Chapter 13
The following Wednesday James went in to work, even though he was officially on leave for another two days, as it was the only chance he could find to talk to Holly and he needed to see her soon. A few people said a surprised good morning to him when he appeared in the reception at eight thirty but he barely acknowledged them as he almost sprinted down the corridor towards her office where he sat and waited for her to turn up at nine o clock. However by half past nine she had not turned up and he left the office to see why she wasn't there. A new receptionist who he had not met before told him that she had taken a few days leave and his heart sank; this had been the one opportunity he had hoped to exploit so he could talk to her and he wasn't going to be able to do it. The last few days had been hell for him; he had been so lonely and had just replayed the whole nightmarish experience over and over again trying to rack his brains to work out why he had slept with the girl. The more he thought about it the more he was convinced she had done something to him and as his anger at a lost opportunity to see Holly began to rise his anger about Zelda was recalled to the forefront of his brain too. "Where's Zelda?" he asked the new receptionist angrily.
"She hasn't turned in either, not since last week."
"What?" he asked.
"Gone, left all her stuff but she fled; not been seen since last Thursday; apparently she's left the foreign house too no one's seen her at all," she explained taking her eyes off her paperwork and looking at him, "got a bit of a thing going with these girls?" she asked coyly.
"No," he barked angrily and she pulled her head back in shock at his outburst.
"Geez, calm down, I was only joking."
"Where did she work?" he asked.
"Who?" the red headed girl replied.
"Zelda," he barked back feeling himself getting angrier, "her office or her station where is it?"
"Down there," she replied pointing in the direction of a large group of communal desks behind the reception counter, "last one on the right."
"Thank you," he growled at her before setting off through the middle of a set of desks where other witches were busy typing up notes and memos or filing bits and pieces into folders and cabinets. Many of them turned to stare at him and huffed as the backdraft from his speed ruffled some of the parchments they were working from but he paid no heed to their disgruntled moans. When he got to the station he was looking for he found the desk cluttered with unfinished paperwork which he swept to the floor in a single movement causing a few more witches to grumble at him. He checked everything else on it, not sure what he was searching for but hoping to find something, some tiny clue as to why she had come to him and why she had seemed to have so much power over him. Rifling through the drawers he found just more papers and a collection of stationary bits that she might have used in her day to day work but nothing out of the ordinary at all. In frustration and anger James kicked the back of her desk and heard a hollow sound which made him freeze; slowly climbing under the desk and receiving a few more scowls he knocked the panels beneath it and heard the hollow sound again. Suddenly he realised that there was an extra panel in front of the original which he quickly removed and cast aside to reveal a small shelf which had a single thin bottle perched upon it. Lifting out the curved glass vial he noticed that there was a small amount of liquid still inside it, a watery lilac liquid swishing around in the bottom. He pulled out the glass stopper and sniffed the top immediately smelling a familiar aroma which reminded him of his experience in the office last week and, surprisingly, of the mission in Russia, something which confused him a little.
Standing up and receiving more strange looks from the people around him, who could not understand why he had been under the desk in the first place, James began to walk back down the aisle and went into his own office to examine it further. Sitting in his chair he uncorked the bottle to smell it again; it was a strong odour which both repulsed and excited him even though it reminded him of an experience which had ruined his relationship with the woman he loved. What he struggled to understand was why the smell reminded him of the tent in Russia; he couldn't work out why he might have smelled it there unless... He suddenly remembered the night he had strangely fallen asleep; he remembered having a vivid dream about sleeping with someone, someone who had no face. He had thought it was because he had been so tired but had it been something more sinister? Had Zelda been there as well?
With his mind whirling James walked out of his room and down to the potions department where he asked an old friend if he could find out what was in the potion and attempt to work out what it did. The more he thought about it all the more he was now convinced that Zelda had used this somehow but until he had proof he would not say a word to anyone, even Holly, it would only make him look desperate and he wanted to be absolutely sure.
"It may take me a day or two to get around to it James," his friend replied. "We're a bit backed up here," he went on indicating the various carefully labelled potion bottles littered around the room; James sighed as he nodded in understanding before trudging back up to his office where he tidied a few things away and then walked to the atrium to floo to his parent's house. He had felt lonely and wanted company so had owled his mother the previous night to see if he could stay for a few days, something he had also done when Annemarie cheated on him; being home made him feel a little less lonely and more loved.
The news of what he had done had passed along the family grapevine and he received a rather stern look from his sister when she got home from work that evening. She was good friends with Holly and was angry with her brother for treating her that way but James knew until he had something more concrete he would keep his ideas to himself and withstand the angry stares. Vernon sympathised with him a little but Albus was on his sister's side and though he did not glare angrily at him James knew he did not approve so he didn't broach the subject of Holly at all. His mother and father made no comment about it which James was grateful for and they spent a peaceful evening in the living room playing wizard chess where his sister finally deemed to talk to him shortly before she retired to bed.
When James went up to his old room he could not sleep; he was playing the day over and over in his head feeling impatient about having to wait for the potion he had found to be separated so eventually he rose from the bed and started to pace the room. He began to think about Holly again and after listening to the rest of the family retire to their respective rooms James left his own and tiptoed down to his father's office where he extracted the hidden bottle of firewhiskey which he had once seen him place behind a set of books on the top shelf. Taking the top off the bottle he took a deep swig straight from it while sitting down on the chair behind the desk where he closed his eyes and started to think about Holly again. It was all he had done for the last few days, think about her, what he had done and how she had found him and everyday he felt guiltier about it all. He tried to think about one of the good times he had shared with her to wallow in but his guilty feelings kept bringing his reckless deed to the forefront again. After another deep swig from the bottle James had an idea and slowly rose from the high backed dark red leather chair and walked over to a cupboard where he knew his father kept the pensieve; for a few moments he wanted to enjoy just one wonderful memory about Holly.
Slowly extending his wand to the side of his head he extracted a swirling fog from it which he dropped into the pensive watching it twist and turn in the white stone basin. He saw Holly within it and his heart sank as he put his face into the bowl and allowed himself to fall through nothingness into the memory landing seconds later on a windswept, waterside hill on the coast of Scotland. He smiled wryly as he saw the two of them inside the bubble and he sat down nearby watching them talking and kissing in their own little world. He remembered how he had felt so happy and in love then and how he had already made the decision to tell everyone about her; how had it all gone so wrong so quickly? And why had Zelda disappeared suddenly too? Wiping her out of his head he continued to watch, desperate to just remember what it was like to be with Holly for a short while. He watched as they slowly started to make love in the bubble and found himself looking away shyly as if he was intruding on a private moment, even though it had been one he was involved in. Her naked body looked magnificent under the glow of the moonlight and he longed to be able to go into his body in the memory so he could hold her and feel her again, lose himself in her and escape the void he felt at the moment; but you couldn't do that in a memory so all he could do was watch. After seeing them curl up with each other James could take it no longer and he withdrew from the memory finding himself stood on the office floor staring at the opened bottle of firewhiskey which he took another deep swig from. Emptying the pensieve and putting the memory back into his head he retired back up to his old room where he continued to toss and turn for another few hours. He finally succumbed to a sleep haunted by memories of Holly and interrupted with thoughts of Zelda and her intentions.
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The day before James was due to go back into work he decided to move back to the flat and packed his few bits of clothes into a rucksack before heading down to the kitchen to floo home. It was shortly after lunchtime and only his mother and father were in the house as all its other inhabitants were out working. Harry persuaded him to enjoy a steaming cup of his mother's hot chocolate before he left and they were all sitting around the inglenook fireplace when the flames turned green and his sister, Lily, appeared looking frazzled and upset.
"Lily, what on earth is the matter?" Ginny asked when she saw the distraught look on her daughter's face.
"It's awful, Mum, Dad, James, the…the ministry has been, been stormed," she sobbed.
"What do you mean stormed?" James asked jumping deftly to his feet.
"People…wizards…dark wizards they…they came in and…and they've taken the Minister and the whole auror department hostage; they confiscated their wands and were working their way down the building. When we heard the boss sent as many of us out as he could before they reached us; we have a separate floo network to the rest of the ministry so we got away but…but reports are coming in that they are torturing the minister and demanding that she bow down to them." She was crying by the time she had finished and Ginny rose quickly to comfort her youngest child. "And…and Raulph will be there," she added with a sob looking imploringly at everyone.
"Who are they?" James asked getting ready to jump into the fire and go to the ministry.
"I…I don't know; someone said they were talking about the High Lord or something but- what is it?" she asked seeing the look of horror cross both her brother's and her father's faces.
"Lestrange," Harry gasped.
"What?" Ginny shouted forgetting about her daughter for a second as a few of her own painful memories came to the front of her mind; she turned to look at her husband and son and in a controlled voice said, "Lestrange?"
"That's who we've been tracking; the High Lord," James began to explain, "out in Russia; but all was quiet and we thought he was in hiding planning something big; but…but to take the British ministry? I should go in and-"
"No!" Harry yelled interrupting him, "James you can't go in alone; if they've taken the auror department you'll have no back up;, remember the protocol; you can do nothing alone. Zabini will be out too won't he? Still on leave?"
"Yes but how do I contact him? I don't know where he lives."
"I do," Harry said jumping up, "We can floo over there and see him; chances are he knows nothing about it but when he does he can get a few people together before We…er...I mean you all decide what to do," he stuttered hastily glancing at his wife remembering that he was no longer part of the department and in a crisis it was not his job to organise the troops.
"Harry," Ginny said softly taking him by the arm and looking at him with understanding, "I think this might be a time to come out of retirement; if the auror department are trapped they're going to need all the help they can get and…" she dropped her voice to a whisper, "if it's Lestrange then I want you there to look out for James," she added. "And Albus will still be there too," she finished realising that her other son was also a ministry employee who was no doubt trapped by now if they were shutting down the whole place.
"Ginny are you sure?" he asked quietly pulling her into a tight hug.
"Yes," she replied leaning up and giving him a swift kiss, "It's time to go back, for one time only!" she added with a slight grin and he beamed at her understanding nature.
"Stay here," Harry said sternly looking down at his wife; then he turned to his daughter to add, "and you too; we'll find Raulph, I promise," he added reaching out an arm to hug the terrified girl who had never seen anything of this kind before.
"Be careful," Ginny urged them both as they headed to the fireplace and one by one the two almost identical looking aurors disappeared from view leaving the two worried women alone.
