Even When Nobody Else Believes, a harry potter fanfic

QL, Wigtown Wanderers | Round 4 | Beater 1 | Roanoke
Additional Prompts | 12. [object] clock, 13. [dialogue] "I feel like perhaps I am not being taken seriously."

Monthlies & Fortnightlies
What's Your Sign | 3. Write about a secret message

WC: 2999

Warnings: abduction, murder, homophobia, language

o . o . o

Even When Nobody Else Believes

Sirius unfolded the newspaper to see another headline about a missing person. He clucked disapprovingly as he dove into the story. Honestly, why weren't the bobbies doing more to figure this out? They all knew that the disappearances were probably murders, but nobody seemed willing to admit it yet. He supposed that was a display of willful thinking on the part of the relatives. He tutted again. People ought to be more realistic.

Remus raised an eyebrow at him quizzically and Sirius grinned at his partner. To most people, when they were out in public, they were old friends from school, nothing more. But when they were alone in this little terraced house, they were free to be absolutely everything to one another, looking at each other over their breakfast with positively gooey expressions.

"Another bloke went missing," Sirius explained, tearing his attention away from his lover.

"Are you going to ask James about it?"

Like Sirius, James was a son of aristocrats, and the two had known each other since childhood. He was a bit more embroiled in all the hoi polloi than Sirius, who preferred to live free from the restrictions of life in court, but James' family was very well connected to Scotland Yard, so he could usually find out information about ongoing cases if he wanted to.

"Most likely."

Remus nodded his head and then turned his attention back to the new detective novel he had been reading for nearly a week - something called Sherlock Holmes. It usually didn't take him quite so long to finish a book, but Sirius had been very distracting the past few nights, so he supposed it was understandable.

Sirius continued reading the article in front of him, cataloguing each of the minute details that had been published and mentally comparing them to previous disappearances. Four disappearances seemed to be similar. Benjy Fenwick. Fabian Prewett. Davey Gudgeon. Caradoc Dearborn. All young men, taken from their homes on weeknights. None of the men lived alone, but somehow they had been alone when they disappeared, so there were no witnesses.

When he finished eating, Sirius packed up the newspapers to swing by James' home for an impromptu visit. He kissed Remus goodbye before he left, glancing back over his shoulder from the doorway for a look at his partner, smiling affectionately. Remus grinned in return, blowing his partner a kiss just before the door closed behind him.

Sirius walked through London's streets, musing silently. Perhaps in a different world, he might have been a detective working to solve mysteries like this one. It would be better than being the least favourite but the eldest son of an old-world aristocratic family. It was quite a conundrum for his parents, he knew. His younger brother, Regulus, was far more proper an heir for them and reflected their views much better. But Sirius was in a better social position - his more modern views put him in good graces with Prince Edward, the future king, and although he did not relish a life in court, he was quite charming and adept at it when he wanted to be.

He reached James' luxurious row house quickly and rapped on the door three times. Barely a moment passed before James' manservant answered, promptly allowing Sirius entry. He found his friend in his study, pouring over some heavy ledgers.

"Sirius!" James greeted, jumping up in surprise and excitement. "This is quite the surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from my dearest friend?"

"Nothing good, I'm afraid," Sirius answered with a frown. "I want to ask you about the disappearances."

"Ah, I wondered if you might be looking into those," James hummed in reply. He sat back down at his desk, motioning for Sirius to join him. "I'm sure you've noticed that the disappearances are all in the city proper, so they aren't in the Yard's purview."

"But surely you could take over if you wanted -!"

"I took the liberty of asking around to see what talk there might be," James continued, cutting across his friend's protests. "It seems like the locals aren't making a connection between them. They think it's separate instances, or perhaps not even foul play at all. It could just be husbands running out on their wives or blokes trying to skip out on debt they owe."

"But -!"

"I know," James conceded, preempting Sirius' argument. "I agree with you. They have to be connected, but unless there's a case outside the city proper, there's not much I can do."

"What do you know that isn't in the papers?" Sirius asked, trying to tame his outrage.

"Well, there are five victims already," he began, rustling through leaves of paper to find one that had some hastily scrawled notes on it.

"Five? I had only thought four…" Sirius furrowed his brows, frowning as he tried to figure out what he had missed.

"The third victim wasn't widely reported - a foreign fellow by the name of Antonin Dolohov," James explained. "He worked in the dockyard and he fits the profile of the other victims, but there's one key detail that ties them all together if you ask me."

"What's that?"

"In the apartments, there's always an engraved clock after the disappearance. Sometimes it's a pocket watch, sometimes a mantle clock, but it always has a letter engraved into it. I've spoken with Fenwick's fiancee and Prewett's brother and they don't have any recollection of the clocks, so I think whoever is abducting these blokes is leaving them behind."

"What letter is engraved?" Sirius asked, latching onto this new detail.

"It changes each time," James replied, ruffling through the papers on his desk again. "Hang on, I've got it written down somewhere."

After another moment of searching, James extracted the correct paper and slid it across the desk for Sirius to examine. He peered at the letters carefully. C-R-O-A-T.

"What does it mean?" he mused, the question only half directed at James.

"I've no idea," James shrugged. "But it must be important somehow."

"Do you think it's an anagram?" Sirius asked, trying to work out other arrangements of the letters.

"Probably, but the only word I can think of is 'actor' and that doesn't make any sense," James huffed, adjusting his glasses in irritation before growing eerily still. "It's possible it's a longer word."

Sirius frowned at the thought. He hated to admit it, but James was probably right. There was no reason to think that this criminal was finished after 5 victims.

o-o-o

A fortnight passed without incident and with little to mark the passage of time and on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday night, Sirius was obliged to dine at the palace. He hated leaving Remus behind for these dinners, but he had to maintain the public charade of being a bachelor and as a printer, there was no cause for Remus to attend any function at the palace except as Sirius' guest. So Sirius was forced to don his breeches, a finely embroidered waistcoat, and a set of nice black tails.

Despite Sirius' reluctance to be involved in court life, he always managed to have fun when he was there. The meal was stiff and formal, but he could always count on James to whisper scandalous jokes in his ear to amuse him. Afterward was a standard recital, during which the Queen would listen with rapt attention and all the guests were expected to follow suit. Queen Victoria then departed for her chambers, and the real party could begin. The gentlemen - if they could be called that - drank to excess and played cards, having a riotously good time until the early hours of the morning.

When Sirius returned home, he could immediately sense that something was wrong. He could see from the street that the gas lights in his sitting room were still flickering, even though at half-past two in the morning, Remus ought to have gone to bed hours earlier. A sense of dread gripped him, even as he unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"Remus?" he called out from the foyer as he removed his tailcoat, desperately hoping to hear his partner's voice echo sleepily down the stairs. After all, Remus might have fallen asleep while reading.

But no reply came, and Sirius climbed the steps to the second floor, stepping into the sitting room. His heart sank when he found it empty. Panic rising like bile, Sirius raced up the stairs again to the bedroom, flinging the door open, but it too was empty. He raced back down the stairs, checking the kitchen, but he knew it was no use. Remus was gone.

Sirius returned to the sitting room and sank onto the sofa, dragging his hands across his face. He knew instinctively that this had to be a part of the disappearances. It was too coincidental otherwise. After all, Remus fit the profile. Suddenly, Sirius remembered the other detail that James had told him, and his head snapped upward, eyes searching. And then he saw it.

There, on Remus' mahogany bookshelf, was an ornate bracket clock. In any other scenario, Sirius might have admired it for its beautiful design and the painstakingly applied gold inlay. But at that moment, all he saw was an omen of death, grief, and pain. With shaking hands, he reached out to pick up the clock, carefully turning it over. Crudely engraved on the back was the letter 'O'.

To keep himself from spinning out, Sirius tried to focus on the puzzle of the letters. C-R-O-A-T-O. He mulled the letters over, taking some deep breaths to steady himself as he thought. Sirius found himself pacing the floor. And then suddenly it came to him. He raced out of the room and down the stairs, fleeing the house with the clock still in hand.

The police station for the London police was on the other side of the city, but Sirius ran through the shadow-grey streets, desperate to find someone who would help him. He couldn't let Remus go without a fight.

Sirius remembered when he met Remus, a chance encounter years earlier and miles away from London. Remus had been with his family, taking care of his mother as she recovered from an ailment, and Sirius had been visiting the estate of another lord, testing out the new rail system. They met in the marketplace, as Sirius had looked for some flowers to bring his host's wife and Remus had searched for herbs for his mother. It was the most spontaneous of meetings, but Sirius wouldn't have traded it for the world. And after all that, he simply refused to lose his dearest companion in this way.

He burst through the doors of the police station, startling the bobbies who had undoubtedly been anticipating an uneventful night. They looked up at him in alarm, no doubt exacerbated by the frantic and harried expression on his face.

"Can I -?" A younger bobby approached him, but Sirius didn't wait to hear the end of his question.

"My… my friend went missing," he blurted out, choosing his words carefully despite his haste to convey what had happened. "He was staying at my house, temporarily, and I came home and he was just… gone…"

A few of the detectives exchanged skeptical looks, and Sirius wanted to smack the expressions off their faces.

"Why was your friend staying in your house?" another detective asked, the name Fudge embroidered on his jacket.

"He was… he had just moved to London from Wales, and he was having a hard time finding somewhere to live, so I offered…" Sirius said, closing his eyes as he struggled to remember their rehearsed story. "I have a large home, so I offered him a room until he found a flat of his own. Is this important?"

"Perhaps he found a place then," the first detective said, laughing.

Sirius felt like his blood was boiling at the sound of the detectives' laughter, ringing and reverberating in his mind.

"I feel like perhaps I am not being taken seriously," Sirius snapped. "Perhaps you should know that I hold the title Earl of Leicester and will in future hold the title Duke of Warwick, so you may want to show me some respect."

The two primary detectives sobered a bit the mention of his title, their eyes traversing over the expensive embroidering on his waistcoat.

"There have been a series of disappearances. I believe they are all connected, and my friend is the latest victim," Sirius insisted now that he had their attention.

"I can assure you, that is not the case," Detective Fudge replied, his voice stern in his denial.

"Look, you have to believe me," Sirius pleaded, his eyes wild. "These six disappearances, they're all linked."

"Poppycock," the older detective scoffed. "D'you think we don't know how to do our jobs? You think we can't tell when there's a serial killer about?"

"Evidently," Sirius huffed, not quite as quietly as he thought. "This isn't about pride or vanity, this is about men going missing and trying to put a stop to it! Now if you'll just listen to me, these clocks… he's spelling out CROATOAN, I'm sure of it!"

"And why would he be putting gibberish on some old clocks?" Detective Fudge asked while the younger detective snickered behind him.

"It's not gibberish!" Sirius clenched his fists, exasperation building to rage like a volcano threatening to burst. "It's a reference to the Roanoke colony. They vanished without a trace and were never seen again, and the only clue was the word CROATOAN on a fence. It was… it doesn't matter, but I think he's saying that we'll never see these people again. They've vanished forever. And if you'll just listen to me -"

"I think we've heard enough," Detective Pettigrew chimed in, a slight quaver in his voice suggesting that he wasn't quite as comfortable cutting Sirius off as he was pretending to be.

"You think I'm wrong, but I know I'm right," Sirius snapped as he turned back to the entrance. "You'll regret not listening to me."

Rain had begun to pour down as Sirius shoved open the door of the police station. He was positively livid and finding it hard not to lose faith that he would ever find Remus again. He paced up and down the cobbled street, tearing at his hair in frustration.

"Come on!" he shouted to the sky. Somewhere in his mind, he felt like the presumed killer was listening to him, watching. Perhaps the depraved lunatic got off on watching the pain and chaos he left behind. "Come get me! You know you want me! I'm exactly like the others! Come take me too!"

There was a small noise as someone cleared their throat behind him, and Sirius whirled around quickly, already on high alert. A young woman with dark hair and olive skin stood on the steps of the police station, looking at him with a quizzical expression.

"You seem like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders," she said after a moment of silence in which the rain continued to pour down and plaster Sirius' hair to his head like a wet puppy.

"I...how many people must I lose before I just stop feeling?" his voice cracking as he looked at her with a pitifully heartbroken expression. He was normally so guarded around strangers, but he simply didn't have the energy to pretend that he wasn't falling to pieces.

"Your partner is one of the missing blokes, right?" she asked. "I heard you talking to Fudge and Pettigrew inside."

"My friend," Sirius lied half-heartedly. "He's my friend."

"I don't care about these things," she told him, seeing through his lie with ease. "It's a bunch of conservative balderdash if you ask me. Someone's romantic life is nobody's business but their own."

Sirius smiled weakly. There was something about the woman that made him feel comfortable - he was generally pretty good at reading people, and she seemed rather trustworthy to him. It was a small relief at that moment not to have to pretend that Remus wasn't the center of his whole universe.

"I just want to find him," Sirius whispered, his whole body sagging.

"Name's Marlene McKinnon - my fiance was the first one to disappear," she said, sitting down on the steps without a care for her skirts. "Just a week away from getting married and he vanished. When I told the detectives, they said he probably just got cold feet and skipped town. Even suggested that it was my fault for… giving up the goods before getting married. But that's not Benjy. He was sweet and adored me more than anything."

"You say 'was' like you've given up," Sirius observed.

"It's been three months now, There's not much hope of finding him alive," she answered, the slight hitch in her voice the only sign of how devastating that realization was. "Now I mostly hope for closure and to catch the bastard responsible for this."

"If I'm honest, it's only been a few hours but I don't think I'll ever see Remus again," he admitted, shame mixing with grief and hitting him like a wave. "But I think I have to keep looking for him. I don't think I can ever stop looking."

"Can I offer you some advice? You take it too far and you'll go mad," McKinnon said sagely. "Trust me. Sometimes it's best just to accept these things and move on."

"Is that what you did?"

"No, but I never said mine was the example to follow." She shrugged.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to rest until I hunt this bastard down," Sirius replied. "It's not in my nature to leave things alone."

"Well then, welcome to the team."

Marlene reached out and shook Sirius' hand, forming a pact between them. Neither of them would rest until the person who had destroyed their happiness was brought to justice.