The village had seen better times. Half the shops and businesses on its dusty main street were boarded up, and the rest were dressed up in coats of chipped paint, slowly yielding to the elements. Hopelessness hung in the air; the few people out scurried like rats, hugging the sides of the street, throwing furtive glances over their shoulders.

Had this been a muggle village, one might have guessed that the main employer had moved out, taking all the jobs away. It happens sometimes, and when it does, the community in question dies a slow, agonising death, as some people, too stubborn to leave, try to hold on to the remains of their lives.

But this wasn't a muggle village, and the reasons behind its collapse had nothing to do with a failing local economy.

This small rural retreat had been the location of several battles during the past two decades. The evidence could be seen in the charred remains of several huts and a small bakery. It had been lively once and served the most delicious croissants. Now, it was a ruin that reeked of dark magic.

That was a common smell in this place. The remnants of old battle spells and incantations lingered in places, reminding the living of those who had passed. It wasn't a good feeling, and most people could withstand it for only so long. Thus, they left, and as they did, the once proud town withered away.

Only one place prospered despite, or, more accurately, because of such misery: the cemetery.

It had collected a generous bounty over the years and now served as the final resting place to both identified and unidentified Order members, Death Eaters, mercenaries who had fought for both sides, and various locals caught in the crossfire.

It was placed on a hill overlooking the village, with a small chapel that offered a place of contemplation and prayer for any soul in need. These days, it was usually empty; no one came here anymore.

Today, however, was different.

A man was pacing rapidly between the tombstones. At times, his movements were fluid, as smooth as a mountain brook flowing downhill. Other moments, he would jerk and twitch, his eyes darting around the cemetery with a touch of madness. It was cold; every breath from his mouth condensed into a cloud of vapor that hovered like a layer of smog over a factory.

His face was gaunt and lined with hatred. A thick wool cloak hung off his shoulders, unclasped, so that a white sheet of gauze, tinged with red, could be seen wrapped around one of his shoulders.

He paused when he heard the tell-tale sound of apparition and then swiveled to meet the newcomer – a man dressed in expensive robes with a face that was hidden in the depths of a hood.

"Hello, brother," the first man sneered, spitting out the last word with disgust. "Why did you summon me here? What's so important?"

The second man straightened his robes and cooly responded, "Well, aren't you touchy today, Dolohov. What's the matter: is the space in that silly head of yours finally running out?"

Dolohov shook his body like a dog shaking off water. "Something's different," he growled through clenched teeth. His answer may have seemed off the mark, but the other man nodded his head in understanding. "I've been feeling it for several days now. It's like an itch that won't go away."

"Is it The Other, or whatever name it is you call our Lord's gift?"

"Gift?!" Dolohov's face contorted with fury. "I would like to see you live with this gift, you fucking cunt! I can't control my own body at times, and it's growing stronger now. I don't remember what I did yesterday. I woke up covered in blood but without a single recollection as to whose it was or how it got there. My mind is going. You live with that and call it a gift."

The hooded man, it seemed, was completely untroubled by his fellow Death Eater's eruption. "We all have our part to play," he replied haughtily, checking a watch on his wrist. "I'm tied down to this forsaken place just as you are… the Dark Lord made sure we would carry out his orders, even after his death."

"Some get a cushy job in the Ministry, you mean, while others walk across half the world looking for fuck knows what."

"And how is that progressing, by the way? Have you made any headway towards finding The Key to your little passenger?"

This was obviously a painful subject. "It would go quicker if you would help," Dolohov ground out, seething with anger.

"I could," the hooded man responded, enunciating each word with glacial clarity. "But I won't. Because all of this: your condition, my compulsions, the fact that I can't flee the country while my face is plastered on every 'Wanted' poster... it's all your fucking fault!"

'Is it not–"

"YES IT IS! This is all of your doing, Dolohov! You had the girl! If you would have brought her to our Lord, instead of deciding to play around and then let her escape, then maybe you'd still have your dick and not be in this–"

"Shut the fuck up, Ya–"

"Don't!" The other man grabbed the front of Dolohov's robes and slammed him into the door of the chapel. "Don't ever say my name," he hissed in his ear. "I will not end up in Azkaban because of your carelessness!"

Dolohov glowered. The man released his grip and backed away slowly.

"This is on you, Antonin. You got yourself into this mess – you figure it out. You find this Key and you do it fast, because I think you're running out of time."

Both man stared at each other, unwilling to back down. Finally, Dolohov asked, "What was so important that you needed to tell me face-to-face?"

Several seconds passed before he got his answer. "One of my little birdies in the Ministry told me that Potter and Weasley are poking around things they shouldn't. They're asking about muggle crimes."

Dolohov wetted his lips. "Do they know anything?" he asked. "Is it connected to the mudblood? She hasn't been found yet, has she?"

"Ahh… yes, the mudblood," the other man said, scorn, thick as honey, dripping from his words. "The same mudblood that has bested you twice; that almost killed you in Moscow and cursed you so hard that blood still leaches from your wounded shoulder. The mudblood that is the reason for all of this, because if you had just done what you were ordered to do, instead of getting your cock wet, then we wouldn't–"

"Get to the fucking point."

"...No. That mudblood, as my sources inform me, is still missing. This Potter-Weasley thing could be a fluke, but I'll try to check up on that duo. Discreetly, of course."

"This means nothing to me."

"It does it they catch you. If a single mudblood can best you, then what good will you be against our dear Harry Potter? So lay low for a while. Keep away from the muggles, and keep that little thing in your head restrained."

Dolohov turned around and spat on the ground. "Killing muggles is the only thing keeping me sane," he said venomously.

The other man shrugged and retrieved his wand. "If you think you are sane, Antonin," he stated before disapparating, "then you must have already lost your mind."

. . . .

. . . .

Ron and Harry knew the answer before the woman even opened her mouth. She expressed the same range of emotions as some of the other folk they'd approached: hope, confusion, and then despair.

"No," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Disappeared on me three years ago. Haven't seen him since."

"And you've heard no news at all?"

The woman glared at them. "That's something I should be asking you, Mr. Potter," she said. "I filed a missing person's report years ago, but I guess you aurors have better things to do than finding my husband."

There was nothing to gain here anymore. They apologized for the intrusion and bid their farewells. Outside, Ron used the tip of his foot to poke at the pebbles that lined the pathway leading to the small house they had just been in.

"Five people," he said. "How much you wanna bet that the story for the other twelve will be the same?"

Harry looked up and down the quaint village street before replying. Rows of trimmed hedges lined one-story houses; the people here were on the poorer side, but dignity and tidiness replaced any riches they did not possess. This did not seem like a place for crime.

"No," he answered with a heavy sigh. "I won't take the bet, but we still have to check. Maybe they missed one."

"Oh, we'll do our due diligence," his best friend of over a decade agreed, "but you know they're probably all dead."

Harry nodded.

Yesterday, after Ron's conversation with Rawlings, Harry and Ron had descended to the Records Department after their shifts ended. Harry distracted the Record's keeper – an ancient witch with a crooked nose by the name of Lida Abskepth – while Ron slipped by concealed under Harry's invisibility cloak. It took him three hours to find the information on all of the 18 people that had been employed (and later fired) by the Muggle Crimes Unit. One of them was Rawlings, and they gave his file a cursory glance before looking at the other ones. Nothing of character stood out, and today (it was a Saturday) they had gone out to visit some of these individuals hoping to find an answer as to why MCU was shut down.

That's when the problems began.

Of the five people they had visited so far, every single one was either gone or missing. Some had moved shortly after their employment with the ministry concluded, and no one had heard from them since; while some had just straight up vanished into thin air. The families of these missing claimed that they had contacted the Auror Department, but no headway had been made in years.

In fact, most of these people, upon seeing Harry and Ron, had assumed they were coming to update them on the progress of the investigation.

It was a damning development, and it stunned the two young aurors. Seventeen people – employees of the ministry, no less – were missing, probably dead, and no one knew anything. While it was true that the year after the war's end was tumultuous, this… this was a failure of epic proportions.

"Funny thing is," Ron noted, "Rawlings was alive and well yesterday. You'd think he'd suffer the same fate as the rest of these folk that worked in his old unit.

"You think he's involved?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. "Sure starting to look that way. Otherwise, why would whoever did this keep him alive and dispose of everyone else?"

Harry let out another sigh and rubbed the faded scar on his forehead. "C'mon," he said, taking out the list of people they had. "Maybe we'll find something. Maybe they missed one."

"Yeah," Ron took a kick at the ground. He did not sound hopeful. "Maybe."

It was closer to evening already, and they ended up visiting only three more residences on the list. The story repeated itself: not one ex-employee of MCU could be tracked down.

Disheartened, they apparated to Hermione's muggle flat – the one she had obtained when her memory had been suppressed by the virus. She had retained the lease on it, and this was where Harry stored the cell phone she had given him, because it refused to work in magical zones. Harry had come here every day since Hermione left, checking for any news from her, or just calling and talking about how things were.

Looking at the sparse furnishings in the cheap flat space, Harry felt another pang of guilt at what his friend had been forced to endure. He couldn't help but feel grateful that Malfoy had found her; the ferret had done the right thing for once, he had to admit.

Harry picked up the phone and turned it on, while Ron curiously looked on. "It's unnatural, Harry," he declared, staring at the muggle contraption and shaking his head. "Things aren't supposed to work like that."

Harry, thinking about what most muggles would say about Ron's way of life, didn't even bother hiding his grin. When Ron noticed it, he exclaimed, "You know I'm right!" and was about to go into a prolonged defence of his position, when the phone chimed, the company logo played, and the home screen popped up.

Harry navigated to the text menu, still a little uncomfortable with the whole smartphone thing. His life was straying further and further from his muggle roots, he remarked with a little lament. But then, of course, with relatives like his, it's not like he had much to stay for.

They both read the text Hermione had written them from Paris. "Fucking Rawlings," Ron spat when he finished. "He knew."

"He can't be alone in this," Harry added. "He doesn't have the brains. It's a miracle he's in the Auror Department at all."

"Which, by the way, is a very good question in itself: how did he become an auror? He's barely passed any aptitude tests, and his case clear rate is the worst, even with the joke assignments he gets. There are loads better candidates than him out there."

"Well, recruitment is usually up to Kort," Harry remarked, referring to the Head Auror. "But I can't see him involved in something like this. He's as straight an arrow as they come and hates Dark Wizards."

Looking glum, Ron noted, "So did Moody, and look like that turned out."

"So then," Harry summed up, "either Kort is imperiused, someone is impersonating him via polyjuice, or someone pressured him to hire Rawlings and keep him on the force."

"What wonderful options," Ron said with sarcasm. Harry snorted.

"Let's go check up on how Ginny's doing with the money trail," he said, turning the phone off and placing it back on the flimsy table.

The aurors disapparated from the flat with a 'pop' and appeared second later in the dim kitchen of Grimmauld Place. They both cringed at once; Ginny's vile curses could be heard echoing from the depths of the musty house. That girl had quite a mouth on her at times, and the portrait of old Walburga Black was only happy to chime in. The resulting cacophony was deafening.

Harry and Ron followed the noise to the living room, which is where they found Mrs. Potter.

Ginny was not doing well. Not well at all. Her hair was a mess, her eyes bloodshot from reading too many lines of numbers, and, from the looks of it, she was going out of her mind.

"I can't do this!" she screeched, throwing several rolls of parchment at Harry and Ron when they stepped through the doorway. The two men looked about the living room. Stacks of boxes – taken from Hermione's house – were strewn about the room, files and notes haphazardly scattered around.

"These Ministry finances go back three years, and they make no sense! Why do you two get to do all the cool stuff outside, while I'm stuck in this hellhole reading things that make Binns's lectures sound like stuff of legend?!"

"Err… because we're aurors, and you're not?" Ron offered and quickly dodged an empty inkpot that Ginny threw.

"I can't solve this," she declared, rising from the floor and kicking several papers out of the way. "This is literally killing me."

"C'mon, Gin, you just need to figure out where the money that funded MCU went. How hard could it be?" Ron asked, oblivious to the fact that his sister's face was reddening with fury.

Ginny's eyes narrowed. "HOW HARD?" she exploded. "Well, forgive me, Mr. Geniusrobes, but why don't you solve it then? You'll only have to look through about ten billion documents of tiny numbers!"

"Guys, guys!" Harry cried out, raising his hands in a grand gesture of appeasement. "Ok, so this is more difficult that we thought. I mean, even Hermione sat on this information for several months and got nothing. Although, to be fair, she was rather preoccupied at the time. So, we just need to find someone we can trust, who can analyze all of this–" Harry waved a hand around the room, indicating all the scrolls of parchment "–who is familiar with the ins and outs of Ministry affairs, is obsessed with details, and won't get bored pouring through minutia."

Ginny, who had cooled off during Harry's speech, raised her gaze to the ceiling and contemplated, repeating the requirements. "So, someone familiar with how things are run in the Ministry, obsessive over details and actually able to slog through this mess…"

They all figured it out at the same time.

"Percy!"

. . . .

. . . .

Hermione settled in next to Draco and gazed out the window. She was a little sad to leave Paris. It was a magical city, and there so much more to see. She wanted to visit the museums and art galleries, walk down the Champs-Elysees while humming that famous Joe Dassin song, to see the lights of the city spread out before her from the pinnacle of the Eiffel tower. She wanted to show Draco that not all muggles were bad, that he had just been exposed to a unfortunate segment of the population.

She also missed the Ritz. She wouldn't admit this, but a life of luxury called to her. She was sick of frugality, of being forced to count pennies, relying only on herself and, sometimes, a few close friends.

During the war, she had already spent a whole year in a dirty, cold and uncomfortable tent, supplementing their meager rations with roots and nuts scrounged up from the forest floor. Then, she did the recent stint in the muggle world, where her paycheck offered little in the way of living expenses.

She wanted a soft bed, a cup of hot tea in the mornings, and a large personal library where she could curl up in an armchair, losing herself for hours in the pages of a captivating novel. It was shallow, she knew, but she just didn't want to fight anymore.

And yet, it's not like the world was giving her a choice.

"What are you thinking about?" Draco asked.

Hermione shrugged. "Stuff."

"Sounds riveting," her companion teased and then tensed for a second when the train started to move. "You never did tell me, by the way," he continued, shaking off his unease, "why your house is decorated with seashells, toy ships, and pictures of the sea. Why do you like it so much?"

Hermione smiled. This, she could share. And so she told him, as the train rolled on its tracks, cutting through Eastern Europe, bringing them closer to a city with onion-domed cathedrals and a fortress made of red stone.

Bringing them closer to the next step of the hunt.