Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing: After the war - could be canon…
Just an idea I had, nothing more.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
… … … … … … … …
… … …
MONITIO
(Warning)
… … …
"Death warns only once."
…
The Beginning of Harry Potter's Fifth Year
… … …
"Unspeakable Weasley."
"Yes, sir?" Percy turned away from the current report to look at the man standing behind him. It was his boss.
"Follow me."
Percy immediately stood up and followed his boss without questions into his boss's office. There, the other man closed the door with a flick of his wand behind Percy. The next moment, privacy wards flicked into place. Percy absently noted that the wards were quite lacking if one wanted absolute privacy. Oh, they were good – but only, if you hadn't been raised like Percy had been.
"How is the work as the Minister's lacky?" his boss asked him, not even suspecting where Percy's thoughts had gone a second before.
Percy grimaced. "The Minister is quite set in his way. He's determined to ignore anything that looks as if Potter or Dumbledore are right."
"So, you think that Potter and Dumbledore are telling the truth?" his boss inquired with a raised eyebrow.
Percy had been killing Death Eaters for weeks. He didn't have to guess at the truth. He knew it. But that didn't mean that he had the means to convince his boss of it. There was no evidence if you didn't look into the muggle world and at Red Death's kill-count. Percy, respectable pureblood that he was, had no connections to either the muggle world nor Red Death's kill-count.
"I haven't seen Potter lie, yet," Percy finally settled on. It was the most he could say. "And I have known him since he was eleven." Now, it was his boss's choice to make what he wanted out of that.
The other Unspeakable frowned.
"So, you believe him," he concluded. Percy refused to answer. "You know that nobody has seen any sign that Potter has told the–"
"So how did Diggory die?" Percy interrupted his boss, cool logic in his arguments. "I'm not declaring that I believe Potter–" Because doing so could hurt his credibility even with the Unspeakables. "–I'm just saying that I don't have any reasonable explanation for Diggory's death."
"He was part of the Triwizard Tournament," his boss pointed out. "There were a lot of things there that could have killed him."
"With a killing curse?" Percy countered coolly. "Unlikely."
"Why do you think that Diggory was killed by the killing curse?" his boss inquired with a raised eyebrow.
"I saw his body. There were no marks on it," Percy pointed out coolly, logically. "Diggory was a healthy, seventeen-year-old man. He wouldn't have died without a cause and there was no cause of death that could be found on his body. The only thing that kills without leaving a mark or even a trace is the killing curse, hence, Diggory was killed by the killing curse. And no matter what, I have no reason to believe that the killing curse was part of the Triwizard Tournament."
"That might not have been the case, but there was a Death Eater on the scene–" His boss argued and Percy shrugged and decided to add another fact to his argument. Percy might be a pureblood, but he had always been interested in the news from all around the world.
"Three days after the death of Diggory, there was also a muggle newspaper that reported a tragical gas leak in one of their towns. After that, more and more reports started to appear all over the muggle world of accidents and gas leaks and other unexplained happenings," Percy added. "I'm not saying anything, but I am wary of the happenings right now."
The Head of the Unspeakables just sighed at Percy's words.
"Unspeakable Weasley," he said, his voice full of reprimand. "Please explain to me why the wizarding world should feel concerned when there are injuries in the muggle world?"
"Because of that," Percy said and handed his boss the reports he had grabbed before leaving his desk. It were finely filed records of raids in the muggle world and the confusion and fear that Voldemort's followers had left in their wake back in the days of Percy's father's kills… back in the first war against Voldemort.
"Those are incidences that happened more than a decade ago," his boss countered. "They have nothing to do with us."
"They are reports of the Death Eater's movement in the muggle world shortly before our war with Vol… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named started the last time around," Percy countered. "If we're unlucky, we might be looking at the same phenomenon right now."
"Even if there are similarities," his boss countered calmly. "That doesn't mean that the same thing that happened back then is currently happening."
His boss's face was forbidding and Percy got the impression that his boss, just like Fudge, wanted to stick his head in the sand.
Well, if that's what he wanted, Percy would let him. Percy had tried to tell him the truth. Red Death had always given people just one chance to save themselves – and Percy didn't see any reason to do it differently. His boss was a fully grown man, after all, and decades older than Percy.
Percy took back his folder.
"I was pointing out the similarities," he said calmly. "I never said that I believed it was the same."
"You did research on it," his boss pointed out.
"I research everything before I decide on my truth," Percy countered. "That's just my nature. I'm a researcher first." He was the researcher first.
Then he turned away towards the door. "I did my research. It was the least I could do. Anything else is not in my hands anymore."
He opened the door.
"Unspeakable Weasley!" Percy stopped and turned back to his boss to raise an eyebrow at him.
His boss sighed.
"If it were magical towns, Weasley, if we had actual evidence, then yes, I'd fear those happenings," his boss gestured towards the file in Percy's hands. "But they aren't and hence I don't. We should leave sleeping dragons lie, Weasley. Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus and all that."
"As you wish, sir," Percy replied. "Just don't say later on that I didn't warn you."
His boss snorted. "I don't need a warning, lad," he replied. "Potter and Dumbledore are spreading rumours. Just like others are spreading rumours of Death in a bloodied robe walking the streets. Those are rumours, Weasley. You would do well, to learn to distinguish between reality and rumour."
"I'm sure I will," Percy replied expressionlessly. "I heard about Death in a bloodied robe walking the streets as well. I also heard, those who saw him were marked with a cross as red as my hair."
He reached to his neck tapped it and then walked out of the door without looking back.
… … …
Red Death was known to give only one chance. If you didn't take it, you were on your own. The Unspeakables had lost their chance before they even knew they had it.
… … … … … …
1995
…
Beloved Brother,
After a long time contemplating it, we decided that we might need a list. My beloved twin and I uncovered a lot of data about the current helper-list of our dear snake-faced bastard. After uncovering quite a lot of names, we finally decided that to keep them in order, a list would be required. That list also helps to make sure that we got everyone of them, in the end. Getting them, on the other hand, might take a while. We've already a lot of confirmed names thanks to a bit of spying and the questioning of enemies and friends alike. Sadly, by the sole amount of names that we managed to uncover we had to conclude that it would take a while to finish off the work we've started to list – especially if the two of won't be able to go into the field reliably until next summer.
Are you sure that we shouldn't quit school and help you out?
We're sure that father wouldn't mind too much if we cut our schooling short a year. It's not as if we couldn't sit our NEWTs immediately after quitting – which we would just to soothe mum. We're also sure that father would be willing to argue our case with mum.
Of course, we're also aware that your most likely answer will be 'no', so we've been putting our brain-power into writing down that list of ours for you. We hope it will help you with your current task.
Love
Your Pranksters.
… … …
The list added to the letter would be an important part of their lives for the upcoming years.
The aforementioned list would end up worked on continuously. The three of them would end up adding to it, erasing some points from it – often because the name listed wasn't needed anymore thanks to the death – one way or the other – of the owner. Some points were followed by question marks or remarks on the name's owner's character, habits or predilections.
In the end, the pranksters and their brother would have learned to love the information their list offered – and the list itself as well. It was just too convenient that even when their list ended up in Dumbledore's hands for a moment, the old man couldn't make heads or tails of the simple symbols that Red Death used to conceal his data from prying eyes. But then, not even Dumbledore would ever be able to find out the pass-phrase that would reveal the secret hidden beyond the symbols.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
…
… … …
Sorry, it took some time, but there's the next part of the story.
I hope you liked it.
'Till next time.
Ebenbild