Chapter Twenty-Two.

The strange, atmospheric spikes that the Auror Office had been investigating had increased in the last week of December, and had moved from northeast London to the south. On the afternoon of Monday, December 28, Harry found himself and his partners, Sienna Wilkinson and Cassius Vlier, standing outside an abandoned storehouse as freezing rain dripped down their hair and into their clothes.

'Right,' Cassius said, drawing Harry and Sienna's attention to himself.

Cassius Vlier was an experienced Auror and the eldest of the three, being in his early thirties. More so because of his successful career, but certainly also because of his age, he was their group's leader. 'Sienna,' he said, and he looked at her with complete determination. 'Left. Harry, straight in. I'll go right.'

Sienna and Harry started moving, their cold fingertips clasped tightly around their wands, snow crunching softly under their boots. Sienna, who was agile and quiet as a cat, disappeared behind the building's left wall. Cassius was gone moments after, and Harry found himself suddenly alone, staring at a pair of rusty iron doors. He'd never truly felt fearful whenever they went to investigate a scene, but that might have been because they'd never actually found anything; now, Harry was feeling slightly nervous. Nevertheless, he was determined, and he approached the iron doors before him, careful not to make any sounds that might alarm the people behind them.

As he came nearer the doors, however, nothing strange happened. Like the last storehouse they'd investigated, and the one before that, this storehouse seemed abandoned and left to rot. Whatever had been in them to bring such strange magic into the air had always been long gone by the time the Aurors came to investigate. Still, Harry understood that they would need to be careful. He couldn't imagine that whatever they were chasing would keep hiding from them forever.

And so he crept forwards, listening carefully for any movement inside. All he heard, though, was the sound of snow crunching under his boots, and his own breath, which froze before his face.

Stood before the doors, Harry waited for the sign. Only seconds passed before there came three light, nearly inaudible taps, and three Aurors burst into the storehouse. Harry crashed through the doors and spun left, then right, and when he'd decided that his flanks were all clear, he turned straight ahead.

The inside of the building was an immense open space, grey and smelling of rot. Rainwater came dripping from the ceiling and onto Harry's hair and shoulders with every few steps, and obscene graffiti adorned the storehouse's concrete walls. Harry suspected, by the looks and smell of it, that this particular storehouse had been out of use for years.

Sienna appeared to Harry's left, and soon Cassius stepped from behind a bunch of wooden pallets to the right. The three met in the open space, each with a frustrated frown etched between their brows.

'There's nothing,' Sienna lamented. 'Again.'

Harry saw that, too. The space, though huge and dark in its outermost corners, looked completely empty aside from some discarded pieces of wood and iron. And yet, despite this obvious emptiness… he couldn't shake the feeling that something was near.

'Right,' Cassius sighed. 'Let's just do our rounds and get back to the Office.' He wiped his wet, blonde hair from his forehead, glanced around the storehouse, and nodded. 'Sienna, please take a round of the perimeter. Harry, go investigate the back. I'll check here for any signs of activity and traces.'

The three split up once again. Harry slowly made his way toward the far end of the building, scanning the floor, walls, and ceiling as he went. After about a hundred metres, there weren't any more windows, and some fifty meters after that he found himself in near complete darkness. Harry raised his wand before him and whispered: 'Lumos.'

A narrow, silvery beam of light lit up the space around him. It was just as grey and empty as the rest. Only… some thirty meters ahead, in the outer left corner, Harry saw some black boxes stacked on top of each other, and they looked too new for this place.

With his wand at the ready, Harry quietly made his way over to the boxes. As he did so, an uncomfortable feeling crept up on him. He felt eyes on him, but when he turned and looked over his shoulder, he didn't see Cassius, Sienna, or anyone else near him. Harry was beginning to tell himself to stop being so ridiculous and just get on with it, but then something shifted behind the boxes.

Harry's heart skipped a beat, his breath caught, the spell lay on his lips… but he was too late. A flash of purple shot toward him, blinding him momentarily.

'Protego!' Harry shouted, acting in reflex.

The flash vanished, but before Harry could process what had happened something dark rushed hard against him, knocking him to the ground with such force that his breath was forced from his lungs. As he turned onto his side, grabbing his wand from the floor, Harry saw from the corner of his eye that the blotch of darkness rushed across the space with unimaginable speed. Harry jumped to his feet, aimed, and yelled: 'Incarcerous!'

The blotch shot leftwards, and the ropes that Harry had sent towards it dropped lifelessly to the ground. A loud cackling, mocking Harry's miss, echoed through the space; for a brief moment the sound froze the blood within Harry's veins.

It can't be.

And then he propelled himself forwards, pursuing the blotch towards the front of the storehouse, shouting spells as he went. Whatever spell he fired forwards, though, the blotch managed to deflect, and Harry felt increasingly angry as the blotch's cackle echoed around him. At last the blotch approached the other end of the space. Its path was blocked by a wall. Harry, feeling that this was his chance, launched another spell at it. Light shot across the room, covering the distance between him and the fugitive in milliseconds, and then, with a loud snap, it bounced back towards Harry. Ropes wriggled and wrapped around him tightly, forcing his wand behind his back and throwing him off balance. Harry fell. His head hit the floor. Pain flashed through him, and for a moment his vision blurred.

Then, just as he thought the attacker would come back for him and finish him off, Cassius jumped into frame, waving his wand furiously. In a vision that seemed as if Harry was watching it through a dense pool of water, he saw bolts of purple, red, and white lighting shoot from one place to the next. Shouting echoed through the room, one voice low and loud, another high-pitched and unclear. Harry tried desperately to free his hand, feeling that he needed to help Cassius, but his head throbbed so loudly that it dulled all his senses, and he didn't understand that he was tugging on his sleeve instead of rope.

Suddenly, without warning, a single flash of green.

Cassius, who still looked blurry to Harry, slumped to the floor. The cackling echoed once more through the immensity of the storehouse, more mocking than before. Then there was silence. Harry stopped fighting. His vision went dark.

When he awoke, Sienna's face was bent over his and she looked at Harry with big, fearful eyes. She was saying something, but Harry couldn't hear anything but ringing. Only when he focused hard, forcing his brain to wake up and pay attention, did he hear her calling out his name.

'Harry!' She tapped him lightly against the cheek. Her dark braid hung in Harry's face, tickling his nose. He turned away. 'Harry, what happened?!'

Harry groaned softly and reached for his head. There wasn't any blood, thankfully, but it hurt tremendously. Remembering suddenly what had happened right before he had blacked out, Harry abruptly turned his head to his right and saw, peeking out behind Sienna's frame, Cassius' hand. His wand lay on the floor before him, mere centimetres out of reach.

'Cassius,' Harry breathed, and he scrambled to his feet.

A little further on lay Cassius Vlier, his eyes staring into nothingness and his lips slightly parted, as if the spell he had wanted to use had frozen on them. Harry didn't have to come any closer to know that his colleague was dead. Already the colour seemed to have faded from his face.

Harry swallowed, pushing the feeling of anger and despair deep down into the pits of his stomach, fighting the urge to turn on Sienna and ask her where the hell she'd been. There wasn't time for trivial things. Whatever they had been hunting after all this time was obviously dangerous, unafraid to kill, and on the loose.

'Shacklebolt will be here soon,' Sienna said, and Harry turned towards her. She stepped closer to him and looked him firmly in the eyes. 'He'll need to know what happened. Do you remember?'

Harry looked into her eyes as he forced his mind to go back in time. His head throbbed again at the effort. 'Whatever it was,' he said, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, 'it was hiding behind those boxes at the back of the building. When I turned towards it, it used a spell on me. I didn't hear what it was.'

Sienna frowned and turned to look at the boxes. 'We'll need those boxes, then.'

Harry agreed, and as Sienna made her way to the back of the building, Harry kneeled by Cassius' body. He looked into his colleague's eyes, remembering suddenly that Cassius had a pregnant fiancé waiting for him at home, and Harry wanted desperately to close them, to escape their accusatory glare. He couldn't, though. He knew that. As he forced himself back on his feet, Harry tried to remember more details about his attacker. It'd been black, and strong, and unbelievably quick. But there was something else… something important.

Harry dug into his memory, ignoring the faint throbbing of his head as he did so, and suddenly remembered the laughter. The cackling, bouncing towards him from all four walls. As he recalled the sound, his blood seemed to stop flowing, and his breath caught painfully in his throat.

He'd heard that cackling before. Then, as he realised where he'd heard it, a feeling of absolute terror rose from the depths of his stomach. Panic electrified his limbs as numbing fear punched him in the gut. Harry fought to stay on his feet.

'Sienna,' he exclaimed, and then, louder: 'Sienna!'

He ran towards her with all the speed he could muster, shouting her name as he went. She was already coming to meet him, a bewildered look on her face. 'What is it?! Are you alright?!'

'I have to go,' Harry said, breathing hard, and the look on his face made it impossible for Sienna to protest. 'Shacklebolt will be here soon, alright? I'm sorry, I have to- My-'

Harry began to become incoherent as his thoughts ran away with him, and panic took reign of his limbs. He knew if he didn't move now, he wouldn't move at all.

'Sorry,' was all he could muster, and then he was gone.