Friday’s weather was anything but friendly.
Rain struck the streets in cold, hard sheets.
The sky hung low and dark, pressing down on everything beneath it.
Harry stood at the mouth of the alley, using the dense brickwork as cover, eyes fixed on the derelict warehouse across the street.
“Target confirmed, three individuals, fully armed.” Michael kept his voice low.
“Anti-Disapparition Jinx is already in place.”
Harry gave a quiet nod.
He raised his hand, and five Aurors instantly fanned out in silence through the wet, cold air, each moving to their designated position.
“Three, two, one — go.”
Harry was the first through the door.
“Expelliarmus!”
“Stupefy!”
“Protego!”
A burst of blinding sparks exploded outward.
Three black-robed figures in silver masks scattered instantly.
One of them leapt straight onto a nearby iron staircase, boots hammering through the hollow warehouse.
“They’re heading for the back door!” Seraphin shouted.
“No, they want to split us up.” Harry’s call came fast.
“Flank left, seal the exits!”
His voice was steady and clear.
The Aurors moved, circling wide to cut off the rear of the warehouse.
A Death Eater hurled Crucio.
The light that erupted from the wand tip nearly grazed Harry’s shoulder.
“Blasting Curse!”
The spell landed clean, wrenching the other’s casting arm off its mark.
The figure staggered back,
At that exact moment, Michael hit with a sideways tackle and brought the person crashing to the ground.
On the other side, Seraphin and Hailey cast together, driving the second masked Death Eater into a corner.
Harry raised his wand at the last figure, already scrambling for a skylight.
“Expelliarmus!”
The wand flew free.
The figure dropped hard beside a fallen crate, let out a short pained grunt, and went still.
“All three secured, boss.” Michael swept up the three wands in quick succession.
“These are the ones who set off an explosion in a Muggle neighborhood.”
Harry crossed to the three unconscious figures, expression grave.
He crouched down and pulled the silver mask from the first Death Eater they’d taken down.
It hit the floor with a sharp crack.
It was young, almost childishly so.
Brown hair.
Pale skin.
Sharp features that hadn’t yet fully grown into themselves.
Hailey drew a sharp breath.
“My God… this is —”
Harry finished it slowly.
“Robards Avery.”
“They really should have locked up all those Death Eaters’ families in Azkaban from the start!” By lunchtime, Ron had gotten word and made it over to the Ministry of Magic, bringing packed food from outside for everyone.
“That would cost the Ministry its credibility. And there’s no evidence that the Death Eaters’ families were Death Eaters themselves.” Percy had also come over from the Department of Magical Transportation to the Auror Office, rubbing his temples with a pained look.
“Hmph.” Ron gave a cold laugh.
“I don’t know when the Ministry ever had credibility to speak of. Look at this Robards Avery, hasn’t even graduated. Isn’t even of age! Managed to slip out of Hogwarts to pull something like this! You know what that tells you? It tells you that the children of old Death Eaters will always become Death Eaters themselves!”
“Ron.” Hermione cut in with a frown.
“You can’t make sweeping generalizations like that.”
“I actually think Ron has a point,” Seraphin said.
“Even if those families weren’t Death Eaters to begin with, after we locked their people away in Azkaban, of course they’d end up bitter.”
Harry just felt the headache spreading behind his eyes.
Nearly every post-war argument circled back to the same problem eventually.
They couldn’t arrest everyone with any connection to the Death Eaters.
That would mean punishing a lot of innocent people.
But the families of Death Eaters were almost certain to face rejection, in society, at school, everywhere.
The war had been brutal enough to leave survivors naturally disposed to hatred, wariness, even contempt for those people.
The same way the Death Eaters themselves had once looked at everyone else, before Voldemort fell.
And yet discrimination and hatred only ever bred new fractures.
The wizarding world hadn’t become more united just because Voldemort was dead.
The cracks were still there.
Only the roles had flipped, aggressors and victims trading places.
And right now, standing in the light as he was, the fractures pushed into shadow were easy enough not to look at.
“This is Kingsley’s headache, not mine.” Harry exhaled and reached for the pasty Ron had brought.
“I’m only the Head of the Auror Office. My job is to make arrests.”
“Come off it, mate, you’re the Chosen One.” Ron looked at him with concern.
“This hasn’t gotten out yet, but sooner or later every witch and wizard is going to hear about this, and they’ll all want to see you take a stand.”
“Just like when you testified for the Malfoy family, back then.” Percy added quietly.
He had never truly been able to relax, and that weight felt heavier now than ever.
He despised all of it, the pedestal, the symbol, the expectations he was never asked if he wanted to carry.
He hated that his every move was magnified, that his every word got endlessly second-guessed.
From the day the war ended, he’d been pushed up onto that stage.
People needed him.
They needed him standing in the brightest possible spotlight, like a living article of faith.
He drew a slow breath and let it out.
Exhaustion coiled in his chest.
Everything around him felt grating: the relentless rain against the window, the stifling smell of the office, the heavy weight of everyone’s eyes, even the arrangement of the desks filled him with a suffocating kind of weariness.
He found himself missing that consulting room.
That small, quiet space where he could briefly escape, the only place since the war where he’d ever come close to truly relaxing.
He also caught himself half-wishing today were Thursday, so he could see Chloe.
She never expected anything of him.
She just sat there, quietly, and met everything he brought with understanding and acceptance.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
Sharp, rapid knocking shattered the heavy air.
The door flew open.
Kingsley Shacklebolt’s extravagant earrings came through first, followed by the urgency written across his face.
“Harry —”
He stopped the moment he clocked the room full of people.
“Quite a crowd today.” His brow furrowed.
His voice dropped.
“Harry, we have a problem. Robards Avery’s mother is causing a scene in the main hall downstairs.”
➤ Next: Contradiction
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