Disclaimer: the usual stuff about me not intending to portray anything as my own property, that I don't make any money, et cetera.
Chapter I
The Little Girl
The toughest case of Harry Potter's life in the Department of the Law Enforcement, Aurors' Division, was about to come to a head. There was only one obstacle between one of the most twisted fucks in the Department's history, and it was just a door, unlocked and unprotected otherwise by magical means. He had tried to twist the doorknob previously and found no resistance.
It was the worst possible time to doubt himself, he supposed. But he did that anyway. Wilkis had Disapparated to the Ministry from the entrance of the two story old house marked for demolition, dilapidated beyond even salvage after all sorts of desperate or shady characters being through, to call for reinforcements and then be seen off to St. Mungo's. The Aurors' Department was very efficient when it came to time, but they simply had none to be efficient about right now. In their haste to catch the perpetrator, they had erected wards that made it simply impossible to leave the building by magical means. The downside to that was that the moment they were erected, everybody inside the building -which was, according to the data, profile and inference, a single person- a single sick fuck- would feel them going up.
His biggest advantage was surprise; among the six people he had killed, one was an ex-Azkaban Prison Guard among whose job requirements was to sign off any Ministry liability if he were to be killed on duty. Another was from the same place, different side of the bars: A prisoner with paranoid tendencies. One might have been just a coincidence, but two people with highly suspicious nature told that the perpetrator was a highly unassuming person who wielded this fact as a weapon. None of the six victims were murdered at the same time, either, so he was used to dealing with one person at a time.
Wilkis and he were two and there was no advantage of surprise for either party. They had thought they had it covered. They had thought wrong. Then again, how could they have accounted for a loose beam falling on Wilkis' head?
The choice was clear, though: Doubt or no, he had to go in and he had to do it within the next minute before the perpetrator could break the wards if he knew how to do it. He just couldn't run the risk of him getting away to murder even more men, muggle and wizard alike. Even if he died, Wilkis could just bring up to speed on crucial parts whoever his replacement might be within two days. That was the right thing to do- go in. That was his job.
It didn't make it any easier, or his fear any less.
He steeled himself, twisted the doorknob again, and pushed it open from behind the plaster wall with wallpaper of faded flora.
Funny, he thought, funny how I focus on the most inconsequential things; wall being plaster is important in case I get behind it, wallpaper having flowers on it is not.
He took another breath to steel his nerve, compose himself and reconsider his surroundings.
Long hallway that ran to the right and left of the door with other doors. All the other rooms were presumably empty because the room whose door he had just opened was, simply put, reeking of dark magic. Just one door to the right and then a dead-end, and five to the left. Big rooms- it would take at least two seconds each to pass by at a dead sprint, ten seconds to cross the corner. Fleeing wasn't an option. Once he went in, retreat wasn't an option.
Harry spoke in his most commanding tone, "I'm Auror Potter. Whoever is inside, put your hands on your head. I'm coming in."
"Okay," was the tentative response that came from the room- a small girl's voice. Fuck!
Polyjuice? It would explain how so many men were taken by surprise. Well, she was pretending to be compliant, at least, so he asked another question to take full advantage of it, and maybe lull them into a false sense of security. "Little girl, what's your name?" Shit!
The girl answered just as unsure and cautious as before, "Annie."
Harry himself wasn't going to be lured into the trap he intended to pull, so no matter how the girl sounded, she could be a very dangerous criminal. "Annie, I'm Auror Harry Potter," he introduced himself. "I want you to listen to me- are you listening?" Shit!
"Yes."
"Now I want you to put your hands on your head and keep them there until I say otherwise, okay?" Shit!
"Okay."
"I'm coming in." Harry crouched to peek in so that his head wouldn't appear at the same height as his speech had indicated. When he did peek in with his wand also pointed at where the little girl's voice was coming from, he saw a little girl sitting cross-legged on the floor across the room with her hands on her head. Shit!
Harry cast the spell to turn her into whoever she originally was if it were the Polyjuice Potion, ready to switch it to a stunner at a moment's notice. Oh, shit! Oh, no! Oh, shit! Now he understood why the alarm bells that he had been ignoring since he had heard the little girl's voice had been ringing like crazy: She was just a little girl. He lowered his wand. "Okay, Annie. Now you can lower your hands," he said to the green eyed, red haired girl of four, maybe five years of age.
"Okay," Annie said. Her countenance had moved from cautious to scared after the Polyjuice counter. Even though she wasn't under the potion's effect, she would feel a tingling sensation all over her skin, like insects crawling all along her skin. Not pleasant, to be sure.
"Annie, I'm not a bad man. I catch bad men, like a police," Harry reassured her.
Annie visibly relaxed when Harry said he wasn't a bad man and he stopped closing the gap between them. Her bone-white hands that had somehow found themselves wrapped tightly around a teddy bear she had probably taken out of her pink backpack gained a healthier color, indicating blood flow that had been cut off was back again.
"Now there's something really important I need you to tell me: I'm after a really, really bad man. He was supposed to be here, but he's not. Have you seen him? Do you know where he went?"
"No." Annie was back to being cautious, but at least she wasn't afraid anymore, which was good.
Annie wasn't very verbal in her answers but he had to try to get answers from her. All evidence had pointed at this room in this house, this room was all the lead they had at this point. If this little girl somehow knew something but just overlooked it, he had to know. He decided to push just a little bit further. Right now, she was safe with him, so why she was here and who her parents were -even though he was distraught about a little girl being in an abandoned house- could be dealt with later.
Harry himself sat on the floor cross-legged, copying her posture at the other side of the room near the door. At least she hadn't even met the man, whoever he was. She was unharmed. That was a huge relief. "I believe you, Annie. Tell me, how long have you been here in this room?"
"Long," she said, "home."
Harry was confused now. "You said, Annie, that you never saw a bad man here. If you have been living here..." he shuddered to think about a girl her age living in such a godforsaken place "...then you must have seen him because he was here, I know he was."
"No bad men here. My bear Tibbers makes them go away." Annie held out the teddy bear she was holding in her hands as she made her pronouncement in her first full sentence.
No, no, no, no, no, NO! All the best profilers agreed on the fact that it was an extremely average man who had committed those murders, average on everything but murder, not a little girl for fuck's sake! He had to do something, he had to act fast, Aurors on the way, ten seconds to cross the corridor, one minute to navigate through the debris, another five seconds to make sure there was no-
"Auror Potter! Are you inside?" Sonorus, they were still outside. Good.
"Annie, don't be frightened. My voice is going to be really loud, but there's no cause for alarm, okay?"
"Okay."
Sonorus! "Yes, everything is under control. He's gone. Come in and help me process the scene." Quietus!
"On our way"
They had to get rid of the teddy bear that was emanating such a feeling of darkness that even looking at it was making his hairs stand on ends. "Annie, listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say. It's extremely important and we don't need much time. I need you to trust me. Put away your teddy bear-"
"Tibbers."
"—Tibbers inside your backpack. I will spell your backpack -go on, do as I say and listen to me at the same time- so that nobody else will know it's in there. Concelarus! It's our little secret, okay?"
"Okay."
"You don't tell anybody about Tibbers. You don't take him out of your backpack for any reason, okay?"
"Okay."
"I will explain everything later but right now we just don't have time." The Aurors were most likely about ten -he closed the door but dared not Muffliate it in case somebody spotted it which would look damn suspicious and rousing eyebrows was the last thing he needed at this time- fifteen seconds away from hearing range. "If somebody says something, you say nothing. If somebody asks you a question, you say nothing. If somebody makes a comment about anything at all, you say nothing. You stay silent, okay?"
"Okay."
"If you absolutely need something -if you need to pee, if you're very hungry, you know, something that you must do,- you poke someone and say 'Harry Potter' only. Nothing else, just 'Harry Potter.' Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"I will come as fast as I can, but I won't lie to you, I can't make it too fast. You will have to wait at least five minutes. Hang on tight. If you do exactly what I said, everything will be all right, I promise! Now let's practice what you will do. What are you gonna say say if somebody asks you a question?"
"..."
Harry waited a few more seconds just to make sure that Annie was doing what he thought she was doing... and then he smiled for the first time that day, "Good girl!"
"Auror Potter?" A voice inquired from right outside the door beside which he was sitting.
"In here, Auror Jerkins," replied Harry. He pocketed his wand, stood up and moved further into the room where he would be within the field of vision from the doorway with his hands in plain sight, positioned carefully so as not to block Annie from vision either. "I'm coming out," he announced. He stepped out of the room, hands held forward.
"So how was the vacation anyhow?" Jerkins asked standing by the wall that the door Harry had come out of connected to. To his right were two more men and a woman, Aurors Smith, McGraw and Hastings. They all had their wands out in their hands, pointing downwards at their sides.
"Oh, the one you know I haven't taken in three years? Very well, thank you for asking."
Identity confirmed, the hard lines on their faces relaxed somewhat and furrowed brows found a more natural position.
Harry cleared his throat after the awkward silence that always followed this identity confirmation procedure, "Whoever it was, he's gone. Found a little kid inside, doesn't talk- Who is guarding the doors, by the way?" Don't say 'traumatized,' let them come to that conclusion on their own and commit to it. He knew he needed every sneaky trick in his arsenal at this point, every mind-game he could think of.
"Schultz and Turner got the front, Cooper and Morris got the back," answered McGraw.
Two more Auror teams, so they had sent four in total. The way things had turned out, that was three teams too many. "All right. Hastings, take the girl to the Ministry with McGraw. Tell Turner to cover the back and send Copper and Morris here. You still need to process the scene." Harry needed as few men here as possible.
"Why am I always the one babysitting?" Hastings complained looking not-so-surreptitiously at McGraw.
Harry countered with, "Because I say so," and that was it. Being second-in-command after the Head Auror, although due more to his status as the Minister's poster boy and Wizarding World's most recent champion of good, subordinates rarely voiced doubt or dissent when Harry said something. Among them, he was the only person to rub , so to speak, with Minister Shacklebolt, and the rest had only occasional 'good morning, minister' to say should a chance encounter occur in the Atrium or the elevators.
When everybody was in the room and Annie was removed from the scene, Harry excused himself, "I'm gonna go check up on Wilkis. As the first Auror at the scene without a partner, I can't stay to process, anyhow." He added feigning urgency in his tone, "do it quick before the trail gets cold, alright? And report to me as soon as you're done for debriefing; you can write the report afterward."
"Aye-aye, cap'n!" affirmed Hastings, the only woman in the posse.
Harry Disapparated with a nod and a good-luck in the general direction of his subordinates , ready to do whatever he could to not let another child be taken by those thrice-damned Unspeakables, no matter what.
Harry walked through the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic with the brisk pace of a man with purpose. Up the elevators with only memos and inter-ministry communique flying overhead as company and into the Auror Captain's office. He wrote a summons for Wilkis -minor head injury, Healers must have discharged him within minutes- and began to write his report.
Harry was almost done concocting the bullshit report with only checking for any plot holes that might be present when he received a summons from Head Auror Pritchard.
Harry spelled a note on his door, 'Wilkis, Pitchard summoned, catch up when done," and left for Shacklebolt's office. He needed some politicking done, and he had to do it right. A little girl's life depended on it.
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