Disclaimer: You know the deal, I own nothing!

A/N: Well thank you to Quill of Minerva, 'Tis a Gift to Be Free, foci and anyone else who reviewed the last chapter.I shall re-post chapter 3 over the next couple of days when I have time. I have to warn people that this chapter contains bad language and graphic description. If don't like either, then simply don't read! You have been warned.

Bex

Big thanks to bigkihap for being a great beta-reader! You ROCK!

Chapter 3

Alastor had been right about the Chinese restaurant being nice. In fact, it was more than nice, it was gorgeous. The food that had been cooked was exquisite. Albus made a mental note to tell Aberforth, his brother, about this place. In a secluded booth near the back of the room, Alastor began to fill Albus in on the investigation so far.

"Well, I know you haven't taken me out just because you're dateless, so what is troubling you my friend?" Albus said, twisting his noodles around the wooden set of chopsticks. Alastor glanced around the restaurant before shifting closer and leaning over the table.

"I'm sure you have heard about the murder cases situated around London," he muttered in a low voice so nobody but Albus could hear him. Albus glanced up into the face of his friend, the dark circles under his eyes stood out more than ever over his pale waxy face. "Three wizards and two muggles, all of them are men and all of them placed in ritualistic positions on the north side of the Thames. The Daily Prophet tells the world that these cases are not connected but they are. You have dealt with the Prophet before Albus. They are hardly ever told any of the details anyway because even the smallest mistake could lead to them making up the wildest stories you will ever hear and everybody and his best mate will be searching for the wrong person or group. But anyway, the fact that these men are being practiced on suggests that one of the old pureblood families have, once again, found and brought back the old rituals since the times of Merlin."

Alastor watched his friend's face grow hard and calculating like whenever he had a mystery that was particularly gruesome to solve. Albus's eyes never shook from the piecing stare that he was now giving Alastor at this piece of information. Wiping his mouth with his red napkin and placing it down onto his plate, Albus moved slightly forward and placed a spell on the booth to prevent anyone from listening in on this point forward.

"I'm not particularly one for back stories but I had to look into these old rituals. The group of which these particular rituals were created by was called the Black House Guild. They were a group of so-called 'doctors', the proper purebloods. These rituals that they performed were experiments on muggles; how to make them suffer, how to protect themselves from the disease that the muggles were supposed to have spread, things like that. You know, all the old tedious prejudice that the old pureblood families posses. Myths mention that all of the experiments and records were destroyed in the great 'Battle of Merlin',"

"Or so they thought." Albus finished pensively. "Naturally, someone would have stolen or hidden some of the old files and books."

"Exactly. What we have no idea about is whether the group committing these atrocities is part of Grindlewald's old crowd, or whether it is just a bunch of nosy mother-fuckers that happen to have come across a bunch of old papers in the basement, and decided to try them out. The thing we are certain about though is that the MO is the same on these poor muggles. Different techniques every time they kill, so random, but so obvious."

Alastor stared intensely at his friend across the table. The room temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees in the past few minutes. It seemed like a dark cloud of gloom had descended and hung over the table, destroying the vibrant red and gold colours of the booth.

"Who is this 'we'?" Albus said finally once he had taken in and processed the information that Alastor had told him.

"By 'we', I mean me and my partner, Detective Inspector Minerva McGonagall. You may remember her as the star of Hogwarts 1937," Alastor informed him. Albus sat back into his seat and relaxed slightly. Thinking hard, Albus vaguely remembered a spotty teen, clutching a special transfiguration award.

"Ahh, yes. She had a bobbed haircut, glasses and a trained raven perched on her shoulder. She mastered transfiguration and won an award," he concluded with a small smile.

"No, that was Josephine Cox, Minerva's rival. Minerva was the pretty young lady with all the boys following her. Long raven-coloured hair flowing down her back, green eyes, and a perfect figure. But you were not completely wrong she has been seen clutching a transfiguration award. Along with potions and charms," Alastor eyed him coolly and lit up a cigarette.

"Oh, no I'm afraid I don't recall her. I must have left because of the war. I left January 5, 1937. Myself and others thought we had made a tremendous effort with convincing the German muggle government to cancel their plans for war," Albus shook his head sadly. "Alas, it was to no avail. Nevermind, what's done is done."

"Oh yes, I remember you mentioning about going away around that time,"

"Anyway, I am always interested in making new acquaintances. I'm sure she will be absolutely charming," said Albus graciously and picked up his lemonade to drink.

"I'm sure Minerva shall be just as delighted. She was the one who mentioned the idea of bringing you in to help us. Minerva values your opinions and shares your thoughts in interviews. She has read your case files on the Highman murders and admires your intellect," Alastor conceded, signalling the waiter for the bill.

"I shall pay Alastor."

"Oh no you don't. I have lost count of the many times that you have paid for my dinner, now it is my turn to start re-paying my debt." Alastor said gruffly and tapped Albus's hand away from his pocket full of money. Alastor tipped out his pile of gold and transfigured it into muggle money; two ten-pound notes and a fifty pence piece, placing one of the ten-pound notes and the fifty pence piece onto a silver tray. Alastor lifted himself out of the semi-circle booth. Albus followed suit, nodded to the waiter, and began to walk towards the door.

"Here is your change, sir," said the waiter as Alastor began to walk away.

"Nah, keep it, my good man." Alastor replied gruffly and patted the waiter on the back. Walking straight out the door, Alastor stopped outside beneath a sign where Albus was waiting for him.

"I think a nice walk down on the sea front would be marvellous. Perhaps there we could finish our discussion?" Albus suggested with a small smile. Alastor nodded and glanced around. Dusk had started to set in over the streets of terraced houses in Edinburgh. The red clouds floated over to the west in the hills. Standing at the end of the road on the bottom of the hill, Albus turned to Alastor and grinned.

"See you at the end of the pier!" he said and a small 'pop' echoed throughout the empty street. Alastor disapparated to the pier moments later and found Albus staring out on to the misty sea. The wind whipped their outer cloaks around their legs, giving Albus a slightly bizarre look, as his suit was a dashing shade of purple.

"So will you help us?" Alastor asked him as he too lent against the stone wall.

"I shall help you as much as I possibly can. You know of my school commitments so I shall only be around for parts of the day," Albus glanced over to his friend's firm face.

"Of course. All the help you can provide us would be greatly appreciated, Albus." Alastor inclined his head and Albus gestured for him to walk towards the pier. Alastor moved off the wall and began to walk by his side, gazing lazily across the vast amount of sea to his left.

"So what are the unofficial details then?" Albus asked eventually, walking slowly and gazing at the seagulls flying over a discarded chip tray.

"Different types of knives have been used to dissect the bodies. They're experimenting with the different types of pain that can be inflicted using anything from scalpels to blunt table knives, meat knives to penknives. Also, the different types of potions and chemicals that came of said potions. We think they test them on all the wounds inflicted by the knives that I have mentioned to test the type of reaction and the sort of pain it causes.

At the moment Minerva feels that it is all pain related, then once they have finished all their experiments and such, they will develop some kind of pointless vaccine."

"Or a disease to kill muggles and muggleborns off with," Albus put in gravely.

"These people must be people who work or have worked in the ministry previously because they seem to know most of the basic evidence tactics that we look for. All five bodies have been cleaned off. But fortunately for us, even though the bodies have been scrubbed, the poor men have all been alive when these fumes and potions entered the body. It would have passed around the body and entered half the organs, so when our dear doctor has checked them all, the effects have lingered so we can investigate into what they have used." Alastor looked seriously at Albus who looked incredibly white and emotionless.

"The latest body," Alastor continued grimly. "Was sent into the morgue this morning. Again, he was found in a similar ritualistic position as the rest of the poor men, and again he was placed facing the north on the west side of the river Thames. His hands were placed delicately over his cut open chest as if he was about to be mummified. Minerva has decided to set out all the evidence on a board so we can brainstorm as a group this evening."

"I would like to see this," Albus decided, glancing at his watch. The watch hands were two moons ticking around a sun. The long hand was facing the ten and the short hand was moving slowly between the six and the seven. "Would now be a good time?"

"Now would be a great time," replied Alastor, his face lighting up for the first time. He stretched out his arm, offering it to Albus. "Hold on, I shall take you straight into our headquarters,"

Albus took Alastor's arm and held on firmly as Alastor apparated into the Auror Headquarters at the Ministry of Magic.

Minerva stood facing the board, with all the pieces of evidence, such as files, Polaroid's, bags of offending objects and notes made by various members of the team. A weary-looking Rudy stomped through the door with a scowl fixed onto his face. Nodding to Minerva once he had located her within the room full of aurors, Rudy made his way to her, handing over the file he was carrying for her.

"Thank you, Rudy. I see you had no trouble getting Billius out of bed and into the mortuary," Minerva commented crisply.

"With the efforts of several threats to tell the press about how he really treats his cases, I managed to get the lazy git to do it properly too," he scowled darkly.

Minerva opened the reports and scanned them thoroughly before catching the attention of the group. The poor victim had been gassed with the sickly fumes made by a potion known as The Membonus. Brewed only at full moon, the intoxicating fumes are enough to make somebody shrivel to death so extra precaution has to be taken. Minerva remembered reading about it when she studied the Dark Arts deeply to recognise these types of potions and spells to protect herself and others. The potion itself makes the person die very slowly in agony as the whole body gradually heats up like a furnace. The body parts begin to cook and shrivel, until they can work no longer then eventually, the drinker will die. The poor man it seemed had been chained up, cut open and then gassed so he would have been able to watch himself start to cook. Minerva's face had turned to the colour of stone. It was enough for everyone not to give her any nonsense because she looked quite frightening. No one dared cross the line when Minerva was in a mood for fear of striking up her famous Scottish temper. Not many people had witnessed the wrath of Minerva McGonagall, but most had heard through the ministry grapevine that it was terrible. An awful silence resounded throughout the room as Minerva took a deep breath before talking to the group.

"Our latest victim," she said stonily, "is a gas victim. The wizard was aged between twenty-five to thirty-five. The name is still unknown. Most of his features, as you can see, have been burnt and shrivelled so his identity will be hard to find."

Minerva pinned up the Polaroid's onto the board so everybody could see. Some retched, others looked deeply disgusted and remorseful.

"There are most definitely links between the wizards and the muggles. Amos has so kindly spent most of the afternoon investigating and positioning the bodies on this map," Minerva continued and indicated to a map of the area around the Thames. "All of these men have been found on the west side of the river placed towards the north in ritualistic positions. Any theories?"

"These men could have been hunted down then killed," suggested Jeff, leaning against the doorframe, his arms folded.

"Hmmm, possibly. But why these men?" Minerva pushed them further.

"Patrick Dohnovan was gay, could be part of the process? You know what these fascist buggers are like," Pete piped up, swinging around on his chair at the back of the room.

"Yes, these people could be trying to rid the world of what they call 'filth'. They could be trying to make their 'Race' superior to all others that they deem low and unworthy," George suggested helpfully.

"Very good, what about the other three?" Minerva nodded in agreement.

"Nothing on Charles Bunting. Average muggle bachelor, widower, kids are in the army. Aged thirty-nine. I haven't found anything else at this point," Amos concluded.

"I think the fact that he was a muggle was enough to get him killed," Rudy grumbled from the corner.

"Any connection between the other wizard?"

"Bevan Wheston is an average wizard. Girlfriend, job in apothecary. Heir of the Wheston fortune, nothing particularly interesting about him at this point either,"Jonas informed the group.

"Keep working on it. There has to be something that connects these men. They can't have been picked up randomly," Minerva said firmly and turned to stare at the gruesome Polaroid's. The fact that they were all on the north side of the river irked Minerva.She felt as though she was missing something important as she gazed over the facts that were scrawled over the board. A sudden 'pop' behind her distracted Minerva from her musings. Turning to face the intruders, Minerva saw the form of Albus Dumbledore and her partner Alastor Moody, striding across the room towards her.

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