CHAPTER 3
"I swear Colin, I saw him!" Lena was saying to her laughing partner. It was the next morning and they had been called up the Shacklebolt's office and were on their way up there.
"You saw him?" Colin scoffed, "Albus Dumbledore, the same Albus that founded the
Order, the same Albus that died over twenty years ago?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes!" Lena insisted, "He was there for a second and then vanished! Just like that!" she snapped her fingers.
"I believe you," Colin said seriously after some time.
"Really?" Lena was surprised at his change of heart.
"Yeah, you've had a rough couple of weeks with this case and maybe you're just tired," he explained, "it's happened to people before, hallucinating and all."
"But I wasn't hallucinating!" Lena protested, "he was there! He was real, solid and all."
Colin gave her a reassuring smile that told her that he was not buying any of it, but because he was her friend he would let her be. His hand was now on Shacklebolt's doorknob, "Alright," he said, "Now's the time to forget about all this because we're about to face the Shacklebolt."
Lena nodded, "Got that," she said as he opened the door.
Shacklebolt was sitting behind his desk. He had a certain affiliation for muggle clothes and today he wore a plain brown double breasted suit. But maybe it was because he lived in the middle of muggle London and so had to blend in.
"I see you got my owl," he said as they walked in, "Sit down."
The two sat opposite him as he flipped through his parchment sheets.
"Weasley came back with reports on the raid," he said, "they combed every house that had been hit and found the same thing everywhere," he pushed some pictures in front of them, "there is a gaping hole in every floor," he said.
"Meaning someone was there before us," Lena said as she flipped through the pictures.
"Yeah, and it seems like they didn't know exactly where to look," Colin chimed in, "every floor has been blown up."
"Did they find any…." Lena swallowed, "any of the creatures?"
"No," Shacklebolt shook his head, "it seems like, either they weren't there in the first place or they were taken."
"Do we know anything new about these things?" Colin asked, to which Shacklebolt shook his head.
"So we're back to the beginning," Lena sighed.
"No, there's still the case on Fiero," Colin said, "You said we're following him right?" he added after seeing Shacklebolt's expression.
"Not anymore," he said after he put the files away.
"What do you mean 'not anymore'?" Lena demanded.
"He is not in our jurisdiction; he hasn't been for fifteen years."
"But you said there was an investiga-"
"Well the Bulgarian ministry has withdrawn his case and we can't touch it anymore." Shacklebolt cut him off.
Lena drew a frustrated breath, "So then I guess that's it," she said as she slid out of her chair and walked out of the office.
Walking into her office, she opened the last drawer on her desk and took out the brown paper bag that was in there. She removed from it a bottle of Firewhisky and took a long swig from it before setting it on the table with a bang.
Searching around the cluttered table, she found the red file from the Order and started to go through it again. She took another swig and flipped a page. Swig. Page. Swig. Page. And still nothing. There must have been a reason these Purebloods were taken besides from being Purebloods that went into hiding. This all just did not make any sense at all.
A knock at the door had her snap her head up from the reading, Rose Weasley poked her head in. Lena inwardly groaned as the girl asked if she could come in. These newbies were all so excited about their first cases and wanted to share anything they found no matter how irrelevant.
Lena waved her in and Rose closed the door behind her as she walked towards Lena's desk. Straightening her large round glasses, she said, "Uh, Agent Jordan, I think I found something on the case."
"Well then," Lena motioned to the chair opposite hers, "time is of the essence."
Rose quickly hopped into the chair, the poor girl looked nervous but Lena was enjoying the feeling. She noticed that the bespectacled girl's gaze was focused on her bottle and Lena hastily put it away.
"Sorry about that," she said politely, "I hope it didn't make you uncomfortable," she did not mean a single word she said.
"No, no," the girl stuttered, "uh, here's what I found," she fumbled with her red file from the Order and placed it in front of Lena.
"Yes, the list of the victims," Lena drawled, "I believe we all have a copy."
"No," Rose replied hastily, "I mean this, do you see the names of the people, I mean their real names." She leaned closer to the desk to illustrate what she was talking about.
"Alethia, Stubbs, Thora, Deadwood, Ewann, Ten, Purr, Besure, Fas, Clair, Mason," Lena read and shrugged.
"Don't you see?" Rose asked.
"See what?"
"The names," she said, "I also overlooked them until I saw the connection." She paused to take a breath, "Have you ever heard about the House of Katharos?"
"Unfortunately I was never one to listen to fairy tales," Lena replied dryly.
"It was in an unpublished book of Bathilda Bagshot's; A History of Blood."
"Keep talking."
"Well you see, there was this man Katharos, he had 12 sons, each with his own personality. They were the first purebloods, it is believed they came straight from the gods."
"I thought the earliest purebloods were the Blacks, Malfoys-"
Lena was cut off, Rose clearly loved to take charge, "No, they were distant descendants, only shared a fraction of the Katharos blood- why do you think the book was never released to the public?"
"They wanted no one to know."
Rose nodded, "Anyway, these names are anagrams or anglicised versions of the twelve houses of katharos. Each means 'clean' or 'pure' or 'true' in one language or the other." She leaned to show her what she meant, "These people were not chosen by random. They were the descendants of Katharos, the earliest known wizard. He was a demi-god. The 12 sons correspond to 12 constellations: Alethia- Aries, Mason-Taurus, Tahor-Gemini, Asil-Cancer, Anwen-Leo, Net-Virgo, Pur-Libra, Sauber-Scorpio, Saf-Sagittarius, Clair-Capricorn, Berura-Aquarius and Nova-Pisces." Rose gasped for air once she was done.
"Where's 12?" Lena asked.
"Huh?"
"Son number 12, you mentioned eleven names, we've only had eleven cases, you mentioned Nova."
"I'm sorry, I could not find them in the missing person's database... this was just a theory Ma'am."
Lena instantly got up from her seat and walked towards the door, "A good theory, and don't call me Ma'am." She was already out of the door by then.
Rose was following her closely; too afraid to say anything else but too curious to know what her boss was thinking.
Lena went to the Records office and slammed the door open. The supervisor, Teddy Lupin looked at her with surprise and a tint of annoyance.
"How may I help you?" he asked a little coldly. No one exactly liked Lena, but all respected her.
"Pull up everything you have on family name Nova."
Teddy moved to his files and started to look, after some time he turned back and shook his head, "Nothing since 1869, and that was in Portugal."
"No lines in Britain?"
"None." Teddy replied.
"You could try um…anagrams," Rose attempted to speak for the first time since the office, "Or anglicised versions of Nova," she hesitantly moved forward to show him, "It means new or innocent going further to mean pure. So maybe you could pull up that or words linked to it."
Lupin nodded and started his work. Lena's mind was racing a million miles a minute. So what if someone had the same idea as this Weasley girl, then what did they want with these people.
"What do you think they could have in common apart from coming from the oldest line, what do you think they could want from these people?" she asked the small girl, right now, she seemed to have all the answers.
Rose shook her head, "I dunno …money, power maybe."
"How much money would drive one to find someone who literally disappeared years ago?" Lena mused.
"Found something," Lupin said.
They all moved forward to the enchanted paper.
"Jesse McLean," he said, "squib living as a muggle in Limehouse."
"Last recorded by the Ministry?" Lena asked.
"1977," Lupin replied.
"I think we have our guy," Lena said, "McLean." She scoffed at the ironic obviousness but obscurity of the name. This guy was hiding in plain sight.
"They say the best way to tell a lie is to keep it close to the truth," Rose added.
She walked up to Shacklebolt's office and knocked, without waiting for a response, she got in.
"I did not say you could come in," he growled, clearly annoyed.
"Sorry sir," she breathed, "but I think we know the next place they will hit."
Shacklebolt rose from his chair, Lena threw her file on the table, "there were thirty pureblood families that had gone into hiding, but I think they are only looking for twelve."
"And you know this how?"
"Never mind that sir," Lena hastily said, "Point is we need to get to Jesse McLean's home right now."
Shacklebolt was already sending his Patronus to Weasley's office by the time Lena was done explaining and he had his coat on in a minute.
Lena rushed outside and bumped into Colin, "I have just received an alert," he said.
"Yeah, we have to go," she replied.
The majority of the auror office was on their feet by the time they got downstairs and they were all out, apparating at the apparition point and going to said place.
Lena loved Limehouse; it was one of the few places she genuinely appreciated. The music, the mixed culture, the colours in the evening. Too bad tonight was not for recreation but for invading muggle land for someone who hopefully was the person they were looking for. She quickly walked past the crowded streets, people gave them strange looks because of their cloaks but she paid no mind. They finally reached the place, it was an old run down extension of a flat and half of it was underground. Lena nodded to Simon Nott, the leader of the team, he went down the stairs and blasted the door open. About five aurors followed behind him and when one yelled 'Clear', Lena knew it was safe to get in.
The place was just as shabby inside as it was outside; it looked like no one had been for ages. The little hallway Lena was standing in was the size of her broom cupboard and the dust was practically growing a life of its own.
"Agent Jordan!" she recognised it as Potter.
Lena quickly followed the voice and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the gaping hole in the kitchen.
"They were here," he said quietly.
"And it was not long ago," Colin added from behind her, he had a cup of tea, "Tea's still hot." He set the cup back on the dirty counter.
Lena drew a frustrated sigh, "They were here," she repeated, "and we lost them."
She walked out of the kitchen and back into the hallway, where Rose was huddled, reading a rather large book.
"What's that?" Lena asked.
"A History of Blood, I managed to find a copy from the Lost Records Department," she replied, "it's not complete though."
"Find anything important?"
Rose shook her head, "No, all I know is that the Zodiac has been completed and now, I don't know what they are going to do with those people."
"Just another dead end," she muttered.
"I'm sorry," Rose said.
Lena looked at her and gave her something like a smile, "Don't be, you led us here. You were smart enough to realise what these people are up to and now we can be able to narrow our search."
"Jordan," Shacklebolt's gruff voice was something she would never miss.
"Sir," she replied as she turned to face him.
"Well done on the intel, at least we-"
"It was all Weasley sir," Lena did not feel like taking false credit. Shacklebolt cocked his head to one side and regarded the little Weasley girl. With her oversized glasses, her thin frame, a book that looked like it was about to crush her and her shaking uncontrollably, she looked a spectacle,
"You're Weasley's girl?" he asked gruffly.
"Yy-yes sir," she said quickly.
He nodded at her, "Good job," and with that, he walked away.
"….life she's a cruel queen
Everyone must strike a deal
It doesn't matter where you've been
With that devil a bargain to seal….. "
Lena was back home, the little radio was playing "Devil Queen" by the Wailing Willows. She paid no heed to the song as she was seated at her kitchen table, one hand on her temple, the other flipping through some newspaper cuttings she had collected as a child. Opposite her, Julius was calmly sipping his milk. She had not forgotten what had happened last night but she was determined to get it out of her head.
She picked up one of the old papers, it was dated over twenty years ago, it read:
"BRAVE CREATORS OF POTTERWATCH HONOURED BY MINISTER OF MAGIC:
Lee Jordan, George Weasley and the late Fred Weasley were awarded last night by Minister Shacklebolt for the creation of the renegade radio station 'Potterwatch', the radio station that was used by the many faithful indeed helped people to safety and gave them hope during those dark times… "
She dropped the paper and picked up another one, this one read:
"LEE JORDAN LAUNCHES OWN RADIO STATION, PREDICTED TO BE ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL THIS YEAR:
The original creator of Potterwatch has moved on to launch his own Quidditch themed radio station and already ratings have been through the roof and it has not been a week yet. Critics say that this young man has a promising future…"
She picked up a third one, paused to take a sip of her wine before continuing;
"LEE JORDAN SET TO WED PARTNER OF TWO MONTHS:
Mr Jordan, who had been rumoured to be seeing Stella Faalktstog, now has confirmed the relationship by announcing that they are now engaged. The English man and the Swedish lady have been set to wed in the next month. Insiders who claim to know the young couple claim that they have nothing in common and are taking things too quickly, and it has been rumoured that this marriage is a set up. Do you think that our young man is taking things too fast? Do you think this is a match made in heaven? Please write to us to let us know."
Lena dropped the Witch Weekly cutting and reached over for a Daily Prophet one, this one was her favourite one, it had a picture of both her parents, but at the same time it was the one she hated most. It read:
"JORDAN AND WIFE FOUND DEAD IN THEIR HOME:
Lee and Stella Jordan have been found dead in their London home by the house help who came in for her shift that morning. Their five year old daughter, Lena was found and she is currently safe at St Mungo's. The auror office reports it as the use of the unforgivable killing curse but the wand cannot be traced to any registered ones in Britain. It has been a really sad time for both sides of the family and the rest of the UK too. A great number are going to miss that laugh of lee's on his talk show and radio programmes, the Minister announces that the world has lost a 'Great Gift to Radio', and that justice will prevail. Below are some pictures of the family. "
Lena put the cutting down, she had seen the pictures a million times before. Justice never did prevail, they never found the killer, he had covered his tracks perfectly. But Lena now knew him, she could place a face to this man and she was going to get justice on her own terms.
A knock at the door roused her from her thoughts, she walked there and opened but found no one. Instead, at the floor was a small red envelope, she picked it up with shaky hands and opened.
This time it read, "Run!"