Chapter 5 Alternative Path 2007 edit 2013

a rare AN. This story was written in 2007. there were problems with it, but it stood fairly well on it's own. One of the biggest problems people have commented on is that Harry knows too much. The point at which he comes to Hermione in the infirmary , he has had 8000 hours to do with as he wishes. He wished to have useful training in the RoR. Now, don't you think that the RoR, the magical artifact that it is, would provide lessons that are pretty tailored to Harry's needs? 8000 hours is a long time, an average work year is 2050 hours, 8 hrs a day 5 days a week, so don't you think that Harry might be motivated to be better, in order to help his godfather, his girl and himself, the rest of the world notwithstanding? He had Winky and Dobby as well, and hedwig. 8000 hours of no headaches from the sending of Tom riddle, time to heal and exercise and have fun and still learn. Yes Harry knows quite a bit, he has learned to control magic, to optimize everything he is doing. Magic is, pretty much 'do what you want by intent and energy manipulation'.. that said, the other major criticism I have received is Neo and Trinity. Yes the movie didn't come out until 1999. so, where did the Wachkowsky siblings (then brothers) come up with the idea. They were in England and saw a couple dressed in leather and latex, and wrote a story about them...so there.

FYI Frank Wills is based on the security guard who found evidence of a break-in at The Watergate ..setting off a big upset in American Politics..

FYI-2 I am adding break lines in this as FFNET once again de-formatted the entire thing. now I am using brute force and hammers to make it work.


On with the story. Chapter 5


The trio of an Unspeakable, Neo and Trinity strode down the halls of the ministry, even on the 9th level where the Department of mysteries was located, this was an unusual occurrence. The few people who had authorization to even be in the area were shocked to see two leather clad strangers leading the way for their respected and very much feared boss. Those few in the halls, tried to melt into the walls when the trio went by, and were totally ignored for their trouble. They approached the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy, and Croaker started too explain the security steps that needed to be in place to open the door, when the door didn't open, it just vanished without so mush as a by your leave.


Neo strode into the hall and went up the rows of shelves to the correct row, treaded down to the appropriate shelf, and picked up the glass ball, and replaced it with another, shoving the real one in his pocket. "What's that?.. Croaker started to say, but Neo silenced him with a gesture. He tilted his head left, capturing Trinitys' eyes, indicating the direction for her to go. She nodded once and slipped out of the row, and vanished into the wall like a wraith, Neo went the other direction, indicating that the old man should stay back. Neo/Harry took a blank memory ball out of his pocket, and tossed it about ten meters to the left. It shattered with a tinkling of glass. "FREEZE!" he bellowed at the hooded figure who was looking toward the sound of the glass.


The figure spun and started to throw a curse toward the two men, but no sound came out but .."URK", and stiffening fell to the floor with a thud. A large man came running into the hall, wand drawn, ready for trouble, and didn't take two steps before he too, was unconscious on the floor. Footsteps were heard in the hall outside, at least three sets, running. Neo looked up and with a wave, the doors were back, and secure., and solid as they ever were.


"Who's this?" Trinity faded into view, "Please wake him up, this is Frank Wills, my head of security, well at least he has been for the last few days, since your first letter arrived" Trinity pulled out a wand and ran it over the supine Security specialist. "there are no apparent charms or compelling magic on him, .." she wiggled the tip of her wand as if prodding something, a brass ring fell out on the floor with a metallic clonk. "an internal portkey, and a wand" Neo touched the stunned man's forehead, and stood up "awaken" The Security man's eyes snapped open and darted around, looking for an enemy.


"Just over a minute from the break in, until your arrival, very good response time, though you may want to put a little more stealth into your entrance" Neo put out a hand to the shocked man on the floor and helped him to his feet. "Here, this is yours" he handed over a wand and a brass ring. "Algie here says you are the head of Security Mr Wills, do you perchance have an interrogation room we could use?" indicating the still unconscious cloaked figure. Wills looked toward his boss, who nodded. "yes, we can take him there now" pulling out his brass ring. Neo looked at Croaker "You three go on ahead, we'll meet you there." Croaker and Willis took the prisoner and forced his hand on the portkey and they vanished.


Neo nodded and Trinity pulled out a package from a seemingly bottomless bag. She activated a runeset, and the crinkly bag expanded into a glistening ball like a soap bubble. The bubble popped and a hundreds spiders popped out and scurried away. Neo held a control pad, a list scrolled down the screen as each spider activated and logged in, and after they all scurried into hiding places, settled down into standby mode. Neo folded the pad away and stuffed it into a pocket, Took Trinity's hand , and the room was silent and empty once more. Occasionally, a spider blinked. Frank Wills put the prisoner in a chair which was bolted down to the floor. Chains wrapped around his arms and legs and held him in place.. he couldn't slump over even if he wanted to.


"Ok Algie, you gave me this job to secure against attacks from unknown forces, who got in god knows how." "Who are these people and how did they get in here, are you under their thrall or something? How did they get in here and do what they can do.. ?" A portal opened in a wall which had no door, and two Smiths walked through, both dressed in black suit and tie, white shirts and a twisty wire plugged into their ears. "Mr Wills, We are glad to meet you, my name is Mr Smith, although you can call me Hugo" Wills cautiously shook Mr Smith's hand.. "And this is Miss Jones" She nodded. Mr Smith took out his wand and held it out, pointed straight up "On my magic, we are not trying to subvert Unspeakable Croaker in any way, or cause harm to him" there was a brief flare of magic that confirmed the oath. Wills relaxed a bit.. just a little. "Tell me what is going on, who are you, how can you do this ,..this stuff you are doing?" the man spluttered in frustration. Croaker laughed and shook his head.. "Frank, just accept it, every question these two have answered for me has posed about a dozen more, and I am afraid our relationship with them is going to get even more confusing.." Frank Wills looked at his boss, the shock evident on his face. "relationship?" "yes, I have recruited these two, and I believe that it will be a long and fruitful partnership." he continued, "Don't try to find out who they are, unless they tell you themselves, for the moment secrecy is prudent".


"To answer your questions, Mr. Wills, we are products of interference from the future.. and manipulation of time to our advantage." Mr Smith looked at Miss Jones, their faces impassive behind their shades. "Miss Jones and I were subject to an attack which led to the death of a good man, and to forestall this from happening, we sent a message back to ourselves as warning" he paused "using a time turner that was captured from an event happening five days from now" "this situation is the root of all the activity on your part, securing the Department of Mysteries against the coming infiltration and attack by death eaters, and possibly Voldemort himself." "as to how we do what we do?, simply put, we had opportunity and time literally in our hands, since the information came into our possession two days ago, we have had 48 weeks of training and practice time to get things into place." "Miss Jones there is very creative in reworking existing spells to our advantage, a good demonstration, is our prisoner here." "In a memory of a battle we will show you later, the problem the good guys were having is that when the bad guys were stunned, they were easily enervated by their cohorts." "This spell used to stun the prisoner, cannot be lifted except by the one who cast it, or me,since I am the only one authorized to lift the spell."


They gathered around the trapped prisoner, "awaken" the prisoner opened his eyes, "Who are you! Let me go!, The Dark.." "stubefy" "see? Quick and effective, try to enervate him" Wills used his wand. "enervate" nothing, he tried again, pushing as much magic into it as he could "Innervate!" nothing.. "awaken" nothing at all.. "ok, what's next?" "Well, if we were in a situation where individually rights were respected, and rule of law, I suppose we could call a solicitor for this fellow, and give him a chance to defend himself, but seeing as he is a marked death eater, I think I'll just bypass that." Croaker nodded in agreement. "I think Mr Smith is correct, these people have chosen their side, and we must see them as enemy combatants, and treat then as such"


Wills mind reeled as he considered what his boss was saying.. that what they were considering was effectively declaring war. "If you join us, we will share our ideas with you, and ask that you share your ideas and help with us." "Believe it or not, we came here to ask for help, and he agreed to do so." "You are a professional in the security business, and we have a lot of ideas that may be helpful to you, but you have knowledge we need." Wills looked at them in disbelief, these two had done things no one he had ever heard of doing. Mr Smith reached down to touch something on his belt. "Let me introduce myself, my name is.." his disguise dropped "Harry Potter, and this is Hermione Granger" To say the least, Frank Wills was dumbfounded.. he had expected someone older and more experienced, not the bloody Boy-Who-Lived.. now they, yes they, because it was obvious to anyone, there was no Harry Potter without Hermione Granger.. they fit together like...like..something that was and is inevitable. A foregone conclusion. Thunder with lightning, rain with wet. hand and glove..


He sighed and went to his desk to get parchment and a dictation quill. "Well then, we need to get on with interrogating sleeping beauty there" He set up the parchment and quill, and started the procedure. He cast the appropriate spells, and tied each of them into the dictation so they were identified on the parchment as questioners. They were identified as #1, #2 #3 #4 no names. Just identifiers. Transcription: 29 June 1996 present were Frank Wills, Head of Security Algernon Croaker Department of Mysteries Agent 1 [hidden]need to know only Agent 2 [hidden]need to know only prisoner administered Veretaserium

what is your name?

Chris Johnston

You are a death eater

yes

When were you marked?

June last year, when the Dark Lord returned.

How many people have you killed

don't remember, they're just muggles so who cares

you believe the pureblood ideology

yes you know Voldemort is a halfblood

thats a lie

no , its true, told me himself

(grunt)

what is your mission at the DOM

to verify a certain prophecy was still there

what else

to check the access

what access

the secret passageway in.

where is that

out back, by the phone booth

how do you access it

you have to tap on a certain window

which window third one from the end of the building

is there any marks or signs to identify it

yes

what is it

a heart on the window

where do you live

Wokingham off the A329

you live muggle

yes

why

its anonymous

do you have a job

yes

where do you work

off testin alley

in testin alley

thats what I said

who do you work for

LXM potions

what do you do

I work in a potions lab

who runs the lab

Snape

Severus Snape

yes

who do you know to be a marked death eater

Me and Vinnie, he's my flatmate, Justin across the hall, Eric Darsey and Peter Collins from the pub, everyone from where I work, some guys I don't know by name and his boy Draco,

you are certain Draco Malfoy is a marked death eater?

Yes, I was there when he was marked

you said flatmate , who is your flatmate

Justin Carrows. He didn't really want to take the mark, but his family would kill him if he hadn't, Actually he would rather be Justine, but they would kill him even worse if they found out there

are more Deez at the same building you live in

yes we get a break for renting it,

have you ever bribed anyone in the ministry

yes

who

Weatherly? No, Weasley

which one, the older or the younger the younger one,

the Minister's assistant

why did you bribe him

because we needed to get to his brother

which brother

the youngest one

Ronald

yes the youngest one, we had to convince him convince him to do what get some of Potters hair

who wants Potters hair

Malfoy

which Malfoy

the younger one

why does Malfoy need Potters hair.

He's going to set up Potter, kill his girlfriend and put him in Azkaban

whose idea was this

Umbridge

is Umbridge a DE or a sympathizer

I don't know if she has the mark but I have seen her at a Revel

whats a revel

we capture some muggles and have fun with them, pass them around, and then the new ones are blooded.

Blooded

their first kill

what did you say to Ronald

told him that he would be the hero, not the sidekick that he would be respected.,that he could have the girl.

Know what he said?

Silence

said he'd **** her then rent her out as a whore.

"stubefy"

session ends, prisoner unconscious Agent 2 kicks prisoner in ribs, is led away by Agent 1 recording ends

the plot thickens.. or is it curdles? Hmmm.