It was raining as Harry walked up the bleak concrete steps to the apartment building. It was always raining in London these days. He tipped his bowler back to try and shift some of the water that had settled in the rim, but only succeeded in spreading a chill down the back of his neck. He shuddered and pulled his overcoat in closer around him.

There was a bored looking woman stood at the door to the block, dressed in a tartan flannel shirt and faded black jeans. The chunky headphones over her ears suggested disgruntled youth stepping out for a cheeky fag, but the trained professional would note the roving eyes and the occasional twitch of the nose as she tried to stay focused. The woman jumped to attention when she saw Harry approach.

"D-director P-p-potter, we weren't expecting to see you..." she stammered out, whilst Harry waved her off with gloved hand.

"Not to worry, it's not an inspection," he said, as brightly as he could manage. "I'm a friend of the family's. I know the boy's father,"

"Ah," the young auror said awkwardly. "I-I'm sorry for your l-l-loss, sir,"

"Don't be, can't say I particularly remember him," Harry said, stepping into the building and suppressing another shudder that ran slightly deeper. There was blood on the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, a smeared stain that suggested something had been dragged. He took a second to drain his hat and de-fog his glasses, before unbuttoning his coat so that he could put his now ungloved hands in his suit pocket. He looked at the young auror.

"A-a-are you undercover sir?" Doshi asked, gesturing at Harry's outfit. He shrugged and gave her a weak smile.

"I travelled through muggle London," he said. "I like to blend in,"

Harry paused for a second and looked up the staircase into the darkness of the concrete tower.

"Uhm..." he said, casting into the dark recesses of his mind for her name. "Doshi, is it?"

A faint nod from the young woman.

"Is it bad?" he asked faintly. She shrugged, but her face paled a little.

"It's not pretty," Doshi said, her voice firmer now. "But I've seen worse,"

"Mmm," Harry said lightly, narrowing his eyes as he looked up the stairs. "Third floor, yes?"

"Yes, sir," Doshi said. "Are aurors Hale and Kelley expecting you sir?"

"Oh, I doubt it," Harry said mildly. "Keep up the look out,"

He turned and gave the young auror a smile that seemed to take twenty years off him, his emerald eyes flashing, and Doshi found herself picturing the man he was shown in the history books at Hogwarts – young and full of vigour.

"Will do sir," she said.

The smile had already faded from Harry's face as he mounted the stairs, knees complaining a little at the forced workout when they'd rather be tucked under a desk. His coat beat out a steady drip on the concrete as he climbed, a beat for every step.

The building had been evacuated by the auror department as soon as the murder was reported, he knew that much. A suspected gas leak, apparently, though it had been the neighbours who had reported the funny smell and the loud noises coming from apartment number 32. That much he had read before he left the office.

He reached the third floor without wheezing, which was nice, though his calves burned a little more than they perhaps should have done. Harry made an effort to stay in shape, but three decades of fighting the dark arts would take their toll on any man. The door to apartment 32 was open, but the director knew that he would be unable to cross the threshold without one of the auror badges that sat on his belt.

Harry's first impression of apartment 32 was that it had been a dingy place to live even before a young man had been brutally murdered there. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling and the yellowed wallpaper was peeling away from the damp, in places, to meet the cigarette burns on the carpet. A stack of takeaway boxes sat on the surface of the kitchenette.

His second impression was of blood. Harry had been an auror for coming on twenty-three years now, and he knew exactly how much blood the human body held. Exactly how much. And it still surprised him. Young Jonathan Cassidy had all of his blood on display. It splashed the walls, a vivid scarlet, it soaked the carpet, a deep maroon, and it adorned his corpse, a crusty black.

His eyes were staring wide, glassy, at the open door. His throat was cut so violently that it almost looked as if someone had tried to hack it off. He had been opened up, chest to belly, and his organs sat in his lap. Hale was knelt down next to him, examining, her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail and her pale, thin wand tracing faint nonsense patterns under his eyes.

"Do you think it was poison?" Harry said from the door, then felt a sudden urge to vomit. He clamped his jaw shut and ground his teeth a little until the sensation passed and his stomach settled.

Stupid, he told himself, seen worse than that before. Dreamed worse. Picked up the little pieces of worse than that before now...

He stopped his train of thought before it took him somewhere unpleasant. Hale looked up from Cassidy's body and nodded a greeting.

"Director," she said. "Wasn't expecting you down here,"

"I decided to stop by," Harry said. "I know the boy's father from a few Ministry events. And these muggleborn killings...they're starting to add up. Where's Kelley?"

"Stepped out onto the balcony for a cigarette," Hale said, then gestured vaguely at him with her wand. "You're dripping on my crime scene,"

Harry looked down at the puddle that had quickly formed underneath him and sighed. He gave his wand the slightest of flicks and his clothes were instantly warm and dry, though the puddle remained, and he'd get wet again as soon as he left the building.

"Sorry," he said. "What have you got?"

Hale picked up a notepad from it's resting place on a threadbare sofa and flicked through to the front, her tongue between her teeth.

"Jonathan Cassidy, seventeen, muggleborn, a student of Ravenclaw house at Hogwarts. Ran away from school three weeks ago. We were unable to use the Trace to pick him up because, obviously, he recently turned of age. Father is Samuel Cassidy, notable muggle rights activist and potions magnate. A pal of your father-in-law I think, sir? We've been on the look out for the kid for a while, no idea how long he's been here. There's a trunk in the bedroom, but we've been unable to get a look at it. It's got some bastard riddle lock on it that neither of us could get a look at. Time of death is somewhere in the last day. I'd guess at night, because the lights were still on when we broke the door down. Death is pretty straight forward to me. Someone cut him up with dark magic and left a mess. Either said someone was out of their mind, or they're proving a point,"

"So you think this fits the pattern of the other killings then?" Harry said. Hale shrugged mournfully and looked at the bloody wall behind the body.

"Other than it being a runaway student?" she said. "Yes. The message is here, same as in the other cases,"

Hale waved her wand and letters flashed into relief in the blood, stark and bold like they'd been carved into the poor quality concrete. The door to the balcony opened and Kelley stepped in, his hair a shaggy mess and his face half-shaved.

"Enemies of the heir beware," he said in his Irish lilt. "Doesn't half give you the creeps, does it boss?"

Harry's lips were moving soundlessly. He'd seen it before, at the other crime scenes, but it was just as shocking each time. And each time it carried him back, twenty-eight years ago, to a shrill, high voice shouting "You'll be next mudbloods!".

He shuddered. The door to the balcony was letting the cold air in again. He looked over at the two aurors, who were watching him with interest. Hale had been a year behind him at school, and he knew that she could remember those words scrawled outside the girl's toilets in blood.

"Have you been up to the school to interview his classmates? His teachers?" Harry asked, thrusting his hands deeper into his suit pocket.

"I was about to head off and do that just now sir. Thought I might take Doshi with me, give her some canvassing experience. Got pretty much all we can use from here, haven't we?" Kelley said, sharing a glance with Hale. Harry knew he was advocating detective-work 101, but a part of him was still used to the bad old days of the auror department. Find a perp, find the evidence to match. Have wand, will travel.

"Yeah, you head off now," Hale said. "Before the stink of booze gets engrained in my robes. I'll take the trunk back, sort the body out, then I'll let the muggles back in. They were about ready to pitch a fit,"

"Right you are," Kelley said, inclining his unruly head as he walked out the door. "Ma'am, boss,"

There was silence in the apartment for a few seconds before they could hear the Irishman's rich booming voice from below, and the two figures relaxed a little. The murder scene seemed to create tension like static.

"Off the record," Harry said. "What do you think?"

"Off the record?" Hale asked. Harry nodded. "Off the record you shouldn't come down here. It gives more weight to the story, and it's more we have to cover up,"

"We're not covering up anything-" Harry started, but was cut off.

"With all due respect Director, that's bollocks," the auror said. "This is the third. It's officially a pattern now, and somehow you've managed to keep it out of the Prophet. I don't know how you do it,"

"Friends in high places," Harry said quietly. Hale snorted.

"You being here lends more weight to it," she said again. "And we both know what this is. It could be a single deranged psychopath, but it's not. It's a group of determined individuals trying to make a point. And if we keep covering it up, they're going to try and make a bigger statement. It's only a matter of time,"

Which is why I need to stop them, Harry thought.

"Which is why you need to stop them," Harry said. "Before they do,"

"That's very easy to say," Hale said. "But there's no end of suspects. The waters are getting murkier around about now. These murders. The whole 'Renaissance Club', and Mr Selwyn's speech in front of the Wizengamot. And that damned book's come out. It's all heading towards a fever pitch, Harry, and there's not much we can do about it. Shacklebolt's over-reached, and letting that terrier Granger loose on Magical Law Enforcement-"

"Enough," Harry said firmly, real anger flashing into his eyes for the briefest of seconds. Hale's blonde eyebrows jumped up and Harry sighed, letting his temper simmer back down again into the depths.

"Enough," he said, more quietly, tired now. "I get it. Do what you can for the case, but we need to take steps to be more pro-active. I want all high profile muggleborns and muggle rights activists under observation. The most important get bodyguards. If this is a group, then they'll want to be high profile,"

"And what about this mess?" Hale asked, gesturing at the apartment. "How are we meant to keep this quiet? He was a kid for Merlin's sake, at Hogwarts. Parents are going to go ballistic,"

"It's fine," Harry said. "I'll sort it. I'm heading down to the Prophet now,"

"Good," Hale said, her mouth a firm line. "Thankyou for your visit, Director,"

Harry nodded. "Always a pleasure Auror,"

The walk out of the apartment was eerier, more silent now except for the slightly irregular sound of his step on the stairs. His mind was ablur, abuzz. Images crept through his head likes the flies crawling on the bloated corpse they had found under Tower Bridge, harrying him for a second and then flying away. Or, more aptly, like the body that had been sent to the Auror Department piece by piece. Bloody lumps dumped on the desk of his mind, staining it.

A fever pitch, Hale had said, and Harry thought it most apt. Something was sick, rotten, and it was making Magical Britain sweat and vomit. People were scared, muggleborns especially. It was like some black spectre had risen up again, to wage war against the land. But there was nothing there. Not any more. London was bleaker than it had been since the fall of Voldemort, and people didn't know why. But Harry did.

He had to talk to Selwyn. And then to Hermione.

It was still raining outside.