A/N: I do not own or profit from Harry Potter.
Chapter 20: Case Closed
Audrey left Percy sitting alone as she disappeared to find her mother.
"Mum?"
"What happened?" Lucy turned at once from her desk.
Audrey stopped. "Hm?"
"Between Davis and Percy! Did they remember each other?"
Audrey let her mouth fall a little open as she contemplated her mother. "You set them up to meet so you could watch how they react?"
"Yes, and?"
"And..." Audrey pulled herself back into the conversation. Her mother was growing sneakier by the day. "Percy pretended like he'd never met Davis, and Davis didn't get a memory jog, so I guess whatever's happened to him, Percy's responsible. Or knows, or something."
Lucy looked worried. "Let's try and keep away from Davis, Audrey. We don't want anyone being hurt if we involve them..."
Audrey studied her face. "Mum, Percy works for the government. Surely he's safe."
"And yet." Lucy reminded her. After a moment spent letting her point sink in on Audrey, she turned to lead her daughter back to the living area.
"Percy, so glad you could make it!" Lucy sat across from him, warm and welcoming as ever.
"I'm glad you could have me." He let both women settle in before beginning. "I'm afraid this call is strictly one of business."
"I understand." Lucy folded her hands, her eyes falling on Percy's briefcase, as if the answers to all her questions lay there. Percy's fingers slid nervously over the leather case as he began.
"First of all, I think you both should be informed that this morning, our investigation into Michael Bones' homicide was closed."
Lucy twisted her fingers together, her face remaining attentive.
"The case is to be kept confidential if possible. Our Department Head does not want this leaking to the press or the public."
.
"But why get rid of her?" Bill asked as they leafed through papers. "I mean, sometimes it takes years to tell a squib from a wizard. She couldn't know before birth."
"Ever heard of divination?"
Bill snorted. "I thought you didn't believe in divination. I thought you only believed in logic and reason."
"I do. But she may not have."
"That still doesn't..."
"And," Percy interrupted him, "She was said to be in love with the Dark Lord, plus married to Lestrange. It would have been awkward on both fronts for her to produce a child. Plus, knowing Lestrange, she probably didn't want a child anyways. Can you see her as a mother?"
Bill paused a moment. "No."
"See." Percy turned his gaze back to their work. "So. First of all, she didn't want a child, ever. Secondly, this child was an illegitimate lovechild born not of her husband and not of her master, but of her brother-in-law. Thirdly, she apparently guessed that the child was at least weak in magic. You know how mothers often can feel their child's magic moving, or whatnot, in their womb?"
"Er...yes." Bill shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, this child obviously would have lacked that. And knowing Lestrange...if her baby wasn't the best, it wasn't to be at all. Having a child that was anything less than a prodigy would be an embarassment and disprove the whole idea of pureblood supremacy. Lestrange would have fallen out of favor, and, well...she wasn't about to jeopardize herself."
.
"Because of the nature of this case, I'm afraid that as I said before, even the two of you can be told little."
Audrey made an impatient movement, stilled by Lucy. "That's fine, Percy."
"But why?" Audrey asked. "Can't you tell us why we can't be told?" She let him struggle for an answer before going on. "You said once that Dad was involved in something that was...I don't know, 'monumental importance to our government', was it?"
He shifted. He should have been more careful in how he defined government. "Not him, exactly. The ones who killed him. And," He hastened to add, "I said that in a time when we still had many questions, many unknowns to fill. I am now more able to pinpoint the reality of the situation."
"Then, please." Lucy said, taking Audrey's hand. "Share what you can."
Percy nodded and glanced down at his notes.
.
He downed another doseage of pain potion, scowling at the images before him.
One was a copy of a murder case file from the Parisian police. James Scott, aged 49, deceased.
Cause of death: Unknown, possibly heart failure.
Percy scribbled down his notes. He'd have to send a copy of this to the French Wizard Police, tell them what he had found. The pictures were telling enough. It was a simple Avada Kedavra, performed on 13 January, 1997. A witness had seen two men entering the crime scene, but not leaving.
The second picture was of a woman. Carol Berger, aged 37. Cause of Death: Unknown. But she had put up a fight; she had, unlike either man, tried to run.
James had been the manager at Chez Madame's when Audrey was born. Carol had been the dishwasher who found her. Both had moved on. James had become a restaurant manager in France, Carol had moved to America and become a journalist. Both had died the same night as Michael. They had been one of Percy's last threads of evidence, now cut off.
But of course, he thought dully. Three people found Audrey. Three people could tell about that night. Three people spoke to the police about it. All three would have to be got rid of to hush it all up. And they had been. Their killers had been meticulous, organized, thorough, and above all, very determined.
How very like a Lestrange.
.
"Well." He began. "Here is the basic of what we know."
"Your biological mother was a forefront member of a known group of radicals, the identity of which is to remain confidential. Your biological father was also of prominent ranking in this group. His wife was your mother's sister, making them in-laws."
Audrey's face crinkled a little at this piece of information, but she said nothing.
He went on. "At some point in 1976 the two became involved with one another, though the affair did not last and was never even suspected until recently. After repeated attempted abortions, the mother resigned herself to giving birth, with probable intent to kill you as soon as you were birthed. On the 13th of January, 1977, she was assisted in birth by her sister, who gave the child-you, that is-to a servant and sent it away."
"You, or the child, were found later that night by one Michael Bones in Chez Madame's restaurant in London. You were taken to the hospital, treated, adopted, and so on." He skipped over the particulars, returning to Lestrange. "Twenty years later, your continuing existence was brought back the attention of this organisation. Your mother, to save her own face, chose to kill those who might still be able to prove the connection between you and her. Michael Bones was obviously the first to be eliminated."
They were still waiting, waiting for him to say something that would shock them. Clearly they'd talked one another through every possibly motive or scenario. Well...maybe not every scenario. The truth, he knew, was something neither of them would ever guess.
"On 13 January, 1997, Michael Bones was found dead. He was, as suspected, murdered. The cause of death is also to remain confidential. I can, however, assure you that it was a death both quick and painless."
"Why was he screaming?" Audrey asked softly. "His body was positioned so oddly, and he was screaming..."
"That," He paused in his outline to reply, "Is a frequent effect of the particular manner of his death. It is a common position the body assumes at the moment of death, but does not necessarily prove that the death was an agonising one." He waited, and when neither asked anything more, went on to his conclusion.
"The motive for which," here he came to the difficult part, "Lay within an old tradition amongst certain members of this radical organisation. According to their beliefs, all unfit children are to be killed to purify their gene pool. Michael Bones, unfortunately, came in their way unawares, by taking in one of their abandoned children. "
"Me." Audrey interrupted.
"Yes."
"So it was my fault." It was a straightforward assumption.
"Not you..." Percy searched for words for the first time. "You were the motive. But that doesn't mean it was your fault."
Audrey raised one eyebrow, and for one bitter second did look like a Black, did look very much like her mother's ancestry.
"It was their fault." The words fell out of his mouth in a firm tone as he tried to stay that look off her face. "It was theirs."
.
Of course, it hadn't been Lestrange who had done the job herself. Oh, no, that would have been too obvious, Percy mused bitterly. Lestrange had been at Malfoy Manor that night, according to her sister and nephew.
So she'd sent someone else. Someone who followed orders and didn't ask. Not a glorious killer who enjoyed the blood, like Greyback. Someone mechanic, someone stupid. Someone who was a dedicated Death Eater, and yet hadn't been at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries.
Luca Hatley had been one of the ones whose whereabouts were unaccounted for. Also, Uther Selwyn. Percy had gone down the list of names and pinned those two to the scene. Records from his family stated that Hatley had gone out late on the night of 13 January and returned less than an hour later. Uther Selwyn had a curious puncture in his left shoulder. The wound was matched to a bloodied pencil that had been at the scene of Carol Berger's murder. The evidence was by no means foolproof, but Selwyn could at least be placed as Berger's killer, and he was known to work often with Hatley during the War later that year.
Percy wrote it all down, not liking his findings, but forcing himself to put them down anyways. Forcing himself to do his job and well, forcing himself to prove that Audrey was Audrey Black-Malfoy, not actually Audrey Bones at all...
.
Lucy took in all he had to say in silence. At long last, she was able cognate a response.
"Allow me to ask you something, Percy."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Are we in danger here?"
"If they had wanted to kill you," He assured her. "They would have already. I think it's fairly proven that they can't be avoided. You are in no danger that you do not put yourself into." His gaze flicked meaningfully over to Audrey. "As long as the witnesses to your birth are silent, and the witnesses to your finding are dead, there is no reason to believe that they will come back. If, however, you choose to inform them of your existence..."
"Then what?" She asked.
"Precautions will have to be made." He finished. "We've succeeded in putting a stop to most of their doings. But as long as a few exist, we would have to be sure of your safety before releasing such news as general knowledge." He wouldn't say it to them, but he was more worried about the common Wizarding World than the remaining Death Eaters. The Death Eaters were down, they wouldn't give a damn about Audrey. But the rest of the world hated Lestrange enough that finding she had a daughter would be...disconcerting. And unfortunate. He waited for one of them to respond.
Audrey stared down at her hands as the silence pressed down on them.
"So that's it." She said finally.
"That is all." He responded, back to that stiff, formal bureaucrat he'd been at their first meeting.
But you haven't told us anything, she wanted to plead. "Can't you tell us anything more?"
"I'm afraid release of any further details are barred by the Department. Disclosure of said information can only be given with the permission of the Department Head or his superiors." He sounded like an automated broken tape. Audrey pressed her hands to her forehead. Was that a headache throbbing at the back of her head?
Percy watched her, aware of how stern and yes, ridiculous, he sounded, but determined not to lose face. Not now. It had been a trying day, but he still wasn't out of it yet. Her reaction was going to be...well, everything. It would mean nothing in the wizard world, wizard life would go on. She couldn't affect them a jot.
But for him, specifically, it was going to make quite the difference. This, he realised, is the part where she gets angry and tells me she only went out with me because she wanted information and now she hasn't got it, and I end up running away. This is that part of the story, isn't it?
She was looking at him, deep lines across her brow, half-angry and half-tired. "Is there a way I could get that 'disclosure' of further information?" She asked quietly.
He met her eyes with all seriousness. "I have entertained the thought. It is possible for you on the basis of your birth and blood relations, to gain some form of status that would allow you information. But it would entail a great deal of time, and a great deal of paperwork." Time and effort that the Ministry simply didn't have the resources for. "I would, however, advise you to wait if you intend to apply for auxiliary status. We're severely short staffed, and we have a lot of work to be done. It simply wouldn't be convenient for anyone at the moment." He cleared his throat, looking away. "And I warn you, that you will not like what you hear."
"I don't like what I'm not hearing." She responded drily before leaning back. "And Mum?" She looked at Lucy, and he followed her gaze.
"I'm afraid that you, Mrs. Bones, cannot apply for auxiliary status. If Audrey were to gain entry, she would have to keep all details, and even most generalities, undisclosed to you."
Lucy only nodded, calmly accepting his words. "But you advise we wait until...a more convenient time?"
Percy wet his lips. "I'm afraid that applications at the moment will only be put on hold. I'm not even sure I could find the proper paperwork, our archives and records are...faulty, at the moment." Faulty. What a pretty word for those huge rooms of wrecked paper, files, archives, documents...It had broken Percy's heart to see the disorganised, brainless Maurice Mulligan put in charge of records under Thicknesse. He absently wondered if that was to be his new position before returning to the task at hand.
"We will talk it over and decide later." Lucy said, still calm. Too calm.
"I'll leave you, then. I'm sorry all of this had to happen." He told them both. "And I'm sorry that I can't tell you more."
"Don't be." Lucy rose with him. "Really, Percy, we thank you so much. You've given us a degree of relief we didn't think we'd have."
Percy ducked his head as Audrey faintly echoed her mother. He could sense her disappointment. Her body language was clear enough as she led him back to the door without a word. Yes, she was tired, very tired. At the door, she stopped and turned back to face him.
She wanted to reach out and touch him. He looked so stiff, like someone had shoved a snowball down his shirt. "Percy."
"Audrey." Here it comes, he told himself. You knew it was coming. Now she goes off in your face, Weasley.
"I do thank you, really." She said honestly.
"I did only my job." He murmured, not looking at her.
She shook her head, at a loss for a moment. "But that's the point, Percy, it is your job, and you've done it well. Thank you. Please accept our gratitude."
"Accepted." He waited. Surely there was more.
She glanced up at him. "I'm going to try to get more information."
"I can get you the paperwork, though you will need someone to help you fill it out, and you must be aware that you may be rejected as unsuitable."
"Would you?"
"Would I what?"
"I know you're busy." She ducked her head. "But if I absolutely need someone to help me out..."
"Oh." He rubbed his brow. "Well, yes, I could help. If you wanted."
"Good." She smiled for the first time, and the tension seemed to ease enormously. "Thank you so much."
He gave a nod, feeling himself relax with her as he shifted his briefcase to his other hand. "I'll get it as soon as possible and have you look it over."
"You don't discourage me from trying?"
He thought a moment before responding. "Frankly, Audrey, it has been my experience with...women of your family, that when determined, you can easily become unstoppable."
She quirked a smile as he reached for the doorknob. "I'll take that as a compliment, though I'm not sure that was how it was meant."
"You're welcome."
She let him go out the door, then stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Percy?"
"Yes?"
Stupid, you should have stopped him before, she berated herself before leaning up quickly to drop a kiss on his cheek. "We really appreciate this." She murmured, still close.
"My pleasure." He responded, then kicked himself for the way that sounded. He would have preferred a kiss a little closer to his mouth, but he'd settle for what he had got. She tentatively pulled away with another smile, and he bid her good-night. As he turned to walk out of sight, he let relief wash over him.
She hadn't told him off. She had kissed him. And they had a reason to meet again. Ergo, it wasn't over.
He breathed a sigh.
That had gone unexpectedly well.