The morning was calm. A light breeze was gently rustling through the short grass on the small hill, a rabbit scampered out of the ring of bushes that surrounded it. The morning sun peeked over the hill, illuminating the cottage that stood eerily silent atop. The front door of the cottage was hanging off its hinges and several of the downstairs windows had been smashed from the inside, shards of glass scattered across the top of the hill.

A loud crack tore through the silence and a tall man appeared at the bottom of the hill, his long brown coat hanging just below his knees, his wand held tightly in his hand, ready for action. The man stared gravely up at the cottage with an intense look of sadness filling his bright blue eyes, his jet-black hair an untamed mess, sticking up in random places as though he had no time to fix it. The man waited in silence for a few moments before a second loud crack behind him broke the silence.

'You're late, Alexander,' He said without looking around.

'Maybe it is that you are early, Apollo,' Alexander replied.

Apollo put his wand back into his pocket and span around to greet his friend with a handshake. Alexander was slightly shorter than Apollo, his long blond hair falling just past his shoulders, a thin scar ran from just under his brown eyes to just above his lips. Alexander glanced darkly towards the top of the hill.

'What do you know?' he asked.

'Just that someone is dead.'

The two men turned around and in unison, began to walk towards the gate at the bottom of the hill.

Apollo and Alexander had been the best of friends since the first day they had met, ten years ago on the Hogwarts Express. They had not expected to be sorted into the same house but were pleasantly surprised when Apollo became the first Muggle-born Slytherin in over 50 years. The two had been inseparable during their time at Hogwarts and at the age of nineteen, finished their Auror training on the same day.

The two Aurors slowly climbed the side of the hill in silence, the weathered stone steps crumbling slightly beneath their feet with every step. As they reached the final few steps an anxious looking, short, plump man dressed fully in dark red robes stepped out through the door, dabbing nervously at the sweat around his thinning grey hair with a yellow handkerchief. As soon as he noticed Apollo and Alexander he waved them over frantically.

'North, Dolohov, I was told you two would be coming,' the man said.

'Well we got here as quick as we could,' Apollo replied, flashing him a quick grin. 'And you are?'

'Eric Fawley, Magical Law Enforcement Squad,' he answered, shaking hands with both Apollo and Alexander politely. 'I have heard plenty about the two of you, naturally, Mr. Lupin speaks highly of you both.'

Alexander sighed loudly. 'Can we get on with this?' he said impatiently. 'We don't have the time for introductions.'

'Of course, go on through.' Fawley replied, looking insulted. 'But I must warn you, in 30 of working this job I have never seen anything like this. It is disgusting, the man was a war hero.'

'Thank you.'

Apollo started towards the door, wandering what he would find inside.

As soon as he stepped into the through the door into the narrow hallway Apollo saw the scars of a brutal fight across the face of the room. The wallpaper was ripped in several places. A massive hole had been blasted in the wall, with dust and debris covering the floor of the hallway. A round-faced young man and his blond wife, looking not much older than Apollo, smiled up at him from the smashed picture on the floor. Apollo cautiously pushed the living room door and it quietly creaked in protest as it opened.

As he entered the room, Apollo was shocked by the devastation he saw. The carpet in one corner of the small living room was still smouldering, as if someone had only just put the fire out. What had once been a wooden table was spread across the room in pieces not much bigger than a wand. The lower half of a sole armchair stood lonely next to the shattered window, the rest of it nowhere to be seen. Blood was splattered across three of the four walls. The body of a thin, elderly man in a suit was lying in the centre of the room, his suit ripped in four different places, each revealing a horrifyingly deep laceration to his chest and stomach. Apollo looked into the lifeless blue eyes and immediately recognised the victim. He was much older now, his hair had become grey years earlier, the face was thinner and weathered with age, but it was unmistakably the round-faced man from the picture in the hallway. Neville Longbottom had been murdered.