Chapter 25: Disturbing Research
PRESENT: LATE FEBRUARY
As part of her research into Dirk Pierce, Andrea needed to consult a number of sources only available at the British Ministry of Magic. Here she found that she had to pull rank and send off owls to her American superiors so that they could pull rank, and after a three-day process of red tape and bureaucratic tripe, she was finally allowed to access a file containing the names of all of the arrested Death Eaters after Voldemort's fall. It boiled her blood, for she knew that any Death Eater who might have infiltrated the Ministry would have had plenty of time to find out that an Auror was opening the file. Perhaps nothing would come of it . . . but it could very easily prove deadly if that file contained information that could incriminate influential people today.
She had hoped to find information on Pierce's parents; young Death Eaters tended to be descendants of older Death Eaters. There was nothing on him or any of his relatives, however—not even someone who had escaped on an Imperius plea. He appeared indeed to be a classic, stereotypical case of a Slytherin gone bad entirely on his own.
There were other items of interest on that list, though: names that Andrea knew. The first (no surprise, based upon comments Meli had made) was Lucius Malfoy; the second was Severus Snape.
Andrea sat back in her chair and stared at the page before her. There was no way in the world that Meli would associate with a loyal Death Eater—flat-out none. And knowing as she did that Meli could sense Death Eaters, she knew that Meli would know that Snape was one. The only possible logical explanation, then, was that Snape was not loyal and that Meli had seen proof of it.
Disloyalty did not make a Dark Mark go away, however. Andrea had encountered similar brands before, and she knew that they could only be released by the controller. If Snape had not returned to Voldemort, the Dark Lord would be able to torture him via the Dark Mark.
Of course, his being disloyal would not preclude his returning as a spy.
But Meli could be mistaken, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. Had she been anything but an Auror, Andrea might have been able to ignore that voice, but in her current position, she had to give it the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge its words as possibly true.
She closed the file and returned it to the Ministry clerk who had retrieved it for her. She had intended to go to Hogwarts anyway, but now she had a reason to go sooner rather than later; she had a potential rat to weed out.