[NTLJ] 12. The Morning After The Night Before
Chapter Summary: In which Tonks' team learn the reaction to the World Cup riots, and find out that there have been developments in their own case.
Length: 9,200 words
12. The Morning After The Night Before
Tuesday 25th August 1994
A weary Tonks and Rhiannon Apparated to the Ministry at half past nine the following morning, and as soon as they reached Auror Headquarters joined the queue for the coffee that had been thoughtfully provided.
As Rhiannon filled two large mugs from the spigot, Tonks noticed a copy of the morning's Daily Prophet special edition attached to the wall with a Sticking Charm, and skimmed through it. It didn't make pleasant reading.
"Skeeter her usual fair and balanced self, is she?" asked Rhiannon bitterly, noticing what Tonks was doing.
"Yeah, let's see ... Ministry blunders ... innocent campers fled in terror ... lax security procedures ... offenders escaped scot-free ... Dark Magic openly used ... it will take years for our country to live down this national disgrace played out in front of the entire wizarding world ... blah blah blah."
"Cow. Scrimgeour's going to be chewing rocks and spitting out gravel over this, and it wasn't even his responsibility."
"Yeah." Tonks glanced around; the office seemed fuller than she'd ever seen it before. "Have they got every Auror in the country here?" she muttered, taking the proffered mug.
"Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had," said Rhiannon in a low voice. "Scrimgeour doesn't look happy, does he?" She nodded towards one end of the room, where Scrimgeour was sitting with a group of senior Aurors, deep in serious and rather heated conversation.
They made their way over to the cubicles, where Cassius and Donnacha O'Gregan were sitting, looking equally tired. Tonks raised her eyebrows.
"I thought you two were still on holiday?" she said.
O'Gregan snorted, picked up a piece of bright red parchment and waved it at them. "Not any more. All leave cancelled until further notice. Orders straight from Amelia Bones, no less. Do you get the impression they're a bit miffed at the way things went with those fellows in masks, now?"
Tonks grinned. "You've sobered up enough to work, then?"
"I was stone cold sober and working last night," he replied with dignity. "My darling girl here came to check on me, and I asked her to cast a Sobriety Spell so I could help." Rhiannon nodded in confirmation.
"And I came back to do what I could too, once I'd got the rest of the family out of harm's way," added Cassius tiredly. "Little as that was. You know, I thought I'd left this sort of thing behind me when I retired? I never expected to see Death Eaters on the march again."
"We're sure it was them, then?" asked Rhiannon.
"Who else could it be?" said Cassius, shrugging. "Someone sent a Dark Mark up into the sky, after all. No-one apart from them knew the spell or were able to cast it -- not that anyone would have wanted to."
"Scared the masked lot off, though," said Tonks, mulling it over. "I was watching them. When you think about it, it was a bit odd, really. They all vanished as soon as it appeared, and they didn't do anything else after that, did they? The ones I actually saw Disapparate looked like they were panicking." She glanced around speculatively. "It couldn't have been some other group trying to act big and make a name for themselves, and ... oh I don't know, suppose an ex-Death Eater got annoyed when he saw them cavorting about, and tried to throw a scare into them? 'Hey lads, you want to play at being Death Eaters? Well, meet the real thing.'"
"Might be, I suppose, but that doesn't sound much better," said O'Gregan, with a gloomy look. "If they weren't You-Know-Who's old pals holding a nice little reunion party, it just means we've got another bunch o'nutters on our hands who like to dress up in masks and torment Muggles. Lovely. Either way, it'll be no fun for us now, will it?"
"Why do it now, though?" asked Rhiannon. "They've been keeping their heads down for years, why would they suddenly do this with the whole world watching and risk being exposed? You don't ..." She shivered, gulped, and continued more quietly. "You don't think they've got some sort of indication that You-Know-Who is on his way back?" The others shuddered.
"How would he do that?" asked O'Gregan, obviously trying to sound reassuring. "No-one's heard a peep from him for years, if he's even still alive."
"I don't know about that, Donnie," said Rhiannon in a worried tone. "He was supposed to be controlling that teacher that got killed at Hogwarts a couple of years ago." Seeing the looks of surprise from her colleagues, she added, "My little cousin Roger told me the story that was going round the school. He said everyone there seemed to know what had happened, even if no-one ever confirmed it officially."
"Right ..." said O'Gregan, discomfited. "Of course, the boys in masks could just have been doing it because they'd had too much to drink."
Tonks bit her lip and cast her mind back to the way the wizards had marched across the field. "They seemed too well-drilled for that," she said. "Like they'd practiced it beforehand. The ones who came to join them afterwards might well have been sloshed, but not the bunch in the middle ..." Her eyes widened in sudden recollection and she smacked her forehead, hard. "Oh, wait a minute ... I forgot!"
"What?" said Cassius, looking up with interest.
A few words, spoken in an immensely smug voice, came back to her: 'Father had some people to see. We had to provide them with somewhere civilised to meet.' She groaned. "I've just remembered. I met my little cousin on the site -- Draco, Lucius Malfoy's son? He said his dad was hosting a meeting there, and they practically had a bloody marquee! What's the betting they were doing some last-minute work on their moves ready for the big night?"
The others exchanged glances. "Malfoy? The slimy blond one who throws his money around and smarms up to Fudge? Not a bad shot," said O'Gregan judiciously. "What do you think, Cassius?"
Cassius was looking at Tonks with uncertainty, perhaps remembering her harsh attitude when Lucius Malfoy's name had come up before. Damn. He thinks I'm overreacting. I knew I shouldn't have let my guard down. "It's possible, I suppose," he said. "I wouldn't trust the man an inch, and I was never especially convinced by the way he got out of trouble after the war, but it's not proof of anything. But it's an interesting piece of information," he added hastily, holding up a hand to forestall Tonks' indignant reply. "You'd better mention it to whoever's going to co-ordinate the investigation. I know Barty Crouch was furious about what had happened -- I overheard him railing about the sloppy security last night, he was in such a rage even his poor house-elf was cowering at his feet." Tonks and Rhiannon exchanged glances, but forbore to correct Cassius -- doubtless he'd find out the full story soon enough. "Crouch was absolutely sure that someone must have useful information about the marchers. He went off trying to find Robards or one of his senior assistants to discuss it with."
O'Gregan snorted. "I don't suppose he found him then. I would think that we would have heard that conversation wherever we were on the campsite, now. Let us hope they have a plan."
"Right." Tonks glanced at her watch; it was still only five to ten. "I suppose we'll find out what they're going to do in a few minutes." She looked around curiously. "Where's Arnie got to, by the way?"
O'Gregan shrugged. "Haven't seen him. And we can't contact the poor fellow, which is bloody annoying -- they switched off access to all mirror phones, presumably so our Rufus won't get interrupted while he's yelling at us."
"They can do that?"
"Apparently," said Cassius. "K's department is always full of little tricks like that. I hope the rumour flying round that one of our senior people was thinking of retiring isn't referring to him -- no-one else knows how to make half the stuff he comes up with. I've actually grown quite fond of these little gadgets."
"Me too," said O'Gregan. "I can even call me mam on them. Anyway, I'm not worried about Arnie; he probably just had something he needed to follow up. They can't drag everyone in here, can they now, not when they have cases that need looking into?"
"No, I suppose they ca ..." Rhiannon trailed off as a small group swept past them. Tonks looked on in trepidation as she recognised Amelia Bones, accompanied a couple of harassed-looking wizards she took to be her assistants, with Scrimgeour and Robards following.
O'Gregan whistled quietly. "Old Boney herself? Clearly it is that they are taking this seriously."
"I hope so," muttered Tonks, staring at the senior officials as they marched to the end of the room. Amelia Bones pulled out her wand and deftly conjured a small raised platform onto which they all climbed, then held up a hand for silence. The few people holding murmured conversations immediately fell quiet. She fitted her monocle into her eye, and looked around grimly.
"Right," she said in her booming voice. "You should all know me, I head this Department. This meeting is to tell you what we intend to do about last night's fiasco. And as far as I'm concerned the only good thing about that is that the buck ultimately stops on the desks of Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman, not on mine. You don't have to write that down," she snapped at a Departmental scribe who was attempting to take minutes. He flushed and hastily dropped his quill.
"Be that as it may, however, we're the ones who have to pick up the pieces," she continued. "The Ministry have been embarrassed at a global event, and Cornelius Fudge wants action. So do I. I want those filth rounded up and soon. This is now a Priority A case." There were whistles at this. Two Priority A cases now? Catching my cousin and catching the Death Eaters. There's a pattern here.
"Now I've spent most of the night with my head in a fire talking to other members of the Wizengamot, and we've come to an understanding. I'll have to go down there this afternoon to get it formally confirmed, but what you need to know is this. Firstly, from now on applications for warrants of any kind will be considered swiftly and with a kindly eye. If you need one to search a house or conduct an interrogation, apply. If you have any kind of evidence, you'll get it. That applies to coercive interrogation warrants too. The Chief Warlock has given his personal assurance that he sees, as he puts it, 'no objection to the employment of Veritaserum in serious cases', and in an emergency he is even willing to grant permission for use on his own authority if necessary."
She looked around at their raised eyebrows and smiled very slightly. "Don't bother him unless it's an emergency. He's a busy man, and he'll be off to the International Confederation conference in Stockholm soon anyway. Secondly, if you need resources to carry out an investigation, just ask for them. The Wizengamot will be putting aside a special allocation of gold from the budget to get results on this case. And we'll pull people out of other departments if we need to, just like we did when Black escaped. Hopefully it'll do some good this time. Thirdly, if you have any wild suspicions or half-arsed theories, don't ignore them, raise them. We'll take suggestions from cave trolls if they turn out to get results."
She gazed sternly at the assembled Aurors through her monocle. "But finally -- don't all go racing around like loose Bludgers on this one and lose sight of the other important cases. You can let most of the minor enquiries go, but not your Priority B investigations. I have no desire to give Barnabas Cuffe any more chances to write Prophet editorials complaining that we're letting murderers escape. Just use your brains, your initiative, and your common sense. You're Aurors, you're all supposed to have them. Right, any questions?"
There was complete silence in the room as the Aurors digested this information. No-one was foolish enough to ask a question.
"Right then," she said. "Rufus Scrimgeour here will personally take overall charge of the investigation and coordinate our efforts." Tonks could see Robards exchange glances with the other senior Aurors that had been on his security team; this statement didn't seem to be going down at all well with them. Amelia Bones chuckled and turned to the man on her other side: "I know you chaps on the security team are taking the events last night personally, but this goes beyond getting revenge. If I'm treading on anyone's toes, my apologies, now get over it. Gawain Robards here was the main Auror liaison at the World Cup, and he'll continue to act as liaison between the Auror Office and the other departments of the Ministry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some long and tedious meetings to go to. Best of luck, chaps, and get me results." She nodded at the Aurors and strode out the room, followed hastily by her assistants.
Nobody spoke until the door had closed behind them, then Rufus Scrimgeour called for order. "Very well, you've all heard the Head of Department," he said brusquely. "Let's be frank with each other. Last night was one of the biggest cock-ups it's been my misfortune to see since I joined the Department. I'm astonished that no-one even tried to come up with a way to get in among them or get those Muggles out of there."
"Like how?" The words were muttered sullenly by an Auror near the front; Tonks recognised him as her old classmate Bob Parsons, and winced in sympathy. Unfortunately for him, he had spoken just as Scrimgeour took a pause for breath, so his comment could be heard by the whole room.
"How?" snapped Scrimgeour, glaring at the man through his wire-rimmed glasses. "You were there, I take it? You're meant to be an Auror, man, aren't you?" He rounded on them as the hapless new Auror flinched. "Did no-one think to conjure themselves a hood and a mask, join that march, and try to break them up from inside? Or use a Disillusionment Charm on themselves and take advantage of the dark to sneak up on them? Or even just make a Portkey and Banish it towards the Muggles to get them out of there? Anyone?"
He gazed around at the expressions of chagrin on many of the faces. "No, none of you did think, by the look of it. At least the amateurs on those so-called security teams had an excuse. They're not supposed to know any better. This office has got sloppy since the end of the war! If the Death Eaters had wanted to fight the kind of battle they used to, we'd have a casualty list ten feet long this morning."
Easy for you to say now, mate, thought Tonks, you weren't in the thick of it. She could see, looking around, that a number of other people seemed to be thinking the same thing; but they all had enough sense not to actually say it.
"Right," he said, frowning. "Let's start thinking now. First of all, I need to see all the senior members of the security team in Madam Bones's office in ten minutes time, together with anyone who was acting as a World Cup security supervisor --" Tonks looked across the room at Kingsley Shacklebolt in sympathy, and saw him wince "-- and anyone who went to investigate that Dark Mark and can perhaps explain to me what the hell Barty Crouch thought he was doing." Rhiannon groaned. "Maybe we can plan something for a change. The rest of you, start checking any leads you have. If you don't have any, go and find some. Put all your other cases on the back-burner unless they're both important and urgent. All right, let's get to work." He turned, Vanished the platform and strode out of the room.
Rhiannon looked at the rest of her team with trepidation. "Better not hang about," she said quietly. "Wish me luck." She got up and followed a disgruntled-looking Robards, a sombre Kingsley Shacklebolt, and a number of other Aurors towards the door.
Tonks scowled and turned to the others. "So I guess we don't go looking for potion salesmen, then."
"Oh yes we do," said Cassius in an annoyed tone. "We can't just drop everything to go poking in dark corners on the off-chance we might find an old Death Eater hiding there. As Amelia said, we use our common sense."
"But ..." O'Gregan hesitated. "Look, Cassius old son, old Scrimgeour did say important and urgent, didn't he? I'll grant you that this potion business is important, what with the Ashford case an'all, but it's not exactly urgent at the moment, is it?"
Cassius snorted. "Donnacha, you seem to be working on the assumption that this rush for results is going to last. This will probably turn out just the same as the Manchester Mayhem ... well, all right," he said in resignation at the blank looks on their faces, "I suppose neither of you were born when that happened, so let's say it'll resemble the Sirius Black case." He gave Tonks a very brief glance of apology. "In other words, there'll be a huge panic to start with, with everybody pulled off their normal jobs to chase around on the hunt, yes? Then after a few weeks with no-one getting anywhere, and everyone tripping over each other's feet, things will go back to normal and we'll start to investigate the case properly, the way we should have done in the first place. Except then we'll be a long way behind on all the other things that have been neglected."
Tonks and O'Gregan obviously didn't look convinced, as he gazed at them in mild exasperation. "This is politics, Donnacha. I've seen it too many times before to get worried about it. We have to be seen to be Doing Something for the sake of keeping the Prophet off our backs, even when there isn't anything we can usefully do."
"We can keep our jobs, mate," pointed out O'Gregan. "That sounds useful to me. Myself and young Tonks here don't have eighty years experience to make us feel blasé about it."
Cassius smiled. "Oh. I'm sorry if I sound like a schoolteacher." The smile broadened into something approaching a grin. "I didn't say we shouldn't keep up appearances. No harm in letting Rufus and Amelia, or the Prophet -- or our suspects for that matter -- think we're all working on this twenty-four hours a day. And yes, we can and should start fishing for information on Death Eater activity as well whenever we get the chance. But I don't want to get a call in a few weeks time saying that Mackenzie Ashford has been targeted again, and know that we've taken our eyes off the Quaffle and could have prevented it."
Tonks and O'Gregan looked at each other. "And the Jacmel case?" she asked.
"The same there. I thought we'd agreed? The Ministry will have a big problem if the stuff ever starts to be openly offered on the Dark Arts market, rather than just supplied by special favour. Especially if You-Know-Who's old crowd are going to become active again. The man Tonks met seems to be rather amateurish at the moment, if he's looking to people like Beatrice Easton for customers -- but if he comes to the attention of people who used to be Death Eaters, he's not going to be allowed to stay small-time. They gave us enough problems during the war with the Imperius curse, but at least there weren't many people who could cast that effectively. Any fool can use Liquor of Jacmel. I'm surprised they didn't try it -- we were probably lucky that, apparently, they didn't have access to a regular source. The Haitians don't like selling it unless they know you well, remember? So we follow up our leads on this case as well. Agreed?"
"I suppose so," said O'Gregan, albeit with slight reluctance.
Tonks nodded. "We'll have to wait for that lot to work out their amazing master plan anyway," she reminded him.
He brightened up at this. "Very true. OK, what do we do?"
"Well for a start, in making that little speech I've just reminded myself how hard it is to get hold of a source of supply," said Cassius wryly. "I'll see if I can get in touch with my old contacts, and I'll ask the Caribbean Central Magical Registry if they know anything -- that's new, you used to have to deal with all the little two-Sickle Ministries on each island ..."
He trailed off as his mirror phone started to ring.
Startled -- Tonks realised that they'd all forgotten the things had been temporarily deactivated -- he extracted it from an inside pocket in his robes and answered. She couldn't follow the long, rapidly-spoken monologue from the other end, but whatever was being said was obviously big news, as his eyebrows rose and his face first fell and then hardened.
"Caught a Death Eater, have we?" asked O'Gregan jokingly as he finished..
"No." Cassius looked at them rather sombrely. He seemed to be struggling to keep an I-told-you-so expression from his face. "That was Arnold. He's at St Mungo's. While the World Cup was on, someone made another attempt to kill Mackenzie Ashford."
*****
Cornworthy was waiting for them when they Apparated into St Mungo's, sitting reading the newspaper in the corridor outside a private room. He appeared to be having great difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
"Morning, Don, Cassius, Tonks," he said gloomily. "Gather you had a bit of excitement last night?"
"You could say that," replied O'Gregan. "How's our boy?"
"Going to be all right, I think. I'm glad you're here, I've had to wait up on guard duty all night. Couldn't even get hold of any Enforcement Patrol people to help. Was that to do with the World Cup thing? It sounded bad in the Prophet -- they were talking about people being killed -- but I didn't want to rely on what they had to say about it."
"Very wise," said Cassius. "No, no-one killed as far as we know, but that was probably sheer luck."
"Oh. Missed all the fun then, I suppose."
Tonks, who was becoming increasingly impatient, interrupted them. "Arnie, we'll tell you about the World Cup later, mate. What happened to Ashford? Cassius here didn't have time to tell us."
"Oh, right," said Cornworthy. "Basically, someone tried to poison him."
"Poison him?"
"Yeah. His birthday was on the Saturday before the World Cup Final, and somebody sent him a box of his favourite Honeydukes chocolates with a card from his niece Charlotte. The analysts here have had a look at them, and they told me they were all laced with something called" -- he pulled out a roll of parchment from a pocket and read from it uncertainly -- 'aqua cordis debilitatio'. Never heard of it before, to be honest."
"What on earth's that? Is there a common name?"
He nodded. "The Heart-Enfeebling Potion. Ring any bells?"
To Tonks' surprise, Cassius' face went blank for a moment, and then he whistled. "Good grief. I haven't come across a mention of that one for a long time."
"What does it do?" asked Tonks with curiosity.
"It's a slow poison meant to cause a natural looking death," he said grimly. "If I remember what I was told correctly -- and it's been about eighty years, so I can't guarantee that -- it was quite a popular little Dark Potion in Renaissance times, but it must be mercifully rare nowadays. There's a counter, Arnold, I hope?"
Cornworthy nodded in reassurance. "That's what the Healers said -- they made him swallow a bezoar straight away while they worked out what it was, then when they found out they gave him a dose or two of antidote and a goblet of Strengthening Solution. He didn't get much of the poison anyway, so he should be perfectly OK. They're just keeping him here for a few days as a precaution." He consulted the parchment again. "They were quite excited to get a case. I got them to copy this out of some old book for me -- apparently the stuff has a delayed action. It slowly weakens the heart, so then a few weeks later, any little shock and bang, fatal heart attack. It's out of the system by then so it looks like a death from natural causes."
Tonks shuddered. "Nasty."
"Why on earth did he eat the bloody things in the first place?" cried O'Gregan in exasperation. "He knew someone was out to get him, and that it might very well be his precious nieces and nephew! I even gave him one of K's best poison testers! Why didn't he have the sense to use it?"
"He did, Don," said Cornworthy placatingly. "Or rather, someone used it for him -- it was actually a good job he had it. He was a bit suspicious when the chocs arrived through the owl post, but he did have the sense to feed a few of them to one of his Crups. When it didn't drop dead he assumed they had to be all right." O'Gregan groaned and threw his hands up. "Luckily, the day after, one of the ex-Law Enforcement Patrol blokes he'd hired as bodyguards saw him eating them, asked where they came from, and did his nut when he found out. He told me he stuck the tester in one of them and it turned carmine -- apparently that showed there was a slow poison in it -- so he got Ashford straight here and called me. He clocked off about 2am so I've been here minding the shop ever since."
"Have you had a chance to interview Ashford yet?" asked Cassius.
"Sorry, Cassius, I haven't. The Healers were working on him to clear the stuff out of his system, and then they told him to get some rest. I think he's awake now though."
"Very well. Tonks and I will go and talk to him. Donnacha, if you wouldn't mind, just keep an eye out here in case anyone tries again. Arnold, where's the card that came with it?"
Cornworthy shrugged. "I managed to find someone in at Magical Analysis when I called. They sent a bloke round to collect it. He hasn't got back to me yet."
Cassius nodded. "Never mind. You'd better go and get some rest yourself -- at least we managed to get a few hours sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, if Rufus Scrimgeour doesn't invent something else for you to do first ... we'll tell you all about that later, as well," he added at the sight of his colleagues' raised eyebrows. "You look done in, old chap. Off you go." He turned to Tonks. "Right, young lady. Let's go and talk to our Mr Ashford."
*****
Mackenzie Ashford was sitting up in bed when they entered, staring blankly out of the window at a pleasant view of green fields under a bright blue sky. This confused Tonks for a moment, until she realised that it had to be a Ministry-style enchanted window, charmed to show picturesque scenes rather than a bustling London street for the sake of improving the patient's mood.
It didn't seem to be working as far as Mackenzie Ashford was concerned. From his listless attitude as he turned to them, Tonks wasn't sure for a moment if he was even properly conscious yet. But his eyes, although dull and red-rimmed, were fully awake. She was surprised he'd been so strongly affected. From what she'd heard, Ashford had sounded like a much tougher egg than this.
"Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius in a polite tone, although to Tonks it sounded as if the cheerfulness behind it was slightly forced.
"That's me," he said bleakly, his eyes returning to the window. They waited a moment for him to continue, but he didn't appear to be in the mood for initiating conversation.
Cassius looked at him thoughtfully. "Good, good," he said, ploughing on. "We'd like to talk to you about these chocolates you received. I understand that they were delivered by owl post with a card from your niece attached?"
"Yes."
"And you only ate a few of them, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And one of your bodyguards brought you here when he realised they were poisoned?"
"Yes."
"Very well ..." He seemed slightly disconcerted by the monosyllabic replies. "Mr Ashford, are you all right? We can leave this until later if you don't feel up to it."
Ashford continued to gaze out of the window with a distant expression. He gave the impression that he wouldn't actually have noticed if it had been displaying dancing polar bears. "No, I'm not all right," he said, in a voice that was so quiet that Tonks had to strain to hear him. "I'm not all right at all. I never thought it would come to this."
"To what, Mr Ashford?" said Tonks, putting all the kindness she could manage into it.
He winced. "My own flesh and blood trying to kill me," he said brokenly.
There was a slightly awkward pause while Tonks exchanged glances with Cassius, who appeared to be thinking hard. "I can't deny that's an obvious possibility, Mr Ashford," he said carefully. "And I know the idea must come as a shock to you. It would to anyone. But it may not be correct, even so. We need you to tell us as much as you can so we can determine the truth. Will you help us?" Tonks listened, quite impressed at the way he managed to sound like a sympathetic ear. Maybe it came with age.
Ashford stared into space for a moment or two, and Tonks and Cassius let him have time. "I brought them up," he said eventually. "I never married, you see. I always thought of them as if they were my own. They were only kids when ... when my sister and brother got themselves killed. Paul -- he was my sister's husband -- always did shoot his mouth off, and my brother Gavin used to back him up. Neither of them ever had the sense to take precautions." He finally turned to look at the Aurors; his voice was becoming slightly louder, but still remained soft and sombre, and the pain showed clearly in his eyes. "You know, at first I thought my worst moment ever was the day I was told the news that Amanda and Paul and his parents had been killed by You-Know-Who's bastards? Then I thought it was the day after, when I heard they got Gavin and Felicity too as they left work. Well now it's today. The day my own chil ... my own family tried to kill me."
"Were you sure the chocolates came from Charlotte, Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius gently. Ashford didn't seem to have heard him; his mind apparently wandering on its own path.
"Even when that ... when the knife attack happened, I didn't really believe they had anything to do with it," he said, bitter anguish audible in his voice despite its lack of volume. "Oh of course, I got some bodyguards, asked the kids to stay away, shut myself up for a bit, just as a precaution, you know? I've crossed a lot of people in my time. I didn't know of anyone who'd really be serious about wanting to do me in, but I knew there could be someone. But the idea that any of the kids would be behind it ... well, it just seemed ludicrous."
He caught Cassius' eye. "I was so happy to get a birthday present from Charlie on time for once. She's usually late. And I was glad that she picked my favourites. Oh, I went through the motions of trying them out on the animals first, but I didn't seriously think they were dangerous. But if that bodyguard feller hadn't cottoned on ... well, they'd have been eaten and the box thrown away, and then a couple of months later I'd just have conked out and no-one would have been any the wiser, would they? The man earned his money, I can tell you. As did your colleague Don with that tester he lent me. He's a good lad. I'd like to thank him personally for that if I may."
"He's just outside," put in Tonks. "We'll send him in afterwards, he'll need to stick around to keep an eye out anyway." Ashford brightened very slightly.
"Thanks," he said. He shook his head. "Charlie. I always liked her the most, did you know that? I know I shouldn't have had favourites, but I did. She had ... well, guts. Took after her dad, I suppose. More nerve than the other two put together -- well, you'd need it to send your own card on them, wouldn't you? But I always thought she was decent." He seemed unaware of the tear that was trickling slowly down his cheek.
"Actually, was the delivery of the chocolates suspicious in any way, Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius. "Our analysts took the card away to have a look at, but we haven't heard from them. Could it have been a fake?"
"A fake?" he said hopefully. "You think so? It looked like one of her usual type -- she always puts them on presents, you know, leaves it till the last minute and then doesn't have time for a proper card. Could someone else have Transfigured it or something?"
"It's possible," said Cassius noncommittally. "What sort of owl delivered the package? Did you recognise it as her own bird?"
"No, no, it was a public owl," said Ashford. "She always just uses the first one that comes to hand. I remember it had a little tag tied round its leg with a Ministry crest and something about the World Cup on it?"
"That's useful. We'll investigate that." Cassius was still keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Now, you say you've crossed many people. I know we've asked this before, but please consider it again -- can you think of anyone who might have a particular grudge against you?"
Ashford thought hard, but eventually shook his head in disappointment. "Not really. Not this bad a grudge, anyway. Well, I suppose Peregrine Witherspoon might have if he knew I'd beaten him for the licence to import dangerous creatures." He smiled very faintly for the first time since they'd entered the room. "But I only heard about that myself just before ... just before I came in here."
The mention of dangerous creatures reminded Tonks of something. And it's about time I asked a question, anyway. Earn my Galleons "What about Nathan Arkwright?" she said. "He claims he lost his private zoo over some cages you sold him, and he definitely swore vengeance on you."
Ashford looked surprised for a moment, then snorted. "Arkwright? Did he? All mouth and no wand, that one. And if he'd used the stuff I sold him properly, he'd have been perfectly all right. Anyway, he got back in touch with me recently, wanted -- no, demanded -- a few more of the things, so he couldn't have been too upset, could he? Gave him a discount, even."
Tonks and Cassius looked at each other. She was sure they were both thinking much the same thing. Bit suspicious him suddenly getting all friendly again, isn't it? She made a mental note to take a look at Arkwright when an opportunity presented itself.
"Very well," said Cassius. "We won't bother you any longer this morning, Mr Ashford. Oh, one question I must ask, I'm afraid. Who actually gets your money if you die? What are the terms of your will?"
The trace of a smile that had been on Ashford's face left it. "There are a few charity bequests, but basically it divides the estate equally among my nephews and nieces. It's worded that way, by the way. I drew it up a long time ago and left it open-ended in case I had any more nephews and nieces." He scowled. "Then Gavin and Amanda were killed ... so obviously, that didn't happen."
"I'm sorry, Mr Ashford," said Cassius. He sounded as if he meant it. Tonks was aware that she hadn't contributed much to the interview, but Cassius did it so smoothly she was quite happy to let run with this sort of thing. Watch and learn, girl, she thought wryly.
As they left the room, she glanced back; Ashford had returned to staring blankly out of the magical window as if he were seeing something completely different.
*****
Wednesday 26th August 1994
By the time Cassius' team assembled in a meeting room the following morning, Ashford's bodyguards were back on duty, and a chagrined O'Gregan (Tonks having seized her chance to tick him off for the inadequate detail on the Ashford family background in his case report) informed them that he had managed to cheer him up slightly "with a bit of the old blarney". Rhiannon Davies reported that the meeting in Amelia Bones' office had produced a lot of speculation and argument but little in the way of concrete plans (Cassius' I-told-you-so expression briefly flickered across his face). Magical Analysis had produced a report on the card sent with the poisoned chocolates. And Cornworthy had investigated the owl, and discovered that there was no help there.
"I didn't think we'd get anywhere with this, and we're not. Whoever sent the chocolates must have done so directly from the World Cup campsite post office," he explained. "Those owls with the tags all came from the Owl Framer they had installed there, no way of tracing them." He sighed resignedly at everyone else's blank looks. "You know, those automatic postage gadgets? You hang your letter or package from the perch and say where you want it sent, and it's charmed to work out what breed of owl you'll need for the weight and estimated distance. It tells you how much money to put in the slot, then uses a short-range Portkey to put the right kind of owl on the perch for you. No clerk involved, completely anonymous you see."
"This Framer thing doesn't keep any records at all?" asked Tonks, disappointed.
"There's an enchanted quill that writes down the kind of owl, where it's going, and what the postage is, for accounting purposes," he explained. "But that's all. No use to us, except that it does confirm a package to Ashford was posted from there on the Friday night. But there were hundreds of people in and out of that tent, and I gather no-one kept an eye out for where people were going on the site?"
Tonks shook her head. "Not really. Everyone was just wandering about anywhere they wanted. You could have gone anywhere without being noticed, I suppose, especially if you had a disguise."
"And the card?" asked Rhiannon.
"Genuine, according to the report," said Cassius, waving a piece of parchment at them vaguely. "Not transfigured, not Copy Charmed, matches the ones she usually sends -- Ashford's bodyguard spent some time looking around and found a couple of old ones in his house."
"But if she had them at the campsite anyone could have walked in while they were away, I should think," Tonks pointed out. "They only had fairly basic tents. The flaps would have had to be sealed against passing Muggles, but I should think a quick Alohomora would have got you in."
"So that narrows it down to about a hundred thousand suspects, then," said O'Gregan irritably. He slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump. "We ballsed this one up, didn't we? All merrily went off to the Quidditch and assumed no-one would be able to attack Ashford while everyone was at the World Cup. Didn't work out too well for the poor sod, did it?"
"True, but it didn't work out too well for our would-be murderess, either, did it?" said Rhiannon with satisfaction.
Cassius got their attention again by rapping hard on the table. "That's what we need to discuss, actually. I'm a trifle concerned that we may be making assumptions again, truth be told. For example, do we really think Miss Perks would be so foolish as to send her own card?"
The others looked at each other uncertainly. "She might have, sort of double-bluff," said Tonks slowly. "I don't like it much either, but the plan does sort of fit the pattern of the first attempt, doesn't it? You know, as if the criminal is willing to take a risk to get what they want, but sets up as many get-out clauses as they can? If the plan works, it just works and no-one's any the wiser -- if it doesn't, it's not easy to prove who's really behind it, and they can wait for another chance. Both times, they had to have really bad luck before we could even be sure what happened, let alone pin it on someone. If it hadn't been for Don here, either one would have worked."
"You talked to those cousins, didn't you? Which of them would be capable of planning something like that, do you think?" asked Rhiannon.
"Only Charlotte Perks, I'd say," said Tonks reluctantly. "I reckon Mickey's too impulsive, and Abby's too nervous. I mean, you've read the files too. But that Charlotte ... she did seem to have a head on her shoulders. And Ashford said she had nerve."
"With the stabbing attack it was this Portia Blackstock taking the action to set it up though," argued O'Gregan. "Where does she come into it? Could it have been Charlotte impersonating her that night?"
"It could have been, I suppose," said Tonks. "But we've seen Portia now. If that was Charlotte, she got her exactly right. And I stand by what I said before; it's not easy to do that with Transfiguration even if you're a Metamorphmagus. I can do a pretty good general impression of someone easily enough, but when I was impersonating Mrs Easton I had to really work hard to get her spot on."
"I'll second that," said Cassius. "I've Transfigured myself for a disguise many a time, but I was never confident about mimicking someone specific. And in this case, why would she have bothered? No-one there knew Portia Blackstock anyway, or if they did they weren't telling."
"If you use Polyjuice you get the look automatically, of course ..." mused Cornworthy.
"But you have the keep taking the bloody stuff," pointed out Rhiannon, "and it's not easy to find all the ingredients, especially at an affordable price. I mean, you need bicorn horn -- how many of those do you see? Last time I checked, even unicorn horns were about twenty Galleons apiece. And like we said, you need a bit of who you're turning into -- several bits if you want to make enough to keep up the disguise for a while. She'd have had to get that from somewhere, and then you just run into the same problem again, why Portia of all people? Do they even know each other?"
Tonks picked up the case notes on the two women and quickly scanned through them. "Not much here, they're from different circles after all ... oh no, hang on, there's one thing." She looked up. "You know you said Ashford contributed to that charity of yours, Cassius -- the distressed half-bloods thing? It says here Charlotte has done a bit of admin work for them, and we know that Portia helps out with fundraising from time to time -- probably just by turning up and looking pretty, I should think. It doesn't say that they ever met, but it's the only link I can see here."
"Interesting," said O'Gregan. "Why would she and Portia have been working together to kill her uncle, though? It's not as if our Miss Blackstock needs the money, is it?"
"I don't know," admitted Tonks. "We'd have to look into it, wouldn't we?" A comment Cassius had made when they were discussing Portia at the World Cup flashed across her mind, and she shook herself; wild guessing wasn't going to get them anywhere, whatever Amelia Bones said. But she did make a mental note to ask Ches about that Hogsmeade trip.
The others were still arguing the possibilities. "The Blackstock girl could have been under Jacmel as well, couldn't she?" said Rhiannon. "We'd never be able to tell at this stage."
"But it would have been a risk giving her the stuff as well," pointed out O'Gregan. "Although I suppose they could have memory-charmed her afterwards?"
Cassius rapped on the table again. "I hate to mention it, but we're going around in circles here. Again. Let's try and find out some hard facts." He smiled at them. "An Auror maxim from the old days: if in doubt, stop thinking and use brute force. I suggest that we take advantage of the new Wizengamot policy and get search warrants for their houses."
"The Blackstocks as well?" asked O'Gregan with eagerness. "Do you think we'll be able to get one now?"
"Good point," said Cassius. "Actually, I think I'll have a private word first with one or two Wizengamot members I know -- no, Archibald Blackstock isn't the only one with a few contacts -- and see if I can gauge what the chances are. They don't know that we know Portia was there, after all, and that's the one advantage we've got. If they are involved in this I don't want to risk tipping our hand if the Wizengamot turn us down."
"What about looking into the potion itself?" asked O'Gregan. "We seem to be making a habit of cases with rare potions in them. It was a pretty obscure one, wasn't it now?"
"Yes, that book the Healers copied the notes from was ancient," agreed Cornworthy. "Where would you find information about something like that?"
Tonks snapped her fingers suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her. "Oh, I think I might know!" she said in excitement. "But I bet Lucretia Borgia didn't."
The other Aurors stared at her blankly, although after a few seconds a look of dawning comprehension on Cassius' face showed that he, at least, had remembered exactly which books she'd brought back from Lore of Yore a few weeks previously. "What Lucretia Borgia Never Knew: A Guide to Slow Poisons," he said carefully, almost reverently. "What did you do with that book, Tonks? Did you send it to the Hall of Records in the end?"
"Actually, I never got round to filling in the claim form. It's still on my desk as far as I can remember ..."
"Go and get it. Don't touch it more than you have to. Just in case."
"OK." Tonks blinked slightly at this; surely the book itself couldn't be dangerous? She half-walked, half-ran back to her desk, found the volume she was looking for buried under a pile of memos, and eased it out with a "Locomotor book." Ignoring the curious stares from the occupants of the other cubicles and people she passed in the hallway, she guided the book down the corridor with her wand and into the meeting room. The others hastily snatched their mugs of tea and coffee out of the way to prevent a disaster as it slid to a halt on the table.
Cassius carefully opened the book at its index with his wand and scanned it, then gave Tonks a huge smile. "You were right, young lady," he said quietly, flicking his wand a few more times to turn the leaves. "Page forty-eight, aqua cordis debilitatio. Let's see ... hmm, most of the ingredients should be reasonably readily available, although the powdered Graphorn claws and oil of Firepine won't have been easy to get. Looks very difficult to brew, though, like most of these advanced potions ... I doubt there are many books left with the recipe. Rather odd that one should have suddenly turned up in an unregistered bookshop with an extensive Dark Arts section a few weeks before the potion was used, isn't it?" He looked up at his team. "So I suppose the question is, how likely is it that this copy is the one our criminal found the information in?"
Tonks felt her jaw drop. "You think it might be? Why would they have got rid of it in that case?"
"Wouldn't you have?" said Rhiannon, staring at the old text with great interest. "Think about it, Tonks. If you kept the actual book and somebody did a search of your house, it would be a dead giveaway, wouldn't it? Even if you'd Transfigured it into something else hide it ... no, especially if you'd Transfigured it into something else to hide it. If it was me, I'd just copy all the interesting recipes down in some sort of personal code and then get rid of the evidence ..."
"... by trading it to a bookshop owner whose has a policy of selling anything, no questions asked, as long as it's old and obscure," finished Cassius. "And where the thing might very well have been bought in the first place. I think it's time we had another word with our Miss Orevel."
"I don't suppose Magical Analysis will be able to get any aura traces off it after all this time?" said Cornworthy in a resigned voice.
"I doubt it," replied Cassius with a shrug. "But we may as well try, so we'd better be careful how we handle this."
"I don't suppose we can get, erm --" Tonks racked her brains for the right word "-- finger printings off the book? Like the Muggle police do?"
O'Gregan sniggered. "Been watching old films with your dad again, Tonks? Since when have we ever used fingerprints?"
"In the early thirties, if I remember correctly." Cassius turned a bemused look on his colleagues who were all staring at him open-mouthed. "What's the matter? Didn't they teach you about that in training?"
Tonks exchanged amused glances with Rhiannon. Don't you just hate it when this happens? "No, mate, they didn't actually."
"Oh." He shrugged. "Well, we did try it for a few years, although the Department took some convincing to experiment with a Muggle technique." He shook his head. "The trouble was, it turned out to be too easy for wizarding criminals to get around it with magic once they realised what we were doing. Transfigure their fingertips, that sort of thing. Some bright spark even came up with a variation on Scourgify for removing just the prints. So the idea rather fell out of use."
"If it fell out of use, does that mean people don't take precautions any more?" asked Tonks hopefully.
"I'm not sure," said Cassius with thoughtful look. "I suppose wizards who knew something about the Muggle world might remember, but I doubt anybody else would. Not that it would help us much, we don't keep records any more. There were too many comedians who left false prints. Come to think of it, I believe the Wizengamot introduced a policy of refusing to allow them as evidence because of that. It's probably still in force, I should think -- I don't suppose anyone's thought about the matter long enough to consider changing the rules for the last fifty years. I mean, it was getting too embarrassing -- if we'd believed all the prints we found, the Minister for Magic would have been convicted of half the crimes we investigated." As Tonks and O'Gregan nodded thoughtfully, he sat up and said in a brisk voice, "Anyone got any more to say? No? Ver ..."
"What other recipes have they got in that book?" interrupted Rhiannon. "Is there anything else we're likely to come up against?"
"Ah, good point." He flicked through it. "Hmm, most of these poisons sound exceedingly unpleasant. Let's see ... Suffocation Solution, for example, gradually cuts off the ability to breathe. The victim asphyxiates within twenty-four hours unless they take the antidote. Which apparently requires a week to brew, oh dear ... Blood Blend is a contact poison that makes the victim slowly waste away. Will affect close relatives much more powerfully if you add some of your own blood as an ingredient, but will then lose most of its effectiveness on others. From what I hear, I imagine Lady Borgia could have made excellent use of that one ... The Putrefaction Potion, causes the body of the victim to rot from the extremities inwards ..."
"Charming," said O'Gregan with a nauseated expression, putting down his mug of coffee.
"Indeed. But from our killer's point of view, most of them look as if they would be rather too obvious, don't you think? The poison they actually chose would have been undetectable once out of Ashford's system, even to modern methods of magical analysis. You almost have to admire their planning skills."
"Almost," said O'Gregan with a disgusted look.
"Exactly. Now, if there's nothing else ..."
"Arkwright?" interrupted Tonks. "Might as well check on him, just in case. Sounded odd that he's suddenly mellowed so far as Ashford is concerned, didn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if he had a potions lab left over from his zoo."
"We could ask Will Poppleford if he could do us a favour and arrange for a visit from his department?" offered Rhiannon. "You know, the man we worked with at the World Cup?"
"Yeah, they might let us tag along and poke around a bit," said Tonks hopefully.
Cassius nodded. "Very well, then. Rhiannon, good idea of yours, you see what you can do with the Magical Creature regulators. I'll take this for analysis and go and apply for those warrants. Tonks, you go and tell Robards what your cousin said, and find out what they're doing about the World Cup fiasco -- I need to know if any of us are going to be called on to investigate that. Donnacha, Arnold, can you go back over the records on the Blackstocks and see if there's anything we missed ... er, yes, Donnacha?"
"We'll do that, but can we do something a little more direct, now? Track these fine people around for a few days under an Invisibility Cloak maybe, see where they go and who they talk to?"
Cassius shrugged. "Well, the Law Enforcement Patrol are supposed to be keeping an eye on them, but I suppose they'll be called on to help with the World Cup investigations, so ... yes, all right then, if you have time. Work it out with them. Anything else?" He looked around. "All right. Let's get to work!"
11. Defence Against The Dark Arts
Table of Contents
13. A Significant Development In The Case
Length: 9,200 words
12. The Morning After The Night Before
Tuesday 25th August 1994
A weary Tonks and Rhiannon Apparated to the Ministry at half past nine the following morning, and as soon as they reached Auror Headquarters joined the queue for the coffee that had been thoughtfully provided.
As Rhiannon filled two large mugs from the spigot, Tonks noticed a copy of the morning's Daily Prophet special edition attached to the wall with a Sticking Charm, and skimmed through it. It didn't make pleasant reading.
"Skeeter her usual fair and balanced self, is she?" asked Rhiannon bitterly, noticing what Tonks was doing.
"Yeah, let's see ... Ministry blunders ... innocent campers fled in terror ... lax security procedures ... offenders escaped scot-free ... Dark Magic openly used ... it will take years for our country to live down this national disgrace played out in front of the entire wizarding world ... blah blah blah."
"Cow. Scrimgeour's going to be chewing rocks and spitting out gravel over this, and it wasn't even his responsibility."
"Yeah." Tonks glanced around; the office seemed fuller than she'd ever seen it before. "Have they got every Auror in the country here?" she muttered, taking the proffered mug.
"Probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had," said Rhiannon in a low voice. "Scrimgeour doesn't look happy, does he?" She nodded towards one end of the room, where Scrimgeour was sitting with a group of senior Aurors, deep in serious and rather heated conversation.
They made their way over to the cubicles, where Cassius and Donnacha O'Gregan were sitting, looking equally tired. Tonks raised her eyebrows.
"I thought you two were still on holiday?" she said.
O'Gregan snorted, picked up a piece of bright red parchment and waved it at them. "Not any more. All leave cancelled until further notice. Orders straight from Amelia Bones, no less. Do you get the impression they're a bit miffed at the way things went with those fellows in masks, now?"
Tonks grinned. "You've sobered up enough to work, then?"
"I was stone cold sober and working last night," he replied with dignity. "My darling girl here came to check on me, and I asked her to cast a Sobriety Spell so I could help." Rhiannon nodded in confirmation.
"And I came back to do what I could too, once I'd got the rest of the family out of harm's way," added Cassius tiredly. "Little as that was. You know, I thought I'd left this sort of thing behind me when I retired? I never expected to see Death Eaters on the march again."
"We're sure it was them, then?" asked Rhiannon.
"Who else could it be?" said Cassius, shrugging. "Someone sent a Dark Mark up into the sky, after all. No-one apart from them knew the spell or were able to cast it -- not that anyone would have wanted to."
"Scared the masked lot off, though," said Tonks, mulling it over. "I was watching them. When you think about it, it was a bit odd, really. They all vanished as soon as it appeared, and they didn't do anything else after that, did they? The ones I actually saw Disapparate looked like they were panicking." She glanced around speculatively. "It couldn't have been some other group trying to act big and make a name for themselves, and ... oh I don't know, suppose an ex-Death Eater got annoyed when he saw them cavorting about, and tried to throw a scare into them? 'Hey lads, you want to play at being Death Eaters? Well, meet the real thing.'"
"Might be, I suppose, but that doesn't sound much better," said O'Gregan, with a gloomy look. "If they weren't You-Know-Who's old pals holding a nice little reunion party, it just means we've got another bunch o'nutters on our hands who like to dress up in masks and torment Muggles. Lovely. Either way, it'll be no fun for us now, will it?"
"Why do it now, though?" asked Rhiannon. "They've been keeping their heads down for years, why would they suddenly do this with the whole world watching and risk being exposed? You don't ..." She shivered, gulped, and continued more quietly. "You don't think they've got some sort of indication that You-Know-Who is on his way back?" The others shuddered.
"How would he do that?" asked O'Gregan, obviously trying to sound reassuring. "No-one's heard a peep from him for years, if he's even still alive."
"I don't know about that, Donnie," said Rhiannon in a worried tone. "He was supposed to be controlling that teacher that got killed at Hogwarts a couple of years ago." Seeing the looks of surprise from her colleagues, she added, "My little cousin Roger told me the story that was going round the school. He said everyone there seemed to know what had happened, even if no-one ever confirmed it officially."
"Right ..." said O'Gregan, discomfited. "Of course, the boys in masks could just have been doing it because they'd had too much to drink."
Tonks bit her lip and cast her mind back to the way the wizards had marched across the field. "They seemed too well-drilled for that," she said. "Like they'd practiced it beforehand. The ones who came to join them afterwards might well have been sloshed, but not the bunch in the middle ..." Her eyes widened in sudden recollection and she smacked her forehead, hard. "Oh, wait a minute ... I forgot!"
"What?" said Cassius, looking up with interest.
A few words, spoken in an immensely smug voice, came back to her: 'Father had some people to see. We had to provide them with somewhere civilised to meet.' She groaned. "I've just remembered. I met my little cousin on the site -- Draco, Lucius Malfoy's son? He said his dad was hosting a meeting there, and they practically had a bloody marquee! What's the betting they were doing some last-minute work on their moves ready for the big night?"
The others exchanged glances. "Malfoy? The slimy blond one who throws his money around and smarms up to Fudge? Not a bad shot," said O'Gregan judiciously. "What do you think, Cassius?"
Cassius was looking at Tonks with uncertainty, perhaps remembering her harsh attitude when Lucius Malfoy's name had come up before. Damn. He thinks I'm overreacting. I knew I shouldn't have let my guard down. "It's possible, I suppose," he said. "I wouldn't trust the man an inch, and I was never especially convinced by the way he got out of trouble after the war, but it's not proof of anything. But it's an interesting piece of information," he added hastily, holding up a hand to forestall Tonks' indignant reply. "You'd better mention it to whoever's going to co-ordinate the investigation. I know Barty Crouch was furious about what had happened -- I overheard him railing about the sloppy security last night, he was in such a rage even his poor house-elf was cowering at his feet." Tonks and Rhiannon exchanged glances, but forbore to correct Cassius -- doubtless he'd find out the full story soon enough. "Crouch was absolutely sure that someone must have useful information about the marchers. He went off trying to find Robards or one of his senior assistants to discuss it with."
O'Gregan snorted. "I don't suppose he found him then. I would think that we would have heard that conversation wherever we were on the campsite, now. Let us hope they have a plan."
"Right." Tonks glanced at her watch; it was still only five to ten. "I suppose we'll find out what they're going to do in a few minutes." She looked around curiously. "Where's Arnie got to, by the way?"
O'Gregan shrugged. "Haven't seen him. And we can't contact the poor fellow, which is bloody annoying -- they switched off access to all mirror phones, presumably so our Rufus won't get interrupted while he's yelling at us."
"They can do that?"
"Apparently," said Cassius. "K's department is always full of little tricks like that. I hope the rumour flying round that one of our senior people was thinking of retiring isn't referring to him -- no-one else knows how to make half the stuff he comes up with. I've actually grown quite fond of these little gadgets."
"Me too," said O'Gregan. "I can even call me mam on them. Anyway, I'm not worried about Arnie; he probably just had something he needed to follow up. They can't drag everyone in here, can they now, not when they have cases that need looking into?"
"No, I suppose they ca ..." Rhiannon trailed off as a small group swept past them. Tonks looked on in trepidation as she recognised Amelia Bones, accompanied a couple of harassed-looking wizards she took to be her assistants, with Scrimgeour and Robards following.
O'Gregan whistled quietly. "Old Boney herself? Clearly it is that they are taking this seriously."
"I hope so," muttered Tonks, staring at the senior officials as they marched to the end of the room. Amelia Bones pulled out her wand and deftly conjured a small raised platform onto which they all climbed, then held up a hand for silence. The few people holding murmured conversations immediately fell quiet. She fitted her monocle into her eye, and looked around grimly.
"Right," she said in her booming voice. "You should all know me, I head this Department. This meeting is to tell you what we intend to do about last night's fiasco. And as far as I'm concerned the only good thing about that is that the buck ultimately stops on the desks of Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman, not on mine. You don't have to write that down," she snapped at a Departmental scribe who was attempting to take minutes. He flushed and hastily dropped his quill.
"Be that as it may, however, we're the ones who have to pick up the pieces," she continued. "The Ministry have been embarrassed at a global event, and Cornelius Fudge wants action. So do I. I want those filth rounded up and soon. This is now a Priority A case." There were whistles at this. Two Priority A cases now? Catching my cousin and catching the Death Eaters. There's a pattern here.
"Now I've spent most of the night with my head in a fire talking to other members of the Wizengamot, and we've come to an understanding. I'll have to go down there this afternoon to get it formally confirmed, but what you need to know is this. Firstly, from now on applications for warrants of any kind will be considered swiftly and with a kindly eye. If you need one to search a house or conduct an interrogation, apply. If you have any kind of evidence, you'll get it. That applies to coercive interrogation warrants too. The Chief Warlock has given his personal assurance that he sees, as he puts it, 'no objection to the employment of Veritaserum in serious cases', and in an emergency he is even willing to grant permission for use on his own authority if necessary."
She looked around at their raised eyebrows and smiled very slightly. "Don't bother him unless it's an emergency. He's a busy man, and he'll be off to the International Confederation conference in Stockholm soon anyway. Secondly, if you need resources to carry out an investigation, just ask for them. The Wizengamot will be putting aside a special allocation of gold from the budget to get results on this case. And we'll pull people out of other departments if we need to, just like we did when Black escaped. Hopefully it'll do some good this time. Thirdly, if you have any wild suspicions or half-arsed theories, don't ignore them, raise them. We'll take suggestions from cave trolls if they turn out to get results."
She gazed sternly at the assembled Aurors through her monocle. "But finally -- don't all go racing around like loose Bludgers on this one and lose sight of the other important cases. You can let most of the minor enquiries go, but not your Priority B investigations. I have no desire to give Barnabas Cuffe any more chances to write Prophet editorials complaining that we're letting murderers escape. Just use your brains, your initiative, and your common sense. You're Aurors, you're all supposed to have them. Right, any questions?"
There was complete silence in the room as the Aurors digested this information. No-one was foolish enough to ask a question.
"Right then," she said. "Rufus Scrimgeour here will personally take overall charge of the investigation and coordinate our efforts." Tonks could see Robards exchange glances with the other senior Aurors that had been on his security team; this statement didn't seem to be going down at all well with them. Amelia Bones chuckled and turned to the man on her other side: "I know you chaps on the security team are taking the events last night personally, but this goes beyond getting revenge. If I'm treading on anyone's toes, my apologies, now get over it. Gawain Robards here was the main Auror liaison at the World Cup, and he'll continue to act as liaison between the Auror Office and the other departments of the Ministry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some long and tedious meetings to go to. Best of luck, chaps, and get me results." She nodded at the Aurors and strode out the room, followed hastily by her assistants.
Nobody spoke until the door had closed behind them, then Rufus Scrimgeour called for order. "Very well, you've all heard the Head of Department," he said brusquely. "Let's be frank with each other. Last night was one of the biggest cock-ups it's been my misfortune to see since I joined the Department. I'm astonished that no-one even tried to come up with a way to get in among them or get those Muggles out of there."
"Like how?" The words were muttered sullenly by an Auror near the front; Tonks recognised him as her old classmate Bob Parsons, and winced in sympathy. Unfortunately for him, he had spoken just as Scrimgeour took a pause for breath, so his comment could be heard by the whole room.
"How?" snapped Scrimgeour, glaring at the man through his wire-rimmed glasses. "You were there, I take it? You're meant to be an Auror, man, aren't you?" He rounded on them as the hapless new Auror flinched. "Did no-one think to conjure themselves a hood and a mask, join that march, and try to break them up from inside? Or use a Disillusionment Charm on themselves and take advantage of the dark to sneak up on them? Or even just make a Portkey and Banish it towards the Muggles to get them out of there? Anyone?"
He gazed around at the expressions of chagrin on many of the faces. "No, none of you did think, by the look of it. At least the amateurs on those so-called security teams had an excuse. They're not supposed to know any better. This office has got sloppy since the end of the war! If the Death Eaters had wanted to fight the kind of battle they used to, we'd have a casualty list ten feet long this morning."
Easy for you to say now, mate, thought Tonks, you weren't in the thick of it. She could see, looking around, that a number of other people seemed to be thinking the same thing; but they all had enough sense not to actually say it.
"Right," he said, frowning. "Let's start thinking now. First of all, I need to see all the senior members of the security team in Madam Bones's office in ten minutes time, together with anyone who was acting as a World Cup security supervisor --" Tonks looked across the room at Kingsley Shacklebolt in sympathy, and saw him wince "-- and anyone who went to investigate that Dark Mark and can perhaps explain to me what the hell Barty Crouch thought he was doing." Rhiannon groaned. "Maybe we can plan something for a change. The rest of you, start checking any leads you have. If you don't have any, go and find some. Put all your other cases on the back-burner unless they're both important and urgent. All right, let's get to work." He turned, Vanished the platform and strode out of the room.
Rhiannon looked at the rest of her team with trepidation. "Better not hang about," she said quietly. "Wish me luck." She got up and followed a disgruntled-looking Robards, a sombre Kingsley Shacklebolt, and a number of other Aurors towards the door.
Tonks scowled and turned to the others. "So I guess we don't go looking for potion salesmen, then."
"Oh yes we do," said Cassius in an annoyed tone. "We can't just drop everything to go poking in dark corners on the off-chance we might find an old Death Eater hiding there. As Amelia said, we use our common sense."
"But ..." O'Gregan hesitated. "Look, Cassius old son, old Scrimgeour did say important and urgent, didn't he? I'll grant you that this potion business is important, what with the Ashford case an'all, but it's not exactly urgent at the moment, is it?"
Cassius snorted. "Donnacha, you seem to be working on the assumption that this rush for results is going to last. This will probably turn out just the same as the Manchester Mayhem ... well, all right," he said in resignation at the blank looks on their faces, "I suppose neither of you were born when that happened, so let's say it'll resemble the Sirius Black case." He gave Tonks a very brief glance of apology. "In other words, there'll be a huge panic to start with, with everybody pulled off their normal jobs to chase around on the hunt, yes? Then after a few weeks with no-one getting anywhere, and everyone tripping over each other's feet, things will go back to normal and we'll start to investigate the case properly, the way we should have done in the first place. Except then we'll be a long way behind on all the other things that have been neglected."
Tonks and O'Gregan obviously didn't look convinced, as he gazed at them in mild exasperation. "This is politics, Donnacha. I've seen it too many times before to get worried about it. We have to be seen to be Doing Something for the sake of keeping the Prophet off our backs, even when there isn't anything we can usefully do."
"We can keep our jobs, mate," pointed out O'Gregan. "That sounds useful to me. Myself and young Tonks here don't have eighty years experience to make us feel blasé about it."
Cassius smiled. "Oh. I'm sorry if I sound like a schoolteacher." The smile broadened into something approaching a grin. "I didn't say we shouldn't keep up appearances. No harm in letting Rufus and Amelia, or the Prophet -- or our suspects for that matter -- think we're all working on this twenty-four hours a day. And yes, we can and should start fishing for information on Death Eater activity as well whenever we get the chance. But I don't want to get a call in a few weeks time saying that Mackenzie Ashford has been targeted again, and know that we've taken our eyes off the Quaffle and could have prevented it."
Tonks and O'Gregan looked at each other. "And the Jacmel case?" she asked.
"The same there. I thought we'd agreed? The Ministry will have a big problem if the stuff ever starts to be openly offered on the Dark Arts market, rather than just supplied by special favour. Especially if You-Know-Who's old crowd are going to become active again. The man Tonks met seems to be rather amateurish at the moment, if he's looking to people like Beatrice Easton for customers -- but if he comes to the attention of people who used to be Death Eaters, he's not going to be allowed to stay small-time. They gave us enough problems during the war with the Imperius curse, but at least there weren't many people who could cast that effectively. Any fool can use Liquor of Jacmel. I'm surprised they didn't try it -- we were probably lucky that, apparently, they didn't have access to a regular source. The Haitians don't like selling it unless they know you well, remember? So we follow up our leads on this case as well. Agreed?"
"I suppose so," said O'Gregan, albeit with slight reluctance.
Tonks nodded. "We'll have to wait for that lot to work out their amazing master plan anyway," she reminded him.
He brightened up at this. "Very true. OK, what do we do?"
"Well for a start, in making that little speech I've just reminded myself how hard it is to get hold of a source of supply," said Cassius wryly. "I'll see if I can get in touch with my old contacts, and I'll ask the Caribbean Central Magical Registry if they know anything -- that's new, you used to have to deal with all the little two-Sickle Ministries on each island ..."
He trailed off as his mirror phone started to ring.
Startled -- Tonks realised that they'd all forgotten the things had been temporarily deactivated -- he extracted it from an inside pocket in his robes and answered. She couldn't follow the long, rapidly-spoken monologue from the other end, but whatever was being said was obviously big news, as his eyebrows rose and his face first fell and then hardened.
"Caught a Death Eater, have we?" asked O'Gregan jokingly as he finished..
"No." Cassius looked at them rather sombrely. He seemed to be struggling to keep an I-told-you-so expression from his face. "That was Arnold. He's at St Mungo's. While the World Cup was on, someone made another attempt to kill Mackenzie Ashford."
*****
Cornworthy was waiting for them when they Apparated into St Mungo's, sitting reading the newspaper in the corridor outside a private room. He appeared to be having great difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
"Morning, Don, Cassius, Tonks," he said gloomily. "Gather you had a bit of excitement last night?"
"You could say that," replied O'Gregan. "How's our boy?"
"Going to be all right, I think. I'm glad you're here, I've had to wait up on guard duty all night. Couldn't even get hold of any Enforcement Patrol people to help. Was that to do with the World Cup thing? It sounded bad in the Prophet -- they were talking about people being killed -- but I didn't want to rely on what they had to say about it."
"Very wise," said Cassius. "No, no-one killed as far as we know, but that was probably sheer luck."
"Oh. Missed all the fun then, I suppose."
Tonks, who was becoming increasingly impatient, interrupted them. "Arnie, we'll tell you about the World Cup later, mate. What happened to Ashford? Cassius here didn't have time to tell us."
"Oh, right," said Cornworthy. "Basically, someone tried to poison him."
"Poison him?"
"Yeah. His birthday was on the Saturday before the World Cup Final, and somebody sent him a box of his favourite Honeydukes chocolates with a card from his niece Charlotte. The analysts here have had a look at them, and they told me they were all laced with something called" -- he pulled out a roll of parchment from a pocket and read from it uncertainly -- 'aqua cordis debilitatio'. Never heard of it before, to be honest."
"What on earth's that? Is there a common name?"
He nodded. "The Heart-Enfeebling Potion. Ring any bells?"
To Tonks' surprise, Cassius' face went blank for a moment, and then he whistled. "Good grief. I haven't come across a mention of that one for a long time."
"What does it do?" asked Tonks with curiosity.
"It's a slow poison meant to cause a natural looking death," he said grimly. "If I remember what I was told correctly -- and it's been about eighty years, so I can't guarantee that -- it was quite a popular little Dark Potion in Renaissance times, but it must be mercifully rare nowadays. There's a counter, Arnold, I hope?"
Cornworthy nodded in reassurance. "That's what the Healers said -- they made him swallow a bezoar straight away while they worked out what it was, then when they found out they gave him a dose or two of antidote and a goblet of Strengthening Solution. He didn't get much of the poison anyway, so he should be perfectly OK. They're just keeping him here for a few days as a precaution." He consulted the parchment again. "They were quite excited to get a case. I got them to copy this out of some old book for me -- apparently the stuff has a delayed action. It slowly weakens the heart, so then a few weeks later, any little shock and bang, fatal heart attack. It's out of the system by then so it looks like a death from natural causes."
Tonks shuddered. "Nasty."
"Why on earth did he eat the bloody things in the first place?" cried O'Gregan in exasperation. "He knew someone was out to get him, and that it might very well be his precious nieces and nephew! I even gave him one of K's best poison testers! Why didn't he have the sense to use it?"
"He did, Don," said Cornworthy placatingly. "Or rather, someone used it for him -- it was actually a good job he had it. He was a bit suspicious when the chocs arrived through the owl post, but he did have the sense to feed a few of them to one of his Crups. When it didn't drop dead he assumed they had to be all right." O'Gregan groaned and threw his hands up. "Luckily, the day after, one of the ex-Law Enforcement Patrol blokes he'd hired as bodyguards saw him eating them, asked where they came from, and did his nut when he found out. He told me he stuck the tester in one of them and it turned carmine -- apparently that showed there was a slow poison in it -- so he got Ashford straight here and called me. He clocked off about 2am so I've been here minding the shop ever since."
"Have you had a chance to interview Ashford yet?" asked Cassius.
"Sorry, Cassius, I haven't. The Healers were working on him to clear the stuff out of his system, and then they told him to get some rest. I think he's awake now though."
"Very well. Tonks and I will go and talk to him. Donnacha, if you wouldn't mind, just keep an eye out here in case anyone tries again. Arnold, where's the card that came with it?"
Cornworthy shrugged. "I managed to find someone in at Magical Analysis when I called. They sent a bloke round to collect it. He hasn't got back to me yet."
Cassius nodded. "Never mind. You'd better go and get some rest yourself -- at least we managed to get a few hours sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, if Rufus Scrimgeour doesn't invent something else for you to do first ... we'll tell you all about that later, as well," he added at the sight of his colleagues' raised eyebrows. "You look done in, old chap. Off you go." He turned to Tonks. "Right, young lady. Let's go and talk to our Mr Ashford."
*****
Mackenzie Ashford was sitting up in bed when they entered, staring blankly out of the window at a pleasant view of green fields under a bright blue sky. This confused Tonks for a moment, until she realised that it had to be a Ministry-style enchanted window, charmed to show picturesque scenes rather than a bustling London street for the sake of improving the patient's mood.
It didn't seem to be working as far as Mackenzie Ashford was concerned. From his listless attitude as he turned to them, Tonks wasn't sure for a moment if he was even properly conscious yet. But his eyes, although dull and red-rimmed, were fully awake. She was surprised he'd been so strongly affected. From what she'd heard, Ashford had sounded like a much tougher egg than this.
"Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius in a polite tone, although to Tonks it sounded as if the cheerfulness behind it was slightly forced.
"That's me," he said bleakly, his eyes returning to the window. They waited a moment for him to continue, but he didn't appear to be in the mood for initiating conversation.
Cassius looked at him thoughtfully. "Good, good," he said, ploughing on. "We'd like to talk to you about these chocolates you received. I understand that they were delivered by owl post with a card from your niece attached?"
"Yes."
"And you only ate a few of them, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And one of your bodyguards brought you here when he realised they were poisoned?"
"Yes."
"Very well ..." He seemed slightly disconcerted by the monosyllabic replies. "Mr Ashford, are you all right? We can leave this until later if you don't feel up to it."
Ashford continued to gaze out of the window with a distant expression. He gave the impression that he wouldn't actually have noticed if it had been displaying dancing polar bears. "No, I'm not all right," he said, in a voice that was so quiet that Tonks had to strain to hear him. "I'm not all right at all. I never thought it would come to this."
"To what, Mr Ashford?" said Tonks, putting all the kindness she could manage into it.
He winced. "My own flesh and blood trying to kill me," he said brokenly.
There was a slightly awkward pause while Tonks exchanged glances with Cassius, who appeared to be thinking hard. "I can't deny that's an obvious possibility, Mr Ashford," he said carefully. "And I know the idea must come as a shock to you. It would to anyone. But it may not be correct, even so. We need you to tell us as much as you can so we can determine the truth. Will you help us?" Tonks listened, quite impressed at the way he managed to sound like a sympathetic ear. Maybe it came with age.
Ashford stared into space for a moment or two, and Tonks and Cassius let him have time. "I brought them up," he said eventually. "I never married, you see. I always thought of them as if they were my own. They were only kids when ... when my sister and brother got themselves killed. Paul -- he was my sister's husband -- always did shoot his mouth off, and my brother Gavin used to back him up. Neither of them ever had the sense to take precautions." He finally turned to look at the Aurors; his voice was becoming slightly louder, but still remained soft and sombre, and the pain showed clearly in his eyes. "You know, at first I thought my worst moment ever was the day I was told the news that Amanda and Paul and his parents had been killed by You-Know-Who's bastards? Then I thought it was the day after, when I heard they got Gavin and Felicity too as they left work. Well now it's today. The day my own chil ... my own family tried to kill me."
"Were you sure the chocolates came from Charlotte, Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius gently. Ashford didn't seem to have heard him; his mind apparently wandering on its own path.
"Even when that ... when the knife attack happened, I didn't really believe they had anything to do with it," he said, bitter anguish audible in his voice despite its lack of volume. "Oh of course, I got some bodyguards, asked the kids to stay away, shut myself up for a bit, just as a precaution, you know? I've crossed a lot of people in my time. I didn't know of anyone who'd really be serious about wanting to do me in, but I knew there could be someone. But the idea that any of the kids would be behind it ... well, it just seemed ludicrous."
He caught Cassius' eye. "I was so happy to get a birthday present from Charlie on time for once. She's usually late. And I was glad that she picked my favourites. Oh, I went through the motions of trying them out on the animals first, but I didn't seriously think they were dangerous. But if that bodyguard feller hadn't cottoned on ... well, they'd have been eaten and the box thrown away, and then a couple of months later I'd just have conked out and no-one would have been any the wiser, would they? The man earned his money, I can tell you. As did your colleague Don with that tester he lent me. He's a good lad. I'd like to thank him personally for that if I may."
"He's just outside," put in Tonks. "We'll send him in afterwards, he'll need to stick around to keep an eye out anyway." Ashford brightened very slightly.
"Thanks," he said. He shook his head. "Charlie. I always liked her the most, did you know that? I know I shouldn't have had favourites, but I did. She had ... well, guts. Took after her dad, I suppose. More nerve than the other two put together -- well, you'd need it to send your own card on them, wouldn't you? But I always thought she was decent." He seemed unaware of the tear that was trickling slowly down his cheek.
"Actually, was the delivery of the chocolates suspicious in any way, Mr Ashford?" asked Cassius. "Our analysts took the card away to have a look at, but we haven't heard from them. Could it have been a fake?"
"A fake?" he said hopefully. "You think so? It looked like one of her usual type -- she always puts them on presents, you know, leaves it till the last minute and then doesn't have time for a proper card. Could someone else have Transfigured it or something?"
"It's possible," said Cassius noncommittally. "What sort of owl delivered the package? Did you recognise it as her own bird?"
"No, no, it was a public owl," said Ashford. "She always just uses the first one that comes to hand. I remember it had a little tag tied round its leg with a Ministry crest and something about the World Cup on it?"
"That's useful. We'll investigate that." Cassius was still keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Now, you say you've crossed many people. I know we've asked this before, but please consider it again -- can you think of anyone who might have a particular grudge against you?"
Ashford thought hard, but eventually shook his head in disappointment. "Not really. Not this bad a grudge, anyway. Well, I suppose Peregrine Witherspoon might have if he knew I'd beaten him for the licence to import dangerous creatures." He smiled very faintly for the first time since they'd entered the room. "But I only heard about that myself just before ... just before I came in here."
The mention of dangerous creatures reminded Tonks of something. And it's about time I asked a question, anyway. Earn my Galleons "What about Nathan Arkwright?" she said. "He claims he lost his private zoo over some cages you sold him, and he definitely swore vengeance on you."
Ashford looked surprised for a moment, then snorted. "Arkwright? Did he? All mouth and no wand, that one. And if he'd used the stuff I sold him properly, he'd have been perfectly all right. Anyway, he got back in touch with me recently, wanted -- no, demanded -- a few more of the things, so he couldn't have been too upset, could he? Gave him a discount, even."
Tonks and Cassius looked at each other. She was sure they were both thinking much the same thing. Bit suspicious him suddenly getting all friendly again, isn't it? She made a mental note to take a look at Arkwright when an opportunity presented itself.
"Very well," said Cassius. "We won't bother you any longer this morning, Mr Ashford. Oh, one question I must ask, I'm afraid. Who actually gets your money if you die? What are the terms of your will?"
The trace of a smile that had been on Ashford's face left it. "There are a few charity bequests, but basically it divides the estate equally among my nephews and nieces. It's worded that way, by the way. I drew it up a long time ago and left it open-ended in case I had any more nephews and nieces." He scowled. "Then Gavin and Amanda were killed ... so obviously, that didn't happen."
"I'm sorry, Mr Ashford," said Cassius. He sounded as if he meant it. Tonks was aware that she hadn't contributed much to the interview, but Cassius did it so smoothly she was quite happy to let run with this sort of thing. Watch and learn, girl, she thought wryly.
As they left the room, she glanced back; Ashford had returned to staring blankly out of the magical window as if he were seeing something completely different.
*****
Wednesday 26th August 1994
By the time Cassius' team assembled in a meeting room the following morning, Ashford's bodyguards were back on duty, and a chagrined O'Gregan (Tonks having seized her chance to tick him off for the inadequate detail on the Ashford family background in his case report) informed them that he had managed to cheer him up slightly "with a bit of the old blarney". Rhiannon Davies reported that the meeting in Amelia Bones' office had produced a lot of speculation and argument but little in the way of concrete plans (Cassius' I-told-you-so expression briefly flickered across his face). Magical Analysis had produced a report on the card sent with the poisoned chocolates. And Cornworthy had investigated the owl, and discovered that there was no help there.
"I didn't think we'd get anywhere with this, and we're not. Whoever sent the chocolates must have done so directly from the World Cup campsite post office," he explained. "Those owls with the tags all came from the Owl Framer they had installed there, no way of tracing them." He sighed resignedly at everyone else's blank looks. "You know, those automatic postage gadgets? You hang your letter or package from the perch and say where you want it sent, and it's charmed to work out what breed of owl you'll need for the weight and estimated distance. It tells you how much money to put in the slot, then uses a short-range Portkey to put the right kind of owl on the perch for you. No clerk involved, completely anonymous you see."
"This Framer thing doesn't keep any records at all?" asked Tonks, disappointed.
"There's an enchanted quill that writes down the kind of owl, where it's going, and what the postage is, for accounting purposes," he explained. "But that's all. No use to us, except that it does confirm a package to Ashford was posted from there on the Friday night. But there were hundreds of people in and out of that tent, and I gather no-one kept an eye out for where people were going on the site?"
Tonks shook her head. "Not really. Everyone was just wandering about anywhere they wanted. You could have gone anywhere without being noticed, I suppose, especially if you had a disguise."
"And the card?" asked Rhiannon.
"Genuine, according to the report," said Cassius, waving a piece of parchment at them vaguely. "Not transfigured, not Copy Charmed, matches the ones she usually sends -- Ashford's bodyguard spent some time looking around and found a couple of old ones in his house."
"But if she had them at the campsite anyone could have walked in while they were away, I should think," Tonks pointed out. "They only had fairly basic tents. The flaps would have had to be sealed against passing Muggles, but I should think a quick Alohomora would have got you in."
"So that narrows it down to about a hundred thousand suspects, then," said O'Gregan irritably. He slammed his fist down on the table, making everyone jump. "We ballsed this one up, didn't we? All merrily went off to the Quidditch and assumed no-one would be able to attack Ashford while everyone was at the World Cup. Didn't work out too well for the poor sod, did it?"
"True, but it didn't work out too well for our would-be murderess, either, did it?" said Rhiannon with satisfaction.
Cassius got their attention again by rapping hard on the table. "That's what we need to discuss, actually. I'm a trifle concerned that we may be making assumptions again, truth be told. For example, do we really think Miss Perks would be so foolish as to send her own card?"
The others looked at each other uncertainly. "She might have, sort of double-bluff," said Tonks slowly. "I don't like it much either, but the plan does sort of fit the pattern of the first attempt, doesn't it? You know, as if the criminal is willing to take a risk to get what they want, but sets up as many get-out clauses as they can? If the plan works, it just works and no-one's any the wiser -- if it doesn't, it's not easy to prove who's really behind it, and they can wait for another chance. Both times, they had to have really bad luck before we could even be sure what happened, let alone pin it on someone. If it hadn't been for Don here, either one would have worked."
"You talked to those cousins, didn't you? Which of them would be capable of planning something like that, do you think?" asked Rhiannon.
"Only Charlotte Perks, I'd say," said Tonks reluctantly. "I reckon Mickey's too impulsive, and Abby's too nervous. I mean, you've read the files too. But that Charlotte ... she did seem to have a head on her shoulders. And Ashford said she had nerve."
"With the stabbing attack it was this Portia Blackstock taking the action to set it up though," argued O'Gregan. "Where does she come into it? Could it have been Charlotte impersonating her that night?"
"It could have been, I suppose," said Tonks. "But we've seen Portia now. If that was Charlotte, she got her exactly right. And I stand by what I said before; it's not easy to do that with Transfiguration even if you're a Metamorphmagus. I can do a pretty good general impression of someone easily enough, but when I was impersonating Mrs Easton I had to really work hard to get her spot on."
"I'll second that," said Cassius. "I've Transfigured myself for a disguise many a time, but I was never confident about mimicking someone specific. And in this case, why would she have bothered? No-one there knew Portia Blackstock anyway, or if they did they weren't telling."
"If you use Polyjuice you get the look automatically, of course ..." mused Cornworthy.
"But you have the keep taking the bloody stuff," pointed out Rhiannon, "and it's not easy to find all the ingredients, especially at an affordable price. I mean, you need bicorn horn -- how many of those do you see? Last time I checked, even unicorn horns were about twenty Galleons apiece. And like we said, you need a bit of who you're turning into -- several bits if you want to make enough to keep up the disguise for a while. She'd have had to get that from somewhere, and then you just run into the same problem again, why Portia of all people? Do they even know each other?"
Tonks picked up the case notes on the two women and quickly scanned through them. "Not much here, they're from different circles after all ... oh no, hang on, there's one thing." She looked up. "You know you said Ashford contributed to that charity of yours, Cassius -- the distressed half-bloods thing? It says here Charlotte has done a bit of admin work for them, and we know that Portia helps out with fundraising from time to time -- probably just by turning up and looking pretty, I should think. It doesn't say that they ever met, but it's the only link I can see here."
"Interesting," said O'Gregan. "Why would she and Portia have been working together to kill her uncle, though? It's not as if our Miss Blackstock needs the money, is it?"
"I don't know," admitted Tonks. "We'd have to look into it, wouldn't we?" A comment Cassius had made when they were discussing Portia at the World Cup flashed across her mind, and she shook herself; wild guessing wasn't going to get them anywhere, whatever Amelia Bones said. But she did make a mental note to ask Ches about that Hogsmeade trip.
The others were still arguing the possibilities. "The Blackstock girl could have been under Jacmel as well, couldn't she?" said Rhiannon. "We'd never be able to tell at this stage."
"But it would have been a risk giving her the stuff as well," pointed out O'Gregan. "Although I suppose they could have memory-charmed her afterwards?"
Cassius rapped on the table again. "I hate to mention it, but we're going around in circles here. Again. Let's try and find out some hard facts." He smiled at them. "An Auror maxim from the old days: if in doubt, stop thinking and use brute force. I suggest that we take advantage of the new Wizengamot policy and get search warrants for their houses."
"The Blackstocks as well?" asked O'Gregan with eagerness. "Do you think we'll be able to get one now?"
"Good point," said Cassius. "Actually, I think I'll have a private word first with one or two Wizengamot members I know -- no, Archibald Blackstock isn't the only one with a few contacts -- and see if I can gauge what the chances are. They don't know that we know Portia was there, after all, and that's the one advantage we've got. If they are involved in this I don't want to risk tipping our hand if the Wizengamot turn us down."
"What about looking into the potion itself?" asked O'Gregan. "We seem to be making a habit of cases with rare potions in them. It was a pretty obscure one, wasn't it now?"
"Yes, that book the Healers copied the notes from was ancient," agreed Cornworthy. "Where would you find information about something like that?"
Tonks snapped her fingers suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her. "Oh, I think I might know!" she said in excitement. "But I bet Lucretia Borgia didn't."
The other Aurors stared at her blankly, although after a few seconds a look of dawning comprehension on Cassius' face showed that he, at least, had remembered exactly which books she'd brought back from Lore of Yore a few weeks previously. "What Lucretia Borgia Never Knew: A Guide to Slow Poisons," he said carefully, almost reverently. "What did you do with that book, Tonks? Did you send it to the Hall of Records in the end?"
"Actually, I never got round to filling in the claim form. It's still on my desk as far as I can remember ..."
"Go and get it. Don't touch it more than you have to. Just in case."
"OK." Tonks blinked slightly at this; surely the book itself couldn't be dangerous? She half-walked, half-ran back to her desk, found the volume she was looking for buried under a pile of memos, and eased it out with a "Locomotor book." Ignoring the curious stares from the occupants of the other cubicles and people she passed in the hallway, she guided the book down the corridor with her wand and into the meeting room. The others hastily snatched their mugs of tea and coffee out of the way to prevent a disaster as it slid to a halt on the table.
Cassius carefully opened the book at its index with his wand and scanned it, then gave Tonks a huge smile. "You were right, young lady," he said quietly, flicking his wand a few more times to turn the leaves. "Page forty-eight, aqua cordis debilitatio. Let's see ... hmm, most of the ingredients should be reasonably readily available, although the powdered Graphorn claws and oil of Firepine won't have been easy to get. Looks very difficult to brew, though, like most of these advanced potions ... I doubt there are many books left with the recipe. Rather odd that one should have suddenly turned up in an unregistered bookshop with an extensive Dark Arts section a few weeks before the potion was used, isn't it?" He looked up at his team. "So I suppose the question is, how likely is it that this copy is the one our criminal found the information in?"
Tonks felt her jaw drop. "You think it might be? Why would they have got rid of it in that case?"
"Wouldn't you have?" said Rhiannon, staring at the old text with great interest. "Think about it, Tonks. If you kept the actual book and somebody did a search of your house, it would be a dead giveaway, wouldn't it? Even if you'd Transfigured it into something else hide it ... no, especially if you'd Transfigured it into something else to hide it. If it was me, I'd just copy all the interesting recipes down in some sort of personal code and then get rid of the evidence ..."
"... by trading it to a bookshop owner whose has a policy of selling anything, no questions asked, as long as it's old and obscure," finished Cassius. "And where the thing might very well have been bought in the first place. I think it's time we had another word with our Miss Orevel."
"I don't suppose Magical Analysis will be able to get any aura traces off it after all this time?" said Cornworthy in a resigned voice.
"I doubt it," replied Cassius with a shrug. "But we may as well try, so we'd better be careful how we handle this."
"I don't suppose we can get, erm --" Tonks racked her brains for the right word "-- finger printings off the book? Like the Muggle police do?"
O'Gregan sniggered. "Been watching old films with your dad again, Tonks? Since when have we ever used fingerprints?"
"In the early thirties, if I remember correctly." Cassius turned a bemused look on his colleagues who were all staring at him open-mouthed. "What's the matter? Didn't they teach you about that in training?"
Tonks exchanged amused glances with Rhiannon. Don't you just hate it when this happens? "No, mate, they didn't actually."
"Oh." He shrugged. "Well, we did try it for a few years, although the Department took some convincing to experiment with a Muggle technique." He shook his head. "The trouble was, it turned out to be too easy for wizarding criminals to get around it with magic once they realised what we were doing. Transfigure their fingertips, that sort of thing. Some bright spark even came up with a variation on Scourgify for removing just the prints. So the idea rather fell out of use."
"If it fell out of use, does that mean people don't take precautions any more?" asked Tonks hopefully.
"I'm not sure," said Cassius with thoughtful look. "I suppose wizards who knew something about the Muggle world might remember, but I doubt anybody else would. Not that it would help us much, we don't keep records any more. There were too many comedians who left false prints. Come to think of it, I believe the Wizengamot introduced a policy of refusing to allow them as evidence because of that. It's probably still in force, I should think -- I don't suppose anyone's thought about the matter long enough to consider changing the rules for the last fifty years. I mean, it was getting too embarrassing -- if we'd believed all the prints we found, the Minister for Magic would have been convicted of half the crimes we investigated." As Tonks and O'Gregan nodded thoughtfully, he sat up and said in a brisk voice, "Anyone got any more to say? No? Ver ..."
"What other recipes have they got in that book?" interrupted Rhiannon. "Is there anything else we're likely to come up against?"
"Ah, good point." He flicked through it. "Hmm, most of these poisons sound exceedingly unpleasant. Let's see ... Suffocation Solution, for example, gradually cuts off the ability to breathe. The victim asphyxiates within twenty-four hours unless they take the antidote. Which apparently requires a week to brew, oh dear ... Blood Blend is a contact poison that makes the victim slowly waste away. Will affect close relatives much more powerfully if you add some of your own blood as an ingredient, but will then lose most of its effectiveness on others. From what I hear, I imagine Lady Borgia could have made excellent use of that one ... The Putrefaction Potion, causes the body of the victim to rot from the extremities inwards ..."
"Charming," said O'Gregan with a nauseated expression, putting down his mug of coffee.
"Indeed. But from our killer's point of view, most of them look as if they would be rather too obvious, don't you think? The poison they actually chose would have been undetectable once out of Ashford's system, even to modern methods of magical analysis. You almost have to admire their planning skills."
"Almost," said O'Gregan with a disgusted look.
"Exactly. Now, if there's nothing else ..."
"Arkwright?" interrupted Tonks. "Might as well check on him, just in case. Sounded odd that he's suddenly mellowed so far as Ashford is concerned, didn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if he had a potions lab left over from his zoo."
"We could ask Will Poppleford if he could do us a favour and arrange for a visit from his department?" offered Rhiannon. "You know, the man we worked with at the World Cup?"
"Yeah, they might let us tag along and poke around a bit," said Tonks hopefully.
Cassius nodded. "Very well, then. Rhiannon, good idea of yours, you see what you can do with the Magical Creature regulators. I'll take this for analysis and go and apply for those warrants. Tonks, you go and tell Robards what your cousin said, and find out what they're doing about the World Cup fiasco -- I need to know if any of us are going to be called on to investigate that. Donnacha, Arnold, can you go back over the records on the Blackstocks and see if there's anything we missed ... er, yes, Donnacha?"
"We'll do that, but can we do something a little more direct, now? Track these fine people around for a few days under an Invisibility Cloak maybe, see where they go and who they talk to?"
Cassius shrugged. "Well, the Law Enforcement Patrol are supposed to be keeping an eye on them, but I suppose they'll be called on to help with the World Cup investigations, so ... yes, all right then, if you have time. Work it out with them. Anything else?" He looked around. "All right. Let's get to work!"
11. Defence Against The Dark Arts
Table of Contents
13. A Significant Development In The Case