Important Stuff:
Public figures, actual places, and current events are used fictitiously, and should be understood as parody. None of the characters in this story are, or are meant to represent, real individuals, living or dead.
This story contains references to several Maškēkowak and Assin'skowitiniwak cultural narratives. As a reader, you should understand that I will be incorporating them fictionally into the Potterverse; I hope to do this with sensitivity and compassion. To learn legitimate cultural contexts, I highly suggest the collected oral works of Louis Bird, archived at [ourvoices .ca], as well as several written collections and academic works, which I intend to list after the epilogue.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Zigadenus
Part I
Ms. H. Granger-Weasley awkwardly swayed on one foot as she worked the buckle of her shoe. Her handbag slipped down to her elbow – again – and finally, with a sigh, she dropped the bag, dropped the papers, dropped the cloak, and wrenched off the shoes. A broken fingernail snagged in her nylons - after the kind of day she'd been having, this wasn't even worth cursing about. Hell, she was 36 years old: her boobs only looked perky because she'd discovered the magic of underwires; two pregnancies had left her with a vivid collection of stretch marks; and too many late nights working the files overtime had seen her foraging for dinner in the Ministry cafeteria to the detriment of more than one diet. In short, no one was going to look twice at the run up her left leg, because no one was going to look twice, period.
"Hello, bonjour."
"Hello," she responded. They weren't actually greeting her – it was the oblique Canadian way of checking to see which language to use.
"Any jewellery, coins or keys? Liquids, gels or aerosols? Alright, I need to see your Portkey Authority ticket – alright, London… Heathrow, that's in order. If you'll pass me your wand and step up for screening, please."
She planted her feet the prescribed distance, and extended her arms. The security spell tickled across her body like a mild electric shock; she scratched at her arms to dispel the sensation before collecting her belongings from the conveyor.
"Hello, bonjour. Vous avez quelque chose métallique dans vos poches? Avez-vous des liquides, gels ou aérosols? D'accord, je dois voir votre billet de l'Autorité Internationale de Portkey, s'il vous plait…" The bored drone of the security witch faded behind her, lost beneath a crackling loudspeaker announcement insisting that all clients taking a 13:15-13:30 portkey to Amsterdam check in with the gate attendant.
She hoisted her handbag back up her shoulder, and set off down the curving, sterile white corridor in search of the London departures gate. Pearson International was too bloody bright for how exhausted she was; the afternoon sun drenched in through the high windows, bouncing against the blazing white ceiling and walls. Even though the seats at the gates didn't have armrests to obstruct attempts to stretch out, you simply couldn't nap in a place like this. She snagged an abandoned copy of the morning's Toronto Star and settled onto one of the lumpy, barely-padded gray benches. Two more hours.
Two more hours waiting for the portkey, a quick apparition, and then she would finally be home; perhaps Ron had even cooked. She didn't hold out a lot of hope there, he'd not been good about it since the kids had gone back to Hogwarts. Still, you never knew. And she supposed it probably was her turn – she likely had several full years' worth of 'her turns' to account for.
She dug her mobile out of her handbag, and keyed in the number for the landline at the house. Mobile service was too sketchy to be worthwhile in Ottery St. Catchpole, the residue of centuries of magic clung to the area like a resistant smog, unfailingly dulling the cutting edge of Muggle technology. Ron picked up on the third ring. "Hey, love, done playing nice with the lumberjacks?"
"For now. I'll tell you all about it when I get home." She wouldn't. Ron didn't care much, and she'd given up trying to interest him. "How have things been there? Did you and George straighten out that mess with the distributor in Lyons?"
She folded open the paper, as Ron updated her with the latest managerial travails. She'd read a scathing editorial indictment of the incumbent government's dog-whistle electoral campaign by the time Ron had run down on the inefficiency of the French franchises of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. He'd changed tack to the latest from Charlie, when a photo halfway down the front page caught her eye.
Something was oddly familiar about the man's bulging eyes, and wide, drooping jowls. It took her a moment, but "Umbridge!"
"—what? What's she got to do with – Hermione?"
"I'm sorry Ron, I just glanced at the paper, and there's a fellow here who could be Umbridge's long-lost brother. Sorry, it just caught my eye, you were saying about Charlie?"
"Just that he won't be coming in until Friday morning at the earliest. On account of the hatching cycle being off."
"Well, that's alright then, it'll give us a few more days to get the house in order."
"Give who a few more days?" he teased.
"And I love you dearly, you are the most darling-est man I've ever been married to." She kissed at the phone, and his laughter carried across the Atlantic, tinny but genuine. She smiled fondly, and straightened the paper as he began to regale her with another edition of what she'd mentally christened Rose's Gossip Sheet. The caption beneath the toad-faced politician identified him as Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra – unlikely a relation, despite the uncanny resemblance.
She made an encouraging sound as Ron paused, and flipped to the next page of the paper. Idle No More: Indigenous Protestors March on Parliament Hill. Rose's letter was onto the latest Slytherin vs. Gryffindor Quidditch match. She could get through one of Rose's magnum opuses in about 3 minutes – the trick was to skim for the verbs. Ron, bless him, actually read the things. She tuned out, and scanned the article. It was some sort of grassroots movement, indigenous people and their allies protesting everything from a lack of clean drinking water to pipeline development, and the need to investigate missing and murdered women. "That's marvellous, Ron, she certainly does take after you."
It was the truth, both of them did. She didn't suppose that actually absolved her of being a rotten parent. But on the other hand, she didn't suppose they really cared; Grandma Molly baked their birthday cakes – her own early attempts having not been up to the Weasley Standard, apparently – and they had invariably preferred their father or Uncle George on 'Take Your Child to Work' days at their Muggle primary. Dad and Uncle Harry told better bedtime stories, and they'd rather spend an afternoon with Aunt Ginny and her Quidditch-mad brood than alone-time with Mum. Besides, Mum was always busy with work, even when she was home. She didn't quite think they knew yet that Mum was happier working than ineffectively parenting the alien little creatures who had gestated in her uterus for nine months. They didn't run on logic, and showed no signs of developing the potential – it was probably better results all around if other feelings-first thinkers were the ones helping them shamble towards adulthood.
It had stung a little, though, when they'd given her a "World's Worst Mum" coffee mug.
She'd laughed, and accorded it a place of honour on the desk in her study, but the withered part of her that had been so excited about motherhood did still twinge occasionally with remembered hurt. She quietly rearranged the paper so that she could read the lower half of the article.
There was a photograph, a sea of signs declaiming injustice in vivid reds, yellow, fluorescent green. It was the eyes that snagged her, reeled her into their dark depths. The weathered tan, the plaid shirt, the twin braids beginning to show strands of gray, the hooked nose that dominated his features – she'd have looked past, just another nameless body in the throng.
But there was no mistaking those eyes.
The phone slipped from fingers gone suddenly numb, clattering to the floor. She stared down at it blankly for a moment, until the thin tendril of Ron's alarmed cries called her back.
"I'm fine, everything's fine. I just startled, dropped the phone." She stared again at the photograph, tallying the details, challenging herself to find the lie.
Because those eyes had dimmed and died on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack.
"It was another call coming through, made me jump, is all. I should take it, though, can I call you back?"
She carefully placed her hands across the image, covered away the extraneous details, so that only the sharp wedge of his face was visible between her fingers.
A little worse for wear, a little older, but there he was. Severus Snape.
She brushed ineffectively at her suit jacket, trying to dislodge some of the ash from the fireplace. For the main connection between the Pearson International's Portkey Authority office and the federal Office of Magical Affairs, the Floo didn't seem to get much use. Certainly, the Canadian equivalent of the Ministry of Magic was quieter than its British counterpart; it almost seemed understaffed, but then there were so many fewer wizards here.
It was a shame she hadn't brought more suits; the Office turned out to be in the same building as a variety of Muggle departments. If she were here many days, she'd have to send her wardrobe down for dry-cleaning. She'd packed for a three-day conference, and hadn't quite believed the summit coordinators' hearty insistence that they'd be knocking flat up against Muggles at every turn. She was one of the lucky ones, she'd stayed savvy to the Muggle world and could actually still dress the part. When she wasn't run out of clothes, anyhow.
Perhaps she could get to the bottom of this quickly – it was what she'd told Ron, after all. Just a few days, someone here with the Canadian ministry wanted to discuss an important case, she was just staying on to sort it out on the ground, instead of having to Portkey back in a month's time, after it had been bollocks'd to hell by trying to coordinate across the pond.
And it wasn't quite lying, was it? She was, in point of fact, certain they would be discussing an important case in fairly short order. She extracted the cropped article, safely ensconced in its new manila case folder, snapped it briskly against her thigh, and nodded at the nervous-looking intern who essayed her an inquiring smile. "I'm Ms. Granger-Weasley, Undersecretary, Magical Law Enforcement in the British Ministry. I'm meeting with Mr. Singh." The intern mumbled into the desk line, smiled again, and gestured her down a hallway of office doors. Efficient. She liked that; it boded well.
Rajit Singh was spare, nattily suited, and meticulously groomed. His voice was soft, and his diction gently lilted but otherwise nearly impeccable. She'd admired his presentation at the summit, and found him now to be refreshingly direct, without lacking in hospitality. He'd gestured her into a chair, served her coffee, and immediately got down to brass tacks: "And this man, he is someone whose whereabouts the British Ministry of Magic is concerned with?"
"Yes. He's wanted for questioning in an internal matter; it's really a fluke that I happened to see his photograph." Little white lies.
"And it is a matter of urgency?"
"Well, only inasmuch as I do have several active portfolios in London…"
"Because I am thinking that to follow our Office's privacy protocol, that is to say, to pinpoint his magical signature as I demonstrated in my presentation, well that would require a writ from the Wands Registry at least. Because we can do these things, we have an ethical obligation not to do them, do you understand?"
Well, she hadn't really thought it would be easy. She'd hoped, but she'd learned not to pin many hopes on the efficiency of bureaucracy, even one as small and orderly as the Canadian Office of Magical Affairs. Still, they could have provided a neat solution: their relatively sparse wizarding population was both more highly integrated into Muggle Society, and less-given to casual use of magic; the Canadians had capitalized on the hitherto unrealized potential for tracking and surveiling an individual using the signature of their spells, literally observing their activities via the lingering residue of their magic.
"But I am also thinking, you see, that if time is of essence, there is another way you can do this."
"Go on."
"Well, unless I am mistaken, you are lucky, because this photographer, this O. Cheung? This will be Olivia Cheung, she is a, how do you call them? A Squib. She also does magical photographs, it is just a potion, you see, and I am thinking she has the negative for this photograph, and she could develop it for you."
"And then I could use a Locus transference spell, yes, I see, that would work."
"It is a little inelegant, but unless he is in the heart of Toronto or Montreal, I do not think you will have much difficulty finding him. And if he is in the city? Well, somebody will be knowing where he is. There are not so many of us."
"And this may even work better than the signature profiling; there's a chance, after all, that he won't be using magic," she said thoughtfully.
"He is not wanting to be found by your Ministry, you mean?"
"I think it's very likely, yes. We had no idea he was here."
"This matter in which you are wanting him, it involves your Aurors, yes?"
"Possibly, yes."
"I see. I think you are wanting to talk with our chief liaison to the RCMP and CSIS, as well, then. You have met Audrey Lefebvre?"
"Yes, we chatted at some length during the summit, and we worked together briefly on the Rowe case several years ago."
"Good, that is good. I think you must give her a call – you use a cellular phone, yes? – then you must give her a call today, she will know better how to proceed with surveillance than I. I am managing the technical aspects of this only, the directive to begin surveillance must come to me through official channels, you understand how these things are." With two decades of Ministry bureaucracy under her belt, H. Granger-Weasley certainly did understand, and she allowed herself to be courteously hustled out of Singh's office.
Lefebvre was a known quantity, an energetic paper-pusher who divided her time between legal wrangling with the Muggle authorities, and a teaching load of esoteric liberal arts courses at one of the Toronto universities. Her voicemail sounded like it had been recorded past a sharky grin, too many gleaming teeth displayed to qualify as a smile: "'Allo, Lefebvre, leave a message, laissez-moi un message. If it's between 9 and 5, I'm probably lecturing, otherwise I'm just avoiding your call. Merci!"
A round of phone tag with the Toronto Star eventually yielded up Olivia Cheung's mobile after some judicious name-dropping, and by that time, Lefebvre was picking up her calls. She began explaining the situation, but the other witch, a bit breathless from a fast walk (judging by the rapid click of her heels), cut her off:
"Listen, I'm done at 5:00 after my Gender Dynamics in Medieval History seminar, what if you meet me on campus? There are a few places around here I can set up privacy wards that won't be noticed by the Muggles, and then we can talk."
"That sounds good, Audrey, I appreciate this very much. So 5:00 then?"
"Yes, do you think you could find me in the Philosopher's Walk? It's a greenspace, just follow-"
"Yes, I think I remember, by the Museum? I'm sure that won't be a problem. There's some columns, or pillars or something by the south entrance, if I wait for you there?"
"Good, great, see you soon."
Cheung was a good deal easier to pin down, and readily agreed to meet near the university. An offer of fifty dollars for the developed negative had probably contributed. People were a good deal more pliant when lubricated with cold, hard cash.
An apparition back to Pearson, an uncomfortable bus ride, and twenty-five minutes on the train saw Ms. H. Granger-Weasley navigating Bloor Street from Spadina Station, in shoes definitely not made for walking. InterContinental, check; Conservatory, check; Royal Ontario Museum, check. You couldn't really miss the damn thing, what with the massive glass crystals poking out the front of it. So the pub Cheung wanted to meet at ought to be along this block... She'd grown more than weary with the local tendency to give directions by reference to landmarks; did no one here navigate by numerical address at all? Aha, there it was, Gabby's, tucked in between two concrete corporate monoliths.
She felt a sticky, tingly warmth as she passed into the pub. It was a familiar sensation, nearly unnoticeable back home in its homogeneity. Here, it was localized, dense, and marked an obvious transition between two worlds. Despite the flatscreen televisions simultaneously broadcasting baseball and hockey games, this was a Wizarding hotspot.
The clientele looked banal and ordinary, however. Well, as ordinary as a crowd of students usually did, she supposed. There were a lot of ripped denims, plaid, and horn-rimmed glasses. She scanned the crowd along the bar, and a slim Asian girl waved at her.
"Hi, you're Hermione, then?"
"Yes. You must be Ms. Cheung."
"Olivia, yeah. Sorry about the crush in here, hang on a sec – Jack? Jack! Alright if we go downstairs?"
The bartender gave them a long, careful look, and finally nodded.
She followed Cheung down a narrow stairwell, and felt the magic swell. It was the same pressurized sensation she got passing through the archway into Diagon Alley, and just when it felt like her ears were about to pop, they were suddenly through the wards.
"Sorry if you've been waiting long," she apologized to Cheung, "I wish you had mentioned this was a Wizarding establishment, I'd have used the Floo and been here earlier."
"It's not really, it's Squibby, but there's magical folk here lots, because of the museum, mostly. They haven't got a Floo connection, though, so it wouldn't have helped you any. The nearest Floo's over at The Artful Dodger, just off Yonge Street. Why didn't you just apparate?"
"Well, I've only been in the university area once before, I wasn't sure about my bearings," she confessed.
"Oh! You should've just looked it up with Google Streetview, that's what most people do. All you need in order to apparate is an idea of what a place looks like, from what I know of the theory." Cheung cracked her bubblegum, and began to peruse a menu.
"How do you mean, most people? The average witch or wizard doesn't even know what Google is –"
"Maybe your average. We're a lot more tightly integrated into Muggle technology here. On account of it working most places, I expect," she added charitably.
"But if people are just popping into place anywhere, in no time at all there should be an accumulation of magical residue…"
"Nah, you've got it backwards. The spell's performed on the end you depart from, so the energy stays there. You can apparate into anywhere, it's disapparating that's regulated in city limits. Keep all the residue contained to as few areas as possible, that way you can still use Wi-Fi! Best of both worlds, really. I'm all for regulating, frankly, damned inconvenient dealing with you magical types mucking things up."
"If that's how you feel, why remain a part of the Wizarding world?" It was a decidedly different sensation, being looked down upon by a Squib.
"Couldn't afford to do a doctoral dissertation, otherwise."
"I didn't think newspaper photography paid so well, even for wizarding rags."
"Oh hell, no, I'd starve. Even with freelancing for the Muggle papers. No, what I meant was portkeys. Your kind really never thinks about how much international travel actually costs when you do it the Muggle way. Like, if I had to book a ticket to Rome? That's more than a thousand bucks! Easy. The same portkey, without redeye flights and hours in layover, costs $200."
She stared at the girl. It was true, she hadn't thought of it. But of course, Squibs could use portkeys – after all, that was why they were usually disguised, to keep Muggles from inadvertently picking them up. She frowned and started to ask –
But Cheung was continuing: "But as far as photography goes, I just dabble on the magical side of things. I almost always snap a few polaroids when I'm taking pics for the Star, or whatnot. Just in case it turns out to be relevant on the Wizarding side; that way I've got something on hand to sell them. Got an old girlfriend who's a dab hand at brewing the developing potion, so it's no skin off my back. Keeps me in beer funds, mostly.
And that brings us to why you're here, doesn't it?" Cheung pulled a folio out of her rucksack, and spread it open across the table. "I actually already had these developed, it's a set I was pitching to Raven Post. Despite King Stevie's desperate attempts to get us all talking nonstop about niqabs, the whole missing-and-murdered aboriginal women is an election issue, and you can bet the magical community is paying attention to this election. So yeah, I can only let you have one of the set, that's all you need, right? And I rummaged up some maps for you, like you asked. That'll be an extra $40, by the way, maps cost money. I've got the receipt if you need it."
"Thanks, that's fine," she said absently, as she pored over the photographs. None of them were the picture from the Star, and their inhabitants kept shoving their signs and placards about, obscuring faces. Finally, she found him, off to one side, and apparently in conversation with the heavy-set woman to his left. He turned back to the camera, a familiar scowl lowering his brows. It was him. It was really him. How? "This one will do, I think. Do you mind if I just check if it will work? The spell won't damage it."
"Go ahead, I'm curious. Thought you needed hair or something for a tracking spell."
"Actually, no, just something with a bit of the person's essence. A wizarding photo captures a bit of ambient residue, a tinge of the aura, if you will. It's the developing potion that fixes it; if the photo's too old before it's developed, it'll be gone. Even with the developer, it still leaches out, after a while, so you need a recent photo. Hair would be better, but this should work."
"Is this common knowledge?" Cheung had begun to tap her foot. It was annoying.
"No, it's something we worked out a few years ago." She pressed her wand into the photo, pinning Snape's face beneath its point. She muttered the incantation half-under her breath, and the tip of her wand began to glow. She drew it up, a honeyed sphere of light clinging to the end.
"That's like, what, a bit of his soul? Does that work on Muggles? Who is this guy?" Cheung's eyes were round.
"I said, it's a bit of aura. And yes, it works on anyone living, magic or not. And if someone hasn't been dead long, there may be some aura left. It dissipates at a predictable rate."
"But who is he? Is he a Muggle?"
"He's someone I knew many years ago. A wizard." Her tone was repressive. Wand in one hand, she fumbled open the first of the maps Cheung had brought. It was the entire province. Well, perhaps she'd be lucky, and he'd actually be in Ontario, and not the next one over. He'd definitely been in Ottawa last week; the photograph wasn't lying, and she didn't think Cheung had any reason to dissemble on the date. She lowered her wand to the paper, and invoked the second half of the spell.
A fine spiderweb of glowing lines began to propagate across the paper, scuttling along roadways, clinging to the edges of lakes, twisting up rivers and unnamed creeks. Occasionally they coalesced, and only rarely was a cluster isolated from filaments spreading, like axons to ganglia, between density points. "Got you," she grinned, tracing a finger over the densest cluster.
"Wow, that's really up there. Are you sure that's not, I dunno, off, or something?"
"Postive."
"Hunh. It's just, that's super-remote, you have no idea. I mean, that's practically polar bear country, look, it's only a few klicks out of fricking Polar Bear Park, fergodssakes. No one in their right minds would be up there."
"Well, it's possible he's not." In his right mind, she meant, but didn't vocalize, "Shush, now, just for a minute, I need to draw the network in, this spell dissipates fairly quickly." She'd pulled a felt pen from her handbag, and begun to ink in the activity clusters, and the straight lines that violated topography – those had to reflect flight. As the spell wound to completion she realised there were far fewer completely isolated clusters than she'd originally thought. He rarely apparated.
Cheung left, and returned with a drink and a basket of chips in the time it took her to complete the map of Snape's movements. Her hand was cramping, but she'd gotten it done by the time the spell began to fade.
She folded the map, and tucked it into her handbag. She passed Cheung five $20s, and pushed the surplus maps and the photographs back in her direction. "This has been spectacularly helpful, I very much appre—" Her mobile rang. It was Lefebvre. Damn! The time!
"Audrey, hello! Yes, I definitely do still want to meet, it's terribly important that I speak with you. I'd gotten caught up in something, but I'm actually very close by. A pub just across from the ROM. Yes, that's right, Gabby's. Oh! Well, that's convenient, certainly, I'll stay put. Wonderful, see you shortly."
"By 'Audrey', you don't, by any chance, happen to mean Dr. Lefebvre?" Cheung's voice had gone suddenly flat. She was holding a chip in midair. A glop of ketchup dripped off it.
"Yes, actually. You know her?"
Cheung frowned, pursed her lips, and then apparently thought better of it. She shook her head, pushed her glass away, and stood. "I know it's no business of mine, ma'am, but you should count yourself lucky I didn't know this was one of Lefebvre's things. I'd've charged you a whole lot more."
She watched, bemused, as Cheung marched up the stairs and out of her life. She snagged one of the abandoned chips, and shrugged.
Lefebvre was prompt; she came clicking down the stairs and up to the table before the chip basket had more than a dent in it. She pulled a scarf from over her dark, plum-red hair, and grimaced at it. "And of course it's raining out there, wouldn't you know. Splendid, fries; damn the diet, I'm starving. D'you mind? And what's been going on, between now and yesterday afternoon?"
She laid the story (and the map) out for her Canadian counterpart.
"Hrmm. Well, I don't know how much help I can actually be. If he's still a British citizen – offhand I don't know how being declared dead affects that – if he is, the Office can't participate in any actions; that was part of the 1982 repatriation, quid pro quo for your Ministry giving up all its power over Canadian wizards. And even then… I'd have to check to be 100% sure, but I don't think we've ever noted a magical signature from that far north. If he's gone off-grid—"
"Off-grid?"
"Oh, I suppose you say 'gone Muggle'. Same thing. Anyway, we can't touch him if he's legitimately living as a Muggle. Squibs, off-gridders, aboriginal 'medicine', they all fall under Muggle jurisdictions. Our jurisdiction is limited to strictly wizarding cases."
"So I'm on my own, then? Would I even be allowed to go and investigate?"
"You can go, sure. And I might be able to help out, unofficially, at least. I can poke around in the files. At least I can put in an access-to-information request, find out his citizenship. If he's applied or even been granted dual citizenship, there might be extradition tangles I could help you sort. Actually…" She paused and pursed her mauve lips. "Just what was his role in your war?"
"Double-agent, or maybe quadruple depending how you count it; he passed himself off as one of Voldemort's Death Eaters for nearly two decades. Ultimately, it happened he was on our side. There was a short-lived campaign for him to be posthumously cleared of charges in the post-war trials."
"But he ultimately wasn't? Hmm. And apparently he's no longer posthumous."
"Indeed."
"So that's pre-e-e-tty suspicious. Previously involved with a known terrorist organization, currently hiding in northern Ontario, unbeknownst to the British Ministry. Or us, apparently. I'll bet I could sew him up under the wizarding clause in C-51; that'd mean we could surveil, even if he is off-grid. And if he's somehow managed a Canadian citizenship, we can strip that under C-24, easy, known ties to terrorists and all. Yeah, you know what Hermione? I can probably help you out quite a bit, after the paperwork." Never underestimate the powers of bureaucracy. Lefebvre was grinning, and tapping her biro against her knee. The stringy witch seemed positively ecstatic about her self-appointed role as rubber-stamp warrior.
"What do you think the timeline on that would be?"
"Well, I'll have to get started immediately, we're coming up on a federal election in a couple weeks, and the Opposition's said they'll repeal those laws if they form the government. We'll want to get this going fast, get in before a regime change. Although it does look like Trudeau's Liberals are fronting the polls, and no one reckons they're apt to rock the boat much on C-51, at least. Still. I'll start in on it this weekend, get the ball rolling for Monday, eh?"
"And I could theoretically work my own investigation in the meantime?"
"Errrrrm, officially, or unofficially?"
"What would the difference be?"
"Let's just say fly-fishing doesn't muddy up the water."
That suited H. Granger-Weasley just fine. She didn't have authorization to formally investigate Deceased Wizarding Persons anyway. Closed cases were closed, even if the corpse did turn up hale and hearty in a Toronto newspaper.
Author's note: Reviews are the currency of fandom. I've been putting a lot of effort into researching and writing this, and would love to hear what you think! Please jot me a quick note if you can.
