Chapter 1
Spring of 1980
"Urgh, this is useless," Benjy groaned and crashed against the back of his creaky office chair, blue eyes darting toward the clock on the wall.
Merlin's saggy bollocks, how was it only 11 o'clock?
Both hands dragged through his shaggy brown hair and down his face. He felt like a bloody five-year-old who had too much sugar and not enough recess time.
He didn't hate his job at the Ministry of Magic, but as the liaison officer for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he expected a little more action in his day-to-day. I mean honestly, you'd think a raging war between good and evil would be more exciting.
Instead, the young wizard was stuffed away in an office the size of a broom cupboard, staring at stacks upon stacks of gruesome case reports so that he could write up news releases that were only partially true.
Now don't even get him started on the bureaucracy of it all.
It was bloody impossible to do one's job properly when one had to sugarcoat the truth half of the time. The other half was spent outright lying to the public about what was actually going on in the wizarding world.
It was slowly draining the life out of him.
As if sensing his best mate needed the distraction, Sturgis Podmore poked his blond head through the door of the office.
"You need a break, mate. Maybe a pint and a good shag," he said.
"Are you asking me out on a date, darling?" Benjy asked cheekily, leaning forward in his seat, hands folded together underneath his bearded chin.
Sturgis made a strange sound halfway between a chuckle and a cough. "Hardly," he replied simply. "You're not my type."
Benjy continued to grin impishly, unfazed by the blatant rejection. "The usual place then, at eight?" he asked, tossing a piece of crumpled parchment toward the other man.
"I'll be there," Sturgis nodded and poked his head out of the little office again.
The 'usual place' turned out to be a gloomy alleyway tucked between two shops on Tottenham Court Road. Sturgis was already waiting for him, hood drawn and cigarette between his lips, when Benjy apparated.
It was raining like mad.
"You're late," he said.
"I was cornered by Crouch on my way out," Benjy replied, pushing his hair out of the way and pulling up his hood.
Sturgis made a scoffing sound and tossed the butt of his cigarette onto the filthy ground. "What did he want?" he asked with an arched eyebrow.
"To yell at somebody," Benjy shrugged. "I happened to be the only sod in the vicinity."
Sturgis chuckled darkly and gestured for them to begin their stroll.
While muggles quickly filtered into a busy pub on the other side of the street, or the little bistro next door, Benjy and Sturgis kept an even pace and a careful eye out.
They didn't talk, not even when they stopped to lean against a brick building. The handful of shops in the area were closed for the night so the foot traffic was rather light. Still, there was nothing wrong with being too careful. Benjy pulled out two old invisibility cloaks from inside his robes while Sturgis grabbed another cigarette.
He offered the carton to Benjy.
"Nah," Benjy declined with a wave of his hand and wrapped one of the cloaks around his thin shoulders. In the shadow of a shop awning, no one noticed raindrops falling around two invisible pairs of feet.
They waited there in the pouring rain for what, to Benjy, felt like hours. However, one glance at his pocket watch told the restless wizard that it'd been twenty minutes at the most. He was eager for something exciting to happen.
"Come on," he muttered under his breath.
He hadn't joined the Order of the Phoenix to watch puddles forming in the road.
With a sigh, he looked back toward their target, a shabby pub on the other side of the street. Muggles were walking right by without much notice. It was almost like the pub with its crooked sign wasn't there at all. Even the clerk closing up the bookshop next door seemed to be completely oblivious to its existence.
"There," signalled Benjy when he noticed a silhouette materializing out of thin air.
He watched the figure walk toward the Leaky Cauldron. He was thin and slightly hunched over, wearing tattered robes a few sizes too big for him.
"You think it's something?" Sturgis asked.
He kept looking over his shoulder every half-dozen steps, as if he was afraid of being followed—or didn't want to be noticed.
"Maybe," Benjy muttered back. "Wouldn't hurt to check it out."
The bloke had about 30 seconds' head start when Benjy suggested they follow after him. What if he was up to something and they just let him walk right by? Moody would never send them out on patrol again.
"And it'll get us out of the rain," Sturgis was quick to agree with the plan.
After checking to make sure the coast was clear, they discarded their invisibility cloaks and headed across the street toward the pub—and warmth.
It was a little more crowded than usual for a rainy weekday evening. Benjy looked around quickly, scanning the assortment of faces for one in particular. Most of the patrons were much older, and not all of them were human. Benjy glanced at the small group of goblins speaking in rapid Gobbledegook, but only for a moment before his gaze flitted across the room.
Two drunk wizards were practically falling off their stools at the bar, and a particularly haggard-looking barmaid seemed to be on the verge of ripping them a new one. She swept away a few strands of mousy blond hair and met Benjy's gaze.
He gave her a small smile.
The bloke they were following wasn't one of the patrons at the bar, and he hadn't gone and joined a group at one of the tables.
"The Alley," Sturgis suggested, nudging Benjy's shoulder.
"Yeah," Benjy agreed.
The barmaid looked almost disappointed when the two men walked right by and headed instead into the little enclosed courtyard at the back.
Benjy hastened his steps when he heard the sound of heavy bricks grinding against each other. The wall separating Diagon Alley from the rest of Muggle London was already beginning to seal itself up. He slipped in just in time and Sturgis was right behind him.
"A few more chocolate cauldrons and you would've been done for," Benjy commented.
"Oi," Sturgis glared at him. "We can't all look like quidditch stars."
"Aw, you think I look like a quidditch star?" Benjy asked, feigning bashfulness.
Sturgis snorted. "Oh, will you shut it?"
While Benjy was busy being a complete prat, Sturgis was actively looking around the alley for signs of the scrappy man they were chasing after. "Over there, heading into the apothecary," he whispered, gesturing with his chin down the cobblestone path.
They looked at each other for a quick moment before heading toward the shop. Sturgis lingered outside by the door and finished his cigarette, all the while keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, Benjy ducked inside the shop. A bell chimed above his head, signalling his presence.
The man they'd been following was pacing the floor between the front door and a display of jars filled with pickled potion ingredients. He'd lowered his hood now that they were out of the rain. Benjy could see he had matted grey hair and uneven stubble all over his thin, sallow face.
His eyes darted nervously toward Benjy for a split second.
As he walked toward a few barrels against the wall, Benjy discretely slid his hand into the pocket of his robes, wrapping his fingers tightly around his wand.
"Hi there!" the young shopkeeper—she couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen—said cheerfully to the shifty little bloke in the tattered robes.
"Ruddy day we're having," he grunted as a greeting.
Still smiling, the young woman took a few casual steps around the counter and made her way toward him. "Right? I don't think it's stopped raining all day! It's pretty bad for business," she laughed softly. "Can I help you with anything this evening?"
From behind some shelves, Benjy watched the man's eyes scan the shop.
"I'm just—er—looking around," he shrugged and picked up a phial at random. "Needed to get out of the rain, you know?"
"Oh, okay. We're closing in a few minutes though," the woman replied awkwardly. "But if you need help finding anything in particular, I'm just going to be over there." She gestured toward the only other customer in the shop: Benjy.
"Hello! Can I help you find anything this evening?" she asked him in the same overly cheerful tone, although Benjy had a feeling she was getting a little restless.
She kept fidgeting with a few strands of her dark brown hair and looking uneasily toward the door.
"How much for the salamander blood?" Benjy inquired.
"2 galleons," she replied.
"Ah! Well. That's a bit steep for me at the moment, unfortunately," Benjy said, looking particularly interested in some other undistinguishable ingredient on a shelf just behind the shopkeeper's shoulder. Under the pretence of getting a better look at the contents of the jar, he moved a little closer.
"Are you all right?" he whispered.
"I—er—yes, of course," she stammered, her nervous gaze still flicking back and forth. "You're not—you're not with him?" she whispered.
Benjy shook his head. "No."
Relief washed over her features.
"He's stolen from us before," she whispered under her breath. "But last time Belby was here to help sort everything out," she added in one gust of air, in a rush to get all of the words out.
At least Benjy had the common decency to hide his triumphant grin. So the bloke was up to something after all. His intuition was on point. Fantastic!
"Just get back behind the counter and keep him distracted. I'm with the Ministry of Magic," he told her in the same hushed voice, eyes darting pointedly toward the other customer, who'd resumed his anxious pacing up and down the small room. "You'll be all right, I promise."
The shopkeeper nodded. "Yes! We might have some of that in the back! I can take a look!" she said loudly—and very obviously.
Benjy swore under his breath as all hell broke loose.
"Confringo!" the thief yelled, aiming for the display right next to the till, sending shards of glass flying in all directions.
"Expelliarmus!" exclaimed Benjy a split second later, but his disarming charm missed by about a hair.
Sturgis was right there in the doorway, his wand tracking the little wizard. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, but his charm missed its target by at least 10 centimetres. It didn't help that the bloke was moving and sending curse after curse toward them.
One curse—a wayward jet of white light—hit Benjy square in the chest.
He was shoved backward and slammed hard against the wall, causing an entire shelf of Sleekeazy products to crash spectacularly onto the floor. The wind was knocked right out of him, and his wand went flying across the room. He watched it roll underneath a display case.
"Oi Benjy, are you good mate?" Sturgis yelled from—somewhere.
"I'm fine," he coughed and gasped, clutching at his aching ribs. A cloud of bright pink smoke coming from the mingling Sleekeazy potions was obscuring his vision. He couldn't see anything—he couldn't see Sturgis or the bloke that had attacked them.
"I'm fine too, thanks for asking!" the shopkeeper said a little squeakily from her crouched position behind the counter.
"Good, yes! Now I just need—Accio!" Benjy hissed frantically and his wand came bursting through the air like an arrow heading straight for the bull's eye.
He was brilliant at wandless magic.
There was another jet of light, but this time Benjy was quicker.
"Protego!" he shouted.
Benjy could feel the strength of his Shield Charm from his crumpled position on the floor. The thief's curse hit the middle of the invisible wall and rebounded. It hit a barrel filled with gillyweed instead, causing it to explode. Benjy flinched as the contents of yet another shelf were spilled onto the floor, and bits of the slimy, grey-green plant scattered everywhere.
"Ugh," Sturgis moaned. He was completely covered in a mixture of ingredients, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.
Both men watched helplessly as their assailant leered at them on the other side. He seemed to realize there was nothing left to do. His eyes darted between the sizzling Shield Charm and the door. Finally, he made up his mind.
"I'm sorry," he muttered. "I had to."
Without waiting for a response, he spun around on his heels and started running in the opposite direction, tracking gillyweed out the door and into the alley.
It was the shopkeeper that broke the silence first. She came over to Benjy and Sturgis' side of the counter, breathing rather heavily.
"You were hit with something," she said, grabbing Benjy's forearm so that she could look at the wound. The pain seemed to come all at once.
"Bloody hell," he groaned, looking down at his arm.
The wound looked ghastly. He was getting used to looking at horrible crime scene photos, but he'd never seen anything quite like what was happening to him right now. The burnt skin had turned a greenish hue and it was bubbling slightly. He leaned in a little closer and wrinkled his nose. Urgh, it had the most foul smell!
Well, he thought. That was just lovely.
"I think some of those potions don't mix too well," Benjy offered as an explanation, gesturing to a puddle of bubbling liquid in the process of melting away the wooden floorboards. "I'm fine. It's really not that bad."
It really was that bad though, and it was getting worse. The potions were eating away at his flesh like an invisible flesh-eating slug.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but we really shouldn't be here," Sturgis said suddenly, grabbing Benjy's forearm and pulling him toward the door of the shop. "You should send a Patronus to the Ministry. They'll send someone to help."
"I thought you were the Ministry!" she called out to them as they retreated out the door.
Author's Note: Welcome to my first Harry Potter fanfic! I love the wizarding world and the characters in it, but I do not share J.K. Rowling's political views. I wanted to make that clear. :) Please enjoy my story and leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Love you!