Despite the buzz of life throughout The White Wyvern, it was looking to be another quiet night in Knockturn Alley. Across the table from him, Susan, disguised in her dingy cloak and magically-altered appearance, sipped slowly at the pale ale in her glass as she stared directly over his shoulder towards the entrance of the pub. The two of them had been sitting in that booth for over two hours now, and before that they'd been out prowling the narrow streets of Knockturn Alley in search for any information they could find about Bellatrix Lestrange.
This was the reality of undercover work like this. An important tip could appear at any time, but you never knew exactly when it was going to come. It could happen in just a few minutes or a few months. It could show up when you weren't around and you'd miss your chance. It all seemed so random, but Harry knew it was anything but.
There were many different ways one could improve their chances of succeeding in their investigations. First, you had to truly understand who it was that was likely to give you the information you needed. For instance, Rita had told him that she'd overheard a couple of cloaked people talking about Bellatrix visiting them. While she hadn't been able to discover their identities, she did say that she spotted a gleaming gold signet ring on one of the people's fingers. That only meant one thing: they were the head of a family in the Wizengamot.
Harry had long known that many of the dark-aligned families hadn't given up their ways after Voldemort's defeat. They hid their dark artefacts away and stopped their nefarious activities for a time, but with each passing day, more and more of them returned to their former practices. They did so cautiously, keeping their activities hidden from the general public, but no secret could stay hidden forever.
The Auror department had a short list of families that they kept a closer eye on. Or, at least, they said that they'd keep a closer eye on it. In practice, under Dawlish's leadership, these families were left to their own devices. Harry and a few like-minded others did their best to supervise these families activities, but they couldn't watch them around the clock. Still, Harry was at least familiar with all of the important players in the scene. He knew the names of each family that hadn't reformed after Voldemort's defeat, and that narrowed his list of suspects in this case significantly.
With this short list, it made searching for information on Bellatrix much easier. Susan and Harry made a point of making contacts with the regulars in the various pubs throughout Knockturn Alley, getting to know them and buying them drinks on occasion without making it seem too obvious that they were up to something. Thankfully, both of them already had a few contacts, which made it a lot easier to integrate themselves into the scum and villainy of Knockturn Alley. They made a point of learning when dark families would be out in Knockturn, who they were meeting with, and what they were getting up to.
After two weeks of investigating, half of their allotted time, Susan and Harry had made great headway into their investigation. They'd already cleared the remnants of the Carrow, Flint, Higgs, Pyrites, Rosier, Selwyn, and Yaxley families of any suspicion. At first, Susan had been hesitant to use the mild truth-telling potion Harry had suggested, but their limited time frame had made her agree to its use. While it wasn't illegal for them to use, it was definitely morally dubious to spike these people's drinks in order to investigate them. But, in the end, Harry and Susan both deemed it necessary.
With those families out of the way, that left only about three dozen more suspicious families to go. Many didn't fit the criteria that they were looking for as they tended to be reclusive or didn't have any direct connections to the Death Eaters that Harry or Susan knew of, so they were sidelined as possible maybes.
That left a very short list for them to continue on with, and, with any luck, they'd be able to cross a couple more names off of their list tonight.
A tap on Harry's shoes told him that Susan had spotted one of their targets for tonight. He picked up his glass of firewhiskey and raised it just high enough for the subtle mirror charm he had placed on the glass to show him what was going on behind him.
There he was: Cyrus Greengrass.
Cyrus Greengrass was the head of the Greengrass family and one of the more prominent members of the Wizengamot after Voldemort's defeat. Though the Greengrass family had long been publicly known as a neutral faction politically speaking, Harry knew that the family was anything but. Cyrus had regularly donated funds to known Death Eaters under the guise of 'charitable donations' to causes that had no genuine operations. In short, he funneled money directly into the hands of Death Eaters in exchange for favours, protections, and who knows what else. What was known was that the Greengrass family's meteoric rise in prominence in the magical world happened under the Death Eater's control of the Ministry, and they had retained a strong position of influence in the Ministry ever since.
Harry knew of Cyrus's two daughters: Daphne and Astoria. Daphne had been a Slytherin in his year while Astoria had been a couple years younger than them, also in Slytherin. Daphne was well regarded as perhaps the most beautiful woman to have graced the halls of Hogwarts during his time at school, and Astoria wasn't much further behind. Both had been incredibly talented witches, and they seemed to have gone directly into working for their father after they graduated. They frequently went with him to important meetings at the Ministry or acted on his behalf in private trade negotiations with business and international exporters over the distribution of their family's potions ingredients that they cultivated in numerous greenhouses and farms across the British Isles.
Tonight though, Cyrus wasn't with either of his daughters or his wife. Instead, he appeared to be joined by a young woman. It took Harry a minute to recognize her as Nerys Orpington, the head of the Orpington family after her father was killed in the final battle. The Orpingtons were pure-bloods, like the Greengrass family. Nerys was a couple years younger than Harry, if his memory was correct.
The two of them were dressed in fine robes that befitted their statuses as heads of important families; they certainly looked out of place compared to the dingy or modest clothing that most of the clientele at The White Wyvern wore, but rich pure-bloods were a common enough sight at the pub that no one batted an eye as they entered.
"He's got a wrist holster," Susan muttered quietly to Harry.
Harry nodded in reply and took a sip of his firewhiskey before he dispelled the mirror charm on it. It wouldn't do for the targets to get too close and spot the charm before he could dispel it. He dropped his drained glass on the table and leaned forward towards Susan.
"Bit of an odd sight," he muttered back to her. With all of the noise in the pub and their Muffliato Charm obscuring any sound they made, they didn't need to be this quiet, but it was important for them to maintain a consistent appearance to any onlookers. A quiet pair of dingy-looking people drinking quietly in a booth at a busy pub didn't attract as much attention as a more animated pair would.
Susan nodded her head in agreement. "Orpington has been busy since Hogwarts, but I've never heard of her working with Greengrass on anything before."
Neither had Harry, and that worried him. Either they were just here as friends, something unusual given the disparity in their ages, or they had something new or secretive going on. If it was the latter, it had to be important; a routine agreement could have been handled by either of Cyrus's daughters, especially since they went to school with Nerys.
Cyrus and Nerys cut through the crowd without issue, walking directly past Harry and Susan's table towards the staircase at the back of the pub. That led up to private rooms people could rent out for meetings or parties, and it was always guarded by a pair of dark-cloaked wizards who flanked either side of the staircase. As the pair approached, the two wizards stepped forward and held out their hands. Harry was too far away to see what Cyrus passed over to them, but it had to be something small. The wizard who accepted the thing nodded his head and gracefully gestured up the stairs. Then, Cyrus and Nerys walked up into the gloomy upper level.
"And they're gone," Harry told Susan since the pair had been outside of her cone of vision when they went upstairs.
"We've gotta get up there," Susan grimaced.
"Yeah," Harry agreed, but there was the obvious problem of the two wizards guarding the staircase. He didn't need to explain that complication to Susan as they'd already discussed it several days prior. "How do you want to handle this?" He asked.
Susan chugged the rest of her ale before placing the empty mug on a table along with several sickles. "Stick to the crowd. Get in behind the one on your right and hit him with a Confundus Charm. Then, we meet back up in front of the staircase and pretend to hand something over just like Greengrass did and head upstairs."
It was a solid plan, and it would look good to any observant onlookers. The only problem would be if the guards had any spell-protections built into their clothes or if the building's wards had any warning systems built in that informed the owner of specific spells of types of magic that were cast. It was becoming more and more common, and it wouldn't be surprising if the most popular pub in Knockturn at least had some of those security systems in place. They'd examined the wards that were registered with the Ministry and saw that The White Wyvern had quite the slew of protective enchantments, but there were also undoubtedly several unregistered wards in place too. Still, the name of the game was secrecy, and tearing down the building's wards would not be the most subtle of actions.
Harry was the first one up on his feet, feeling that familiar bubble of nervous excitement fill his chest. Even after all of these years fighting for his life and working as an Auror, he never lost that feeling. He was grateful for it though; it kept him sharp and aware. Complacency could get you killed, so it was best to always expect the unexpected.
Constant vigilance! Moody's words rang through his mind. Harry hoped the old man was doing well in the afterlife; he had taught Harry so much that he never truly understood until years after the lesson had been taught. He would've made for a good Head Auror.
Harry staggered through the crowd, disguising himself as yet another drunk patron heading towards the washroom at the back of the pub. It was located a little ways away from the stairs along the leftmost wall, so Harry had to act like he was being jostled away from the ideal path by the crowd in order to make it look natural as he ended up behind one of the guards.
With so many people around, it was easy enough for Harry to subtly slip his wand into his hand. Susan was still moving into position, but she was no more than a few seconds out. So, Harry silently cast his Confundus Charm on the first guard as soon as he had a good chance for it.
The pink light had to travel only a few centimeters from the tip of his wand to the guard's body. It struck his leg cleanly, and Harry immediately felt the spell take hold.
There was the slightest flash of pink light out of the periphery of his vision as Susan confunded the second guard.
Smiling lightly to himself, Harry hurried around to the front of the staircase where he met back up with Susan. "All good?" He asked.
"Yep," Susan smiled. "Now, let's get upstairs."
As they approached the staircase, the two dazed guards approached them. "Feather," the one on the left muttered.
Feather? Was that what Cyrus had handed over?
"We just gave it to you, you dolt," Susan berated the man harshly.
In his confunded state, the guard still had the decency to look embarrassed. "Err, sorry, miss."
Susan huffed and waved him off. "No matter. Now, just hand the feather back and let us be on our way."
The guard's body froze for a second, obviously trying to make sense out of this command. He hadn't given Cyrus back the feather that he had handed over, but it was smart for Susan to ask for it. Hopefully, it could provide them with an easier way to access the upstairs of the pub if they needed to again in the near future.
After a few seconds of indecision, the guard reached into his robes and pulled out a strange greenish-black feather and handed it over to Susan.
Despite his time in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class, he'd never seen a bird with a feather like this. He wanted to ask Susan if she had any idea what it was but, judging by the look on her face, she didn't know either. Besides, that was something they could discuss later. What was important right now was getting upstairs and seeing if they could find a way to listen in on Cyrus and Nerys.
Harry and Susan quickly hurried up the squeaky staircase to the upper level as the two guards returned to their positions on either side of the staircase.
They ended up in a dimly lit, straight corridor that seemed to stretch past the natural bounds of the building they were in. There were well over two dozen doors on either side of the corridor, each marked with a roughly scratched number on the wood grain. Interestingly enough, the sound from the pub below was muted up here as though there were some type of enchantment blocking it. Harry couldn't hear any sounds coming from any of the rooms either.
"Homenum revelio," Susan muttered as she gave her wand a sharp flick downward, followed by a looping curve back upward. Harry felt the strange sensation of a physical shadow passing over him as the spell took effect. "There's no one else here," Susan said after a minute. "But there are two occupied rooms."
"How many in each?" Harry asked as he readied his wand and dropped into a slightly crouched position.
Susan mirrored his stance and the two started creeping forward, ready to stun anything that jumped out at them. "Two people in room three and three in room seven."
Merlin, Harry hated the Wizarding World's obsession with the number seven. He understood the basic arithmantic principles as to why seven was a magically-powerful number, but his mind always inevitably drifted back to that damned prophecy and the seven Horcruxes that Voldemort made.
"Room three then," Harry said as he came to a stop on the left side of the doorway to that room.
Susan planted herself on the opposite side of the doorway and nodded. There were several ways they had been taught to investigate what was going on inside of a room when they didn't want to be noticed, but all of the standard Auror methods had become obsolete once this new spell had been developed.
Harry thanked Moody again for this. After all, it had been his magical eye that had inspired Hermione to create this spell.
"Pervidere," Harry murmured, grimacing at the slightly unfortunate name. He did his best to ignore the stinging sensation in his eyes as the jet of blue light shot out of his wand and struck them, momentarily blinding himself until his eyes adjusted properly. Once they did though, he could see far more than before.
The world around him seemed brighter than before. The gloomy appearance of the dimly-lit corridor was replaced with that of a perfectly neutral look. It was as though plenty of sunlight was filling the room up, brightening everything to an even brightness without there being any source of light to point to. More importantly though, it let Harry see through quite a lot.
"Nice lingerie," Harry commented as his eyes glanced over Susan's body. The dingy robes she was wearing worked wonders to disguise her voluptuous body, but the magical spell let him see straight through it to her underclothes. Unfortunately, they didn't let him see any further than that thanks to some arithmantic trickery that Hermione had worked into the spell after being concerned about how it could be used. Still, seeing Susan's perky tits in that lacy red bra of hers was good enough by his metrics.
Susan just snorted at him and flipped him the bird. "Just search the room, please."
"Only if you turn around first," Harry joked.
The glare that Susan shot back at Harry promised him death if he didn't get on with it, so he quickly looked towards the wooden door in front of him. As he stared at it, it was as though his eyes adjusted and he could suddenly see what was beyond it.
"Wrong room," Harry said, quickly averting his eyes.
"Who's in there?" Susan asked curiously.
"Just two blokes," Harry grimaced.
"What are they doing?" Susan pushed.
"Err," Harry paused before Susan let out a heart chuckle.
"Serves you right," she said. "Let's go check out the other room then."
Harry did his best to wipe the memory of what he had just seen by staring at Susan's ass through her robes as they walked down the corridor to the next room. As Susan came to a stop beside the door, she sighed when she saw Harry ogling her behind.
"Honestly," she said, shaking her head.
"Sorry," Harry replied, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "It's a little hard to focus with such a beautiful witch walking like that in front of me. Don't think I didn't notice you swaying your hips a little more than usual."
"Shut up," Susan rolled her eyes, but the slight smirk on her lips told Harry that he was right on the money with what she'd been doing. "Just look inside."
So, Harry turned towards room seven and peered through the door. It was a small room inside with just a circular table in the middle and half a dozen wooden chairs around it. Harry immediately recognised both Nerys and Cyrus who were sitting down, but there was another figure who had a hood up over her head. Normally, the spell would let him see her face perfectly fine, but it only worked through a single layer. That meant that since he was looking through the door, he couldn't see what was underneath the hood.
"That's them in there," Harry told Susan. "They're meeting with someone. A woman by the looks of it."
"Is it Bellatrix?" Susan asked seriously.
Harry narrowed his eyes as he stared at the mysterious woman. He wasn't at the proper angle to see anything of her face, and the hood obscured any other hints he could get. "I don't know," he told Susan honestly. "It's too hard to see. She's keeping her face hidden."
"Fuck," Susan sighed.
Harry understood her frustration. They were caught in between a rock and a hard place here. Either they had to try to dispel whatever privacy magic was placed on the room in order to be able to listen in on the conversation or they had to get inside of the room and listen in that way. Neither option was particularly appealing given that there only seemed to be this one entrance into the room and they'd already risked a lot by confunding the two guards downstairs. Theoretically, they could try to arrest everyone inside, but that would open up its own set of problems back at the Ministry. Although Amelia and Kingsley were supposed to be the only two people involved in this case, bringing in potential suspects would suddenly involve quite a few other staff at the Ministry. Harry knew how easily information could get leaked, and he really didn't want Bellatrix to get spooked and flee. This was his best chance at making a strong impression to others within the Ministry and helping to potentially secure a place out from under Dawlish's thumb.
Or, even better, give him the recommendations he'd need to replace Dawlish once he dealt with that despicable man.
Susan bit her lip and looked deep in thought as she weighed their options. "Alright," she said finally, giving Harry a hard look. "If that is Bellatrix in there, we can't miss this chance. Do you have your cloak on you?"
Of course he did. He rarely left home without it.
"Yep," Harry answered.
"Put it on," Susan instructed him. "I'm going to head back downstairs and get that guard I confunded to come up here and knock on the door. Try to slip inside when they answer."
Harry gave Susan a worried look. This plan was beyond risky. "You'll have to be with the guard to get him to do what you want," Harry said, pointing out the obvious flaw in their plan.
"I know," Susan breathed out in frustration, "it's fucking stupid, but we need to get in there to figure out what's going on. It's either this or break the wards and charge in, but we don't have enough probable cause to take down Greengrass and Orpington yet. Our best play is for you to listen in on their conversation and get something usable out of it."
"What happens when your aunt asks how I got this information?" Harry asked. "You know she won't be happy about us spying on people like Greengrass when they're in a private meeting like this."
"What other choice do we have, Harry?" Susan exclaimed loudly. "We're running out of time to find Bellatrix; we have less than two weeks left. We can't waste a second not investigating someone."
"I know," Harry said placatingly. They were in a difficult spot, and, honestly, he'd had worse plans work out before. "I just want to know that you're sure about this plan."
"I am," Susan nodded.
"Alright then," Harry said, pulling the silvery material of his invisibility cloak over his back. "I'll be waiting."
Susan nodded and quickly dashed back towards the staircase, going to get the confunded guard to help them with their ridiculous plan.
Maybe during Susan's time under Harry's command, some of his creativity had rubbed off on her. This plan was stupid, but Harry had to admit that it had a chance to work. As long as he could slip inside the room, they could end up with a wealth of information. It may not be what they needed to find Bellatrix, but it'd surely be useful nonetheless. Cyrus and Nerys weren't the type to meet up in a place like this with a mysterious woman without something unusual going on.
Susan returned moments later with the guard in tow. She had him wait by the door as she cast spell after spell on herself, altering her appearance to mimic the guard's. Her clothes were transfigured into the same uniform, and she managed to disguise most of her feminine features so that she looked androgynous at best. She definitely didn't look like Susan Bones anymore.
"Knock on the door," Susan instructed the guard who had the same dazed look as before. "We need to make sure that everything is okay in there."
"Right," the guard said dumbly. He knocked jerkily on the door to room seven before taking a step back.
Several seconds passed before the door swung inward and Cyrus Greengrass's annoyed face peered out. "Yes?"
"Sorry sir," the guard grimaced. "We just wanted to make sure that everything was okay in there."
"Why wouldn't it be?" Cyrus narrowed his eyes.
The guard looked confused and glanced over to Susan for direction. "There was a small fight in the pub," Susan said quickly, disguising her voice as best she could. "We just wanted to make sure that no stray spells struck the floor below you."
"Everything is fine," Cyrus said exasperatedly. "Now, if that's all-"
Harry lunged forward as Cyrus stepped back into the room to close the door. There was enough of a gap that he could squeeze through without touching the door or its frame.
"Sorry to disturb you," Susan said loudly, masking the sound of Harry's footsteps after the first noisy one.
Cyrus looked on strangely at Susan before shutting the door.
Harry promptly stood right up against the wall out of Cyrus's way as the man shook his head and returned back to his chair at the table. The two women with him both seemed very tense, but they mellowed out a little once the door was closed.
"You were saying," Cyrus said to the hooded woman as he sat back down.
"Time's running out," the hooded woman hissed.
Immediately, Harry's body sagged. That wasn't Bellatrix's voice, nor did it have any of the subtle signs of being modulated. He didn't recognize it either, which meant that this wasn't a prominent Death Eater.
This whole meeting was probably nothing more than some back-alley business deal; potentially interesting, but not what Susan and Harry had been hoping for. Still, now that he was in the room with them, he couldn't leave until they did first.
"It's been weeks now and we're still missing all of the promised assurances," Nerys's high-pitched voice rang out. She sounded thoroughly annoyed, and all of that was directed to the hooded woman.
Cyrus nodded along with her words in solidarity. "Precisely. We've already committed plenty to the cause: gold, contacts, property. And what have we got to show for it in return?"
"It's been harder than expected to get everyone on board," the hooded woman argued fiercely. A stray strand of faded red hair stuck out from underneath her hood, but the woman quickly brushed it back. By the beginnings of wrinkles on the back of her hand, Harry had to guess that she was around sixty years old. Witches and Wizards aged slower than muggles, so it often took longer for signs of aging like this to appear. "But trust me when I say that once they see what we can do, more of them will flock to our side once again."
Harry frowned at the language that was being used. It sounded more and more like how Death Eaters talked, but he didn't recognize this hooded woman. He slowly started creeping around the edge of the room, trying to find a better angle to peer underneath the woman's hood.
"Hopes and dreams," Cyrus waved her off. "You must understand that things have been different in Britain in recent years. Many of the old families have changed their tune, or, at least, kept their true feelings on these matters private. They don't want to risk spurning the Ministry into finally taking action against them after the leniency they've shown since the war ended."
"That leniency won't last forever," the hooded woman argued. "Potter and his ilk are still hunting down our remaining brothers and sisters, and you know that they won't stop until they see all of us wiped out."
"They can't do anything to us as long as we keep the Wizengamot in disarray," Nerys countered. Cyrus had a smug grin on his lips as he nodded. "The Minister won't act against us as long as we have the potential to threaten his leadership and the weak control the Ministry has over society at the moment."
"Bellatrix can't offer us-" Cyrus began to speak, but the rest of his words were drowned out as the door to the room was slammed open.
"The wards said that the guards were confunded," a portly, dark-skinned man shouted as he rushed into the room. Harry recognized him as the owner of The White Wyvern, Broderick Boyle. "You lot need to get out of here."
Before they could do more than leap up from their seats, Harry was already in the process of tearing off his invisibility cloak and casting his first stunning spell. The jet of red light struck Cyrus right in the back of his head, knocking the man unconscious immediately and sending his body careening to the floor.
Boyle dropped to the floor too, but not from any spell. No, he was cowering as spellfire erupted in the room.
The hooded woman and Nerys both turned to Harry, scrambling for their wands as Harry followed up his first stunning spell with another. He jabbed his wand forward with incredible speed, and the red light smashed into Nerys just before a thin, translucent shield appeared from the tip of her wand. Her body was sent spiraling backwards down to the floor as she too was rendered unconscious, leaving just the hooded woman.
Harry had to shout "Protego!" to bring up his shield in time to block the acidic-looking black curse she sent his way. He dropped his shield as he leapt out the way of a follow-up curse and started to silently cast a third stunning spell when the woman suddenly turned on her heel and popped out of existence in front of him.
"Damn it," Harry grimaced as he landed awkwardly on his feet. He angrily strode over to Boyle, who was crouched down on the floor and covering his head as he whimpered in fear, and picked the man up by the scruff of his neck. "Where did she go?" He demanded.
"I don't know," the man squeaked out as his hands blocked his face, fearful that Harry was going to strike him.
"Your wards should have told you," Harry pointed out. The Ministry had records of a tracking enchantment being placed on this building, and it would tell the owner of the wards where someone was apparating out to.
"They don't cover the private rooms," Boyle replied quickly. "Please, Mr Potter sir, I truly don't know where she went."
Disgusted, Harry dropped the sniveling man on the floor before hitting him with a stunning spell.
Harry was just in the process of collecting the three individuals' fallen wands when Susan came running into the room with her wand drawn. Her eyes scanned the faces of the unconscious people quickly before she looked back up at Harry. "Where-" she began to ask.
"Disapparated," Harry answered her question before she could ask it. "But I got what we were looking for."
"Bellatrix," Susan said, her eyes gleaming with fire.
Harry nodded and gestured down at the unconscious Cyrus Greengrass. "He said her name. Said she couldn't offer them something. He knows something about what's going on."
"Good work," Susan smiled at him. Harry handed over the three wands and she quickly stowed them inside of her robes. "Let's gather them up and take them back to some holding cells at the Ministry. We'll need to get Aunt Amelia over right away."
That they did. Cyrus and Nerys were both members of the Wizengamot, and their arrest would kick up a lot of fuss from them, regardless of the legitimacy of it. Amelia needed to be informed right away so that she could coordinate a plan with the Minister to stave off any political pressure so that Harry and Susan could have all the time they needed to interrogate these two.
With any luck, they'd find the trail to Bellatrix and take her down once and for all.
A/N: Hey, thanks for reading! If you are interested in reading more or supporting me, check out at p atreon .com(slash) ashox