Midnight Patrol
The streets of London were quiet, and Mikey frowned as he hurried down a dark alleyway. He checked his watch—four-thirty in the morning. Only thirty more minutes before he could leave to go back to the apartment. He sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The way things were going, this would be another pointless outing where he and his brothers hardly found anything.
Three more blocks, Mikey said to himself. And then I can go home and sleep.
Thankfully, the summer night was warm, and there wasn’t a hint of rain in the air. The last time Mikey’d had street patrol, it had been pouring all night, and he returned to the apartment exhausted and soaking wet.
Mikey groaned at the memory, then straightened as he realized he’d been zoning out. It was never safe to do that, especially in the middle of the night—regardless if he was a wizard or not. He thought it was stupid that couldn’t use his magic outside of school, to which Fred and George, his friends from Hogwarts, had agreed. But still, Mikey’s eyes darted from left to right, taking in the empty street.
This is pointless, Mikey thought as he walked. There’s nothing here! How am I supposed to find information if there’s nowhere to get information from?
In fact, there was pretty much nothing that Mikey could see—apart from a bus stop, some street signs, a street light, and a paper fluttering in the weak breeze, the street was empty. Mikey hurried toward the street light, rolling his eyes. “I’ll check the paper,” he muttered angrily. “Leo can’t say I didn’t try if I do that.”
The paper came to a stop right when Mikey did, but he frowned when he picked it up. It was a Muggle newspaper—what good could it possibly do? But then Mikey checked the headline, and his eyes went wide.
Trouble in New York: Where not to go if you’re traveling to the United States.
Mikey frowned. There had been more and more mentions of New York in London newspapers recently, and he and his brothers had grown more and more concerned.
“This could be something,” Leo had said one day, looking at each of them in turn.
Raph crossed his arms. “Or it could be nothing,” he’d countered. “You know how much crime there is in that city—it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just some petty gangs trying to take control.”
Donnie had shaken his head. “I could understand hearing about that if we were in America, but here? In London?”
“Not to mention how many times we’ve seen it,” Leo added. “What is this, like the third time?”
“Fourth,” Mikey had chimed in. “If we count that one radio announcement.”
And thus launched an hour-long argument over whether or not they should be worried. None of them wanted to believe the Shredder was back, but after they’d faced the Turducken at the end of last year, and based on what the centaurs had told them in the Forbidden Forest… Well, they were trying to be extra careful.
Mikey pocketed the newspaper and rushed back to the apartment.
Raph scanned the menu for what seemed to be the hundredth time, sighing. There were only four or five other people with him in this tiny all-day diner, and none of them seemed too pleased to be there, Raph least of all. He hated the dim lights, the muffled chatter of the other customers, the repeating pattern of the square floor tiles that blurred together if you looked at them too long. It was suffocating, and Raph wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.
“Marge just got a new dog,” he heard one customer say. The person sitting across from her gasped, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. Raph suppressed a groan.
Suddenly, two people walked in, chattering quietly under their breaths. Raph fell silent, staring intently at his menu as he tried to listen in.
“The Ministry’s not doing anything about it,” he heard the man say. Raph’s eyes widened—two wizards, then. Maybe he could finally get some information from these nights.
The woman shook her head. “And why should they?” she asked as they sat at an empty booth behind Raph. “It’s America’s problem, not ours.”
“If there’s trouble brewing in America, it will eventually make its way over here,” the man replied. “You know it will.”
“What I know is that there’s some sort of issue going on over there,” the woman said. “But we have no idea if it’s going to find its way to London. Besides, the Daily Prophet’s hardly said anything about it, so it can’t be that bad.”
Raph heard the man scoff. “Unless the Ministry is intentionally covering it up to avoid mass panic. Mary,” he said, and Raph vaguely remembered to take a sip of his cocoa as he listened, “I heard from John.”
“Your brother?” The woman sounded surprised.
“He said it’s been going on for a little while.” There was a tense pause. “Look, if there’s a possibility of war—”
“Who’s been fighting?” the woman demanded.
“That’s the thing, Mary, no one knows. At first, they thought the random damage was caused by some low-life wizards with nothing else to do. But it’s been going on for almost a year now. You can’t deny that there’s something going on.”
Raph heard the woman shushing him and scowled as they lowered their voices. He strained to hear the rest of their conversation.
“It’s not safe to talk about this around Muggles,” the woman murmured. Raph straightened. “But I still think you’re overreacting—the Congress will handle it. Those Americans should learn to be useful for once,” she added, her voice dripping with disdain. Raph’s scowl deepened. “And if they don’t, we’ve got Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge. Plus the whole Ministry of Magic. This war—if there is one—will be over before it even begins.”
That seemed to be the end of the conversation, especially as the waitress came back over to Raph and asked if he wanted anything else. Figuring that he’d been there too long, and fearing drawing any attention to himself, he paid and stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets as he made his way back to the apartment.
Wait ‘til the guys hear about this, he thought as his mind raced.
Donnie yawned, sitting against the bench and resting his head on the concrete wall behind him. There was only the low murmur of people to keep him awake for another fifteen minutes. His head lolled to the side as he forced his eyes wide, ignoring the glances shot his way. He knew how it looked—an almost twelve-year-old boy sitting on a bench in the subway in the dead of night. He must look pathetic. Well, Donnie would be blaming Leo, thank you very much. He was getting really very bored of sitting here night after night. Luckily, this was their last night of patrol before they prepared for their return to Hogwarts. And, Donnie thought, smiling slightly, tomorrow was his last day of work for the summer.
A person walked very briskly by, briefcase in hand. He was talking angrily on the phone with someone, and Donnie could just make out his voice as he murmured, “Those damned American wizards—they never can do anything right.”
Well, that’s a bit rude, don’t you think? Donnie thought as he leapt up from the bench and crept after the guy, trying to get back in earshot. The man was moving swiftly, so Donnie had to keep to the wall to keep from being noticed. Still, he caught bits and pieces of his conversation.
“The boss isn’t going to like this,” the man said, gritting his teeth. He said something else, but he was too far away for Donnie to properly hear him. Donnie groaned, hurrying his pace to keep up with him.
“Doesn’t the Congress know—what?” The man stopped walking abruptly, and Donnie had to stop and scurry a little ways back as the man looked around to make sure his conversation was private (and aside from Donnie, it was, but he didn’t know that). “The Congress hasn’t been doing the damage? Then who has?”
Donnie held his breath as the man listened to whoever the caller was.
“Ilvermorny students?” he said, loudly enough that a passing Muggle shot him a glare. The man lowered his voice, and Donnie crept a little closer. “Even over the summer? How are Ilvermorny students doing this? What years? Seventh-years? Sixth-years? I know the school over there starts a year later, but—”
Donnie didn’t hear what the person on the other side of the phone said, but the man sighed. Apparently, whatever they said, it was enough to calm the man down enough that he was a bit calmer the next time he spoke.
“How soon do you need me there?” A pause. “Now? Really? Isn’t it evening there, too? Fine,” the man said, sighing again. He began walking again, even faster than before. Donnie rushed after him, careful to keep to the shadows against the walls.
He frowned as the man stepped out of the subway. Where was he…?
But then, with one final glance around, the man disappeared.
Donnie stood there, dumbstruck. He was just… gone. Like he’d never even been there at all. Donnie frowned. He’d been hoping to get some more information out of him before he returned to the apartment.
Well, it’s better than nothing, he thought after a moment. In fact, it wasn’t a bad night, overall—he and his brothers hardly ever discovered any information, so this was pretty much like stumbling upon a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Still, Donnie would have liked something else, something that told him what the big deal was and why the man seemed so stressed.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess, he thought as he started back home.
It had been another useless night of standing outside, and Leo was both tired and annoyed, for a few different reasons. For one, the most information he’d gotten out of the people stumbling drunkenly out of clubs was that people can pause, throw up mid-conversation, and then keep talking as if nothing happened when they’re black-out drunk. Leo grimaced as he remembered that demonstration. And two—London rooftops were much more difficult to travel across than New York ones.
The sun was just beginning to rise, and Leo picked up his pace. His brothers should already be back by now, or at least, making their ways back. He crossed another rooftop and jumped to the next one, hurtling through the air for a split second before landing softly on the next building. Four more blocks, he thought, tracking the rising sun. He tried to get in as much patrol as he could this summer, but tonight would have to be their last. It was just too risky, and with school coming up, they needed to focus on that.
Leo scoffed at the thought, clenching his jaw. They had hardly gathered any information this summer—it had been pointless. They hadn’t gotten so much as a hint of Shredder’s name, not even Oroku Saki. The most they’d gotten was vague mentions of trouble in America—New York, specifically. Leo knew that had to be important somehow—it was too much of a coincidence for him to brush it off. Especially now that there had been multiple mentions of their old city.
Besides, whatever trouble there was, it was bothering the Ministry of Magic here, too. Last year, the Ministry was so busy dealing with some top-secret operation that they hadn’t had time to send over wizards to look over what they thought to be the first Grimando. Of course, now Leo and his brothers knew that the Grimando was actually a Turducken, the very one from the farm house (though Donnie theorized that it could also be hatched from an egg), and Leo and his brothers killed it before the Ministry could take a proper look at it. Surprisingly, the most they’d gotten for it was a slap on the wrist from Dumbledore.
Leo blinked, skidding to a stop at the very edge of the building. He’d been zoning out, and his heart raced as he looked down at the drop. He took a moment to breathe, turning his face up to the sun. When he opened his eyes, he started.
Is that—a flying car? he wondered, incredulous. He squinted his eyes, hoping for a better look, but it was gone the next second. He blinked, trying to find it again, but after a moment or two of searching, he shook his head and sighed.
“Getting tired, Leo,” he muttered to himself, crossing the building. “Some sleep will be good for me.”
His tiny little apartment building finally came into view, and through the window, he could see his three brothers waiting for him. He let out a sigh of relief. At least they had gotten home safe—at the end of the day (or beginning, if he was being technical), that was pretty much all that mattered.
Leo wouldn’t lose anyone else to this war against Shredder—that much, he knew.
And he would make sure of it.
Normally, after their newly learned information had been exchanged, the four of them would immediately pass out on their small beds for a few hours before they got ready for work. But as Donnie finished telling his story, there was a resounding silence in the apartment.
Raph sighed. “Well, it looks like we’re in for a shitload of trouble,” he said after a moment.
“Listen,” Leo started, drawing his brothers’ attention. “School starts in what, a month? We’ll be fine until then—and our school supplies list should be getting here any day now, regardless.” He paused, thinking. “We’ll have to go on a Wednesday—middle of the week, not many people around—it’s the best time to go.”
“So you’re just telling us to… leave it until after school?” Mikey asked, sounding suspicious. “That doesn’t sound like—”
“That’s not what I said,” Leo interjected. “Until school starts, we’ll be on the lookout for any more activity— yes, Mikey, that does mean more patrols, but we can wrap up earlier—and when we get to Diagon Alley, we can look for information there, too.”
Donnie thought for a moment. “I do think there’s another area right next to it—Knockturn Alley. Apparently, it’s full of Dark artifacts—it might be worth checking out.”
“Perfect,” Leo said, nodding. “We’ll snoop around there for any information before we get our stuff. It might not be the best plan, but it’s a plan nonetheless.”
“Great,” Raph muttered. “Snooping around in a place full of dark wizards. What could go wrong?”
“And what about when school does start?” Donnie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, how are we supposed to take care of Harry and be on the lookout for Shredder? We can’t tell Dumbledore about that—”
“Why not?” Mikey said with a groan. “Why can’t we tell Dumbledore? What’s the holdup?”
Leo sighed. “Mikey, we’ve been over this. It’s too dangerous—there could be a spy for Shredder in Hogwarts, or Dumbledore could expel us, or—”
“Shit could hit the fan, is what Leo’s trying to say,” Raph said.
“Exactly,” Leo said, though he didn’t seem to be too fond of the metaphor his brother chose. “And Donnie, back to your question—it’ll be alright. Harry can take care of himself, if it comes down to it.”
“Not that it will, right?”
“Right, Mikey—that won’t happen, anyway. We can handle it. Besides, maybe the Room of Requirement can help us out—give us some more weapons.”
“Like shurikens? And smoke bombs?” Mikey said excitedly.
“Ooh, I’d love to get my hands on a grappling hook,” Donnie said.
“Some flamethrowers, too,” Raph added.
“Maybe even a bow and arrow,” Leo said before he could stop himself. He shook his head. Wishful thinking would do them no good, and it was selfish to want for much more than what they had—their own weapons would suffice. “Anyway, other than dealing with potentially the—what, third? Fourth?—return of Shredder, this school year should be nothing but smooth sailing.”
Raph snorted. “If you really believe that, you’re delusional, brother.”
“Hey, uh, Leo?” Donnie said with a yawn as Leo glared at Raph. “Now that we’ve got that all sorted out—”
“Already ahead of you, Dee,” Mikey said, plopping down on his bed and throwing the orange covers over his head. A moment later, a loud snoring filled the apartment.
The three other brothers shared a look, shrugged, and collapsed onto their beds.