Chapter 11
Remus was desperately trying to find his godchild. Yesterday's birthday party had ended in a disaster as all the guests had hastily bolted. With Sirius wand found in Harriet's rooms a thunderous screaming match this between Harriet and her parents had taken place. Alexander and other children had wet themselves and were apparently now terrified of the dark and very jumpy. Yesterday's festivities were now subject to the front page following many interviews of guests. Many of their guests had concurred that it was the worst party they had ever gone to and would not return the next year. Even the Ministry had issued a statement that they would investigate.
James and Lily had accused their daughter of being purely evil for playing this prank, disrupting her brother's annual birthday party like that without even realizing that Harriet must have done some quite advanced magic with Sirius wand. He had tried several times to mediate between the individual family members, but it had been unfruitful as none had acknowledged his attempts. When she had told him that she had already read every book in the Potter library she had apparently spoken the truth and if she had, then she would need additional tutoring before she would perform magic that would prove too difficult for her and potentially fatal.
Harriet had screamed and defended herself fiercely while accusing her parents of negligence, which had infuriated Lily even more. The red-head had told her that she had her own room, was going to a fancy Muggle school and had no right to complain. Harriet had countered that she had much less than her brother, and that she missed the most important thing from her parents. She admitted for pranking the party to make them realize that it was her birthday as well and that she wanted them to remember it.
James had countered her that she had no right to complain as she should be thankful to her brother because he had vanquished Voldemort. She had stomped her left foot and magically hurled dishes at her parents, who had barely able to dodge them, some lamps had shattered when she had lost control of her anger. She had screamed that they had no idea what exactly had happened that night when Voldmort had attacked, because they had both been passed out. They only took Dumbledore's word for granted without even questioning its legitimacy.
James had berated her harshly, that Alexander had the scar to prove that he was hurt by the Killing Curse and she didn't. Harriet had lost it and some of the windows had shattered which had quite frightened his two friends for a few seconds. Harriet's face had been in tears replacing her anger, shouting at them what she had already told him. She even showed them her own scar, but Lily accused her of having created a scar afterwards to get more attention.
In that moment he had finally been able to get the attention of his friends trying to calm them down, but it had been to late. Harriet had spun on her heels and bolted out of the room. He had talked calmly with his friends trying to bring them to the point where they would be able to see reason, but it had been unfruitful. His friends were changed. They weren't the same people they used to be at Hogwarts. When he had gone up to Harriet's room he had found it empty and it seemed that she had decided to run away as her suitcase and a bag was missing.
He had to find her. Anything could happen to her and she wasn't old enough to be on her own. Some paedophile might catch her doing Merlin knows what with her,
Harriet pulled her heavy suitcase up the narrow stairs of Privet Drive. The Dursley's were still gone, but she had known where the spare keys for the house were hidden in the hidden compartment of Uncle Vernon's shed. Her room here was her sanctuary and she would leave the heavy stuff here and visit Raymond in Cardiff for a few days. Her parents would certainly not miss her. Remus perhaps, but he would be better off without her.
She fell on her soft bed and hugged her huge pillow, while she felt the tremors of sadness hit her again, which she had held back on her journey from the Potters to Private Drive. It tore through her heart as she let them go and wept and whimpered and gasped for breath. What would she give to be hugged right now by someone telling her that everything would be alright? She needed someone, but right now there want anyone here and she didn't want anyone to see her like that. Why did she have such strong emotions? She wished at that moment, that she had no emotions. It would make so much easier.
"She is gone!" Remus burst into the living room where the entire family was assembled detailing everything to Dumbledore who had an uncharacteristically gravel look on his face.
"Who's gone?" Sirius asked launching on the sofa, while Alexander was sitting on his father's lap.
"Harriet. Her room is empty, her things are gone, and her suitcase is gone. We need to find her!" his voice wavered, and Dumbledore nodded. "Don't worry, Remus. She can't be far away. But we need to talk about what she did yesterday."
"What she did yesterday is a cry for help." Remus snapped angrily. "She is desperately trying to get the recognition she deserves, but whatever she does you two (he pointed his right index finger at Lily and James) are preferring Alexander to her."
"There is no need for accusations, Remus." Dumbledore implored, but Remus shook his head. "Alexander is the Boy-who-lived. He needs to be prepared. Harriet, as impressive as her academical record is, has to accept that her brother needs to be a priority. He defeated Voldemort once. His magic is what is important."
"No." Remus shook his head.
"I beg you pardon?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows clearly surprised that somebody was countering him.
"You claimed that Alexander is the one who supposedly defeated Voldemort based on the scar on his forehead. Is that correct?" Remus asked controlling his swirling anger.
"Among other tests, yes." Dumbledore answered.
"And you inspected Harriet as well?" he enquired, and Dumbledore nodded inclining his head. "Naturally."
"Then how could you miss Harriet's scar. It's behind her left earlobe. It has the form of a V." he defended herself.
"Oh. Please, she has pulled wool over your eyes too. It is a self-inflicted scar to make herself more interesting." Lily scoffed, and Remus shook his head.
"Are you listening to yourself. Your idea that it is self-inflicted should be enough incentive to worry about her, but she isn't lying. She received that scar at the night of Voldemort's attack. Did you know that it didn't heal for almost a year and that Harriet was suffering from it? Did it ever occur to you that Alexander wasn't the only one that needed help?"
"She was lying then when she told you" Lily insisted. "She had no scar."
"No." Remus took a step closer to his 'friends' wondering if that term still applied to their relationship. "She was telling the truth. I know it because her heart jumps when she is dishonest, and it didn't when she told me."
"So, you admit that she is being dishonest sometimes?" Sirius latched onto that part and Remus rolled his eyes. "The only times she is being dishonest is when she tells me that she is fine, when she clearly isn't.
St. Mungos:
"So, he does not carry the curse." Draco enquired again, just to make sure that he had understood the healer correctly. His hands were shaking.
"Correct." the healer answered with a genuine smile. "But there were some irregularities and therefore we would like to make further tests." Draco let out a relieved heartfelt sight and frowned at the last request.
"What for? Why?" Draco enquired raising his eyebrows. "What irregularities?"
The healer gulped scratching his back. "We detected that your son's DNA is vastly different than that of your wife. It is highly possible that the activation of the curse changed your wife's DNA, which is why it is so different. Or." The healer stopped.
"Or what." Draco enquired with raised voice, his heart accelerating again.
"Or there could have been a mix up on the day he was born, and he is not your son."
"No, no, that's impossible. He looks exactly like me at his age, he's smarter than I was. He is my son." His voice wavered.
"We understand that of course and he does look a lot like you, but we just have to make sure that it was your wife's DNA setup that has changed. It might also give us a clue how the curse affected her DNA and how we might lay the curse dormant again if any of the other plans are unfruitful."
"That's a muggle approach isn't it." Draco asked brushing his hand over his son's unruly hair, who hugged him closer at that. "Most wizards don't know anything about DNA, yet."
The healer nodded. "Yes, to be honest I hadn't expected you to know anything about that. I please ask you to not object to this treatment, just because it is of muggle origin."
"I won't. I've seen some of the merits of Muggle technology. But I suggest you do not mention this to my wife, her parents and my parents or they might."
… A few hours later
Draco sat down in the parlour with a glass of fire whiskey, next to his father and opposite to his mother. It had been a long day and even though there had never been any doubt in Scorpius being his son, he now hat the confirmation and the healers would now try to work hard to find any similarities in his son's and his wife's DNA in order to reverse the curse, but he had been told that this would be immensely difficult as St. Mungos could not simply work together with the Muggle specialists anymore due to the new regulation. They had their own laboratory for DNA tests, but not the advanced technology needed for this type of sequencing. What they were basically doing was illegal now.
"Astoria is sleeping upstairs." Narcissa told them. "But according to Walpurga she has no idea what has restarted the curse. I don't know why you told Walpurga to talk to her. I could have too."
"No, mother. Walpurga is her mother and if she had done something immoral, then it is far more likely that she would tell this her mother. Not us." Draco answered taking a sip of the whiskey which burnt his asparagus.
"We have yet to find anything useful about the Greengrass curse in our library." Lucius mentioned, but there is bound to be something. So far, I could only detect that until two generations ago the Greengrasses firstborn child always died soon after being born."
"Because of the curse?" Draco asked thinking about his son. He didn't want to lose him although the tests had established that he was not carrying it.
"Probably. „Lucius answered mimicking his son in taking a sip of the whiskey. "We also need to take into consideration that Astoria might not survive this curse."
"That's cold, father." Draco icily rebuked knowing where he was going with this. "Even for you. Astoria is still alive and until it is too late, I will not give up on her."
"I'm not cold, but just realistic." Lucius drawled. "If she dies, then Scorpius will need a mother."
"If Astoria dies, then I will not marry again." Draco gripped his glass tightly." As for mother figures, I believe it would be best if we made an effort of reconciling with aunt Andromeda and Dora. Combined with mother he would have ample females in his life."
His father's cheeks filled with colour and his vein on his front was pulsing. "We will not reconcile with (he spat the word) blood traitors."
"Look where it has gotten us." Draco rebuked. "Our family is still ostracized. If it weren't for our wealth we wouldn't even be allowed entry into the ministry. Andromeda and Dora are so different than we are, but they are warm and loving and they are sharp as hell. Dora's son Teddy is pretty much the only friend Scorpius has. You should see how his eyes light up when he plays with him and his friends." His parents gaped at him as he had admitted one of his secret that Scorpius had shared with him.
"Since when are you cavorting with blood traitors. Nymphadora is married to the pauper Lupin. Hardly the person one should have dealings with." Lucius hissed knocking the rest of his glass down his throat.
"Since Harriet has introduced us after the war." Draco answered remembering how antsy he had been, when she had dragged him to the meeting with her favourite godfather and how welcoming they had been towards him. It had caught him off guard when he had been hugged by his aunt and his cousin. Even Teddy, who had been a small toddler had joined the group hug before turning to his godmother and pestering her for cuddles. Only Lupin's behaviour had severely changed after his fall out with Harriet. Andromeda and Dora had tried to reason with him but given up and just accepted his decision.
"Why haven't you told us?" Narcissa asked barely audible, her voice thick with emotion.
"Because I knew how you would have reacted." Draco answered stubborn. "You've forced my marriage with Astoria, without even considering what I wanted and being the 'good' son I was, bent to your wishes. Again. Which cost me … dearly, again."
"Cost you?" Lucius huffed. "She was pregnant by you. It was the proper thing to do. I can't understand why you were so hesitant about it.
"There was someone else, wasn't there." Narcissa whispered and Draco nodded clenching his left hand into a fist. "It didn't end well, or Scorpius would have a half-sibling now."
"What?" His parents jumped simultaneously at his admission. "Who was it?" Lucius growled with blazing eyes, while his mother was apparently mentally going through his official girlfriend list. He always had officially dated and met pureblood girls, which were eager to be shown off to keep his real half-blood girlfriend a secret. And as she had never read "Witch Weekly" or the "Daily Prophet" after leaving the Wizarding World permanently, she had never known about it.
"Pansy?" she asked him, and he sneered in disgust. "Definitely not, mother."
"Daphne?" she continued, and he shook his head again. "That is even more unlikely, mother." He answered.
"Then tell us! Don't keep us hanging!" she complained impatiently. "Do we know her?"
Draco smirked slightly. "You do. Quite well, I believe."
Chimera cantina
Harry was sitting on one of the metal tables and fighting not to fall asleep, diving headfirst into her breakfast. A strong Espresso would be perfect right now, but she hadn't been able to get to her locker and refill on pepper up potion. After her last shift on the bridge, she had been informed by Eli Vanto, that Thrawn wanted her report by morning, so that he could look at it before forwarding it to High Command so that they would be able to address it upon their return to Coruscant. She therefore had skipped sleeping after her usual meetings with the confined troopers and Baila and completed her report, detecting something quite worrisome among the cases, which had led to hasty further digging until she had finally forwarded it to Vanto and Thrawn. Her head was heavy, and she picked at her breakfast without being hungry. Sleep. Sleep. Was all she could think about right now. She wanted to lie in bed and she imagined the soft feathery bed in the cool linen, listening to the waves crashing onto the shore. She quickly shook her head to clear her head again. Daydreaming wouldn't help her right now.
She hoped that she wasn't wrong with the cases she had flagged as a priority, but those seven deaths had stood out from the rest and she was now convinced that they had not been suicides at all. Why nobody had realized this further was a mystery to her. Especially as they were one of the few ones that had pictures documenting the finding of the deceased bodies.
"Hey Potter. Are you planning to sleep with your face in your meal?" she heard Colin Crevey ask her as he sat down at the table opposite her."
She had no patience for his overly chipper mood and flipped him the bird with her right hand, hearing Longbottom's amused laughter.
"Oh boy. She's in one of those moods, tread carefully Colin." Why were they sitting here with her? She wanted to be alone right now. Maybe she could get rid of them by poking them with her spoon. A fork or knife would be more effective, but she would have to make due.
"What is it with Stormtroopers and your overly cheerful moods?" she shook her head, which almost slipped her left hand and into her tasteless greyish meal.
"Carpe Diem." Colin cited. "Every day could be our last."
"No kidding, if rumours about your inexistent accuracy are true!" Harry mumbled taking another bite of her bland meal.
"Do you always have to be so defensive?" Colin enquired ignoring her comment. "We're all in the same situation, you know, and we should work together."
"Not, when you are constantly triggering memory. And not the pleasant ones." Harry snapped angrily smashing her spoon into her now empty bowl causing the two to jump. Longbottom even edged verily away from here. He knew her well enough from their Hogwarts days how dangerous her temper could be.
"So, what Mrs. Dursley said about you is true. You can't forget? Anything?" he asked mesmerized and Harry nodded.
"That's right. I was a quick study, even as a baby, but since Voldemort's attack, I remember every second of my life."
Both shuddered at her speaking his name, while she rolled her eyes in annoyance. "So, to answer your question Longbottom, yes, I remember every time you, my brother and his disciples bullied me, called me names or told lies about me to my parents. And yes, it still hurts just as much as it has back then."
Longbottom's face turned flustered and apologetic and Harry could sense that he was ashamed.
"So, don't expect me to jump in joy at seeing any of you."
"But how is it possible?" Creevy enquired and she just shrugged her shoulders. What would she give for normal boring mind that was able to forget the traumatizing things, but then again it made her special and had helped her on Earth to achieve all that she had wished for career wise.
"Why haven't you told anyone about your … ahm… your condition?" Longbottom asked her, and Harry sighed.
"Now, why should I have done that, hm? Who would have listened anyway? Certainly not my parents. To them I was just the annoying little prat, that constantly undeservedly wanted their attention. And my situation is unfortunately unique as my condition does not fit any classification. Some doctors believed that I have some form of Hyperthymesia, others say that I have a still unknown form of an Eidetic memory, but even that doesn't fit entirely. I'm certainly not a savant and I don't have an emotional memory. So, I don't fit any category." Harry ranted, and it felt so good to finally let that some off her heart.
The constant examinations initiated by her school teachers, had grated on her mind as a child and besides her closest friends and the Dursleys nobody knew about it. Even Teddy had always asked her random questions about days and had tested her if she was able to recall it. He had then always giggled, and his hair had changed. She missed his carefree giggling and hoped that he would stay safe. She made a mental note to ask about her godchild, the next time Longbottom would Mirror call with his aunt.
"So, if you're not here to tell me when you're contacting Augusta again, then I suggest you leave me alone."
"Next rotation after your shift, we'll establish the contact again." Longbottom answered her and obviously wanted to say more but was interrupted.
"Are those two annoying you, Midshipman?" Harry looked up and spotted the Ensign, who had worked her station during the battle again.
"Nothing I couldn't handle, Sir. Thank you." She answered barely seeing through her tired eyelids. "Just a little spat among childhood enemies."
"Childhood enemies, hu?" the female with dark shiny hair behind him said cheerfully and Harry winced. Why were they all so cheerful?
"That's something I want to hear." She remarked as she sat down next to Harry and the others of the group followed her example. Why were they sitting with her little group? They were officers. Of the lowest rank, but still. Their part of the mess hall was a bit fancier. From her physical appearance she reminded her of a very cheerful Cho Chang, who she had quite liked during her brief time in Hogwarts. Harry checked the chronometer. She would be able to sit with them for about ten minutes, but then she would have to hurry to get her pepper up potion from her locker or fall asleep during her shift. That was something that she certainly couldn't do. She didn't dare to imagine what Thrawn would do to her if she fell asleep during her shift.
"There is not much to tell, Sir." She told them. "When families are trying to force friendships, it ends in tragedy."
"You didn't try making friends." Longbottom defended himself. "You were a bloody menace. The prank on your brother's seventh birthday was just cruel. I still had nightmares for years and it's the first thing that comes to mind, when thinking about you."
She smirked dangerously in remembrance and one of the officers snickered at her mean gleam. Her brother had wet himself during the scare and she suspected that Neville had probably done so as well. "That was one of my best pranks on my birthday." She smirked. "And everyone on that party, minus Remus deserved it."
"What did you do?" the Cho Chang doppelganger asked her eagerly and Harry explained it leaving out or circumscribing the magical parts and explaining the cultural references behind it. To Longbottom's dismay she had them in stitches as they were holding their bellies at the end of her narration.
"That wasn't funny." He grumbled which started the laughter anew but looking at the Chronometer she quickly excused herself and was quite surprised when the Cho Chang doppelganger told her "See you around." Apparently, not all Imperials were as obnoxious as Ensign Danti. Ok. She had to admit Commander Eli Vanto wasn't either, but he was annoying her sometimes. Thrawn just scared her, although he had always been professional towards her.
After knocking a pepper-up potion from her locker down she finally felt ready to start her shift at the bridge. She still felt a bit sluggish, but at least her tiredness was gone.
"I think that Midshipman Potter needs a Commlink." Vanto stated as the doors to the turbolift hissed open. "She is harder to track down than a Diathim and it would spare me quite some time tracing her steps."
"Indeed." Thrawn confirmed still analysing her detailed report on his data pad. "an interesting comparison."
When they stepped in they realized that the very person of their conversation was already inside the lift and stood attention when she saw them, but she stood so rigidly and appeared to prefer to merge with the grey durasteel walls of the lift.
Vanto noted that she had a strained look on her face, but he could not detect any sign of tiredness. The time stamp of her report had indicated that she had sent it shortly before he had gotten up, which meant that she had worked through the night.
"At ease, Midshipman." Thrawn remarked calmly which seemed to relax her just a little, but not very much. Thrawn still scared her and he could not blame her. Especially, as he probably wasn't as innocent in creating her fear. Thrawn was an imposing figure on its own, but he had not been able to resist teasing her with several legends of the Chiss which he had heard on Lysatra, which might have increased her fear. But she would need to get over it if she wanted to progress.
"Midshipman, Potter." Thrawn addressed her again his eyes still on her report. "Very detailed report, however I find the implications of your flagged cases rather disconcerting. Are you sure that those weren't suicides?"
Vanto's head shot up. What had he missed?! Not suicides? He had not been able to look at her report as he had found it quite lengthy and he was used to lengthy reports, and inventory lists, yet it's length had pushed even his boundaries. She seemed to be obsessed with even the smallest detail. But Thrawn had apparently already studied it. He sighed. Of course, he had.
"Quite sure, Sir." She answered calmly, but her slightly shaking hands behind her back were speaking a different story.
The lift came to a halt and opened to the bridge and Midshipman Potter squirmed at her place as Thrawn did not bulge from his position and the young woman seemed to mentally fight with herself how to approach the subject on how to get passed him or if he would step out of the lift. Their destination had been the bridge, but Thrawn must have changed his mind. Although it would have been a breach in protocol stepping out of the lift before his superior he decided to take pity on her and asked Thrawn: "We are not stepping out onto the Bridge, Sir?"
Thrawn finally coming out of his musing shook his head. "No, we'll return to my office. This takes precedence."
Vanto saw the Midshipman wince and probably realizing that she would be late for her shift and everyone on the bridge knew how unpopular she had become to her crew, although he knew that she had tried to protect them by covering and correcting their mistakes.
"Sir?" the young woman addressed Thrawn with slightly shaking voice. "My shift starts in a few minutes and if I don't show up…"
"Then Ensign Danti will know that you've been summoned to my office." Thrawn interrupted her calmly. "Commander Vanto will inform her."
Minutes later, they were standing in Thrawn's office which had received two additional items since the last time the young woman had been in it.
"You said that several of those supposed suicides were none and you explained it in your report, but those explanations seemed a bit rushed. Please explain why you believe them to be murders."
Eli Vanto's breath hitched. Murders?! On a Star Destroyer. Surely somebody would have caught onto that. Or maybe not. Naval politics and all.
The young woman took a deep breath and Vanto could detect a slight change into her demeanour. The scared young woman disappeared and was replaced by something else. Something more professional, but he couldn't put a finger on it.
"Ahm. Yes, Sir. But I would need the pictures for that." She told him and Thrawn tipped something onto the holo-cube and several pictures appeared before them. Vanto had to fight back bilge rising from his stomach.
"There are several indications that these were not suicides. The first one being their locations. They have been found hanged in locations that are not easily accessible by low level personnel. Second, they are supposed hangings, but the way they are hanging they could not have hanged themselves. There is no chair, box or something else they could have stood on and jumped from.
Third, as you can see the sling is crafted in a way that would have made it extremely painful to die. Only few people know how to knot a sling in a way that they break their neck when they hang themselves. These women all have a sling that would have taken several minutes for them to suffocate and none of them share the characteristic marks of that."
"What marks would that be?" Vanto asked curiously.
"Scratch marks on their neck. Many people, who hang themselves… No, actually all of them who have tried to hang themselves with a sling that really suffocates them instead of breaking their necks are trying to get out of their situation again, which is shown in the scratch marks around their necks, along the way of their slings." She explained calmly and Vanto wondered how she knew so much about it.
"And they do not look suffocated. Their faces almost seem serene, which is atypical to people who have hung themselves. And there is another interesting detail that is missing."
She pointed to several of the pictures. "None of these women show any discharge."
"Discharge?" Vanto became more confused by the second and the young woman nodded gravely.
"When people hang themselves, the sphincter stops working the moment their death sets in and as you can imagine it isn't a pretty picture." He nodded. It made sense somehow. Thrawn was still silent listening to her reasoning.
"And there is something else that's interesting. When you look at the women you can see that they are all sharing similar features, hair colour and statue. So, the unsub has a specific type."
"Unsub?" Thrawn finally cut in enquiring about that unfamiliar term, which clearly wasn't a term of Basic.
"On Earth, Terra" she corrected herself. "Unsub stands for Unknown Subject and is often used in law enforcement." Thrawn nodded and indicated her to continue.
"If you zoom in to the victims' hair you can see a small golden clip in their hair. They all have the same one. If you look closely at the pictures these clips are not just similar to each other. It's the same one. You can see that one of the sides is clipped or jarred in a way that had to be accidental.
Thrawn changed the parameters and zoomed into each picture scrutinizing them closely. With his right hand on his chin. He seemed to come to the same conclusion and nodded. "Continue." He ordered.
"As to why nobody has made the connection before. That's where it gets tricky and shows that the unsub is quite clever. The victims were all found in different jurisdictions which only people with special permit or higher rank can enter. Some were found in closed off areas of the crew quarters, some in closed off quarters of the officer's deck and some in the storage hangar and some in the combat personnel living section. That's at least three different jurisdictions and the only people vaguely hearing about those incidents in their immediate surroundings are those that are from the same jurisdiction than the victims: Army, Navy and Civilian. And hiding those bodies among the suicide rate is not that difficult then."
"Can you find the murderer with this gathered information?" Thrawn asked staring the young woman down, but curiously she did not bulge one bit. Instead, to Vanto's surprise, she shook her head. After that explanation he had half expected her to present the murderer's identity to them.
"I do have quite some information, but these can't be his first victims. The entire … ritual, if you will, is too well developed. There need to be more victims somewhere, but I couldn't find any on the Chimera. I would need to find the first victim, which usually has a personal connection to the Unsub and time is pressing as the time between the murders gets shorter with each victim. "
Vanto replayed all the information in his head again until he could focus what last sentence reminded her of. "That sounds suspiciously like some sort of procedure or protocol, which you are used to follow." He locked eyes with Thrawn who inclined his head approvingly.
"Well, it is." She defended herself. "At least on my planet, yet it is important to follow in order to catch the real unsub and not someone who's innocent."
"Very well." Thrawn mused calmly with his deep voice. "Let's test that protocol. We'll be arriving on Coruscant in 96.5 hours. You have until then to catch the murderer. Meanwhile your duty on the bridge is suspended. You will answer directly to me or to Commander Vanto.
Thrawn handed her a Commlink which she took solemnly.
After the young Midshipman had left his office with Commander Vanto Thrawn sat down at his desk and keyed the code for Colonel Yularen's direct comm. He had forwarded the report to the Head of ISB and the High Command, yet the sections about the murders was still missing from it. He knew that he had to be careful. Vanto had told him once in the Royal Academy, when they still had been cadets, that there had been a joke that Coruscanti officers, coming from influential core families could get away with everything. He had no intention of letting this person get away and he had confidence that Vanto would make sure that the Midshipman would be discrete enough in her investigation.
The fact that she had not found any "first" victim yet could indicate that the murderer had had this first victim on previous post.
Perhaps Yularen had heard of similar incidents, but he doubted it. If not, then he would only shortly fill him in what was going on and ask him to not alert any other people about it as he did not know how well connected the murderer was.
And in letting her find the murderer he could test his theory if she had some kind powers, as he suspected from what he had observed about her and what he had been able to learn from her diaries and notebooks, without being able to read her script. Her wooden stick, that the people of her planet called "wand" was another indicator that she was more than she seemed to be.
The paintings and murals he had analysed from her planet certainly pointed at that direction. But did this mean that her gift was somehow related to the legendary powers of the Jedi? Or were her powers more like those of the witches of Dathomir. He had compared some of their available artwork to the scribbling and drawing of his Midshipman and although there were some darker undertones in her drawings, they rather spoke of loss, than of hunger for power and destruction.
One way or the other, she would be a useful tool and he would certainly not waste any hidden valuable talent.
Oh boy. This story is getting out of hand! Had to reroute parts of my pre-planned plot after catching up on Criminal Minds after my exam.
I intend to include Palleon, but I'll wait until after I've read Thrawn Alliances, because I think that he will make an appearence in the book and could indicate how he was the first and only captain Thrawn commed immediately in SW Rebels.
Reviews are much appreciated!