Not This Again

Keiran looked down at the watch his father had given him a few years back, a dark frown on his face. It wasn't like the train to be late. In fact, he couldn't remember a single time in his life that it had happened, so he started shifting his weight impatiently. He knew he wasn't meant to step past that line drawn on the platform, but he did so anyway, leaning around a column to squint down the tracks as if it would just appear before him. He fully expected Theodore to be calm about the whole thing, and for his cousin to tease him for being so paranoid, but something wasn't right.

Turning back to the Headmaster, Keiran wanted to point out, even before he knew the younger man's thoughts on the whole thing, that really he should be concerned about his students and staff running into trouble they didn't know about. But it had been less than a minute. His eyes drifted up to the clock installed into the wall above their heads, figuring he could at least appear more casual about it that way, rather than staring down at his wrist.

The second hand clicked its way around, but the instant it turned over, hitting sixty seconds past the hour, he heard it. The train's horn sounded and he spun around, releasing the tension he'd been holding onto and relaxing his hands.

But, as he had thought, something wasn't right. The train was much shorter than it was supposed to be. Five whole carriages were missing, leaving just the front one.

"Merlin," he whispered, eyes scanning back and forth anyway, trying to conjure the rest of the cars with his mind. Or something. Anything to make it make sense. Louder, he continued. "Theo, what the hell is this?"

He heard others around them starting to question, to panic. Which carriage was that? Whose were gone?

Keiran burst past someone, leaving Theodore in his wake, and knocked into their shoulder with enough force that he felt obligated to turn around and look at them. "I'm sorry," he told the man in question - probably a father, too. "My wife, she-"

He shook his head, spinning back around and leaving the thought in the air. Instead, he charged up to one of the doors of that last and first carriage, trying to jerk the door open earlier than it was meant to. What was wrong with this train? He was never going to let his children on this now twice-damned thing.

When it settled into its final, ultimate stopped position, Keiran flung the door open and stepped up to make his way inside. He didn't remember which carriage held students and which held the staff. Either way, most everyone was gone, weren't they? He didn't know which one he felt guiltier for hoping about. He knew what he wanted this one to be, of course, but that was a horrible thought in itself. Keiran Hayes was not the most giving man, though, and the wish remained lodged in the front of his mind. She had to be there.

He wasn't sure if anyone else had followed, trying to find their loved ones or trying to understand, but it was irrelevant. He only had to be louder than them. "Millie? Millie! Where are you?"

“She’s late,” the Headmaster observed, lifting himself up onto the balls of his feet briefly before dropping back down again. “That’s … well, that mustn’t be unheard of.”

Theodore twisted round and looked up at the clock that ticked across to the minute mark. A minute past. Late. Magic wasn’t late. Magic was timely. Magic was exacting. He’d had all of those wards put on Hogwarts, on the castle and all of the grounds. Why hadn’t he thought to put any on the train? But surely it was fine. Surely. Perhaps they’d encountered some rough weather. Perhaps … perhaps they’d hit an owl? Wait, no, that wasn’t even remotely close to being plausible.

Before he could really conjure up any other potential comeuppances that might have held up the scarlet locomotive, it appeared. Theodore smiled and turned in the direction of the train, decidedly glad to … his eyebrows came down low over his eyes and the smile slipped off of his mouth. His fingers flexed down to his side, straying to where his wand was sat in the pocket of his robes. The front and one carriage. That was all there was. That was all there was. That was all there was!

Keiran shot off like a man half-possessed and Theodore knew that, had their roles been reversed, he would’ve been the same. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and, instead of pointing it at the train, conjured thoughts of the past few weeks, in particular of the scene that had confronted him when he’d returned home from checking on the castle: Mai, Connor, and Esme all curled up together, asleep in the front room. And with that in mind, he cast his Patronus, instructing it mentally to find Athena and then Elijah and to get them both there as quickly as possible.

Then, Theodore too moved towards the train, hurrying through the crowd and following Keiran up through the door and into the narrow corridor of the compartment. He gained his vantage point just as the compartment door was wrenched open and sagged against the wall at the sight of Bae, breathless and relieved to see Keiran rather than someone untoward. He stepped aside and then there was Millie, launching herself out of the compartment and wrapping her arms around her husband, hugging him tightly, with every bit of strength the little witch had in her, Theodore didn’t doubt. So it was the teachers. The teachers were safe. But where in the name of Nicholas Flamel were the students?

“Pierson what happened?” Theodore gruffed as Bae squeezed past the Hayes’ to reach him.

“The train … I don’t … I don’t know Theo. It was fine and then … it just wasn’t.”

“Theo?” Athena’s voice sounded from on the platform and her thin figure appeared in the doorway.

“Where’s Krum?” He snapped, pushing away from Bae and hopping off of the train once more.

Baldric watched them fall into heated discussion, Athena already wanting to know what on earth had happened to the other coaches and where the Aurors were – why didn’t they know? The former-Gryffindor turned away from the two Slytherins and looked over to the other pair.

“It’s alright,” the witch murmured, lifting her head to take Keiran’s lips in a kiss. “But once we find them, I’m never going on this train again. Not ever. Did anyone hear anything from the platform? I don’t know what happened but it … I didn’t …” She took a breath and her hands shook has they curled around the sides of his neck. “I thought maybe something horrible had happened and that … well that it’d be … it’d be like before.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to force her thoughts out of her head, to think about the students and not about her own private fears about the train. “We need to get them back now before anyone can hurt them. Merlin there are first years on that train.”

Millie broke out from a compartment and Keiran jumped back for a moment before pulling her to him. "Damn right you're not," Keiran agreed immediately, sweeping his hands down her arms and looking her over carefully. "Nothing. We didn't know anything except that the train was late."

He held on tighter as the nerves shook their way through her, but he immediately saw the Gryffindor tendencies coming through again, and hoped with everything in him that his children got the willingness to help others from her. He didn't always have that quality.

"I know," he nodded firmly, "but first, I need you off of this one."

Theo had already bounded past, so Keiran threw out an arm to grab Baldric's, tugging him over to them and forcing him into a side hug. "Okay," he breathed, forcing some of the tension out of his shoulders. "Bae, I promise we'll catch up properly later, but we have to get off this thing and make sure everyone is alright. And if Krum doesn't get his backside down here, I swear to Merlin I'll go get him, myself."

Turning, he pushed the pair of them in front of him, following behind the crowd as others began to head out as well. "Theo!" Keiran called as they made it to the door. "Where is he?"

His gaze landed on Athena now, and all Keiran could actually think was that he was so grateful Liv had graduated. He would have been all the more beside himself to realize that either section going missing meant terrible awful news. He'd fully forgotten that Bae was going to be on the train, perhaps because he hadn't noticed Bentley anywhere. Now that he looked, though, the other Slytherin graduate was painfully easy to spot. He'd shown up late, too, probably having been forced to finish a meeting before he could leave, and he was staring up at the train in a mix of fear and awe. He hadn't even noticed the three of them stepping off onto platform.

"Ben," Keiran called out, lifting a hand so that he would be easier to spot when Ben looked over. And he was.

Ben came through the crowd easily, not half because of the height that he and his husband had both somehow been blessed with, like Keiran himself. He called out loud look outs and kept one hand in front of him to pave the way. Baldric, whether he expected it or not, was dragged into yet another hug, this time a relieved, relaxed one as Ben threw one arm around Bae's neck and let the other settle at his side where he knew the jittery lion must have been looking around for the snake just the same way.

"What in the hell is happening?" He asked finally, pulling back and frowning at Bae questioningly.

"You put wards on everything! Even my underwear drawer! Why wasn't the train warded?"

"There are wards on the train! But..."

Theodore looked as though he was caught between exploding and imploding, as though he couldn't quite decide what would be better to do.

"But..." He urged through clenched teeth.

Athena's eyes fluttered shut as she took a deep breath.

"The wards only work on the whole. They're null now it's been split. Only the wards on the carriages must work now, presuming they've not been ruptured when the train was broken up."

"So my students are completely and utterly exposed and in danger, again?"

Athena nodded reluctantly, taking a step back from Theo, sensing he'd make the choice for explosion.

"If they don't stay in the compartments, which I doubt they will even if they're given that option, they're not ... entirely safe."

"Oh? Entirely? That sounds promising," he scoffed, sarcasm abound.

"Well, it does rather depend on who took them, really, Theo doesn't it?" Athena snapped back hotly, her offence clear.

Baldric, who had one ear on the relatives as they bickered, was happy enough to be pulled against Keiran. The deja vu wasn't lost on either of the Gryffindors, it seemed, but Bae was losing his nerve just a little bit. Or, rather a lot, actually.

"To be honest, I think I'd rather stay on the train and see where it goes next," Bae quipped, cringing a little as Theo's shrill voice sounded off, incredulous as to how this scenario was his fault. Evidently something had been said.

"I don't know where the Christ he is!" Theodore then shouted, whirling around towards the train in order to answer Keiran. "Evidently the welfare of his children--"

"--Is of such importance to me that I want to know exactly what happened, Rookwood."

Athena arched an eyebrow at the Deputy Minister. He was dressed in something other than robes for once and had a blonde tot on his hip who was unmistakable to the dark-haired woman. Her name was called out by the tiny girl and Athena immediately held out her arms, lifting Alice into her embrace.

"I was in a Muggle restaurant, if you must know. I had to get Hugo Weasley down there to erase their memories so if you could spare me your ire, that'd be great."

Sure enough, two cheeky little faces appeared from behind his legs, too, and Athena smirked, deducing that he must have been treating the younger children, spending precious time with them that he was so ill afforded. He'd come quickly, too, otherwise they would've been handed over to Stelladora or someone else.

"Well who do you want me to direct my ire at?" Theo howled. "My students are gone, again. In danger, again. For reasons I am incapable of grasping, again. Who the dickens should I be shouting at?!"

"Do you want your job still, Rookwood? Because you can go back to working in that cafe if you really want to." Elijah hissed.

"We don't have time for this!" Athena exclaimed. "Eli are the Aurors coming?"

"One division is already out looking for the train but yeah, yeah. They're coming." He nodded, his eyes lifting over the small witch's head to observe the scene of the blonde haired wizard half falling into his husband's arms.

"I don't know, I don't know!" Bae moaned, shaking his head forcefully, hopelessness beginning to show in him. He pushed his glasses up onto the top of his head and sighed, reaching down to rub at his eyes. "I don't know what happened," he whispered from behind them, every single letter laden with the guilty feeling that he should've known. Somehow he just should've.

"What did happen?" Elijah reiterated in a calmer tone, his eyes now focusing on Millie from whom he now expected a lot more.

"No one knows, Eli," she shrugged the shoulder that faced away from Keiran, her other side having snuggled itself into her husband.

"That's... You can't not know!" He spluttered indignantly.

"It's okay," Athena soothed, readjusting her hold on Alice. "We'll find them, Eli."

"There's no one on our watchlist who would take them," Elijah whispered heatedly, not wanting anyone to overhear who shouldn't. "It doesn't make sense! It's either someone new or we've just gotten incredibly unlucky with one of our priors."

"Or there's a completely different explanation," Millie suggested hopefully. "Magic works in strange ways and, if you think about it, we've still got a bit of the train. We've got something to work with - something that will help us find them."

"What do you want me to do, then?" Elijah asked, his eyes falling on Keiran for direction. "I'll need to make a statement, before long. To the press, you know."

"Me too," Theo groaned into his hands. "Merlin's balls."

Keiran was content enough to observe for a time, first watching Theodore, then Eli, then the Piersons and then Elijah again. But when the question was turned on him, Keiran's eyebrows lifted. For a while, he had forgotten he had worked at the Ministry at all. But Eli did have a point. That's what this job had been for, this sort of crisis, and now he was somehow falling back into it. Perhaps they were laden with someone rubbish. Or maybe they were in the midst of picking someone new. Either way, the question landed on Keiran, and he was rather lost.

For a moment, he stood quite still, thinking it over and just looking right back at the Deputy Minister who, he had no doubt, was feeling a bit muddled at the news of the children disappearing.

"Right," he started slowly, drawing in a breath before saying it all too quickly for anyone to truly convince him to change his mind. "It'll sound callous, but you," he pointed at Theo, "and you," at Elijah, "need to get out of here. We all do. As self-important as it sounds, they know who we are after everything that's happened, and as soon as someone registers it, they'll be all over you. There'll be no getting away after that. Tell your aurors to keep the train here, but the lot of us are leaving. Now."

He slid his hand down to take hold of Millie's, reaching for his wand as he said, "We'll figure out the wording and the plan for you two somewhere else. I don't doubt that others will help look or help determine what's what about this train, but the longer we're here, the more they'll wonder why we aren't doing anything."

"It'll look bad if you leave," Ben cut in quickly, holding up a hand.

"But not as bad as us standing around and bickering like this. The minute Adrienne or some muppet from the Prophet shows up, this whole ordeal is going to be broadcast across the first page, across the DWN. We can't have that," Keiran argued firmly.

Ben looked conflicted, but it wasn't more than a second or two before he nodded and held on properly to Bae. "Where?"

"Don't be silly. Where else would we go? Mum's. The wards on her place are beyond mental at this point. We can get in touch with the Minister as well, if need be, and open up the floo for him. I'm sure he'll want to know what's happening."

"And, you have another son, Miranda and John," Robert said, laying the newborn against the heart of his mother. Harper babies came fast now. This was John and Miranda's eighth. Miranda Harper was allergic to one of the magical herbs in the birth control potions, so Harper babies just kept coming.

"Minister," his assistant said. "You're needed in the floo straight away."

"Of course I am," Robert said, shaking his head.

"Go on with you, Robert," John Harper laughed. "We can celebrate this one without you for now, but I owe you a pint, Mate."

"And I'll send you some of my pumpkin pasties when the pumpkins come in season this fall," Miranda said.

"Its a deal," Robert said. He excused himself quickly, took just a moment to change out of surgical scrubs and took the floo to wherever the heck he was being summoned this time.

He found himself in Kings Cross station. He frowned. He made his way to the platform to find the engine and only a couple train cars,a nd a scrambling of panicked adults. Well, that was all screwed up, wasn't it? That was the obvious. And from the confused faces he was already putting together that at least half the train was not where it was supposed to be.

"Someone tell me we know where the other half of the bloody train is," Robert said. He noticed there were no children in sight. Oh, that wasn't good at all. His mind flashed to Andrew Diamond--the teenaged ward of his that Michael was taking great pride in mentoring into what Michael called "the appreciation of fine art." Robert thought about Marcus's children who were on the train, including Poppy, who looked like 12 going on about 9, and behind her was a sea of other little faces who were apparently now missing.  How the hell did anyone lose a locomotive that weighed hundreds of tons? That didn't just happen with a flick of a wand. No amount of floo powder could do that. How did it just come up missing? The math of it alone was mindboggling.

Parents were going to be waiting to get their children home for holiday, and they weren't coming--at least not right now.

"Tell me something we do know, would you?" he asked. He was quickly exasperated and bounded up into the engine himself. He wanted answers, and he wanted to know what the hell the driver knew.

Michael responded to the patronus and found himself in Kings Cross station, on the platform, in a sea of panicked witches and wizards. It only took him a moment to figure out the issue. The train was minus most of the cars. Oh, God. Most of the children were in those cars.

He saw Robert climb up into the engine. Good call. Start getting answers. He boarded one of the empty cars, but the niggling at the back of his brain that he'd brought with him from the park now sounded a lot like a loud siren. He felt a rare sensation--anxiety. It wasn't Michael's strong suit. He was doing his best to be calm on the outside, but he'd never mastered that costume quite like Robert had. He realized he was doing stupid things. Looking under the seats, above them in the luggage racks. Clearly there were no children here. Nothing helpful.

"Damnit!" he banged his fist onto the doorway of one of the empty compartments. Michael's next thought was that he wished he still owned a broom. Perhaps it was worth a try to see if the cars were anywhere along the tracks but that would take hours to fly the entire route. Something in him already had a sick feeling the tracks were going to be empty.

Something inside him wanted to go back to the Department of Mysteries. He wanted to know if what he'd seen could be real or if he was finally losing his mind. He didn't feel like now was the time to tell anyone what he knew or what was burning inside that part of him that held what gut instinct he had.

And--had anyone tried to reach Lee Shepherd yet?

Jack apparated alongside Michael, once again glad to have the system that kept her in the loop. It used to be that everything got to her as it happened, but the Ministry had become more and more inefficient, and if she had been any less passionate about her job, she would have been able to coast and never do a lick of work. But what was the point of the Unspeakable salary? Part of her division was National Security, and she didn't plan on missing a call ever again.

Touching down and looking at the scene in front of her, the gathered officials, she realized just how far she had been pushed to the fringe of society. What had happened? Once a respected part of the whole, an essential puzzle piece, she had pissed someone off somewhere along the line and she had retreated to dealing with the seedy underbelly of the wizarding world, the poltergeists and rogue werewolves, the traffickers and thugs. Whatever. She didn't need anyone to want her to help to do it.

And besides, they needed it. Whether they wanted to admit it or not.

She spotted Kevin and wanted to angle that way, but there was something in his frazzled air that seemed unapproachable. Later, then.

It didn't take long to surmise everything, what with the swirling words and the faces of her colleagues. Michael had left her and she moved like a ghost through the panicking crowd. They would need crowd control. That much was certain. A quick flourish and a muttered command, and a Patronus in the shape of a wolfhound was on its way to find Claire Bishop, if she had not somehow been alerted already. The Law Enforcement Squad, maybe, to calm down the crowd, Aurors to begin a search of the tracks.

Jack approached the train quietly and examined the hitches, lighting her wand. If someone had used any sort of spell to detatch the trains cars during their travels, there would be some indentation, some scrape, but the hitches still looked well oiled and buffed. Another wave confirmed it. Some other sort of spell. She'd put money on a remote spell, some sort of transportation.

A funny thought struck her.

But no.

Maybe.

She'd have to talk to Fred. He had done some work with nontraditional portkeys. Maybe there was something there.

Merlin, why did people even send their kids to Hogwarts anymore? Obviously, she knew the answer, but sometimes the danger was almost not worth the benefits. And there were other options.

Oh. Yeah.

"Robert."

She had come along to the front of the train.

"We need to contact the other schools. See if this is just us. After all, not all of our students were at Hogwarts."

"Good thought, Jack. I already sent for Lee since we've go this new alliance with the States," Robert said. "I've got no contact with Ilvermorny, despite Hogwart's agreement with them. Hopefully someone can get Rookwood on the ball with that, if he isn't already. If not, I can't imagine that Lee doesn't have some contact with them. We do have contacts with the other governments, though, across the continent. We can contact them."

He looked back at the engineer who was completely clueless about what had happened to the rest of the train. It was as he'd heard them say on the platform. The cars were there and then suddenly they were not. No sound, no flash of light or energy. Nothing. Just vanished.  

That would require immense power, Robert believed. He knew of no one these days with that sort of magical ability to apparate or port something that big and heavy. Unless...

The only thing that made sense was that somehow there was a portal. A diversionary track, and some sort of cloaking mechanism that had allowed the engineer to not even see that they were passing straight into it. That would not require the sort of mammoth magical collective. It would require, though, someone quite proficient in illusions or in invisibility spells.

"Sorry," he looked at Jack. "Just thinking, that's all. This was not an easy business to accomplish, and I've got more questions than answers right now."

He looked out behind him to the platform and saw Lee apparating in. Apparating? Clearly he'd been in London already for some reason.

"I'm going to have a word with Lee," he told her. "Where the devil is Michael?" As soon as the words left his lips, he looked back outside again. Michael had made an angry beeline for Lee. Robert watched Michael, with rare outrage, clutch hold of Lee's arm and drag him away from the crowd, across the tracks to the other side of the platform. He could see Michael apparently giving Lee whatfor for something or another.

"Jack, what the hell is eating Michael? Got even a ghost of a clue?" Robert asked.

((I believe Addie and Eli have jumped to another thread, so I'll go ahead and post))

The States had been alerted, but this was a complicated situation. Knowing the result gave almost no indication to the cause. Kieran and co. were all apparating away, certainly to wrap their heads around this new information, and Claire Bishop had just arrived with her horde of Aurors, doing exactly as Jack had predicted. Jack was grateful for Bishop, as her intervention would allow Robert and the rest to investigate with little interruption. She had the luxury of having the intimidating title of Unspeakable. The general consensus was to only approach one if absolutely necessary. Even with this circumstance, Jack doubted people would be flocking to her.

Jack needed Fred Weasley, much as she hated it. If anyone could solve this puzzle...

Hm. Albus might actually be of help too.

Perhaps it was time to call a little Knight's Watch meeting.

Robert's words jerked her out and she looked at him, before turning her eyes on Michael and Lee. "I don't... I ran into him at a park, and after we got word, there was a weird moment, like he saw someone he really didn't want to see."

She paused. With a grumble, she said, "No point speculating, I always say" and crossed the platform towards the two men, suddenly not caring if Michael minded. She trusted him enough to know he was on to something, and she expected him to trust her enough to not keep her in the dark.

"What's going on?" she said, her voice demanding but without anger. It was her job to know.