Chapter Six

It was an innocent mistake. An Auror had finished some parchmentwork on his staggered shift and he was briefing his relief.

"So things going okay with Sirius Black at the muggleborn girl's place?"

"Just fine, actually. Black has all kinds of stories about the Potters and he is relishing being able to tell them to young Potter. The man actually dotes on the Boy-Who-Lived and makes sure that he gets what he needs. If Black doesn't, then that Granger girl does. She's going to make Potter a fine wife one day, but don't cross her. She'll make sure you regret it and it'll be painful."

The last sentence was accompanied by several suspicious snorts that sounded a lot like humor. The relieving Auror cocked an eyebrow at the other wizard.

"Oh? This has to be good with a lead-in like that. What did she do? For that matter, what did he do?" It was understood between the two that the 'he' in the question referred to Sirius Black and not Harry Potter. Both remembered stories some of the older Aurors told about certain pranks. Some of those stories were told with a certain fondness. Others weren't.

There was more as they turned the corner and their voices faded out, but the two Aurors didn't realize that in the darkness of what they thought was an empty office with lights out someone could hear what they said. They said more in their conversation as they walked out to the Apparition point, one to head out to the 'Mutt Detail' and one to go off-shift. Unfortunately for the prying ears, whatever it was couldn't be heard.

The head attached to those prying ears cursed the headache that was currently throbbing away, but realized that the excuse to darken the office had netted some valuable information. A hand caressed a plate portrait of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn and grimaced. Whether that was from a plan hatching or the headache, no one would have been able or wanted to tell.

Something had to be done and now was a good time to do it.

There was only a little bit of information needed in order to start doing something about the problem, or more precisely, problems. Potter, Granger, and Black. Get rid of them and things would proceed quite nicely.

The chuckle at the delicious thought was quickly followed by the moan of pain as the throbbing intensified in answer and threatened to become stabbing pains. Umbridge waited out the worse of the pain for about twenty minutes and set about finding what she wanted.

Anyone walking by the dark office was thrown off whatever their thoughts were by the sound of the girlish giggles from within. As they couldn't see inside, they shivered and hurried along their way.

=-{}-=

"Oh? This has to be good with a lead-in like that. What did she do? For that matter, what did he do?"

Auror John Cotton sounded interested. The Aurors on the detail were all professional and did their jobs without reproach, but between themselves they made the gossip mill at Hogwarts look like four day old news. It was part of the Academy syllabus, after all. It wasn't called that, exactly, but 'Information Gathering, Procurement, and Practical Application' neatly disguised it from the oversight committees on the Wizengamot. Even the former Aurors on the committees kept it to themselves. It was too amusing for them not to, especially when some of the more self-righteous stuffed robes got up on a high unicorn to yell and scream about something in the gossip.

It wasn't unheard of for one of the ex-Aurors to make up something just for kicks. Before the practice was stopped, there had been monthly prizes for the best whopper that got taken as the truth. That was before the Daily Prophet really got into their mudslinging ways.

As for his question, both Aurors had enough time on the detail now to know who the he was that being referred to. It had been quite a shock and took some mental readjustment to do the job. The poker helped, along with the prompt withdrawals from the Black vault that Hedwig was only too willing to help facilitate – for a price. Sirius was learning how to cook bacon very quickly.

"Well, somebody told Black for some reason that when she got all mad about something, her hair starts to frizz up. If she's really mad, there's these little sparks that jump from hair to hair to hair. Sometimes they change color depending on… well, never mind what they depend on."

"Yeah, I've seen that. My sister-in-law does that. I made the mistake once of asking her if I could light my cigar off the sparks." There was a pause. "Life tip, Randy: don't do that. Your balls will thank you."

There was a snort from his companion.

"I could have told you that, you idiot. I know your sister-in-law, since I went out with her a couple of times in school. Remember? I learned that a long time ago. Louie Murray asked her that one day and she was already mad about something stupid thing Aisling MacWard was gossiping about back then. It took him most of the time I had to drink a cup of tea to get up and hobble to Madam Pomfrey."

"And you didn't think to tell me?"

"Hey, if you're dumb enough to say it, you're dumb enough to stick around for the consequences. Speaking of consequences, ol' Black found out what happens when he winds up on the wrong side of Lady Potter."

There was clear amusement in the Auror's eyes as he spoke.

"What's that? 'Lady Potter?' When did this happen?"

Randy grinned at his friend and explained.

"The girl isn't really Lady Potter at least yet, but we started calling her that. Her dad started it and we're pretty sure he was joking when he did, but she's not arguing about it too hard. Neither is Potter himself, to be honest. Try not to call her that, though. Madam Bones wouldn't be too impressed, although I heard her slip up and say it."

There was a grunt of amused acknowledgment as Randy continued. "The blush on the young lady's face was magnificent, and the boss wasn't apologizing too hard anyway. Anyhoo, Black noticed the thing about the hair and somehow managed to sneak a charm prank on the girl somehow that made her hair light up at the ends and glow along the length of every hair. Give him credit for that, since it's harder to do stuff like that on her than you'd think."

Randy was having trouble telling the story already, thanks to the laughter bubbling out of him.

"It was supposed to stay like that for a day that I know of. The madder she got when she found out, the brighter it got thanks to the combination of the charm prank and her natural, er, effulgence. Her mother had to find a bunch of these things she called sunglasses for everyone and some kind of hood for her. I got these snazzy mirror ones."

"Oh, damn."

There was a moment of silence. Auror Cotton saw the grimace on the other man's face.

"What? Something else?"

"Well, remember I said 'every hair,' right? It was a bit perceptible."

"Yeah, so wha… oh, damn. How did you keep her from strangling him?"

"It was pretty easy after she knocked him right out. Did that and sat down with a book, of course. Left him right there in the middle of the floor, turned her page to wherever she'd left off before handling her business with him, and ignored the daylights out of him. Had one arm slung out, one foot under the other knee, and the other hand just kind of laying there in the small of his back. She was mad as hell, let me tell you. The pages in that book was rustling around like a wheat field in a thunderstorm."

"Wow. Did anyone get any pictures?" There was a discreet thumbs-up and a wink at the question. "I thought she couldn't use magic at home yet?"

"Didn't say a word about magic. All it took was her getting about a foot away and uncorking one of the most beautiful right crosses I've seen, and Sirius Black was on the floor. I don't think he had a bit of warning or even knew it when he hit the ground. She's a little thing but damn if she didn't put all her weight behind that punch. The Goblin that came back with her dad just looked at him sprawled out on floor for a moment, bowed to her all formal like while he was squinting at the light she was putting out, and said 'My Lady of Potter should leave the kennel training to me.' It was hilarious and got her to calm down a bit, especially when he conjured this absolutely ugly faded purple and baby blue leather collar with cracked pink rhinestones and wicked spikes with a tag that said, 'if found, return to Lady Potter.' Then he charmed it to stay on when he put it on Black's neck."

There was a moment of laughter shared between the two.

"And the best part, John? It's got to stay there for a week!"

"So do we warn Madam Bones, since she's supposed to be there tomorrow?"

Randy thought about it and grinned.

"I'll drop her a line before I clock out and tell her the whole thing. Maybe she'll take a dog toy or something with her. I'm sure she'll think of something."

"Heh. Good idea. Now, what do I need to do to get a pair of… what did you call them, 'sunglasses?' If Lady Potter is still lit up like a Lumos charm, I'm gonna need something."

"Sorry, I'm keeping these for patrol. Go find your own. Later, John."

"Gee, thanks. Later, Randy. Say hello to Elizabeth for me."

They parted ways at the Apparition point. John would find his own pair of sunglasses waiting for him, but they weren't mirrored. He couldn't use the word 'snazzy' to describe them either, but 'tacky' would work just fine. The Auror suspected that Randy had made a 'suggestion' on which pair to give him. If he did, then there was something that had to be done and maybe Black would have some thoughts along those lines.

If nothing else, it would keep the man busy and off the floor with a sore jaw maybe.

=-{}-=

Back in the dark office, there were many plans being made and discarded for one reason or another. Dementors were out, thanks to what happened the last time they were at that address. It was only the work of a few minutes to find out again where the Granger mudblood lived, and that information was tucked away in places the Census office didn't know about. The knowledge that the Potter boy was there now as well came as a bonus. Things could be wrapped up quite neatly then and a few more items could be ticked off her list. She just needed to gather up a group of like-minded individuals and she knew just where to find them. It wouldn't take long at all.

But first, she had to find the headache potion. After that then there would be some business to be taken care of that was long overdue. After that, she could deal with some other things that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

Then maybe there would be needed advancement. Things would go the way it should have before uppity brats got above their station and ruined all the gloriousness that should have been!

She was looking forward to it, even through the haze of a major headache. Soon there would be progress.

=-{}-=

In a dim room in the depths of the Ministry, there was work being done. This time, the work being done surely wasn't something that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement wanted to know about. Or to be more precise, what some in the highest echelons of that department wanted to know about. There had been a discreet message embedded inside a paper airplane interoffice memo that unlocked a section of the wall. That section held another parchment that had information that was being fed to it remotely, and the duty chief wrote that down on yet another parchment.

It was a good thing, since the first parchment burst into flames and caused him to yelp in surprise. It garnered some attention and the closest person leaned in to speak to the man who was slinging his hand around with angry mutters coming out of his mouth.

"Problem, Jack?" He thought it was funny but didn't let on.

"Damn parchment burnt my fingertips again, Scott. Every time! I think she does it on purpose."

"Well, write faster next time."

The now obvious amusement in Scott's reply was answered by a less than amused suggestion. It regarded the immediate performance of an action that would seem to be very personal.

"I'm not quite that agile, Jack. You might be, but I'm not. What did the Toad want?"

Jack didn't answer, just passed over the parchment. The other man looked at it with a frown.

"Where's this? Looks familiar."

"Dementor call," Jack prompted and Scott's eyes went wide.

"Really," he breathed. "And we need to clean up that mess. Whose idea was it to send Dementors in the first place?"

There was no answer to the question and that in itself was an answer. Both men grimaced.

"We're going to need to go all-hands on this one, pretty much. Leaving somebody to mind the store, of course, but other than that everyone's going. It's coming from the top pretty much, and you know what that means."

"Yeah, get in quietly, destroy everything, get out quietly, say nothing at all."

"You got it."

The pair split up, one to start making arrangements and one to start going through the message and wondering what was so special about this address. Even in the dim room, there were some secrets kept.

=-{}-=

The firm knock on the door was answered with a clatter and sharp exclamation from inside. A loud "Just a minute!" followed that from somewhere in the small apartment. Several grumbles could faintly be heard. Shacklebolt and Tonks glanced at each other and stood back from the door and to either side. It wouldn't be the first time that someone had tried to fire crippling or deadly spells through the door and it probably wouldn't be the last.

A few moments went by and they heard the little chain rattle and the lock click before the door swung open. Tonks looked at the resident of the apartment and tried hard to stifle a giggle. She wasn't totally successful at doing that, and to be fair it was understandable in light of what she saw.

Remus Lupin stood there in a flowery apron, a faded tee shirt, jogging pants that had seen better days and fluffy slippers that looked like wolf paws. One heel was crushing down the back of the left slipper with his foot not all the way inside. His hair was rumpled and there was flour all over it and the right side of his face. They could see that there was a small trail of something that looked like strawberry jelly starting to trace a path down the apron.

The Aurors took all this in a glance with raised eyebrows.

"Is this a bad time?" Shacklebolt wanted to know.

"Not really, just having issues in the kitchen."

Tonks looked at the flour.

"My dad did that once. Mum didn't let him sleep in her bed for a couple of days after he slipped in spilled flour and broke her favorite chair."

Shacklebolt looked at his partner.

"Broke her favorite chair? You didn't tell me about that."

"I'll tell you about it later. For once, I didn't get the blame."

Remus motioned them in. His apartment was a bit sparse, with serviceable furniture and cheap paintings that looked mildly interesting. There was one of obvious higher quality that showed a moonlit night over rough seas and a sailing ship with a snapped mainmast.

"Give me a moment to clean up and I'll be right with you."

"No problem, Remus."

Tonks looked at the slippers.

"Nice slippers."

He blushed for a moment. "Thanks. They were a gift from someone." He hurried off, while the Aurors grinned at each other. It was only a few minutes before he returned, with the flour vanished and the apron removed. They noticed that he'd forgotten about the slippers, but said nothing. An amused glance was traded between Tonks and Shacklebolt.

"So what brings you here?"

"We're investigating the attack on your co-worker since the attackers were all magical. We're pretty sure that you knew that those mugs were magical and stepped in to stop it."

"I knew a couple from some of the less savory areas I took jobs in. Nothing illegal in either world, just bad areas to be in."

Tonks nodded. Not every place could be wonderful areas and sometimes a business had to take what they could get and hope to relocate after establishing themselves.

"We procured copies of the muggle police reports and took a good look at them, but we do want to talk with you to see what you might've noticed that you couldn't tell them."

The werewolf nodded at that, as there had been some things that he'd definitely seen aside from the use of wands.

"Well, maybe I should start by mentioning those two. Neither are people you'd hire to babysit, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had a prison record. I wouldn't be surprise to find out that the others had similar offenses, either."

"You'd be right," Shacklebolt nodded. "One's almost at Squib levels of magic, so he's got some muggle incarceration time too. How he survived the one Azkaban stay, I don't know."

"Be something to ask, if you can figure out the best way to phrase it," Remus noted.

"So, five on one. How did you take them down? Tonks and I are aware of your lycanthropy, and that's really not that important to this discussion." Remus relaxed from the suddenly stiffened posture. "I'm curious."

"I have a Mastery in Defense, and I keep current with the published literature. I used Bonetti's defense, as the street in that area is in very bad shape and there are various barrels and such that the road department hadn't picked up in the last four months."

Shacklebolt thought for a moment, remembering seeing the sorry shape that area was in when he and Tonks had been to talk to Lacie Watson.

"Fitting, since the terrain could get you a rolled ankle."

"And leave me in dire straits that would have been harder to deal with. Lacie wouldn't have survived an encounter with the two I know of, and there were those others in the group. They all looked a little too eager to get started with their plans, if you catch my drift. So, I did what I had to do right then."

"You sure did. All but one was out cold, and that one was covered in bruises."

"It helps that I have a greater degree of ambidexterity than the average person and some skill in wandless magic. My dad could use both hands equally and I inherited some of that. I was able to fire off wand spells with one hand and summon one of the thugs with the other hand. I slammed him into the pavement a few times while I cursed the others."

Impressed, the aurors nodded.

"Lacie was very shaken up, as you could imagine."

"How did she not see you do all this?"

"I placed a wide-area Notice-Me-Not on myself and the group, and dropped it by stages. Lacie was also too upset to pay a lot of attention to what I was doing and dropping it in stages mimicked the effect of calming down and noticing more around herself as she did so."

The Aurors looked at each other. That was something that they could use in raids and the like. Tonks wrote that down in her notepad.

"I noticed several Killing Curses thrown around but was too busy to see where they all went. One hit a tree – I saw that – and another hit the side of the building, but there was one that I didn't see where it went. Do you know?"

Shacklebolt sighed.

"That one hit a jogger four blocks down. It was just the unlucky 'right' circumstances where everyone and everything else just happened to move out of the path of the spell as it traveled and the poor sod stepped in the way as he met the Curse. We're not even sure he knew what was happening or saw the spellfire or what. Just here one moment, gone the next. Literally between one step and the other. From what we noticed of that section of street, it's too busy for something like that not to have to occur."

The three was silent for a moment after that thinking about the sheer coincidences to have piled up that lead to a complete stranger losing his life.

"Right, then. Sad thing, but we see all too much of things like that in our line of work. Next, I want to ask…"

Shacklebolt was interrupted by the squeal of his badge putting out a strident alert tone. His partner's badge was doing the same thing. They slapped the badges at the same time.

"Attack in progress, 532 Partridge Lane. Special Detail 'Mutt.' All Units Respond. Repeating…"

The Aurors saw the man's head shoot up.

"We have to go, Mr. Lupin."

"I'm going with you. I have family and friends there."

Shacklebolt looked at the werewolf, who was distinctly perturbed. Nothing would stop him from just following them to the address, which he apparently already knew. He made a decision.

"You don't get involved, understand?"

There was a grim head shake. A moment later, the apartment was empty with only the sound of a stuttering triple-pop fading away.

=-{}-=

The first sign of trouble came as the sun was going down and not long before the Aurors' shift change. The lights in the Granger household flickered, then snapped off. Steelarse was already moving, with the short sword he preferred in close quarters out and gleaming with its own light. The Aurors didn't waste time, either. Two followed him while the other got the others up and into the rune-expanded library.

Once they had skidded into the room, the Auror slapped the right corner of the doorway where a blood-locked rune lay waiting to be used. It read the Auror's magical signature and activated with a wail. It transformed the purpose of the library into that of a panic room.

The effect was immediate. The doorway disappeared, shrinking into a match cover sized block and melding itself into the wall as the wall itself stretched itself to cover what was recently open space. The blood-locked rune triggered another set of runes carved into the floor under a bookshelf. That had been one of the first things Steelarse had seen to when he arrived with a bit of awed creative verbiage upon seeing the size of the bookshelf in question. That set of runes took in the presence of the Grangers, Sirius Black, Harry Potter, and Auror McGuire. There was a moment when it assessed the health of each in the room before handing off to a second rune set. That information went to the second set buried outside as close to the location of the library as possible, and it was flashed to a rapid-response team.

Emma had placed that set under the direction of one of the Aurors, who had a late-blooming affinity for seeing magical ley tributaries and was due for a training rotation to get him up to speed in using that ability. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was anticipating his future contributions with glee. That Auror was currently outside the panic room with his wand alight with power, and his mind was not on the possibilities of the future but the realities of right now.

And right now, they were all in trouble.


Author's Note: As of the posting of this chapter, Fudge Gets Told Off has close to 200 followers. It hasn't quite taken off the same way that Like Tenfold Shields has, but it's also shorter and smaller in scope. I tend to write in a more epically narrative fashion at times – when my squirrel brain hasn't suddenly started chasing another story nut, that is. A bit of scrutiny tells me that right now, Like Tenfold Shields is currently the most followed and favorited story that I have up. Regardless of that, I'm still thankful for those who take the time to read this story.