Looking for Trouble

Chapter 1. Concerto Della Morte

You might think that a person's last words would be profound. Harry had always supposed so, at any rate. Not that everyone had the time to say anything at all, he amended. Terence Higgs might have had the time, but his final words were anything but profound.

When Terence Higgs died, Harry lay about ten feet away, firmly trapped under a boulder. His wand was still clutched in his hand, but he was rendered completely immobile. He couldn't help Higgs. In fact he was unable even to attempt to murmur any words of comfort to the prone man - if indeed it were possible to find any words of comfort for a man who is slowly bleeding to death speared on an iron fence. A broken jaw tends to impair speech anyway. Harry reflected on how easily their roles could have been reversed.

Harry had no wish to see Higgs die in such a horrible way. Granted, Higgs was a Death Eater, and had just killed a Muggle family of four with a young son going to start his second year at Hogwarts, but Harry couldn't stand the idea to kill anyone. He would rather have seen him judged properly and whisked away to Azkaban, like every Death Eater the Aurors were chasing. Except maybe Voldemort, but that was more because Harry didn't think any prison walls would hold him.

Arguing philosophical points of justice, crime and punishment wasn't really something Harry did every day. But when you cannot move for forty-five minutes and have just seen one of your old schoolmates die, skewered on an iron fence, and you are at least partially to blame, it's hard not to think about why things turn out the way they do, why it had come to this. The times they had faced each other on the Quidditch Pitch seemed like a hundred years ago or more, not twelve.

Harry had been chasing Higgs over the roof when part of the building collapsed. When he came to, he found that he had fallen three stories and was lying firmly trapped under a very large, very heavy boulder. The first thing he saw was the limp form of Higgs, who hung, pierced on the wrought iron spikes, like a broken doll. Harry thought he must be dead. He wasn't. A wave of nausea coursed through Harry's body when Higgs slowly turned his head and looked directly at him.

"Potter," was the only thing Higgs rasped. "Fuck you," he added hoarsely and spat out a mouthful of blood. Then his eyes glazed over and he was gone. No, Harry mused, you certainly couldn't call Higgs' last words profound.

***

Harry had barely been out of the hospital a fortnight after the Higgs incident when the group was called. They had prepared for this moment for months. Finally there would be a breach in the impasse that Voldemort had created. Finally, there would be something more than minor victories and major losses.

Harry realized afterwards that he had thought of it in terms of a series of battles and skirmishes, where the forces of light and dark would fight against each other in accordance with a strict set of rules. Wand against wand, villains against heroes, dark against light, the future of the Wizarding World would be determined through honourable combat. Harry cursed the naïveté that had let him believe that a war against Voldemort would be much the same as the play-battles he had acted out with his small tin soldiers as a child.

It didn't turn out like that. There was never open war. Voldemort preferred to rule by fear. At first the attacks were not so frequent that people lived in constant terror. At first they could be discarded as accidents. People simply refused to believe that he was back after so many years. It's amazing how far people will go to delude themselves. After a while, however, the attacks escalated. Voldemort's forces came, killed and disappeared. Once more the dark mark was seen to light up the sky. Voldemort wrought havoc, and his sign left panic in its wake. The Wizarding World changed almost overnight. Whispering voices in the streets, people looking worriedly over their shoulders every few minutes, parents holding the hands of their children in vice-like grips - fear made its presence known everywhere. The Ministry tried to calm people down, insisting that Voldemort had few followers and that these would soon be caught. It quickly lost its credulity. Voldemort's terror continued, and wizards and witches no longer believed the optimistic announcements made by the Minister and his aides. The night they performed the Hellfire spell, the war was well into its seventh year.

An undercover agent from the Ministry had managed to infiltrate Voldemort's inner circle, or at least as close to it as they had ever been. No one but the head of the Auror department knew who it was, but Harry had his suspicions. He desperately hoped he was mistaken. One warm, summer evening, that someone led them to an old building surrounded by a high brick wall topped with barbed wire and shards of crushed glass. Such Muggle security contraptions were hardly a threat to a group of wizards, but on top of that wall, the magic wards around the place were tighter locked than the chain mail chastity belt of a Vestal Virgin. At least that was how Greg McAllen, the leader of their small group, had put it when he briefed them. No one laughed. Even those who would have thought it was funny under normal circumstances were too highly-strung and nervous. The last time they had come as close as this, fifteen Aurors lost their lives. The Death Eaters lost a large weaved basket filled with small snakes.

The spell they were going to use was very old, and Harry wished heartily that it had been lost, forgotten and buried in the tide of times. It had no official name, as far as he knew. He wondered what had prompted its creation. Necessity is the mother of invention, or so they say. Harry shuddered to think what might have led to the invention of so terrible a spell. Some references to it were to be found in the Ministry's library, and it was suspected that infiltrators had passed the knowledge of the spell's existence to Voldemort. The instructions on how to perform it were found in a dusty old tome at the bottom of a large pile of books, letters and recipes in one of seventeen mouldy boxes containing the legacy of one Nostromo Bethel. These had been donated to the Ministry's library in the mid-19^th century, and had promptly been forgotten, since no one thought there was anything interesting to be found amongst the old wizard's belongings.

A select group of Aurors had been training to perform the Hellfire spell, as they had termed it, for several months. When Harry was first told about the effect of the spell, he had to fight down nausea. It was even more terrifying than the Eviscerate spell, which turned the body of a human being inside out in an instant. The Hellfire spell was very painful and very messy, and sparsely used, even by the most powerful practitioners of Dark magic.

It was also one of the most draining spells any of them had ever performed. People had been killed just practicing it. The slightest mistake could kill, maim or drain a person of all magic in an instant. Only the strongest could keep their focus and hold the circle for the whole time.

This particular spell was the absolute opposite to the icy green draft of Avada Kedavra. It created a blazing furnace that couldn't be put out, and every mammal inside the perimeter was incinerated. The spell was so ancient that its original name had faded from memory aeons ago - if it ever was named. A curse as horrifying as this would certainly have been discussed only in hushed voices and obscure phrases, if at all. The spell craved twenty people acting in concert and free will to work. That was probably one reason it hadn't been more popular with those dabbling in the Dark Arts: trust and Dark Magic never went well together.

And now they were going to perform it. Tonight, Voldemort and his inner circle of Death Eaters were holding a meeting in the building. Just before the Aurors left, McAllen distributed small glass vials, filled with a luminous blue liquid, to the people involved in the spell. When they arrived, everyone downed the contents. An immensely rare and complex potion, Thelepathine, allowed soundless communication for thirty minutes. Cautiously, the group spread out. Five people disappeared to take care of any guards on the premises. Harry was grateful he was spared that assignment: the guards would no doubt have to be silenced permanently, and he had no desire to kill. Instead, he worked on weakening and then removing the wards with the rest, which was an equally dangerous task. Seven minutes later, ten people took out leather pouches containing a pungent, sparkly powder and started to spill it carefully and precisely. Soon they had created a circle around the building, checking again and again to make sure it was unbroken - there was no room for mistakes when performing the Hellfire spell. The other half of the group stood guard, each individual tense and wary, alert and waiting to fill the gap should someone falter, and prepared to create a diversion if necessary. There was maybe a foot left to complete the circle when the cry echoed in their minds.

They are leaving! He suspects something! Do it now! Hurry! For Merlin's sake, just do it! They are all here!

Theodora Ritter, the Auror who held the circle ward, hurriedly completed the last part. A golden line started to glow on the wet grass.

McAllen's command echoed through their minds.

Twenty wands were drawn, and twenty voices joined together in the complex incantation. The spell formed, they could all feel it draining them, pulling at their power, strength and will. It was like being clubbed in the head, Ron had said, or trying to move in heavy syrup. Harry could sense people collapsing; he could feel them leaving the circle to be replaced by others. It hadn't felt so excruciatingly painful when they practiced the spell, but of course they never had wizards, and powerful ones at that, trapped inside the circle before. The force present within the circle, the life force within the humans trapped in the building, struggled desperately against the magic.

All hell broke lose inside the building. The faintly glowing golden circle on the grass blazed into life. Three feet high orange flames increased steadily in height, turned white and then a vivid, electric blue. Magic pulsed in the air.

Shadows of flickering flames could be seen behind the thick curtains of fire. Shrill screams tore through the night air. The voices were devoid of humanity, twisted in agony. Harry winced with the sounds of horror emanating from within the circle. It doesn't sound human, he reflected, it's more like a thousand Banshees unleashed in a thunderstorm. It was a sound he hoped never to hear again. Four or five human torches stormed out from the main entrance and rolled around on the lawn in a frenzy to quench the flames, to no avail. The fires couldn't be put out, scorching and burning all living warm-blooded tissue. Here and there, Harry saw small, bright flares of light, flickers of bright flames. They were pretty, he thought, like a myriad of shooting stars. Then, with a start, he realised what he was seeing, and his heart raced with the horror of it. Mice, moles or rats - any mammal caught inside the perimeter perished that night.

Fifteen minutes later the inferno stilled. The group moved cautiously around the building, but nothing stirred. Nothing inside the circle was left alive. Aurors, mediwitches and wizards apparated in all over the grounds, ventured carefully inside the building and took care of the group that had performed the spell.

"A word with you Harry," McAllen said after one of the mediwizards had given them a restorative draught.

Harry nodded.

"I'll wait for you," Ron said and started walking back to the road.

"You know who our man inside the house was, don't you?" Mc Allen said quietly and put a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"No..." Harry started, stopped and turned to look at McAllen's grim expression. He knew at once that he had guessed correctly, and his heart plummeted.

"...Remus Lupin?" The voice was barely a whisper, laden with despair, grief, and a kind of desperate hope.

McAllen nodded sadly and put an arm around Harry to steady him. Harry felt like he had been dipped in ice-cold water. He was completely numb. Nothing seemed real. All sound was blocked out, everything was blurry and seemed to spin around him. Time slowed. Harry was reduced to a bystander; he saw the bustle around him as wizards and witches hurried to and fro, but could take no part in it. He had no recollection of how he got back home that night. Someone forced a potion down his throat; that was all he could remember.

***

Cleaning up after the mission took a further three days. They count totalled eighty-three dead, with forty of the corpses so charred that couldn't even be identified. The only thing still alive in the house was a big snake, which managed to kill an Auror before they could destroy it. The snake had been found wrapped around one of the most charred corpses, and the Auror thought it was dead as she leaned over the body. The snake's head whipped up and it coiled itself around her neck before the others could do anything.

Among those killed by the spell were two infiltrators. Remus Lupin had been unable to get out of the building in time. That was expected, and the sacrifice was terrible, but necessary. However, Charles Battement from the French Auror Department was also among the corpses. No one had known that he was there, and the presence of his body created quite a stir in the Magic Diplomacy Corps. Three dogs and seven cats, smaller animals not counted, was the sum-up of the evening. Harry was sickened at the death toll.

Lucius Malfoy was missing. At first it was suspected that he had perished inside the building, together with the rest of Voldemort's inner circle. His wife, however, was interrogated under Veritaserum, and testified that he was on a business trip to Amsterdam. She even showed a very private letter from him that she received a week after the attack had taken place. The officials could do nothing. Not for the first time, Malfoy Manor was searched, but, no proof of any meddling in the Dark Arts, or of any involvement with Voldemort, was found. When Narcissa Malfoy was asked of the whereabouts of the younger Malfoy she told the Aurors that he was in Venice at the moment, doing advanced studies with a Conte Pompone D'Abruzzo, a Venetian Potions Master, recommended by Professor Snape.

That wasn't exactly true. When the Ministry finally decided to look into the whereabouts of Draco Malfoy two months later, he wasn't in Venice. The Conte D'Abruzzo refused to give any details, but implied that Master Malfoy had left his apprenticeship, and that he himself had no idea of the young man's current whereabouts.

Draco Malfoy was later found in Paris and duly interrogated by the French Ministry of Magic, but released, not accused of any crimes. The transcripts of that interrogation were sent to the Ministry of Magic in Britain, filed and promptly forgotten. There were more acute cases to handle than that of the straying son of a suspected Death Eater.

Draco Malfoy had no reason to get back to England, and no desire to do so, either. Not until the circumstances forced him to.

***

Ron sat in his office at the ministry, staring out the window. Sighing, he looked back at the pile of parchments in front of him. On top of the stack of files and reports was a clip from the Daily Prophet. Was a clip from the Daily Prophet.

4 dead in Dark Magic Accident

Four people perished, among them Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, when, the ancient Malfoy Manor, was destroyed - suspicions of Dark Magic involvement. Auror investigation has no leads.

By Greta Garble, staff reporter, The Daily Prophet

The ancient home of the Malfoy family, Malfoy Manor, situated by the scenic village Whippleton-on-Clyfe, was destroyed last Sunday in what is thought to be a magical accident of some kind. Apparently the whole structure of the building collapsed with four people trapped inside. The ministry has identified the bodies as the master of the house, Lucius Malfoy, together with his wife, Narcissa Malfoy, and two business associates, Eldric Farmouth and Erdan Robjes. The remaining house elves of the former manor have been questioned. It appears that the Lord of the Manor arrived at the Manor the day before in the company of his two associates.

The Ministry refuses to confirm anything else, but sources close to the Minister suspects that Dark Magic was involved. Other sources say that the destruction of the Manor was a sinister act of retribution, that You-Know-Who extracted his revenge against Lucius Malfoy, a former supporter who didn't follow him to the end. The Ministry denies any involvement of You-Know-Who.

"A piece of rubbish, if you ask me," Auror Ron Weasley has told The Daily Prophet. "Voldemort has been gone for months and if you suggest his ghost could have done this, you are clearly out of your mind. We are currently investigating what caused the destruction here."

One source inside the Auror squad who investigated the site has revealed that the victims had to be identified by their wands. "Not much left to identify them by, otherwise, except for Mrs Malfoy, who was in a room at an upper floor, and whose body was not as damaged."

The late Mr and Mrs Malfoy have one son, Draco Malfoy, who currently resides in Paris. When young Mr Malfoy arrived in London he refused to answer any questions. He told one reporter to (and I quote) "piss off" when asked if he was going to rebuild the Manor. Former schoolmates of Mr Malfoy tell us "he's always been very rude". The haughty and unpleasant young man, apparently overwrought by sorrow, has reputedly been expelled from several magical institutions of higher learning on the continent.