Harmony Not Understood

As usual, Harry found himself paying his Dame Bus (the daytime equivalent of the Knight Bus) fare in autographs. Unless he was playing an away international, he always took this route to get to his Quidditch fixtures and back. Harry sometimes wondered if Gertrude Gilling, the conductor, got sick of getting his autograph. He had probably signed more autographs for her than he had had Quidditch training sessions

Finally, Harry was able to get off the bus, carrying his two cases and his Firebolt (millennium edition) under his arm. He looked around him with a smile, taking in the familiar sights and sounds of Hogsmeade, which he had known since third year, now nearly 7 years behind him.Now aged 20, Harry thought of all the things he, Ron and Hermione had achieved. After defeating Voldemort all three of them had been awarded honoury Auror status. Whilst Harry had become a professional Quidditch player for Pride of Portree and England, Ron and Hermione had started an independent Auror business in Hogsmeade, in a small office next to Fred and George’s joke shop. When Harry eventually retired from Quidditch, all three assumed that he would join the business with them.

It was there he was headed for now. On his way, he saw a couple of people he recognised from his school days. No one from his year, but a couple of acquaintances. After about 10 mins of walking, he finally reached the office. In front of the door, a strawberry-blonde standing 5 inches shorter than Harry’s own height of 5ft 10 was changing the sign on the door with a magic paintbrush and a pot of enchanted paint (Pretin’s Double Performance Paint, Removes and Replaces!). Harry wasn’t surprised to see her, however.

Her name was Lyca Seullune, a 17 year old Ravenclaw who had just finished her 6^th year at Hogwarts. She often helped out at the business in her holidays, acting as receptionist, ever since Harry had caught her sneaking into Hogsmeade and had befriended 2 years before. What did surprise him was what she was doing to the glass sign. Cocking his head to one side he frowned. "Lyca, why are you removing ‘Granger’ from the door?"

The girl didn’t stop her work, nor did she turn around to look at Harry, but answered him in a slightly exasperated tone, "Harry, didn’t you read the owl that Herm sent you?"

"What owl?"

This time Lyca did turn to face him, and her strange golden eyes stared straight into his green ones, "Go and talk to Hermione, she’ll explain. Right now, I’m busy." As Harry took a step towards the door, she put a hand out to stop him."Use the side door if you value your life," she warned. Harry didn’t argue. Instead, he grinned at herand Apparated to the opposite side of the door.

After checking the appointment book and finding the whole day empty, Harry walked through the door to the main office and closed the door gently behind him. Hermione was inside, leaning on her desk and writing furiously. She hadn’t seen him come in, as her shoulder length brown hair shielded him from her view. After standing a few seconds to see if she would notice him, Harry gave up and reached behind him, opened the door and slammed it shut again with a bang.

Hermione looked up with a start. When she saw Harry her face broke into a grin. Standing up, she walked around the desk to her friend. Putting his bags and broom on the floor, Harry gave her a hug, which she returned. That over with he came straight to the point, "It's lovely to see you Herm, but why is Lyca taking your surname off the door?"

"Didn’t you get the..."

"Owl? I never got one. If you sent Pigwidgeon, he’s probably out there somewhere and will come next week whilst I’m sleeping and nip me on the nose to wake me up. Come on Herm, spit it out. I was only on Skye a fortnight, what was the drastic change?"

Hermione grinned wickedly, before holding up her hand so that Harry could see the small diamond sitting on her ring finger. "My surname won’t be Granger for very much longer. Ron and I get married next week."

Harry’s eyes opened wide in surprise, before he laughed and gave Hermione another hug."I can’t believe he finally asked you!"

Hermione grinned even more as she broke the embrace, "He didn’t"

"You mean..."

She nodded, "I asked him."

From the door to the business’ small library came a voice that Harry knew well. "My idea if I remember rightly. Ron never was the romantic type," said Lupin as he walked in, a large book in his hands. Their former teacher was a partner in the business, though his name didn’t feature in the sign.Passing the book to Hermione who had returned to her position behind the desk, Lupin walked over to Harry and shook his hand in greeting. He pushed a loose strand of greying brown hair out of his eyes before speaking. "Well done on your victory Harry. Ballycastle Bats have never been an easy team to beat, even at home, yet I hear that your capture was most spectacular this time."

Harry nodded as he recalled the Wronski Feint (a move he’d perfected in 5^th year) that had been followed with an immediate corkscrew type rise before he had shot to the other side of the pitch for a high speed catch.

 

He looked back up at Lupin, "Meaghan sends her best."

"Meaghan McCormack? I remember her from school. She was 3 years below your father and I in Hogwarts, but she was Gryffindor Keeper from her 2^nd year. She must be nearing the end of her career now."

As Harry nodded again, the fire crackled into flame, with Ron’s head floating in it. He looked grim, with his eyes fixed on his fiancé. He spoke with urgency, his voice echoing slightly, "Hermione, Remus, you’d better get down here. The ministry is in chaos. Harry, you as well. And Herm, bring a Rune dictionary as well...."

"Which dialect..." Hermione started to say, but she had barely said the first wordbefore Ron’s head vanished, the fire dying with it.

"What was that all about?" asked Harry as Hermione started collecting notebooks and quills from her desk drawer. She carried on doing this as she replied.

"To be quite honest Harry, I haven’t got a clue." Slapping three sets of notebooks quills, ink bottles and basic Auror equipment onto the table, she looked to Lupin again. "Remus; Harry and I will go on ahead and meet Ron. Could you get the largest Rune dictionary you can find and follow us. And can you tell Lyca where we’ve gone?"

The older man nodded and strode towards the library again. Then Hermione led Harry to the fireplace before pulling some Floo powder from her pocket, flinging it into the flames and walking boldly into them. Looking for a pot, Harry grabbed some of the Floo powder in it and threw them into the fire. As the flames changed colour, he strode forward and yelled ‘Ministry of Magic!"

* * * * *

Hermione pulled Harry to his feet as he arrived. Dusting himself down, he followed her line of sight.

Ron was standing about 5 metres away from them. A grim look that Harry hadn’t seen him wear since the days of Voldemort’s second rise was on his face. He came over to them, towering above Harry from his 6ft 3" height. Giving Hermione a quick peck on the cheek, he started to explain and walk, leading them on.

"Its chaos! We always knew Fudge was an idiot but the lack of organisation is appalling! There’s has been a killing, right here at the Ministry! The Dark Art alarms went off when someone performed the killing curse. I was only here to see Dad but..." He stopped talking and shook his head. Harry thought of the first time he’d seen a victim of Avada Kedavra. How Cedric’s grey eyes had looked hauntingly hollow. How his face had looked mildly surprised...

Ron opened the door to an office on the right, which had a plaque on it reading

A.ASTUCI
‘Being’ Division

As they walked inside, a scene of disarray met the three friends.

The body of the unfortunate A. Astuci was slumped forward on her desk. The woman’s face was turned towards the doorway where the trio stood. The expression on her face wasn’t that of slight disbelief as Cedric’s had been, but was full of horror. Her lips, dark red against her pale skin, were parted in a now-silent scream. Green eyes locked on a point straight-ahead and were filled with terror. Astuci’s ankle length straight black hair fell limply behind her tilted head, brushing the floor gently.

On the wall by the open window there was writing. However, it seemed to be in runes, which were one of Harry’s weak points. Crowded around the writing were 5 Ministry wizards and witches talking in panicked voices. Harry recognised two of them. The first was the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, who looked like he’d been taken for a long walk with dementors.

The other was a friend of Harry’s, by the name of Orenda Abscond. She was an Obliviator, a member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. Two years older than Harry and the rest, her blue eyes were full of worry when she looked towards them. She was well known for being the misplaced witch, as she had been sorted into Slytherin but had preferred the company of the other houses. As she walked over, her thick and curly mane of chestnut hair bobbed in time to her steps. Like Hermione, she did not cryor scream but looked much paler than Harry’s more tough companion.

Orenda gulped, "I can’t believe it. I mean, she was always so courteous, and polite. And now she’s dead. Poor Ayanna," she said looking over her shoulder at the woman’s corpse. Sighing, she looked back. "Did you hear that a couple of people had to be taken to the sick room after they were scooped off the floor unconscious. Ayanna must have shrieked loud!"

Harry was confused by this. "Sorry, I don’t follow. What would her shriek have to do with people fainting?"

Ron answered him. "The Astuci line were famous for having several occurrences of Banshee blood in their veins. Ayanna has the look of one in many ways. Long black hair, dark red lips...all Banshee attributes. But she isn’t a full-blood, so her screams didn’t kill. But she must have been distressed enough to knock someone out when she screamed. The really sad thing is, she was the last of her line. The name Astuci stops with her, as does the bloodline. Not good for Banshee-Human relations."

 

He shook his head sadly. After taking a couple of photos of the corpse with a camera he had, he shut the lids on the piercing green eyes and closed the mouth, giving Ayanna a more peaceful look to take to the grave.

Hermione, who stood by the strange writing, made a sigh of frustration. "I wish I could make sense of this! It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The symbols don’t fit any of the rune languages I have studied, and I took it as a NEWT!"

At this moment, Lupin walked in. "OK, I brought the larg..." he said, before sinking into a sudden silence. Walking slowly up to the wall where Hermione was, he muttered, "You don’t need a dictionary for this."

Hermione frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Because, Hermione, this isn’t an ordinary rune language. It's the language of the Miseresse, and is known by the same name."

Harry came forward, confusion apparent on his face. "The Miseresse? Who or what are they?"

Lupin looked from the wall to him. "The Miseresse are humanoid ‘Beings’ such as Veelas, Banshees, Vampires, and of course.... Werewolves. The language is only a written one, it can’t be spoken. If you look carefully at the symbols, you’ll see that they are, in fact, constellations. Each letter and number has its own symbol. If you look at the first letter on the second line, you’ll see it's Orion. That stands for O. Only a few humans are able to read this, as most don’t see the point in learning it. It was used most in the middle ages, when our kind needed to converse secretly. It hasn’t been used properly for over a century. They don’t even do dictionaries for it anymore."

"Then how did you learn it, Remus?" asked Hermione

Lupin turned his attention to her. "The born Miseresse and all of their blood descendants, until the line runs out, can read this language and write it fluently from birth. That would include people like Ayanna here. The knowledge is in their blood. And for bitten werewolves and vampires, we are able to read and write it perfectly from when we receive the bite."

Several of the Ministry witches and wizards flinched at Lupin’s open mention of his identity. Ron rolled his eyes and said something quietly in Fudge’s ear. The Minister nodded emphatically, and as he walked towards the door to leave, beckoned his colleagues to follow him. Orenda, the last to go, shot them all a weak grin before closing the door behind her.

Ron dusted his hands matter of factly before collapsing in a chair. He looked at the rest of them with raised eyebrows as they gave him puzzled looks. "I only told Fudge we’d take the case, ok! So Remus, what does it say?"

Lupin produced a chalk from his pocket and bit his lip."I’ll write the translation for each line underneath the words," he said before starting to write:

I’ll tell you of this deed
Of killing one of the many I need
It’s but the first action of my lead
Against those who can by nature read
All that I have written here
So, dear venom, give me your fear
For as it is often said by those who are brighter
One man’s terrorist, is another’s freedom fighter

Hermione shook her head. "It doesn’t make sense." She walked closer and highlighted the last line with her wand, "Except for that. It means it wasn’t a random killing." Skimming through it again, she sighed. "I need more time."

Ron came over and gave her a hug. "Don’t worry Herm," he said in a soothing voice. "We’ll take a photo, and you can read it again later. Ayanna here isn’t going anywhere fast."

Hermione gave a mini-gulp, her first sign of emotion, "It's not her I’m worried about now, Ron. I don’t think this case is going to be alone. But you're right, we’re gaining nothing from remaining here. The sooner I can sit down and study the photos in a quiet place, the sooner we’ll know where to go with this."

Ron noddedand released his future bride to take photos. That done, he put an arm round her shoulders and they walked out together. Lupin, picking up the dictionary, followed them. Harry, with a last look over his shoulder at the harrowing scene, closed the door behind him, leaving Ayanna Astuci to her final rest...