Chapter 7

Trepidation and Terror

It was half past eight in the morning on Christmas Eve.

With Richie on one arm and Holly on the other, Ginny trudged across the snow-covered street. The previous day's snow hadn't melted, and a fresh layer had fallen overnight, raising the level of the snow to ten inches.

"Richie, ring the bell for Mummy please," Ginny said, knowing how eager her son was to press the little button. Richie happily obliged, merrily ringing the bell until the door swung open fifteen seconds later, revealing a beaming Heidi wearing a luxurious dressing gown. That was a bit odd, since Heidi was always already dressed at this hour.

"Good morning!" Heidi plucked Holly from Ginny's arm and planted lots of kisses on her cheek, causing the little girl to giggle uncontrollably. Heidi was in an awfully good mood, and Ginny felt bad about having to be the one to ruin it.

Heidi stepped aside, allowing Ginny to come in, and as she walked into the house Ginny noticed how dark it was. The curtains were still drawn, as if a vampire were living there. The only illumination came from candles and the crackling fireplace—behind the childproof grate—which also produced a toasty heat.

Ginny put Richie down and helped him out of his outer layer of clothing, while Heidi did the same for Holly. Then Ginny quickly threw off her own cloak and un-coiled her scarf from around her neck to avoid overheating. It had to be over twenty degrees Celsius in there!

"Breakfast?" Heidi asked.

"We've already eaten," Ginny said. "Thanks for dinner, by the way."

"You're welcome. Would you like a cup of tea then? I'm making cinnamon tea."

Ginny nodded. "I'd like a cuppa—but Heidi, there's something you ought to know about—"

"If this is about this afternoon's excursion to the Citadel, I've already been informed."

"Really?"

Heidi nodded and picked Holly up.

"Did Commander Faust tell you?" Ginny asked, as Heidi lead her to the kitchen.

"Max."

"He came by? What for?"

"He wanted to see the boys," Heidi said, though the blush creeping on her cheeks told Ginny that there was more to this story.

"Is he the reason why you're in such a good mood this morning?"

Heidi's blush deepened.

Ginny frowned. "He is, isn't he? Did you straighten things out? Does he have regrets about leaving?"

"That's a yes, yes, and a yes," Wolfe raspy voice sounded from the kitchen.

"How can you assume that the first answer is a yes? You've sure got a swollen head this morning," Heidi called back.

"Believe me, Heidi, you brought down the swelling very skilfully."

"Max!"

"Really, Heidi, it wasn't as if Ginny hadn't already guessed."

Heidi's face now almost matched her hair, and Ginny knew everything she needed to know. In fact, Heidi's blush was infectious, for Ginny felt her own face warm up too.

They entered the cinnamon-scented kitchen moments later. The dim light shining though carefully angled blinds revealed the kitchen's occupants. Wolfe wore a handsome black dressing gown, and the boys were still in their pyjamas. Robert was silently shovelling scrambled eggs into him mouth, glaring at his father as he chewed. Henry, on the other hand, seemed thrilled to have his father back, and was sitting in his lap while he pointed out the details of a painting he'd made. Ginny saw a cinnamon stick soaking in boiling water in a pan on the stove.

"Richie!" Henry exclaimed delightedly slid off his father's lap and headed for his friend. Though Henry was a little over fourteen months older, he still got along well with Richie and the other younger kids. He didn't much care who he played with.

Heidi halted her adopted son. "Finish your breakfast first."

"Yes, Aunt Heidi," Henry said, and obediently clambered back onto his own chair.

Heidi nodded to a chair in a gesture for Ginny to sit down, while she placed Holly in a highchair.

"Is it okay for your children to drink some chocolate milk?"

"Yaaay, choc-lit milk!" Richie cheered, and Ginny rolled her eyes. He'd already had his dosage for the day at home, but denying him some here meant that they'd be separating on bad terms later. It would be best to yield a little in order to prevent a tantrum.

"Only half a cup, please."

Heidi must have understood Ginny's facial expression, and shot her an apologetic look as she poured some chocolate milk into a child-sized goblet. "Half a cup it is," she said. Then she put the bottle back in the Perfect Preservation Cupboard and hurried over to the boiling water.

She turned the fire off with a flick of the wand before she summoned the steaming and soggy cinnamon stick out of the water. Next she summoned a filter which she put on the teapot, before transferring the tea water from the pan to the teapot. Finally, she conjured a trio of mugs and poured Ginny some tea, before serving Wolfe and herself.

"Aunt Heidi," Henry asked suddenly. "Was the egg I'm eating a little baby chicken?"

"No, liebschen. Chickens don't lay eggs the same way that people have babies. People only have babies when a daddy's seeds meet a mummy's egg, but hens always lay eggs, even if a rooster's seed didn't meet the egg when it was still inside the chicken. There are only chicks in the eggs when a rooster's seed meets the egg before the hen lays it, and the farmers make sure that it doesn't happen."

Ginny grinned. Having grown up with livestock, she knew that it didn't work that way when there were roosters around to fertilise the free roaming chicken, which was mostly the case on the poultry farms in Concordia. Of course, if the eggs were immediately removed from the nests and kept cool, it would be okay. She guessed that Heidi knew that too, but that she didn't want to upset Henry by telling him that they were eating potential chicks. For some reason, children tended to get upset when confronted with the fact that they were eating baby animals, but weren't bothered by the meat that came from fully-grown animals. Ginny guessed that the point of conflict lay in the fact that the animals never got a chance to grow up.

The four-and-a-half year-old was quiet for a moment, and Ginny could envision the cogs turning in his little head as he chewed on his eggs, before he continued. "Aunt Heidi?"

"Yes, Henry?"

"Robert said that people can have babies if they're not mummies or daddies. Is that true?"

"Your daddy and your mummy didn't have any children before Robert, but they had him anyway, didn't they? And look at Mary. She's not a mummy yet, but she has a baby growing in her belly."

"And grownups don't have to be married to have babies?"

"No, liebschen. They often get married before they make babies, but they don't have to. Some people never get married, but have children anyway. People can love each other like grownups without getting married."

Henry frowned. "I don't understand."

"Well, it's like putting on your pyjamas. You almost always put them on. But on the warm days in summer, you slept in your briefs, remember? But some people always sleep in their underwear."

Henry's face lit up, as he grasped the concept. "Oh!"

"Do you understand it a little better?"

The boy nodded eagerly. "Yes, Aunt Heidi. But isn't winter too cold to sleep in your underwear?"

"Some people don't think so."

Another brief silence followed, but it didn't take long before Henry had thought of another question.

"Aunt Heidi?"

Heidi shot Ginny an exhasperated look before kindly replying. "Yes, Henry?"

"Rachel said that Uncle Matt and Aunt Gudrun close the door when they want to love each other like grownups."

"That's because people like to be alone when they're loving each other that way."

"But your door was closed today. Does that mean that you and daddy loved each other like grownups?"

Heidi had been sipping her tea when Henry drew the parallel, and she choked on the fluid. Glancing at Wolfe, Ginny saw that he was shaking in silent laughter, and she realised that he'd probably been monitoring his son's train of thought, explaining why the question hadn't caught him by surprise.

After she'd coughed the tea out of her windpipe, Heidi scowled at Wolfe. "You knew he was going to ask that, didn't you?"

Wolfe chuckled heartily, nodding in affirmation.

"Aunt Heidi, did I say something bad?" Henry asked, his big blue eyes wide with concern.

"No, you didn't," Wolfe assured his son, and reached over to ruffle his light-blond hair. Then he looked at Heidi. "He drew the right conclusion, so I guess the best thing to do is to confirm it."

Heidi nodded and turned to Henry. "Yes, your daddy and I loved each other like grownups."

"And did you make a baby together?"

"Ah … we don't know yet," Heidi said earnestly. "We may have."

Ginny shook her head. A month or so before her and Harry's wedding, a dark wizard with a lucky aim had landed a curse that struck Wolfe in the inner thigh, and Hermione had conducted thorough tests to see whether there was any damage in the immediate vicinity. The results had shown that Wolfe's fertility was even greater than Ron's—likely a lingering incubus trait, according to Hermione. Ginny also happened to know that her and Heidi's menstrual cycles were in sync, meaning that Heidi too had been at her most fertile the past evening. Therefore, the assumption that Heidi was almost certainly pregnant was a reasonable one.

"Heidi, do you remember the day my wings came out, and the vision I had?"

Heidi smirked, casting a furtive glance in Robert's direction. "Of course. I was right next to you. You saw certain people getting together in the future."

"Aside from the people we already know, I also saw a son of mine and Harry's with a pregnant young woman who looked like you and me. They way they behaved tells me that they weren't—won't be—brother and sister, so I deduced that she had to be your daughter. I know that the son I saw wasn't him—" Ginny nodded towards Richie, "—because his face and build are Weasley. The young man in my vision had hazel eyes, but aside from that he was Harry's spitting image. I know this may sound ridiculous, but I think you've conceived the redheaded girl last night, and I the son I saw in my vision. I think we'll even give birth on the same day."

Heidi's mouth had fallen open when Ginny told her about the vision. "Did you see that in your vision too, that we'd give birth on the same day?"

Ginny shook her head. "No. It's just a feeling."

Heidi swallowed. "I did see it—us giving birth together. I dreamt that I was lying in a maternity ward, and you were in a bed right next to me, ready to give birth yourself."

"Heidi, do you have Seer blood?"

"Yes, I do. One of my great-great-great grandmothers on my mother's side was a Diamond Seer—she trained the current Oracle of Ogygia. Grand Aunt Elizabeth is an Emerald Seer, and many of my second cousins have had minor visions and premonitions at some point in their lives. Some brief visions and dreams, but no voiced prophecy."

Ginny grabbed Heidi's hand. "Do you know what this means? Their births are written in the stars with capital letters. That baby I saw your daughter pregnant with will be a special one, its grandfathers being the most powerful wizards of the age and all."

Wolfe cleared his throat. "The baby's grandmothers aren't slouches either … but don't you two think you're getting ahead of yourselves with these predictions?"

Beaming with delight, Ginny turned to answer him, but her reply died on her lips as she saw how upset he looked. The mere fact that his mood was so easy to read came as quite a shock to Ginny. He used to have the perfect game face. "Wolfe? What's wrong?"

"I won't be there, will I?" he said gloomily. "Neither of you saw me in your visions."

"That doesn't mean that you won't be there," Ginny said.

"Did you see Ron in your vision?"

Ginny shifted her feet in discomfort. "Yes, but—"

"And Harry too?"

"I didn't see Heidi either!" Ginny said crossly. "You're being an idiot."

"Visions are brief glimpses of possible futures," Heidi said quickly, letting go of Ginny's hand and walking over to Wolfe. She placed her hands on his cheeks. "They're not like voiced prophecies. They're mutable! And the fact that you're not in them doesn't mean that something bad will happen to you. Ginny didn't see me in her vision either. Maybe you just won't be around at the exact point in time the visions reveal."

"Maybe," Wolfe said, though he didn't sound convinced.

X

X

The gears in Wolfe's mind were turning. If Heidi had indeed conceived the previous night, she'd be giving birth in about nine months. But he hadn't been in her vision, which was unsettling. Also, in her vision, Heidi had been sharing a maternity ward with Ginny, which meant that in nine months time, Heidi would still be in Concordia.

That meant that Heidi wouldn't leave Concordia with him to start a new life. That meant that, somehow, Yamato was going to slip through his fingers today. But unlike prophecies, visions were flashes of possible futures. He could still alter the future, if only he could work out how Yamato was planning to elude him.

Wolfe had taken great pains to anticipate Yamato's moves through two hypotheses. The first one he had called the 'Hierarchy of Hatred'. The hierarchy involved determining the criteria around which Yamato would decide which actions he wanted to retaliate for, and in what order. He'd based it on all the documented data concerning Yamato that he'd taken out of the Order's database, and it had enabled him to anticipate Yamato's responses to certain situations. The other one had been the 'Dream Ladder'. In order to create it, Wolfe had had to envision Yamato's ultimate goal, and work his way down from there, level by level, until he'd arrived at the next step Yamato was going to take.

It had worked brilliantly most of the time, allowing him to find most of Yamato's hideouts and drive the Dark wizard from lair to lair. But if he wasn't going to catch Yamato today, he must have overlooked something. But what?

"Harry and Ginny arrived at The Burrow half an hour ago, and they're taking the Floo connection to The Warren," Faust spoke behind him. The commander would personally lead the defense of the Umbral Gate, and the evacuation of all the dignitaries. "I've also told Nicolai about it. He and I travelled through the gate yesterday, to warn the Shamballah authorities. If Yamato does manage to slip through the gate somehow, they'll be waiting for him."

Wolfe nodded silently, not taking his eyes off the mirror screen that showed the inside of the enormous complex that housed the Umbral Gate. The image was provided by detectors on board the Cruiser, which was invisibly hovering near the building. The gate was a semicircle with a hundred-and-fifty foot radius, and even a Cruiser could squeeze through it. The first few dignitaries and media representatives were slowly filtering into the hall after having passed several security checkpoints. Unbeknownst to them, the Rangers were also scanning them thoroughly.

"Heidi and Jasmine are escorting the kids to the Portal that will take them to the Citadel."

"Time?" Wolfe asked.

"One minute past three."

The trouble would be starting soon. "Has everyone in Diagon Alley checked in with Command and Control?"

"Yes. Our people as well as the selected Aurors from the Ministry are in position."

"Is Doc among those on the ground?" Wolfe asked, as a terrible thought suddenly surfaced in his mind. He berated himself for not having thought of this sooner. In the past, Yamato had started several operations by detonating a combination of magical explosives and simple gunpowder.

"No. We're keeping him in reserve, since he is rather distinctive looking," Faust said. "But Wilson is there."

"I think you ought to deploy Doc too. Issue orders to seek out booby traps and explosive devices. Remember the attack he orchestrated in China in the seventies? We're all expecting a conventional attack by an outside force, but some dangerous items may already have been planted."

Faust's eyes widened with concern, and Wolfe sensed the Commander's disappointment with himself for failing to anticipate it. "Rachel, link me up with the Cruiser's broadcaster."

"Done," Rachel said after half a second

Faust then activated his communicator and began to issue instructions. "Eurus, Faust here!"

"Go ahead, Commander," Tarana Oliseh's nasal voice replied.

"Patch me through to every Ranger communicator in Diagon Alley, and the ones on the Cruisers."

"The channels are open, sir," Oliseh said after a moment.

"Attention, Rangers. We strongly suspect that the enemy might have had some explosive booby traps planted in Diagon Alley. Everyone save the Healers is hereby ordered to go to Diagon Alley immediately to search for such devices. Docmor and Wilson will lead the search."

"Should we ask the Aurors to call for an evacuation?" Aceng Riyadi's voice asked.

Wolfe shook his head in frustration. He knew that many wizards were so out of touch with the Muggle world that they'd fail to recognise the danger, and wizards in general were remarkably reluctant to believe that anything was wrong. The shopkeepers would probably put up a fight and refuse to leave their shops.

"Negative, it would be a waste of time," Faust replied. He had reached the same conclusion as Wolfe. "Nothing short of announcing Voldemort's return would persuade the wizards to leave their shops on one of the busiest days of the year. Unfortunately, everybody knows that Harry made sure that he'd never come back, so that won't work. Just search the shops as inconspicuously as possible. Prioritise according to estimates of the number of customers within the shops. Doc, Wilson, deal with the devices the way you think is best. No one else is as skilled as you two, so don't waste time asking for my opinion."

"Can't you use the magic sensors on the Cruisers to detect these things?" An unfamiliar voice asked. It was probably one of the younger Rangers.

"Not with all the magic in the air," Rachel muttered.

"That's a negative," Faust reported.

"Understood," several jumbled voices replied in unison.

"Good luck. Typhoon out!" Faust said.

Wolfe sighed. With nearly everyone on the ground in Diagon Alley, searching for booby traps, Harry would be on his own at The Warren. He decided against mentioning it to Faust, because there was little the Commander could do about it.

"Sir, I recommend that we'd best position ourselves over the southern exit," Clara da Silva said.

"Why?" Faust asked.

"The southern access can channel the largest amount of people. If the enemy intends to kill as many people as possible, he'll cut off that exit to turn it into a killing ground."

Wolfe shook his head. "His objective is escape, not slaughter. He needs to clear the building as quickly as possible to get through the gate. If he commits too few resources to the task of carving a path through security, he won't even get in the building. Anyway, this is Yamato we're talking about. He'll go for body count in the city, where security is light. That'll draw away security from the Umbral Gate."

Clara frowned. "Isn't that too obvious a diversionary tactic?"

"Yamato knows that Sinclair will be crucified in the next re-election if he orders the City Watch to protect the relatively few dignitaries instead of the masses in the city."

"You think so?" Faust asked.

Wolfe shrugged. "Personally, I do. But if you want to be completely sure, you'd have to ask the politicians in the Diplomatic Division if the intangible variable of politcal favours by the dignitaries will outweigh his immediate dismissal for failing to protect the people who've elected him. Honestly, Commander, do you actually think the politicians among the dignitaries will be openly grateful to a man who allowed his own constituents to get slaughtered, just to protect a handful of social elites?" he continued sarcastically. "They'd side with public opinion and proclaim that they would have sacrificed their personal safety to protect the people."

"Point taken."

"But if Yamato commits most of his forces to killing people in the City, how will he get near the Umbral Gate?" Rachel Esklove asked from the pilot's seat.

"Stealth. How else?" Clara replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world

"Hey, no need to use that tone with me," Rachel replied wryly. "I wasn't trained in tactics and strategy, like you."

"This was really obvious, Rachel." Clara grinned. "Maybe your Dark wizard boyfriend has a hand in slowing your wits."

"He is not a Dark wizard. I'm sick and tired of all those 'your boyfriend is a Dark wizard' jibes," Rachel erupted. "So his name happens to be Tom Riddle. It's a coincedence, for crying out loud. He's not related to Voldemort!"

"Relax, Rachel. I was just baiting you!"

"You're boyfriend's name is Tom Riddle?" Rolf Larsson asked, giving Rachel a curious glance from the weapon's console.

"Mind your own business, Rolf!" Rachel snapped.

"Is he Jewish?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He's not," Clara said, disguising the words in a cough.

"That's not fair!" Larsson gave Rachel a crestfallen look. "You've been rejecting me because I'm a gentile, and now you've got a gentile boyfriend."

"I never told you I didn't want to date you because you're a gentile. You just assumed."

"Then why?"

"Because I don't want a boyfriend who runs back to his part-Veela ex-girlfriend every time she snaps her fingers," Rachel replied coolly.

"I don't do that!" Larsson exclaimed in a huff.

Clara coughed again, this time covering a word that sounded like 'whipped'.

"Stop your bickering and focus on the task at hand, children," Faust admonished. "And, Mr Larsson, you do run back to your ex-girlfriend every time she snaps her fingers."

Wolfe tuned out Larsson's indignant reply in order to immerse himself in his own thoughts again, trying to place himself in Yamato's shoes and come up with a theory that would explain Yamato's possible escape.

Doc's anxious voice interrupted his thoughts about ten minutes later. "We found a bomb in Gambol and Japes. Volatile potions mixed with gunpowder, rigged to an old-fashioned Muggle alarm clock."

Wolfe grimaced. Yamato had taken a good many leaves out of Muggle books. The potion and gunpowder mix would spread like napalm.

"By the hells of poverty—there are only fifty seconds to go!"

"Aceng, tell the Aurors to call for an evacuation—we have tangible evidence. Doc, can you disarm it?" Faust asked.

"I can't see any way to deactivate it."

"Stop the clock," Wolfe said.

"What? Who said that?" Doc sounded incredulous.

"I know it sounds too easy but I deem it unlikely that Yamato made these himself," Wolfe replied, this time standing close to Faust and speaking into his broadcaster. "I can't explain the reasoning behind my assumption right now. Either you stop the clock, or you Apparate to a safe place to let the bomb explode, or … Apparate away and then try to disarm it. But act now!"

"Doc's Apparated to and empty field outside the city," Tarana Oliseh reported. A few seconds later, her voice returned on the speakers, this time sounded relieved. "Doc said that stopping the clock worked."

Wolfe couldn't allow himself to relax just yet. "Are the people getting out of the shops yet?"

"The Aurors are having trouble convincing the shopkeepers."

"Wilson here. I found and deactivated a bomb in Quality Quidditch Supplies. The time was down to the final fifteen seconds, Commander." The panic in Wilson's voice was evident. "If all the bombs were set to go off simultaneously, we're out—"

The thunder of several explosions drowned out the rest of Wilson's words.

X

X

The wards' alarm briefly blared, but went silent much too soon. The greenish tint of flames in the fireplace—caused by Lee Jordan's Floo powder call that had ended only heartbeats ago—faded to the normal orange colour immediately instead of gradually, confirming what Harry had already suspected.

"Anti-magic field," Ginny said, telling Harry that she had reached the same conclusion. "Evacuation!"

As expected, uttering the Portkeys' trigger word didn't yield any results.

"Keep trying. I'll deal with the intruders," Harry said, before rendering himself intangible and flying straight upwards.

Seconds later he was hovering over The Warren. He spotted the intruders, nearly two dozen of them, moments before they saw him. Seven were wizards, but the rest were zombies which had probably been raided from local graveyards quite recently.

A quick scan of the wizards' thought patterns told him that they weren't acting under their own volition, which meant that he'd have to be gentle with them. Unfortunately, his unwilling adversaries had no such limitations. Controlled experiments with his intangibility had taught him that the magical energy of many spells affected him normally if they hit him, and as he dodged the green flashes of the Avada Kedavra, Harry found himself wishing that he'd tried harder in developing the powers given to him by Novoridu's Talismans. The anti-magic field generator couldn't stop his wand-less magic, and invisibility would have given him a huge tactical advantage. In the periphery of his mind, he also wondered how it was possible that his assailants' wands were still working, but his current situation prevented him from devoting too much thought to it.

The anti-magic field generator was in plain sight, carried by two of the zombies. Harry narrowed his eyes, shooting twin Reductor curses out of them and turning the generator to dust. The wards' alarm surging back to life told him that he'd been successful. Now the Weasleys could get out.

Harry decided to try out a more unorthodox strategy next. He dove to the ground below and levelled off when he was about six feet underground. Then he surged through the soil for about five seconds, before resurfacing well behind his assailants. Six of the wizards had no idea where Harry had gone, but one of them suspected that he might turn up at their flank or rear. Fortunately he was standing behind the others, and they didn't notice him being struck by double stunners. The wizards went down in quick succession, and only the last one standing had noticed that something was amiss, before being nailed by Harry's stunning gaze.

This only left the zombies, which were almost harmless. They were unarmed, and Harry knew that they would have posed little threat to the Weasleys if it hadn't been for the anti-magic field generator. But he doubted that the Weasleys could have fought off their attackers had they been caught unawares, and with their wands useless. Even Ron and Hermione would have been able to do very little.

His train of thought was altered by the realisation that the zombies should have collapsed in the absence of an intelligent being that controlled them. Zombies could be controlled by long-range spells, but only if there were no wards to stop them. After a moment of concentration, Harry had activated the magical nature of his enhanced eyesight. He didn't have to scan the grounds around the manor very long before finding a figure sneaking away under an invisibility cloak, careful not to shift the material and expose herself as she attempted to flee beyond the borders of the wards in order to Apparate.

Harry flew after her, snatching the invisibility cloak away as he overtook her. He stopped a few feet in front of her, hovering upside down like Peeves used to do at Hogwarts. "Boo!"

Pansy Parkinson emitted a horrified shriek. Her hand shot into one of the pockets of her robes, reaching for her wand.

Harry gave her a warning glare. "You saw me shoot curses out of my eyes. Do you think you'll be able to draw your wand and get off a hex before I stun you? I can see your hand around your wand the same way I saw through your invisibility cloak. Let it go and take your hand out of your pocket."

Pansy complied, withdrawing a trembling hand.

"Good." Harry nodded grimly, turning upright in the air. "Now tell me, why you were leading an attack on The Warren. I can read your mind, so don't bother lying to me. And you'd better co-operate, because part of me just wants to kill you where you stand."

"You wouldn't!"

"You came here with the intention to kill my family. So. Why. Wouldn't. I?" Harry said, stressing every word separately.

"But I didn't know anyone was supposed to die. I was just paid to hold the talisman that controls the zombies," Pansy said irritably, and held out the triangular talisman that hung around her neck.

Harry destroyed it with a crushing gesture of his hand, and he promptly heard the thuds of the corpses hitting the ground. In Pansy's mind, he found no evidence of deceit, which annoyed Harry even more. How could anyone be that thick?

"Zombies are never used for peaceful ends, you stupid cow!"

"B-But half of those wizards work at the Ministry. And with that pyramid-shaped thing—I thought it might have be some sort of demonstration."

"Then why would you have to hide under an invisibility cloak?" Harry shook his head.

"The man who paid me gave it to me and said that it was imperative that I'd stay out of sight."

Harry snorted derisively. "And didn't that set off any alarm bells in your empty skull?"

Her mind immediately answered that she wasn't that dumb, but that the payment of five thousand galleons had simply been too good to let those alarm bells bother her. The only thing that Pansy was guilty of was choosing greed over common sense, and being very easy to manipulate. Still, she had to pay for her indifference. "I was paid not to ask any questions."

Harry shook his head. "I doubt that you'd have lived long enough to enjoy your gold. The man you ran this errand for would probably have had you killed afterwards."

"What? Why?"

"To keep me and my colleagues busy while he made his escape. I'm letting you go for now, but if you want to stay alive, I'd strongly recommend that you don't go home. Go to Hogsmeade instead and rent a room at The Three Broomsticks. Don't try to run, because we'll find you!" he warned, as he sensed her contemplating escape. "Stay in your room, and one of my colleagues will be over to talk to you in a few hours. The only way you're getting out of this alive is through a lifetime of servitude to the Order of Illumination."

"And if I refuse?" Pansy challenged.

"Have you heard of Medea Aconit, and what happened to her? If not, let me enlighten you." Harry's face settled into a malevolent grin. "She was tortured with a new curse that makes the Cruciatus feel like a tickling charm, because she'd worked for Tetsuo Yamato. And by participating in this little raid, you have worked for him too. If you refuse, I'll give you to the wizard who killed Aconit—yes, Max Wolfe," he added, confirming her thoughts.

He could feel Pansy's fear as clearly as he could see her face pale. It gave him a sense of grim satisfaction.

"Harry!" Ron's voice called out from behind him. "Bloody hell…" His sentence trailed off as he came close enough to recognise Pansy. Harry felt his friend's outrage build.

"We could send her to Azkaban, but I thought it would be better to use her as a tunnel rat, like Wormtail," Harry said, hoping to defuse Ron's temper. But he had no such luck, and Ron drew his wand.

"You'll pay for this!"

"Of course she will, but don't you agree that a carefully chosen punishment will leave much more of an impression than anything you could dish out in a spur of the moment?" Harry said, trying a different method to stay Ron's hand.

"Yeah…" Ron replied after a few tense seconds. He lowered his wand.

"Is the family okay?"

"They Portkeyed away the moment the anti-magic field disappeared and the alarms kicked in again. Hermione and Ginny went with them, but they'll probably be called to Diagon Alley."

"What happened in Diagon Alley?"

"I got a transmission from the Eurus right after the family left. It seems Yamato's used a different tactic in Diagon Alley than he used here. He had some bombs hidden away in several shops. There were explosions in Magical Menagerie, Flourish and Blotts, and Florean Fortescue's." Ron's voice grew rough with emotion, and he was forced to swallow. "There are three confirmed fatalities, so far, and many others are in bad shape. The bastard specifically targeted shops where children were likely to be. It would've been much worse if Doc and Wilson hadn't found the explosives in Quality Quidditch Supplies and Gambol and Japes."

"Were any Rangers hurt?"

"Yeah, but they didn't tell me how badly."

Harry glanced at the stunned wizards and the inert zombies. "I've got to help in London, Ron. Can you guard the wizards for the time being? They won't be waking up anytime soon, and I'm sure that the bad guys won't come looking for them, since they're under some kind of spell."

"Probably the magical maggots Yamato bred. I checked some of them before joining you—they've got the telltale lesions on the back of their necks. I'd call for the Cruiser so we could have a Healer remove the maggots, but I reckon their priorities are elsewhere right now."

Harry kicked a small stone to vent his frustration. Reinforcements from Concordia were not an option, since drawing the Rangers away from there would be exactly what Yamato was hoping for.

Ron glared at Pansy. "What about her?"

"We'll let her go, for now. I've already warned her what'll happen if she tries to run," Harry said. Then he turned to Pansy. "One of my colleagues will look you up at The Three Broomsticks. Make sure you're there, because if you're not, we'll let Maximilian Wolfe have his way with you!"

Harry tossed the invisibility cloak to Ron, before Disapparating.

Please R&R and make my holiday.