"What are you doing here?" asked Theo, guiding Gunnolf out of view of the other Ministry workers in the lobby. "You can't just show up here." In his nervous state, his voice took on a shrill tone. "What was Draco thinking?"

After his early morning firecall with Draco, Theo arrived to work same time as always. It was important he stick to his routine to keep the finger of suspicion pointed away from him during any investigation subsequent to his father's kidnapping. A werewolf from Draco's newly escaped pack showing up to see him at work the same day as the attacks on the Death Eaters would not look good for him.

"Draco doesn't know I'm here. He was no longer at Bleidd when I returned. I came to see you hoping you'd know where Draco's taken his pack," Gunnolf explained in a calm manner.

While his new alpha took their new pack to the Forbidden Forest hoping to find sanctuary there, Gunnolf, with permission from Hermione, went to see Theo, believing he would know where Draco had taken the pack. Hermione did not seem too eager about Draco but she was keen on finding her pups.

As a werewolf, Gunnolf was not allowed into the Ministry offices unless summoned by an official. Therefore, he had spent the morning in the Ministry lobby, hoping to catch Theo on his way in to work.

Theo shot him an incredulous look. "Are you telling me that by some absurd twist of fate you returned to Bleidd just after Draco reached Uganda?"

"Uganda?"

"Yes. He found out about Greyback holding Granger at the base there. He's taken the pack and gone to look for her. I told him he'd find you there—" Theo paused suddenly and frowned. "How did you manage to get back?"

Gunnolf hesitated.

"Holy fuck! I'm an idiot," said Theo, drawing his wand.

Theo gave Gunnolf no chance to process what was happening before he stunned and bound him. He made a show of levitating the werewolf through the halls of the Ministry and into the privacy of his office, to give the appearance of taking a creature in for questioning.

A stressed out Theo could not be certain the man he left bound in his office was not someone polyjuiced to look like Gunnolf. Under pressure to guarantee himself a spot within the Dark Lord's inner circle by the following day, he decided to deal with Gunnolf when he had the time to do so.

What was going on? After receiving the schedules of their targets, Potter had not contacted him or responded to any of his attempts to contact him during the night.

With no other options, Draco listened to the radio and scoured the newspapers Mipsy had fetched for him, but there was no mention of either, the attack on the factory or the kidnappings, attempted or otherwise, of top Ministry officials. As the day wore on, Draco grew more and more uneasy. What could possibly have gone wrong?

Tempted though he was, he resisted the urge to contact Theo. If the Order had succeeded in capturing Nott senior, the next few days would be critical ones for Theo. He could not afford to expose his co-conspirator by attempting to contact him.

Draco left Wilbur and Martin in Mipsy's care at the Lake Victoria house and returned to the pack's campsite. As much as he would have liked to spend his time with his sons, he needed to see to his pack's affairs and organise search teams to track his mate and his head beta.

Unknown to Draco, the Order had been rather busy. Instead of following his plans, they ambushed their targets at the same time the bombs were set to go off. By orchestrating a synchronised attack, they owned the element of surprise as the Death Eaters had no reason to be on the alert or alter their routine in any way. It was their hope that by pulling off multiple attacks at once everyone would believe the Order had far more people and resources than was actually true.

A mixture of low and high explosive devices strategically placed throughout the structure ensured the factory and everything inside it was reduced to rubble. Unfortunately, they had not thought to account for all the other potions and potion ingredients present at the factory. The blast had the unintended consequence of creating a smouldering fire that burned for days, leaving the area within a hundred metres lit with an unnatural glow.

Fearing his master's reaction should he discover his stock of Fero was destroyed, Lucius Malfoy, and everyone with a fondness for the Malfoy galleons, spend the first few hours after the blast containing news of the event. But the politics of their world was predicated on them gaining favour with the Dark Lord and lower ranked members could only hope to distinguish themselves by sabotaging their rivals. Being in power for years, with no fear of any external threats, fissures had gradually formed within the Death Eater organisation. Lucius Malfoy, in particular, had earned several enemies within the Death Eater ranks. Many resented that, on top of his enormous wealth and ancient lineage, Lucius held the distinction of being one of the top two Lords in the Dark Lord's army. So even though Lucius was successful in concealing news of the incident at his factory from the public, the Dark Lord heard about both, the blast as well as the cover-up.

The Death Eaters assembled at the Parkinsons' estate, where the Dark Lord was currently in residence. Nervousness at receiving their master's angry summons in the middle of the night turned to concern for their own welfare as certain things became known. The enemy they believed they had thoroughly crushed was active again. Sure, Harry Potter and some other members were still alive and free, but the Order was essentially toothless. In the past couple of years, the worst they had done was destroying some items treasured by the Dark Lord. Hence, news that the goody-goody Order had attacked Malfoy Potions, using the kind of excessive force even an insane sadist like Bellatrix Lestrange would shy away from, was shocking. But, that was not all.

Theosophus Nott, the other top-ranking Lord in their army, had failed to answer the summons. Noticing this, an angry Dark Lord tasked Corban Yaxley with locating Nott senior before realising that his Head of Magical Law Enforcement was also not in attendance. A count of their leadership followed by some investigation quickly revealed that the Carrow twins, Yaxley and Nott senior appeared to have mysteriously vanished that night.

Undoubtedly, the Order was involved. The question weighing on their minds was about the fate of the missing Death Eaters—were they merely taken as hostages or killed? Before the attack on Malfoy Potions, they would not have thought the Order capable of executing their prisoners. Now, they weren't so sure.

Lord Malfoy, with his silvery tongue, convinced the Dark Lord he only meant to deceive the wizarding public. The flames of resistance would be fanned once more if news leaked that, rather than being snuffed out as believed, the Order was alive and strong enough to destroy an important Death Eater property, he argued. Lucius claimed he intended all along to brief his master after doing some damage control. Thus, Lucius was able to save his neck that night but he could not entirely escape his master's wrath.

The Dark Lord was angry; angry with Harry Potter for still being alive, angry with the Order for still being active, and angry with his followers for growing complacent enough to be bested by the Order. Voldemort summoned Greyback, demanding Ginevra Weasley be brought before him. As the only high profile Order member in their custody, he would have to satisfy himself with torturing her. However, a pathetic-looking Greyback arrived empty-handed, with some half-baked tale about Draco having taken off with Ginny and half his pack two nights ago. Voldemort believed Greyback, but was furious about not being informed sooner. He had had enough of his followers concealing things from him.

Unable to punish the Order, Voldemort directed his fury at his own people, punishing every member in attendance. He denigrated them for turning into bloated officials the Order had successfully subverted multiple times in one night. Members of his inner circle were made to cast crucios on lower ranking members and then were subjected to the curse themselves by Voldemort.

There were Death Eaters like the Lestranges whose minds were far too damaged to truly suffer but the rest felt the brunt of the Cruciatus for days, suffering from shakes and spasms as their bodies tried to cope with the lingering effects of the curse. A crucio from Voldemort was unlike any other form of torture. Coming from the wand of one of the darkest wizards in history and one who really meant to torture the individuals he chose to curse, it was the worst kind of pain. Thomas Avery, who did not have the best constitution to start with, succumbed to the curse. Minutes after the Dark Lord was done with him, Avery dropped dead, blood dripping out of his ears.

As Draco would learn from Theo later, this became a turning point for the Death Eaters. Many among them were long tired of Voldemort's autocratic style of governance. What was the point of propping an evil tyrant if the quality of their life was worse off and they weren't offered any protections in exchange? An elite Pureblood like Draco Malfoy could be reduced to an inconsequential half-breed and butchered like an animal, and loyal supporters like Thomas Avery tortured to death!

Despite their growing discontentment, the majority of Death Eaters continued to support the Dark Lord, fearing there was no one powerful enough to take him down. However, some had recently discovered about horcruxes and that the man they were led to believe was immortal was not, since Harry Potter had already located and destroyed a number of his horcruxes. With the Order active once again, it gave the reluctant Death Eaters hope that things could change after all.

They recognised they would be better off in a world led by the Order. Even if they could not carry out their selfish plans for self-enrichment quite as blatantly as they had under the Dark Lord, their lives would certainly be safer and far more predictable. While their aversion to any form of risk meant they were unwilling to directly fight one of the darkest wizards to have ever lived, they could help by not obstructing the Order as they went about destroying the empire the Dark Lord had built himself.

Through a major part of the day and some of the night, members of the Order of the Phoenix bustled about as they planned and executed their attacks. An abandoned wizarding home served as the command centre for the day as Harry Potter, with help from Remus Lupin and Minerva Mcgonagall, coordinated the strikes.

The first mission of the day, infiltrating Malfoy Potions to leave the explosive devices built by Arthur, went without any hitches. Their next order of business, which was attacking the Death Eaters, went even better than expected. A sceptical Draco had thought the Order would only succeed in taking Nott hostage, and at most injure the other targets in their skirmishes. Instead, thanks to Ron's brilliance at strategising, they were able to use the intel from Draco to snatch up all four targets.

The hostages were brought to the command centre. Later, each prisoner would be taken to a different safe house where they would be isolated and deprived of food, water and light for as many days as was needed to soften them for their interrogation. In the past, Order members would have objected to such inhumane practices, but now they all understood the stakes involved.

Nott senior and Yaxley remained calm, believing that if the Order had not killed them yet, they weren't likely to, but the Carrow twins began to panic soon as they saw the faces of their fellow prisoners and the number of Weasleys present. Considering everything they had done to the Weasley girl, Amycus and Alecto feared what would happen to them should them should her family find out about any of it. Out of desperation, the twins were able to cast wandless spells to sever their bindings, which they followed with a poorly thought out attempt to escape by simply making a run for it.

It did not take much to recapture and subdue the duo, which resulted in separating them from the other two prisoners. Sometime during the chaos of the debriefings and the Carrows thwarted escape attempt, Molly Weasley arrived and before anyone even had a chance to understand what she meant to do, cast an Avada at the Carrows. The curse hit Amycus just before her sons tackled Molly to the ground.

Although Molly was not present at the meeting with Harry earlier in the day, she learnt about what the Death Eaters had done to Ginny from Arthur, who confided in his wife upon returning from the mission at Malfoy Potions. Molly had listened in silence as Arthur named the culprits and their worst offences against their daughter. He told her about the attacks the Order was going to carry out that night, as well as the names of their intended targets. Molly heard it all, unresponsive at the time but waiting for the right moment to act.

Everyone was shocked by Molly's actions. Whatever Amycus' crimes, he was unarmed and their hostage at the time. Molly had committed cold, calculated murder in full view of other Order members.

George and Fred needed to physically restrain their mother to get her to stop. They hugged her, tears in their eyes as they asked in disbelief, "Why, mum? Why?"

Molly's answer, delivered in a dull monotone, was simple: "They hurt my baby."

She did not cry or become upset; she did not feel her soul fracture from casting the Unforgivable. All Molly felt was deep regret for failing to kill Alecto as well.

Overall, the Order considered the day a success. They had destroyed the potions factory, disrupting the supply of Fero and announcing to the wizarding world that the resistance was thriving. They also had three high-ranking Death Eaters they could use to go after the rest of Voldemort's supporters.

The Dark Lord and his most loyal supporters took comfort in the thought that the day was not as bad as it could have been since Lucius had ensured the wizarding world would not hear of the Order's exploits. The rest of the Death Eaters were pleased that the Order was active again as it could possibly lead to the end of Voldemort's reign of terror.

Meanwhile, Draco, unable to get in touch with anyone, and finding nothing in the papers thought no news was probably good news.

However, there was something critical they had all overlooked. No one thought to check the Muggle news reports of the attack on Malfoy Potions.

...

(BBC)—Fire-fighters continued on Tuesday to battle a fire caused by a massive explosion at Coleshill Street, Birmingham.

Two people were critically injured in Monday night's explosion. Five others are being treated for various burn injuries at Birmingham City Hospital. Birmingham Mayor, John Hood confirmed that Emergency services are at the scene working to control the fire and provide medical aid to the injured. As a safety measure, all residents within a kilometre of the site were evacuated from their homes.

So far, rescue workers have found no bodies and there is no information on the number of people present at the location at the time of the explosion. Fire-fighters continue to struggle to put out the fires-

...

(The Sun)—World War 3 is here!

It sounded like the end of the world, and looked a lot like it too. About 10pm on the 2nd of August, there were a series of explosions on Coleshill Street, Birmingham, that were heard 10 kilometres away. The smoke and flames prompted the evacuation of more than 200 workers within a 5-kilometre radius of the site, which was in an industrial area near Arsenia steelworks.

Not since the Luftwaffe bombed the city during the blitz has Birmingham seen this level of destruction. Barely a month after the London bombings, where a series of coordinated terrorist suicide attacks targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system, the explosion that shook Birgmingham last night, has people wondering if this isn't a clear declaration of war despite PM Blair and his government's empty assurances-

...

(CNN)—A large cloud that appeared over Birmingham in satellite images was not the result of a nuclear explosion, according to UK government officials.

Local news agencies within the UK reported a huge explosion that shook Coleshill Street Monday, producing a mushroom cloud nearly half a mile wide. Early reports claimed the smoke cloud could be the result of a forest fire while others believed it to be a nuclear explosion; however, government officials have denied these claims. Downing Street Press Spokesman, John Campbell, stated that the explosion was, '-nothing, but a leak in a chemicals factory due to their failure to meet safety regulations.'

According to data gathered by Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the level of radiation found at the site in the aftermath of the explosion indicate the undeniable presence of radioactive materials, which has the international community questioning if the UK government was secretly conducting a uranium enrichment program at the site. This theory has been gaining support over the week as satellite images of the area from days before the blast show nothing but a vacant lot at the site-

AN: Just like in the real world, the news articles aren't an entirely accurate description of what happened- between the three articles you're meant to get a sense of how the Muggle community viewed the event. Also, (not that it matters) the London bombings referenced were the ones that took place on the 7th of July 2005.

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