A/N: Almost done. One last chapter after this. I suppose I should have emphasised earlier: this story is about Ron, and his feelings about his career. Not just the case itself. Stay with me ;) Thank you for the reviews, much appreciated.
Onward!
iv. Epaulette Mate
Study the endgame before everything else; for … the middlegame and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.
- Jose Raul Capablanca -
The feeling in the air was like that at a Quidditch match, Ron thought.
Ron had spent many hours trying to explain Quidditch to Hermione. For all her vast depths of intelligence and peerless breadth of reading, there were many key basic principles of Quidditch she kept failing to grasp. Besides the absolute importance of bigging up all the superior advantages of your team, and of meticulously slagging the weaknesses of everyone else's, and of following every single match every season, she didn't understand the Seeker and the Snitch. "It doesn't matter that the Snitch is worth 150 points," Ron kept telling her. "The match isn't over until one team gets a 16-goal lead, and can maintain that lead. Until then, either team can still win. And even then, you know what they say."
"No, Ron, I don't know what they say," Hermione had replied, somewhat irritably.
"Anything can happen in Quidditch."
Some of the tension had gone out of Harry's body, thought Ron, watching his best mate and Neville chatting while they devoured a stack of apple tarts in the Auror Office's tiny private pantry. He himself felt it; the cautious optimism that came from gaining that 16-goal lead, that the match was no longer balanced on a knife edge, that the immediate danger was past. Even Mavis Laird had relaxed enough to allow herself to hop in and out of the Floo, popping home briefly every couple of hours over the course of the day to fuss over her children (the big 'uns were home from Hogwarts, and she wanted to spend as much time with them as she could). For all the assassin witch's great skill in magic - and it had taken their best efforts to bring her down indeed - now she was locked up safely in the Ministry's maximum-security detention cells, waiting for interrogation and transport to Azkaban.
It was too bad about João Ferreira, but - and nobody said this, but Ron was sure everyone thought it, maybe even Robards - he'd been a right twat and a small price to pay for nabbing the assassin.
Ron would feel better about it if Ana wasn't so obviously distressed about her brother. He tried to imagine how he would've felt if he'd learned that Percy had been killed while they were on the Horcrux Hunt. Would he have thought, "Serve the moron right?" Or would he have been as grief-stricken as he'd been over Fred? Now that Percy was back and no longer as much of a prick as he used to be, all was water under the bridge, and he would be pretty torn up indeed if somebody nobbled Percy now. But what about back then…? Ron shook his head. Hermione was the one to go to for all this stuff, he couldn't put his feelings into words well, even to himself.
"Ron? Oi, Ron!" It was Neville, offering him the plate of apple tarts. "What's on his mind?" he remarked to Harry.
"Probably thinking of Chudley, or the Nimbus Nimbostratus," Harry snickered. "You alright there, Ron?"
Thoughtfully, Ron helped himself to a tart. "Yeah, I'm fine mate. Just thinking of the Ferreiras." The apple tart was good, with sweet gooey custard underneath the apple slices. "Why are all of us here?"
"I was on shift, but Robards went in to see them and he told me to get lost," said Neville. That was Robardsese for 'take a break', as they all knew.
"How was the Boss?" asked Harry.
Neville thought for a moment. "Enthusiastic, I'd say. He probably thinks he's got André scared and ready to cough up whatever he wants, now. Ferreira'll be eager to get it over with, cut down on his demands; and as for the Wizengamot, they're happy enough with the haul up in Newcastle, and positively ecstatic at the thought of more."
So Robards doesn't miss João either, thought Ron.
In short order the man himself came in. The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement looked pleased with himself, or at least, less grumpy than usual. He threw a stack of files on the table and heaved himself into a chair, while Harry passed him a mug of tea.
"The long and the short of it," Robards announced, slurping his tea, "is that André has agreed to a deal. The fact that he came damned near close to getting the chop was certainly a factor. Oh, he moaned about inadequate protection and all that bollocks of course, but it was pointed out to him that the sooner he got on with it then the faster he could make his own security arrangements. The Wizengamot working group has also agreed to a conditional approval for the Ferreiras' asylum, subject to ratification by a quorum at a special session of the full Wizengamot on Monday. Details to be sealed, but between me, you lot and the teapot, they'll allow him a 60,000 Galleon 'resettlement fee' - he started off asking for three times that, the greedy beggar."
Harry and Neville snorted; Ron bit back a curse. That was twenty times his annual salary! But Robards of course had been party to the negotiations, and it wouldn't do to criticise the Boss, so Ron merely said drily, "He got good value for his information."
"Now, as for security," Robards looked over at Ron and Harry, "obviously we have to think of something new, what with the complete bloody shambles you fools left the house in. I don't know, Aurors these days, can't even trust 'em to bring someone in without smashing up all the best china."
Neville sniggered; Robards went on to explain his new plan.
Discreet personal close protection hadn't worked. Forting up in the Ferreiras' home behind as many defensive enchantments as they could cast hadn't worked. Putting them up in another safe house wasn't likely to work; the Brazilian gangs seemed to have excellent information and it was too easy for them to find out the safe house address and slip another assassin in through their defences. So instead Robards had decided to fill the space around the Ferreiras with so many Magical Law Enforcement personnel, it would take an army to get to them.
"Hogsmeade Station," said Robards. "We give them two hours to pack the essentials, and then they go up to Hogsmeade, and they stay there until Ferreira Senior's testament is complete."
By 'Hogsmeade Station' of course, had meant not the village's train station, but the DMLE Station House in Hogsmeade. The plan sounded good to Ron, and as he looked around, he saw Harry and Neville nodding and agreeing too.
"The Wizengamot committee will come up on Monday and hear him out," Robards continued. "Then the bastard can sort himself out, I'm done wasting my Aurors on him. He's keen on security trolls apparently; I wouldn't trust my life to 'em, but that's his bloody lookout, see if I give a shit." Robards looked almost gleeful; perhaps he was imagining the irony of André Ferreira being done in after he had delivered the goods. "Until Monday then, they stay in the station and don't set a single bloody toe out of it. The boy's funeral will be postponed until next week. Not as if he's going anywhere."
And that was the extent of Robards' commentary on João Ferreira. The assassin-witch hadn't so much as given her name, but since it appeared the Brazilian gangs had shot their bolt, Robards was reassigning Neville and Mavis. Ron and Harry were on their own again, at least for the next three days until Monday when they could wrap this up.
And bang goes yet another weekend with Hermione, thought Ron sourly. Oh well, the end's in sight anyway. At least I'll be shot of this whole mess soon.
He punched Harry in the arm.
"Ow! What was that for?" Harry whined.
"The Nimbostratus? Seriously?! I'm a Cleansweep man, through and through."
The Hogsmeade Magical Law Enforcement Patrol Station House is the second most secure building in Hogsmeade, after Hogwarts. The Station House sits on the town square and is built like a squat Scottish towerhouse, and centuries of protective spellwork reinforces its thick sturdy granite walls. At all hours of the day it is staffed by at least two Patrolwizards on shift, and in the daytime more Patrolwizards and Aurors are in the station, popping in and out on patrols, going on shift and off shift, or dealing with paperwork. There would be too many Patrolwizards around and too much activity for any infiltrator to sneak into the station and get at the Ferreiras, and Robards didn't think the gangs had either the temerity or the resources to mount an open all-out attack on a British DMLE Station House.
(Or in Robards' exact words, "I'd love to see them try, just so I can pile every single one of my Aurors on top of the whole sorry bunch of miserable bastards.")
In addition, Robards had put the Ferreiras down in the detention cells, locked in for their own security behind yet another layer of magical protection. The detention cells were down in the dungeons with only one way in and out, protected by strong Anti-Apparation and Anti-Portkey charms; and to get down to the dungeons anyone had to go past the duty Patrolwizard's room as well as the main offices. The dungeons were underground; there were no windows at all for intruders to break into. The Ferreiras were not to go anywhere for any reason whatsoever. It was for this reason as well as all these security measures and the extra wandpower walking around the station house that Robards had felt comfortable enough to take Neville and Mavis off, reassigning them to another case.
Ron and Harry went down to the dungeons as soon as they stepped out of the Station House's Floo.
The Ferreiras had been placed in the largest cell, at the far end of the row of cells, and an effort had been made to make things comfortable for them, and make them feel less like prisoners. They had been provided with chairs, tables, camp beds, dividing curtains for privacy, and plenty of lamps and candles to brighten up the cell. The most important consideration of course was the door, built of thick steel-banded oak planks reinforced with multiple defensive spells. Ron reckoned that it could soak up at least a couple of Reductor Curses, and was probably resistant to most Unlocking Spells.
The Ferreiras were in shock, it seemed. It was only the three of them in the cell now. The retainer Ron had nicknamed Goylezalez was still in St Mungo's, as he had suffered several curses trying to protect his boss. Ron grudgingly gave him credit for that much loyalty at least, misplaced or not. Crabbeinho on the other hand had done a bunk, preferring to take his chances on his own, apparently. Shorn of his last two henchmen, removed from his richly-furnished home and all his possessions, André Ferreira looked far more vulnerable and uncertain now. He didn't look or act like someone about to extort 60,000 Galleons from the Ministry of Magic. His wife sat on her camp bed, stared into space and chewed her nails. Both of them were snappish and irritable, complained about the accommodations, and demanded more comforts and services. As for Ana…
Ron didn't get the chance to speak to Ana alone, until he bumped into her coming back from the loo. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. They stopped and stared at each other in the hallway outside the toilets.
Why do you still love your brother?
Every time I see him, I remember the big brother who took me to the beach.
"I'm sorry," Ron offered.
Ana shook her head. "It is not your fault. You were not there when that woman… killed him."
No doubt she meant it kindly, but it made Ron feel worse. He had not been there for too many things in his life, too many important people. "How do you feel… how are you… were you jinxed?"
"I am okay. I was not hurt, thanks to Mr Potter. I'm just… still thinking of my brother a lot."
"You'll feel better, after a bit," Ron tried to reassure her. "I still think about Fred, but it hurts less now."
"João hurt people and he was killed because of it," Ana blurted out. Ron flushed. "That's what my family did. My father, you know all about him. Since they were young, my mother has helped him make potions, attack people, and cover up for his crimes. They were in it together, she was not just some puta hanging around. My family are what you call Dark wizards and death is what we deserve."
"Not you, Ana," said Ron immediately. "You're better than them. You never did anything wrong. You were in Castelobruxo! You didn't even know, until…"
"Whether I knew or not, I benefited from my family's crimes, did I not? This is the result. 'The fathers eat sour grapes, but their children's teeth are set on edge'," quoted Ana. "My parents caused the deaths of many innocent people, and their children. Now they will be killed, and their children. This is justice."
"It's not fair," Ron argued.
"It is not fair, but it is just."
What did that even mean? Ron didn't know how to even try answering. "It's not always like that. You have to hope, Ana!" he said. "Hope that everything will turn out alright." He tried a more practical tack. "Look, it's over. We've caught the witch they sent. There's nobody else coming after you. And even if there is, there's all this," Ron waved his hand around the dungeon, "and half a dozen Aurors and Patrolwizards upstairs, and only one way down here, and that's past all of us. And soon you can go to Hogwarts, and you'll be even safer there, believe me or not."
Ana did not say anything for a while. Then she nodded. Suddenly, she flung her arms around him, trapping his arms by his sides, pushed her face into the sleeve of his Auror uniform cloak, and gave one deep sob. It felt, to Ron, like being hugged by Ginny. By his baby sister. Maybe it felt to her like hugging João too. A nicer, kinder, more caring João from the past. If that were so, well… he hoped she felt better for it, at least. After a few seconds she released him, and took out a hanky to blow her nose. "Thank you," she said, rather forlornly.
Ron put his arm around her and rubbed her upper arm reassuringly as they walked back to the dungeons. "It'll be alright."
Ana patted back her hair and smoothed down the front of her dress, its bright cheerful yellow a warm splash of colour in the rather dull granite-walled dungeon, and gave him a watery smile. "I will hope."
The Three Broomsticks was on the Hogsmeade village square right across from the Station House, and Ron and Harry decided it was near enough and the Station House safe enough that they could both go there for a bite and a pint. Rosmerta got them a quiet table in a discreet corner booth the instant she saw Harry - she didn't want her business interrupted by reporters and autograph seekers equally as much as they didn't want their dinners disturbed - and served them their fried haddock, chips, and chicken-and-ham pie quickly. Ron went to the bar and got their first round of Butterbeers.
For a while they didn't talk about the Ferreiras, just about ordinary things; Auror gossip, Weasley gossip, Quidditch, and so on; and that helped. But eventually they got round to the Ferreiras, and Ron unburdened himself on Harry.
That's what best mates are for.
Harry listened attentively, and didn't comment much until Ron was done venting. He didn't seem to judge Ron for obviously getting too emotionally involved with the case, too close to Ana, as another Auror would have. Then he went to top off their Butterbeers and sat down. "In a way," Harry said, "It might even be better for Ana, João getting knocked off and all." In answer to Ron's incredulous glare, he said, "From what you say, Ana's the only one in the family with her head screwed on straight. But if João had been around, they might've ganged up on her, made life miserable for her. Losing João seems to have given André a bit of a shock. Without his son, maybe he'll listen to his daughter, really turn over a new leaf."
"I tried imagining how I'd feel, y'know, if Percy had been killed back in seventh year," said Ron. "But it's not the same, is it? Perce was alright inside, he just couldn't believe the Ministry had been so wrong."
"It's more like, I dunno, Sirius and Regulus." The look in Harry's eyes turned distant in memory for a moment. Then he chuckled. "But no, Sirius was a rebel, he'd have rowed with his parents no matter what."
Ron snickered. After a moment, he said carefully, "What if Dudley…?"
Harry snorted and let out a dry, ironic chuckle. "What, you think if Dudders had been offed, maybe Vernon and Petunia would've suddenly loved magic?" He snorted again.
Ron heard the unspoken words behind that sentence: you think Vernon and Petunia would've suddenly loved me? He could have pointed out that the Ferreiras seemed to love Ana much more than the Dursleys had Harry, to whom they in fact had been downright abusive, but he knew better than to continue on that subject. The Dursleys were a sore spot for Harry Potter. "Yeah, well. Hopefully it works out for her then."
They finished their pints and left. As they walked back to the Station House from the Leaky, Harry slapped Ron's shoulder in a typically male gesture of reassurance. "She'll be alright. The Brazilians know she's not involved. Right now they're threatening the family to get André to keep quiet, but once he's spilled the beans, they'll either give up, or go after him alone for revenge. Him and him alone," Harry emphasised. "There'd be no point going after her then. She's not worth the trouble they'd get into. She'll be out of the picture."
Ron thought that sounded logical. The Aurors had taught them something about organised crime - they didn't kill unless it was necessary, because they were businesspeople at heart. Killing attracted too much attention from the authorities, and racked up prison time, if you got caught. The fewer victims the better. Besides, he reasoned, Ana was seventeen, and would finish her studies soon. She too would be shot of the Ferreiras in just a few months. "She wants to finish her studies and be a Healer," he said. "When I go off shift I'll talk to McGonagall about transferring over her… whatever they have instead of O.W.L.s in Brazil. And get her into Hogwarts as soon as possible."
"Good idea," Harry nodded. "Go ahead." He sighed. "I want to get this over and done with as much as you do, Ron. Can't wait to get back to proper case-work, you?"
"Fuck yeah," said Ron emphatically.
Hogsmeade is the only all-wizarding village in Magical Britain. While there are other major magical communities dotted around the islands - the Londoners, Tara, that crowd in Caerleon - Hogsmeade is the only place where it's all out in the open, with plenty of room for everyone to stretch out, not hidden in narrow streets behind Muggle frontages, or split up into individual shops and cottages in the midst of the Muggles. Some wizards enjoy the city life, but most prefer the country - amongst other considerations, it's illegal to fly in London. As such, while Diagon Alley is where everyone goes to do business, Hogsmeade is where they go to relax.
And they come from all over the world.
Ron could peer out of the (grilled and spell-protected) windows of the Station House and watch the whole world go by. Here were wizards from the Far East, Japanese and Koreans and Chinese, dressed in floaty silk Oriental-styled wizarding robes with curiously wide sleeves and odd squared caps rather like Oxford caps. How did they stay warm? Night had fallen on the Highland village and it was under ten degrees with a touch of Scotch mist falling. Warming Charms? And here were Russian or East European wizards looking much more comfortable in intricately-patterned and embroidered fur-trimmed kaftans and overcoats. Of course, whatever their nationality, the younger wizards and witches preferred Muggle dress, or those modern-cut robes that looked like Nehru jackets.
During the day, the tourists would have gone for nature walks around Hogsmeade to enjoy its profusion of magical plants and animals, or to fly their brooms around the glens and mountains of the Scottish Highlands, where the powerful winds could reach sixty miles an hour, even a hundred miles on record, and the thick soggy Scottish clouds meant visibility was cut down so you could prang a mountaintop at any time. (Charlie and Ginny often enjoyed flying in this pea-soup, for the sheer fun of battling through it; everyone else in the family thought they were cracked, and Mum would berate them over it.) From Hogsmeade also many tourists would take coach trips drawn by Granian winged horses to the Hebrides Dragon Sanctuary, or to Loch Ness to visit Nessie, the world's largest kelpie.
At night, they partied. The Three Broomsticks was packed to the rafters, and the Hog's Head also would be doing a roaring business, in its more circumspect fashion. The streets around town were well-lit with Gubraithian Candles and Light Orbs, and tonight there was a fête being held on the village green, a charity fundraiser for rescued magical beasts, or something - Ron hadn't had a proper look. Community life in Wizarding Britain had picked up considerably after Voldemort's final defeat.
The Magical Law Enforcement Patrolwizards had their hands full monitoring all this activity. A lot of this work simply meant, frankly, giving tourists directions, helping lost children find their parents, and sorting out improperly-parked or unattended brooms. But they also watched out for drunken quarrels, disputes at the fête, and tried to soothe over ruffled feelings, informally and off the books, without anyone having to spend a night in the cells. The DMLE Patrol tried its best to head things off before they escalated to drawn wands. The carnage and mayhem of wizard duels aside, nobody wanted to incur the spectre of the resulting paperwork, of which there could be a considerable amount.
The DMLE had lent them a tiny office but Harry and Ron stayed in the duty Patrolwizard's room, the centre of life at Hogsmeade Station House and positioned directly between the custody dungeons and the rest of the world. Nothing could go past and down to the dungeons without them noticing, and it was a good opportunity to catch up on paperwork. They watched as the DMLE racked up two lost and crying toddlers, three missing items (all of them swearing blind they hadn't carelessly dropped them and they must have been stolen), one heated payment dispute from the fête that had escalated to jinxing, and no less than nine drunk-and-disorderlys.
"Ye might say it's really just four disorderlys, actually," said one of the Patrolwizards, a soft-spoken wizard named MacLean whose large build and great big bushy beard put Ron to mind of a ginger Hagrid. "Seein' as how one of 'em involved six people." The six were foreigners, four wizards and two witches, who'd all had a drop too much and refused to stop singing merrily at the top of their voices, even as they were being pushed into their cell.
"Is four a more usual number of drunks?" asked Harry.
In his massive hands, PW Hector MacLean's tea mug looked like a toy doll's. It disappeared into the depths of his fuzzy red beard with a slurp and a smacking of lips, before the Patrolwizard answered. "Yep. There're one or two sad old local buggers who always end up in the cells, and every weekend there's a couple of young 'uns who need a talking-to. I don't know about you, but personally, I would rather get drunk quietly instead of putting people to the trouble of having to jinx you and book you and all."
And a good thing too, thought Ron. PW MacLean was one of the few people in the world that Ron had to look up at, and he was built like a brick broom-shed. I bet you could do a lot of damage, drunk.
"But we sometimes get a few extra tourists who need to cool off in the cells, especially on holidays," MacLean continued in his soft Kintyre accent. "And after the Quidditch Cup final. Dunna wurry, we'll give them a cup of tea in the morning, when they're all better, and charge them fifty Galleons for the privilege."
Harry nodded, caught Ron's eye, and gave him a brief smirk, which Ron returned. Good old Harry, checking all the angles. He just could not be beat for nosing around. Harry would worry at every detail of a case until he turned up something that everyone else had overlooked. Besides the fact that having his best mate around was always fun, it made Ron feel better for Ana, knowing that the problem of the Ferreiras had Harry's full attention.
"C'mon," said Harry, getting up. "Let's go patrol Hogsmeade."
"Dunna fret, lads," said PW MacLean, as Ron and Harry pulled on their red Auror uniform cloaks.
Harry opened his mouth, probably to say something like there might be something you've missed, which was true but less than tactful; Ron cut in quickly: "Oh, we have to tell Robards we did go through the motions."
MacLean chuckled, then turned to Harry. "Listen, Harry, I, uh." The big man faltered for a moment, then carried on with what was obviously a rehearsed speech. "I want to say thank you for fighting You-Know… Voldemort. When Scrimgeour died and Thicknesse took over, we Patrolwizards were all in a daze, we had no idea what to do. It seemed there was nothing we could do. People were disappearing, friends, colleagues; some of them came back after the war, but some were dragged off and just never… I was worried for me children, Lachlan was in fourth year then, Annie and Elsie in third and second, so I never made so much as a peep… I'm sorry, when ye came to Hogwarts that night I thought of them first of all, brought them home and made sure they were safe. I only joined in at the very last, just before ye killed the old bastard."
Harry was red with embarrassment; Ron snickered quietly to himself. The two of them had heard various versions of this, over the past three years. Harry still wasn't used to it, was still always reduced to red-faced speechlessness. Ron took pity on both of them, and grabbed Harry by the collar. "C'mon, wonder boy, we've work to do; sign your fans' autographs on your own time." He tipped a broad wink at Hector MacLean, to show he was joking and to remove any suggestion of insult.
Humour, pointed and deliberately misdirected, is how men tend to deal with sensitive emotions nobody really wants to hear spoken out loud.
Beats drinking.
Their collars turned up against the chilly night air, Ron and Harry wandered around the streets immediately surrounding the Hogsmeade Station House, checking the back alleys, their hands in their pockets. At nearly two in the morning, Hogsmeade was still and silent. A couple of lamps on each street and on the town square shone warm and yellow. They magically examined the back of Station House from the outside, every door and window on the first and second floor, and were satisfied with the defensive spells and alarms they saw.
"What d'you think of MacLean?" asked Ron, as they worked.
Harry shrugged. "I don't know what to think."
"Think he was really saying 'thanks a bunch mate'? Or giving excuses? Or unloading? Asking for forgiveness?" That was what Hermione had said about these people saying these things, that was what it all boiled down to. Why me?! They tell me all this and look at me expecting me to say something. What can I say? There's no way I can tell if they did right or wrong. Why me, Harry had complained. Because you're the Chosen One, Hermione had said. Like it or not, Ron had added, and gotten a dirty hand gesture from Harry for his trouble.
"He's," began Harry, "he's like all the others. They went about their jobs, did whatever Yaxley and Umbridge told them to do, because they were afraid. Afraid of what Yaxley and Umbridge would do to their family if they resisted. They made an example of one or two, and that did it for the rest; they kept their heads down and toed the line."
"So did Dad and Bill," Ron observed. "Only Kingsley and Lupin went into hiding straight away, and fought them all the way."
"Cause Kingsley and Lupin reckoned they would be killed; Kingsley was too high-profile, and Greyback and Bellatrix had a score to settle with Remus. But they let your dad and Bill be, at least until the end. Voldemort didn't want to kill everyone, just force everyone to obey him." Harry sighed. "It was different for them, they had so many others to think of. You know that."
You told me that, Ron heard, with a stab of guilt. Echoes of their argument, in the tent, during those stupid days on that stupid Horcrux Hunt. Fuck. Stop it, it's over and done with. "What would you have done, if you'd been Dad?" he asked.
"I don't know. I don't have family."
My parents are dead… Mine could be going the same way…! Ron shook his head. Stop it. "Well, what if you had children?"
"I really don't know, Ron."
Ron decided to take refuge in banter again. "Yeah, well, the way you and my sister carry on, you'd better answer that question fast, mate. It's not like being an Auror's the safest career in the world." If Hermione and I ever… that would be something I'd need to figure out, too…
Harry's eyes narrowed. "Don't you worry about that, we use protection when we shag."
Ron made a strangled sound of disgust. "Oh, fuck you, very nice, dickhead. We agreed…!" That this was the one area best mates usually talked about with each other that Ron and Harry steadfastly did not. Ron didn't talk about himself and Hermione to Harry either. Hermione was too close to Harry for Harry to feel comfortable with that, too.
Harry grinned mischievously. "Well, you opened that door…"
Their patrol had taken them nearly to Honeydukes'. In all that time they had seen no-one. The village was dead quiet, slumbering after the partying of the night. Everything was still and calm… wasn't it? Ron glanced at Harry, and happened to catch his eye. He had known his best mate for ten years, and he could tell in that brief glance when Harry was chewing over something in his head.
"It doesn't feel right," said Harry, calmly and matter-of-factly.
The words hammered on Ron's own instincts. "You feel it too?" he said. Cause really, that had been what all this chatter had been disguising - the growing unease he felt inside. Something was off, but he couldn't figure out what.
"Yeah. They might just be planning something. If so, tonight would be a good time to try for it."
"Let's go back to the Station," said Ron.
They didn't quite break into a run, but did walk purposefully and briskly back to the town square, eyes darting at every shadow along the way. A cat yowled, and an owl slid silently past, and Ron and Harry watched them warily.
Hogsmeade Station House was quiet as well. The night shift Patrolwizards were in the main office area filling out the endless paperwork, planning, chatting. It made Ron feel better at once to see them there, and he gave MacLean a nod; the Patrolwizard raised his hand in friendly acknowledgement.
The duty Patrolwizard was a young chap in his thirties named Chisholm. He confirmed that everything was quiet, all throughout Britain; no, not a word from the other Station Houses either.
"We'll just pop downstairs to the dungeons for a bit," said Harry. "Who do you have in custody at the moment?"
"Let me check," said Chisholm, opening a book. "Hm. I see we're a bit stuffed today. Three protective custody…"
"That's ours," Ron interrupted.
"Right. Three protective custody, one illegal possession, two assault and jinxing, nine drunks, fourteen in all downstairs. The illegal possession's old Mrs Erskine, she keeps insisting on using black market Lobalug venom for her garden, although it's Class B Controlled, and the boss's decided to haul her up before the Wizengamot once and for all. The jinxing charge is Roy Tweedie and that Indian tourist he fleeced at the fête. The rest are the drunks; Milligan Junior, Ma'am Drever, practically regulars; six tourists from Spain; and a bloody Mack from Massachusetts who was offering to fight half the Three Broomsticks…"
"Hang on," said Harry. "Six tourists from Spain? You're sure they said Spain?"
"They didn't say anything much, too bladdered frankly," said Chisholm. "But they were singing in foreign, and it sounded Spanish-like. They were throwing bottles and rubbish around and making a general nuisance of themselves so we booked them…"
Ron was already halfway out the door, Harry just behind him. The corridor to the dungeons was on the right of the duty Patrolwizard's room. Spanish? Brazilians spoke Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese. But could a British Patrolwizard tell the difference? Hell, Ron was pretty sure he couldn't, himself. Here was the heavy oak door protecting the top of the stairs. Wands out. Ron grabbed the door, twisted the handle, and wrenched it open.
Silence.
Maybe we're wrong.
Maybe we're on time.
Two long flights of stairs leading down to the dungeon, far underground for protection.
On the landing Ron felt a tingle on his skin as he passed through a bubble of magic - what he realised later was probably the edge of a Silencing Charm - and now he heard SCREAMING.
"HELP! HELP! GET OFF ME, YOU BITCH! SOMEBODY HELP!"
Fuck fuck fuck! Another door at the bottom. Ron grabbed the handle, looked behind him. Harry was right there, looking pale but determined, wand at the ready. "Go," Harry whispered.
Ron flung the door open.
Just before the cells themselves, there was an ante-room here for the custody officer, who booked detainees, monitored them around the clock, and looked after their welfare, feeding, and other needs. Tonight's custody officer was a young Patrolwitch. One of the 'Spanish tourists', a woman, had wrapped her arms around the screaming and sobbing Patrolwitch.
Ron's and Harry's voices chorused more or less in unison, yelling:"RELASHIO!"
The woman was forced to release the Patrolwitch, who tumbled to the floor and scrabbled around trying to get away. Harry jabbed silently with his wand; a Stunning Spell shot forth and struck the woman, and she fell.
Screams continued to fill the air, coming from the cells.
Ron pointed his wand at the grill door which separated the detention block from the custody officer's ante-room, snapped quickly: "Aperio!" The door clanged open and he hurled himself through.
The wizard had been waiting for him, of course. A curse narrowly missed Ron and struck the wall inches from his face, granite chips plinking painfully on his cheeks. Ron threw up a Shield Charm, and the next two jinxes burst harmlessly against it.
All this time, the screaming went on and on, a blood-curdling chorus of high-pitched shrieks and deeper, hoarse cries that rang and echoed off the grey walls and the vaulted roof of the dungeons, the sound of terror and pain and a desperate struggle for life.
The corridor where the custody cells were placed curled in the shape of an L. The Ferreiras' cell was at one end, Ron at the other. The wizard was well-protected behind the corner, whereas Ron was totally exposed. It was all he could do to crouch down, make himself as small a target as he could, and concentrate entirely on holding up his Shield, the oncoming jinxes and curses spattering on it, bouncing off and blasting the walls and roof. No chance of throwing back a jinx himself, still less of actually hitting the bastard.
Fortunately, Ron was not alone.
"REDUCTO!" yelled Harry, practically in Ron's ear, and his powerful curse blasted massive chunks of granite out of the corner. The brick-sized pieces of stone slammed into the wizard and threw him sprawling onto the floor.
Ron jumped to his feet and charged up the corridor, yelling:"Stupefy!"
The wizard flew across the corridor, slammed head-first into the wall and crumpled into a limp heap.
Two down, four to go. Ron ran up to the shattered bit of wall on the corner, got down on one knee - because people usually had their wands aimed at head height - and hastily took a peek round it. The corridor was empty. He suddenly realised, with a terrible feeling of foreboding, that the screaming had stopped. The dungeons were now ominously silent.
No.
Panic made him take crazy risks he wouldn't have, that wasn't in any of the Auror manuals. Without even looking behind to make sure Harry was following, Ron leapt to his feet and ran up the corridor as if every split-second counted. Because maybe it did…
The Ferreiras' cell door was broken. Ajar.
Ron didn't hesitate even one second; he plunged into the cell, completely heedless of safety and tactics.
The first impression his mind latched on was: red.
The walls and floor were splashed as if a modern artist had been given a pail of red and told to go wild. All the furniture and all the Ferreiras' possessions were broken and strewn about, evidence of the slaughter that had just ended mere seconds ago, all of it drenched in fresh bright red blood. But here and there were bits of more substantial stuff, chunks of flesh, chips of bone, even a blood-soaked clump of short black curly hair, clinging to a scrap of scalp.
The four 'Spanish tourists' stood off to one side, weirdly lined up as if for a parade; even more bizarrely, they were facing the wall, inches away from their noses.
Blood soaked their hands, as if they'd dipped them in buckets of the stuff; it ran from their elbows down to their knuckles and dripped to the floor from limp fingertips.
Ron didn't need to think it through, to know what had happened here.
Ron didn't think at all.
His mind went blank with shock and horror and blinding rage.
"YOU FUCKERS! YOU FUCKS!" Ron spat the most powerful curses he could think of; Reductor Curses, Blasting Curses, Flamethrower Curses; they came streaming from his wand, and with the uncontrollable fury that wiped all thought from his mind and sent his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of his chest, they went whizzing every which way, some striking their targets, some hitting the roof and walls of the dungeon, even fizzling out and doing nothing as he lost control of the spell. There was no question of thinking logically about what spell to use; Ron just wanted to rip, tear, wreck, destroy… "AVADA K…!"
"NO RON!" A powerful hand seized his wand hand and wrenched it back; an even more powerful body slammed into him, knocking the breath out of his lungs; Ron welcomed the pain and the numbness, his body hurt but it was better than what was inside his heart; that's good, fight back, give me a reason, GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON!
But it wasn't them, it was Harry who was on top of him, pinning him back against the granite wall of the dungeon, and Harry was yelling as well: "...stop, they're not resisting, Ron, they're not resisting, you can't…!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Ron screamed.
If only it had been one of them on top of him, he would have felt better. There's this for Muggle-style duelling; it feels really good to hit something with your own fists. Hexes are nice but wands just aren't the same. But this was Harry, not them, and he couldn't fight his best mate Harry, could he? He was, well, his best mate. So Ron had no choice but to let Harry pin him back, nothing left to do but shout and swear and yell the filthiest words he could think of at the things at the other end of the room. And eventually he got sick of that as well, because it was true, they weren't fighting back. In fact, they had their backs turned to him, he had seen that from the start really, and they hadn't so much as flinched as he blasted them, just crumpled to the floor, silently.
And, ultimately, Ron couldn't bring himself to jinx an unresisting person in the back.
More Patrolwizards had run into the cell, they were yelling at the murderers and immobilising them with jinxes the proper way. Harry was still holding him against the wall; Ron focused on him and shouted, "Get off me, Harry!"
"Stop it, Ron, you can't…"
His head was in a whirl; he couldn't find the words to explain and he just blurted out: "Ana!"
"She's gone, mate, don't…"
"LET ME SEE HER!"
Warily, Harry backed off, keeping himself between Ron and the murderers at the other end of the detention cell, and his wand ready. The Patrolwizards stared at him, then at Harry; Harry waved them back curtly.
Ron ignored them all. He took three quick strides over to where she lay and dropped to his knees beside her. Her eyes stared crazily at the ceiling and her mouth gaped open as if gasping for breath. Ron knew instinctively that he didn't need to, but he performed the spell to check for life anyway. Nothing, of course. There was this small mercy, it seemed that they had strangled her dead or perhaps broken her neck, her face and body was otherwise not marred.
Unlike the other bodies in the cell. Ron looked around quickly. Mrs Ferreira's head was an unrecognisable mush of hair, flesh and skull. Where was André Ferreira? Ron's eyes fell on a headless and armless trunk sprawled in a corner as if it had been chucked aside, the chest caved in and the neck and shoulders nothing but strings of ragged, torn flesh. The Brazilian crime boss had been beaten to a pulp and torn to pieces.
Case closed.
It was technically tampering with the scene of the crime, but Ron closed Ana's eyes and her mouth, smoothed down her hair, and neatly straightened her body and that bright yellow dress.
Then he got up, and trudged out of the dungeon.
A/N: All over bar the shouting? One last chapter.
