Chapter One

The Kidnapping

1

"No, Potter! I'm telling you she shouldn't be here!"

"Yell a little louder, Mak. I don't think the Optimates heard you," said thirty-seven-year-old Harry Potter in annoyance. Makhesh Vemulakonda had always been a little too uptight for Harry's patience and if he kept this ranting up, he would give away their position.

A group of Neo Death Eaters (now called Optimates) were meeting in the abandoned warehouse next door. Kingsley had told him to take a group of his fellow Aurors to the location and storm the place. So, he did just that, with the addition of his former assistant and current Auror in training, Agape Eishorbgy. Mak was not pleased with the arrangement.

Harry had been in Auror training with Mak and they were on equal grounds in the Ministry, so they ended up working together quite often. Mak was too by-the-book in Harry's opinion, but he got the job done – most of the time.

"She cannot be here!" Mak insisted. "She's only been in training for six months!" He gestured to Agape, the handsome black-haired woman standing meekly between them.

"Five months," she corrected in a small voice.

"Five? She's only been training for five months?" Mak was furious, but Harry was too busy to care.

"Remember how much we learned in five months, Mak?" he said matter-of-factly. "Well, Agape has been helping me for years – she's got five months plus a lot more under her belt. She's the best in her class. Aren't you, Agape?"

Agape arched an eyebrow at him as if he were crazy – granted he may have been on the brink at that point with how little sleep he had been getting. "No," she replied. "Lupin's boy is better."

Mak gave Harry a meaningful look.

"Sure he is," Harry relented, shrugging. "He's been in training longer. But Kingsley put you in the same class level. You must have done something right if you never even needed the beginner's courses."

"Has she even taken her first exam?"

They both looked at Agape. Smiling sheepishly, she shook her head, no.

Mak whirled back to Harry, his expression livid. "She's a liability!"

"I'll stay out of the way," Agape said, pleading. "I'm just observing."

"There's no such thing!" Mak shouted at her. He leaned forward menacingly, and though he was five inches shorter than five-feet-eleven Agape, she backed up a pace. "You can't just sit back and watch. You're either involved or you get out of the way. And you'll be in the way no matter what you do, Miss Eishorbgy, because you don't know what you're doing!"

"Mak" Harry said, looking up from the blueprints of the building they were about to infiltrate, "Johnson could use some help at the back door. And I could really use some cooperation – since I am the one in charge here."

"But –"

"Give me a break. I followed along with your mission when you needed help last week, didn't I? We're about to arrest thirteen more Optimates, but we need you in order to do that. So please, let's just do our job and get these tossers."

Harry was tired. Tired and fed up with Makhesh. He made this fact plain on his face as he gave the other Auror a meaningful look of his own.

Mak glared back at him contemptuously. "Alright, Harry," he finally yielded. "Have it your way – but if this thing goes sour –"

"– I'm fully responsible, bla-bla-bla, and you'll personally tell Kingsley, I'm sure."

"Yes."

"Go please."

Mak turned on his heel and left the room.

"Maybe I should just go," Agape began, but Harry waved off the suggestion.

"You wanted to be here, right?" he said.

"Well, yes…"

"Then don't let Mak scare you off. You'll do fine. This is a routine bust – it shouldn't be too difficult."

Difficult was an understatement. Things went deceptively smooth at first; the Aurors crept into the decaying warehouse, silent and swift as a pack of wolves hunting deer. The unwitting Optimates were having some sort of meeting inside a slanting loft office on the west wall of the building. It must have been a poorly thought out last minute plan, because there were only two guards – both quietly taken down. Mak and a group of Aurors stayed on the ground floor, prepared to head off any escaping Neos, while Harry and another group climbed the stairs to the loft. Eleven masked, black clad figures stood around an ancient desk that listed as badly as the loft floor. Harry signaled his crew to ready themselves for the bust.

It was when they broke inside that things got more complicated – and painful. As soon as the Aurors were in the office, the Optimates were ready with an escape plan – which consisted of each of them pointing their wands at the floor before anyone could stop them and destroying the support beams holding up the loft. As the wood panels gave way beneath his feet, Harry's stomach lurched into this throat. Agape reached for him – although she was falling too – but they were separated by a portion of the roof caving in. Both groups of Aurors and the Neos ended up in a pile of splintered wood and shards of glass after the two-story drop.

Immediately after clambering out of the rubble, Harry apprehended two masked men who were sniping the Aurors from what was left of the second story catwalk. Mak, ignoring several slivers of glass in his right arm and shoulder, caught two more bolting for the nearest exit. Left and right, people were running, bleeding, fighting, being arrested. But in the end ten out of the thirteen Neos were apprehended and lined up to be unmasked and identified.

Harry shoved a man into the line up and let the other Aurors take over while he made a sweeping glance of the warehouse for Agape. Bolts of pain shot through his left arm whenever he moved it, which he ignored – he was much more worried about Agape. He was getting anxious when he didn't see her right away, but eventually he spotted her Ministry robes among the collapsed loft as she managed to heave a large wood plank off of herself and a barely moving masked figure. Harry rushed over to her.

"Agape!" he called, trying to find footing over the debris. "Are you alright?"

The disheveled dark haired woman coughed a little and waved the disturbed dust away from her face. "I'm alright," she answered bitterly. "Just jostled. I did manage to snare this woman – just before we were both crushed, that is."

She pointed her wand down at the Optimus beside her and barked, "You. Can you walk?"

The masked woman braced herself on each arm and pulled her legs out from under a crushed table. She slowly got to her feet and faced her capturers without speaking.

"She makes eleven out of thirteen. Congratulations, Agape," said Harry, beaming at her as he too aimed his wand at the Optimus for good measure. "You just made your first arrest before even taking your first Auror exam. I'll make sure Mak knows he owes you an apology."

"You don't have to do that, Harry. He already hates me."

"And miss the chance to get under that bugger's skin?"

She ignored him and peered at his left arm. "Harry, why is your arm hanging like that?"

"Oh, it's probably dislocated," Harry answered offhandedly. "Let's unmask her so I can get it fixed before I start to feel it too much."

Agape pointed her wand at the Optimus and shackled her hands behind her back with a spell. Then she snatched the woman's hood away from her head, revealing waves of dark brunet hair. The prisoner regarded them resignedly with rich, amber colored eyes that, no doubt, captured many a man's attention. However, the feature that stood out most boldly on her face was a scar that cut through her right eyebrow. When Agape unmasked her, they could see that it continued in a jagged line below her eye and angled down her cheek before spitting into her full lips and finally ending at her chin.

"Accio wand," Harry said, but nothing came to him. The woman continued to watch him without much emotion and didn't answer when he asked, "Where's your wand?" He frowned at her while Agape checked all of her pockets, sleeves and pant legs by patting her down.

"Huh, she doesn't have a wand on her," said Agape.

"Are you sure," Harry asked.

"There aren't many places to hide something over ten inches long," she pointed out. "I'll just put her with the others."

They lead the limping, completely silent Optimus over to the line up to be carted off to Azkaban, and then the two decided to head for St. Mungos to take care of their injuries from the hard fall.

"Wait until I tell Ginny you arrested someone today," Harry said to Agape proudly. "She'll go ballistic."

Agape just laughed and looked relieved to be in one piece.

2

Betrys Kimber was late for work – as she was most of her life. She had been born late, had arrived late to the alter at her wedding, she'd given birth to her daughter two weeks overdue, and now she'd have to explain to her boss why she was not on time once again. Working as a nurse for the night shift at St. Mungo's, she couldn't yell at the relieving day shift nurses for tardiness when she was perpetually coming in five, sometimes ten minutes past (if not more).

"Libby!" she cried from the kitchen where she was putting together a last second meal for her daughter. "Lib! Come down here please!" When there was still no answer, she sighed in frustration, set the plate of food on the table, and went to the bottom of the stairs.

"Liberty Kimber!"

At last, the five-year-old girl appeared at the top of the stairs. Her frizzy black hair stuck out in two short pigtails at the top of her head, and she was wearing her favorite pajamas – the ones she had pointed at in the store and said "Mummy! Those have puppies like Daddy on them! Can I get those?"

Betrys held out her hand for the little girl to come down the stairs and take. "Look at you," she said, a smile of relief flashing over her pretty features, "I was going to tell you to get into your jams, but you're so good you already did it. C'mon, Mummy is very late and Norma is walking over now, so go into the kitchen and eat your dinner, okay?"

The little girl didn't look very happy about it, but she was getting used to her mother leaving every night now – especially since they got to spend most of the day together under the working arrangement. She obediently went into the kitchen and climbed into a chair at the tiny table where her plate sat waiting.

Betrys watched her for a moment to make sure she was eating, and then whirled on the mirror in the foyer. The pretty, oval-faced black woman looking back at her was tired due to adjusting to her new schedule, but ready for another night. Her hair was expertly (and expensively) curled into a thousand glossy black ringlets around her shoulders and her makeup was as close to perfect as humanly possible.

A hand rapped on her front door and Betrys leapt forward to open it, letting in Norma, the twenty-something girl from down the street who was desperate enough for extra cash to baby-sit over night. Betrys informed Norma that Liberty was dressed for bed and was just eating dinner (late, of course) and that she had been promised she could stay up for an extra thirty minutes that night. She kissed her daughter goodbye and ran to the fireplace to get to work via Floo Network.

3

Logan Bireley was woken very early in the morning by someone shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw the messy haired silhouette of Alton Drake standing over him. Logan squinted against the light pouring into his room from the living room.

"What is it, Alt," he asked groggily.

"Lenore Lupin wants to talk to you," said Alton, running a hand through his blood red hair. His words were slightly muffled by the dragon hide mask he wore over his mouth and nose. Alton had little control of his fire breathing mutation while he slept, and wearing a fireproof mask at all times was better than burning the house down.

"What? Why would Lenore be calling?" Logan muttered as he sat up in bed and made to rise.

"She's at the Ministry," Alton told him, shuffling back to the living room, "but I didn't ask why she wanted to talk to you."

Logan frowned and put on some pants and a shirt before going to the fireplace. Sure enough, Lenore's head was inside the flames, waiting to talk to him.

"What's up, Lenore?" He sat down on the hearth and leaned forward.

The young woman didn't seem to know what she should say. "Logan, I think you should come here as soon as you can," she said finally.

Her tone sent a bad feeling through him. "What's happened?"

"Your ex-wife is talking to my boss, and –" but she was cut off by a familiar woman's voice.

"Is that Logan?" cried Betrys. Suddenly she was leaning into the fire with Lenore; her face was drenched in tears and she looked frantic. She must have been desperate if she was that eager to see Logan.

"Logan," she sobbed, "they've taken Libby! They took her from our house!"

Logan's eyes went wide and it felt like his heart had stopped. "What! Who? Who took Libby? Betrys, what happened?"

"I-I was at work and s-someone got in the house and they," she gasped in a shuddering breath. "Oh, Logan, they took Liberty! They took my baby…" she broke into uncontrollable sobs.

Logan stared at her for a moment in a state of helpless shock. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at Alton, who was sitting on the couch behind him. His red haired friend had been listening out of concern, but now he jumped up to retrieve his cellular phone.

"I'll tell the group what's going on," he said, "go find out everything you can." He paused at the kitchen table where Logan's mobile was sitting and turned back to Logan. Tossing him the phone, he added, "Call me as soon as you're done with the Ministry."

"Logan," Lenore's voice called him back. She was holding Betrys around the shoulders in comfort as she wept. "You should come in soon. My boss wants to talk to you too, and I think Miss Kimber would feel better if you were here."

"I'll come through the fireplace," Logan assured her as he got back to his feet.

When Lenore and Betrys disappeared from the fireplace with a pop, he followed Alton into the kitchen a few paces. The shorter man was already on the phone with someone. A very pale Logan paused, unsure of what to do with himself at the moment.

"Well, round everyone up," Alton said to whoever of their comrades was on the other line. "They all know to have their mobiles on… It doesn't matter if you can't get Jules. Just get everyone you can – tell Ferris to find Jules once you get to the basement… Good. I'm on my way." He flipped the phone closed and gave Logan a troubled look.

"You know the Optimates are behind this, don't you," he asked.

Logan only nodded in reply.

Alton grasped his shoulder in a firm grip. "We'll get her, mate," he promised. "Just take a breath and get to the Ministry."

"Why would they want to hurt my little girl, Alton?" Logan said, his voice breaking.

Alton shook his shoulder slightly to grab his attention. "We won't give them a chance to," he said in an uncharacteristically stern voice. "Find out everything you can, then come to the basement and let us know what's going on."

(Some useful information: for you readers who didn't read the last story - or if you just never got this note before - Optimates is pronounced Op-tee-ma-tis. It's Latin for "the best", or "the purest." Thank you so much for the reviews, Lulgijak, captin jacks grl, and Shaggy37!)