Chapter Two

Pickles and Peanut Butter

1

At five o'clock in the morning Logan was on his way to the Ministry, but Harry was just waking to a sharp finger poking him repeatedly in the back. He grunted unhappily, which amounted to a disgruntled "what?" that early in the morning.

Beside him in the bed, Ginny poked him again, unsatisfied with his answer.

"Wuh?" he muttered into his pillow.

"What?"

Scowling with drowsiness, Harry picked his head up and said clearly, "I said 'what?'"

"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Ginny replied in her defense. "Honestly, I don't know how you breathe with you face in the pillow like that."

Harry saw what time it was on the clock and sighed. "It's five a.m., Gin. What's up?"

"No, now you're angry. Just go back to sleep."

"Ginny, don't be ridiculous," Harry grumbled. "I'm already awake. What do you need?"

"I'm hungry."

He grinned and uttered a short laugh. "What else is new?"

Ginny was in her seventh month of pregnancy – saying she was hungry was the understatement of the year.

"We ran out of pickles," she told him, the tone of her voice was plaintive.

Harry yawned hugely and automatically threw his legs over the side of the bed, preparing to get up. "There was a whole jar last night," he said, though he already knew what she would say.

"I ate those earlier. Oh, yeah, and we're almost out of peanut butter."

As he tugged on some pants and a shirt, he paused to look over at her with a raised eyebrow. "Are you eating peanut butter and pickles again?"

Ginny grinned at him in the dark. "You got a problem with that?"

He leaned across the bed and kissed her. "No, just as long as you don't start eating dirt out of the yard again."

"Hey! The doctor said geophagia is perfectly ordinary in some pregnant women!"

Harry chuckled at her as he pulled on a jacket and pocketed his wand. "You didn't have geophagia with Kyla," he pointed out.

His redheaded wife stretched on the bed, her stomach fuller than the three-quarter moon shining though their window. "Maybe I did, and I just didn't tell you."

"Sneaky," he teased. "Is there anything else I should get while I'm out? A square of sod perhaps?"

"Just hurry up and get my pickles and peanut butter," she laughed.

He grinned and left the room, calling back to her once he was in the hall: "Do you like grey, brown, or red clay?"

"Shut up!"

2

Logan walked out of the fireplace into an antechamber with a small desk in the corner, juxtaposed to a stiff looking chair for people waiting. A young woman immediately stood up behind the desk. He recognized twenty-year-old Lenore Lupin, Remus's daughter.

Lenore had watchful hazel eyes and shoulder length hair that was the same light brown her father's had been before he went grey. She was a short woman (only about five feet, two inches) and so slender she bordered on bony. Her shrewd stare saw every anxiety on his face as she greeted him soberly.

"Ms. Yates had Betrys taken to get a calming potion," she told him.

"She hasn't had a panic attack has she?" Logan inquired, genuinely concerned. His ex-wife had always been very good at handling other people's maladies, but whenever her own life came crashing in she couldn't take it – which was one of the reasons she divorced him in the first place.

"No, but she was close to it," Lenore answered grimly. "Of course, it's understandable. Logan… I'm so sorry."

Logan couldn't help noticing how different Lenore acted now. He'd lived just down the road from the Lupins since she and her twin brother were seventeen. Standing now in this office, wearing Ministry robes, she seemed strangely matured and professional. She was still that very curious girl, but with heavier burdens that turned her inquisitive expression into one of watchfulness and temperance.

It made him wonder about the differences in his own little girl. How big had she gotten? The last time he had been allowed to see her she was only three years old. Now she was five and she was in the clutches of the Optimates… His breath caught when he realized he may never have a chance to see her again.

A sharp crack of a voice made him jump:

"Is the werewolf here yet?" demanded Ms. Yates from inside her office.

Lenore sighed crossly and moved around her desk to stand in her boss's doorway. "His name is Logan Bireley, and yes, he's here," she said, obviously offended by the werewolf comment. She looked to Logan and nodded for him to come inside.

3

"Send Mrs. Potter my best, Sir," said the night cashier at the only shop that was open that early in the morning and close to Harry's house. He was a regular there these days, what with Ginny sending him out to get something nearly every morning. It had been the same when she was pregnant with their daughter, Kyla – minus the curious cravings for dirt. Harry only wished he could get more than four hours of sleep every night before being woken up for an early food run.

It was nearly six now (he would normally wake up for work at seven) and it was time for caffeine. The place next door, The Goblin Swill Café, had flipped their sign to the "Alas, We're Open!" side. Harry made a detour into the building for a cup of coffee.

He ordered his coffee from the hag-like person – possibly an old man – behind the counter. As he was digging the change out of his pocket there was a loud impact on the large front window.

Harry and the androgynous hag-person turned toward the commotion with raised eyebrows and saw an owl vigorously attacking the outside of the glass with wings and beak. Then it jetted upward out of sight.

"Right…" Harry said, handing his money over. He was just reaching for his coffee when there was another disturbance directly behind him. An empty cauldron clanged against the stone floor as a sizable poof of black soot emitted the madcap owl out of the fireplace in its haste to get inside. The mess of feathers and soot collided with the back of Harry's head.

"AARGH!"

The battle between Auror and owl ended in Harry holding the creature's talons together as it flapped frantically and he seized the letter. It was addressed to him, and written on the official stationary of the Ministry of Magic in Tonk's handwriting was and order and a home address.

"Get here. Now," was the most important line. He looked up at the hag-person, who was still holding out the cup of coffee, completely unphased by anything taking place in the café. "Keep it," Harry told him, grimacing. "I don't have time now."

He rushed for the door and let the owl go as soon as he was outside, then immediately Disapparated.

4

Leaving Lenore in the antechamber Logan entered the large office – which was quite a bit nicer than the few Ministry offices he'd ever been inside – and sat down before the bulky, dark-wood desk.

Lenore's fifty-something boss, Rhonwen Yates, sat in her oversized wingback chair, staring at him with a scowl that he later learned was perpetual and not a display of any personal dislike for him. She had a small mouth with thin lips and high cheekbones. As she regarded him her face was perfectly level; she didn't look down her nose, nor did she tilt her face down and peer upward at others. She glared straight at everyone she met.

He sat in one of the chairs before her desk and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, deepening the crow's-feet around them. Logan got the feeling she knew much more about him than he knew about her.

What he did know, he had heard from Remus: Rhonwen Yates was a very experienced investigator – one who would never become head of her department before retirement. She'd broken one too many rules. Though she was indeed very close to retirement, Yates refused to teach a class of future investigators because she claimed not to have a shred of tolerance for the "young brats." However, she was also known to change her mind for a good bargain – when Yates's eighth assistant had quit a year ago, Lenore struck a deal with the old bird. As long as Lenore would work for her for half a normal assistant's salary, Yates agreed to simultaneously train her as an investigator. What Remus told Logan was that in reality, Yates was ready to quit the Ministry, but not without leaving a legacy. Lenore was to be her replacement pending on her performance.

"Mr. Bireley," Yates said suddenly after a long moment of simply observing him, "someone from the extremist group known as the Optimates has kidnapped your daughter, Liberty. They entered, abducted the girl, and left at some point between nine p.m. and three a.m. this morning. Did you know anything about this prior to being summoned here?"

"No," Logan replied honestly, his stomach churning as he imagined his tiny child being abducted by a masked and hooded Optimus.

"Do you know why they would want to take your child in particular?"

"Look," he said, his tone openly irritated, "could you possibly tell me everything that's going on before you start your inquiry? I realize I'm only a worthless werewolf inside this office, but we're talking about my daughter."

The crow's-feet deepened further and so did the lines around her frowning mouth.

"Tell me what happened," he said, firmer than before.

She replied without apology: "Miss Kimber left for work last night, leaving Liberty in the care of a neighborhood sitter. The young woman said that she put Liberty to bed at nine o'clock, and then went downstairs. She remembers hearing a noise just after entering the living room, then she felt a great pain in her skull and remembered nothing until she woke up at three in the morning on the floor. She checked the entire house, but found no sign of Liberty. That's when she contacted us and we called your ex-wife.

"Evidence showed no forced entry into the house, and no invasive spells were used. Whoever took Liberty was either invited in, or was inside before the sitter arrived. The investigation is still going on at the Kimber residence to find out more, but all we have right now is a set of footprints." Here she paused and nodded to him once before saying, "That is everything so far, Mr. Bireley. It's your turn to tell me everything that you know."

Logan ran a hand through his hair and took a shuddering breath. He couldn't decide what he should feel first: the overwhelming fear for his baby, the fury at the Optimates, or the urge to rush to the sight of the kidnapping and take over the investigation himself. He also wasn't sure how much he should say to this annoying woman.

For the first time in his life, he wished Harry Potter was present.

5

"Harry!" came the stressed voice of Nymphadora Tonks when she spotted her colleague. The forty-five-year-old looked disheveled in her Ministry robes and her currently short bleach-blond hair was leaning to the right with severe bed-head. She had obviously been forced straight out of bed to get here. "Where have you been?" she demanded of him. "…And why do you have peanut butter and pickles?"

"Ginny," he explained distractedly.

"You're a mess," she added, eyeing the soot smeared around his face and clothing.

"You have a very enthusiastic owl. We had a disagreement." He peered at the crime scene and asked, "What's going on here?"

They were standing before a narrow two-story house, the garden of which was currently swamped by Ministry Law Enforcement.

Tonks took a heavy breath and shifted the files she was holding under her crossed arms before she answered him. "A five-year-old girl named Liberty Kimber was taken from this house somewhere between nine p.m. and three a.m. last night while her mother was at work. The sitter was the only other known person in the house – she was the one who called us."

She handed him an incomplete file, meaning she was giving him the case.

"Investigation is looking into this particular case," she continued. "They've already come and gone, but the crime scene is still fresh."

Harry jerked his head up from the file to look at Tonks. "You need me after Investigation is already looking into it?"

"You've got a bigger job, Harry," she informed him, handing him the other file in her hand. This one was much thicker and packed with handwritten notes. "You're taking over Crocker's old case."

His frown only deepened. Icarus Crocker had been arrested and placed in Azkaban months ago for betraying the Ministry by passing information to the Optimates. What had Crocker been working on?

He opened the file and saw a cluster of photographs on top of the cramped notes. Some of the photos were magical and moving, others where the stationary Muggle kind, but all of them were of children. He nudged a picture of a sulking teen over to get a better look at the notes. It was all about the disappearances of children in the last few years.

Harry got a cold feeling in his stomach. He tried in vain to keep Kyla from his mind – the last thing he wanted was to imagine her as one of these lost kids.

"I'm sorry, Harry," said Tonks, "but you're the only one who has enough time to take on this case. Kingsley told me to hold this one for you because he knew you would find that last group of Neos pretty quickly."

Harry scoffed. "Here I thought he was giving me a break with that last case. Turns out he was just hoping to pass on another one that nobody wanted." He sighed and closed the folder on the photos. He looked at his old friend darkly and shook the folder at her as he asked, "Why did you have to hand me my worst fear?"

Tonks stared at him hard for a moment. "Because," she said at last, "we know you'll face it. If anyone can get anywhere on this case, it'll be you. Crocker took a lot of notes, but he never got anything done – too busy being a rat to actually care what happened to these kids."

A pang of anger surged through Harry at the thought of Crocker ignoring – or worse endangering – the kids he was supposed to be saving.

"Anyway, Liberty Kimber needs to be added to that file," Tonks told him. "Take a good look at the scene. Apparently, it's a strange one – stranger than usual."

"Yeah. It would be…"

(From Sunshine Dust: Happy Holidays everyone!)