The office was buzzing with the regular lively activity of a Thursday evening. Chatter and laughter rang from in and out of the room, interrupted here and there with a loud bang or the flapping of wings. Glancing around the department you would assume everything was as it should be with nothing out of the ordinary. This observation left Harry with the same indignation he had been feeling each day he had come to work recently. As far as Harry was concerned, nothing was how it should be, and pretending it was felt like an insult.
Ron had been dead for a month now, and the auror department had already moved back to business as usual. The subdued tone that overtook the office for the first few weeks had subsided. Everyone agreed that what had happened was truly a tragedy, but at the end of the day it was a risk of the trade, and everyone knew plenty of aurors never made it to retirement age. There was too much work to be done and too many other perils to contend with to get stuck on the death of one wizard, even one as well known and liked as Ron Weasley.
Harry had to disagree with this assessment. Over the past few weeks his attention to his work had been nearly nonexistent. At first his colleagues had taken a sympathetic approach to this, they compensated for him wherever he was falling short, and avoided bringing any extra work to him out of kindness and understanding. As time went on though several superiors and even some of his subordinates had attempted to get him to help with cases with his regular level of competence. These unlucky people had received such an aggressive tongue lashing that everyone simply went back to avoiding him, though this time without any kindness or understanding being involved.
Harry knew on some inner level that his response to his colleagues was probably unfair, but he couldn't manage to get himself to care enough to do anything about it. At the moment, his focus lay elsewhere. Ever since finding out about his friend's death he had the sense that something was very wrong. This increased tenfold after talking to Auror Perkiss at the funeral, and the gnawing sensation that he was missing something big wouldn't release its hold. So instead of working on the cases he had been assigned, Harry was spending his time scouring various newspapers trying to solve the one case he was told in no uncertain terms to stay away from.
His first day back to work after Ron passed, Harry demanded to join in to the investigation of the bombings. Robards, who was in the middle of finishing his tea and packing up for the day, failed to hide his irritation at having his office barged into unannounced. As a result he shot Harry down without an ounce of delicacy.
"Absolutely not Potter. Auror Derricks has already taken over Weasley's team, who have been working on this case for months. You're not needed."
Never one to let things go easily, Harry pushed back. "With all respect, sir, Auror Derricks is an idiot who's more likely to get lost finding his cubicle than solve a case like this. Why would you even consider letting him lead this?"
Robards grit his teeth. "Are you questioning my leadership abilities, Potter? You think you know how to lead this team better than I do?"
Harry knew he was creeping into dangerous territory, but the anger he felt towards his boss was winning over his actions faster than his logic could keep up. "Well considering the last decision you made on this case led to Ron dying, maybe you should be rethinking some of your strategies."
Robards eyes bulged. Standing up, he seemed to vibrate with the power that reminded Harry of why most of the department feared the man as much as he was respected. Any other auror would have taken a few steps back with the way Robards was staring at him, but Harry stuck his ground. Stubborn resolve towards authority was something he had years of practice with.
"I think you need to think very carefully before responding to me, Potter," he started, every word clipped with emphasis, "you know as well as I do that you are too close to this case, and would only be a liability. You are to leave this case alone, you are not to bother anyone attached to this case, and you are to focus on your own cases with your own team. If I hear any indication that you have ignored these orders, you will immediately be placed on suspension. Am I making myself clear?"
Harry wanted to argue further, but knew he had pushed as far as he could without being sent home. Not trusting himself to speak without saying something he would regret, he nodded curtly and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him. On his way out he passed Percy's boss Mullins, who looked oddly uncomfortable to see him. After shooting Harry an inquisitive look, he rushed into Robards office. Harry had been noticing the two men talking more lately, which seemed strange as the two departments rarely worked together, and he had never known the two men to be friendly.
He sighed miserably heading back to his desk. He had known, really, that he would never be allowed to join the team in any official capacity, but hearing it thrown at him that way didn't make it any easier to take in. And finding out Jared bloody Derricks was leading the case just added insult to injury. The auror had only recently been promoted after being on the team more than twice as long as Harry and Ron had been, simply due to seniority as opposed to skill. Having only gotten the job initially as a favor Robards owed to his influential aunt, the auror had bumbled his way through mission after mission, proving himself to be more of a burden than a support to the department. Up until now he had been responsible for leading abandoned cold cases. To trust him to lead this case, Ron's case, just didn't make sense.
Well, Harry thought to himself as he sat back in his chair, guess it's time to move to plan B. There was never a possibility that Harry wouldn't be dedicating his energy to finding out who killed his friend, the only question was whether or not he would be able to do so in any official capacity. Being banned from even asking about the case definitely threw a wrench into his plans, so he'd just need to go back to his older way of doing things to solve this.
Over the next few weeks Harry managed to pull together bits and pieces of information about the case. First he accessed Ron's original notes. Just looking at the messy and nearly illegible handwriting caused his stomach to twist unpleasantly, coming as another reminder of the person he lost. The notes were fairly thorough, painting a picture of some former bottom rung death eater wannabes looking to create a bit of terror for the community. The suspects gave no indication that they were working with anyone else, and corroborated the narrative that they were showing the world that they were still around and would rise again. Nothing too strange there as cases like this jump up from time to time.
What was strange was the description of the bombing itself. The 'bomb' as it was seemed to be made of pure magical energy, and was more sophisticated than any explosive spell the department had ever seen. The idea that some blood purist nobodies were able to craft something so complex for something so pointless seemed suspicious. Harry decided to focus his energy on learning more on the explosives themselves than the people involved, hoping this would lead him to some answers the assigned team had yet to find.
He spent the next week researching everything he could on explosive spells, compounds, and devices. This seemed to lead him quickly to nowhere, only being able to decipher that creating an explosive of that magnitude would be tricky work, not to mention the complexity involved in creating a timed spell. If anything, all this did was reaffirm his certainty that the three people arrested for the explosions couldn't have been the brains of the operation. Everything he had read about them seemed to indicate they weren't exactly the brightest bunch. Two of them were Hogwarts dropouts, and the last barely managed to scrape through. Geniuses ahead of their time they were not.
Harry then decided to go back to looking closer at those who were arrested to see if they may have had ties to anyone clever enough to pull this off. From the reports he had managed to sneak a glimpse of, none of them seemed to have any connections to anyone of importance anymore. There was Milton McFadden, an apothecary owner who supposedly sold many illegal ingredients at mark up in his dingy shop, Alice Quelle, who could give Mundungus Fletcher a run for his money in the stolen goods trade, and Angus Stanson, who had a history of arrests tied to sneaking illegal items in and out of the country for shops in the seedier parts of London. All criminals of a certain caliber, but there was no evidence that they had been up to anything any more nefarious than basic conning and thievery since Voldemort's downfall. All of their powerful friends were either dead, arrested, or out of the country.
As no one on the official case would share anything with him (including Perkiss who had practically fled the last time Harry tried to approach him), Harry was starting to feel as if he had hit a dead end in his personal investigation. That was until he overheard some relevant information, and at the Burrow of all places.
Sunday dinners continued on as usual, but the mood had been dampened to a similar aura that followed the war. Molly cooked and served and the family chatted amongst themselves sharing stories of their week as usual, but there was a heavy air that hung around them. On the 3rd Sunday after Ron's death, Harry had been sitting at the table, absentmindedly prodding a brussel sprout around his plate in a zigzagged pattern as he pretended to listen to whatever story from work Ginny was trying to tell him when he overheard Percy's hushed conversation with Bill:
"-third time we've had to let them know we simply do not have the resources. I can tell others in the department are getting quite concerned by how the public will respond when words of these explosions spread-"
"What explosions?" Harry asked, suddenly alert. Ginny gave him a cold look at the sudden interruption but Harry ignored it, his focus entirely on the man at the end of the table, who looked suddenly caught off guard and uncomfortable by the interruption.
"Well," he started, looking nervously at his mother, as everyone had directed their attention to him, "there were a few explosions a month ago in Belgium, and then of course there was that muggle hospital that blew up in Italy not long before that. We've been hearing from a few of their representatives that there is a theory they may be related to… well, the ones that happened here" he finished with some uneasiness. Though privately all of the Weasleys had discussed Ron's passing, no one had dared mention it during Sunday dinner, and not with Molly present.
"What makes them think they're connected?" Harry asked, ignoring the rapidly shifting atmosphere in the room.
"A few things," Percy said slowly, "for one, there wasn't any debris left after the explosions, and no reports of any spells cast, though in one case a wizard was apprehended who had been seen leaving the room where the explosion took place several hours before."
"Who was the wizard?"
"Well, I don't have his name memorized" Percy huffed, clearly uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed, "and there really is not enough evidence to jump to any conclusions here. Explosions aren't exactly unheard of, it's just with how publicized everything was right after…. Well, of course people might start to see patterns when they aren't really there" he finished hurriedly.
Harry opened his mouth to ask a follow up question, but Molly interrupted before he could get a word out.
"Well, looks like everyone's just about finished. I've made a few puddings I'll bring out!"
Her tone was kind, but was spoken at a rush that clearly showed her desire for the ensuing conversation to end. Harry considered pursuing for a moment, but decided that it wasn't worth bringing up any further discomfort for her. Instead, he went back to assaulting his brussel sprout, actively missing the chagrined look of his fiance to his left.
The following evening at work Harry stopped at the little newspaper stand in the atrium. Ignoring the standard British papers on display, he asked the little old saleswitch about her international prints, and if she had any older copies. After getting over her initial shock of having Harry Potter stop at her stand, she nodded her head emphatically and disapparated. Startled, Harry wondered if she had misunderstood him or simply taken offense to something he had said. After a few minutes he was considering leaving when the little witch reappeared with a pop, offering Harry an enormous pile of printings in various languages. Harry attempted to grab his money bag to pay her but she just shooed him off with a smile.
Ignoring his own growing caseload, Harry spent the next few days searching for any information possible in these papers. He cast a translation spell on each of them, to varying degrees of efficacy. He had never quite mastered the spell and the grammar clearly suffered as a result. From what he was able to decipher he discovered a frightening pattern. Over the last six months there had been unexplainable magical explosions occurring in muggle neighborhoods in at least eleven countries, with Britain being one of the last, and the most recent occurring in Japan. Only a few arrests were made. They were all extreme blood purists, and after cross referencing some old files he determined at least two had spent some time in Britain during the war to offer support to Voldemort.
Considering the ramifications of this, Harry briefly considered taking this information to Robards. He had been told not to meddle in this case, but this clearly painted a picture of something more nefarious at play than they originally assumed. Before he had reached a clear decision, he heard someone clear their throat. Looking up he saw Ginny, exuding obvious indignation, and dressed up for some reason. Harry blinked up at her, wondering what she was doing at the ministry.
"Hi?" he offered as a clear question, confusion present on his face, "did I forget something at home?"
"'Did I forget something'?" she asked, clearly trying to hold in her anger, "Harry, it's Thursday!" and still, Harry looked confused. "We had made dinner plans with Neville and Hannah tonight, you were supposed to meet us at the restaurant hours ago!"
Harry winced. He did seem to remember something about a dinner now that he thought about it.
"Lucky for you" Ginny continued, irritation ingrained into every word, "I told them you had a work emergency when it became very clear you weren't going to show up. Again."
"You didn't have to do that you know" he mumbled.
"Well what else could I have done Harry? This is the third time in two weeks you've stood me up!" Ginny's voice was starting to rise and he noticed heads from other desks start to subtly turn in their direction.
"Well, I've been a bit preoccupied" he bit out, keeping his voice low, "and I've let you know that I haven't been interested in going out much lately, so I'm sorry if that's been interfering with your plans."
Ginny reeled back at the slight and looked like she was about to start yelling. She instead took a quickened breath and closed her eyes briefly before pressing out her words with a forced calm, "I know how you're feeling Harry. I really, really do. Because I miss him too, every single day. But you need to keep living your life, he wouldn't want you obsessing over all of this and just drowning in your pain again!"
Harry's patience had officially run out. He was tired of having this argument with everyone lately. "You have no idea what he would want because he's not here to say! And if you really knew how I feel, then you'd be helping me with this instead of telling me to just move on! How can you not be suspicious about any of this? I mean just look!" he thrust a newspaper from France to her, the translation spell having changed the headline to read 'The Bomb to Have Been Consider Enlarged Threat of New.'
Ginny briefly looked at the title, baffled, before turning back to Harry. He had been expecting to see a new swell of wrath after his outburst, but was shocked to see her eyes filled with moisture instead.
"I think we need some space, Harry" she said quietly, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "I'm going to stay with some friends for a few days. Just please…" she shook her head, clearly unable to finish her statement, and turned on the spot to leave.
Harry watched her go, feeling like he should be saying something to her, but nothing came to mind. He remembered back to when things with Ginny were so easy and carefree, where they could talk like mates and things weren't so… intense. He preferred things that way, which maybe was why it was so hard to convince himself to move forward with her by proposing. It wasn't until her and half of her siblings had harped on him for months that he finally decided to take the next step, but ever since something had felt off. The fun loving friend he had had back in school and soon following the war had seemed to be replaced by a romantic partner who wanted increasingly more than he felt able or willing to give. Perhaps this was why Ron's response to the engagement had bothered him so much. Deep down he wasn't certain about it either.
He looked around him and saw half a dozen heads turn sharply back to their desks. Irritated, he decided to go back down to the atrium to grab the new international papers for the day. Arriving by the little witches shop, she immediately started to collect all the prints for him before he could even ask. Drumming his fingers on the counter, he peered over to the Daily Prophet and felt his heart drop. Shock washed over him as he immediately snatched the paper and read the title: 'Sheffield Explosion Suspect Escapes, Ministry Scrambles to Explain'