beat us. Mind if I ask how you knew what was happening?"
She gave a little laugh. "That was Harry. He figured if you were going to spy on the magical world you would want to talk to the people who run it. With how easy veritaserum makes interrogation and obliviation would make erasing any memory of it, short term kidnappings would be the way to go: Grab, dose, question, erase, return. Your targets would never know what had happened and you would get the information you wanted. I gather I'm not the first one you've done this with?"
His wry expression was more than enough answer. "Uhh, no. However, grabbing somebody is a lot more difficult than you might believe. All those magicals around to see, you understand. We thought you would be very easy, here in the mundane world."
"What happened?"
"Well, we set up a team to keep an eye on the library to see if you'd come back and lo and behold, a week later, there you were. We hoped you had a regularly scheduled trip and waited till the next week and you showed up right on time. Since the higher ups really wanted to find out what Potter is up to, they greenlighted an op."
"And I didn't show up." She smirked at him. "Sorry about that. Something came up last week and I couldn't get here. I take it you set up again this week hoping it was just a missed day?"
He nodded in response. "Yes, and everything was going just fine until I found out the Black's deserve every bit of their reputation."
She laughed and nodded, accepting the compliment. "So, Abe, what do we do now?"
"I was hoping we could…"
A young man on a bicycle rode up and stopped beside them. She looked up at him as he spoke to Abe. "Mister Fitch?"
A/N: Sorry for the cliffy but this chapter is getting way to long, but it won't be too long before the second half is ready and by that, I mean less than a week. I'm still proofreading it, but it's done. Hope you enjoy! TA! ER