Chapter 29 – Battlefield Injuries

Draco had given up on any thoughts of vacation. His newly-found sister, his obviously severely damaged friend, and his confusing romantic inclinations were threatening to drive him insane.

He awoke gasping from a half-remembered dream involving himself entwined with a nearly naked Luna Lovegood on a blanket in a grassy field, where they had been surrounded by a flock of grazing Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Luna was looking particularly fetching, clad only in a pair of mismatched socks and adorned with radish earrings. Ginny and Tonya had been watching, occasionally holding up scoreboards much like old-style figure-skating judges. The booming commentary on the “action” that was provided by an unseen Lee Jordan was enough to wake Draco and convince him it was time to escape to his rarely-used office at the Ministry.

The Auror office was quiet at three in the morning, and Draco managed to review an hours' worth of after-action reports on confrontations with Death Eaters before he was stunned by the appearance of Amos Diggory.

Diggory did not seem very surprised to see Draco in the office at such an early hour.

“Bloody hell. You've heard too, Malfoy?”

“Heard what, Amos?”

Diggory's eyes narrowed. “You haven't heard? You're just here at four in the morning for your health?”

“More like my sanity, Amos. Couldn't sleep, a fair bit on my mind, thought I would come in here and be productive. What's going on?”

“Ah, I thought you had somehow heard that the bloody Americans have buggered us again. Thought you might have come in to help pick up the pieces.”

“If it's help you need, Amos, I'm ready to serve.”

“Good man. It appears that the American President doesn't want any more conflicts right now, even magical ones that are hidden from the Muggles. He's ordered the Department of Magical Affairs to sign an agreement with Lord Voldemort.”

Malfoy was stunned. He blurted out, “You are fucking kidding, right, Amos? The night watch team called you when I came in to work early and you decided to come in and put the piss-take on me, right?”

“I wish to God I was. And all hell's about to break loose. With us, the Americans, Voldemort, everything.”

“What's the agreement?”

Amos snorted. “Their President thinks he's Neville Bloody Chamberlain or something. All that's missing is the “peace in our time” quote. Unbreakable Vow, Voldemort forever refrains from attacks or interference on America and in return we get no support, zilch, from their DMA. No intelligence, no magical equivalent of Lend-Lease, even their Portkey watch lists will no longer have the names of known Death Eaters. What does that say to you?”

Draco shook his head. “It says that Voldemort's somehow found a way to get around an Unbreakable Vow.”

Amos nodded. “That's our take, too. There's a clause that says the Vow is void if the Americans strike against Voldemort, we're guessing that Voldemort thinks that sooner or later the Americans will have to do something once everyone else falls and then they'll be outpowered by Voldemort.”

“No chance. Voldemort's not that patient. He's not going to take the chance that lower levels of the DMA will find a way to funnel support to us. He needs to strike sooner.”

Amos gave a dry laugh. “Lower levels indeed. The Secretary of the DMA, the Assistant Secretary, and his deputy all resigned upon reading the presidential order. They refused to carry it out, their president had to appoint a new Secretary. This is all from their chief of Foreign Magical Intelligence, who not only resigned but immediately packed up his family, portkeyed to our Ministry and requested political asylum. Both him and Melissa Kaufusi, actually, that delightful woman who briefed Harry. Appears she's afraid she'd be facing charges if she went back to the States, because everyone knows that she's not going to stop helping us whether it's under government authority or not.”

Draco absorbed that. “The political ramifications are going to go beyond the Magical world, aren't they?”

“Right in one. I wasn't kidding about all hell breaking loose. We just heard about this a few hours ago. I'm surprised you didn't hear anything from the night duty Auror.”

“Do tell. I did wonder why there was only one Auror on the floor and not two.”

“Remember I said their intel chief came to the Ministry? He apparently is rather well-connected. He grabbed one of the duty Aurors, new man, Hugglesworth. Demanded he call the bloody Queen and use his name. Windsor woke the Queen up. Quarter after midnight. She calls the PM and Arthur, orders them to Windsor. Arthur wakes me up. I wake up half of Legal. And you, Draco Ace Auror Malfoy, didn't notice that half the Ministry was streaming into work at three-thirty in the morning?”

“I do like to focus on my work, Amos.”

Amos smiled. “Good thing, that. We have an op that needs to go, now. Voldemort hasn't done anything yet – I think he's underestimated Arthur. Except what I have to say next doesn't really come from Arthur, really, well, the logistics do but the attitude is straight from Her Royal Highness. Her Majesty, it seems, is a bit upset at the Americans.”

Draco did not need a translator to realize that “a bit upset” meant absolutely furious.

Amos continued. “For the first time in two hundred years or so, the PM is not making national policy. It's being directed, totally, by the Queen. He's being a smart lad and going along with it, not getting in her way. This is an unprecedented situation; just prior to World War II we had to deal with an America that wanted to stick its head in the sand, but at least they had a President who recognized what Hitler and Grindelwald were. He managed to get the Colonials on enough of a war footing, and managed to slip us enough aid to stay alive, until the Japanese forced America to wake up. I think I shall say a prayer for both Franklin Roosevelt and Queen Elizabeth tonight. Now we have the opposite. There are elements in America that want to help us, but their government appears to be nothing more than clones of Cornelius Fudge.”

Draco saw where Amos was going. “She's going to destroy the American President, isn't she?”

Amos' face was grim. “She's never, ever acted like this before, but the woman has sixty solid years of observing the political behavior of every government on the planet. There is no one, no one at all as politically astute as she is. She will not tolerate Lord Voldemort using the United States of America as a safe refuge to launch attacks against her country.”

“We are now, de facto, in a Cold War against the government of the United States. The PM is going to keep his mouth shut; she needs him strong and right now appearing to get angry for no reason at the Americans is not going to do him any good in Muggle opinion polls. He's going to move slowly. Arthur, and the rest of Magical Britain, well, we're going on a slash and burn campaign.”

Draco nodded, as Amos went on. “This morning, the Daily Prophet is going to reveal, in full, every excruciating detail of Voldemort's plan to trick the US into starting a nuclear war. The magical American press will of course have the same story. In the Muggle American press, we already have people who are going to publish that an attempt by terrorists to attack American cities with nuclear weapons was foiled at the last possible moment by British Intelligence. The Russians – and don't ask me how the hell she did this, or what she offered them – have agreed to actually publicly admit that they lost track of a few warheads and launch codes, and that their dutiful attempts to warn the Americans were stonewalled by the White House. And that's not all.”

Draco somehow knew that he would be involved in what came next.

“All cooperation, and I do mean all, with the Americans on Magical Affairs, is over, done, finished, at least until they get a new President. They have some little half-arsed Dark Wizard who has been giving them problems for a couple of decades. He's no Voldemort, but the Americans take him quite seriously. Remember that little prick, Benedict Whiting, who Melissa had to Oblivate at Harry's?”

“Unfortunately.”

“It appears that incredibly useless piece of shit is their new Secretary of Magical Affairs, after their entire upper echelon resigned in disgust.”

“Lovely.” Draco's tone was flat.

“Quite. Appears, however, that his claim to fame in the DMA prior to his sudden ascension was supervising the investigation into said dark wizard. For years. And, he's signed off personally on about a quarter of a billion American dollars in funds over the years on this little project, which apparently has had some trouble collecting the necessary evidence for their legal system to put this wizard of theirs away.”

Amos looked at the ceiling. “They've been focusing on trying to build a conviction based on a smuggling operation that starts on British soil. Would be a great shame if our forbearance in allowing that operation to continue ended due to Mr. Whiting not filing the proper paperwork with our government.”

Once again, Draco mentally translated what Amos was saying. The Aurors had backed off pursuing the smuggling operation so that the Americans could run their own ridiculously expensive investigation. For whatever reason, it seemed that the British Ministry felt that if the smuggling operation was interrupted prematurely then the American investigation would collapse. And, most likely, pro-British elements in the American DMA had already caused the needed paperwork to vanish from the American files, thereby undermining confidence in the new Secretary.

Draco said, “I'm sure the American press will be thrilled to see three high officials resign in one night, only to see their replacement be immediately resolved as an absolute incompetent.”

Amos added in a wry note, “Something similar happened there once before, under their President Nixon. Their press called it “The Saturday Night Massacre.” You may recall Nixon later wound up resigning.”

“Before my time.”

“You really should study Muggle history more, Draco.”

Draco ignored Amos' joking insult. “Where am I going this morning?”

“Ah yes, the meat. You get to wake up someone now. Get Ron. You're going on a raid. Seems like there's a small matter of some American smugglers that needs to be dealt with.”

A couple of hours later, Draco and Ron had been briefed on the raid plan. A group of four Aurors, including Draco and Ron, would Portkey into a small tugboat along with eight members of Magical Law Enforcement. Dawlish described the plan.

“The interior of the tugboat has been magically enlarged to be able to handle about four large holds. They're smuggling illegal and stolen magical artifacts from Europe to the States. There should be four suspects at the time we Portkey in. Subdue anyone you find and let the MLE's catalog the contraband. No heroics, this is a political mission to make a point, although we do want some convictions. Their little Dark Wizard is no longer our problem, a crime has been committed on British soil and we are being dutiful enforcers of the law.”

Ron turned to Draco and said, “Political mission. I have tickets to the Cannons tonight. If my report takes too long to write I'm going to tell Dad I'm not voting for him in the next election.”

Draco laughed and followed Ron and the other Aurors into another room. There were four orange cones in the room, and each one was about a meter and half tall. One Auror and three MLE officers moved to encircle each cone.

Draco stood before his cone, and listened to Dawlish count down.

“Grasp portkey, prepare for transport in three-two-one”

The Ministry vanished, but Draco and the MLE officers did not appear directly in the tugboat – instead, they seemed encased in gelatin, and they could see figures moving beyond the gel as if they were in heavy fog.

Draco was disoriented, but he realized it was some sort of anti-Portkey ward – and to his horror, he saw that instead of the expected suspect or two in each of the four holds, there were well over a dozen figures beyond the fog.

Each figure was holding a wand, and pointing those wands at Draco and the other trapped holders of the Portkey.

Abruptly, the fog vanished. Draco and the officers slammed to the deck. Draco and two MLE's landed on their feet, one MLE rolled away, and one just fell on the deck, all balance lost.

Multicolored lights flashed overhead and all around. The man on the deck was hit by at least four curses and immediately exploded, showering blood all over his teammates who were frantically attempting to erect shields.

Two MLE's attempted to dive back towards the Portkey, only to be hit by more curses.

Draco didn't even have time to count the number of his opponents – his shield was already breaking down. He saw that only one MLE officer was left alive, and he shouted, “GO! GET OUT!”

Thankfully, there was no Anti-Apparation jinx preventing people from Apparating out – the officer vanished with a pop!

Draco began to Apparate just as his shield failed – he felt something graze his side – and then – there was a sickly feeling in his stomach as he fell to the floor in the Refuge Room, the one place in the Auror office where someone could Apparate to.

Something was wrong. Draco looked around. He realized -

-he was much too short.

I've been splinched.

Draco looked down where his torso met the floor, looking for his absent legs even though he knew they were back in the tugboat.

And then, as the criminals back in the boat realized what had happened and began aiming curses at Draco's legs, Draco began to scream.