A.N
House: Slytherin
Category: Short Story
Prompts: Mistaken Identity
Word count: 2411
Disclaimer... these characters belong to JKR.
"Excuse me?"
A hand caught at James' elbow and he stopped, frowning. It was a young witch, with a sort of determined hopefulness to her large blue eyes that lent her a rather vulnerable air.
"Are you Ryus Potts?" she asked, releasing him and taking a step back. She tucked a piece of soft, flyaway brown hair behind her ear.
"Er – no, sorry," he told her, giving her an apologetic smile before turning to go.
"Are you sure?" she called after him.
James blinked, and stopped again. "Quite sure, yeah."
"Well, have you seen him then?"
"Who?"
"Potts!" she cried, brandishing a battered bit of parchment.
The bags of shopping in James' hands were digging into his palms, and it was starting to rain. James dropped his head in resignation.
"What does he look like?" James asked, trying to sound more patient than he felt. From the look on the girl's face, he hadn't succeeded.
"I don't know," she replied, sounding quite upset.
"You're looking for someone but you don't know what they look like?"
She shoved the scrap of parchment at him, and James juggled a few bags of shopping, a box of oranges, a bouquet of flowers, and the parchment as he struggled to unfold it.
Gender: Male
Hair colour: Black
Age: 28
Name: Ryus Potts
I'm looking for that special witch to make my life complete – I love gardening, experimenting with love potions, and going out for romantic dinners. If you think we'd make a good match, meet me on Thursday, the 4th of August, outside the Leaky Caldron.
James raised an eyebrow. "Is this like… a dating thing? Also, I don't really look twenty eight, do I? I've started using moisturizer and everything."
"It's a singles club in Knockturn," the woman replied, starting to sound a bit teary. "There's a wall of these – if it sounds like someone you might like to meet, you go to the location and meet them. I've been here for hours."
She ignored the comment about moisturizer. He handed her back the piece of parchment.
"I'm very sorry to hear that," he told her firmly. James got a better grip on his bags of shopping and turned to leave for the second time.
"Thank you!" she called after him, still sounding dejected.
"Did you know," Lily asked him later, over dinner. "That wizards have serial killers?"
She took a dainty sip of wine.
James choked on a bite of steak.
"Pardon?" he said, when he could breathe again.
"I dunno," Lily replied. "I never really thought about it, but I guess I assumed we didn't, because there aren't very many of us, but today Mary sent me a clipping from the Prophet and apparently there's a wizard serial killer preying on single women. They're calling him the 'Heartbreaker'."
"What, really?"
"Really," Lily confirmed. "It's a ridiculous name – there's much better witty serial killer names out there. Maybe 'The Rampaging Romeo'."
James kicked at her foot under the table, smiling at her fondly. "That's terrible," he informed her.
She hummed in acknowledgement.
"It's odd," he went on. "I met a woman today who was looking for someone called Ryus Potts. It was sort of a blind date, I think. She had a bit of parchment with his name and some stuff about him."
Lily's head shot up, and her eyes narrowed.
"James, are you serious?"
"Yeah, what's wrong?"
She was already leaping out of her seat and grabbing her wand, not responding. Darkness had fallen quickly, that night, and she peered out the window carefully before seizing James' wrist and pulling him up.
"Ow – Lily, what's the matter?"
"That's how he gets them," she said urgently. "The Heartbreaker – they're all found with bits of parchment like that on them."
His mouth went dry, and he thought of the girl he'd met – hopeful, lonely, a little bit sad.
"Come on," Lily urged, tugging her boots on.
James grabbed his coat, and after a second thought, his invisibility cloak.
When they made their way through the Leaky Caldron, most everyone was gone. There were a few older wizards, hunched in the corner over a chess board, and a bartender who looked like she was barely out of Hogwarts stood behind the bar, polishing glasses mechanically. She looked bored.
Lily was still holding his wrist, pulling for all she was worth as she towed him to the brick wall in the courtyard in the back of the pub.
"Lily," James said, calmly. Very calmly. "This might not be such a brilliant idea."
She was muttering to herself as she tapped out the pattern on the bricks and she turned to James, eyebrows raised.
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well, for one," he pointed out. "We're going haring after a serial killer, in the middle of the night."
"It's only ten o'clock, don't be so dramatic." Lily said, going back to tapping.
James stifled a sigh. He wished he'd Flooed one of their friends in the DMLE before letting Lily pull him out the door.
The gateway in the wall opened and the two of them crept through.
"Lumos," James whispered, and Lily yelped, seizing his wand out of his fingers and hissing, "Nox!"
"No lights! Serial killer!" she hissed furiously, moving forwards.
Times like this, it felt like they'd never left school.
The entrance to Diagon Alley was dark, and most of the shops were closed. He could see the misty lights of the small row of pubs in the distance, but they were faint and it felt like looking at something underwater. He slipped his free hand into Lily's and she squeezed reassuringly.
There was a small collection of trees and bushes off to the side of the Leaky Caldron – not quite big enough to be termed a park, but shady and pleasant in the summertime.
It was a different place at night, murky and cold with deep, thick shadows.
James could see shadows in it, and the shadows were moving.
He nudged Lily, pointing towards the trees, and she nodded quickly. They edged forward.
Lily held up three fingers and dropped one, nodding towards the shadows. She dropped the next two fingers quickly, and the two of them sprang out from behind the tree that they were hiding behind.
Someone shrieked and James panicked a little, spinning around and feeling for Lily. Nothing.
"Lumos!" someone called, and the scene was lit with clear silver light.
It was a young couple, maybe sixteen, and their clothes were dishevelled.
"Freeze! You've broken your last heart!" Lily yelled, and a horrible suspicion crept up on James.
"Erm," he said eloquently, trying to avoid looking at the couple. Their confusion seemed to be shifting into indignation, and James tugged at Lily's hand, hoping she got the message.
"We'll just – leave you be…" James said hastily, and he could see Lily blush in the dim lim.
"Oh!" she gasped, looking mortified. "Oh – um, we're so sorry! Carry on!"
Behind them, the teenage girl turned to her boyfriend.
"What did she mean, you've broken your last heart?"
"Carry on?" James hissed as they were leaving. "Carry on?"
"Shut up! I panicked!"
They continued down the row of shops, peering in alley ways and alcoves, their wands up.
"Lily – I don't think-"
"Shhh," Lily said, lifting her head. She was listening intently to something James couldn't quite make out.
There was a faint murmur of sound drifting on the gentle breeze. It sounded like quiet sobbing, and they followed it to the entrance to an alley, ducking behind a wall.
A whispering voice joined the sobbing, and even the faint sound of it made James shiver. It scraped down his spine like nails on a chalkboard, grating and wrong.
"Shh," the voice murmured. James closed his eyes. "It'll all be over soon, love."
It was a purring, caressing tone that felt filthy, like the aural equivalent of the people you occasionally saw on street corners, people who got in your personal space and smiled a gap toothed, hungry grin.
The sound of it made Lily want to scream, but she stayed silent, trying to make out shapes in the darkness.
There was a huddle on the ground, pressed up against the grubby brick wall. Above it, a thickset shadow with blurry edges loomed over the huddle on the ground, reaching out one hand to caress a cheek, or an arm.
"Screw it," Lily muttered, bumping into James as she shifted her weight.
"Ready?" James asked.
Lily nodded tensely.
"Stupefy!" she yelled, bursting out from behind the wall.
The taller shadow blocked her curse easily, sending it ricocheting into the brick above the person on the ground. The huddle on the ground moaned, rocking back and forth.
Lily saw James shoot a Jelly-Legs Jinx at the man, but he missed, and the shadow laughed.
"My new playmates don't know how to play," he called. "Here for the girl?"
"Expulso!" James yelled, ducking under a bolt of fiery red that missed him by inches.
It wasn't the sort of duelling that Lily liked. The sort of duelling Lily liked was a deadly, graceful dance, and you and your partner were perfectly balanced, and one step out of place meant death.
This was more like bludgeoning each other with Stone Age clubs. Lily had never been a fan of dinosaurs.
It was made more difficult by the person on the ground who was whimpering and rocking from side to side, instead of doing the rational thing and crawling towards Lily and James. Lily just hoped it didn't mean the woman was badly injured.
Every so often Lily would miss a step in the pattern of the fight, (because fights always had patterns, even when they were messy ones) and she would be forced to dive out of the way or shield, letting the curse flow around her.
The man was good.
James, beside her, (always beside her) wasn't faring much better. They were battering the man with curses and hexes, but it all seemed to simply slide off of him.
"Reductor?" Lily called, reaching out for him, and he nodded.
The force of their two curses lifted the man off his feet, and sent him sprawling down on the cobblestones, blood leaking from a gash on his head that Lily had caused when she lost her temper and chucked a piece of rubble at his head.
"Expelliarmus," Lily whispered, just to be safe. She and James approached him carefully, James lighting their way with his wand.
He was tall, with short black hair, and he wasn't very old at all, his face smooth and unlined. His robes were rather worn, and unconscious, he looked almost peaceful. James conjured a set of ropes around his wrists and ankles as Lily hurried over to the woman still on the ground.
"Are you alright?" she asked gently, lowering herself down.
The woman was Lily's age, pale, with a smudge of darkness on her forehead that could either be a bruise or dirt. Her eyes were pale and shining in the faint light of James' spell.
"He broke my wand," she whispered. "He waited until we were all alone out here and then he just took it and broke it."
"I'm sorry," Lily told her, not reaching to touch her. "But are you injured?"
The woman shook her head, tight lipped. "Just –he used the Leg-Locker Curse on me, can you undo it?"
"Of course."
Lily waved her wand, dissolving the curse and the woman sat up, spotting James. Her eyes went almost comically wide.
"You! You're the one that tried to help me, earlier. How did you find me?"
"Um," James said. "We're like, detectives."
"No we're not, ignore him," Lily said, turning back to the woman. "It was mostly luck, to be honest. Is there somewhere you'd like us to take you? We need to alert the DMLE, but they won't need to talk to you till tomorrow."
She struggled to her feet, her legs looking a bit stiff. Lily reached out a hand to steady her.
"My flat's just down there – what're your names?"
"I'm Lily," Lily told her, helping her turn around. "And that's James."
"Thank you so much," the woman said. "Really – I don't know what I would've done. He was going to kill me!"
She looked to be on the verge of tears, and Lily hastily wrapped her arms around her, hugging her tightly.
"You're alright now. Just – maybe no more blind dates for now, yeah?"
"Yeah," the woman agreed, letting Lily steer her toward the mouth of the alley. "And I'm Daphne, by the way. Daphne Bunting."
"Stay safe, Daphne," James told her. "And if you need our help again, Potter Investigations are open for business."
Daphne shot him a slightly confused glance, and Lily just rolled her eyes in his direction.
When Lily got back to the alley, it was swarming with Aurors and the pompous Ministry official at the entrance wouldn't let her past.
"You're not allowed in there ma'am, that's a crime scene," he held out a hand to block her.
"Yeah – it's my crime! And my husband's in there, let me past."
The wizard wrinkled his nose at her, but he dropped his hand and Lily slipped past.
James was off to one corner with Marlene McKinnon, who looked far too alert for someone who had been called out at eleven thirty at night.
"Where's the victim?" Marlene asked as Lily joined their little huddle. James handed her a mug of cocoa.
"Safe – she's in her flat, I'll give you the address. Is it really him, then? The Heartbreaker?"
James stifled a snicker and Marlene sighed.
"That nickname really is ridiculous – I don't know who came up with it. But yes, it's him. This would've been his fourth victim, he was alarmingly prolific."
Lily sipped her cocoa, humming.
"You're not really setting up as private investigators, are you?" Marlene asked, sounding somewhat anxious.
"What – no of course not. James, what did you tell her?"
"Nothing," James said innocently. "Nothing at all."
"Excellent." Marlene shoved her mass of tangled blonde hair out of her face. "You two are hazardous enough without going after serial killers every other Tuesday."
"Every third Tuesday," James interjected. "There aren't enough for fortnightly serial killer capturing."
"Oh, I hate you," Marlene informed him, before drifting off towards a clump of Aurors.
James grinned.
"We're not setting up at private investigators," Lily told him sternly, and he stole her cocoa, swearing when it burned his mouth.
"You're no fun at all."
A.N. Well that was an absolutely ridiculous plot. Oh well. It was kinda fun to write, and thank you for reading!