Please note that the rating on this story has been changed to M. At this point, it's for no other reason than Lyra needs to use bad words for her sanity. She's just that kind of girl. This story will, however, have mature romantic situations in future chapters. Thanks! -MM


October 2008
Wizarding London, England
Ministry of Magic of Great Britain
Office of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Department
Monday, Continued

Lyra and Harry chatted excitedly about the official stamp on their collaboration over lunch. Harry had several people in mind for the team and Lyra was looking forward to getting an insiders view of how they did business in Britain. What was the same, what was different? The British Ministry of Magic was notoriously locked down when it came to goodwill exchanges between state personnel.

Lyra was thrilled to see a Hippogriff courier box waiting for her when they returned to the office. It was from Patrick and she opened it excitedly. It was much more than she'd asked for. It was a veritable treasure trove of No-maj espionage equipment, courtesy of Carlos and Erik. The bugs were there, with instructions on how to use them. They were truly amazing little machines, about the size of a standard coat button. They had a leg up on magic in a sense in that they could save you the trouble of having to transfigure yourself in to a gnat to spy on someone and they were far less conspicuous than Extendable ears.

There were also tiny stickers that could apparently be affixed to a target and used as a kind of location charm with a screen that could show you where the sticker was at any time. They'd also sent Lyra a set of thin metal tools that were for unlocking doors. Lyra would never need them in her life but she thought it was adorable and committed herself to making the guys teach her how to pick a lock in the No-maj fashion when she got home. The last thing they included was a set of 6 small earpieces that were described as Walkie-Talkies, which made sense to Harry, but not to Lyra and led to a fifteen minute Harry Potter brand tangent that started with invisible ink and ended with an ode to some Muggle character called James Bond.

Patrick had thrown in her form-fitting, anti-curse vest and her spelled wristwraps that made her resistant to being disarmed. She felt like she was greeting old friends as she held them in her hands, though she'd last seen them only about a week ago. My babies, she cooed internally.

Harry assembled his team quickly with approval from Auror Shaklebolt. Harry was able to essentially handpick Aurors as everyone seemed equally interested in working with an American as Lyra was in working with them. The team of 6, including Harry and Lyra, convened in a conference room and Harry took the lead.

"Right, everybody, I'm sure you've already heard, but this is Auror Black. She's from MCUSA in New York and is consulting on this case. She'll be doing the initial briefing, I'll be doing assignments and head coordination. Gold, I want you minding the kit. Auror Black has some things on board from a Muggle government agency that will need special handling."

A graying wizard, maybe early 50's, spoke up in a Scottish accent, "Alright then." He replied gruffly before looking over to Lyra. "Piperin Gold." He grunted at her without emotion.

"Lyra Black. It's nice to meet you, Auror Gold." She replied with standard American paltriness.

The young blonde witch next to Gold spoke up next, "I'm Azalea Rossman. I specialize in potions and countercurses," she said in a bubbly tone.

"Happy to meet you, Auror. Lyra Black. Legilimency and Occlumency."

A handsome, dark skinned wizard who was leaning on the wall with his arms crossed over his chest nonchalantly spoke next. "You really fight monsters in those pretty pumps, sweetheart?" He shot at her with an air of cocky confidence.

"Oh Harry, you have casual sexual harassment in your office too! How unoriginal." Lyra quipped, not addressing the wizard himself.

The man on the wall laughed. "Fair enough, love. Blaise Zabini, offensive spells and hexes."

She recognized him then. She'd never met him, but she'd seen his picture in the Daily Prophet recently and he'd featured in Draco's memories enough when they were children. They were friends. Not as close as he'd been to his idiot henchmen, but still close...for Slytherins. Draco had respected him once. He was intelligent, cunning and apparently, a total douche. Charming.

She narrowed her eyes at him and went for it, reaching out to his mind wandlessly. Smug bastard...

Merlin, she's even hotter when she's mad. I wonder what color her knickers are. I'm hungry. Is it fish n' chips downstairs today?

She pulled back without expression, bracing herself against the bite of pain at her temples. She leveled a cool stare at him and spoke, "Auror Black. Color? None of your damn business, and they have chips downstairs, but no fish." She said with a mock frown.

He widened his eyes and coughed nervously before mumbling "Pleasure," dejectedly, as she pinned him with a saccharine smile.

She turned to the last member of their team. A baby-faced, black haired wizard who looked to be about 12. He seemed to shrink under her gaze, and appeared painfully shy. She thought it best to go first. "Hi!" She said cheerily. "Lyra Black."

The awkward wizard regarded her for a few moments. "Valeron Simpkins, Legilimency."

"Oh! Auror Simpkins!" She exclaimed, making the poor kid jump. "Auror Shaklebolt told me to look for you. Maybe we can talk shop later?"

"You read him. Auror Zabini." He said flatly. "You're wandless. That's brilliant. Does it hurt? I've heard it hurts."

She smiled. "It hurts, but it's occasionally worth it to put a prick in his place." Lyra replied warmly.

The room erupted in snorts of laughter. Even Zabini laughed.

"Anyway," Lyra started. "The case - short version. Compulsion of unknown origin, manifesting in erratic stalking behavior escalating towards obsession and possible violence towards a single target. Our victim, the compelled, is Draco Malfoy, an old-blood with a history of probation for use of dark magic and a penchant for substance abuse. The only suspect at this point is his father, Lucius, a former Death Eater and bastard of unimaginable proportions. Now, since he's served time, he's got the trace, so we know this isn't Imperious. Our goal here is to find the younger Malfoy, separate him from his target, isolate the form of compulsion and neutralize it. I've got copies here of the report I made for your head Auror about Malfoy's correspondence to the target and all information we have so far about his father's possible involvement. Please review it at some point. Questions for me?" She looked around.

"Do we know the target?" Rossman asked.

"We do. It's me." Lyra replied calmly.

"Bloody hell. It's you!" Zabini exclaimed.

"Yes, Zabini, thank you. I just said that."

"No I mean. You're the American girl!" He continued.

"Uh. Yes. I am an American girl. As I'm sure you can hear from the accent. Your astute contributions are truly indispensable, Auror." She quipped, hoping her sarcasm would hide her alarm. He knew something.

Zabini narrowed his eyes at her, but dropped it. Clever boy, she thought.

Harry took over from there, providing assignments and working groups. He put Lyra with Gold and they retreated to a storage room and spent some time going over the No-maj equipment together, which he assessed with a very Scottish combination of suspicion and reluctant interest.

Twirling one of the lock picking implements in his fingers, he pegged her with the million dollar question; "Alright then, lass. These aren't gonna do you much good unless you can get them in the right spot. What's your plan?" He asked, skeptically.

"Probationary visit?" She suggested. "I mean, I don't know your courts very well, but we could talk to your magical law enforcement guys and try that angle."

"It's not a bad idea, though you have to be careful with these people with too much money. Rich people are...right odd, they are. Get their claws in everywhere, even the Ministry. Gotta be careful who you talk to." He replied.

"That's a good point," she conceded, rubbing her temples. "I'm not sure, to be honest, but I do think this approach, with the Muggle-tech is our best bet. We just need to get in the door."

Gold looked at his watch. "Closing time for tonight, lass?" He asked.

Lyra looked at her phone, and sighed, seeing that it was about six. "Yeah, I guess we should."

He gruffed in agreement.

They walked back to the main office where she met Harry and they walked out to the atrium of the Ministry together to floo back to Grimmauld Place. As they were passing the great fountain in the lobby, Zabini walked up to them and asked to speak to Lyra alone. Lyra was hesitant at first, knowing that he was kind of a pig and had very recently been thinking about her underwear, but she nodded to Harry who wandered off to pick up a Daily Prophet. She watched him walk away before rounding on Draco's old friend.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"He told me about you." He replied plainly.

"I'm the American girl." She echoed from earlier.

"He was wrecked." The wizard told her.

"Wrecked?" She asked.

"That spring, before the battle. He'd left Hogwarts right after Dumbledore was killed, but I saw him in Knockturn when I was on break. He was in bad shape. We got pissed together and he just started spewing his guts. It was awful. Voldemort was holding court at his house, torturing and killing people on his dining room table. He kept going on about a girl. Some American he was mad on. Beautiful, bossy, dark hair. He wanted to find a way out of England to get to her, but he didn't want to leave his mother who wouldn't leave without the old man. I guess he was delusional, still convinced that he would win favor back with old snakeface."

Lyra swallowed hard. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I read your report. You think the intended target was Astoria Greengrass but it got messed up, yeah?"

"Yeah, I mean it's a theory." She answered.

"Right, well what if it's a specific kind of compulsion that makes you go after someone you love? Some kind of revenge hex or potion or whatever. It makes you latch on to someone you care about. Maybe, as evidenced by the nasty divorce, Astoria wasn't really an option."

"That's insane, Zabini. I haven't seen Draco in like a decade." She said.

"Well, first cut is the deepest, pet and I can tell you, that boy was in love with you. When I saw him again at the battle of Hogwarts it was like he was either full raging or dead frozen. Going everywhere and nowhere at once. That's more than just trauma. I know trauma. That's heartbreak."

She felt her heart clench at the thought of him that way. She shook the thought from her mind and turned her attention back to the wizard in front of her.

"Ok, so you're working with Rossman, right? Why don't you cross reference spells, hexes and maybe potions with compulsive power that anchor to strong emotion."

"Love." He shot, humor bleeding back in to his tone.

"I think that's bullshit." She answered, shaking her head. "I know him, and so do you for that matter. I feel like if he were going to attach to anyone in that way it would be his son or his mother, not some random girl he hasn't seen in years."

Zabini frowned the kind of frown you see on overconfident people who get knocked down a peg. "Yeah." He said. "I don't know. I haven't talked to him since his wedding." He said, sounding tired.

"Hey, it's not a bad idea. It's better than the nothing we have now," She supplied, ever the diplomat.

"Right, well, I'll be off. I have a date." He said perking up with a smirk.

"Because of course you do," she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Goodnight, love." He said.

"Go, you vile thing. And remember that no means no." She quipped, as he walked away chuckling.

She collected Harry from a bench and they flooed back to Harry's together to be overfed by Ginny and listened to James talk about getting to pet a Niffler at the zoo.


Niffler - A magical creature, with a similar appearance to a platypus that lives predominately in North America. They are attracted to shiny objects, especially jewels and coins.