The FBI's Secret Involvement

Over the next week, `Sean´ and `Skylar´ developed a cordial relationship, unaware of the others´ true identity. It was so far an innocent friendship, greetings in the hallway, an occasional walk with Kori, and perhaps a helping hand carrying groceries up the flight of stairs. `Sean´ didn´t even realize `Skylar´ was a witch.

Jade sat on the stoop outside the apartment in the late afternoon dusk. On a cassette player headphones she listened to the previous night´s conversation in the Flints´ room. It didn´t seem to be of any importance though and overall, it was a thoroughly boring conversation.

She sighed and looked out across the street briefly at the Leaky Caldron. She couldn´t watch it for very long without drawing attention to herself. But she delighted in watching various witches and wizards exit from the magical pub. The differences of wizards were as diverse as travelers in any muggle airport. Affluent witches strolled by in fur lined velvet capes and tramp wizards shuffled away in tattered robes and with coarse beards. There were tiny elfish men that looked like they had escaped from a circus, tourist witches with loud American accents similar to Jade´s, and even one giant, burly man with tangles of a black mane and beard whom had to duck to walk in the door. Jade had captured all of their appearances in a sketchbook on her lap. Her drawings mainly kept her thoughts from wandering when doing mundane work like listening to hours of tapes; she rarely used her catalogs of wizard portraits for actual evidence.

In the past week, Jade noticed that teens frequented the pub more and more. Most came with their families but others traveled in herds of students, all flocking to buy new school things. Jade sometimes caught their jokes and laughter and realized deep down, how lonely she was. Kori was a great companion, but dogs do have limitations. Her new neighbor, Sean, was becoming a charming friend, but how could she discus with him her wearisome job or her never-ending hunt for Montague Sullivan?

She glanced at her watch. It was 4:30, which meant Mr. Rat would be coming any moment. Jade looked expectantly down the street and sure enough, the stout, round middle aged man came scuttling towards the pub. His shifty eyes and pointed nose reminded Jade so much of a cartoonish guilty rodent, she had dubbed him Mr. Rat. He never actually went in the bar, which originally drew Jade´s curiosity. Everyday at this time, he would come down to the Leaky Caldron´s entrance, pause for exactly two minutes then cross the street in front of Jade and continue up the opposite side of the road. Jade followed him with her eyes but he always disappeared into a crowd before long. She still wasn´t sure if he was a wizard (he always wore basic pants and a sweatshirt) or a muggle.

Half of her notebook was devoted to drawings of him. He simply looked so skittish and afraid that Jade constantly tried to capture his emotions in her quick pencil sketches. She decided that the following day she would follow him, if for no other reason than to satisfy her curiosity. She felt little threat that he´d turn out to be a DE, after all.

A tap on her shoulder made her jump up in surprise, interrupting her thoughts. It was Sean. He gave her a toothy grin and leaned against the railing beside her. Jade took off her headphones and snapped shut her sketchbook.

"Hey, Bud, what´s up?" she casually asked.

"Ah, not much. What are you doing?" he wondered, eyeing the tape player curiously. Jade inwardly chuckled, wizards could be so clueless about the most basic muggle inventions!

"Oh, just chilling to Aerosmith. I´m particularly partial to `Jaded,´ I think," she lied easily, not missing the irony of the statement. Then for good measure, began to sing "Ja- ja- ja- jaded!! You got ya mother´s eyes but..."

Sirius didn´t know in the least what she was chatting about and he didn´t have any idea what sort of expression to wear. Jade noticed his confused, lost face and grinned.

"Here, have a coke and keep me company." She popped open a fresh Coca-Cola can and split it between two paper cups. Of the six pack she had started with, she had only downed one can. The caffeine was a necessary requirement to get through the mountains of paperwork.

Sirius took the cup she handed him and hesitated at the blackish bubbling liquid. The brown froth on top sizzled and cackled at him. He remembered the time in his fifth year at Hogwarts when Severus Snape had switched his pumpkin juice at dinner for a helium-derived voice-shrinking potion. The muggle-born students told him he sounded like Alvin of the Chipmunks (which he had never understood) and he was the laughing stock in front of the entire school. Snape eventually paid for that prank when Sirius transformed his hair into a neon green mohawk.

This liquid looked so much like a potion that again he wondered if Skylar wasn´t a witch playing a joke on him. But when she drank it, he decided to risk it and sipped the drink slowly. It was sweet and zipped at the back of his throat delightfully.

"Ahh!" he sighed satisfied, lowering the cup, just like in the commercials.

"Please tell me that wasn´t your first time to have a coke!" she exclaimed, forgetting how unlucky wizards were. "You poor deprived soul." She dramatically sighed.

He finished the remainder of his drink, then took on an arrogant air, eyeing the coke cans thirstily. "I bet you I can chug an entire can faster than you can."

"You´re on!" She accepted his challenge, her competitive side beating out the common sense that said she might spontaneously combust with already a can and a half of soda swirling inside of her. She pulled off two more cans, handing him one. With a snap and a pop, the cans were opened and Sirius met Jade´s eyes.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Oh yeah!" And with that they threw their heads back in unison and let the carbonated drink sizzle and zip down their throats. Sirius remembered hanging around with the Marauders at the Three Broomsticks, having drinking contests like this with butterbeer. It usually was a three-way tie between James, Remus and himself. Wormtail could never keep up.

Jade felt ready to puke. The carbonation made her eyes water and she felt her stomach churning mutinously. All in the name of competition.

Sirius triumphantly slammed down his empty can first and announced his success with a loud belch. Several seconds later, Jade lowered her own can and glared at his proud face.

"You suck!" She laughed good-naturedly and grabbed another can, quickly shaking it up threateningly.

"So, what do I get as a prize for winning?" he asked suavely.

"This!!" She answered, spraying the coke out from the shaken can all down his face and shirt. His jaw dropped in shock.

A moment of calm followed, like the eye of the storm.

Suddenly, he lunged for the last can of soda, the final weapon. The agent reacted too slowly and he grabbed the can before she could. He glared mischievously at her and shook up the can as she had done, the soda dripping off him.

"You wouldn´t...."

"Really? Are you sure?" He stepped closer.

With a squeal, she leapt over the railing, and disappeared from sight below. He jumped after her, holding the can out in front like a gun or a wand. Sirius rounded on her as she crouched behind a garbage can. Jade´s eyes widened with the excitement of the chase and made to run off but he grabbed her arm and yanked her back to stand in front of him. In one swift movement, he burst open the coke and it splashed all over face, her thick curls went limp and clung to her shoulders, and her shirt changed from a bright red to a brown tone.

When the assault finished, Jade opened her eyes and glared menacingly at him, trying to look thoroughly pissed off. But she couldn´t keep a straight face and instead, broke out in torrents of laughter. He joined in, too, chuckling heartily with a broad grin.

"Ugh, Sean!" She ran her hand over her sticky face, then spied a dry patch of his sweatshirt on his forearm. Jade pulled his arm to her face and proceeded to wipe the stickiness off.

"Thanks." he remarked, sarcastically.

He touched her curls; her mane looked like a southern hairdresser had gone happy with the hairspray. He smiled boyishly and shook his head, his own shaggy bangs never budging off his forehead as if they were plastered there.

Her sketchbook, which lay unguarded, caught Sirius´s attention. Nonchalantly, he stooped and swiped up her book, casually flipping through the pages.

"Jeez, aren´t we mature," Jade scoffed. He didn´t answer. She turned to see where he had disappeared to and saw him with her book.

"No, Sean, that´s private." She tried to grab it away from him.

He had seen her sitting out watching the passersby and drawing presumably their pictures. They were actually quite lifelike; she had captured Hagrid very well, he thought.

He raised the book higher, out of her reach, and turned it so he could still look up at the drawings. Sirius laughed playfully as she struggled beside him to snatch it back.

" What´s wrong, Skylar? C´mon, can´t you get this?"

"Twerp!" she muttered. Although she was tall, he still had several inches over her.

He flipped the page and his heart stopped cold. The blood pounded in his ears, deafening out Skylar´s squirms. There, on the page staring straight back at him was his nemeses. There was no mistaking the resemblance. The drawing was of the man that Sirius sought more emphatically than any amount of fame or wealth. His body craved more to get him than food, water or air. It was undeniably Peter Pettigrew.

His arm seemed to lose its strength and it fell to his side. Jade grasped at the sketchbook but his grip on it was as strong as steel. In a daze, he continued to flip the pages and his breath caught in his throat as drawing after drawing showed Wormtail.

Jade had forgotten about gaining back the sketchbook. She now stared avidly at Sirius´s face, and watched his expression darken and eyes cloud. Was he then a DE worried that she had witnessed a fellow Death Eater? She mused while trying to keep an unreadable expression and not reveal herself to him if indeed he could be dangerous.

Had he just sauntered by, unaware that his likeness was being captured on paper? By the number of drawings, it seemed he must have been a frequent visitor. How could Wormtail have been there so often and Sirius never have known? These thoughts ran through his mind.

"Skylar, do you know this man?" he asked with a deadly calm that contrasted drastically with his youthful game earlier.

" No, he just always walks by here in the afternoons at 4:30. Why? Is there something wrong?"

"This....this man walks by here everyday?" His voice trembled with urgency and restrained anger. It began to unnerve Jade. "Where does he go?"

"He just comes down there, crosses the street and keeps going up here," she answered, pointing out respectively Mr. Rat´s daily path.

He didn´t say another word, but did an about face and strolled purposely down the street. What had that all been about? She decided to trail Mr. Rat the following day.

Jade scooped up her tape player and sketchbook and headed up to her apartment. She craved a shower to rinse off the coke.

~*~

Sirius ducked into an alley and made sure no one was watching. He then transformed into Padfoot and reentered the main street.

There are so many interesting smells that humans miss out on; Padfoot rejoiced as the world came alive to his heightened sense of smell. Ah, to be a dog!

But he didn´t have the leisure to stop and smell the hydrants; he was on a mission. The big Newfie loped down the sidewalk and stopped in front of the Leaky Caldron. Methodically, Padfoot passed over the entire pavement with his nose working over time. Minutes later, Padfoot gave an enthusiastic bark. He had found Wormtails´ trail. And sure enough, he had followed the path Skylar had described.

After leaving the alley again as human, Sirius decided that when his old pal, Peter, went on his daily stroll, Padfoot would give him a little surprise. But right then, he needed a shower to wash off the coke.

~*~

`Just two more blocks. Just make it there and then I´ll be done,´ Mr. Rat told himself. He threw a glance over his shoulder. No one was following as far as he could tell. `Just a little further.´ He looked behind him again. The hair on the back of his neck stood up rigid and goose bumps covered his chubby arms, even though it was a pleasant day. The eerie feeling of being watched coursed through his veins.

He could see the Leaky Caldron ahead of him. He just had to reach it and pause two minutes as the signal to Marcus Flint to continue waiting for his Lordship´s orders. If the fellow DE did not see him walk by at the exact time, then Flint would be on standby for directions. It had been very tense in the Death Eater tribe those days and Mr. Rat shuddered. The Dark Lord had huge plans and all his followers were being thoroughly tested.

Mr. Rat had an added bonus of being live bait as well as the signal to Flint. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named could have chosen a different route for Mr. Rat to take but instead had him pass in front of the Leaky Caldron. If the Aurors had discovered the Dark Lord´s plans, then they would nab Wormtail on his daily walk. After all, Wormtail was fairly expendable. And the Dark Lord saw it fitting to prance right in front of the entrance to the Auror Headquarters and laugh at their naiveté.

Wormtail, again, glanced behind himself. He could feel eyes following him although he couldn´t see from where. Then the crowd surrounding him parted and a gigantic black dog came trotting towards him.

All of his fears had come true. For the last four years, he had worried about Sirius finally getting him. God knows what Black would do to him. Wormtail´s knees trembled and he stared at the Newfie as if seeing Death itself.

The dog was no more than five feet from him when Wormtail gathered himself up enough to apparate to safety. Padfoot leapt a second too late, there was a `pop´ like a soda can opening, and the dog landed on the sidewalk on the exact location Wormtail had stood. With a frustrated growl, the dog snapped at the air where his enemy had been and then headed home, downtrodden.

Jade sat at a quaint, outdoor cafe, her mocha forgotten and growing cold. She had taken the seat to wait for Mr. Rat´s walk in order to follow him. He had indeed come along, just as usual, but then the Newfoundland had approached him Although he normally looked scared, he then looked petrified. But what had surprised and shocked Jade was that he had apparated away in broad daylight in front of muggles.

Never before had Jade witnessed a wizard apparate without caring about muggle observers. Was he just stupid or, as Jade began to believe, fleeing from the imminent danger of that dog? But why then didn´t he draw a wand and curse the dog instead (it couldn´t be more bizarre than suddenly disappearing in the eyes of the muggle witnesses)?

The odd thing was, no one seemed to have seen the skittish little man `poof´ into thin air. She had been the only observer besides the dog. But Jade realized, it wasn´t because of some magic spell that had hidden him, but more likely, he was the type of person to be ignored and let slip through the cracks. Everyone was too wrapped up in his or her own lives to notice the dumpy, balding wizard vanish.

She kicked herself for not tracking Mr. Rat sooner. If he was a DE, she could have perhaps gained more clues.

She paid for her now cold coffee and headed home.

~*~

Jade lay on her sofa, wrapped in her fleece bathrobe with her headphones on, listening into the Flint´s room. She was in a state of semi consciousness, on the verge of a deep sleep, but was trying to stay tuned into the task at hand. It was past midnight and she had just heard Marcus and Naomi head to bed.

A faint `pop´ sounded over the line. Jade´s ears pricked up reflexively. A moment later, voices were heard.

"What the hell?" he demanded groggily.

"Get up; it´s important. You were supposed to be on standby," a new male voice spoke, trembling and nervous.

Naomi moaned, "What´s wrong?"

"Nothing, just some loose ends from work. Go back to sleep,"

Marcus told his wife but she had already started snoring softly again.

A door closed. They were now in the main room.

"What news?" Flint asked confidently.

"He wants this message sent to your team members regarding the next assignment," the shaky little voice squeaked.

Jade was by now sitting on the edge of her seat, waiting with bated breath for their conversation to resume. There was a long pause.

"Sirius Black!" Marcus exclaimed, losing his professional air. "But he´s wanted by the Ministry! It´s not like a true Auror almost caught you."

The other man´s terrified voice squeaked "This is not good news. He´s worse than any Auror. In any case, our Lord has changed the date and your team needs to be alerted."

"Very well," Marcus said and a moment later a soft hooting could be heard.

Jade realized immediately that they were going to send the owl off with that message. She grabbed a camera off the table and raced out of her room. The apartment building had three floors. Jade flew up to the top floor taking the steps two at a time and continued up to the hatch that lead onto the roof.

She climbed out and hastily scanned the night´s sky for the owl.

"There it is!" she breathed to herself as it began to soar over the building two houses over. Concentrating, she raised her right hand, palm facing the owl. The charge filled her body and radiated out of her hand like an invisible explosion. The owl halted in mid air, still flapping furiously while Jade concentrated on dragging it back to her. But owls have their own magic and it didn´t want to be diverted from course. It was a battle between Jade and the owl. The agent was successful. The owl zoomed back to the roof, unnoticed by any spectators.

The bird clamped onto Jade´s left arm as her fingers yanked at the message tied to its leg. As she pulled it open, she saw instantly that it was coded and unreadable. She took several pictures of the entire letter before replacing it and sending the indignant messenger on its way.

She went back to her apartment and plugged the digital camera into her laptop. She pulled up the pictures and printed up a copy of the coded note.

Jade sighed. She hated this part. It was so depressing to have gained a letter from Voldemort´s henchmen and not be able to understand what he was planning.

She didn´t have the patience at that time to try and crack the code herself and instead, forwarded it to GMSS for the translators to mess with. She attached the title `URGENT´ to it.

Jade rubbed her tired eyes and headed for bed. Kori was spread out at the foot of the bed, sleeping peacefully except for the occasional leg twitches and soft `woofs.´

"Chasing rabbits," Jade chuckled to herself, "well, more likely, chasing Death Eaters."

As Jade drifted off to sleep, she replayed Marcus Flint´s conversation with the unknown informer. Marcus had exclaimed `Sirius Black´ which had frightened the other man terribly. Sirius Black. It echoed in her head. Sirius Black....

Jade suddenly sat bolt upright in bed, wide-awake. She pulled on her robe again over her PJs and left Kori snoozing. Her laptop hummed quietly (she never turned it off) and she quickly entered GMSS´s database. `Sean Potter´ didn´t exist but she expected she could find Sirius Black.

Sure enough, Sirius Black was instantly matched. Although British, he was infamous enough to gain international awareness.

Jade clicked on an icon to pull up a photo of him. It was a copy of the photo that had been printed in both muggle and wizard newspapers.

A skeletal man appeared on the laptop screen. His long matted black hair obscured much of his face but his dark eyes stared out menacingly. He was gaunt and deep shadows under his eyes made his face resemble a skull. Sirius Black was hardly more than a corpse.

But Jade couldn´t tear her eyes off his face. It held her captive, not by disgust at his gruesome appearance, but because something was clicking in her mind. She felt she had seen those eyes before.

How long she sat there, Jade didn´t know. Where had she seen him before?

She reached up to the screen and with her fingers, covered his grotesque hair. She narrowed his portrait so she only saw his eyes, nose and mouth. Those haunted, fathomless eyes pierced her insides.

Jade grabbed her sketchbook off the table and flipped to the rough drawing she had done of her neighbor. The pencil seemed to be skimming over the paper by itself as she made a few adjustments to the sketch of him. Her breathing came faster with anticipation as she changed his hair, added shading and thinned his face.

Jade held the sketchbook up next to the computer screen and gasped. There was no mistaking the resemblance. Sean Potter was Sirius Black.