[Greater London Area]
The following morning was accompanied by the discord that had become the norm whilst the children were home. In the scramble to get ready for their days, Harry had misplaced his glasses, Ginny had scorched the toast with an overzealous use of the incendio charm, Albus had refused to get out of bed which lead to James attempting to forcibly extricate him, and Lily had gotten so excited over and article about her favorite wiz-rock band in Witch Weekly that she'd almost broken the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Magic.
Finally, once everyone was ready, they assembled before the fireplace. The children said their quick goodbyes to Harry and Ginny and stepped into the fireplace in turn, each gathering a handful of floo powder and declaring "Weasley-Granger residence" as their destination.
Hermione, who had recently left her post in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to teach at Hogwarts, had the summer free and so had agreed to look after the Potter children while Harry and Ginny were at work.
Naturally, the Potters didn't argue against spending the summer's days with their friends. Nevertheless, they did resent when Hermione or "Professor Granger" (she had retained her family name in legal matters) tried to assign them transfiguration homework.
Once Albus had disappeared into the flames, Harry, and then Ginny, both declared their destinations "Ministry of Magic".
Stumbling forth from one of the golden grates into the atrium, Harry quickly righted himself and straightened his glasses, stepping out of the way for Ginny who followed behind him moments later.
Harry worked on the second floor in the Auror office, while Ginny worked deeper underground on the Committee On Experimental Charms.
She kissed his cheek affectionately before they parted ways near the lifts.
Ginny had done a short internship on a break from her day job as sports writer for the Daily Prophet with the committee and found herself so enraptured by the work (as well as the perks of working in the same building as Harry) that she decided to make the job change permanent.
Harry's shift didn't start for another 15 minutes and despite the fact that he enjoyed his job, he wasn't one to do more work than he needed to. Besides, today held the promise of meetings and mounds of paperwork. He set off for the small cafe meant to cater to Minstry Employees and visitors where he'd promised to meet Ron.
The man behind the counter grinned at him. "Fancy some pumpkin juice then Harry?" he nodded enticingly toward a large decanter with orange liquid in it.
Harry shook his head. "No thanks Jennings" he declined the man. "Though I wouldn't say no to a spot of tequila," he muttered "with the day I've got ahead of me."
Jennings' brow knitted in confusion. "I'm sorry…tequila?" he asked, "I'm afraid I don't know your meaning."
Harry chuckled and shook his head. "No, no it was just a joke." He explained, "Tequila's what muggles call Felix Felicius."
"Felix Felicius!" Came Ron's familiar voice as he jogged over to join Harry. "Haven't got a bit of that have you? I could use some what with the hours we've been pulling to get those budget reports finished."
Harry clapped his friend on the shoulder and nodded his agreement. "That's what I've just been telling Jennings."
Ron worked with Harry in the Auror office and he too had been hit with a massive pile-up of red tape and forms associated with their mid-year budget assessments as well as some international hullabaloo involving some potentially cursed soda pop bottles that had found their way from Chelsea to Munich.
"In any case, Jennings, I think we'd better get going then or suffer the wrath of our wives for getting caught up late at work again." Harry dismissed them, and Jennings bade them a gloomy farewell.
Ron made a face "Speaking of which, Hermione's not been too happy about that. Been a bit scary since she took that post at Hogwarts." He muttered. "I feel sorry for her students, really."
Harry shook his head. "I don't know how she'd managed to avoid a job in teaching for this long as it is."
Ron shrugged. "Always been tangled up in advocating for house elves or writing new human-centaur relation treaties I suppose. Bless her."
Harry stepped into the lift feeling quite at peace. Their fellow occupants were an assortment of important-looking foreign wizards and a pensive-looking black man whom he greeted straight away. "Morning, Minister" said Harry amicably, shaking hands with the man.
Kingsley Shacklebolt smiled back at him and nodded. "Weasley. Potter." He said in his signature short manner of speaking. "I trust things are going well in the office?" he asked.
Harry nodded. "Sir, you'd know if it wasn't" he assured the minster, stepping out a moment later into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
"Honestly, you'd think the bloke might chance a more friendly greeting for two aurors who helped him bring down the darkest wizard of all time" Ron huffed, but smiled good-naturedly. "Suppose he's always been like that though, hasn't he?"
Harry shrugged noncommittally as they passed through heavy oak doors.
On the other side of the doors, they were greeted with utter pandemonium. Aurors were running this way and that and no sooner had they opened the door than 7 interdepartmental memos whizzed over their heads and toward the lifts. Matevich, the wizard who stood in for Harry as head of the department when he wasn't working, was standing atop a chair issuing orders to a quick-quotes-quill. Once he caught sight of the two of them he leapt from the chair and hurried over.
The press of people parted ways for Harry as he made his way across the office. "Matevich, what's happened?" he demanded.
"Sir, there's been trouble, sir." Matevich said rather unnecessarily. He was out of breath. "A massacre. In Dublin." He paused a spell and composed himself. "Those three men who we've been keeping an eye on, you know the ones who'd been seen doing some funny business with their wands out around King's Cross? Trying to break through to 9 ¾. The gang out of Liverpool" he explained.
"Yes, yes," said Harry impatiently.
"Well, an hour ago three aurors spotted them on a ferry to Ireland. I authorized them to follow the suspects, provided they keep us posted here in real time. The three made for Dublin and eventually made contact with another individual, dodgy looking bloke. Just for safety's sake we got in contact with a squad of hit wizards, asked them to stand by in case anything got out of hand. The aurors followed the men into the Fainting Goat-that's a wizard's pub in Dublin-and things got a bit...well they mentioned something about creating horcruxes sir" he explained. "So one of our men, David Levitz, attempted to apprehend them but they were having none of that. Wands were drawn and they, well they killed him."
Harry closed his eyes a moment and his mouth thinned. Levitz had been a good man, a new recruit too. He'd hardly been an auror for a year. "Then what?" Harry asked, keeping his voice calm.
"Well we don't think the dark wizards expected that they were so outnumbered when the fighting broke out. Naturally the other two aurors who'd been inside the pub started dueling with the four suspects, but the hit wizards entered the bar as well, 6 of them. They tried to subdue the suspects but the fight spilled out into the street." Matevich said these last words quickly, hoping to get on to the next part of his report.
"They took a wizard's duel out into the streets of Dublin in broad daylight?!" Ron interrupted quickly. "They're barking!"
Harry shook his head incredulously. "I suppose this is where the massacre comes in?" he asked weakly.
Matevich nodded, looking rebuffed. "Yes. Well the four dark wizards took to the shop fronts and cars and just about anything they could set their sights on with blasting spells. Our men had not choice but to try and subdue them, but they were easily matched. The suspects were supposedly extremely adept at dueling. Still, our men had them effectively surrounded. They were pinned down under too many stunning spells to take even a moment to disapparate." He said. "So after a few volleys, the dark wizards started to use bystanders as…bargaining chips"
Harry nodded, knowing it could only get worse. "So they used muggles as hostages." He completed the puzzle.
"Well, actually sir, not in the traditional sense." Matevich contradicted him. "They sort of just, started killing anyone and everyone they could. The aurors say one of the dark wizards did a bit of extremely powerful wordless magic, stopped any of the muggles from fleeing. Slowed down our men quite a bit too. We believe it was some variant of the impediment jinx, or else a freezing charm."
Ron shook his head, looking sick. "Couldn't even run or protect themselves then, couldn't fight back. They just had to stand there, frozen, scared, and wait to get killed." He said, realizing the scene's stark inhumanity.
Matevich nodded gravely. "Our men tried to freeze them, stun them, anything. They countered whatever we threw at them. Finally the suspects got across that they would simply stop their attacks and disapparate if the aurors and hit wizards agreed to a ceasefire. What could our guys do? They stopped."
Harry stood, fuming. "So they got away." He steeled himself and nodded.
After a moment he asked "How many casualties?"
"23, sir" Matevich replied. "The worst single incident since-"
"Since the Battle of Hogwarts" Harry finished grimly. "Thank you Matevich, I'll take it from here. Please brief Ron on the location of the incident and we'll be off." He said.
Ron pulled a self-inking quill and a pad from his shoulder bag, starting to take down specifics so they could zero in enough on the area to apparate there.
Harry, in the meantime scribbled several interdepartmental memos while issuing instructions to a host of aurors who had realized that he was now in charge. More aurors were pouring in; every member of the department of magical law enforcement that could be called up was now being delegated to set up guards at various strategic points including hogsmeade, certain areas around London and other important magical areas. The dark wizards hadn't actually gone to Dublin to kill, but they had certainly shown that they were not at all uncomfortable with blatant mass murder and whenever there was an unpredictable factor like that in play, one could never be too safe.
He sent instructions to obliviators and put Matevich in charge of informing Kingsley. Already looking harassed and shaken by the suddenness and violence of the incident at hand, Matevich only obliged because technically, he had to.
Lastly, Harry scribbled a quick interdepartmental memo to Ginny, letting her know that he was going to be very busy tonight, that she should go to Ron and Hermione's after work so that she and Hermione could both make sure the children were safe. She'd know the news about what had happened soon enough, perhaps before the memo even reached her.
Then, just as a precaution he scribbled "The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix are located at number 12 Grimmauld Place, London." It had been years since he'd had to perform any duties as secret keeper, but if they really needed a safe house, the children couldn't get in without his word.
Then, bewitching the memos to fly straight to their respective recipients, he hurried over to meet Ron.
"Got it" Ron muttered, holding up a piece of paper.
With that, they swept from the office, leaving an exasperated Matevich to once again hold down the fort.
Only once they had reached the privacy of an empty lift did Ron and Harry drop their business-like facades. They let the true gravitas of the moment sink in. Ron looked as though he'd aged about 10 years in the past 15 minutes and Harry's brow hadn't unknitted since he'd heard the word "massacre".
"Feels like it did back then." Ron muttered. "When we were searching out horcruxes, remember? We'd listen to the radio to find out what tragedies had happened that day. That's what it is you know? Pure evil. Nobody normal kills 23 people in 10 minutes just because they couldn't think of a better way to escape arrest. Nobody who isn't mad."
Harry didn't say anything, but it was true. Even though this was the first time they'd had to deal with anything this horrible since the fall of Voldemort, it felt just like they were suddenly in the midst of another war.
Once they emerged into the atrium, it became clear that by now much of the ministry had heard about the incident. Ron wordlessly showed Harry the paper with the details of their destination.
There was a tense quiet that hung over the atrium. Groups of witches and wizards stood huddled in groups of two or three. Naturally, this was the business of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It did not warrant any action on their part, at least not yet. But what did it mean?
That was the question in all of the eyes that followed Harry and Ron until they reached the middle of the atrium, where they turned on their heels and disapparated.
Author's Note: Since I've decided to continue to develop this story, I find myself in need of one or two beta readers. I'm mostly looking for a second or third pair of eyes for grammar, usage or awkward phrasing. I don't want input on content and I'd expect a fairly quick turnaround (a day or two, but of course I'm understanding of extenuating circumstances) since I only require a quick read-through. Please message me if you are interested.
