Chapter 10

I Trust You Have a Plan?

Terry Boot pointed his wand at the blackboard and said softly, "Tabella Scribere." Terry watched as various bullet points on the killer floated across the blackboard: loner, childhood trauma, distant father, mother dead?, not born in England or the United States, the list went on and on. Terry used his wand to cross out words and connect others that seemed to fit. Terry closed his eyes and considered his subject, imaging his life.

"Boy! Come here! Stop with your foolishness!" The man ordered and watched as the boy meekly walked over to him. "You need to learn the trade. What is wrong with you?"

The boy looked at his father in fear and coward back from him. "A new shipment came in today, put it away, and then start cutting!"

The magical doorbell rang and, as the customers entered, the boy was amazed at how fast his father changed from a malevolent bully to a subservient lackey. Fawning over his customers. Giving them whatever they wished. The boy could recite all the stupid, trite expressions his father used.

"Your love will blossom like my flowers…"

"Your love is like one of my roses…"

"Love is like a fragrant flower…"

The boy set to work cutting and preparing a shipment of flowers that had just arrived in the shop by portkey. With the customers gone, his father reverted to his bullying. The boy knew his task well, however, and his skill prevented his father from doing more than bluster and fume. 'One day,' the boy thought, 'I'll make him pay, I'll make them all pay…'

Terry sighed and ran a hand over through his hair. Yes, his childhood led to his obsession, but what made him a killer? Terry looked at Andrew Fontana's excellent notes and noticed something. At the bottom of the page, Fontana noted that the UnSub, as he called him, might work in an industry that put him into regular contact with couples. That didn't explain what fueled his rage. Something set him off, but what was that something?

Lily walked into the bowels of the Auror Office, towards the private cell block that Andrew was being held in. She hadn't been allowed to see him since his capture, but she couldn't stay away from him any longer. Lily didn't care if she was disobeying her father's orders, she needed to see him. She turned the corner and her stomach dropped. He was pacing in his cell, clearly agitated. She could sense his discomfort, and seeing him in pain... it crushed her. The very sight of him made her freeze. It was as if she was rooted in place. She didn't know how to help him, and she was growing frustrated with the slow pace of the investigation, which she attributed to Andrew's confinement and her father's meddling. Andrew knew more about the killers than anyone in the office and not using his expertise, was, in her mind, shortsighted.

Taking a deep breath, she strutted forwards, using all her courage, and stopping in front of his cell. He hadn't noticed her yet. She wanted to say something, anything, to break through his turmoil, but her mind was suddenly blank. She looked down at her feet, seeking inspiration.

"So where have you been hiding, beautiful?" Lily jumped. She looked up and noted that his agitation seemed to fall away as he gazed at her, and a wry smile brightened his face.

Lily could have sworn her heart tried to beat out of her chest, as her pulse raced. She'd missed him. It almost physically hurt to be parted from him.

"Hiding?" Lily frowned, trying to counter his flippant manner with forced annoyance. "I haven't been hiding, I've been working, and sadly my overprotective father wants to keep us apart. It's like we're living in some horrible melodrama or Shakespearean play."

Andrew shuddered and cringed. "I really hope you're wrong. Romeo and Juliet, eh? Everybody seems to die in those plays… I would much rather take after something from Homer, maybe the Odyssey?" Andrew tried to fix a witty smile on his face but failed. "Dying wasn't part of my plan, but of course, neither was falling in love or being captured."

Lily shook her head at him. Their banter had been a staple of their relationship since the beginning, but even Andrew's normally idealistic and optimistic personality was failing him in the end.

"Will you get in trouble for being here? I don't want that. That's partly why I gave myself up. I would hate for you to go down with me, even if it will be in a blaze of glory." The sadness that shone from Andrew's face was too much for Lily and she closed her eyes against it. She wished she was stronger. Stronger for him… Stronger for her.

"Shut up you idiot!" Lily hissed. "I'm not letting you ride off into the sunset! Stop trying to be a cowboy and let me worry about my father. Actually, he likes you, which is a first." She watched, fascinated, as his face once again become filled with mischief.

Andrew looked astounded at Lily, "You called me an idiot…"

"Well," Lily put her hands on her hips and used her best glare, "you were being one, you deserved it! Besides, depression doesn't become you!" Lily flipped her long hair and looked away with a petulant expression.

"Maybe so…" Andrew studied her. "Working? How goes the case? Please tell me you caught them?"

"You know we haven't! If we had you'd be - "

"Sleeping in your bed?" Andrew interrupted with a roguish grin.

"Stop it! Down boy! The bloody case has stalled. We're trying to understand the killer's motivation, his backstory, the why of it."

Andrew shook his head and sighed, "Have you been using my notes? His childhood?"

"Yes. Terry Boot is using them. They're brilliant. No mother. Abusive father… But what was the adult trigger? What role does the Black Widow play? You said what he does for a living puts him in contact with couples? What does he do?"

Andrew sunk to his cot and covered his face with his hands. Lily ached to reach out to him, to touch him, but she knew she could not. So, she waited, allowing the silence to build.

He removed his hands from his face and looked into her eyes. "The letters. The letters he wrote to me… They were mostly filled with the ramblings of a madman but occasionally… occasionally he'd leave clues. I think he thought I wasn't smart enough to notice them. He was wrong. I know what he does, and I think I know what set him off."

Andrew looked up at Lily. His eyes alight. The darkness, the drive to finish his murderous mission was still there, but his identity as an Auror, his desire for justice was even stronger. Lily knew instantly that she had to get him out, she had to break him out.

"That's bollocks, Harry!" Ginny glared at her husband and shook her head in disbelief. "Why do you still have Andrew locked up? You need him and more importantly, your daughter needs him."

"I can't have him running around the country without some assurance that he can control the revenge curse, or we can purge it from him. If we do nothing, and he actually finds and kills the suspect..." Harry let his observation linger, and not getting a reply from Ginny, he continued.

"If he carries it out, and Hermione and I both think he will, he will lose everything, and so will Lily," Harry explained softly to his wife. His eyes pleading for her support. He reached out a hand praying she would understand. Ginny's resolve seemed to melt ever so slightly as she accepted his gesture... A new voice shattered the moment.

"Blame me, Ginny, not Harry. I gave the order to keep Andrew Fontana in custody." The couple spun toward the voice and saw Hermione standing in his office doorway. "I'm convinced that the only way to end the spell is to carry out the revenge. I wish I was wrong, I really do, but I can't see any other solution. We're keeping Fontana here, for now. He's too clever to be transported safely back to the States."

Ginny sunk wearily to the black leather couch behind her and, shaking her head, remarked to Hermione. "Did it ever occur to you that keeping Lily and Andrew apart is just making the spell's control of him all the stronger. Lily's love allows him to control the urges! You must see that! Maybe, just maybe, he can help you with the case. As a matter of fact, why isn't he helping? The American Aurors messed up when they tried to take him off the case. Why repeat history?"

Harry's eyes darted between his wife and his best friend/sister-in-law. Ginny was on a roll, he well knew the signs, and he could see a counter-lecture being written in Hermione's mind. For a second he felt like they were all back at Hogwarts…

"Well, as it turns out," Harry began briskly, ignoring Hermione's glare for his interruption, "Lily is currently in Andrew's cell block and I'm pretty certain that she's planning to break him out..."

"What?! Harry!" Hermione screeched, "that's against the rules, against procedure, against… How could you allow-"

Harry's grin stopped Hermione's rant dead. The come-on-Hermione grin. The grin that, since she was 12 years old, had propelled her into situations she'd never dreamed about. That damn grin that got her to break the rules, that along with Ron's constant prodding, made her feel alive.

Hermione folded her arms and looked at Harry with forced annoyance, "I trust you have a plan?!" Harry simply grinned back.

I just wanted to thank everybody for sticking with this story. I'm sorry for the glacial rate at which I'm updating it.