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The Case of the Escaped Death Eater, Chapter 4
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: New Thoughts
Rating: PG
Characters: Neville Longbottom, Hannah Abbott
Word Count: 1,972
Chapter Summary: After a night shift at Azkaban, Neville has a little mishap on the way home and ends up having a cosy cuppa with the Leaky Cauldron's new owner.
After several days of searching, they finally found the body of Alexander MacKay discarded near Sherwood Forest. Well, to be exact, a pair of Muggle campers had stumbled across it, and the wizarding community would probably have been none the wiser if the cause of death hadn't been so suspicious.
Wolfsbane, in a dosage that should not have been enough to kill a man.
Unless he was a werewolf.
Ron's theory had been supported by the account they had finally managed to coax out of Lucius Malfoy (though it had taken a visit from his wife and son). According to Malfoy, on the morning after the full moon, he had seen Greyback hobbling out of the prison with another wizard whose face he had not seen clearly. He could give no details about the night ('Cowering in his cell, no doubt,' said Ron) but claimed that he had seen no one in the prison but the guards. Greyback, he also stressed, had not been seen out of his cell in human form until morning. This new bit of evidence only proved MacKay's involvement further.
The only thing they couldn't prove was that MacKay had been under the Imperius Curse. Ron was adamant about it and infuriated that the other Aurors treated it as an unnecessary complication of an otherwise straightforward case. What Neville found infuriating, however, was how most of them seemed to take MacKay's being in Slytherin as supporting his being in league with Greyback.
Neville had fought undercover at Hogwarts for a year. He'd known first-hand that it wasn't all non-Slytherins who had been on their side.
Nor had it been only the Slytherins who had given them away.
But that was neither here nor there now. The one time he'd brought up the subject, Martin Savage had commented sarcastically about the war heroes knowing better, of course. They'd ignored him, of course, but unfortunately he'd followed it up with a cutting comment on how MacKay being a werewolf hardly boded well for his innocence ('After all, nothing good's ever come of those beasts.') Harry had almost come to blows with him. Ron and Neville had to pull him away, which was lucky because Savage still outranked them all.
In the end, Gawain Robards himself had spoken to them, assuring them that he would give the matter due consideration.
'But look, you three,' he'd said, not without some exasperation, 'logically, there's no reason to worry about a greater conspiracy. You've heard of Occam's razor. Keep your eyes open, for sure, but there's no point going on a wild goose chase for an unknown entity.'
The search for Greyback went on. So did the Azkaban patrols. The latter was terribly boring. They flew out to the island in pairs for four-hour shifts. Once there, they simply joined the guards on duty at the guard house, venturing out periodically to circle the perimeter or to patrol the prison corridors.
It left a lot of time for thinking, especially during the night shifts. And Neville had found himself down for a number of those.
He couldn't really complain; it worked out better this way, in fact, since unlike Ron and Harry, he didn't have exactly much family who wanted him home at night. He'd moved out of Gran's when he'd become a full-fledged Auror and taken out a Diagon Alley flat, next door to the Leaky Cauldron. It was a cosy place with a nice enough view: the main street of the Alley on one side and Muggle London on the other. But company-wise, it was just him, and if he felt like it, he could always drop into the pub for a drink and some conversation. Hannah Abbott had just taken over running the business and she always had a smile for him even if she was mostly busy with the other customers.
Neville wasn't thinking of Hannah at the moment, though. It was his turn to check the cells and as he passed Greyback's empty one, a sudden memory surfaced in his mind.
He remembered fighting Greyback. A lot of what happened that night was now fuzzy, including that whole exchange at the end between Harry and Voldemort, but he remembered Greyback and his taunts as he had attacked them with bared teeth and nails that were nevertheless as dangerous as a wand.
He'd laughed about Professor Lupin.
'Much good bein' on Dumbledore's side did 'im. Thought 'e could be a spy. Learned better now!'
It had felt good to take down Greyback after that. But of course, it had not changed the fact that Professor Lupin -- the first adult to ever win Neville's full trust -- lay still and unmoving in a corner of the Great Hall.
Neville frowned and continued walking down the corridors. He didn't know why he'd dredged up that particular memory now.
The rest of the shift passed without incident. The two Aurors in the next shift showed up, yawning, to take over from Neville and Anne Mills, who departed to fly out to the Apparition point.
He Apparated into the narrow alley between his flat and the Leaky Cauldron and nearly had a heart attack when his feet met something soft and furry, which let out a plaintive yowl and took a swipe at his leg through his cloak. Neville felt the material tear and his shin sting. He stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and crashed arse-first into a row of dustbins.
The clanging was enough to wake the dead. Neville cursed and gingerly pulled himself to his feet.
'Smart, Longbottom, really smart,' he muttered to himself.
And then, someone spoke in a sharp, fierce whisper, 'Who's there?'
Neville drew his wand instinctively.
'Protego!' said the voice immediately, pre-empting a curse, and Neville realised suddenly that it was a voice he knew.
'Hannah?' He lit his wand nonverbally. It was, indeed, the scared, pink face of Hannah Abbott, framed by wisps of blonde hair falling out of a nightcap. She had a cloak hastily thrown about her shoulders and was clutching it together at the front with one hand.
'Who -- Neville?' She gaped at him and lowered her wand.
Neville stowed his, too, though he frowned. 'You really shouldn't lower your wand, Hannah. It's dangerous.'
She didn't appear to hear him. 'Neville Longbottom, it's four in the morning! Did you make that racket?'
'Not one of my smartest moves, I'm afraid,' he said ruefully. 'Sorry to wake you. I'll -- er -- I'll just go.' He turned to head into his building, but his cloak brushed the deep scratch the cat had given him and he let out an involuntary hiss of pain.
'You're hurt!' Hannah rushed forward. 'What happened?'
'Just a scratch,' he muttered. 'Nothing I can't handle. I -- um, I Apparated onto a cat.' He looked at her sheepishly. Hannah stared at him blankly, then started to laugh. 'Oh dear, that must have been Mr Wimsy. I put him out last night.'
'Mr Wimsy?' Her cat, he realised belatedly.
'Oh, Neville.' She tugged on his arm. 'Come on, let me take care of that for you.'
He ought to have gone back to his own home, done a quick cleaning charm on the scratch (it really wasn't that bad, especially when you considered all those other injuries he'd had before) and gone to bed. After all, he'd only four hours to sleep before he was meant to be back at Auror Headquarters. Instead, he allowed Hannah to lead him into the Leaky Cauldron and sit him down at a table near the grate. She lit the fire and proceeded to clean and heal his wound.
It was comforting, somehow. He was strongly reminded of being back at Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement after detention taking care of their Carrow-inflicted injuries.
'Thanks, Hannah,' he said, after she went behind the bar and came out Levitating a tray of hot cocoa in front of her. She'd taken off her cloak and even by the dim light of the fire she'd lit, Neville could see that her nightdress, though hardly revealing, clung in certain places. He looked away quickly. 'Sorry to disturb you this early.'
'Nonsense. I would've been getting up soon enough. But why are you up at this hour? I usually see you in here just before eight.'
'Night shifts. At Azkaban, you know.'
'Oh, that's right, because of the escape.' Hannah nodded sympathetically. 'That must be tough.'
'Yeah, well. It's all right. I just have to sleep in four hour breaks to put in a midnight shift.'
'Still, it sounds like our Dumbledore's Army days. And I know what those were like.'
Neville shrugged. 'S'what I signed up for, isn't it? Joining the Aurors.'
Hannah didn't answer, and when he looked up from his cocoa, he noticed her looking at him curiously. He realised his words must have come out rather bitterly.
'Sorry, don't mind me,' he said, and cast around for a change of subject. He sipped his cocoa and looked around him. The pub looked different empty, the dim, flickering firelight causing shadows to leap up in the corners of the room. He thought suddenly of Hannah out in the alley, bravely addressing an armed stranger.
They didn't know what Greyback was after, and if there was another wizard, one of the Death Eaters they'd never caught, involved ...
He remembered that they'd never figured out exactly which of the Death Eaters had been responsible for the attack that had killed Hannah's mother.
'Hannah, how protected is this place?'
'Protected?'
'In case of -- in case someone wanted to attack y- I mean, here.'
'Neville, I don't think Fenrir Greyback would be particularly interested in the Leaky Cauldron.'
'I know, but ...'
She put a hand on his. 'Don't worry, Neville. If he does show up, I reckon I remember enough from the DA to hold him until you Aurors can get here.'
This wasn't a particularly comforting thought. Nor was the heat that started rising when her fingers brushed his knuckles. Neville squirmed a bit.
It's just Hannah, he reminded himself. Who was in the DA with you. Whose fingers have brushed yours a thousand times when she had to heal you after detention.
Only his memories were traitorously replaying all those incidents in a very different light now. Neville quickly drained his cup, the scalding liquid at least shutting his mind up for a second as it burned his throat going down.
'I should get to bed,' he said abruptly. 'I have to be in at eight tomorrow.'
'Oh, of course,' said Hannah. 'I shouldn't have kept you talking.' She took his cup, moving her hand away from his as she did so, fortunately. 'Go and get some rest, Neville. I'll see you in the morning.'
He nodded distractedly and made his way to the back door. He turned back there. Hannah was bending over the table, clearing the cups.
'Um ... take care, Hannah,' he said. She smiled and waved.
Neville didn't get that very much sleep that night. Hannah flittered in and out of his dreams, sometimes accompanied by Greyback and flashes of green light, sometimes alone but clad in even more suggestive attire than yesterday's modest nightdress. When his alarm dragged him up at half-past seven, he thought about making himself a quick breakfast so he wouldn't have to go into the Leaky Cauldron, but lack of time and food in his flat sent him stumbling into the pub after all.
He needn't have worried. People were already starting to come into the pub in waves, and Hannah was too busy behind the counter to greet him with anything more than a smile. She'd left breakfast for him on the counter, which he wolfed down, thankful that whatever strange thoughts he'd been having last night seemed to be fading.
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: New Thoughts
Rating: PG
Characters: Neville Longbottom, Hannah Abbott
Word Count: 1,972
Chapter Summary: After a night shift at Azkaban, Neville has a little mishap on the way home and ends up having a cosy cuppa with the Leaky Cauldron's new owner.
After several days of searching, they finally found the body of Alexander MacKay discarded near Sherwood Forest. Well, to be exact, a pair of Muggle campers had stumbled across it, and the wizarding community would probably have been none the wiser if the cause of death hadn't been so suspicious.
Wolfsbane, in a dosage that should not have been enough to kill a man.
Unless he was a werewolf.
Ron's theory had been supported by the account they had finally managed to coax out of Lucius Malfoy (though it had taken a visit from his wife and son). According to Malfoy, on the morning after the full moon, he had seen Greyback hobbling out of the prison with another wizard whose face he had not seen clearly. He could give no details about the night ('Cowering in his cell, no doubt,' said Ron) but claimed that he had seen no one in the prison but the guards. Greyback, he also stressed, had not been seen out of his cell in human form until morning. This new bit of evidence only proved MacKay's involvement further.
The only thing they couldn't prove was that MacKay had been under the Imperius Curse. Ron was adamant about it and infuriated that the other Aurors treated it as an unnecessary complication of an otherwise straightforward case. What Neville found infuriating, however, was how most of them seemed to take MacKay's being in Slytherin as supporting his being in league with Greyback.
Neville had fought undercover at Hogwarts for a year. He'd known first-hand that it wasn't all non-Slytherins who had been on their side.
Nor had it been only the Slytherins who had given them away.
But that was neither here nor there now. The one time he'd brought up the subject, Martin Savage had commented sarcastically about the war heroes knowing better, of course. They'd ignored him, of course, but unfortunately he'd followed it up with a cutting comment on how MacKay being a werewolf hardly boded well for his innocence ('After all, nothing good's ever come of those beasts.') Harry had almost come to blows with him. Ron and Neville had to pull him away, which was lucky because Savage still outranked them all.
In the end, Gawain Robards himself had spoken to them, assuring them that he would give the matter due consideration.
'But look, you three,' he'd said, not without some exasperation, 'logically, there's no reason to worry about a greater conspiracy. You've heard of Occam's razor. Keep your eyes open, for sure, but there's no point going on a wild goose chase for an unknown entity.'
The search for Greyback went on. So did the Azkaban patrols. The latter was terribly boring. They flew out to the island in pairs for four-hour shifts. Once there, they simply joined the guards on duty at the guard house, venturing out periodically to circle the perimeter or to patrol the prison corridors.
It left a lot of time for thinking, especially during the night shifts. And Neville had found himself down for a number of those.
He couldn't really complain; it worked out better this way, in fact, since unlike Ron and Harry, he didn't have exactly much family who wanted him home at night. He'd moved out of Gran's when he'd become a full-fledged Auror and taken out a Diagon Alley flat, next door to the Leaky Cauldron. It was a cosy place with a nice enough view: the main street of the Alley on one side and Muggle London on the other. But company-wise, it was just him, and if he felt like it, he could always drop into the pub for a drink and some conversation. Hannah Abbott had just taken over running the business and she always had a smile for him even if she was mostly busy with the other customers.
Neville wasn't thinking of Hannah at the moment, though. It was his turn to check the cells and as he passed Greyback's empty one, a sudden memory surfaced in his mind.
He remembered fighting Greyback. A lot of what happened that night was now fuzzy, including that whole exchange at the end between Harry and Voldemort, but he remembered Greyback and his taunts as he had attacked them with bared teeth and nails that were nevertheless as dangerous as a wand.
He'd laughed about Professor Lupin.
'Much good bein' on Dumbledore's side did 'im. Thought 'e could be a spy. Learned better now!'
It had felt good to take down Greyback after that. But of course, it had not changed the fact that Professor Lupin -- the first adult to ever win Neville's full trust -- lay still and unmoving in a corner of the Great Hall.
Neville frowned and continued walking down the corridors. He didn't know why he'd dredged up that particular memory now.
The rest of the shift passed without incident. The two Aurors in the next shift showed up, yawning, to take over from Neville and Anne Mills, who departed to fly out to the Apparition point.
He Apparated into the narrow alley between his flat and the Leaky Cauldron and nearly had a heart attack when his feet met something soft and furry, which let out a plaintive yowl and took a swipe at his leg through his cloak. Neville felt the material tear and his shin sting. He stumbled backwards, lost his balance, and crashed arse-first into a row of dustbins.
The clanging was enough to wake the dead. Neville cursed and gingerly pulled himself to his feet.
'Smart, Longbottom, really smart,' he muttered to himself.
And then, someone spoke in a sharp, fierce whisper, 'Who's there?'
Neville drew his wand instinctively.
'Protego!' said the voice immediately, pre-empting a curse, and Neville realised suddenly that it was a voice he knew.
'Hannah?' He lit his wand nonverbally. It was, indeed, the scared, pink face of Hannah Abbott, framed by wisps of blonde hair falling out of a nightcap. She had a cloak hastily thrown about her shoulders and was clutching it together at the front with one hand.
'Who -- Neville?' She gaped at him and lowered her wand.
Neville stowed his, too, though he frowned. 'You really shouldn't lower your wand, Hannah. It's dangerous.'
She didn't appear to hear him. 'Neville Longbottom, it's four in the morning! Did you make that racket?'
'Not one of my smartest moves, I'm afraid,' he said ruefully. 'Sorry to wake you. I'll -- er -- I'll just go.' He turned to head into his building, but his cloak brushed the deep scratch the cat had given him and he let out an involuntary hiss of pain.
'You're hurt!' Hannah rushed forward. 'What happened?'
'Just a scratch,' he muttered. 'Nothing I can't handle. I -- um, I Apparated onto a cat.' He looked at her sheepishly. Hannah stared at him blankly, then started to laugh. 'Oh dear, that must have been Mr Wimsy. I put him out last night.'
'Mr Wimsy?' Her cat, he realised belatedly.
'Oh, Neville.' She tugged on his arm. 'Come on, let me take care of that for you.'
He ought to have gone back to his own home, done a quick cleaning charm on the scratch (it really wasn't that bad, especially when you considered all those other injuries he'd had before) and gone to bed. After all, he'd only four hours to sleep before he was meant to be back at Auror Headquarters. Instead, he allowed Hannah to lead him into the Leaky Cauldron and sit him down at a table near the grate. She lit the fire and proceeded to clean and heal his wound.
It was comforting, somehow. He was strongly reminded of being back at Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement after detention taking care of their Carrow-inflicted injuries.
'Thanks, Hannah,' he said, after she went behind the bar and came out Levitating a tray of hot cocoa in front of her. She'd taken off her cloak and even by the dim light of the fire she'd lit, Neville could see that her nightdress, though hardly revealing, clung in certain places. He looked away quickly. 'Sorry to disturb you this early.'
'Nonsense. I would've been getting up soon enough. But why are you up at this hour? I usually see you in here just before eight.'
'Night shifts. At Azkaban, you know.'
'Oh, that's right, because of the escape.' Hannah nodded sympathetically. 'That must be tough.'
'Yeah, well. It's all right. I just have to sleep in four hour breaks to put in a midnight shift.'
'Still, it sounds like our Dumbledore's Army days. And I know what those were like.'
Neville shrugged. 'S'what I signed up for, isn't it? Joining the Aurors.'
Hannah didn't answer, and when he looked up from his cocoa, he noticed her looking at him curiously. He realised his words must have come out rather bitterly.
'Sorry, don't mind me,' he said, and cast around for a change of subject. He sipped his cocoa and looked around him. The pub looked different empty, the dim, flickering firelight causing shadows to leap up in the corners of the room. He thought suddenly of Hannah out in the alley, bravely addressing an armed stranger.
They didn't know what Greyback was after, and if there was another wizard, one of the Death Eaters they'd never caught, involved ...
He remembered that they'd never figured out exactly which of the Death Eaters had been responsible for the attack that had killed Hannah's mother.
'Hannah, how protected is this place?'
'Protected?'
'In case of -- in case someone wanted to attack y- I mean, here.'
'Neville, I don't think Fenrir Greyback would be particularly interested in the Leaky Cauldron.'
'I know, but ...'
She put a hand on his. 'Don't worry, Neville. If he does show up, I reckon I remember enough from the DA to hold him until you Aurors can get here.'
This wasn't a particularly comforting thought. Nor was the heat that started rising when her fingers brushed his knuckles. Neville squirmed a bit.
It's just Hannah, he reminded himself. Who was in the DA with you. Whose fingers have brushed yours a thousand times when she had to heal you after detention.
Only his memories were traitorously replaying all those incidents in a very different light now. Neville quickly drained his cup, the scalding liquid at least shutting his mind up for a second as it burned his throat going down.
'I should get to bed,' he said abruptly. 'I have to be in at eight tomorrow.'
'Oh, of course,' said Hannah. 'I shouldn't have kept you talking.' She took his cup, moving her hand away from his as she did so, fortunately. 'Go and get some rest, Neville. I'll see you in the morning.'
He nodded distractedly and made his way to the back door. He turned back there. Hannah was bending over the table, clearing the cups.
'Um ... take care, Hannah,' he said. She smiled and waved.
Neville didn't get that very much sleep that night. Hannah flittered in and out of his dreams, sometimes accompanied by Greyback and flashes of green light, sometimes alone but clad in even more suggestive attire than yesterday's modest nightdress. When his alarm dragged him up at half-past seven, he thought about making himself a quick breakfast so he wouldn't have to go into the Leaky Cauldron, but lack of time and food in his flat sent him stumbling into the pub after all.
He needn't have worried. People were already starting to come into the pub in waves, and Hannah was too busy behind the counter to greet him with anything more than a smile. She'd left breakfast for him on the counter, which he wolfed down, thankful that whatever strange thoughts he'd been having last night seemed to be fading.