Lydia received two owls. The first was from Talia whom she didn't know well but they had worked on a case together. What Lydia didn't remember was a long ago day at the ministry when Dorcas visited. Talia now owed Dorcas and Lydia two favors.
Attack on St. Mungo's. Help needed. Urgent.
It was mere moments after while Lydia turned the parchment over with no name, no insignia that she would bin that another and another and another parchment followed in rapid succession. First she heard the roar of a fire and as it died down she caught the parchment just moments before it burned as the fire died down. The parchment on her desk, a whole stack of it was burned at the corners and regenerated itself with writing on each sheet and over, thankfully not very important documents.
St. Mungo's: Urgent. Attack. Written over and over and over again in neat, sensible handwriting.
The third was from her own owl which included a line.
Tell no one. Floo network down.
UVO was crossed out and UVU was written next to it. Urgent, Violent, Optimistic. St. Mungo's ward sisters still used late war acronyms. Urgent. Violent. Unsure.
The last one was signed with a little flourish that she recognized. So the first message had been meant for her and was real.
Lydia took a small case that contained a disposable broom ran towards the lobby of the ministry past the chimneys where people stood groaning about their tea breaks being cut short and a portly wizard trying to say that the floo network would be back shortly. Lydia ran past and down a short hallway, all the old interns kept secret passageways open and she hoped they still did. There was a little place tucked in the corner, if she disapparated there she could get splinched or worse but she might still be able to use an old intern loophole of an imploding spell. Lydia felt too old for this. She could already feel her joints creak at the thought of having to unfold herself later, the decompression would take longer she just knew it that is, if it still worked. She breathed deeply, filled her lungs with the smell of dust and cobwebs. As she hopped into the air, she exhaled sharply, made her body go limp and before her feet touched the ground her body had folded onto and into itself and expanded again in the back of a little cafe. It might have been the adrenaline but she sprang into action. She opened the case while heading to the door of the almost empty cafe, shook out the broom, gave herself a running start and raised off into the day. The owner of the shop was, obviously, no longer a wizard. He ran a little behind her unsure of what he had just witnessed.
"Obliviate!" Lydia called half way to the sky already and the cafe owner crumbled to the ground on the sidewalk, held down by the enormous weight of his own forgetting.
