The dark walls of the Auror’s Office are unmistakable even if it has been a little over a year since the last time Jisoo has been here. On her last day in this office, which was the day of her resignation, she had foolishly thought it’d be the last time she’d ever see these walls and the Ministry but now here she was being dragged by her arms through the halls, her feet barely making contact with the cold tiled floors.

Jisoo tried to twist herself out of the men’s iron holds but the attempt was futile.

There was a small nest of snow lying atop Seulgi’s head but she didn’t seem to notice. Her wand was pointed directly at Jisoo’s face. “Don’t take this personally, it’s just in case you go and try something.”

“Seulgi, don’t you dare –“

“Confundo!”

There’s a speck of red floating across her vision, but her head feels too heavy for her to lift. Muffled sounds come from every direction and when she feels her head lolling to the side, she sees something green-colored dancing in the corner of the dark room and it was the only source of light.

Jisoo feels incredibly numb, like her nerves have been fried and her brain completely muddled.

“Seulgi, uncharm her.”

Her surroundings suddenly become clearer and sharper; her 20/20 vision was restored and the rest of her senses were heightened back to normal. She sweeps her eyes across the all-too familiar office. The red speck from earlier was actually the Head of the Aurors clad in a crimson red suit as he stood in front of her, hands in his pockets and his chiseled face staring down at her. 

Park Jinyoung had the nerve to crack a smile down at her, clearly amused at her predicament. If Jisoo hadn’t been tied down to a chair by ropes, she would have smacked that smile clean off his face. “Nice seeing you again, Jisoo.” He still sounds the same and he looks the same, but she’s sure something in him had changed beyond mere physical appearances since a year had passed. She could say the same thing to Seulgi who stood beside him with her arms crossed.

“Let me go,” she says with gritted teeth, eyeing the two of them spitefully. She struggled against the ropes but the more she did, the more it tightened its hold around her limbs which was painful. She saw no way out of these bounds by herself and she could no longer feel the length of her wand pressing against her sweater pocket but instead, she sees it on top of Jinyoung’s desk.

“I’m afraid we can’t do that just yet,” Jinyoung leans against the edge of his desk, a few inches from where Jisoo’s wand was. “We’re not letting you go until you hear us out and we’re your only chance of escaping those ropes.” He says as if he read her mind. “Where did you find her?” This question was directed to Seulgi.

The other Auror still had flecks of snow littered across her hair and was wearing her coat indoors despite the green flames glowing brightly in the fireplace that kept the office eternally warm and at the right temperature. She didn’t seem bothered by it though. “She was at a small, muggle town far off the countryside. Very remote area, it took us three days to counter her protection spells.”

Jinyoung nods and the expression he has on makes Jisoo’s stomach churn. He’s impressed and he turns to look at Jisoo with a small, hopeful smile. “I see, all the more reason why we need you back.” Now he’s looking at her like how he did in the old days when Jisoo would return to the office after yet another successful mission. He had been her favorite, she was everyone’s favorite. Back then, that is.

Jisoo is unable to suppress a scoff and she doesn’t dare break eye contact with her former boss because she wants him to know early on in this interrogation-slash-abduction that whatever it is they’re after, whatever it is they want from her, whatever it is they’ll reward her for it in return: she won’t do it, whatever it may be.

But she already has a dangerous hunch as to why she’s here and why they went through all that trouble of finding her. She just hopes she’s wrong.

“Look, I understand that you’re still upset and grieving,” Jinyoung’s voice reverberates across the dark walls of his office. “And we know you still hate the Ministry but –“

“If you knew that, then why did you bother tracking me down?” Yet again unable to suppress herself and the flurry of emotions that are threatening to spill from her – all of them synonymous to angry. She tried again to break free from the ropes restraining her but failed. “Don’t you have better things to do? Like oh, I don’t know! Put an end to the Dark Lord once and for all? Actually end this war and save lives? You’re wasting your time on me, Jinyoung. You have me tied down like this too, what makes you think I’ll ever help you now?”

Jinyoung’s lower jaw twitches and he closes his eyes for a moment, finally breaking eye contact with her. “Mr. Kwon thought that too, but we know better.” He says, his voice an octave lower. He exchanges a silent grimace with Seulgi. “And as for tying you down with ropes, we apologize. We couldn’t think of another way to make you sit down and just listen.”

Jisoo takes a deep breathe to keep her blood pressure from spiking up. “Mr. Kwon? The Minister? For once, we actually agree on something.” But Jinyoung made it seem like they were on different sides with the Minister on this issue, which led them to defy his prior orders of leaving Jisoo alone. That was bold of them to take such a risk; the Minister has an almost zero tolerance policy for disobedience and opinions that clashed with his own among the Ministry employees. They were risking their jobs just by having her here.

“We know you’re planning on fleeing the country, Jisoo.” Seulgi speaks up, arms still crossed across her chest and a faint scowl on her face. Jisoo opened but Seulgi waves a dismissive hand. “Your mail, we saw it. You’re actually taking an actual airplane and not flying by broom? Or through floo networks and portkeys? Or even by apparition? Wrong move, your mail made you easily traceable."

She feels her chest tighten. How could she have been so stupid? Oh yeah, the town didn’t have proper internet connection (one of the reasons she liked about the town actually, because wizards never mingled well with modern technology) and she needed to do everything through snail mail and post. She had overlooked the fact that it would leave behind a physical trail of her plans, her stupid mistake. 

And then another thought had struck through her. If they knew about her plans of leaving the country, do they know about the…? Her dangerous hunch might be right, but it’s impossible for even the Ministry to find out about it. She never told a soul, they never told a soul.

“Easily traceable but not easily penetrable,” Jisoo rolls her eyes while trying to remain unfazed despite the loud beating of her heart inside her ribcage. “My protection spells say hi.”

For the second time that day, Seulgi pointed her wand straight at Jisoo’s face and murmured a spell under her breath. “Silencio,”

Jisoo opened to protest but no sound came out. She screamed with no voice, yet again thrashing against the ropes with no use. She narrowed her eyes at Seulgi, locking her sight on the Auror and an angry bubble had burst inside of her. The jar on Jinyoung’s desk imploded into tiny glass pieces.

“Stop that,” he scolded her like she was a child incapable of controlling her own magic. He glanced at the bits of glass scattered across his pristine office floor before sighing. When he turned to face Jisoo again, he didn’t look angry at all but more determined to appeal to her once more.

Jisoo’s look hardens. It’s almost impossible to tell if they know about the secret she’s been harboring for about two years now, but even if they did, they’re not letting on. They don’t look like they do though because at this point, Jinyoung just looks desperate for her cooperation at the least.

“You hate us and we get it but Jisoo, I think it’s time to put old grudges aside. I don’t mean to sound indifferent,” and Jinyoung did not sound indifferent at all, he sounded anything but indifferent which came as a surprise for her. She'd always known Jinyoung was different from the rest of the Heads in the Ministry, and the Minister himself. Other officials called him naive, birght-eyed and too young but Jisoo thinks he is far more mature than any of them. The sincerity just oozed through his words. “But these are dark times upon us and we’re on the edge of our impending doom, millions of lives are at stake.”

Seulgi looks at Jisoo as well. “You’re not the only one we’ve pulled out of retirement and resignation, you know. We badly need the manpower especially since – well, I’m assuming you know what happened at Gringotts?”

Jisoo wanted to say no but other than the fact that she was still under Seulgi’s silencing spell, she couldn’t bring herself to say it even if she did have a voice because she did know about the incident her former colleague was talking about.

Gringotts Bank is – was – considered to be one of the most safe places in the wizarding world until it had been ruthlessly attacked and raided. She already knew who was behind such a gruesome act of mutiny and rebellion without even having to read the entire article. There was a picture of him printed right beside another picture that contained piles of rubble and stone or what was once the esteemed Gringotts.

The Daily Prophet had used a more recent picture from a previous raid, his hair windswept and his jaw tight. He was riding a broom, his sculpted side profile looking immaculate because the hood of his cloak had fallen and you’d think at first that he wasn’t a Death Eater at all. That he was just a regular, handsome man. But he wasn’t. He was the most profilic murderer in the country.

“We sent an entire party to secure the bank when we heard they were raiding but –“ Jinyoung stopped himself and closed his eyes for a few moments. When he opened them again, his face looked gaunt and haggard under the shadow of his mourning. This is a side of him Jisoo does not often see, even before from when they were still working together. Behind his slicked back hair and confident facade as the Head of the Aurors, Jinyoung is fatigued. He is devastated by the turn of events and the deaths of his employees and this makes him desperate enough to do anything; even if it meant recruiting back Kim Jisoo. “Every single one of them was killed. No survivors at all, twenty of the best and well-skilled Aurors all dead.”

Seulgi glances at her superior and Jisoo hates to admit it but she understands what they’re going through. She hates that she can empathize with them on this topic. Seulgi doesn’t budge though; she doesn’t look as broken and hopeless as Jinyoung yet. But if they had to go out of their way just to bring back Jisoo, who’s certain to be a lost cause, on the force then they’re practically begging on their knees.

“We need all the help we can get,” Seulgi says after Jinyoung remains silent for a second longer than necessary. “Every day, someone from the Ministry gets killed and You-Know-Who’s army of Death Eaters grow stronger. And we say his army because well, you know who led the attack on Gringotts, don’t you? It wasn’t the Dark Lord himself, he just sent out his followers to do his bidding.”

Jisoo does know who and the picture, his picture, an angelic face with demonic intentions, flashes momentarily in her mind again. She remembers the way Seulgi said his name just moments ago in Jisoo’s front yard. It's been quite a long time since she's heard it come out from another person's mouth. 

“It’s Taehyung,” she had said then looked at Jisoo as if she were going to cry just at the mention of his name. Jisoo doesn’t cry over him anymore, she’s way past that. If the Ministry knew about the secret, which she highly doubts judging by the way where this conversation was going so it's clear that they're totally oblivious, then what they’re about to ask from her is something that is impossible for her to do and they’re in for a disappointing newsflash.  

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