Deconstruction

Chapter Seven: Three Weeks

Dr. White and her patient were walking along the grounds. It had taken weeks before she was able to convince him to just walk with her. It was as if the day in the art room had never happened at all. It was just two days ago that they had spent their entire session in the art room without him or her saying much. Dr. White was grateful that he had agreed to a change of venue, and they were finally walking around the grounds.

His gait was long because of his height and the length of his legs. He moved with grace, and this only made Dr. White feel even more ungraceful in the process. It was like walking with an antelope . Dr. White felt as graceful as a warthog as she tried to keep up with him without looking like she was putting so much effort into it. It didn't take him long to notice, so he shortened his steps and adjusted his speed for her.

"Do all of these kinds of places look like this?" he asked out loud.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean all this greenery and people going out and about like this. This isn't how it is everywhere, is it?"

"I suppose not. This was long before we realized how inhumane it was to keep people pent up like animals," replied Dr. White, as she recalled her old psychology classes and the pictures of people in boxes.

He looked around him and breathed in the air, "My people could learn a thing or two from your kind."

"They don't treat their mentally ill that well?"

He shook his head and then he cocked his head sideways slightly before he replied, "You could say that. My kind can heal more than your kind, but they tend to give up if the treatments don't take right away. Or if something is beyond what they can do. What you and I do together may seem like a waste of time to them, but it has been helpful."

Dr. White couldn't help but smile. Feeling gratified for her efforts, she said, "I'm glad you feel that way." She didn't really know if any of what she was doing did any good. She sighed as she looked around. "It won't be like this for long. The leaves are already falling."

"Yes," he agreed as he looked around, nodding nodded. "I would have to agree with you on that. I like the fall season the best. It is a time of change. Everything dies during this time."

"That's not true. Winter is when everything's dead," argued Dr. White. "Of course, where I come from it's practically summer all year around. I've never really had a chance to experience the four seasons until I came to England."

"Actually, that's the point, isn't it?" he paused when she gave him quizzical look, he continued, "It's during the fall season when everything dies, by the time it gets to winter everything's already dead."

Dr. White tucked stray lock of her bangs were in her eyes. Part of her wished that she could shield her white coat because it felt rather cumbersome. For the walk outside, her patient had been outfitted with one of those cotton terry robes that most of the patients were wearing. He was probably much more comfortable than she was.

"I grew up in Southern California. Los Angeles. The land of make believe," revealed Dr. White with a wiggling of her fingers for effect.

"Movies and the like I suppose," he said with a side glance at her. "I didn't use to know much about all that until I took a class in school."

Dr. White found everything he said a little hard to swallow at first. He did greet a lot of things with genuine, first time curiosity. Either he had a lot of imagination or what he was saying about his world was true. Dr. White did a real background check on him, and found no information. This was the post-modern information age and everyone was supposed to have some kind of paperwork that linked to various things.

The background on her patient was foggy. He had come into the hospital from a public ward. The mental hospital had some kind of grant that allowed long term patients who couldn't afford care, but for some odd reason every bill was paid privately by an unknown source. He was identified by a number that was assigned to each patient to protect their privacy. He wasn't one of those poor patients, so someone had to know who he really was. Yet, there was no name and not much information given other than what Dr. White could physical see and what was written on his file.

The hospital that he first came from reported that he had turned himself in, seeking help. When the staff tried to assist him, he lost control and caused a ruckus to the point where he had to be restrained. When security had arrived, they found no identification on him and one of the doctors, Maya Shah, decided that he did need help. He was admitted at that doctor's orders. After less than a week, he was transferred to the current hospital.

Dr. White wondered if she should contact the other doctors, but they all seemed to have matching opinions. She didn't really read all of their comments until after a few sessions with her patient because she didn't want their opinions tainting her personal opinion of him. She could tell that he was a good man, but one who a broken one.

"Did you ever just want to escape from where you were?" he asked without looking at her. "Just find a safe place to be for a while?"

"Yes," she replied, thinking of the moments she had felt like that. They were frequent moments, so she could relate to the question quite readily. "You said before that you weren't safe anywhere. Not even here. That safety was a state of mind more or less."

"Ah, you're learning. Or at least, you're starting to memorize," he complimented with a patronizing tone. "Tell me, where do you feel safest, Dr. White?"

Dr. White once again was at the end of an analysis. "I suppose at home."

"That's where most people feel safe," he agreed. "But what about people? Who do you trust? Who do you feel safe with?"

"By myself," she replied after a second to think of it.

He shook his head. "That's not really what I meant. And just when I thought we were reaching some kind of understanding, Dr. White." He returned his normal speed and walked ahead of her, surprising her.

Things were more twisted and convoluted than ever for Tonks. What started out simply enough had become a mess. There was Percy who was still missing and there were no definite leads on where to find him. Then, there was Penelope who was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight. Finally, there was Alistair Xavier who was just brought out of the woodwork, and now Tonks had to look for information on him and somehow link him directly to Percy.

Tonks returned to the office with a heavy heart the day following her meeting with Helena. She had the whole night to moll over the latest information. By the time she had arrived at the office, she was greeted with Kingsley who noticed how tired she was. Before she had a chance to put her things down, he already had a cup of tea for her. She accepted it gratefully, "Thanks."

"So, how'd it go yesterday?"

"Percy did identify the body, but he was never questioned regarding the murder. Did you know that Penelope Clearwater's family had no way of contacting any of the authorities from this end to investigate? They requested the Muggles not search for the truth because they had a feeling that it was from our end of things."

Kingsley looked a bit confused as he shook his head, "But if Percy was the one who identified the body, then why didn't he report it? She died over a year ago and he was still working in the Ministry."

"That's yet another mystery in huge ball of it that I have on my hands," said Tonks frustrated as she gestured with her hands. "What was he really up to?"

"Maybe, you should retract your steps a bit? Go back to Percy and look at him more directly without looking at the other people so much," suggested Kingsley. "Do you want some help?"

"Yeah, I could use some," admitted Tonks. "There was the other name on the list of people to be contacted in case of an accident or death on Penelope's file, Alistair Xavier."

"Do you want me to look him up for you?" offered Kingsley. "I can look up the information for you and if you want I could go and interview him."

"I'd rather do the interviewing myself," said Tonks. "But would you really mind looking up the information?"

"Of course not," answered Kingsley. "I'll get right on it."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Tonks often relied on Kingsley's experience and wisdom in such matters, so she decided to take his advice and to go back to the personnel files more deeply. There was one thing missing in the file and they were the timecards. There was a careful accounting of each employee's arrival at work, lunch, break, and departure. They were kept some place else, so Tonks got to her feet and went off to go and get the timecard.

She requested it and was carefully reading it. Percy was consistent if not anything else. There were pages and pages to go through. Percy always came early and left late. Sometimes, he took his lunches late. That was when he was under Crouch. There was a time when he was working more hours, but that was easily explained. During that first year, Percy had never taken a day off unless it was a holiday for the Ministry.

The following year was a different story though. There were instants where Percy had been gone for weeks at a time. There was a solid three weeks. It was a requested vacation either and then there were days off between that time and the day he resigned. There wasn't even an afternoon off the day that Penelope died. No time off after that.

Now, the time he took off was something that was interesting. There was no real pattern to it, but Tonks was surprised that Percy hadn't been fired by Fudge for not showing up for three weeks. There was no explanation given for it either. No note from a healer either. Fudge had good reason to keep Percy though because he knew about Fudge's corruption from the beginning. The question was what was Percy doing during all that time off? Why would he suddenly take three weeks off after never taking any time off before?

Tonks decided it was time to question some of the staff at the Ministry itself. Just because Percy wasn't the friendliest person in the world, didn't mean that people wouldn't have noticed that he was gone. Tonks cross referenced his file with others to figure out who was working around him at during the time. There were a few names that came up. She eliminated those who no longer worked for the Ministry and those who weren't working at Fudge's office at the same time. The name that remained was the name of one of the other assistants, Coral Smith. She used to be one of the paper pushers under Percy. Even though he was the assistant to Fudge, she was sort like his secretary. She was now the secretary to Minister Diggory.

After taking a brief break to get something eat and stretch her legs, Tonks dropped by to see Coral Smith at her desk. When she stepped in, Coral immediately said, "I'm sorry, but do you have an appointment? The Minister can't see any walk ins today."

"I didn't come to see the Minister. I'm from the Aurors. My name is Tonks," she said, "I wanted to talk to you actually about a former co-worker of yours."

Coral looked a little surprised. "So, you know who I am?"

"Yes," replied Tonks. "I wanted to ask you about Percy Weasley."

Coral shook her head, "I haven't seen him. He came in too early that day anyway. At that time, I didn't start work until nine."

"I know. I reviewed the timecards," said Tonks. "What I wanted to ask about was the time off he took prior to his resignation. I know that you had to fill in for him."

Coral nodded, "Yes, I did. He didn't even say that he was going to be out. But I got an owl from his flat mate that he wasn't feeling too well."

"His flat mate owled you?" asked Tonks. Oliver never mentioned anything about Percy taking some time off. "Did he give any reason for why he was out for nearly a month?"

"No," replied Coral. "He didn't say anything when he came back and I didn't bothering asking."

"Why?"

Coral looked away from her. "Because he looked so worn out. He looked like he wasn't eating or sleeping at all. He just looked exhausted. I figured he could have used the time off, but he came back looking worse."

"Did anybody know what happened during that time? What about the time off after that?"

"I think that his flat mate knew what happened," answered Coral after thinking about it for a minute. "Yes, towards the end he decided not to come to work as often. I had to cover for him during that time and it angered the former Minister to no end, but he didn't fire him. I think it's because a lot of the staff was abandoning him, so Fudge thought that he still had Percy at his side."

"What about you? Why weren't you the one who did it in the end?"

"Because Fudge never really showed me anything. In the end, Fudge kept most of his files in his office." Coral paused for a moment as she thought about it, "What does any of this have to do with Percy? Has something happened to him?"

"I hope not," replied Tonks. "Thank you for you time." She left without answering any of Coral's questions. It seemed that the trail had once again lead outwards away from Percy.

The good news was that the trail led back to Oliver. That was the good news, but the bad news was that Tonks still didn't know how it all connected. She couldn't very well go back to Oliver making accusations without anything to support her claims. Pure and simple, he had lied to her about Percy. Who knew what else he was lying about?

It was time to dive deeper into Oliver's personal life to check if she hadn't missed anything. It was starting to look more and more like he was the one responsible for Percy's disappearance. Tonks didn't like where this was heading one bit.

When she came back to her cubicle, she found Kingsley waiting for her. "What did you find out?" she asked him before he could ask her.

"Alistair Xavier is a reporter for the Daily Prophet. He's an investigative reporter actually and he's currently on assignment somewhere on the Continent," answered Kingsley. "He's been sending owls back to the paper, but no one has seen him in months."

"Argh!" exclaimed Tonks, resisting the urge to smash her head against her desk in frustration. "One more person we can't find or account for."

"Calm down, Tonks," said Kingsley soothingly. "It's not your fault. Take it easy. What did you find out?"

"I went through the timecards," she muttered from behind her hands. "I talked to one of the secretaries and she couldn't say why she had to fill in for Percy for three weeks in a row." She raked her fingers through her hair.

"Do you want me to go and find Xavier and talk to him?" offered Kingsley again. He seemed more pressing this. "Look, I know that Arthur didn't ask me to look into it because I was too close to the family, but it's time you had some help."

"Where is he exactly?" asked Tonks.

"Last known country was Romania," answered Kingsley. "He's been all over Eastern Europe during the last couple of months. As far as anyone knows, he didn't associate with Percy at all. I didn't ask about Penelope Clearwater."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Tonks.

Kingsley nodded, "I want to do this. We can't rule anyone out as suspects. This is starting to look like someone did come after him."

Tonks looked up at him directly. She didn't say anything about her suspicions of Oliver's involvement. She didn't want to say anything to Kingsley until she was sure because he could tell Arthur what was happening. "Then, please look for Xavier and ask him how he knew Penelope first, and then if he knew Percy, too."

"There is one more thing, Tonks," said Kingsley as he nodded. "Molly found out."

"How?" asked Tonks.

"I don't know, but they're asking to see you."

Tonks leaned back in her chair. She had a feeling that things just got more complicated. For the most part, she was able to move about without much interference from the Weasleys, which made her investigation easier. Now, with Molly involved, it was going to be harder to do anything. She was going to press for answers and she wasn't going to let Tonks off that easy. "When do they want to see me?" she asked. "And where?"

"Tonight and at regular meeting place," answered Kingsley.

"Right. Of course," muttered Tonks as she pressed her lips together. She sighed. "How angry is Molly exactly?"

"She's more upset than angry. Chances are she's not going to take it out on you, so you don't have to worry."

"I have to answer questions that I wasn't asked before."

Kingsley looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What questions are you afraid of answering?"

"Well, the first and foremost one, have you found my son yet?" said Tonks with a high pitch.

"They know you haven't found him yet," Kingsley assured her.

"Yeah, but like I keep saying there are more questions than answers. Just today, I found out that Percy was out for three weeks without any explanation and you found out that you can't even find the person who might have an idea of where he's gone."

"We'll go together tonight and talk to them," said Kingsley. "You shouldn't worry too much Tonks. You're doing the best you can. Now, I have to attend to other things right now."

Tonks waited for him to be gone before she opened up her notebook again to read up on what she had written about Oliver. As soon as she read it, she realized that she had made a mistake in being so trusting. There was something off about their meeting. It had been so early in the investigation that Tonks hadn't been so suspicious.

She looked through his files again and noticed something off. There were two bank vaults under Oliver's name in Gringotts. Normally, if a person had more than one vault, one was for higher security and the other was lower. Tonks looked went back into Percy's file and noticed that he used to have an account in Gringotts. But it showed that he no longer had one. Tonks bit her lip because it looked as if she was going to have to ask a favor from Bill.

Either way, Tonks had a feeling that she was no longer spinning her wheels in a single spot. She was now going somewhere, but she wasn't sure if she was going to like her destination.

AN: It looks like Tonks is finally getting somewhere, but the question is whether or not she's headed in the right direction or not. Percy's disappearance isn't what it seems and his illness is very real. I set up this story to be as much of a mystery as possible. I hope that it will be plausible and makes sense as it gets to the end. I love crime dramas and mystery novels. Sometimes, I think that the pace of the story is fast in certain parts, while slow in some. As parts of the story reveals what really happened, I attempt to put in some mundane stuff.

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Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. This story belongs to me and cannot be posted anywhere else without my permission.