The Pretender

I'm back! I promise, I didn't abandon this story, some other projects just took priority for while. Let me know what you think, what you suspect, what you like, anything really.

Chapter 9

"A hunt?" Break had perched himself in his now customary place on the edge of Lunettes' desk.

"At least attempt to keep your voice down." Liam's voice sounded too distracted to have any real bite in it as he shuffled his papers and scrolls into various drawers in his desk, sealing each drawer with a tap of his wand. "You know this type of thing is best kept quiet."

"You're telling me." Break pointed out. This would normally be the part of the conversation where he would pull out a sweet to munch on and make some teasing remark but the idea of Lunettes going out into the field to hunt down a Death Eater with only Nightray to watch his back had him feeling unusually somber.

"Only because you should know. And you'd raise a fuss if I vanished suddenly." Straightening from placing scrolls in the last drawer Liam glanced at him. "Or, at least, I feel as if you would."

"I would." Break assured him and there was no hint of a tease in his voice. "I would raise the most loud fuss if you disappeared."

The look that flitted briefly across Lunettes face might have been relief, but it was gone too fast for Break to quite catch. Then he spoke as if there had been break, no little crack in… whatever it was he did. "And that's why I'm telling you. Vince and I will be leaving soon."

"Any idea how soon you'll be back?" Break asked, carefully neglecting to add what he was thinking, which was "Any idea if you'll be back?" Liam was an Auror, had been an Auror for ages, surely he could take care of himself.

The other man shrugged. "A week, two weeks, you know how these things work. It's hard to say."

Break took Liam's cloak, it was the heavier one, made for very cold weather, he noted, and offered it to him. "Let me know when you get back?"

"Don't worry," Lunettes said, taking the cloak and seeming to understand what he was really asking, "I'll be alright." He settled the cloak over his shoulders and smiled, perhaps a little sadly. "After all, I have Vincent to look after me."

After Lunettes left, that sewer rat of a partner meeting him at the door and casting a smug look at Break as he walked out with him, Break slid off the desk until he was sitting on the floor. There was little he could do about the fact that Lunettes would go off into the field if he had a lead that put him close to catching a Death Eater. If it was up to Break while he had such an… unsavory partner he would rather Liam stay in the office where it was safer. Well, as long as he stayed away from stairwells, of course.

Still, they had jobs to do, those of them who were not still technically on medical leave and even he had a report he was supposed to be writing. Which he had no intention of working on, even with Liam away hunting.

In fact, he had a very different plan for the time now open to him. One Liam would probably not approve of at all.

"Student records?" Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, raised silvery brows as he regarded Break, who was sitting in front of his desk. "Why would records of this nature be of interest to an Auror?"

"Simply an ongoing investigation." Break smiled his best 'trust me, I'm ever so harmless' smile. "No matter for you to worry about."

"You do realize that as headmaster it is my duty to protect to privacy of all those young people who pass through these halls."

"I do. However it is information that I need badly." Badly enough not to go trough official channels, which would raise multiple red flags back at the Ministry and take far too long. "Trust me, I mean no harm to any student of yours."

"Even to former student whose history you pry into?" the very piercing look in the old wizard's eyes gave Break the distinct impression he knew exactly what he was up to, which unsettled him to no end.

"Especially not that student." He assured him. "If fact, I mean to save them."

"From who exactly do they need to be saved?"

Break offered his best attempt at a real smile, it felt rusty and unused. "Themselves."

For a long moment Professor Dumbledore seemed to consider his words, then he nodded and said, "You may have an hour. Copy anything you want to take with you and try not to leave a mess for the elves."

An hour later found Break sitting at the bar to the Hog's Head, a forgotten Butterbeer at his elbow, leafing through the stack of papers he magiced copies of when his time ran too short. The bartender was eyeing him with no little curiosity but hadn't asked and, given his taciturn nature, was unlikely to.

It had taken some creative math on Break's part to estimate the year Lunettes had left Hogwarts and in the end he'd had to subtract a year from what he'd originally calculated to find the right name on the index. By then he was covered in dust, extremely annoyed and his hour was almost up. He ended up just magically copying all the files of boys graduating that year, simply because it was faster than wading through the drawer to find the exact file.

However that left him with the stack at his elbow, which he was already sorting through to find the right name. This was made somewhat difficult by the limited amount of space at the bar, but the tables were all occupied and he was willing to work with what he could get. Finally he produced the right paper and, drawing out his wand, he drew a circle on the paper. Immediately it became a scroll which he eagerly unrolled to read.

Within moments he was frowning, within minutes that frown had failed to dissipate, getting deeper. Once more Lunettes' name was spelled wrong on the top of the scroll it had one 't' but later on it had two and even farther down it had one once more. Now Break had by this time seen the man sign things before, he knew there were two 't's in it.

Once could have been a mistake, but several times… several times suggested something else was going on.

And even curiouser were the records of Liam Lunettes themselves. They showed a fairly average student, with good marks, who didn't get into all that much trouble, and had gone into the Ministry in Ireland on leaving school. Normally Break wouldn't be surprised to find Lunettes with such a school records, but three things puzzled him. Firstly Liam was quite clever, if he'd learned nothing else about him Break had learned that his easily flustered nature belied a extremely sharp mind. He was a little surprised someone of such intelligence and dedication to their work had done such an average job in their schooling.

Secondly was the clean record of behavior, Lunettes himself had told him a story, tired and trying to hid the wound on the back of his hand from Break's eye, about the fight he'd gotten into his fourth year at school. Teachers had had to break it up when it escalated to spells and he'd accidentally turned two of them into pigeons. Something like that would have made it into the records and yet there was no mention of it here.

And thirdly was something he had been told by Sharon, about how Liam had tutored her while they were in school together. There was absolutely no record of Liam Lunettes being a tutor.

From previous (more legitimate) forays into Hogwarts records Break knew that anyone who tutored had an indication of this on their records and the lack of this on Liam's was suspicious.

He read over the paper again, tapping his fingers impatiently on the bartop as he considered the problem. Why were there so inconsistencies here? Had Liam been lying? It seemed unlikely, not with the way he was so closed-mouthed about his past. And the information about the tutoring had come from Sharon, not Lunettes, which made it even more likely to be true.

Finally he traced the circle on another student's paper, glancing at the scroll this produced and discarding it when it didn't have what he want on it. He made another scroll appear, checked it and found the mention of tutoring on it. Checking farther down he saw the record of a fight… in the fourth year. And this student's marks were high, nigh on exceptional.

But his name was written as 'William Callaghan'.

Break frowned and flicked his wand, making all the records but the two he held disappear in purple flames. He held the records, 'Liam Lunettes' and 'William Callaghan' next to each other, glancing back and forth between then, noting the differences. How interesting. How very interesting.

When he went to check Lunettes' background this wasn't what he had expected.

Riddles within riddles. A puzzle inside another puzzle. Just as Break thought he knew the mysteries Liam presented he uncovered another. And this one… he looked down at the records.

It was looking more and more likely that the person he had come to know as Liam Lunettes might not be who, or what, he seemed to be.

So who are you?

Yeah, who are you?

(The Pretender)

TBC