Moody
The dead are always talking. We just choose not to listen.
I knew it would be a bad one before I even stepped into the house. The yard was crawling with Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, low-level bureaucrats with an inflated sense of importance who swaggered across the grass and peeked into the windows. I noticed nobody was going inside. The cottage itself was small and quaint in a typically English way, bricks the color of dull copper, a nice little garden lining the front, daisies and petunias and some herbs. The front door, a deep brown mahogany that I guessed was very expensive, had been blown off its hinges and rested on the kitchen floor. Peering through the gap it left, I saw that the insides of the house were in complete disarray. I sighed and lit a Muggle cigarette, doing my best to shield it from the light but relentless drizzle. A few Patrol wizards saw me approaching and nudged one another, muttering under their breath. I'm used to it, at this point.
Goodwin Mortimer caught me before I stepped into the cottage, and wordlessly I passed him a smoke. He gave me the habit, and it's one that a lot of wizards look down upon, but Muggle tobacco is smooth and simple and doesn't blur my thoughts the way pipeweed does. For a moment neither of us spoke, just dragged on our cigarettes and watched the procession of wizards. Every so often someone would apparate a few yards down the street and join the steadily growing crowd, mostly Patrol and Aurors but also Muggle Liaison wizards who'd been sent to deal with the Muggle neighbors. It looked like a circus, everyone talking amongst themselves and wandering aimlessly. Somewhere in the crowd, a camera flashed its blinding whiteness. Goodwin swore under his breath.
"The Prophet is here," he said. "We should get started before this turns into an absolute madhouse."
And so we stepped into the cottage.
I was right—really bad, the kind of murder you hope to go your whole career without seeing. The front door led into a large, cozy sitting room with an open kitchen, and to the right was a hallway, which led to the bedroom and bathroom. On any other day, it would have been a beautiful home. This witch clearly knew how to decorate; the furniture was worn in a friendly way, all antique wood and frayed sofas.
As it were, nearly everything was smashed. The couch had several large slashes through it, exposing its innards. The remains of an armoire were scattered across the sitting room, along with shards of glass from picture frames that had fallen off the walls. Books and knick-knacks in various states of disrepair littered the floor.
The dead are always talking.
This one said why me? in a voice so soft and anguished it could have been the wind drifting through the open doorway. Mid-forties, lived alone, had a cat, which we found dead in the bathroom. I imagined her pouring cat food into a small silver dish, imagined her prepping the tea kettle and settling in for the night, perhaps with a novel. A squat, plump, cherub-faced witch with blonde, greying hair that hung around her lifeless face in a phosphorescent halo. I felt my stomach twist into a knot as I imagined her last hours. She'd been tortured viciously; I could tell without even turning over her body. The rage that constantly simmered inside me threatened to boil its way to the surface.
"Gladys Figgins," said Goodwin, thumbing through sheets of parchment. "She was an Unspeakable." He handed me a photograph, from which Gladys smiled sweetly, her face clean and unbroken, eyes still filled with life and kindness.
"Doesn't look the type," I said, handing it back to him and squatting next to her body, which lay face-down and spread eagle in the kitchen. "Do you know what she did there, exactly?"
"You know those Department of Mystery bastards. They never can seem to give me a straight answer." Goodwin gave a little flick of his wand, and his cigarette butt vanished. "What were you doing before you got here?"
"Sending owls, mostly. Jenkins still has her head in a twist over the riots, thinks there'll be more in the coming weeks, and Crouch has been out of the office doing god-knows-what all day. Which somehow leaves me to deal with her."
"Life is cruel, Al," said Goodwin with a smirk
"Don't I know it." I stepped over Gladys, examining the burn marks on the walls, the slashes through the wallpaper. It didn't paint a pleasant picture. "And how long ago did Ms. Figgins shuffle off this mortal coil?"
"Last seen at the office two days ago. Her boyfriend says he received an owl from her less than twelve hours ago but it's not clear who actually wrote it. A Muggle walking his dog saw the doorframe, and you can guess where it went from there."
We didn't stay in the cottage long, just enough to get a feel for the scene and map out a timeline. Whoever it was dragged Gladys Figgins all over her house; the scorches and gouges covered every inch of the place. The noise of the crowd outside grew steadily louder, and the camera flashes became more frequent, each one like the burst of light from a dying star, unbearable in their white-hot intensity. I knew it wouldn't be long until they started trying to come inside, contaminating the crime scene, pressing me for an interview.
You'd think losing an eye would make people avoid you, but Eleanor Prewett, Senior Reporter for the Prophet, has never been more insistent.
And speak of the Devil. A face popped into view in the empty doorframe, belonging to a middle-aged witch with salt and pepper hair tied into a bun so tight it must have been cutting off circulation to her brain. She held a long sheet of parchment, on which she was scribbling furiously. "Just a few questions for you two!" she shouted. Her voice was high and falsely pleasant, like poisoned honey. I glanced at Goodwin, who swore again and disappeared with a sharp crack. I followed suit, leaving Eleanor Prewett to advance into the ruined house.
Barty Crouch's office was a perfect reflection of his personality, full of cold steely greys and dark polished wood, lined with shelves of Defense Against the Dark Arts books. There were only two personal touches: a small, framed photograph of his wife and infant son, which sat on his desk, and a potted plant sitting on a bookshelf that had long since shriveled into itself and died. A collection of plaques hung along the back wall, each one baring some certificate or other, but I got the sense they were only up because they needed to be.
Crouch himself was seated behind his desk, as if he'd been expecting us. He bore the look of a chronic insomniac. His face was deeply lined, his mouth pressed so thin it almost disappeared entirely, and there were dark crescents under his eyes.
"Well," he said. He reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a folder filled with parchment, and handed it to me. I flipped through it reluctantly. Each sheet had two small photographs attached: one, a portrait of a smiling witch or wizard, the other showing their dead body. The scenes looked remarkably similar to Gladys Figgins. "Someone's been having themselves a lovely little Muggleborn killing spree."
"They all Ministry employees?" Goodwin asked, glancing over my shoulder.
Crouch shook his head. "Just Ms. Figgins thus far."
"Why haven't we heard about this before? A serial killer targeting Muggleborns must have the Prophet drooling."
"Most of them were homebodies. Wizards with very few connections. And none of the crime scenes looked anything like the Figgins cottage. They could have been accidents, for all we know. Plus, the Prophet's so wrapped up in the pureblood riots you'd practically have to stick their nose in it." I lit another cigarette, and Crouch scowled at me. "I wish you wouldn't light those damn things in my office, Alastor."
I ignored this. "How do you know they're related, then?"
"The hunch," said Crouch, "of one Albus Dumbledore."
I'd been out of Hogwarts for nearly ten years, and an Auror for six. I remembered Dumbledore well enough, though; he became Headmaster my third year, and had always struck me as a fairly trustworthy wizard, though I never knew him well enough to confirm. The mention of his name surprised me. I assumed he stayed wrapped up in school affairs.
"You've been in touch with Dumbledore?" asked Goodwin.
"More or less." The artificial weather in Crouch's lone office window mirrored the bleak November sky outside, an endless expanse of grey as if a bedsheet had been stretched over the world. In the dim lighting, which grew steadily dimmer thanks to the fake sunset, Crouch looked incredibly old, incredibly tired. "He's concerned it might have something to do with one of his former students. A certain Tom Riddle."
The name didn't ring any bells.
"I want both of you on this. Top priority. The Prophet is going to be all over Figgins, but they don't need to know about the rest quite yet. Send me an owl as soon as you have something." He rose and walked towards his fireplace, carelessly throwing a handful of floo powder into the flames. Without so much as a backward glance, he stepped inside, spun as rapidly as a top, and was gone.
I lived in a one room flat on the outskirts of London, a rough and tumble type of neighborhood where nobody asked too many questions. Most of the neighbors were Muggles, and I'd see them occasionally as they stepped out for groceries. They kept their heads down, unwilling to look at my face. I couldn't say I blamed them. The only other wizard was Goodwin, who lived in a flat below mine. We spent most of our time together at my place, though, and by the time I managed to leave the office he'd already let himself in and was cooking scrambled eggs on the dingy little range.
I've never thought of myself as gay or straight. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. I'd known Goodwin for three years, when he became an Auror; we'd been together for about five months. Not something we told anyone else at the Ministry, mind you. Luckily, because we were the top Aurors in Crouch's office, spending plenty of time together didn't raise any suspicions. Not that I'd care if they did. Anyone who wanted to say something about it would receive a swift jinx to the face, no questions asked.
We ate dinner mostly in silence. Goodwin, not a particularly good cook, had added far too much pepper to the eggs, and the toast bordered on burned. Still, better than nothing. Afterwards we lay on my stiff mattress, chain smoking and listening to the sounds of London traffic drift in through the open window, turning over the facts of the Figgins case again and again. I tried to imagine who was capable of a thing like that, tried to picture the kind of wizard who got off on inflicting pain to someone purely over their blood status. I'd heard rumors, sure, and the pureblood riots that erupted over the Squib Rights protests this past year were a reminder to any Muggleborns that there was plenty of resentment hanging about. Still, wizards with an aptitude for torture didn't come around very often. That was one of the most surprising things I'd learned in Auror training: very few used magic as maliciously as you'd think.
But there were some.
And that was the problem.
