November 2008
Wizarding London, England
Ministry of Magic of Great Britain
Office of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Department
Thursday Morning

Lyra went to work on Thursday, because it was the first day Shacklebolt would allow her to return without the threat of physical violence. She'd enjoyed the laziness, the binge eating and the mind-blowing sex, but she wasn't the type to like being off for long periods.

She was greeted warmly by her colleagues, including a crushing hug from the typically shy Simpkins which left her quite surprised.

"As beautiful as ever, Auror Black," Zabini crooned at her with a peck on the cheek, which she allowed ONLY because she agreed that she did look pretty good that day. Can't blame a guy for just telling it like it is.

"Where's Harry?" She asked, anxious to see her friend.

"In his office, presumably," Rossman answered. "He was on a raid late last night with one of Godwin's teams."

"For what?" Lyra asked.

"Busting up some pureblood supremacy thing. Godwin and Shacklebolt are mad on it. Harry is too, typically."

"I imagine that he would be," Lyra replied, nonplussed. "I'm gonna go see him. Simpkins? You wanna do some reads later?" Lyra asked, itching to try her hand at more advanced magic since her hiatus.

"I'd like that," he answered.

"Awesome."

She meandered over to Harry's office and found the wizard asleep sitting up at his desk with his arms crossed supporting his head.

"Harry."

Nothing.

"Potter!"

Nothing.

"HARRY!"

Harry jerked up, nearly knocking over his coffee cup in the process.

"-"M 'wake." He mumbled.

"Of course you are," Lyra answered, sitting down in the chair opposite his desk.

"You're back," he said, sounding more tired than before.

"I'm back," she replied.

"Excellent," he replied flatly, reaching for his coffee.

"Harry."

"What?"

"Look at me," she commanded, with a roll of her eyes.

He looked at her, keeping his expression guarded.

"It's not your fault. None of it," she said.

"Yeah, tell that to the investigators trying to take my job, tell that to your parents who almost lost their daughter, tell that to James who's been having nightmares," he bit out, with an edge of irritation.

"Ok. I will tell them, if that's what you want," Lyra rebutted gently. "Are...are you still angry with me?" She asked.

Harry's face fell. "No, of course not." He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "You got your part of the job done. We were so careful. So thorough. All that planning gone to pot because some sodding elves got too excited about who I was as a kid," he grumbled defensively.

"Harry, come on. They had no way of knowing what would happen. You don't mean that," she replied.

He huffed. "No, I don't. I just...I should have controlled it better, covered all the angles," he mused.

"You know someone else who thought he could control everything? Voldemort. And guess what? He got his ass handed to him by a lanky teenager in bad glasses," Lyra offered.

Harry smiled before frowning. "Hey! They're not bad glasses!" He replied in offense.

"I believe that you believe that is true," Lyra quipped with a grin.

Harry smiled at her.

"I would be dead if it wasn't for you, Harry. You were a little fashionably late, for sure, but you saved my life. I adore you. I love your family and I am so proud to be your friend. Whatever happens, whenever you need someone to back you, I'm your girl. As a Snape by birth, I do not say that lightly," she said to him very seriously.

Harry looked at her as if he were going to cry.

"Don't you dare," Lyra reprimanded him. "As your friend, let me be the first to inform you that nobody likes a sissy, so lock it up," she pointed a finger in his face.

"No, of course not," he said with a cough, looking down at some miscellaneous paperwork on his desk.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" Lyra asked lightly, tapping her fingers on the arm of her chair.

"Um, not a whole lot, actually. I have the Malfoys coming in at eleven to go over some statements, but other than that I was just going to brush up on a bit of training," he answered.

Lyra looked over at the clock on the wall and saw it was just after nine. Do this now, work with Simpkins later. That should perk me right up, she thought.

"Fight me," she stated flatly at her friend.

"What?" Harry asked, shocked.

"You have a practice facility, right? Fight me! I have all this energy from my down time and you're all stressed out. It'll make us feel better. Plus, I haven't seen the great Harry Potter in full form. Come on," she prodded.

He glanced at the clock for himself, chewing on his cheek. "No."

"For fuck's sake, Harry. Can you honestly say that it wouldn't put a pep in your step?"

"I raided last night, I'm tired," he dismissed.

"I died last week. See! We'll both be the fat kids on the pitch. It'll be fun. Come ooooooon," she whined.

He thought a moment. She had a point. Plus, if her legilimency was any indication, she'd could be a good sparring partner. His best match was Kingsley, who hardly ever fought anymore. Next was Blaise, who was getting really quite good, but wasn't fast enough to be a consistent threat. "Alright," he answered. "Change, then meet me in the common and we'll go down together."

Lyra squealed with delight and hopped up from her chair. "Oh, I am so excited!" She exclaimed making her way out of his office and heading towards the changing rooms.


Lyra met Harry several minutes later in the entrance to the Auror Department. She had changed into her standard raiding gear which, for an American Auror, consisted of black cargo type pants, a black long sleeved shirt and a tight tactical vest. She braided her hair down her back to keep it out of her way and put on her tight wristwraps.

Harry, on the other hand, was wearing basically a different set of dad clothes.

"Ummm..." Lyra said to him as she approached.

"Americans. You always think you need to have a special kit for everything," he quipped, dusting some lint from his sweater.

"So, today's fight will be Lyra Black, darkhorse assassin, versus Harry Potter, first year herbology teacher!" Lyra announced to the room like a sportscaster.

Harry scoffed. "Come on then, darkhorse assassin. I don't want to keep you waiting too long for your comeuppance," he quipped, leading her to a side door and descending several flights of stairs.

He brought her to an antiquated, but well stocked training space. There were sparring dummies, automatic hex throwers and several subchambers full of different obstacles and equipment.

"This is awesome! Where do you wanna go?" She asked her friend.

"I was thinking the arena. It's the largest," he answered.

"Oh good. Plenty of space for you to hide," she teased.

He just rolled his eyes at her and showed her back to a cavernous room, about the size of a Quidditch pitch that had been spelled to fit in the bowels of the ministry. It had walls and tables and fodder of all types. It even had some trees and a small lake. Looking up, Lyra saw that the room was actually more of a pit and there was a viewing gallery rimming the entire space. The ceiling had been charmed to look like the daytime sky. It was awesome. The facilities at MCUSA were more modern, but definitely less grand than this.

Looking back to one corner of the room she saw two people throwing glowing hexes at each other and recognized Zabini's deep voice shouting instruction and encouragement out at Rossman who was doing her best to keep up with him.

"Arm up, love! Don't drop that guard!" He advised.

Rossman danced around him gracefully, hurling spells to disarm him. She overbalanced one that left her wrist exposed for a fraction of a second and Zabini jumped on that to hit her with a simple Expelliarmus that sent her wand up into the air and into his grasp.

Lyra and Harry sauntered over and watched the exchange with interest.

"Too far, Azalea," Lyra called to her.

"I know. I know. I always do that," she griped with a huff.

"Your coverage is really good though, good variance of spells," Lyra added truthfully to reassure her.

"Thanks!" she grinned.

"You two gonna have a go?" Zabini asked curiously, handing Rossman's wand back to her.

"Yeah, we've a bit of time, so we thought we'd see what the other was made of," Potter explained.

"You mind if we watch?" Rossman asked.

"By all means. I want you to see me put our golden boy here on his ass," Lyra replied with a grin. She turned to Harry, "It's your house, dearest. Pick your corner."

"We're doing this full on?" Harry asked.

"Of course we are! Didn't think I'd let you keep it to an easy close range game, did you? That's no fun," she replied.

"Alright, alright," Harry grumbled, trudging away into the room to get ready.

Lyra turned to Blaise. "How good is he? I bet he's pretty fucking good," she muttered.

"Yeah. He's a right bloody wall," he replied.

"I mean how is it that he can be such a badass and dress like a spell-damage insurance salesman? I don't get it," she whispered to him before turning to run off to a corner of her own in the giant room. "Oh hey will you greenspark for us?" She asked him, referring to the signal for start-of-match."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied.

Lyra ended up back by the little lake with it's nobbly willow tree. She climbed up it, walking out on to a branch and waited patiently for the spark.


Draco and his mother walked into the Auror's Department late at 11:15, because Malfoy's make YOU wait, not the other way around. They were both put off by the clear lack of people around the common.

"Where the devil is everyone?" Draco said to his mother, looking down at his watch.

"Oh Piperin! There you are!" Narcissa exclaimed to the graying Scot as he hurried in from a side door.

"Good Morning to you, Mrs. Malfoy. Looking radiant as ever," he chirped, leaning in to kiss the woman on the cheek which caused her to blush sweetly.

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Auror Shacklebolt is running a bit behind today. How about I grab you a spot of tea and get you settled in a room to wait," Gold offered.

"Wait!?" Draco said, appalled. "Absolutely not. We can go over things with Auror Black or Auror Rossman. Whichever is available now," he dismissed proudly.

"Well lad, you see, most everybody in the office is downstairs watching the match," Gold explained, clearly annoyed.

"What are you on about? What match?" He asked.

"Potter and Black are sparring downstairs. It's quite the show. I just came from there myself and would like to be getting back to see how it turns out," he clarified.

"Take me down," Draco bit out in an authoritative tone.

Gold shrugged but beckoned them through the side door down to the training spaces.

He led them to a viewing gallery above an open sparring pit. The gallery was absolutely packed with people, and not just Aurors. Draco recognized his father's idiot friend Julian, who was the head of MLE, along with a gaggle of other Ministry personnel. He nodded to Rowena Wormwood, his mousy legilimens, as he passed her.

Gold brought them over to the other Aurors and they looked down onto the room below. Draco didn't see anything at first, just a giant space full of random impediments with a haze of smoke in the air.

Then he saw her. She was clad in all black, crouching behind an overturned carriage. She was covered in soot and had a cut on her forehead that was oozing blood. Draco gritted his teeth. He wanted to punch Potter in his stupid face.

Lyra looked around for a place to run to after her cast, which would undoubtedly reveal her position. She muttered something into the tip of her wand and hurled a spell at the ceiling which changed the charmed ceiling from day to night. She then leapfrogged from obstacle to obstacle seeking to keep herself out of view. The throng in the gallery buzzed with excitement.

She had just hidden herself behind an overturned table when a jet of red sparks shot out from across the room causing the table to fly into the air. Lyra reacted quickly and turned onto her back. She captured the table with a spell of her own and flung it at Harry as he was coming out from behind a thicket of bushes.

Potter fired a spell into the table that obliterated it to dust. Lyra used the obscuring screen it created to take flight, leaving a trail of black smoke behind her. Potter picked up on it instantly and followed suit, disappearing into a haze of white smoke. They collided in midair, almost at the level of the spectators, twisting and twirling around each other too quickly for the eye to distinguish between them. Somewhere from within the resulting gray cloud a glimmer of purple fire shot out and Harry fell out of flight, tumulting to the ground.

He caught himself easily with a quick levitation charm and found himself in the center of the room without a scrap of cover as Lyra touched down behind him. He turned to face her and the two began to duel in earnest.

Draco had never seen anything like it, and he'd seen people literally fight to the death. The speed at which they shot spells at each other was inhuman. The noise was incredible and he could actually feel the percussion of their rapid fire in his chest. Lyra looked beautiful and terrifying at the same time with her arms dancing around her lithe form gracefully and her braid whipping around her like a tail when she spun or ducked.

They were lighting up the room like the frigging Fourth of July and Lyra couldn't remember the last time she'd had such a good time in a training session. Harry was amazing. Clever, creative and an excellent defensive spellcaster. She felt, even so, that Harry was pulling his punches a little bit. Some of his offensive spells, especially his stinging hexes were weak sauce and she could muscle through them with only moderate discomfort. She would reprimand him for that later, right now, she was having too much fun. She felt like a cooped up horse finally put out to run.

Merlin on ice, this witch is good, Harry thought to himself as he dodged a barrage of her curses, feeling a new tear in his sweater. She was far better than Zabini, and, much to his surprise, better than Shacklebolt. He hoped she wasn't better than himself, but honestly, after nearly two hours, he wasn't sure. He was flabbergasted at her ability to withstand a stinging hex. He was particularly good at those and she'd pushed through his worst ones as if they were butterflies on her cheek.

Lyra needed an opening. Just one little thing. Harry was too good to overextend his casts without cause so she would have to get creative. She summoned the water from the lake as a column of clear plasma and sent it rushing at Harry. He make a stunned face and fired several standard defenses at it to no avail. It crashed into him, knocking him off his feet.

Harry lept back up and swirled his wand out wide for a water gathering charm of his own. As soon as he did it, he realized his mistake. It was a trap. She needed his arm out to trip him up. Bullocks, he thought.

"Incarcerus aquasentiri-" Lyra cried. The displaced water snapped into place around Harry, holding him in a chilly, wet embrace. His momentary struggling succeeded only in him getting water in his nose, which made him sputter. He was done.

"Wizard. Do you yield?" Lyra called out to him, voice booming, her wand leveled very seriously at his chest. This was basically the dueling equivalent of checkmate.

"Aye, witch. I yield," he replied formally, releasing his grip on his wand and letting it clatter to the ground. The audience gasped in collective surprise.

Lyra walked up to him, not releasing his bonds and regarded him with a smirk. "Boop," she squeaked, putting her index finger to his nose as a taunt.

"Let me go," he said to her, with a tired chuckle.

She tapped her wand to the band of water around his chest to release him. In an act of retaliation, he canted his body letting the water rush over her and took both of them, sopping wet, to the ground.

Lyra laid on her back, exhausted. Harry reached a weak arm over to her and poked her in the forehead with his index finger. "Boop," he said smugly, before flopping onto his back next to her. The gallery erupted in applause.

They turned to look at each other and both began to howl with laughter. Harry got up first and helped Lyra to her feet. He grabbed her wrist in his hand and pulled her arm over her head, declaring her the victor. He dropped his hold on her and dipped his head in respect before joining in on the applause.

Lyra made a conciliatory bow towards him and then blushed up at the viewing gallery. She noticed Blaise and Gold almost immediately. They were sarcastically chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" which made Lyra keel over laughing but then naturally join them for a round, pumping her fist in the air. Her eyes then locked with Draco's. He was regarding her with an affectionate mix of pride and awe. He was so adorable and Lyra, high on victory, couldn't resist. She raised both her eyebrows at him in a cocky salute and gave him a sweet little wink. He rewarded her with one of his heart-stopping smiles and shook his head at her before joining in on the applause with the rest of the spectators.


Author's Note - This was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoy it. :) -MM