From Eden

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door.
-Hozier

"Liam—" I whispered his name hollowly, my chest aching sharply as I stared at him. He was still pounding on Halley's chest, as blood dried at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were open and glassy, unseeing; if she'd been able to see, she would have noticed Liam's wild expression, the complete lack of control happening there. "Liam—" I tried again, because he wasn't saying anything, wasn't stopping. I needed him to stop; he had to stop.

Halley was gone.

"They hit her too many fucking times—" Liam coughed out.

"Liam!" I grabbed his shoulder and shook it, once, hard; Liam's elbow gave out and he jolted forward, so he was only inches from Halley's face. He slammed back upright, pulling his hands back, and clasped them in front of his stomach. He swung his gaze to me, his eyes frozen and wide, and I felt the same instinct rise that did whenever Cal looked at me, the one where I wanted to protect him; Liam looked like a little boy. "We have to go find the others—" I murmured to him. "We can't help Halley." My voice was already a little hoarse, my throat a little swollen. Halley had been the closest thing I'd had to a mentor at the office, a tough-as-nails woman who had just turned thirty.

And now she was dead.

"If I had any fucking idea where the live members of our team were, you think I'd be here?" Liam's voice was a strangled and loud, though not quite a shout. I grabbed the back of his neck and shushed him, bringing my mouth next to his ear.

"If you don't lower your voice, there will be more than one dead member of Alpha team here." I was barely above a whisper, my voice growling out from the very back of my throat. Liam pulled back as if burnt, throwing me an irate look, but I just met his gaze levelly. He didn't have to like me. He just had to get out of here alive, and that wouldn't happen if he kept shouting like a kid having a tantrum.

I straightened up, my knees creaking as I stood up slowly; with one glance down at the heels I'd worn for the dinner, I stepped out of them, then picked them up long enough to place them over to the side. I would be running barefoot on this mission. Lovely.

I reached up, pulling my hair back into a messy ponytail, even as I watched Liam struggle to stand up over Halley. He made it up after a moment, teetering unsteadily, but managed to step over Halley's body and stand facing me, his back to our team leader. He swiped at his face, rubbing his eyes hard, and pulled out his wand, holding it at his side dangerously. I stared at him; if he was going to flip out, I had to know that now.

"What'd they hit her with?" I asked after a beat, my voice empty. My lungs had expanded to scrape against the walls of my chest, though, my stomach churning nauseatingly. My head ached sharply at the sight of the dead woman on the floor. This was the same woman who had antagonized me when I arrived at the department, who'd taught me everything I knew about wand-to-wand combat.

I grated my teeth. I had to keep it together.

"Stupefy." Liam admitted lowly, and the facts he was offering tethered me to the present. "Eight times." I blinked. The most I'd ever heard someone surviving was four times—and even that had been considered something of a miracle.

Eight meant that Halley had been a goner from the get-go.

"Fuck." I murmured, running a hand over my mouth; my hand came away smudged with lipstick. I shook my hand out—I didn't really care if I had lipstick smeared across my cheek—and flicked my wand at Halley. A pale gray-green slipped from my wand and flooded forward, sinking around Halley until it sat on her skin and leaked onto the ground below her, tethering itself there. "No one will move her." I promise Liam lowly. "We can come back once we take care of this."

Liam nodded, and followed as I started back towards the other side, my bare feet padding against the cold cement. I moved closer to the crates, gesturing Liam back towards it as well, my fingers curled tightly around my wand. I stopped, a foot from the broad empty space between this row of crates and the one across from us.

Everything was quiet.

My breathing suddenly sounded loud to my own ears; I swallowed, my stomach churning. Even if the bad guys had fled—which very well might have happened, because killing an auror guaranteed you a dementor's kiss—my team should have been making more noise. We were all trained to be quiet but we weren't ninjas.

"Where did you last see anyone?" I whispered back to Liam, but I kept my eyes on the entrance to our row.

"Ten minutes ago?" I could hear the barely-controlled frustration in Liam's voice. He already knew he didn't have enough information to help us, and it was pissing him off. "Ryan and Will went that way," I glanced back to him and he nodded towards the entry. "Didn't see whether right or left." He shook his head, looking away. "Halley was calling my name."

I swallowed. "Jessie?" My voice was perfectly level. On some level, I wished it hadn't been. I wanted Liam to know that this was killing me too.

"She got separated right off, and Chris went after her." He murmured hoarsely. "We lost track of them the second we popped in."

I shook my head, staring at my partner; Liam met my gaze grimly. This was a disaster. "Have you sent for back up?" I asked softly. He raised his eyebrows, then jutted his chin out towards me. I was his back up. Great. I shook my head once, then reached up to pull the chain out from under my dress that held a pendant. I tapped my wand to my pendant and it glowed a very soft blue. "Narro nuntium." I whispered; the color changed to red. I took a breath. "Fitzroy and Gale at the warehouses, Swann is down without pulse, we have lost the rest of our team, unknown number of belligerents. Back up necessary, now." I tapped the pendant again, and it glowed blue again for a beat before going dark. I sighed, lifting my gaze to Liam.

"That's a handy trick." The American-accented voice came from right behind me, and I started, spinning around, my eyes wide and heart thundering as I brandished my wand; beside me, Liam was doing the same thing. A man in a pair of jeans and a dark, long-sleeved t-shirt stood in front of us. I stared at him, trying to memorize his features—prominent nose and brow ridge, big eyes, sharp chin. Brown hair. A baseball cap. "Oh, boy, you guys look so surprised." The man grinned easily, looking between us. "Sorry to scare you." He focused on me. "And you're dressed so pretty, honey." He twisted his wand as he tilted his head to the side, but said nothing, and no spell emerged.

"Put your wand down." I ordered, and the words came out scratchy from all of the whispering I had been doing; I made my next word louder for emphasis. "Now."

"No fun, no fun." He murmured, his eyes flicking from me to Liam. "You called for re-enforcements too quickly." He noted, looking to Liam. "That's cheating."

"If you don't put your wand down, we'll have to remove it." Liam didn't sound that upset at that idea. "Put it down. Now."

"Liam?" Jessie's voice came from somewhere to our right; I saw the panic play over Liam's face as the man raised his wand at Liam, leveling it with his chest. Liam straightened. The man held a finger to his lips. "Liam?" Jessie asked again. Shit.

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.

"Don't come over here!" I shouted quickly; the man in front of us cursed, his wand swinging to me, and I hit the deck as light flashed over my head. I scrambled to my feet as Liam shot back, and I waved my wand at the man as I struggled to regain my balance. "Reducto!" I cried, slashing at him.

"Confringo!" Liam fired at the crate beside the man's head, and it exploded in flames; he shouted and stumbled away, grabbing at his face as the crate billowed black smoke into the corridor and the air above us. So Liam and I did what good junior aurors do when they have to.

We turned, and we ran.

I was out of my heels in the first steps, kicking them off behind me as Liam and I sprinted to the end of our corridor and into the open space at the end of our narrow corridor; we emerged, breathless, skidding to the left to get out of the way of spells that screamed past us.

Except, there were like five guys, out here. Not just the one we had left.

"Mother fucker." Liam breathed, his eyes wide, and we stopped dead, our wands on the group. They stood still, three of them with wands out, the remaining two staring at us. This was a really bad impasse. Three vs. two wasn't a blow out, but it wasn't good. And it would be way worse if the remaining two took out their wands.

"There's back up coming, we just have to stall." I whispered after a beat.

"We have to get to Jessie." Liam muttered. "If she's alone—"

"She's with Chris or Ryan or Will probably." I contended, not daring to glance at him.

"If she was with Chris, she wouldn't have called out." Liam snapped; I blew out a breath, glancing at him, only for the smallest fraction of a second. That moment was enough; something exploded in front of us, and we both stumbled back into the containers as shrapnel flew at us, black smoke roaring up around us, blinding me. I coughed, trying to get enough of a breath to perform a spell, but someone's hand closed tightly on my wand arm as I was pulled forward, my wand falling from my fingers.

Oh, hell no.

Wandless, blind and captive was a bad way to be. I lashed out with my bare foot, kicking whoever had my arm where I thought their stomach would be; I made contact with something, and there was a cracking sound and a panicked gasp before my arm was suddenly free. I sucked in a lungful of smoke and coughed again, falling into a crouch as I heard cursing near us, and then there was a muttered countercurse. The air cleared, and I caught sight of my wand, leaping forward for it. My fingers closed around it as a green spell flew over my head; my eyes widened as I lifted my gaze to the men in front of us. That had been an avada kedavera. Why were these men trying to kill us?

I shook my head as two more curses skidded past me, one nicking my shoulder and the other brushing so close to my face that I was sure I would have bruises. I lifted my wand tip to my neck. I muttered the spell that would make me louder and then focused my eyes on one man, whose wand was trained on me. "PUT DOWN YOUR WANDS." My voice roared over the area; I was done. Halley was dead. That man had just tried to kill me. This was supposed to be a raid. "MORE AURORS ARE COMING. YOUR ADVANTAGE WILL NOT LAST. SURRENDER NOW, AND YOU WILL BE GUARANTEED SAFETY."

This man took one step forward and grinned at me, his eyes focused on mine. "We know more are coming, princess." He called across, just loudly enough to be heard. My eyes flashed at the nickname—was that because the media called me Princess Potter? Or because I was crouching here in a cocktail dress? "We're waiting for them." He glanced at one of his men and smiled. I blinked. They were waiting for the others—why? So they could be further outnumbered? A sick feeling grew in my stomach. They had had the advantage this whole time—not just in numbers, but they had known what was going on, the whole time. The man hadn't even been startled to see us, only irritated that we had already called for back up. And they had already killed one of us. But my beacon would stop calling for back-up if I died before back-up arrived. So they couldn't kill me yet, because they wanted more aurors here before they would kill me, and them. The fact that they hadn't found and killed Jessie yet was pure dumb luck. That nauseous part of my stomach pointed out that Chris, Will and Ryan might be dead already. Jessie might be dying.

I couldn't bring more aurors into this. They were going to kill whoever else showed up, and us.

This had never been a raid. This was a trap.

Liam came to the same conclusion I did, at the same time I did, because he started shouting. "OUT, OUT, GET OUT NOW, GO—" Liam's voice exploded out behind me magically, and I waved my wand in the strongest shield spell I could muster before I shot to my feet properly. I grabbed Liam's hand and pulled him back towards where Halley's body was. "APPARATE OUT, PORTKEYS, GET OUT, NOW, NOW, GO FUCKING NOW, DO NOT WAIT FOR US—"

I grabbed for the necklace beacon as Liam finally cut off his rant, activating it again. "It's a trap, don't come, they'll kill you—" Ryan's muted voice was audible and then the quick vacuum sound of apparation, and I cut off as Liam grabbed my wrist and Halley's and then side-alonged both of us.

And then we were spinning into oblivion.

Three seconds later, we landed in the auror department, beside Liam's desk—we were supposed to land on the apparation pads, but in his panic, it was a miracle we had made it to the department at all.

"It's a trap, don't come, they'll kill you." My voice, loud and pre-recorded, rung out over the auror offices, my voice tight with panic, with the background noise of creaking metal and spellfire and disapparation. My hand was still on my pendant. Liam's hand was still on my wrist, and Halley's. Halley.

"Holy shit." A girl from Beta Team murmured, and I met her gaze, my eyes wide. I was still barefoot. There was blood on my face, I realized, as some of it dripped into my eye. And on my arm. I blinked, looking down at where Liam's hand was still on my wrist; my blood was getting on him. And he was bleeding too. "Alpha needs paramedics—Swann is down—"

"She's dead." I said shakily, rising to my feet; once standing properly, I realized that Jessie was across the room, behind a divider between desks. "Jess—" I called out; the younger girl spun around, and Will popped up beside her, his face round and dusty, a cut on his cheekbone. I stared at them over the desk dividers, tears of relief making it hard to see. "Will—"

"Chris is dead too." Jess offered baldly. I sucked in air, staring at her; my lungs screamed at the fresh air that had replaced the smoke.

I pulled my wrist from Liam's fingers, crossing between desks, my barefeet padding along in the near-silence of the auror bullpen, blood sliding down my arm. I stopped between Jessie and Will; Ryan was on the floor between them, his hands tight on his thigh; his knee was a bloody mess. Chris was about a foot up, his unseeing eyes still open, flat on his back. Blood was pooling under him, a visible wound open on his chest. Finally, I let out a breath, and reached up with my bloodied arm, rubbing at my damp eyes. The young ones were okay. Halley and Chris were dead. This was a disaster.

"Gale?" A Beta team member asked me quietly; I turned around; the bullpen was full, now, of aurors who had been called in when I'd tapped the pendant. A girl—a junior auror like Liam and I, named Mona Saad—was standing in front of me, her hair back in a tight bun. I met her gaze with slightly wild eyes. She didn't react, only holding my gaze levelly. God bless this girl. "What can we do?"

Her question was the right one; I didn't have time to mourn, not yet. Will, Jessie and Ryan had no idea what to do. Ryan was injured. Liam was too distraught over Halley to move. I had to be in charge of this. "I need you to pull Chris and Halley's files, find their nearest blood relatives, and dispatch aurors who knew them—that's really important, if you can't find one, let me and Liam know—to their homes. I need you to owl Potter and Weasley and also maybe…yes, definitely whoever the liaison between this office and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is." I took a breath. "And then I need you owl Dean Thomas. He's the chief barrister, his office is—somewhere, I don't remember, maybe the third floor." I swallowed, then looked past Mona, to a boy named Johnny from Gamma. "Nevermind, owls are too slow. You need to go find his office and tell him. Johnny, right?" I asked; he nodded. "Good. Go find Dean Thomas and tell him it's important. If he's in a meeting, pull him." Johnny took off, and I turned back to Mona. "I need you to send a team of at least fifteen people—that's really important, too—to the coordinates on the white board above Alpha station." I took a breath. "I'm pretty sure they will have left whenever we did, because we seemed to be the reason they were there, but I'm not certain of it, and they are ready to fight." I rubbed my forehead, staring at her for a moment. "Actually, maybe not. Scratch that. Do not go." I shook my head. "Don't. Not until I get to talk to Potter and Weasley." I swallowed. Was that all? I turned back around dizzily.

"Jessie, Will, grab Ryan and head to St. Mungo's—don't talk to anyone, when they ask what hit him, don't tell them. Do not talk about what happened tonight, got it?" Jessie nodded, but Will didn't move, his face turning green. "Will?" I asked after a beat. The kid swallowed once, then bent over where he stood, vomiting on the floor right there. "Fuck." I murmured, stepping forward as I magicked up a bin and waved a wand at the floor. "Okay, nevermind. Jessie is taking Ryan to the hospital alone and Will is going to sit down and someone's going to get him water." Jessie's eyes widened, but I turned away. "Mona, you have to take Chris and Halley to the…" My voice drifted off. "Morgue, I guess." I spun towards where I'd left Liam, then hesitated; both he and Halley were hidden by a divider. Was Liam in any shape to come with us? To be left alone? "Liam's going to go with Halley, I think." I murmured after a moment. I finally turned away, walking away from the kids on my team and the whole crew that had assembled.

"Where are you going?" Mona asked, but it was more curiosity in her voice than anything else.

"I am going to wait in Mr. Potter's office." I said shortly, my voice tense and loud as I passed Liam and Halley; Liam hadn't moved. I couldn't stop for him though, even though I wanted to. I reached the auror desk, standing on tiptoe to snatch down the whiteboard that had the coordinate on it. "Because tonight was a trap. Someone wanted the whole fucking auror office dead, and I am mad as shit," I lifted the white board and brought it down over my knee; it broke in half with a satisfying crack, "that they almost succeeded because I called for back up." I turned away, both halves of the board in my hands. It almost made me feel better to have broken this; I wanted to break more things. I understood the urge to break things quite keenly right now. At least, this, here, I could take care of. There was so much else I couldn't.

Chris and Halley were dead.

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting across from Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley, Mr. Thomas and I facing them in Mr. Potter's office. Mr. Thomas closed the door behind himself, then tapped the door twice with his wand, a silencing spell encasing the room. My ears popped with the pressure of it.

Finally, Mr. Potter spoke. "It was a trap?" Mr. Potter murmured. I nodded, my gaze hard on him.

"They weren't doing anything." I said shortly. "The men—and they were all men, at least six, because Liam and I took down one in the corridor where Halley died and then ran into five of them in the center of the whole complex—they weren't packing anything. They weren't waiting for deliveries." I swallowed, looking down at the file I was holding in my lap; it was the file that I'd put together on the deliveries, all the work I'd done that had led my team to the trap. I had led them there. And I hadn't even been there when Halley and Chris had died. Some team member I was.

"How is that possible?" Mr. Weasley asked after a beat. "You had a lot of sources. I looked at your work myself, I thought you'd consulted more people than strictly necessary—" He shook his head, and I knew he was talking to himself. I let out an exhausted breath, shaking my head and looking down at the file again, flipping it open with my good arm. My bad arm was still bloody, still cut, still unhealed. Albus would be mad.

"We need to tell their families." Mr. Potter murmured; I lifted my gaze to him.

"Mona Saad is on it." I murmured. Mr. Potter raised his eyebrows.

"Thanks for taking care of that." He murmured. I shook my head once, looking back down at the file. I'd been so certain this information was good. I'd worked so hard. I ran my good hand down the page of handwriting, the notes I had taken. My bad arm was beginning to ache sharply. I was pretty sure it was cut pretty deep. I really needed a healer.

This information had gotten Chris and Halley killed.

"Someone wanted to kill as many aurors as possible." I said quietly.

"Someone always wants to kill aurors." Dean Thomas murmured exhaustedly.

"Not like this." Mr. Weasley said quietly, shaking his head slowly; we all turned to look at him. "This was about numbers, not specific aurors. They didn't care that much about Alpha team. In fact, they left more than they had to alive."

"I think they were hoping a lot of us would call for back up." I hesitated as soon as I said it, frowning. "Except—the man—one of them told Liam and I we had called 'too quickly'." I swallowed. "It's possible they didn't anticipate us giving up so quickly though I don't know why they would think that we wouldn't do that the moment they killed Chris and Halley." I shook my head. The logs had proven that Ryan had called for back-up, as had Chris, at some point, before he died, though they had just double tapped the alarm instead of sending a message.

"It's possible that they hoped to lure one out with the added bonus of killing several." Mr. Thomas pointed out. Mr. Weasley looked away. He was right, but the thought that Chris and Halley had been cannon fodder for another auror was scary. Mr. Thomas seemed to realize that this conversation was getting dark, because he was the one who continued it. "We'll need to debrief all of you." Mr. Thomas said after a beat. "Separately." I nodded, pressing my lips together.

"And we'll have to take back the crime scene." Mr. Weasley added.

"I'm sorry we ran." I murmured; the man frowned at me. "I thought they were—I knew Halley was dead and Liam and I were separated from Jessie, Will, Ryan and Chris. I knew Jessie was alive. I thought—" I swallowed, remembering the moment that the thought had dawned and made me nauseous. "I thought they might have already killed everyone else. I wanted to make sure Jessie got out."

Mr. Weasley stared at me. "Molly, I wasn't contradicting your call." His voice was firm. "You saved your probationary agents. You saved everyone assembling for back-up. Beta team—you saved them. They would have apparated into that mess and they would have been dead in a heartbeat." He shook his head. "I would have done the same thing. Losing the battle is better than losing ten aurors."

I stared at him, then nodded once. Mr. Weasley glanced at Mr. Potter, who spoke now. "For the time being, I'm naming you head of Alpha. Liam Fitzroy can be your deputy, if you think he's capable." I nodded hurriedly. "I'm going to lend you some juniors. We can discuss that tomorrow, when I debrief you."

"I could go now." I murmured, straightening up. Mr. Potter fixed me with a look.

"You need to go to a healer." He told me shortly. "Tonight."

"I know." I said wearily, looking down at my arm. The blood had largely dried. But it was still bleeding just a little, which was really not good, considering it had been like half an hour since I'd gotten the injury.

"Then you're dismissed." I rose carefully, trying not to jostle my arm. I turned away and opened the door, slipping out; my ears popped again as I left the silence spell. I closed the door behind me and crossed to the Alpha desks, sinking down in my chair silently. I felt the eyes of a few of the others on me, but none of them were important—Liam had disappeared, as had Halley and Chris's bodies. Jess should have been at the hospital with Will and Ryan. She needs help there, my brain tried to push me upward, but I just stayed seated. I didn't care that Jess and Will and Ryan were lacking in supervision and Ryan was probably going to be admitted and as his team leader I should have been there.

Chris and Halley were dead, and I just wanted Albus.

I re-entered my apartment, shoeless and yet unhealed, ten minutes later. I had stepped out of the floo into my living room, where Albus, Fred and Nate were each seated on my couches. My three boys had tea cups in front of them, untouched, and were all still in the suits from dinner. My arrival was met with three sharp gazes.

"Holy shit." Albus said, pushing himself to his feet first; he surged forward, but instead of sweeping me up in a hug, he gently grabbed my wrist, pulling my arm out. "You need a healer—" He murmured, inspecting the wound. "This is really deep. And is this a bruise?" He demanded, looking up at me, frowning. The moment his green eyes met my blue ones, though, I fell over the edge. I heaved in a breath and my eyes filled with tears. "Molly?" Albus demanded, panic now in his voice; I just shook my head as the tears spilled over, tracking down my face. Albus studied me for a long moment. "Molly, sweet, you are scaring me." He murmured, reaching out to touch my cheek. "Please tell me what's going on." I sobbed, but pulled away, reaching up with one arm to wipe at my face like a toddler. Nate was still on the couch, his whole body tight, bracing for impact. He knew I had something bad to say. Nate was smarter than all the rest of us.

"Chris and Halley are dead." I said hoarsely. Albus fell back a step, the blood draining from his face. "That raid tonight—it was a trap." I sucked in air. "It was a trap for as many aurors as possible and my team happened to walk into it, and they waited for me to call for backup because they wanted more people there to kill." I sucked in air. "They just wanted to kill us." I shook my head. "It wasn't a raid, it was a trap. There were no dark objects." I shook my head again. I was trying to clear it, or understand what had happened. But nothing came to me. "I don't know how I could have been so wrong."

My boys stared at me.

"I don't know how I could have been so wrong." I repeated. No one moved. No one spoke.

Chris and Halley were dead.

A/N: How's this story going, kids? I wrote three thousand words in like three hours today. That is a crazy way to live.

Happy Sunday!