14. A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing
Friday 28th August 1994
It soon became apparent to Tonks that her estimate of the amount of time required to complete the paperwork was wildly on the low side. There turned out to be a vast array of Ministry forms to fill out when a murder victim was discovered, ranging from the normal investigation report to a statement of how any magical side-effects were being hidden from the local Muggles (specifying in detail exactly what assistance, if any, had been requested from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee). It took up all of her Friday and large parts of the Saturday – although she wasn't technically on duty that weekend, she blanched at the thought of what Scrimgeour might say if she actually took the time off. He'd been in a foul mood ever since the World Cup disaster.
The only break from the monotony came from a stream of pale violet memos that arrived in her in-tray. She uttered a loud groan when the first one arrived, expecting it to be yet another form to fill in; but perked up when, to her great relief, it proved to be from Chesney, written on the headed parchment of the Committee on Experimental Charms. It contained a diffident inquiry as to whether her workload had, just possibly, eased enough to give her time to meet up with him at some point over the next few days.
Tonks grinned, scribbled a return note asking what point he had in mind, tapped it with her wand, and it folded itself up neatly and flew off. Unfortunately, Rhiannon Davies had noticed the little exchange, and when she found out what it was about she couldn't resist sending over a series of teasing comments of her own:
Ooh, was that from young Monty again? Doesn't give up, does he? – Rhiannon
No it's from Chesney, actually. You know, our team mate? – Tonks
So would you be free Saturday lunchtime then? – Ches
Sorry, Ches, it looks like I'm going to be stuck here all morning and most of the afternoon tomorrow. How about Saturday night? – Tonks
ANOTHER bloke asking you out by note? I thought you reckoned that was too old-fashioned? Cassius will be so proud of you! – Rhiannon
Sod off, Rhi. At least this one asked me to my face first, so I'll cut him a bit of slack – TonksSorry Tonks – I wish I could make Saturday night, but I can't. I've got my brother and his wife coming round. Sunday maybe? – Ches
Can't, Ches. I promised my mum and dad I'd go over to their house for Sunday lunch and spend a bit of time with them for a change – Tonks
Passing notes to the boys you fancy again? It's just like being back at school, isn't it? – Rhiannon
Yeah right. What, does Scrimgeour hand out detentions if he catches you? – T
I hope they're not working your fingers to the bone down there! Lunch sometime this week maybe? I can always take an extended break without anybody complaining, it's all been rather sedate down here in EC! – Ches
Sounds good. If I have to I'll take an hour off and call it following a lead! – Tonks
Ooh, that's about half a dozen notes you've sent each other now! Must be true love! – Rhi
Sod OFF Davies – T
-----
Sunday 30th August 1994
On the whole, Tonks' Saturday actually managed to be even less fun than the Friday. Cassius had returned to keep her company – most of his Friday had been spent in Wizengamot Administration Services, trying to take advantage of the new climate of leniency to persuade them to take quick action authorising the warrants he wanted – but there were few other Aurors around, and the relatively empty office made for a very dull way to spend a weekend. When they finally came to the end of the paperwork it was well past seven o'clock in the evening, and both of them were too tired to care. At least Cassius felt optimistic about the warrant.
The quiet Sunday with her parents that followed, however, came as a considerable relief after the hectic events of the previous fortnight. She revelled in the luxury of being able to just sit back and relax, enjoy one of her mother's excellent Sunday roasts, and joke with her father about the relative merits of football and Quidditch. All in all, it was just like the Sundays she remembered from her childhood. Although she knew, at the back of her mind, that she wouldn't want to do this every weekend (or even most weekends), at this particular moment it was exactly what she needed.
Her parents seemed to recognise her need to unwind, although as the evening wore on, they began gentle questioning about her work. Tonks stretched out on the sofa and talked in a guarded manner about her experiences at the World Cup. She could sense that her parents were alarmed on some deep level at the idea that she had been facing Death Eaters; but despite exchanging significant glances on several occasions, they made no actual comment. It was an uncomfortable situation, though.
A small empty frame on the wall caught her attention as a possible distraction. "Any word from the Gringotts painting about the bank robberies?" she asked.
Her mother rolled her eyes. "That painting actually has a subject, does it, Ted? I don't think I've seen him in there once since you brought it home."
"Give him time, Annie," said Ted equably, stretching out on his chair. "We haven't had another case, and I hope we don't – sorry, Princess," he added hastily, "but I reckon the goblins would be quite content if the little toe-rag who did this had got enough to retire on, just so long as he doesn't do it again and get into the paper. You're not supposed to be able to rob Gringotts. It'd be disastrous for business if we got a lot of publicity."
"You weren't relying on this, were you darling?" asked Andromeda with a shrewd expression.
Tonks could tell that her disappointment must have shown in her face, and silently cursed the fact that her mother could read her so well. "Not as such, but it would be nice to really get something right ..." She bit her lip, realising that she'd probably said too much. Glances were shooting back and forth between her parents again.
"Having a rough time, kid?" asked Ted, managing a lightness of tone that was quite impressive.
"Not exactly, but ..." Tonks sighed and lay back against the cushions. She knew she wasn't going to get out of this without saying something about recent events, but as she tried to explain, she found herself saying far more than she'd intended to about her foolish behaviour in the alleyway, her uncomfortable meeting with Scrimgeour, and her guilt at the murder of Ballantyne, although she left most of the gory details and all the confidential material out of her account. Her parents just let her talk and talk until she eventually ran down and stared at the ceiling, unable to look them in the eye.
"You think you could have done something, is that it, kid?" asked Ted quietly.
"Yeah, I do, but ..."
"You made a mistake, love," he interrupted. "But you didn't kill him. OK, you can't tell us all the details, but it sounds like a lot of things had to happen before it got that far, none of which you had any control over."
"That's what Cassius said ..."
"Well he was right, wasn't he? Seems like a sensible bloke, this Cassius. Don't beat yourself up, Princess, you're still a bloody talented girl, and it sounds like you've come a long way fast on that job. You're bound to get a few things wrong – but we've got faith in your ability to make the right choices, kid. Always have had."
"Thanks, Dad." She reached over and hugged him, blinking back a tear while chiding herself for getting over-emotional.
"Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you ... well, you think you should have noticed the signs, darling," added Andromeda, very quietly indeed. "But sometimes ... there weren't any signs to see." Tonks looked at her sharply – it sounded like a reference to something that they never usually discussed – but her mother refused to catch her eye for a moment. She smiled and let it drop, to her mother's evident relief. She didn't want to spoil the moment by bringing up the topic of murderous cousins.
-----
Monday 31st August 1994
Although Tonks' weekend had been uneventful, when she came back to work on Monday things started to happen at a rapid pace.
The first thing she found on her desk when she arrived was another note from Rhiannon. She began to read it with some annoyance, expecting it to be more teasing on the subject of Chesney, but the first few lines wiped any such thought from her mind. Rhiannon reported that the Muggle-killer had struck again up near Aberdeen, and that she'd been called in to do her 'psychic' act and unobtrusively check out the crime scene. Tonks winced. By the sound of it, the killing had been far more brutal than the Ballantyne murder she had discovered.
Cassius arrived just as she'd finished reading the note for the third time and she handed it to him silently. He read it with a growing look of revulsion on his face and then threw it down on the desk. "You know, I loathe people who go after Muggles like that! It's sheer cowardice – picking on somebody who doesn't have the wherewithal to defend themselves just to play out their sick fantasies. I've spent most of my life working against those kinds of people."
"Do you think they'll actually find anything?" asked Tonks pessimistically.
"I doubt it," replied Cassius in the same vein. "We've had cases like this before, and it was almost always sheer luck if we caught them. A soft target, no obvious links to the victims, plenty of chances to clear up after themselves – it was all too easy." He looked at the note again in disgust. "And from the way Rhiannon describes this one, it was done by someone who knew their way around the Dark Arts and had no problems trying to think of a suitable killing curse."
"Yeah," snorted Tonks. "Bet he was the Pride of the Slytherins at school."
"What's wrong with Slytherins?" asked Cassius, in an injured tone.
"Apart from a few decent ones like my mum, you mean? Well, there's the pure-blood mania, the low cunning, the way they're mostly Death-Eaters-In-Training ..." Tonks trailed off as the implications of Cassius' statement dawned on her. "Oh bloody hell, Cassius, don't tell me you were one too?"
"Of course I was," he said, defensively. "What other house would an ambitious pure-blood have been placed in?"
"But ..." Tonks wanted to continue with the words "you're not evil either," but they sounded stupid even in her head. She hesitated in embarrassment. "There was more to it than that, though, wasn't there?" she said finally.
Cassius smiled slightly at her discomfiture. At least he was taking it fairly well. "Not when I was at school, no," he said. "We were proud of our heritage, but we weren't all like the generation that turned to You-Know-Who. That was one of the worst things ever to happen to the reputation of Slytherin house. But it'll pass eventually, now the war's over and done with, provided we don't get any more incidents like the World Cup Final. After all, no-one these days thinks Ravenclaw students are all dangerous freaks, do they?"
"Ravenclaws?" exclaimed Tonks. "Since when?"
Cassius looked surprised. "Didn't you know? A number of the key players in the group around Grindelwald came from a particular little 'academic' club who were devoted to research into some very Dark spells." His voice had taken on a slightly sarcastic edge. "I'm sure they were intellectually fascinating, but they were also extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Wide-action spells, fire and flood, easy to get away with at the time because the effects looked very much like the things the Muggles were fighting their wars with. It was quite an unpleasant few years. After that, for a decade or so people were embarrassed to admit they'd been in the same house as them at school. Taint by association, you see …" He suddenly coughed and looked wary. "Um, you weren't one of them, were you?"
"Me? No, I was in Hufflepuff!" Tonks hesitated. She wasn't quite sure how to word what she wanted to say without being offensive. "It's not just the recent crop, though, is it?" she said carefully. "Haven't most of the pure-blood movements been led by ... well, people like my aunts and uncles and cousins? I mean, the way we throw them all together as kids in this country, they've got to rub off on each other, haven't they? Not that I'm saying they're all like that," she added hastily, hoping to stave off any counter-examples of terrible past crimes committed by Hufflepuffs that Cassius might be able to dredge up from his memory. "Obviously you're not and neither is my mum and there were some decent ones when I was there too and I'm sure there are now and ..." She paused to draw breath and stop herself babbling. "Didn't you have that sort of thing when you were a kid?" She marvelled for a moment. It was hard to imagine Cassius as a young boy.
His look was slightly regretful. "Well, it goes in cycles, I suppose. It was the turn of the century when I was there," he said. "There was this feeling of a new era coming. An age of change and all that. Perhaps I was simply lucky to be there when people were quite tolerant. In my time, Muggle blood was just considered rather common, perhaps. A pure-blood who married into it would be … looked down on, maybe, or considered eccentric, or find themselves patronised, but they wouldn't generally be ostracised or anything."
"No extremists?"
"There are always extremists," he said sadly. "Like – well, like a lot of your mother's family, to be honest. I can remember a few Blacks shooting their mouths off even when I was young. But when I was growing up, people didn't take them seriously – if anything, they looked on them as rather an embarrassment." He paused, and then added with a touch of bitterness, "But haven't there always been people willing to whip up hatreds for the sake of nothing more than political advantage, whether they believe in it themselves or not? The Muggles do it, we do it, we're no better."
"The Muggles do what, Cassius old lad?" Tonks and Cassius both jumped at the sound of O'Gregan's cheery Irish brogue booming out, as he and Cornworthy rounded the end of the row of cubicles.
"Oh ... er, play politics with prejudices," said Cassius, flustered. "Just like us."
"No kidding," said O'Gregan, as he flopped down into a chair. "I'm not sure what me mam was more worried about when I took this job – that I might get involved with dangerous wizards, or that I'd be working with the English."
"You're Muggle-born, then?" asked Cassius with interest. "I hadn't realised."
"Course he is," said Cornworthy, with a snort. "How many people from wizard families do you know who like football?"
"Good point," commented Tonks. She wasn't in any position to contradict him, after all. Privately, she wondered if it might have been another reason for his wife's growing animosity once the first passion had worn off, but it didn't seem tactful to ask.
"Anyway, Cassius," continued O'Gregan, dismissing the subject, "I need to tell you my young lady won't be joining us, so she won't. She got called away to Scotland in the early hours on that other case of hers, poor girl, so you'll have to do without her."
"I know," said Cassius. "Never rains but it pours, eh? We'll just have to work this the best we can – a team of five is nice, but four of us should be more than enough." He reached to the back of his desk for a piece of parchment on which he'd written out an agenda. "I was going to get us a meeting room ... but I suppose we can just discuss this here," he added hastily as O'Gregan rolled his eyes. "It won't take long really."
"Fire away," said Tonks, hiding a smile.
"Very well. First things first – Administration Services sent me a note this morning to say the Wizengamot signed the search warrant for Charlotte Perks' house with barely a second glance. So I want you two to go down there and pick it up, then make the search as soon as you can."
"What about Little Miss Blackstock?" asked O'Gregan.
"No luck, I'm afraid." O'Gregan scowled at him, and Cassius shrugged in apology. "I did ask around my contacts, Donnacha, but they still think we don't have enough evidence. Yes, I know it should be more than enough under current circumstances, or even under normal circumstances, but he has his friends on the Wizengamot too, and their colleagues don't really want to get on their bad side – especially Madam Umbridge, because she has a lot of influence and is just the sort to play tit for tat. And they say it's been so long since it happened that we probably wouldn't find anything anyway."
"Excuses, in other words," said Cornworthy gloomily. "Delaying tactics?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Bloody Dark wizards buying their way out of trouble, you mean," muttered O'Gregan. "Are we just going to sit here and take that, Cassius?"
"No," he replied, stung. He paused for a moment, clearly thinking hard. "All right, I agree that we have to do something. Trying to avoid letting her know that we have reason to be suspicious of her is all very well, but it hasn't got us anywhere so far. What we need is information on her contacts. Donnacha, weren't you trying to work out an arrangement with the Patrol to keep an eye on her?"
He shrugged. "I did my best. They say they'll try, but with everybody chasing World Cup leads and calling on them, they're too busy to do much about it."
"I see." He paused again. "Well, it's a desperation tactic, but ... you did say something about volunteering to follow her around for a few days under an Invisibility Cloak and find out the sort of places she went to. Were you actually serious about that?"
O'Gregan and Cornworthy exchanged glances. "Yeah, why not?"
"Very well, then. I'll fill in an Enchanted Instrumentation requisition form to get one for you. As soon as you're finished with the search of Charlotte Perks' home, make a start on that." He checked his watch. "You'd better get going, the Administration Services office will be open for business in a few minutes. Good luck."
Tonks carefully hid another smile as she watched O'Gregan and Cornworthy leave. She couldn't help noticing the difference in Cassius ever since Scrimgeour had placed him in charge of the Jacmel investigation. He'd taken to it like a natural – or more to the point, like someone with years of experience who knew exactly what to do – and it seemed to have done him a power of good. She got the feeling that she was now seeing something of what he must have been like in his prime.
"What about me, Cassius?" she asked brightly.
"I want you to visit that bookshop again. Try to find out who goes there, take a good look at her stock. If you can, put a spell on anything that seems especially bad, so we'll be alerted if they're taken out of the shop."
"Like we used for Mrs Easton at the Transfigured Toad? Got it. I could even put a location spell on them, maybe? Then we could track them."
Cassius shook his head, to Tonks' disappointment. She'd thought it had been a good suggestion. "I don't think we'd get away with that," he said. "If you were a wizard inclined towards the Dark Arts, and you found a book like this in a shop apparently unknown to the Ministry, what would you do?"
"Oh, right. I suppose I'd check it for spells like that in case it was a setup."
"Exactly. But even if they notice there's an alarm spell on it, with a bit of luck they'll probably just think it's something cast by the shopkeeper to deter thieves."
"Fair enough. Do I go officially or not?"
"As yourself?" He stopped to consider. "No, after my ... er, efforts last time that would probably just put her back up again, I'm afraid. I think you might get more information if you went there with the same appearance as before."
"Excellent!" said Tonks. "I'll nip back to my flat and change then go right there – it's not that far from me. I've been hoping I could give Mavis another airing."
"Mavis?" said Cassius, with a bemused look.
"Yeah, Mavis," replied Tonks, grinning. "I decided it was about time Little Mrs Anonymous had a name, so I'm going to call her Mavis Grimble if anyone asks."
"All right. Er, why Mavis Grimble?"
"Well, Grimble seems like a nice old-fashioned anonymous name, doesn't it? As for Mavis ..." She paused and grinned again. "Doing this job has made me realise I needed to brush up on my Muggle Studies sort of stuff, so I've been watching a few more of their programmes on the telly recently. I saw a character called Mavis on one of those soup-opera things who was just like Mrs Anonymous. Perfect!"
An expression of dawning comprehension slowly spread across Cassius' face. "Oh yes, of course. My wife used to like that programme. I never watched it, of course. Well, only occasionally. Well ..." He smiled. "Actually, to be honest, I watched it often enough to know who was who and what they were doing. Rather addictive, aren't they?"
-----
One visit to Enchanted Instrumentation later – followed by an Apparation back to her flat, a quick change of appearance, and a journey across town – and Tonks once more found herself standing in front of the Lore of Yore bookshop.
She moved aside hastily as a dour-looking man left the shop at a fast pace with his head down and a couple of books tucked under his arm, then disappeared between a couple of parked cars. A sudden nagging thought at the back of her mind made her turn round to look at him – maybe his face had seemed vaguely familiar, or his clothes hadn't quite been right for a Muggle – but as she did so there was a sudden pop and he was gone.
Tonks frowned; presumably Miss Orevel wouldn't be too keen on wizard customers who Disapparated and risked drawing attention to the place. For that matter, neither was she; but when she glanced around, it was clear that at least he'd chosen a good moment. The street was empty, and the cars would have hidden him anyway.
She shrugged, went in and nodded to Miss Orevel (who looked puzzled for a moment but then nodded back in recognition), and made her way to the rear of the shop. Unfortunately, there was another customer standing in the aisle leading to the charmed door that allowed entrance into the back room, and she was forced to spend an excruciatingly dull quarter of an hour looking at books of nineteenth-century poetry while waiting for him to leave. She did however notice that these works, though apparently just as obscure as the wizarding ones, were organised with equal care.
Fortunately for Tonks' sanity, the man eventually left, and with a quiet sigh of relief she stepped through the door (quite literally) into the back room. It was just as she remembered it from her first visit, although this time there were no other customers present, which was handy. She didn't want any witnesses for what she was about to do.
Tonks worked her way around the shelves examining the books on display, noting that Miss Orevel seemed to have added a fair amount of new stock since her last visit. That in itself was suspicious; surely small bookshops selling old and obscure books for the connoisseur didn't usually have that degree of turnover? It suggested certain implications which Tonks, as an Auror, found disquieting. As she went along she muttered the titles of any books that seemed dangerous, knowing that the small notebook she'd picked up from K on the way out of the Department would record what she said and compile a catalogue of the current Dark Arts-related stock of Lore of Yore.
She checked the shelves carefully for copies of Most Potente Potions, but found none, although she wasn't sure if that was evidence for or against the idea that someone might have been using Polyjuice. The shop did have several different editions of Advanced Potion Making, but it turned out on closer inspection that her rather hazy recollections of NEWT classes were correct – although the ingredients and a general outline of the brewing method were given for all the potions mentioned, even the earlier versions of the textbook didn't explain methods of manufacture in enough detail to enable anyone to actually make the more dangerous potions. Regardless of that failed lead, however, there were plenty of other books that seemed worthy of concern.
Identifying books that might be dangerous wasn't as easy as it looked, of course. Some of them were unquestionably devoted to the Dark Arts – an obvious and worrying example being an academic treatise entitled Theory of the Unforgivable Curses (But You'd Better Not Practice). Others, with dubious-sounding titles such as Pure-Blood And Proud Of It, turned out on closer inspection to be entirely innocuous – this one was subtitled A Practical Guide To Researching Your Wizarding Ancestry and contained lots of exceedingly dull information about locating genealogical data in Ministry and family records. And conversely, still others seemed perfectly acceptable at first sight, but a quick glance through their contents showed how useful they could be to anyone with nefarious intentions – Tonks mentally classified a book called How Not To Be Seen: A Guide to Invisibility, Unplottability, Nonlocatability and Generally Preventing People Knowing You're There under this heading.
She pursed her lips in indecision; she had a nasty suspicion that what she was doing was on the borderline of officially acceptable conduct, and she didn't feel like having to explain another screw-up to Scrimgeour. Eventually she decided to simply put discreet alarm spells on the most obviously dangerous books, keying them to a panic button as she'd done when tracking Beatrice Easton. Having worked her way through the entire stock, she glanced around; she'd been rather fortunate that no other customers had turned up, with Orevel remaining out of the way in the main part of the shop. The next problem was to work out how to get her talking.
Tonks eventually came to the conclusion that the only way to do it would be to actually buy some of the works in question, and smiled to herself; by the time she was finished with the place, she'd have her own personal Dark Arts library. It took a certain amount of thought to decide which to choose, but eventually settled on the Unforgivable Curses book as the best potential talking point (and it was probably not a good idea to leave that one lying around anyway). She added a couple of books from the potions section with titles that caught her attention – 101 Interesting Uses For Eye Of Newt, Many Of Which Are Entirely Legal! and Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Bowel-Burning Brews Because It Was Far Too Disgusting – and tapped the bell on the counter with her wand
Miss Orevel drifted in with a smile on her face. "Oh good morning, it's so nice to see you back again! Did you enjoy the books you bought before?"
Loved them. I now know far more ways to make unpleasant poisons than I ever did before, always useful, that. Right then, time to play this up a bit. She adopted a slightly gushing voice. "Oh yes, I did, they were most interesting. It's so rare to find books like that nowadays outside of the big libraries. People don't seem keen to keep them in stock." Mmm, I wonder why?
Trina Orevel seemed flattered by this. "I know. It's such a pity. Just think of all the study that went into old magical methods that people don't remember any more! Are you a researcher by any chance, Miss – or Mrs, erm ..."
"Grimble. Mavis Grimble. No, I'm ... just interested in obscure magic. I have a lot of spare time these days while my husband's away on business." She nearly added that he was a broom salesman for extra colour, but caught herself just in time when she remembered that Beatrice Easton had also been a customer here. She might be using her as a model, but there was no sense in making them sound too similar. "Academic curiosity, I suppose. I was in Ravenclaw at school, but I'm afraid I don't get much chance to use that training now." She blinked. Mavis was a Ravenclaw? Where did that come from? She hadn't actually planned things out that far, but it seemed like a good approach for the sake of this conversation. Tonks was fairly sure that Trina Orevel wouldn't consider her a dangerous freak.
She was right – the bookseller looked delighted. "Oh, so was I, Mavis! It's so nice to meet someone who has the same open attitude to learning as I have!"
"Ah, er, that's good." Tonks hesitated; the tricky bit was coming up, but she really had to try it. "I always worry that people will think badly of me for buying books like this. You know, if they start gossiping?"
"Oh, don't worry about that," said Orevel in a reassuring tone of voice. "No, I'm sure no-one will think any the worse of you for it. And I certainly don't attempt to keep track of what my customers do. It's their business, after all."
"Thank you, I'm so glad to hear that." Well, no I'm not particularly, but this version of Mavis would be. She chose her next words as carefully as she could, and stumbled over them in a manner that was only partly assumed. "Aren't you ... well ... I mean, I'm just curious ... don't you get a little scared at some of the people who buy and sell things like this – I mean, I would be, maybe that's just me ... I mean, I wouldn't dare go down Knockturn Alley, but someone told me that ... that man who was in here last time I called, he has a shop there." She shuddered artistically. "He didn't look like a rough type, but I was just glad he didn't hex me or anything ..."
Fortunately, Orevel was listening to this rambling with sympathy, and unbent slightly. "I know, my dear. Yes, I get some very odd customers at times, and I do worry sometimes what they might do. But honestly, I get all sorts – some of them are looking for ideas for their business, others like to experiment, a few are amateur historians of magic. Most of the people who buy and sell books about the so-called 'Dark Arts' are really quite normal people like yourself who just read them for the intellectual interest. "
Yeah, right, Tonks thought, but she didn't say it. Instead, she tried flattery. "How do you find all these rare books? As I said, you have an amazing stock for such a small shop."
Miss Orevel almost preened. "I know. I get some from house sales and the like, but actually it's quite interesting – people seem to know to offer them to me now. They like to read them and then trade them in for something else, so I really do have a very high turnover." Her face was practically glowing, with what Tonks felt sure was genuine enthusiasm. "I really wish people would give the novels a try more often. It's absolutely fascinating to see how different they are – some of the nineteenth century literature especially, like Ena Troondeling who's a wonderful writer. Do you know her works?"
"Erm – not really," said Tonks. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she didn't want to put herself in a position where she was supposed to know what Troondeling's oeuvre was all about.
"Oh, you really should try them. I absolutely loved her Adventure Club series when I was a child."
Oh, so she's the one to blame, is she? "I see – of course, I've heard of those, yes. For some reason I never actually read them, though ..."
"That's such a pity. Probably too verbose for the modern taste, I'm afraid – I think some of those old witches just didn't know when to put down their quills! – but even so ... Just a moment ..." Orevel came out from behind the counter and moved over to the children's section, where she picked out what Tonks presumed was an old edition of the first Adventure Club book – certainly the binding looked battered. Flushed with enthusiasm, she pressed it into Tonks' hands "Here you are, my dear. I'll throw this in. I do think you'll enjoy it."
Tonks took it with as much good grace as she could manage. "Oh ... thank you." Well, I suppose I really ought to read it sometime. "I afraid I didn't ever read much fiction, even as a girl. There wasn't much time for it, I suppose."
Orevel nodded in sympathy. "That's such a pity, you know. When I was at school it was just the same, we never really got much of a chance to explore the arts. There was a Book Club once a week in the evenings, but all the tutoring was in practical subjects. Maybe it's different now – I hope so, but I'm afraid I don't have any children to tell me. Do you, my dear?"
"Oh – er, no, no, I don't. Er, we don't." Oops. I'm supposed to have a husband, aren't I?
The slip went unnoticed, and Orevel looked rather wistful. "Never mind. You know, that's why I love the Muggle literature out there so much" – she gestured vaguely towards the main part of the shop – "because they do have much better writers than we do on average, I'm afraid. And they're considered to be very important. Did you know their children actually have the chance to study them at school?"
"Perhaps that's why they're better writers?" suggested Tonks logically.
"I suppose so," said Miss Orevel with surprised look, as if the idea hadn't actually occurred to her before. "Classes in the language and its literature must really help to improve your writing skills, mustn't they?
"Probably, yes," said Tonks, uncomfortably aware of having allowed herself to be diverted from the main topic of interest to her, although at least it had got Orevel talking freely. She glanced down at the pile of books on the counter in front of her. "It's very kind of you to give me this ... the others are, well, all right aren't they? I won't have to register them or anything?"
"Oh no, there are no problems like that, my dear. They're quite legal."
Tonks wasn't entirely sure whether that was true or not, but she fought down her mischievous urge to suggest that they go and check some of the books of Wizengamot statutes on the shop's less-frequented shelves. "Thank you, Miss Orevel ..."
"Please, do call me Trina."
Very friendly of you. That's an opportunity ... "I'll take very good care of them, Trina," she said, "and keep them well hidden in case anybody breaks in. I wouldn't want them falling into ... well, you know, the wrong hands." She hesitated for effect. "Don't you ... don't you sort of worry sometimes about what people could do with them? It really upsets me to think people might steal them and use them for, you know, crimes."
For a moment she thought she'd overdone it, but Orevel just looked at her with an unhappy expression. "I know my dear, but what can one do? The Ministry are only too keen to interfere with my little business – they seem to think all my customers are potential Dark Wizards! I had a man round here a short while ago being most aggressive and offensive – and he wanted to know who I was selling to! I mean, would you have wanted someone like him calling on you to interrogate you about what you'd bought?"
"Er ... no, not really, no, I suppose I wouldn't." Tonks supposed Orevel had a sort of point there. If she reacted that way to Cassius, she definitely wouldn't like being questioned by someone like Shacklebolt or even Rhiannon.
"Exactly! I have to protect my customers."
Tonks didn't think she could make a comment about 'protecting the rest of us' and still stay in character. But she definitely thought it.
-----
"What do you make of her?" asked Cassius on her return to the office.
"Considered opinion?"
"Yes, please."
"Nice woman, not a Dark witch – but naïve at best, and quite possibly genuinely barking mad," said Tonks. "Apparently, she doesn't realise that most of the people buying her dodgier stuff are probably real Dark witches and wizards, or at any rate looking for ideas in that direction. From what she said about sale-and-return, my guess is they're using her shop as a convenient way to launder embarrassing books, and find new ways to curse and poison people. I'll bet they just copy the interesting bits and bring them back. It's not like anyone's going to sue for breach of copyright, is it?"
"I see."
"So what do we do? I don't suppose we can actually arrest her for anything, but I don't know how you'd get through to her either."
Cassius smiled sadly "That's the trouble. I suspect that she's probably correct to say that she isn't technically doing anything illegal. A few of those books might conceivably be on the Restricted Register, but I suspect most aren't because no-one's ever heard of them." He snorted. "Believe it or not, I do have a certain sympathy for her point of view, but she is truly annoying. Her shop wouldn't have lasted five minutes under Barty Crouch's regime in the war. I just wish she'd be a little more responsible. I mean, think of customers like Alexander Burke – he's probably picking up items from her that he can put in his private collection, or turn a nice profit with if he feels so inclined."
"Like you with your Quidditch yearbooks, you mean?" said Tonks, grinning.
"That's not the same thing," he said, with a dignified air.
"If you say so. Can we get the Patrol to watch the place?"
He shook his head. "They haven't got enough people. Same old story. Even at the best of times I doubt they would want to spend much effort doing that, and with all the calls on them since this World Cup furore ... The best we can do is watch for those alarm spells, and check back every now and again to see what else has been sold. You'd better drop in from time to time."
"Will do, mate. What have you been doing while I was away, anyway?"
That rated a resigned shrug. "I went to have another talk with Mrs Easton – while she was on her lunch break, so as not to draw attention to her. I just wanted to make sure she hadn't had any further contact with our seller – and frankly, to warn her that it would be extremely dangerous for her if she did, now he knows we've used her name and appearance as bait."
"Oh yeah." That's just going to keep haunting me unless we can catch him, isn't it? "He must know it wasn't her, mustn't he? I did –" she paused to wince at her own idiocy and overconfidence that night "– I did tell him my name when I was pretending to be under the influence of that stuff, just in case he happened to know who I was. I didn't expect it to matter once we arrested him."
"I realised that." He smiled cautiously, and then obviously decided to drop the subject. "I also had another word with Finley McAllister – you remember, the landlord of the Transfigured Toad? I paid an official visit this time and asked him if our friend with the scarf had been seen there again in the last couple of weeks, but he was quite insistent that he hadn't. I wouldn't expect him to give an honest answer on the point automatically, of course, but I got the distinct impression that he actually was telling me the truth, and getting quite a lot of smug enjoyment from being able to do so."
"Damn."
"I'm afraid so ..."
At that point, the main doors to Auror Headquarters were thrown open with what practically amounted to a flourish. Most of the Aurors present looked up, and either smiled or scowled as a grinning O'Gregan made a grand entrance, with Cornworthy following more sedately behind him. Tonks and Cassius exchanged looks. This seemed distinctly promising. "What's up, Don?" she said. "Find a bag of Galleons on the way in or something?"
"Better than that, my girl," he said, the grin on his face seeming practically fixed in place. He threw a roll of parchment onto the desk. "Much better than that. Take a look at this little baby, now."
Tonks picked the scroll up and unfurled it; it appeared to be the contents of several pages copy-charmed from a book. A light began to dawn as she started to read; the scroll listed the ingredients and method needed for making a number of unpleasant-sounding concoctions, including (to her complete lack of surprise) the Heart-Enfeebling Potion.
Cassius looked over her shoulder, ran his eyes down the page, and whistled softly. "Where did you find this, Donnacha?"
"In little Miss Perks' house," he said jubilantly. "Am I not right, Arnie?"
Cornworthy actually grinned. "You are. And that's not all, Cassius. We found a small enchanted cubby-hole under the kitchen floor with a cache of most of the ingredients you see listed there, some of which had obviously been used."
Tonks joined in the grinning. So did Cassius. "That's excellent, chaps," he said. "What did she say when you arrested her?"
"Nothing much," said O'Gregan. "Pulled the usual routine –" here he put on an exaggerated high-pitched voice "– 'oh no, I've never seen those before, I don't know how they got there!'. Of course you don't, dear. No-one ever does."
"There wasn't a bottle of Liquor of Jacmel, was there?" asked Tonks hopefully.
"Not a full one, no." O'Gregan's grin became, if possible, even wider. "But there was an unlabelled bottle with a few drops of some pale yellowish liquid left in the bottom. Magical Analysis are working on it now. What odds will you give me that it came from Haiti originally?"
"No takers," said Cassius, smiling. "You know, I think we ought to apply for a warrant to give our prisoner a dose of another potion, don't you? Just a little one – three drops worth. I'm sure the Wizengamot will sign off on this one." He sat back, his grin slowly spreading to take on the same proportions as O'Gregan's. "It looks like we may have the answer to one of our little mysteries, doesn't it? And with any luck, once we actually interrogate her we'll get pointers to the rest of them. Well done, everybody."
-----
The rest of the day felt a little anticlimactic after O'Gregan's revelation, but no-one seemed to mind. Tonks, O'Gregan and Cornworthy spent the rest of the afternoon writing up accounts of their activities; Cassius disappeared for a while, and on his return reported that Scrimgeour had grunted and nodded when told about the discovery (he interpreted this as approval). Even better, the Wizengamot representative on duty had promised to organise a Veritaserum warrant as quickly as reasonably possible given the large backlog of requests from World Cup-related investigations. His grin was still fixed in place.
"Has anyone told Ashford about this?" Tonks asked as she packed up her things at five o'clock. "Or her cousins?"
O'Gregan looked up. "Now that is a good point, it is. I'm afraid to say I forgot about that, now. I'll go and tell them on my way home."
"He's not going to be happy that it was his family, is he?"
Her colleague shrugged. "Ah well. Into each life some rain must fall and all that. It's never easy for the families finding out that one of their own is a crimin ... oh. Sorry." He coloured slightly.
Tonks sighed. "Never mind, Don. See you tomorrow."
As she left, she found herself unconsciously glancing over towards Kingsley Shacklebolt's cubicle. Her luck was in; not only was he still at his desk, he appeared to be alone. She made to approach him and then hesitated; although she really wanted to find out what he wanted to tell her, she wasn't at all sure it was something they would want to discuss in the office. She managed to catch his eye when he looked up, and took that as a cue to walk over.
"Hi there!" she said brightly (and loudly, for the benefit of any other Aurors who might be listening). "Look, Kingsley, we didn't get off to a good start, but can we let bygones be bygones?"
"Er – yes, I'm happy to do that, Tonks." He shook her offered hand, searching her face to try to understand what she had in mind.
"Perhaps you could let me buy you a drink tonight to bury the hatchet?" She winked.
His expression cleared as he caught on. "Great idea. Ah, I just have to finish a few things ... can I meet you at the Leaky Cauldron at six, say?"
"No problem, mate." She smiled once and walked out without a backward glance.
-----
Tonks was rather surprised by how tense she managed to get while simply waiting for Kingsley in the Leaky Cauldron, especially when he failed to show on time. She had no idea what it was he wanted to tell her, after all, or what effect it might have on her. As it happened, if she had known she would probably have been unable to stand the wait.
It was about a quarter past six when he finally arrived. Tonks tried not to fidget as he casually walked over to the bar, got himself a pint, then strolled over to her table in the corner.
"Cheers," he said, raising his tankard.
"Cheers yourself," she replied. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Input on your cousin, Tonks. There are certain things that ... give me pause for thought."
Tonks looked at him cautiously, trying to appraise his expression. "In what way?"
"There are people who should, by rights, think him guilty, who seem to think he may actually be innocent – despite the story he told being utterly ludicrous on the face of it," he said carefully. Tonks caught her breath as he paused. "And I want to know if you're one of them."
"No, I'm not," she said bluntly. "You asked me that before. Same answer as before. I'd curse him without a second thought if I saw him. OK, yes, if by some miracle there was evidence he was innocent I'd love it, but there's rock-solid proof he's guilty, isn't there?" When he remained quiet, she added uncertainly, "Isn't there?"
He shrugged. "I'd like you to see the evidence, actually. How are you at keeping secrets?"
"Not bad. Why?"
"Because I'm not sure whether my team would take it well if I talked to you about this."
Tonks felt a nervous tingle run along her spine, and hesitated; she really wanted to hear this, but ... "Look, Kingsley, I can't guarantee not to talk about something I should talk about," she said, with considerable reluctance. "So if this is dodgy, perhaps you'd better not tell me."
He contemplated her for a minute or so while she shuffled in her seat under his gaze. "Listen, you don't get very far in this job without trusting to your instincts," he said abruptly. "Or your judgement. I'm going to take a chance and show you some information from the case files. Now technically I'm quite within our rights to do this, and there's no reason you shouldn't know if I tell you. All I ask is you don't spread it about. Not everybody in my team has all the information I have, and they definitely didn't see you in action at the World Cup, and some of them don't trust you at all."
"They don't even know me!" she said indignantly.
"Exactly."
Oh, right. Tonks wasn't sure what she might be getting into; but realised suddenly that she couldn't now bear not to hear whatever it was. "You have my word I'll keep it quiet – unless it's really necessary to tell someone. OK?"
"And do I have your word that you won't freelance? I don't want to get reports of you conducting your own little private investigation on the side that I didn't know about. That would be a complication too far."
Oh, right. She thought it over again as she sipped at her drink. "I can't promise that, Kingsley," she said eventually, with a sadness in her voice even she could hear. "If you told me something I needed to … well, I don't think I could just sit back and do nothing. You must know that. It's just a case to you, after all. For me, for good or bad, it can't help but be personal." She picked up her bag and rose to leave, doing her best to hide a crushing feeling of disappointment.
"Wait a minute!" Kingsley looked at her in exasperation, and also stopped to think. "Look, young lady, I'd rather have you as an ally than an opponent on my case." He smiled mirthlessly. "And if I don't tell you anything now, you'll probably go poking around anyway, won't you?"
"Er ..."
Her expression must have given her away. He gave her a stern look. "Oh, very well. I suppose that all I'm asking is, please don't get us both in trouble, Tonks. I'd like to be able to trust you."
Oh, right. "Fair enough," she said, shamefaced. "Look ... put this in your reports any way you need to do to cover your backside, Kingsley. I don't plan on doing anything stupid. I've had one verbal bollocking about freelancing from Scrimgeour already, and he's been in an even worse mood recently."
"Right." He looked around the pub with a trace of concern. "This is rather too public. We're only supposed to be having a bury-the-hatchet drink. Is there anywhere we can go that's more private?"
"Do you know where my flat is?"
He smiled at her. "Of course I do. We put tracer spells all around it when your cousin was spotted nearby, remember, in case he turned up there?"
"Right," she said, disgruntled. "OK. I'll go there now, you finish your drink and follow me in about a quarter of an hour."