The rest of the night was tense, as we weren't sure if the Death Eaters would return and try to attack again once we'd gone to sleep. Remus exchanged messenger patronuses with a few people, and we slept in shifts. Fortunately, they didn't make another attempt, and mid-morning the next day a pair of familiar figures disembarked from the Knight Bus onto Remus' driveway. "Aurors are here," I told Remus and Oliver.
"She's cute," Oliver observed about Auror-Apprentice Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks, joining me to watch our visitors through the living room window. Moody couldn't just walk up and ring the bell of course, and was casting a whole series of detection charms while Tonks looked on in amusement, trying to pretend that she was fully committed to watching his back while he worked. "Reminds me of someone," he considered. I didn't help him out; Oliver had met my godmother, and I didn't want anyone else making that connection. "Oh! Right! She was that Hufflepuff girl 't'was friends with Charlie Weasley. I always thought she was fit."
Remus, who'd joined us, nodded absently at Oliver's pronouncement about the pink-haired auror. Then he did a double-take and asked, "Is that Andromeda Tonks' daughter?"
"Probably," I told him, recognizing the astronomical Black naming scheme. "Said her mother was a Black who was disowned for marrying a muggleborn."
"That's her," he nodded. "Andromeda was the only other Black that Sirius would talk to. Nymphadora was maybe five the last time I saw her?" A whole cloud of emotions rolled across Remus' face. I figured it was some combination of thinking about one of the friends he lost in the war, and realizing he was ogling a girl who he remembered as a five-year-old.
"They grow up so fast," I grinned. "Don't call her by her first name, by the way," I warned him. "She seems to hate it."
The pair of aurors finally came up and rang the bell, and Remus let them in after some quiet question-and-answer verification between the two men to establish identities. I kept a wary eye on Moody as he entered, ready to shield or dodge. "We'll have you prepared for the field in no time, Dresden," he observed, grinning at my obvious belief that he was going to try to hex me. "Wood," he nodded at my roommate, who he'd met one of the few times he'd run a Saturday defense tutoring session. "I hear you killed a werewolf?"
"T'was a team effort," Oliver demurred, but stood up a bit straighter and made eyes at Tonks. I chuckled quietly. I'd been worried that he would be having some issues after having killed a guy, even if it was a bad guy, but if he could use the experience to flirt with cute girls, he was probably going to be okay.
After finding out about how using magic to kill tore your soul, I'd done a lot of research. It turned out banishing physical objects was a bit of a loophole, or at least a gray area, because your magic wasn't directly connecting you to the death, just propelling a dangerous object. For similar reasons, back before Britain had removed the death penalty, aurors would carry enchanted swords for when they had to perform a field execution. You might have to deal with the psychological trauma of killing someone, but at least your soul would be intact. Not like using a deadly curse directly on a target… or even accidentally burning your mentor to death with fiendfyre.
I'd probably still be upset about the whole thing, except Bob's descriptions of how the werewolf curse worked made a pretty compelling argument that Greyback hadn't had enough soul left to really count as a person. Putting him down was closer to putting down the wargs or other dark magic creatures than killing a human being who could be reformed.
"Any fighting in the house?" Moody asked while I was thinking, switching to full detective mode.
"Just Mr. Wood attacking from upstairs into the yard," Remus explained. He was the obvious choice to take point on the explanations of what happened, and we walked the pair into the backyard and started to describe the fight. Remus had put some stasis charms on Greyback's body and covered it with a sheet in case the neighbors noticed. We'd also held off on repairing the damage to the fixtures until the aurors had a look.
After statements were taken, Greyback's body was frozen and shrunken for transport, and the yard was finally given a barrage of cleaning and repairing spells, there was a bit of chit chat with the two friendly aurors. Despite Oliver's attempts to chat Tonks up about their mutual connections at Hogwarts (which was likely to get him into big trouble with Alexis if she found out), she didn't seem interested in the aspiring professional goalkeeper. Instead, I'd noticed her hanging on Remus' descriptions of his duel with the thin Death Eater. And once she got a second when Remus was showing Moody his muggle entertainment system and Oliver had gone in to take a shower (while we were in less danger from Death Eater attack), she quietly asked me, "Dresden, what's the deal with your landlord?"
"Fought in the war alongside your partner, but he's been mostly getting rich as a muggle novelist since," I told her. Watching her eyes light up, I smirked and mentioned, "And he remembers you as a five-year-old because he knew your mom through your… uncle? Sirius."
"Shit," she groaned, realizing. "I barely remember 'Uncle Remus.' And Sirius Black is technically my cousin." The frown at mentioning Sirius' name wasn't one of a dead war hero relative, and I made a mental note to look into my assumptions about Remus' friends.
"At least he's not as much older than you as he looks?" I mentioned. While he was definitely over a decade older than her, with his transformation-caused premature aging, he looked at least twice her age.
"True," she said. "And he's single?"
"Painfully so," I smiled. I wasn't sure whether she was aware that he was a werewolf. I'd let Moody reveal that secret if she was cleared to know. "But I think he's making some progress working through his issues from the war, so maybe he's ready to date again." Given the bounce in Remus' step after he'd had a night to process finally being free of his old nemesis, I figured that might be an understatement.
"Thanks Dresden," she grinned, elbowing me affectionately. "I promise to only use your terrifying observation skills for good... and for my own personal benefit."
"Floo's fixed!" Remus informed us from inside.
After Moody spent way too long convincing himself that the floo connection was safe enough to use, he and Tonks left and Oliver went home not long after. I got a moment with Bob to confirm that the veil was still damaged, but that floo connections must be robust enough to bridge the cracks. The news over the Wizarding Wireless agreed: the Ministry was pleased that the floo had been restored, but still advised citizens to avoid trying to apparate long distances.
That afternoon, Dumbledore called ahead and showed up to get a firsthand description of the previous evening's attack. "While I'm pleased that your problem with Fenrir Greyback has ended, though perhaps too permanently," the headmaster mused, "I worry that Walden Macnair and the other may be back at any time to once again attempt to abduct Mr. Dresden." We both nodded, the risk a real one we'd already worried about. "I'd prefer not to confine him to Hogwarts, especially when you two are obviously doing so well. But I don't believe even a Gringotts team would be able to make the wards here impenetrable to dedicated opponents. However…"
"The Fidelius didn't protect the Potters," Remus frowned.
"Without betrayal, it would have. I'm suggesting myself for the secret keeper this time," Dumbledore explained. "And since the primary issue is that at least two Death Eaters have located your home, it seems an efficient solution."
"This is the charm that hides the house for anyone not in on the secret, right?" I asked, vaguely remembering having come across information on the spell. The two men nodded, and I continued, "Will that make it useless for Remus' muggle life?"
"I'll probably have to get a post office box," Remus thought it through out loud. "It may make it difficult to get the telly or the utilities serviced. They may cut them off entirely if they can't remember the service address." He shrugged. "They're conveniences, though, not essential with magic."
"Don't mess up your life just to save me a week at Hogwarts," I told him.
"I'd have to move otherwise," he shook his head and smiled wanly. "Death Eaters are like termites. Really lower the value if they can get into your house." I guess I looked like I was sad I'd brought this down on him and he said, "I consider either option well worth it to finally be quit of Greyback."
"It could well only be a few months before you'd need to move to the school anyway…" Dumbledore twinkled.
"I still haven't agreed to that," Remus told him. "I'd prefer not to be another victim of the curse."
Dumbledore sighed, but could muster no disagreement. "Alas, I have had no more luck finding the source of the curse on the defense professorship than finding the source of the recent attacks."
I straightened up, having forgotten that I'd had a discussion with Bob and come up with a theory. "Professor… when did the defense professors start having problems?"
"After Voldemort, still calling himself Tom Riddle, applied to the position around a quarter of a century ago," Dumbledore admitted.
"Exactly then?" I asked.
"Hmm," he acknowledged my point and gave it more thought. "We didn't lose a professor every year immediately, and there was a war going on so some of the losses were completely explicable rather than unfortunate coincidences. It is possible that it only seems to be something related in hindsight. Do you have a theory, my boy?"
"How many students would you say had their lives in danger between when you put up the fortunamancy wards and the war with Voldemort?" I asked him.
I saw his eyes light up, following me. "Nearly none! I've been such a fool!"
"Catch me up?" Remus asked.
"Hogwarts has a ward to try to bend fortunes to keep students and staff alive," I told him. "But it wasn't actually needed until there was a war going on that spilled over into the school. You can't reduce entropy in one part of a system without just moving it somewhere else. Even in the years after the war, there might have been a ton of entropy still built up in the wards trying to bleed off."
"Correlation does not equal causation," Remus said, getting it. "You've been looking for a curse for two decades, but it wasn't a deliberate curse on the position, just an unintended side effect."
"I'll get right to work examining the wards to see if I can determine why it chose the defense professorship and whether it can be more safely distributed. I only hope poor Gilderoy hasn't already built up a dangerous level of entropy…"
