Muggles Unite

He'd never been this far under London before.

Actually, he'd never been under London period. Not unless you included the Underground, in which case, he and everyone else in this city had been "under London." But if one extended "under London" to "cool shit that I get to do that not many others are capable of," then yes, this was the first time he'd been under London. And so far, he was hating it. It was cold down here. Colder than even on the surface, and by God the winters in this country could bite. Even that time in Russia had been less chilly than this.

He could feel the guards watching him as he stepped off the elevator. He knew that he didn't really have any reason to be afraid – after all, they were all on the same side here in theory. Still, "in theory" was the key word here. A lot of things that were accepted as true in the world were only true "in theory" when it came down to things. He'd learnt that with MI6, and it had remained true when he'd transferred to MI5. Walking up to the steel door before him, accompanied by a desk jockey beside it, he wondered what agency was after him now.

"Um, hello," he said to the desk jockey.

She looked up at him from her terminal.

"I'm, er, expected I think."

"Oh, yeah," she said, smiling. "You're the guy from MI6 aren't ya?"

"MI5."

"Meh. Same thing." She went back to her terminal.

It actually isn't.

"So, just need you to sign in," she said. "First name?"

He stood there in silence.

"First name?" she asked again, sounding irritated.

"That's it?" he asked. "Just give the first name?"

She gestured to the door. "To get through that you'll need a fingerprint scan, voice scan, eye scan, and a small haircut so they can run a DNA scan. To get through me, I just need your bloody name."

He didn't know why a DNA scan was necessary, but he relented. "James," he said.

"James?" she asked, smirking. "As in, James Bond?"

"Um, not really."

"Yeah? So what's your last name if not Bond?"

"Beech."

"Beech," she said, typing in. "Is that like, on the beach, or-"

"Beech," he repeated. B-E-E-C-H."

"Oh. Okay." She nodded back to the door. "In you go James. Your mission awaits you, if you choose to accept it."

That's Ethan Hunt you twat. But he kept going. Submitting to the eye scan, voice scan, fingerprint scan, and a haircut that took far more hair than he thought was needed. Finally, after five minutes, he got past the door and into the room beyond.

It was a circular room. Dark as well. Years of working in the service had taught him that dark rooms were important, and especially if they were circular ones. So far, he hadn't walked into any with a green table, but hey, early days yet. He had years to go before retirement.

"Mr. Beech," said one of the people there. "Welcome."

He looked at the shadowy figures. In his mind, he assigned them names – Mr. Brown, Mr. Black, and Mrs White. Or Ms. White he supposed – he couldn't make assumptions after all.

"So Mr. Beech," Ms. White said. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Um, no. Not really."

"And quite right too," Mr. Black said. "The MCU is a highly secretive organization. Even the prime minister-"

"MCU?" James asked. "Like, that cinematic universe everyone loves?"

"What? No," Mr. Black said.

"Overrated," Mr. Brown said. "DCEU's better."

"Really?" Ms. White asked. "You actually think-"

"The MCU," Mr. Black said, "stands for Magic Containment Unit."

Beech just stared at them.

"Your tongue's hanging out Mr. Beech," Mr. Black said. "Did I say something odd?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," James said. "Just…seriously. Magic?"

"Mr. Beech, let me assure you that we're very serious," Mr. Brown said.

"About magic," James repeated. "Serious."

"Very serious."

"Right," he said. "So…is this where I, like, crack the code or something? Like, when you say magic, you actually mean…"

"Magic," Ms. White said.

"Oh."

She sighed. "Like we said, prime minister doesn't know about us. Which is good. Every prime minister for centuries has known about magic and not done a damn thing about it."

"Yeah, sure," James said. "I…"

A screen lit up behind the trio. It showed a camera feed dated June 8, 2017. He could see the prime minister in her office talking to someone. Not odd in of itself. What was odd was that she was talking to a portrait. And the portrait was talking back.

"What the hell?" he whispered.

"Took us years to get this footage," Mr. Brown said. "Downing Street's tighter than my mother's teat, but we still got in. Actual proof that our prime minister is liaising with wizards."

"And witches," Ms. White piped in.

"This is a joke, right?" James asked.

"Mr. Beech, if this was a joke, I'd assure you that there would be a better punch line," Mr. Black said. "But there isn't. The only joke is the state of our intelligence services, who refuse to recognise that a parallel society has existed alongside ours for centuries, and within the last century, has come close to destroying ours."

"Three times," Mr. Brown said.

"Correction – three times. Voldemort was bad, but we shouldn't forget Grindelwald."

"What? Who?" James asked.

"People you needn't worry about," Ms. White said. "What you should worry about…is this."

The recording ended and was replaced with what James recognised as a map of London. Nothing unusual there. What was unusual was the blue dots on it, scattered throughout the city at random.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Outbreaks of magic," Mr. Brown said. "Happening all across London."

"Magic. Across London."

"Yes."

"Bullshit," James said. "Absolute bullshit."

"Why?"

"Because…because if there was magic across London, we'd know."

"Well, you think that we would," Mr. Black said. "But thing is, the magic outbreaks are known to the Ministry of Magic as well."

The screen changed again. What was replaced was a CCTV feed. It showed a pair of Londoners gesturing wildly at-

The hell?

At a trio of floating tea cups. A man was walking towards them, clearly trying to get them to calm down. He got close, and then-

"Watch closely," Ms. White said.

The frame rate slowed down. Watching closely, James saw the man take out something thin and pointy. He said something, but the feed was without sound, and the angle made it impossible to lip read. There was a flash, and the feed cut out for a second. When it returned, the pair were walking on as if nothing had happened. And the man waved the pointy stick at the tea cups, which got them to stop moving. After that, he put them in his robes, and disappeared.

Literally. He just vanished like that.

"Apparition," Mr. Brown said. "Memory charms as well. Makes it great to deal with witnesses, and impossible for us to track them."

"By them…" James said slowly. "You mean wizards."

"And witches," Ms. White added.

"Wizards, witches…anything else I should know about?"

"Right now? No. All you need to know about is that we've got a chance to prove that magic exists, but the people who want the magic kept hidden know that we know, and want to stop us from keeping others from knowing. Like, y'know?"

That's a lot of knows.

"So here's what we want you to do," Mr. Black said. "We want you to act as liaison between us and MI5. We want you to develop an app, and make this generation's phone addicts do something constructive for once."

"What?"

"Get people to trace the magic," Br. Brown said. "They trace it, they find it, they take pictures of it, they upload it. Wizards can deal with a few of us, but they can't deal with millions of us."

"So basically what you want me to do…is make a version of Pokémon Go."

"Excuse me?"

"Pokémon Go," James said. "It's totally Pokémon Go."

"I assure you, it is not anything like that game."

"It is, kinda," Ms. White murmured.

Brown and Black glared at her.

"I mean, I'm just saying…"

"Point being, this is your mission," Mr. Black said, returning his attention back to James. "The question is, will you accept it?"

He wasn't sure if that was an Ethan Hunt reference or not. Or Jim Phelps technically.

"Well?"

"If I say no…" said James slowly. "Then what happens?"

"What happens is that we all go on with our lives, you stay quiet, and if you talk to anyone about us-"

"You'll kill me?"

"Actually I was going to say that no-one would believe you," Mr. Black said. "But sure, killing you would be an option."

"It isn't," Mr. Brown mouthed to him.

That didn't actually fill him with much comfort.

"Well?" Mr. Black asked. "What's your answer?"

James stood there, deep in thought.

He gave them the answer they were after.