The woman's head fell to the floor with a plunk, having been severed from its shoulders at the neck. It rolled a few times across the floor and came to a stop at the feet of Howard Kruse, who turned a little green at the sight of it. He said, "Erm, Kenzie..."

"Oh! Sorry about that." Kenzie Birch flicked her wand, and the head flew back in her direction. She caught it like a Quaffle and held the head in place against the neck to which it had once been connected. When she let go, it stayed there, held together by some invisible force, the same force that was currently supporting the woman's dismembered arms and legs.

"Carol Blumstein, forty-three," said Tobias Klavan, the man with frizzled white hair standing just behind Kenzie's shoulder. "Heads up."

A pair of slick green gloves materialised around Tobias's hands. He rubbed them against each other, and purple sparks erupted from his fingertips, each one tracing a parabolic arc through the air before landing on the corpse's skin.

"What's happening, exactly?" Freda Messings asked from Howard's left, sporting an expression of confusion that he thought rather matched his own level of comprehension. Howard shook his head at his fellow Auror before attempting to focus his gaze upon the gloves and not the body just below them.

It hardly deserved to be called a body. Even beyond the detached appendages, the entire figure looked as if a giant had decided to use it as a chair. The back of the woman's head was sunken in; she had been stripped bare, and her ribs jutted out of her sides. Her chest was a bloody pit, littered with flecks of crushed bone.

She was the third that they had found of her kind, smushed to a pulp. The Prophet had dubbed the person behind these murders the Skull Smasher; Howard thought that such a melodramatic moniker hardly captured the monstrosity before him, currently being pelted by sparks flying from magical gloves.

"Chocolate?" Kenzie said, holding up a brown frog.

"No thanks," Howard said hurriedly, remembering the head that had been in the frog's place mere moments before. Freda accepted the frog graciously.

"So what have you got for us, Toby?" Freda asked, after she'd bitten a chunk out of the frog's side.

"Working on it," Tobias said.

"The others were just crushed. They weren't decapitated or dismembered," Howard recalled. "That's new, right? The killer's evolving."

"That's not good," Freda said with a scowl.

"But, hey, look at the bright side!" Kenzie said, pointing at the gap in the corpse's neck. "More stuff to look at, more clues to find! See how jagged these cuts are, curving this way and that? That's a clear sign that it wasn't made directly with magic."

"I see," Howard said, trying to look anywhere except where Kenzie was pointing. "It's like tearing a piece of parchment in half with your hands instead of using scissors—er, using a Severing Charm," he quickly corrected himself upon being met with blank stares.

"Precisely," Tobias said as he removed his gloves, looking satisfied. "There were no enchantments used to snap the victim's bones—not directly, at least."

"Not directly?" Freda repeated.

"We would not, for example, be able to detect if the killer had Transfigured his hands into metal claws with which he had then proceeded to pull off parts of the victim's body," Tobias explained. "I have merely ascertained that it was not the case that our killer sliced off the victim's head with a single curse. We should, in fact, be able to mend her body as we have done for the others, for her family's sake."

"Well, her family's going to have to wait a while," Freda said. "Keep at it, you two, and keep us posted on what you find. We'll check with Nellie and Tristan to see if they found anything on the scene."

As Freda turned to leave, an uneasy thought occurred to Howard. "Erm, Kenzie—was the victim decapitated before or after she was crushed?"

"Before," Kenzie answered immediately. "First it was the limbs, then the head, then the crushing. Decapitation was the cause of death."

Howard winced at the notion. "Right. Yeah—thanks, Kenzie, Tobias. Great work."

A single second.

One damn second was all it had taken for the body to have vanished under Scarlett's nose.

She'd heard them coming and had slipped within a side closet in the nick of time. Now she watched them through a crack between the closet doors.

They were a man and a woman. Both looked vaguely familiar - from previous cases, no doubt, Scarlett figured. The woman waved her wand and made the body disappear; fortunately, Scarlett had managed to snap a picture of it before the pair of them had arrived. Unfortunately, she hadn't managed to do much else.

The closet was too far away from where the two were standing for Scarlett to hear the words that were being exchanged between them, but she could read lips just well enough to tell that the woman was saying either "there has to" or "the last two." This little ambiguity was soon resolved, as the next word was unmistakably "victims."

So this was the work of a serial killer. To Scarlett, this was hardly a surprise. Judging by the state of the body, whoever had killed that poor woman must have been batshit crazy.

The closet was kind of chilly; Scarlett sat on the floor and held her knees against her chest to stay warm. As she did so, she glanced down at the photograph she'd taken—the centrepiece, a torso, covered in nothing but clumps of blood and a fine layer of dust; below it, two legs, lazily strewn in the shape of a cross, their knees bent awkwardly in opposite directions; on the right, both arms, each still connected to a sizeable chunk of shoulder; on the left, a head that could almost be screaming if it weren't quite, quite dead.

Ewww, thought Scarlett, wondering how she was supposed to satisfy her client's request for pictures. She'd probably have to just zoom in on the head and crop out everything else.

Still, there was something about the photograph that made it difficult for Scarlett to look away. It reminded her of another body, one that Scarlett had discovered some time ago…

The violet folders shuffled over one another, each one opening and closing in turn before filing itself away.

"That one."

The folders froze. Then, one by one, they slid themselves into the open filing cabinet until the single open folder remained.

On the left side of the folder were two photographs. The top one displayed a handsome young man, grinning and waving at the camera, his hair billowing in the wind.

The bottom photograph was much less handsome. It showed a man, lying on the ground, his body a mangled, bloody mess, his head and limbs severed from his torso. Howard would not have recognised him as the man in the photograph above if not for the captions below each picture.

"This was a case from five years ago," said Nellie Henderson, the woman who had just spoken. "Mark and I worked the case together."

Mark Peterson was an Auror who had retired a year prior; Howard had essentially taken his position in the Auror Office's Homicide Division. Although Howard had never met the man, from the way the others spoke of the former Auror, Howard could tell Peterson had been very good at his job.

"The victim's name was Eddie Elms, husband of Francine Elms. He cheated on her, so her brother Christoph Platt offed him."

"But it says you never made an arrest," Freda said, pointing at the dense font on the folder's right side.

"Oh, it was definitely the brother," Nellie said dismissively. "Still, he managed to get a bunch of his mates to swear he was with him on the night of the murder. We had no choice but to let him go."

"But," Freda said, still frowning, "how did you know for sure—"

"Muggle evidence," said a brusque male voice. Howard turned to find Tristan Griffith standing nearby, his hands stuffed inside the pockets of his robes, his expression grim. "Inadmissible. Kruse, what do you call those ribbons on wheels you write voices on—?"

"Erm—tape recorders?" Howard offered.

"Yes, we were sent one of those anonymously," Nellie explained, "with Platt's confession on it. It didn't sound like he was coerced, either, more like he'd let it slip. But since it was a Muggle device, the Wizengamot would never have allowed it in court."

"Think he had something to do with the case?" Tristan asked.

"Wouldn't be surprised," Nellie said. "He was vicious. Fully capable of dismembering someone with his bare hands, as you see before you."

"Sounds more like your everyday street thug than a psychotic serial killer, though," Freda pointed out.

"Yeah, but we might not be looking for a textbook serial killer," Howard said.

Tristan cocked his head to the side, studying Howard intently. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, highly disciplined serial killers don't usually change their killing methods completely, do they?" Howard said, thinking back to Kenzie's report. "I mean, they might add stuff here and there, but going from crushing to decapitation is a pretty big jump. It might have made sense if the body was dismembered afterwards to dispose of the body, but as the actual cause of death? It seems a little odd."

"But a bloke like Platt couldn't care less about the difference," Nellie said, nodding.

"Sounds like a lead," Tristan said.

"That's his address," said Nellie, pointing to a line on the folder. "I'll drop by his place and see how he's doing. Freda, put an Anti-Disapparition Jinx over the area as soon as we leave in case he starts running. Howard, will you come with me?"

Nellie had seniority and was thus the unofficial leader amongst the Aurors in the Homicide Division, which was why Howard immediately agreed. He took her arm and they Disapparated with a pop.

The yellowing wooden door gave a gut-wrenching creak as it swung open. A large, hulking man with a scraggly beard and wide, bloodshot eyes stood in the doorway, glaring down at his visitor. "Who are you?"

"Auror," said Scarlett, flashing a badge very quickly so that it became merely a golden blur.

Platt's expression soured. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up here after what you lot did to me."

"Oooh, scary," said Scarlett, widening her eyes in mock horror. "Give me a break, Platt, I deal with people like you on a daily basis. I'm not here about the Elms business, I've just got a few questions."

Platt threw Scarlett a venomous look and she tensed, ready to strike back, but he merely gave her a grunt of assent. "Then ask 'em."

"That's the spirit," Scarlett said. "Know this woman?"

She held up a photograph of Carol Blumstein, alive and beaming.

"No," said Platt curtly. He straightened and made to shut the door.

"How about now?" Scarlett held up the photograph she'd taken earlier that day, of Carol Blumstein, in pieces and no longer beaming.

"No," said Platt again. Scarlett noted that he had not even flinched. Then he said, "I know you, don't I?"

There were no outward signs of the immediate acceleration of Scarlett's heartbeat upon hearing those words. She merely raised an eyebrow and said, "Probably. Where were you last Thursday night?"

"What's it to you?" Platt said in a growl. "If you people think I had something to do with this, why haven't you already arrested me like last—what are you looking at?"

For Scarlett had suddenly widened her eyes at something in the distance—two figures, one of which Scarlett recognised as one of the Aurors she'd run into that morning.

"Backup," she said. "They ought to be able to loosen your tongue."

"Wha—where are you going?"

Scarlett had begun to back away from the door frame. Platt grabbed the front of her shirt, pulling at the part near her throat.

In one fluid movement, Scarlett hooked her arm around Platt's and twisted while striking the inside of his elbow with her free hand. Platt gasped and released his hold, while Scarlett bolted for dear life.

"I'll take care of him—get that woman!" a female voice yelled from behind her. Scarlett cast a quick glance behind her and sized up her pursuer. He had a young, fresh look about him, and his running posture was poor; he'd be easy to outpace. Still, she knew better than to underestimate him.

A rush of wind flew past her head and a flash of red light immediately succeeded it, narrowly missing her left ear. Close call, she thought, and didn't leave the next one to chance; she leapt to the side as another gust of air swept by, crushing leaves and twigs beneath her feet.

Platt's house was situated on the outskirts of a dense forest, and Howard knew that the boundaries of Freda's jinx ended on the opposite side of the woods. If he could reach that edge with the young woman still within his range of sight, Howard figured, he might be able to Apparate to her side before she realised the jinx was no longer in effect. It was slightly disconcerting, however, that the woman had not even attempted to Disapparate. Was she privy to insider information of the Auror Office?

It wouldn't surprise him. She dodged each Stunning Spell Howard sent after her with outstanding agility without breaking a step; that took training.

It also meant that Howard needed a new strategy. If he couldn't manage to hit her, maybe he could hit a somewhat more stationary target.

He took aim, muttered Diffindo, and slashed his wand through the air.

Scarlett doubted she could sustain this for long.

She couldn't run forever. Sure, the Auror couldn't either, but he had partners, backup he could call upon. Scarlett only had herself.

She slid neatly to the side as another spell whizzed past her.

Maybe he would give up. Maybe she could convince him that she didn't know anything, that she was just an innocent, curious, easily frightened girl who had lost her way. Who just happens to be able to dodge the spells of a trained professional. That'll go over well.

No, she couldn't afford to take that risk. So for now, all she could do was keep on running.

Another flash of light shot past her, missing her by a couple of feet. She smiled, figuring that the gap between them was widening.

Then she saw her mistake.

The streak of light hit the tree and swept across it like a sword, slicing open its trunk. For a moment the tree swayed in the air as if uncertain of how to react to this sudden assault; then it fell to the side, threatening to land directly across Scarlett's path.

At first she thought she'd be able to make it beneath the tree before it landed, so she kept running in the same direction, only faster. Then, as she spotted a squirrel scuttling from beneath the trunk, she slowed for a brief second before she resolved to make the leap.

Planting the palm of her hand firmly upon the top of the fallen trunk, she swung up her legs and vaulted over the tree, landing in a crackle as her boots crushed the scattered leaves to pieces. Then she continued to run without breaking a step.

Another jet of light shot through the air and a second tree fell into her path, this one much more massive than the first. Scarlett had no choice but to change her direction, running alongside the newly descended trunk instead. As she did so, she caught another glimpse of the face of her pursuer: glistening with sweat but eyes hard set in determination. She wasn't losing him any time soon.

Another spell flew past, hitting a tree that was rather shorter and smaller in girth. Piece of cake, she thought as she put her hand on the bark and hoisted herself up into the air.

It was then that the tree trunk erupted into flames.

Pain shot through her hand and up her arm as the burning fire licked the tips of her fingers. On reflex, her hand flew up, leaving her soaring in midair for a second before she fell to the ground, landing on the side of her foot at an awkward angle.

Well, fuck.

Howard strolled over to the burning wood, dousing the flames with a flick of his wand, pleased that he had thought of the idea to start those flames in the first place.

He stopped at the trunk. Keeping his wand at the ready, he bent over cautiously to get a good look at the woman who had fallen behind it.

He didn't get one.

Scarlett squeezed the nozzle on her can of pepper spray, unleashing its wrath directly into the Auror's face.

He let out a pained yelp and leapt back, crouching over and clutching his face as his eyes watered.

He stood there like that for a few seconds before raising his wand, as if suddenly remembering he was still holding it. Scarlett instinctively ducked, but he merely put the tip to his cheek and muttered something. Immediately, his face dried.

Immediately, Scarlett sprayed him again.

This time he collapsed to the ground, on the other side of the trunk. Wincing, he repeated his earlier spell before quickly muttering something that sounded a lot like "potato."

Apparently "potato" meant "screen" since a big blue circular screen erupted out of the wand's tip, filling the space between them. Scarlett's gut told her not to try spraying him again.

"You're a Muggle," he said, gaping at her like she was a talking monkey.

"You're just getting that now?" Scarlett said.

"Yet you know about...us," he said, looking positively baffled.

Scarlett stayed silent, deciding it best to wait out what appeared to be a shock-induced episode of stating the obvious.

"Unless you're a Squib?"

"A what?"

"Never mind," he said. Scarlett noticed he hadn't attempted to cast any more spells at her. Of course, maybe he knew she wasn't going anywhere, but that seemed overly foolhardy. She realised that he must not be able to cast anything at her with that big screen in the way.

"How much do you know?" he asked.

Scarlett merely glared at him. Her hand still stung, after all, and she'd definitely sprained her ankle.

"Look, I know you can't run anymore, or you'd be long gone," he said.

"Well, I know that you can't attack me without getting rid of this blue thing," Scarlett said, "and I know that you know that I'd spray you in the face again the moment you shut it down."

"You'd run out eventually."

"Try me."

The young man looked as if he really did not want to try her. "I guess we're at an impasse."

"Matter of opinion. Do you know what a gun is?" Scarlett pulled out her pistol and gripped it tightly in her hand.

The young man's eyes widened a little in surprise, but he looked otherwise unfazed. "As a matter of fact, I do. Are those legal now?"

"Then you know what it can do," Scarlett said, ignoring his question. "Most of your kind just look confused when I pull this out."

"The bullets will bounce right back to you."

"But I'm faster than you," Scarlett said, "and that big blue plate of yours can only cover so much."

The man seemed to consider this. "Erm, yeah, maybe. But you're bluffing. You wouldn't actually shoot me."

"And why not?"

"Because you first asked me whether I knew what a gun was. You don't need to know that to shoot me, but a bluff only works if I recognise what's at stake."

"You willing to bet your life on that?"

"I've seen worse odds."

"Worse than a Muggle girl with a can of pepper spray? I can't even begin to imagine."

Scarlett felt a rush of satisfaction at the sheepish expression that appeared upon the Auror's face. "Erm, well," he said. "I mean, look, I don't want to hurt you. I'm like a police officer, you know, I just want to ask you some questions."

"And then you're gonna do some hocus-pocus on me and make me forget everything I've seen," Scarlett said, still keeping both the gun and the spray can pointed at the man's head. "I know how these things work."

"You seem to know rather a lot," he remarked. "Can you tell me what you were doing with Platt?"

"Same as you," Scarlett said, seeing no reason to conceal it from the man any further, not while she was in this incapacitated state. "I'm investigating the Blumstein murder. I'm a private detective. That's like a—"

"I know what a private detective is," the man assured her.

"Then you know we both want the same thing."

The man appeared to contemplate the incongruity between the words she had said and the gun she was holding. Then—"What do you know about the Blumstein case?"

Scarlett said nothing, staring pointedly at the man's wand.

"Okay, look, I'm dropping my wand on three," the man said. "The shield's going to fall away. You drop the gun and the canister, and then we'll talk. Deal?"

Scarlett bit her lip. "Let me see your badge."

"What?"

"Your Auror badge."

The man nodded and tucked his hand into the folds of his robes before pulling out a shiny silver badge. Though she doubted she'd be able to detect a fake, since a fake was all she had to base her judgment off of, she made a show of squinting at it for his benefit. "Okay," she said finally.

"One," he said, tucking the badge back inside his robes, "Two. Three."

The man dropped his wand to the ground. The blue screen vanished before her. For a split second Scarlett considered spraying him again, but she decided it would only make things worse. She promptly opened her hands and emptied them, wincing as the edge of her canister collided painfully with her kneecap.

"Can you walk?" the man asked, offering his hand.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Scarlett retorted, crossing her arms. Frankly, she wasn't entirely sure how serious the throbbing in her ankle was.

"All right," the Auror said, taking a seat on the side of the tree trunk. "I'm Kruse, by the way. Howard Kruse."

"Scarlett Brewster," she said, her eyes still narrowed at Howard. "Pleasure."

"So what do you know about Carol Blumstein?" he asked.

"People—Muggles, as you call them—come to me when they're concerned about their witch or wizard relatives," Scarlett explained. "Blumstein's sister hired me to find her. I thought she was being paranoid at first, but I managed to track her down before you lot found her."

"You've spoken to her sister?" Howard asked. "Do you think she knows anything that could help us?"

"Can't say, can I, if I don't know what you all know already?" Scarlett pointed out, an idea suddenly occurring to her. "What say we do a little exchange of information? You can introduce me to all your colleagues and I'll tell you what I know."

Howard frowned. "I can't exactly just share all the secrets of the wizarding world with you on demand, can I?"

"Oh, please," Scarlett said, rolling her eyes. "I know that you work for the Auror Office in your little Ministry of Magic, which means your job is to round up magical psychos. I know that your boss is a celebrity and your Minister once worked undercover for one of ours. I know that you all somehow went to the same secondary school in Scotland where you learn spell-casting but also botany and chemistry and astronomy for God knows why. I know you had a massive war in the late nineties that downed the Brockdale Bridge and caused all that mist, and I know all this despite all the efforts of your memory-modifiers."

For a while Howard simply stared. Then he shook his head. "You know too much."

"Which means you wouldn't dare let me out of your sight," Scarlett said, beaming at him. "Look, I'm putting my trust in you now, aren't I? The least you could do is trust me. Here, I'll even let you fix my ankle."

It was a risk, but Scarlett thought that she rather preferred it to the prospect of hobbling back home or trying to explain what had happened to a doctor. Howard raised his eyebrows before slowly extending his arm to pick up his wand, all the while keeping his eyes trained on Scarlett. Then he tapped Scarlett's ankle twice in quick succession, and immediately the pain was relieved.

He proceeded to swipe his wand over both the gun and the canister, both of which vanished from sight.

"Hey!" Scarlett said, leaping up to her feet.

"Don't worry, I'll give them back," Howard said. "Hold out your hand, won't you?"

"Why?"

"Because you burned it."

"You burned it."

"Fair enough. All the more reason I should fix it for you."

Scarlett grudgingly held out her burned hand and let Howard see to it as well.

"You understand," Howard said, "that if I take you to the Office, I can't guarantee that you'll come out with your memory still intact."

Scarlett nodded. It'd be worth the risk.

"All right, then. Take my arm," Howard said, "and brace yourself. It'll be a hell of a ride."

Mark Peterson had always toyed with the idea of becoming a professor. He fully believed in the potential of young minds, untethered by social obligations. An excellent teacher had the potential to make a significant difference in the life of a child.

Unfortunately, teachers of such caliber tended to be difficult to come by. Hogwarts professors had always had their ups and downs. Mark himself had been amongst the many students who had been forced to suffer through half a dozen different Defence Against the Dark Arts professors in the course of a single Hogwarts education. Most of Mark's own Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, in his opinion, had been insufferable hacks. He'd hoped, now that the school could manage to keep a single professor in the subject, that the quality of the classes would improve. Now was his opportunity to make sure of that fact.

Over the summer, a year after the end of his career as an Auror, Mark had gotten in touch with the headmistress—an old friend of his—and offered up his services. The headmistress, having recently lost her previous Defence Against the Dark Arts professor—a bookish young man by the name of Jacob Brody—to a tragic Fiendfyre accident, had been only too happy to give Mark the job.

Thus, on the thirty-first of August, Mark was now Professor Peterson, sitting snugly within the walls of Hogwarts in his homely office, perusing the Daily Prophet to keep himself updated on the endeavours of his former colleagues. NEW SKULL SMASHER VICTIM FOUND! ANOTHER SLAUGHTERED BY VICIOUS SERIAL KILLER!

Peterson scoffed at the Prophet's unseemly sobriquet for this unknown killer as he gazed out the window over the top of his paper. At the sight of the Hogwarts lake, his mind turned to other matters. Tomorrow the students would be coming in. There was still some business he ought to attend to before then.

Mark rose from his chair and strolled across the office to the wardrobe standing in the corner. He took ahold of the handle of its door and swiftly pulled it open.

Lying at the bottom of the wardrobe, right where Mark had left it, was a body charred to a crisp. Jacob Brody's own mother would not have recognised him.

Stroking his chin in thought, Mark crouched down beside the late Professor Brody and gazed at his corpse. Though its features had been burned into an uneven, blackened surface, Professor Brody's face seemed still to be pleading with him, with its empty eye sockets and its jaw shaped into a scream.

"Well," said Professor Peterson, "maybe you could've been a better teacher."