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Chapter Three: Thoughts and Reflections

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Harry walked in to his apartment, extremely tired. Throwing his jacket onto the rack in his small living room, he walked through into the small kitchen, grabbed a bag of crisps and then walked back through, munching slowly. After collapsing onto the single couch in the middle of the room, he picked up the creased paper that was lying on the small wooden coffee table in front of him. He'd already seen the front pages at work earlier; the news drought that currently plagued the Wizarding community had meant the Prophet had devoted the entire front page to the un-named criminal on the loose. Somehow, a reporter had got wind of Harry's encounter with the mysterious figure. Phrases such as 'Auror foiled' and 'Ministry in chaos' caused a wry smile to form on his otherwise sombre face.

Harry had thought that after the war had ended, everyone would be tired of scare mongering and that petty criminals such as the one who was dubbed as 'The next you-know-who' by the Daily Prophet would not be glorified. He sighed, audibly. It was two days since he had rescued the woman from the house, and since then the entire Ministry had been sneering at him for losing against the criminal. Snide comments and superior glances were all the condolences he received from his fellow workers after being attacked. Daniel had told him to ignore it, and Harry did. He was used to being shunned by society, but by now he felt he should have earned their respect. Instead, they expected him to win.

Harry threw down the Prophet with an exaggerated air of frustration, and then summoned his briefcase with a lazy "Accio Case." The tired looking brown leather briefcase had once belonged to his father when he was working. Lupin had repatriated it to him when he started his job at the Ministry; now Harry used it to store his case-notes. Flicking open the gold plated locks, Harry rummaged through the pile of folders and files that had been carelessly thrown in when he'd left his office earlier. He was about to cast another summoning spell, but then he found it, a blue file with an old and dog-eared cover. With the Ministry still rebuilding the Wizarding Community, there weren't the resources to buy new folders. Old notes were simply discarded, and then the new ones put in; this one had previously contained the case notes for a young Death Eater that had died recently. Harry vividly remembered how it had happened.

It had been a wet day, the ground had been sodden and dark clouds had covered the skyline, menacing to rain further. Harry remembered how he had found the man by the cliffs somewhere along the South Coast. The man had refused to surrender, despite being alone and faced off against the Auror who had destroyed his master. They had duelled. For Harry it had been only too easy to block the poorly cast spells. He had been reluctant to return fire, still hoping to bring the man in alive. However, the man had then performed the Cruciatus curse, albeit badly. The bolt of light green light had hit the wet earth in front of him, singing the grass and sending up a small amount of mud that had splattered against Harry's robes. By then, the man's face had been screwed up in misery. He had been shouting and performing the unforgivable curses at random, his vision so blurred with tears that none of them even came close to Harry. Unknowingly, the man had then stumbled back right to the very edge of the cliff. His flailing arms had dropped the wand from his hands, and then, with a single glance at Harry, the man had thrown himself after it. Harry still remembered the expression of utter hatred mixed with sick fear on the man's face; it still followed him in his dreams. Harry had tried to save him, but before he could stop the man's fall, he had hit the ground, dead.

Harry still felt angry with himself for that, although no one else seemed to care that the man could have been brought in alive. He consoled himself that now, the last known Death Eater had been neutralised and now, maybe, his world could move on.

Slowly coming out from his dream-like state, Harry began fingering the pages in the file. He pulled them out, and began reading them over, again. The Ministry, in truth, knew very little about him considering he was the only active target still on the Aurors lists. They had just about enough evidence to suggest he was a male, but no name, nationality or visual profile. However, his list of crimes was already extensive. He had burnt down the houses of two wizards living in Hogsmeade, the only officially acknowledged of the crimes. He had also attacked several Ministry workers and, by the look of it, kidnapped one of them. No one could see any pattern to these random acts, and Harry decided he wouldn't bother to try and find one; instead he simply breezed through the notes.

Shoving the pieces of parchment back into the file, Harry's thoughts returned to the women he had found. He found himself picturing her face, trying desperately to work out from where he knew her. After minutes of thoroughly searching his brain, Harry resigned himself to waiting until the next day to find out. He was vaguely aware that there was a potion that would allow him to remember, but he hadn't the energy to even look it up. Anyway, Lupin had ordered him to go to St. Mungos and question the woman tomorrow, to try and find out who it was that had kidnapped her; he might be able to find out then. Harry wasn't sure why he felt slightly apprehensive about doing this, he had questioned many victims during the war. They had been the lucky ones. Most had not survived.

He slowly clicked shut the old briefcase, and then stood up, stretching as he did so. Although it wasn't late, Harry decided to go to bed. His appointment at the hospital was scheduled for ten in the morning, and Harry had a suspicion that the nurse on the 'Spell Damage Ward' would be only too happy for another chance to jibe at him for being late. With a slight jolt, he remembered that Daniel was off for the next two weeks. He didn't grudge his partner for taking a break, hell, together they had in the last six months neutralised just over thirty Dark Wizards, and spent a significant part of the rest of the time in the hospital. A break was just what Daniel needed, although he hadn't managed to persuade Harry to join him. Harry felt as though he was running himself into the ground, and stranger still, he didn't mind. He thought maybe if he stopped every crime, captured every criminal, solved every mystery, then in the future everyone could live safe from evil.

For the second time that night, Harry sighed loudly. He missed his friends, he missed his family and he missed the normal life that he had fleetingly enjoyed during his first years at Hogwarts. Everything had been destroyed by the war. All that remained was the tattered remains of a society. Harry's friends were gone; either dead or else run to other countries, safer countries. He longed to belong, to be loved again. As he fell asleep, there was a fleeting tear in his eye. It slowly ran down his cheek onto his chin, and then dripped onto the soft mattress. More would follow.