Author's Notes: Again, many thanks to LuthAn for the beta.
The Magical War Detective I: The New Protector
Chapter Four: The Importance of Meeting Earnest
Part I
November 15, 1974
St. Peter Port, Guernsey
Alice helped Basil prepare the Landry file: a neat package detailing the crime scene, interview transcripts, photographs, and theories. The suspect list was blank except for a notation that suggested the involvement of a female Death Eater.
"It seems wrong to just pack this away," Alice said. She carefully kept her eyes away from the crime scene photographs. Even Muggle photographs were not as disturbing as these images since everything in Muggle pictures was still, not just the people.
"Why?"
"We don't have any idea who killed them."
"And how are we supposed to gain any idea?" Basil wheezed as he dropped the file into a cabinet. "Tea leaves?"
Alice ran a hand through her hair. "Aren't there ways to identify a wizard by his magic?"
Basil gave a bark of a laugh. "If one is Albus Dumbledore. And if the other wizard is unusually distinctive. And if a great deal of power is employed."
"The Killing Curse requires a lot of power," Alice said. Her old teacher's words rang in her mind.
"The Killing Curse is the worst of the lot not only because it has only one outcome but because it actually affects the castor's soul."
"Yes, it does," Andrew interjected from his desk. "And your theory was proposed during the Grindelwald campaign. But the difficulty is that the Killing Curse is one of the few spells where it is impossible to determine the caster by his magic, even if Merlin himself were present to do the analysis. It's the death, you see; the victim's essence is impossible to separate from the murderers."
When Andrew finally dismissed her, Alice threw herself into the difficult task of hunting for a flat. Anything to avoid thinking of those pale faces in the morgue. Three people so recently dead and their murders were already considered unsolvable. They weren't even buried yet.
Pushing aside those difficult thoughts, Alice concentrated on the equally difficult task of finding a permanent abode. She quickly excluded the Muggle-owned buildings when she was informed of the rent in pounds and had no idea what that would translate to in Galleons or Sickles.
She had the feeling Muggle proprietors thought her very thick as she had no idea what they referred to when she was informed that a flat had 'all mod cons'. Alice had little experience with Muggles. A lack that she could already see was a handicap in St Peter Port where the magical community was mostly half-blood and adept at mingling with Muggles. Alice was from Cumbria where there were many Muggles, but few that had ties to her family. They did most of their shopping in Hogsmeade since her mother disliked the magical areas of London.
"It's the air," Lydia Pevensey often said with a disdainful gesture. "Muggles pour filth into it and it's not fit to breathe."
There was a village near her home, Mardale, which Muggles knew about, but no longer frequented since wizards perpetuated the myth that it had been swallowed by a reservoir. Mardale still had a few Muggle inhabitants, most in service to the Magical families clustered in the area. Alice's first tutor was the son of one of these. The Confounding Charm kept him woefully incurious about the oddities of the family who employed him unless directly confronted by something odd. The spell would settle itself after a few minutes, but before that the Muggle was always frightened.
Alice's sister Dorothea always delighted in unsettling their tutor. Not being an especially creative girl, she used the same trick every time.
It was from that tutor and a Muggle-born wizard she briefly dated at school—a relationship based on mutual defiance of parents' wishes—that Alice had formed her opinion of Muggles. She might wonder at the differences between wizards and Muggles, but she always saw them as fellow human beings. Very strange people, but people.
She was walking back to her room above the Knarl and Griffin after an evening of exploration when she noticed a flurry of activity around a building on the next street. She glanced at the scene and realized with alarm that one house was on fire. As strange as that was, something else caught her eye and made her gasp... Something hovering ominously above the flaming house. It was obscured by smoke and she had only ever seen it in pictures, but Alice would have recognized the ghoulish skull and serpent of the Dark Mark anywhere. She ran towards it, heedless of shouts from the Muggles. Her wand was out but she could not recall the incantation needed to remove the Mark.
Alice knew Muggles did not like fire and employed people called 'Firelighters' to deal with it in the absence of Flame-Freezing Charms. Still, it was one thing to know about the Muggle fear of fire and quite another to experience it firsthand. Yet, as she ran toward the burning building, she became quite aware of this fear, as Muggles from all around shouted at her to stop. But she needed to get a look inside before the flames destroyed everything; there were too many people about to put out the fire with magic.
She ran into the building and saw a man in a Muggle suit lying on the floor of a shop. His face bore the surprised expression of the Killing Curse, though strangely he had a black feather sticking out of his mouth. Alice had only a moment's glance before she was dragged away by one of the firelighters, but the tingle of evil magic stained the area and made her skin crawl.
She managed to sprinted back to the office, but it was already locked up for the evening. She rested her head on the door and cursed herself for a fool. Of course it was locked and she did not yet have a key. She went to find a fireplace to contact Andrew.
By the time they returned the fire had destroyed everything. Andrew showed her how to remove the Dark Mark and made arrangements to have a Healer examine the body.
"Fire burned most of it," Andrew sighed.
"Was the fire started on purpose?" Alice wondered. Staring at the blackened and smoky mess, she finally understood the Muggle fear of fire. It did so much damage.
"Perhaps." Andrew was not willing to concede such a thing on scanty evidence. Why would a Death Eater draw attention to a murder with the Dark Mark, then light a fire? He glanced over at Alice and made a note to ascertain her precise whereabouts at the time of the crime.
Andrew led her off a to a nearby pub popular among area Muggles to question her about what she had seen. The Muggles - Andrew informed her that they were actually called firefighters - arrived sometime later. He waited until they had a few pints before meandering up to them and speaking to a pasty-faced young man.
Andrew despised Memory Charms, but sometimes there was no way to avoid using them.
The distasteful deed done, he returned to Alice a few minutes later. "Electrical fire. The man you saw was called Benjamin Adams and he left his stove on. Muggles reckon he simply fell asleep."
"Not if the Dark Mark hung over his body," she said morosely. Andrew noticed that her hands were shaking.
"No," Andrew agreed.
When she went to the loo he took her wand from the table and examined it for a moment. This wand had not performed any illegal spells. All the same, he would inform Crouch of this latest development.