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Love Z


Amelia Bones shifted awkwardly on a little metal chair. She was sitting outside of a small muggle café, nursing a cup of tea in a chintzy rose patterned cup. Her eyes skittered nervously across the street as she watched the masses of muggles swarm across the pavement.

It was a reasonably sunny day, for October anyway, and she had transfigured her robes into a long green dress. It was only when she had ventured into muggle London that she realised her attire might not be quite in sync with the current muggle fashions.

She had received more than a few funny looks, and the servers at the café kept talking to her like she was senile. She huffed as another person did a double take walking past. Maybe the bonnet had been a bit much, and the ruffles, and perhaps the underskirt.

Footsteps behind her signalled the approach of the young girl who took her first order.

She stepped into view, bright smile on her face, pulling a small notepad and pencil from her black apron.

"Would you like another?" she gestured to the now empty teapot sitting next to her cup.

Amelia cleared her throat, eyes rising to meet the young muggle girls. "Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you."

The girl nodded, smiling brightly. "Sure thing! You fancy anything from our lunch menu?"

"Not at the moment thank you, I am just waiting for someone."

"Sure thing, don't hesitate to call if you need anything though," the girl patted her arm lightly, "I'll be right back with your tea."

Amelia watched with bemusement as the girl swerved back into the café, teapot raised above her head.

Muggles sure were a strange lot.

"Madame Bones!"

A high voice jolted her attention back to the street… and suddenly Amelia didn't feel quite so conspicuous.

The woman approaching was wearing a lurid green muggle skirt suit, with purple ruffled feathers around the collar. A tiny top hat was perched at a slight angle on her platinum blonde hair, also purple. Her heels were a disgusting mix of both colours and looked like a greasy potion spillage.

Quickly rising to her feet, Amelia was drawn into a vicious handshake as the woman smiled like a shark at her.

"Rita Skeeter, writer for the Dailey Prophet. A pleasure to meet you it truly is, I hope I'm not late?" She glanced pointedly to the empty teacup on the table.

"Not at all," Amelia gestured to the table and resumed sitting.

Before she could speak again however, the server returned. Plonking down a new teapot, she smiled at Rita.

Amelia watched with amusement as the girl's eyes skimmed across Rita's clothing, taking in the nauseating colour and purple accents. She blinked once slowly before whipping out her little note pad and pen again.

"Would you like a drink Ma'am? Something from the lunch menu for you both perhaps?"

Rita let out a little hum of interest, glancing at the shiny card before her. "I'll take an Irish coffee, I think I'll need it, and perhaps one of your pananis? What would you recommend?"

Amelia ran her eyes over the glossy menu; nail picking curiously at the strange material. A panini sounded quite good actually.

After they both ordered and the upbeat girl vanished back into the café, Amelia turned her eyes back to the slightly smirking journalist in front of her.

"You didn't seem surprised to receive my owl. Am I to assume that you also received a missive from this MG?" Amelia said with a slight frown.

Rita's smile broadened and she tittered lightly, "Why yes, and brought you a present as well. Aren't you a lucky one?"

Rita placed a neat stack of parchment on the table tapping it twice with her sharp purple nails.

"Collected it all myself, all the information has been verified by Gringotts as well as the DMLE. Discreetly of course." She smiled sharply again.

"So it's true." Amelia reached out for the papers with shaky hands. She gripped them tightly as though they might disappear. "He…"

"Barty Crouch Senior has a lot to answer for." Rita spat nastily, "Bertha Jorkins has been violated in one of the most horrendous ways imaginable. Not to mention the corruption he allowed to breed under his negligence."

Amelia met Rita's sharp gaze with a firm one of her own. "He would never allow bribery."

"All that evil requires to succeed is that good people do nothing, or something to that effect. He wilfully ignored what was going on right under his nose, so that he could hide his own crimes." Rita pointed sharply at the parchment.

"He allowed a convicted torturer, someone who happily turned good witches and wizards insane, to break free from Azkaban. Whilst allowing the followers of You-know-who to pay and lie their way to freedom."

Amelia felt the blood drain from her face.

"I know this must be hard for you to hear, he was your predecessor after all, but we cannot allow this to go unpunished. For Bertha, for Sirius Black, for all of us."

"Sirius Black was a murderer…"

"Says who? Show me the evidence, the trial notes? Oh wait!" She clapped her hand to her face, "he didn't receive a trial! Crouch sent him off to Azkaban without so much as an interview."

Amelia turned her eyes away, from Rita's accusing stare. If this was true, and it was looking like it was, there would be huge backlash from this investigation. Years of trials would need to be re-investigated, along with conduct interviews, corruption charges, anything Crouch had a hand in basically.

She let out a sigh, "we'll need a task force on this."

"Way ahead of you!" Rita pulled another piece of parchment from her bag, sliding it over. She looked very, very smug about something.

"Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shaklebolt, Rufus Scrimgeour, what is this?" Her eyes travelled over a dozen or so names, some of them only trainees.

"A list of people not involved with Crouch's undertakings. Pick any you want for your task force, they have been vetted by MG."

"And how does MG have a list of our new trainee Aurors?"

Rita shrugged.

Amelia sighed.

They were interrupted by the arrival of their toasted sandwiches, a bemused look from their server and a top up of tea.
After a very disturbing inspection of Rita's evidence, they parted ways.

Rita shook her hand again and smiled with too many teeth. The woman was practically giddy with the smell of corruption in the water.

Amelia was feeling a bit off balance herself. She had just received evidence that her predecessor was the worst type of criminal, and had broken the laws to which he, supposedly, ruthlessly adhered too.

To say she felt sick would be an understatement.

There was only one way forward.

Barty Crouch Senior would pay.