The Best Mistake

Chapter Six | The Dragon, the Russian, and the Wolf

"Right, so, let's make this quick," Potter began, staring intently at the magical model of the apothecary. "At approximately 4:35 AM, a 17-year-old girl, Holly Hobs, apparated into her parent's bedroom, waking them with her screams. She'd splinched herself, but not so badly that she couldn't tell them that Death Eaters had broken into her boyfriend, Treston Gibson, and his family's home and apothecary."

Potter gestured toward the model then crossed his arms with a tilt of his head. "Holly had snuck into his room on the second floor during the night, and when the Death Eaters arrived, Treston hid her in his closet. Holly watched them torture and bind him before attempting to apparate home."

"How?" Granger asked. Draco glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. They weren't supposed to interrupt during the debrief, but Hermione almost always did with questions and comments. Potter would never allow anyone else to cut him off like that, but the Chosen One usually welcomed it from her. It was how they worked together, but it still made Draco uncomfortable. "Most wizard businesses have incredibly complex anti-appartation wards. She shouldn't have been able to."

Potter met Granger's deep brown eyes as they narrowed and sparkled with an inquisitiveness that made Draco's chest ache, sending tingles down his spine— a strange feeling that had never happened before. He looked away quickly, pulling his emotions to the back of his mind and slamming a wall up over them while Potter continued, "All of the wards over the residence had already been broken, even the complicated, powerful anti-apparation ward. We've had scouts checking periodically, and they're all still down."

"Doing that sort of ward breaking should take hours," Granger muttered, tilting her head. "What time did the girl sneak in?"

"She said a bit after 2:00," Potter answered, making Johnson gasp. If the girl arrived at 2:00 and saw no one, the Death Eaters would not have had enough time to break the sort of wards that should have been in place by 4:30 AM. It wasn't possible, even for the strongest ward specialist. Further, the family should have heard their wards being attacked and alerted that they'd broken.

"Could the family have taken their own wards down?" Granger whispered, voicing Draco's thoughts more to herself than the team. "Why?"

"It's possible that they might have. We don't know. Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Potter insisted, adjusting his glasses. "We can discuss possible motives and background after you lot get the family out. Our scouts have confirmed that at least five Death Eaters are inside, along with the family. The father is being tortured, and the mother is incapacitated on the floor of the shop, having shown no movement since we arrived. The children are tied up together by the counter. There's four of them, ranging in age from eight to seventeen. We all know what will happen if Greyback is able to apparate out with any of them when we arrive, so our priority is getting the children out."

While Potter laid out a detailed extraction plan, staring down at the model and four glowing white dots that represented the children sitting in front of the apothecary's counter, Draco steeled himself. It would be difficult to get to them before any of the Death Eaters realized the Aurors were there but not impossible.

In his three years as an Auror, Draco hadn't encountered anything like this. Sure, he'd fought Death Eaters, and he'd captured Death Eaters, but it had never felt like this, with at least two of their highest ranks present in one place. It didn't feel right; something was different.

For the first year following The Battle of Hogwarts, the dozens of Death Eaters that had escaped capture had been silent—peaceful even.

During that time, Draco couldn't walk down Diagon Alley without being spat at, screamed at, or shoved, so after taking and passing his N.E.W.T.s, he decided to leave Britain, at least for a few years. Most of the countries in Europe were too close to the war and, therefore, would be unable to offer relief from the heat of the public's ire. While his first choice in any country to take up residence besides England was France, it was no longer far enough away.