"Miss Bale," said a voice, which she first didn't recognise because she'd never heard it sound so soft. She turned her head, and saw Suplinius Crow approaching.
"Sorry, I couldn't inform you of the trouble we're currently experiencing," he said, waving at the crowd.
"What's happened? Who… who is it?" asked Gwen, who had finally found her voice again.
"Come with me," he said and led her to his office.
When the door closed behind them, he offered her a chair and a glass of water.
"It seems that someone killed Archibald Dusk," Crow explained, matter-of-factly.
Gwen looked aghast: "What…?" She thought of the body she had not been able to discern from the distance. Archie! Who in Merlin's name would want to kill Archie? She was so perplexed that she took a sip of the offered water.
"His death was reported this morning, even before I came here," he stated, "and as it seems so far, it was not a natural death, nor suicide."
Why does he tell me that? Gwen wondered, wondering at the same time why she wondered about that. She still felt a bit numb from the shock of seeing the crime site, and hearing who the victim was. She remembered him looking so happy in the company of his young wife Eleanor.
"I don't think you should be standing around at the scene of the crime. I don't know what's going to happen, but I would be grateful if you could keep your silence about what you've seen."
You won't forbid me to tell my friends, Gwen thought mutinously, occluding her mind at once.
"Do you want me to stay here?" she asked, feeling slightly dizzy.
At this moment, someone entered the door. Gwen whirled around. It was Ivo Gilmour.
"Good morning, Suplinius, good morning, Miss Bale," he greeted them in his deep voice. "May I ask what you are doing in here, Miss Bale?"
"Don't worry, Ivo, she's working for me at the moment," Crow drawled.
"I am working with you," Gwen emphasised acidly.
"The Aurors in charge want to talk to you, Miss Bale. Would you please follow me." Ivo Gilmour opened the door, beckoning her to follow him.
"To me?" Gwen looked at him, astounded, and got up.
They left Crow's office.
Crow followed them almost noiselessly.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
Gwen could not bear to look at the dead body. Instead she focussed on Timothy Oakden who was talking to a witch and a wizard she didn't know. Timothy looked very tense, not at all his usual pithy and cheery self.
The white-haired Alex Campbell and his colleague, Mercia Borthwick, were standing in front of the arch, holding their hands upright, seemingly muttering under their breath to something or someone behind the veil. Jacobus Mayfield, Dusk's colleague, was standing alone on the steps, outside the cordon, as if stunned, his straight parting slightly ruffled. Two wizards she did not know were searching the area with the help of their wands. Nearby, Manisha Cullen, gesticulating with her beautiful hands, talked softly to the plump Evelyn Anderson, who looked around with big round eyes.
The two people Timothy was talking to, a tall witch and a wizard holding a magic camera, looked up at the approaching trio. The impressive-looking witch, clad in dark emerald robes, took a step forward.
"Good morning, Miss Bale," she said in a deep manly voice. "My name is Marilyn Beresford. I am the Auror in charge. I asked Mr Gilmour to fetch you." They shook hands. Her grip was firm. Gwen wondered why she knew her name, and nodded to Timothy.
"Auror Jonathan Hope is my colleague and he claims to know you from school." Mrs Beresford pointed at the broad-shouldered wizard at her side. He was about the same age as Gwen and had small, intelligent brown eyes.
Gwen stared at him, then suddenly exclaimed. "Jon, it's you!" They shook hands, too, Jon's eyes were twinkling.
"Hi Gwen," he said. "I am sorry, really sorry to see you under such … tragic circumstances. Do you work in the Death Chamber, too?"
She shook her head vigorously: "I usually work in the Brain Room, but am currently working with Mr Crow." Crow confirmed this towards Mrs Beresford, stating that Gwen had only turned up now. Mrs Beresford asked Gwen what time it was when she had entered the Department of Mysteries.
Gwen reflected for some seconds: "At about half past seven."
Marilyn Beresford looked at her with interest. "And did you notice anything unusual? Whom did you meet?"
Gwen negated the first question and enumerated the people she had seen in her own section this morning. Marilyn Beresford nodded at Jon who took notes of everything Gwen said.
Marilyn Beresford continued talking to Crow and Gilmour, while Jonathan whispered: "It's really nice to see you, Gwen. Haven't seen you for ages! It was such a wonderful time in Ravenclaw, wasn't it?"
"Jonathan, when you've taken pictures of everything could you please tell Pete to remove that dreadful sign?" Mrs Beresford had suddenly turned back to him. Jon nodded.
Gwen followed him.
He climbed over the cordon to go down some steps and get a better view of the Dark Mark. Leaning backwards he took some photographs of the horrible green symbol overhead. The camera flashed several times.
"Haven't seen the Dark Mark for many years now," he mumbled. "I had hoped to never see it again!"
Suddenly he stumbled over a slim rod. Gwen grabbed his shoulder preventing him from falling. He cursed under his breath while Gwen stooped down to pick up a wand.
Mrs Beresford, who had been making notes in a big leather-bound notebook, looked up and joined them on the steps.
"Where did you find the wand?" she asked slowly, looking straight into Gwen's eyes.
Gwen noticed the Legilimency contact at once and shut down automatically. She saw Mrs Beresford's irritation at being rebuffed, but couldn't help it. She was an Unspeakable after all.
"Jon tripped over it," she explained, and Jon nodded.
"I think it was lying on the steps all along. Pete and Gasparus have not come here yet. They are merely starting," Jon added.
Mrs Beresford took the wand from Gwen's hand and went up the dais again.
"Do you know anything about the murderer," Gwen whispered, edging closer to Jon to avoid being overheard.
He looked at her. "We know that the person must be a Dark Wizard or Witch," he pointed at the skull, "which is why we were called, and not the Hit Wizards. But apart from this we don't know very much yet. And if we knew… I am not allowed to tell you," he frowned, then continued whispering: "But no one can prevent me from meeting an old schoolmate in the Three Broomsticks at eight o'clock next Saturday." He grinned boyishly and for a brief moment it was as if they were still students at Hogwarts.
Gwen nodded conspiratorially. "All right, I'll meet you there." It would be great to see the Hogsmeade pub again – a bit more than two decades after they had left their old school.
She observed how Pete and Gasparus Levitated Archie's body to put it gingerly into a body-bag and led it away with the help of a Locomotor spell.
"Where will they…?" she didn't finish the sentence.
"Aurors' Headquarters," Jon murmured. "We've got a mortuary there."
Crow suddenly appeared behind them and hastily dismissed Gwen for today, postponing their joint work until the next day.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
"Comment?" Isabelle looked at her in horror. Gwen had dragged her into their office and told her what had happened in the Death Chamber – the body beside the Arch, the murder, and the Aurors.
Gwen shushed her anxiously.
"And what about Eleanor? How is she?" asked Isabelle, still looking aghast.
"When I left the Death Chamber, Jon told me that one of his colleagues, I think his name was Pete, had already been sent to inform her," Gwen explained, still feeling a bit rattled.
"It's unbelievable," Isabelle exclaimed, running her finger through her short brown hair, "insane! Who in Merlin's name would want to kill Archie?"
"That's exactly what I've been thinking," Gwen agreed, remembering with a pang how happy Archibald had been lately.
"They will try to hush this up, won't they?"
"I think so. They always hush things up. But I don't know whether they will succeed in doing so this time." Gwen mused with a grim look. "Too many people have seen the body. And this is – murder."
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
An hour later Eleanor burst through the main entrance of the Brain Room, her beautiful face tear-stained, her lips trembling. Firmin, who didn't know what had happened next-door, looked up from the brain he was working on, his jaw dropping.
"What's…?"
Eleanor didn't say a word to him, but rushed to the desk where Honoria, who still did not know about the crime either, gave Gwen a lecture about nerve cells, synapses, and neurons. Honoria loved giving lectures and knew a lot about muggle science. And Gwen loved listening to her. It was always interesting. Ernie, brain number four, floated inside a small tank standing on the table between the witches.
"Could you please accompany me to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?" Eleanor looked Gwen straight into the eyes, her body visibly shivering through her pale grey robes.
"Wh.. why, of course." Gwen replied, slightly taken aback, wondering why Eleanor hadn't asked anyone else from her own section, or even Honoria, who was, in her opinion, much more motherly than herself, but then remembered that Eleanor probably had heard that Gwen was supposed to be the only one outside the Death Chamber who knew that her husband was dead. Maybe she wanted to keep it a secret for another while, yet needed someone to support her on her way.
"Just give me a moment to put this brain back into its tank and inform Ad," she said awkwardly.
Gwen took up the small tank, and hurried towards the big tank in the middle of the room to return the brain with the help of her wand, and a picker-arm. She noticed out of the corner of her eye how Honoria laid an arm around Eleanor, trying to soothe her, even though she did not know what this was all about.
Bob came out of his office carrying a bucket full of picker-arms he had cleaned. Gwen asked him to leave the two witches alone, and Bob, peering at them from the distance, consented and withdrew immediately.
When Gwen entered Ad's office, she made up her mind in an instant. Sooner or later everyone in the Department of Mysteries would know, perhaps it would help the Aurors to leave everyone in the dark as long as possible, but Ad was Gwen's colleague. And certainly not the murderer! she thought.
So she told him what had happened to Archibald Dusk this morning, and that Eleanor had asked her to accompany her to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Ademarus looked appalled, and immediately gave his assent to her leaving the Brain Room.
She went to her own office, took her leather-bag and returned to where Honoria was still standing, Eleanor was sitting in a chair, her arms hanging loosely by her side.
"The rose-quartz is surely good for you now," Gwen heard Honoria say softly. "It's the best gem for healing the heart, it's called the love stone."
"Archie gave it to me," Eleanor's voice cracked. Honoria looked very worried, but did not ask questions, adhering to the DoM codex of waiting until you were told.
"We can go now, if you like." Gwen laid a hand on Eleanor's shoulder, looking gratefully at Honoria.
~ooOOooOOooOOooOOoo~
Gwen and Eleanor went swiftly to the lifts. Inside of one, Eleanor burst into tears. Gwen patted her shoulder clumsily.
"I … can't believe it… won't believe it…," the young blonde witch sobbed into her handkerchief.
Gwen simply didn't know what to say and just kept on patting Eleanor's back.
Up they went to Level two, where the cool female voice announced the divisions of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They went down a long corridor. Eleanor's steps became slower and slower. On the left-hand side a door opened to the Aurors' Headquarters, a big open room that was divided into lots of cubicles. The two witches were standing in the entrance, looking a bit at a loss of where to turn to.
A tall, bald black wizard wearing a single gold hooped earring suddenly left one of the cubicles. He looked at them and asked them in a deep slow voice: "Who are you looking for?"
"Mrs Beresford and Mr Hope," Gwen answered, while Eleanor looked at her gratefully.
"Follow me, I'll show you the way," the tall wizard said. On their way Gwen curiously peered into some of the cubicles where witches and wizards were reading, writing or talking in low voices. Eleanor was just staring at the wizard's back.
In one of the cubicles right in the middle of the wide area they found Jon. There were two tiny desks, and the walls of the cubicle were plastered with posters of wanted wizards, Sirius Black prominently among them, and Daily Prophet clippings.
If Jon was surprised to see Gwen with the victim's wife, he didn't let it on. He thanked the tall wizard, gave Gwen a short smile, and then addressed Eleanor.
"Thank you for coming here, Mrs Dusk. I am so sorry for your loss, please be assured of my sincere sympathy." He offered her his hand. "Mrs Beresford will be here in a moment to talk to you. I must ask you one thing – do you want to see your husband's mortal remains?"
Eleanor gulped, looked at him with wide blue eyes and gave a short nod.
"Do you want Gwen to accompany you, or do you want her to wait for you here?"
Gwen froze. Only now she realised that she would possibly see the deceased again.
"I'd rather have her with me."
Gwen tried to look brave and followed them.