Summary: The golden years have come and gone; this is life post-Hogwarts, post-war. Oh, and the wife took the kids.
Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger
Genre: general, mystery, drama, slice-of-life
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of J. K. Rowling
Saving the world was easier said than done, especially when you seem to have done it before. Or at least, that's what stories made it out to be. Rumours were a bit stretched, but facts were rather solid. And in an unfortunate twist of fate, I, who once played the role of hero was little more than a sidelined failure who dreamt of glory and only found the pierced veil of adulthood to be much, much crueler than I had imagined.
After all, I never imagined that I would see a day past nineteen, if even that. Now, you may be wondering: how self-centered can this guy get? The answer: much, much more.
The name Harry Potter wasn't appreciated much these days. Not that I minded, really. Having been a P.I. for a little over a decade, I made good on my promise to have my name blotted out from the annals of history. Or at least the public sector. Still, I did what I could to build the name of Harry Potter, the man, somewhere I felt my strengths could thrive, and I could put a little more peace, love, and joy into planet Earth (or die trying).
But the golden age of that career shrank back with a vicious hiss. The last time my rep was good? Two years ago, right around when the wife left. Took the kids, too.
Anyway, for God knows what reason - yes, God, not Merlin - my old buddy Neville was head of the Auror Department. He was pretty convinced that I needed to hear what he had to say.
And of course, he wasn't wrong. Because despite having been out of the line of fire for the longest of times, the name Potter seemed to only bring about the flame of dragon-tongues against my unlucky, stupid, hereditarily cursed arse.
A file of Hagridian proportions was lain atop the mess I called a desktop. A sack, which I bet my left nut was charmed to be bottomless, held what was probably an equally proportionate amount of gold and gems accompanied it. My eyes didn't shift as I scratched my cheeks and yawned. This was either really serious, or really Sirius. I preferred (hoped) the latter.
"So, Harry," Neville began. "Not sure how much you know what's been going on; I know you've always been out of the loop and uh... well, not many people come by nowadays, do they?"
"Last time I had anyone over, which was only five months ago, mind you, Hermione tried to scream at me that I needed to get my act together. Pity that; considering she took half my money and all our progeny, I figured she would have at least tried to ask how I was doing instead of telling me about the things I have to do. I'm not so sure she's in love with me anymore," I ended with a stage-whisper.
His left eye twitched, just like his lips. He shifted uncomfortably during his laughter. We both knew Hermione hadn't been in love with me since we were seventeen and thought love was the best thing that bedsheets and tents invented.
I went on, "Just kidding. I do have the odd guest here and there. Luna comes by every other week, and Rolf tags along with her to explore the forests around me. Not sure how many more species of bugs they can discover, but one hundred and four and a half seems like a bit much. Teddy and Andromeda come around every two or three months, I think."
Luckily for me, Teddy wasn't much to deal with. Ironic, considering who his parents were. Andromeda had a few screws looser than Bellatrix, but she handled them much like me. Liquid courage and liquid luck in doses definitely above the recommended marks; in short, perfectly reasonable comfort.
Neville sipped his tea. We shared another set of fake smiles as the sprites danced in the air about us. A few minutes passed before he spoke again. This time, I resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't Sirius, and things were, sadly, pressed between my fingertips with a need for me to take the reins. "Theodore Nott and George Weasley were last spotted around Durmstrang."
Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. I blinked. Oh. Oh he-
"Furthermore," he added, "Michael Corner, Susan Bones, and Ernie Macmillan were spotted roaming the villages near Beauxbatons."
Quiet settled between the two of us. Those were old names, I noted. Names that I really, really didn't need to hear at the moment. After all, the names of the dead were best left etched into stone, and not spoken as though they still carried life.
Neville's eyes darted around for half a minute before he sighed and pressed his gaze to meet mine. My heart thumped, and I knew that whatever his next words were, they were not going to be anything I wanted to hear.
"And Severus Snape was last seen with…" he swallowed, his eyes ruptured with weakness, "... a… a Hermione Granger in Berlin."
Neville's tea lay on the desk, cold. Mine lay against the wood, hot and angry as it seeped into the yew. The implications made my heart burn. My thoughts raced. Then they jumped, a leap of hate into the dark.
"No." My hand slammed into the wood before I registered the stinging crawling along the entirety of my arm. I ignored it. I was on my feet, voice hoarser than I knew as I spat out a defiant denial. "Shut up. Neville, I'm warning you…"
"It's not a joke, Harry." I would have taken care of it without you, if I could, he didn't say.
Minutes passed between us as he let me gather my thoughts. We both knew we were watching one another; as much as we were friends, we were always just a few trots apart from becoming enemies.
"Is this a team effort, or am I going solo?" I didn't even bother asking how many other P.I.s he had been in touch with.
"You… you can decide. We already have several teams working on the case; we've been in touch with several other countries, both in their muggle departments and their magical ones. You can join a team; you can form one, if you'd like. But our parts are sparse," he admitted. "We can offer you no more than two of ourselves, and unfortunately, I'm not allowed to leave my own group."
I hissed. "What are everyone's thoughts on everyone not Hermione; were any of the others pallid?" Between Luna, Neville, Draco, Hermione, and myself, my ex-wife was the best necromancer, but raising and maintaining that many corpses wasn't feasible for someone of her strength or skill. They wouldn't have looked so alive, or recognizable.
My friend shook his head in contemplation. "No. Given our photos, at least three of them looked fleshly alive, and none of them displayed the sluggishness that wracked Inferi crafted by a novice. And if this trend isn't wrong, then…"
She wasn't alone, then. Ever prepared. But my thoughts made my heart crack. They turned toward a direction I had been forcing my mind to avoid, only I could no longer bear it. The words were caught in my throat, strangled as mangled syllables forced their way out into a croak. "My little Thenia; what of Lyfis?"
Darkness flashed in Neville's eyes as he turned away.
And so here I was, legs numb with the desperation of disbelief as I stalked about Piccadilly. They walked up and down and honestly, everything about it only pissed me off. The laughter, the smiles, the paleness of flesh that seemed to hurt my eyes as I looked about.
I blinked. Was Hyde Park Corner always this cold? Yes. Yes, I repeated to myself. And I hated it. I walked off quietly, buried myself into my surroundings as I tapped my Fog Ward necklace to ensure that no one here could speak of, or remember, the image of my face. Slowly, I invisibility became me, until the view of Harry Potter sifted between the space of worlds as I apparated back into the walls of my estate.
My bedsheets and I had been a lonely couple for the past few years, discounting the services of Daphne Greengrass and Katie Bell.
"Hermione." Her name tasted almost bitter. "Hermione."
Dear Lord, what had she done? Neville made it clear that her motions were free and spirited. Which meant that she was at least cooperating, even if under pressure to do so. None of the images held any stress in her skin, but pictures were always doubtful.
I cried into my pillow as the faces of my family flittered back and forth between thought and memory. My little Thenia, and my little Lief - I would find them. Even if Death would condemn me to another thousand years of suffering my un-life.
It had been three days since I saw Neville, and I hadn't gotten much information on my own. Public resources were of little help, and my face was much less welcomed than before. Fortunately, he put me into contact with two of his best agents - an Unspeakable-Auror, and a field medic.
"Abbott; Patil," I nodded to the two women across from me. Padma returned the exchange, while Hannah stared at me, contemplative. "What have you two run across?"
"According to the our sources, roughly six hours ago, Severus Snape was seen together with Theodore Nott by a great body of water; we believe that there is a cave held captive inside the edge of the cliffs. The waves raged too hard for people to get a proper look. However," Padma paused, "there appears to be a stench about the cave."
My fingers unwittingly tightened. There were thousands of caves across the United Kingdom. But they always said to trust your gut. I bit my tongue and cut the curse before it began, moving onto another topic. "Has there anything been strange in Hogsmeade? Hogwarts?"
Patil hesitated; Abbott plowed on. "Yes. George Weasley's youngest daughter went missing a week and a half ago."
I closed my eyes as I felt my skin whiten. Neville was dirty, but he did things for his vision. Much like Dumbledore's concept of the Greater Good. I counted to thirty and back as I let out a sigh of anger. At least he wasn't Rufus, I reminded myself - competence over preference.
I peeked out with one eye, and the two women seemed to be conversing with one another using just their own gazes. I kept myself in my own world for another minute. God, it was good to let my frustrations out instead having them pent up. Although the latter did lead to some… interesting relationships in my youth.
"Tell me, ladies," they looked at me as I smiled. "How would you like to be of some immediate assistance?"
Abbott's eyes widened as she realized I looked at both of them simultaneously. Gotcha.
I had to hand it to Snape. Man was a terrible teacher, a terrible person, and even worse friend. But somehow, he was the best double-agent that the magical end of Britain had ever seen. And as his pupil, it ensured that my Legilimency skills were subordinate to none.
It was also my duty as his student to make sure that his soul stayed where it belonged. It deserved its rest, even if no one else thought so. A clock struck half past seven, and I realized my scan took longer than I thought. Ugh, overwriting memories was a pain - but you know what? Like they say, it's for the Greater Good.
I pushed into my own mind to make sense of the memories and knowledge I acquired, sorting them with a deft hand. Good thing Hermione once slapped me stupid for having a 'ridiculously dumb, idiotic, no good, terribly offensive, crazy, psychotic pain threshold,' as there wasn't much time to contemplate the pain of the adjustment backlash.
Huh. So George was emitting some sort of malicious aura, but Nott expounded a veil of serenity. No wonder people had a hard time tracking them down; their complementary magicks blocked out sensory and confounded even the sixth sense.
On the other hand, it seemed like Severus had no presence whatsoever. No magic came out of his body, no smell or scent of rot or anything that would have been 'out of place' on any normal person. But learning about Hannah's thoughts on Hermione was, well, tasty.
Abbott believed Hermione to be the mastermind. Unsurprisingly, because as her fellow Unspeakable, Hermione had always one-upped her at every end and never once spoken down to her. She was scandalized by how patronizing my little Granger was. It's easy to hate someone or something for nothing, but really; for a Department of Mysteries, it wasn't very mysterious when it came to its humanity.
The blonde seemed to harbour a grudge against the fact that Hermione also seemed to turn down every promotion, and even the advances of others. It infuriated her that Hermione continued to be the world's golden child, but I wondered why Abbott simply didn't better herself.
Life was meant to be hard. That's why we had to grow up harder. Patil was little better than her companion.
Jealousy reared its ugly head everywhere, and Padma Patil was no exception. She took on this mission because her younger sister had become so much more successful than she could have imagined. Her inner cries of "It's not fair!" made me chuckle. She set out to prove herself as a nurse and was barely making ends meet compared to her luxurious sister. I wonder if she ever realized that creativity explored in the marketplace was no easy way to success.
She only hopped on board because she thought that if she helped solve it, her name would attract far grander opportunities for herself. It was a nice try, but naive beyond belief. I, of all people, could vouch for how far fame got you if you had nothing to back your skills and reputation up. And given her lack of results, I was certain it wasn't just effort that held Padma back.
At any rate, Patil had little knowledge of the cases themselves, but she did have notes on the 'dead,' and that was more than plentiful for a grade seven necromancer. None of them were pallid; there was no yellowing either, from what people mentioned, which meant that they were being revived often.
But that only deepened the problem: the resources. The rituals to raise Inferi were not necessarily costly so much as they were tedious, and hard to manage on the run. Not even Hermione could reanimate corpses that easily.
My thoughts floated back toward the disjointed locations they were all seen. It didn't make sense. There was nothing, everywhere. The times and places had no connections. None of the sites were magical, save for the cave.
I palmed my face as I sat, tears threatening to drown me from the inside out. Quietly, I promised to myself. "I swear on mine magic and soul, my place beside Death with stick, stone, and cloak; I shall conquer this challenge - on the name that was Harry Potter, I bear this burden."
Notes and Acknowledgements
For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got this idea or where it came from. I do know I got the idea some eight or nine months ago (version histories of the document say near the end of April). But I digress; on the topic of this story, I'm not sure where I want to go with it - it could be seen as a challenge / prompt; I have no issue if people want to go forward from here, though I myself may go on with it.
However, it's not a priority for me right now as I'm writing a novel and other pieces I intend to actually get published; the main reason why, I suppose, if anyone does want to borrow the idea, I'm fine with it. Not sure anyone will, but hey, have fun if you do.