Privet Drive 4, Surrey

Remus had pestered his friends long enough to go looking for their daughter after she had not returned after dark. Now they had checked the small house Harriet lived in during her school years. It was abandoned but Remus had smelled that she must have been inside earlier. When nobody had opened the front door, they had used the Alohomora spell to enter. James and Sirius were amazed at all the muggle technology, but Remus' gaze was drawn to the photos. Harriet was among them. They couldn't be that old as she shared them with a boy which he assumed to be her cousin. She genuinely looked happy. One picture was showing her aunt Petunia hugging her with her right arm, with a winter landscape in the background, another one showed her next to her cousin, who was in some sort of martial arts tunic and proudly presenting his cup indicating third place. Another picture showed Harriet with two other cheeky looking boys holding up three blue ribbons indicating that they had one first price as a group. As they were wearing their school uniforms he assumed that they had won a school competition. Another one was a family portrait, clearly shot by a professional photographer which showed Harriet as part of their family. No wonder that she had hated coming back to Potter Manor.

"They have no magic and the house is still cleaner than mine with a house elf." Sirius mused. "How do they do it?" James chuckled and patted his shoulders in understanding. "No idea, Padfoot."

Remus followed the faint scent, climbing up the stairs with two creaking steps and found himself in a very tidy room with shelves, a wardrobe and shelves partly filled with books, folders and other instruments on his left, a desk in front of the window with a lamp on it's left and a neatly made bed with lilac bedsheets on the right. Hidden the behind door Remus spotted the familiar black suitcase which indicated that she had been here, but there was now indication where she could be. He stepped towards the desk and saw countless jotters neatly sorted. One was open, and he saw the familiar calculations which he had seen her do in the garden of Potter manor. When he looked at the wall above her bed he saw a pinboard with a timetable of her last semester, which surprised him. It seemed that she did not only have regular classes but was also in quite a few additional school clubs and classes. He chuckled when he read "debate club". No wonder she had given her parents a run for their money debating with them.

Every school day started at nine and went through to 6pm with all the additional school groups and subjects. Was she doing all her homework when she returned home late in the evening or did she do it in her rare free lessons? Next to the timetable was a list of all the tests and exams during the year and references to a "study plan". She was organized for a seven-year-old. The rest of the pinboard was covered with photos of her with the two cheeky boys, who looked to be up to no good and in one or two pictures Harriet was showing the same dangerous glint in her eyes. It seemed that those two were her friends, even though the did look a bit older than her. Others were photos of her and the Dursleys in a Zoo, at the sea, at a lake fishing or hiking. One photo seemed like she was in some sort of music class talking to the teacher while holding a small violin in her hand. Her gaze however seemed a bit confused. But she had pinned it, which meant that she had liked it for some reason. He touched the photos and accidentally brushed the timetable aside and realised. There was something underneath it. He carefully lifted the timetable and realized a list of names, addresses and numbers. Didn't the Muggles have some contraption that needed numbers to reach each other. He turned towards the shelf and took a college block and ripped a blank page from it and with a flick of his wand and the spell "copio" he quickly copied it onto the blank page.

"Found her, Moony?" James asked finally entering the room looking around, staring blankly at the photos and Remus hoped that he would realize that they had none of her in the manor. He contemplated stealing one of the photos and putting it next to the other ones that were moving so that they could realize who they should be missing during the year, but he knew that Harriet would surely find out and not be happy. Maybe he should contact the Dursley's in Autumn and ask for one. Yes, he mentally nodded to himself. He would do that.

James still showed no reaction as he was taking all in and Sirius was still mesmerized with the muggle things.

"She looks the opposite of how she does in Potter Manor." Remus stated pointing towards the photos, but James just shrugged his shoulders.

"She doesn't look different to me." Sirius squinting his eyes looking at the pictures nodded in agreement.

"Yes, she does." Remus declared. "She looks happy. I haven't seen her smile once at her home."

"How exactly does that help us in finding her. Did you find something or not?" James asked impatiently.

Remus didn't answer yet and pointed towards her timetable. "Look at that. That timetable is madness. It would be difficult for an older child, teenager or even student, but she seems to do just fine. I certainly wouldn't have been able to do this every day."

"Yes, nice" James commented without even looking at it. "We need to find her." Remus frowned. So, James did care about his daughter?

"Well, I don't know where she is, but one of them might." He answered showing the copied paper with the numbers. "I believe that these are the numbers of her class mates houses and she could have gone to one of their houses. We should start with the ones closest to this address."

"Those are twenty-five names! We can't go to them all." Sirius exclaimed looking at the sheet.

"Don't be silly, Padfoot." James laughed. We have to find a phone and make the calls. There was one downstairs." He trailed off when two police cars stopped directly at the house they were currently in and went to the door.

"Nope, can't use the one downstairs. We should get out of here. Let's meet back at my place." Sirius said and apparated which caused Remus to flinch. James followed, and Remus quickly did the same.

The Potters were in the Ministry using one of the phones to call the other families, but so far, they had only spoken to staff of these families and had constantly been told, that they should try calling Antony Strong's or Reynold Palmer's family. When they had called the Strongs, they had been informed that they were on Holiday in Italy. That only left the Palmer's in Cardiff, but Remus doubted that she was there. It was too far away from Surrey.

"Yes." The male voice in the phone answered. "Harriet came a few hours ago." Remus exhaled silently. How had she managed to do that? Had she used one of the public Floo Networks?

"We are currently eating dinner. Maybe it would be best if she stayed with us for a few days." The voice on the other line said.

"No, I'm going to get her as soon as possible." James angrily shouted into the headpiece.

"Please calm down, Sir. You're calling from the London area. It's too late to come to pick her up today and we won't stay awake until you are here."

James was reading himself to rebuke, but Remus tapped him onto the shoulder and hissed. "Muggle." To remind him that he wouldn't be able to explain how he could turn up there in a matter of seconds. James nodded. "Alright, then tomorrow."

"Tomorrow is possible, but Raymond was excited to have his best friend here. He wants to show her the city and they will go on a Torchwood scavenger hunt tomorrow. Would it be possible for her to stay for a few days? A little distance might help calming down the situation, whatever has happened."

"No, I'll pick her up tomorrow." James growled into the headphone. "James, what he suggests is a great idea."

"Alright." The other voice sighed. "You can pick her up in the late afternoon after the scavenger hunt, but …" he paused and continued sternly. "I will only let her come back with you if I'm absolutely assured, that she won't be in any danger with you."

"Fine. Danger. The only danger in my house is Harriet herself." James ground out.

There was another deep sigh by Mr. Palmer as if he was fighting himself not to say anything that could complicate the situation further. "We will discuss anything further tomorrow. Good night, Mr. Potter." He disconnected the call and James looked stooped at the phone.

"How did she get to Cardiff all on her own?" Sirius asked seemingly impressed.

"He said that she arrived an hour ago. That means that she must have used Muggle transport, which means that she has spent the majority of the day driving to Surrey and then a good few hours to Cardiff. She must be exhausted."

In Cardiff

The tall man with brown hair turned after putting the phone down and shook his head.

"That's it. I like your uncle better than your father." He remarked watching the girl's happiness drain away and her shoulders slumped when he continued. "They are going to pick you up tomorrow."

She just nodded picking at her food, which she had enjoyed a few minutes ago. He locked eyes with his beautiful dark wife who nodded, and she said.

"Whatever happens tomorrow. You should know that you are always welcome here." She patted the girls hand.

"Of course, you are." Their son affirmed looking slightly worried.

"Thank you." She mumbled sighing sadly.

Well, she was their son's best friend and he would make sure that nothing would happen to her, but his personal alarm clocks were telling him that something was wrong with that family. Raymond had told him some things already, but he would personally take a closer look the next day.

Before she had come to their school, Raymond and Anthony Howard had been fierce competitors or school nemesis, but Harriet had managed to befriend both and bring them together in friendship. Now, according to the Rupert Giles, the headmaster of the school, who was a close friend of his, the trio was inseparable and caused trouble.

Rupert had told him jokingly that the competition between the two had stopped them from blowing the school to pieces. Now with the three minds combined he woke each day wondering what they would do next. But luckily Harriet seemed to be the voice of reason that prevented it. But even she had her moments.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day.

St. Mungos:

Astoria had taken another turn to the worse and had to be magically intubated to keep her alive. They wouldn't even have realized this had Scorpius not made them aware of this by screaming and shouting at them that something was wrong with Astoria. He had just known. Time was running out and it had only been a day after they had last been at hospital. The curse was working rather fast and even the Greengrasses confirmed that it hadn't been that fast the last time. Now the family was in the office of the two healers again.

"We have made your wife a priority and fast tracked all the laboratory work, but we would also need the DNA of her parents." The healer uncomfortably told them.

"We had hoped that by comparing your son's DNA to your wife's that we might find out how the curse changed it's setup, but for some reason we could not find any strain of DNA that matched with your son and your wife. Which is rather odd, not to say impossible. We therefore believe at the moment, that the curse is rather aggressive and has radically changed her DNA setup up to a degree that has never been seen before. The only way to repair it would be through using the strains from her parents. And we already confirmed that he is your son, Mr. Malfoy."

Walpurga shuffled uncomfortably and evaded every gaze coming from the Malfoys. Could it be that she knew more about what could have cause the curse to reactivate?

"Would mine help too?" Daphne asked with shaking voice clearly afraid for her dear sister, who she hadn't seen for some time. When she had come today she had explained that her parents had asked her to come, but Draco could see that she was worried. No matter what their dispute had been, they loved each other dearly.

"Every family DNA helps us." The medi-witch told them exhaling, watching Scorpius closely. Once in a while she changed her gaze towards the Greengrass family as if she was comparing him to them. Draco did not like it one bit and held his son sitting on his lap tightly as if to protect him. Something was going on.

"Then of course we will provide… What is it called again?" Daphne asked.

"DNA. Deoxyribonucleic acid" Draco explained astonishing the two healers in the room. "We all have it and inherit parts of it from our ancestors. It's an innovative approach." He avoided to tell them that it was a Muggle one, but would they really disapprove of this when it could potentially safe Astoria's life?

"How long does she still have?" Lucius Malfoy asked stoically.

"Unfortunately, we can't make an accurate estimate. Yesterday we would have said a few months, but with today's incident all bets are off." The medi-witch told them.

"Is there anything else we could do?" Narcissa asked brushing her grand-son's unruly hair.

"All the things we have talked about yesterday." The healer answered her and frowned at the youngest Malfoy, whose eyes now stared at the blank wall as he was waving somebody they couldn't see.

"Scorpius?" Draco hugged him tighter. "Who are you waving at?"

"Can't you see her?" the small boy asked. "It's Harriet! She is trying to catch a very bad man."

Narcissa's breath hitched while Walpurga suddenly burst into tears.

Harry sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. She could swear that there was that little boy again that was happily waving at her. Now it was her, who was apparently losing her wits. She had no idea why she was seeing the little boy, and although it hurt her severely seeing him she could not make it stop. The little boy looked like a little version of Draco, yet with more unruly hair.

She remembered the day when she had found out that she was pregnant although she had taken every protection possible. Draco had proposed a few months before and she had reluctantly agreed under the condition that she didn't want to marry in the next few years or have any children anytime soon. They sometimes hadn't seen each other for weeks and their daily schedules had been to hectic. Well, hers had been. She had had too much to do with her company, which she had run with her two best friends, her charity and her little band.

A child would not have been possible in her hectic life at that moment. But unfortunately, she had underestimated the Slytherin slyness. Draco had manipulated her pills and as he had admitted later and had had fed her fertility potions. She had been too trusting and too blinded by love. Her two overprotective friends Antony and Raymond had been right from the beginning to not trust him and they had been her pillars of strength after Draco had simply discarded of her after the worst time of her live where she would have needed his support. She had no idea why he had acted that way after they had been together for years.

She squinted her eyes, but the vision didn't not break, and she took a deep breath and forced herself to ignore the little child that was enthusiastically waving at her. She had a job to do.

"Can't you see her?" the small boy asked. "It's Harriet! She is trying to catch a bad man." Her breath hitched. Now she could even hear him, and she forced back tears. Merlin! She had a job to do or there would be another victim.

"Did you find something, Midshipman?" Vanto enquired standing up from his seat behind his desk. He also had a tired look on the his face.

They had spent hours looking at more similarities between the victims and to the Commander's dismay she had turned his office into a briefing room and all the information of their victims was displayed next to each other, when they were alone in the room. They had read through dozens of accounts and statements and done background research on the displayed women and Harry had established a comfort zone of their unsub, which unfortunately still was too big to narrow it down. They then had proceeded to question several of the colleagues who had worked closely with the deceased.

"I might have." She covered her mental slip cursing her overactive mind and registered that the small boy was finally gone.

He stretched almost imperceptibly and went around the desk to stand next to her and the projected information, which was projected next to each other.

"Several things." She pointed at their first victim. "Kanchana Dalitso was a civilian technician that was found in the combat personnel living section, which only higher-ranking officers can enter. The jurisdiction was the army branch. The second victim Cora Cunty was a female stormtrooper that was found in the crew quarters of the navy personnel. She pointed to the third victim. "Thalima Shoba was a navy ensign and was found in the civilian crew quarters. Each victim is found in the jurisdiction where the next victim comes from."

"Your right. That would mean that the next one…" he checked the list of their victims and saw that she had already added the additional information to her board. "the next one is going to be in the army's jurisdiction again." Harry nodded solemnly. They could catch him in the act and if her calculations were correct he would probably strike within the next few rotations, but they didn't have that much time.

"There is also something else. She tapped several codes on her datapad and laid the pictures over each other."

The Commander frowned. "They are identical?"

She shook her head. "Not exactly. They are hanged in the exact same position. Their clothes are all arranged identically, their hair, with that clip are rearranged and even the rope is tied identically every single time. He is very meticulous."

"You have established that it is a male?" Vanto enquired and Harriet nodded. "Yes. Based on the way the victims were found it would be very surprising if the unsub was female. It requires a lot of strength to position the bodies the way they are. As these bodies are burnt already and none of the doctors in the hospital wards have performed an autopsy I can't know for sure what they were killed with. But from the pictures I can conclude that they were hanged post mortem."

"That doesn't really help us finding him." Vanto sighed. "And they all were model citizens and employees of the empire according to their files. So, I don't know how the unsub selects them besides their physical similarities."

Harry frowned. That's not what she had read. But she had restored some background information that had been retracted by somebody that was higher up. She had almost missed it, but the numbering of the entries had been off. "Actually, that's not true. There were entries of complaints, but somebody has deleted them."

"How would you know that?" the Commander asked shaking his head.

Harry grinned. "The pedan…" she stopped herself before she could say something she would regret. "ahm the documentation system of the Empire makes sure that nothing is ever truly deleted. There are always older versions of the files swarming the ship's computer system. They just have to be recovered."

"You sliced the ships central computing system again." Vanto shook his head with a knowing grin.

"There was a problem and I needed a solution. Kanchana Dalitso's deleted entry had been logged under the code 4235.5. She had defended herself against the accusation of the defection of a family member. Cora Cunty's entry 5683.2 said that she complained about the set up of the helmet, which makes it difficult to see through as it does not fit every trooper perfectly and makes it hard to aim. The entries for Lila Mavuto and Bala I'timad, our victims four and five, are both identical only that they had been "covorting" with each other. I can't recall any regulation in the empire that is against homosexuality."

"There is none, but relationships aboard the ships are frowned upon." Vanto answered with his right hand pensively on his chin. "But the empire has some breeding programs in systems that are underpopulated with humans."

Harry shuddered and shook herself as revulsion was washing over her. "That is gross. Pardon my language, Sir." That idea was truly hideous, but if the Unsub came from such an area, he could see homosexuality as a threat.

"The sixth victim Monifa Izar, was reported by a co-worker because she had casually suggested letting non-humans become part of the empire's army and navy. So, it is possible that the unsub not only saw the physical similarity, but also their complaints, habits or ideas, as a potential threat to the empire's structure. A threat that he saw fit to eliminate."

"Interesting. What about victim number seven Tariro Sakshi?" Vanto asked nodding towards their latest victim. "What did she do?"

"Nothing that I could find at first, but her murder seemed to be more personal to the Unsub than the others." Harriet stated bringing the picture closer to them. "Look at her wrists and her face, Sir."

She zoomed in to her wrist and Vanto leaned forward squinting his eyes. "That looks like a bruise that was partially hidden by her sleeve." Harry nodded and zoomed to her face, which was heavy with make-up, and stood in stark contrast to her profile picture and looked a bit swollen.

"She was beaten?" Vanto exhaled surprised.

Harry nodded. "Yes. This was personal, and I think I know why. She was supposedly a general technician, who could be used in many sectors of the ship to make general repairs and her open file is rather unspectacular. But, she has a file in one of the internal sever levels that only the ISB has access to. I used a mirror code, which reroutes the data for twenty-four hours before the ISB realizes that somebody has accessed the file."

Vanto sighed. Midshipman Potter would get in trouble and she was dragging him down too. On the other hand, the ISB would be very interested in a talented slicer like her. He could only hope that Thrawn's influence in the High Command could protect them. Maybe making her Thrawn's aide after he was on his personal diplomatic mission, wouldn't be such a great idea. There were several things she could do and get Thrawn into further crosshairs with the High Command and they were slicing their knives already and would latch onto any failure, as minimal as it were, caused by him or one of his underlings. He would need to talk to Thrawn about his worries.

"She was an undercover ISB agent. So, her death should have ruffled some feathers, but apparently there weren't any. It is possible that she made the connection, because there are several notes that indicate that she was in all the areas shortly after the victims were found. That means that she was a personal threat to the Unsub and he had to take her out."

"That's …" Vanto was interrupted by the chiming of the entrance that indicated that there was somebody at the door. Vanto deactivated the projector and opened the durasteel doors.

Two familiar stormtroopers, which Harry could identify through her sense to be Longbottom and Colin, entered and stood attention.

"Troopers LS-2086 and LS-2087 are here to inform you that Crewman Baila Panaká has gone missing. We found her broken necklace in the turbolift of section C and can't find her anywhere."

Harry froze. That was a severe deviation from the unsubs schedule, but Baila had been stabilized so she couldn't have tried to kill herself. Now, it seemed that she had somehow alerted the unsub that she was onto him and he was retaliating. She needed to catch him in the act and safe her patient. She could not lose the young woman!