Senior Auror Harry J. Potter had a problem. For the last four months, on a random schedule, there had been murders occurring the length and breadth of Magical Britain. The random schedule was not the only thing about it, either. Trying to find a modus operandi was not the easiest thing since the murders occurred in many different ways: crushed by a sudden separated stone wall, bisected right down the middle and cauterized, boiled alive between one step and the next, having every bit of blood turned into vinegar. The list went on, but there was one single individual thing that was matched at every crime scene.
In every case, each victim had every hair on their bodies plucked, neatly woven into a rope, and wrapped around their waists like a grotesque belt. For those lacking in the hirsuteness department, the option was to have hairy bracelets.
The one bald wizard was found to have a rather fetching set of toe rings, since those were augmented with strands of gold from one of the many rings on his finger. What wasn't used for augmenting the toe rings found its way into a nose stud that had most of the Pureblood Aurors and some of the Halfbloods scratching their heads.
There were precious few eyewitnesses, but they agreed that whoever it was always wore robes that were white as freshly fallen snow. No blood or bodily fluids or any kind of mess was ever seen on them.
The toss-up between what to call this perp was between The Hairy Jeweler or the Plucking Ivory. Harry was partial to the second since he wasn't too impressed with anyone asking him if he gave discounts for his fellow Aurors for whatever bling he made. Besides, when he got steamed at the lack of progress in the case it was only natural to use a certain rhyming word for 'plucking.'
The other thing was that whenever the killer did the plucking, it was done magically. They could detect that much, but the problem was that it always failed to yield a magical signature. Every single time. The body count was up to twenty-six, and the ever-increasing heat was on DMLE to find and catch this killer.
So far, there had been no luck. Demographic analysis was a wash. It wasn't limited to a certain type of person. Some sick slobs limited themselves to short blue-eyed blondes, for instance. Harry was reminded of his dear friend Luna when this thought crossed his mind, even though she had silver-gray eyes. So far there hadn't been any repeated types of male, female, young, old, rich, poor, blonde, brunette, redhead – nothing. It was as if the killer threw darts at a bunch of wheels with all kinds of descriptive words to find their next target, then went out and found somebody that matched the results.
The only other thing was that once someone matching a certain description had been killed, it didn't happen again. Harry had never realized that there was so many different types of people in Magical Britain. It made his job harder in a way.
For reasons of security, he couldn't discuss this case with anyone not in the Auror Department or without interest or oversight. That meant he couldn't take this work home to Ginny or mention it to his friends. It wore at him, and Ginny rubbed his shoulders when he got home after those days when it got bad. She realized that he put his all into his job while on the clock, and there wasn't any chance for time off thanks to the seriousness of the situation. He'd always done that fighting against the forces of Darkness and she couldn't expect him to change. It had saved her life more than once, after all. So, she held him close and helped him release the stress that came with his job in every way that she could think of.
Harry had breathed a private sigh of relief that one of the victims was a small female redhead, which if the killer held to the profile, meant Ginny wouldn't be targeted. They had been through too much together, from the Second Blood War on and he didn't know that he would have survived losing her. It still didn't make him feel better about having that relieved feeling, since it meant someone else was going to die if they didn't catch this killer soon. Another family would lose a loved one.
He felt ashamed at the feelings around another victim. An obese man with a thick mustache that family members said was one of the sweetest men alive. Harry had taken the victim impact statements from sobbing family members, looking for clues to the killer but the thoughts cloistered within his mind noted the physical similarities to his Uncle Vernon. Of course his uncle was still alive and still one of the most disagreeable men around. The profile meant that he was safe. Harry couldn't decide how he felt about that.
Motive was a distinct mystery. The bodies hadn't been plundered. No gold was taken from various money purses. There was no link between their occupations, save for two that had jobs as teachers at different schools. Not all were British. Some were French visitors and one was a Bulgarian here for a culinary exchange. There was no sexual assaults or physical assaults other than the hair thing.
He huddled down within his well-worn and most comfortable Auror robe to try to hide from the cold cutting winds that seemed to laugh hysterically at any warming charm. The dragonhide armor he wore underneath was shifting with his movements and he looked down at the paper cup in his hands with more than a bit of distaste. Soon it would be time for yet another refill of the 'precinct's' awful coffee. Somebody had gotten a hold of Muggle police literature that mentioned police station houses and decided that it was a good idea for the DMLE to organize into.
Good idea, yes, especially when it came to organizational matters but Harry thought it went too far when whoever it was decided that bad coffee had to go along with the precincts.
He'd learned his lesson about bringing in his own coffee, too. After the first urn had disappeared – like magic, he snorted to himself – before he could get more than a cup, he decided to figure out a way to carry his own coffee around with him. Maybe Kreacher could think of something. The ancient elf was still wily enough to come up with something. Harry hoped he hurried up and thought of something sooner rather than later. This swill was past terrible.
Another thing that came up in the redesign of DMLE was the evidence board. Harry tried to tell his superiors that using a corkboard to pin up various details was something only seen on TV, since real life Muggle police departments were like the Auror department: too busy with different crimes at any one time to have room in their crowded bullpens for desks and a huge standing board dedicated to each crime.
Harry had been told that magic would make room, and he grudgingly conceded the point. At least with the ability to shrink and expand the board, he could organize his thoughts and possibly spot patterns.
He sighed and continued with his patrol. Even as a Senior Auror, which meant increased responsibility and the corresponding increased parchmentwork he still had to get out and patrol from time to time. When that happened, he usually filled the role of a field training auror. The powers that be noted his success with the D.A. in Hogswarts and paired him with a never-ending stream of trainees and rookies. He had one such rookie Auror with him today, a young man with the name Balthasar Zebulon Ramsbottom Rowland.
Unsurprisingly, the rookie had asked simply to be called 'Baltie.' Harry didn't have the heart to tell him that regulations required him to be addressed formally by his full name on more than a few occasions. He also didn't have the heart to tell him that every report that he wrote using those new squished-line forms that the kid would have to write out his rank and full name along with his Auror badge number without symbols and his precinct number.
It was bad enough for him having to write out 'Senior Auror Harry James Potter, Badge Number 714, Precinct 1.' The forms never seemed to have enough room and made his hands cramp up worse than usual on the quill. At least he had his dad's old badge number so that was something.
The rookie came out of the new coffee shop down the street with two steaming mugs. Harry's eyes lit up.
"Baltie! If I wasn't already married, I'd kiss you!"
The rookie blushed, then grimaced.
"Sorry, sir, I don't swing that way. Better luck next time, especially when you have to explain to Mrs. Potter."
Harry snorted. The kid was getting better at his retorts. He eyed the mugs.
"They let you bring those out?"
The rookie handed one over.
"I wondered about that too until they said there was a new runic array embedded inside that measured the amount of liquid. Once it's emptied, it disappears and goes back to the coffee shop mug rack already washed and ready for use again. Prevents stealing and saves on dishwashing time."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Huh. That's pretty clever. Wish I'd thought of that."
"The only problem is that it clashes with the stay-hot charms, so it acts like any old mug. Coffee gradually cools."
"Can't have everything," Harry agreed.
"So, what are we…" the rookie was interrupted by a blast of magical energy to their right. The two Aurors dropped their mugs and never noticed them shattering as their wands ejected into their waiting palms.
There was a figure in white robes that shone so brightly in the glare of the mid-day sun that Harry wanted to squint. He couldn't. Harry knew that the moment he closed his eyes, that figure would have him dead to rights, or just dead.
Whatever the jokes were that surrounded the rookie's name, it was no joke about how he fought. Harry was starting to feel old listening to the spellchains ripple from the young man's lips and wondered if he had ever been able to spit out the syllables as fluidly.
A distinctly feminine laugh came from the figure, which made Harry raise an eyebrow even as he separated from the rookie in a quartered stance and brought his wand up to bear. That laugh sounded joyful, even as Auror Rowland's spells dissipated over a layered Protego. The wave of a hand presaged the use of a new spell he'd never heard before and he glanced at the victim to see hairs ripping their way from the epidermis. It was already melding into a thickly woven belt and winding around her waist. The woman's screams failed to distract her attacker in any way.
"Go home, Senior Auror Potter. I'd hate to do the same thing to that luscious head of messy hair. It makes those beautiful green eyes pop in your face along with that tan," the woman in white cooed at him.
"Thank you for the compliment, whoever you are, but I do have a job to do. You're coming with us."
"So you do, and what's your partner's name? He's a little young for me. As far as coming, that could be taken so many ways."
The woman conjured a stool to sit on. She sat without an apparent care in the world. The layered Protego shields shrugged off everything that the rookie Auror was throwing at them. Auror Rowland heard the question and grimaced.
"Auror Balthasar Zebulon Ramsbottom Rowland, at your service, ma'am." He tipped an imaginary hat at the woman in white, even as his wand continued blasting a myriad of different spell without any effect. Harry had to give him points for style even as he shot several spells of his own.
The stool came up as the woman used it to deflect a stunner at his partner, who yelped and ducked. He stiffened as a Glacius Tria wormed its way between his neck and the collar of his robes. The young man's face rimed with sudden ice.
"Ooo! Such a gracious man and with manners! Senior Auror, you've been teaching him well. Still, he needs to relax. Don't you think?"
Before Harry could answer, the woman pointed her wand at his partner. A whispered charm hit Auror Rookie Balthasar Zebulon Ramsbottom Rowland and Harry feared the worst even as he kept casting. Instead, to his disbelieving eyes, the sleeves of his Auror robe lengthened dramatically. They formed a distinct straitjacket that trapped his arms before melding together to trap his hands. The young man's wand was flipped out of his grasp and threaded through straps that formed by his elbow. The hem of his robe tightened down on his legs and he fell.
Even in battle, Harry winced at the sound of the rookie's head bouncing off the cobblestones, knocking him out. He didn't have time to check on him since the figure in white robes had just left him all alone without backup. This was a hard battle. He could tell that it was a woman under the robes and the voice suggested that pretty well too, but her face was covered. Her voice, whenever she bothered to speak an incantation, was disguised. Whoever it was, she fought with every bit of viciousness the female of the species had ever been reputed to have.
Even Bellatrix Lestrange, may Hell keep her soul, wasn't this implacable. A part of Harry's mind thought that if this woman had gone after Voldemort in the seventies, it would have made life easier for him.
Of course, that same part remarked, she wasn't making life easy for him right now. Not at all. Her return attacks hurt like a stone cold bitch and he knew he was going to need all manner of hot soaking and pain potions tonight. She'd already hit the sore knee that Voldemort had left with him all those years ago.
She was working him over like a side of beef that was far too tough. If it wasn't spell damage, it was punches and kicks that hit like a hammer. He blocked as much as he could but too many got through his defenses. The woman was pretty damn fast, even for him!
Right, then. Time to put this fight to bed. Harry winced at the double entendre of his thoughts, but whipped out the second wand that had been biding its time even as he closed his eyes.
A mental Lumos Maxima from his holly wand dazzled the woman and a tightly focused Bombarda hit the woman's shields hard enough to collapse them. A powerful Deprimo blew her off-balance just enough for the holly wand to cast a Stupefy as she fell to the ground.
She landed face-down, the force of the impact with the cobblestones breaking her nose and shifting her hood off her face. Seeing the woman's crumpled posture splayed out on the ground told Harry that the fight was done.
He cast an Incarcerous in addition to snapping on magic-restraining cuffs not trusting that the woman had a way to overcome one or the other. After that he did his best to put the rookie to rights, but it looked like he was going to shiver for a while as he warmed up. It was a stupendously strong hit and he could only think of a few people that could have landed a strike like that.
Harry cast a messenger Patronus to alert the station house what had happened and to request support. Knowing that it would take a minute or two for Prongs to arrive and a response to muster, he decided to see who the mysterious woman was. She was still unconscious, which he was glad to see. Harry hadn't had a beating like that in years.
As he grabbed her shoulder to flip her over, the hood fell off. Harry collapse in shock at the sight of bushy brown hair. A trembling hand peeled back a closed eyelid to reveal the same chocolate brown eyes that he'd seen for many years.
There, unconscious and trussed up in cuffs and a magical binding after attempting yet another murder, lay Hermione Granger.