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

Lyra asked Simpkins and Rossman to question Ophira Nagini about her connection to Lucius Malfoy and see if they could get any additional information out of her about his plans. That takes care of two, she thought to herself.

It was approaching lunchtime, meaning that the office was clearing out. That was a good thing. She knew the lines would be long at the cafeteria, so she sent Gold out to grab food for Draco's family. That's one more down.

Shacklebolt was at the main MLE office acting as a lead on the Azkaban break in Julian's 'absence.' Thank god for that, Lyra thought to herself. Something might actually get done.

Who was left? Darwin, the ancient artifacts guy, Dinesh, the library guy, Colin and Harry. Colin was at his desk in the common, Harry was in his office, Darwin and Dinesh were on the couch drinking tea and being useless like always.

No time like the present, she thought. She walked back to where Draco was waiting with his family. Five anxious sets of eyes looked to her for guidance and instruction.

"Astoria, I'm going to take you, Nott and Scorpius up front for tea. I'm going to send Colin into Harry's office to ask him a question and then you and Scorpius will go through first. I'm going to stun the guys on the couch and then Nott, you go," she explained. "In case we get separated, know that your wardkey only works once and once you get to the destination, you cannot leave and expect to return. You will be there until Malfoy is found, but you will be safe. More safe than you can hope to be here."

The Notts nodded at her seriously. It looked like Astoria was going to vomit, but her husband was all business. That was good.

She turned to Draco and Narcissa. "I am expecting that Harry and or Colin will figure us out and try to stop us. Colin sucks. Stun him and be done with it," she began. "Harry, however, does not suck. Harry is a war beast. Do not get fancy. Use whatever you have in your repertoire that is fast and keeps your arms in close to your body. If you give Potter even a millimeter of wrist, he will snatch it and throw you across the room. Do not let him get in between you and the fireplace. That would be a mistake. He's right handed, he can translocate and he's probably got enough memory from his clerking days to close the floo gate on us if he thinks of it. I am hoping he does not. I want you two to fall back and let me take the hard hits, because I love you, because it's my job, and because I'm the only one with a vest on. Got it? Questions?"

Narcissa looked nervous. Draco looked like he wanted to rip her clothes off and take her on the ground right there.

"Okay then. Let's go. Draco, you and your mom give us about two minutes then come up front," she instructed, leading Astoria and her husband out to the common.

Scorpius was in his mother's arms looking around like this was the coolest thing he had ever seen or experienced in all of his nearly four years on earth. Possibly even better than trains. He would just have to see how it played out.

Lyra nodded politely to Darwin and Dinesh on the couch and poured a cup of tea while Astoria and her husband lingered by the fireplace.

"Colin? Would you mind running and asking Harry how he wants me and Simpkins to do the artifact reports on those obscurials Simon's team found in Cardiff? Right now, they've just got them confined to one of the blocks downstairs because nobody can get them into those temporal jar thingies you guys like to use," Lyra said, handing a cup to Nott.

Colin jumped up from his desk and made his way down the hallway without acknowledging the question.

"Will you also point out to him yet again that obscurials are creatures and shouldn't even require artifact reports?!" Lyra snarked to his back. She and Harry had been arguing about that for days.

"Well actually, Auror Black, here in Britain we consider the obscurial..." Darwin began as Nott ushered his wife and stepson into the floo.

"Stupefy!" Lyra called, hitting the old wizard on the couch between the eyes causing him to slump in his seat.

Dinesh yelped and dropped his tea on his lap which caused him to cry out in pain. Lyra hit him with a stun in the chest as Astoria and Scorpius disappeared from the fireplace.

Shit. That made a little more noise than I was expecting, Lyra winced.

Nott stepped into the floo as Draco and Narcissa appeared from the hallway.

Harry's hex emerged before he was even in view and hit her in the left shoulder with a bruiser that made her cramp all the way down to her hand. Fuuuuuuck.

He appeared with Colin at his side. Wands at the ready. "Lyra, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Harry yelled at her, taking in the scene.

"Leaving," Lyra said plainly, stepping half in front of Draco to shield him.

Harry furrowed his brow at her and looked at his unconscious colleagues on the couch.

"Avada Kedavra!" Colin shouted, sending a green flash of light barreling towards Narcissa Malfoy's face. Draco reacted with lighting speed, banding his mother around the stomach and pitching her roughly into the fireplace.

"Confundus-" "Petrificus totalus-" Harry and Lyra fired at the young wizard simultaneously. Their spells collided in midair and fractured allowing Colin to dive behind his desk as sparks rained down on him.

Lyra heard the fireplace roar to life behind her, ushering Narcissa away. Draco started violently upending desks and tables, anything he could levitate, to shield them from Colin. Lyra felt a hex slash into her cheek and she wasn't sure if it was Harry or Colin who cast it she couldn't see either of them.

She heard Draco yell in pain as a curse hit him in the leg. She saw the tip of Colin's wand disappear behind an overturned chair. Lyra leveled her wand and obliterated the chair to dust. Colin lept up and Lyra petrified him, launching him roughly into the wall.

"Go, baby," she whispered to Draco.

"LYRA STOP!" Harry bellowed from somewhere in the room. "Look, let's get Colin downstairs and figure out what's going on. You're not thinking clearly," he tried to reason with her.

Lyra hurriedly shoved Draco back into the floo. Harry hit her with something that made it feel like the skin on the back of her neck burst into flames and she cried out. She handed Draco some floo powder and turned back to the room as he was lost in the green flames. In that moment, Gold entered from the front and dropped the food he was carrying to draw his wand. Lyra stunned him unconscious as Harry got her with a jittering hex in the throat that made her feel like she was being strangled. She didn't even know where in the room he was.

Lyra lowered her wand, and muscled through an open offensive from her powerful friend. She felt like she was made of lead as she grabbed a handful of powder and hurled her wounded body into the fireplace. He kept hitting her as she laid there for the few agonizing seconds it took to get her throat to comply with saying the password. She weakly turned her head out into the room and saw Harry barreling towards her, looking heartbroken, as she was engulfed in the flames and there was only blackness and the feeling of falling.


Harry sat on the battered, shredded couch in the common with his chin in his hand as people bustled around the room spelling up the damage from his fight with Lyra.

He was so angry. He knew. He knew she was going to make a move. He just didn't expect it to be so soon.

He felt guilty because what she needed was reassurance and support and what she got instead was a face full of hex.

No. She was wrong. She should have been honest. Should have included him.

But what if she wasn't wrong? Colin point blank tried to kill Narcissa Malfoy. Why? Simpkins was reading him to figure out what was going on in his mind. It looked like a genuine cast. Thank the gods Malfoy had pulled her aside in time.

Harry shook his head trying to parse though the morning and their five minute fight to get some kind of handle on the situation, and his feelings.

She was out of control. It was his duty to stop her. To make her see reason.

Her face though. Her face in the fireplace. He'd hurt her badly, he knew that. She barely fought him, it was like she didn't want to.

"Auror Potter?"

Harry warily lifted his head. "What is it, Simpkins?"

"Colin. Looks like he's been leaking information about Lyra to a source for several weeks. His mother is quite sick. End stage Dragonpox. Someone's been feeding him instructions in exchange for the promise of some treatment not accessible in England...something dark I'd wager. He got word about an hour ago that it was as good as his if he could kill Mrs. Malfoy," he explained.

Harry's heart sank. She was right. She was right and he pommeled her bloody for it. He sighed heavily. It was worse than it would have been too, since he had lent his wand to Carl from MLE for study and was using his mother's old wand instead. He had hit her full on with everything he had.

"Gold. Any chance of figuring out where they went?" He asked the Scotish wizard flatly.

"Don't think so. They used veiled passcodes. We've tried running them back, but they're dead ends," he admitted.

"Right," Harry replied, staring absently into the fire. He needed to find them. He needed to find her. Make sure she was alright. Make sure she was safe. Make sure she didn't become a murderer because she was afraid and he backed her into a corner.

"Simpkins, get back in there. See if there's anything else you can pull from him," Harry grumbled.

"Alright," the young wizard replied in a tight clip before heading in that direction.

Harry stood and wandered mindlessly back to his office, slamming the door behind him and slumping forlornly behind his desk.


November 2008
Spinner's End
Muggle Yorkshire, England
Friday

"Astoria, take Scorpius to the kitchen," Narcissa urged over the sounds of Lyra's strangled moans in the sitting room.

"Gran, why is she crying?" Scorpius whimpered, on the verge of tears.

"Theo, I need your help. Something hit her in the throat," Draco said urgently, his hands shaking as he ran them over his witch assessing her injuries.

"Finite horreo -" Narcissa directed at the witch's face.

Lyra sputtered violently and drew in a deep shuddering breath. She hyperventilated a few moments, her eyes searching wildly for threats.

"Shhh. Sweetheart, it's ok. You did it. We're all here. We're safe," Draco soothed.

She focused her eyes on him then and reached for his hands. She winced and retracted her right arm.

"My shoulder..." she stuttered. "Ddd-dislocated."

Nott stepped forward. "Hold her down," he instructed Draco.

Draco held her down at the waist and opposite shoulder.

Lyra stared shakily up at the brunette wizard who looked down at her solemnly.

"This is going to hurt," he informed her. He bent down and took her hand in his. He bent her arm at the elbow and quickly rotated it out towards him. The crunch was audible as the bone popped back into joint.

Lyra screamed. Scorpius wailed her name from an adjacent room.

Draco closed the cuts on her face, cooled the red and aggravated skin on her neck and alleviated the swelling of the stinging hexes Potter had littered across her body. Fucking wanker, Draco thought.

"No way in hell that was your old wand," she mused, taking slow breaths. "Your mom, is she ok?" Lyra inquired anxiously, sitting up to look for her, then wincing from a sharp pinch in her abdominal muscles. That one I probably did myself, Lyra mused, laying back down.

"I'm here, darling," the blonde witch said to her, coming into view behind Draco and running her elegant hand through Lyra's hair. A bit bruised from where my brute of a son threw me on my backside, but I'm fine," she smiled down at her, wrapping an arm around said son.

"I think you should let him off the hook for that, just this once," Lyra retorted.

"I think I might," the older witch replied, pointing an adoring smile at Draco.

"Where are we?" Theo Nott asked, looking around the room.

"Spinner's End," Narcissa replied. "This is, or was, Severus Snape's home," she explained. She looked back at Lyra. "How did you get us inside? This place has been sealed off for ten years or more. Lucius paid quite a sum to aid the efforts to have it reopened. They were never successful."

Lyra flexed her jaw, suddenly overcome with the urge to tell the truth. She felt comfortable telling Narcissa, but she didn't trust Nott, or Astoria, so she decided to deflect. "We visited his portrait the other day at Hogwarts. He heard what happened to us and offered us the wardkeys for the house in case we needed to hide," she offered.

Narcissa nodded. "It was very good of him to do so."

"Scorpius, stop. Come here!" Astoria called.

Lyra heard his little footsteps rushing over to the couch she was on. Narcissa stopped him just before he could fling himself onto her.

"Gently, sweetling. She's a little sore," the blonde witch cautioned.

Lyra looked at the boy. His face was tear-streaked, his lower lip quivering adorably. She smiled and reached out for his little hand. "Don't cry, buddy. I'm okay. Just a little banged up," she cooed. "Are you hungry? You should eat something. There's plenty in the kitchen," Lyra informed him, pulling him gently into her arms and rubbing his back.

Draco laughed.

Lyra frowned at him.

"You sound like your mother," he informed her with a smirk.

"I do not!" Lyra protested, knowing instinctively that she did.

Lyra released Scorpius to his mother who hurried him back to the kitchen for food and Nott followed.

She turned back to Narcissa. "He's my father," she said simply.

The blonde witch furrowed her brow. "I beg your pardon?"

"Severus. He's my father. That's why we're here," she explained in a murmur.

"That...what?" She balked.

"Lily Snape. Nice to meet you," she said plainly to clarify, with an exhausted sigh.

Narcissa Malfoy looked less composed than Lyra had ever seen her and Lyra had just seen her literally put on her ass. Lyra laughed tiredly. "Please don't say anything," she said, motioning at the kitchen with her head.

"No, certainly not," Narcissa replied tightly.

Lyra furrowed her brow. "Does it...does it bother you?" She asked nervously.

"No, darling. Not at all. Quite the contrary," she replied gently.


Translocate - The ability to move by smoke, like Snape and the Aurors do in the movies. In my AU, it's an advanced skill that Aurors would know how to do.
Obscurial - A young witch/wizard that is transformed into dark energy through the chronic, often forced repression of their magic.