Harry tried his best to comfort Daphne, but as the days passed, she became increasingly worriedly. Nothing any of them did seemed to relieve her fears. At the very least, not even Ron Weasley was stupid enough to mess with her at the moment.
Even after they'd arrived home for break, she couldn't calm down. It became a daily occurrence to give her a dreamless sleep potion every night so she could sleep.
Though he was home, they never saw Cyrus, as he spent every waking minute tracking down every lead. Some aurors objected to a civilian investigating a case, but they were quickly silenced by the worried father.
In the few weeks since the attack, Cyrus had lead twenty-seven auror assault teams in raiding inferno safe house. No one survived, but neither did they find Tori nor Scrimgeour.
July passed quickly, and Harry tried his best to keep his friends calm. Susan, while upset, wasn't as worried as Daphne, who was now on the edge of hysteria.
On his birthday, he received some unexpected guests. At breakfast, there was a knock on the door.
Morgan opened it and saw a man and a woman in the opposite side.
"Is this the residence of Cyrus Greengrass?" he smiles.
Morgan instantly turns defensive, but he holds his hands in surrender, "I was just wondering if he was home. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him before that incident in Hogsmeade."
Harry looked at the men, "You were the one that scared off everybody."
Reiji shrugs, "More my reputation than anything else." then Motioning to his partner, "Besides, she killed way more than I did."
Morgan smiles, "Thank you so much for saving my husband."
"It was nothing." Reiji sighs, "I wish I'd known they took your daughter. If have tried harder to capture them."
"Do you have any idea what they want with her?" Daphne asks sadly.
Reiji was silent, and Harry knew instantly that he knew.
Eren states at them, "Are you sure you want to know? It might not be what you want to hear."
Harry's heart fell. If that's the case, she likely wasn't alive.
"Just tell us!" Daphne shouts, crying, her mother nodding in agreement. Harry listened intently as he sighs.
"She's going to be turned into an assassin." Reiji says looking back at her, "Just like they did with me."
"Tori could never kill anyone..." Morgan says calmly, though her eyes showed fear.
"I thought the same think about myself, but I did it in the end." he says, "Before long, it becomes second nature."
"Why Tori?" Harry asks.
"I don't know for sure." he shrugs, "She must have the talent scythe was looking for, but I doubt that's the only reason. I can tell just by looking in your eyes right now, you have it too. Maybe it was as easy as using her for leverage, or it could be that she would be easier to train then you."
After a moment, Daphne looked him in the eye, "Could you find her?"
"It might be possible." he nods, "Inferno has a few places where I could look."
With that, he turns to the walk back out the door, "Eren, wait here for Cyrus. I'm going to go check a few places and I might give Shiiga a call."
"You sure you won't need backup?" she asks.
He pulls back his jacket and places a hand on his weapon holster, "This is all the backup I'll need for this."
Eren mods and he walks out the room. Morgan hands her a glass of water, "How did you two get here? This place is under Fidelius."
"You didn't find out from your legilimency probes?" Eren smiles knowingly, making the woman blush, "Reiji spent a couple of years studying the charm while he was working for inferno. He developed a way to learn the secret from someone besides the secret keeper."
"Who?"
"Remus Lupin." she answers, "It took twenty minutes for us to penetrate his shields without him knowing."
"So much for safety." Morgan mutters.
"The will protect you from most of them. Inferno's mostly low level scum that couldn't dream of breaking this, but phantom and a few others might be able to." Eren tells them, then turns to harry, "And I would think that you'd be able to match Cal at least long enough for them to escape."
"Not a chance." he snorts, "She beat me easily."
"I don't know what fight you were watching, but she was fighting seriously only against you and Dumbledore. The fact that she deemed you are enough of a threat to take it seriously is a good thing. It means you're approaching her level."
"How do I get better?" he and Daphne ask at the same time.
_
Reiji stands on the shores of a beach house owned by one of inferno's top members.
"What are you doing here, Phantom?" Shiiga says behind him.
"Just curious." he smirks, "Astoria Greengrass. Where is she?"
"I can't say. Scythe doesn't Tell anyone but McGuire where his facilities are." Shiiga answers plainly, "Though I know it isn't in the country."
"Then pass along a message for me." Reiji says angrily, "Tell Scythe that the girl will be returned by September or else."
"Got it." Shiiga nods, "And I've got a message for you as well. Mio says to take it easy and for you and Eren to look after each other."
Reiji nods and turns to leave. Shiiga hands him a cell phone, "Give Mio a call. She'd love to hear from you." he says, walking towards the house, then pauses and adds, "And try calling next time instead of just showing up at my beach house!"
Reiji laughs and disapprates.
_
"Anything?" Eren asks as the door opens behind her, not bothering to look up from her tea with Morgan.
"According to Shiiga, they're not keeping her in country, and he not sure which safe house." Reiji replies, "I told him to warn Scythe. Now that Cal saw me, no real point in keeping it a secret."
"Will it work?" she asks as Morgan's eyes started tearing up.
"No chance he'll give her back, but if he feels threatened enough, he'll move her back here for his protection. Even he can't keep an assassin like phantom hidden from the top brass for long." Reiji sighs, pouring himself a cup.
"We've had an interesting development here as well," Eren sighs, "The sister and the boy are insisting we train them."
"Not a chance in hell." he says without even hesitating.
"That's what I said." she laughs, "They refused to accept it."
"How'd that end?" he smirks knowingly.
"Not the way you'd think." she smiles.
***********************Start Flashback*****************************
"Why not!?" Harry shouted as she turned away from him, walking through the yard to the house.
"Because you're too young." she answers, turning back to him, "I don't train fighter, I train killers. You're too young to throw your life away. Don't concern yourself with getting her back. Reiji and I will handle it."
"I'm not trusting you with my sister!" Daphne shouts angrily.
"Yet you'll trust me with you?"
"I don't care what happens to me! I just want my sister back!" she tells, lashing out at the assassin. While she had intent, she lacked any skill, and Eren effortlessly sidestepped, grabbing her fist. She then holds it behind her back and dislocated the shoulder.
"Give it up." she sighs after Daphne screams in pain, "You've got courage, but without learning anything you're wasting your time. Relax and enjoy the rest of your summ-" she jumps to the side to avoid a jet of white light. A cutter, expertly controlled too. It would've given her a gash, but she'd have survived.
Harry had his wand drawn, pointing straight at her, "We're not going to stand around and do nothing while Tori is still out there! If you won't train us, I'll find someone else who will."
Eren stares at him with an emotionless face, slipping back to Ein, "If you want us to train you, kill me."
"What?" Harry asks in disbelief.
Eren removes her wand, conjures a vial, and removes a memory strand, "Kill me, and give this to Reiji. If you can prove that you've got the will to kill someone, he'll teach you everything he knows. Are you going to try?"
In response, Harry sends another cutter, this time without holding back. The white blast rips through her hastily conjured shield, and she smiles while dodging, "That's more like It." without a word, she begins unleashing a furious wave of spells, "But I'm not one to let myself be killed so easily!"
Knowing he couldn't dodge them all, Harry positions himself where he would be hit the least, and intercepts each curse with one of his own. The streams explode, filling the yard with multi colored fireworks. Unable to see through the lights, he's surprised by a loud bang, followed almost immediately by a searing pain in his arm, and the feeling of blood flowing down from his shoulder.
"You let your guard down." she sighs, pointing the gun at him again, "I'm trying to kill you. Don't expect me to fight fair. This gun might not be as powerful as some curses, but it's just as capable."
To her surprise, however, she collapses as blood pours from his leg.
"And you let your guard down." Daphne chuckles weakly through the pain, wand held in her off hand, "I might not be as good as Harry, but even I can manage a cutter from closer range."
With a wave of her hand, the wound is healed, and her wand is pointed at Daphne, her gun hadn't moved an inch, still pointed at Harry's chest, "Playtime is over."
At that moment, another bang, and a flash of red light collides with Daphne just as the tranquilizer injects into Harry's bloodstream. Neither of them even realized what had happened.
***************************End Flashback***************************
"I'm impressed." Reiji chuckles, "Even if you weren't paying attention, landing a curse on infernos first phantom isn't an easy task."
"I agree, but that doesn't change the fact that they lost." she says, pouring more tea into her cup.
Reiji nods knowingly, a small frown on his face, "And you want to teach them anyway?"
Eren stares into her cup for a moment, and then looks into his eyes, "Those two have the same look as us. They won't take no for an answer on this. If you're serious about them not learning, then go out to the yard and kill them, because that's the only way to stop them."
Morgan glares daggers at the young woman, who so causally brought up murdering her daughter, and Reiji looks back into her black eyes, "Are you sure? You know better than anyone except Cal what it could mean, to become like us at such a young age."
"Those two will never become like we were Reiji." Eren says seriously, "I don't want to just teach them to kill. If they learn from someone else, not only will they not be able to achieve what they want, but they'll have the wrong mindset."
"What does that mean?" Morgan's asks, her vengeful eyes never leaving the woman, and her hand never drifting away from the handle of her wand.
"The reason me and Eren were so effective is that we never drew major attention to ourselves." he says to her, "We would kill, and sometime we'd even make a public spectacle of our it, but nothing was ever traced back to us. There was always a scapegoat."
"You mentioned earlier that you keep up with all the news from the states?" Eren asks calmly, well aware of the wand tip pointed at her chest under the table, "Did you hear about the stone family mob war thirteen years ago?"
She nods, "Cyrus told me about it. Apparently tony stone tried to make a play to take control of the west coast, but the police caught up with him."
"Someone was making a play, but it certainly wasn't tony stone." Reiji snorts, "In one night, Eren and I killed twelve people, six families joined inferno, taking over the stone family turf and getting rid of the stubborn fool running it all in one fell swoop."
Morgan could hardly comprehend what she was hearing, "Twelve people? In one night? And no one knew?"
"We killed six of Tony Stone's bouncers, then took out the bosses of six rivals. Our people planted in those organizations would then 'eliminate' the 'assassin' in vengeance and seize control, joining inferno as the dust settled. Even the cop that brought down stone was in on it." Eren sighs, "If nothing else, Scythe knew how to make a spectacle."
Morgan nods in silence. The very thought that something like that could happen was insane. Reiji turns to her and says, "If those kids learn from just anyone, even if they did manage to succeed, they'd have to leave the country to escape the aurors."
Eren was silent as Morgan looked out the back window, at the couple passed out on the ground. "If I lost Daphne too, I don't know what I'll..."
Reiji cuts her off with a long sigh, "You won't lose her. She'll learn from the best, or not at all."
Eren smiled, and gave him a quick hug, "Thank you, Reiji."
"How long until they have to go back to school?" he asks Morgan thoughtfully.
"One month." she answers, "The train leaves September first."
"It won't be much, but I think we'll be able to make it work." he nods, "Eren, you go ahead and prep the safe house I set up in the countryside. The less people are around, the better. I'll say here and tell them."
The back door flies open and Susan storms in, "I'm going with you."
"Absolutely not." Morgan says harshly, making the girl wince, "Daphne's sister is wrapped up in this, and Harry is her fiancé. But I am not going to tell Amelia that I left her daughter in the safe hand of two professional killers!"
"Fine." Susan glares, walking into the living room, then pokes her head back in and adds, "I'll tell her myself." before Morgan can even think about stopping her, she heard Susan's voice, followed by the whoosh of the flames and knew she was gone.
_
Susan walks expertly through the halls of the ministry, and knocks on the large door marked 'Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement- Amelia Bones'
"Come in." she says, and Susan opens the door, "Shacklebolt, if this is about those reports, I told you six times already, go get some sle-" she lectures before stopping dead at the sight of her niece, "Susan! Not that I'm not excited to see you, but what are you doing here?"
"Auntie, if I told you something really bad, would you be able to keep it a secret?" she asks nervously; the last thing she wants to do is get her friends in trouble.
Amelia's eyes are alert at this but she nods, "You know that I'm your aunt before I'm an auror. Speak your mind, Sue."
"Daphne and Harry are going to go and do some 'questionable training' and I wanted to go with them. Even if I can't help them train, I could at least heal them if they get hurt!" she cries, throwing her arms around Amelia.
Amelia was no fool. 'Questionable training' could only mean that someone was going to wind up dead, but if it was for Susan, she'd get rid of the body herself without even considering the fallout. Smiling, she hugs Susan back and whispers in her ear, "You do what you think is right. Just be safe, and if you need anything, let me know. I'm here to help. But first, I think I should take a break, maybe pay the Greengrasses a visit."
Susan gulps, but nods. 'I hope she doesn't try and stop me by arresting them.' she thinks as she follows Amelia out of the office.
_
Morgan paces nervously in front of the fire, but jumps when it finally flares green. Both Susan and Amelia stepped out. "Where are they, Morgan?" Amelia asks sternly.
"I'm assuming you're talking about us?" Reiji asks from the doorway, "A pleasure to meet you, Madame Director."
"I've Heard a lot about you, Reiji Azuma." she smirks, "Apparently you're going to be teaching Harry and Daphne a few bad habits."
"Your niece seemed pretty interested as well." he smiles back, "Are you here to arrest me, or make sure I don't hurt Susan?"
"I'm here as an aunt, not an officer of the law." she grins to him, "I have no interest in your occupation. All I want to know is that Susan will be safe."
Eren shakes her head, "Nothing we do is safe. We'll keep it as safe as possible, but even then we can't promise anything. More than one person has died from this training. To date, only three have survived. Myself and Reiji, as well as Cal, the blond from Hogsmeade."
Amelia turned to Susan was a concerned look, "You don't have to do this, you know. I'm sure they'd understand."
"That's exactly why I need to go." she says resolutely, "If those two are willing to put their lives on the line, and then I'm going to be right there with them!"
Amelia looks at her, and starts to chuckle, "You'd have made an excellent Hufflepuff, Susan. If that's how you feel, go. Just remember what I told you."
"I will." Susan smiles, engulfing her in another hug.
Morgan's arguments against her going washed up as soon as Amelia gave her blessing. The two older women watched as the three walked out the back door and knelt beside the unconscious teens, "Are you sure about this?" Morgan asks calmly, "You realize that you're breaking the law, right? If you get caught, everything you've worked for will be for nothing.
Amelia nods, but smiles even brighter, "Of all the things I've done in my life, Susan is the greatest. If I lose my job helping her, I'll find a new career, but until then, maybe I can keep the body count from attracting too much attention. That's my real job, isn't it?"
"No Amelia." she smiles back, tears streaming down her cheeks as the five figures talk for a few minutes, then apparate away, and turns to face the equally crying department head, "It's our job."
