*TW: this chapter contains descriptions of a murder.

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Ch. 38 - The Shattered H

May

Emmeline swallowed hard before stepping into Dorcas' flat.

"As far as we know, you were the last person to see her," Frank explained as he trod over the chunks of broken furniture littering the entryway. "Bartemius was hoping you could shed some light on...well...see for yourself…"

He led her into the main room where three other Ministry aurors were conducting their investigation. The level of destruction made Emmeline shudder. Everything was blown to bits from the surface of the walls to the kitchen appliances. If this was how the flat looked, then wherever Dorcas was, she certainly wasn't in much better shape.

"Lord Almighty," Emmeline muttered under her breath, trying to remain calm.

"What was the purpose of your meeting two days ago?" asked Frank.

Before she responded, Emmeline had to swallow a few more times to return some moisture to her dry mouth. "There wasn't really a purpose, we just had lunch. You know she's been lonely after Benjy, and Remus is out of town again, so she invited me over." She thought back on that afternoon, combing through the memory to remember if anything stuck out. "...At one point, she did start talking about some strange things…"

"Strange things, you say?"

"Frank, you don't think...did the death eaters do this? Kidnap her from her home?"

"...We're looking into all the possibilities" Frank answered in a generic, non-panic-inducing, professional manner. It didn't fool Emmeline one bit.

"I thought the Ministry's records had been changed."

"That was only going to put them off for so long...we suspect there are quite a few...sympathizers within the Ministry. Internal investigations have been a nightmare. Anyway; you mentioned Dorcas had discussed something odd with you?"

"But have you ever seen anything like this from them before? A planned attack on one person?"

"Emmeline, I know she's our friend, but I'm supposed to ask you questions…"

"...Right, sorry. I'll try to be helpful."

"Tell me more about your strange lunch discussion."

Emmeline reached into her recollection for specifics. "Doe thought the whole ordeal at the port was odd. She was trying to sort out whatever this 'ritual' was, because she suspected it might have been important."

As she spoke, she caught sight of a large pool of blood on the window sill that was gradually dripping onto the floor. Her eyes lingered there, and she forgot the rest of what she was going to say.

Frank noticed. "Might not be hers, we don't know yet."

Emmeline nodded.

Continuing with the tour of the crime scene, Frank led Emmeline into Dorcas' bedroom so she wouldn't have to stare at the blood. This portion of the flat was not in any better condition than the last - the bed was completely torn apart on its splintering wooden frame. Frank directed Emmeline's attention towards the wall facing the bed, which appeared to have several papers attached to its surface. There was only one problem: whoever broke in had deliberately charred it so that the papers were unreadable.

"I'm assuming you tried a mending charm."

Frank sighed sadly, then lifted his wand. "Papyrus Reparo." The char marks began to lift from the paper, but when the pages were restored, they appeared blank.

"Ah."

He waved his wand again, and the char marks reappeared. "They wanted to make sure nobody found what was on these papers. We were hoping you could help us with that."

"I'm sorry Frank, I don't think I can. I didn't come into her bedroom, so I never saw these." She moved towards the burned wall to examine it up close.

"Any insight you have could be useful. Venture a guess?"

Emmeline pondered; she'd known since school that Dorcas had always had a deeply analytical mind. If she was obsessing over this ritual, she must have been on to something. "Doe said she'd been researching various dark magic rituals, I'd be willing to bet these pages had something to do with that…"

"Did she give you any specifics?"

"No - when I spoke with her, she still hadn't reached any sort of conclusion. But she must have found something, otherwise they wouldn't have taken the time to destroy whatever was on the wall...Perhaps you could look through the books she had in the house."

"That was my first thought, too. We didn't find anything out of the ordinary - no notes in the margins or torn pages. Lots of Dark Arts books, but like you said, she'd been doing research."

Emmeline turned to examine the wall again. The intact corners of a few pages appeared lined, and all had a torn edge. "...What about a notebook? Did anybody find a journal of some kind?"

"Oi," Frank called out to the main room. "Did anybody pick up a journal or a notebook?"

"Not yet," the nearest auror responded.

"There has to be one around here somewhere," Emmeline insisted, beginning to scan the room. "Unless the death eaters took it."

"They very well may have."

She began to open still-intact drawers and rifle through their contents. The bedroom seemed to turn up empty, so she started moving back to the main room when-

Crrreeeeaaaak.

Emmeline peered down at the floorboard which had made the noise. Shaking her foot a bit, she determined it was loose and bent down to pry it up.

"Blimey Em," Frank remarked as she extracted a leather-bound notebook from under the board. "Forget Flourish and Blotts; You ought to work for the Auror Office."

"One of these days, I'll bring Mad-Eye a resume," she quipped unenthusiastically, handing Frank the journal.

It was, unfortunately, full of mostly blank pages. There were a few sporadic scribbles in what appeared to be Greek, but it was clear that the important pages had gone up on the wall.

"...Here, look at this." Frank held a page up to her. "Does this mean anything to you?"

Emmeline took the notebook in her hands. The very last page had a sketch of a large letter H, but the bits of the letter were fragmented into pieces - like the letter itself had been split or torn apart.

"No, I've never seen that before...Why would she hide a drawing rather than the pages on the wall?"

"Dunno. Maybe it was just a doodle."

"Maybe…" She handed the journal back to Frank, who set it aside, deeming it useless evidence.

"Frank, you don't think she's already…"

"...We're doing everything we can."

Early that afternoon, miles away in London, the sun was high over Diagon Alley. Vendors had begun to stock their summer goods, witches and wizards strolled about, and the leaky cauldron was buzzing with customers from the lunch rush.

Hardly anyone noticed the figure shrouded in a hooded black cloak standing atop Gringotts bank.

Not until, that is, he had levitated a woman out over the ledge.

The woman's cries began to attract the attention of the bystanders, who expressed their horror with screams of their own. Some pointed their wands up toward her, attempting to counter the cloaked spellcaster, but were unsuccessful. They watched on helplessly.

Producing his gnarled yew wand, the man in the black cloak flicked it downward and thrust the woman to the ground screaming. He made sure to hit her with a killing curse just before she hit the cobblestones. In the event that she survived the fall, he couldn't have her talking.

The terrified onlookers shrieked as the woman plunged toward the earth, but somehow their screams could not drown out the audible crack of her body slamming onto the street. Triumphantly, the cloaked man removed his hood, bringing the screams to an abrupt halt. He wanted to make sure the crowd knew exactly who had carried out such a task. The Dark Lord wanted recognition for his public execution.

He was sending a message, after all. He had to make an example of those who defied him so blatantly.

Dorcas Meadowes, mangled and bleeding on the street, simply served as a warning to the rest of them.