August 24th, 2002

Harry tries to convince himself that he's not nervous and that he's late because he's unorganised and not because he didn't want to be the one to wait for Dudley. He already regrets that he agreed to this and can't imagine what they might have to say to each other. So they grew up together, if you can even call it growing up in his case. Big deal. Except for the same address for sixteen years or so, they have nothing in common, maybe besides an animosity that's sure to be mutual.

The pub is in Chelsea and looks like every other pub—the kind that serves fish and chips, burgers, and craft beer and transmits football games. It seems like a Dudley kind of place.

He's already waiting in the corner, looking as nervous as Harry feels, drumming his fingers on a tabletop, and nursing his beer half-heartedly. When he sees him, he puts it down with too much force and stands quickly. "Hey! I'm glad you made it!" There's a pause when neither of them knows how to get through the greeting part before Dudley holds out his hand, and it would be too impolite of Harry not to shake it.

"Hey, Big D," he quips, deciding that being chill about all of this is the only way to get rid of awkward tension.

Jackpot! Dudley snorts. "No one's called me that in ages," he says, sitting back down.

"You're not getting rid of this so easily."

Dudley laughs, and it's not really forced, maybe just a little hysterical. "What do you want to drink?" he asks, waving at the waitress.

"I'll have the same you're having," Harry says, and a week of sobriety goes fuck itself.

The awkwardness returns, but Dudley faces it bravely. "So it was pretty crazy to bump into you the other day. I mean, what were the odds?"

"Pretty low," Harry murmurs. He can't quite get over it himself. He wants to say something, maybe about Dudley's girlfriend—fiancée?—but he can't find anything nice to say, so instead he says nothing. He's really bad at small talk.

But Dudley forges ahead. "So what have you been up to? We haven't heard anything since... since..." he seems to be searching for a diplomatic enough word.

"The war?" Harry supplies. There's no sugarcoating it. Maybe that's why it's not really small talk material.

Dudley nods sharply, then ostentatiously lowers his voice. "They told us you won."

Harry reaches into his pocket, touches his wand, and casts a weak, concentrated Muffliato.

"We did," he confirms curtly, and Dudley looks like a great weight lifts from his shoulders.

"Good! That's good!" Muffliato was a right idea because Dudley immediately forgets that he was supposed to be secretive. He looks genuinely relieved. Is he trying to be supportive? Harry doesn't understand why he even cares. "It's just, I never knew for sure, you know? I mean, they could have lied, and how would we mere muggles even have known?"

The use of the word throws Harry off. Does Dudley think of himself as a muggle? Differentiating himself from wizards is reasonable, but using their terminology to do that seems a little excessive.

"Wait, what did they tell you?" he asks, trying to remember who kept an eye on the Dursleys while in hiding. Diggle and Jones?

"They said that you defeated the bad guy. And that the good guys won." Dudley shrugs. "It's a kind of thing you tell kids when they ask something you don't want to answer. Mom and dad refused to talk to them, but I asked them every once in a while. How are things, you know? They mostly kept silent, or said that there were no updates, or just told me that I wouldn't understand. And then one day there was good news, and we could go home. But we never heard from you, so—"

"Did you expect to hear from me?" Harry interrupts because no, it wasn't unreasonable of him at all to keep on pretending that the Dursleys have never existed.

Dudley's eyes get wide. "I understand why you didn't. Get in touch, I mean. And I know it's not your problem, but ever since we came back, I feel like I need to keep this huge secret. I mean, I do need to keep it; I've been keeping it since I was a kid, but I didn't think about it this way when I was a kid. I tried not to think about it at all, and I still do, but sometimes I can't help but think that there's this whole other world out there, and if something happened, if there was another war or whatever, I wouldn't even know. It's not like they were going to announce it on the news or something. You were the only link, and you were gone, and I..." He stops and takes a deep breath while Harry stares.

Wow. This has been really bothering him. He suddenly wonders how it might feel for someone to be touched by the wizarding world briefly and then have no further contact with it. It seems like something that can make one paranoid.

"Well... sorry," he says, not knowing what else to say. "I can... give you an update every once in a while, if you want to. So you don't have to... worry."

"No. No," Dudley protests, shaking his head frantically before sighing. "This is going badly. You don't owe us anything. These are my issues. I'm sure you have your own. Many of them. Most of them we've probably brought about." Harry opens his mouth to object—not object to his words, but to talking about it at all—but that's when Dudley lets out a hurried, "I'm sorry," and then promptly grimaces, like he's aware how inadequate it is.

For some reason, Harry appreciates it anyway. Maybe he has some understanding of how much harm Harry was subjected to in his parents' house after all. "It's okay, Dudley. You were a kid. You're not the one that's supposed to be apologising."

Dudley nods mechanically. "I know," he says very quietly, then swallows heavily. "It's just... I've been thinking about it a lot lately, you know? With the baby on the way and all that, it's impossible not to."

Harry wonders how to gently let him know that he has no desire to talk about it. "As long as you get to the conclusion to not do what they did, I think you're golden," he finally says dryly, and Dudley snorts, then promptly pretends it never happened.

"God, no." He grimaces and for a moment looks like a small, lost boy. "They weren't really very good, were they? And I don't just mean..." he pauses and makes an aborted gesture towards Harry, but then apparently changes his mind. "You know what, fuck it. They weren't any good."

"I am. Fucking it," says Harry firmly. Whatever he has to say about the Dursleys—older Dursleys—that's between him and his therapist. He's still not sure about Dudley. "I hope for your sake that you can steer clear of them." That's an interesting thought, and Harry almost feels like the roles are turned and he's the lucky one between the two of them. He at least has an option of pretending that they don't exist.

"Yeah, well, they kind of hate Shiv. She tends to be quite outspoken. I'm trying to keep the peace for now, because, you know... parents." He gets a little red, probably from realising that Harry might not actually know. "Let them think they have a say and all that. But enough about it. What about you? You mentioned something about a new job?"

This will continue to be even more awkward if Harry keeps answering monosyllabically. "Yeah, I'm an auror. A magic cop, basically," he explains, seeing Dudley's confused expression.

"Wait, seriously? What does a magic cop even do?" He lowers his voice again, and Harry wonders if he should tell him that he doesn't have to worry about being overheard.

"The same as a regular cop. Investigate crime. Only magical."

"Huh," Dudley says, frowning. "Is there a lot of it?"

"Not these days," Harry says truthfully. There seems to be curiously little of it.

"Anything else?" asks the waitress who just approached them. Dudley jumps, and Harry thanks her quietly for his beer.

"I think I'll have a burger," he decides, scanning the menu one more time. "You want anything?"

Dudley wants a burger as well, and when the waitress leaves, he asks hesitantly, "Isn't it, like, inconvenient to you? You people probably have your own places and your own food and all that."

He has a funny image of the wizarding world. "We still inhabit the same plane of existence as you. We also look quite similar. The only thing stopping us from walking among you is mugglephobia, which I admit is a common affliction, but not one I suffer from." Maybe he's being a little too sarcastic. "I live in muggle London, Dudley. I go to regular bars all the time."

"Oh," Dudley says, seemingly not expecting that. "That's cool. So you actually live in a normal apartment and go to work, and... wait, where even is the magical police station?"

Harry shrugs. "Whitehall." Dudley blinks, like he expected the answer to be 'on the moon'. Which is actually one of a few places muggles have been when wizards haven't. Harry can see that he wants to ask for more details, so he adds, "Are you planning on going there?"

Dudley laughs and shakes his head. "So, you might have magic, but you still end up worrying about mundane stuff like taxes and shit," he sums up. "Man, that's depressing."

Harry snorts. "Yup, we have taxes," he admits easily, deciding not to let him know of the existence of a Hexing Tax. Even if Harry fully understood the idea himself, it would take too long to explain.

Dudley must find it especially humorous. "Nothing is certain except death and taxes," he quotes with a hint of nostalgia. "Even in the magical world." This in turn makes Harry thoughtful, because while death certainly seems inevitable, it's not what his personal experience indicates. Dudley misses his gloomy expression and instead jolts. "Shit, should we be just talking about it?" Clearly he's been taking Harry's lead, but he can't help but worry.

"They can't hear us," Harry informs him casually. Dudley looks kind of frightened and looks around nervously, so Harry adds defensively, "It doesn't hurt anyone. Their attention is just diverted."

"No, I know," Dudley assures him quickly. "It's cool. I wouldn't mind learning more about it," he admits shyly.

Harry actually smiles and starts shaking his head before he's suddenly struck by a thought. If it's okay for him to draw from the centuries of muggle advancement, how is it fair that the same can't be done the other way around? If you can't master something, there's no point in even looking into it—what kind of attitude is that? What he means isn't exactly showing Dudley Diagon Alley—that could probably work should Harry want to, but he's pretty sure he doesn't. But if there's a muggle genius out there somewhere, he wouldn't mind sitting down with them one day to try to figure this whole thing out together. He has a feeling they'd have plenty of enlightenment to offer that no wizard has dreamt about.

So he just shrugs. "Maybe," he says in a noncommittal tone. Dudley keeps smiling while they both pretend it wasn't an outright refusal, so Harry asks to prevent things from getting awkward again, "So, what do you do these days?"

"Oh, I'm a teacher. Back to work in a week." And before Harry can spit out his beer, he adds, "I teach PE." Okay, that checks. At least the world hasn't gone completely crazy yet. "But Shiv, she's super smart." Oh? "She's still at uni and studies pharmacology. It's so much biology and chemistry that I'm tired even thinking about it—"

"Where does she study?" Harry interrupts him. Maybe Dudley will get his magic lesson after all if his fiancée turns out to be a good source of information.

"King's College," says Dudley. "Why, you wanna go to college?" Harry shrugs. "Don't you people have your own schools?"

"Not colleges. We've got masteries, which work quite differently. And if you want to learn anything that isn't directly related to magic, you have to look elsewhere."

Dudley blinks. "What, you don't have math?" he asks incredulously, then adds under his breath, "Awesome."

Harry smiles indulgently. "Some, but only the parts that are essential for spell and potion creation—probability, some differentiation, and it's all mixed up with numerology if you can believe it. We don't learn math for the sake of math. Maybe that's why wizards can't count," he adds jokingly.

Dudley, who was never that good at counting himself, stares at him. "You should go to college, man. You were always smarter than me."

Harry raises his eyebrows sceptically. "Come on, neither of us was all that good at the whole school thing."

"But you could have been," Dudley protests. "If not for... you know, everything. Besides, I'm not talking about grades. Even when we were kids, you were always able to figure out a way out of everything. It wasn't always magic, just... quick thinking, I guess. You already had a solution when I was still trying to understand what was going on."

Harry's not fully comfortable with the way the conversation is going, so he's relieved when that's when their burgers arrive. They focus on eating for a while, and Dudley is just as enthusiastic about it as he's always been. After he finally swallows the last bite, wipes his mouth with a napkin, and drops it on his plate, he says kind of casually, "So, I know it probably falls under 'not to talk about' and it might not be the best idea, because it would kind of open a can of worms, but Shiv told me to ask you, so I'm asking: if we were having a wedding, would you come? I mean, would you even want to come?"

Harry stares at him. "With your parents there? Are you mad?"

"I know, but look," he says quickly before Harry has time to protest more. "Shiv says it's supposed to be up to us. And it actually is, because mom and dad... they haven't been doing all that well lately. You know, financially."

He falls silent for so long that Harry gets the impression that he's waiting for some kind of reaction. "If you expect me to help—" he starts stiffly.

"No! God, no!" Dudley yells, his eyes getting huge. "Sorry, I just... I just thought you'd like to know. That maybe there's some... I don't know, cosmic karma at work or whatever." Does knowing that Vernon has money issues cheer Harry up? It kind of does. "Forget it. The point is, it's not like they have a say because they're funding it, and we don't have money for a big wedding either, not that we want one, so it's gonna be really low-key, just closest friends and family. We're gonna have it in Galway in Ireland. That's where Shiv's from. You've ever been? It's beautiful, man."

Harry smiles as Dudley tries to tempt him with the beauty of the Irish countryside, but to be honest, he thinks it's a terrible idea. "Do you really want your parents to make a scene at your wedding?"

"That's the point—they wouldn't make a scene in public. Would they be happy? No, but they'd have to get over it. You could even bring—what was his name?—and they wouldn't say a word."

Harry doesn't know what he's talking about at first, and then he almost spits his beer. "Oh, if you think we're a couple, we're not."

Dudley's eyes get gradually bigger, and he gets redder before blurting out, "I'm sorry! I didn't think so, but Shiv said—"

"It's nice of her to take it into consideration," Harry remarks nonchalantly, but Dudley clearly thinks he only says it to save him some of the humiliation. Harry contemplates elaborating, but randomly coming out to his cousin seems wrong. He hasn't even told Ron and Hermione yet, for Merlin's sake.

Dudley forces himself to say, "Well, you could bring anyone, then." He clears his throat, visibly still kicking himself over listening to his fiancée. "The point is, I don't want to let my parents cut me off from the only family I have left. I have one cousin and one aunt. That's it. So we should stick together, you know? I mean, I don't know if you have more family on the Potter side—"

"None," Harry answers swiftly.

Dudley blinks. "Oh, I thought that the kid..." he pauses meaningfully.

Shit. Teddy. He completely forgot. "We're not related. He's a son of my dad's friend from school."

Dudley's brows knit, and it's obvious that he's thinking very hard on this. "So he just randomly looks exactly like you? Wait," he says with sudden understanding in his eyes before leaning in conspiratorially. "Can you people change your appearance?"

Harry smirks. "We cannot. My godson, on the other hand, certainly can."

"Dude! How do you know someone else is not really him?" Harry has been dreading the time when Teddy grows up and starts pranking people. He raises his eyebrow. "What? I read sci-fi."

What does that even have to do with anything? Harry means to ask but then Dudley suddenly suggests, "Hey, do you play pool?"

Harry says that he doesn't, because he doesn't. He never has. Dudley's already finished his burger; Harry still has a couple of fries left, but he pushes his plate away and follows his cousin to the pool table.

They play for a while—he turns out to be pretty good, and Dudley's not bad either, which makes their chances rather even—before it fully hits him how absurd it is that he's here playing pool with Dudley Dursley, chatting about magic like it's the most natural thing in the world, in between discussing mundane stuff like weddings and increasing rent prices. That's when he realises that Dudley basically grew up with the knowledge of the magic's existence, no matter what his parents—and he parroting them—thought of it. In a twisted way—depending on how good he is at lying to himself, which he apparently isn't very good at—he is a part of it. Keeping him ignorant is hard to justify.

So Harry doesn't. Instead he answers some of his multiple questions, the easier ones, and reassures him again that if anything worth worrying over happens in the wizarding world, he'll be informed. Harry knows what anxiety feels like, and maybe he'd wish it on his worst enemy, but not necessarily on Dudley.

It doesn't take much to make that promise, because nothing will probably happen.

August 30th, 2002

He shouldn't say those things. He really shouldn't.

It all starts calmly enough with him coming to the ministry like he does every day. The first weird thing that happens is him being accosted by an Unspeakable in the elevator. There are only the two of them; the guy has a hood on, so Harry plans on politely pretending that he can't see his face, but then the man actually decides to speak. "Did you have time to think about our offer?"

And suddenly Harry's mind is empty because he can't recall the Unspeakables offering him anything. When he was questioned about the magical plasma, they treated him with callousness bordering on boredom, to the point of Harry feeling offended on behalf of his invention. They certainly didn't seem interested in researching it on their own. That's why he only lets out an inarticulate "Huh?" in response.

The Unspeakable doesn't look bothered by his lack of conversational skills. "About investigating Whistleblowers."

Right, now Harry remembers that before he walked out the door, they mentioned something completely nonsensical. "You want me to spy on some muggle conspiracy group?" His incredulity says 'pass' without him having to actually voice it.

"They are extremely dangerous," the Unspeakable informs him gravely.

Harry manages to keep a straight face, even though he thinks they're probably as dangerous as the Rotfang Conspiracy. "I'm not really spy material," he explains politely before fleeing as soon as the elevator stops on level two, sighing with relief. What a joke.

He forgets all about it the moment he enters Auror Headquarters and sees the commotion inside. He's never witnessed his team in such a state of disarray.

"Potter! Join up," Robards orders curtly, waving a hand towards a bunch of junior aurors huddled in the apparition zone. For some reason he thinks they look odd. He walks over to Lydia, deciding to wait until someone tells him what's going on instead of bothering them with annoying questions. Robards doesn't look approachable at all when he offers their whole group two portkeys. "Those who haven't heard, we're going to Cardiff. Triple murder. The Met is on the case. Keep muggle covers. Williamson is already on the scene." Only now Harry realises that the peculiar feeling he had came from everyone being dressed muggle. They must have already changed. He's briefly glad that he doesn't have this problem. "First portkey, the bottle: Truman, Hooper, Dawlish. Second portkey, the can: Higgs, Travers, and Potter. Move, people."

Harry barely has time to register the words—'triple murder' rings in his ears—before he touches the portkey, and suddenly they're in Wales.

The trek from the safe apparition area to the crime scene—a middle-sized villa by the lake, but judging by the number of cars on the driveways, serving as a multi-family house—takes only a few short minutes. The place is already swarmed with cops, milling around and talking through their radios. A tiny blond woman tightens her lips when they pass her and mumbles, "Great, more spooks." Harry isn't sure how she recognises them as spooks, whatever those are meant to be. Some officers are in uniforms, but some are dressed as civilians, so the aurors' presence is rather inconspicuous.

Inside, Williamson is already waiting for them in the hallway. He's holding a writing pad and a pen, which he's twirling nervously, pointedly ignoring a man with a large moustache who unpleasantly reminds Harry of Vernon Dursley.

"Robards! Was it really necessary to put my investigation on hold?" the man asks brusquely.

"Commander Carlton," Robards mutters, not intimidated in the slightest. "Is everything—?"

"We touched nothing. Your team is free to take a look." He scoffs at the word 'team,' as if he doesn't believe it applies to them. "Follow Porter," he orders dismissively before adding under his breath, "Bloody spooks."

"Inspector Harry Porter," a balding man introduces himself, and Lydia is the only one bold enough to snort, unconcerned with the weighty feeling in the air.

Even Robards' lips curl at the corner, and he elaborates at the man's quizzical look, "Inspector Harry Porter, detective Harry Potter." He vaguely indicates Harry. "Hopefully we won't have any mishaps."

The man sends a quick smile at that while the commander huffs impatiently. Harry doesn't have time to familiarise himself with suddenly being upgraded to detective because they're climbing up the stairs and into what seems to be a private apartment within the building.

It's not hard to tell who's been in the thick of it during the war and who's been watching from the sidelines. Harry only gives the bodies a perfunctory glance—woman, around forty, with a large chunk of her rib cage missing; man, similar age, part of his brain ripped out; teenage boy, fourteen or fifteen, a glaring hole in his chest; all have Middle Eastern features—before he closes his mind, the way Snape taught him when he was a kid, pushing everything deep beneath the surface. He hears Helen gasp, and Geoffrey actually freezes in the doorway before retreating hastily. Terence looks a little green and swallows loudly. Wimpy Slytherins. Lydia puts on a brave face, though, and Gabriel barely reacts, already cataloguing the room with his eyes.

Because there's more. On the floor, between the parents, lies a single object. Harry decides to be the one to take a step forward to study it. It's painfully familiar.

The attention of everybody else, however, seems to be fixed on the message on the wall, because that's where Inspector Porter starts the explaining. "Blood. The son's, most likely. Very showy." Harry looks up at the red words spelling out rather cryptically, 'Look around you.' There's also a tiny symbol below it, simplistic, standing out in black paint on the beige wallpaper, but before Harry has time to properly scrutinise it, a woman slips in—the same blonde who scoffed at them outside—and Inspector Porter continues, "The mask. It can mean anything—"

"Ivory, craved to resemble a skull. Brings to mind hockey masks, or Jason Voorhees' mask from 'Friday the 13th,' except for the holes layout. They're only where the mouth is supposed to be," the woman cuts in. "Sergeant Judy Adams." She nods dispassionately.

Harry tries not to follow the example of his colleagues, who disregard the muggle completely as soon as she speaks up so they can investigate the mask. Instead he listens patiently to what she has to say, even though he doesn't suspect it will be overly helpful. He can see clearly that it's a Death Eater mask, and he doesn't know any named Jason.

"The family's lived here for almost four years. They emigrated from Iran. The man worked in an investment company called Ivory Ltd. There might be a connection here. The building belongs to a gentleman called Finch-Fletchley. He's abroad along with his family," she continues, either not noticing or not caring that the two Harrys are the only ones listening to her.

And a good thing that he does. He jolts at the last name but quickly smooths his expression.

Robards turns, but he doesn't address anything that's been said so far, even though Harry's of the opinion that it's a lot of useful information gathered in very little time. "Can you give us a minute?"

Sergeant Adams bristles and looks like she's about to protest, but Inspector Porter cuts in smoothly, "Certainly."

Harry hears an outraged, "What?" when he herds her towards the door. "They're to have free rein," Porter whispers frantically, and then Harry feels the silencing charm dropping on him.

"What you've got?" Head Auror asks, sounding weary.

"Death Eater mask," Higgs states the obvious.

Lydia rolls her eyes. "Let's heed the message and look around," she suggests.

"Appare Vestigium," Terence casts, then frowns. "No recent magical activity."

"Which doesn't mean there was none," Truman points out. "The wounds could have been caused by Defodio."

Lydia studies the woman's body with attentive eyes and a sick curl to her lips. "Defodio, definitely," she agrees. "The bodies have been gouged, see?"

Harry doesn't look; he's too busy studying the symbol, turning his head this way and that. He has no idea what it's supposed to be. It looks like... a 'b' turned horizontally. Or a bird's profile, with a big eye and something coming out of its head.

"Potter." Harry snaps out of his musing and gives Robards a questioning look. "Any previous case of Defodio being cast on a human being?"

Because of course he's considered the local expert on everything Death Eater. Still, he answers truthfully, "It's rarely the cause of death. But sure, they loved their carnage." He closes his eyes and goes back to when he was surrounded by bodies.

Gabriel comes to his rescue. "Fortescue was found missing large parts. Avada was never detected. Then, in Final Battle—"

"Septima Vector and Remus Lupin," Harry cuts in hollowly once he pinpoints the correct ones.

"And Vector and Lupin were killed by...?" Robards breaks suggestively.

"Antonin Dolohov," Lydia answers promptly. Harry's just glad that he doesn't have to.

"Bingo," Robards says dramatically.

Harry clears his throat. "The house belongs to Finch-Fletchleys. It might be a coincidence, but it's doubtful: double-barreled name. Justin Finch-Fletchley is a muggle-born wizard. Could be him or a relative," he reports calmly.

Robards looks like Christmas came early. "Contact this kid right away. Through proper channels," he warns him, as if he can already see Harry casting his Patronus. Which is exactly what he's going to do once they're out of here; they might not exactly be friends, but Justin was Dumbledore's Army, and that requires some personal touch.

"That being said," Harry continues, seeing as nobody else seems keen to offer any suggestions. "The mask is our only clue. It is not impossible for one or two to get to the muggle world. There's nothing obviously magical about the message. No magic was performed here—"

"You can't know that," Terence disagrees hesitantly. Only Harry kind of can. He's pretty fucking sure, and he's learnt to trust his instincts.

"You think a muggle did this?" Geoffrey, who at some point came back from his breathing exercises outside, scoffs incredulously, pointing at the body closest to him with a disgusted grimace.

'Yes,' Harry wants to say. 'There are sick people absolutely capable of doing this without an ounce of magic.' He stays silent.

"What's the motive then?" Gabriel indulges him.

"What's Dolohov's motive?" Harry rebuts.

"When we speak to this Justin kid—" Robards starts reasonably.

"There are more muggle motives than magical ones. They were Muslim." He elaborates when he gets blank looks all around, "It's awful, but it's been almost a year since nine eleven. In fact, the anniversary is coming."

Robards nods thoughtfully but doesn't comment. Harry's pretty sure that he knows very little about the event in question and doesn't want to sound ignorant. The rest keeps looking puzzled, except for Truman, whose expression is even more stony than before, and Lydia, who's watching him intently.

Nobody else seems to have anything useful to add, so Robards waves his hand, and everyone scatters to collect evidence and take photographs. As usual, nobody listens to Harry. They think it's their case. Is it their case? He's not so sure.

They barely even speak to muggle detectives once they're back. The air is filled with silent hostility, as if dead bodies on the floor weren't enough. Soon they disappear to the mortuary, after Robards gets confirmation that the victims—and he doesn't think Robards would even register their names if not for Lydia overhearing the savvy sergeant and telling him—weren't magical. They're obviously a little lost since their main forms of evidence—reports from tracking spells that show any magical footprints around the area—are coming out blank. Robards still uses every tracking device he has on his person and acknowledges the results with stony silence. Harry sees the commander again when he speaks quietly to Robards, who insists on them seizing the mask for evidence, to which the commander graciously agrees. Muggles look for fingerprints and take a blood sample from the wall, which is going straight to the lab, and are clearly baffled when Helen refuses to do the same. They must think they're the most useless investigation team ever.

The whole afternoon doesn't fill them with optimism. Harry himself doesn't find himself bursting with ideas, so he goes outside and lights a cigarette. It turns out he's not the only one.

"So what's your deal?" Sergeant Adams asks casually.

Harry gentlemanly offers her a lighter. "The same as yours, I suppose." He shrugs. "I want to unsee what I saw today."

Her face softens. "Yeah." She takes a drag and informs him stiffly, "The Finch-Fletchleys will be back on Monday for questioning."

She says it because she's a good teammate. Probably a good cop, too. Harry feels bad about abusing her goodwill for the whole of two seconds. "A family, you said?"

She nods dutifully. "Daniel and Elizabeth, son Justin, twenty-two. They mostly just bankroll and find good opportunities to capitalise. Old money, upper crust, loaded fuckers."

"Yeah," Harry says absently, then repeats it more strongly, like he's saying, 'Yeah, old money, those guys are the worst.' "Which one's the owner?"

"Daniel." She blows the smoke slowly. "No point in grilling the other two."

Harry nods. "You've got anything else?"

She narrows her eyes at him. "I didn't hear of you guys getting any leads."

Harry bites his lower lip guiltily. It kind of sucks that she doesn't know that their idea of cooperation is to squeeze every bit of information from her team and then go do their own thing.

Also, they really don't have any leads.

"Who are you people anyway?"

Harry takes another drag. "That's confidential."

She snorts. "So, Security Service." She gives him a smug look. "Some special unit, or so I hear. For what?"

"What do you think?" Harry stalls.

She shrugs like she doesn't know and doesn't particularly care. "Aliens?" she shoots in the dark. Harry feels his lips widening in a smile. "Makes one wonder what's more to these people." She indicates towards the house.

"It does, doesn't it?" Harry agrees seriously. He puts his cigarette out. "It's been a pleasure."

Before he gets too far, she calls out, "I don't think you introduced yourself."

He turns and slowly walks backwards. "Harry Potter."

She raises her cigarette like a glass in toast. "May we never meet again, Harry Potter."

Harry laughs, shaking his head. When he comes back inside, he thinks that it never gets old—people not reacting to his name. It fills him with excitement every single time.

Robards accosts him right in the hallway. "What did you speak to the muggle about?"

Harry doesn't know if it's supposed to be an accusation of selling national secrets or tactical intelligence gathering, so he reveals, "The Finch-Fletchleys are coming back to Britain. The muggles want to talk to them on Monday. Just Justin's dad, since he's the owner, but maybe Justin as well. You may want to coach them on what to say."

Robards nods thoughtfully. "We're going back to the office. There's nothing here anyway. Send the Finch-Fletchleys a ministerial summons, but contact your friend privately too. Tell him it's urgent and to come to us first before talking to muggle authorities."

Harry follows his boss, quickly checking the time. He's late for his session with Diane. He doesn't have his phone; he left it at home—and a good thing that he did, because the portkey would probably have fried it—so he will let her know from the office. He's glad to skip it—he suspects that once he lets himself start processing what is happening here, he will fall apart, and he likes to speak to Diane in whole sentences instead of being a stuttering mess.

The Auror Headquarters is buzzing with both exhilaration and anxiety. Those not fortunate enough to be chosen to check out the new exciting case keep going over it and grill the rest for clarification on every single clue. Harry wanders to his desk, away from the crowd, and prepares a formal summons to questioning for Justin Finch-Fletchley and his parents. He finishes it with a big ministerial stamp before casting his Patronus. Prongs looks kind of intimidating inside of a small cubicle.

"Go to Justin Finch-Fletchley, tell him: 'Hi Justin, Harry Potter here. I'd like for this to be a casual catch-up, but I'm afraid there's official auror business. You're going to receive an owl from the ministry in a little while. Now don't panic; you're not in any trouble. You might have already heard from the muggle authorities, so just so you know, that's what this is about. We've got enough circumstantial magical evidence to look into it, but to be honest, as of right now, we don't know under whose jurisdiction this case will end up. Just in case, please come talk to us first, as soon as you can, so you can get a full picture. Or, if that's more convenient, we can send someone to you and your parents once you're back in Britain. I guess we'll see each other soon. Thanks for your help.'"

He feels a little sickened by speaking on behalf of the ministry, especially after today's display. But bitching at the lack of change without bringing it himself is the height of hypocrisy, so he's going to be patient.

It takes until the late evening before everyone voices their opinion, and the topic is beaten to death. Eventually the images from earlier today start to swim in front of Harry's eyes; every time he closes them, he sees the bodies, and then Remus' body, and others, piling up all around him. His brain is going too fast for him to keep up; the possibilities seem to be endless and all equally horrifying. He's not even sure if his conviction of the murder's muggle nature comes from his famous insight or if he just doesn't want this to be a Death Eater's work. It was supposed to be over. Not crime, that's never over, but this incomprehensible, pointless violence. Killing to prove a point. Leaving creepy messages, playing cat and mouse. They worked so hard to end it, but there's always another sicko who crudely blunders through the peace with an axe like it offends him.

And now he might have to tell Dudley that not everything is fine again.

It's after ten when he leaves work, and if instead of going home he walks into a random bar and orders a double whisky, and then another and another, that's nobody's business.