DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter.
*
*
*
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith.
The beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.
*
*
*
There was a knock on the door to Lyralei's office, and a moment later her secretary, Amanda, stuck her head in.
"Miss Maxwell?"
"Amanda? What are you still doing here? I thought you would have gone home hours ago."
"Uh, no ma'am. The secretarial staff has had to work longer than usual for the past week or so."
Lyralei sighed, "You and everybody else, I'm afraid. What is it?"
"Sorry ma'am, but Commander Vasrian just sent word that he wants to see you immediately. There's some sort of commotion going on outside; I just saw members from the Magical Reversal Squad head out, and someone said something about Harry Potter just-"
Amanda's rambling stopped abruptly as Lyralei disapparated in the middle of her sentence. It was somewhat rude, but Lyralei found out ages ago that it was the easiest way to shut her secretary up. Besides, this was urgent, and Amanda never seriously took offense.
Lyralei apparated straight to Vasrian's headquarters, and found Vasrian there, looking extremely harassed while he ordered a few remaining wizards around.
Lyralei heard one of his commands right before he saw her. He was saying to a young looking wizard, "And you! Go inform the Minister of this at once! I need to see him now! Lyralei, there you are!" he said, stating the last part in some relief.
"What's the matter?" Lyralei asked.
"It's Harry Potter," Vasrian replied. "We just got word that he's run away from his relatives' house. We have no idea where he is. Seems he's blown up his Aunt or something; it's a huge mess. For all we know, Sirius Black could get at him any moment, and my Second Officer is out on sick-leave, and the Third Lieutenant has suddenly disappeared! Now, of all times!" He finished, slightly hysteric.
"Damn," Lyr said, "Okay, relax; I'll handle this. How long has Harry been gone?"
"About 15 minutes, at least. We got word of it just a few minutes ago, and I just sent out the Group 2 Enforcers to try and find him."
"Okay," said Lyr. "So I'll go lead a 2 mile comb-search for Magic sensitivity around Harry's house. If Black's there, we'll get him."
"That would take too long!" Vasrian protested.
"Any better ideas?" Lyralei shot back. "We're running out of time here Steven!"
"All right, fine, go ahead." Vasrian said. "But hurry!"
Lyralei started to disapparate, but just then the Minister of Magic apparated in front of them.
"What's going on?" Fudge asked sharply, looking at them both.
Lyralei nodded to Vasrian and said "He'll explain. Excuse me, Minister." Then she left.
------------------------------------------------
Lyralei yawned tiredly as she came back home. It was past 2 in the morning. The fiasco was over, thank goodness. Turns out Harry had blown up his Aunt, and cleaning that up was torture. Luckily, it wasn't in Lyralei's department.
Lyralei did in fact initiate a comb-search, and that was how they figured out that the Knight Bus had picked up Harry. The only logical place for Harry to go to was Diagon Alley; he didn't really know of any other wizarding place. Like Lyralei had expected however, the search showed absolutely no sign of Sirius Black. Lyralei wasn't surprised at all. Even if Sirius was hanging around there, he would have been long gone by then. A comb search was a tedious operation that managed to pick up Magical traces in a given area. Once you have a magical trace, it's not too hard to figure out what that magic was used for.
Anyway, if Sirius had been in that area, good chances are that he would have been emanating magic; most magic folk do it unconsciously; it was a kind of magical aura. The comb search would have easily picked it up, but the thing was, Lyralei was sure that Sirius's aura would have dimmed significantly due to his time in Azkaban. It might not have been picked up in the comb search, even in the extremely unlikely event that Sirius was in that area at the time, which Lyralei didn't believe.
It was a good thing he wasn't, because if he was then Lyralei would have been at quite a loss. There was no way she would have been able to keep people from finding out, and she never did like the idea of using a Memory Charm on people. It was tricky; you never knew what you were going to erase.
Right now, Harry was staying at the Leaky Cauldron. Unknown to him, two Ministry Aurors disguised as Warlocks were staying there too, sort of like personal body guards. They kept it a secret; they didn't want people getting hyped up about it. If everybody knew that Harry Potter was staying at the Leaky Cauldron for two weeks, the place would be crowded with reporters, fans, busybodies, and general Paparazzi. By now the whole Ministry knew all about Black and how he was after Harry, as they were involved in the mess, and the Inn Keeper knew too, but that was it.
------------------------------------------------
Lyralei woke up the next morning feeling more miserable than she had been in a long time. She had spent most of the night awake, thinking and worrying, mostly about Sirius. She hadn't gotten any sleep, and probably looked like shit. Lyralei went straight to her kitchen and made herself a cup of strong, black coffee. She didn't even drink coffee, but she was thankful for it now. The coffee powder was left over from when her Mother was here a few days ago. She had just left for Paris the day before yesterday, after making sure that the house was spotless and the refrigerator was full. Lyralei was hard-pressed to keep the news of Sirius's escape from her Mother, but did so because she knew nothing good could come of it if her family found out just then. They worried about her enough as it was.
Wrinkling her nose at the beverage, Lyralei never-the-less drank the whole thing in a few gulps, slightly burning her mouth. She did have to admit, however, that she felt a little better. Well, at least she felt awake.
Lyralei poured herself some more, and sat at her counter, mulling things over. It was getting pretty messy out there. The Ministry was absolutely no closer to catching Sirius than they were before, no matter what they told the public. That made everyone testy. They were keeping track of Harry of course, but Sirius didn't seem to be near him, which technically wasn't acceptable because that meant the one clue the Ministry had was useless. So everybody kept faith in the guess that Sirius had to be after Harry, and would follow him to Hogwarts.
There was nothing else to do but go on combing the country side, which everyone was doing anyways. Every single major wizarding spot was so closely looked after that someone uttering the name of Sirius Black there would have the same affect as if someone yelled 'bomb!' in a muggle airport.
That wasn't all either. Apparently, the little fright Harry had given the Ministry yesterday made people, especially Cornelius Fudge, very paranoid. At the small conference they had last night after the minister had come back from settling Harry in, Fudge had vaguely mentioned something about sending dementors from Azkaban out. Lyralei wished more than anything that Fudge wouldn't follow up on that idea. The thought of dementors wandering everywhere, on Ministry orders that too, was horrible. Lyralei gave an involuntary shudder as she thought of them. She had dealt with dementors before, when she was an Auror, and again when she was trying to get Sirius free. They were horrible beings, yet at the same time a somewhat fascinating study, for the very few people who were actually interested in knowing more about them, (other than how they could be defeated).
Lyralei got up and started getting ready for work, considering half-heartedly whether or not to send an owl to Remus about this. If he was going to see Harry soon, he might as well know, and she owed him that much.
*
*
*
*
*
AN: Eh, nothing much to say about this. I didn't really get too many reviews for the last one, so thank you ANNE( v )79 and prowlingwolf for taking the time. Remember, more reviews means faster updates. Thanks!