Prompt: Spy!Muggles AU or Detective!Muggles AU
Bonus Prompts: (action) watching someone from afar, and (animal) bulldog
Word Count: 2,238
Position: Year 7, IWSC
For as long as Nymphadora Tonks had been a part of the London police force, she had only been assigned minor cases. Insignificant accidents, domestic arguments... always problems that were resolved fairly quickly. None of her cases thus far had tested her, or given her a chance to show her abilities in the field. No one wanted to wager the success of a hard case on a twenty-year-old with pink dyed hair. She had wanted to join the police force since she had been a little girl, she wanted to make a real difference in the world. So far, however, she had been mostly relegated to paperwork and such. Little did she know she was shortly to have her chance.
It was a fairly average London day. That is to say, grey clouds were obscuring the sun, threatening rain at any moment. Cars clogged the streets and pedestrians hurried along the pavements, eyes glued to papers and other distractions.
Tonks had just arrived at the police station. She greeted several of her colleagues and grabbed a cup of coffee from the break room, before settling down at her desk and starting in on her work for the day. She put on some music in the background of the computer and began to get to work.
Slowly but surely, Tonks worked her way through the files that she had been assigned; entering data into her computer and checking facts and information from her previous cases.
She became so engrossed in her work that she lost track of time, skipping lunch, her rumbling stomach ignored and forgotten. She could have gone all day like that: immersed in the job that she loved, regardless of its more tedious aspects. But she was soon drawn back to reality.
The sound of hysterical shouting startled her so badly that she fell out of her chair. A few of her colleagues sniggered, but she ignored them. The crying and the yelling was coming from the lobby, and it was only getting louder the longer she listened.
"I don't care if you have every officer in the city out on cases, my daughter is missing!" a woman's voice yelled. "Where's the detective who's supposed to be working on our case! He should have found something by now, it's been five days already!"
Tonks hurried out into the lobby to see what was going on. The woman who was shouting herself hoarse was small and ginger-haired with a homely figure and crows feet around her eyes which showed that she tended to smile a lot. She wasn't smiling now, though. Her face was red, whether from crying or shouting, Tonks could not tell, but she had never seen a person look so angry and distraught before.
"Is there a problem, ma'am?" Tonks asked the woman. "I'm available to help if I can. I'm Detective Tonks."
The woman seemed to deflate on the spot, her anger leaving her like hot air from a balloon until only despair was left, written plainly all over her face. "My daughter has been missing for two days now, heaven knows what has happened to her. She isn't the type to just run away, I just know she's been kidnapped!"
The woman started to sob, and Tonks led her over to a few chairs and sat her down in one.
Sitting in the next chair over, Tonks called to the receptionist, "Get me the file on this woman's case, please." She wasn't used to dealing with overwrought people, but she reached beside the chair and picked up a box of tissues and offered it to the woman, who took a few. "Ma'am, I'm sorry you're going through this. I can't imagine what losing a child would be like. Who was helping you on this case previously? Perhaps I can find him and he can update you."
The woman took a bracing breath before she answered, "Detective Lockhart. We haven't heard anything new from him on the case in three days."
That idiot, Tonks thought irritably. Gilderoy Lockhart was a man who was so full of himself it was unbelievable; if half of the achievements he always bragged about were true, she'd jump off of London Bridge. The only reason he'd made it so far up the department's hierarchy was because he knew exactly who to suck up to and how to do it. There was also a rumour going around the station that said that he often took credit for success stories that he had played little to no part in. She didn't say this to the distressed woman, however. It wouldn't be good form to badmouth a colleague, not matter how much he may deserve it.
"I imagine he's waiting to find something of importance before contacting you," she consoled. "I will find Lockhart and offer to help if I can. I'll call you in a few hours once I find out if Lockhart found anything. I promise we'll find your daughter, ma'am. Now the best thing you can do is go home and be with your family. I'm sure they need you at the moment."
"I let the boys stay home from school today, they refuse to go while Ginny is missing," the woman admitted. "My husband's home with them, but it's difficult enough taking care of so many children at the best of times."
The woman stood and turned to leave before seemingly remembering something. "Detective Lockhart said I should find a recent picture of Ginny so you would know what she looks like?"
She took a photo out from her large purse and handed it over. The girl in the picture was no older than eleven, with hair as red as her mother's, a nose covered in freckles, and a broad smile on her face. She looked like a sweet child, and Tonks couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. Seeing this picture, she felt a surge of hatred towards whoever had taken this little girl from her family.
"Ma'am, I will make sure we find your daughter," she told the woman firmly, taking her hands and squeezing them. "I swear I will."
Unable to speak, the woman's eyes brimmed with tears and she hurried out of the station. Tonks stared after the woman for a few moments before turning away and grabbing the small dossier that the receptionist had left for her on the counter.
Returning to her desk to read the papers, Tonks flipped through the papers; there were only two of them. The first was basic information regarding the case: the girl's name, Ginevra Weasley, but everyone who knew her called her Ginny; her age; her address; the school she attended; a list of close family and friends, and, of course, where she was last seen.
The last anyone had seen her, she'd been at the park with a friend from school. Apparently, she'd been heading home when she disappeared.
Dogs had been taken over to the area to pick up a trail but they hadn't found much. One hound had picked up on the girl's scent, it had led him to a curbside a block away from the park. The trail had ended there, leading the officers to assume that she had either been snatched or tricked into entering a car.
The last person to have seen her was her friend, a boy named Harry Potter.
The second sheet of paper was a list of the usual suspects, all of whom had already been cleared; from her parents to her teachers; from old babysitters to creepy uncles; they'd all been investigated and they'd all been cleared. None of the legwork had been done by Lockhart, mind you; he'd somehow convinced some poor sod named Remus Lupin to do his dirty work for him.
Gilderoy hadn't reported anything new on the case since that first account, and he wasn't scheduled in at the office today; had he been she might have given him the courtesy of offering her assistance to the case. He would have jumped on the opportunity. He'd chosen this career for the fame and glory, anything resembling actual work was beneath him. He wasn't in today, though, so she didn't bother clearing anything with him.
Her first order of business was to talk to the girl's friend; the person who had seen her last. She checked her watch: five o'clock. School must have let out by now, and she had no time to waste.
After a twenty minute walk, Tonks arrived in front of the boy's house. She stood across the street from it, waiting, just in case someone suspicious was watching. It was a pointless precaution, she was sure, but her mentor at the police academy had ingrained constant vigilance into her instincts, and she could no longer do anything without Alastor Moody's rough voice echoing through her head, reminding her that death was inevitable and that it was lurking behind every corner.
She had been watching the place from a distance partially obscured by a tree for about thirty minutes, and the most exciting thing she had seen so far was a stray bulldog chasing after a cat. She was probably safe.
Crossing the street quickly, Tonks knocked firmly on the front door, and a large man bearing an uncanny resemblance to a walrus opened the door. He looked quite angry at being disturbed.
"What do you want?" he demanded, his eyes did a quick sweep of her and paused on her badge. "If it's about that missing girl, we don't know anything. She's probably run away, wouldn't surprise me living in that house with so many siblings."
Tonks was so taken aback at the man's abrasiveness and insensitivity that for a moment she could do nothing more than gape at him. She shook off her disbelief quickly enough but decided that she didn't like this man, not one bit. "Excuse me, sir. I'm just following up on this case, and I would like to ask Harry some questions myself before I proceed."
The man looked as though he would have rather done anything else, but he opened the door wider and allowed her entry. The house was nice, Tonks supposed, but far too clean. It hardly looked as though anyone actually lived there.
"Through here," the man grunted, and Tonks followed him into the living room. There were three people in the room. A woman and a large blond boy sat on a couch watching some stupid television program. The boy held a bowl full of crisps and was stuffing handful after handful into his mouth, barely giving himself enough time to chew and swallow. Another boy, smaller than the first, with much darker hair, was picking some dead buds from a flower box by the window.
"What's going on, Vernon?" the woman asked her husband as she eyed Tonks. "Who is this?"
"I'm a detective helping on Ginny Weasley's case. I'd like to talk to Harry and see if maybe I can pick up on some details that might help me find her."
Harry turned away from the flower box and stared at her. Tonks could easily see that the boy was distraught over the disappearance of his friend. "I'll talk to you, ma'am."
At hearing this, the walrus-like man started out of the room, and his wife and the larger boy followed.
"Sir, one of you should stay while I speak with Harry," Tonks interjected as the kitchen door started to close.
The woman stared at her in annoyance. "Absolutely not. We've already wasted enough time on this nonsense case!" She let the door close fully, leaving Tonks starint incredulously once again. How could anyone be so unfeeling?
She heard Harry put down his pruning shears and turned back to him as he sat down in the chair the larger boy had just vacated.
"I really don't know where she's gone, ma'am," Harry said. "We were at the park, and it was getting late, so we left, and since she lives in the other direction, we separated. That's the last time I saw her. Did you find any clues?"
Tonks made to put her hand on the boy's knee, but thought better of it. "We're looking everywhere we can. That's why I came here to talk to you. Is there anything she may have mentioned, someone you'd never heard of before that she seemed to be talking to or who may have threatened her?"
Harry stared at the floor for a moment, seemingly thinking before he could answer. Finally, he looked back up at Tonks. "Um, well she talked a lot about someone called Tom Riddle, but I've never met him. I thought he was just a student in her class since she's a year younger than me. Do you think…?"
Tonks sat up straighter. "It's a definite possibility, but I'll have to do some research first." She hadn't worked on a case like this yet, but she wasn't naive. She'd learned that predators such as these were fairly predictable.
Standing up, Tonks said, "Thank you for the clue, Harry. Hopefully I'll be able to find her quickly." She needed to get back to the station, do some research on Tom Riddle. Hopefully that was his real name.
Tonks swept out of the room, ready to continue her search. If he had a different name, she'd figure it out. One way or another she'd find Ginny Weasley.