Read the Disclaimer at the very beginning of this story and the previous Chapter (6) Sorting and Ensnaring to get up to speed.

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Chapter7: Sooner, Better, Stronger, Weaker

Monday, September 30th

Auror Artemis Bettlebog was a very old woman by Ministry worker standards. But then again the average age of the average worker for Britain's Ministry of Magic was only 41 years old. Artemis hadn't been forty-one in a very very long time. It was rumoured that the former Minister of Magic had once suggested to Artemis that she consider retirement. It was also rumoured that as a result of this suggestion, Artemis Bettlebog made it nearly impossible for the former Minister to sit down comfortably for a week. Just a week after that, a new Ministry rule appreared in the Code Book; the Furnuculus hex was now labelled as a dismissable charge if used in the work place.

Artemis would no more consider retirement than she would consider playing babysitter to a pack of starved Chinese Fireballs. Not that it mattered, because no one metione the 'R' word within 10 meters of Artemis anyway. She was a short and dumpy older woman with frizzy, auburn and gray curls, which were normally snatched back into a low bun at the back of her head. Her robes always seemed too big, and looked like a tent had been draped over her. Despite her unkempt appearance, Artemis was an unshakeable lady.0

Among the younger Aurors, the unshakeable Artemis was something of a legend. She had been an Auror for nearly fifty yeas and had lived through the rise and fall of the Dark Lord Voldemort, and now the one they called Thad the Skinner.

It was remarkable enough that she had been alive during Voldemort's entire reign, but it was astounding to think that she had been working as an Auror during that time. In the office, there was a long standing joke that Artemis Bettlebog had actually been around during Merlin's time. And not only that but that she had dated the founder of modern wizardry. And though the younger Aurors tried their hardest to keep the jokes between them, they had severly underestimated Artemis and her knowledgeable sources. By far, Artemis' favorite joke was created by her very own partner. "Why was Merlin's beard so white? Because he was once engaged to Artemis."

It wasn't really all that funny after the four hundred and sixty-third time, but Artemis wouldn't begrudge them their fun. It was a much needed pastime in the Auror Department; especially with Thad the Skinner running about. It had been days since his last attack, but that didn't mean things were getting better. People were getting nervous. The more time that went by without any new developement the more frightened the people of Europe became. It probably wouldn't be so bad if they knew his motive, his method of operating, or his plans. But then, Thaddeus Skinner was no idiot. In fact there were several tidbits floating around that Skinner was a criminal mastermind. A gruesome, sociopathic murderer, but a mastermind just the same. At his last attack he had left a message over the bodies of his victims; it was cryptic and disgusting.

The message, which read 'So no army of filth may rise from their blood', is what had Artemis at the office at dawn that morning. The Department had enough information from Skinner's past attacks to know that he thought that Europe was forming an army of nonpurebloods. It was a simple enough conclusion to come to, given that 1) all the victims were non purebloods and 2) the message referred to filth, which everyone knows has never been a term given to purebloods.

So, Skinner feared a non-purblood army. As far as any auror knew there were no plans for a non pureblood army. It was the most ridiculous thing any of them had ever heard. So, there had to be more clues then anyone was seeing. This was a mystery. Artemis hated mysteries. This fact is why Artemis was in the office so early on a Monday morning. She had been thinking about the hidden message within Skinner's attacks for months. And last night she had something of a break through.

Why had Skinner chosen to kill the witches and wizards that he did? What was so special about them? What made them so different from the other thousands of non pureblooded individuals?

So, now, in her office, Artemis had gathered crime scene photos, copies of victim files, and numerous maps of Europe. She had muggle tools, as well, a magnifying glass, a slide rule, and even a compass. She had hit on something good, and as a result she had muddled up her office something awful. Her desk had gone missing underneath piles of parchment documents, her walls were littered with photos, and her personal and vistor's chairs had been overturned long ago. Her hair had exploded out of her bun, so that pieces of it looked electrified surrounding her rounded and wrinkled face. she held the magnifying glass up to one brown eye, enlarging it to the size of a saucer.

That was how Cassius Litefoote, Artemis' partner, found her at Eight A.M. He had burst through her cubicle door, after seeing a large gathering outside her office. They were listening in alarm and curiousity at the grunts and banging emitting from the rooom. Assuming the worst, Cassius held his wand tightly out in front of him, he was poised with a disarming spell on his lips with he kicked in the cubicle door.

Artemis looked up slowly, seemingly undisturbed by the loud and sudden disruption. She peered at her partner through the magnifying glass. "Sweet Merlin!" Cassius gasped out in relief. Behind him, the other Aurors peered over each others' shoulders, trying to see over Cassius' six foot four inch box frame.

"Litefoote! Pull up a chair, I've solved the mystery!" Artemis ordered, then spying the other Aurors being nosy, she shouted, "The rest of you lot better clear out before I prove those Furnuculus rumors to be true." There was a great whirlwind of rushing people and swishing robes. With a scowl and a flick of the wrist, Artemis repaired and reinstalled her cubicle door.

Cassius looked unsteadily at the old woman. Truth be told nothing had ever frightened the massive Cassius, well, nothing that is, except Artemis Bettlebog. Looking around at her disasterous office, it was clear that Artemis had gone insane. He was most certainly not going to sit across from the crazy woman and indulge her in whatever fantasy she was taking part in.

"Sit, Litefoote! We have much to discuss." Artemis stared down the enormous twenty-five year old. When he cautiously lowered himself into a righted chair, she smiled at him.

"What are we discussing?" Cassius asked of his partner.

"Thaddeus Skinner, of course. I've cracked his code."

"His code? What code?"

"I know how he picks his victims, and when and where he's likely to strike next."

"You did what?"

"I. Know. How. Skinner.-" Artemis began again, as if speaking to a child. Cassius rolled his great big brown eyes and cut in.

"No. I mean what did you find and how did you find it?" Cassius eyed Artemis' desk dubiously.

"Skinner and his followers will probably strike in one of these towns next and attack one of these people." Artemis rummaged through the stacks of papers on her desk and handed Cassius two lists. The first was a list of six or so towns and what country they were located in. The second list had names of witches and wizards and where they lived. Cassius noticed that all of the people on the list lived in a town listed on the first piece of parchment.

"Oh yeah? What makes you think that?"

"Well, it was simple really. I tracked Skinner's movements, first" Artemis spread a large map of Europe over desk. "I plotted the points he's already hit; all twelve from the past two years". Sure enough. there were twelve identical black dots hovering over twelve towns from Portugal to Ireland to Norway to Italy to France and back towards Spain. 'Then I checked any similiarities the towns may share."

Cassius looked up from the live action map. "Did you find anything?" Artemis beamed at him, the action putting an optimistic gleam in her eyes.

"As a matter of fact, I did." Cassius leanead forward anxious to hear the news. "Each of these towns is completely void of purebloods. Not only that, but the nearest town with a pureblood resident is exactly 150 kilos away from any one of the places Skinner has attacked."

Cassius stared at Artemis in utter confusion.

"You've lost me."

"Alright, well, we know that Skinner fears a non pureblood army, yes?" Cassius nodded in agreement.It was a ridiculous notion but an undeniable one at least. "And we know that all the victims so far have been 3/4 blood or less. But I wanted to know what was so special about these victims. All of them were very prominent figures in their towns, with a great deal of influence. And furthermore, accorindg to the International Ministy's yearly census, (Did you know those things still ask for your blood status?) there wasn't a single pureblood resident in those towns. It got me thinking, you know, about why it would bother Skinner so much that these people had so much power."

"Yeah." Cassius egged.

"Obviously if he thinks there' a non pureblood army rising in Europe, then it wouldn't be a good idea to have a non pureblood witch or wizard influencing the masses, would it?"

"No, I suppose it wouldn't. But there must be thousands of towns in Europe without a pureblood resident. There aren't exactly a lot of purebloods left. So, there won't be very many towns with pureblood residents. Which means that there are a lot of towns with only non pureblood residents. How did you narrow it down to these..." Cassius glanced at the first list again, "eight towns."

"Well, I looked for another common factor between the towns." Artemis explained.

"And what did you find?" Cassius inquired.

"That centuries ago, towns with a pureblood family were pretty much run by that family and any town without a pureblood family in it would be run by the nearest pureblood run town."

"Yeah, so?"

"So, this is still true in some form today."

"What?!" Cassius shouted. How on Earth could something so-so- awful, degrading, so backward, still be taking place?

"Sort of, but it's getting better. Take the town of Petitville. The Clapworthy family is the most powerful family in Petitville. They also happen to be purebloods. There are three towns that immediately surround Petitville, none of which have a pureblood resident, all of which conduct business through the Clapworthys. There's town called Vermeil that falls a bit away from Petitville; it doesn't have a pureblood resident, nor does it operate through the Clapworthys. It operates mostly through a series of independent peoples, but mainly through a man named Francois Hugo; a halfblood with a boatload of money."

"Alright?" Cassius acknowledged.

"Vermeil happens to fall exactly 150 kilometers outside Petitville. I've checked out all the twelve towns on the map. No pureblood residents, run mostly by 3/4 blood witches and wizards, and are located exactly 150 kilos from a town that is run by a pureblood or a pureblooded family."

"Alright, so using your method you only found eight other towns in all of Europe who fit your criteria?"

"Well, no." Artemis looked down at the map, as Cassius sighed in impatience.

"Well, go on, then."

"I think I've said already that I've tracked Skinner's movements? Yes?"

'Yes, you have."

"Well, I plotted his murders in order." Artemis traced the towns in order with her wand tip, the partners watched as a red line hovered from one dot to the next. When Artemis finished tracing the line, she pulled her wand back. The red line began pulsing, chasing itself between the dots. It raced from the beginning in Portugal to the end in the Western part of France.

"Sweet Merlin it's a circle!" Cassius cried in awe. The tall, solid black man hunched over the map, watching the red line move.

"Well, almost," Artemis corrected. "To get the possible eight towns, I anticipated the line of objective." This time, Artemis' wand produced a blue line, which connected the last town hit in France (which happened nearly two weeks ago) to the beginning point in Portugal.

Cassius stepped back and viewed the map as a whole.

"Now, I'm going to plot the only towns that fit all the criteria and land within the circle." Artemis' wand shot out two, tiny green orbs, which floated down towards the map and hovered over two towns.

Cassius checked the list and grinned.

"You did it Artie! You cracked the freaking code. Two years of shock and getting to the scene late and you know exactly where he's going next. We've got to tell the boss!"

"There's more, Litefoote." Artemis called to Cassius' back. He turned back around.

"More?" He asked astonished.

"Of, course, Litfoote, you didn't think I'd tell you where and not when do you?"

"You know when?"

"I have an estimate. It wasn't really a far leap."

"Tell me then."

"Every two months. The last one was a few weeks ago and the one before that was in July, right?"

"Yes."

"Right, well I've done the math. Two years, twelve murders, that's six a year, one every two months. I checked the files. The first in Portugal happened in a September, then November, January, etc. So, November should be the next one.

"In Spain," Cassius supplied looking down at the live action map.

"Most likely, yes."

"Most likely?"

"Well, I did give you a longer list, didn't I?"

"Yeah?"

"This is the bad news I'm afraid." Artemis told her partner, quietly. Cassius stared at her for a moment, before settling himself down in the chair he had vacated ages ago.

"Alright, lay it on me," He said, trying to lighten the now somber mood.

"Well, you don't think once Skinner hits Portugal he's just going to stop, do you? I don't." Artemis pointed her wand at the glowing map again. This time six tiny little orbs of yellow floated over towns on the map. They didn't follow any other patern that Cassius could see.

"I don't understand." Cassius admitted.

" I think, if we assume that Skinner will follow a circular pattern, that one of two things will happen. One; he and his followers will go outward." Artemis drew the start of a new line forming off of the blue one. This one connected three of the six dots. It was the beginning of a growing spiral. "If this is the case, my projection will show that within a matter of years, if there is no capture, Skinner will have involved countries in Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, Asia, and eventually the Americas. Within a few years, he'll have involved the whole world."

Cassius let out a low whistle as he stared at the appearing and disappearing orange line that made up the outside growing spiral.

"Exactly. Possibility two," Artemis waved her wand forcing the orange line to connect the blue line through the other three orbs. This spiral continued through the original near circle, spiralling inward. "is that after a second hit in Portugal, Skinner will continue inward, staying in Europe and murdering in almost every European nation multiple times. As, horrible as it sounds, this is the preferable option. The last thing the International Ministry wants is for Skinner to involve every Foreign Ministry in the world. They're having enough trouble as it is with the European Division."

"So, unless we catch this psycho soon, it'll be bad either way?" Cassius put out, now glarig at the orange line.

"Well, yes, both possiblities are bad, but one can definitely be considered worse than the other."

Cassius waved his wand over the huge map, causing the glowing dots and lines to disappear as the parchment rolled itself up into a scroll. He pushed himself up from the uncomfortable chair, placed the town list and name list that Artemis had given him into his robe pocket, and motioned to Artemis.

"There's an hour before lunch," he told his aged partner, "grab your files, and lets go try and beat these theories into the boss man's head, shall we?"

Artemis levitated the files she would need with a swish and flick of her wand.

"The sooner, the better." She replied, applying the phrase to much more than just the boss man's head.

He was weak. That was how he saw himself. A weak man with a weak stomach. He wanted to be stronger, so much stronger.

That was how he saw the world. In terms of weak and strong.

Purebloods were strong. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. They were strong. If his father had taught him anything. It was that. Purebloods possessed strength, strength meant power, power meant you were the best, so obviously, by this reasoning Purebloods were the best.

Non Purebloods were weak, it would only stand to reason. If the opposite of Pureblood was Non Pureblood and the opposite of strength was weakness then it made sense that Non Purebloods were weak in his eyes.

When he was young, he could remember his father complaining almost daily about the uprising of the Non Pureblood population. How the filth was infesting their noble streets and infecting their pristine air. They were an army of ants at the picnic; ruining everything. They had to be stopped.

It was one of the few things he remebered of his childhood. It was conversations like that, the constant beatings, the tauntings by his schoolmates, and the greates discovery anyone had ever made.

It was that discovery made at Hogwarts in his fifth year that had led him on the path he was on today.

The discovery told him how to rid the world of the filth and make him strong.

He vomited again.

He wasn't strong yet... but he would be... soon.

AN:

The second part is Thaddeus skinner's POV

So here's number 7... I think it's my best so far.

Sorry it's been awhile. Tell me what you think...

I've had papers, exams, and my computer broke. So this was all typed in the last ten hours on a wicked old box... which is why i don't know how many words or pages this has.

ick... i hate excuses but there it is...

again next time should have the rest of the first year classes, the first flying lesson and the first confrontation between the red and green.

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