Breaking Contact

The small row house was completely unremarkable. The neighbors could not agree if the landlord had blond hair in a short cut or wore his brown hair with a few flecks of gray slightly long and resting just above his shoulders. The roof had been replaced a few years ago with a crew of Polish workers spending two days replacing the shale slabs with new, larger slabs. Recently when some of the neighborhood children accidentally sent a football through a window, it had been repaired within a day and the landlords never collected a penny from the parents of the future Chelsea strikers.

However, this morning, if the neighbors were looking at the row house, they would have seen blue balls of light hanging in the main room on the first floor, and if they were able to get close enough to put their ear against the glass, they would have heard two men cursing.

The larger man gritted his teeth. The Aurors had been able to break through the temporary wards far faster than he had thought they would have. One of them had managed to land a cutting curse and then a bone breaker on his left arm. Dittany, and murtlap had been enough to stabilize his wound but now he was trying to heal himself with a single arm and complex incantations that did not respect grunts of pain. His wand glowed for a moment as his ulna snapped back into place and a scaffolding of new bone cells cemented the shattered bone back to functionality. He would be in pain for days, as nothing beyond Muggle medication from a chemist could be taken. He could not trade attention for relief as he knew that the Aurors would be out for him.

The Aurors were different now. Potter and Weasley had been casting to kill. The only stunners that they had cast in the hotel fight were low powered distraction stunners as they attempted to slip bludgeoners, cutters, organ liquifiers and other hard curses past his defenses. They threw those hexes, jinxes and curses with the ease of fighters who spent a day per week receiving intense coaching on even more extensive practice. They were worse than fighting Moody in 1979 or 1980. They were far harder than the Aurors in the second war when barely trained recruits from Hogwarts or mercenaries from the Continent could at least fight to a draw and escape as the Aurors could not freely cast anything harder than a stunner or a binding curse.

The smaller man grimaced in pain. The Muggles had fired their pistols at him. His shield deflected at least six or seven of the slugs, and a few more missed him or were aimed at the Irishmen who were part of the diversionary team that he led. However, before he could send a piercing hex at the Muggle security officer, two bullets slammed into him. One was no worse than a scratch while the other had nicked a kidney. He knew what gut wounds could do to a man. He had fought with Doholov for years and that dead blonde man loved to destroy organs of his victims. While the Muggle security guard drowned in the arterial blood that was flowing down his throat from a torn carotid, Theodore Nott Sr. had spent all of the time and skill he had to isolate the damage to his kidney and cauterize the wound. He limped and was slowing down before he was able to disapparate out of the hotel lobby while the Irishmen were screaming about a bunch of sassies - something important to them - were coming in. They were just Muggles, they were disposable as they bought him time to get to the safe house.

Augustus Rookwood could barely shake his head as he limped across the room to turn on the Wizarding Wireless Network.

"Quit your moaning before I silence you, we need to hear what is happening…" He fiddled with the knob and soon a clear pair of voices came in.

"The Ministry encourages all families who do not have urgent business to stay home at the time. The Knight Bus and all Public Floos are currently reserved for special Ministry services. Apparition in London is currently banned. Donations of blood, blood replenishing potions and pain relief potions would be greatly appreciated at St. Mungos. Again, the Ministry encourages all families to stay home at this time. Minister Shacklebolt, who was inside at the conference when it was attacked, will be speaking to WWN and other press shortly and will be taking questions.

Now we will hear from Lee Jordan as he reports live from the scene of tonight's terrorist attack that has left at least two dozen Magicals including a dozen foreign witches and wizards, and at least thirty Muggles dead after this commercial break."

The SleekEazy jingle started to play as WWN went to commercial.

Rookwood shook his head. The mission failed. Shacklebolt was alive and the odds of easy escape were diminishing. The Ministry, when it was motivated, could direct an incredible amount of magic to a small enough area. He knew. He had leveraged some of that capacity in the hunt for Potter, Granger and Weasley when they were killing his Lord's soul containers. That power was only useful when the wielder had a reason to suspect that his targets were in a small enough area. He had kept focus on the Weasley Burrow, Godric's Hollow, Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade as there was never a reason to suspect that they would be in the Marshes or the Forest of Dean… other tools like the Taboo could be more broadly applied, but focused surveillance had to be informed by a reasonable prior expectation of success. The Ministry had to suspect that the wizards were still in Greater London as they knew at least one if not more were wounded. Apparition and long distance port keys were dangerous the longer the distance travelled.

"Theodore, you get some sleep, I'll stay awake and on guard while prepping our Muggle bags. In two hours, you'll take watch, and I'll sleep for a couple of hours. We're going to ground as Muggles for the next week. The Ministry is going to use everything they have to find us. No magic, no nothing. They'll be looking for magical traces from locations that they can't cross-reference to a known Magical location. By this time tomorrow, the Aurors will be busting down that door…."

"We can take them…."

"No we can't. We might kill the first one or two through the door, but the rest of the department will get us. They're too good; they aren't the incompetents that restricted budgets and Malfoy's whispers produced any more. Too many of them would have given Moody a run for his money. Get some sleep…."

The lights never dimmed. The alarms chaotically went off a few rooms down while a dozen doctors and nurses ran to save a patient who was barely hanging onto their life. Hushed conversations were held outside the waiting room. A family had just received word that their grandmother would survive her stroke but life would no longer be the same even after a long period of rehabilitation. Another family could not conceive of their future any more as the doctor told them that their daughter could live a few more hours if they wished to donate her organs or she could pass quickly now. The middle aged parents were handed cups of tea as they were left alone for a few minutes to make decisions that no parent should ever have to make for their child. The wife could barely speak as the couple went back to the doctor. Yes, their daughter would have liked to have been able to help others live even if she could not. The hospital could harvest her organs, but could her and her pa have a few minutes with her. The chaplain took the couple down the hall.

Leah barely was aware. A matron had adjusted her blanket an hour ago and she curled tightly into the chair in a light sleep. There was nothing restorative of this sleep. It was the sleep of inattention. It was the sleep of late night boredom. It was the sleep of a veteran of pain and agony taking the time to sleep when the time was presented to herself as one never knew when sleep would come again. It was, thankfully, a dreamless sleep.

A gentle hand pushed against her shoulder. She awoke with a start. One hand was reaching for her wand, and the other was coming up to block an assault that she had to expect as she was asleep in an unfamiliar place around unfamiliar people. She pulled the block back as her eyes open and a woman, maybe three or four years older than her, in a white uniform and a coral cap filled her view.

"Miss, your friend is out of surgery now and will be in Room 102 in about an hour. She'll be out for a while, but the long chair next to her bed is much more comfortable then the waiting room chairs. You really should get washed up and be functional for your friend."

"Umm… thank you… where can I get a wash?"

"There is a WC down the corridor and to your right…. And here is a small bag of vitals that we keep on hand for patients and their companions… you can probably steal a shower in your companion's room" The nurse handed Leah the plastic bag with cheap cotton cord drawstrings. Leah looked in and saw a toothbrush, toothpaste, a small bar of soap, a smaller bottle of shampoo and an aerosol can of deodorant. She did smell rank.

The nurse walked away. Leah tried to stretch but as soon as she moved her left arm over her shoulder, her back seized up. She became a cat instead and slinked off the chair and slowly found her feet before cracking her back and unknotting every muscle that had tensed in ways that she did not know could happen.

She would be present when a stranger woke up to the new reality of their life. She would be a friend to Hayley that she had needed five years ago. But before that, she would do her best to not feel like a flattened flobberworm with a quick wash and then a cuppa.

An hour and eight minutes later, Leah felt almost good again. A fast cold shower, a good washing of her hair, and three cups of tea that washed down greasy bacon, eggs and a muffin had been enough to reinvigorate her. She might not want to do a 10K especially after those eggs, but she could do a scene or two if the director had called her that moment. That thought sparked another - she pulled out her mobile and texted Annabeth that she was okay, at the hospital and would not be on set today. She then sent a message to the director. Today's shooting schedule had her in an eminently replaceable background role, there would be someone else willing to do her work for a few more pounds.

She pushed open the door to Room 102. Hayley was battered. A dozen shades of purple and red dominated the right side of her body in large bruises and small bruises. A cannula was fastened to her nose and her chest slowly moved as she breathed in the enriched air. Four or five tubes went to her right wrist and then another trio of tubes were in her left arm. She started to shake as either a dream or pain racked her.

Leah could do little as she sat in the chair next to the hospital bed where a woman with no friends and no connections to this world that had harmed her laid in the first minutes of her recovery. All she could do was start to sing a lullaby that her mother sang to her whenever she thought that the monsters under her bed might eat her on a Tuesday night.

As Leah found her confidence and her voice rose above a whisper, the sun's first rays poked through the window Hayley's face relaxed slightly and her body stilled even as the machines that she was attached to continued to beep, whirl, pump and filter.

Ginny was exhausted. Hermione handed her friend a cup of coffee and a sticky bun as the night became morning. They both needed to sleep. Their lovers were asleep under orders by the head of the Auror department as both Ron and Harry had been up for over a day, and the investigation needed smart, attentive and alert investigators instead of Aurors who could neither tie their own ties or cast a simple shield charm wordlessly. Both men had been out for three hours, and would be awakened in two more hours when they would be joining the morning shift and allowing some of the overnight Aurors to catch a few hours of rest.

The evening, night and then early morning had been chaos. Muggles were everywhere. Fine grained memory replacement was no longer an option. Too many people had seen too much and made too many notes and taken too many pictures and videos. Ginny had always had a light touch with charms. Now she was incredible at the confundus charm as the witnesses would only remember what was normal. Flashes were fine. Apparition pops and wands were not. Hermione had left her to her own devices as other wizards needed to be organized and directed. The MLE senior commanders had deputized the hero of Hogwarts and allowed her to run part of the operation as they focused on evacuating the wounded, finding good muggle worthy excuses and beginning the investigation.

The two women were walking between the two attack points with their wands in their holsters and steaming cups of coffee in their hands. They looked like they belonged; their shirts and skirts had been transfigured into the standard Scotland Yard non-uniform uniform several hours ago. They would not pass if they tried to enter an area secured by a Muggle team, but they looked like they now belonged to the milling chaos of over four hundred officers and technicians on the scene. A helicopter passed overhead and a bright light shined down on the street that was littered with little orange flags marking evidence locations. Half a dozen photography teams were memorializing every splatter of blood, every chunk of metal, every crumble of asphalt.

Ginny looked at the light as it moved from left to right and she saw a broad half moon of emptiness. There was an arc of flags perhaps five steps wide where there were no flags. Dried pools of blood were in front and along the side of the clear arc. A few flags were in a raindrop pattern behind the arc, the first flag was three or four steps behind the demarcation between protection and death.

The next sip of coffee sloshed against the rim of her paper cup. She stumbled. The brown liquid rolled up the side of the open cup and some spilled onto the street. She looked at the wave and saw how it too was an arc. Suddenly, she tugged on Hermione's arm.

"One of ours was here last night… that was a shield, and if I can see it right, a pretty strong one…"

Hermione stopped. She should have seen what Ginny saw hours ago. As soon as Ginny's words reached her tired mind, she knew her friend was right. She knew the redhead's eyes were telling her the truth. Someone from her world had been here last night. She quickly dropped an invisible marker on the spot for the Aurors to check later, and then quietly fingered her wand and subtly jabbed at the air to extract any information from the disturbed ambient magic in the air. Whomever had cast the spell had good intentions behind it and a fair amount of power but relatively poor technique. Hermione bit her lip and then pulled her friend with her as they walked back to the command center where the investigators were tracking every magical contact within half a mile of the incident center.


Two men left the blue row house. A neighbor saw the elderly man and evidently his son or perhaps his grandson walk down the steps and out onto the street. The old man limped and leaned onto the younger man. They were utterly unremarkable to the neighbor. Their clothes were perfectly fine, dark tweeds that were perhaps a few years out of style, but perfectly fine for a veteran to wear to his regiments' get-together. The hats were a little flamboyant, but they matched the suits just fine. The shoes were fine leather and the walnut cane that the old man carried in his free hand was fine and functional but utterly not remarkable except for the fact that the two men had emerged from a house that the neighbor had not remembered seeing anyone emerge from in years.

The two wizards ignored the nosy Muggle. An imperious or even a confoundus would be appropriate, but any magic used would be setting up a locator for the Ministry to hone in on. Rookwood had taken the risk of using his wand to layer on a notice-me-not charm for both of the men. The Polyjuice reserve was sufficient for the day. The hairs were from a Muggle born and his grandfather who had tried to protect his grandson and his great grand daughter and failed miserably six years ago. As the two wizards walked to the end of the block, the Unspeakable raised his hand and soon a cab stopped.

"Where to sir?"

"Queen Victoria Station please…."

"Oi, I can take you there, but best be told, the bobbies aren't allowing any trains out of the city right now….that allright?"

"Well enough… still take us there please…."


The alarm bell rang. The troopers bolted upright from their ninety seven minute long rest period. An officer came into the small set of offices where the men had been resting…

"Listen up laddies, we've got a hot tip and a raid- CQB gear and meet in the briefing room at 0920.


Gawain Robards looked at the assembled dozen Aurors. Half of them were rookies, but that half was all Dumbledore's Army so they were not the rookies of his youth. Almost all had a hot cup of something or a Pepper-up as they waited for information.

"Boys and Girls, Witches and Wizards… Department of Magical Transportation has given us a couple of leads… we're raiding suspected safe houses - dragonhide or basilisk gear, Kevlar underneath, be prepared for opposed breaches. We already have surveillance teams on the way, and we'll brief the plan in twenty."

Harry nodded and then joined the mad scramble to first strip and then redress himself in the Auror assault armor.