Chapter Six.
Moody watched in horrid fascination as Mundungus Fletcher cleaned out the blackened remains from his pipe. It wasn't so much the fierce concentration on the man's face, or the fact that he was idly flicking the charred debris onto the clean kitchen floor that held his attention so raptly. No, it was his method of excavating the remains.
"For Merlin's sake," Moody bellowed when he could stand it no longer. "Use Evanesco rather than the wand tip!"
Mundungus jumped, and then slowly lowered his wand and pipe. "Yeah, course!" he said apologetically. "Sort of a 'abit is that."
Moody sneered and shook his head. He had known Mundungus for longer than he cared; arrested him a fair few times and turned a blind eye when necessary. He was one of those people that you valued, but disliked. Moody saw him sheepishly cast the spell over the bowl and then slip the pipe inside his voluminous robes.
"Best clean it up off the floor too, before Molly sees."
Mundungus paled and a look of panic flittered across his face. "Oh," he said nervously. "She ain't 'ere is 'er?"
Moody nodded grimly and suppressed a grin as the wizard hastily removed all signs of his bad habit before Molly and her wrath descended.
"Well," Mundungus said jovially, "there's no real need for me to be 'ere. Done me bit as it were; told ya about 'Arry an' his plans to teach defence to the other kiddies." The wizard stood and stretched. "Really should be goin'; got things to do an' people to meet."
"I'll do yer a favour an' not ask," said Moody darkly
"Yeah." He laughed nervously and sidled past Moody towards the door.
Moody sighed as the door clicked shut behind the retreating wizard. He understood and agreed with what Potter was doing, he applauded the boy's efforts, but he knew that the decision would make it dangerous for him, his fellow students and Dumbledore. He was frustrated and angry that every step was a hardship and led them deeper into uncertainty. He had made little headway in the search for Ophelia, and the information that he had unearthed was confusing, contradictory and chilling. He would meet with his Muggle friend in the week, and Smith was due to see him soon; he would have to be content to wait. Waiting was a game that he had never liked playing; he could not shift the idea that while they twiddled their thumbs Voldemort was a frenzy of vicious activity.
---X---
The days passed quietly enough, and it was with some relish that he made his way to his meet his Muggle friend. The pub was small and nestled in a row of terraced housing, and was aptly named The Robert Peel. He had failed to grasp the humour until his friend had given him a brief history of the Police force. It had been patronised by the local constabulary and retired police officers for as long as anyone could remember.
A few elderly men played dominoes, and out of instinct glanced up as he entered the lounge; he nodded and they nodded back, professionals recognising and acknowledging each other. The landlady gave him a shrewd look and then continued polishing the pint glasses. Moody glanced round and saw his friend sitting in the far corner from where he could see who entered without it being obvious or awkward. Their acquaintance had started on very shaky ground when as young cadets in their professions they had stumbled across each other as they tried to apprehend the same criminal. It would have been an easy matter to have Obliviated the young police officer and take the wizard without fuss, but he had shown a remarkable resistance to the charm.
Confused and hassled Moody had resorted to reason, and as the curses flew overhead the young officer had agreed; Moody would take the criminal. Out of courtesy Moody had tracked down the young man after the wizard's trial and informed him of the result. The Muggle had seemed appreciative of Moody's efforts, and a tentative friendship had developed as they worked together in similar situations where the crimes of a wizard impacted upon the Muggle world.
"Good day," said Chief Inspector Bailey amiably.
"Good day," replied Moody.
"Did you perhaps know of the trouble that this simple favour of yours would cause?" Bailey asked with a smile.
"I had an inklin' that it wouldn' be easy."
The man chuckled and shook his head. "It has been quite challenging–and quite time consuming."
"Aye well," mumbled Moody apologetically. "It had to be done."
"Oh, no matter," he responded soothingly. "I got some of the new recruits on the case, gave them some hands-on experience in this kind of investigation, and I can say that it has honed their skills admirably." He lifted up an A4 brown envelop and placed it on the table. "There is quite a lot of information on her, but it really suggests very little about her. There are a few conclusions that can be drawn from the file, but I wouldn't risk basing any opinion of her on it." He inhaled slowly and he leant forwards, his brown eyes radiating concern. "I will say that my instinct tells me to be careful, but open-minded."
"As have quite a few before yer," he grumbled.
"Ah," Bailey said softly, with a smile. "Preaching to the choir?"
"Not so much the choir as the preacher," said Moody with a chuckle. "The thing is," he continued soberly, "that I'm beginnin' to wonder meself."
Moody had left Bailey sitting in the pub, his mind swirling and clashing as he pondered Ophelia. He knew where he would go next, the only logical place after reading the file.
---X---
Smethwyck had plummeted from the near pinnacle of Wizarding society to its pits. Rumours had eroded his character and a wayward son had caused his fortune to bleed away drip by drip until he had been forced to consider his son or his fortune. He had sealed his doom after excising the parasite rather than face pauperism. The decision had not been favourable met by his son, and the boy had divulged secrets to the Aurors and the press that, although, never proven had nonetheless damaged him irreparably. He had quickly and quietly departed the Wizarding world and was reported to have settled in Italy, but no one had seen fit to confirm his location. Eventually the press' interest was diverted elsewhere and Walter Smethwyck slipped from people's minds and memories. And now, after decades and a few frantic months of searching and looking under rocks on Smith's part, he was once more in a certain person's mind.
Smith glanced at the terraced houses lining the streets like glowering sentries, and tried to discern in the weak light a house number on the peeling doors. His breath misted in the cold air and the pavement was slick with a thin layer of ice. In the narrow strip of sky above the rooftops the clouds roiled threateningly, and a chill wind whistled past the chimney pots. Starlings chattered from their perches on the TV aerials and the phone lines, and early morning traffic rumbled past the junction behind him. Save for those sounds the street was dead. The clouds reflected themselves in the windscreens of the parked cars and oily puddles gathered in the gutter, oddly attractive against the grey tarmac and pavestones. A cat paused in its fastidious ear washing to stare at him from its precarious position on a windowsill, and a scrawny dog sniffed at his ankles before a gentle leg swipe encouraged it to move on.
He eventually found a tarnished metal door number, and determined that the house he sought was five houses down, past an alleyway leading to the backs of the houses. A sweet, sickly, stench emanated from the alley, and he saw rubbish bags piled upon each other, their contents spilling obscenely from pest incurred rips in the black plastic.
The door before him was equally as tatty, and by the looks of it a dog had repeatedly scratched at it. He casually slipped his hand into a breast pocket and removed his wand to cast a quick series of charms over the door. He frowned and noted with some alarm that the property was not warded. Had Smethwyck changed addresses? Ignoring the weight in his gut he rapped sharply against the door. No answer. He thumped a little louder, conscious of arousing the neighbour's suspicions; again no answer. He cast another charm and the door clicked open; he slipped into the shadowed room and pushed the door closed softly. Another smell hit him, stale alcohol and tobacco. The living room had a small coffee table, strewn with magazines, letters and other bits and pieces, and two ripped and stained arm chairs. A sideboard dominated the opposite wall and it was also covered in letters and books and bits of paper. The walls were bare plaster streaked with dirt and from the ceiling an exposed light bulb dangled pathetically. The carpet felt sticky beneath his feet and the floorboards peeked through bare patches in the dingy fabric.
He moved through an archway into a small area at the bottom of the stairs and peered into another room, a dining room of sorts, and beyond that he could see a portion of the kitchen. He took to the stairs and carefully walked up the steep narrow staircase. Bedrooms were to his left and right, and he could hear snores coming from the one on his left. He carefully pushed open the door and stepped into the room. It was dark, due to heavy thick curtains, and shadowed objects lurked in every corner. On the bed lay a man wrapped in twisted bed linen and curled into a tight ball, a few cans rested alongside him, and on a bedside table lay a collection of empty bottles.
Smith grimaced and stepped between the detritus on the floor and approached the bed. While the occupant was insensate he looked at the flushed face. The hair was thinner and grey, the face slightly fatter with a reddened and enlarged nose and a scraggly beard, but Smith recognised Smethwyck slumbering with mouth agape and eyelids only half closed. He cast a simple and important Summoning Charm, and moved to the shadows beside the large window. He grinned mirthlessly to himself and placed a full body bind on the sleeping wizard. The arms and legs stiffened and straightened, and once the hung-over man began to realise that something was happening, Smith charmed the curtains open.
---X---
Moody ground his teeth together and flexed his fingers around his hip flask; he opened his mouth to speak and then quickly decided to take a deep drink from the silver flask. He pulled a face as the whiskey burned a path to his stomach, and then relaxed when a warm wave rolled out from his gullet across his chest. He inhaled slowly and slipped the flask somewhere within his robes. Dumbledore had told him of his doubts based on what Sirius had divulged and Minerva disclosed about the language of violets.
"Well now," he finally ground out, "that does change things a bit; don't it?" His scowl deepened when Dumbledore merely nodded sanguinely while biting into his shortbread. "What had you in mind when you first realised that she was still alive?"
"I must confess," Dumbledore said slowly while wiping sugary crumbs from his beard, "that I had hoped she was distancing herself from her peers and certain principles; that she would, like Sirius, choose to walk another path." He sighed gently and tapped a fingernail against the delicate handle on his bone china cup.
"Well she bloody well didn't, did she?"
Dumbledore glanced up sharply, and then smiled depreciatively. "I went over her school reports; in fact I've learnt more about her in these last few days than I ever did while she was a student, and have noticed a few interesting facts. She was a fairly unremarkable student, neither the top nor the bottom of her class, and yet the curses she used, with a great degree of finesse, were advanced and well beyond a student of her usually observed ability. Also there were a number of unresolved incidents against certain Slytherins involving rather obscure hexes and rare potions; I remember Horace being rather put out that he couldn't invite the perpetrator to join his club." He took another bite from the crumbly, golden biscuit and watched Moody over the rim of his glasses.
"The fact is we don't know much about her, and what we do know isn't encouragin'," Moody said gloomily. "And now we don't know whether or not she was usin' Sirius as we hoped he would use her."
"Quite so, and Severus' account of her does lead us to the uncomfortable conclusion that she was a devout and loving follower of Tom."
Moody frowned and carefully studied Dumbledore. "You sound unconvinced?"
"Let's just say that until we have her, and restored her memories to her, I will be happy to give her the benefit of the doubt, however," he inserted quickly before his friend could scold him, "I will take every precaution should my generosity be misplaced."
Moody relaxed and nodded approvingly. "Are ye still thinking of havin' Lupin oversee the procedure?"
"Yes, although now he will have assistance. I was hoping that you would be there to notice any, as you said, wrongness."
"My pleasure, Dumbledore," he said cheerfully. "What other precautions are you considering?"
"She left the Wizarding world assured of Severus' loyalty to Voldemort; I wish that belief to remain unchanged for the time being. I have been considering allowing her to escape from our clutches and return to those with whom she felt safe; if her relationship with Tom should rekindle then she may be a source of information."
"Well, I'll give Snape this; he's a better spy than Sirius Black, if anyone can get information out of someone it's him."
"Precisely, Alastor."
"You know that I don't like any of this?"
"I know, Alastor, that is why I have decided to let you handle the security arrangements. You may do whatever you consider necessary to keep the Order safe and secure. I will be calling a meeting in a few days for those who will be made aware of our intentions regarding Ophelia Black; I will expect your requirements to be made known then."
Moody nodded, his mind already awhirl with protocols and security charms, and bade Dumbledore a distracted goodbye, barely hearing the old man's hearty chuckle before he Disapparated.
---X---
"Arrgh! Bastard!" He screamed as the counter-curse freed him. He wrenched his body to the side, flinging an arm over his tortured eyes and trying to crawl away. His breathing was heavy from his futile struggling against the curse, and the bed squeaked and groaned under his quaking body. Smith stood to the side of the window; lost in the glare. When Smethwyck slowly turned to face him he was just another indistinguishable shape in the shadows. Still shielding his sensitive eyes Smethwyck slowly shifted up the bed against the headrest.
"Who are you?" He asked gruffly, while peering into the shadowed corner.
"Now Walter that don't really matter, does it?"
At the mention of his long abandoned name Smethwyck's face fell and his lips began to tremble. He glanced slyly over towards the bedside table, and then gave a shaky laugh. "Well that changes things a bit." He slowly lowered his hand and moved to free his legs from the twisted sheets; some purpose directing his moves. "You must be surprised to see me of all people living in this Muggle mire?" He chuckled and slowly slid his feet to the edge of the bed next to the bedside table; from the shadows Smith grinned darkly at the wizard's futile furtiveness. "Have you come to gloat? You must have because I have nothing left for you to take; my pride has long gone, and my dignity slipped away drip by drip and drop by drop." He laughed again and waved a pale hand towards the collection of bottles. "I must say that after all these years, well decades really," he continued breathlessly, "I'm surprised that anyone would still be interested in me." His feet dropped onto the carpet and he placed his hands on the edge of the worn mattress. "Tell me what business you have with me and have done with it." One hand came to rest on his thigh while the other remained hidden from view; the fingers no doubt reaching for what he had secreted there.
In the shadows Smith's smile became more predatory and he threw the discovered wand onto the bed. Smethwyck followed it with his eyes and a frantic hand slipped between the mattress and the bedside cabinet, for a second his face was a twisted, desperate rictus before crumbling into fear and grief. Sobbing he slid from the bed into a heap on the floor and slowly rocked himself. "Haven't I suffered enough? Haven't I lost enough?"
"You have one more thing to give Walter, and then I'll leave you to your life."
"I have nothing," he wailed.
"Nothing about Sigmund Norwood?" Smith queried mildly.
"That treacherous turncoat!" he spat viciously, glaring up at Smith with venomous eyes before returning to his sniffling. "He did this to me!" he sobbed out. "And do you know what I find intolerable? That the fool didn't even realise what he'd done! He said the wrong thing to the right wizard and just like that I'm quietly expelled from the Wizengamot and my life begins its rapid decline."
"We have reason to believe that Norwood may have been involved in some less than legal activities whilst employed as an Auror," Smith spoke carefully after he had gathered his thoughts, almost cajolingly. "Activities that, should they be proven, would greatly damage Norwood's reputation."
Smethwyck stopped sniffling and rocking as the remains of his mind processed Smith's words. "Really?" he asked hopefully.
Half an hour, and a few charms, later enough of the living room had been cleaned for Smith to feel comfortable sitting in the dingy, decrepit room. A steaming cup of strong coffee rested, ignored, on the table, while Smethwyck casually sipped his own. The curtains were closed and Smith had permitted no light, his face remained shadowed and inscrutable. Disappointment after disappointment had twisted Smethwyck's mind and drink had corrupted the rest. Although Smethwyck still had his smooth voice and sharp wit he had deteriorated into a spiteful child.
"You were saying that dear Sigmund is in some kind of trouble?"
"Yes," Smith lied smoothly. "As you may be aware Madam Amelia Bones became the head of Magical Law Enforcement and has recently called for all unrolled scrolls to be re-evaluated, and in the course of following her directives we have come to a disturbing conclusion."
"Yes?" he hissed eagerly, his eyes glittering with glee.
"It seems that Norwood was abusing his position as head of the Elite Aurors," he saw Smethwyck's face spilt into a feral grin, and for a moment he feared he had gone too far, "and used dubious techniques to acquire information."
"Yes! Oh yes!" Smethwyck hissed triumphantly. "He had the backing of the public back then didn't he? A hero wasn't he? But now? What now?" Hot coffee splashed over the side of the mug and over his fingers, but in his glee the pain failed to register. "I was cast aside because I had stepped on more toes to do what was right, to do what was needed," he spoke quickly and breathlessly, "but he was lifted up as the hero renegade doing a tough job in a tough time."
Smith kept quiet and allowed Smethwyck's twisted recollections to fuel his fervour. He had no doubt that eventually Smethwyck would divulge everything as he strove to bring down the man he deemed responsible for his own downfall and pitiful existence.
"I made it possible for him; me! I saw him for what he was, a small-minded thug with a natural talent for intimidation, and I showed him his path, his vocation! Without me he would have stayed another unremarkable Auror and died at the hands of an equally unremarkable Dark wizard. Oh, I know what you're thinking! He faced Grindelwald, stared the mad bastard in the face and laughed. Bah! It was absolute terror, not fearlessness! Norwood was a fraud!" His explosive rant ended in a coughing fit, and he hastily put the coffee mug on the table to grab a handkerchief and cram it against his mouth. "Sorry," he mumbled, wiping something dark from the corner of his mouth. "Not been well lately."
"The evidence we have so far is purely conjectural and …"
"Oh yes!" he laughed merrily. "Don't think I was daft enough to leave stuff just lying around ready to be found, and no need to look so dejected, my friend, what you seek is nice and safe." A shrewd gleam came into his bloodshot eyes and he smiled slowly. "Not so daft to just give it to you either."
"Of course," Smith responded courteously, "certain provisions can be made in payment for the information provided by any civic-minded individual."
Smethwyck's smile faltered and he studied Smith carefully. After a few moments he began to talk, softly and surely, spilling his secrets and regrets.
The new department for the Elite Aurors had been legitimately created by a colleague of Smethwyck's and registered with the archive five days before the unfortunate wizard's murder. In the ensuing panic and confusion the department had been untended and forgotten. Some months later and Sigmund Norwood was selected to lead the neglected department and Smethwyck had seen his opportunity. He re-registered the new department under a new name without dissolving the existing one and thus he had created a place to store information. Only those individuals aware of the forgotten department would ever think of looking for information within it, and if the scrolls were never rolled then they would never go to the archive; the scrolls, for all intents and purposes, just disappeared. Smith was impressed despite his disgust, and resolved himself to accept that the pathetic wizard in front of him had at one time being a great strategist and formidable thinker. No amount of searching would have yielded the scrolls; it was difficult at the best of times to get unrolled scrolls from a department much less one that technically did not exist. It was the perfect hiding place; a place where no one would even think to look.
"When Norwood investigated a certain someone, that we didn't want others to know about, he would leave the scroll unrolled and divert it to the dummy departmental archive, and there it would stay unless we had need of it." He smiled dreamily and rested his head against the back of his chair. "It was elegant." He sighed happily and closed his eyes. "We gathered information and siphoned off the more interesting snippets for our own purposes." His eyes snapped open and he shuddered violently. "And then it started to go wrong. Norwood began to get greedy. He was no longer content with small changes here and there; he wanted to sink to blackmail. No longer were we influencing policy making and plucking Ministerial strings, now we were mere thieves. To make matters worse he began to include his friends in the arrangement, fellow Elite Aurors to benefit financially from my beautiful scheme. I found out about it when that Bones woman complained about mismanaging timesheets and I realised that he was taking them on certain investigations with him." He sighed wearily and shook his head.
"We keep referring to certain investigations; could we be more specific? Unless we find a suitably injured party then the case may be dismissed as not being in the public interests."
"Of course," Smethwyck agreed politely, and then furrowed his brow in thought.
"A few already have made claims against Norwood personally," he offered suggestively, "Madam Malkim and Narcissa Malfoy for instance."
"Malfoy?"
"Yes, Narcissa Malfoy on behalf of her cousin Ophelia Black."
"No, we never went after either the Blacks or the Malfoys, any interaction between those families and the Ministry was in a purely official capacity; even Norwood wouldn't have been foolish enough to attempt his little trick against the likes of them."
Smith felt his stomach churn unpleasantly as his hopes guttered and died. His last link in the chain had proven weak and he was left floundering once more. But one little hope fluttered up from the ashes like an errant cinder. "He may have accumulated information about them nonetheless?"
"I dare say he did, I know he was busy for someone else towards the end."
"What do you mean?"
"I washed my hands of it and of him, he didn't have the wit to carry it on and yet he succeeded, I can only conclude that he found another brain to suffer his brawn."
Inwardly Smith groaned, yet another thread, but outwardly he merely looked displeased. Smethwyck must have seen the tension in his shoulders because he suddenly licked his lips nervously and fidgeted with the handkerchief in his hand.
"I asked around at the time, out of mild personal curiosity you understand, and believe that one of the Elite Aurors he invited to join him finally took over; a young but fairly decent Auror by the name of Brian Topliss."