~*~

Diagon Alley was in chaos.

"Avada Kedavra!" and a child died.

Much to one Death Eater's annoyance, a man simply sat at his table in Florean's refusing to flee. Excellent. Another death for Lord Voldemort.

Behind his mask, Lucius was mildly irked. Was the fool blind, or merely brainless? He wasn't even trying to draw a wand. The soon to be dead man gave Malfoy a contemptuous look that drove his ire to pure anger.

"Ava-"

"Access: J'edd J'arkus."

Lucius swore as his target vanished. An invisibility cloak? No. A cloak could render you invisible, but donning one was obvious. A spell? He didn't recognize the phrase the man had spoken. Possibly a spell in a foreign tongue. Well, invisibility, disillusioning and other cloaking spells might hide a person, but they couldn't hide what that person did. A quick bit of wandwork, and the dust outside of Florean's turned a bright white. A smirk twisted Malfoy's lips. Whatever the idiot had done, his footprints would give him away.

That was the last thought Lucius had before two arms emerged from the ground beneath him and crushed his kneecaps.

Voldemort was incensed. A simple terror raid on Diagonal Alley, and all - ALL! - of his Death Eaters had apparated back in abject defeat,
babbling about a mysterious wizard who, unseen, had shattered their elbows and left them unable to wield their wands properly.

To add insult to injury, this unknown wizard walked away from the battle, leaving his followers crippled but alive.

Why?

Whoever this wizard was, he was capable. Five of Voldemort's best,
led by Lucius, had been defeated with embarrassing ease.

His spies inside the Ministry would find the identity of this mystery man, or they would suffer. And once he was known to Voldemort, the stranger would die.

Riddle gave the appropriate orders to a waiting Death Eater, then turned his attention to other, far more important matters. There were preparations to be made to create his seventh and final Horcrux.
Once that had been finished, the one, true immortal Dark Lord would take his place over all of England.

The world would follow in due course.

After all, he would then have all the time in the world.

Patience can be such a simple thing, when one is immortal.

To the wizard known as "Lord Voldemort"

I take pen in hand to inform you that your plans for world domination do not concern me. Your actions towards 'wizards' and 'witches' are likewise of little interest to me.

Your lackeys attacked me, I retaliated. That is an action I believe you are familiar with.

Do with your world as you will. It is of little concern to me.
When your followers attack me, I will return fire. Should they refrain, I shall do the same.

As you do not know of me, you have no reason to trust me.
With that in mind, I offer you this - it would be in your own self interest to do something about those appallingly primitive soul anchors of yours. Felix often made use of similar constructs, and in the process developed a number of simple and easy methods to locate them and disrupt them, even when they are behind wards and shielding.

The ring, the cup, the tiara? You might as well have left signposts for your enemies to follow. Jim Craddock would have been dismayed to learn that his spiritual heir (so to speak) had been brought so low.

While I fully understand the use of symbolism, really,
leaving your containers alone and unguarded as you have is risky. And your use of a theme - relics of importance to the Founders - made them even easier to discover.
A theme is a weakness. And a weakness is dangerous.

In closing, I proffer the unsolicited advice that you take better steps to conceal your weaknesses, and suggest that should your followers again encounter me, they simply turn aside. I see no need to kill them unless they provoke me.

F. Halloran

Minister Bagnold glared at Amelia Bones. "The entire assets of the DMLE at your disposal, and a single wizard cannot be found? Despite having paid to have an editorial letter printed in the Prophet? What are your people being paid for, then? Lounging about and having high tea? Perhaps I should have that madman Moody brought in.
He certainly couldn't do any worse."

The Head Auror took a tighter grip on her monocle and returned the glare. "I've three teams working on it, and they've found nothing.
No magical trace, no signatures, NOTHING, Madam Bagnold.
And before you shout at me, I've even requested the aid of the Unspeakables. They've had a team searching for the mystery wizard since the day of the attack and they're even more obsessed with discovering who he is than YOU are." Amelia rubbed at her aching eyesocket, then went on. "Whoever - or WHATEVER - he is, he performed spells without leaving any residue behind, and the Unspeakables dearly want to know how that was done - if only because they want to do so themselves."

Bagnold let out an angry sigh. "And the information given in the letter? The names? Who is this 'Jim Craddock' mentioned in the letter? And is there _any_ truth to the accusation of ..."

Her voice sank to a uneasy whisper. "... of the use of a horcrux?"

Amelia's expression gave her all the answer she needed to know.

"So it's true. You Know Who has achieved immortality."

"No!" Bones' reply was curt. "The... containers will only hold his soul here on Earth. Destroy his body, and the Dark Lord will be nothing more than a ghost. Less than that. Destroy the items used,
and even that protection will fail him. And that annoying letter, however much it's stirred up the general public, did us one favor.
If there's any truth to it, then we know what he probably used as containers. Knowing what to look for, however blindly, is better than not knowing at all."

Now it was Amelia's turn to sigh. "Not that much better, but still better than the groping in the dark we were doing. If You-Know-Who _did_ use relics of the Founders, then there are limits as to where he could hide them. It's not as if the bloody things can be hidden just anywhere. Would YOU trust your soul to something that everyone in the world covets? This Halloran fellow mentioned the Founder's relics specifically, and a cup. Even a squib would know that means the Hufflepuff Cup. That's like putting your soul in the bloody statue in the Ministry! Everyone and their cousin could walk by and tamper with it."

Millicent nodded reluctantly. "And the Cup would stand out like a ruddy forest fire. Only so many places you could hide something that powerful." She paused to take a sip of tea, hoping it would soothe her frayed nerves. "And the names mentioned in the letter?"

Amelia's angry frown lightened a bit. "Some useful news there, though I don't know if it was intentional on the writer's part. Given the context of the letter, 'Jim Craddock' was probably James Craddock, a muggleborn from the last century who took up a career as a highwayman in the early 1800's." She paused to take a shrunken folder from her purse.

"This next bit I had to _force_ out of the Unspeakables, and they're more than a little furious that I did. They flatly informed me that if I shared this information with you and it leaked, the Ministry would need a new Head of the DMLE, a new Head Auror... and a new Minister."

"What?" The outrage in Bagnold's voice was palpable.

Bones sighed. "I read it. I can barely believe it. And if it's true,
the Unspeakables would have nearly every right to kill the lot of us to keep it secret, Minister. Now, do you still want to know?"

"Tell me," said Bagnold in a tight voice.

"'Gentleman' James Craddock made a pact with a demon to become immortal in return for stealing ten souls that the demon needed to enter the mortal world. He failed, obviously."

"Obviously," echoed Bagnold weakly.

"But for his failure, the demon cursed him to walk the Earth as a ghost, albeit one with more power than most. Craddock had expected to live as an immortal wizard. Now he's just a better dressed version of Peeves the poltergeist."

"Merlin's brazen balls," whispered Millicent. "If the public knew that was possible... buying immortality by stealing other people's souls instead of tearing up your own..."

"The wizarding world would turn into an unending war," nodded Bones. "To buy their own immortality without any cost to themselves."

Minster looking for the mystery wizard - Voldemort's spies disguise their interest later (try to recall shower idea)