"So, what are the other subeditors at the Daily Prophet like?" Tom asked Harry carefully as they sat together on the couch in their living room. It was around five O'clock in the evening, and Harry had just returned from work to find Tom waiting for him. He had been reading, Harry saw, but the book bound in dark leather rested at Tom's side, neglected, as he spoke to Harry.

"They seem alright," Harry answered shortly, not truly knowing how to explain them all. "There are just four of them, though they've suggested that the office was full even before I joined them."

"That office will never be full," Tom remarked, as a soft smirk formed on his lips, "Not if one of us wants or needs a job there, anyway."

Harry smiled too, before remembering what that wizard at his desk had said about the resume Tom had made Harry almost single-handedly. "How much did you lie to get me that job?"

"Lie?" Tom asked. "I didn't lie at all."

Harry stared at him in surprise. "But I have none of the qualifications actually needed for the job… you must have lied."

"There was no need to," Tom explained. "Not when it was so easy to use magic to get what I want."

Harry was completely unsurprised by this, and he smiled again. He wondered how Tom had managed it this time – it couldn't have possibly been the Imperius Curse, for Tom hadn't actually gone to see any of the heads or workers of the Daily Prophet, so he would have had to think of something new. This fact also ruled out the Confundus Charm, and a few others. Harry supposed it must have been the same spell that he had seen Dumbledore use in the memory of Tom's Orphanage, the spell placed on a blank piece of paper for Mrs. Cole to read, to make her believe she didn't have any more questions to ask. It probably gave people whatever information they wanted to see, to make everything a lot simpler. It was also probably a very difficult piece of magic to use successfully.

Harry was about to ask Tom if he had used this spell, before Tom spoke again. "But we're off subject. Tell me more about the people you work with. I'm quite curious to know about them."

"There isn't really much to say about them," Harry stated. "There are four of them, as I've said. The oldest wizard is Moody, who seems to be the boss of the office, even if he doesn't care what people do as long as they get their work done and don't bother him. Then there's Aidan… I don't really know anything about him, to be honest."

"Why not?" Tom asked. "Did he not speak to you?"

"No," Harry said, "Nor look at me, so I couldn't read his mind. He pretty anti-social."

"I wonder why," Tom said quietly. Harry watched, as Tom appeared to contemplate this for a moment, dropping his gaze from Harry.

"I don't think it's very important," Harry assured him. "Some people are just like that."

"Indeed," Tom said. He looked up at Harry again after a few seconds. "What about the last two workers?"

"Eileen and Emeric. They seem nice enough. They're both only about twenty, and didn't seem to question me too much about my life, which was a relief… To give you an easy explanation of them, they're obviously not Slytherins. Though I'm not really sure about Emeric…"

"Why not?" Tom asked, taking a calm interest in this entire conversation.

"He's almost as quiet as Aidan. Towards me, anyway, he speaks to Eileen a lot. He mustn't like meeting new people, or something."

Tom was quiet for a second after this, thinking about something. "What did he tell you about his life?"

"He didn't tell me anything, but Eileen mentioned how he was forced to become a worker for the Daily Prophet because of his family. Though he wasn't that bothered by it."

"What was he thinking, around that time?" Tom asked.

"I don't really know," Harry replied honestly. He thought back to his conversation with Eileen and Emeric. "He avoided eye contact pretty much constantly, from what I remember."

"From knowledge of Legilimency, or something else?"

"I don't know," Harry said again. He wondered why Tom was so interested.

Tom gave a short hum of understanding, but said no more for a time. "Keep en eye on him, won't you?"

"I don't think he's anything to fear," Harry replied.

"No, he's nothing to fear… I'm merely curious to know what goes on in his head."

"He'll probably be less shy the longer I'm there," Harry said. "I'll be able to read his mind soon enough."

"Good," Tom remarked.

"Who did you meet at work today?" Harry asked to give the conversation more life. Tom had so far rarely met the same witch or wizard twice on his request for them to buy or sell items from Borgin's shop.

"Today I met an elderly witch in Birmingham," Tom said. "She has apparently been collecting various antiques for her entire life, as her mother did before her, and her grandmother too. Borgin was particularly interested in some Voodoo Dolls that originally came from a group of African Wizards from a few centuries ago. Those alone are worth hundreds of thousands of Galleons, though we're hoping to purchase them for a mere two thousand. She needs the money, from all that I could see. Her roof had nearly fallen in completely…"

Tom continued to tell Harry about the various people he had met, and Harry ended up explaining much later on what he knew about Moody, and his injuries. Yet Harry left out the fact of why he was so very interested to know more about Moody's past, telling Tom only that he might read some of Moody's thoughts the next day, to get a clearer understanding of how much he trusted Harry, and how much he guessed about him from his years of being an Auror. But even after all of this, Tom seemed more interested in the idea of Emeric, even though he wouldn't elaborate upon the reasons for his curiosity. Harry didn't dwell upon it too avidly as the evening progressed, knowing that it probably wasn't that important.

It was nearing the end of the day as Harry sat at his desk in the Crime Department Office of the Daily Prophet, talking to Eileen and Emeric every now and then, and finishing off the last report that he would have to do today. It had now been almost two weeks since Harry had begun working for the Daily Prophet, and in that time he had begun to understand the lives of Eileen and Emeric a little more. He was actually almost enjoying the work he had to do here, especially since he had passed Moody's weeklong test of how much work he could and couldn't handle.

But since receiving more important and difficult reports to subedit, Harry had begun to see that some stories sent in were perhaps a little too detailed and mysterious to make it into the Prophet, as opposed to his previous work concerning boring stories about harassed cats and young withes and wizards causing mischief, which were too dull or vague to be published. These new articles were darker, yet occasionally weren't strong enough in facts to make the whole country concerned – unless you happened to work at the Crime Department of the Daily Prophet, and saw how many peculiar stories came flooding in each day.

As for stories concerning Grindelwald, Harry felt as though he saw many, though he knew that he couldn't really be sure. Grindelwald's name itself was mentioned every now and then, for he was a very well known political figure in Germany, even if his true intentions were hidden to a large percentage of the population. But there were odd stories that followed him, and his government. Those stories normally met dead ends, or else were not approved by the Daily Prophet, for constantly unknown reasons.

"Are you almost done with that report, Richard?" Harry heard a voice call from across the room. He looked over to see Eileen was talking to him.

"Yeah," Harry replied, "I just have a few more paragraphs to do."

"Is that the report on the attack that happened up in Newcastle?" she asked.

"No, I finished that one. They didn't know who did it in the end, of course."

A humourless laugh could be heard from the desk between Harry and Eileen. Harry was used to hearing this sound – a sign of pure displeasure. It was, of course, followed by a quiet voice.

"Which means they knew who did it, but can't tell us," Emeric said, "Or that the attackers managed to get away from the Ministry yet again, because they fled to a different country."

"The people who are doing this aren't all from a different country than England, you know," Eileen commented. "Just because there were about five cases when the Ministry tracked them leaving the country–"

"It wasn't just five cases of people out of the country, it was the only five cases of anyone being found responsible for murdering or harming Muggles and wizards this year."

"What about those two wizards who were convicted for the McKenzie murders?"

"They were innocent," Emeric said, turning to face Eileen now. "You were the one who convinced me they were innocent."

Eileen looked unfazed by this reminder as she held her beliefs firmly. "I still think it's biased and shallow of you to claim that all of the attackers in the reports we've seen are not British."

"How do we know that for sure?" Emeric asked.

"We know because these attacks are blatantly not made by the same people each time," Harry answered before Eileen could.

Both of the other workers turned to look at Harry, and Harry was very surprised to see that Emeric didn't avert his gaze his time. He continued.

"If the place and time of each attack hasn't told us this already, then the way people were harmed and the variation of power or force used has. Almost every attacker seems to have had a different motive – to show their hate of Muggles, to make a scene for the Ministry to concern itself with, for personal gain, or to show off the Dark Arts – and this suggests that it's closer to a new style than a statement by one person or group alone."

"But why would people start following the lead of all this crime?" Eileen asked.

"I think that it's just general Muggle hating," Harry replied. "Though Muggleborns and friends of Muggles get dragged into it too. People are just following it because they're Pureblooded and want more power."

"You describe it as being closer to a style than a statement," Emeric observed. "So you think there isn't one particular group out there, managing this?"

Harry thought about this for a second, having to resort to actual guesswork rather than facts he had learnt from the future. "I don't think there is one particular group necessarily… I think there's just a leader, and a bunch of people from all over the world, some of them not even connected to his cause at all, who want to follow him."

He was referring, of course, to Gellert Grindelwald. Even if Harry was sure that Grindelwald had a group of Death-Eater-like worshipers at his command, he was slowly becoming more and more convinced that there were people out there – old and young, male and female, pureblood and purer pureblood – who were just as willing to do what they could for Grindelwald's anti-Muggle messages as any close follower.

Emeric was still looking at Harry as he tried to find another question. There was a slight smile on his lips, but Harry couldn't decide why. Like Eileen, Emeric had brown eyes, though his were a little darker. He wasn't a particularly handsome boy, with his thin face and dark brown hair, but Harry was sure that Eileen probably saw something in him. She thought about him often from what Harry had seen. Harry hadn't been able to read Emeric's mind yet, so he hastened to do so now, as they finally made eye contact. But Harry regretted reading the other boy's thoughts almost the moment he had.

(He's probably one of the most handsome boys I'll ever know, but even if I were a girl, he wouldn't look at someone like me twice. Even if I weren't some sort of freak… I wish I could just stop thinking about him…)

Emeric dropped his eyes from Harry's at this, and Harry stood in expressionless bewilderment for a few seconds, staring at him. Before he could even begin questioning what this meant, he heard Eileen speak. "Do you have any idea who they might all be following, then?"

Harry tore his gaze away from Emeric to look at Eileen, who apparently noticed nothing of Harry's sudden confusion. Harry had to think back to what they were talking about to answer her question. "I don't think anyone can really know. Not yet, anyway."

She nodded. The conversation seemed to come to and end at this, and Harry returned to his work; but he didn't get much done as he stared down at his parchment, thinking. He knew that the idea of Emeric being gay didn't affect him personally very much, yet he really didn't know what to feel or do about the fact that Eileen took such an obvious liking to Emeric, and Emeric now took a blatant liking to Harry. This explained why Emeric was so shy towards Harry, but Harry wasn't sure whether there could have been any worse possible reasons…

It was only around five minutes later when Eileen voiced that she was ready to go home, and Emeric said the same. Harry still had around ten minutes worth of work left to do, so he couldn't follow them out of the office. He was actually quite glad of this fact, on reflection. The rest of the report was very easy to edit, for the ending was quite fine how it was, and the moment Harry was done, he got up to leave. Just before Harry had reached the door, however, he heard Moody speak to him. They were the only two people left in the room.

"Wait just one moment, Plunkett. I want a word with you."

Harry turned to face the older wizard, walking a little closer to his desk so he didn't have to stand up. Harry guessed that perhaps Moody wanted to speak to him about his work, yet he wasn't sure. They had never spoken to each other about their own lives, but Harry knew that Moody wanted to learn more about him. "What do you want to speak to me about, sir?"

"There's no need to call me 'sir'. Moody will do," Abner said. "I heard you speaking to Lawson and Rothwell about the crime we've been seeing a lot of lately."

"What about it?"

"You seem to have some strong opinions on the criminals the Ministry is after, and some damn plausible guesses on who they might be, judging from the facts we know about their attacks."

"Erm, thanks," Harry said, not knowing what else to reply.

"You weren't by any chance thinking about being an Auror one day, were you?"

Harry paused for a minute, impressed and bewildered with this guess. "I wanted to be an Auror when I was fifteen," he admitted. He had almost completely forgotten about this fact, and he didn't know how to elaborate it anymore as his inkling that Abner might bring him closer to his own past again returned.

"Did you not succeed, or did you change your mind about the whole thing?" Abner asked.

"I changed my mind," Harry replied. Though he felt as though he might have done both, in the end.

"Educational difficulties? Family issues? Fork in the road?"

"A lack of moral sense, and a bad twist in life, I'm pretty sure," Harry said without thinking.

The smile that did not reach his eyes returned on Moody's face. "A fork in the road, then." He surveyed Harry for a minute or two. "You could have been a decent Auror, I think. Could still be if you wanted to."

Harry took the courtesy to actually contemplate this idea. He had the mental image of sitting at home with Tom, trying to explain how he wanted to work for the Ministry in catching all the people they knew, and moreover because they 'did bad things'. What was worse was the Ministry would know that Harry was lying about his identity the moment he walked in that building again. "I don't have the proper qualifications needed to be an Auror."

"You wouldn't need examples of the qualifications needed for the job if I suggested that they take you in for training. As long as you could keep up with the work, that is. I've gotten a few people that job without much trouble. Even my own son will be able to get there, no matter whether I live until that time or not."

"You have a son?" Harry asked, taking the opportunity to learn more about Abner's life while he could.

"Yes," Abner responded. "Alastor. First year of Hogwarts in September. He'll be a fine Auror, if he wants to be one."

"Being an Auror is a dangerous job," Harry remarked, "As I'm sure you know. I'm not sure whether I'm up to that."

"You don't seem like the faint-hearted type to me," Moody said. "You walk in here without a flicker of anxiety when this is probably the first job you've ever had, you handle stories like the rest of us that would make some people's hair curl, and even have enough left in you to contemplate why people are being murdered, raped, abused, and beaten to near death every few days. The danger would only make it more interesting."

Harry wondered whether Moody was merely saying this to boost his confidence, or whether he had actually deducted all of this from Harry's short two weeks of being here. Harry decided it was probably the latter. Moody wouldn't bother with him if he didn't actually see something in him, and it would be foolish to trick an inapt person into contemplating this job, unless it was to merely trick or con them. Being an Auror, Moody was also probably nearly as good as Tom in reading people, despite the fact that Tom knew Legilimency, while Moody likely didn't. Then Harry wondered suddenly if Moody knew Legilimency… but that wouldn't affect Harry.

Harry couldn't imagine being an Auror now. To train himself into becoming one would take four years alone, and Harry only had about half of that time before he would move away from England with Tom, and anyway, it was the complete opposite of being a Death Eaters, since the Order of the Phoenix wasn't around yet.

Harry felt as though, somehow, this was very important. Tom would never understand what he was thinking if he mentioned being an Auror at all, unless Tom thought he was going to be a spy. Harry wouldn't leave Tom for it, he decided. Yet here he was, with a very, very rare offer on something he hadn't thought about since his sixth year at Hogwarts.

"See, now I've got you thinking about it," Abner said, interrupting Harry's thoughts. He was smiling again, but fully this time. Harry guessed Moody had read his expression. He had been looking down in thought.

"I don't think it's the right profession for me," Harry said, more to himself than Moody, perhaps.

Moody thought about these words for a minute, his smile falling away for the most part. "Crime is an odd subject for someone to work in if they don't want to help fight against it."

Harry looked into Abner's eyes for a moment, showing neither emotion nor any signs that he would comment upon this. He felt as though he knew what was coming next, and he wasn't sure how he should react to it.

"See, there are only two reasons why people join this office, beyond the reasons they'll give, mentioning family history and enjoying the subject," Adar said, more quietly than before. "The first reason is that people want to warn the public about all the crime in the world, to help in some way. They want to be a part of it, even if it just means conveying a message. The second reason, however, is much less commonly seen – never mind told directly and honestly. Direct and honest is not its nature. The second reason is the entire opposite of the first… for someone to make crime worse, or to watch over it for strictly personal reasons."

Harry determinedly arranged his expression into one unfazed and unreadable. If Moody was to become more suspicious of Harry, he might end up contacting some of his old Ministry friends to look into the name 'Richard Plunkett'. When Abner discovered that Harry didn't actually exist, and that he was using a fake name, Harry would have only two options: run, or get caught by the Ministry. For once, Harry was extremely thankful that he knew Legilimency. "Are you suggesting that I'm a supporter of crime?" Harry asked. "Or even the cause of it?"

"Now, I wouldn't say that so soon." Oddly, this broke the chain of worrying scepticism that Abner had built up – perhaps as he had planned. "I think it's more likely that you're on some form of a revenge kick, which puts you on the lighter side of evil."

Harry still felt as though he was treading on eggshells, despite the fact that Moody didn't think he was a murderer, criminal or spy… yet. "If you think I'm evil in some sense, then why are you suggesting so strongly that I become an Auror?"

Another real smile broke out on Moody's face. "See, this is the interesting part. The best Dark Wizard catchers, the real pros, they aren't the ones who sat around their whole life playing the good child, as much as the Ministry and public wants to believe that. They're the ones who've shattered the rules and lived the life of a criminal at some point in their lives. They can get into the heads of who they're after, and they can track them down as well as they themselves could run away. They know morals back to front, and understand how corrupt they really are… I can tell you've lived at least some of that."

Harry contemplated this, too. He supposed that Moody must have had a point, even if it was quite a bizarre one. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be an Auror anymore even without his reasons of Tom and the past to tell him so, yet he wanted to hear more about what Moody was saying somehow… "Isn't it a bit dangerous to let actual criminals hunt other criminals? They could be faking their morality. In fact, you could be faking your reasons right now, to put me into some sort of trap."

"The danger makes it all the more interesting, as I've said before," Moody smiled, "and you thinking I could put you in a trap is the exact reason why I wouldn't be, and why you would be a notable Auror."

Harry could find no reply to this, having a few contradictions to Moody's words, yet nothing worthy of commenting upon. They stood and sat in silence, every second of which making Moody visibly more sure that Harry would be useful.

"You don't believe me, of course," Moody suggested.

A lie was possible, but Harry didn't use it. "No, I don't."

"But you'll think about this, no?"

Harry hesitated. "Possibly."

Moody scrutinized Harry, still smiling as though he had won something. "Well, that's all I wanted to talk about. I'll see you at work again tomorrow."

Harry turned away from Moody, heading for the door. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

It was almost a month later before Harry and Moody spoke again properly, in which time Harry had neither told Tom about Emeric nor about the offer he had had to become an Auror. He had also not decided how he felt about either of these things, so he tried to avoid any thought of them. It was nearly September, and summer was ending. Harry was busy with a lot of his work, and he quite liked it this way, when he wasn't at home with Tom. It was late one evening when Moody again asked Harry to stay behind after work, when no one else was present.

"Have you thought about that offer I made?" Moody asked him without hesitation.

"I've thought it about," Harry said, "but I haven't decided on anything."

Moody appeared unconcerned. "The answer will come to you soon enough."

Harry nodded. "Is this all you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No, not quite," Moody admitted. "I heard you talking to Lawson and Rothwell again about Aidan Stebbins at lunch today."

Harry still spoke to Eileen and Emeric often during lunch and so on, and he wasn't surprised that Moody listened into their conversations. "They don't seem to know much more about him than me," Harry commented.

"No one knows much about him," Moody replied. "Except me, of course. I used to know him back when we both worked for the Ministry. He worked as an Unspeakable for the Department of Mysteries until just a few years ago."

"Why doesn't he still work here?"

"He refuses to," Moody explained. "He saw things that he wouldn't explain to you for all the money in the world – and that's if he could explain it. He keeps secrets that keep him lying awake at night, no doubt – and all night, by the look of him coming into work some days… If there's anything that will affect you more than being an Auror, it's being an Unspeakable. Aurors witness death occasionally, sure, but Unspeakables can witness something far beyond even that. He worked to fight against a lot of criminals, amongst other things."

Harry expected Abner to continue, but he did not. He wondered at this whether Moody expected him to compare being an Unspeakable to an Auror, to see how crime has affected even people like Aidan. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked, unable to work it out without guidance.

"No reason, really. Thought you'd just like to know. There are many curious people out there that few can tell the moral senses of. Stebbins isn't all that bad, past his lack of speech and generally ominous appearance."

Harry still felt as though Moody was trying to make him feel remorse for Aidan, so he made no reply to this. They stood in silence for a minute or two. "What made people like you and him work here?" he asked.

"Now, that's an interesting question," Moody remarked. "Now, I don't know how well I can answer for Stebbins, but I'm pretty sure that nowhere else will employ him, especially since he quit the Ministry so directly. The Ministry might have even helped him in getting this job, just to be kind. He's unable to tell any of the things he knows, so it's not a danger to let him work here, even if he's with the press."

"And you?" Harry pressed, not wanting Moody to avoid the question he cared about the most. "Why do you work here?"

"Me? I just like to keep busy, even with all my health problems. I couldn't stand sitting at home, reading only what the papers think is most interesting for the masses. I still have plenty of contact with the Ministry, sure, but here you get some of the stories that people forget to mention, the stories with more layers than sheets of parchment the reporter could manage – which doesn't seem like a lot, with such short reports, but you get what I mean. I want to know what's happening in the world, like a lot of people, except I want it in larger quantities."

Harry couldn't find any more questions or comments to make about this, so he remained quiet.

"But, I'm sure you have places to go, and I don't want to keep you here for no reason," Moody suddenly said. "I just thought you'd like to know about Stebbins. I expect you in at work tomorrow, bright and early. You think about that offer again."

"Yes, of course," Harry responded. "Goodbye, then."

"Goodbye," Moody replied.

Harry left the office, not truly knowing what to think about this short conversation as he made his way down a few corridors, and past the intersection were the tired wizard in glasses sat in the mornings. He supposed, after a few minutes of thought, that Moody could have told him about Aidan Stebbins as a sort of sign that he was trying to be nice, or to get closer to Harry. He had offered information about himself without asking for anything about Harry in return, anyway, and that was always a relief. Harry could see no bad intent behind that conversation, except maybe to ask and remind him about the offer of being an Auror.

Harry was still surprised, no matter how many times he thought about it, that Moody was so willing to accept him while he suspected that Harry wasn't a completely good person. Even if Moody claimed that the best Aurors have the worst pasts, it seemed odd that he would be so open. If he thought Harry would be such a great Auror, did he also thing that Harry had done horrible things? Yet beyond all of these questions, Harry didn't think Moody was trying to trick him. Harry didn't need to be tricked, when his past was so easy to look into.

He should have read Moody's mind, and he thought about this as he walked towards the entrance hall of the building. He seemed to forget that he was able to read the ex-Auror's every thought when he was actually in front of him. From the thoughts Harry had read, Moody seemed to trust Harry more with every time he thought about it, but Harry knew that trust could break in a heartbeat if something didn't go as planned, especially when lies were so simply given as a substitute for all of the information that made up who he truly was.