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The Case of the Escaped Death Eater, Chapter 1
Title: The Case of the Escaped Death Eater
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom/Hannah Abbott, various others
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Five years after the end of the war, Aurors Weasley and Longbottom find themselves working together to capture an escaped prisoner on a tight deadline: before the full moon. However, the case is not as straightforward as it seems, especially when the witches in their lives appear to be involved as well ...
Chapter Listing
In this chapter
Chapter Title: The Azkaban Escape
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Gawain Robards, Lucius Malfoy, OCs
Word Count: 1,439
Chapter Summary: Fenrir Greyback escapes from Azkaban and the Aurors are on full alert to re-capture him.
'You're kidding,' said Ron loudly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room after Gawain Robards had made his announcement. As though his comment had opened the floodgates, the other Aurors burst into conversation as well.
'No, Weasley, this is unfortunately not a joke. It is not a light matter either, as most of you will know.' Robards's voice, amplified using a Sonorus Charm, reverberated about the room, causing the noise to die down again. 'As of now, Fenrir Greyback's escape takes top priority. We're putting every free Auror on the case. We need to get him back before the next full moon. You are all to see your direct supervisors at once. They will give you your instructions. Savage, Bartley, and ...' he glanced around the room and his eyes lit on Harry, standing beside Ron, his face stony, '... Potter. Come with me.'
Ron made his way past a throng of Aurors, who were already discussing how to handle the press ('It'll be all over the Evening Prophet, so we'd better get in there with an official statement before the blasted papers start putting words in our mouths!'), over to Neville, who had already approached Benjamin Proudfoot, their unit head.
'Ah, Weasley,' said Proudfoot. 'I'm putting you with Longbottom. I need the pair of you to head to Azkaban. Talk to the guards on duty, check the perimeter -- well, you know the procedure. We need to know how this happened.'
'Sir, I'm usually with Harry --'
'We need Potter elsewhere at the moment and this has to be done now. I know you've a good mind on you Weasley. We need that. That goes for you too, Longbottom.' He turned away to deliver his instructions to another pair of Aurors. Neville shrugged and steered Ron away.
'Sorry,' he said. 'Guess you're stuck with me.'
'I didn't mean it that way,' said Ron hastily. 'You're all right, Neville, it's just different. I wonder what they've got Harry up to.'
'Well, we'll find out in a bit, I suppose. We'd better get down to Azkaban, though.' Neville shuddered. Ron conjured them heavy cloaks before they Disapparated. Though the Dementors were gone, the prison was freezing even in summertime, let alone in the dead of winter.
Azkaban, he thought grimly. It was just as well that he wasn't with Harry on this one. Harry hated the place -- probably had something to do with the fact that Sirius had been stuck there with the Dementors for all those years.
You couldn't Apparate into Azkaban -- the prison was protected by enchantments very much like those at Hogwarts. Ron and Neville dismounted their broomsticks at the guard house, a tiny shed-like building that had been constructed on the south side of the island after the war. The prison guards were subdued and suspicious, and didn't have much to say. They'd arrived this morning to find the mangled bodies of all five guards who'd been on last night's shift and Greyback's cell empty. There was no sign of damage on the bars or even the protective spells. All the other prisoners were secure.
Ron lit his wand and entered the narrow, damp corridors of the main building. There were no cells on the ground floor; the principle, Ron had learned in training, being that higher floors made for harder escapes. He had just reached the first row of cells one floor up when a low voice called out to him.
'Weasley,' it sneered, and Ron knew from the drawling nature of the voice exactly who it was in that cell.
'Malfoy.'
Indeed it was Lucius Malfoy, still serving out his ten-year sentence in Azkaban. After Harry's testimony at the Malfoy trials, Narcissa and Draco had escaped prison, but Lucius Malfoy's chain of misdeeds -- going back to when he'd knowingly slipped Ginny that diary -- were too great to ignore. As far as Ron was concerned, the bastard was lucky to have only nailed ten years, and without the Dementors.
Still, the relative sanity of the post-war prisoners made it easier for interviews such as the one Ron and Neville were meant to carry out today. He supposed Malfoy was as good a place to start as any. Neville seemed to think so, too, as he asked the first question.
'All right, Malfoy, we need to know exactly what you saw here last night.'
'And ... how would I benefit from that?'
Ron and Neville exchanged a glance.
'Hem hem.' They jumped at the little, high cough.
'Umbridge,' muttered Ron, tightening his grip on his wand.
'There was a werewolf here last night.'
'Yes, that would be Greyback,' said Neville. 'But someone had to let him out -- you didn't happen to see anything of the sort, did you?'
'It was a werewolf,' she repeated. 'They should be put down!'
She launched into a rant that figured not only werewolves but all manner of part-humans. Ron was tempted to hex her when she started talking about Mudbloods, but managed to refrain, and they left her alone to check out Greyback's empty cell.
There was nothing untoward about it, except for the fact that there was no one inside. Homenum Revelio yielded nothing. The spells holding it against physical damage -- reinforced in this case to withstand even a werewolf attack -- were undisturbed. Ron made to unlocked it, but Neville stilled his hand.
'We should check when was the last time it was opened.'
'Of course. Priori Incantato.'
The air in front of the bars glowed, then a date materialised at their eye level.
Today's date.
Ron and Neville shared another uneasy glance.
'Maybe one of the guards tried it when they got here,' said Ron.
'They couldn't have -- not without an Auror. It'd trigger the alarms.'
'Yeah, but I'll bet they already sounded the alarm the moment they found all the bodies. Who would know the difference?'
'Maybe.'
They unlocked the doors and entered the cell. It looked as though there'd been a struggle -- scratches on the walls, blood splattered here and there. Greyback had been transforming in his cell for years, however; and even the Wolfsbane Potion, which had to be administered to him by force every month, probably didn't exactly make him docile. Ron remembered all too clearly what Greyback had done to Bill's face, and that had been untransformed. The point was, there was no way of knowing if all this graffiti was anything out of the ordinary.
Neville bent down to siphon some of the blood into a vial anyway. Ron let him carry on; maybe the Potions Department would be able to get something out of it. He walked to the barred window and glanced out. There wasn't much of a view, just the dark grey rocks under a perpetually gloomy sky.
'Come on,' he said when he saw Neville tuck the little glass vial into his robes. They backed out of the cell and recast the locking spell.
Lucius Malfoy's voice accosted them again on the way down.
'I know how it happened.'
'Good, so spill.'
'And in return ...?'
Neville answered first. 'That's not our call to make, Malfoy.'
'Besides,' Ron added, 'it won't do you any good if we have to force it out of you with Veritaserum.'
'Oh, are we using Veritaserum on witnesses now?'
Ron ground his teeth. Malfoy was right: Veritaserum was barely legalised on suspects these days, let alone on uncooperative witnesses.
'You can't be the only person who saw anything last night.'
'Who said anything about last night?'
Rolling his eyes, Ron turned to make rounds of the other prisoners. But it turned out to be less than fruitful. Either they were too far round the twist to make any sense, or could only blubber in incoherent terror about a werewolf being loose in the corridors at night.
Ron and Neville emerged from the prison to find Anne Mills and Aloysius Clark, two of their fellow Aurors, at the guard house.
'Relieving you here,' said Clark. 'Robards wants constant Auror presence at Azkaban now, in case the prison springs any more leaks.'
'I expect he's drawn up a schedule. You'll see. The two of you are wanted back in London now,' said Mills.
'Right,' said Ron. 'Well, watch Malfoy particularly. He seems to know something, but he's not telling.'
He and Neville grabbed their brooms and kicked off, heading back for the Auror Headquarters.
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger, Neville Longbottom/Hannah Abbott, various others
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Five years after the end of the war, Aurors Weasley and Longbottom find themselves working together to capture an escaped prisoner on a tight deadline: before the full moon. However, the case is not as straightforward as it seems, especially when the witches in their lives appear to be involved as well ...
Chapter Listing
In this chapter
Chapter Title: The Azkaban Escape
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Gawain Robards, Lucius Malfoy, OCs
Word Count: 1,439
Chapter Summary: Fenrir Greyback escapes from Azkaban and the Aurors are on full alert to re-capture him.
'You're kidding,' said Ron loudly, breaking the silence that had fallen over the room after Gawain Robards had made his announcement. As though his comment had opened the floodgates, the other Aurors burst into conversation as well.
'No, Weasley, this is unfortunately not a joke. It is not a light matter either, as most of you will know.' Robards's voice, amplified using a Sonorus Charm, reverberated about the room, causing the noise to die down again. 'As of now, Fenrir Greyback's escape takes top priority. We're putting every free Auror on the case. We need to get him back before the next full moon. You are all to see your direct supervisors at once. They will give you your instructions. Savage, Bartley, and ...' he glanced around the room and his eyes lit on Harry, standing beside Ron, his face stony, '... Potter. Come with me.'
Ron made his way past a throng of Aurors, who were already discussing how to handle the press ('It'll be all over the Evening Prophet, so we'd better get in there with an official statement before the blasted papers start putting words in our mouths!'), over to Neville, who had already approached Benjamin Proudfoot, their unit head.
'Ah, Weasley,' said Proudfoot. 'I'm putting you with Longbottom. I need the pair of you to head to Azkaban. Talk to the guards on duty, check the perimeter -- well, you know the procedure. We need to know how this happened.'
'Sir, I'm usually with Harry --'
'We need Potter elsewhere at the moment and this has to be done now. I know you've a good mind on you Weasley. We need that. That goes for you too, Longbottom.' He turned away to deliver his instructions to another pair of Aurors. Neville shrugged and steered Ron away.
'Sorry,' he said. 'Guess you're stuck with me.'
'I didn't mean it that way,' said Ron hastily. 'You're all right, Neville, it's just different. I wonder what they've got Harry up to.'
'Well, we'll find out in a bit, I suppose. We'd better get down to Azkaban, though.' Neville shuddered. Ron conjured them heavy cloaks before they Disapparated. Though the Dementors were gone, the prison was freezing even in summertime, let alone in the dead of winter.
Azkaban, he thought grimly. It was just as well that he wasn't with Harry on this one. Harry hated the place -- probably had something to do with the fact that Sirius had been stuck there with the Dementors for all those years.
You couldn't Apparate into Azkaban -- the prison was protected by enchantments very much like those at Hogwarts. Ron and Neville dismounted their broomsticks at the guard house, a tiny shed-like building that had been constructed on the south side of the island after the war. The prison guards were subdued and suspicious, and didn't have much to say. They'd arrived this morning to find the mangled bodies of all five guards who'd been on last night's shift and Greyback's cell empty. There was no sign of damage on the bars or even the protective spells. All the other prisoners were secure.
Ron lit his wand and entered the narrow, damp corridors of the main building. There were no cells on the ground floor; the principle, Ron had learned in training, being that higher floors made for harder escapes. He had just reached the first row of cells one floor up when a low voice called out to him.
'Weasley,' it sneered, and Ron knew from the drawling nature of the voice exactly who it was in that cell.
'Malfoy.'
Indeed it was Lucius Malfoy, still serving out his ten-year sentence in Azkaban. After Harry's testimony at the Malfoy trials, Narcissa and Draco had escaped prison, but Lucius Malfoy's chain of misdeeds -- going back to when he'd knowingly slipped Ginny that diary -- were too great to ignore. As far as Ron was concerned, the bastard was lucky to have only nailed ten years, and without the Dementors.
Still, the relative sanity of the post-war prisoners made it easier for interviews such as the one Ron and Neville were meant to carry out today. He supposed Malfoy was as good a place to start as any. Neville seemed to think so, too, as he asked the first question.
'All right, Malfoy, we need to know exactly what you saw here last night.'
'And ... how would I benefit from that?'
Ron and Neville exchanged a glance.
'Hem hem.' They jumped at the little, high cough.
'Umbridge,' muttered Ron, tightening his grip on his wand.
'There was a werewolf here last night.'
'Yes, that would be Greyback,' said Neville. 'But someone had to let him out -- you didn't happen to see anything of the sort, did you?'
'It was a werewolf,' she repeated. 'They should be put down!'
She launched into a rant that figured not only werewolves but all manner of part-humans. Ron was tempted to hex her when she started talking about Mudbloods, but managed to refrain, and they left her alone to check out Greyback's empty cell.
There was nothing untoward about it, except for the fact that there was no one inside. Homenum Revelio yielded nothing. The spells holding it against physical damage -- reinforced in this case to withstand even a werewolf attack -- were undisturbed. Ron made to unlocked it, but Neville stilled his hand.
'We should check when was the last time it was opened.'
'Of course. Priori Incantato.'
The air in front of the bars glowed, then a date materialised at their eye level.
Today's date.
Ron and Neville shared another uneasy glance.
'Maybe one of the guards tried it when they got here,' said Ron.
'They couldn't have -- not without an Auror. It'd trigger the alarms.'
'Yeah, but I'll bet they already sounded the alarm the moment they found all the bodies. Who would know the difference?'
'Maybe.'
They unlocked the doors and entered the cell. It looked as though there'd been a struggle -- scratches on the walls, blood splattered here and there. Greyback had been transforming in his cell for years, however; and even the Wolfsbane Potion, which had to be administered to him by force every month, probably didn't exactly make him docile. Ron remembered all too clearly what Greyback had done to Bill's face, and that had been untransformed. The point was, there was no way of knowing if all this graffiti was anything out of the ordinary.
Neville bent down to siphon some of the blood into a vial anyway. Ron let him carry on; maybe the Potions Department would be able to get something out of it. He walked to the barred window and glanced out. There wasn't much of a view, just the dark grey rocks under a perpetually gloomy sky.
'Come on,' he said when he saw Neville tuck the little glass vial into his robes. They backed out of the cell and recast the locking spell.
Lucius Malfoy's voice accosted them again on the way down.
'I know how it happened.'
'Good, so spill.'
'And in return ...?'
Neville answered first. 'That's not our call to make, Malfoy.'
'Besides,' Ron added, 'it won't do you any good if we have to force it out of you with Veritaserum.'
'Oh, are we using Veritaserum on witnesses now?'
Ron ground his teeth. Malfoy was right: Veritaserum was barely legalised on suspects these days, let alone on uncooperative witnesses.
'You can't be the only person who saw anything last night.'
'Who said anything about last night?'
Rolling his eyes, Ron turned to make rounds of the other prisoners. But it turned out to be less than fruitful. Either they were too far round the twist to make any sense, or could only blubber in incoherent terror about a werewolf being loose in the corridors at night.
Ron and Neville emerged from the prison to find Anne Mills and Aloysius Clark, two of their fellow Aurors, at the guard house.
'Relieving you here,' said Clark. 'Robards wants constant Auror presence at Azkaban now, in case the prison springs any more leaks.'
'I expect he's drawn up a schedule. You'll see. The two of you are wanted back in London now,' said Mills.
'Right,' said Ron. 'Well, watch Malfoy particularly. He seems to know something, but he's not telling.'
He and Neville grabbed their brooms and kicked off, heading back for the Auror Headquarters.