Harry flipped the galleon that he had gotten from Alex between his fingers. If he wanted to figure out what LeStrange was planning, he had to decode the portkey before nightfall, which is when the creep was expecting him (Harry's dislike of Alex filled both his professional and personal life). Maybe it would just be an interview to feel him out, but Harry doubted it – drug kingpins like Alex didn't work like that. He would throw Harry right into the deep end both to impress Harry and also to elicit a reaction out of him, so he could judge whether Harry could be trusted. Therefore Harry deduced that Alex had some plan going on that would take place this evening. (Though lack of sleep made it difficult for Harry explain his reasoning).

Which is why that morning found Harry in a tiny office in the back of the Department of Mysteries. The owner of the office, one Tzvi Steigler, was busy peering at the galleon portkey through a jeweler's loop as it rested on the one clear spot in the entire room - everywhere else was filled with stacks of papers interspersed with magical devices of all sorts, though most appeared to be tools rather than objects of study. Steigler specialized in magi-cryptology – deciphering the spells embedded in things. "Yes, this is a pretty standard timed portkey. I can unwind it if you need."

"Can you make a copy, but without the time restriction?" Harry asked.

Tzvi examined it for a moment more. "Sure. What do you want it on?"

"Here," Harry handed him a bookmark – he liked bookmarks for portkeys, because you had room to write a label on them for where they were linked to. "Will this do?"

"Yes. Come back in an hour. But next time, don't bother me so early in the morning." It was just past 7am.

"Tzvi, you haven't left your office in over a month. It doesn't matter WHAT time I come."

"It's the principle of the matter!"

Harry sighed, "Fine, I'll bring you a coffee."

Tzvi turned back to the portkey and began working, "Make it one of of those Muggle coffees, the big ones. The ones that taste like shit and kick like a horse!"

*UHD*

It was actually ready just after 10. Harry took his new pirated portkey and quickly geared up – he wasn't certain where it would take him, but he assumed it would be somewhere in Europe. If he left now, he might arrive at the local lunch time – if he was really lucky, it would be siesta. Harry got dressed in nondescript, loose fitting clothes that he could easily transfigure as needed and draped his invisibility cloak over himself.

And then - 'here goes nothing' – he walked out onto an empty football field near the Ministry and activated the portkey.

The trip was bumpy – he spun in the air for a full minute before being yanked first sideways and then up off of the ground (which was the reason for the soccer field). He was buffeted by phantom winds as he traveled through the cloudless sky before finally landing just outside a gate in a low villa wall. By the fact that he immediately started to sweat as if he had apparated into the Hogwarts bread ovens (again – it had been a failed attempt to raid the Hogwarts kitchens in 7th year), he was back in the south of Europe.

Harry was mildly disappointed – he had been half-way expecting to land knee deep in crocodiles or something.

He sat down, making sure that the cloak was still firmly around him, and took a couple of minutes to steady himself. 'Wow. That was rough'. Cloning portkeys was never a good idea. But most of what Harry did on a daily basis fell into that category. It got results, and it hadn't killed him yet. Harry stood up up and looked up at the building.

It looked like a classic Mediterranean villa. 'Not what I would have expected for a drug factory.'

But more in keeping with the idea of this being a drug factory were the guards standing on the platform to one side of the gate.

'That doesn't look like it was part of the original construction.' The guards were dressed casually, but looked serious. One had omnoculars that he was looking through at the surrounding countryside while the other was also alert, slowly turning as he scanned the area nearer the wall. Harry had been out in this early afternoon sun just for a few minutes and his shirt was already glued to his body. 'I'm impressed they are so alert in this heat.'

'Which makes me wonder what's inside all the more.' Harry cast some detection spells – to his surprise, the wards were pretty minimal – he could easily get through those. Except… Harry swore under his breath. This is what he did every time. He would just go in and keep pushing forward without regard for the risks until he was in too deep to change anything. 'I guess I can come back here tomorrow with back up'. But there was no way he was getting anybody from the DoM – this was his case! Harry walked twenty minutes away from the villa and made a new portkey for this location (because he didn't want to land on the bad guys doorsteps, and because the pirated one had been vomit inducing, even for him. And he liked wild rides). Harry's mind suddenly slewed to Daphne, 'Now is not the time!'

The new Portkey should be gentle enough for other witches or wizards to use.

In the meantime, Harry returned to where he had a good view of the villa's front door and settled down to wait – half of spy-craft was waiting. 'Maybe this isn't Alex's drug factory, and instead he's planning to raid it.' That would be more in keeping with how Harry expected drug kingpins worked – have the new guy show up & throw him straight into a firefight to test his mettle.

Night fall came and nothing happened. A half hour later, a guard came out through the gate and took a glance around, then cast a detection spell. When that didn't show anything, he went back inside. Harry just caught his comment to somebody inside: "Nope, nobody showed."

Or maybe Alex was just a real loser of a drug kingpin, and didn't know how to do it right.

*UHD*

"So let me get this straight, mister 'I'm not working for a secret Auror department'," Ginny scowled at Harry, "You want me to come to an off-the books investigation of a villa, which is not even in England? You know me - I'm not exactly risk averse. But this seems like it's so deeply against regulations that we'll both end up fired so fast that our heads will be spinning. He won't even have a chance to tell our side of the story!"

"Ginny, shut up and take the Unbreakable vow." Harry repeated. He was at Ginny's apartment later that evening. "I already told you that I will explain everything if you swear not to to repeat it to a soul." He ran his hand through his hair in exasperation. Ginny could be incredibly stubborn, much like her mother. 'No wonder the two of them don't get along'

"What, you don't trust me?" Ginny retorted, hurt.

"Ginny.." Harry growled in frustration before adding, "I literally CAN'T tell you. You think you're the only one under a vow?"

"Oh!" Her eyes got big. She pulled out her wand and held it in her palm, "I swear on my magic that I will not tell anybody anything that Harry Dursley tells me this evening in my apartment."

Harry nodded, "Ok. I work for the Department of Mysteries, Office of Oversight. Basically, my job is to spy on foreign individuals and governments that might want to do harm to England."

"So.. You're not an Auror?"

"No."

"I've never even heard of this office of oversight."

"That's because we are very good at what we do." Harry pulled out his warrant card. Usually it just read 'Department of Mysteries', but now it had the full title, 'Department of Mysteries Office of Oversight.' "You can see that because I've deputized you. That means for the duration of this mission, you're operating under my legal authority. If you do something wrong, I get the blame. "

"Ok-ay…" Ginny took a moment to process this. The idea of riding rough shod over the legal process sounded so wrong… But also so cool. "If I get to be as good a duelist as you, can I also join DoM-OO?"

"First of of all, don't call it that. And second of all, you're already a better dualist than almost all of the agents that I have met. The key skill is not dueling, but not telling anybody anything. Would you be ok with lying to your family about what you do for work?"

"…. no" Ginny deflated before grinning. "But I'm definitely game for helping you whenever you need."

"Ok. We'll go tomorrow night." Tonight, Alex might still be waiting for him, and despite what Harry might claim, he didn't trust his acting skills enough to beard the lion in his den (And he wasn't James Bond, because real spies avoiding having to fight their way out of the bad guys' headquarters).

He would just have to hope that he didn't miss anything by delaying for a day.

"I assume it's just going to be us?'

"Yeah. There are only a half dozen Oversight agents, and there is no way I deputizing a squad of strangers." If there was one thing he had learned from Snape, it was that most people were idiots.

*UHD*

The following evening found the two of them back under Harry's cloak. "I'm beginning to think you like me holding on tight to you like this," Ginny teased.

"It certainly has it's benefits," Harry replied, "Hold tight to me and make sure the invisibility cloak doesn't slip off." That was the problem with the cloak – there was nothing holding it in place. You had to fiddle with it all the time to keep it from slipping.

The two of them were back not far from wherever the villa was, mounted on Harry's Firebolt with the invisibility cloak draped over them both.

"Ok, let's go." Harry kicked off.

"That's some fast flying," Ginny snarked.

"Shh!" Harry hissed as they drifted over the landscape at a walking pace. "The invisibility cloak doesn't work from underneath, so I'm going to keep us as close to the ground as possible." Harry wasn't used to working with a partner, and he had forgotten to explain everything.

Ginny just nodded. A few minutes later, they were within sight of the villa. And the wards were as weak as before. Harry opened a hole through them and drifted right up to the wall. He had to turn the broom sideways so that they were parallel to the wall to fit inside the wards, 'If this turns out to be another dud, I will die of embarrassment. No – Ginny will kill me, after all the build up!' The sloppy wards were making him nervous. They were just so cheap. The only thing that made it seem like this villa was worth investigating were the guards in the jury rigged watchtowers.

They lifted up and over the wall and down the other side. As they dropped, there was a sensation like his entire body plunged through jello. Ginny urgently tapped him to indicate that something was happening.

Harry nodded, just barely stopping himself from swearing. 'I'm an idiot.' There was a second, stronger ward hidden inside.

They hovered halfway down the wall, waiting to see if anything would happen. Harry slowly released the breath he had been holding. Thankfully, it seemed like the invisibility cloak had gotten them past the second ward without it activating.

Inside, the area was magically expanded, creating enough room to fit two low buildings, a small mansion and a sports field of a good size.

Harry landed the broom and the slid to the ground. He then pulled the cloak off of them – the would have to make do with disillusionment charms from here on in, so that they could move faster than a crawl (and so that they didn't have to hold tight to each other – that defeated the purpose of bringing a second person).

The two intruders dashed over to what Harry guessed was the main structure – the mansion. It was a fairly plain two story stucco building with a large veranda and some sheds scattered behind it, towards one of the two low buildings. They had just gotten to the bushes that ran along the front veranda when the main door opened and several men came out. They were all draped in robes with their hoods pulled up, obscure their features, but as they walked by Harry caught a few words – they were speaking in English!

Harry tapped Ginny, indicating the house. As soon as the men had descended the veranda steps, they darted up them, only to almost run into a straggler – Ginny had to stop herself from gasping in surprise when she saw it was Marcus Flint! He pulled the hood of his robe up over his head as he released the door. Harry caught it as it closed, not letting the latch engage. He waited until Marcus was out of sight before pushing it open again.

Inside, it was a typical Mediterranean villa – very open and airy, with vases and statuary decorating every flat surface. The central area was a large room that took up both floors, with a balcony ringing the second floor.

"I think I see a couple of rooms over here," Ginny nodded off to the left, taking the lead. They did a quick sweep through – there were three good sized bedrooms, but there were no personal items in any of them. "These must be guest rooms."

Harry nodded, opening a wardrobe to find a cloak like the kind that the men had been wearing. There was nothing in the pockets. "Let's head upstairs."

They had just reached the first room upstairs – another bedroom, though this one looked lived in – when they heard shouts from outside. Both interlopers quickly ducked down by the window. There was some activity on the grounds outside the two low buildings. Harry pulled out an omnoculars so he could see in the dark and swore before passing them off to Ginny.

The people they had passed were now in front of the two low building, and a cadre of men wearing the same sort of robes had spilled out and were lining up like Auror recruits.

"They look well trained," Ginny commented.

"Take a look at their faces." Harry whispered.

Now it was Ginny's turn to swear. "Aren't those Death Eater masks, like from the 70's?"

The men all bunched up into groups of four, taking hold of something that one of them was holding out. A moment later they portkeyed up into the sky, one group after the other.

"We need to get a closer look at what is going on."

Ginny nodded.

Harry had just exited the room and was heading to the stairs when a House Elf stepped out of nowhere. "Kush eshte ti?"

"Oh, shit!" Harry fumbled with his translation charm. But before he could say anything, Ginny cast "Stupefy!" But the elf popped away before the spell could hit him.

"Shit. Run!" Harry pulled out his broom.

Suddenly the air was filled with a wailing sound, and Harry could feel the oppressive sensation of even more wards slamming down. And his broom dropped to the floor.

"Damn. They must have learned from last time." Assuming that it was the same group as he had infiltrated before. But that was a safe bet. And it would explain why the wards were so overpowered.

"Stop playing with your broom handle – we need to get outside the wards," Ginny ran for the stairs. Harry followed a moment after. As they reached the ground floor they could see the remaining Death Eaters running back towards the mansion.

Harry darted across the room and peered out of the front window - the guards in the tower had a clear shot at the front door! "Out the side – I think there are servant's quarters there!" Servants would have their own door outside, so as not to bother their betters.

Just as they made it across the main room, Harry heard the back door slam open somewhere behind them. Harry turned into a kitchen – it was empty, but past it was a stair heading down.

Ginny pointed. "The servants' entrance must be down there!"

Harry fired a bombarda back the way they had come. "Go scout it out – I will hold them here!" He ordered, trying to keep up a confident facade.

Harry used the wall as cover as he exchanged spell fire with the Death Eaters that were now just around the corner, in the main room. 'I hope most of them portkeyed to wherever they were going' .When he had looked out the window, there had been over a hundred of them. There was no way he could fight his way out through that press. 'This is a shit show'. In this business, things rarely went according to plan, but usually it was just his neck on the line. Now with Ginny here… 'She can hold her own. I can't be worrying about her.' But he still felt awful for dragging her into this situation.

He cast a flame hex blindly and concentrated on the battle. He wasn't even certain how many were attacking him from the other room – he didn't dare look long enough. Harry followed a blasting curse with a transfiguration, turning the end tables into lions.

He barely ducked back before several spells impacted on the wall that he was standing behind. Harry quickly cast another reinforcing charm on it, to keep the Death Eaters from simply blasting through.

Harry glanced down to the stairs as the sound of an explosion and spell fire resonated up the stairs from below as well. Just in time, he looked back to see a transfigured bird swooping down for him. Harry rolled to the ground as he blasted it.

"All clear!" Came Ginny's voice from below.

Harry quickly threw himself down the stairs, sealing the top with a block of stone as the Death Eaters pelted into the servants area a moment later.

Ginny was standing by a back exit, over the body of a man in a Death Eater mask. Harry quickly pulled the mask up – It wasn't anybody he recognized, but he was young. And wearing a Slytherin tie.

"He should still be alive," Ginny broke in self consciously.

"I don't care," Harry replied. There was the sound of the barricade at the top of the stairs shattering. "Go, head for the closest wall!" Harry ran out after her before shooting an overpowered reducto into the stairs, shearing them off. There was a pained scream as he apparently also hit somebody coming down as well. He then turned and followed after Ginny, out past an outdoor cook area and into the bushes between the compound's outside wall and the house.

As they hunkered down, Harry pulled the invisibility cloak over both of them. They sat and watched several men run by, heading for the main gate.

"How come we didn't try this in the house?" Ginny whispered.

"They would have sent the House Elf after us – the cloak makes us invisible, but a House Elf in its own house has some magical way of finding things. I read a theory that they can hear everything happening inside the house - that's how they know what their master wants at any time. The Death Eaters would have found us."

"We should hire some Elves for the Aurors," Ginny muttered, "So now what? Do we wait for them to give up?"

Harry nodded, "lets give them a couple of hours, and then see if we can sneak over the wall." He wasn't certain if the Death Eaters would give up that soon, but any longer and they would be too stiff to make a break for it.

They made themselves at home under the cloak, not casting any spells. A stream of masked & cloaked men burst out of the back door of the mansion, but it was smaller than Harry had feared – just a dozen, and they disappeared around back of one of the sheds.

Ginny started. "Does your cloak work against smell?"

"No?"

"I just heard dogs."

"Shit. Let's go now!" Harry hadn't sworn this much since finishing Oversight agent basic training.

Ginny nodded and they both darted out from under the cloak, relying on their disillusionment to conceal them as they ran for cover behind the sentry tower. On this side of the wall, you could see that the tower was very minimalist – it was made of metal struts supporting a platform with a guard hut seated on it.

"There they are!" A man leading a pair of dogs shouted. The remaining Death Eaters streamed from other parts of the compound, many casting spells blindly at their almost invisible prey.

Harry didn't dare cast any charms back at them, for fear of giving away their position, but he transfigured some rocks into jackals.

The two fugitives were halfway to the wall when a cloaked figure landed in front of them. Unlike the others, he wasn't wearing a mask, and Harry could see his skeletal, nose-less face. 'That's the guy from the Albanian Ministry' . But before he could say a word, the skeletal figure made an intricate gesture with his wand, dispelling their disillusionment.

Harry didn't wait for some witty banter – he immediately responded with a blasting hex, followed by a stream of his most power attack spells, interspersed with some transfiguration.

The ferocity of the attack caught his enemy off guard. It also caused the pursuing Death Eaters to pause and seek shelter as gouts of flame filled the air and the earth exploded from deflected curses.

Ginny threw herself out of the path of a blasting hex and joined in as well, but the figure deflected her spell wandlessly with his off-hand.

'Bastard.' The arrogant indifference of their skeletal opponent to her attack was galling. She channeled her anger into a series of overpowered cutting and piercing spells, forcing Ugly to use his wand to deflect her spells as well as Harry's, putting him on the defensive. But while she was distracted by the duel, a spell from above flashed by, missing her face by inches. Ginny glanced up to see the guards up in the watch tower leaning over to target the area, which fortunately was almost under them, making casting there difficult. Ginny's blasting hex at the goon's head splashed into pretty lights but caused no harm, showing that they were both protected by a strong shielding spell. So instead she cast a quick summoning spell up, yanking one of the guards over the side. As the other guard gaped, trying to process what had happened, she followed up by vanishing the floor under him, causing several of the metal struts to come loose as well.

A the second guard plunged to his death in a pile of construction debris, Ginny turned back to see Harry engaged in a blistering dual.

"You are not bad," quipped their opponent as he sent a wave of rock surging up at Harry. "But not good enough."

Harry deflected it, turning it into a series of vines that lunged towards his enemy, restricting his movements as he cast a series of piercing spells.

"Come, join me! I could use a wand like yours, and opposing me will just lead to your inevitable doom," Cackled the attacked, "I am Lord Voldemort! None can stand before me! Any who oppose me will be swept away like the tide-urk!"

As Voldemort was baiting him, Harry had emulated Ginny's tactic, wordlessly summoning a pieces of steel rebar right through Voldemort's chest.

"Go!" Harry yelled, but as he turned around he saw Ginny confronting a pair of Death Eaters who had dared the melee. The first was already collapsing from whatever spell Ginny had hit him with. Harry raised his wand, but this new attacker was too close to Ginny for a curse or a hex. Harry was just starting a transfiguration aimed at his robes when Ginny punched him in the nose and followed it up with a stunner at point blank range.

"That's Alex LeStrange!" Harry grabbed the collapsed drug dealer turned Death Eater and pulled him under the bare struts that supported the jury-rigged tower. The remaining Death Eaters were creeping back out from wherever they had taken cover from the wild dual and were cautiously advancing on the fugitives.

"What did that nose-less freak say about Voldemort?" Ginny asked, bemused. "I thought he was dead already."

Harry rummaged through LeStrange's pockets. "Here it is. Let's hope he's as paranoid as usual." Harry held up a dinner fork – a portkey. "Hold on to me – I'm going to try to force his 'escape portkey' to activate. And hope that he keyed his own personal portkey to pass through the wards."

Harry pushed as much magic as he could into the fork as Ginny cast, toppling the guard tower towards the advancing Death Eater. But they dodged out of the way, slowed only momentarily.

"Hold tight!" Harry grunted as the two of them were suddenly yanked into the air.

*UHD*

The trip was rough. The portkey whirled and slammed them with phantasmal winds as it ricocheted to its destination. Finally, after a half hour of grasping tight to a piece of cutlery that did its best to buck them off, they crashed through a window and into an opulent study and skimmed to a stop.

"Where are we?" Ginny got to her feet unsteadily.

Harry tried to get his eyes to focus – he had gotten the worst of it, as he had been the one struggling to keep the portkey from disengaging mid-flight and dropping them into the ground at 500 miles an hour. He rubbed blood away from his eyes. 'Ow. I must have hit something on the way down.' "I think.." He began, trying to maintain control of the situation as he pushed himself into seated position. But before he could complete his thought, the door slammed open.

"Alex? I heard a crash.." Daphne stopped, her hand going for her wand. "You're not Alex!" her eyes focused on Harry collapsed on the floor, blood pouring down his face "Harry!" She raced over, ignoring the other woman to crouch down next to her lover. She looked around frantically for anything to stop the bleeding. "Doily!" She called, summoning her Elf, "Get a first aid kit!" She pulled out her wand and carefully vanished the blood.

"What are you doing here? And why is she here?" When Harry didn't reply quickly enough, she finally looked up at the other person in the room. "What is going on? Why are you here?"

"We had were in a rough spot, and we activated a portkey that we had found," Ginny prevaricated, 'Why is she in a panic? She looks more scared for us than of us.' Of course she had recognized Daphne, though the former Slytherin had changed some – she had lost weight, and her makeup was pancaked on. 'She doesn't look so good'.

Harry finally replied "I'm fine, Daph. I just hit my head."

"I'll be the judge of that!" Daphne took a tiny bottle of potion from her Elf and used a gauze pad to dab it onto Harry's gash. Harry grimaced as the cut writhed closed, "Does that hurt? Then next time don't hit your head!" Daphne snarked in a way that was completely out of character for the former ice queen. Her honestly worried tone was the only thing that softened the words.

Ginny watched the casual intimacy of the interaction with a horrified realization.

As Daphne ministered to Harry's injury, there was the sound of the front door opening. Daphne jerked up, her demeanor changing from nurturing to angry in a flash. She vanished the blood from the floor and any furnishings and hissed "Go! Get out of here now!" Before disappearing in a swirl of skirts, "Alex, darling, what brings you home so early?" She cooed gaily.

"You and her…" Ginny began.

"Not know. We need to apparate out of here. I'll side along you." There weren't going to be any destinations that Ginny knew within range of apparition.

They disappeared with barely a whisper.

Doily carefully packed up the the first aid kit and used her magic to repair the window and the vase of flowers that Harry had hit on his way in. With one last glance around the room and a satisfied nod, she too disappeared.