Nathan Mulciber the Third woke up in the dark. It wasn't unusual for him to wake in the middle of the night, his job as head auror made deep sleep nearly impossible, but this darkness was different. It wasn't the comfortable twilight of his bedroom. It was total, impenetrable, and strangely cold.

He realized he couldn't move. Someone had put him in a straight-backed chair, and his arms were tied to the arm rests. He pulled at the ropes tying him down, but they were looped around his forearms so many times, he couldn't tell if he was making any progress.

His heart pounded wildly in his chest. His breath became raspy and panicked as he kept struggling to free his arms: first his right, then his left, then his right again.

"Lumos," a man's voice said, and a single, harsh light appeared, illuminating a hard face.

Mulciber relaxed.

"Oh, it's you, Harry."

Harry frowned. It wasn't the reaction he'd hoped for.

Harry never liked the man, not from the moment he first set eyes on him, before Harry even knew he was related to a Death Eater. It wasn't that he was ugly, but that he was ugly in such an unnatural way. He reminded Harry of mandrake roots: misshapen, lumpy, and weird. The man's head was oblong, almost coming to a point. His ears stuck out like handles. His eyes were vastly different sizes: his right large and milky, his left small and piercing. The harsh wandlight made his features seem even worse.

"No one can hear you, Mulciber," he said. "There's no point in struggling. I assure you the ropes are secure."

Mulciber held his hands out as if to say "I'm not struggling." Harry frowned. He'd hoped to scare the man into a confession. He wondered, not for the first time, if he should have brewed some veritaserum.

"Want to know why you're here?" Harry said.

"I assume it's 'cause you think I killed your wife," Mulciber said, blandly. "Unless this is just how you invite folks round for dinner."

"You're going to confess tonight."

"Oh, am I? Good. Please tell me why I did it."

"You've moved up with me out of the way," Harry said, stepping closer. "Head of Magical Law Enforcement. Quite the feather in your cap."

Mulciber stared at him, stunned, and Harry smiled. Finally, he'd wiped that confidence off the ugly man's face. He decided to wait, stretching the uncomfortable silence like a taut string.

Finally, Mulciber spoke.

"I killed..." he said, and swallowed, "I killed your wife for an extra TEN GALLEONS A WEEK? Are you mental? No, don't answer that. It'll spoil the surprise."

Harry resisted the urge to hit him.

"You've always wanted my job. Argued with every decision. Complained about me behind my back."

"That's because you're a SHIT BOSS."

Harry flinched a little, then swore at himself for his weakness. He needed to be calm, forceful, menacing. He'd have to slowly peel the answers out of the man. However, Mulciber didn't need Harry to get him to talk. All the frustration he'd clearly been harboring for years seemed to flood out of him.

"Ever 'eard of 'professional development?' Hm? How 'bout 'growing your people?' No, of course not. If you had, you'd know Janet Smitts hasn't had a raise in six years, not even a cost-of-living adjustment. You'd realize that instead of telling us to just use 'whatever we were good at' to fight dark magic, we needed a training programme."

As Mulciber's words tumbled out, Harry was surprised how much they hurt. He always prided himself on being good to his people. He paid attention to their lives. He even invited them over to his house for dinner. Well, most of them, anyway.

Mulciber was still talking, practically shouting.

"And oh, heaven forbid Harry Potter has to sit through a boring meeting every now and then. Well, boo fecking hoo. Some of us need to coordinate. Some of us need to know what's going on out there. But you couldn't be arsed. You couldn't even write out an agenda or take notes. How did you even graduate Hogwarts? Oh, right, Hermione Bloody Granger."

Mulciber's anger seemed to finally have abated. He finally sputtered to a halt. Harry let the uncomfortable silence between them grow for a moment before speaking.

"So that's it, then," Harry said. "You couldn't wait to replace me. To finally run the department the way you wanted."

Mulciber snorted. "Ah, for feck's sake, Potter. I could have 'ad your job whenever I wanted. I could have just sent the Daily Prophet an anonymous tip about what you lot did at Gringotts. Your little jaunt through the secure areas to get an 'orcrux. Word of that got out… Oh, the scandal…"

Harry scoffed. "There's no scandal there. Everyone knows I used the imperius curse. I was officially pardoned. We had to stop Voldemort."

He was pleased that Mulciber winced at the name. However, it didn't change the man's defiant demeanor.

"The scandal wasn't the Unforgivable. The scandal was nearly destroying the entire British economy. You broke into the financial cornerstone of the wizarding world. Stole from the most secure vaults. Did massive amounts of damage. If word of got out that three teenagers could break into the most secure financial facility on the planet, there'd be a run on the banks. Life savings wiped out. Even the muggle markets would crash. So they covered it up. 'Ad to. Paid off the goblins, the reporters, anyone even near Diagon Alley that day."

Mulciber squinted at Harry, and he seemed honestly surprised at Harry's confusion.

"They didn't tell you that, eh? What else they leave out? You know what 'appened to that blind, crazed dragon you let loose over England?"

Visions of that poor creature, held in misery in the dark its whole life, swam through Harry's mind. It had flown off towards the mountains. Ron had said it could look after itself, but could it? What would it have done in the wild? What would it have eaten? Whom would it have eaten?

"The point is, I could've 'ad you out years ago. Now that I am in charge, however, I'm doing a damn good job. Morale up. Injuries down. We're moving through the case backlog faster than ever."

Harry snorted, then scowled. "And yet you sidelined one of the best aurors."

Mulciber squinted at him through the dim light, confused.

"Ron Weasely," Harry said. "You couldn't get him out of the field fast enough."

"Ron Weasely nearly got killed twice in the month after you left. Lost 'is nerve. And you know what? Sitting behind a desk doing paperwork was the best thing for him. Goes home at 5 every day. The wife always knows where 'e is. Ain't sitting up all night worrying."

He laughed.

"She's grateful, she is. Came to see me. Hermione Granger 'erself came to thank me. Never been hugged by a Minister for Magic before."

Harry scowled. "You have an answer for everything."

"One of the advantages of tellin' the truth."

Harry stood and held up his wand. He took a deep breath. "Let's see how your truth holds up under an Unforgivable Curse."

If Mulciber was scared, he didn't show it. "Oh, please. Imperius doesn't work on truth telling, and you're not the Crucio type."

A malicious smile spread across Harry's face. "I'm the Avada Kadavara type."

Mulciber studied Harry for a moment, then laughed and shook his head. "Nah."

"I've used it before."

"On whom?" Mulciber said, drawing out the m in whom. "What was their name, eh?"

He almost answered, almost told the man he'd slaughtered a dozen giant spiders, but then realized Mulciber would have just laughed in his face. He imagined the man would say something like "Spiders 'aint the same."

"You don't think I'm capable of murder?" Harry said. "You're about to find out how wrong you are."

"Oh, I know you're a murderer. Twice over. There was He Who Must Not Be Named-"

Harry cut him off, stiffly. "That was self-defense."

Mulciber looked disgusted. "Oh, please. You tromped around the country for a year squishing all the little bits of his soul. That's like… That's like cutting 'oles in a man's parachute. Then you gave him a wand you knew couldn't hurt you, got him to shoot a death spell, and bounced it back at him. That's premeditated murder, Harry."

Harry scowled with frustration. "I didn't have a choice! He was killing people. My friends."

"Didn't have a choice? You couldn't 'ave held up all his horcruxes and said 'Surrender or we'll smash these?' You couldn't have let him throw spells at you with his useless wand until he gave up? You couldn't have waited for all the reinforcements to arrive and arrest him?"

"That's not—"

"And then there's Bogrod."

Harry blinked. "Who?"

"Bogrod," Mulciber said, and squinted at him again. "You don't remember his name? The goblin you murdered at Gringotts. Burned alive by your dragon."

"That was an accident!"

"'Deaths caused in the commission of a crime is transferred malice,'" Mulciber said with the stilted tone of a teacher. "That's murder. That's two murders I know of. But you ain't going to kill me. You know why?"

Harry folded his arms, refusing to take the bait.

"Love."

Harry laughed so hard spit dribbled out. "I don't love you."

"'Course you don't. Made that abundantly clear. Invited everyone in the department over for dinner except me. Never asked me how I was doing or shared a tea. Don't blame you. Not really. I've got a Death Eater's last name and a face like a spoiled potato.

"But you told us a million times about the power o' love. It saved you as a baby. It made you stronger than He Who Must Not Be Named. Love's important to you. I don't see you striking me down with an act of hate. It's just not in your nature."

Harry raised his wand and, with a shout, brought it down swiftly. There was a flash of light. When it cleared, Mulciber's arms were free. The bonds melted into smoke. He stared down at his arms for a moment, then rubbed them.

"Thanks."

Harry sat down. "Sorry. I just had to be sure it wasn't you before I moved on to other suspects."

"Harry, don't. Just don't. That's our job. Trust the process."

Harry scoffed. "I know your process. It's always the—"

"It's always the family," Mulciber said, cutting him off. "But it is always family. Every time you don't know who did it, you'll find the wife or some distant cousin behind it all. I promise you, by the time you're out of Azkaban, we'll have them." Harry froze.

"I'm sorry, 'out of Azkaban?' What are you talking about?"

"You kidnapped an officer of the law. Held me hostage. If I was still just an auror, I could let it slide, but as head… Well, I can't be showin' favoritism."

Harry's guilt at how he treated Mulciber faded as he remembered how much he hated the man. Mulciber noticed the change in Harry's demeanor.

"But!" he said, holding his hands up, placatingly. "But. I will ask the judge for leniency. You're distraught. You didn't hurt me. And you're Harry Potter. It'd look bad if you were sent away for long. At worse, I bet you'll only serve a couple months."

Harry laughed. "I hear Azkaban's nice in summer."

Mulciber patted Harry's back, like a parent calming a child. "Maybe, when you're out, look for some of that love you are always on about."

"I know a clarity spell," Luna's voice said behind him.

"And you'll be out in time for fall semester. 'Ow is teaching, by the by? Chasing kids all the time. Sounds miserable to me."

"I like it," Harry said, realizing it was true as he said it. "The grading is awful, of course. Reading all those terrible essays on endless rolls of parchment. But I like lecturing and showing off wand movements."

"And free room and board? And your own office?" Mulciber said. "Sign me up!"

"Well, the office isn't great. It's got this painting on the wall I can't get rid of. Nothing will move it, and it keeps lecturing me on how to do things. 'Move your wand more like this, Harry.' 'You're pronouncing it wrong, Harry.' Problem is, it's a painting of the worst teacher in Hogwarts history. Seriously. Terrible. He doesn't know how to do anything right."

Mulciber laughed. "Ah, well. Nothing's perfect."

"Actually, that's not true," Harry said, gripping his wand. "He was very good at memory charms."