AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Thanks for sticking with this story. I've been doing an amazing amount of writing but for things that actually pay me on a regular basis so this story has been floating in the back of my head during my morning walks. I've not been able to always get the time to write for pure fun that I would like to have. This story won't be abandoned, but it may be sporadic.
As far as one review on Chapter 6, the sergeant got Granger's name by asking around at a very low/informal pre-investigatory level. A chapter is not missing either as I had an authorial response to a review that I then took back down.
ENJOY and thank you again for indulging me with your patience.
May 28, 2001
12 Grimmauld Place
"Love you"
Harry's feet stopped and he would have smiled if he had a chance. Ginny kissed him quickly and softly, taking in the last moment of domestic tranquility with him before he was on duty for the next four days. He broke the kiss as he needed to be at the office in seven minutes and the walk from the central atrium to the Auror's bullpen took four minutes and forty one seconds.
"Love you too"
He pinched the green powder and through it into the fireplace where green flames rose up and he stepped in as he called out his destination. A moment later, he stepped into the atrium and through the security checkpoints that used the same logic and charms as the Marauder's Map that was cross-checking names against a white list.
"Harry Potter, Auror's Office"
The hit wizard waved him through. A dozen other wizards in Auror red and hit-wizard blue robes were hurrying along the same path as he was. The early arrivals had hot coffee and muffins in hands while Harry's hands were empty. Hopefully the briefing would have food or be short. As he went through the Auror's office outer atrium and past the secretary, a sixty something witch who had been a four times Hogwarts dueling champion in her youth, the smell of institutional breakfast greeted him. This was going to be a long briefing.
Elsewhere in Muggle London
"Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six and fifteen eight and two pairs for twelve." The pegs on the cribbage board were moved. The reservist smiled, one more good hand and he could peg out. The morning was starting out right, he would be up two pounds at five pennies a point, the going rate in the Artists Rifles. As his opponent, and battle buddy shuffled the cards, the Sergeant Major looked at them. It was the look of mild annoyance. There were intelligence reports to read, equipment to mend, scenarios to walk through and a controversial penalty decision to argue about. Only bubble heads should play cribbage.
The squadron had been on alert since Saturday. Each of the four troops took a twelve hour shift as the on-call assault force. The third troop had been alert for two hours now. The intelligence briefing at the start of the shift had been routine. A little bit of noise from a splinter faction in Ireland, a few radicals with ties to the Levant had gone silent (they had to attend their grandfather's funeral and fell off the grid as the traveled to Glasgow) and little else. The conference was ongoing and routine.
Heathrow Airport
Two tall men reached down for large bags. They had just arrived from New York. Their tickets were paid for in cash and they told the ticket agent that they had an urgent sales call which is why their suitcases were full of metal prototypes. Security had been a breeze, as the X-rays saw harmless doodads and thingamabobs. Even if the bags had been opened, nothing unsightly would be seen.
They headed to the customs counter, their passports out along with declaration forms indicating a short stay on business with nothing beyond business samples and a few days worth of clothes. The taller man went to the first agent.
"Good morning, Mr. Green, may I see your passport and your declaration?"
"Yes Ma'am" He was polite at the Muggle security officer. His patience could hold for a few more hours as attracting attention here would slow down the entire scheme that had been assembled over the past six months. The form was in order, and even if it wasn't the non-verbal Confundus he had cast a moment before he stepped up would be more than sufficient to paper over any irregularities. An Imperio would be even more certain, but that type of magic flared its power and left traces that could be found after his escape plan had started. No, being discreet was the better course of action now.
The Muggle checked her computer. The passport number checked out. Half a dozen visas to Paris, Belfast, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona and Rome covered the first few pages. The picture was actually good. It matched the man in front of her well. Tall, strong jaw line, broad shoulders, dark eyes, almost purple in their chocolate brown, and long blond hair gracefully maintained. There was nothing suspicious about this man and his slightly shorter raven haired partner.
"Enjoy your stay here Mr. Green."
"Have a good morning to Miss." And then he walked away to a news stand where he waited for Mr. White to join him.
Ten minutes later, they were in a cab, their luggage in a boot, twelve factory fresh AR-15s with sixty magazines just waiting for their transfiguration to be reversed. The driver knew nothing except to get the two Americans to their hotel in the City.
Gatwick
Half a dozen men landed on the morning Ryan Air flight. They had no luggage besides a single carry-on bag per man containing three days worth of clothes, a wash kit and two weeks worth of wages in cash, small bills, unmarked and non-sequential.
Another flight carrying a similar team would arrive in the afternoon. All the men headed to a safe house in the city near the docks.
London
"Harry, gonna finish your sandwich?"
"Nah, tasted a little funny, all yours if you want it"
"Thanks mate" Ron grabbed the quarter sandwich and jammed it into his mouth. They had been sitting on a bench for the past half hour, talking non-specific semi-local sport chatter and eyeing a few of the nannies and secretaries who walked by. It was part of their cover. Mainly they were keeping an eye on the rear entrance to the largest magical accessible convention space in London. It was a Muggle building, an Edwardian hotel that had been built by a family.
Harry wiped crumbs from his lips and his eyes scanned the street. Him and Ron had the first shift of covert surveillance on the main entrance way to the conference. Ministry functionaries were in the hotel lobby greeting individuals who had apparated or port keyed into Greater London over the past day. Half of the conference had already been registered and were meeting with friends, colleagues and associates over a working pre-plenary lunch. His green eyes were scanning, casually never focusing too hard on any one face, but staying long enough to inspect that face for tension and unexpected stress. One woman's mouth was flared with lips pursed out and up, but this disgust was readily explained by the screaming toddler in her arms who had just thrown up on her. Teddy had done that to Harry and Ginny more than once while Victoire had sprayed Ron in a sneak attack that still made his sister in law chuckle every time she handed her daughter off to her youngest new brother.
Ron's elbow dug into Harry's ribs.
"Mate, two blocks away, far side, in front of the bakery. Take a look" Ron was pitching his voice low and discreet. Three years ago, he would have risen and pursued, but now he could wait. He would wait.
Harry looked down the street.
Old man with a Yorkshire terrier.
Two students sharing a bubble tea and notes.
A young brunette pushing a pram and singing a quiet song.
That pram was a new model with spring suspensions. There was no weight on the springs. Odd.
"Call this in, have Bones do a walk by"
A moment later, there was a crack in the air that could have been a broken window or a hard cow shot on a cricket pitch. From between a theatre and a closed pub, Susan Bones emerged, dressed in a tight skirt, long hose, tall boots and a tight top. Her waist long pink hair screamed for attention as she stepped onto the sidewalk and in between two blokes in tailored suits. Their heads followed her as she walked past them. She bumped into the pram and began to apologize for clumsiness. Her hands closed briefly on the young woman pushing the pram and Ron saw a brief laugh as Susan turned again, flipping some hair over her left shoulder and waved.
All clear. No threat.
Susan walked down the street. She cast a non-verbal and wandless Notice Me Not a moment after the sergeant major of the Artists Rifles walked out of the troop's staging area. His eyes tracked the vivacious young woman, his wife would only smile if she saw him, and then his eyes hurt and she became forgettable within a few steps. Two observation posts for the convening space needed to be checked and it was the job of the sergeant to make sure that none of his men got bored.
As he walked past the hotel, he shook his head. He swore he had just seen Potter and the gangly red head a block in front of him. Those two men turned down a short alley with no easy exit. Eighty one steps later, he turned his head slightly to the right and could not find the two familiar near strangers in the alley.
Odd.
He pulled up his phone and soon a three man team would do a thoroughly casual look of the alley even as he moved to the first observation post. A minute later, he was whispering words with the surveillance team watching the back entry into the conference center. They had seen nothing unusual nor had they seen a pink haired young woman at any point.
A mile up the Thames from the sergeant making his rounds, Ginny Weasley was trying to rewire her essay. Her pen was being chewed every third sentence, and soon it was nub. Hermione merely glanced at her as she was revising an essay for one of her independent studies. It was due in September but she wanted to be able to hand the project off to her professor for submission before she headed to the Riviera for a week at the end of July with her parents.
"You know, the boys, they'll be on break in an hour and a half, we should head over to see them then" Ginny had put down her pen and audaciously dared to break her friend's concentration during a revision. The bushy haired witch's fingers slammed into the keyboard of her new laptop a few more times. She looked up, smiled and nodded.
"Give me an hour, we'll see them for some tea and then we can keep on re-writing at your place."
She looked down again at the keyboard and resumed her assault on the research material. There was a thread that needed to be pulled to unravel a seemingly sound argument built on a single unshaky assumption and Ginny would not keep her from that. Ginny knew enough to not taunt a dragon guarding gold nor to disturb Hermione during a study session, so she smiled at herself and allowed her mind to wander as the paragraphs still were not coming together.
Elsewhere in London
Fourteen men were smiling. Blueprints were on the walls of an abandoned warehouse. Four men were walking forty yards from the main cluster in a diamond shape. The lead man stopped and shouted: "From here, we hold the exit point, no one in, no one out till you all get back"
Mr. Green nodded. The help was able to listen and think for themselves. He would take the first group of the main body while Mr. White would lead the second group. That was a diversion, a loud and prominent diversion, but a diversion none the less. The help did not know exactly what Mr. Green was doing, he had just promised and delivered funds, guns, bombs, and a mission while they had provided safe houses, intelligence and planning skills that they had not been able to use since the Good Friday Accords.
