"So, how was the crime scene?" Jacques asked with a grin on his face, that made her roll her eyes.

She couldn't blame him for being excited, as he had been chained to this desk for quite some time now. Ever since the incident with the fireworks that exploded right into his face, leaving him with terrible burns, damaged eyesight and hearing, he had to stick to paper work, as Deschamps wanted to be sure her friend would be fully recovered before he allowed him to get back to field work.

She missed having him as her partner. Even someone so mean and impassive as herself couldn't dislike Jacques, as he continued to infect her with positive energy, which turned out extremely helpful when it came to doing their job.

"Weird, to be honest. We have no idea who the victim is, nor have we any suspects. The cause of death was incredibly uncommon, though..." she said with a frown, while Jacques shifted excitedly.

'"What was it?"

"Two cuts on the neck, deep and narrow. There was a lot of blood at the scene. Those freaks from downstairs were so excited that they've almost missed those strange marks around the wounds," Clarisse explained and sighed. "Harold claimed that it was dried saliva, although I don't know how is that even possible. Whatever it was, it was grey."

"Well, was it human at least?" Jacques asked and frowned. "And who the hell is Harold?"

Clarisse looked at him with amusement and shrugged.

"We're waiting for the test results. And Harold is that guy from Forensics that keeps asking me out."

"Riss, his name is Herbert," Jacques informed her with a huge grin, making her very confused.

"Is it now? Then why would he react to Harold?"

'"Because he fancies you..." her friend rolled his eyes and shook his head with disbelief. "You should treat people better, my friend."

That was probably correct. People didn't deserve having their names messed up by her, simply because Clarisse was too busy to care. She found, though, that her weird system of acquiring new friends worked quite well, at least for her. All of the people who weren't persistent enough to break through those thick walls of indifference that she built around herself clearly weren't worth her efforts.

"Yes, I've heard that one before," she agreed eagerly and looked up towards the ceiling.

One of the coolest things about their office was the enchanted ceiling. She generally disliked foreigners in the department, but that one guy who finished Hogwarts turned out to be quite brilliant. He came up with the idea of enchanting every room's ceiling to look exactly like the one in 'Great Hall', which, apparently, was a place where every student dined during their stay at school. It took a lot of work, but at least everyone could enjoy staring at the sky, while being chained to their desks. Not that it happened all that often to someone like Clarisse.

"What's taking him so long?" she muttered to herself, thinking about her boss.

In response, Jacques sighed in irritation.

"Riss, our boss is a busy man. I told you that he's having an important visit. I don't know what's it all about, but those men that arrived at our department this morning looked very... Well, very British"

Clarisse snorted with amusement. What did it even mean? How could someone look British?

"Did they come here wearing only British flags?" she asked with irony and earned herself a glare.

"Not really, no. But they did wear a look full of superiority," Jacques explained proudly, making her chuckle out loud.

"Wow, now I'm convinced," she laughed and awaited a snarky comment form her friend, which never came.

A familiar Patronus interrupted their conversation, as once again, she got summoned by her boss.

"Finally!" she exclaimed and jumped out of her chair, smiling with satisfaction. "I guess I'll see you later."

With that, she waved Jacques goodbye and exited their office, following the Patronus, which clearly got the assignment to lead her straight to her boss, wherever that might have been. Clarisse didn't care all that much, but when they've passed his bureau, a frown appeared on her face.

The Patronus led her to the biggest conference room her department owned, which did nothing to diminish her curiosity. Without hesitation, she knocked on the door and entered the room, not waiting for response. As soon as she crossed the threshold, Clarisse looked around, carefully taking in the sight of five man sitting around the wooden, mahogany table. Two of them she recognized without a problem, as it happened to be her boss and one of her colleagues, Antoine Fabré, a brilliant Auror who served as one of her mentors during the Auror training.

The other three she had never seen before. The one sitting the closest to her was also the youngest, as she judged from his looks. He had brown, short hair, that tended to curl at their ends and dark eyes - maybe brown or grey, she couldn't tell from such a distance. His face didn't express any emotions, but that didn't surprise her. Most of the Aurors possessed the abilities to hide their feelings and every person in this room undoubtedly shared the same profession.

The other stranger sitting to his left was older and much more experienced in the field; numerous scars covering his face testified to that. He looked much more pleasant though, as a smile graced his lips, making his blue eyes twinkle lightly.

The last person made her insides twist with excitement. She hadn't known the man personally, but it didn't take a genius to figure out who he was - Harry Potter sat at the same table that she was clearly invited to join, judging by her boss' summon. He didn't look spectacular, which was probably the reason why she didn't recognize him right away, but the scar visible on his forehead left no doubts as to his identity.

Clarisse never excelled at following society rules, but it seemed clear that staring at strangers, no matter how famous they were, wasn't particularly civil, so she averted her gaze to her boss and said:

"Auror Deschamps, you wanted to see me."

"Auror Bouchard, please take a sit."

After seeing Potter, it didn't surprise her that her boss switched to English, as it was highly unlikely that any of the strangers would be able to speak French. Nonetheless, hearing her boss speaking a foreign language made her feel weird, to say the least.

She decided not to dwell on it though and moved forward in order to take a seat opposite of the youngest visitor. After she made herself comfortable, she looked across the table and smirked slightly at the man watching her cautiously. His eyes were definitely brown and not grey like she initially suspected.

"Gentlemen, this is Auror Clarisse Bouchard. I believe I've told you enough about her already," her boss' words made everyone nod at her in a brief greeting and she felt complied to reciprocate their gesture. 'Bouchard, this is Auror Potter', he gestured towards the one man that she recognised.

Potter smiled at her and Clarisse had to admit that he didn't seem all that intimidating, as she would expect from the saviour of the wizarding world.

"This is Auror Ashworth."

This time the scarred man raised his hand in a greeting, smile still visible on his face, only this time it widened slightly.

"And last, but not least, Auror Finley."

The youngest man definitely didn't seem as amiable as the others. He only inclined his head, not tearing his gaze away from her face. Clarisse had a strong feeling that he tried his best to make her uncomfortable, which only proved that he didn't know a single thing about her; she really wasn't the one to get scared away by a mere look.

"Pleasure to meet you all, gentlemen," she stated firmly, smiling airily.

"Likewise, Auror Bouchard," Potter answered, filling the room with a melodic, British accent, that made her body tingle with excitement.

She always had a thing for that particular language, especially if it sounded so beautifully. Clarisse didn't even mind that her last name sounded a bit funny in his mouth. French had to be difficult to foreigners, now that she thought of that.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked, focusing on her boss again.

She watched as the man stood up slowly and cleared his throat, readying himself to speak.

"Before I explain everything to you... What did you find at the scene after my departure?"

Clarisse raised her brows and skimmed her gaze over everyone at the other side of the table. Her boss provided her with a perfect answer as to why she found herself in the room filled with Englishmen, without even trying to do so. Apparently, their visit to the French Ministry of Magic had something to do with the recent murder. But why would they be interested in that particular case?

'Not much, to be honest. The priest spent most of our talk praying for the soul of the deceased woman. I got a feeling that he tried to deflect our suspicions from him, as he was fully aware of being the closest thing we had to a witness. He arrived at the Notre Dame at dawn, just like he always did, but before he had entered the church, he spotted our unfortunate victim. He checked her vitals, called the ambulance and the police right away," she sighed and looked up towards the ceiling. "Like I said, he wasn't very helpful. There were no signs of struggle, murder weapon hadn't been found and we still don't have any leads."

Even without looking at the men sitting at the table, she could tell they weren't impressed with her detective work. She wasn't impressed by it as well, but this case proved to be even more difficult than she initially made it out to be. Not even someone with a natural gift for spotting things hidden from the eyes of many others, could solve every single crime. Especially not the crime so mysterious and well-executed.

"Tell us about the wounds," Ashworth spoke, clearly meaning for her to continue her speech.

Clarisse looked at him with a slight surprise, but decided to indulge him and said:

"The victim suffered from two cuts to her neck - narrow, but deep enough to sever the arteries, causing her to bleed out at a rapid pace. Our Forensics Department claims, that those wounds had been inflicted using a magical artefact of some kind, as traces of magic were found inside of them. It was a very neat work, if you're asking me," she stated and furrowed her brows, when the image of those weird marks popped into her head.

Clarisse wasn't sure if bringing this up was a good idea, since they possessed no answers as to what those marks meant and frankly speaking, telling those foreign Aurors that their Forensics claimed that they were made of saliva didn't sit with her well.

'What about the marks?" Auror Finley spoke for the first time and she switched her gaze to him immediately.

His voice seemed harsh, hostile even, which felt quite surprising considering the fact that he didn't know her. Despite her thoughts, she smiled airily and said:

"Since you're aware of their existence, you probably already know everything I can tell you," she said and watched as a smirk appeared on his face. "Our people are examining them as we speak, but their first opinion was rather... Interesting."

She switched her gaze towards her boss, who nodded at her lightly, urging her to continue. Apparently, he no longer believed this whole thing to be ridiculous. Very interesting, she thought to herself and smirked.

"Apparently, those greyish marks are made out of saliva."

Englishmen exchanged glances, but they didn't seem amused. If she had to describe their expressions, she'd say that they became even more serious.

"This is not good news," Potter muttered and sighed, while Ashworth nodded grimly.

"Not good news at all."

Clarisse furrowed her brows and bit the insides of her cheek, a very painful habit of hers that occurred only when she was stressed. Something about the tone of Potter's comment made her incredibly disturbed and she didn't like that feeling in the slightest.

"Clarisse..." her boss addressed her by her name, something he did very rarely. "I'm afraid that this murder will be just the beginning of a series of crimes."

She couldn't say she was surprised. After all, the murder didn't look personal. Usually, those kind of crimes were committed in haste, in passion. This one, however... This one was executed in cold blood, despite the obvious narrow frame of time available. It certainly looked like something that a serial killer might have done. But how did the murderer manage to make his first crime so perfect?

"I figured," she muttered and met Finley's gaze, who looked at her with a frown. "But that doesn't explain why they are here."

Her boss cleared his throat once again and said:

"It does, in a way. They are here, because those murders had been happening for quite a while now. Only, they've been happening in Great Britain."

Clarisse had to fight the urge to smirk, as the realisation dawned on her. Ah, so that was the reason for Mr Finley's hostility. He wasn't able to catch the murderer on his own territory and now the culprit had fled the country.

She knew though, that saying anything out loud would be considered quite inappropriate and she doubted her boss would approve her behaviour. The woman bit her tongue and tilted her head, waiting for Deschamps to continue.

"What is even more disturbing, is that the most recent murder occurred today."

Okay, so she wasn't expecting to hear that. Even with the ability to Apparate on the spot, it wasn't a common practice to just disappear out of the country after committing a murder. Not even criminals wanted to leave their homeland, believing their skills to be sufficient to let them walk undiscovered.

"Well, that probably wouldn't be the first case, when the murderer fled the scene of the murder, even if it is tad uncommon for the criminals to leave the entire country afterwards," she shrugged, watching for everyone's reactions.

Potter was smiling, like he knew something that she clearly didn't, Ashworth looked quite amused, while Finley continued to frown at her. What was his deal? He wasn't so hostile towards her boss, was he?

"True. But it would be even more unusual for the culprit to be in two places at the same time, wouldn't it?" Ashworth asked and quirked his eyebrow at her.

"Is that what happened?'' she said with a dose of uncertainty in her voice, making Ashworth laugh.

"Yes, Auror Bouchard. It would certainly seem so," he nodded after a second and looked towards her boss, who opened his mouth to speak.

"Forensics don't have much, but they estimate the time of death between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m."

"Which is the exact time frame for our murder," Potter added and Clarisse sighed.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a coincidence. Not that she hoped for that anyway - apart from the rarity of culprits leaving the country, the fact that not many people, in their right mind or not, could have executed two perfect murders on such short notice happened to be pretty undeniable.

"Huh... That's not very good news indeed," she muttered and earned herself a snort from Auror Finley.

"What a brilliant observation! Do you have more of those up your sleeve?"

Clarisse didn't even flinch at his comment, deciding that her fiery temper could be relieved later, in the training hall, rather than on a meeting like this one. She might have been rude, mean and generally uncaring, but she definitely wasn't stupid, which clearly separated her from Auror Finley.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she stated dryly and averted her gaze.

What a prick, that one. She really hoped that this whole serial killer thing wouldn't turn out to be an international case, because Clarisse highly doubted that she was capable of tolerating Mr Finley on everyday basis.

"Clarisse..." her boss reprimanded her, forcing her to roll her eyes. "There are much more important things right now. The British Ministry was unable to locate or even identify the culprit, as there was no evidence left behind and the victims weren't connected in any way. Catching the killer should be of uttermost importance."

Of course it bloody should. He didn't have to remind her of that, she wasn't the one acting like a spoilt brat, was she?

"What are you proposing, then?" Clarisse asked despite her anger and watched everyone exchange knowing glances.

Great. Apparently her worst nightmare was about to come true, since all of the men had clearly reached a decision before she had even arrived at the conference room.

"I believe it would be best, if we formed an international team, which goal would be purely to catch the person responsible for all of this," her boss stated and Potter nodded his head with a smile.

"I agree. It's clear that the way we work in our Ministry proved itself to be insufficient. Maybe a different perspective would be in order, especially considering the sudden arrival of our murderer in your country," the War Hero said in a friendly matter, that did nothing to lighten up her mood.

She fully realised that the man was right. It wasn't shameful to ask for help, not in their line of business. Innocent people were dying and this had to be stopped, no matter what. That fact didn't make her urge to moan in despair any lesser, though.

"We would like to form the team consisting of everyone in this room," Ashworth said and smiled at her. "We've been told that you and Auror Fabré are the best people that the French Ministry can offer."

Finding herself amongst the best of the best was surely a huge compliment, but in this case, it didn't make her exactly happy. Everyone knew she didn't pass as very sociable and working with complete strangers didn't sound appealing. Not to her, anyway.

"I'm honoured, sir," she said, despite her thoughts and smiled at her boss. She then switched to Fabre, who was unusually quiet, but reciprocated her gesture nonetheless.

"You should be, Clarisse. It's a huge opportunity for you and I will be very disappointed if you decide to waste it."

It was a good thing then that she would never decide to do something so stupid. Not willingly anyway, she thought to herself, locking gaze with Finley once again. If anyone was less happy about their newly found team, that bloke would definitely win the competition without any doubts.


Another chapter, just so you can understand the setting a bit better! :) It definitely was fun to write, so I hope it shows just fine.

Let me know what you think :) Do you like Clarisse so far? What do you think will come out of this international cooperation? :)

I'd love to know!