Harry and Ginny popped into being in the alley behind the hotel where Harry stayed whenever he was in Calais and couldn't spend the night at Daphne's.
"Where are we?" Ginny asked, taking a step away from Harry.
"France," Harry sank against the the stone wall and rested. "I need to take a couple of minutes to get myself together." He knew he needed a plan, but his head was still pounding, and combined with the blood loss and magical exhaustion it was difficult to think.
"Take as long as you need."
Harry looked up in surprise at Ginny's angry tone.
"What?"
"Is that how you got your information on the drug smuggling? By sleeping with the wife of the drug lord? And here I thought you were some sort of cool secret agent. You're just a gigolo!"
"I didn't.. " Harry paused – he kind of had, "Not for that.."
"And are you certain that you didn't give her as much information as she gave you? I should take you in as an accessory!" Ginny glared at Harry as he sat with his head in his hands before turning away in exasperation. "Fine. You do whatever. I'm done!" She wasn't certain if she was angrier with Harry or herself. Though there was absolutely no reason that she should be upset at herself. 'I trusted him. I..!'
She whirled and stormed out of the alley.
Harry leaned his head back against the cool stone. 'Oh, I fucked that up.'
And the thing was, her accusation wasn't far wrong. He had been taking advantage of Daphne to advance his career. 'But why should I feel guilty about that ? She knew what I was doing. We were both using each other.' Nevertheless, when Ginny had said it, it had sounded wrong.
'And I'm a professional. I would never let anything secret leak.' Though that meant that he could never be open with Daphne. 'But that's the way she likes it!'
"Arg!" This was getting him nowhere! Harry forced himself to his feet, and immediately toppled against the wall. 'Right. I'm in no shape to go anywhere. I should go get some rest before I report in'.
But Harry had a record of poor decision making when tired.
He apparated to the alley outside his flat, landing on his face, his entire body burning and his head pounding in waves of pain. "Did I splinch myself?" He ran his hands over his body. Five minutes later, he was finally able to sit up without too much pain. 'Thank Merlin – nothing is missing.'
Harry pushed himself up and almost collapsed again, but he pushed through the pain and staggered like a drunk up the street to his building and up into his flat. As soon as he was inside, he maxed out his wards and collapsed into bed. 'I was stupid. Again. I should have rented a room in Calais. Why do I keep pushing myself like this?'
He knew why – it was because he had to prove that he was useful. The Dursley's had taught him that people would only tolerate him as long as he was useful, and if he wanted to make his own way through the world, he couldn't slack off - he had to always do more than anybody else. But this had been the opposite of useful. 'That worked well. Now Ginny probably hates me.' But he didn't have the energy to think about it now. 'I'll report in tomorrow.' Not that he had anything useful to report – just a bunch of people dressed up as terrorists from yesteryear all apparating out from what could be a training facility with military precision... "Shit!" Harry jerked up out of bed.
And promptly slid to the floor, dry heaving as his head spun. 'Tomorrow.'
*UHD*
The following day, Harry floo-ed over to the Ministry foyer – he was still feeling the effects of the magical exhaustion, and it turns out that the noseless bastard had grazed him with something, as he had a rash all up his left side, and his arm was red and swollen. Harry figured he would drop by St. Mungos after the Ministry, but for now he just swigged a pain relief potion and another for anti-itch and made his way out down into the Ministry.
Which was… off. 'Isn't it a weekday?' It was too empty.
There was a knot of people standing by the guard's station. As he approached, he recognized some of them.
"What are you here for?" Asked Draco. He was dressed in his usual dress robes, but the two others with him - Crabbe and an older wizard that he didn't know – were wearing tactical gear with warded robes, wrist holsters for their wands and the whole nine yards. Standing off to one side were a half dozen ministry workers, looking lost as they whispered amongst themselves.
"What's going on here?"
"The Ministry is locked down due to the 'unrest' last night." Draco drawled superciliously. "Nobody is allowed in or out."
Harry quirked an eyebrow. The only unrest that Draco was familiar with was when he spent all night partying. "I work here. I need to go in to do my job," Harry pronounced slowly, as these were concepts that he knew Draco was not familiar with.
"Papers," Draco held out his hand as he sneered condescendingly at Harry.
Harry handed over his warrant. 'Why is Draco working security?' This didn't make sense, but he would wait until he had reported in to start asking questions.
"Forensics, huh? There's not going to be much call for you today." Something in Draco's face shifted, and he added in a softer tone. "I would go home, if I were you. In that case, I won't need to mark you down as present." The hairs on Harry's neck rose.
Harry shrugged, acting the part of an underpaid office drone. "Sorry: I don't work, I don't get paid. I'll just check in with my boss. If he says there's nothing for me, then I'll get out of your hair."
"Suit yourself," Draco waved him past.
Inside, the ministry was silent as a tomb. As he approached the lift, he noticed that one of the potted plants had clearly been hit with some sort of hex and was slowly writhing like a snake trying strangle itself.
*UHD*
Harry poked is head into Misuse Of Muggle Artifacts, as it was on his way. "Arthur?" It was empty. 'This is not good'. Something had happened, and he needed to learn what. He didn't trust Draco to be able to wipe his own bum. He needed somebody reliable.
Harry palmed his wand, and considered disillusioning himself. But that could draw more attention to him, especially as the Department of Mysteries (and some others) had wards that suppressed disillusionment. He went down a few more levels and popped out into the Department of Magical Games and Sports.
Several middle aged men stood around the water cooler looking confused and a little scared. "Where is Macky?" Harry asked as he came up. Robert McEnroe was the department head. He figured if any department would be overlooked as innocuous, it would be Games and Sports.
"They arrested him early this morning," whispered one of the men. The others just nodded and hunched down.
"Thanks," Harry. This was getting worse and worse. Harry continued down to the DoM as quietly as he could while appear to be walking casually. This wasn't about reporting in anymore but about finding out if any of his people were safe. And securing the department assets.
As he walked from the lift he breathed as sigh of relief – he heard voices from inside!
He pushed the door open, only to be confronted with a baffling sight. A man that he didn't know was directing a work crew as they packed up the Hall of Prophecies into crates.
"What's going on here?" He asked as he approached the group.
The man turned to him with a scowl. He was a stooped, gaunt man in his late middle years, but if he stood up he would have been quite tall. "The muggles staged an insurrection last night, killing the Minister of Magic and several others. Apparently, some of them were trying to break into the Hall of Prophecies, so we are moving them to a safer location."
"Who is we?" Harry glanced at the door – it looked unharmed.
"A better question, is who are you?" A pair of workers paused in loading the boxes and turned to watch the confrontation. Harry didn't recognize any of them, but somebody here must have known the spell to unlock the door to the Hall, or there would be spell damage on it.
"Is there a problem, Mr Rookwood?" One asked.
Harry smiled insouciantly, "I'm Harry Dursley. I work in forensics and help out with the Weather Bureau."
Rookwood glances down at a clipboard and flipped through several pages before nodding. "He's clear." He turned back to Harry, "but it would be best if you kept to your own business. Things are… complicated. And you wouldn't want to be mistaken for a… complication." Rookwood smiled, revealing a mouth full of yellow, crooked teeth.
Harry nodded and walked past, into the lab area and the Weather Office beyond. The Weather Office was empty, but on the far side of the lab space, Tzvi was physically blocking a man trying to move a spinning apparatus that was mounted next to the tank of flying brains.
"Mr. Malfoy says that we need to borrow this."
"By what authority is Mr. Malfoy requisitioning it?" Harry asked as he approached. "We have a process for such things." Harry hated bureaucracy, but he had to admit that it could be useful at times.
"Mr. Malfoy says that we need it," the man repeated, as if that explained everything. He was clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
"Then have Mr. Malfoy send down a team of people to move it correctly, otherwise he will end up with non-functional garbage." Harry had no idea what this device did, but it was clearly in the middle of an experiment, and moving it would waste who knows how many months worth of work.
"That's right! If you move the Vexation Auditor, it won't be aligned anymore. It will take months to set back up!" Tzvi added.
The man stopped as he considered. Finally he let go of the device, "Fine. I'll go get somebody to help me. But don't you be taking it anywhere!"
Tzvi relaxed.
The man then turned to Harry, "And who are you?"
"I work here. In the Weather Office."
The man snorted, "Not for long. Once Mr Malfoy is minister, he will do away with all you ponces that are wasting taxpayer money on weather magics that barely ever work."
Harry watched him leave the room and then he quickly walked over to the Weather Office door and sliced his palm, rubbing a smear of blood onto the doorknob and then the door. 'And that is that'. There was a slight glow and the door faded, merging into the wood paneling the walls.
He turned went back over to Tzvi. "Were is everybody else?
Tzvi puttering over his device, checking it thoroughly and repeatedly, clearly more to reassure himself than out of any need. He finally glanced up at Harry, looking lost, before turning back to his 'fidget'. "Some people broke into the Ministry late last night. There weren't many people here, but Mr Jacobs tried to stop them. They killed him before continuing on. I had been working late again, but I hid in my office when it started." Harry nodded his understanding. Tzvi was a researcher, not a fighter. And his office was such a mess that you could easily hide several people in there and nobody would be the wiser. "This morning, these... others arrived and started going through everything. They didn't belong, so I stayed hidden, but when they started messing with the experiment, I had to do something!"
Harry nodded. Rookwood and the others probably assumed that Tzvi had arrived for work in the morning. Otherwise, who know what they would have done to him.
Harry took a moment to process: His boss was dead. 'Well, that sucks' – but now wasn't the time to mourn him. "Do you know if the attackers last night were muggle-born?"
"I don't know. I don't think so – they were wearing masks and cloaks like the Death Eaters back in the Troubles of the 70's. But I haven't talked to anybody. I've been here the whole time - I'm scared to leave – they might not let me back in, and who knows what they will do with my research." He peered over Harry's shoulder as some people approached the laboratory door, but then relaxed when they went past.
"Good man," Harry slapped his back, "Keep an eye on what they take, but don't confront them – I don't want you getting hurt. As long as we know what's missing, we can recover it." Harry wasn't certain if anything that had come out of his mouth was true, but it was what Tzvi needed to hear right now.
Harry walked out, trying to look like he belonged. As he did, he saw saw the noseless freak from yesterday exit from the lift and walk over to speak with Rookwood, none the worse for wear.
Harry quickly changed direction, going into the Veil room. 'What the fuck was that!' There was no healing spell on earth that could heal 2 feet of steel rebar through the heart.
Fortunately, there was nobody in the strange amphitheater – it was empty and creepy, so there was little reason for anybody not researching the Veil to linger there.
'I need to warn Ginny!' Harry walked as fast he could without drawing attention over to the fire stairs and raced up those two at a time up to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
As he approached the large open room that served as the Auror's shared office, there was none of the chaos here that he had seen in the DoM. There were about half the number of people that Harry would have expected, but everything appeared orderly, with people going about their usual tasks.
Harry walked past without breaking his stride or even looking at the office too long: He hadn't recognized any of the people sitting behind the Auror desks.
Or more precisely, he hadn't recognized them as Aurors – there were a number of of people he recognized as family members of his Slytherin schoolmates – all cadet members of prominent pureblood families.
*UHD*
Harry made his way back to the Ministry foyer, making a show of checking out with Draco before apparating to Ginny's apartment and pounding on her door. Nothing.
"Ginny! It's an emergency! Let me in or I'll Alohomara the lock!" Silence. Harry swore under his breath "Don't kill me for breaking and entering!" He magicked the door open. Her apartment was empty. Her dark cloths from last night were dumped in a pile at the foot of the bed, and her drawer of unmentionables was hanging part way open, drooling bras half way down its front. 'Looks normal'.
Harry sat down on the bed and tried to think. He wasn't certain what he should do. Worse, he didn't even have a clue as to what had happened in England in the past 24 hours.
And he was still so tired that it hurt to think. 'Where does she keep her coffee?' He knew Ginny drank coffee. He went to rummage in her kitchen area. Unlike the bedroom, this area was kept spotlessly neat.
There was the coffee – but where is the coffee machine? 'Does she have a charm for making coffee?' Harry sighed in exasperation and dumped some grounds into a mug and filled it with hot water. He took a sip. 'This works.' He had to strain the gritty bits out with his teeth, but at least his brain was starting to return to normal.
'Now where does she keep her first aid kit?' He started rummaging through her closets. He knew he was trespassing, but he didn't really care – his side was itching abominably, and he didn't dare go to St. Mungo's until he knew what was going on. 'It's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you,' Harry smirked at his own dark humor. "Aha!" It turns out Ginny was well prepared – probably it was a synergy of Molly's attitude with Auror training - but she had an entire medicine bag ready to go in the back of her closet. Harry rummaged through until he found a likely a looking ointment and rubbed it onto his rash. After that, he downed another anti-inflammatory potion for his arm.
The itching stopped. He leaned back against the wall, sipping his coffee to get the taste of potion out of his mouth, when a delivery owl flapped up to the window and dropped a newspaper , which magically dropped inside and onto Ginny's nightstand.
Harry unrolled the Daily Prophet. "Muggles attempt coup!" Blared the headline, followed by "Minister pro-temp Malfoy takes charge!"
The story was a conspiracy laden jingoistic puff piece that praised Lucius Malfoy for seizing control of the government and 'weeding out the conspirators' as he attempted to maintain order.
The story ended by reassuring the readers "there is nothing to worry about – go about your business as normal. The Ministry will be open for the usual hours starting on Thursday."
Harry tossed the paper into the trash.
'Well, now I know'. It HAD been a coup attempt. A successful one. Harry had always know that Draco's dad was ambitious and without any scruples but this was more than he would have expected.
'And how does Alex and his criminal enterprise factor into this?'
It had to be the noseless freak – Voldemort – who was at the center of it. Harry knew that Alex reported to him, and the coup plotters appeared to as well. 'Is he the real deal? I thought he was dead.' It was hard to guess - nobody in the wizarding world talked about Voldemort or the 'Troubles' from the 70's.
Harry needed more information. 'I should ask Sirius.' The problem was that his dog-father was living 'off the grid' in the Caribbean – he didn't have a floo or an owl post address. Last Harry had heard, he was shacking up with some muggle woman half his age. Though that could have just been Sirius blowing smoke – he wasn't the most reliable of news sources. 'Never mind. Who else.." Harry paced the length of Ginny's apartment (it only had the one room beside the bedroom). "Professor Lupin!" What little he knew about the Troubles was from that one awkward, stilted conversation with Professor Lupin back in 3rd year. 'But I can pick his brain now.'
Harry walked to her floo and threw some powder into it "Professor Remus Lupin," He announced, hoping that floo would magically know who he was talking about.
One advantage of using somebody else's floo - if anybody was watching the network, nobody would know that it was him contacting the werewolf professor.
A green fire flared up. 'Bingo!' Harry stuck his head through. "Professor Lupin? Hello, Remus?" He called out. No answer.
Harry tried to push through, but Remus' floo was locked to entry, and Harry didn't know where he lived, so he couldn't apparate there.
But he did know where the Burrow was. 'Maybe Ginny went to her parents."
Harry went back outside and apparated to the Weasley's home.
Out of habit, he apparated silently, which was why the two rough looking men with red arm bands didn't notice him as they lounged outside the Burrow's front door.
"Hey, where did you come from?" Called out the short skinny one. He looked like a chicken that had been dipped in grease.
Harry quickly slouched, making himself appear shorter and older as he approached them with a slight limp."I was just coming up the road. Is Arthur around? I usually play cribbage with him on Wednesdays." Harry hoped that it was a Wednesday. He thought it was, but with the way everything was topsy turvey, he wouldn't be surprised to discover that he had missed a day, sleeping.
"Nah. Nobody's here." This was from the other goon. He had a mustache that was larger than his head, and which was clearly his pride and joy.
"Oh." Harry paused, pretending confusion. "He usually tells me when he's not going to be available. Do you know when he'll be back?"
The two just eyed him. "Beat it pops, or we'll take you in for trespassing."
Harry knew he could take the both of them easily, but leaving a trail of broken bodies behind him wouldn't be very subtle. He ventured a weak smile, as if intimidated and hobbled back up the road. As soon as he was out of sight, he apparated away.
*UHD*
That evening, Harry dressed in a ratty jacket and lightened his hair with a charm before taking a walk down to Knockturn alley. In the past, he found that the folks there were more willing to talk than proper British wizards.
The atmosphere in the Pig and Whistle pub was tense. Harry bought a pint and settled onto a centrally located bar stool, leaning drunkenly onto the table. 'I wish I had the listening device like in Albania.' But even without it he soon learned that the night before there had been a running street battle between the Aurors and people dressed in dark robes and masks, and it had not gone well for the Aurors. Apparently St. Mungos was overflowing with those few that had survived.
Or so the story went. He wasn't certain how much of it was embellished - on the one hand, the the locals always liked to hear stories of Aurors being brought low, but on the other such a sudden sea change was bad for business, and scared people don't have time for goofing around, telling tales.
As Harry nursed his beer and listened, he picked up a few other tidbits from the buzz of conversation but little else useful, other than that fact that the guys with the red armbands were part of the new Department of Public Safety, and they had been quickly deputized to enforce the new curfew and to help the Aurors maintain civil order, arresting anybody who was acting suspiciously or expressing muggle views.
*UHD*
Harry sat in the bar for another hour, right up to curfew, considering how to reach some the other Oversight agents. Unsurprisingly given how secretive they all were, none of them knew each others contact information. And they were all experts on not being found.
As the bar emptied, Harry apparated to Hermione's building.
"Hermione, are you there? It's me Harry."
The door opened a crack and a wand poked out. "If you're Harry Dursley, where was the first place that we talked?"
Harry paused, "Potions, I guess."
The door opened all the way and Hermione pulled him in. She immediately locked the door again and re-activated her ward. "I'm glad your taking security seriously," Harry began when Hermione suddenly pulled him in for a hug.
"Do you have any idea what's going on? When I went to work, the ministry was sealed up, nobody was saying anything, and the Prophet is running anti-muggle propaganda. It's like the world turned upside down over night. I am bloody terrified!"
Harry felt awful, 'right. I forgot that Hermione's started a job in the ministry. I should have checked on her as well.' As compensation he returned her hug, rubbing her back gently, causing Hermione to squeeze him harder momentarily before stepping back and dropping into a seat at her eat-in kitchen table.
"I don't know. I think the purebloods have staged a coup."
"Yeah, I got that." But hearing somebody else say it helped center her – she wasn't going insane! "But why now?" She shot back up out of her chair – she was too agitated to sit – and started making two cups of tea.
"I think.. Voldemort is back."
"Back, what do you mean back! He died 20 years ago, when he tried to murder... you."
"Apparently not. And he's not so easy to kill. I though that I had done for him again.. last night? But he was as good as new this morning."
Hermione wasn't certain what to make of that statement. It was so patently absurd, so instead she ignored it, taking a good look at Harry instead. "Harry, when was the last time you slept?"
"This is turning it a routine every time I see you," Harry quipped, "Actually, I slept last night. I slept a good 10 hours. "
"And you can obviously use more. You're swaying on your feet. You push yourself to hard."
"Somebody has to."
"Sit." She placed one of the cups of tea in front of Harry, "I'll make supper." It was still mid day, but for Harry, she was determined that it would be the last meal of the day, "Then you can crash here."
"My place is safer."
"I.. maybe, but I'll feel safer if you're here.
"Even though I'm swaying on my feet?"
"I remember you were one of the best dualists back in school. That's enough to give me some peace of mind." And he was Harry. He might have some weird ways of thinking (probably from his awful step-parents), but he was the most honorable, helpful person she had ever met. He was a rock to cling to in troubled times.
"Fine, but after tonight, we both shack up at my apartment."
Hermione blanched, "Don't say it like that, prat!"
Half an hour later, Harry was asleep – he had insisted on taking the sofa. Hermione quietly turned down the lights. Despite everything, for the first time all day she felt like things might turn out ok.