They felt it before they smelled it.
The oily, sticky knot of decay almost tangible. The air moved in waves like it was a hot day. As they walked into the slick, awful cloud, they knew.
And they smelled it before they heard or saw the flies. Someone kicked at a crawling piece of something in the grass. Madeleine bent down to get a closer view of what it might be and didn't even recoil at the sight of a hunk of gummy, rot wetting the grass. She stood to her full height and closed her eyes. Dorcas was no longer an apprentice anymore. There were no more reporting to the unsafe but familiar guided practicals of her early training and she could be sent on any field assignment. Dorcas got a closer look herself and her stomach turned. She tasted some acidity at the back of her throat which was better than the smell.
They were not so far away now. Mason, whom she'd worked with earlier, paced at the edges of the scene. Dorcas, Madeleine and another young auror apprentice canvassed the area finding pieces. Lots of little pieces. Mason whistled. Dorcas turned to find him pointing casual and unfazed like Madeleine to a mound.
She wound her wand around the air pulling an invisible string with her fingers muttering something under her breath and her wand caught on something. She spun the invisible thread with her wand gathering magic on the spool of her wand. The pieces started moving and someone retched. She was pulling the pieces back together. She didn't have to chant for very long, the pieces wanted to be together as all once whole things do. They needed to be together. They rolled across the grass and over one another getting in the right place disrupting the flies which buzzed between them all occasionally daring to land on any of them except for Dorcas making everyone sick and nauseous until several larger pieces started to move across the grass rolling sluggishly, heavy and awkward, sloshingly. Something hit the back of another aurors leg and he leapt and cursed shivering, wiping himself of the flies which had become an after thought. It took less time than in their memory but here this person was whoever it was of a piece again. Dorcas wound the string around her hand and pulled the wand and her hand snapping a string they couldn't see and the form sagged. She walked up to covering her mouth and nose with her top and jacket. She felt a blast of air hit the side of her face and turned to see Mason who lifted his head in a nod. Madeleine seemed slightly bored herself. Dorcas correctly deduced that the younger colleague had an issue with all of this. They approached together, she felt the breeze move randomly keeping the flies and most of the smell out. The spell filled her ears with a soothing rushing sound, familiar.
"A blasting spell. I've never seen it used like this." Madeleine sighed heavily. "This isn't something you would know?"
Dorcas shook her head.
She nodded.
"It's old. A young person wouldn't do this. I mean use this spell. It was usually used for dueling. We don't encounter this nearly as often as we used to and certainly not as often as Mason has probably seen it."
Mason's hands were back in his pockets as he surveyed the figure.
"It usually does more damage to the trunk." He said matter-of-factly.
"Certainly, it's strong enough to in the..." She began to gesture. What she wanted to say was explosion. "We don't know much else really."
There was a streak of darkened color across his midsection.
Mason waved his wand. "It's worth a try." Madeleine nodded.
"Murmuratio revelio."
Dorcas watched as the flies circled like a school of minnows, organizing into a collection, a tube that folded into and onto itself and organizing itself into what she interpreted to be,
"A snake." Said the apprentice. Transfixed.
The snake of flies chased its own tail in a circle temporarily resolved into something that resembled an infinity sign and broke free, the flies acting like flies once what might have been the head of the snake bit its own tail.
-
Alastor surveyed the scene, the flies, what was left of the body.
He walked a little away to Madeleine motioning to the body. The auror nodded towards Dorcas. This was the fourth or fifth time since he had met her that he had heard she was responsible for magic like this.
"You didn't find them like this did you"
"No, Mr. Moody, sir. Madeleine and Mason exchanged amused glances.
"Alastor."
"No, Mr. Alastor, sir.
"She did this, Alastor," Mason said. Alastor nodded.
"Report and assessment."
Dorcas gave a short briefing on what they had found, what she had done and the spell Mason had cast and what the flies had done.
"This is an unusual case but, usually we don't want to do something like this. For a better assessment you understand?"
"I thought it might be a blasting spell. The only way to tell that would be for everything to be together anyway. I think she made the right decision." Replied Madeleine.
They all went up together. The apprentice hanging on at the edges, shivering with revulsion at all of this. The novelty of the snake having worn off.
"Madeleine mentioned that it's a blasting spell and it might be. It probably is. Actually…"
"Assessment, Dorcas", said Madeleine interjected.
"Jumping spiders. Their blood, that's how they jump. Their blood is pumped to their legs and then back up and they move with the shift in pressure." The older aurors all exchanged curious glances.
"So this was an accident?" Madeleine asked.
"I don't think so. A blasting spell, correct me if I'm wrong, a blasting spell works with magnifying the electricity in the heart. It would be easier and faster to move the blood around than isolate that impulse."
"Why not force the blood to the head then?" Asked Alastor.
"Gravity and volume, maybe?" They watched her thinking about it. They could sense her reasoning through her argument and were pleased she didn't shy away from answering their questions.
"Why do you think that is what happened?" Mason asked.
"The explosion happened from under the rib cage."
Madeleine nodded.
"You understand this is merely a field assessment. There are teams who work on determining final cause etc but-"
"-If we know we might be able to find who did do it sooner. Madeleine said it's old. I mean, that's not what we call it anymore: a blasting spell. The person who did it this has to be much younger. And look, the rib cage was tilted up at an angle..."
He had heard just about all he needed. Mason walked a little ways away, the conversation between Dorcas, Madeleine and Alastor trailing off. The apprentice was looking around swatting flies off of himself and Mason had no intention of using a spell to help him either. He was glad that Dorcas had been his last apprentice and that he would feel guiltless having trained a more than competent replacement for himself. Madeleine's apprentice however... Any day now he would quit, any day. Being an auror wasn't so bad if you were only capturing live wizards but more often they were doing this, dealing with dead ones.
"I can absolutely find that out." Mason caught Dorcas saying as he circled back towards the group.
Madeleine nodded. Alastor was comforted that they had made the right decision in promoting Dorcas out of her apprenticeship. She was still a little unsure of herself. She kicked herself for breaking a protocol on instinct but found she had a good reason when asked and she considered it. If they understood how a spell worked they might be able to understand who cast it and build a working profile in the field and send more comprehensive notes to the ministry with their report. Everyone there, had learned something that day. Even the auror apprentice learned a little something and breathed slowly as he could through a pocket square covering his nose. Mason's mind was unaffected but his body said otherwise. He burped slash hiccuped like he might vomit and wished for a regular day of regular duels catching regular criminal witches and wizards. He looked at Dorcas who was pacing while his other colleagues discussed. They had worked with each other for years. Alastor and he had become aurors around the same time but Mason believed, this was a young person's game. They had become aurors in a different time, in a different world. He walked closer to Dorcas who was now farther away looking at the grass, studying the trails leftover from her spell.
"Good work today."
"Thank you." She replied modestly, sincerely.
-
When she went over the details with Lydia, who was generally cool and reflective, Dorcas might have sworn that Lydia's irises began and ended at the lids but she saw the whites surrounding Lydia's eyes that day.
"You did what?!"
Lydia got up walked to the sink turned on the tap and assembled everything without using magic. She dropped a seltzer tablet into the glass and even as it was fizzing at the bottom of the glass, she took a big gulp of the antacid.
"Continue," she said.
When she got to Dorcas theory she shook her head, sipping the tonic. "Yes, yes. I don't know about all of this with the jumping spider but it sounds like blood magic to me. Very French."
Mason quit several days later before it was determined they knew the identity of the wizard who had killed this person. It turns out he was in fact quite young. And also French. An Evan Rosier. Mason was not there when they discovered his identity and that he was in hiding and so Mason wrongly assumed he would be one of the aurors who would die of old age living off of his vast wealth in relative quiet. He did not know that Evan knew Mason had been there at the scene and so when they came face to face weeks, maybe months later even as he was in hiding back in his home country, Evan panicked, knowing on very good authority that not only was he an auror but he was one of several at the scene that day. Evan incorrectly assumed, that as a working auror, of which Mason was no longer, that he had been tracked back to France when really this was merely a way for Mason to get a vacation and get out of the claustrophobia of a country on the brink of war. It cost Mason his life that he quit.
No one begrudged him for leaving the team but that did not protect anyone, it never had. If anything the Ministry realized that and treated an auror resignation as a long leave or vacation. They always came back, they always had to. Their resignations couldn't protect them. A meeting was held and the details were put together. Alastor was asked to speak. Three aurors had been killed in that span of time. Dorcas understood that her promotion didn't mean that she still couldn't ask questions but that she had the autonomy to work on her own judgement, she had the authority to work alone. Now, during this briefing, Madeleine's concentrated breathing through her nose, sucking out all of the oxygen in the room, Dorcas felt she really didn't want to. She had imagined once, long ago, the heroism of working alone but found even in apprenticeship that very few aurors actually did, with reason. The person she would have chosen to work with in the field, however was gone. She felt her nose prickle and her eyes sting with uncried tears. No one else was crying. Obviously hurt? Yes. Tired? Yes.
During this briefing, a ministry representative emphasized the sharing and use the resource of everyone's knowledge, that proper rest was crucial but unlikely (he said with a chuckle and no one else thought humorous) and to build and lean on a support system. Dorcas heard someone a few rows to the side and behind her snort. Alastor was called up to give some context to what happened. He didn't contradict outright what had been said by the ministry employee before him but he spoke from experience. They could not rely on letting their guard drop entirely ever, even in rest, even around people they loved. Dorcas watched Madeleine wipe at her dry, grayish face and that did something to her. Alastor mentioned, for those newer aurors in attendance, that not everyone would be allowed to go to the memorials or funerals of the fallen aurors, for obvious safety reasons. Dorcas burst into tears. She heard someone say her name in a whisper. Maybe something about a recent promotion? Something, something, Mason. Something, something, apprentice. Someone else sighed sadly. She slumped in her chair as Alastor continued. Someone draped their arm around her, holding her up by the shoulders. It was the first time but not the last she would hear him use the term constant vigilance.
