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I still don't own JL or HP

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CHAPTER FOUR

"Richard Walkers, call me Rick." Wally shook his new boss' hand. "Heard about the accident. Falling down three flights of stairs and out a window. And that rabid dog at the bottom? Terrible luck, that."

Wally struggled to keep from face palming as he heard what James had come up with to explain why he was taking all of his sick leave in the first two weeks of his work. "Yeah well, I've always had a bad luck streak."

Rick chuckled. "I'd say so. You've got good timing, or bad, depending on your point of view. A case just came in today and I was just about to examine it. I hope you aren't squeamish." He walked Wally over to Examination Room 2, and the two entered.

It wasn't a pretty sight. It also stank.

Still, Wally had dealt with dead bodies before and while it wasn't something he particularly liked doing, he was good at it. Pathology was his forte in all of his sciences, behind forensic of course.

"Remains were found in a trout farm which is what's with the odour. The body's a little...odd, to say the least." Rick told him.

"Sounds fishy," Wally quipped as he pulled on some gloves and a face mask for good measure.

Rick did the same. "I know you're not technically qualified to be a forensic pathologist but I saw that you've studied it. Tell me what you think."

His speed, Wally found, came in handy with the examining. It was only forty five minutes later that he'd deduced what happened. "First, from the prominent supra-orbital ridge, it's a pretty clear indication that our fishy friend is a he, early forties if his teeth are any clue, though I would like a DNA affirmation." Wally glanced up at Rick who nodded, silently watching him explain. "Death by trout food sounds pretty gruesome, and was what I thought had happened at first, with the extensive fish predation on the organs and flesh."

"What changed your mind?" Rick asked.

"Stab wounds," Wally answered.

"So he was murdered and then had fish eat his corpse."

"No," Wally negated. "Or well, yes, I guess, but not the way you're thinking. The stab wounds are not your average knife wounds - they were small incisions." He'd recognised them thanks to James, actually. As bad as he was at chess, James was a pro at healing.

Rick's eyes widened. "You mean-"

"They were made by a scalpel, which kind of explains why they were surrounding the organs." Wally poked the corpse. "Lack of scarring says postmortem."

"So someone kills John Doe, takes his organs and then leaves his body in a trout farm to be fish food," Rick finished, sighing. "Organ harvesting is unfortunately a booming business, thanks to the restrictions placed on the legal route."

Wally shrugged, magic had ways of growing organs if you needed them, so he didn't exactly know much about that muggle area. It wasn't like he needed extra organs.

"Either way, it's a lead, and I'll give it to the officers," Rick continued, before patting Wally on the back. "Good work, son."

Wally puffed up slightly, a pleased grin on his face as he took off his gloves.

"Margie will show you to the back-log room, full of cold cases. It needs to be sorted out," Rick said, gesturing at a robust but friendly looking woman.

Wally's smile fell and he inwardly groaned. Great. Paperwork.

...

BL Duty wasn't as bad as Wally feared. It was dreadfully boring (just because he did things four times faster in normal time, didn't mean he liked doing it anymore) but once he'd finished and checked there was no other work to do, he spent his time on the mirror talking with Mum.

"Your father and I will be dropping around for dinner, you really don't eat enough for your metabolism," she told him.

Wally grimaced because, unfortunately, that was true. With his increased metabolism almost all his earnings went to his food intake. He didn't even own a car.

"Mum," he warned.

His mother rolled her eyes. "No, your father and I are not taking pity on you, nor are we paying for your life. Honestly, all you kids are the same."

"It's you're retirement money," Wally justified half-heartedly, but really he just didn't like relying financially on his parents. None of them did.

"This may come as a big surprise, but we don't need thirty billion pounds are retirement money," Mum drawled, sounding an awful lot like Albus.

"Then sure, come over," Wally conceded.

Mum gave a mischievous grin. "I wasn't asking for permission."