This was it, after years of work, his patience had paid off, Auror Harry Potter thought to himself as he crouched silent behind a bush. In front of his hiding place was a massive mansion, forebodingly standing before him in the dark lit only by the lanterns flickering around the tall fence that would be the only feeble attempt to keep him and his colleagues out.

They had her. And not only that, Head Auror Robards had finally given him his own operation to go in and get her. So, with Ron, Greer, Creevey, Bones, and Hartfield on his squad, with six others on standby, he gave the signal to move forward.

Already disillusioned, the squad of six masterfully dispersed, easily scaling the fence with a self-administered "Levicorpus!" As Harry landed smoothly, just as they'd practiced, he could hardly hold back an amused snort at Ron's less than graceful stumble to the ground.

"Shut up, Harry," Ron murmured when he caught a glance at his partner, and best friend's, grin.

Harry just shook his head and together they advanced straight to the front door while the rest of the squad slunk to their positions around the perimeter, each counting in their heads "One…two…three…four…"

A slight blue flicker to Harry's right told him at second twenty that Pamela Hartfield had indeed issued her anti-apparation spell on time. He turned to Ron at second thirty-five and thought, "Homenum Revelio". After which seven bursts of smoke emanated from their wands. Seven insurgents. A burst of confidence flowed through him, he was ready.

With a flourish of his wand he sent green sparks into the air, high enough for all to see. The mission was a go. It was time to engage.

He was still counting in his head, "thirty nine…forty."

On forty, the pair acknowledged each other with a nod and pointed their wands at the door.

"Bombarda Maxima!" They cried together, ducking quickly as their spells smashed through any enchantment that had been holding the door closed. It may have been unnecessary, not too many places under the Fidelus Charm even bothered locking the door, which Harry knew all too well.

They entered a massive foyer carefully, facing away from one another as they had learned in training to watch each other's back. The room as dark as the night, only lit by the tips of the two Auror's wands.

"Clear," Harry bellowed, as far as he could tell no one was in the room.

"Same here…oh bloody hell!" Ron cried as he waved his wand towards a staircase. As Harry turned his head he could see a dark figure fall down the stairs from Ron's stunner.

"Good catch," he yelled, "but there's more incoming!"

Three more dark figures entered the room and soon flashes of varying colors of light were illuminating the dark entrance hall. Immediately the pair began dueling expertly, only having to wait a few moments before Greer and Bones showed up behind their attackers, stunning and disarming them instantly.

"Thought you might need a hand there, Potter," Greer said with a weary grin.

"Always appreciate the help, but we had it handled," Ron replied cheekily to his former mentor, who gave him a halfhearted shove in return.

"I counted seven before we entered, that's four here," Harry said quietly, bringing everyone back to the raid, "There's three levels up, two down. Greer, you and Bones check the lower levels, but be careful, take Creevey if you must…" he stopped for a moment when Greer's eyebrow momentarily raised as he was handed an order by a man he'd helped train, "Sorry Milton, I-…"

"Harry, it's your operation," Greer said with a large grin, "We'll take the basement, lad, but give us a shout if anyone comes down the stairs from the uppers. Anyone that tries escaping through those windows'll get a fun surprise thanks to Pammy."

Harry gave a laugh as well, but that smile didn't last too long. Just as he watched Susan Bones and Milton Greer disappear into the basement, a loud shriek could be heard outside.

"What the hell…" he and Ron looked at each other in alarm and quickly bolted onto the grounds.

The scene before them was untenable, two dark hooded figures with masks were fighting the trainee Dennis Creevey, who was giving it all he had, but certainly was losing. As he ran with Ron to help, Harry scanned the grounds for Hartfield, Dennis' mentor, and his heart sunk when he saw the familiar blonde hair from a bundle laying motionless in the grass.

"Auror down!" he cried, sending purple sparks into the air to notify the back up squad. He was not expecting this, Pam Hartfield was one of the department's best duelers.

He sent a few Stunners at the attacking figures, Ron also sending red sparks beside him, but they were easily deflected by an obvious shield charm that the two had intelligently placed behind them.

"Ooooh, Potter!" one of the figures, obviously a woman with a somewhat familiar voice, expressed gleefully behind her mask, "I was beginning to worry if we'd ever have the pleasure again…"

"Well it's getting late this evening," Harry countered as he shot another curse trying to break the shield charm to no avail, "might we start this chat up again tomorrow morning at, say, Azkaban?"

Both hooded figures now were ignoring Dennis, who was waving down the back up auror team flooding in to assist with medivac and securing assailants to help Pam and finish apprehending the subjects.

Once Harry had goaded the dark witch forward, past her shield charm, it became apparent she did not excel one bit at dueling. In the matter of a few strokes, both she and her companion were on the ground bound and wandless.

He looked to Ron and saw that his friend had not sustained any serious injury, he walked up to the pair of defeated foes.

But before he could reach them, another auror by the name of Stephen McKinley quickly approached and said, "We've cleared the house, looks like six in total."

"Six?" Harry replied, "I counted seven with my homenum…"

"Well…" McKinley refused to meet his eye, "one guess who's missing."

Harry's eyes widened, "No, please don't tell me…"

All McKinley could do is nod, and the disappointment rushing through him was enough for Harry to rip the mask off the female assailant. He could see now she was smugly grinning at him.

And remembering the prone figure of Hartfield, Harry's blood was boiling at the sight of the triumph in his familiar foe's face.

He still tried to keep his voice sarcastically pleasant as he greeted her, "Good Evening Alecto, where could I find your good friend, Dolores Umbridge?"

A few hours later…

"Harry, you've got to give yourself a break."

Ron's snort at this comment received a raised eyebrow from its speaker, who happened to be the Head of the Auror Department, Sean Robards himself.

"Sorry, sir," Ron apologized, throwing his hands up, "but if you've known Harry as long as I have…"

Robards responded to this with an eye roll and returned his attention to Harry, "You've been working in this department for nearly seven years, have you not Mr. Potter?"

This number took Harry by surprise, had it really been almost seven years?

His response was quiet, "I-I believe so, sir."

"Can you name a single op where some aspect of it didn't go to shite or someone didn't get hurt?"

He racked his brain, thinking of the now over a hundred raids and operations he had taken part in. Besides most regular interview runs, things never went strictly to plan and, unfortunately, someone typically at minimum received a minor injury.

But this wasn't a minor injury, he told himself, Hartfield was still unconscious in St. Mungo's. Alive and likely to recover, thankfully, but she had been hit with a bad combination of the impediment jinx and stunning spell that had thrown her against the stone walls of the mansion, cracking her skull.

"Potter? Do you need me to repeat the question?" Robards interrupted his thoughts.

Harry shook his head, returning himself to the present, "No sir, I can't think of a time. But I also can't help but think if I'd had one more pair in there…"

"The intel was there were four to seven people in that house, seven were there when you got there. Six were apprehended, all alive, as are all the Aurors involved," Robards reasoned, "Besides, I would not have approved more bodies for this op, even with the HVT."

"A high value target I failed to secure," Harry mumbled, unfortunately loud enough for his superior to hear.

"Now you listen here, Potter," Robards said, his tone going from sympathetic to command, "part of being a leader is accepting there are things out of your control and there is no way to prepare exactly for reality. This was a textbook operation that resulted in good intelligence, the apprehension of two high level lieutenants for a dangerous organization, and no funerals to attend. This is a win, if you cannot get that around that thick head of yours then perhaps I was wrong in letting you run this operation."

Harry closed his eyes, sighing, he knew there was no arguing this point, "I'm sorry, sir, you are absolutely right."

Robards searched his face a moment, almost as if to detect any insincerity in the apology. He must have found none because he nodded and with a small smile said, "It's late, go home you two."

"Home?" Ron and Harry both looked at him confused, "Shouldn't we be prepping for the prisoners' interrogations?" Harry asked.

"That can wait until tomorrow," Robards said definitively, checking his watch and swearing loudly, "Merlin's saggy jowls it's already three in the morning. I don't want to see your faces in this office until noon. Go see your wives, get some sleep and come back ready to get some information off these idiots. Weasley you may as well bring your wife with you, I've already spoken with MacTavish to get her assigned to these cases, especially Carrow. I think you three are one of the few that wasn't directly victimized by her reign of terror with that brother of hers at Hogwarts, we need to be sure there are no conflicts of interest. Good night."

Both men grinned and returned his good night as the Head Auror walked away, albeit Ron much more enthusiastically than Harry. As they began to walk towards their desks, he couldn't help but still feel guilty. Even so, he had to admit he was more excited by the second by the idea of seeing his wife and son.

James Sirius was almost a year old already and Harry was so glad this operation was finished when it did. Had it gone another two weeks he would have missed that important birthday, and Merlin knew he missed enough of those already. This particular mission had taken him away from Ginny and Jamie for two and a half weeks.

But now he could go home.

And once again, guilt rushed in as he thought of Gerald Hartfield who would be opening his door at this late hour not to his wife, but Edith Zhang.

"They should have let me at least notify her husband." Harry commented to Ron as they gathered their things from their desks to head out.

"Oh for Merlin's sake, Harry," Ron sighed exasperatedly, "you know that's not how this works. Pam and Edie have been close for years, it makes more sense for Gerald to be notified by a friend."

He did know this. Aurors' families were notified of injury or death by a designated notifier, usually a mentor, partner, or close family friend who the family member would recognize. Harry and Ron were each other's notifiers, and thankfully neither had as of yet had the occasion to do so. The one time Ginny did need to be notified of a significant injury, Harry's first attempt at apprehending Umbridge, Ron had fallen apart so spectacularly that Greer had to step in instead.

Ron must have seen him slip into his thoughts once more, because he clapped him on the shoulder and said, "C'mon mate, she's going to be fine. They aren't even pulling her kids out of Hogwarts, they're going to notify McGonagall in the morning. Let's go home. I bet Ginny would love a break from doing nappies all by her lonesome."

The thought of nappies and holding his family close to him brought the smile back to Harry's face, "You're right," he replied, "let's go home."

Author Note: Thank you so much for reading, please review! I know it's been awhile, but I've been holding onto this for a bit. It's' occurred to me for a long time that Ginny probably dealt with a lot of crazy things at Hogwarts during the Carrow era, and my resulting head-canon is about to unfold!