I do not own Harry Potter nor World of Darkness
Unknown location, Atlantic Ocean, 8th March 1994 (Monday)
Jakob was nervous. The last mission to capture the traitors turned into a disaster. Not only they had failed, but they lost twelve of their twenty members and, possibly even more importantly, nine of their own extremely limited supply of brooms. Greyback had been furious and Jakob was sure that if the squad leader hadn't died, Greyback would have torn him apart in front of the whole pack. Now, they had a better plan. No ten-mile wide storm to block their view, no gale wind to deafen them and shake their brooms, no massive wave to shake the boat to throw off their aim. Just waltz in, hex all the crew and set up a portkey to transport the traitors to Greyback for their well-deserved punishment.
He looked at his sides, his fellow wolves flying as a pack towards their prey, perfectly visible in the distance, a single silver mark in an ocean of blue.
Jakob smirked. This time, they would win. They had the advantage and… He paused for a second, looking at a pair of black shapes rising up from the boat. He had no idea what they were supposed to be, but looked sort of like a black version of the locomotive from the Hogwarts express. Perhaps one of the muggle wolves would have been able to recognize them, but the inferior stock wasn't allowed to leave the forest.
He looked curious at the shapes, flying towards them.
Fast, he thought. Probably about as fast as their brooms. Not a problem, they should still be able to swarm them.
He heard a faint sound in the distance, a sort of low-pitched 'brrrrrrrt' sound. Then, suddenly, everything went black.
"Apache-1. Target down."
"Apache-2. Same as Apache-1."
"Apache-1, Apache-2, this is Borealis. Excellent work, you can return."
"Roger."
Edmund Turner put down his phone and shook his head. A cluster of targets flying in a straight line without even bothering to put up some sort of defense. It's like those wizards were asking to be used as target practice for the gunners of their helicopters.
Great Hall, Hogwarts, 3rd April 1994 (Sunday)
Harry got back from his morning exercise to find an unusual crowd sitting at the Slytherin table. Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood were hugging a teary-eyed Astoria Greengrass, while Ron, Hermione, Theo and Sally were huddled around an enraged Daphne.
"What happened?" he whispered in Sally's ear.
Without a word, the girl handed Harry a copy of 'Witch Weekly'. A single glance at the cover told Harry all he needed to know. In bold, pink letters, the title read 'Lord Greengrass's secret tryst', accompanied by a picture of a man taking a pair of young witches, probably twins based on how similar they looked, into what appeared to be the bedrooms of a dingy pub.
During the night between the 31st of March and the1st of April,
Mr. Jericho Greengrass, Lord of the Greengrass family of the
Sacred twenty-eight and senior secretary for the position of magical
law enforcement has been spotted at ' The White Wyvern' pub
in Knockturn Alley. While the man had spent some time in the
company of other distinct gentlemen such as Roscoe Perks,
Horace Slughorn and Daniel Bulstrode, at around 10 PM, shortly
after the other gentlemen had retired for the night, the Greengrass
patriarch was approached by a pair of young witches. Their identity
is not yet been discovered, but our source suspects them to be
foreigners, most likely French due to their accent. Mr. Greengrass
conversed for a grand total of five minutes before getting up from the
table and accompany the two witches into their room upstairs, where
he spent the night. There is little doubt as to what happened in that
room, as other residents of the pub reported hearing heavy moaning
throughout the night. We of 'Witch Weekly' would like to…
Harry put down the tabloid and looked at his friend Daphne. Her face was red, twisted in anger as she was clutching a copy of 'Witch Weekly' so tightly she looked like she was about to tear it to pieces. Theo had a hand on her shoulder, in a silent attempt to support her.
"Daphne…" tried to say Harry, but the girl wasn't listening.
With a sudden movement, she got up from her seat and ran out of the Great Hall.
Theo jumped up and started to run after her, swiftly followed by the rest of the group.
They followed Daphne's silhouette across the viaduct courtyard, down the twisting stairs toward the small brick house where they all landed on the first year after crossing the lake.
They finally slowed down as they reached the building, where they saw their friend sitting in a corner, quietly sobbing as she hid her face behind her hands.
While they were a bit unsure as to how to approach her, Theo didn't hesitate, marching up to the crying girl and hugged her.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Daphne returned the hug, burying her face into Theo's chest. Her sobbing turned into full-fledged wailing, releasing all the emotions she had been desperately trying to hide away. With a few hesitant steps, Sally joined in on the hug, quickly followed by Hermione, Ron and Harry.
From halfway down the stairs, headmaster Dumbledore looked at the group consoling their friend.
"Expecto Patronum!" he whispered, as an ethereal Phoenix flew upwards, high above the boathouse, silently chasing away the Dementors that were approaching the building.
He turned around, barely noticing a black dog scurrying away towards the Forbidden Forest, before turning his attention once again back towards the students.
Agdleruussakasit, Greenland, 5th April 1994 (Tuesday)
Tonks threw the magazine away in disgust. Lord Greengrass cheating was the main topic of discussion, with the tabloid even offering a 50 Galleons reward to anyone who could identify the two witches. This was probably the single most distasteful thing she had ever heard, but it wasn't the reason she was concerned. Lord Greengrass was the one that assigned her this task and at the time accepting it had been a no-brainer. After all, which rookie could boost such an important assignment straight out of Auror training with the personal recommendation of a senior secretary? It was her golden ticket to a meteoric ascension through the ranks, but with Lord Greengrass no longer holding his position, things were not so certain anymore. Besides, this assignment had proven to be way more complex than originally anticipated, meaning that by the time she was finished, there was a good chance for her to have fallen behind her fellow Auror in training.
At the same time… She had joined the Auror program to help people. To defend the weak and make the world a better place, and here in Agdleruussakasit she found something she didn't know she needed. She had found people, desperate people in search of a better future in need of protection. Wasn't this the whole reason she wanted to become an Auror in the first place? To protect the people?
The sound of a gun being loaded took her away from her musing.
"Ready to continue, Nymph?"
She frowned, glaring daggers at the blonde woman in full military gear smirking at her.
"I told you to call me Tonks."
The lady chuckled.
"No can do, Nymph. You don't get to pick your call sign. Now… you ready for some target practice?"
Tonks sighed, walking towards the shooting range. She had spent the last few days trying to get her casting time for Stupefy down as much as possible. After all, the condition that Mr. Brown had given her to join the new security contingency was that her spellcasting had to be as fast as one of his quickdraws. Which, unfortunately, was sort of his specialty. The first time the man had demonstrated it, Tonks had barely seen his hand moving.
So, she had spent days upon days perfecting her wordless casting for Stupefy. Now she was pretty quick, but her aim needed some work. She pulled out her wand and got herself in position in front of the targets.
She heard a whistle.
Her hand flew through the air, spells flying with a flick of her wrist towards the targets, the impact of her magic causing the metal targets to ping with every hit.
"One second eighty, three out of five hits. That's almost a passing mark. A couple more days and maybe…"
Her hands flew towards her gun, the explosions of her firing mixing with the ringing of the metal targets. She grinned, looking at Tonks.
"One second twenty, four out of five hits. That's your benchmark to beat before friday."
Tonks smiled. This wasn't what she had been expecting of her life back at Hogwarts, but somehow it felt right.
Perhaps she should sign that contract Francesco had offered her yesterday. Officer Tonks did have a pretty nice ring to it…
Care for Magical Creatures class, Hogwarts, 21st April 1994 (Thursday)
It took a few days for Daphne to get back to something vaguely resembling her old self. She had spent a lot of time with her younger sister Astoria in her room, and often Sally had to personally go and check on her to make sure the sisters were ok.
She had missed the deadline for her Charms homework, but Professor Flitwick had been more than accommodating, and Theo had been a great help when she finally felt well enough to resume studying.
Astoria wasn't faring much better, and she had started to hang around her sister for support somewhat often, often dragging Ginny and Luna with her.
Sir Zettler, surprisingly, had offered the Greengrass sisters, as well as their mother, a one-month fully paid vacation to Appalachia during the summer, and Harry had somewhat skeptically passed on the offer to his friend. Was Zettler trying to gather favors with a small publicity stunt or was there something more to it? Molly Weasley had offered to host all three women at the Burrows, despite her family's not particularly great financial situation, and so had Hermione and Sally's parents.
Mr. Greengrass had been made to resign from his position. Harry didn't quite get why that was necessary, but it apparently had something to do with integrity and the ability to keep oaths. He had also left his bed in the Greengrass estate, now residing in a small house at the edge of the property originally designed for gardeners, butlers and other servants of the family.
As the days went by, Daphne and Astoria slowly got better, even if Astoria never quite recovered the same bubbly personality Ginny and Luna claimed she had before the incident.
Daphne herself was colder than before, or at least she appeared to be. Students outside their friend group had a really hard time even talking to her, unable to stand her cold glare.
On the other hand, she got a lot closer to Theo, the two often spent time together in the afternoons, sometimes ditching the rest of the group to just sit in a corner of the Slytherin common room and chat by themselves. If Harry had any idea as to how those things worked, he might have picked up on the fact that the two were starting to develop some feelings for one another, but neither him nor Ron were able to understand that the two Slytherin had become awfully close for being 'just friends', and Sally had to almost spell it out for the two of them to finally get it.
Hermione had her own problems to deal with: she had been fighting with Professor Trelawney since the first day of class, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of her predictions towards Ron, Sally or herself involved 'the Grim', some kind of black dog omen of death, only seemed to infuriate her even more. Today she had finally snapped, and stormed off the room shouting how she was giving up.
"She'd been off the whole day. She missed the lesson on the Cheering charm and was mad as hell before we even got to the classroom." confided Ron, who had front row seats for the event.
"She knows we can just pass her our notes, right?"
"As if. No offense, Harry, but your notes aren't really on the same level. Daphne's are pretty good, but Hermione's are just…better."
"Well, I'm glad my girlfriend's work isn't completely useless, Weasley. - huffed Theo. - Should I tell her you don't need her Ancient Runes notes anymore?"
"Oh C'mon, Theo, I didn't mean it like that!"
Theo chuckled "I know, I was just messing with you."
"G'day everyone. I remind ye that Me 'n Buckbeak got his case on the Committee fer the Disposal o' Dangerous Creatures this Friday. Him an' me'll be goin' down ter London together, I've booked two beds on the Knight Bus… Dat mean I won't start ta see yer homework 'till monday, yer gotta be patient 'bout that. So - he clapped his hands together. - T'day wer goin back to the hyppogriff den. Y'all remember what ta do and what not ta do, right? Wound't wanna kick some other git from class fer being stupid, right?"
Most of the students chuckled, with the noticeable exception of Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy Parkinson. Somehow, with their grades and general disinterest for Hagrid's teaching, Harry had the impression they wouldn't be picking Care for Magical Creatures for their fourth year.
"Right. Off we go."
"You think he's going to win the case?" asked Hermione.
"Probably. The Committee is all up in arms for Skeeter's articles on werewolves, and with the new legislation voted on Monday they're going to have so much on their hands they won't send anyone important in there." commented Ron.
"And that's supposed to be a good thing?" asked Hermione.
"Oh, yes. Lord Malfoy has… or rather had, I guess… lots of influence in the ministry, but that's because he was all buddy buddy with the department heads. All secretaries and below hate his guts. They'll dismiss the case just to piss him off."
"Speaking of werewolves, have you read the proposal? It's barbaric." commented Hermione.
"I don't know… werewolves are dangerous creatures, having a registry doesn't sound like a bad idea…" said Theo.
"It's not the registry! I think it's distasteful, but I can understand it. I'm talking about… everything else! De-fanging? Branding? Rehabilitation camps!? That's what the Nazis did! If it wasn't for that new private group that settled in Greenland there would be riots in the street!"
"There were riots in the street, Hermione…" pointed out Theo.
"That just proves my point!"
Harry remained quiet. After the improvised lecture on Garous he did to the class he had tried to contact him for some clarifications regarding the distinction between the two creatures, but his domitor had been less than helpful. Sure, Sir Zettler wasn't omniscient, but he could have given him more information than 'Francesco is working on it.' How was he even supposed to contact this Francesco guy? No rank, no title, not even a last name… was he doing it on purpose?
And speaking of keeping secrets, Harry had been carefully observing Professor Lupin since their last Patronus lesson, and was now sure the professor was hiding something. He had no idea what, but considering what happened in their first year with Professor Quirrell…
He was interrupted in his musings by Ron snapping his fingers in front of Harry's nose.
"Hello? Harry, are you listening?"
"Sorry, Ron. I was… a bit distracted."
"And what was so important to distract you from our conversation? - Asked Theo, his face suddenly turning serious as he remembered what Harry told him during the summer. - Something we can help you with?"
Harry was about to say no, but he stopped. Maybe they could actually help him with this. It was little more than a bad feeling, but…
"Actually, there is something you can help me with."
Notes
As it turns out... Apache helicopter unprepared wizard on a broom
Jokes aside, in this particuar match-up, Pentex had all the possible advatages, from range to speed to visibility and the sheer destructive power of a military vehicle. Was it overkill? Absolutely, but I think I've estabished that Pentex isn't realy known for restrain and half measures
Pentex's plan for the Greengrass family came to fruition and caused irreparable damage to Jericho's reputation. This will be the start of his own arc, which... is going places. It's also going to be a slow burn, you might not hear anything from him for 6-10 chapters, so... be patient, this character is going somewhere
Tonks is now officially switching jobs from Auror to Agdleruussakasit's amost-but-not-quite-police-officer. That means lots of training
Hermione leaves Divination as in canon, Hagrid is in a much better position when it comes to Buckbeak's trial and there are suspicios hints regarding professor Lupin.
Oh, Theo and Daphne are now a couple! I'm not very confident in my ability to write romance, so I hope that the limited description won't be a turn-off for you, but I think my romance writing is... quite cringy, so I never really practiced it. Still, I hope you like the few tid-bits that I actually do write