And You Were Worried About Rodents?

This is our punishment. We came
Here without blame, yet with blame,
Dark blame of others, but our blame also.
This stroke was bound to fall,
Though not to fall so.

(Edwin Muir, The Refugees)

Chapter 1: Rats!

"Watch out!" Arthur Weasley yelled as the tiny, grey, snarling something sped past him and landed on a flabbergasted Perkins' shoulder. It proceeded to sink tiny plastic claws into his robes and equally tiny, pointy plastic teeth into the hapless wizard's ear.

Arthur swore under his breath. He couldn't really hurl a spell at the infernal pseudo-rodent, not without cursing Perkins' head off. This was an insight that came with experience. Not everybody on his little team was big on experience, though, he realised when Higgs came crashing into the dining room behind him with a battle cry, brandishing his wand at Perkins' shoulder. A cry which ended in a strangled "Stupef-agh!-gargle!" when Arthur grabbed the youth by the scruff of his robes and shoved his wand away.

"Don't! You'll hit him too," he hissed, ignoring the angry glare that came his way. Higgs huffed, straightened his robes and blushed ever so slightly at the reprimand. Arthur turned away from the ex-Slytherin who was nursing his wounded ego.

"Accio mouse!" The furry critter was forcibly detached from Perkins' neck and hurled towards Arthur's outstretched hand, jaws determinedly curled around the tiny piece of skin it had liberated. Perkins howled in pain. As soon as he felt fur touching his palm, Arthur smashed the thing to the floor with slightly excessive - but satisfying - force. Drop beasty, aim wand...

"Incendio!"

The would-be mouse burst into flames, gave a last outraged squeak and dissolved into grey ash.

"Got it!" he exclaimed triumphantly, only to echo Perkins' howl a second later when another set of diminutive teeth clamped down on his left ankle, just above the shoe. This time, however, Higgs had had got the hang of it. With Seeker's reflexes he dove at the second mouse and ripped it off Arthur's leg. The older wizard suppressed a moan and inwardly apologised to Perkins for having treated him in the same manner. The tiny bugger's bite hurt! Through watering eyes he watched Higgs crush the furry under the heel of his custom-made dragon hide boot.

He took a deep breath and pushed the pain away.

"That was the last one. Two mice, plus that infernal scratch post we froze in the living room. What a bloody mess!"

"This is sick," Higgs complained, hopping on one leg while trying to remove now unanimated fur and stuffing from the sole of his boot. "Who'd be mental enough to enchant a cat toy?"

"Just work this job for a while, and you'll believe anything," Arthur replied absent-mindedly and went over to support Perkins, who was still clutching his bleeding neck and swaying slightly.

"Ah'm too old for this," the elderly wizard wheezed. "An' to think that I postponed retirement for that..."

"Let me have a look. Hm, not good. We'll drop you off at the bureau's infirmary in a moment. Let's just memory charm the Muggles beforehand. Higgs," he called over his shoulder, "could you clean your shoes later and give me a hand with Perkins?"

They trooped out into the living room which had witnessed a spectacle of utter chaos this evening. The elaborate scratch post was still frozen in menacing silence, belying the horror it had unleashed on the terrified cats of the unsuspecting Muggle family that had had the misfortune to acquire it - second-hand, of course. Every feline's dream turned into a nightmare...

"Terrible t'see what the wizarding world's coming to," Perkins growled at the contraption. "Bet it was some nutty ol' witch wi' too many cats an' too little brain like that old bint Figg who could'na bear Muggles having 'er little darlin's treasure."

Arthur shook his head and took out a little bag the size of an uninflated rubber balloon and prodded it with his wand. As soon as it had enlarged into a big enough sack to hold the post, he stuffed it in.

"I don't think so, Perkins. A cat lover wouldn't put such a fright on even a Muggle's cat." Of this he was quite sure, having watched Ginny cast curses of almost Dark Wizard level on any of her brothers who dared to point a wand at one of the countless kittens she'd adopted over the years. "Simple Muggle-harassment, again - too silly to be dark magic, and too dangerous to be a prank. Maybe the DIE will be able to trace the origins of the thing."

"Huh?" Higgs arranged his forehead into questioning wrinkles.

"The 'Department of Illegal Enchantments', boy," Perkins explained, cackling. Catching the office's newest recruit clueless seemed to cheer the old wizard up quite a bit.

Higgs scowled.

Arthur sighed and turned to the Stupefied Muggle couple that they had arranged in the living room armchairs. When the team had Apparated in, the two Muggles had already been in a state of blind hysteria, not to mention scratched and bruised from flying (and scurrying) cat toys and a snapping scratch post. Seeing three weird-looking strangers popping out of thin air in front of them hadn't exactly calmed their frazzled minds, and Higgs - impatient and ruthless Slytherin that he was - had cut off their screeching in an instant with a Stunning Spell. He'd have to have a talk with the boy soon, Arthur decided.

He raised his wand, concentrated and twice murmured "Obliviate!", before casting a light sleeping spell on the couple. They'd awaken in one or two hours, calmed and slightly relaxed, and of course oblivious to the bespelled-scratch-post incident. He was pretty sure, however, that the two Siamese that were currently shaking and twitching on the floor below the heavy living-room sideboard would never be the same again...

The trio re-Apparated in the cramped and dingy Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, sweaty, sooty and covered in scratches, with Higgs still pulling fur out from under his foot. Perkins immediately limped off to see the Department Nurse, with a tissue pressed against his neck like an ailing vampire victim.

Arthur dropped the bag on his desk.

"Good job there, Terence, thanks," he said to Higgs and decided to postpone his speech on Muggle rights to when he didn't hurt and their junior member had stopped obsessing about his footwear. It was late, after all.

Eyes still fixed on his boots, Higgs muttered, "You know, when I applied for a job filled with excitement and diversity, I thought about something like Magical Law Enforcement. Who did I piss off that I ended up here?"

Arthur flinched inwardly. It wasn't that he didn't like his job - it was varied and allowed him to be as close to the Muggle world as wizardly possible. Still, he was keenly aware that most members of the Ministry rated it only marginally above the Centaur Liaison Office. Higgs had hated it from the day he'd first set boots into their less-than-impressive refuge. For the young and ambitious Slytherin, fresh out of Hogwarts and certainly no admirer of the Muggle world, it was pretty much hell. Although Arthur wasn't particularly fond of the sullen young man, he could sympathise.

"Well, at least it's not boring," he joked, trying to lift Higgs' gloomy mood.

The younger wizard snorted disdainfully. After a glance at the clock - its single hand had strayed far into the red section marked 'overtime', he muttered something sounding suspiciously like "F***!", grabbed his cloak and hurried out of the door.

Alone, Arthur sighed deeply and pulled up his robes to cast a healing spell on his toy mouse bite, which stung quite badly. Too tired to Apparate again before leaving for home, he Flooed through the fireplace down to the DIE dungeon and dropped off his burden with a bored night guard engrossed in the Daily Prophet's Quidditch section. It was past nine already. He'd just write his report tomorrow.

Good thing I called Molly on the fireplace to tell her I'd be late when we got assigned the scratch post problem, he thought. Maybe she's right and I should tell them 'No' occasionally when they try to load me with overtime projects. But then again, I *do* enjoy working. Even if the job bites from time to time...

He threw his papers into his briefcase, shrunk it and slipped it into his robe pockets. Seconds later, he re-Apparated on a backroad surrounded by the fields that stretched behind Ottery St. Catchpole. It was quite dark already, and he shivered slightly. Inspired by the thought of dinner and the cosy fireplace of the Burrow's kitchen, he set a brisk pace down the road.

Maybe Charlie would be well enough for a game of wizard chess, or a chat. His second-born had returned from Moldavia Dragon Reservation a week ago with nasty burns on his leg and a stern admonition from his superiors not to show his face again before he had recovered completely. From Charlie's jumbled recollection of the event it emerged that he had pulled a young Romanian Longhorn out from a patch of bog it had been sinking into, and the bedraggled creature had retaliated by sneezing fire on him.

"Not the dragon's fault!" Charlie had insisted vehemently. "The poor thing was in panic." Now that his altruistic son was slightly better, he seemed to quite enjoy the enforced holiday, provided it didn't last too long.

Arthur panted a little when he reached the front porch. Considering that the Weasleys were known enemies of the Dark Side and young Harry Potter was a regular guest at the Burrow, the house and a square mile of surrounding ground had been turned into an Apparation-free zone ever since the return of You-Know-Who.

Perhaps I should take the broom to work once in a while, he mused. I'd be in a better shape.

"Open, Sesame," he commanded and put his hand on the door knob.

"Evening, Arthur," Sesame the Doorknob grumbled and twisted itself. The lock clicked open. Arthur stumbled into the dark corridor, yawning and still limping slightly.

"Hello Molly, Charlie," he called. There was a short silence, then Molly's voice came back, with a somehow strangled undertone.

"In the kitchen."

Arthur hung up his cloak, dropped his briefcase on the sideboard and made his way into the kitchen.

At least, he had intended to enter the kitchen. As it was, he froze in the doorframe, paralysed by the sight in front of his eyes that hit him with all the subtlety of a visual blow to the heart. For a second he just blinked, trying to force the tranquil family scene he had been expecting over the nightmare his eyes tried to sell him. Without success.

Molly and Charlie were sitting in two of the high-backed kitchen chairs, upright and looking terrified. Behind them, two black-cloaked, masked figures loomed, each pointing a wand at the unprotected backs of their victims' heads. A third figure had been standing with carelessly folded arms behind the table, and was now stepping forward to deliver his greeting.

"Good evening, Arthur. You're late. We've been waiting for quite some time."

~ ~ ~ tbc. ~ ~ ~