by Fweegal » Monday 25 July 2005 1:16:59pm
Auror Part 2
After this outburst, the Prime Minister sighed heavily. Glancing down at his desk the looked at the miniature Union Jack flag beside the telephone. He seemed lost in his thoughts for several long seconds. Finally he spoke once more. This time he was much quieter and sounded defeated.
“Gentlemen, what am I to do? How am I to protect this country against wizards, when the wizards themselves cannot? There is only so much bending of the truth that the public will take, and we cannot continue to explain away the attacks as IRA bombings, especially since they clearly have nothing to do with it and are vehemently denying it.
I have MI5 screaming at me for making these erroneous statements, the Irish government accusing me of mis-information, my own backbenchers calling for a full inquiry into the handling of the response to the attacks and an election next year. Even the Queen is getting snotty.”
They stood there in silence, listening to him. The only noises were the crackling of the logs in the fire and the soft ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. The room seemed to grow chillier, despite the warmth thrown out by the fire, and frost began to be etched on the window panes.
“The real world, the one that I live in and you do not, is so complex and stressful already, without the added burden of hearing about your internal problems. Between this Volde…person-”
“Voldemort, sir,” said Kingsley quietly.
“Voldemort then,” the PM continued, “between him running rampage across the country, and the rest of his menagerie of monsters that you told me about and then the Dementors, well how am I to cope? Dementors for heavens sake, even the name gives me the chills. I mean they’re….they’re…well they’re…”
“They’re outside,” murmured Moody.
The three others snapped their heads around in his direction.
“What?” asked the Minister for Magic quickly.
“Two of them. Coming off Whitehall. And another two crossing Horse Guard’s Parade.”
His eye roved back and forth between Downing Street and the parade grounds directly behind the residence. The prime minister looked panicked. Trickles of sweat began to appear on his brow, despite the increasing cold in the room.
“Dementors? Here? Why?”
“I imagine,” said Moody slowly as his magical eye continued to flick back and forth in his head, “that they are here for you.”
“For me?! Why…what…? You have to do something to help me!”
Scrimgeour looked grim. He strode to the window and rushed back the drapes. As he looked down into the narrow road outside he saw two hooded figures in black glide effortlessly towards the famous front door. One the steps below stood a police officer who was growing steadily more restless as an unseen dread crept over him.
“We have little time, Prime Minister,” he said. “You must come with me. Now.”
“But where? I mean we’re surrounded aren’t we?”
“Yes,” said Kingsley, who had just returned to the room after checking on the Dementors advance across Horse Guard’s. “Minister-Minister’s I should say-you have to leave immediately. We will deal with this. I doubt they expect two Aurors to be in your office.”
“Come with me, Prime Minister,” said Scrimgeour as he grabbed a hold of the terrified man’s arm. Holding his wrist tightly, the Minister looked over at Moody and Shackelbolt.
“Report to me immediately once you have seen them off.”
Then he apparated, taking the PM with him.
Kingsley looked out the window. The Dementors had reached the door. The policeman down below was lying on the ground, looking very white. One of the hooded figures bent low over him and lowered his hood.
“They’ve just performed the Kiss,” Kingsley said.
“Not much time till they’re indoors,” said Moody, who was already clutching his wand. “You take the two at the door, I’ll deal with the ones in the parade ground.” With that he turned and hobbled out of the room, as fast as his wooden leg could carry him.
Kingsley reached for his phone and pulled on the aerial. It detached easily and began to slide out. Behind the plastic tip was a long slender wand. Discarding the body of the phone, he made for the door. He passed through the outer office, past his immaculate desk and into the corridor. Outside was an MI5 agent, posted for security. He was looking around nervously and had his service pistol in his hand. Looking up to see the Prime Minister’s secretary striding towards him, a look of relief crossed his face.
“Shacklebolt, thank God. Is something…going on? I dunno, but I have a bad feeling and I can’t shake it. I’d better see the PM.”
Quick as a flash, Kingsley pointed his wand in the terrified man’s direction.
“Dormiens”, he commanded and the guard collapsed in a slumbering heap. Stepping over the figure sprawled on the floor, he made it to the end of the corridor and began to descend the stairs.
The staircase in Number 10 was a grand affair, a large sweeping flight that reached from the entrance hall to the very top rooms of the building. All along its yellow silk walls hung the portraits of previous prime ministers. Immediately after hearing that his secretary was actually a magical bodyguard, the PM had requested as demonstration of his powers. Accordingly, Kingsley had bewitched all the portraits to behave much as ones in the non-Muggle world do. The vast majority of them remained immobile and quiet when anyone but the prime minister and Shacklebolt were nearby, but they had some problematic ones, which led to the auror having to return them to their natural state.
For instance Disraeli and Gladstone had been getting into daily fights and frequently crossed into one another’s pictures to start a brawl. To stop them, Kingsley had placed John Major in between, who sat there morosely. Margaret Thatcher too had been a handful, lambasting the PM on a daily basis about his government’s policies. She had also threatened, on a continual basis, to fall on the Argentinian maid in revenge for the Falklands war.
But the worst had been Churchill. By far. Firstly there was the drinking. Most nights loud cursing and singing coming form downstairs would wake the prime minister’s family. But, when the security personnel went to investigate, they could find no source. Then Churchill had taken up smoking, and the cigar smoke wafted from portrait to portrait. Despite all appeals from his neighbours, he had continued to do it. Kingsley rather suspected him of increasing the amount he smoked, just to be petulant.
The final straw came, however, when he erupted into a tirade about the late involvement of the Americans in WW2, as the ambassador from Washington was passing by. A quick memory charm had fixed that, but had led to a change of heart on the prime minister’s part about the merits of talking portraits. Before Shacklebolt had removed the spell from him, Winston had been attempting to persuade the downstairs furniture to invade Germany.
He stood on the landing now, as silent and immobile as the paintings. Below him he could hear heavy footsteps followed by a sharp and surprised cry.
“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” said a familiar gruff voice.
“Oh you gave me a right fright! Sneaking in here like that! With me making the Bosses cocoa and all. Look, you’ve made me go and spill some. Oooh I say! What’s wrong with your eye? It’s all blue and….”
Kingsley heard Moody mutter the sleeping charm and heard the heavy sound of the chef sliding to rest on the kitchen tiles.
“Nice cocoa”, came the voice of the other auror. A door opened and Kingsley rushed to the landing window. Outside he saw a large, dark and unmistakeably Moody-shaped figure melt into the bushes in the garden.
Another sound from below. Kingsley’s grip on his wand tightened. This was the sound of a lock being drawn back.
There was a soft click and as he peered down he saw the hall door, the most famous door in the world, swing silently open. Two dark shapes stood in the doorway, casting long shadows into the hall. The two Dementors crossed the entrance and drifted across the black and white tiles towards the stairs. They stopped at the bottom of the banisters and then began to noiselessly float upwards, not touching the stairs but floating just above them.
Kingsley coughed quietly. The hooded heads snapped up. He stood above them on the landing, wand pointed straight at their chests, a grim look on his face. Clearly surprised, the two figures reared back momentarily and then streaked towards him with their long cold hands outstretched in front of them.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!!!” he bellowed.
There was a burst of light from the tip of this wand and a silvery tiger burst forth, leaping at the Dementors as if trying to rip their necks open. The two cloaked shapes turned and fled, with the patronus in hot persuit. Kingsley raced down the stairs after them too. Bye the time he got to the hall door, they had vanished and his patronus appeared to be sniffing at the collapsed policeman on the steps. It looked up at Shackelbolt and then vanished.
Before he could reach for the man’s pulse, there was a roar from behind him.
“Kingsley!”
He turned to see another two Dementors flying at full speed across the hall towards the doorway he was standing in, followed closely behind by Moody’s giant bear of a patronus and the auror himself. Once more Shacklebolt’s patronus was let fly. The Dementors, caught between the two animals vanished in a loud “crack”.
Kingsley breathed a heavy sigh of relief and lowered his wand.
“That was unexpected, Alastor.” He said
“Sorry about that. Blasted things were faster than I thought.”
Together they walked to the front door. A plump little policewoman was preventing anyone from entering Downing St. Moody checked the pulse of the collapsed policeman and muttered grimly to himself. As they walked out the gates to the street, he leaned down to the officer.
“He’ll need to go to Mungo’s, Tonks.”
The little figure nodded up at him as several police cars screamed up Whitehall and came to sudden halts. A small smile came once again to Kingsley’s face as he saw that rather a lot of officers were getting out of each car, far more than would usually be able to fit inside.
“Our lot,” said Tonks to him.
“But the cars?”
“Weasley. Been at it for weeks. 12 enchanted squad cars.”
Kingsley’s grin broadened.
“Oh I’d say he was in heaven doing that. And Molly was presumably less so!”
Moody caught his eye.
“Ah yes. Better go. Nice disguise, Tonks.”
The stumpy little officer laughed.
“Oh I do try, Kingsley.”
The two aurors walked down the street, past the growing crowds and increasing number of news vans. When they were sure no one was looking, they vanished suddenly. As if into thin air…
More to come! Again, please let me know your opinions (honestly)