Killer Queen

Some people – famously successful international crime-fighting agents, for example – often turned into more legend than truth.

But nothing in Harry's twenty-six years had, or could have, prepared him for meeting La Falconne. He had been warned that the name translated roughly to The Falcon, after the sharp facial features that were perched atop a tall, graceful body. La Falconne walked out of the Floo as though they were walking onto a yacht, with a presence that seemed to fill every corner of Scrimgeour's sparsely decorated but spacious Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement office.

But what had Harry frozen in place was not the pointed glare or confident presence- it was her radiant beauty. For the briefest second, Harry felt his whole brain turn off all at once as the new guest settled in.

Scrimgeour, seated behind a massive cherry desk, barely looked up from paperwork as La Falconne was followed by another, taller French witch through the fireplace, who introduced herself to Harry as Director Dominique Atris. Harry just barely had enough professionalism to stop staring long enough to shake her hand, noticing that she was thin-faced and grey-haired, although still looking to be about half of Scrimgeour's age. Perfectly white pin-straight robes clung to her slim shoulders as she opted to stand before the desk. La Falconne, clothed in a more form-fitting light blue robe, was next to introduce herself as Special Agent Fleur Delacour. She opted for a firm nod rather than a round of handshakes.

Seeing that Scrimgeour wasn't going to look up from his paperwork, Director Atris took it upon herself to start the meeting. "Good morning, Mr. Director, Mr. Potter. I take it that you have been briefed already?"

"Hmph," snorted Scrimgeour, "Of course not. Madam Atris, If I could be arsed to read briefings myself, I'd be Minister by now," he explained, his wry tone conveying the sarcasm that his perpetual deadpan expression did not.

"Well, Rufus, I suppose we should all be grateful that you don't then," she shot back, a clear edge to her polite tone and slick smile. With a slight turn, she stated, "Fleur, this is your show. You may do the honors."

Fleur, who seemed to stand even straighter, smoothed out her fitted light blue robes and began, "A recent pattern of murder victims suggests the existence of a mass killer on the loose, and furzzermore, one seeking to copy the means and methods of the late 'E-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Harry couldn't help but notice that, despite the gruesome subject matter, her voice had a musical quality to it, and a thicker accent than her compatriot. She continued, "Zere is reason to believe that this killer has claimed at least three victims so far."

Scrimgeour's attention was peaked, as much as it ever was, by this. "And this killer, is he working with a cult yet, or it this just one madman on the loose?"

"We 'ave reason to believe this individual is working alone, for now, but is someone well connected. The pattern of attacks seems to suggest that they 'ave associates in high places 'ere in Britain, and perhaps abroad, as well as the resources to move about as needed."

Harry was at once fascinated and appalled. On the one hand, this is the kind of case he was dying to work on, considering that he was still struggling with a Daily Prophet article every other month about "The Stalled Career of The Boy Who Lived." Rita Skeeter had even gotten creative with her titles, with January's Harry Potter and the Missed Promotion followed by April's Harry Potter and the Wasted Potential. On the other hand, this also sounded like the kind of job that went to more senior Aurors.

So he asked, "Where do I come in?" Fleur did not appear to react, but Atris swiveled to look at him and answered.

"I have requested that you assist Agent Delacour in this matter. Your role in the fight against Voldemort means you have insight that many of us in France would not, and there is troubling evidence that the killer has attempted to or successfully created a Horcrux already. Needless to say, there are not many in the world who are experienced with the disposal of such foul things."

Scrimgeour grunted his assent at Atris's request. "Fine by me," he said turning to Harry and offering, "This will be good to keep you sharp while your partner is on bed rest."

"It will be a good show of magical cooperation, as well," Atris threw in, casting a sidelong glance at Fleur. "Our nations must work together against new threats to our world, and it will be good for some individuals to begin forging this collaborative spirit." The Auror part of Harry's brain connected Atris's wry smile with Fleur's tightened jaw.

"Yes," Agent Delacour gritted out, "It will be a great pleasure to 'ave you working by my side." Atris raised an eyebrow, as if daring the younger witch to go on. Fleur let out a small huff and continued, "I look forward to your experience being useful 'ere." There was something about the forced way Fleur's tight-lipped smile concluded her sentence that made Harry feel as though she somehow doubted that he would be very useful at all.

Despite her difficulties, and despite Harry's better instincts, he felt deeply attracted to the girl, with a sudden impulse to prove himself. "Voldemort, for the Horcruxes, insisted on using magical relics, important items," he blurted out. "We can start there, I can ask my contacts in the black market."

Atris nodded appraisingly. "So it would seem that we already have something to go on. I am sure that you and Fleur will investigate this thoroughly." Fleur finally looked at him and Harry could see her considering the new information before giving conveying a soft but respectful, "Indeed". Harry felt an inordinate amount of pride from it and bit his cheek to keep from beaming.

A beat of silence passed before Scrimgeour was kicking them out of his office with a, "Well, this has been productive then, so…" Atris rolled her eyes and pinched some Floo powder back into his fireplace.

Fleur turned to Harry and handed him an absurdly thick file she produced from a tiny clutch purse. "I will give you a day to review this, yes? And then we will meet to discuss strategy tomorrow, in your office. I 'ave a plan outlined towards the front that I 'ope you will be able to help me execute." With no opportunity for further input from Harry, she turned on her heel and in three long strides was swallowed up by the fire.

In the absence of the French witches, Harry turned to his boss who just shrugged. "She seems like a fun one Harry. Best of luck."

"Any advice?"

Scrim chuckled. "Stay out of her way, when you can. And be careful- she's a part, err-"

"Part veela, Sir, according to the file. Any idea how much veela?"

"Somewhere between some not quite full and not quite none, I'd imagine," the older man offered, turning his attention back to his paperwork. Harry tried to make his thanks sound more genuine than it was before he rose to leave.

"One more thing, my boy," the Head called out to him as he had a foot out the door. "Mr. Flint- Marcus Flint- he's in holding for something or other, mundane I'm sure. Miss Delacour petitioned to question him, so you'll probably start there tomorrow. Perhaps pull his file." Harry thanked him for something actually useful this time and turned to leave again.

"Oh, one more thing," he was interrupted again. Scrimgeour scratched his beard as if trying to think of how to word it. "Try not to go to Boot for a bit, he might be sore about all of this. He originally petitioned to work on the case, but Atris requested you and I make a habit of not, erm, arguing with French witches. Better to save my breath, at this age."

"Of course, sir. I'll stay down wind of Auror Boot." With a thankful nod from his boss, he left to discuss his new case with an old friend.

"Harry!" Fifteen years of friendship with Hermione later, Harry was still constantly caught off guard by her bearish hugs. Something about having his mouth suddenly full of frizzy hear never got normal.

"Hey, Hermione," he sputtered out once free from her surprisingly strong arms. "Having fun?"

He gestured to her office, which had the look of a shelter for refugee files. Piles of paper and folders were stacked neatly, but feet high, on a too-small desk. The two standing lamps were overshadowed by a number of bookcases, all stuffed to bursting, and the whole room has the smell of old paper and new paper and more ink than Harry believed anyone could read in a lifetime.

"Oh, loads," Hermione gushed with her signature earnestness. "The new assignment Minister Bones has me working on is the most interesting work I've ever done, I've really got to tell you about it sometime," she enthused. Harry was markedly less excited for that conversation.

He settled for a weak, "Yeah?" A glance over her desk showed paper written in something that definitely couldn't have been English, and barely looked like letters at all. "I'd sit down and have you tell me now, but…" he gestured helplessly to a lack of chairs in the room.

"Oh, I know," Hermione sympathized, "I had to take the chairs out for more room. But! I've found that I think much better on my feet. So I just stand now!"

Harry nodded along, trying to fake even a tenth of her radiant positivity. She didn't notice though, and opted to keep talking. "You know, some of these laws that I'm looking into are positively ridiculous. Did you know that it's technically still illegal for muggleborns to send owl post on the weekends? It's not enforced, of course, but these are the kind of archaic laws still on the books."

"Nutty."

"It is! And muggleborns are specifically forbidden from giving manticores alcohol. If a pureblood gets a highly dangerous creature drunk, well that's all in good fun, but a muggleborn does it and then the courts get involved."

"That's horrifying in a few ways," Harry offered. He was just happy that she was done working on (and discussing) Elf legislation, honestly.

"I know! But enough about me, tell me about you! I heard through the grape vine that you've got an interesting new assignment," she fished with a sly smile. Harry knew better by this point than to ask how she already knew- news spread like wildfire in the Ministry. She had probably known his assignment before he did.

"Yeah, it seems really interesting- and also terrible, I mean- but really interesting."

Hermione gave him a knowing smirk. "I hear that you'll be working with an interesting partner as well."

"Yeah, she has quite the reputation, I could learn a lot," Harry started, before a sigh. "But I'm not so sure about her. Talented and renowned as she is, she doesn't seem like she's very excited about pairing up. And she seemed a little, I dunno, dismissive. I mean, I know I'm not some secret agent, but I am an Auror."

"Well Harry, some people just work better alone than with others," Hermione offered.

"Yeah, it'll be… a professional challenge. She just seems a little wound too tight."

This drew an eye roll from the brunette witch. "Harry, I hate to tell you, but there's a good chance that she's more than a little wound too tight. But I also hear she's something to look at."

"I suppose," he offered, trying to play it cool. But something about his shrug was a bit too forced-casual, and Hermione smirked again.

"Try not to get too distracted from the case, Harry. It sounds dangerous," she half-sang.

Harry, knowing he had been caught, blushed a bit and stammered, "Yeah, I suppose I should get to reading that background work then." He held up the thick folder with a frown.

Hermione nodded knowingly and gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm. "Oh- before you go off traipsing with your hot new partner, you may want to stop by and visit your actual partner," Hermione suggested playfully, but with a knowing element of force behind it.

"Of course I will, who do you think is going to go through this file with me?" Harry quipped indignantly. "But, I dunno, it's not like he has anything to be worried about. I think we've already established that Fleur the Falcon is going to be the worst partner of all time."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well I know that, and you know that, and on some level, he'll know that straight away as well." She sorted some papers on her desk as she smiled for the next part. "But knowing my darling husband, Ron will find a way to be supremely jealous anyway. So just comfort him a little."

"I'll do what I can," Harry offered, "But I might need the big guns to pay him a visit after I'm done."

Hermione laughed and playfully complained, "All these years later and I'm still doing the dirty work."

"Mate."

"I know."

"Maaaaaate."

"I know," Harry groaned, head in his hands.

"Can we go through the ways that this is ridiculous?" Ron asked from his hospital bed. The rest of the Weasleys waved on from the two dozen pictures that Molly had packed on to Ron's tiny nightstand.

Harry rolled his eyes at the question. The more things had changed, the more they stayed the same. Ron took his lack of response as permission to go ahead.

"So first off, you get to work with La Falconne," Ron started. He butchered the pronunciation, but Harry didn't feel it was a good time for that to come up.

"Yes, okay, but as we've discussed, she's a nightmare and that's going to be utterly shambolic," Harry tried to defend.

But Ron waved away his concerns. "Alright, alright, so the bird's a bit stodgy, but she's part veela, that's got to be dead useful for an investigator."

Harry had no diplomatic response, so he just said, "Yeah, she's rather, erm… tall, you could say."

"And gorgeous!" Ron half-shouted before collapsing into coughs.

"And rather good looking, yes, but don't hurt yourself over it," Harry defended while Ron rubbed at his healing ribs.

"So you get to work with a highly accomplished, smoking hot partner-"

Harry cut in with a half-joking, half-conciliatory, "Hey, mate, don't sell yourself short, you're not so bad."

But Ron blew right past it with, "But you also get to work on the coolest bleeding case I've heard of."

"Ron, seriously, there could be a mass murderer out there!"

"Actually," Ron interrupted with a finger in the air- sometimes, he got a very Hermione-vibe about him, and it still freaked Harry out- "I was reading some muggle book about these kinds of cases, and they call them serial killers."

Harry narrowed his eyes at his friend's sudden burst of intellectuality. "Were you now?"

"Alright, so it was a muggle tevellision show, but that's not important," Ron clarified with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And they said that all of these killers, they've all got some of the same stuff wrong with them. Usually lonely people, usually guys, often a history of childhood abuse, lack of remorse, that sort of stuff. But the really interesting bit is that a lot of them seem normal. Could be anybody, y'know?"

"Could even be Weird Wally in Control of Magical Creatures."

"Definitely Weird Wally, I've had my eye on him for years," Ron returned with a chuckle.

"But do you believe that sort of stuff?" Harry asked a little skeptically.

"I mean, sure I do," Ron offered. "Muggles don't have the same tools we do, but they still manage to catch people all the time. They've got to have something going for them."

Harry considered it for a second. "I'm not sure if that's your father or Hermione rubbing off on you, mate," he joked, "But I'll keep it in mind."

"While you investigate this super-awesome case with your super-hot new partner."

Harry rolled his eyes at Ron's tendency to go from insightful investigator to insufferable ninny in seconds. "Yeah, while I get to fight with an international super-agent about whether or not I should be there at all. Look, I have to go pull a file on Marcus Flint, so I have to head back to the office. Try not to die from your fear of missing out?"

Ron was perfectly deadpan when he responded, hand over heart, "I'll do my best. Oh, last thing- I heard from Diggory that Terry Boot is a little put out that he's not on the case. I can imagine why…"

"Hold on- Scrimgeour told me the same thing. What's the deal here?"

"Well, he's the one who usually work International Auror Affairs, normally he'd be put on this one. Plus he personally went to Scrimgeour when news broke last night about it, and Roofy told him it was his case if he wanted it."

"Ah. But I got it, because Director Atris requested me," Harry nodded.

"And because you're the luckiest man on this damn planet," Ron added, shaking his head.

Atris laid out on her plum chaise and lit a clove, closing her eyes and taking a long drag. She motioned for Fleur to sit opposite her and asked, "So what did you think of Auror Potter?"

Fleur sat on a plush, high backed chair, lavender suede on a dark wood. She considered the question for a moment and responded, "He was shorter than I imagined," which prompted a choking fit of laughter from her superior. Fleur scrambled to offer a fuller assessment, saying, "Not that 'e is short! But he is supposed to be zis, zis conquering hero, and now we meet him, and 'e is just a hair taller than myself, non? You would think he was, I don't know, the stories say…"

Atris waved her hand to cut Fleur off. "No, my dear, what did you think of his person? Of his talent?"

Fleur took longer to think for this. "Well, 'e was quiet. The file says he generally is, there is not much more to say there. But as an Auror, I do not know. There are so many stories, you know? Some say he hunted down horcruxes on his own, some say he was Dumbledore's puppet, and who can say? Dumbledore is dead, and many secrets to the grave with him. Potter's allies, the Order of the Phoenix, all entirely quiet on the subject. The British Minister, Bones, has sealed all records from the public to avoid exactly this kind of copycat. So who knows about him? It has been ten years since then, and he is still just a junior Auror."

"Mmm," Atris responded, between long draws. "It is a mystery. And he is a quiet boy."

"Quiet, indeed," Fleur nodded, discreetly waving the sweet smoke away from her nose. "I do 'ope he does not slow me down too much."

"Now, Fleur," the older witch admonished with a languid smile, "Don't take those thoughts into this. This is here to teach you about working with others. I have let you go this long without a partner, but I am starting to see where I went wrong with that."

Fleur huffed. "It has gone well so far, no?"

Atris sat up and held Fleur's gaze. "It has. But you, you are destined more than this. You can be more than an agent, you know. But you need to learn to play nice. You need to learn to be a leader. Your father, he was one of the best. What would he say?"

Fleur broke the eye contact to stare at her hands. "I know."

"Good," Atris nodded, laying back down. "You are but one witch. You cannot save the world yourself. But, you get others behind you, and you can make a difference." She gave her words some time to sink in. "Plus," she added, with a smirk, "It could have been worse. I could have stuck you with someone like Director Scrimgeour."

"Ugh," Fleur rolled her eyes. "How can someone so important be so… disinterested?"

Atris scrunched her face and delicately pinched the bridge of her nose. "Magical Law Enforcement can have many different heads. Some are great lawyers, some are brilliant investigators, and some are the strongest warriors."

"And Screemgerr, 'e is a warrior then, I suppose?"

"One of the best. But, when you have a gunslinger, they only look for problems you can solve with a gun."

"Or they try to solve every problem with a gun," Fleur offered with a smirk.

Atris laughed at her assessment. "Yes, my dear," affirmed, "Be careful of the men who solve everything with their guns."

"I suppose, then, that Potter will not be a problem?" Fleur asked with a giggle. "He seems, you could say, gun shy."

"My dear, please," Atris cackled, "Do go easy on him."

"The Great 'Arry Potter, 'ero of the British Isles," Fleur mused, twisting silver hair around a finger. "You know, I think that if anyone can keep up with me, why not him?" She thought a moment more before adding, "And if 'e does not? I will teach him to be someone who can."

Atris beamed at this display of leadership. Perhaps this case would go well. Perhaps it would not. Either way, it would be a peaceful few weeks with Fleur abroad.

Harry came in the next day to find an envelope atop his desk. He cast a quick detecting charm or four before taking it into his hands and noticing the gentle "Harry" looped on the front. Without ever having seen Fleur's handwriting, he somehow knew that this was hers; there was just something about the graceful cursive that could have only come from one place.

His suspicion was confirmed as he read,

Au. Potter,

I will be by around 10 am this morning. As I am sure you have realized, I would like for the first step to be an interview of M. Marcus Flint, as he is the only person I have found that connects two of the three victims. We will discuss more when I arrive.

I look forward to working with you. Mme. Atris tells me that you are skilled, and I am sure your familiarity will be instrumental for the case.

I hope that you will prove my impressions of the British wrong.

Best,

F.I. Delacour

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. Harry smirked at the last line - a small joke, but Fleur's first sign of humanity so far.

Or, at least, he hoped she was kidding…