Aside: Dead Ends (Part II of III)

[strngbedfellows]

DEAD ENDS

PART II

Squinting in the bright light, Harry sighed and struggled to calm himself down. Getting all worked up would just cloud his thinking. This was merely a setback, just like it had been in Bruges. He’d been angry there, too, when he thought he’d come to a dead end, but he’d calmed down and been sensible about things and had quickly picked up Snape’s trail again. So that’s what he’d have to do here in Mexico as well.

In retrospect, it was only natural that he would hit a snag. Especially after his journey up to now had been so surprisingly easy and filled with such good luck.

And it had been. He’d gone down to the Office of International Magical Cooperation, where they’d outfitted him with all the identification and papers he would need to assure the cooperation of the European magical governments, along with any suitable badges and whatnot should he need to interact with Muggles or their governments. Somehow, he suspected that they were being extra accommodating-the baggage that came with his name that he largely tried to avoid now and again came in handy. Once he had everything he needed, he said goodbye to his family and hopped a Portkey to Paris, where he found his way to the seat of the French Ministry. And upon his arrival, he had found them also to be extremely accommodating, probably due to the fact that he was Harry Potter. Harry had let them be as accommodating as they liked-anything to find Snape’s trail.

As it happened, the manner in which the British ministry dealt with magically counterfeited money was the standard practice all across the Continent. Harry had been ushered into a storage and filing area where the French government kept tabs on wizarding counterfeit and was told help himself. After opening the files spanning May to September of 1998, he’d cast another matching spell keyed to the money from the hovercraft port, looking for Conjured or Transfigured money that came from the same wand.

And wonderfully, miraculously, a handful of files had lit up. Harry eagerly dug them out and poured over the entries; he found that Snape, after landing on the other side of the Channel, had bought a bus ticket and shortly thereafter resurfaced in Paris, where he had used his counterfeit to pay for a motel room for a few weeks. At the apparent end of his stint there, he bought a train ticket, and the following day he booked passage on a boat from Marseille.

The French government had graciously allowed Harry to take the files in question for his investigation, and then he quickly Apparated down to the port at Marseille. He’d used his Muggle identification to gain the port’s cooperation and received a copy of their passenger boat schedule for the dates near which the money had been counterfeited. Upon comparing the prices of the tickets to the destinations available on those days, it looked as though Snape had gone to Greece.

He’d Apparated back to Paris to jump on the next Portkey to Athens. The Greek government was equally willing to help, and after he was escorted to their counterfeit repository, he repeated his tracking charms and, sure enough, he found more money made by the same wand.

Got you, Snape.

Snape had apparently booked a hotel in Athens and had spent a little money here and there during his stay, but then he’d booked a plane ticket out of the city after only two weeks.

After checking the flights that had left that day from the Athens airport and eliminating all those that cost more than Snape had spent there, as well as all those that went back to France or England, Harry had narrowed his search down to four flights out of the country. By luck, the first country he visited turned out to be the right one-Snape had flown to Rome.

And so Harry kept doggedly following the trail of paper breadcrumbs across the Continent. Snape spent quite a lot of time and Transfigured money in Rome-Harry had found his trail in deposits from several hotels and tourist attractions all over town spread out over a nearly three-month period.

However, his last counterfeit purchase in Italy had been a train ticket-Snape obviously hadn’t stayed. But it wasn’t a very expensive ticket, obviously not for a long trip, and after going to Austria and finding no trace of him, Harry went to neighbouring Switzerland, where his trail started back up. Snape had bought another short plane ticket out of the country the same day that he’d arrived. Harry had noticed that, with the exception of his trip to Athens, Snape seemed to be going from one country to the next one over. So, after getting a list of flights out of the country the day that Snape left, he opted to go first to Germany, and there he found him again.

Snape had apparently stayed in a motel in Berlin, and then purchased another short train ticket. Harry had Portkeyed first to Amsterdam, where he had come up empty-handed. But when he Apparated across the border into Brussels, he hit the jackpot. There had been no plane or bus or train ticket out of the country made with any counterfeit money-but there had been a deposit made on a flat in Bruges.

His hands were shaking when he finally found himself standing in front of the door of the nasty little flat on the south side of town, and he’d had to force them into fists so that he could knock on the door.

Disappointment had sliced so cleanly through him when a young man about his own age had answered that he had been unable to speak; Harry had just gaped at him at first, only snapping out of his stupor when in irritation the man had begun to close the door in his face. Then he’d pulled out his Muggle badge and given the fellow an abridged version of who he was and what he was doing here: that he was looking for a fugitive from the UK, and he had tracked him to this location, and did he know anything about the previous occupant? Then he’d shown him the photograph that he had tucked in his coat pocket, a copy of the original from the Daily Prophet announcing Snape’s appointment as Headmaster, carefully spelled not to move anymore.

The young man had thawed a bit after Harry explained himself, but he hadn’t known anything useful; the flat had been empty for a while by the time that he rented it, and he hadn’t recognized Snape.

Not about to give up, Harry had gamely knocked on the doors on either side, to ask if the people living there knew anything. The man on the right looked to be under the influence of some kind of chemical and had been no help at all-but the old woman on the left was a different story.

He’d been immediately assailed by the odour of cats when she shuffled to the door. When he’d showed her his badge, she had visibly brightened and invited him in. Harry had no desire to do so, but he didn’t have much choice, as he couldn’t seem to get anything out of her while standing in the corridor. He’d been sat down at her tiny kitchen table and been force-fed weak tea and stale biscuits, and then had to endure a thorough and detailed description of all manner of dirt on her neighbours-all related at maximum volume, because she seemed to be a bit deaf.

“That’s all very interesting, ma’am,” he’d said, his voice strained as he prised a cat off his leg, “but the man I’m looking for would have rented that flat in December of 1998.”

She had looked thoughtful for a moment, and Harry had briefly despaired, but then she gave a snort. “Right-Jack Hawkins,” she shouted. “English boy, I think-not at all social, rude as anything, and a very bad temper. Always skulking about, making strange noises over there-very suspicious.”

Tense and breathless, Harry had showed her the photograph, asking her if that was the man. She peered at it for a moment, her eyes narrowed. “That might have been him-his eyes were too close together, you know,” she confided loudly-much more of her shouting and Harry would be as deaf as she was. “But Jackie-boy, he was all grey on top, and his hair wasn’t so long-this one looks like a real hooligan. Mind you, Jackie-boy was no prize in the looks department, either.” She eyed the photo again. “Certainly had an awful nose like this one.”

Harry forced his throat to unlock and asked her if there was anything else she knew-and there was. She had apparently cornered Hawkins-Snape-on several occasions, and at one point had wrung out of him the fact that he worked in a bookshop a mile or so away. She’d also told him that he’d only lived there for a few months, leaving rather abruptly in the summer after he arrived, and that she hadn’t seen him since.

After another excruciating (and deafening) half-hour spent trying fruitlessly to get away from the old woman and her gossip and her cat stories and her terrible biscuits, he’d finally managed to extricate himself from her clutches. A brief stop down at the landlord’s office had yielded some rather more specific information on Snape-that he’d left on April the twenty-eighth in quite a hurry, didn’t even quibble about getting his rent back for the days he didn’t stay, or even over getting his deposit returned. He simply came down, told the man that he was leaving, and that was that.

A quick jaunt down the way had taken him to the bookshop that the old woman had mentioned. The owner’s expression had darkened when Harry asked her about her former employee. “Yes, I remember him,” she said with an angry sniff. “He was, I’ll admit, a model employee, if a bit brusque-he kept the shelves organized beautifully, and so I treated him very well. And how does he repay me? He appears one day and just quits, right out of the blue, and before he leaves, he insults me up one side and down the other, and for no reason at all!” Spots of angry colour had appeared in her pudgy cheeks at the memory. “Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned!”

She too had said that this Jack Hawkins might have been the man Harry had in his photograph-it was difficult to tell, though, because he had short grey hair and a beard, but it might be. Harry had asked about any scarring on his neck, trying to wring any last bit of information out of her, but she hadn’t known anything about that. But he had found out that the day he had come in here and let lose with his torrent of invective-he had to be Snape!-the day that he had so abruptly quit, had also been the same day that he’d left his flat.

Sure in his heart that this Jack Hawkins was in fact Severus Snape, Harry had made his way to Tovenaar Tracé, the main magical thoroughfare in Bruges. On a hunch, he’d gone to the apothecary and asked about Snape. The owner had never seen anyone that looked like Snape, nor did he know anyone by the name of Jack Hawkins-but when Harry had asked to see his accounts from the six months Snape had been there, he’d found regular purchases of boomslang skin and horn of bicorn.

Polyjuice ingredients.

Snape had been here-Harry knew it.

But after the elation of his surety had worn off, it was rapidly replaced by anxiety as Harry realized that he was at a standstill. Because in all the files of Snape’s counterfeit money, none had been for any sort of Muggle transportation that would have taken him out of the country-in fact, none of it was dated past January of 1999. So he had no idea where Snape could have gone-he had taken a job and earned some money, real money, and his paper trail had simply dried up.

Sitting on a park bench just outside the entrance to Tovenaar Tracé, Harry had pretended to admire the scenery while he mulled things over. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that Snape had left Belgium altogether. Leaving his home and his job on the same day, without waiting to collect any money that they might owe him, and burning his bridges without a second thought?

Those were the actions of a man on the run.

Something must have scared Snape, and so he’d fled, and given his previous movement, Harry would be willing to bet that he’d left the country, and in a hurry. So, acting on his hunch and in keeping with Snape’s habits in the past, Harry went to the Bruges International Airport, which was mercifully tiny, and checked their flights between April the twenty-eight and thirtieth of 1999. Most flights were tiny jaunts within Belgium or went to countries Harry had already visited, except for two-both going to Cairo.

Another Portkey later, Harry found himself in the oppressively hot clime of Egypt. Their government, once he’d managed to find a translator, had been just as cooperative (his name apparently had a long reach) and had shown him the files on counterfeit money that he asked for-and there, tucked neatly away, had been a file from April the twenty-ninth, and its contents had matched the counterfeit money he’d been tracking from Bruges. Same wand, same person-Snape.

Unfortunately, Cairo International Airport was much larger than Bruges’s, leaving Harry with a painfully long list of possible destinations. However, he took a guess and a gamble that Snape was moving east or west, rather than south, staying closer to Europe, as thus far he had kept to countries with large English-speaking populations. Also, because Snape had left Belgium so abruptly and flown all the way down to Africa, Harry had ruled out his going back to Europe-if he was scared enough to leave, he likely wouldn’t be going back. And lastly, by the amount of money in the file, Snape hadn’t purchased a terribly expensive ticket-only a relatively short jump from Cairo, not a long one like to Asia. So he came up with a list of flights that fit his narrowed bill and started working his way down the list, first going west across northern Africa.

A week later, Harry picked up his trail once again-in Morocco. The officials in Rabat gave him access to their counterfeit files, and there they were-more Transfigured banknotes, filed as having been spent at the Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca on April the thirtieth.

And that time, it had been a lot of money. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Harry realized that the plane ticket that Snape must have purchased hadn’t been just another quick flight to the next country over, like his previous trips. No-he really was running this time, and he’d gone far away from Europe altogether-and so now, he could be anywhere.

But Harry couldn’t just give up, not now. He’d found Snape after he left Belgium, and he would find him again. So Harry had gone to the airport, had them call up their old timetables on their computers, and had resignedly begun sorting through them, to find a flight that Snape might have taken.

There was a distressingly large number, even after taking into account the fact that Snape’s movements were so rapid after leaving Bruges that he likely left on the same day that he arrived, weeding out the flights that were too expensive or not expensive enough for what he had paid, and ruling out those that went back to Europe or England.

And one of Harry’s hunches seemed to have born out as well. He’d been right-Snape seemed to stay in places where there were English-speakers. Moreover, he’d gone west from Cairo-to Harry, that seemed to imply that he was planning on going even further west from Casablanca. If that was the case, that gave him a much smaller list of flights to check-the ones that went to North and South America.

He’d decided to start with the ones that went to the States and work his way south, beginning with New York City. Which happened to be the only trip he’d had to make to the States. And good thing, too, because he’d had to present all sorts of papers and identification just to get into the country at the Portkey office, and then he’d had to go through customs, something he’d not had to go through at all during his jaunts across Europe and Africa. It reminded of him the airports he’d seen on the television-which was very odd for a wizard. He supposed that it wasn’t too terrible, but it was very strange and unfamiliar, and it was during the search of his bags that he began to suspect that for that very reason, Snape wouldn’t be here.

But he’d gone on with his search anyway; the fellow manning the customs desk seemed to have been used to explaining things to foreign wizards, telling him go out and get a taxi, to ask the driver to take him to City Hall in Lower Manhattan, and had told him which floor he’d need to go to. Which was just as strange in and of itself-the magical offices were right there in the Muggle government buildings. And no charms to keep the Muggles out, best he could tell.

He followed the man’s instructions and took himself to the city hall. He went to second floor, and into the door marked “Bureau of Internal Affairs,” and upon flashing his DMLE badge, was escorted into an office in the back, where he’d been able to direct his questions to a young lady sitting behind a computer. By then Harry was beginning to wonder if these people were magical at all.

But she had been, at least-she’d recognized his name, anyway, and had been very helpful. More than helpful, really. It turned out that the Americans weren’t so cavalier about magical counterfeiting-it was quite illegal, and they kept a tighter rein on it than they did on Muggle counterfeiting, going so far as to prosecute the offenders, rather than ignore it. The young lady-Debbie, her name plate said-not only told him that there had been no record of any magically-counterfeited money spent in New York city on the day of arrival of the flight Harry was tracking, but after a quick check on her computer had also told him that there had been no counterfeiting in any airports in that time frame-not just in New York, but anywhere in the US.

Stunned at the efficiency, it had taken Harry a moment to feel the sting of disappointment. “Are you sure? I’m looking for a-a fugitive, he may not have shown up-”

But Debbie had just shaken her head. “We are very careful about monitoring all wizards entering the country, Mr. Potter, in order to maintain the Magical Secrecy Act.”

Well-that explained why the few odd Death Eaters who had tried to escape across the Atlantic were returned with all speed. “All right, then,” he said, trying a different route. “What if he didn’t come in as a fugitive, but rather tried to come in through the normal channels and become a citizen?”

She obligingly tapped on her keyboard for a moment more, and then shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Potter, but I don’t have any wizards on file entering the US from Casablanca on the dates you’ve given.”

“You don’t have anything on a Severus Snape?” he asked, desperation creeping into his voice; he resolutely squashed it. “Or maybe a Jack Hawkins?”

She typed again, and then gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it, “but I’m afraid that the man you’re looking for just isn’t here.”

On the one hand, only having to travel to one city in order to search the entire country had been very nice. But on the other-Snape hadn’t been there. That meant Harry had to go back to his list and try to find out where he had gone.

In retrospect, Harry supposed that he had used up his luck too quickly, and that was why he was where he was now. Because after his disappointment in New York, he simply picked up where he left off and began working his way south from the States, the next place on his list being Mexico.

And in a stunning stroke of luck, he found Snape again.

Only he didn’t.

When Harry had arrived in Mexico City, he was immediately assailed by the searing afternoon heat, as hot and horrible as it had been in Egypt and Morocco. There had been no ridiculous customs, at least, no excessive security measures at the Portkey office like in the US, and the people in charge there had been pleasant on the whole, telling him in their accented English how to get to the City Hall and which offices were responsible for the magical government (it seemed that, customs aside, they weren’t too much different than the Americans with regards to their less-than-obvious separation of the magic and the Muggle).

The bureaucrats here were a bit less eager in their work than those than Harry had encountered elsewhere, but they were helpful enough, despite not seeming very enthusiastic about it. But as Harry had all the proper identification and was here on official capacity (sort of), they had taken him to a large warehouse on the next street over. Harry had thought it an odd place to keep their files on counterfeiters-until he saw it.

The doors swung open, and Harry’s jaw had dropped. He was standing in a cavernous space, filled with stacks upon stacks of counterfeit pesos, nearly to the ceiling.

He’d blinked at the sight for a moment, and looked briefly back at his guide, who was leaning against the wall with an expression of sublime boredom, before he drew his wand, tapped one of the Transfigured banknotes, and cast his tracking spell.

His heart gave that familiar triumphant leap when his spell went racing off in a dozen directions over the mountain of forged currency, and he Summoned the results. He was slapped in the face by a large number of wayward notes, still alight with the vestiges of his tracking spell, that all landed in a pile around his feet with a shush.

He flicked his wand at the mess, pulling it into a mostly ordered stack, and asked the man next to him where all this had come from.

His guide-Garcia-had shrugged laconically. “Dunno,” he replied.

Harry turned to look at him, irritated. “Where do you keep the files on all this?”

Garcia looked at him as though he was being exceptionally dense. “Files, señor?”

“Yes, files-where do you keep track of where this came from?” Harry demanded.

“It came from Mexico, señor-what else is there to know?”

Harry stared at him. “You mean-you mean this is it?” he asked incredulously, throwing his hand out at the piles of counterfeit pesos.

Garcia shrugged again. “You asked to see our counterfeit money-here it is-every bit of it. Any fake money we find, magic or not, we take it out of circulation and bring it here. When this place fills up, we get rid of it and start over,” he said.

Harry’s stomach was knotted tighter than Weasleys’ Wheezes trick shoelaces, and yet still he felt as though he had swallowed a lump of lead. “So you don’t know when or where any of this came from?” he asked hoarsely.

“No, señor. We don’t have time,” Garcia said patiently.

“What do you mean, you don’t have time?” Harry shouted, his frustration erupting. “These people are counterfeiting money-it should be noted and tracked!” He waved his hand holding the wad of banknotes for emphasis.

Garcia had regarded him steadily despite his outburst. “Señor, do you have any idea what our government has to deal with on a daily basis? Drug runners, cartels, weapons smuggling, attempted coups, and any number of various acts of crime that are prolific in my country.” He threw an arm towards the bales upon bales of fake money beside them. “And you can see for yourself the amount of counterfeiting going on here; so, unless the magical counterfeiter in question is doing it on a massive scale, we do not have time to waste the taxpayers’ money and the time of what few police we have tracking down the illegal activities of a group that constitutes less than point-one of one percent of the population.”

Harry stared at him, unable to believe that he had come this far only to lose the trail due to an indifferent bureaucracy. Finally, he forced his jaw to relax and asked, “Since this all clearly means so little to you, may I keep these?” He held up the stack of notes clutched in his hand.

“Of course,” Garcia answered with affected magnanimity. “You’re fortunate that you found what you were looking for-we were set to dispose of this load next week.”

Then he had escorted Harry out of the warehouse and back to City Hall, supremely indifferent to Harry’s mounting frustration; after a perfunctory offer to help him with anything else he needed, which Harry had tersely declined, Garcia had ushered him out of the magical offices. And that had been that.

And so here Harry was, all alone in Mexico City, with nothing to show for his efforts but a handful of fake banknotes and a dead end.

He was slumped on the worn and graffitied bench outside of the city hall, the heat pressing down on the back of his neck. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he restlessly rubbed the counterfeit pesos between his fingers before getting up and setting off down the street to try and find a place from where he could Apparate. He had been given specific instructions upon arriving on how to find the magical district of Mexico City-Calle del Magos. He needed somewhere where he could untransfigure the notes and examine what kind of paper they were made of, maybe find out when and where they had been made-and most of all, he needed to think.

He ducked down the first deserted alley he could find. Wiping a runnel of sweat away from his forehead, he closed his eyes, thought of his destination, and Apparated away.

Upon reappearing, Harry was greeted by an angry barrage of Spanish from the man that he had nearly Apparated into. Harry apologized profusely, but the just man stalked away, muttering to himself about gringos and leaving Harry to wonder just how badly he’d been insulted.

He peered about, taking in his surroundings. He felt vaguely concerned; the street looked nothing like Diagon Alley back home. In fact, at first glance Harry could see little that indicated that the street was magical at all. But upon closer inspection, Harry saw the comforting sight of a broomstick displayed in one window, and there was a young woman using her wand to shrink her armful of parcels just across the way.

Somewhat reassured, Harry pulled his wand and Snape’s transfigured bank notes from his pocket and took himself over to another graffitied wooden bench that sat outside one of the shops. Tapping the notes with his wand, they untransfigured in a flurry of movement, springing back into their original forms. Some of them were napkins or scrap pieces of paper, but some were torn from newspapers. Those that were just random bits of articles in Spanish were of no use-he had no idea what any of them said, nor how he would even begin to try and track down where they came from. He had a brief moment of excitement when he saw that a few of them were torn from the headers, but it was with a sinking feeling that he saw that they were from several different cities. There was a paper from a place called Aguascalientes, another from Guanajuato, some from Culiacán, one from Mazatlan, and two from somewhere called Zacatecas.

Harry looked down at the collection of paper in his hand, putting everything he had into not succumbing to the hopelessness that was rising up from the pit of his stomach and crowding its way up into his chest. After a moment he reached into his knapsack and drew out the map of Mexico that he’d purchased upon arriving, and with a sigh of resignation began to search for the cities that he had.

It wasn’t until he found and marked them all that he saw it. His heart gave a tiny, quick thump; the cities fell on a meandering line going north and west, all the way to a place near the coast-Culiacán.

He looked delightedly at the map in his hands. There it was, a neat little path for him to follow. It would take time, no doubt, and a lot of investigation, but at least he had a trail to follow.

Harry stood, resolute-and paused. Across the street from where he sat stood a tiled building whose wide front window was filled with bottles and jars of powders and pastes and various dried and pickled things. After consulting his Spanish dictionary to confirm that it was in fact an apothecary, Harry quickly stuffed everything in his bag, crossed the road, and went inside.

A bell rang above his head as he stepped inside, and Harry was greeted by the familiar odours of sour sulphur and rotting plants. He peered about the dark room before making his way to the front counter.

“Excuse me-do you speak English?” he asked the man standing behind it

“Yeah,” came the easy reply. “How can I help you?”

“Well, I’m an Auror, for the Ministry of Magic in the UK,” Harry said. He pulled his badge and showed it to the man in question, who raised an eyebrow at it and regarded Harry with an inscrutable look.

“I’m looking for a fugitive from abroad,” Harry went on, “and I have reason to believe that he is in Mexico. Would you happen to have seen this man?” He pulled Snape’s photograph from his pocket and set it on the counter for the man to scrutinize. “He might have shorter hair and a beard now, and maybe some scarring on his throat,” Harry supplied.

The man at the counter picked up the photo and squinted at it momentarily before passing it back to Harry. “No-can’t say that I know him.”

Harry sighed, then, with a burst of inspiration, asked, “Well, have there been any increases in sales or shipments of horn of bicorn or boomslang skin since July of 1999?”

The man stared at Harry for a moment more, apparently contemplating the situation before answering. “I’ll check my records.” And he turned and left, going into a small side office and leaving Harry to wait up front.

He drummed his fingers on the counter while he waited, but finally, the man re-emerged, holding a thick ledger in his hand, which he set down on the counter with a thunk and began to peruse the pages.

“Actually,” he said, sounding vaguely surprised, “I did have some unusually high demand for those ingredients for a few months, along with knotgrass and fluxweed-Polyjuice Potion?” he asked, looking briefly up at Harry, who nodded. The clerk looked back down at his book. “Yes, first there were purchases made here, and then later they came by mail order-always for the same amount, at the first of the month,” he said, running his finger down the columns of figures before coming to a stop. “Those orders stopped after about eight months though,” he finished.

Harry was about to thank him, but the man spoke again, and his next words sent Harry’s heart leaping somewhere up in the vicinity of his Adam’s Apple. “But the funny thing is,” he said, “now that I look at it, orders for those same amounts of those same ingredients started up again for about four more months-by mail order from some drug store up in Culiacán.”

“Culiacán?” Harry asked, his voice emerging as a croak.

“Yeah-but it didn’t last long-at least, not those ingredients.”

Harry pounced on his words. “Those? What do you mean-are there others?” he demanded.

He nodded, turning the book around so Harry could see it; he leaned down and looked where the clerk was pointing. “I never noticed it before, not until you mentioned it just now,” he said, sounding vaguely bemused by it all, “but right around the time I stopped sending the regular shipments of Polyjuice stuff, I started getting regular orders of other things-big ones-all sorts of high-end ingredients that would be harder to come by in the smaller stores. And all of them going to that same drug store in Culiacán.” The man looked up. “Those orders are still coming-have been for nearly the past four years,” he added. “Every twenty-fifth of the month.

“Just-just where is the, er, drug store in Culiacán?” Harry asked.

The man retreated back into his office for just a moment and returned with a file; he flicked it open, shuffled a few papers, and then said, “On the corner of Ciudades Hermanas and Rio Tabala. Orders are made in the name of Enrique Fernando.” He reached behind the counter and pulled out a tiny yellow pad. “Here-lemme write it down for you.”

His heart beating a wild tattoo against his ribs, Harry said thank you and quickly left the store, his little yellow lead clutched in his hand like a lifeline, and went out in search of the Portkey office.

Harry had found, rather to his annoyance, that he couldn’t just immediately hop a Portkey to Culiacán; apparently, in the smaller cities, there just weren’t large magical enclaves where people could Apparate or Portkey in without being noticed, but the town in question was still dense and busy enough that he wouldn’t be able to find an out-of-the-way spot to arrive in. The bored-looking woman at the office had had to call up a shop in Culiacán and get permission to use their back room as a landing pad of sorts.

So Harry had been forced to stay in Mexico City overnight, finding in a hotel in the Muggle part of the city to wait until he could go back to Calle del Magos the next morning. And go back he did, bright and early-not even bothering to read the letter that came for him, addressed in Ginny’s neat script, just cramming it in his pocket and sparing only the briefest flash of guilt over the fact that he hadn’t written home since leaving Casablanca. He arrived at the office promptly at eight-only to find that his Portkey wasn’t ready.

After nearly thirty minutes of excruciating waiting for the woman behind the desk to finish the necessary enchantments (during which Harry’s brain conjured endless visions of Snape, working as an apothecary under the assumed name Enrique Fernando, getting tipped off from his friend in Calle del Magos that Harry was here and then running), she had at last provided him with a dirty, battered old sandal. Harry snatched it up, and at his spoken “verde,” it took him in a rushing swirl of colour to land face-down on the uneven floorboards of a shop in Culiacán.

He stood up, dusting himself off, and looked around. The walls were lined with broomsticks and Quidditch gear, and Harry couldn’t help but grin, feeling a comforting surge of familiarity. But there the resemblance to anything back home ended; the shop was cramped and dark and stiflingly hot, and a group of men were sitting ‘round a table to the side under a thick haze of smoke, oblivious to Harry’s sudden appearance. A clearing throat prompted him to turn; he was greeted politely if rather casually by a man who must have been the proprietor. Harry rummaged in his pocket for some of his exchanged pesos and paid him his fee for being the drop point.

“Thank you,” said Harry, and then, “Er-gracias, I mean.”

“You’re welcome,” the man answered, his English accented but intelligible.

Before he could turn away, Harry stopped him and asked, “Excuse me, but I’m here on an investigation for the British Magical Law Enforcement Department in the UK, and I wonder if you could tell me if you’ve seen this man?” And he held out his picture of Snape.

The man’s face was wary, and he gave the photograph only the most perfunctory of glances before shaking his head. “No, señor-I’ve never seen him before.”

Harry grunted in disappointed acknowledgement as the man turned away to go out into the front of the shop. Harry looked at the photo in his hand for a moment, looked into Snape’s black eyes as he had so many times before, and then looked away and moved over to the table. As he neared he could see that there was some kind of card game going on, and from the stacks of pesos in the middle, he guessed that it was serious. Harry’s head was enveloped in the stifling blanket of cigarette smoke, but it wasn’t enough to cover the stink of the huge, unwashed bodies crammed around the tiny round table beneath the low-hanging light. “Er, excuse me, sirs,” he said politely, holding out Snape’s picture, “but I’m looking for someone-have any of you seen this man?”

There was a pause, and for a moment it seemed as though none of them had even heard him, but in the next instant, all five of them turned as a body and just stared at him.

Harry blinked beneath the press of the hard, flat stares, growing steadily more and more uncomfortable, before finally just clearing his throat, hastily thanking them for their time, and then taking himself out of the room as quickly as possible.

He passed through the main part of the shop, which was full of Muggle sports equipment; footballs, baseball bats, basketball hoops, and the like lined the walls, and Harry gave a quick nod to the proprietor before heading out into the thick morning sunshine.

He stopped just outside the door, pulling out the map of Culiacán that he had acquired in Mexico City, along with the slip of paper with the address for the town’s chemist and apothecary. It was a bit disheartening to see that it was all the way across town-why on earth were the magical businesses so scattered about?-but he just flagged a passing a taxi and managed to communicate to the driver where he wanted to go.

He was cheated horribly on the fare, he was sure, because the man either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak English, and thus Harry didn’t know how much he owed. But by that point, with the chemist’s in sight, he didn’t care, so he just gave the man the handful of notes that he demanded and crossed the street, taking a deep breath as he walked to the front door.

The ubiquitous bell jingled above his head as he opened the door to the chemist’s, the building just as dark inside as the previous magical shop. And there, sitting up at the counter, was-not Snape, but a rather greasy, pot-bellied Mexican chewing on a toothpick as he flicked through a magazine. He lolled his head around to look at Harry as he entered, sizing him up rather frankly before turning to face him with an insincere grin.

“Do-do you speak English?” Harry asked, keeping his voice pleasant despite yet another slug of disappointment.

“Sí,” the man rumbled, setting down his magazine; the girl in the picture was wearing nothing but high heels and a smile, and she winked up at Harry from the countertop as she shook her improbably large bosom at him.

“Er-are you Enrique Fernando?”

“Sí.”

“You run this store?”

The man nodded, and Harry dug around in his pocket for his badge. He flipped it out and showed it to Fernando, saying, “I’m Harry Potter, I’m an Auror with the Ministry of Magic in the UK. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

Fernando’s expression had gone from bored to wary the moment he saw the badge, but he simply nodded, eyeing him distrustfully.

“I’m searching for a fugitive from the UK. Have you seen this man?” Harry asked, sliding the picture of Snape across the counter towards Fernando, who scooped it up and scrutinized it briefly. “He may have short grey hair and a beard now,” Harry told him.

Fernando was gnawing on his toothpick and seemed to be in the middle of a headshake, but when Harry spoke, he suddenly did an abrupt double-take. Harry’s felt a jolt in his stomach as Fernando stared hard at the photo, eyes narrowed.

But then he set just it down again and slid it back to Harry across the counter, his face a study in bland disinterest. “Never seen ‘im,” he said shortly.

Harry blinked at him, and then his brows furrowed suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

Fernando looked levelly back. “Sí,” he said.

He was lying. Harry knew it as sure as he knew his own name-and there was nothing he could do about it. With a suppressed noise of frustration, Harry scooped up the picture and pocketed it. He gave Fernando a hard look, which was utterly lost on its target, before he deliberately relaxed, just looking idly around the shop. “Well-sorry to have bothered you-it’s just that I was told in Mexico City that you were a big buyer for some pretty expensive potion ingredients, and, well, the man I’m looking for was quite the potions expert.” He looked back at Fernando. “I suppose you get all those ingredients for your own brewing?” he said idly.

Fernando hesitated, just barely, and then said, “Yeah. It’s good business.”

“So, then-do you have any, er, Invigoration Draught?” Harry asked.

Fernando’s face was still blank. “Yeah-why, you buying?”

“Yeah,” Harry answered, meeting his unspoken challenge. “If you’ve got some, I’ll take it.”

Fernando looked at him narrowly, but then hove his bulk off the counter and retreated through the beaded curtain in the back, returning with a little glass bottle full of sparkling, pale orange potion. He set it on the counter with a thunk. “Two hundred pesos,” he grunted.

Harry wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or not that the man did in fact seem to be selling the potions that he claimed to brew. So he just paid him and picked up the bottle. He wasn’t necessarily an expert, but he had brewed this before, and just by looking at it he’d guess that this was a stellar example of the brew. He turned it in the light, watching it glint off the bubbles-and he froze.

The bottle was neatly labelled, written in Spanish, of course, so he couldn’t make head or tails of it-but he didn’t need to. He’d recognize that cramped, spiky handwriting anywhere-how could he not, after soaking up every word he could find written in it in his sixth year?

Snape.

Harry leaned close across the counter. “You’re positive you’ve never seen that man before?” he asked softly

Fernando leaned away from him, his expression cold. “Sí.”

“And you brewed this?”

Now Fernando scraped up a little indignation to cover his obvious distrust. “Sí. I make all of them. And if that’s all you want, then get lost.” And he picked up his magazine and went back to his girls.

Harry stared at him for a few moments more, but as far as Fernando was concerned, Harry wasn’t even there. So he left, his-Snape’s-potion in his knapsack, angry with the man’s obvious lies, and yet filled with a black sort of triumph.

Snape was here-he knew it. Now, all he had to do was find him, and then he could-well, he’d have to find him first.

Unfortunately, here was a pretty big city, and Snape could be anywhere in it. He supposed there was only one thing for it-he’d just have to start combing the area, asking around if anyone had seen him. Surely there’d be somebody somewhere who’d have spotted him-in one of the neighbouring businesses, perhaps, someone who might have noticed Snape walking by as he went to see Fernando (if he walked-there was always the chance he was Apparating. Harry sincerely hoped he wasn’t, as it would mean even more area he’d have to cover). So, badge and picture at the ready, he went outside and walked across the street to the nearest business-it looked like a saloon. The Burro Loco, the sign in the window read. He marched up to the door and swung it open.

And he froze, his hand holding the door wide. The bar, which had been full of the low hubbub of hushed voices, went utterly silent, and all eyes turned to stare at him. Harry could only blink against the obvious aura of hostility, but he finally forced his knees to life and he walked inside, passing through the forest of huge, hairy men who perched on the stools and hunched over the chairs who watched him as he went.

Harry made it to the bar-it had seemed a much longer walk than it actually was, being under the heavy press of so many unwelcoming eyes. He cleared his throat, easing himself onto an empty stool. The bartender, who was filling a beer for one of his customers, gave Harry a quick jerk of his chin in acknowledgement as the noise in the bar slowly began to rise again.

“Err-hello,” Harry said, when the man finally tossed his stained towel over his shoulder and came to stand in front of him, his hands on the bar as he stared at Harry. “Do-do you speak English?” Harry asked, shifting uncomfortably.

The bartender flicked his eyes briefly over to the man sitting by the cash register with something like amused disgust before giving Harry a perfunctory nod, reaching behind the bar for another glass that looked about as clean as those in the Hog’s Head and setting it down in front of him.

Harry pulled out his badge and flipped it out for the bartender to see. “I’m with the British police.”

The bartender’s face went cold and hard, and all sound died immediately. Harry felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he turned slightly to look out over at the bar proper-every eye in the place was on him.

Clearing his throat again, Harry turned back to the bar and pulled out the picture of Snape, holding it out towards the bartender. “I’m looking for a fugitive-have you seen this man anywhere in town? Going to the chemist’s-I mean, the drug store across the way there?”

The bartender’s eyes never left Harry’s. He didn’t say a word, just pinned Harry with a level stare, leaning slightly forward on the bar so that Harry could smell his sour breath and stale sweat. Harry waited a moment more before he swallowed noisily, tucked his photograph away and stood. He turned to go-the men in the bar were all still staring at him, their gazes closed and suspicious, and their hands beneath their tables.

“I-I’ll just be going now,” Harry said as politely as he could, and he left as quickly as possible without looking like he was running.

Maybe just asking around like that wasn’t such a good idea.

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