Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JKR, anything you don't is mine.
A/N: No reviews? Really? Where are all my reviewers? The more reviews I get, the more likely I am to update faster. So review! Now! That's an order! (Just kidding, I'm not that desperate for reviews.)
Just a warning – don't expect all updates to be this fast. It's still winter break and I have all day to sit around and write.
Chapter 2
That wasn't too bad, I thought as I walked down the streets of London, looking for a dark alleyway to Disapparate down. Actually, it was quite similar to getting books published in the Wizarding world, except I had to be sure not to mention that it was all true.
The publisher had loved the book and told me that my writing was as good as Scarlet's – in reality, Scarlet had written most of the book for me but had told me to have my name on the cover anyway. I had tried to convince her otherwise, or to at least say that she co-wrote it or something, but she refused.
Finally, I found a deserted alleyway and darted down it, Apparating quickly home. The streets of Godric's Hollow seemed oddly eerie and silent. But it was nothing compared to our house.
Usually, one could hear talking and laughter, or at least the radio, from outside our house and see at least one person in the drawing room through the large front window – more often than not, that person was not actually a Potter, only a friend or, in Regulus's case, a fiancé. But today, no sound was coming out and all I could see through the window was the radio sitting on top of the coffee table, on but with the volume all the way down. The light was on, but it seemed that nobody was home.
What the hell was going on?
I walked quickly into the house, slamming the door behind me and calling,
"Anybody home?"
There was no response.
I checked the kitchen table for a note. When I saw none, I checked the dining room table, every table in both drawing rooms, and each bedroom. There was still nothing – no sign of a struggle or anything, except Harry's bed wasn't made, but what else was new?
Finally, I decided to check the office. I wasn't normally allowed in there – James didn't like us kids in his only personal space in the entire house – but I had to check.
At first glance, nothing seemed to be off – papers were piled on his desk, a fancy quill was sitting in a bottle of ink near a half-written paper probably for work, tons of pictures of Lily, himself, Harry, me, and others sat in frames, the people in them smiling at me, and a glass of water sat on a coaster.
But when I turned the lights on and looked closer, I saw that an unfamiliar, dark gray owl sat on the windowsill with a piece of parchment still tied to it's leg. It looked annoyed, as though it had been sitting there for a while. I knew that the parchment had been read – despite the fact that it looked official, it was crumpled up, as though it had been folded up in a rush.
Slowly, I untied the parchment from the owls leg. Once it was off, the owl took off out of the window instantly. I was honestly scared to open the letter – what did it say to make everybody rush out of here so fast? Regulus had been at work – had something happened to him? What about one of the Blacks? Longbottoms? Shacklebolts? Lupins? Weasleys? Severus, Draco, Astoria, or Dean?
I unfolded the letter slowly with trembling hands. Scrawled in small, neat handwriting that I recognized as Kingsley's were the words, "Turn on the radio. Now." I threw the parchment down, ran downstairs, and turned dial on the radio so it was blaring.
"This is Ted Tonks speaking, and I continue the same message since three o'clock this afternoon – " so an hour and a half ago " – to all Ministry of Magic personnel – You are needed at the Ministry of Magic immediately."
"Why?" I asked the radio despite the fact that I knew Ted could not hear me – what was going on? For as long as I could remember, this had never happened.
"This is, possibly, the largest crisis since Voldemort. I repeat – any and all Ministry of Magic workers need to report to the Ministry as soon as possible, especially Aurors – "
I couldn't take it – I Apparated instantly to the Blacks' house, but it was just as deserted as ours had been. So was Alice and Frank's house, Kingsley and Mary's house, Remus and Tonks' house, and the Burrow. Scarlet, Molly, Mary, and Remus weren't Ministry of Magic personnel, while the kids that weren't Hogwarts age yet should have been there as well – Scarlet wasn't even a witch.
As a last hope, I swung by Weasley Wizard Wheezes. However, Fred and George weren't there, and Diagon Alley was oddly deserted. Bill and Fleur weren't at Shell Cottage, either. Finally, I knew that I would just have to go to the Ministry of Magic to find out – I honestly didn't want to find out that way, but I knew that I would have to.
I Apparated straight to the Atrium, where I came out of one of the fireplaces like usual.
It was complete chaos in the Atrium. Witches and wizards of all ages milled around, most looking as if unsure of what to do. Several Magical Maintenance workers were running about, trying to calm everybody down – they were failing miserably, though. I stood completely still in the fireplace, both from shock and confusion. What was I supposed to do now?
"Potter! Hey, Potter!"
I turned to see, to my pleasure (note the sarcasm), Dolores Umbridge hurrying my way.
"What are you wearing Muggle clothing for?" she asked suddenly, sounding and looking confused, but when she remembered why she had come over here originally, she said quickly, and rather rudely, "Why aren't you down in the Auror Headquarters? They've been announcing over and over that all Aurors need to go down there immediately." I wondered if she had been a Slytherin when she was at Hogwarts as I pushed my way quickly through the crowd toward the golden gates at the end of the Atrium so I could get to the elevators just beyond them.
Finally, I clambered onto one of the packed elevators and pressed the "two" button so I could get to the Auror Headquarters.
The second floor wasn't nearly as crowded as the Atrium, but tons and tons of memos were flying back and forth from the two corners ahead leading to the Auror Headquarters on the left and Wizengamot Administration Services on the right. I could hear urgent talking from the Auror Headquarters and walked quickly up to the corner, but stopped before I actually reached the round in the corner because I heard a worried voice that I recognized instantly.
"Nicole's still not here."
"She'll be fine, Regulus, she knows how to take care of herself," James replied, although I noticed that he sounded a bit worried himself.
"She should be back by now," Regulus replied.
Now I couldn't take it anymore – I still had no idea what was going on. I quickly walked around the corner and into the Headquarters. As soon as I threw the doors open, Regulus was pulling me into a tight hug.
"What's going on?" I asked, pushing him back lightly. "I got home and nobody's there, there's a strange owl in the office with a letter saying to turn on the radio, and all Ted says is that all Ministry of Magic workers need to report here immediately. I even checked to see if Scarlet or Remus or Mary or Molly or Fred and George or Bill and Fleur were home, or any kids, but nobody was."
"They were all at Hogwarts staying in the Room of Requirement with all of the kids there, like Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville – you get my point. It's the safest place," James said, coming up beside Regulus.
"Plus, Dumbledore said to have them go there," Regulus agreed.
"Why do they need to be in the safest place?"
"Because of the Death Eaters."
"What about them?" I asked.
"There was a mass breakout form Azkaban. Twenty-three Death Eaters escaped," James explained.
"What?" I exclaimed, shocked, my eyes widening. "How?"
"We haven't the faintest idea," Regulus said. "There are wizards there now looking over the place to see if they can figure out how they all got out and where they could possibly be hiding, but so far we've only received messages saying that it looks extremely normal and as though they were never even there." He grabbed a piece of paper from his desk. "Here's the list of the Death Eaters that escaped." I took it from him and read,
Avery, Alecto Carrow, Amycus Carrow, Crabbe, Antonin Dolohov, Gibbon, Goyle, Jugson, Igor Karkaroff, Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Walden Macnair, Lucius Malfoy, Mulciber, Nott, Peter Pettigrew, Agustus Rookwood, Evan Rosier, Thorfinn Rowle, Selwynn, Travers, Wilkes, and Yaxley.
"Hey, Nicole!" Sirius called from his cubicle down the aisle. "Come here for a moment, would you?" I left James and Regulus and went up to him and Frank quickly.
"Hey, sorry I took so long, I – "
"Yeah, yeah, that doesn't matter," Sirius said, waving his hand impatiently. "I have a question for you. Do you still have that fake Dark Mark that Dumbledore put on you in 1979 or whenever that was?"
"Sure do," I replied. "Dumbledore has to remove it and he and I have been so busy that we both weren't free at – "
"Never mind that," Sirius said quickly, waving his hand again. "You still have the mark, though?" I nodded. "Does Snape?" I thought back – did he? His was real, so I assumed so. I nodded again. "Go find him and bring him here, please, we need to speak to the two of you."
Instead of going to find Severus, I sent him a Patronus message telling him to come to the Auror office as soon as possible and I went back to talking to Regulus and James.
"What did he want?" Regulus asked, nodding toward his brother.
"Asked me if I still had that fake Dark Mark from 1979 that Dumbledore put on me and asked me to get Severus to come here," I said, shrugging. Regulus frowned.
"Excuse me," he said before he quickly ran over to Sirius. After a moment, James followed him.
I sighed and made my way over to my cubicle. I had decorated it with a few pictures (one of Regulus and I, one of Harry, James, Lily, and I, and a few others),WANTEDsigns for Bellatrix Lestrange, Greyback, and Barty Crouch Jr., a map of Europe with red pins on it in every place that Bellatrix (whom Regulus and I were the leads in the search for) had been sighted or rumored to be, a poster for Puddlemere United and the Chudley Cannons – I was more of a Puddlemere fan, since they were nearby Godric's Hollow, but the Chudley Cannons were a close second.
I sat down on my chair, flung my feet up onto my desk, and watched Regulus speaking quietly – but obviously angrily – to Sirius with James intervening every now and then. I was quite certain that I knew what they were talking about – Regulus and James were trying to talk Sirius out of sending Severus and I to look for the Death Eaters, since their hiding spot would probably only be accessible if you had the Dark Mark.
I wasn't completely for this, but not completely against it either. If it was the only way – and it probably was – then I knew we would have to do it. Severus probably wouldn't agree – not at first, at least. It would take a lot of persuasion on my part, but I was sure that I could convince him – if I could get him to laugh in front of his students, which I had done before, then I could get him to do this for all of the Wizarding World.
"Nicole, what's going on?"
I looked behind me to find myself face-to-face with Severus. I smiled slightly at him, but he was too busy looking around, confused, to see it.
"What's going on?" I repeated, shocked, as I swung my feet off of my desk and swiveled in my chair to face him. "You don't know? Dumbledore didn't tell you? The kids at Hogwarts didn't know? I thought they would have spread it far and wide by now."
"Obviously not, or I wouldn't have asked what was going on," he replied, staring at Regulus, James, and Sirius, who were almost now in a full-blown fight with Frank between them, trying to keep them all calm. Each one of them kept glancing over toward me but somehow none of them seemed to notice that Severus was there.
"There was a mass break-out from Azkaban. Twenty-three Death Eaters escaped."
"You have got to be kidding me," he said, rubbing his forehead in frustration. He pushed some papers aside and sat down on my desk. "I should've known something was wrong – kids were oddly quiet at dinner, the kids with parents in the Order or extremely close to kids with parents in the Order were all missing, and I could have sworn that I saw one of the Weasley twins on the seventh floor – I thought that I was just looking at the youngest Weasley boy – "
"Ron?" I suggested, my eyebrows rose – I still didn't get why he refused to call them by their first names when he was closer to them (not much, but still closer) than he was in my original time.
" – yeah, him," he said, waving his hand impatiently, "I thought it was just him and I was imagining things. Too bad I wasn't imagining things – those twins drive any teacher mad."
"Nicole, Snape!" Sirius said, coming up beside us and standing in the doorway to my cubicle. "You both still have your Dark Marks, right?" We both nodded. "I need you both to search the usual Death Eater hideouts – Malfoy Manor, the Riddle Home in Little Hangelton, the other previous homes of Death Eaters, the homes of the Death Eater wives, you get the point."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Severus said suddenly, shaking his head. "I'm not an Auror, I don't have to follow your orders, Black."
"If you don't want me to have you arrested, yeah, you do," Sirius said quite sternly.
"You can't do that just because you're the Head Auror," Severus retorted.
"Actually, I could," Sirius replied. "I have contacts."
"I'd like to see you try – "
"Severus," I said suddenly, quietly but sternly, glaring at him. "You have to do this. You won't be doing it for Sirius or because Sirius told you to. You'll be doing it for everybody. For the whole of both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds alike. If you don't, one of them will rise to power again like Voldemort did. Do you honestly want that?"
Severus sighed and shook his head.
"No." He sighed again. "Fine, I'll do it." He shot a glare at Sirius before he said, "Come on, Nicole." He got up and headed out of the door to go back to the Atrium. I followed quickly before Regulus or James could try to stop me, for I saw them both trying to hurry over to me before I could leave.
I made it before they caught me, but even Severus didn't make it before Frank called out to the whole room suddenly,
"Hey, there's news of the first attack!"
Severus spun around so suddenly I barely stopped myself before I ran into him.
"Who was it?" Tonks asked quietly – she was very pregnant, but had refused to stop coming to work until she actually had the baby.
"Mad-Eye." There were several gasps. "He got out," Frank clarified quickly, "and is now at Hogwarts with the rest of the Order members that don't work here and the Order members' kids."
"Here's another one," Alice read quietly from a memo that she had just unfolded. "The Bones. Edgar, his wife, and his children – they're all out of Hogwarts and were visiting – were killed."
How was this happening so fast? Two attacks at the same time, when they had just broke free?
"Gideon and Fabian Prewett were just attacked before they could come in to work. They're severely out-numbered," Tonks read frantically – Gideon and Fabian had become Aurors after the war. Severus and I looked at each other and said, at the same time,
"We're on it."
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