So here's how my life has been going. One computer broke, the other got a virus. Began this chapter on my iphone and developed a deep hatred for autocorrect. My dog died. No, that's not right. My dog wasted away because the cancer was pretty much eating the heatlhy cells so that they could grow and after sturggling to keep her alive it got to the point where she was not getting better or worse and we were trying so hard but we couldn't get her out of that limbo. That's how it was for weeks until she got worse. There wasn't anything anyone could do at that point so we just let her go.
Then I got the "sick" computer back and didn't want to write until recently. But it dosen't have a word program for some reason so this chapter has been written in the Document Manager on the site. So here you go.
Characters from Hetalia and Doctor Who are mentioned but don't actually appear. Two characters from to other franchises do appear, but it's not time for you to know who they are yet, but there should be enough for you to make a guess.
Jazz wasn't one to give up when it came to a challenge. Even though he knew the databases he needed were unhackable, there was still all the confiscated pictures and videos from Mission City for him to go over. It was a lot to go over but he didn't have anything better to do since Ratchet wouldn't let him out of the med-bay.
It didn't take him long to find the moment Bree had started screaming. Something had hit her and she had crumpled to the ground. There was no audio but his memory filled in the tortured scream that followed before someone just out of frame did something that silenced her and dragged her away.
After that she was just gone. He couldn't find any sign of her or her attackers. It was as if they had vanished into thin air. He started hacking into every security camera he could he find.
Most humans don't realize just how often they're caught on camera. Security cameras are everywhere. At the gas station, the grocery store, the bank, and just about anywhere and everywhere else that feels the need for extra security. In other words, Jazz had a lot to go over, which would have been a problem if he had been human. But he wasn't. He was super advanced alien robot with nothing better to do.
Illusions are not like other spells. There's no incantation, just an understanding of what you want people to see and how to use your magic to make them see it. There are two ways to do this. The first is to use your magic on the world around you, to spread it out over an area and using screen to project an image. From there you can either anchor your illusion and have it sit (most commonly used for fake walls) or have a whole event play out.
The second is to directly affect your target by slipping your magic into the target's brain and causing a controlled hallucination. This method is better than the first in some ways. It relies on the targets brain to supply the image. Tell the subject's brain that there is a dog in front of them. They subject already knows what a dog looks like so their brain supplies the image which is easier for the caster since they don't have to make their own dog for the target to see, thus eliminate the potential for a mistake.
The downside to this method is the inherent risk of putting magical energery into someone's brain. One slip up and you could rip open the tiny blood vessels in the targets brain, potentially killing the target.
The first Alice had become quite skilled at tearing down. The second needed a much gentler approach. Megumi carefully guided Alice through the process of disrupting the second, or at least, she had planned on it, but Alice's mind was resistant to the second type. It wasn't all that surprising if you knew Alice's secrets. The second type was similar to legilimency, with less entering the mind and more influencing it, and Alice's mind had ways of defending itself from outside forces.
Finally satisfied with Alice's ability to sense and remove illusions, Megumi finally moved on to casting them. Alice's first lesson involved making her own maze, which Megumi would then tear down.
After the first run through, which Megumi dispelled with ease, Alice was surprised to find her teacher staring at her with eyebrows raised. On Megumi this was an expression of stupefied shock.
"What is it?" Alice questioned uncertainly.
"I've never seen anything like it before. Your magic stretched like rubber when I tried to removed it. The illusion distorted but had I let go I'm certain it would have snapped back into place. Usually ones ability to maintain an illusion depends on how convincing it is. At least when dealing with other illusionists. If one identifies an illusion it will be taken down eventually, no matter how strong your magic is. Magic doesn't stretch like that. Human magic doesn't stretch like that." Megumi stated.
Alice laughed nervously. "How about that?" she said.
"Do you know what this means?" Megumi asked, not waiting for an answer. "If you can get your magic to stretch further, if you can make it more flexible, more enduring, you might learn to create illusions that cannot be taken down."
"... I'm not going to like this, am I?" Alice said.
Of course she was right. She didn't like it. At the beginning she had said she wanted as much improvement as possible as quickly as possible, which meant being pushed to the limit while the training got progressively harder. She had come to Megumi already knowing how to weave illusions around objects but now she had to weave illusions around herself while fighting and tearing down Megumi's illusions.
Megumi's fighting style, the style she was teaching Alice, seemed rather simple at first. You would render yourself invisible to your opponent and attack, but there were also tricks like making your opponent think you're attacking from another direction, and then using additional spells while under the illusions. Alice had the added difficulty of improving her magic and tearing down Megumi's illusions. Even though she was improving she was still fighting someone who had already mastered the style she was using which meant returning to her apartment bruised.
Alice's apartment wasn't in the best part of town, but she had wanted to keep costs down and she figured she might as well give her bodyguards something to do other than the whole paid stalking thing.
One of her neighbors, Harvey, was the janitor/handyman at a local high school. He was in his mid-twenties and had black hair and green eyes. They met after Alice's sink broke. She had been knocking on the landlord's door when Harvey showed up and told her that the landlord was out and even if he wasn't it would take a month before anything was done and that was only if she complained everyday before offering to fix her sink. Alice, wanting the ordeal over with as quickly as possible, agreed.
Somehow this leads to them becoming friends, or something. Friends isn't exactly the right term. They talk about everything and nothing. Nothing personal anyway, not about family or friends or their life before moving into the building. Alice would sometimes force Harvey to eat a meal with her, sometimes homemade but usually its the local diner, just to make sure he ate more than the sugar laden treats he always seemed to have.
The first time Alice came home with bruises Harvey asked her if there was someone who needed to disappear. He is a janitor after all, he knows how to clean up a mess. Alice isn't quite sure how to take that and tells him that she's taking a self-defense class. They weren't friends, not really, but Alice had a feeling she couldn't quite place. It wasn't really a bad thing, she just felt like she was missing an important piece of the puzzle.
Life settled into a routine. Wake up, get ready to go out, go to bank, exchange dollars for galleons, go to Megumi's, go to pawn shop, sell gold, have dinner. Rinse, repeat until Saturday when there was no class.
Her bodyguards were always there, she barely noticed them anymore and Harvey never said anything so Alice assumed he didn't notice. She let herself get wrapped up in her routine. Maybe that's why she never noticed the strange things going on, or maybe see was just too tired from Megumi's classes. Maybe she was so used to strange that it didn't even register anymore.
On the surface the events weren't even that odd. An athlete at the school Harvey worked at had a breakdown and dropped out, a woman in the building next door disappeared, a man in Alice's building was hospitalized, a girl at the high school got into a car accident and was permanently disfigured, one of the parents was attacked by stray dogs and killed, the principal had a heart attack and died, a regular at the diner was committed after disappearing for a week. There was nothing really special about the incidents, nothing that connected them, but they were starting to pile up.
In the end Dudley had accepted the job, he really had no other options. Vince had felt sorry for the boy. He had suffered because of his parents actions and their consequences, but the allowing him to have a job was as far as that pity would go. If Dudley betrayed the company he would die. Traitors were not tolerated, even if their motives were understandable.
Lisa came in after Dudley had left. She had sobered up considerably since her binge drinking pity party and had attended a meeting while Vince was talking with Dudley. She leaned over the back of Vince's chair and kissed him on the cheek.
"Someone's feeling better." Vince stated. Lisa sighed, wrapping her arms around him.
"My treatment of Alice was unfair. I wanted to keep her safe, I wanted to keep them both safe, but Alice was the only one I could keep and I held on too tightly. She's still so much like Bree, but at the same time she's not, I just don't know what to do with her." She replied. Vince squeezed his wife's hand.
"Just give her some space, she'll come back. You remember how Leo was at that age." he told her. She smirked.
"Didn't he say he was going to become a cop?" she asked.
"Yes, during his rebellious phase." Vince replied.
"Mmm... You know... I got a rather interesting offer today." Lisa stated.
"Oh?" Vince replied.
"There's an organization calling itself "The Light." They believe that the Justice League is keeping humanity from realizing its full potential by protecting it from factors that would force us to evolve. They sent an agent to invite us to be a part the Light." Lisa explained.
"What did you say?" Vince inquired.
"Nothing. I just sent their agent back... without his tongue." Lisa replied.
"Was that necessary?" Vince asked
"He tried to threaten me into complience. "If you don't do this the Light with do that." I needed to send a message." Lisa answered.
"They won't respond well to that." Vince commented.
"No, but I already sent out orders so it dosen't really matter." Lisa explained. "I may not know exactly what their plan is but it would undoubtedly be bad for business, what with all the death. So I decided that the Light needs to be snuffed out and their plans unraveled."
"This need to be finished quickly." Vince told her.
"I know. I explained that to them already. They'll get the job done, even if they have to outsource for it." Lisa responded. "Now we need to get some rest. We have to meet with Sirius tomorrow and then we're killing Percy."
"It's too bad. He was one of our best sources of information within the ministry." Vince replied.
"He's been comprimised. It's only a matter of time before they take him away for interrogation and that's worse then death." Lisa stated.
"His family won't take it well." Vince said.
"They never do, love." Lisa sighed. "They never do."
Snape was the new Headmaster at Hogwarts and Alecto Carrow was the new Muggle Studies professor along with being the new Deputy Headmistress. Her lessons were mandatory for all students and consisted of anti-muggle propaganda depicting them as inferior to wizards and barely a step above animals. Her brother Amycus was supposed to have been the new Defense against the Dark Arts professor but Bree and told him to "get out and stay out" banishing him from the castle. The posistion was filled by a low ranking Death Eater named Akers who dropped the defense part and just focused on the Dark Arts.
The other Professors were supposed to refer students to Carrow and Akers if they did anything wrong but were reluctant to since the Death Eaters preferred method of discipline involved torture, but that's were Hogwarts comes into play. Hogwarts was semi-sentient and had would not allow any harm to come to her students. Now that there was someone tied to each of the founders keystones all of the wards were active. With Bree and Ben gone only half the manual wards were usable and some of the automatic wards were weakened. Even so, with there were one a few wards that Hogwarts could take control of and and use however awake the students were better off then they would have been otherwise. You see, since Hogwarts was sentient a few wards could be transferred to her control, not the big ones like the killing wards, there were failsafes in place to prevent that in case anyone thought it was a good idea to give a living building the power to kill, but before she left Bree transferred a few restraining wards.
Any time Akers or Carrow tried to hurt a student they would be thrown up against a wall. Cruciatus curse=wall. Knives=wall. Whips=wall. The only way they could hurt students was with blood quills since Hogwarts didn't know how to deal with a student hurting themselves and could only alert someone when it happened.
Outside of Hogwarts several small victories had been made by the Third Option. One of Voldemort's Horcruxes had been found at Number Twelve Grimmuld Place. Sirius's younger brother, Regulus, had betrayed Voldemort and switched it out for a fake. The fake had been recovered by Harry and Dumbledore on the night of the latter's death. Kreacher had hidden it away after failing to destroy it as he had been ordered to by Regulus. Sirius had been horrified to hear that his brother had been dragged into a lake and had started going through his brother's things to try to understand why his brother had betrayed Voldemort. He had yet to come up with an answer.
The Horcrux, Salazar Slytherin's locket, was destroyed when it was dropped into a bowl of basilisk venom. That was the only Horcrux that had been found since Bree had left. It was assumed that Voldemort's hubris would have led him to use objects connected to the other three founders as Horcruxes. Now they just had to look into Tom Riddle's history and the history of a few lengendary, but missing, objects and figure out if and when the Dark Wizard had come into contact with such objects.
The Dark Lord had put a taboo on his name. Now anyone who said it would attract the attention of Snatchers, a group of wizards that would round up Muggle-borns for the Death Eater controlled ministry. Once the Third Option found out about this they took advantage of it, after all, it's best to start a battle with the high ground. That made the Snatchers hesitant to respond whenever someone triggered the taboo since many of their number had suffered from the affliction know as shotgun-to-the-face after responding to it. In those incedents where they started the battle the Third Option was more focused on capturing Snatchers for interrogation than on killing them, at least until they outlived their usefulness. They used birdshot and salt to disable instead of stunning spells because Lisa was feeling mean.
Voldemort started sending werewolves and vampires out to take care of it. A few members of the Third Option did die after being taken by surprise but they adapted since many of them had magic and guns loaded with lethal rounds as back ups. Soon the werewolves and vampires were reluctant to go since their kin ended up with silver poisoning and a few inches taken off their height. It was supected that other dark creatures like Dementors or Inferi would be sent next and preperation had been made. Either side could have stopped at anytime, the Third Option could have stopped invoking the Dark Lords name after seeing the escalation and Voldemort could have stopped sending out his forces since they kept getting killed, but Lisa liked choosing the battlefield and keeping the fight away from civilians and Voldemort refused to give up.
The Dark lord was getting increasely frustrated as he attempted to extend his reach. Not only had the taboo completely backfired on him but any time he tried to attack the muggle world his forces were repelled, either by the Third Option or by muggles. Muggles! They weren't normal muggles, mind you, they had access to some sort of magic that he couldn't begin to understand or deconstruct. Bellatrix had claimed to have killed one particully reckless muggle that kept flirting with her at least three times already.
But at least he had of Magical Britain and he had managed to recruit a few dark families from overseas, but that effort started going badly once the Magical Governments of France, Spain, and Germany had leveled increasingly strict economic sanctions against Magical Britain and would only allow Britain's magical citizens into their countries if they were seeking asylum from their own corrupt government. This action was quickly mimicked by the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, and Britain's Muggle Government.
The reason for these sanctions was one part Bree one part Death Eaters. Bree had been traveling from country to country while pursued by Death Eaters. To put it another way, Bree had been traveling from traveling from country to country while pursued by racist practitioners of dark magic who failed at catching her and the more violent ones would take their frustrations on unsupecting muggles and people were starting to notice that the suspects in those cases came from England and were alledgedly a part of a terrorist group and the England's Magical Government was doing nothing.
That's not even considering the fact that Bree had told France, Spain, Prussia, and Italy everything. Not their governments. The actual countries, or, at the very least, their personifications. It was by a curious quirk of fate, or magic, or the whims of a false trickster god that gave rise to the nations. They were immortals tied to the country they shared a name with. Most people didn't know about them. Any disaster that befell the people affected the immortal of the country through injury or illness and no one wanted to find out if the opposite was true. It wasn't impossible wasn't immpossible for a country to have more than one immortal tied to it, what with all the wars and territories exchanging hands.
Bree had actually encountered eight of these beings. The first had been England, though she had only spotted for a brief moment at Dumbledore's funeral. The next three had been North Italy, Japan, and Germany in Munich. France, Spain, Prussia, and South Italy she had met in Rome. Germany and Prussia had both found Bree familiar because she resembled a German ancestor they had known. Prussia, otherwise known as Gilbert, had been reminded of a friend he may or may not of had deeper feelings for. Not that he would would admit such a thing. Not that it mattered. She had left for America and he... was immortal, he had even survived the loss of this country, when that had happened to Germania and Rome the older nations had simply vanished. Germany, a.k.a. Ludwig, Gilbert's younger brother, remembered his brother's friend. He had tried really hard to repress those memories, at least Bree didn't seem to be that much like her ancestor... well she hadn't set a stone wall on fire, or done anything equally inexplicable.
The British Muggle government had acted because the Queen and the Prime Minister had been told exactly what was going on in magical Britian by Torchwood. So everyone had a good reason for acting the way they did (except Ireland who just wanted to torment his younger brother) not that England himself knew this since no one told him because nations experiencing internal conflict could become a bit... strained and it was assumed that keeping him in the dark would keep him from making a rash decision and escalating the conflict.
They also didn't tell England's family, America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, or Sealand, though no one talked to those last two anyway. Most forgot that Canada even existed and everyone refused to acknowledge Sealand as a country since the kid was basically two tin cans and a playing card in the middle of the ocean and had no actual land.
England decided that everyone had turned against him for no reason and went to go get drunk at America's house. He probably would have made it there if he hadn't already had a pint before going out. Instead, he ended up at Canada's place, but that's a story for another day.
After accepting the job, Dudley was sent over to the HR department to make things official. All the nescessary forms were filled out and Dudley was given a binder full of information he would need to know for his job. There would of course be a training period that covered all of it but the binder would be helpful if he forgot something and wanted to review it. He was told to pay special attention to the section on emergency protocols which covered situations like alien invasions, attacks by rival businesses, surprise interrogations by Batman, fires, etc.
"Oh, and we need you to sign this waiver before you start training." the HR lady, Mrs. Grey, said just as Dudley was preparing to leave her office.
"Er, what for?" Dudley asked.
"Oh, it just says that you know the risks and we're not at fault should you be injured or tramatized by aliens, rival businesses, or Batman. We will compensate you should somthing occur, but we want to avoid a lawsuit." Mrs. Grey replied pleasently.
"Is Batman really that much of a problem?" Dudley asked. "Because he's coming up a lot."
"Well, he is somwhat of a nuisence, showing up in the dead of night, going through files, scaring workers, dangleing people of of buildings. Never finds anything but he's convinced that were running some sort of criminal enterprise here, of course you know and I know that he's not exactly wrong, but you really thnk he would have given up by now." Mrs. Grey replied.
"Okay then." Dudley said, signing the waiver.
Batman was proving to be somewhat irritating. A new drug had come on the market and he had found evidence that linked it back to Lisa's business. The drug, Redline, was highly accdictive. Along with a high it gave the user a feeling of invinciblity and a boost in strength. There were side effects. Rage, aggression, temporary bulgeing of veins and muscles, painful withdrawls, hallucinations, and many other side effects that were unique to a specific area or a specific shipment.
Redline was actually a number of drugs that used a modified form of Venom as it's core ingrediant. The Venom could be combined with any drug from ectasy and LSD to cocaine and heroin and everything in between. Each shipment had a different kind of Venom because someone was experimenting with the formula and using anyone who bought the drug as a test subject.
The only evidence Batman had that connected the drug to Lisa's was Bane's claim that Bree had stolen all the information he had on his Venom formula. Bree had been there, that much could be proven, and she did take all of his notes, but Bane was the only one that had heard her confess. Of course, he was a bit addled by the thing from the cooler, a criminal, and possibly wanting revenge on the kidnapee that had turned the tables on him and that made him an unreliable witness. But Batman had suspected for a long time that the Imperial Corperation had a darkside. It didn't help tat Bree had gone missing after a werewolf, something invisible, and two unknown meta humans attacked the warehouse. He had consulted Zatara because of the werewolf and was informed that the invisible creature called a dementor that fed off of happiness, caused people to relive their worst memories and was known to devour souls.
The Dark Knight was glad that Bree had gotten the thing away from Robin but was irritated that that the two meta humans weren't meta humans but were magic users. He had believed, based on reports from the team, that Bree was a meta human but now all the evidence pointed to her being a magic user as well. Batman hated magic, but now he had to find out why maigic users, or magi as Zatara said they were called in America, might want to harm Bree. Which was something he was failing at because trying to access any electronic records would lead to dead ends and firewalls. Everytime he got close to finding a lead in the field he would suddenly remember something else he had to do, or he would just forget. He really hated magic.
Alice had a new neighbor. A blue eyed, red haired young man around Bree's age. He had a bit of a falling out with his family and that was enough to keep anyone from asking questions. Everyone in the building had something they didn't want to talk about. But Roy was asking questions, not about his neighbors, but about the strange events Alice had overlooked.
The highschool athlete had been accused of rape, but the victim was the one forced to leave school. The woman from the building next door had been abusing her child. The man in Alice's building had been abusing his wife. The girl that had been in the a car accident had bullied the rape victim until she attempted suicide. The parent had been part of a dog fighting ring. The principal has supported the athlete, and the regular had a stash of child pornography on his computer.
So there were a few connections there, three had been the vilians in a story with no happy ending, one had a child attending the same school, but there was nothing tying the other incidents together except until you got a few more facts.
The athlete had been found by the janitor, rocking back and forth in the shower and muttering about tentacles. The only evidence found in the case of the missing mother was a necklace, which had been placed around a dog's neck. The wife beater would never walk again because his back had been broken by Bane, which was impossible because Bane was in prison, but that's what the man claimed. The only injuries the girl had sustained had been to the face. She had been an incredibly vain girl and would never be anything close to pretty. the dog's that had attacked the parent had never been found. A pack of aggresive dogs like that, you'd think they would have attacked someone else. The principal had been found with a look of horror on his face, as if he had been scared to death. The regular claimed to have been taken by slenderman, but he had gotten away and the entity was still following him.
Really, it seemed like these people were being punished, but that was silly, right? There was no way anyone would be able to do all that, even with superpowers, but there was a connection... Harvey worked at the highschool, went to the diner, lived in the building, and there had been an incident before the woman had disapeered. They had been coming back from the diner when they saw the woman pulling her son along more forcefully then necessary. Harvey had called her a bitch. Alice had suggested that she was just having an off day and forgot about it, than a few day's later the dog had show up... But that was just crazy right? Harvey was just a janitor, even if he does eat alot of sugar and why would that make her uneasy anyway? Even if something about the situation seemed awfully familiar, like a story she'd heard somewhere before.
But Harvey had been living there longer than she had and incidents hadn't started until after she had moved in. If he was really the culprit it would have started sooner. There was no reason to suspect him, even if there was something that unsettled her. She put it out of her mind. It wasn't an issue, just some random boughts of bad luck.
She found the Roy was too observent for his own good. Three days after he had moved in Alice was walking to the diner when they crossed paths. Roy invited himself along and situated himself between Alice and the two bodyguards following her, blocking her from their sight. He didn't bring them up once they were at the diner, but that might have been because Alice had never acted as if she knew they were there. One the way back to their apartment building Roy did the same thing. Alice thought it was funny that he was trying to protect her from her own bodyguards. Of course, he didn't know they were her bodygaurds and from the outside a young woman being followed around by strange men wouldn't look good. But still, if he didn't cut it out he would be in trouble. Having Alice where they couldn't see her made them antsy. They knew what was in store for them them if something happened to their charge.
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place had before of safe haven for Muggleborns ever since the Ministry of Magic started the Muggle-Born Registration Commission. Those who worked for the Commission claimed that the only way for someone to have been born with magic was if they had inherited it from at least one of their parents and therefore all Muggle-borns should report to the Commission so an investigation could be conducted. In reality the Commission didn't care if it was possible for Muggle to be born with magic or not, it was just a way to oppress and imprison Muggle-borns.
Muggleborns that didn't register were pursued by Snatchers. Amoung the members of the Third Option Snatchers were referred to as canon fodder or as meat. They were much less competant than the Death Eaters so a fight with Snatchers was alot like a fight with a practice dummy. It was easy to trick, trap, and decieve them while taking the Muggle-Borns they were after to safety.
Sirius and Remus had been put in charge of setting up additional safe houses, finding Muggleborns, and taking them to safety. Remus was more hands off after Tonks became pregnant, though Sirius ended up having to smack some sense into his friend after Remus attempted to leave his wife and child because he feared that the child would either suffer from his affliction or suffer from having a werewolf for a father. The two remaining Marauders, Peter didn't count, were very good at their new job having become very good at planning and exacution during their years of pranking at Hogwarts.
Fred and George were in charge of distracting the Snatchers and causing general chaos while Sirius and Remus's group worked. They modified some of their products to have much more dangerous effects that tended to leave dead and injured Snatchers in their wake. The twins had taken to leaving the Third Option's symbol, a stylized three inside of an oval, behind after a mission as a counter to the dark mark Death Eaters always left behind. This practice was soon adopted by the rest of the Third Option.
Chloe had been hired by Vince to replace her Uncle. In addition to her duties as a bodygaurd she helped organiztion an educational program for the Muggle-born children under the Third Option's protection. Any school age Muggleborn in one of the safe houses was now considered a student of the Smith Academy and was taught Ben, Chloe, Sirius, Remus, adult Muggleborns in the safe houses, and any member of the Third Option that had the time and inclination. Ben also taught the adult's some basic self defense in case the security of one of the safe houses was breached and they were forced to fight. Some Muggleborns volunteered to join the Third Option. They weren't put on the front lines but their duties did put them in harms way since they were part of what was now a rebel faction. Others volunteered to help out within the safe houses. They distributed food, blankets, and clothing, made sure everyone had a place to sleep, designated space for classes for the children, and kept track of the amount of supplies.
The safe houses were quickly becoming overcrowded and with a raid on one of the Mudblood Relocation camps planned it was imparative that a solution was found. Lisa decided that it was time to start moving them out of the country. That's why she had decided to meet with Sirius.
"It would be safer just to make the rooms bigger." Sirius pointed out after Lisa told him her idea.
"Rooms can only be expanded so far before it becomes to much space for the wards to handle and updated to wards would leave everyone vulnerable." Lisa replied.
"Not as vulnerable as they'd be out in the open." Sirius responded.
"They'd have gaurds Sirius." Lisa answered.
"They have gaurds now." Sirius stated.
"But the more people we have to protect the more gaurds the safe houses need the less manpower we have for others tasks." Lisa said.
"It's not just about risk assement, Sirius." Vince interjected. "Think about their quality of life."
Sirius's jaw clenched.
"As well as being uncomfortable, overcrowding can lead to the spread of disease." Vince continued.
"Isn't moving them somewhere they can live comfortably without fear worth the risk?" Lisa asked. Sirius sighed.
"You're right, it's just, I live at Grimmauld Place. I see these people everyday, one of themeven figured out how to shut my mother's portrait up for good, I just don't want anything to happen to them. But if I just focus on keeping them safe, without considering their happiness, I'm no better then Dumbledore." he said.
"So how are we going to do this?" he asked.
"First we'll have to rework some of our regarding the upcoming raid..." Lisa began. A plan was made.
Lee Jordan had started a radio program called Potterwatch after the Wizarding Wireless Network and the Daily Prophet fell under Voldemort's control. The program reported the news that no one else would, dispelled rumors, and boosted the morale of everyone opposed to and fighting against Voldemort. He hosted it while useing the code name River. Fred and/or George would co-host when they weren't busy and others would appear on the program when they could.
On a cliff overlooking the sea sat a lone cottage. Its walls were embedded with shells and whitewashed, which is why it was called Shell Cottage. It was the home of Bill and Fleur Weasley who were listening to Potterwatch.
"Hello listeners and welcome to Potterwatch! Rapier was supposed to join me today, but he's late so we'll start without him. I have good new everyone! A Death Eater organized giant attack was stopped before it could begin by that mysterious group of muggles that seem to be blocking you-know-who at every turn. There was only one casualty on the muggles side, though is description matches the muggle how died last time... and the time before that. Maybe he just keeps getting knocked out... The Battersea Bridge in London was attacked at the same time but a quick response from the Third Option allowed most of the muggles to get off the bridge before it partially collasped into the river. Speaking of the Third Option, they'd like me to remind you that they have established safe houses for Muggleborns and-" The sound of a door being flung open interrupted the broadcast. There was the sound of hushed conversation and a moment of silence before River began speaking again.
"Rapier will not be going us today." River began, sounding subdued. "He's busy with Third Option stuff but he found time to drop by to give me a bit of news... This afternoon, while on his way home from work the Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley,"
"No, not my brother no!" Bill begged the radio.
"was attacked by three Death Eaters and killed."
"NO!"
The atmosphere at the burrow was somber. Any liveliness that had once been there seemed to have vanished. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, Charlie, Bill, Fleur and Sirius were gathered in the kitchen. Sirius had come over to speak to the twins and while Mrs. Weasley had taken to carrying around the family clock she put it down in order to make tea. When she picked it up again she saw that one of the hands was missing and started wailing, attracting the attention of the rest of the house. She had been unable to form words at the time so Mr. Weasley had begged his wife to let him see the clock so he could see which one of his chilren were gone. Everyone had thought it would be Bill or Ron or Ginny. That's why it came as a even greater shock to see that Percy was the one that had died.
Mrs. Weasley was sobbing into her husbands arms. Eveyone else was gather around the kitchen table, either hiding their faces in their hands or leaning on each other for support.
"I don't understand why they would go after him. He wasn't doing anything." Charlie muttered.
"He was a spy." Fred whispered.
"What was that?" Bill asked, having been one of the few people near enough to hear.
"Percy was a spy." Fred said loud enough for everyone to hear.
"What?" Mrs. Weasley said weakly.
"He was working for the Third Option." George explained. "He saved a lot of people."
"How long? How long has he been-" Mrs. Weasley stumbled on her words. "How long was he working for them? How long have you two known?"
"We've know since the summer before last, but he was working for them for at least a year before that." Fred answered.
"And you didn't think to tell us!" Charlie demanded, standing up.
"Of course we thought about it!" George shouted, getting up so he could look his brother in the eye. "We saw how much everyone resented him for leaving, for acting like he didn't care what the Ministry was doing and we saw how much Percy was suffering while putting on an act and we wanted so badly to tell you but we couldn't risk blowing his cover!"
"A lot of bloody good that did! At least if you had told us he wouldn't have died knowing that we hated him!" Charlie shouted.
"If we had told you he just would have died sooner!" George yelled.
"STOP IT!" Mrs. Weasley interjected. "Stop it, just stop." She broke down into tears again. George and Charlie sat back down.
"Did you do it?" Lisa asked after Sirius entered her office. Lisa was sitting behind her baroque style desk in the matching throne like chair. The rest of her office was baroque inspired as well, complete with a chandelier. They may not have been related by blood, but Bree and Lisa shared an ego.
"Yes." Sirius replied, fishing something out of his pockect and handing it to Lisa. She briefly examined the twisted piece of metal before putting in her desk.
"You could have found another way." Sirius stated.
"I considered all the options this one had the lowest amount of risk." Lisa replied.
"Who say's that it wouldn't have been worth the risk?" Sirius questioned.
"I do." Lisa answered.
"You weren't there." Sirius replied. "I was and I wasn't able to say anything to comfort them because I knew the truth."
"Will you be able to get through the funeral?" Lisa question.
"Will you?" Sirius countered. Lisa smirked.
"I've been playing this game for a lot longer than you have." she replied.
Lisa Smith, loving mother, caring aunt, completely ruthless, even more so than Bree.
