Harry Potter and everything around him belongs to JK Rowling. As I'm still driving my beat up Civic, I still haven't found a way to change that. Oh well.
Chapter Fifteen
"And there he is, right on time." Honeywell whispered to Heather unnecessarily.
Heather snuck a peak over the rotten windowsill and peered into the street below. Halfway down the lane, behind a row of overflowing rubbish bins, was a bald man in black robes, crouching in the dirt.
Heather held out a fist towards Honeywell. "The usual deal?" she asked.
Honeywell nodded and extended her own closed fist.
"Paper, scissors, stone, throw" they both whispered, pounding their fists in the air with each word. Heather held out two fingers, while Honeywell kept her fist closed. Honeywell made gave a silent cheer of victory.
Heather rolled her eyes and slid back from the window. "Fine. Just don't lose him this time," she whispered.
"That was one time!" said Honeywell crossly.
Heather crept down the stairs of the abandoned house. It had been their base of operations since their second week in Little Hangleton, and she hated. As a matter of fact, she hated the entire village. It was too much like Little Whinging in all the wrong ways. Houses filled with too many inquisitive neighbors with far too much spare time on their hands who treated newcomers with a suspicion bordering on paranoia.
It hadn't taken long for her to regret her suggestion trying to blend into the muggle population, in part because there was no way of knowing if the effort involved had made any difference. There was no sign that they could detect whether Mulciber knew he was being watched or not. In part to disguise herself and pass more easily as Honeywell's younger sister, Heather had dyed her hair blonde. Even after three weeks like this, she still caught herself doing double takes upon catching sight of her reflection. It wasn't just them who was having trouble with the locals. Hestia Jones and her partner Campbell had also tried fitting in by pretending to be a married couple thinking about moving to the area. Both had reported similar treatment. The entire place just felt off, and Heather didn't think that feeling had anything to do with her past memories of the place.
Among other things, this constant observation by the muggles hadn't made it easy to wander the village unobtrusively without resorting to magical aid. When they were visible, they could feel as much as see eyes staring at them from behind raggedy old curtains or out of upper story windows, much as they had just been doing to watch Mulciber. Even the muggle repelling charms on their clothes did only so much to help. You could almost feel the oppressive watchfulness in the air.
Overlooking Heather's dislike of the place, the house did make a good place to watch from without being watched themselves, or so they hoped. It was indistinguishable from its neighbors to either side, with the only exception being that it had fallen into ruin. That in itself wasn't remarkable. More than half the cottages and houses in the village were empty or crumbling. On this street alone they had counted at least half a dozen such houses. The real reason they had chosen it was that it had a perfect view of Mulciber's chosen apparition point. Heather just wished they could have found a place with working plumbing.
She waited at the back door to the house for the all clear signal to move. She felt a rush of air pass over her while she stood there. Mulciber must have cast a detection spell. He had done so upon arriving each time, it was part of how they had tracked him to this spot so quickly. "Waste of bloody time," Honeywell had called it. "There have to be a dozen muggles on this street alone. Far to many to be able to distinguish where they all are."
There were quiet footsteps on the stairs. Looking through the archway between the kitchen and the front sitting room, Heather saw Honeywell nod and point left down the lane. Their quarry had moved on, it was safe for Heather to move. She crept out of the back door and through the shabby, overgrown yard towards a wooden gate that blocked off access to the narrow alley behind the house. The gate was sealed with a charm, but it opened at a wave of Heather's wand.
While Honeywell kept track of Mulciber's movements, Heather's job was to follow both of them at a distance, keeping look out for anyone who was paying them more attention than they ought to. The other part of her job was to check behind Mulciber anywhere he might stop, looking for clues of what he was doing in Little Hangleton, and what he was looking for.
Ducking through the gate, she peered around in a would-be casual sort of way. The alley was as empty as always, littered with debris and a few bent up bicycles. Turning right, she crept towards the opening onto the street and waited. She ran her hand down her jacket, trusting that the muggle repelling charm placed on it would hold. As she had noted previously, there was something in the air here that seemed to hinder the spells effectiveness. Of course, no charm would stop Mulciber from seeing them, so even out of his sight Heather tried to move stealthily.
The black robed figure strode down the sidewalk opposite the alley's entrance. Heather pressed herself into a shadow, and the man didn't react. Trailing half a minute behind him was Honeywell, who was carrying a sack full of groceries and slumping her shoulders, looking haggard. They had both wondered before if Mulciber, or any death eater for that matter, would care that muggles were watching him. Deciding that was unlikely, they had both continued to dress like muggles whenever they were following him, thinking he would just ignore them if he even deigned to notice them.
Heather forced herself to wait a full forty-five seconds before following. Now she was the one feeling paranoid. Her head constantly moved this way and that as she walked, trying to keep track of anywhere that could be concealing someone who might be watching them. The real difficulty was not trying to locate such watchers, but to try and determine which were simply nosey muggles, and who might be more sinister. The hairs on her arms were constantly on edge.
During their time in the village, they had seen Mulciber check every location they could think of where Voldemort or the Death Eater's might have hidden something, and in turn they had had also searched as well. There was nothing in the village itself they could find, even though their quarry had spent several of his trips here scouring through almost every wrecked house there was. If Mulciber was having better luck than they were, they couldn't tell. Every time he showed his face he continued to search.
On the day's when they didn't expect him to arrive, one of them would stay behind and watch from the lookout while the other wandered out into the surrounding countryside, vainly searching for any sort of clue. As far as they could tell Mulciber had either ignored the Gaunt's old shack or had searched it before they had started watching him. It had been tricky explaining why the house should be searched without revealing the existence of the horcruxes, but when Hestia and Campbell had volunteered to check it out, Heather hadn't argued. They had been extremely pale when she next saw them. According to their accounts, the entire place felt contaminated. "Almost like his evil is still there," Hestia had described it. Heather
Now all that remained to be searched was the Riddle House, the surrounding grounds, and the graveyard. They knew there were spells laid on the house for detecting anyone who entered, but there was no way of knowing how long it had been since they were cast or by who. As far as they could tell, Mulciber hadn't been to either location either, so far.
Heather followed the slumped over blonde towards the high street, trying to force down a feeling of growing unease. She saw in the distance as Honeywell turned left and hurried to catch up. When she turned the corner, she saw only three things amid the decaying center of the village. Mulciber striding forward without concern along the street two blocks ahead, followed discretely by Honeywell who had stopped to examine a window display in the post office, and the Riddle House.
Through the memory of Bob Odgen, Heather had seen from afar how the old manor house had looked years ago at the height of its splendor. Even a few months ago when she, Hermione, and Ron had visited it hadn't been as bad as it was now. The house itself was almost a ruin, covered in ivy and moldering in the June sunshine. The sloping grounds were lost to overgrown grass and weeds, and if there had ever been flowerbeds in the garden it was impossible to tell. Near the edge of the grounds, once tucked neatly between two large trees, was the crumpled remains of the small stone cottage she had searched while Hermione and Ron had investigated the manor. In the months since, one of the trees had fallen squarely on the house, nearly obliterating it.
Mulciber crossed the road that separated the village from the boundary of the Riddle House's grounds, spared one quick glance over his shoulder, and vaulted the low stone barrier. Honeywell hadn't moved by the time Heather reached her.
"Well, that's that," Honeywell said.
"Think he'll find whatever he's after in there?" Heather asked, also taking in the window display in case they were being watched.
"If he does, we probably won't know. Wonder why it took him this long to go in there." Honeywell replied. She turned and started back up the street. There was no point in waiting in such a visible location for what could be hours.
"What I wonder is why he walked there rather than just apparating inside." Heather mused aloud.
"Maybe he's never been in there before? Didn't want to risk something going wrong with apparating?"
"I dunno." Heather said, giving voice to a feeling that had been bugging her for a few days. "It just feels too easy."
At a glance from Honeywell, she kept the rest of these thoughts to herself until they had returned to the house. Once their privacy and security charms had been recast, she continued. "I mean, I know death eaters aren't the brightest bunch, but they know we're hunting them. So why would the Lestrange's let one of their people be so obvious in a place they must know we're watching, and an actual death eater at that, not a former snatcher."
Honeywell sat in an armchair she had positioned near the upstairs window and sat it in. The chair sagged audibly but remained intact. She didn't speak but kept staring at Heather.
"Right. I've got to figure this one out on my own." Heather said after a moment's hesitation.
"No," Honeywell shook her head, "I just want to see what you're thinking before I muddle your thoughts. You've got a good head for this Potter. Run with it."
Heather began pacing, feeling floorboards shifting under her feet as she walked. "We know, or at least we suspect that Mulciber is looking for something here, right? And like you asked, why did it take him this long to visit the Riddle House? That should have been his first stop."
She lapsed into silence, her brain racing too quickly for words. What if the Lestrange's knew that Mulciber was being tracked? But how would that benefit them? It wouldn't do their cause much good to allow the aurors to track him back to wherever their base was. And what could be so important that they would keep sending him here day after day? Unless, could that be the point? After all, it wasn't like they had been able to track Mulciber beyond the village yet. Was it possible that the Lestranges wanted them to keep watching him?
"Talk to me, Potter," said Honeywell, cutting across her thoughts.
Heather stopped in her tracks, unsure of just how long she had been pacing silently. "What if he's just wasting our time?" she pondered aloud.
"Walk me through it." Honeywell replied.
"How many death eaters and snatchers do the Lestranges command? A few dozen, maybe? Certainly, the vast majority of those who are still free. Whereas we have what, maybe forty aurors on the force?"
"About that, yeah, plus the regular DMLE lot," replied Honeywell. "What of it?"
"So, no matter if we have evenly roughly equal numbers and are stronger than they are in a straight up fight, they only have to be wherever they are, whereas we have to be everywhere whether they're there or not."
"Ok, but that's the same as it would be against any criminal. They always have that advantage over us." Honeywell answered.
"True, but how many of us are currently watching Mulciber? You, me, Hestia, and Campbell. That's four aurors on just one death eater."
"Downside of only having a few leads. But I see what you're saying. What if the reason he's being so visible is that he's supposed to be. To keep our attention here while they're somewhere else." Honeywell replied, sitting up in her chair a little.
Heather sat down by the ledge of the window cross-legged on the floor, gazing into the empty street below. "It still doesn't make sense though. He's keeping our eyes on him, which means that he can easily lead us back to them."
"Unless he's not meeting with them directly," suggested Honeywell thoughtfully. "He could be meeting a middleman or getting orders from a dead drop."
"In which case we're wasting our time anyway." Heather replied.
She sat there running through this argument until her brain hurt. She was caught in a loop, and she knew it. The street below was pitch dark by now, there were no working streetlamps to illuminate it. The barest sliver of moonlight let them observe Mulciber's form reenter the lane and walk towards his hiding spot behind the rubbish bins. They didn't notice that he had a new spring in his step, and it was too dark to see the sly grin on his ugly features.