Harry Potter and the coiners
This is a tribute to Dragnet. Be nice.
This is the city. The city is London, home to the greatest concentration of magical folk in Britain. Most of them law abiding citizens who just want to be left alone. And then there are those who are less than law abiding. They're my business. I'm an auror and my name's Harry Potter.
My partner is Draco Malfoy and the boss is Alastor Moody.
We were working the day watch, and we had a new assignment and the boss was in a foul mood.
"It's these false galleons that are being passed," he said. "Gringott has given me 48 hours to deal with it, or the goblins will take matters into their own hands."
Draco and I exchanged a look and winced. Goblins could be rather direct in their dealings with malefactors especially over money matters. In common with all bankers, the goblins of Gringotts had no sense of humour over money.
"I suppose using a finder hasn't helped?" Draco asked.
Moody scowled.
"No, all we do is cast up the last person to spend or handle them," he growled. "Constant vigilance! I arranged for Grutch to act as a go-between," he added. That was an advantage; Grutch was a man – goblin – of calm common sense.
"What's the composition of the false galleons?" I asked.
"How should I know?" demanded Moody.
"We do have some in our custody, I hope?" I asked, half fearing that Gringott had insisted on keeping all spurious monies to destroy.
"Yes, I told Gringott that I'd lock him up for obstructing auror business if he didn't let me keep some," said Moody.
How to win friends and influence people; Gringott believed him, which was just as well. Old Constant Vigilance doesn't bluff.
"Then we need Albert Macmillan," I said.
"I told you, we used his talents as a dowser to find who had last touched them," Moody glared at me.
"He's also a skilled metalworker and assayer," I said, pushing my glasses back up my nose, where a frown of irritation had dislodged them.
"Oh. Yes, well, requisition anyone you need," said Moody. His expression was one we didn't often manage to provoke, the one where he'd been out-thought and was trying to hide chagrin.
"Did we not get any metal-trail from the last people to touch them?" asked Draco. I thought it was a good question, Draco is an expert on the subtle footwork.
"Not as much as we might have hoped. They were all changed at the match between the Chudleigh Cannons and the Montrose Magpies."
Draco nodded.
"Clever," he admitted.
Albert went to work on assaying one of the forged Galleons, while Draco and I examined them minutely for any mistake in the minting.
"It's largely tin, with a coating of pyrites, done magically," Albert told us. "It's skilled work, and I'd expect some fae involvement."
Lovely, that was all we needed.
Still, the Malfoys were not the only family with fae blood.
"Where was the match held?" Draco asked.
"Bodmin," I replied. "You surely didn't miss it?"
"I had a hot date with my wife which was more interesting," shrugged Draco. Grace is a special lady and one of the few people Draco jumps through hoops for. I'm lucky to be one of the others.
I smote my head.
"Tin. Cornwall. Bodmin," I said.
"The report of a pixy colony vanishing," added Draco.
Draco is very good at minutiae; he reads other people's reports since that murder of the old woman where centaurs were fitted up.
The report hadn't been taken seriously, just filed, and a trainee sent to ask questions. Which goes to prove that we still need to improve in our methods with even trivial sounding matters.
We apparated to Cornwall; preferable to portkey travel, especially with our advantages. We interviewed the man who had reported the vanishing Pixies.
"Yes, sirs, we had a large colony on the edge of the moor," he told us. "A nuisance at times, of course, but that's pixies for you. They don't call them 'peskies' around here for nothing. But if someone is killing them or something, nobody will stand for that, no sir."
We thanked him, and went off at his direction, with Albert as our finder. The region of dark background count also gave us two pixie bodies, rotting in the undergrowth. They gave Albert some familial connection to work with as well, and he pointed out a disused mine on his marvellous scrolling map. We left him on the edge of the moor; Albert is a good chap to have in a scrap, but he's still a civilian and his Bulgarian fiancée would have our guts for garters if we let anything happen to him. Zlatka Asimova is a witch worthy of respect.
We approached with caution, and we used hovering charms to go into the mine, under the invisibility cloak.
The poor little devils of pixies were chained up with magical chains, turning out the fake Galleons, using their fae magic to coat them with pyrites, while others of their kind laboured to mine for tin.
Naturally we took photographs and then called in Dobby to take them to an area where they could be temporarily contained, and fed and nursed back to health. Letting them loose might let our villain know that he was found out.
And then it was a question of waiting for him to come for his ill-gotten loot.
He came down the shaft bellowing about why he couldn't hear anyone working.
He was very surprised to meet two aurors not two dozen pixies.
"But … but … what's going on here?" he asked, trying to look surprised. "Don't point your wands at me, I'm just exploring. I guess I got lost."
"I guess we found you," said Draco. He makes the smart arse comments; it comes out better in a Malfoy drawl.
The suspect was arraigned before the Wizgamot with charges of coining and false imprisonment and enslavement of magical beasts against him. His name was Boreas Avery and he boasted that if we hadn't got lucky, he would have destabilised the government and caused open war with goblins.
"They didn't get lucky, creep. You left a trail a mile wide," grunted Moody.
Well, I guess it did look like that from our report.
Avery was found guilty and is currently serving his sentence in Azkaban. And at that he's lucky. He might have been serving it in Gringott's.