"Master! Master must wake up!"
Harry blearily opened his eyes before startling backwards on his bed, his heart suddenly rocketing in his chest.
"Kreacher! Don't do that!" Harry admonished the elf who was still standing right beside his bed, his ancient, bulbous nose only a bare inch from where Harry's head had been a moment before.
"Yes, Master," an unrepentant-sounding Kreacher replied.
"Is there a reason you're waking me up at …" Harry cast a quick, wandless, wordless tempus, "two thirty in the morning!"
"Yes, Master," Kreacher replied. "Master has a floo call."
Harry stared at the elf. This had better be good.
"Who is it?' he near-growled.
"Auror Robards," Kreacher replied.
Instantly, Harry was rolling out of bed and moving towards the door.
Old habits are hard to break, he grouched to himself.
Indeed, when he was still an auror, there had been numerous times when he'd been awoken in the middle of the night by a floo call from Robards. Then, as now, he'd hurried to answer it; more often than not, this proceeded a return to duty, hours before his shift was due to start.
"Robards," Harry greeted the head floating in the fire.
"Potter. Took your sweet time getting here," Robards retorted.
"I'm not one of your aurors anymore," Harry reminded him.
"There's been an attack," Robards stated, ignoring Harry's comment. "Shaklebolt tells me that you have jurisdiction."
"What?" Harry asked confusedly. "What do you mean that I have jurisdiction?"
"Just what I said," Robards repeated. "I strongly suggest you get down here ASAP."
Harry gave an absent nod and Robards cut the connection. Exactly what kind of attack would give him jurisdiction over the DMLE he couldn't fathom. Unless …
His eyes widening, Harry took off in a dead run back towards his room.
ooo00ooo
As Harry strode into the offices of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he was met at the door by a young auror, a trainee, judging by their robes.
"Mister Potter," the trainee auror said. "I've been instructed to bring you straight to Interview Room One B."
Harry gave a nod. "Thank you."
Although he could find his way there himself, he let the young man lead him. Interview Room One B was actually a small room to the side of Interview Room One that had special charms placed on one of the walls allowing anyone in the 'B' room to see into the main room without being seen themselves, much like a one-way mirror in a muggle police interview room.
A quick glance as he entered showed Harry that a female auror was sitting with a young boy in the main room, whether or not they were talking was unknown – the silencing wards seemed to be engaged.
The 'B' room was occupied by three people and, although Harry expected two of them, the third wasn't a complete surprise.
"Chief Robards. Kingsley. Susan," he said, nodding to each.
"Thanks for coming, Harry," Minister Shaklebolt replied.
"Hi, Harry," Susan Bones replied with a small smile.
Robards simply gave a grunt, a grunt that Harry interpreted as being dissatisfied with Harry's speed in getting there. Nothing much had changed, it seemed.
"Earlier tonight there were a number of attacks," Robards began the briefing. "All against muggleborn families. The only survivor was young David Harkwood. His parents managed to smuggle him out a window and told him to run; gave him a portkey to the Ministry that activated as soon as he was clear of the anti-apparation and anti-portkey wards that had been raised."
Harry glanced again at the boy in the other room. He was small, maybe seven or eight, he guessed, with mousy brown hair and still wearing his pyjamas. Tear tracks were clearly visible on his face as he leant up against the female auror, her hand around his shoulders.
"I'm guessing that there was more to this since you called me in," Harry stated.
"My team and I were the first on the scene," Susan replied. "The house had been pretty much destroyed and we found his parents' bodies inside. They'd been killed by something that we couldn't identify – it didn't look like any sort of spell that we'd encountered before. Our first guess was some kind of blasting curse, but it just wasn't quite right."
"Reports came in of two other attacks," Robards picked up. "Both families were killed, a total of eleven, including five children under Hogwarts' age."
"We managed to get young David in there to give us his memory of what happened," Susan said, indicating the pensieve on the table behind her.
"As soon as we saw what happened, I asked for you to be called in," Kingsley concluded.
"May I?" Harry asked, indicating the bowl.
Kingsley simply waved his hand and Harry stepped forward. Placing his finger into the silvery liquid, he felt himself drawn inside.
He landed in what was obviously a child's bedroom. There were toys – blocks and action figures predominantly – scattered around. A small light globe, obviously the magical version of a night light, hovered in the corner above the bed where the boy, David, was sleeping.
Suddenly, a loud noise, an explosion, rocked the house and David shot up in bed. Ignoring him, Harry crossed the room and stuck his head out through the curtains. A second explosion preceded David joining him there, a look a terror on the boy's face.
"Dark Elves," Harry growled.
Obviously, he hadn't gotten them all – he'd thought that he'd come up short when he was rounding them up.
There were eight of them, all holding some kind of alien weapon that they were firing at the house. Their behaviour, though, was different to what he'd seen in Greenwich. There, the Elves had preferred to rush their opponents, to fight more hand to hand. Here, they stood in a slight arc, equidistant apart and shot from a distance. The position was eerily familiar, but not one that he'd seen since the war. And when combined with the anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards that had been mentioned …
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