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Author: hwimsey Story: The Coven of Echoes Rating: Teens Status: Completed Reviews: 33 Words: 163,077
A/N: This chapter is a tad bit longer than normal, but I couldn't find a breaking point, so there you have it. I'd like to thank my patient beta, Iviolinist, who must have carpel tunnel after all the grammar and punctuation corrections. She is brilliant. And thanks to my readers, your encouragement means the world. B/N: Thanks so much to the wonderful Myth and Legend as well as the wonderful members of Perch for talking trash (I mean rubbish) with two Americans! We appreciated it! She and Ron had waited as long as they could for him at dinner the previous evening. Finally the "Hags on haggis," as Ron jokingly referred to them, turned her stomach for good and forced her back to the confines of her room. There an owl greeted her, tapping adamantly at the window with a note curled in its snarled beak. Barely surviving a wicked nipping, she unfurled the parchment and read: Don't wait up for me. I'll be late and plan to grab something in town. H. She laughed to herself, placing the parchment down on her nightstand. Who did he think he was fooling? All the way from St. Dymphna's to the Sword and the Rose, Ron had debated heatedly with her the merits of having someone keep an eye on Ginny. Given the sinister warnings issued by the Death Eater, it wasn't an unwarranted request. Yet it surprised her that Harry took no part in the conversation. Hands buried into the pockets of his robes, he stared at the street ahead of him, his face unreadable. "Ginny is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, Ron. Believe me, if I felt she was in any immediate danger I wouldn't hesitate. Anyway, she's on duty most of the weekend and she promised to head straight home afterwards." Ron continued to level argument upon argument before her. "She'll be fine. She knows how to deal with trouble." With that, all conversation on the subject ceased. It seemed Harry had had the last word in the end, without even uttering a syllable. "Wotcher, Harry," she announced through a fake yawn and joined him at a table near the fire. A pleasant aroma that she was pleased to identify as bacon and eggs wafted from the kitchen, hopefully sans any fried internal organs. "When did you get in last night? We finally gave up on you by the time we got your owl. Figured you fancied a night on the town without adult supervision, eh?" Harry raised his eyes steadily over the lip of his mug. She hesitated. It had been tremendously difficult to know how to deal with Harry this past year. To a fault he was the perfect employee, the perfect Auror: dedicated, tenacious and thorough, working longer and harder than anyone else. It came at a price. He had cut himself off--rarely smiling, rarely joking. So whenever she ventured a foray at levity, she cringed internally, waiting for that polite, taut expression, those level guarded eyes. He had looked that way at Dumbledore's funeral: focused on one purpose and one purpose alone. Throughout the war, even at the most terrifying of times, he never faltered. It was only understandable that when it was finally over he wouldn't know how to live a normal life--he never had really. She recalled how it wasn't until her engagement party a year ago that he got his chance. By the time Harry had arrived, the merriment was well under way. The Weasley twins, bless their crimson souls, had supplied the entertainment that consisted of both food and drink occasionally bursting into rainbow sparklers. Remus finally put his foot down after singeing his eyebrows. All the Weasleys were there, laughing and smiling which they hadn't done for a very long time. Ginny, especially, seemed content and happy surrounded by so many family and friends. Tonks was close enough to Ginny to know she had been avoiding Harry since his return. The media spotlight around him was glaring and despite his ardent attempts to reach her, Ginny's long nurtured inferiority complex reared its ugly head. She did her best to remain hidden, throwing herself into her work. Near midnight Harry entered, slipping in the back door. Tonks remembered hugging him tightly after Remus' handshake turned into a bear hug. When they parted, Ginny was standing there, behind them, alone. Harry looked startled then his eyes darkened warmly as Ginny held out a glass of champagne and a smile. Remus discretely guided Tonks out of the kitchen, but not before she caught a glimpse of Harry's hand reach out for the glass. He stepped very close to Ginny, his hand covering hers, and whispered something softly. They disappeared not much later. For those following weeks Tonks had never seen Harry so thrilled or Ginny so radiant. They literally illuminated each other. Merlin knows what had happened between them. It tore at something inside her to think that something so perfect could end. Remus was her other half and she didn't feel it was possible to truly exist without him. She always assumed Harry and Ginny were the same. She wanted to kiss Remus at that moment, grab his scruffy face, knock over his pile of books and show him just how brilliant she thought he was. Harry coughed slightly before opening his mouth as though to answer, but instead took a long sip of coffee and placed the cup down carefully. "So you think I need adult supervision?" "After yesterday, yes, I do, in fact." Tonks broke off a piece of toast and chewed it thoughtfully. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Harry's eyes stared hard at the fire, his body stiffening with his words. "Harry, I don't blame you. But you've got to understand the position we're in here. The Minster was asked specifically by the American Plaven to guarantee our cooperation with this case. If it were just us, I'd have hexed him myself, way before you even arrived. But we've got to keep cool and not let our personal feelings--" "My personal feelings have nothing to do with this case," he said sharply. Instantly the fire flared unexpectedly in the grate, sparks rising up the flue before it settled back down to a steady crackling. "Well . . . ah . . . let's keep it that way. Okay? Look, Harry, I'm not the enemy here. In fact, I'm not sure I know who the enemy is, but we've got to make a show of working with this Areids." "What about the arse?" Ron asked, yawning as he appeared before them. He collapsed into a chair across from Tonks. "Blimey, what time did you get in, mate? I didn't hear you." "I didn't." "What?" "I strolled around Kilgraith without adult supervision." His eyes shot toward Tonks before returning to the contents of his mug. "I've never been here. I felt I should get myself familiar with the town." A different waitress than from the night before appeared at their table. She had the same look though. She kept gazing adoringly down at Harry, her quill tapping the side of her head. Harry politely opened his menu and ordered. The young woman departed, oblivious, just as Tonks and Ron began ordering. "Merlin, Harry, will you stop doing that!" "Stop doing what?" Ron merely rolled his eyes and smirked. "The whole charm thing, it's disgusting." "I don't have charm." "Yeah and I don't have freckles on my--" "Excuse me," the waitress had reappeared, beaming at Harry. "Would you be wantin' kippers with that?" "No. No, thank you." Ron raised up his empty coffee mug and the girl blushed. "Oh, sorry!" She filled Harry's cup to the brim before breezing off toward the kitchen. Harry sipped the coffee and eyed Ron, a hint of mischief veiled behind his glasses. It was the most animated he had appeared in months. Despite Tonks' stern reprimands, jinxing Areids seemed to have done him a world of good. She sighed in disgust. Men. "We received a positive identification from headquarters late last night on the two wands found on the Death Eaters," she informed them. "They belonged to Carrows and Yaxley both of whom were presumed dead after Voldemort's defeat. But evidently they didn't 'prefer to be dead.'" She raised a magenta eyebrow at Ron when she said this. "So, first thing we need to do this morning is drop off the wands at the Sceptuchus office, so they can retrieve the registry records for Owl's Close and Hayden's Close and see if there are any positive matches. They're the only two points of entry into Kilgraith with the war wards still in place. Somehow they got in without being flagged. I want to make sure they didn't show up in the registry and if they did, the wards have been compromised and will have to be recast town-wide. I think we can make a good argument with the Ministry and not have them abolished like they did in Diagon Alley, in light of what's transpired, but I still want to get a listing of all wands registered within a six hour window of the attacks." "Weren't any wands found on the bodies of the father and mother? We know at least the father was a wizard. Shouldn't we have his traced?" asked Harry. "We searched the entire area and the only wands we found were in the robes of the Death Eaters. It probably explains why the family members were so badly beaten: they had no way to defend themselves. They were at the Death Eaters' complete mercy." "The father wasn't carrying a wand? It doesn't make any sense. He was on the run and even if he didn't know Death Eaters were after him, he was out in the open with his family. He should have been better prepared." "I agree with you," seconded Ron, "but when we--" "Are you positive the family's Hexology reports came back clean?" continued Harry cutting him off. "These are Death Eaters we're talking about. They wouldn't have hesitated to use the Cruciatus Curse at the very least. Have you had a chance to examine the bodies?" "We did," reported Ron, holding up his hand until Harry's mouth closed. "And by the pattern of cuts and bruises, the best we can make out is that the all the family members were severely bruised and all showed signs of fighting against pretty brutal restraints of some form. With the exception of the daughter, that is. Her damage was centered on her neck and head. And of course her arms and fingers." The table grew silent as Ron and Tonks were left to their thoughts of the ten crushed digits, the tiny bones splintered through the skin. "So you're meaning to tell me that the Death Eaters just beat the family up? Held them down and just pummeled them? It doesn't make any sense." "Not just bruises. There were a great deal of cuts across the man's chest and arms and the woman's, too," Ron explained, "like they were being stabbed to death. Blood was everywhere." "Okay," Tonks announced matter-of-factly. "After we're done with checking the wands, we need to go to--" "To Grunions–to the alley where the victims were found. It's on the way to the Sceptuchus office," said Harry, placing his mug down on the table. "But we've been all through that site already, mate," said Ron. "I really don't think there's anything else to see. Honestly, we've been through everything." "You've been through everything." Tonks eyed Harry then nodded in agreement. She knew better. Harry had an uncanny way of finding things that didn't want to be found. "All right, we'll go back," carped Ron, casting a glance at the love-struck waitress. "But not before I get a damn cup of coffee." *** Grunions was located at the end of MacDoohan Strete near the train station and the more "rustic" section of an already rustic street. The façade of the building reminded Harry of an American Western: the roofline sloped with mismatched shingles, the windows darkened with grime and shutters clutched to the peeling paint for dear life. The steps sagged under their feet and Tonks crinkled her nose in displeasure. "Harry, you take us to the nicest places." Harry smirked, but patted his wand in his robes just to make sure. The doors creaked as though arthritic, unhappy to be opened in the bright light of morning. Immediately a waft of stale firewhiskey hit their noses; their eyes blinked to focus in the gloom. The seats at the bar were vacant save a sad looking wizard with his even sadder looking dog that was seated next to him, jowls lying on the bar. Blinking a few more times, Harry saw a tall, hairy man cleaning glasses with a dirty rag, eyeing the dog with gathering displeasure. "My good fellow, another for me and my friend here." The barkeep blew out a snort and shook his head. "It's a damn dog, man." The sad looking man gazed at the dog that proceeded to lick his face. "He just doesn't understand, Prudence, does he? A woman born into a dog's body. Well here's to you, girl." Harry found Ron's eyes and for a fraction of a moment he thought he'd laugh. "Don't even say it," Tonks whispered to the two of them, cocking an eyebrow in consternation. "What'cha doing back so soon? I don't want no more trouble. I told you everything I know. Having you around here doesn't do well for business." "Business seems a little slow," Tonks offered, nodding toward the man and his dog. "They're paying customers." "Excuse me," Harry said, the face of the barkeeper moving in a slow dawning realization of who was speaking to him. "We don't mean to inconvenience you. We just need to have one more look at the back alley. It shouldn't take long." The barkeep beamed. "Why didn't ya say so? The missus is upstairs still asleep. Wait till she hears who was downstairs in me pub." Harry swallowed and nodded politely. Harry had one rule about his celebrity: he would never be rude unless it was to the press. He loathed the fame that had been heaped onto his shoulders, but he was smart enough to know when to use it. If it removed one more Death Eater, he'd sing karaoke in this damn place. He wanted them gone. For more reasons than he could say. Draidour Alley was the name of a small alley that ran parallel behind Grunions. Its high brick walls opened at one end to Hayden's Close and at the other to a dead end. The smell of rubbish hung heavy in the air as they stepped out from the pub. Even the morning's bright sunlight did little to abate the griminess of the narrow street. "This is where the lads found 'em," said the barkeep motioning to the dead end of the alley. "Came tripping out the back door drunk as skunks. But they right sobered up after they saw all that blood." "The bodies were found here?" Harry asked, stepping into the far corner, his arms held out to mark the spot. "Aye." "And you didn't move them until the Mediwizards got here?" "Nope. Just piled up, the man and woman was on top of that little girl, the other two was stiff as boards up against the bricks." Harry walked closer to the corner, staring at the ground. Little remained of the investigation from two nights before. The corner had presumably been Scourgified given the staggering amount of blood that had been splashed across the ground that night. Reaching the corner, he extended his fingertips and traced the bricks, drumming them along the mortar as though playing a piano, his eyes closed in meditation. "Nyenyelea. Kipapae omolewa," he kept repeating in a slow, steady refrain. "Dumbledore first showed me this–how to detect the traces of magic. It has its roots in voodoo really, comes from coastal Mozambique. You remember Eliazor, don't you, Ron?" Eliazor was a tribal wizard they had encountered on their quest for the Horcruxes. He had instructed the trio in the powerful ritualistic tongue, but only Harry could grasp the intricacies of the mystical language. Ron used to joke that he had never seen Hermione so frustrated about her lack of ability since their first flying lesson. Try as both of them might, however, Harry alone possessed this rare gift even to this day. Harry finished chanting and turned to gaze down the dead end of the alley, running his fingers gingerly down the wall, counting off the paces as he did so. "Are you getting anything?" asked Ron, a few steps behind him. "No, nothing in this corner. Are you sure the Hexology reports came back clear on the family?" "Yes. They were beaten, but no Dark magic was used at all, as far as we can tell." "Excuse me, sir," Harry said as he turned to the eager barkeep and away from the wall. "Can you tell me precisely what happened? I apologize for the inconvenience --" "Oh, no bother, no bother at all!" Tonks rolled her eyes, seemingly annoyed that the barkeep was much more eager to assist Harry Potter than he had been to help her. "It was about elevenish from what I remember. The pub was just warming up for the night. I kept worrying about a small gathering of over-rambunctious lads in the corner, didn't want no trouble. You see, me and the missus is proud of our pub and while we'll put up with some hard drinking, we put our foot down when it comes to fisticuffs, mind you. So when those lads started acting up, I looks at Winifred and she gives me the nod. Out I tossed them into the alley and slams the door shut. 'Good riddance,' to ums I said. Let 'em punch each other and toss their drinks out there in the dark for all I care. "I wasn't at the bar for a minute or so and I hears the pounding and the shouting. I had a good mind to just leave 'em there to rot, but the regulars started complaining as it was ruining their darts. The moment I opened the door I knew something was wrong, their faces was pale as a set of sheets, terrified out there in the dark." "Dark. You said that before," said Harry. "There was no light?" "No. Now that I comes to think of it, no, it was dark as ink." "But there are two gas lamps at the far end of the alley. Do they work properly?" "I think. When I'm lugging out the rubbish I never have a problem seeing anything." "Plus the moon was full that night," added Tonks knowingly, staring down at the lamps. "The storm didn't come up until after midnight, after the Mediwizards contacted us." She withdrew her wand and muttered, "Succendio" at which point the lamps began to glow, casting warmth down the dark bricks even in the daylight. "That's strange," muttered the barkeep. "What's strange?" asked Harry. "The dumpster's a bit farther away from me door than regular." "What dumpster?" questioned Ron. The three Aurors turned their attention to where the barkeep was staring. At the far end of the alley, a large blue dumpster sat against the wall, its sides dented and graffitied. "That wasn't here during our investigation," said Tonks. "Has it always been in this alley?" "Of course. The binman's been putting it in the same spot for over twenty years as best I can remember. He comes every Monday morning." "Did you see the dumpster when you came out of the pub?" asked Harry. "I honestly can't remember; I was too upset by the bodies, really. As was the young men." "When you stepped into the alley, where were the young men who found the bodies in relationship to the dumpster?" "Well, they was standing behind me, right sober at that point. Just pointing to the bodies in the corner. I didn't notice the dumpster, truth be told." "Did you know these young men?" "Oh yes, they've lived here their whole lives. A good group of lads, just haven't learned how to hold their liquor yet. Can't put a lid on things when they get out of hand." Harry stopped immediately, his eyes fixated on the dumpster. Striding down the alley, he stopped directly in front of the large blue metal container, a padlock hanging from the lid. "Do you usually lock your waste?" he asked incredulously. "Of course." "Why the bloody hell?" Ron countered. "Rats." "Must be some behemoth of a rat." "Ye never seen a Kilgraith rat, have ye, sonny? Ye notice most of the cats stay indoors here. And for good reason. But I locked it yesterday night. Why in the blue blazes is it open?" "Maybe the rats are getting smarter?" whispered Ron. Harry shot him a look. They had had enough of devious rats to last several lifetimes. Gripping the dumpster's padlock with his hands, Harry felt the warmth of magic. "Look," he said seriously to Ron and Tonks, "I need to perform a spell. You won't be familiar with it and it could prove potentially dangerous." "What kind of a spell?" asked Tonks, clearly leery of the use of non-regulation magic. "Remember those months I spent on my own during the war? Well, I met a monk on Iona who let me study with him." "Blimey, Harry. We all believed you were staying with the giants. You had us worried to death. Why the hell didn't you--" "Look," Harry answered Ron brusquely, "we don't have time for that right now . . . I studied with him for a reason and that's all I want to say it about it." His jaw clenched and he went on. "He believed that in times of physical torture, the vestiges of the pain a person encounters are imprinted in nearby objects. Using a certain nonverbal spell, you can detect the physical warmth left by the abuse." "What happens when you cast the spell verbally?" Ron asked hesitantly. "The pain is given a voice." "Whose voice?" "Mine." The two Aurors stared at him in horror. "Jesus, Harry. Are you sure you want to do this? Is it safe?" Tonks demanded of him. "I don't know. I've never done the verbal incantation." "No way! I am not authorizing an illegal use of spells and risk having my best Auror--" "What am I? Chopped liver?" "Oh shut up, Weasley. You know what I'm talking about, don't get flippant with me. Don't you care if he turns into--" "I'm not going to turn into anything. It's a necessary evil, Tonks. I'm willing to take the risk." Harry made his determination clear. If she forbade him, he would only come back alone another time. If something went wrong, he would be without back up. She nodded briefly and closed her eyes. The silence in the alley seemed to deepen as Harry raised his wand with one hand and clutched the padlock in the other. Harry felt a chill in the air and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. "Recantio Resonus," he whispered. A great swirling sound erupted from the far end of the alley. A whirlpool of chilled air raised the debris as it roared past them. It seemed as though the air had dropped twenty degrees. Both Tonks and Ron spun around, wands raised. Suddenly Harry's body went limp. Ron ran to catch him when without warning the wailing sounds of a young girl flailed in agony from the depth of Harry's being, swelling in ever growing fear and terror. "Mommy, mommy, help! Hellllpppp! The bad men! Mommyyy! Help me!!" Harry screamed, yet it was not Harry; it was a child terrified beyond words. His body twitched, grey and cold as the shrill petrified pleading crashed in wave after wave against the narrow alley walls. Tonks blanched in stunned alarm. "Harry!" she screamed and grappled the wand from his lifeless hand. The tortured beseeching vanished instantly like a needle being lifted from a record. "For all that's good, Harry, please!" Sweat lined Tonks' brow and she stared down hard at his face. He blinked open his eyes and stumbled to his feet. "Something's in there," he muttered, trying to catch his breath. "Alohomora!" The padlock plummeted to the ground and without hesitation, Harry wrenched open the heavy steel lid of the dumpster. A wave of noxious fumes made his eyes blur and turned his stomach. Taking a deep breath, he heaved himself over the side. "Ron, I need you!" "Great." "Get moving!" cried Tonks, rolling up her sleeves. Several minutes passed in which all three frantically plowed through the remains of the bin. "Wait," shouted Harry and reached down to the far corner, his face strained as his fingers tingled around a tightly wrapped bundle, warm with the remnants of pain. They gathered around him, knee deep in rubbish, staring at the two items in Harry's hands. His long, slender fingers peeled apart the twisted wad. Tonks bit down on her lip and turned away. There in Harry's hands lay a worn teddy bear and a small pink jacket, both stained in blood. Without warning, Harry reached over Tonks' shoulder, his hand tracing the rim of the dumpster. "Recantio Resonus," he whispered. "Harry, no!!" "No! No! My hands! Make him stop! Noooooo!" Harry's mouth wailed: the very sound of despair, white with pain. Harry wrenched his palm from the edge as though he had scalded his skin. He swore heatedly. Tonks twisted around. His eyes met hers in morbid understanding. She heaved herself over the side of the bin and staggered towards the wall. They understood how the young girl had been tortured. The Death Eaters had immobilized her hands, crashing the lid against her small and fragile fingers. Harry and Ron climbed slowly out of the bin, Harry still clutching the teddy bear as he trudged back down the alley, shaking, his shoulders hunched in disgust. He raked his hand through his hair feeling the terror crash about his mind. Years of living with his own mother's heinous shrieks had nearly undone him. Now he had performed this dangerous spell only to poison his mind with more. He had barely learned to compartmentalize the terror of the past, force it back into some hidden corner, where his own cries would not wake him in a cold sweat. So many screams: his mother's, Cedric's, Sirius' and all the countless victims of the war. Stop, he howled to his mind, stop, damn you. Only one person had ever silenced them, cast them away and calmed them, replacing them with tenderness and peace. "Face your fears, Harry, put them to rest. Let me help you. Hiding something doesn't make it go away, love. You're not alone anymore; you needn't be afraid." But he was alone. Long ago he had lost his best source of comfort. He had to find a way to battle this. Even if it meant hiding . . . He paused, his back straightening. Hiding something doesn't make it go away . . .go away. Could it be? Was that the reason the dumpster was moved? Turning on his heel, he ran back down the alley. "Stand aside," he commanded, pointing his wand towards the dumpster. "Dias Astrapi!" A lightning bolt ray of red light cracked from the tip of Harry's wand, catapulting the dumpster aside like it was a child's toy. For several heart-pounding seconds the sharp light continued to illuminate the grimy wall. When it ceased, Tonks inhaled. A ghastly outline of two bodies was visible on the wall like a negative image of a photograph. "Holy sh--," mouthed Tonks. "Did the monk teach you that one, too?" "Hardly. Tamsyn did." "What the hell?" questioned Ron, clearly dumbfounded by the images glaring back at him from the wall. The outlines seemed to be cast in a fine black powder. The unmistakable image of the two Death Eaters glowed from the bricks themselves. "The curse was so strong it left its mark in the bricks." The barkeep by this time was pale in fright, the sight of tortured Death Eaters and screaming Aurors terrifying him. "Are you sure there were no other bodies, no other people were present when you came out here?" Harry asked him. "No. None at all," the old man replied, his voice trembling. "Thank you. Thank you for all your help. I know you must be busy, so we don't wish to keep you." The kind look on Harry's face seemed to assuage the old man's fears. He turned quickly and hastened back into the pub, tripping over his feet like a man being chased by the Grim Reaper. "But who leveled this curse then? The father? The mother? They couldn't have. They'd been too badly beaten," said Tonks, her eyes traveling across the image of two Death Eaters frozen in terror, their hands over their faces. "No, no. Something's missing. Something's not right." Harry walked clear to the end of the alley, getting more frustrated with every step, when he paused near the corner, his fingers moving toward the bricks. Ron raced down to meet him. There, half outlined in the same black powder, was another body, bent, leg twisted, wand held high in the air. The figure seemed to be in flight away from the other two outlined forms. "Is this an outline of the father? Casting an Impediment Curse at the Death Eaters?" "The Death Eaters weren't immobilized. Immobilization doesn't leave this residue," Harry corrected him as he scraped up a sample into a small vial he retrieved from his robes, careful not to touch the powder himself. "They were thrown against the wall. Look at their faces, they're in agony. All three of them." Even from the faint half outline of the third figure, they could tell he was in tremendous pain by the contortions of his body and the unnatural position of his left leg. "Maybe this isn't an outline of the father. Maybe it's of another Death Eater," said Ron. "One that got away." "Oh, he's not a Death Eater," answered Harry, stepping back from the wall. "How can you be so sure?" "See the outlines?" Harry aimed his wand toward the two forms. "These two were dressed the same, that man," aiming his wand straight ahead, "was wearing a hat and--" "But, Harry," Tonks interjected, "clothes? How can you possibly determine he wasn't a Death Eater because of a hat?" "Not the hat. The fact that he was holding two wands." "What?" "Look." From below the charred lines of the fleeing man another faint outline lay sketched into the bricks. Harry waved his wand over the image and it intensified. There an outstretched hand appeared to press a wand into the palm of the man on the run. Harry's eyes found Tonks, silently asking her permission to cast the spell. "Can you take anymore?" "I don't know. Not much more, but I have to try." She nodded, staring intently at the outline. "Recantio Resonus," he whispered. "Run, take it, run, get away. Hurry! Aaaahhh!" The screams once again cut through the silence of the alley; the sound was so piercing an explosion of pigeons ripped overhead, startled by the screams. Harry lurched back from the bricks, falling onto his back, pale and sweating. Ron and Tonks ran to his aid. "He was with them—the family--I could feel it!" Harry gasped. "He's in a lot of pain. His leg. He has something, took something from the father." "His wand?" "Yes. I think." They waited for Harry to catch his breath before Ron asked, "But I don't understand, mate. This Mr. X hexes these Death Eaters in an attempt to protect the family and then takes the father's wand and flees?" "No. He may have been battling the Death Eaters, but--" "He couldn't have cast the spell! It was meant for him, too. And--" an excited comprehension lit up Ron's eyes, "he was trying to escape. He didn't have time to move the bodies." "Precisely." "Then who did?" asked Tonks. "Whoever did, I think we're safe to say one thing: someone is hunting the hunters." "The Coven," whispered Ron. "The Coven," answered Harry. Harry stood up, brushing the dirt from his knees, his face stern. "Areids was right, though. Whoever these people are, they mean business. But something's wrong." "They didn't kill the father," said Ron, answering Harry's thoughts. "Maybe they were about to when they were interrupted?" offered Tonks. "No, they would have killed him down here and not bothered to move the bodies. The Death Eaters wanted something from the family, that's for sure. Enough to torture the daughter. The Coven may have wanted the same thing." "So why move the bodies?" asked Tonks, a look of disgust etched across her brow. "Why not leave them as they were?" "So they'd be found by someone else–saved by someone else." "But didn't Areids say the other Coven member was murdered? Found with a note?" "I know, that part doesn't make sense. They moved the bodies and cast a Defectus Superus spell to darken the alley. I'll bet they were still here when those blokes stumbled out and only had enough time to conceal the outlines of the bodies. I still have no idea what curse this is that they performed. I've never seen anything like it." After several long moments spent staring at the outlines, Tonks spoke up, her voice bearing a forced lightness, "Well gentlemen, fancy a trip to Hogwarts?" Ron and Harry turned to her in surprise. "We need an expert in hexes who can drop everything to analyze Harry's sample for us." A slow dawning look of delight suffused Ron's face and in the cold gloom of the alley, despite everything, it did Harry's heart good to see it. "How I suffer for this job," said Ron in mock outrage. "Don't we all. Remus is visiting this weekend, too. Plus," she added, more to the point, "Areids won't be out until late tomorrow night. We can make our report to him once we get this powder analyzed. And I'd feel better if Harry paid a visit to the infirmary. Just to be sure." After a few paces, Ron ventured a glance at his partner. He placed his arm around Harry's shoulder and taking on his best fatherly tone, sighed, "Let me tell you about the infirmary, son, seeing that you've never been there." A scant week before, Harry would have shoved off Ron's arm and stalked away, but given the raw emotions that had been unearthed within him, he leaned into his best friend's shoulder, grateful for the support. Fighting against the echoes of a young girl's cries in his mind, he grasped the teddy bear tightly in his hand and walked back out toward the comfortable anonymity of a noisy and bustling MacDoohan Strete. Notes: Dumpster: The British term for this is 'skip'. But skips rarely come with lids, therefore I've used the American term. Plaven: The American equivalent of the Minister of Magic. (My invention) Sceptuchus: Latin for wand bearer. An official office where the movement of wands through warded entries is recorded. (My invention) Nyenyelea. Kipapae omolewa: Swahili. Nyenyelea means "find out a secret." Kipapae means "black magic." Omolewa means "be revealed." A curse to detect the traces of magic. Origins in voodoo. (fritz42's invention) Isn't she brilliant? Succendio: Latin for "to set on fire from below, to kindle." Used to light gas lamps. (fritz42's invention) Recantio Resonus: A particularly brutal spell. Used to retrieve the imprint of pain and suffering imprinted on inanimate objects. From the Latin Recanto meaning "to recall" and resonus meaning "echoing or resounding." (Again, fritz42's invention, she's amazing.) Defectus Superus: A darkening spell. From the Latin Defectus meaning "a failing of light, eclipse" and superus meaning "the sum total of an amount." (fritz42) Dias Astrapi: A powerful spell which exposes the traces of magic. From the ancient Greek Zeys meaning "Zeus" and Asptrapi meaning "lightning." (fritz42)
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