Anarchy in the U.K.: Clash City

Harry lit the tip of his wand again and looked around in the new chamber of the cavern. He had heard movement and had extinguished the light quickly, diving behind a rock as he did. It had turned out to only be a startled bat. It was only by an amazing stroke of luck that he, Ron, and Hermione had even come by the person who knew of this cave. According to the landlady in the town some eight kilometers from here, a mysterious man called Robin Alan Burnside had taken up residence in her inn about sixteen years ago. She told Harry, Ron, and Hermione of the demise of Mr. Burnside.

**********

Harry dropped into a chair at a table in the tavern. Ron sat across from him and Hermione sat next to Ron.

"You know what?" Ron asked to Harry and Hermione. Harry couldn't even muster the strength to cock an eyebrow. "I am really fucking tired." Hermione shot him a look for cursing, but Ron was way too tired to care. The landlady came over to their table.

"What can I get you?" she asked in the raspy sort of voice that was good for telling ghost stories around the campfire.

"Butter--" Ron caught himself. It was a Muggle tavern. "Root beer."

"Same," yawned Hermione. Harry looked up at the twenty-something-year-old woman.

"What imported beers do you have?"

"Guinness, Fosters, Corona, Sam Adams--"

"Pint of Guinness, thanks." The landlady walked off to the bar.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take, mate," Ron said. "I know it's important and all, but how many towns do we have to search to find this R.A.B.?"

"All of them," Harry replied, with his eyes closed.

"Harry," Hermione said consolingly. "We're getting to the point where we are going to have to ask everyone whether they know anyone with those initials. Hopefully, in a town like this--" she meant a Muggle town "--that R.A.B. will be known as an eccentric. Lord knows they always think we're eccentric, especially from R.A.B.'s generation."

"Then let's do that," Harry said as the landlady came back with their drinks. "Excuse me, but do you know of anyone with the initials R.A.B. who has had something out of the ordinary happen to them?" The landlady looked at him for a second like he was joking.

"You mean like Robin Alan Burnside?" she asked. Harry was taken aback; he hadn't expected an affirmative response.

"Sure, why not?" She sat down and leaned in close to Harry.

"You don't want to be asking about Robin Alan Burnside," she warned. "Weird stuff happened to him." Harry was hooked by now. He leaned forward.

"Weird how?"

"I was just a little girl when this happened," she said. "But he always stuck in my memory. He came in on the night of this storm... I know that sounds cliché, but it's true! Anyway, he stayed in the inn for a few days and hardly spoke to anyone. The only words I remember him saying were on the last night I saw him. He looked all pale and sweaty, even sick, like he was nervous about something. He kept clutching his arm, too, like he was burned--"

"Which arm?" Hermione asked sharply. The landlady thought for a minute.

"His left." Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged a significant glance. "My dad, God rest his soul, asked him if everything was alright and he said, 'the fire of the Dark Lord hath arrived. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named walks.' Strange, right?"

"Yeah," murmured Harry. "Strange."

"He disappeared that night," she went on. "They found his body up near a cave in the hills. The funny thing is there wasn't a mark on him. He looked almost like he got frightened to death. The police didn't know what killed him."

**********

Harry treaded deeper and deeper into the cave, searching. There wasn't doubt in his mind that Robin Alan Burnside was the R.A.B. from the locket, even if that was a false name. That man was a wizard, and more than that, a Death Eater defector. He was clutching his left arm, worried to the point of being sick and flat out said that Voldemort had arrived. This cave must have been important to Burnside or to Voldemort. Either one was promising, no matter what was found or--

The light of Harry's wand fell on something in the corner of chamber. It was a small box. He rushed forward, but then stopped. He waved his wand and muttered a spell. A green light shot from the end of his wand and settled around the box. It didn't turn red; there was no curse on it. Voldemort, though, could probably circumvent his curse-detection spell, but if this really was Voldemort's box, there would be a lot more protection around it like the cave he went to with Dumbledore...

Harry opened the box and pulled out the sheaf of parchments that were inside. They were the floorplans to a house. The layout of the house was vaguely familiar to him. Then his eyes fell on the name signed in the corner.

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

**********

Ron rolled over in his sleeping bag in his tent and opened an eye. Through the slit between the tent flaps, he could see Hermione cooking breakfast. They had spent about half of their nights in inns and motels, the other half camping as Muggles. Ron had to say that he liked camping, even though his tent wasn't as spacious as the one they had taken to the Quidditch World Cup three years ago. He sat up, stretched, yawned, pulled on his shirt, pants, and boots and crawled out of the tent.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Hermione said with a feeble attempt at a smile. Ron grunted.

"Harry gone again?"

"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "Ron, you really need to clean yourself up," she said eyeing his smudged nose, dirty clothes and matted hair.

"Where?" he said. "I don't see a shower here." She waved her want absently at him, muttering, "Scourgify."

"Good as new," she said. Ron had just sat down and taken a sip from his canteen when Harry came charging out of the mouth of Burnside's Cave, as the locals called it. He was clutching his wand in one hand and a sheaf of parchment in the other running towards them like a bat out of hell.

"What the shit...?" Ron murmured. Harry reached them, panting.

"Harry, what's going on?" Hermione asked. Harry handed her the parchments. She glanced at them. "So? They're floorplans."

"The name...read...the name," Harry choked out. She looked more closely at the floorplans.

"Holy shit," she whispered. "We need to get to London."

"Lemme see," said Ron urgently; anything that could make Hermione swear was important. She handed them to him and he read the name in the bottom right-hand corner of each parchment:

Regulus Abraxas Black

"Oh, shit!" Ron exclaimed. "That's, my God, that's--"

"Yeah," said Harry, already packing his things, stuffing them into a duffle. "Sirius's brother."

***********

Remus Lupin was running on empty, as it were. Actually, he was running on three days without sleep and going on about fifty cups of coffee in the last twenty hours alone. He had begun to think that energy drinks were the answer to keeping up his caffeine intake. Despite his altered state of consciousness, Remus was alert enough to realize that Ginny Weasley should have been at school, not walking into the kitchen at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place on a Wednesday in September.

"Ginny!" he exclaimed, jumping up. "What's wrong? Is anyone hurt?"

"No, no, everyone's fine," she assured him.

"Then what are you doing here?" he asked. "Do your parents know you're here?"

"Um, no," Ginny confessed. "I, uh, well, you see--" This was going to be tough to explain to a teacher. "Well, I dropped out of school."

"Why?" Remus demanded.

"I just don't care anymore," she said.

"Don't care about what?"

"School," she said. "But I still want to do something. I want to work for the Order." Remus's eyebrows shot up and disappeared into his hair.

"Are you crazy?" he asked incredulously.

"I certainly hope not," she said.

"Ginny, you can't be in the Order," Remus said. "You are way too--"

"If you say 'young', I will jinx your tongue into a snake," Ginny warned. "Don't give me that crap. I wasn't even fifteen when I fought at the Ministry, and for the most part, we beat the Death Eaters."

"With help from the Order," Remus reminded her.

"And just barely three months ago, I fought with the Order again! Alongside you, I might add!"

"But you are not an adult yet and cannot shoulder the responsibility of being and Agent of the Order of the Phoenix!" They were both shouting.

"Fine!" Ginny spat. "I'll just go out and find Harry, Ron, and Hermione. God knows that I'll be in just as much danger, but I won't have to check in with you and Mad-Eye so you won't even know if anything goes wrong." She turned on her heel and started to walk out of the kitchen.

"Wait," Remus called after her. She turned with her hand on the doorknob. Remus chewed on his lip for a second. "Fine, I'll let you in. But you are not going out hunting with Kingsley, Tonks, or Mad-Eye. You will be strictly non-combat reconnaissance. Get it?

"Got it."

"Good." He paused. "Have you got any stuff with you?"

"Yeah, I already put it up in my old bedroom."

"Alright."

"And Remus?"

"Yeah?" he said, looking up.

"Don't tell my parents," Ginny pleaded.

"If they don't ask, I don't tell."

"Fair enough."

**********

Gunnery Sergeant Mustang McCoy, United States Marine Corps, U.S. Department of Magic, walked across the floor of the Atrium in the Ministry of Magic of the United Kingdom with his daughter, Erin Kelly, in tow. They headed across the Atrium towards the security desk, which at that moment was being manned by an off-duty Auror. This Auror, a six foot eleven, 277 pound gorilla, cocked an eyebrow at the Marine in his dress blues as he walked towards him with his daughter. The Auror had been told to expect the Marine.

"Hi," Mustang said to the Auror. "Gunny Mustang McCoy, USMC, DoM, reporting as ordered." The Auror took the identification papers that Mustang was holding out for him. He checked them over.

"Me name's Matchbox," the Auror said in a cockney lilt thick enough to stand a spoon in. "I'm in the Auror Department. You're gonna wanna take the lift to Level Two; that's Auror Headquarters. Ask for Kingsley Shacklebolt. If he ain't there, ask for Nymphadora Tonks."

"Thanks," said Mustang.

"My pleasure," replied Matchbox. Mustang and Erin walked silently towards the lift and waited until it had descended to Level Two. They followed the signs to the Auror Headquarters. As Mustang approached the receptionist, Erin sat on one of the couches in the waiting area. Mustang spoke with the receptionist and she pointed him into the office. One of the young men sitting on the couch adjacent Erin exchanged an annoyed glance with his companion. The older looking one, a short, burly man of about twenty-five, got up at walked over to the receptionist.

"Look, how long is this going to take?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, but I just sent that other man in to see Mr. Shacklebolt," she said.

"Oh, for the love of Christ," the man said. He turned to his companion. "Mick, have you got those papers?" The younger one, perhaps eighteen, waked over and produced an envelope from his back pocket. "See?" the older one said, brandishing the envelope. "This is from Commander Remus J. Lupin. It says that I need to see the Ministry Commander of the joint Ministry of Magic-Order of the Phoenix forces. That means Shacklebolt. Since this is from Lupin, the Order Commander, this is important. Can I go in now?"

"Well," the receptionist said. "Since Mr. Shacklebolt is busy right now, I'll send you in to Miss Tonks. Okay?"

"Fine," he said, walking into the Headquarters, leaving the one called Mick behind. Mick came back over to the couch and sat down.

"Another American, huh?" he said after a couple of moments of silence. Erin took in the young man's appearance; we was tall and muscular, with spiked neon green hair, wearing a tight black t-shirt that said Dropkick Murphys, black jeans and written on Chuck Taylor hi-tops, and he had a tattoo on his forearm of a bald eagle and American flag with the script, "Live Free or Die!" Clearly, he was from the States.

"I'm sorry?" Erin asked.

"You're American, right?" Mick asked.

"How did you know?" Erin said, her eyes narrowing.

"Well, you walked in with a jarhead," he said. Erin looked at him closely. He was from Boston. She could tell from his accent; he said 'jaah-head.'

"You from Boston?"

"Concord, actually, but close enough." He leaned forward. "Mick Thoreau," he introduced himself. Erin shook his hand over the coffee table between them.

"Erin Kelly."

"What are you doing here, Erin?" Thoreau asked.

"Well, you saw my dad," she said. "He got an assignment to work for the Ministry, so here we are. What about you?"

"The Order," Thoreau said simply. Something in his tone told Erin to not ask further questions. "So are you going to be up at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah," she said bitterly. "I don't even know why he dragged me along. I'd just as soon have stayed back in D.C." Thoreau was about to reply when his companion came back out.

"Mick, come on," he said. "We're going back to the Place." Thoreau stood up.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Erin," he said, walking away.

"Likewise," she said.

**********

Cokehead Joe Fletcher looked nervously around the square. It was around two in the afternoon, and no one had seen hide nor tail of his uncle for twenty-two days. While his name often led people to think that he was a drug addict, Cokehead Joe had never actually done cocaine. He was actually from a small town in Maine called Kokadjo, and when said fast enough, the town sounded like one was saying, "Cokehead Joe." So when twitchy Joe Fletcher arrived in London when he was sixteen and told people of his hometown, people began to start calling him Cokehead Joe.

Now, though, Cokehead Joe crossed the square quickly and knocked on the door of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. The door opened just a crack and Cokehead Joe slipped inside. He walked swiftly down the hall and descended the stairs into the kitchen where he'd been told he would find Remus Lupin and Mad-Eye Moody.

Indeed, he did find Remus and Mad-Eye in the kitchen. They were pouring over the blueprints of some building. Cokehead Joe cleared his throat. Remus and Mad-Eye looked up.

"Can I help you?" Remus, asked, casually reaching towards his pocket... and his wand.

"You Lupin?"

"Yeah," he said pulling his wand out cautiously.

"Hey, friend, no need for that," Cokehead Joe said, putting his hands up to show empty palms. "I don't mean any harm."

"Like hell you don't," Remus said, raising his wand. "On your knees, hands over your head. Now!"

"Whoa, what the fuck?!" cried Cokehead Joe.

"I said now, dipshit!" shouted Remus. "Get on your knees! Move!" All the while, Mad-Eye was watching Cokehead Joe like he recognized him but couldn't place him. "Alastor!" Remus shouted. "What's wrong?" Mad-Eye stood up and walked over to Cokehead Joe, who was twitching in his nervousness.

"You're Dung's nephew, ain't you, kid?" he asked the youth. "Joe the Cokehead, right?"

"Cokehead Joe," he corrected.

"Right," Alastor said. He turned to Remus. "The kid's okay. He's looking for Mundungus."

"What? Why?" demanded Remus.

"Because the crazy old bat's been missing for three weeks and his kin is startin' to get worried," Mad-Eye said. He pointed at Cokehead Joe. "This is Cokehead Joe Fletcher. He's Dung's nephew."

"Oh, yeah," Lupin said slowly, resheathing his wand and sitting back down at the kitchen table. "I thought you were due to arrive tomorrow."

"What can I say?" Cokehead Joe smirked. "I'm an eager beaver."

"Right, well," Lupin continued. "I understand that you, uh, make your way in life, er, similarly to your uncle."

"Yeah," Cokehead Joe said. "You can say I'm a crook."

"Very well then. I want you to rattle the cages of our friends in Knockturn Alley. You got a source, turn him inside out. Anyone who's ever squealed on anyone else, any snitch, turn him upside-down, see what falls out of his pockets. Any questions?"

"Well, that's not gonna go over well with the boys in the Alley," Cokehead Joe explained. "Look, if I'm going to find Uncle Dung, then I'm not gonna be rattling no cages. It'll be quiet until someone pisses me off. Fair?" Remus nodded.

"Fair," he agreed. "The only thing left for you to know is that it is extremely important that we find him, and fast. He knows too much to just go missing and not be looked--" Just then the door to the kitchen banged open and in stormed Davy Jones-Farragut and Mick Thoreau. Jones-Farragut, the older of the two Americans, was short and burly. Growing up, he had often been made fun of for his size and had decided to meat out his aggressive tendencies in the gym. He had kept this up and the jokes about his height had mainly cooled off until his junior year in high school, when he had beaten the daylights out of senior at his school who had made a crack.

Thoreau, on the other hand, was damn near the opposite. He was wearing sunglasses now that obscured it, but there was a jagged scar that ran over his left eye. His tight black t-shirt stretched over his muscular upper body and the sleeves only half concealed the tattoos on his biceps. Thoreau was an orphan from Concord, Massachusetts. He had no family name and, when asked what he wished his surname to be when he was twelve-years-old, Mick answered Thoreau, after the noted American philosopher from his hometown. He also exuded the anti-establishment spirit that Henry David did as well, and, as the counter-weight to Jones-Farragut's hotheadedness, Thoreau was contemplative. When the situation called for it, though, Thoreau often emerged as the courageous leader that was needed at the time.

Presently, Remus Lupin looked somewhat irked at the arrival of his two American agents.

"What is it?" he asked, exasperated.

"We ain't working for the Ministry," Jones-Farragut said flatly.

"Why not?"

"Well, Tonks had just gotten a memo saying that out-of-country volunteers needed to go through some whole big screening process before they can be allowed to serve, and would be kept in Ministry custody until cleared," Thoreau explained. "It'll take sixteen weeks."

"Sixteen weeks?" Mad-Eye interjected. "Shit, that's retarded."

"I know," Remus said. Then he noticed that Thoreau and Jones-Farragut kept glancing at Cokehead Joe. "Oh, this is Cokehead Joe Fletcher, Dung's nephew. Cokehead Joe, meet Davy Jones-Farragut and Mick Thoreau." The three Americans shook hands.

"Cokehead Joe?" Thoreau inquired.

"Yeah, well, I grew up in Kokadjo, Maine," he explained.

"Population, Not Many," Thoreau replied, reciting what he had read on a sign there.

"Yeah, you been there?" Cokehead Joe asked.

"I went camping at Moosehead Lake about five years ago," Thoreau told him. "I stopped in Kokadjo for some supplies and a meal at the diner."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Cokehead Joe smiled.

"Yeah, so were my taste buds," Thoreau laughed. Jones-Farragut and Mad-Eye were chuckling, but Remus looked annoyed.

"Right, now that we're all acquainted," he cut in. "We still have work to do. Cokehead Joe, are you all set with what you need to find your uncle?"

"Yeah, I'm good," he replied.

"Then, off you trot!" Cokehead Joe headed towards the door.

"Later, dudes," he called to the four in the kitchen as he left.

"You two," Remus said, turning towards Thoreau and Jones-Farragut. "Well, shit, I don't know what to do with you just yet; we expected to have you at the Ministry."

"Remus," Mad-Eye said. "We still need to replace our inside men for the Macnair takedown."

"Well, yeah," said Remus. "But they're supposed to be American business men. From Boston. Do you know how hard it will be to have them get the accent down in time?" Mad-Eye, Thoreau, and Jones-Farragut just stared at Remus. "What?"

"Well, him being from Concord and me being from Gloucester," Jones-Farragut said, "I think we'll be able to cope."

"Oh," said Remus, sounding very sheepish. "Right. Well, then. McGonagall has assured me that a secret task force is working against Voldemort directly. Be cause of this, the Order of the Phoenix is only concerned with taking down Death Eaters. So far, we've gotten three."

"Well, that's a relief," said Thoreau.

"Don't be so sure; progress is slow," Mad-Eye said. "We've been implementing sting operations around the globe. It seems that Voldemort has been setting up his little Junior Achievers around the planet as warlords. As of now, we've only gotten Crabbe in San Diego, Goyle in Rio de Janeiro, and Nott in Toronto. So far we've set up that two American potioneers will meet with Macnair to discuss the creation of a toxin to dampen magical prowess in certain people. The two men that we had before are... well, they're dead."

"Okay, that's not a relief," said Jones-Farragut.

"It was a completely unrelated incident," Remus assured them. "It was a car crash. Getting back to it, you both need to be in place by next week."

"Alright. So where are we going?" Thoreau asked.

"Belfast."