Chapter 2 Covert Meet

Tonks had finally made it to her bed. She'd had to go back to Magical Law Enforcement HQ to lay the news on DMLE and her supervisor that someone else was going to have to cover off for her for the next while. Shacklebolt didn't bat an eye. Her supervisor was a lot less happy and a lot more vocal. She let him vent a bit, then referred him to Shacklebolt.

Thanks be, Greengrass had been at his desk. He was going to need about twelve hours or so to set up a covert meet with Fletcher.

"Who's going to be there?" He had asked, suspiciously.

"Me and my partner." She replied, shortly.

"Who is he?" He asked.

"My ... partner." She said in a tone that said that was all he was getting.

"I hope he understands covert." Greengrass said dubiously.

"We're not going to blow your meet. Owl me when it's set up." Tonks had replied, and left.

Twelve hours actual sleep and a good breakfast left Tonks feeling better. Merlin knew when she might get the like again. Greengrass's owl rapped on her window as she was drinking the last of her tea.

The meet was set for three hours from now, in a seedy part of Knockturn Alley.

Back to the underbelly of the Magical world. Bloody marvelous. She thought.

Well, at least she knew the area and how to blend in. Harry was going to need some coaching. Working undercover was not a simple skill.

She scribbled a note on the bottom of Greengrass's note and took it to the owl perch by her front door. She tapped the rune on the perch with her wand and waited. Hedwig arrived a few minutes later. Tonks gave her an owl treat and handed her the letter. She gave a hoot and flew off. The privilege of sending an owl directly to Sir Harry Potter was very heavily restricted these days, but Tonks was family.

Tonks spent the next few minutes putting on street clothes and a street face. She had a half dozen personas of both genders that were well established in the Alley. This one was a female prostitute, so a male companion wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

Harry popped in, literally, a few minutes later. Per her note, he was wearing the seediest robes he owned, still a sizeable cut above the norm for the Alley. He had a broad-brimmed hat that would serve to hide his face without being too obvious about it. She could work with that.

"All right, Harry. We need to sort the script of this play. First, though, we need to hide your face. It is rather well known."

She opened the cupboard where she kept some useful items. "Hair growing potion. We need to hide your face without being obvious about it. Bottoms up."

He took it and knocked it back, then grimaced as his clean shaven face acquired a full beard in about a minute and his hair went from short to shoulder length.

"Are you all right, Harry?" Tonks asked. It was a pretty minor potion, and he'd used it before.

"All right. It grows all your hair, though." He replied.

"Too much information, Harry." Tonks replied briskly, then handed him a second bottle.

"What's that?" He asked.

"Antidote." Tonks replied. "We may need to convince someone that you are you."

He pocketed it without comment. "All right. What's the game plan here?"

"This is one of my established identities on the Alley. She's a prostitute. You're a middle class type from out of town cruising the Alley for some rough trade, and you found it. We're on our way to a rooming house to conduct business. You need to act the part. Furtive, half ashamed, half excited. Good reason for you to keep your hat pulled well down and keep to the shadows."

He looked thoughtful. "Makes sense. Why all the charade, though? Can't we just be nondescript and stick to the shadows?"

"The Alley is a small world, Harry. Strangers get noticed very quickly. In that jungle, you are either predator or prey. Strangers are assumed to be prey until they prove themselves otherwise."

"I could do that." He replied, coldly.

"I'm sure you could." She replied, careful to be diplomatic on a touchy subject. Harry had the scars, literal and figurative, from a bad childhood and was thereby quick with his wand where bullies and abusers were concerned. They couldn't afford that.

"That would attract attention that we absolutely cannot afford. It would quite likely cause Fletcher to go to ground and stay there, and it could blow this identity as well. This way, we fit a normal pattern and no one will bother us." She said.

He nodded acceptance. "Fair enough, Tonks. We haven't any time to lose, and you've a bloody awful job already. I'm not about to make it any worse."

They apparated to a safe spot that Tonks knew in the Alley. They headed down Cauldron Court to where it crossed the Alley.

"Put your hand on me, Harry." She said, quietly.

"Oh, right." He said and did so.

He got more into the skin of the part as they went, and even let his hand drift down a little. This was business, and she wouldn't have minded even if it wasn't. She'd had a few daydreams in that direction after her breakup with Remus Lupin. She shook off the thought. You stayed focused on the job or bad things happened.

Andrew Greengrass stood on the corner in a shadowy spot and swept his eyes around. Tonks was well known in the Service, and spotting someone who could look like literally anyone was pretty much a lost cause. Being with someone narrowed it down, though. A couple passed by, soiled dove and her john. Possible, but he was pretty sure he'd seen the prostitute before.

He swung around to check down the Alley, and a quiet voice in his ear said "Long Live The Queen".

"Send her victorious." He replied, as quietly, kicking himself for being caught out.

The soiled dove was Tonks. He recognised the voice. He took a second look at her companion. Male, medium everything, moved well. Between the beard and the hat, good luck on the face. Glasses, for what that was worth. Greengrass was pretty sure he was not an Auror.

"The meet?" Tonks asked in the same low tone.

"Alley behind the Hanged Man, twenty minutes." Greengrass replied.

She nodded. "Lead on. We'll follow."

He did so, taking his time and staying alert. They made it to the alley behind the Hanged Man pub with five minutes in hand. Harry wrinkled his nose. The alley stank of rotting garbage and piss.

Fletcher was already there. Short, middle-aged, seedy and balding. He looked more jittery than usual, which meant he would bolt for it at any excuse. Greengrass quietly cast an Anti-Apparation ward. Rather to Greengrass's surprise, Tonks eased on past Fletcher in case he should bolt in that direction, which meant her partner was going to question Fletcher.

The partner pulled a small potion vial from his pocket and knocked it back, then took off his hat as the beard went away. "Hello, Dung. It's been a while."

Fletcher went from jittery to scared white. "Mr. P-p-potter. Such an honour it is to meet you again."

"Mundungus Fletcher, as a subject of Her Majesty I command you to answer truthfully and completely the questions I shall put to you on Her Majesty's Service. So mote it be."

Greengrass was amazed at the power of the crackle of Magic that wrapped around the words. Fletcher's face took on the same look as someone under Veritaserum. Potter brought out a small Dictaquill and started asking questions. The story that Fletcher told was the same as what he'd told Greengrass, but with additional details. The spell seemed to stimulate memory as well. When Sir Harry required him to repeat the conversation word for word, Fletcher did so.

During the interrogation, Fletcher had backed up until his back was against the greasy bricks of the alley wall, and Greengrass and Tonks had closed in until they were almost back to back, wands ready.

"Must be nice." Greengrass said quietly. Tonks took his meaning at once. The equivalent of a bottomless vial of Veritaserum that you didn't have to wake up a judge to use was something any Auror would like to have.

"Membership in that club has its perqs, but the initiation is a stone killer." Tonks replied in an equally hushed tone. The three beat pause that followed invited Greengrass to recall some of the things that Harry Potter had been through before he'd been old enough to shave.

"Yeah." He said, and lapsed into silence. The further question of just what sort of high level throat cutting would bring Sir Harry Rich and Famous Potter his very own bloody self down to the arse end of Knockturn Alley to put the squeeze on a two Knut informant was … more than was good for an Auror to be involved in, personally or professionally.

"Andrew." Said Tonks, quietly. "This doesn't get talked about. Ever. To anyone."

"Got it." Greengrass replied. No real surprise, that. Went with the territory for this sort of thing.

He nodded toward the conversation going on between Potter and Fletcher. "You realize I can't answer for Fletcher."

Tonks chuckled. "Not terribly bright, Mundungus isn't, but he knew better than to cross Dumbledore and he knows better than to cross Harry."

Greengrass could well believe that.

The interrogation didn't last very long. Harry released the spell and gave Fletcher a hard stare. "Keep your eyes and ears open. Five galleons for anything useful. If I ever find out that you held anything back..."

"Y-y-yes Mr. Potter." Fletcher replied nervously.

Harry looked over his shoulder. "Let him go."

Greengrass nodded and dissolved the wards. Fletcher vanished with a crack.

"Sir Harry, I don't question that Fletcher would sell his mother for five galleons, but I really don't have the budget to pay out that much." Greengrass said carefully.

"Not to worry." Harry replied. "Submit your expenditures to Crown Wizards Office with a note that they're authorized by me. You won't have any trouble."

A few seconds and three cracks later the alley was empty.

Harry sat back in his chair and looked at the notes from his questioning of Mundungus Fletcher. "Not much here that we didn't already have, Tonks. Viper. I take it that his mother didn't give him that name."

"No." She replied. "DMLE does keep a file of street nicknames. We could check that. No guarantees. They don't have a College of Heralds to keep everything in order."

"Two hundredweight of thief. What on Earth is that?" He said, looking baffled.

"What's the context, Harry?" Tonks asked.

"Viper says 'After moving two hundredweight of thief I'm for the near and far for some pig's ear and Bristols.' Then the reply was 'Lady Bellatrix ain't going to like that.' 'She's dead.' Viper says. Then the reply is 'So will we be if we don't keep on the straight. Sirius Black gets dead, we stay alive.' Viper replies 'With luck we get the whole damned House of Black.'"

"Hmm." Tonks replied. "That's interesting. Cockney rhyming slang is its own dialect, and it moves around. Thief would be short for stop thief, which means beef. Pig's ear is beer. Bristols is short for Bristol City, meaning titty."

"Well, his taste in recreation isn't much of a surprise. Hang on, two hundredweight of beef?" Harry said. "Are you sure?"

Tonks nodded. "Yes. You have to be current if you're working undercover."

"People really speak that way?" Harry said.

"The Alley is a world away from Little Whinging, Harry." Tonks replied.

He shook his head. "I'll say it again, Tonks. You've a bloody awful job."

"Someone has to do it, Harry." She replied. "We've confirmed some things and learned a couple more. Lady Bellatrix is definitely Bellatrix Lestrange. No one else would dare use that name on the street, even now. DMLE speculated that these people might be under some sort of curse that would be binding even after Lestrange was dead. That's more likely now. I'll get into the moniker files and try to identify Viper."

"They are buying - or stealing - beef in hundredweight quantities. Perhaps other commodities as well. They would have a reason for that, though I've no groggiest idea what it might be." Harry said.

"Nor me either." Tonks replied. "It's a lead. We follow it up, perhaps we learn something."

"Fair point." Harry replied. "Their smart move, whether they're buying or stealing, would be to do it on the non-Magical side. That's a much bigger forest to hide in. Six or seven million people in London alone."

"Makes sense, Harry, but it leaves me at a stand. DMLE has no liaison with the non-Magical police at all." Tonks replied ruefully.

"I can take that on." Harry replied. "It will take time, though. Crown Wizard's Office will pass the word to someone on the non-Magical side who can ask a favour of the Police. They'll have to do a record search and the results will have to get passed back to us. The cover story is cut and dried, not to mention perfectly true. Suspected terrorist activity."

"Dammit." Harry said angrily. "We're losing time. What are these bloody bastards up to while we're grinding away? What if we're too late?"

Tonks understood the fear that drove that impatience, because she felt it herself. "We're not losing time, Harry, we're using it. We keep grinding and we'll get a break. We wouldn't be this far if not for you."

He visibly got a grip on himself. "You're right. Well, right now we have reports to write. So much for glamour."

Tonks nodded. "Let's get started."