Another day, another monster hunt. The past week Harry, Jesse and Colonel Roberts had spent more time traipsing after vanishing creatures. No matter what Jesse insisted, Harry firmly believed that they were after more creatures like the messed up hydra, rather than dark wizards. Of course Harry didn't share this belief too widely - this was the first time in a year that he'd actually felt like he was doing something, and if MACUSA realised that their consulting budget was better spent on someone whose field of expertise this was, he'd be back in the office checking reports until his eyes fell out. Again.
But Jesse's theory was looking less and less likely by the day. No matter if the occasional wreckage turned out to be populated by massive hounds (there was a discussion on weather they were all Grims and some poor sod was going to really get it at some point), strange snake headed monkeys (Harry had the immediate thought of Blast-Ended Skrewts), what could have passed for a Chimaera ( that was an interesting day, almost the entirety of the Creature agency was called out for it) and a collection of things that were not exactly trolls but were not entirely human either, there was never any sign of a witch or wizard. It was like someone had just decided to set a whole menagerie of magical creatures loose, and didn't even have the decency to stick around to see the damage they wrought.
The most annoying thing was that most of the monsters vanished into strange dust as soon as somebody hit it with a Flagrante. The Chimaera didn't, and was locked in another unbreakable box and sent alongside the hydra-hybrid for some poor sod in the creature agency to ponder over. It was just their luck that the less dangerous creatures vanished, so their only chance of observing any magic was on either one of the XXXXX creatures - Harry really didn't want to know who or how the list of Wranglers was decided to deal with them.
By Friday Harry definitely felt that he had earned the consultant fee they were paying him, and then some.
"Now I never did a placement with the Magical Creature Agency, but what in the hell was all of THAT." Jesse's sweeping motion apparently encompassed everything they'd seen that week. Harry, Jesse and Colonel Roberts were sitting in "a proper Irish Pub" on the Friday evening, on Jesse's recommendation - one of his great grandparents was Irish apparently. Harry wasn't too sure what bearing that had on the choice of pub, but decided it really didn't matter, the atmosphere was good and the food looked reasonable enough. It seemed the concept of pub food wasn't really a thing here outside of Irish pubs.
It was quite funny that a waitress had to ask for Colonel Angela Roberts' ID after they'd ordered food (predominantly pies) and drink, which made Harry grin. He was definitely the youngest one there, probably younger than the waitress. But apparently the Colonel was often mistaken for an older teenager with the resigned way she pulled out her muggle ID. Harry raised a questioning eyebrow (and yes, he was quite proud of that) to Jesse, and received a mouthed "a lot" while Angela wasn't looking. That explained why they had to argue for Roberts to come with them - apparently the by-the-book auror didn't like her colleagues know of her 'drinking problem' - it looked like it would be an interesting night to say the least.
He completely forgot about America's drinking laws - quite frankly ridiculous if you asked him. OWLs and NEWTs would have been unbearable without the celebrations to look forward to at the end. Drinking whatever muggle beer Jesse had ordered, he couldn't compare it to the Three Broomsticks, but it was nice to have a drink at the end of the week anyway.
While Jesse and Angela were gossiping over a rather clumsy wizard in the Major Investigations Department, Harry looked over at the bar, and began thinking of the 'base' of the three kids, and how he could make it more livable for them.
Whenever he had the time he would apparate nearby the 'base' of Thalia, Luke and Annie. For all that they resisted his suggestions of heading to the ministry, or even writing to Ilvermory or Salem, they seemed much happier in their little unit, especially with some of the changes he made, or trinkets he brought over. He didn't need to be an auror to figure out that they didn't have the best experience of muggles, and were wary of another organisation that Harry couldn't immediately vouch for (he didn't know MACUSA that well either, so his attempts to get them involved in the wizarding world fell rather flat). But on the other hand, the base, after each visit, began to resemble more of the tent from the horcrux hunt, somewhere livable and well protected that could easily be used indefinitely. He hoped it wasn't the case, but if needed, it could be.
Getting dragged into the discussion by Jesse, the three Aurors spent the rest of the evening comparing gossip-worthy colleagues and their own opinions of idiotic regulations and procedures. It was nearly midnight before they began heading back home - Harry somewhat grateful that Kingsley and the Order were trying to streamline the Ministry - MACUSA sounded impossibly complex.
Setting his alarm for 6am the next day - Harry made a note to pick up a few more supplies for the kids and drop them off before heading to MACUSA - he barely got his robes off before collapsing onto the bed, it had been a ridiculously long day after all.
Whenever he turned up,especially in the mornings, Thalia always clammed up, but Annie more than filled the gap with constant chatter about the latest thing she had learned. Luke, more often than not, was out on 'supply runs' which usually consisted of dumpster diving, or on the rare occasion when he found a tourist, using their wallet to buy actual food (it was to Harry's great delight that he managed to teach both Luke and Thalia to scramble an egg, and introduce them the concept of treacle tart).
If he was being honest with himself, the best thing about this American assignment was meeting and helping three magical kids - even if they refused point blank to go to the ministry (although there were very nice about it). It continued like that for about a week, Harry dropping into the Richmond cabin with food, or bedding, or whatever else Thalia and Luke requested (Annie's requests were usually for treats or books and could only occasionally be indulged). But it wasn't too long before Harry was given a more firm deadline to actually focus himself on helping the kids in a more permanent way.
A week later, 2002, Woolworth Building, MACUSA, Auror Headquarters, Chief Williams' Office
Chief Auror Williams stared at Harry. The British wizard stared right back. Colonel Rogers was bored by the macho posturing and promptly informed both that she was going to inform the Creature Investigation Agency about their problem. Chief Auror Williams began swearing floridly and at great length. Harry, who had known Ron Weasley since they were both eleven, was not impressed.
"Now we've all got that out of our systems, maybe let's think of a plan to integrate some of the Wranglers into squads to help us with our new creature infestation." Jesse interjected, thoroughly bored of the stand off. Again. Ever since word had gotten out about Harry's request, the Chief had been giving him the cold shoulder for the past few days.
Harry was most definitely not Chief Williams' favourite person, after he revealed that he'd called in a favour to have someone in Greece check if there were any reports of hydra being stolen or moved across to America. That sounded far more official than it actually was - Neville was going to Greece on holiday and Hermione asked him to unofficially check any reports of magical creatures going missing. But apparently Neville got himself caught up in something else with their ministry, and now there was a delegation from the Hellenic Council planning to come to America.
Chief Williams insisted it was a localised problem, right up until Rachel Jackson, MACUSA's Secretary of Foreign Affairs met with the delegation's head Demitris Papandreou, which had quickly expanded to involve an irate Chief Williams, someone from the Agency, and Hermione Granger via owl post. Harry still couldn't figure out how Hermione was involved, but he was not in the habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth, so he stayed quiet.
Harry, and Jesse for that matter, should have realised that Chief Williams ("It's only Conrad when I'm not pissed off with you Potter") did not like anyone going behind his back. It didn't matter that it probably saved a few days of pointless searching, for the first hour or so of the 'meeting' the Chief had ranted about 'proper procedure' and not bending the rules 'even if you are a Potter'. It boiled down to the Chief being embarrassed that other departments were involved without his consent, and from reading between the lines Harry guessed that he was also jealous of not thinking of doing that himself.
After enduring the cold shoulder for the first few days - Harry was also sent on a number of incredibly pointless publicity stunts and patrols. He figured that was the Chief's way of showing his displeasure politely - couldn't really fire your media-spotlit consultant without some serious repercussions after all, something that Harry was incredibly grateful for.
It took another fortnight, but eventually Harry heard, via Hermione's letter, that the Hellenic Council, and Magical Mesopotamia, both insisted that no hydra had escaped, and no known cuneiform curses could reliably be used to affect a hydra or cause such effects like the Dounut Stores. This led to a rather urgent, and frosty series of meetings, where Harry and the upper echelons of the Auror Office, and Creature Investigation Agency were pulled in with the representatives from the Hellenic Council to discuss the hydra. The meeting, involving Harry, Jesse, Chief Williams, the Hellenic representatives, and someone from the Agency, Miranda Hyle, was surprisingly efficient - probably because everyone had gotten their egos thoroughly checked in the past week of monster hunting.
After the meeting, the decision that everyone had come to (but not necessarily accepted) was that this was probably a breeder that had taken a hydra egg years ago ("Grindelwald's mess took another decade and a half to clear up, wouldn't be surprised if something fell through the cracks around that time" was later confided in Harry by Demetris) but only recently something happened that caused it to escape. The Agency was warned to look out for suspicious creatures that had probably been imported from overseas years ago, the rest of the Auror Department was likewise notified that dark wizards had been experimenting with abnormal breeding techniques and that any unknown creature was to be contained and reported ASAP.
Everyone shuddered at the thought of an unregulated magical breeder, and Harry could only think of Azkaban - a dark wizard had decades to experiment there, and Dementors were one of the less scary things there when it was finally discovered - and hope that whatever the dark wizard did, it wasn't on the scale of Azkaban.
He confided in Hermione via owl post later that maybe Hagrid, or Rolf Scamander, might be able to give them suggestions about cross-breeding creatures, and unwanted magical effects. Both he and Hermione still remembered the Blast-Ended Skrewts, and not with fondness. But realistically Hagrid was one of the few people that would, and had, engaged in unregulated creature breeding, so would probably know more than wizards that had never contemplated it before.
The final decision, for the Hellenic delegation to observe for a week and potentially take over from Harry, was reached after much deliberation and grumbling from Chief Williams, and later confirmed by Robards by way of Hermione.
Well that gave Harry a deadline of a week to sort out whatever was happening with the three kids. The monster/creature situation was probably out of his hands anyway. It was a good thing that he worked well under pressure, he just had to contemplate how easy it would be to get three magical American kids into Britain and registered to go to Hogwarts.