Disclaimer: See chapter 1 (Spoiler, I own nothing in this story)

Gringotts Bank

If the rumors were to be believed, Ragnarok will have a new glorious battle to show in the pensieve projector during this week's goblin movie night. The previous weeks had been getting stale, they all knew how trolls, ogres, and dragons fought, but a wizard battle was something new and fresh, especially one as odd as the Lord Black. There were so few wizards fighting to the death these days that the goblins rarely witnessed them firsthand, but with the attack on the Alley minutes before, in sight of the bank, the goblins will have something new to study and learn. After all, knowing how one's enemy killed and fought was the first step to winning. That the newly minted Lord Black was one of the participants was just icing on the cake as far as Bronzebone was concerned.

When the Lord Black returned from outside the bank (the goblins already knew about fighting due to goblin wards but not the details), he had two strange requests which Bronzebone was assigned to accomplish, for a fee. The first was simple, wait for a witch reporter to arrive at the bank steps in 25 minutes time and escort her to a separate conference room. The second was more open-ended, which meant he could get slightly creative with how much of a fee he could charge. The Lord Black wanted to know everything he could about those who attacked the alley. Everything covered quite a bit of metal, and his first task to earning that metal was to identify the names of who it was that was involved in the attack. That part was simple, sending an Elf employee out to invisibly collect blood samples of each attacker, then using those samples in conjunction with the Goblin Identification artifacts came up with a list of 21 British Nationals, 19 of which held accounts with Gringotts.

Bronzebone ordered an accounting and inventory control sweep of their vaults, as well as a transaction history for good measure. While most of that was proprietary information that could not be shared with Lord Black, the information smelted from those documents could be used by Bronzebone to find non-proprietary sources that could be shared. A quick Request for Ministry Records for the individuals, probably before the ministry itself knew they were involved with the attack, brought up the fact that half of them had criminal records, and the other half had been charged with various disgusting crimes but had the charges dropped later. The reason the charges were dropped would require further excavation, but he would uncover it.

While Bronzebone reviewed the Gringotts internal records, he also sent out for more information about the masks they all were wearing. They indicated a coordinated, organized effort behind the attacks, but none of them had any affiliations with any organized terrorist group except a few Voldemort sympathizers, and the masks were definitely not Death Eater masks. The identification came back quickly as Duk Duk masks, most noted for their use in a recent terrorist attack in Australia. As far as Bronzebone could determine, though, none of the participants were ever Australian, had Australian friends, made any contributions to Australian causes, or even knew where Australia was on a map. It seems like someone wanted the Ministry to think this was an Australian terrorist attack.

Most of those who died were quite intoxicated. Two had records (or suspicions) of assassinating important witches and wizards, giving the goblin the inkling that this might have been an attack on either the Malfoy Matron or the Black Head. No others in the street were prominent enough to warrant hiring an assassin. Chuckling, he was quite excited to be one of the first to view the memory of the fight, a requirement if he was to verify who the target was, if there was a target. His peers would be jealous of him getting that honor, and be the first to see what happened.

An alarm on his desk blinked, telling Bronzebone the memory was ready to be viewed in Ragnarok's office. Putting his notes into his secure drawer, he hurried to see how the wizard fought.

Ministry of Magic

Nothing more boring than the day after Hogwarts starts. The weeks leading up to it is filled with accidental magic, new muggleborns trying to impress their family with a new wand and magical power they can barely control, and hundreds of families rushing around Diagon Alley. Quite a busy time for Sydney Cratchit in the Magical Detection Department. Today, however, was the most un-magical day in all of London, Sydney's area of monitoring. There were no wanded children around to do magic since they were all in Hogwarts, and the adults were so relieved to have the children gone that they didn't do magic, at least not of the wanded variety. Every once in a while there was a bout of accidental magic, but that was the rare occurrence. Even young children instinctively knew that today was a day to do things the muggle way.

That is why it took Sydney ten full seconds to realize that there was a Class 7 magical emergency in Diagon Alley. The alarms were blaring, lights flashing, and quills scribing, but Sydney just couldn't believe that this was happening today, and on her watch. When the reaction finally came, the Aurors were notified immediately so they could be dispatched, and Sydney got to the task of recording every spell cast. A Class 7 emergency meant that Unforgivables were cast. Sadly, whoever the target of such horrid magic was didn't have a chance to fight back, since there were only a dozen or so spells for Sydney to record. Most fights required several feet to record, this one would barely be an inch.

Diagon Alley

The Aurors never failed to care more about surnames than facts. For most Aurors, Narcissa's married name was a benefit, but she just happened to get the Auror squad that was most loyal to Dumbledore. Not that her husband knew who all was in the Headmaster's club, but her contacts were more effective than his were. But even so…no one could say with absolute certainty any of them were actually Dumbledores. Not without going to extreme measures to find out and more likely exposing themselves. Even still, she was more than convinced with the circumstantial evidence shown to her.

And now…with multiple bodies lying in the street, she was still reeling from the brutality of the counterattack the Lord Black executed. To make matters worse, she was being harassed incessantly by Auror Shacklebolt. She knew Dumbledore's puppet had no reason to hold her, and she could leave should she choose to, but by staying she could gauge the feeling amid the other Aurors and the public. That was valuable information.

"And what was he doing before the others apparated in?" Kingsley asked, for the third time.

"As I said before, the Lord Black," Narcissa emphasized the title, "was returning from the ice cream shop. He was walking towards me, when they appeared." She knew what the next question would be, since he had already asked her it a dozen times.

"And what were you two discussing before the attack?" The previous answers of 'Black Family Business' evidently did not sway Auror Shacklebolt, even though good society dictated that family business is completely confidential, so Narcissa decided to try a different tactic. She sighed in frustration (she didn't need her considerable acting skills for that part), and prepared to 'accidentally' slip more information to Dumbledore's spy.

"As I said, Family Business. It is no concern of yours if the Lord Black wanted to know the details of our alliances," she huffed. Turning heel, she strode two steps and sat down on the nearest chair, her frosty glare daring anyone to disturb her. It seemed that tidbit seemed to satisfy the Auror, because he did not follow her with more pestering questions. This allowed her to listen in to the other witnesses, and contemplate what she had witnessed herself.

The power.

Iit was the raw power that the Lord Black used, the complete ruthlessness and finality in the way he fought. There was no hesitation, no chance for mercy or surrender. After a millisecond, Lord Black designated them enemies and proceeded to cut them down.

Literally.

They were still gathering pieces, and if what she overheard was correct, St. Mungo's was having a difficult time attaching or regrowing the severed limbs of the survivors. Not that they deserved new limbs.

She had never seen a spell like the one he used to create his sword, it certainly wasn't part of the Black family magic, none that she learned. A spell like that would have made international papers, so it was likely either a new personal spell or a recovered lost spell. Perhaps it was something that Reggie's wife taught her son. That thought triggered her memory, something about a sword of light. She would have to check her journals from the years of the first war. The Lord Black's blade, whatever it's origin, cut through the wizard's bodies without effort.

The most chilling and interesting effect, though, was the ability to deflect a killing curse. That family at the other table would have been dead if it wasn't for the Lord Black, a fact that the Lord Black probably failed to realize the importance of. A life debt like that wasn't uncommon, but it could lead to dire circumstances if not properly addressed. She would have to bring it up next time they met. Doing so might earn her some goodwill for both the family and the Lord Black.

She would also need to double check to see if she owed the Lord Black a life debt as well. She did have her wand out when one of the last attackers aimed at her, but no spell was fired when the Lord Black wandlessly and silently banished the street rubble into them. It was a fuzzy field, so she would have to give some thought to claiming a life debt to the Lord Black or not. If she did, they would be bound together more, and she would have more influence over him. That influence, however, would not be from an equal or superior, but from a servant. She would consult with Andromeda before officially declaring, she had time before she needed to do so.

She thought back to the fight, and it came down to the brutality of his fighting style. It was the fight to survive, not to beat the opponent but rather to live. When they had first sat down for lunch, she had supposed that the Lord Black would be fairly easy to manipulate into position, like training a Niffler to hunt. Now, she realized he was more like a Nundu. Trainable, but more dangerous than anyone she knew. Except the Dark Lord. Maybe. That train of thought held potential, which she would explore when she had a free moment alone in the confines of her own mind.

The Aurors were stumped with the evidence they had collected, she could easily see. Between the new sword spell and the wandless magic performed, most of the magical residue they could collect and identify was the magical blood of the deceased attackers. Add to that the precision and speed at which he fought, almost as if it had been choreographed beforehand. It was an intriguing idea, but it did not match up with anything else she knew about the man. One of the Aurors might think it, but even Shacklebolt wouldn't be daft enough to throw accusations of Lord Black faking an attack to improve the his reputation around. Not do that against the Head of an Ancient and Noble House.

And in truth she didn't think he would be so shallow as to go that route. The way he was leading the investigation seemed to hint that he was deadly keen on learning all he could, and that he would not stop till he got to the bottom of it. There was going to be a confrontation between Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Lord Black. She was certain of it. The auror disliked the killing of anyone, and there were too many bodies around to not provoke the man.

Narcissa leaned back in her chair, half closing her eyes as she pretended to rub a kink out of her neck. Whispering a spell taught to her long ago by her mother as a form of eavesdropping, Narcissa extended her senses outward and what she heard proved most enlightening. The Aurors were talking, collaborating and comparing their information from both diagnostic spells and eyewitness reports.

And all of it within earshot of her.

There was fear in the younger Auror's voices, a result of the number of attackers and the fact that a single wizard defeated all of them without a single enemy spell landing. The older Aurors had hesitation and skepticism in their voices, firm in their belief that if they hadn't seen something like this in their long life, it couldn't have happened the way they were saying. She had noticed that the Aurors got the memories of several witnesses. She had refused to offer her own, of course, but they would soon knoweverything she saw anyways. She would offer to help the Lord Black with handling the inevitable Ministry questioning.

The Lord Black was not someone to oppose directly, no one would doubt that once the news of the fight reached the Daily Prophet. Subtlety might work, but in raw force the Lord Black was more than a match for any group of assassins. She had the suspicion that her husband was behind it, which she will investigate when she got home. If he was, she would be most displeased.