* ~ The Eighth Year Universe Series ~ *
PART FIVE
Blame it on Hate
Where My Past Can't Run Me Down
The chapter title is from the song:
Vice by Miranda Lambert.
When Draco stepped into the Assistant Head Auror office and saw Harry bouncing on the balls of his feet, he knew something was afoot.
"Good morning," Draco said calmly.
Harry smiled a little nervously.
"Morning. Listen, I called you in here because something happened last night, and we need to talk about it. I don't know how to say it, Draco, so I'm just going to throw it out there."
Draco raised an eyebrow, "She's not pregnant again, is she?"
Harry frowned, "She…what?"
"Daphne," Draco said slowly, "Why? Who else would be pregnant?"
"No one," Harry said quickly, "And no. Good Godric, no," he shook his head.
Draco cocked his head at his friend.
"What has you positively bouncing then?"
"I'm going to be Head Auror," Harry blurted out.
Draco's eyes widened, "Seriously?"
"Yes," Harry said. He paused and took a calming breath, "Shep is stepping down because he made a bad call, and it nearly got Rob killed. He asked me to take over as Head, and I said yes."
"Of course you did - congratulations," Draco said genuinely.
Harry managed a small smile.
"When I take the job, I won't be taking you on as my Assistant Head, and I need to explain why. It's not because I'm passing you over. It's not that at all."
Draco watched him curiously.
"I'm making Liz my Assistant Head," Harry explained, "At least for the first year, maybe for the first two. I'm throwing myself into the deep end here, and if I'm doing that, I need someone I can trust who is experienced enough to help me settle into the job."
Draco nodded, "Elizabeth is a great choice. She will keep you right, and she'll steer you back into the slow lane when you get too fast."
Harry frowned, "Did you just make a driving analogy?"
"Yeah, I've been experimenting with this new car that Hermione bought, and it has lane assist," Draco said offhandedly, "It's this thing that drags you back into your lane if you veer over the lines, it's amazing. That's what Elizabeth will be to you – your lane assist."
Harry's frown deepened, "Uh…okay. I feel like you just opened your mouth and Theo's words came out in your voice but fair enough. Anyway, the Assistant Head job is yours when you're ready for it, and Elizabeth knows that. She's happy to step in and fill the void until then, but she won't fight you for it when your time comes."
"I appreciate that," Draco said honestly.
Harry smiled, "I'm glad that you understand. I just want to make sure that when I make you Assistant Head, I'm ready to teach you how to do the job properly. I don't want to throw you in at the deep end like John did with me. I want to teach you everything I know because I'll never be anything more than Head Auror. I don't aspire any further than that, but you do, and if you're going to make it in politics, there will come a day when you need to prove yourself."
Draco frowned and looked at Harry.
"There will come a time when you reach a very high position," Harry explained, "And people will go back to what they used to say when you first started in the department. They'll say you are a Malfoy masquerading as a Black, and you will need to prove them wrong. That's why I want you to get there on your own – not because I put you there."
Draco nodded, "I agree completely."
"Homicide is yours," Harry confessed, "I'll still be your Auror partner. I'm not going to be the kind of Head Auror who sits behind a desk all day, so if you have a raid or if you need me in the field, I'll be there. Regardless of anything else, we're partners."
Draco smiled and held out his hand, "Agreed."
Harry took it and shook it firmly, "You're already leading Homicide, and you're doing a bloody good job of it. Keep it up, step out of my shadow and show the wizarding world that you're just as good an Auror as I am."
Draco smirked, "Oh, I will. Don't you worry about that."
Harry grinned at him response, "Keep it quiet until Monday, alright? That's when the official announcement will be made – until then, I'm the acting Head Auror because John's ill. That's all anyone needs to know."
"Okay," Draco agreed, "Do you have time for a briefing? We're finally getting somewhere with our curse case."
"I definitely have time for that," Harry said, picking up his coffee cup and following Draco out of the office, "You weren't in here all night, were you?"
"No, I was up all night, but I wasn't here," Draco admitted.
"That's enough about your sex life."
Draco snorted, "I wish that's what I was doing. I was comforting a teething baby; you remember those days?"
"Yes, I do, and I'm going to be reliving them soon with Thea," Harry said with a shake of his head, "I can't believe you thought Daphne was pregnant again. She likes kids, but even she's not that keen."
Draco chuckled, "While I sang lullabies and read Beedle the Bard fairytales to Cas, I had the Juniors working on the case for me, and they came through."
He opened the door to the Homicide Office, and the two men slipped inside.
"I hear you have news?" Harry said, sitting down on the edge of his desk.
"Yes," Owen said excitedly, "Our leads all seemed to come together last night. We used the werewolf and vampire-related calls to triangulate an area, and we got a small enough one to search via the records."
"We checked if any witches or wizards lived in the area," Ben chimed in, "And we got a few results back, but one name was familiar to us."
"Let's see if my hunch is right then," Harry said, "Lux Montgomery?"
"Close," Jason said from his perch on the other side of the room, "Ivy Montgomery."
Harry frowned, "Ivy? No…she's the sister who thinks that we shouldn't punish all werewolves for the actions of one."
"Lux is the verbal one, but they were both Slytherins," Draco pointed out, "We're sneaky, and we're good liars – what if Ivy is just as bad or worse? But she's quiet, and she puts up an act which would automatically make everyone suspect Lux."
Harry shook his head, "I don't know. It just doesn't sit right with me. Jason, does Lux live with her sister?"
Jason shook his head, "She lives with her mother. Ivy and their mother never saw eye to eye, so she moved out but got cut off for doing so."
"Hence why she lives in Poplar," Harry said with a nod, "Draco – don't tell Lilly I said that, she'd have my guts even if she wasn't pregnant with twins and hormonal as fuck."
Draco snorted, "Isn't that how you and Lilly bonded? Over both being from rough areas?"
"Hey, I'm from Surrey," Harry said with a raised eyebrow, "That's not rough. She's from the East End."
"Oh, trust me, I know," Draco said with a shake of his head, "Anyone who spends five minutes with that girl can tell she's from the East End, even after Daphne attempted to give her elocution lessons."
"Yeah, I'm not convinced they lasted very long," Harry said with a laugh, "I seem to remember Lilly telling Daphne that she was a rough diamond and that she wasn't planning on changing anytime soon. Anyway, we've gone off-topic – I have a theory."
"About the box?" Jason asked.
Harry nodded, "What if Lux planted it in Ivy's flat? All we know from that triangulation thing that you did is that the box is in that area. We don't know if Ivy opened it or if she even knows about its existence."
"Good point," Draco said with a nod, "But we'll have to tread carefully all the same. We'll go out today and search the area for the box – if we find it, we can dig deeper and work out how it ended up there."
"I'll send Daphne a Patronus. She wants to be the one to break this curse," Harry said with a wave of his hand, "So before we go anywhere near that cursed box, we need her."
"Another lead came in early this morning," Terry said, "A link back to the Jack the Ripper case. In 1888 when the attacks were happening, there was a Detective Inspector Montgomery on the case, a Muggle."
"So it links up to those sisters," Harry said, "I did think so. I've suspected Lux ever since the first werewolf attack, but I wasn't about to accuse a former Auror when we had no evidence to tie her to the case."
"Your hunches are rarely wrong so let's work on the assumption that Lux is behind this but keep Ivy at arm's length until the box has been destroyed," Draco instructed, "Harry – summon your wife. Guys, get ready to go because as soon as she stalks in here, we're going to stake out Ivy's flat."
The rest of the team nodded and prepared themselves for the day ahead.
"Whose going to hold the fort while we go out?" Draco asked as an afterthought.
Harry was already in the doorway, "I can't believe I'm saying this," he admitted, "But I'm just about to nip in and ask Theo."
"Will miracles never cease?" Draco joked with a chuckle as Harry left the office.
Daphne did stalk into the office – just as Draco had predicted. When she did, all eyes turned to her (apart from Draco's – he rolled his instead) because she was wearing dragonhide trousers and high-heeled boots.
"You break curses dressed like that?" Terry asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
"I don't just break curses. I look good while doing it," Daphne said smoothly. She clapped her hands and smirked at them, "Come on then boys, what are you waiting for?"
"You – Daphne," Draco said irritably, "We've been waiting for half an hour for you to drag your arse in here."
Owen opened his mouth, and Harry pointed at him.
"No comments about how fine that arse is."
Without saying a word, Owen shut his mouth.
Daphne opened the door, "I don't like waiting around; let's go."
Nobody moved apart from Harry. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his red Auror robes and grinned at his teammates.
"You heard the lady, let's go."
Without another word, the entire team trekked out of the office towards the apparition point.
Harry held back and let Draco take the lead on the way to Ivy's flat. When they got there and scoped it out as a top floor apartment, the blond man turned to Daphne.
"Do you think you can zero in on the box from the roof?"
"Easily," Daphne replied, "A localised locator spell should do it, but I'll need one of you to break through the wards first."
"You should do it, Draco," Harry said, looking up at the roof of the building, "Ivy is an Auror, her wards will be difficult to break through, and if Daphne needs to borrow some of my magic, I'll need to preserve it."
Draco lowered his voice and took a step closer to Harry so that the rest of the team wouldn't hear.
"You could have done it before you gave away a quarter of your magic."
"And I could probably still do it now," Harry whispered back, "But Daphne can't break the curse without me, so I don't want to take the chance."
Draco held his gaze for a moment, then nodded.
"Are you two done?" Daphne asked from where she was leaning against a nearby lamppost, "This is like being back at school."
Draco shot her an irritated look and said, "We'll get you onto the roof, and I'll break through the wards. Reckon you can take it from there?"
"Of course I can," Daphne replied, "I would suggest we use a -"
Draco had already pulled his wand out, and as she spoke, he performed an intricate piece of transfiguration to turn some pieces of steel by the side of the building into a sturdy ladder.
Draco shot Daphne a smirk.
"Leave it to the Aurors."
Daphne rolled her eyes.
Harry raised an eyebrow at the two of them
"Or we could have just walked around the back of the building and used the fire escape," he said with a shrug, "But your way is more dramatic, I guess."
Draco frowned and walked around the back of the building. Harry grinned at Daphne and the rest of the team.
"Wait for it…."
Ben raised an eyebrow at him.
"One…two…three and…"
"How did you know there was a fire escape around here?" Draco's voice called.
Owen snorted in amusement, and Harry grinned.
"I'm just that good."
"You grew up in Surrey – how do you know so much about East End architecture?" Daphne asked, narrowing her eyes at her husband as they moved to join Draco around the back of the building.
"Am I the only one who's been privy to Lilly's stories about all of the times she snuck out through the fire escape in the summers?" Harry asked, shooting Daphne an amused grin, "Once to see the Weird Sisters, another time to get her tattoo, and I'm pretty sure one time she went to a rave."
"I didn't know any of that, but none of it surprises me," Daphne admitted with a fond smile.
Draco had his arms crossed over his chest.
"Bet you feel really smug right now, don't you?"
"Nah, I leave the smugness to you," Harry said with an overly polite smile, "Lead on, won't you?"
"Why are you giving him the lead?" Terry asked in an undertone as they all began their ascent.
"Yeah, you always take the lead," Jason agreed.
Harry shrugged, "Just letting Draco have his moment."
"Why?" Terry asked curiously.
"What do you know?" Ben asked perceptively.
"Nothing," Harry answered evasively – jumping up onto the next landing to avoid any further questions.
Terry and Ben shared a look.
"Bullshit," they said in unison.
"Doesn't look like the flat of a psycho," Owen said, looking into the living room window from the fire escape.
"They aren't psychos," Jason said irritably, "They are grieving, and people do stupid things when they're sad."
"Jace is right," Draco said, looking through the window himself, "They lost their five-year-old brother to a werewolf. You've never lost anyone, have you, Owen?"
Owen shook his head, "No, sir."
"Good," Draco said roughly, "I hope you never have to experience that kind of pain because it changes you – it hardens you, and unless you can find someone or something to lessen the burden, to take the weight off – it can ruin you."
Owen bowed his head, "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to be so insensitive."
"You're young; you'll learn," Harry said, giving Owen a small smile and a clap on the back. He turned away from the young man to talk to Daphne.
"Want a leg up?"
Daphne shot him a suggestive look, "Always."
Harry smirked and hunched down so that she could stand on his shoulders. Once she was comfortably up there, Harry stood up, and Draco gave her a final push onto the roof.
Daphne managed to make clambering onto a roof look graceful, which was quite some feat. Once up there, she lay down and called.
"Give me a shout when you've got the wards removed."
Harry looked to Draco, who cast a diagnostic charm on the wards and frowned.
"Not as complex as I thought they would be, if I'm honest."
"She's a Junior," Jason said with a shrug, "Not a hardened war vet like you two."
"Yeah, our houses are a bit like fort knox," Harry admitted, "But we've been hunted by Dark Lords and Lordesses."
"Don't lump Lucia in there with Voldemort," Draco scoffed, "She was a revolutionary – not a Dark Lord."
"Also, if we're being grammatically correct, it would be Dark Lady, not Dark Lordess," Terry pointed out.
"Who brought the Ravenclaw?" Ben joked.
Terry shot him an irritated look, and Owen tried his best to hide his smirk, but he failed, and Terry glared at him too.
"Silence is helpful when you're trying to listen for the weak point in a ward – did you idiots know that?" Draco asked sarcastically.
Harry smirked as the rest of the team immediately fell silent. Draco could joke around like one of the lads most of the time, but when things got serious, he got pissy, and they knew not to mess with him.
In all fairness – Draco had been right. The wards weren't incredibly complex, and Harry would have been able to break through them then lend Daphne his magically easily. He had told Draco to do it to test him - he needed to see how Draco would get on without him.
There was a hiss and a crackle. Then sparks rained down around the boundary of the flat.
"You're up, Daphne," Draco called onto the roof.
"Does she do this kind of stuff often?" Owen asked.
Harry nodded, "When she's not having babies, this is her 9 to 5."
Jason snorted, "I don't know how you guys do it mate – four kids and dangerous jobs."
"Trust me, some days I don't know how we do it either," Harry admitted,
"Guys – the box is definitely in the flat," Daphne said as she shimmied along the rooftop and swung her feet over the edge, "The locator spell puts it somewhere in the lounge."
Harry helped her down, and she shot him a grateful smile.
"Let's find it then," Draco said. He unlocked the window by the fire escape with alohomora then stepped forward to climb through. Before he could, Daphne grabbed him and yanked him back.
Draco made a small noise of disapproval.
"What the hell, Daphne?"
"Are you stupid?" Daphne asked in disbelief, stepping in front of him, "There's a security curse on the window."
Draco scoffed, "A security curse? Really? The wards were weak. What makes you think that this girl knows how to put up a security curse?"
"Who said she did it?" Daphne asked, scanning the window with her wand, "Her mother is a Selwyn, and regardless of whether they talk or not – I expect she would want to protect her youngest daughter with her living in a neighbourhood like this."
"Again with the don't let Lilly hear you calling the neighbourhood where she grew up scummy," Harry pointed out.
"As soon as Lilly married Neville, she bought her mother a flat in Soho," Daphne reminded Harry, "She's not that attached to Poplar, is she?"
Harry shrugged, "Just saying."
Daphne turned back to the window, which shimmered purple.
"Purple?" Draco said with a frown, "Doesn't that mean…."
"Disintegration curse," Daphne said with a nod, "It could also be a neural severing curse though, I'll need some living flesh to test it out on."
"I don't even want to know what a neural severing curse is," Ben said distastefully.
"Accio rat!" Harry said, holding his wand in the air, "It severs nerves – usually those connecting the brain to the limbs resulting in permanent paralysis."
"Someone paid more attention in Curse Breaking class than you, Draco," Jason said pointedly.
"I had a good tutor," Harry said, shooting Daphne a grin.
"You needed one. You didn't even know Arithmancy at the start of Auror training," Daphne shot back.
Before Harry could defend himself, a squealing rat flew through the air into Harry's hand. Before it could bite him, he threw it through the open window. The moment it crossed through the purple barrier, it disintegrated into several pieces.
Draco's eyes widened, "That was nearly me."
"Yes, it was – you can thank me later," Daphne remarked sarcastically. She swiped her wand down diagonally and spoke in Latin, causing golden letters to appear in front of her.
"This was definitely not put up by a Junior Auror," Daphne said, her eyes flicking across the letters and numbers, "It's complex, and disintegration curses are dark - like all purple curses."
"Might have been put up by her sister," Harry suggested, "Lux wanted to be a Curse Breaker before she decided to join the Aurors. She was top of the Curse Breaking class."
"How do you know that?" Jason asked with a frown.
"I'm Assistant Head Auror – I've memorised all of your files," Harry replied matter of factly.
Daphne had been silent as they talked amongst themselves. Draco watched her with interest – it was rare that he saw her breaking a curse. It was usually Bill who took the lead when they helped them out on cases. She was reaching into the air with her wand, swiping some letters away, re-arranging others and cocking her head at the writing every so often. After a few minutes, the golden writing glowed briefly, and when it did so, Daphne raised her wand and uttered the counter-curse. There was a brief flash as if lightning had hit the ground next to them, and then the window was clear.
"Okay," Daphne said, turning to the team, "Climb through the window, but once you are in, do not go through any other doorways or windows until I've checked that they are safe."
Harry nodded, "Lead on Draco."
Draco put his hand over the threshold warily and sighed in relief when it didn't disintegrate. He climbed through the open window into the lounge, and the others followed.
Daphne did a quick check of the area and said, "The front door and every window is warded with the same disintegration curse, so if we all go out the way we came in, we'll be fine."
"Clear of any other booby traps?" Harry asked.
Daphne nodded and looked around, "I can't get a beacon on the cursed item, which means that wherever it is – it has its own wards."
"Let's work on the assumption that Ivy doesn't know it's here," Draco said, looking over at Harry, "That's your hunch, and I trust you."
Harry bowed his head, "Thank you."
"Where would someone stash a hidden item in a muggle flat?" Draco asked as he glanced around the room, "If it were a pureblood home, there would be a secret compartment behind the bookshelf, or a lairds lug in the attic, or a secret torture chamber under the lounge floor."
Owen looked at Ben in disbelief, "Is he for real?"
"My pureblood house has all of that, so I'm going to say yes," Ben replied.
Owen frowned, "Well, us normal human beings don't have torture rooms or lairds lugs, whatever the hell that even is."
"It's a secret compartment above the drawing-room of a pureblood manor," Harry said offhandedly, "A tiny vent above the fireplace which can be accessed by secret stairs from the floor above."
Daphne raised an eyebrow at Harry.
"Which I have absolutely never used to eavesdrop on your conversations with Lilly," Harry said sheepishly.
"We'll talk about that later, honey," Daphne quipped.
Owen snorted and looked around the room. He knelt and looked around the floor space.
"If I was hiding something in this room, I would put it underneath the cabinet."
Everyone looked at the cabinet in question. It was more like an old-style chest of drawers adorned with jewellery and photographs of Ivy and her sister. The trunk had four feet and a small gap between it and the floor.
"I'll humour you," Draco said. He took a small emerald pebble out of a bowl full of them, and he slid it underneath the chest. The pebble hit a barrier which hissed, shimmered and sent it bouncing back into Draco's hand.
Draco looked up at Owen, "Well, there's a warding charm under there."
"Good shout, Owen," Jason said, levitating the chest out of the way so that Draco could break the ward comfortably rather than having to lie on his stomach and work with a narrow opening.
"Is that where you hid your porn?" Ben teased.
Owen made a face, "Funny, Benjy."
Draco ignored them and cast a diagnostic charm on the ward.
"Okay, there's no way the same person who put the wards up on this flat put the wards up on this thing."
"What makes you so sure?" Harry asked.
Draco murmured, "Ipsum Revelare," and moved his wand around in an anti-clockwise, circular motion.
Silver writing projected itself into the air – it was mostly a jumble of numbers and letters, but each line was a different type of spell. A ward was, after all, just a combination of security spells, woven together for extra security.
Harry took a step back to take in the full extent of the wards, "At least 50 individual spells."
"There were four on the flat," Draco said pointedly.
Daphne knelt next to him and studied the ward.
"At least four of those spells are booby traps, designed to hurt anyone stupid enough to fire at the ward to break it down."
Jason murmured to Terry, "I was just about to suggest that approach."
"Of course you were. You're a Gryffindor," Terry muttered back dryly.
"It would take hours to unpick the ward, spell by spell," Harry said with a glance at the clock, "We don't have hours. We need to get this thing broken before Ivy gets home."
"I can pick off the booby traps and the offensive wards," Daphne said, glancing at Draco, "After that, you can bombard it with blasting curses until it breaks down."
"Or Harry could just blow it up like he did to the wards in that church," Terry said, looking at his boss.
Harry shook his head, "I only managed that because I was using a very powerful wand which I later destroyed because it was too powerful."
"Do you know how many spells were woven into the ward on that church?" Draco asked, turning to look at Harry as Daphne got to work on the ward.
Harry shook his head, "No, to be honest. I reckon it's about the same as what's on that box, though."
"No," Draco said, "There are around 50 spells in that ward – there were closer to 100 on that church, and you brought it all raining down on our heads with one finite incantatem."
"With a wand that was too powerful for this earth and was therefore destroyed," Daphne said dryly, "Power isn't everything, Draco. Finesse is just as important with some aspects of magic."
To prove her point, Daphne neatly extracted one of the Latin words from the air and spun her wand around with the tips of her fingers, murmuring a chant of some sort to herself as she did so. When the words began to glow, she held her wand tightly, spoke the counter-curse and blasted the words (and the spell attached to them) away with a small burst of magic.
"Show off," Harry teased.
Daphne didn't deny it – she just kept on working until she had destroyed all of the booby trap spells. At that point, she stood up.
"Gryffindors are up – do your thing, blast it rashly until it explodes."
Harry grinned over at Jason, and the two men began to bombard the wards with blasting charms. It gradually weakened, and after ten minutes of this, it shimmered and broke apart like static electricity.
When it did so, an old wooden box came into view in the middle of the floor where the chest had previously sat.
"Don't go anywhere near it," Daphne warned as she looked at the box a little more closely, "It's old, Victorian, I would say."
"That's great, but we're not historians," Draco said dryly.
"No, Draco, but I need to find out everything I can about the box because the history of a cursed object often helps me untangle the curse on it," Daphne remarked irritably. Draco respected her higher authority on that one, so he nodded and said no more.
"It's a sewing box," Daphne said with a frown, "I would say it dates back to the time the first curse was unleashed, so it's not as old as we thought it was."
"Who do you think cursed it?" Harry asked.
"I don't know," Daphne admitted, "I thought it might have been a family heirloom, but now I'm not so sure. I think it's more likely that it became evidence in the Jack the Ripper attacks and was taken home by Detective Inspector Montgomery. From then, it probably stayed in the Montgomery family, but a witch or wizard must have owned it before that, and a powerful one too."
She moved around slightly and was able to make out two sigils on the side of the box, "Those sigils are original. They date back to the same time as the box itself."
Draco squinted at them, "They aren't runes."
Daphne shook her head, "No, they are ancient dark magic sigils. You don't see them these days, mostly because all of the old grimoires containing traces of them were destroyed by the first liberal Minister for Magic back in the early 20th century."
"You really paid attention in History of Magic, huh?" Owen asked.
"You have to when you want to go into this line of work," Daphne said curtly.
She narrowed her eyes and moved a bit closer to the box.
"The sigils on this box relate to what's happening with the magical creatures right now. This one-" she pointed a triangular sigil with a cross beneath it and a sun inside of it, "- means protection from evil and this one-" she gestured to an elaborate symbol that looked like a heart embedded within a cross, "- means protection against evil spirits."
"Werewolves are regarded as evil; I know that much. So I suppose vampires are regarded as evil spirits?" Harry guessed.
Daphne nodded, "Yes, but that doesn't explain the attacks, does it? This box should protect the owner from werewolves and vampires – it doesn't explain why they are all struggling to maintain control and essentially going feral."
"Daphne," Harry said, "There's another sigil on the back, but it's tiny."
Daphne frowned and shook her head.
"That's not a sigil; it's a dark magic mark. The sigils are ornate and neatly etched on but that mark? It's crude."
"What does it mean?" Draco asked.
"Reverse," Daphne said, looking up at the two men, "It turns this from a box designed to protect against magical creatures into a box that sends out some sort of signal or chemical telling them to attack."
"It can't have been added much later than the box was made though, can it?" Owen asked, "You said it was Victorian."
"I think it must have been modified shortly after it was made," Daphne mused, "It must have been stolen around 1888 when the spate of attacks that Jack the Ripper got the blame for happened."
"Can you break it?" Harry asked, "I know you normally like to know the whole family history before you try and break a curse – context helps, doesn't it?"
"It does, but I might be able to break it without the context," Daphne said honestly. She took a step back and cast a diagnostic charm on the curse. As it had before, golden lettering appeared before them.
Rather than working directly with the curse as she had with the comparatively simple security curse, Daphne grabbed a notepad and pulled a pencil from behind her ear. She jotted down the curse and began to re-arrange the letters.
The others fell silent as they watched her work it out. She muttered to herself, shook her head, crossed out parts and crumpled up pieces of parchments while she worked – all the while with her tongue clicking against her teeth and a small crinkle of concentration between her eyes. Harry thought she looked adorable, but he would never tell her that because she was a bad-ass curse breaker, and she would not appreciate being called adorable, not even by her husband.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, she looked up at Harry.
"I've got it."
"Yeah?" Harry asked, leaning forward eagerly.
Daphne nodded, "It wasn't that difficult, but it is powerful, so I am going to need your help to break it."
Harry got to his feet and walked towards her. He held out his hand.
"Take what you need."
Daphne quirked an eyebrow up at him but said no more. She took his hand in her left and held her wand in her right. Looking Harry directly in the eye, she said, "Legilimens!"
The spell enabled her to see into Harry's head, and he was already projecting his magical core to make matters easier for her. She took a deep breath and concentrated on connecting her magic with Harry's – they both knew the instant that it had worked because a cold, tingling sensation ran through their bodies from their heads to their toes.
When Daphne opened her eyes, Draco looked on in surprise at the golden glint in her pupils. She turned away from Harry and pointed her wand at the box, then spoke the counter-curse, "Ad Statum Restituere Originale!"
The others all shut or shielded their eyes as a bright yellow light enveloped the box. Daphne blinked hard and cut the connection between herself and Harry. He breathed in sharply and grabbed the mantle of the fireplace.
"You could never have broken that on your own," Harry said, looking at the sweat that glistened on her brow.
"I know I couldn't have," Daphne said. She cast another diagnostic charm to make sure there were no more hidden booby traps, then she picked up the small box and examined it more closely. When she flipped it to look at the bottom, she frowned.
"A family crest," Draco said eagerly, "Is it the Selwyns?"
Daphne shook her head, "No, that's the Crouch family crest and the Crouch motto, Acta non Verba."
"Deeds, not words," Harry translated.
Daphne nodded and opened up the box.
"Somebody must have stolen it at some point before 1888. That was when they modified it. It's been out of the family for generations. Somebody must have stolen it from Moriarty - my Great, Great, Great Grandfather."
Owen frowned, "You were a Crouch?"
"No, dumbass, she was a Greengrass," Ben replied, "But she's a pureblood. We're all linked up to the other families in the sacred 28 somehow."
Owen's frown deepened, "You're all related?"
"Yep, Harry and Daphne are second cousins," Draco replied smoothly.
"Like you're much better, you and Hermione are related too," Harry pointed out, "She's a Nott."
"She's not a Nott. If you ever say that in front of her, she will kill you," Draco remarked, "And Theo and I are barely related anyway."
Daphne wasn't paying that much attention to them, which worried Harry.
"What is it?"
"Why would the Crouch's have had a box to ward against magical creatures?" Daphne asked, looking up at Harry.
Harry didn't quite catch where she was going with that at first.
"I…don't know?"
Daphne thumbed the family crest thoughtfully.
"Yeah, it's probably nothing," she said, but Harry could see through the act – whatever thought had just struck her, it wasn't nothing.
"Did you put a barrier spell on your hands before you touched that?" Draco asked, "If you didn't, you could have compromised the evidence."
"Don't get your knickers in a twist, I did," Daphne said. She handed the box over to him, "Check it for fingerprints and all of that, but it is mine by birthright, so when you're finished with it, I want it back."
"Don't worry; you'll get it back," Draco promised. He looked up at the clock, "Let's head back to the office and see what we can find before Ivy comes back."
Harry nodded and turned to his wife.
"Daph-"
"I get it. You need to stay late," Daphne said with a small nod, "I'll see you when I see you."
"I'm going to need a report on that curse," Harry said as she headed for the open window, "Sorry, babe."
"I'll have it on your desk by Monday morning," Daphne called, jumping out of the window and raising her hand in a gesture of goodbye.
"She knows something about that box," Draco said quietly, taking a step closer to Harry.
"Could you not breathe down my neck like that?" Harry shuddered, turning to face the blond man, "She does, but I don't think it's relevant to the case. I think it's relevant to her family, so drop it, okay?"
Draco raised his hand in defeat.
"Dropping it, boss," he said as he headed for the window, "Jason – stay here with Owen and arrest Ivy when she gets home. Terry-"
"Woah, wait a second," Harry cut in, "Why are you arresting Ivy?"
"We found the box in her flat, Harry," Draco said in disbelief.
"Yes, and the other two people most likely to have had the box are her sister and her mother," Harry pointed out, "Who would most definitely have had access to her flat. If you owned something and you were trying to hide it, you would put it somewhere safe in your flat like a drawer. If someone was trying to hide something in your flat, they would put it somewhere obscure where the occupant wouldn't be able to find it."
"All the same, we need to bring her in," Draco said simply, "I won't have her arrested in the department – I wouldn't want to embarrass her like that, but we need to find out what she knows, we need to do a Legilimency test on her."
"Draco, that's a huge violation of privacy," Harry said in disbelief, "Can't we just talk to her? One decent human being to another."
"That's not the procedure, Harry," Draco pointed out.
"Screw procedure," Harry said sternly, "This is how we make enemies of our own people, Draco. We don't treat our people like this. Doing so creates more people like Lux – Aurors who were kicked to the curb, embarrassed and hate the establishment."
"I know you think it was the sister, but we can't ignore the fact that the evidence was found in Ivy's apartment," Draco said, "We need to arrest her."
Harry sighed, "Fine, but we're not going to ambush her at home. We'll go back to the department, and I'll take her into my office and explain that we have to arrest her. I'll make sure she knows that we don't think it was her because it wasn't."
Draco turned around to hide the irritation on his face.
"Fine. Harry, you make the arrest. Terry, Ben – start combing that box for fingerprints. The rest of us will be in the observation room when you bring Ivy in for interrogation."
"Fine," Harry said, and for the first time since they had started working together, there was an iciness to the air that took them back to their schooldays.
* ~ TBC ~ *