Disclaimer: I own nothing but original characters.

Author's notes are not my best feature. If you happen to be reading my other fic The Greatest Game, thank you. This is nothing at all like that fic. This one is based on my love for Neo Noirs such as many Nolan films (especially the Dark Knight Trilogy) Miller's Crossing and Se7en, as well as the Netflix Daredevil and Jessica Jones series (though with way less ninjas). There may or may not be shout outs, depending on how it flows with the story I'm crafting. There will be no latin phrases and few jokes. Hope you like it, please read and review. Insults will be met with scathing sarcasm and snark. So, in the immortal words of Monty Python, "And now for something completely different."

Chapter 1

It was half-past midnight when the call came in. Reports of Death Eaters near Spinner's End. It was a pretty standard call. In the 7 years since the end of the Second Wizarding War ended at the Battle of Hogwarts, the Auror Division has been hunting down any Death Eaters or Snatchers who fled. At least three times a week a call came in to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that known Death Eaters have been cited doing any number of things, from going to the local cinema to terrorizing the neighborhood stray dog. It was exhausting.

Harry Potter, no longer the scrawny, underfed teen he had been during his Hogwarts days. He was now a man, well-toned, with thick stubble covering his face. His hair was just as messy as ever, and his round glasses still adorned his face. But this man was not the same Harry Potter that battled Voldemort all those years ago. No, this Harry Potter was a haunted man, who smelled of alcohol and tobacco, and who didn't go soft on criminals.

Harry often found himself taking the extra, late-night shifts without ever knowing why. Maybe he did it to avoid his home. Maybe he did to avoid his friends. Maybe he did it to avoid sleep. It had been five years and Harry still could not sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat screaming. He preferred to work himself to exhaustion before passing out, hoping his mind would be too tired to dream.

It was an inter-departmental memo that had decided to glide roughly into Harry's head, currently on his desk, next to his cup of coffee and ashtray, that woke him up. The note was short. No need for extraneous details for these calls. Just a location and nature of the call. Harry grunted as he pried his eyes open, still exhausted, and examined the memo.

Spinner's End

DE sighting

Harry sat up straight, took a sip of his coffee, spiked with his favorite cheap whisky. It had long gone cold, but the taste of alcohol helped to wake him up. He stood up, took a still smoldering cigarette from his ashtray and took a long drag, exhaling forcefully. He then put it out, turned and apparated to Cokeworth.

It wasn't the first time Harry had been to Spinner's End. It was a surprisingly regular place for "known Death Eaters" to appear. Harry assumed it had something to do with plethora of abandoned and deserted brick buildings in the area. Witches and Wizards get themselves lost in the neighborhood where Severus Snape grew up and it suddenly doesn't matter that his part in the war had been vindicated by Harry for years now. All that mattered was that the neighborhood was creepy, dingy and felt... wrong.

Harry put another cigarette in his mouth and lit it with his wand without thinking. It was second nature at this point. He walked slowly down the street, looking for any abnormalities. He didn't suspect anything was different than the last five times he'd been called to Spinner's End over the last year. It was a creepy neighborhood, and Harry always hoped he'd never have to return.

But something always drew him back. Death Eater sightings, Snape's ghost terrorizing the local muggles, the Dark Mark floating above their neighbor's house. It was all the same thing: nothing. The Death Eaters were always another wizard in a particularly dark cloak, Snape's ghost was nowhere to be found (as he had no ghost) and his childhood home was empty, and the Dark Mark was always some particularly sinister looking rain cloud.

But as much as Harry knew how a Death Eater sighting in Spinner's End would resolve, he felt compelled to check as thoroughly as possible. Spinner's End always felt as if a disease lay upon it, and Harry could never shake the feeling that he was being watched here.

As he continued down the street, he listened intently. He could have sworn he hear shouting in the distance. But it seemed to have stopped. The wind howled around Harry, as he strained his ears. Nothing. Not a sound. That made Harry uneasy. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and fingered his wand. He knew he was a little twitchy with it, and had no desire to accidentally hex a muggle if he got spooked, but he felt more at ease with the wand within easy reach.

There. He heard it again. What sounded like faint shouting. An argument. Harry quickened his step, refraining from an outright run as he didn't want the loud footfalls to alert anyone to his coming. As he approached the noise he noticed it was coming from somewhere familiar. Snape's home.

Harry slowed as he approached his old professor's childhood home. The voices were definitely coming from inside. Harry strained his ears once more to try and discern what the occupants were arguing about.

"We were supposed to split the cut!" The voice was female. Something about it seemed familiar.

"Plans change," the other voice said. It was male, young, but something was off about it. There was something in his voice that gave Harry a bad feeling. Before he could do anything else however, he heard a howl of pain from the woman's voice, before the telltale crack of someone apparating rang through the neighborhood. Harry thought he could hear the man's voice say something before its owner apparated, but it had been drowned out by the cry of pain.

Harry grabbed the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. Without thinking, he quickly brought his foot up and gave a swift kick, breaking the door and revealing a dusty, abandoned home. He heard something that sounded like laughter coming from upstairs. Harry tossed his cigarette outside onto the street before he bounded the steps, two at a time, until he came to the first door at the top landing. He heard a deep voice grunting while the woman weakly attempted to fend him off. Harry pulled out his wand, kicked the door in and took in the sight before him.

A woman lay on the ground bleeding from what looked like multiple, deep gashes, while a large man attempted to manhandle her. He seemed to be having a hard time though as he couldn't get a grip with the blood covering the woman's body. A rage, burned in Harry. He slowly put his wan back into his inside jacket pocket, before taking a deep breath and approaching the large man.

Harry roughly grabbed the assaulter with both hands and dragged him off the woman before throwing him into a wall. The room was rather sparse. Only a small metal cot and an empty wooden desk with a small lamp sat in opposite corners. Harry got a good look at the man. Goyle. Somehow, Harry wasn't surprised by this. In the time it took Goyle to spit out, "Potter!" Harry delivered a hard punch to Goyle's face.

Grabbing Goyle again, Harry threw him hard into the desk before he smashed Goyle's face into it. He knew he would be in trouble with Robards back at the Auror Office, but he didn't much care. Harry almost decided that Goyle had had enough when blood came flying to his face. Goyle had spit at him. Now it was personal.

"You'll wish you hadn't done that, you bastard," Harry growled as he grabbed Goyle once again and threw him out the door and over the railing. He watched as Goyle hit the stairs below and rolled down. Now he'd really be in trouble. But there were other, more pressing issues at the moment. Harry pulled out his wand again and did his best with the few healing spells he knew to patch the woman up. He couldn't get a good look at her face, as it was covered in blood, but he did what he could to stabilize her before he took her to St. Mungo's.

Harry quickly took out a small metal medallion. It was similar in size to a galleon, but silver instead of gold. The aurors had adapted the method of communication that Hermione had devised for Dumbledore's Army back in Harry's 5th Year. They had even improved upon it in some ways. He quickly spelled out his SOS and tapped the medallion with his wand, sending the message to Robards. It was a few moments before he heard a crack downstairs and Robard's deep voice shouting. "What the bloody hell happened here, Potter?!"

"Robards," Harry shouted, ignoring his superior's question. "I need help! Upstairs! Now!"

Harry heard Gawain Robards' heavy footfalls as he ran up to the top floor. Robards burst into the room and looked in shock at the amount of blood soaking into the wood floor. "Jesus," Robards said under his breath. "What happened here, Potter?"

Harry gave his full report from the moment the memo reached his desk less than an hour ago until he notified Robards. "Shit, Potter. You're in deep on this one. You can't keep assaulting perps like this. Stun 'em and bind 'em! That's the procedure! Go down and take Goyle in for booking, I'll get her to St. Mungo's. Do not, and I repeat, do not question Goyle without me there! Got it?"

Harry nodded and went downstairs. Finally seeing the damage he did to Goyle in his rage. The man's left arm bent at a sickening angle and it looked like a kneecap had been popped out of it's proper place, settling halfway down his shin. Harry grimaced. He'd done worse to less before, but still. It was unnerving how much damage he could cause with just his fists when he wanted to.

Harry grabbed and a small picture frame from the nearby mantle, pointed his wand at it, and muttered "Portus." He tossed the portkey on Goyle's chest, which then took them to the Auror Office. He levitated Goyle and placed him in a ministry holding cell just off the main bullpen before he contacted the graveyard shift healer to come in and patch Goyle up.

Harry returned to his desk and finished the rest of his spiked coffee before lighting another cigarette. He then decided to start on the mountain of paperwork that was required for booking a perpetrator. Harry was, thankfully saved by the arrival of his partner, Neville Longbottom. Neville had filled out over the years since the Battle of Hogwarts. The once-pudgy blond boy was now lean and toned and fit for action.

"What happened?"

Harry retold the events of the night to Neville, who just nodded and kept a straight face, devoid of any tell as to how he felt about how Harry had proceeded with his arrest. If Harry were a betting man, he would say Neville was disappointed, but not unsympathetic. By the time Harry finished filling Neville in, Robards had returned with a few other aurors as well.

"Potter," Robards said, shortly. "Follow me."

Harry sighed, put out his cigarette and followed the Head Auror to his office. When Harry entered, he noticed two people, a wizard and a witch, waiting for them in the office. Harry recognizes them both. Tiberius Price and Lucy Smollet from Internal Affairs. The Internal Affairs office was created shortly after Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named Minister. They were there to prevent corruption, but Harry knew they were far more susceptible to it than any other Ministry department. Most of them were wizards and witches who couldn't make the cut for the Aurors, Hit Wizards and Magical Law Enforcement Patrol. They were snakes. And these two, particularly, often had it out for Harry.

Robards sighed in frustration at seeing them there. "What the bloody hell are you two doing here? Get out of my office!"

Lucy Smollet gave a sinister smile for a few moments before responding. "Why," she said as if why they were there was the most obvious thing in the world. "We're here to take Auror Potter into custody of course."

"Like hell you are," Harry started before Robards cut him off.

"This is my department and my office! Out! Before I get Chapman involved!"

"I'm sorry," Price said. "But Auror Potter assaulted a man he was attempting to arrest, without a warrant. We must insist."

Robards glared at the two IA officers. "You're a bloody disgrace to the department. Get the hell out. Potter was defending not only himself, but the victim. If you want him arrested, you'll have to get a warrant from Director Chapman. And you'd better have damn good evidence!"

The two weasels slunk out of Robards' office without another word. Harry glared after them. He knew they would be back. They always were. But that was a worry for another time. Harry knew Director Laura Chapman, Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, did not give out warrants to arrest her aurors lightly. Harry was glad for that. He turned back to Robards.

"What did you ask me here for Robards?"

"I won't lie to you, Potter," Robards said. "You're in deep shit with the assault. Luckily the bastard's wand was the one used to cast the curse on the girl, otherwise, we'd have to let him go."

Harry nodded. He knew he was in trouble. He just didn't much care. "Who was the girl, by the way? She seemed familiar somehow."

"That's the other thing. She's Sally-Anne Perks."

"Am I supposed to know a Sally-Anne Perks?"

Robards sighed. "She attended Hogwarts with you. Sorted right before you actually. Into Gryffindor."

Harry was speechless. He certainly didn't remember any Sally-Anne Perks being sorted before him, nor any other girls in his year in Gryffindor aside from Hermione, Parvati, Lavender and Emily. "There must be some mistake, I don't remember any Gryffindor named Sally-Anne Perks."

"Turns out," Robards said slowly. "She vanished. Right after your 3rd Year, she just disappeared. Disappeared off school records too. It's like she never existed. The few professors we've been able to contact couldn't remember her either. But I couldn't get any more out of her before the healers ushered me out. We can question her when she's more stable though."

"Robards," Harry said. "A person doesn't just disappear of the face of the earth with no noticing."

"Apparently Sally-Anne Perks does."

Harry was silent for a few moments as he tried to wrap his head around it all. He eventually just asked the first question he could think of. "Do we have any leads?"

Robards shook his head. "No, not really. It was too early for any real Death Eater activity, and as much money as the Malfoys had, they didn't have the resources for this. It wasn't the Ministry either, though I'm willing to at least follow a line of thought to investigate Umbridge. That foul toad might've been involved somehow, but I doubt it. As corrupt and cowardly as Fudge was, he wasn't evil. No, this has to be someone or something else acting independently. We'll know more when we question Goyle and Perks later. For now, Potter, you look like shit. Go home. Get some rest. I'll finish the booking on Goyle and notify you when he's ready for questioning. Longbottom will make sure you get back to your flat alive."

"Why would Neville need to help me back to my flat?" Harry asked, confused.

"Because you smell like a distillery and I don't trust you to not drink yourself into a stupor tonight, or apparate without splinching yourself. Go home, Potter. That's an order." Roabrds glared at Harry, who normally would have argued back. But he'd done enough damage that night with his treatment of Goyle, so he kept his mouth shut and left Robards' office without another word.

On their way out of the Ministry, Harry tried to get another cigarette from his pack when he saw he was all out. "Damn it!" He exclaimed loudly, scaring quite a few ministry officials coming into the Atrium.

"What?" Neville asked.

"I'm all out of cigarettes," Harry said irritably.

"We'll stop by the store outside your building and get more."

"Yeah." Harry knew he overreacted, and that he should probably apologize to Neville. But he needed a smoke more. As they walked out into the cold, Harry shivered. He hated winter, sometimes. He blamed the bitter winds, but deep down, Harry knew it was just because he hated most things these days. It didn't take long for the two partners to reach Harry's neighborhood. It was dingy and dirty, and a little dodgy, but compared to Spinner's End, it was practically like living in a palace. They stopped at the small convenient store to buy Harry some cigarettes and cheap whisky. Neville didn't condone Harry's bad habits, but he did nothing to stop them either, which suited Harry just fine.

Neville left Harry at the front entrance to his building. He entered to find the overnight doorman fast asleep. Harry scoffed and walked to the elevators. Between the two doors was a plaque with a listing of the residents and their apartment number. Harry's, 7-B, was falling off. Again. It happened on a regular basis at the Shady Grove Luxury Flats. The residents only ever thought of him as the young loner who keeps screaming at night now. They hardly ever saw him, and Harry figured he came off as quite strange. He didn't care though. He quickly fixed the nameplate and entered the elevator.

When he arrived at the 7th floor, there was something wrong. The lights were flickering, and there was an eerie feeling about the hall. It was as if the air had a heavy feeling about it, like someone was sitting on his chest. Harry took out his wand and proceeded past 7-A until he came to the front of his own door. There was something laying outside it. Harry bent down and got a close look at what it was.

Upon closer examination, Harry turned, rushed to the elevator and vomited into the trash bin. He regained his composure slowly, and went back to inspect the message: Sally-Anne Perks' severed head.