Harry Potter sucked in a deep breath and immediately doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees, and tried hard to not retch.

Hermione had tried to explain it all to him, once. Something about large bodies of water occasionally acting as heat-sinks for magical energy, and some more affected by it than others. He could apparate Plymouth to Aberdeen and not even feel it, but a hop over the channel and he was reeling. Gritting his teeth, he reached up to pinch his nose.

Right… right. Focus. Focus… He squinted up at the blue sky, drank in another breath. Lavender farm nearby, he supposed. A quick run of his fingers through his short hair, and he had grounded himself well enough to stand up straight, adjust his collar, and shake it off. At least opting for sight-straightening spells over glasses these days meant he could rub his eyes to get rid of the last lingering queasiness still clinging to him.

Pleasant day, really. Good breeze, not too hot. Just the sort of thing you'd want, for the French countryside. A shame he was there investigating a murder.

There was already caution tape looping around the house's gate; muggle police cars and a crime scene unit, even if the personnel still ignorant of the magical world had been quietly replaced. The first forensic sweep had already been done - a comforting routine Harry was familiar with by now. One of the very few good things to come out of Voldemort's reign was that a near-entire turnover of the Ministry of Magic meant that it was the perfect time to introduce new ideas. Using muggle forensics as a solid bedrock, coupled with that approach to investigative technique, had been Hermione's idea in truth; Harry was just the convenient figurehead. In any case, seeing the workers shedding their disposable gloves at the door meant that he could give himself permission to reach into his trenchcoat and dig out his packet of cigarettes.

"Ah! Auror Potter, sir!" The young man barely restrained himself from tossing a salute - which was good, because Harry wasn't sure he could have kept himself from rolling his eyes.

"Afternoon, Davies." He had barely gotten his fingers around his lighter in his pocket before Davies eagerly offered out his wand, flame burning at the tip. That was Davies for you, Harry supposed - a bit of a tryhard, but heart in the right place. "Give me a rundown while I take a look around? They said this was urgent enough to come in immediately. Was going to look at the case file on the train over - one downside of apparating, no downtime for work."

"Yes, sir, of course!" Davies puffed out his chest a little at the responsibility. This time, Harry couldn't help but smile around his cigarette. Milk-faced and wide-eyed but perpetually enthusiastic nonetheless… well, someone had to be the naiive one, he supposed. It did make Harry wonder just when the new auror recruits looked so damned young. "So, the victim… one Février Durand. Female, age thirty-five, single." The yard was neat, but not overly clinical; garden full of perennials, not fussed over, but still planted with an eye that appreciated beauty. Rosebushes, but untrimmed. Yellow flowers. A windchime near the door, with a blue eye at the center - to ward off the evil eye. "She works in the nearby town of Mannevillette, as a ballet instructor. Has for the past fifteen years or so." A small house, a little disorganized, but comfortably lived-in. Takeout boxes in the trashcan despite the fresh produce from the backyard garden sitting on the counter. Calendar on the wall - no writing, just symbols, as if she expected someone to be reading over her shoulder and wanted to throw them off… "Already have been in contact with her boss. She had a history of… acting troubled, but lashing at herself, not others. Something of a hired charity case."

A line of pill bottles marched in polite single-file on the breakfast table and Harry immediately made a beeline to the small corner nook, picking up a bottle. "Ah, yes, I'm sure you've noticed by now -" Davies followed him quickly. "A long history of health problems. Was in and out of institutionalized care when a teenager but has been relatively stable for the past eighteen years. Still, quite a list of muggle medications…"

Harry chewed thoughtfully on his cigarette. "So, what's the diagnosis?"

"Uh…" Davies flipped through his small notebook. "Schizoaffective disorder. Paranoia and depression, it sounds like. But pretty well treated - we're still getting records from her local doctor. She's been able to function well in society, for the most part -"

"Bet her liver must be shot from all this, though," Harry muttered, half to himself, picking up one of the bottles and shaking it experimentally. Seven daily medications he could count, so far. "For the most part, you said?"

"Ah, yes. Her boss said that she occasionally had persistent paranoid delusions about being recognized. Only took masked parts in their ballet productions, for instance," Davies said, gesturing to the nearby wall. Photographs - lines of children in tutus, all beaming at the camera, their proud teacher behind them. But their teacher was always in a mask, the same wiry frame. A lot of productions of the Nutcracker… a lot of the Rat King presiding over many sugarplum fairies. "Did a lot of dying her hair different colors and so on."

"And now she's dead." Harry grunted. "Well. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." He motioned to Davies, waving a hand in a small circle as if telling him to keep on talking.

The floorboards creaked under his feet as he wound his way to the bedroom, past the plain hallway walls. "Right, right, where was I… yes. She didn't show up for work today - she's usually very punctual, obsessively so - so her boss stopped in on her lunch break…" As he came into the bedroom, it finally seemed to snap together in his mind. The house didn't have fifteen years of living - fifteen years of accumulation of knickknacks and clutter. Something was always held back, half-packed, as if waiting for something to happen so she could get out quickly… "Found Février hung in the bedroom, here, from the ceiling fan. Apparently died sometime during the night. Authorities were called, and the case was escalated to us, but not before the initial Muggle forensics were completed."

Harry paused to slowly exhale some smoke, dragon-like, as he looked up at the noose still hanging from the ceiling. "And they came to the conclusion it's a setup, right?"

Davies looked up from his notebook and gave a small startled noise. "Well - well, yes, sir, but how…"

"I don't think the ceiling fan would support her weight, not when she was struggling. Most people don't hang quietly. Their body remembers what it's like to fight, so they fight - spasm, jerk around, even in death. If she's teaching ballet, she's got to have at least a certain level of musculature; that's a lot of movement and stress. But someone setting up the noose and hanging her there when she's already dead, well, wouldn't consider that." He paused a second, looking out of the corner of his eye at Davies's wide-eyed, rapt expression. "Also because they already told me on the way over that this was a murder and not a suicide."

"…Oh." Davies exhaled, meekly buckling under the embarrassment. "Ah, um, yes. Well… the noose is intact - no fingerprints, I'm afraid, sir. But her body is there, on the gurney. A full autopsy will be done presently."

For half a second he considered not looking - after all, the woman had spent her entire life so scared of being seen, it seemed an insult to look at her in death. But sentimentality had very little to do with hunting murderers, so he stood by the gurney and ran his hand up the zipper of the body-bag to find the pull. "So, we're here because she was a person of interest in old Ministry files, right? Any indication why she was in there?"

The zippers on these things were always so noisy, he thought - a bit rude, in a way. "Ah, yes… Honestly, I'm not sure of the validity of it, sir. …She had been flagged in an old Ministry operation - 'Saint Patrick's Crusade' is the rather twee name they'd given it." A bit older looking than her true age, Harry thought. Her short hair was frizzy and bleached, but with black roots obviously coming in. Large eyes, doe-like even - at least someone had the decency to close them - small lips, worry lines… "It was, ah, an old operation to look for potential children of… You-Know-Who."

He was aware of how Davies braced himself, behind his shoulder, expecting Harry to recoil. Instead he didn't, reaching out to quietly brush a but of hair out of the dead woman's face. "We have that confirmed by Patersequax yet?" Same concept as muggle DNA testing, but quicker, and more reliable. An old medieval potion that Hermione had revived.

"Not as of yet, sir." Harry said nothing for a long moment. Strong cheekbones, natural black hair… They'd need confirmation, of course, but already his gut was telling him it was right. There was enough in her face that reminded him of the memory of Tom Riddle, sneering and proud in his prefect's uniform…

"Take some fingernail cuttings to get it confirmed, then, Davies." He zipped the body bag back up to look up around at the rest of the room. "Do we have it confirmed that she was a magic-user? …Never mind, I can see she isn't." He grimaced a little to himself, going over to the one corner of the room that was overgrown with items. Crystals, hamsa symbols with painted blue eyes in the center of the palm, even a dreamcatcher - protective runes, all sorts of desperate knicknacks… "Ah, Florida water." He picked up the bottle, tossing it lightly in his hands - half-full, and of fairly recent expiration date. "Haven't seen that in years."

"Florida… water, sir?" Davies wrinkled his nose in confusion.

"Bit of an island thing. Haven't seen it since we had that tangle in Brixton with the hoodoo set." He set it back down. "I'm going to guess we have no records of her ever casting a spell, or at least not intentionally. If she actually had any significant magical schooling, she would know that all of this is just… muggle trinkets and bunk, at least in the form she's got them in. You need a lot more than a shaker of salt and some hope to actually make a protective circle worth anything." Harry frowned, picking up a small silver disc. "And… a mirror? Not sure where just a plain mirror comes in, mind you, what sort of muggle tradition that's reflecting -"

"Sir…" Davies's voice was small and strangled. "A-ah - sir -"

Harry frowned. "What? …Don't tell me it's cursed and my face just broke out in pimples or something," he wryly joked, bringing the mirror up and looking into it. "Can't see anything yet, anyway, unless it's only on the back of my head. Unless it's cursed me with retroactively making me miss that patch when I was shaving this morning." He grimaced, running a hand along his chin.

"That's not a mirror, sir," Davies finally gasped out. "That's - that's a foe-glass."

–

It took five more cigarettes and an interview with two terrified-looking officials for the Ministry to finally accept that he was, indeed, telling the truth about never having stepped foot in Février Durand's house until that very afternoon. He was calm enough, but as the evening wore on, he could tell there was a distinct and bitter anger starting to burn in his chest.

Davies was the one to greet him as soon as he got back to his desk. "I'm so sorry, sir, about that, I mean -"

"It's all right, Davies. It's protocol. I'm not above protocol. I wrote it, remember?" The other man still looked half-terrified, and Harry sighed. "Listen, I'm not mad at you."

"You… aren't?"

"Nah. I am, however, mad at the son of a bitch that's out there using my face," he said, punctuating this by stubbing out his cigarette violently in his desk ashtray. It wasn't until it was fraying into cut tobacco that he let up. "Because it means that Ginny is going to have to start incinerating all our trash, again. Just when I thought it was maybe okay to go have my hair cut by somebody else for once. Guess it's just me and the number seven clip. Again."

He flashed Davies a somewhat apologetic smile, to show that he was, on some level, teasing. It was better, Harry knew, to not let them all know how very much he perpetually planned for the worst - how very much he was paranoid - mostly because that would make them recognize how often he was right.

"So. This is the 'Saint Patrick's Crusade' operation file, right?" Harry frowned lightly picking up the thin folder that had been left on his desk.

"Well… what remains of it," Davies admitted, still half-cringing. "It was scattered into several parts - most of which were found and destroyed. Probably by You-Know-Who -"

"Voldemort, Davies. He's dead. We say his name now."

"…V… Voldemort, by, ah, by his followers and those enthralled under his command. I'm not quite sure why, to be honest, but -"

"To keep us from knowing about it, Davies. …If the Order had known about any of his heirs, it would have been a potential bargaining chip. Not because of any sentimental value, I'm sure, but the dark magic of the sort Voldemort was keen to use - a lot of those spells run on blood and gore. And the blood and gore of a relative packs more of a punch than that of a stranger." Harry glanced over the top of the file as he browsed it. Davies had gone pale. "Sorry. …So this is the dregs left behind, huh?"

"Something like that, sir, yes. I'm afraid we only have these few papers because it was somebody's job to sit down and cast reparifarge and revealio on every single object in the entirety of the Ministry… it's just bits and pieces, maybe one name, I'm sorry it isn't more, sir -"

"A lead is a lead. I'm not averse to doing hard work, Davies." He reached into his pocket, pulling out his cigarette case and frowning. "Well. At least, I'm not when I actually have a proper stock of cigarettes. …I'll take these and look them over. Get on home, Davies. You've got a girlfriend, right?"

The other man stood a little straighter. "Ah - yes! I - I didn't really expect you to remember, sir -"

"Then you have the perfect excuse to get out of here and go have dinner with her, just like I'm going to see if I can get home with some Chinese before Ginny is back from practice. Have a good night, Davies."

"Of course, sir - thank you, sir! I'll, ah, I'll see you tomorrow…!"

He was the last one out of the department at that point - Davies turned off the lights as he went out, leaving only the pool of light on Harry's desk. His frustrated fingers pawed at his cigarette case a minute, tapping it against the edge of his desk as he looked at the scraps of paper in the folder.

It was strange to think of Voldemort having children. He knew better than to pretend that Voldemort was anything more than a donor of genetic material, making future resources for dark spells. That small house in the French countryside spoke well enough of that - a tiny slice of happiness that had been clawed out, tooth and nail, against disadvantages that she could have been saved from with a kind parent or even the pretense of one in her life. And for what? (The steady tap, tap, tap of his cigarette case against the table.) To just be left a corpse, with all those attempts at protection still there, uselessly, laying around her -

Best not to think about that, Harry.

Not tonight. Not now.

It could wait until tomorrow, he told himself, reaching out to turn off his desk lamp before he apparated away. It could wait until tomorrow...

Author's Notes: So, I'm trying to get back in the saddle by returning to my roots a bit. This fanfiction has been brewing for... quite awhile, honestly, but finally popped out because I got so very frustrated with Cursed Child, ha! This emphatically does not mean I'm abandoning my other stories - I would very much love to get back to Masquerade, but I'm wanting to only write my best. This is... not my best? Not my best. But, hopefully, still good enough. Anyway, chronic pain is rough. Go give your local disabled a hug. Et cetera, et cetera.