It had been five years since Ginny had been taken by Livingstone.

It had also been three months since Voldemort had been defeated by Harry at the Battle of Hogwarts. But when Arthur Weasley had decided to spend Ginny's final summer holiday working at the Ministry of Magic, doing his best to clear the place up, he couldn't help but look at her, sitting by the restored fountain, and remember what had happened – and scarcely avoided happening – during her first summer holiday from Hogwarts.

Arthur sat in Kingsley's office. The place was filled with endless papers and magic instruments whirring around, with numerous trials being held to determine – for the second time in wizarding history – if anyone had been working for Voldemort or had been under the Imperius Curse.

Not for the first time, Arthur wished Moody was still here.

"I just can't help thinking," Arthur had murmured, as his hand shook holding a glass of pumpkin juice, "about all the people who joined up with – with You-Know-Who – because they thought Muggles would be like Livingstone."

Kingsley looked up from a document about a witch who had used the Cruciartus Curse on a twelve-year-old Hogwarts student last Easter. "Livingstone? You thought about him?"

Arthur sighed and took off his glasses, fiddling them between his fingers.

"I – they thought that the Muggles would steal our children. Twist their minds. Like they did centuries ago. And h-hurt –"

Kingsley pushed his chair back and looked into Arthur's eyes.

"Does Ginny recall being Livingstone's prisoner?"

Arthur shook his head. "For a while afterwards, she kept screaming when she woke up. But I wasn't even sure if it was the Chamber or him. What happened to him?"

Kingsley didn't want to say that Livingstone was probably in a cushy Muggle jail cell, with expensive goods. But he made a mental note to check.

A week later, Kingsley finally found the time to look when accompanying the Muggle Prime Minister. The warehouse he had been to now had everything on computers, and although he knew roughly how they seemed to operate, it took an awfully long time.

If only finding information this way could be harnessed by magic, he mused, but it would – what was the word – snap-circuit?

After he had found some articles covering Livingstone's trial, he selected one with the most amount of words included within. He began to skim-read through the article, only looking up to peer at the photographs and the picture of a map.

MURDERER LIVINGSTONE RECEIVES THIRTY-SIX YEARS

July 27th 1994

Today child murderer Steven Livingstone, 38, was sentenced to serve a minimum of thirty-six years in prison. Livingstone, who was arrested at his home just over a year ago for harbouring illegal contraband, was found to have abducted and murdered at least seven children between 1982 and 1993. He has also been found guilty of the attempted abductions of four more children between 1984 and 1991.

On July 2nd 1993, the day he was arrested in Sawley, Lancashire, local police searched on a hill nearby, where the skeleton of a young child was found. He was later identified as Francis Clarkson, 9, who had vanished from Warrington in 1982. At the edge of woodland and a farm, two miles west of the burial site, lay the body of a young girl, submerged partially in mud. She was identified by her pink-and-white trainers; Lizzy Hier, 12, had been snatched in a Welsh border village six months prior.

The following day, the police search and recover team were on a hill just 500 metres south of the farm when they found the corpse of another girl, four feet deep in the ground. She was identified by the clothing beneath her – she was Jade Ferguson, who had disappeared from Clinty, County Cavan in the Republic of Ireland back in April 1985.

During the search of his house, Lancashire police recovered numerous items that had been collected as trophies over the years. Using newspaper clippings that had been preserved, along with other trophies that were identified by the victims' families, Livingstone was linked to the infamous East Anglia Rectangle murders.

The four murders took place between 1987 and 1992, of three girls and a boy, all of whom were snatched hundreds of miles from their homes and their bodies discarded in a 78 square mile area.

Kendra Johnson, 9, had been abducted in August 1987 as she rode her bicycle between Ballyclare and Doagh, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Her body was recovered two months later in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, 300 miles away.

Laura Fitzpatrick, 11, was last seen in July 1988 when she left a swimming pool in Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway. She was found three weeks later in Wetting, Norfolk, 230 miles south.

Felicity Jackson, 6, his youngest victim, was taken from a beach in Aberdeen in August 1989. Her body, which had been hastily thrown over a hedge in Lawshall, Suffolk, 360 miles from Aberdeen, two months later. She was identified by the clothes that had been thrown with her.

Wayne Robins, 10, had been abducted while walking home from a bicycle store in Pellon, Halifax in March 1992. His body was found a week later in a raspberry field in Steeple Bumpstead, Essex, 150 miles south of his home.

The case puzzled detectives for up to seven years before it was finally closed today with the assertion that Steven Livingstone killed them. The main pieces of evidence, besides the trophies found inside his house, were petrol receipts made by his sales company. Lancashire police currently hold all evidence regarding Livingstone's crimes.

The rest of the article mostly focused on quotations from parents and loved ones. There were also mentions of Livingstone's three attempted abductions in Warrington and of an eleven-year-old girl in Southampton.

This was far more than Kingsley would ever have feared.

True, sometimes he thought about how close they had been to possibly being exposed – and by a predator, no less – but as Kingsley had been busy being a member of the Order of the Phoenix, as well as working in both the magical and Muggle environments, he had put this behind him.

But still, he couldn't help but glance over at a two-page spread further in the newspaper. As he selected the next page, and the page after that, flicking through to the correct article, with an incredibly irritating dancing hourglass telling him that this was 'loading', he wondered if there was still more he could have done.

The headline on this page held something just as shocking.

THE EXTENT OF LIVINGSTONE'S CRIMES – HOW MANY DID HE TAKE?

However, investigators do not believe that Steven Livingstone simply stopped for two years between Jade and Kendra's murders. Or that he took a break of three years after three successful killings. Indeed, he had been out of prison for almost five years by the time he took Francis Clarkson and had been in the biscuit company for three.

While specialists in criminal psychology say that it is not unusual for the timespans between the first and second killings to be months, or even years, this still leaves quite a gap between his release in June 1977 and May 1982. Nor does it explain the apparent lull in activity from Felicity and Wayne's murders.

Livingstone travelled not just Britain and Ireland, but Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark. How many murders from the areas he was known to visit may have been committed by Livingstone?

Below listed twenty possible murders, all of children aged between four and 15. Kingsley's eyebrows flew up. Somehow he doubted that Ginny's kidnapper had taken all of them. Some of them, as the newspaper seemed to suggest, were only possibilities because they involved a dead child. Most of the victims suggested were too old, left close to home or not assaulted.

But he did suspect that some of them might have been Livingstone's fault.

The question was, how could he get the information out of him?

Kingsley didn't want to think of the possibility. Using veritaserum would have been fine if the child killer was a wizard. But the fact that he was a Muggle and in the hands of Muggle authorities would make Kingsley just as bad as the Death Eaters.

Kingsley pondered over this, keeping the newspaper clipping in his room at home, hidden beneath a painting of a tiny ballet performance. But it kept coming back to him nevertheless.

You helped find Ginny. If it wasn't for you, she would be dead. He would have many more victims. These children's families will be searching for answers for ever. It's the least you can do.

Kingsley managed to find the prison easily enough. He had gone to the cell where Livingstone had been questioned and managed to Obliviate him, so all Kingsley needed to do was to ask – and modify – a few members of staff.

Soon, Kingsley was on his way to the prison in Northern Ireland where Livingstone was held.

It was not one of Livingstone's good days.

Of course, being in prison meant that practically every day may be a bad one, but at least no-one had attacked him the shower today.

Because his crimes were so heinous, nearly everybody – prisoner and guard alike – wanted to kill him. One of these days, he might actually die in the shower or the gym. Even some of the other people who committed similar crimes to him had seen themselves as above him. They said that they'd gone down for having affairs with fifteen-year-old girls. At least they didn't kill small children.

Today, Livingstone had been relaxing on the chair in his cell, closing his eyes and deciding to think of one of his victims. He chose Wayne this time. He hadn't had Wayne in a long time.

When he'd taken Wayne, he had been driving through Halifax, as he often did, to go down south. He'd been asleep for most of the day, so Livingstone had been up for a twelve-hour run. He had stopped beside a newsagent to get a local paper and lemonade. He just happened to see Wayne passing him when he came out of the shop next door. Working out where Wayne would come out, going through an alleyway as a shortcut, Livingstone had veered around the corner. He remembered his heart beating in his chest, waiting for his prize to come out of the alleyway like an angel from Heaven. Opening the door and reaching his gloved hands out…

Livingstone was interrupted when there was a loud knock on his door. Looking up, Livingstone saw a new guard there. Groaning, Livingstone waited as the door opened.

Before Kingsley could do anything else, he held his wand out and held it by Livingstone's neck.

The prisoner froze with fear, before he opened his mouth to shout. Not that the guards would have cared.

"Drink this," Kingsley tried his best not to shake, pushing the vial near his mouth, "now."

"You trying to poison me?" Livingstone cried out in confusion.

Kingsley shoved the top of the vial into Livingstone's mouth, letting it trickle down his throat. Then Kingsley stood up and used his wand to shut and lock the door, before casting Muffilato.

"Now," he spoke to Livingstone as firmly as she could, holding himself together just enough to not throttle him, "you will tell me the truth. You cannot help it. Tell me about each and every child you took or terrified, ones the policemen do not know you committed."

Livingstone recoiled in his seat, as if trying to make sense of everything that was going on about physically and mentally inside of him. Then he looked up at Kingsley, a sly smile forming on his face.

Livingstone gripped onto the arms of his chair and forced himself in a proper sitting position, his eyes not leaving Kingsley once.

"I shall tell." he smirked.

My first abduction was Alana Dunn, back in June 1979. I took her from – give me a minute – Kells, in County Meath, in Ireland. I was delivering some biscuits to places all across Ireland. Well, I saw her, out on her red bicycle. I couldn't control my urges. I had opportunity, I had motive. I wanted power over a child that I hadn't had in seven years. I drove around with her in the back, not sure what to do with her, before I drove down a country lane, strangled her and threw her in a bog. I kept her St. Christopher medal. I had it in my drawer for fourteen years. She was found after five months. I read it in a local paper when I was delivering things for Christmas. I didn't care.

Kingsley breathed through his nostrils as his paper and quill wrote everything down. If Livingstone saw it, he didn't comment.

Not all of them were successful, though.There was one incident, thirteen months after I'd killed Alana.

This boy was walking down a street in Bury St. Edmunds. Down a road with tall hedges. He wore – a green t-shirt, striped green-and-grey shorts. Light brown hair. Must have been about – four-thirty in the afternoon. I'd just signed off a delivery in Ipswich and had to do one in this town. Well, I was driving up behind him slowly. He seemed to notice me scowling at him. I drove ever-so-slightly faster, but he ran into a driveway.

I didn't know if it was his house or if anyone was there. But I could see him ringing the doorbell and I didn't want to risk it.

I went back to Bury St. Edmunds a week later, on another delivery. Picked up a local paper and found an article appealing for information. It said 'police were looking for a driver of a white van who may have tried to go after a local fourteen-year-old boy.' Tell you the truth, I was disappointed that he was fourteen. He looked more like eleven. Of course, I wouldn't have known until it was too late for either of us.

Kingsley tried his best to keep down his lunch. This fiend was talking about kidnapping and murdering children as if it were a hobby of his, if a little unusual. In Livingstone's twisted mind, Kingsley presumed, it may have been a hobby.

"And – were there any more until you snatched Francis Clarkson?"

Livingstone shook his head, showing off his horrible, yellow teeth. "No."

"What about after Clarkson?" Kingsley used his words carefully, resisting all urges to pummel this man to death, "Any attempted abductions – or actual murders – between him and Jade?"

There was one attempt. It had been two years after I had taken Francis.

Of course, there had been momentary lapses. I'd see some kids playing on a grassy knoll between a car park and a beach. I'd see a funfair in Belgium or Denmark. I'd wonder what would happen if I chose that boy. Or snatched that girl.

But my next proper attempt was a little girl in Warrington. Not too far from where I took Francis. Only a four-minute drive. Amazing that the cops didn't try to link them in 1984.

This was – a blonde girl, wearing a yellow vest. She was outside a newsagent. I think she was waiting for friends. No-one was around. It was just us two. I went up to ask her for directions. But I started to sweat and tremble as I went up. Should I do it? Were there cameras outside the shop? Probably not, since they were pretty new back then and big stores in London and Liverpool and Edinburgh had them, not a grotty little shop in Warrington.

She looked right at me. I started to walk backwards, into my van. My eyes were still focused on her. Her friend had come out now and I think the shopkeeper was looking at me. Let me tell you, I drove out of there as quick as I could.

I had the newspaper clipping when I next went through Warrington, a week later. Said that a seven-year-old girl had reported that a man was acting strangely. Not entirely sure if anyone thought it newsworthy, but there you are.

Kingsley remembered the clipping had been present at the court, according to documents he had found. The girl, named Samantha Little, had grown up by the time this went to trial and couldn't remember enough to be a witness. But the case file was still used.

"How about ones that the police haven't linked you to?" Kingsley questioned.

Livingstone rolled his eyes up as he thought for a moment.

One case in Ireland. I'm sure the police have linked it as a possibility. I had been drunk and was stalking a boy in Virginia, in County Cavan.

This was a year and two days after I took Jade from the same county. I guess I wanted to see if I could take two children from the same place. I heard his mother calling him when the police pushed me against my car and arrested me for being drunk and disorderly. My superiors had words with me about that! I remember she called him 'Angus' if that helps at all.

There was one case that the police didn't link me to at all. I don't even know it was reported. It was on 1st December 1986, almost a year after I killed Lucas in Belgium. A village in Kincardineshire, barely more than a hamlet. Saw this girl, ten years old, with a red anorak and long brown hair, with that little fringe girls have. I hadn't had a girl with long brown hair yet. I had Kendra the next August.

I stopped, opened my door, leant down with my hands together lying on my legs, asked if she knew about engines. She had a little confused sneer on her face. Then her brother – they looked the same – came up behind her, shouting, "Lynn! What are you doing?"

For a second I glanced down at her schoolbag in her arms. Lynn Dawson. I still remember that bag.

He held her by the shoulders. I remember him, too. He was several years older, maybe fifteen or sixteen. He said some very nasty words that he shouldn't say in front of his sister and told me to clear off. I suspect he thought I wasn't going to try and take her, that I just wanted –

"That's enough." Kingsley swallowed, "How about abroad? Any times you tried to take a victim abroad and couldn't manage?"

Two boys. In Thyboron in Denmark, a couple of weeks before Christmas 1990. I was waiting for a ferry to take me north. I was smoking a cigarette while sitting on the back door to the van. I gave up smoking not long after. Filthy habit.

These two boys, dressed in uniform. I guess it was from an expensive school. They didn't look related. One was smaller, with straight brown hair, the other was taller with blonde wavy hair. I called out, asked them for directions. I know a few Danish phrases, but they could work out I was foreign.

I pretended to be confused with the map and the older boy was trying his best to explain in English, but his English was worse than my Danish. I asked how old they were, pretending to be impressed. He blushed a little. Said his friend was ten and he was twelve.

I must have spent the good part of eight minutes trying to make sense of the map. The little boy must have been a bit agitated, because he was pulling his friend's sleeve to get him to hurry up.

Then their taxi arrived. The little boy practically ran to it and the older one waved goodbye and wished me luck.

Kingsley sighed, choosing to sit down on Livingstone's bed. It was rather comfy, too, he realised with disgust. He took a glance around Livingstone's cell.

There was a television there, along with a video player. A few books, mainly on the history of trains and mechanics, sat on a shelf near the bed. A recipe book lay on a cabinet beside the bed, a bookmark holding a page. Livingstone must be taking cookery classes, Kingsley mused.

Then all of the anger flooded back to him. This cell was very roomy. He doubted that Arthur and Molly's bedroom was this big. Let alone the kids'. Arthur would love the books on mechanics and Kingsley was certain that Molly would spend hours pouring over the recipe book.

How could the Weasleys live in squalor – and have lost one child, to boot – while Livingstone, a cold-blooded killer, lived like this? Not to mention the other families who weren't so lucky.

Kingsley asked Livingstone, "And how about your successes? Are there any that the police haven't convicted you for?"

Well, they got me for everyone in the British Isles. Aside from Alana.

But on the continent, that's another story completely. My first abduction abroad was a boy named Lucas Coutroue. He was eight years old. Blondish-brown hair. Freckles. Rode a bicycle.

It was on 23rd January 1986. I had delivered some biscuits to a funfair. I knew the funfair's pattern. I sold supplies to them frequently. I saw him as he was leaving the fair and asked for directions. Before he could finish a sentence, I'd pulled him through the door and sedated him. He didn't wake in the next three hours.

I strangled him by a pond near the border with the Netherlands. I remember going to deliver to the same funfair that summer and one of the fairground workers showed me a newspaper with the boy's face. I couldn't read French, but he told me that the boy was still missing and his family were asking for information. When I came by at Christmas, I asked, "Did they ever find that boy?" The workers told me, yes, the boy's body was found a month ago in a pond, by fishermen.

I kept the clipping. Scotland Yard haven't pinned it on me as of yet, but if you're giving the information to them, they'll know anyway.

There are two girls that are still missing, as far as I am aware.

The first was Margot Langbroek. She was nine years old and had long, curly hair. I snatched her from Santport-Zuid, near Amsterdam, on 18th October 1991. I took her the same way I took Lucas; asked for directions, pulled in her through the door and sedated her.

I strangled her in a forest north of Commandeurs. Didn't wake once. I didn't bury her, just left her in a garbage bag and abandoned her near a trail. I know that she hadn't been found by April 1993, when I went to Santport-Zuid for another delivery and saw a plaque with her name. I asked what it said and the café owner told me that a girl who was still missing.

I had attempted to take a girl between the two cases with a child still missing. A girl with reddish-blonde hair was walking down Westrmarkt in Amsterdam in June 1992. She was, let's see, eleven or twelve years old. I was supposed to go over the bridge, but I turned the corner sharply to go after her. Then an old lady came out of a church and walked up to the girl. The old woman saw me and I pressed hard on the accelerator. Unlike the time in Kincardineshire, this one was reported to the press. Yet again, I couldn't read it. A customer had asked me if I had been in Amsterdam that day, as I had been delivering to a friend. I said no. The customer said that the girl, Roosje, was the granddaughter of one of his fellow churchgoers. I suspect that will be easy for you to find.

The girl I did take, Sara Nordskov, was my eldest victim. She was twelve years and seven months when I took her. She was kidnapped on 12th September 1992 in Egtved, Denmark. I asked if she knew anything about engines, before I threw her in.

Sara was a sour little girl. She bit and scratched and fought like anything. She was spotty and had messy, curly hair. I don't know when she had last brushed. It was a relief when I strangled her and threw her in Ringkobing fjord near Velling.

There is one more abduction from Denmark. Petr Olson; he was ten when I took him in August of 1990. Blonde, a little stodgy, maybe. He was riding a blue-and-white bicycle in Rebaek. I killed him by strangling him and drowning him in a stream. He was found the next day, if my Danish is correct and I read it properly in the next week's newspaper.

I did a few more that likely never made the papers, though. Six-year-old boy in a playground in Downham Market, back in May '81. I was going to get out when I realized I was late. Ten-year-old girl in Castleblayney, few days before Halloween 1982. She went close to her dad's car, though.

Couple of times I was almost caught. About a year after I'd taken Lucas, I tried again, in Sint-Laurens. Told you that I tried to take two kids from the same place. I tried it after a year. This girl, must have been eight, was at a coconut shy with a young woman. I kept telling the workers I was with that I needed to go, but they wouldn't let me, still talking, saying the ferry wasn't going to go yet.

And there was a time in Vissenbjerg, in Denmark, in November 1988. A boy was smoking a cigarette near the dustbins outside a school. He must have been maybe twelve years old. I was about to approach when a nun came through the gates and slapped the boy around the ear. When he'd gone inside, the nun snapped at me in Danish. She soon understood that I was English, so she asked me what I wanted. I said I was trying to get to the mainland and she gave me directions. If the old bat's still alive, she might remember it.

Another time a policewoman actually came up. I was in Dedham, two months before I took Felicity Jackson. A boy, aged nine or ten, and a girl, aged maybe twelve, were flying kites in a field. I got out of the van to ask directions, but a policewoman came by on a horse, so I chose to scarper.

I tried taking a kid not far from here, as a matter of fact. In Campsey, I saw a seven-year-old in March 1990. Boy was climbing a tree, so I decided not to risk it. The last time I tried anything was in March 1993, two months after I snatched Lizzy. I was at the beach in Knokke-Heist when I saw an eleven-year-old boy. I would have taken him if he hadn't walked up to a beachfront café and I chose not to go after him.

Kingsley ran a hand down the side of his face. Livingstone seemed completely at ease. He was enjoying the same torture he had been subject to. As much as Kingsley wanted to squeeze every piece of information out, the sadist had fun in reliving every detail.

"Any more that the police do not know about?" Kingsley asked him, frowning.

Livingstone nodded slowly, grinning his yellow teeth.

"I often killed them just before midnight. I don't know why, but they mostly died around midnight. Or early in the morning."

Kingsley just had a few more things to do. Things to terrify and irritate the prisoner. It was ironic, Kingsley mused, that some torture Livingstone had devised would come back to haunt him.

Kingsley lowered his wand and left. He doubted that Livingstone would tell anyone. He'd be mocked or ignored.

When Kingsley was back home, he leafed through the notes his quill had made. Then he looked at the newspaper with the map of Europe. There were no photographs, only names. But yes, five of the twenty possible names were ones that Livingstone had given.

Alana Dunn, 10, 1979. Murdered.

Lucas Coutroue, 8, 1986. Murdered.

Petr Olson, 10, 1990. Murdered.

Margot Langbroek, 9, 1991. Missing.

Sara Nordskov, 12, 1992. Missing.

Their families were still searching for answers. They would likely have been told that Livingstone was a very good suspect, if not the prime suspect. So close and yet still out of reach.

Kingsley contacted the Belgian, Dutch and Danish ministries, saying that a Muggle man who may have killed in those countries could have information leading to their exposure. Of course, in these post-Voldemort times, things would be much harder than they would have been. Not that it would have been sunshine and rainbows before.

But within a few weeks, along with some desperate persuading, an owl was sent to Kingsley's home with copes of information from the case files. It was a miracle that he'd got this quickly as it was.

Kingsley noticed how different the children all looked. As if Livingstone didn't really care who they were, just that he had control over another life.

Most of the victims were white, but Felicity Jackson was black and Sara Nordskov was a little brown. Sara had also been very skinny, whereas Petr had been heavy. Their hair colours were different too, as most of them had blonde or brown hair, but Laura was strawberry-blonde.

And Ginny had been red.

As Kingsley looked at a statement given by a relative of Kendra's, he found himself squinting in concentration.

He knew that name, he was certain.

Her grandfather was named Phileas Donovan-Johnson.

The next day, Kingsley asked for a register of any witches or wizards currently in County Antrim. He remembered Moody's words from the initial investigation. "None of the kids magic, were they?"

It turned out, by sheer coincidence, that he may have been right.

Phileas Donovan-Johnson, it turned out, was the son of Fiachra Donovan-Johnson, who had attended Hogwarts between 1902 and 1909. A half-blood, he had hated being in the wizarding world and married a Muggle in 1916. Their son, Phileas, had been invited to attend Hogwarts back in 1928, aged eleven, but he had never even received his letter, Fiachra tearing it up.

Phileas knew that he was a wizard, although he had never been told about Hogwarts. Instead, Fiachra taught him basic magic, so as not to become an Obscurus. Phileas had married a Muggle woman, just as his father did, in 1937. None of their children displayed any magical abilities. Their names had never even been down for Hogwarts.

Or their children.

One of those, it turned out, was Kendra Donovan.

Kingsley leafed through the book, to see any witches or wizards born in 1978. No, Kendra's name was not on the list. But if none of her family had been to Hogwarts in eighty years, it would not be surprising.

Maybe, if Kendra had lived, Kingsley thought, as he remembered the picture of her standing between her bicycle and a fence, her long, dark brown hair loose around her shoulders and wearing a purple plaid shirt, her children might have been born with magical abilities. It would have been relatively easy to prove they weren't Muggle-born, either; there were several, rather rude, letters from Fiachra still locked away somewhere in the Ministry.

But Kendra had not even grown up to have the chance. She had been killed, her life snuffed out at the age of nine.

The route between Ballyclare and Littleport would have taken thirteen hours, if you included all of the stops on Livingstone's route. Add a couple of hours to wait for the ferry, rest, have meals, commit…and the hours were nearly doubled.

Kingsley remembered what Livingstone had told him. The victims were nearly all killed around midnight.

What had Kendra felt, Kingsley wondered as he lay in bed that night, as she lay awake during that time? Had he fed her? How long was she out? He imagined her dying, hidden behind a hedge, between three fields near a Cambridge village, hundreds of miles from home.

How scared she must have been.

How lonely she had been.

He just hoped that she had looked away from Livingstone's face.

Magic or not, these children were innocent victims and there had been several opportunities to stop Livingstone. He should never have gotten a job such as truck driver. He had just been released from prison for assaulting a child, by Merlin's beard!

It was the same story, again and again, Kingsley realized. Muggles and wizards may be completely different, but when one was a child murderer the number of young victims made everything absolutely tragic.

"Why are you asking me?" Ginny was puzzled at why Ron had a picture of a Muggle man in his bedroom. "Why are you asking me if I know him?"

Ron sat up on his bed, rubbing the picture in his hands.

"I – put it to the back of my mind," he swallowed, "with everything over the last five years. But Kingsley came by – told Dad that Livingstone – he'd confessed under Veritaserum. How on Earth Kingsley got away with giving that to a Muggle I have no idea…"

"Why did you ask if I know him?" Ginny argued.

Ron laid the newspaper article out on his bed. Ginny stared at the mugshot of Steven Livingstone. The headline screamed CHILD KILLER CONFESSES? FOUR MURDERS ON THE CONTINENT.

Her eyes glanced over the faces of four children beside a hand-drawn aerial map of East Anglia. Three girls, one boy, all young children. Then three pictures over another hand-drawn aerial map, this time somewhere in Lancashire. Two girls and a boy. Then one of the continent, with a dot on Belgium, a dot on the Netherlands and two dots in Denmark, reasonable close to each other.

"Ron, what is this?" she asked, a little nervous.

"Look at this," he stabbed a finger at a pair of pink-and-white trainers, coated in mud, a ruler lined up beneath them, "it says that his final victim was identified by – by her shoes –"

Ginny felt a flash of memory inside her head, of her lying face-down in the woods, her shuddering hand holding the same, muddy shoe. A shoe with a rotted foot still attached.

"Tom?" she whispered, curling her fist in her sleeve and holding it by her mouth. She whimpered for a second, then closed her eyes as she burst into tears. Ron stood up and held her close.

"You can see him," he reassured his sister, "there's a trial, up in County Londonderry. We could get you in, pretend you're a foreign reporter."

"I don't know," she finally managed to say, "I wanted to know why I kept having nightmares that didn't make sense. I mean, I knew some must be related to the Chamber of Secrets, but I didn't know why I was in a Muggle house, in a wood, holding a dead girl's foot…"

She trailed off.

"Not in public. After the trial. In his cell."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"I do." She replied.

Because of lack of evidence, Livingstone was never prosecuted over the stalking of Angus O'Flanagan, even though police tracked him to that village at that time. It was similar for Roosje Hoedemaker; it was simply circumstantial. Finding the two Danish boys would have been impossible if the school emblem hadn't been remembered by Livingstone and the boys contacted. Again, there wasn't enough evidence.

Scotland Yard certainly had him down for the attempted abduction of Sidney Miles in Bury St. Edmunds, of Samantha Little, Matthew Carlisle and Shirley Field in Warrington and of Elena Parsons in Southampton. Sidney, who was now over thirty, said that he worried every day for years, refusing to leave the house in his teenage years. He just seemed to be pleased that some justice came out of it.

Samantha had been far too young to even recall much of the attempted abduction. Matthew Carlisle, on the other hand, hadn't even noticed someone was after him at the gym in Warrington until the now-deceased caretaker had shouted at 'an oily man from a white van'. Matthew had suffered nightmares afterwards and had a nervous breakdown.

Shirley Field had had therapy in the years since. She had kept telling herself that she hadn't actually been targeted. Livingstone's initial arrest had changed all that, though. She simply saw herself as lucky.

When workers from the fair were contacted, just as they were five years ago, they said that they thought Livingstone had been leaving in an attempt to flirt with the girl's babysitter. One of them had remarked at the time that they thought Livingstone was too old for her.

The nun from the school couldn't remember much about the incident, but did say that if police thought it happened, it likely did.

Ginny sat down behind the glass screen in the prison when Livingstone was dumped in front of her.

He was confused at first, even after Kingsley had removed the Oblivation spell, but he smirked when he recognized her.

"Well, if it wasn't the gypsy," he snarled, as Ginny did her best to control herself and not punch him, even though she'd probably end up hitting glass, "you're magic, are you? Never would have seen that."

"Why me?" she asked, blunt and to the point.

He shrugged. "Why did I take anyone? They just happened to be there and I happened to be there as well. Tell you the truth, for a moment I was unable to decide. I didn't know if I would have you or your big brother."

"Well, you decided to have me," she gripped the edge of her seat, "I'm still a virgin. You haven't taken that."

"So you say," he snorted, "you were the most interesting I've taken. Lasted fifty-one hours. Still had Felicity a couple of hours longer. You had spunk, kid. You're going to make me very happy in prison."

Ginny wanted nothing more than to put this man through everything that she heard had happened to Neville's parents, but she knew that she couldn't.

"You're right about one thing," she told him firmly, "you're in prison. And you're going to stay in prison. And I hope you stay in prison for a long time, until you're old and grey and wrinkled like a raisin and every single one of your victims will haunt you – literally and metaphorically, if I am right – and you're going to Hell when it's finished. Am I right?"

Her cheeks were flushing at the end. She stood up before he could answer, glaring at him, before she turned and left the room.