Werewolves at Hogwarts

Chapter 26

Lying back in his chair - boots on the desk - Kingsley stared at the ceiling, digesting what he had been reading for the past week and a half. The dead memos Luanna had given him had been enlightening in more ways than one. Some of them were from the days of Voldemort's first rise and if they had been received they would have saved the world from a lot of misery. There was even one memo stating very clearly that Lord Voldemort was actually Tom Riddle and that he could be found in Little Hangleton. It was scary to think that the loss of a single memo may have prolonged the horrors of the Death Eaters for more than twenty years! What was that poem? 'All for the want of a horseshoe nail.'

Some of the more interesting and relevant memos had what looked like deliberate address mistakes so that they would not be delivered on time, if at all. Quite a number of the memos relating to the current crisis were like that, all from someone calling him or her self 'Mr White'. And the writing was almost familiar which was most annoying; the senses of things just out of reach. Obviously he was taking his work home with him as Willani had all but slapped him around the back of the head yesterday, when he had failed to answer her questions over dinner, lost in his own world.

"Kings, much as I love you, if you don't pay attention to me I am going to put a hex on you that will guarantee you can't concentrate on ANYTHING for the next week or more, understand?" she had snapped in exasperation when she had finished outlining a problem and had waited expectantly for his input.

She was a feisty woman - Kingsley grinned at his ceiling - and she would hex him, if only to prove a point. He laughed and slammed his chair down on its four legs again. His boots hit the floor and he stood up decisively, making for the door. He had more than just the one case on his load at the moment and had been sadly neglecting his department while the dead memos had plagued his mind.

Auror Sally Nobel looked up as her boss came out of his office, a smile curling one side of her mouth as he held out a hand for the latest bunch of reports. "Some idiots held up the Mornington branch of Gringotts and got away with one hundred thousand galleons, the poor fools. I sent Luskow and Sanderson to do a memory sweep of the witnesses and recreate some of the action if they could. Frazer is running down that series of reports on the Peeping Tom in Bexley and Jones and Asquith are taking statements from both witnesses and suspects in the Ridgeway murder."

"Ridgeway," Kingsley queried, flipping through a sheaf of requisition notices. One caught and held his immediate attention. "Why does Sergeant Talbot want us to get three gallons of Lye Potion? Isn't that a cleanser of some sort?"

Sally grinned at her boss and shook her head. "You're on the ball today. It's for the clean up of the Reeberton site where that pair of vagrants were torn to pieces by what he assumes were werewolves last moon."

"I didn't hear about that one either." Kingsley frowned, turning to stare at his liaison officer keenly.

"I sent you a memo," she told him puzzled then raised an eyebrow when he snorted in disgust.

"Don't send me any more memos; I have discovered they are very unreliable. So, fill me in."

~~*~~

Reeberton was a small village on the edge of the moors, a dozen houses and shops on a single cobbled street. 'Picturesque' the adverts would call it, 'mean and poor' Shacklebolt thought as he strode down the street and headed up to the footpath he had been told of. It led from the end of the village up to the high moors, and wended its way to a fold of land surrounded by gorse and bilberry plants.

The smell of corruption was quite plain as he entered the hollow at the centre of the depression and studied the two bodies still sprawled and discarded on the tartan travel rug. They didn't look anything like vagrants to Kingsley's experienced eye. And it certainly didn't look like a werewolf kill site either, he thought as he eased around the grouping. Aurors may have investigated the site but they hadn't disturbed or touched anything yet. That was the job of the Muggle police force. Even as he studied the mud surrounding the murder site there was a slight pop of apparation and Talbot hurried to his side with the pump spray can of liquid lye potion he had requested.

"Oh, Sir, I didn't know you would be here," he commented and began to unscrew the breather cap before priming the sprayer.

"Hang on a minute, Rodney, what makes you think this is a werewolf kill site?" Kingsley asked, studying the site and consulting the notes Rodney Talbot had filed with the office.

"Footprints sir, or should I say paw prints," Talbot claimed portentously. "There are paw prints everywhere, including in the blood. They were made while it was fresh."

"'There are three sizes of prints, from large to small, indicating the possible presence of a family of werewolves.'" Kingsley read aloud. "Show me these prints? Humm, I see three definite sizes but.... What leads you to think these are werewolf prints?"

Auror Sergeant Talbot huffed indignantly. "Well, two dead Muggles... all this blood... paw prints..., seems pretty conclusive to me."

"Humm," Kingsley mused, using the point of his wand to move aside the man's collar were he lay sprawled on his back, his open eyes attracting flies. "His throat is intact and his clothes exhibit neat even tears across the chest and groin, as do hers. The majority of blood has come from the head and chest area. The woman has had her face bashed in and there is a round, fist sized rock over there in the bilberries, which has traces of blood and hair on it. Her skirt is hiked up and her knickers are over there on the rug. His pants are around his knees, leaving his genitals exposed too. Whoever killed them has mutilated both their genitals, post-mortem I think, but they are still all there. One would expect that a werewolf, given such nicely presented flesh would start at the easiest place when feasting, especially if, as the paw prints indicate to you that there is a young one to be fed, don't you think?"

Talbot glared. "I wouldn't presume to know what a bloody werewolf thinks."

"No. Nor would I, but I have seen a number of werewolf kills during the war and this does not have the hallmarks of a kill. Even more to the point, the prints are far too small for a werewolf's, even a young cub's...."

Before they could discuss it any further, there was a loud, exuberant barking and three dogs burst into the hollow, Talbot drawing his wand hurriedly. Shacklebolt flared his nostrils and shouted 'sit', the two bigger dogs sitting immediately, the smaller continuing to bark and frisk. "The werewolves from Crufts, I take it? One Alsatian, large prints, one Border Collie, medium prints and a very badly trained Jack Russell for the small prints. Be quiet, you mutt! I don't think we need to lye the site down; just simply let the Muggle authorities find the bodies. This is more a crime of passion than a premeditated affair, an affair probably being the motivator."

"If you say so, Sir," Talbot grunted, waving his wand and finishing the preserving charms he had placed around the site. They both apparated mere minutes before the dogs' owner followed them into the hollow and let out a shriek.

Back in the office, Kingsley told Talbot to write up the report and proceeded to the next case area where Sergeant Joshua Asquith was showing Trainee Luanna Jones how to process a murder site.

~~*~~

Joshua Asquith was taking notes on the case he and the young trainee Luanna Jones had been assigned to. Ridgeway Farm was an isolated fells holding high in the Yorkshire Dales with the nearest neighbours some five miles away. The farmer and his wife had been away from the farm for a mid week break leaving their farmhand Lou Smith in charge of the animals. They had returned the previous day to find the farmhand lying in the yard, stone cold, the house wide open and the farm dog killed. The sheep in the folds were not hurt but the cow was in distress from not being milked regularly. There was evidence of a disturbance in the hen house but there were also fox prints around a hole bitten into the wire.

Apparating into the yard, Kingsley stood back to survey the scene and sniffed delicately, wondering at the hint of wood smoke in the air. He nodded to his two operatives and indicated Joshua should carry on with his teaching. The man half smiled as he pointed to the shadowy representation of the body, the real one having been moved to the Department's morgue the morning before.

"If you look how he's lying with his arm outstretched like that and his hand gripped just so, you can imagine a wand pointing at someone," Asquith lectured, using his own waved hand to demonstrate. "What do you notice about the dog then, Luanna?"

The girl frowned, studying the shadow shape carefully. "Its skull is caved in on a straight line, blunt force trauma from a narrow, straight object, some sort of bar maybe?"

"Good point, anything else?"

She paced the steps between the man and the dog then swung her arms in a circle. "There's enough room for someone to apparate in here, and about here would mean the man and the dog were both aiming at the same party. Pity the earth is so dry just now, no footprints at all."

"And if there were you just obliterated them," Asquith chastised her, waving her off. "So you think there was an Apparating murderer, do you? Why?"

"I don't know, just because it's a wizarding farm, I suppose."

Asquith rolled his eyes but Shacklebolt merely blinked then nodded. "So, have you talked to the farmer and his wife yet? Have they given a statement?"

"I was going to finish processing the farmyard first," Asquith said hastily.

"That's fine. I might have a wander around. Call me when you are ready to take the statements." Kingsley nodded to the two Aurors and drifted away.

He studied the ground all around the farm house and the home paddocks but didn't find anything he could conclusively say was out of order. He did wonder if the ground under the body had been wet or dry when the body was found, and made a mental note to ask when they spoke to the farm couple. He was leaning on a dry stone wall contemplating the view and the sheep when Luanna came over and told him they were ready to start taking the statements.

Stan and Lisa Roebottom were sitting bolt upright in their kitchen a pot of tea cooling rapidly before them. Neither seemed too interested in the mahogany fluid as they stared at the three Aurors who sat opposite them.

"Lou was always such a good man, quiet like, but never a bad word for anyone," Stan said in disbelieving tones. "I mean, me and the missus never thought twice about leaving him in charge and apparating out to see the family whenever we needed or wanted to. We just knew Lou would be there to look after things, and keep the cows milked."

"He were always appreciative of a bit of pie or a cake when I did the baking," Lisa said softly. "And he never faltered at a bit of hard work either. Who would do such a thing to such a good man?"

"We don't know Mrs Roebottom but we hope to find out," Shacklebolt assured her. "Tell me, have you seen any strangers hanging around here recently? Anyone who shouldn't have been here? Did Mr Smith have any enemies who might want to hurt or kill him? Or friends who would know what he did when he wasn't working?"

"When he weren't working he were at the pub or over courtin' Betty Chambers at the Rose and Crown. As for strangers, if anyone were to walk in from the moors we might notice but we get lots of summer hikers and such."

"Are they around already even though it's only April?" Luanna asked curiously.

Stand snorted. "Lass, ever since the Yorkshire Ripper were about we've had daft Muggles crawlin' all over the place. 'Twas only a day before moon we found three of the idiots stuck in a gorge and had to get the search and rescue squad out to them." Stan chuckled and shook his head. "One of them had busted his leg and the other two hadn't the sense to bring a radio or a phone or even a flare."

"I notice the ground outside is pretty dry for this time of year, when did it last rain?" Shacklebolt asked as Luanna took notes.

"Oh, must be a good few days now, last Wednesday, I should think, unless it rained when we were gone. Come to think on it, Lou's clothes were a little wet underneath, like he had been lying in a puddle or something."

"Good. Now did you notice anything else disturbed when you came home, things missing from the house? Anything damaged or out of place?"

The older couple looked at each other in deep thought then shook their heads slowly. "No, I can't say there was, except one thing, there were a fire going in the old wash house and a cauldron of water was standing over it, almost cool. I thought Lou might have been going to sterilise the sheep pens as it's near on lambing time and we use the boiled water to clean everything down before the lambs start coming, but it's a bit early yet."

"Well, that accounts for the wood smoke I smelled when I came in," Kingsley smiled wryly.

"Can you think of anything else useful that might help with the inquiry?" Joshua asked quill poised to take another note.

Both shook their heads and Kingsley rose to close the interview. "Thank you for your time. As soon as we get some information, we'll keep you informed. Did your man have any family to claim the body when we've finished with it?"

"I don't think so, he was a solitary man, an orphan or some such," Stan said softly.

"We, Stan and I, will do what's necessary when you've finished," Lisa said firmly as the Aurors shook hands and let themselves out of the farmhouse.

"I'm off back to the station, you two go and interview the villagers, see what you can pick up. I'll see your report tomorrow," Kingsley said distractedly and waved his subordinates off, before apparating back to the station to see what the autopsy showed up, if anything. There was something about that interview that was trying to attract his attention, but he couldn't for the life of him think what!