Nymphadora Tonks and the Liquor of Jacmel

25. A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

Friday 28^th August 1994

It soon became apparent to Tonks that her estimate of the amount of time that would be required to complete the paperwork was wildly on the low side. There turned out to be a vast array of Ministry forms to fill in whenever a murder victim was discovered, ranging from the normal report on the investigation conducted to a statement of how any magical effects were being hidden from the local Muggles (specifying in detail exactly what assistance, if any, had been requested from the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee). It took up all of her Friday and large parts of the Saturday; although she wasn't technically on duty for the weekend, she blanched at the thought of what Claymore might say if she actually took the time off. He'd been in an absolutely foul mood ever since Cassius' great-nephew had been put in charge of the World Cup investigation.

The only break from the monotony came from a stream of pale violet memos that arrived in her in-tray. She groaned as the first one arrived, expecting it to be yet another form to fill in; but perked up when it proved to contain a note from Chesney, on the headed parchment of the Committee on Experimental Charms, asking if her workload had possibly eased enough to give her time to meet up with him at some point over the next few days.

Tonks grinned, scribbled a return note asking when, and tapped it with her wand. It folded itself up neatly and flew off. Unfortunately, Rhiannon Davies had noticed the little exchange, and when she found out what it was about she couldn't resist sending over a series of teasing comments of her own:

Ooh, was that from young Monty again? Doesn't give up, does he? - Rhiannon

No it's from Chesney. You know, our team mate? - Tonks

So would you be free Saturday lunchtime then? - Ches

Sorry, Ches, it looks like I'm going to be stuck here all morning and most of the afternoon tomorrow. How about Saturday night? - Tonks

ANOTHER bloke asking you out by note? I thought you reckoned that was too old-fashioned? Cassius will be so proud of you! - Rhiannon

Sod off, Rhi. At least this one asked me to my face first - Tonks

Sorry Tonks - I wish I could make Saturday night, but I can't. I've got my brother and his wife coming round. Sunday maybe? - Ches

Can't, Ches. I promised my mum and dad I'd go over to their house for Sunday lunch and spend a bit of time with them for a change - Tonks

Passing notes to the boys you fancy again? It's just like being back at school, isn't it? - Rhiannon

Yeah right. What, does Claymore hand out detentions if he catches you? - T

I hope they're not working your fingers to the bone down there! Lunch sometime this week maybe? I can always take an extended break, it's all been rather sedate down here in EC! - Ches

Sounds good. If I have to I'll take an hour off and call it following a lead! - Tonks

Ooh, that's about half a dozen notes you've sent each other now! Must be true love! - Rhi

Sod OFF Rhiannon - T

***

Sunday 30^th August 1994

On the whole, Tonks decided that her Saturday was actually even less fun than the Friday. Cassius had returned to keep her company - most of his Friday had been spent in Wizengamot Administration Services, trying to persuade them to quick action authorising the warrants he wanted - but there were few other Aurors around, and the relatively empty office made for a very dull way to spend a weekend. When they finally came to the end of the paperwork it was past seven o'clock and both of them were too tired to care. At least Cassius felt optimistic about the warrant.

The quiet Sunday with her parents that followed, however, came as a considerable relief after the hectic events of the previous fortnight. She revelled in the luxury of being able to just sit back and relax, enjoy one of her mother's excellent Sunday roasts, and joke with her father about the relative merits of football and Quidditch. All in all, it was just like the Sundays she remembered from her childhood; although she knew, at the back of her mind, that she wouldn't want to do this every weekend, at this moment it was exactly what she needed.

Her parents seemed to recognise this need to unwind, although as the evening wore on, they began to question her gently about her work. Tonks talked guardedly about her experiences at the World Cup as she lay stretched out on the sofa. She could sense that her parents were alarmed, on some deep level, at the idea that she had been facing Death Eaters; but despite exchanging significant glances on several occasions, they didn't say anything about it to her.

A small empty frame on the wall caught her attention as a possible distraction. "Any word from the Gringotts painting bloke about the bank robberies?" she asked.

Her mother rolled her eyes. "That painting actually has a subject, does it, Ted? I don't think I've seen him in there once since you brought it home."

"Give him time, Annie," said Ted equably, stretching out on his chair. "We haven't had another case, and I hope we don't - sorry, Princess," he added hastily, "but I reckon the goblins would be quite content if the little toe-rag who did this had got enough to retire on, just as long as he doesn't do it again so as it makes the paper. You're not supposed to be able to rob Gringotts. Disastrous for business if we got a lot of publicity about it."

"You weren't relying on this, were you darling?" asked Andromeda with a shrewd expression. Tonks could tell that her disappointment must have shown in her face.

"Not as such, but it would be nice to really get something right ..." She bit her lip, realising that she'd probably said too much. Glances were shooting back and forth between her parents again.

"Having a rough time, kid?" asked Ted, managing a lightness of tone that was quite impressive.

"Not exactly, but ..." Tonks sighed and lay back against the cushions.

As she tried to explain, she found herself saying far more than she'd intended about her foolish behaviour in the alleyway, her uncomfortable meeting with Claymore, and her guilt at the murder of Ballantyne, although she managed to keep the confidential details and most of the gory parts from her account. Her parents just let her talk and talk until she eventually ran down.

When she finished, she stared at the ceiling, unable to look them in the eye.

"You think you could have done something, is that it, kid?" asked Ted quietly.

"Yeah, I do, but ..."

"You made a mistake, love," he interrupted. "But you didn't kill him. OK, you can't tell us all the details, but it sounds like a lot of things had to happen before it got that far, none of which you had any control over."

"That's what Cassius said ..."

"Well he was right, wasn't he? Seems like a sensible bloke, this Cassius. Don't beat yourself up, Princess, you're still a bloody talented girl and it sounds like you've come a long way really quick on this job. You're bound to get a few things wrong, but we've got faith in your ability to make the right choices, kid. Always have had."

"Thanks, Dad." She reached over and hugged him, blinking back a tear while chiding herself for getting over-emotional.

"Sometimes you find yourself in a situation where you ... think you should have noticed the signs, darling," added Andromeda, very quietly indeed. "But sometimes ... well, you just can't." Tonks looked at her sharply - it sounded like a reference to something that they never usually discussed - but her mother refused to catch her eye for a moment.

She smiled and let it drop, to her mother's evident relief. She didn't want to spoil the moment by bringing up the topic of murderous cousins.

***

Monday 31^st August 1994

Tonks' weekend may have been uneventful, but when she came back to work on Monday, things started to happen very rapidly.

The first thing she found when she arrived was another note from Rhiannon. She started to read it with some annoyance, expecting it to be more teasing about Chesney, but the first few lines wiped any such thought from her mind. Rhiannon reported that the Muggle-killer had struck again up near Aberdeen, and that she'd been called in to do her 'psychic' act and quietly check out the crime scene. Tonks winced. By the sound of it, the killing had been even more brutal than the one she had discovered.

Cassius arrived just as she'd finished reading the note for the third time and she silently handed it to him. He read it with a look of revulsion and then threw it down on his desk.

"You know, I loathe people who go after Muggles like that!" he exclaimed. "It's sheer cowardice - picking on somebody who doesn't have the wherewithal to defend themselves just to play out their sick fantasies. I've spent most of my life working against those kinds of people!"

"Do you think they'll actually find anything?" asked Tonks pessimistically.

"I doubt it," replied Cassius in the same vein. "We've had cases like this before, and it was almost always sheer luck if we caught them. Soft target, no obvious links to the victims, plenty of chances to clear up after yourself - too easy." He looked at the note again in disgust. "And from the way Rhiannon described it, this one was done by someone who knew their way around the Dark Arts and had no problems trying to think of a killing curse."

"Yeah," snorted Tonks. "Bet he was the Pride of the Slytherins at school."

"What's wrong with Slytherins?" asked Cassius in an injured tone.

"Well, apart from a few decent ones like my mum, there's the pure-blood mania, the low cunning, the way they're mostly Death-Eaters-In-Training ..." Tonks trailed off as the implications of Cassius' statement dawned on her. "Oh bloody hell, Cassius, don't tell me you were one too?"

"Of course I was," he said, defensively. "What other House would an ambitious pure-blood have been placed in?"

"But ..." Tonks wanted to continue with the words "you're not evil either," but they sounded stupid even in her head. She hesitated in embarrassment. "There was more to it than that, though, wasn't there?" she said finally.

Cassius smiled slightly at her discomfiture. At least he was taking it fairly well. "Not when I was at school, no," he said. "We were proud of our heritage, but we weren't all like the generation that turned to You-Know-Who. That was one of the worst things ever to happen to the reputation of Slytherin House. But it'll pass eventually, now the war's over and done with, provided we don't get any more incidents like the World Cup Final. After all, no-one thinks Ravenclaw students are all dangerous freaks any more, do they?"

"Ravenclaw students?" exclaimed Tonks. "Since when?"

Cassius looked surprised. "Didn't you know? A lot of the key players in the group around Grindelwald came from a particular little 'academic' club who were devoted to research into some very Dark spells." His voice took on a slightly sarcastic edge. "I'm sure they were intellectually fascinating, but they were also extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. Fire and flood, easy to get away with at the time because the effects looked very much like the things the Muggles were fighting their wars with. It was quite an unpleasant decade. After that, for a good few years people were embarrassed to admit they'd been in the same House at school. Taint by association, you see."

Tonks hesitated. She wasn't quite sure how to put what she wanted to say without being offensive. "It's not just the recent crop, though, is it?" she said carefully. "Haven't most of the British pure-blood movements been led by ... well, people like my aunts and uncles and cousins? They revel in it. I mean, the way we throw them all together as kids like we do in this country, they've got to rub off on each other, haven't they? Not that I'm saying they're all like that," she added hastily, "obviously you're not and neither is my mum and there were some decent ones when I was there too and I'm sure there are now and ..." She paused to draw breath and managed to stop herself babbling. "Didn't you have that sort of thing when you were a kid?" She paused to marvel for a moment. It was hard to imagine Cassius as a young boy.

He gave her a slightly regretful look. "Well, it goes in cycles, I suppose. It was the turn of the century when I was there," he said. "There was this feeling of a new era coming. Age of change and all that. Perhaps I was simply lucky to be there when people were quite tolerant. In my time, Muggle blood was just considered rather common, perhaps. A pure-blood who married into it would be ... looked down on, maybe, or considered eccentric, or patronised, but they wouldn't be ostracised or anything."

"No extremists?"

"There are always extremists," he said sadly. "Like - well, like a lot of your mother's family, to be honest. I can remember a few Blacks shooting their mouths off even when I was young. But when I was growing up, people didn't take them seriously - if anything they looked on them as rather an embarrassment." He paused, and then added bitterly, "But haven't there always been people willing to whip up hatreds for the sake of nothing more than political advantage, whether they believe in it themselves or not? The Muggles do it, we do it, we're no better."

"The Muggles do what, Cassius old lad?" Tonks and Cassius both jumped at the sound of O'Gregan's cheery Irish brogue booming out, as he and Cornworthy rounded the end of the row of cubicles.

"Oh ... er, play politics with prejudices," said Cassius, flustered. "Just like us."

"No kidding," said O'Gregan, as he flopped down into a chair. "I'm not sure what me mam was more worried about when I took this job - that I might get involved with dangerous wizards, or that I'd be working with the English."

"You're Muggle-born, then?" asked Cassius with interest. "I hadn't realised."

"Course he is," said Cornworthy, with a snort. "How many people from wizard families do you know who like football?"

"Good point," commented Tonks. She wasn't in any position to contradict him, after all. Privately, she wondered if it might have been another reason for his wife's growing animosity once the first passion had worn off, but it didn't seem like a tactful moment to raise the subject.

"Anyway, Cassius," continued O'Gregan, dismissing the subject, "I need to tell you my young lady won't be joining us, so she won't. She got called away to Scotland in the early hours on that other case of hers, poor girl, so you'll have to do without her."

"I know," said Cassius. "Never rains but it pours, eh? We'll just have to work this the best we can - a team of five is nice, but four of us should be more than enough." He reached to the back of his desk for a piece of parchment on which he'd written out an agenda. "I was going to get us a meeting room ... but I suppose we can just discuss this here," he added hastily as O'Gregan rolled his eyes. "It won't take long really."

"Fire away," said Tonks, hiding a smile.

"Very well. First things first - Administration Services sent me a note this morning to say the Wizengamot have signed the search warrant for Charlotte Perks' house. Donnacha, Arnold, I want you two to go down and pick it up and get over there as quickly as you can."

"What about Little Miss Blackstock?" asked O'Gregan.

"No luck, I'm afraid." O'Gregan scowled at him. "I did ask around my contacts, Donnacha, but they still think we don't have enough evidence - yes, I know it would be more than enough normally, but not for someone with friends on the Wizengamot - and they also say it's been so long since it happened that we probably wouldn't find anything anyway."

"Excuses, in other words," said Cornworthy gloomily. "Delaying tactics?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Bloody dark wizards buying their way out of trouble, you mean," muttered O'Gregan. "Are we just going to sit here and take that, Cassius?"

"No," he replied, stung. He paused for a moment, clearly thinking hard. "All right, I agree we have to do something. Trying to avoid letting her know we're suspicious is all very well, but it hasn't got us anywhere so far. One of us should go round there and interview her - in fact I should do it. I've talked to her before. I might be better able to gauge if she's lying. What we need is some information on her contacts. Donnacha, weren't you trying to work something out with the local Patrol to keep an eye on her?"

He shrugged. "I did my best. They say they'll try, but they're too busy to do much about it though."

"I see." He paused again. "It's a desperation tactic, but ... you did say something about volunteering to follow her around for a few days under an Invisibility Cloak and find out the sort of places she went to. Were you actually serious about that?"

O'Gregan and Cornworthy exchanged glances. "Yeah, why not?"

"Very well, then. I'll write a note to K for you, asking him to supply one. As soon as you're finished with the search, make a start on that." He checked his watch. "You'd better get going, the Administration Services office will be open for business in a few minutes. Good luck."

Tonks carefully hid another smile as she watched O'Gregan and Cornworthy leave. She couldn't help noticing the difference in Cassius ever since Claymore had placed him in charge of the Jacmel investigation. He'd taken to it like a natural - or more to the point, like someone with years of experience who knew exactly what to do - and it seemed to have done him a power of good. She got the feeling that she was now seeing something of what he must have been like in his prime.

"What about me, Cassius?" she asked brightly.

"I want you to visit that bookshop again. Try to find out who goes there, take a good look at her stock. If you can, put a spell on anything that seems especially bad, so we'll be alerted if they're taken out of the shop."

"Like we used for Mrs Easton at the Transfigured Toad? Got it. I could even put a location spell on them, maybe? Then we could track them."

Cassius shook his head, to Tonks' disappointment. She'd thought it had been a good suggestion. "I don't think we'd get away with that," he said. "If you were a wizard inclined towards the Dark Arts, and you found a book like this in a shop apparently unknown to the Ministry, what would you do?"

"Oh, right. I suppose I'd check it for spells like that in case it was a setup."

"Exactly. But even if they notice there's an alarm spell on it, with a bit of luck they'll probably just think it's something the shopkeeper cast to deter thieves."

"Fair enough. Do I go officially or not?"

"As yourself?" He stopped to consider. "No, after my ... er, efforts last time that would probably just put her back up again, I'm afraid. I think you might get more information if you went there with the same appearance as last time."

"Excellent!" said Tonks. "I'll nip back to my flat and change then go right there - it's only a few minutes walk from me. I've been hoping I could give Mavis another airing."

"Mavis?" said Cassius, with a bemused look.

"Yeah, Mavis," replied Tonks, grinning. "I decided it was about time Little Mrs Anonymous had a name, so I'm going to call her Mavis Grimble if anyone asks."

"All right. Er, why Mavis Grimble?"

"Well, Grimble seems like a nice old-fashioned anonymous name, doesn't it? As for Mavis ..." She paused and grinned again. "Doing this job has made me realise I needed to brush up on my Muggle Studies sort of stuff, so I've been watching more of their programmes on the telly recently. I saw a character called Mavis on one of those soup-opera things who was just like Mrs Anonymous. Perfect!"

An expression of dawning comprehension passed across Cassius' face. "Oh yes, of course. My wife used to like that. I never watched it, of course. Well, only occasionally. Well ..." He smiled. "Actually, to be honest, I watched it often enough to know who was who and what they were doing. Rather addictive, aren't they?"

***

One visit to Enchanted Instrumentation later - followed by an Apparation back to her flat, a quick change of appearance, and a short walk - and Tonks once more found herself standing in front of the Lore of Yore bookshop.

She moved aside hastily as a skinny-looking man left the shop at a fast pace with a couple of books tucked under his arm, then disappeared between a couple of parked cars. A sudden nagging thought at the back of her mind made her turn round to look at him - maybe his clothes hadn't quite been right for a Muggle - but as she did so there was a sudden pop and he was gone.

Tonks frowned; presumably Miss Orevel wouldn't be too keen on wizard customers who Disapparated and possibly drew attention to the place. Neither was she, for that matter; but at least when she glanced around, it was clear that he'd chosen a good moment. The street was empty, and the cars would have hidden him anyway.

Once she entered the shop she nodded to Miss Orevel, who looked puzzled for a moment but then nodded back in recognition, and made her way to the rear of the shop. Unfortunately, there was another customer in the aisle leading to the charmed door that allowed entrance into the back room, and she was forced to spend an excruciatingly dull quarter of an hour looking at books of nineteenth-century poetry while waiting for him to leave. She did however notice that these works, though apparently just as obscure as the wizarding ones, were organised with equal care.

Fortunately, he eventually left, and with a quiet sigh of relief Tonks stepped through the door (quite literally) into the back room. It was just as she remembered it from her first visit, although this time there were no other customers there. She glanced around, pleased. She didn't want any witnesses for what she was about to do.

She worked her way around the shelves, noting that Miss Orevel seemed to have added a fair amount of new stock since her last visit. That in itself was suspicious; small bookshops selling old and obscure books for the connoisseur didn't usually have that degree of turnover, surely? It suggested certain implications which Tonks, as an Auror, found disquieting. As she wandered, she muttered the titles of any books that seemed dangerous, knowing that the small notebook she'd picked up from K on the way out of the Department would be recording what she said and compiling a catalogue of the current Dark Arts-related stock of Lore of Yore.

She checked the shelves carefully for copies of Most Potente Potions, but found none, although she wasn't sure if that was evidence for or against the idea that someone might have been using Polyjuice. (She had wondered if the recipe might have been in older versions of Advanced Potion Making, but it turned out on closer inspection that her rather hazy recollections of NEWT classes were correct. Although the ingredients, and a general outline of the brewing considerations, were given for all the potions mentioned, even the earlier editions of the textbook didn't give the methods of manufacture in enough detail to enable anyone to actually make the more dangerous potions.) Regardless of that failed lead, there were however plenty of other books worthy of concern.

Identifying which books might be dangerous wasn't as easy as it looked, of course. Some of them were unquestionably devoted to the Dark Arts; an obvious and worrying example being an academic treatise entitled Theory of the Unforgivable Curses (But You'd Better Not Practice). Others, with dubious-sounding titles such as Pureblood And Proud Of It, turned out on closer inspection to be entirely innocuous - this one was subtitled A Practical Guide To Researching Your Wizarding Ancestry and contained lots of exceedingly dull information about finding genealogical data in Ministry and family records. And conversely still others appeared perfectly acceptable at first sight, but a quick glance through their contents showed how useful they could be to anyone with nefarious intentions. Tonks mentally classified a book called How Not To Be Seen: A Guide to Invisibility, Unplottability, Nonmappability and Generally Preventing People Knowing You're There under this heading.

She pursed her lips in indecision. She had a nasty suspicion that what she was doing was on the borderline of officially acceptable conduct, and she didn't feel like having to explain another screw-up to Claymore. Eventually she decided to just put discreet alarm spells on the most obviously dangerous books, keying them to a panic button as before. Having done so, she glanced around again; Orevel was still out in the main part of the shop. The next problem was to work out how to get her talking.

She eventually decided that the only way to do it would be to actually buy some of the works in question. She smiled to herself; by the time she was finished with the place, she'd have her own personal Dark Arts library. It took a certain amount of thought to decide which to choose, but eventually decided that the Unforgivable Curses book would create the best potential talking point (and probably shouldn't be left lying around anyway). She added a couple of potions books with eye-catching titles (101 Interesting Uses For Eye Of Newt, Many Of Which Are Entirely Legal! and Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Bowel-Burning Brews Because It Was Far Too Disgusting - and tapped the bell on the counter with her wand

Miss Orevel drifted back in with a smile on her face. "Oh good morning, it's so nice to see you back again! Did you enjoy the books you bought before?"

Loved them. I now know far more ways to make unpleasant poisons than I ever did before, always useful. Right, time to play this up a bit. She put on a slightly gushing voice. "Oh yes, I did. They were most interesting. It's so rare to find books like that nowadays outside of the big libraries. People don't seem keen to keep them in stock." Mmm, I wonder why?

Trina Orevel seemed flattered by this. "I know. It's such a pity. Just think of all the study that went into old magical methods that people don't remember any more! Are you a researcher by any chance, Miss - or Mrs, erm ..."

"Grimble. Mavis Grimble. No, I'm ... just interested in obscure magic. I have a lot of spare time these days while my husband's away on business." She nearly added that he was a broom salesman for extra colour, but caught herself in time when she remembered that Beatrice Easton had also been a customer here. There was no sense in making things sound too similar. "Academic curiosity, I suppose. I was in Ravenclaw at school, but I don't get much chance to use that training now." Mavis was a Ravenclaw? Hadn't planned that, but for the sake of this conversation she is now, even if she wasn't before. I'm pretty sure Trina won't consider her a dangerous freak.

"Oh, so was I, Mavis!" she said delightedly. Ooh, good call. "It's so nice to meet someone who has the same attitude to learning as I do."

"Ah, er, that's good." Tonks hesitated; what was coming was going to be the tricky bit, but she really had to try it. "I always worry that people will think badly of me for buying books like this. You know, if they start gossiping?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," said Orevel in a reassuring tone of voice. "No, no-one will think any the worse of you for it. And I certainly don't attempt to keep track of what my customers do. It's their business, after all."

"Thank you, I'm so glad to hear that." Well, no I'm not particularly, but this version of Mavis would be. She chose her next words as carefully as she could, and stumbled over them in a manner that was only partly assumed. "Aren't you ... well ... I mean, I'm just curious ... don't you get a little scared at some of the people who buy and sell things like this - I mean, I would be, maybe that's just me ... I mean, I wouldn't dare go down Knockturn Alley, but someone told me that ... that man who was in here last time I called, he has a shop there." She shuddered artistically. "He didn't look like a rough type, but I was just glad he didn't hex me or anything ..."

The bookshop owner looked at her sympathetically, and unbent slightly. "I know, my dear. Yes, I do get some very odd customers at times. But honestly, I get all sorts - some of them are looking for ideas for their business, others like to experiment, a few are amateur historians of magic. Most of the people who buy and sell books about what the so-called 'Dark Arts' are really quite normal people like yourself who just read them for the intellectual interest. "

Yeah, right, Tonks thought, but she didn't say it. Instead, she said carefully, "It's very unusual to find such things. As I said before, you have an amazing stock. How do you find all these rare books?"

Miss Orevel almost preened herself. "I know. I get some from house sales and the like, but it's quite interesting, people seem to know to offer them to me now. They like to read them and then trade them in for something else, so I really do have a very high turnover." Her face was practically glowing, with what Tonks felt sure was genuine enthusiasm. "I really wish people would give the novels a try more often. It's absolutely fascinating to see how different they are - some of the nineteenth century literature especially, like Ena Troondeling who's a wonderful writer. Do you know her works?"

"Erm - not really," said Tonks. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but she didn't want to put herself in a position where she was supposed to know what Troondeling's oeuvre was all about.

"You really should try them. I absolutely loved her Adventure Club series when I was a child."

Oh, so she's to blame, is she? "Oh, I see - yes of course, I've heard of those, yes. For some reason I never actually read them, though ..."

"That's a pity. Probably too verbose for the modern taste, I'm afraid - I think some of those old witches just didn't know when to put down their quills! - but even so ... Just a moment ..." Orevel came out from behind the counter and moved over to the children's section, where she picked out what Tonks presumed was an old edition of the first Adventure Club book - certainly the binding looked rather battered. Flushed with enthusiasm, she pressed it into Tonks' hands "Here you are, my dear. I'll throw this in. I do think you'll enjoy it."

"Oh ... thank you." Well, I suppose I really ought to read it sometime. "I afraid I didn't ever read much fiction, even when I was a girl. There wasn't much time for it, I suppose."

"That's such a pity, you know. When I was at school it was just the same, we never really got much of a chance to explore the arts. There was a Book Club once a week in the evenings, but all the tutoring was in practical subjects. Maybe it's different now - I hope so, but I'm afraid I don't have any children. Do you, my dear?"

"Oh - er, no, no I don't. Er, we don't." Oops. I'm supposed to have a husband, aren't I?

Orevel clucked sympathetically and looked rather wistful. "Never mind. You know, that's why I love the Muggle literature out there so much" - she gestured vaguely towards the main part of the shop - "because they do have much better writers than us on the average, I'm afraid. And they're considered to be very important. Did you know their children actually have the chance to study them at school?"

"Perhaps that's why they're better writers," said Tonks logically.

"I suppose so," said Miss Orevel with surprised look, as if the idea hadn't actually occurred to her before. "Classes in the language and its literature must really help to improve your writing skills, mustn't they?

"Probably, yes," said Tonks, uncomfortably aware of having allowed herself to be diverted from the main topic of interest to her, although it had at least got Orevel talking freely. She glanced down at the pile of books on the counter in front of her. "It's very kind of you to give me this... the others are, well, all right aren't they? I won't have to register them or anything?"

"Oh no, there are no problems like that, my dear. They're quite legal."

Tonks wasn't entirely sure whether that was true, but she fought down a mischievous urge to suggest that they go and check some of the books of Wizengamot statutes on the shop's less-frequented shelves. "Thank you, Miss Orevel ..."

"Please, do call me Trina."

Very friendly of you. That's an opportunity ... "I'll take very good care of them, Trina," she said, "and keep them well hidden in case anybody breaks in. I wouldn't want them falling into ... well, you know, the wrong hands." She hesitated for effect. "Don't you ... don't you sort of worry sometimes about what people could do with them? It really upsets me to think people might steal them and use them for, you know, crimes."

For a moment she thought she'd overdone it, but Orevel just looked at her with a slightly unhappy expression. "I know my dear, but what can one do? The Ministry are only too keen to interfere with my little business - they seem to think all my customers are potential Dark Wizards! I had a man round here a short while ago being most aggressive and offensive - and he wanted to know who I was selling to! I mean, would you have wanted someone like him calling on you to interrogate you about what you'd bought?"

"Er ... no, not really, no, I suppose I wouldn't." OK, you have a sort of point there. Cassius might be all right but I wouldn't fancy being questioned by someone like Don or Shacklebolt.

"Exactly! I have to protect my customers."

Tonks didn't think she could make a comment about 'protecting the rest of us' and still stay in character. But she definitely thought it.

***

"What do you make of her?" asked Cassius on her return to the office.

"Considered opinion?"

"Yes please."

"Nice woman, not a Dark witch - but naïve at best, and quite possibly genuinely barking mad," said Tonks. "Apparently, she doesn't realise that most of the people buying her dodgier stuff are probably real Dark witches and wizards, or at any rate looking for ideas in that direction. From what she said about sale-and-return, my guess is they're using her shop as a convenient way to launder embarrassing books, and find new ways to curse and poison people. I'll bet they just copy the interesting bits and bring them back. It's not like anyone's going to sue for breach of copyright, is it?"

"I see."

"So what do we do? I don't suppose we can actually arrest her for anything, but I don't know how you'd get through to her either."

Cassius smiled sadly "That's the trouble. I suspect that she's probably perfectly correct to say that she isn't technically doing anything illegal. A few of those books might conceivably be on the Restricted Register, but I suspect most of them aren't because no-one's ever heard of them." He snorted. "Believe it or not, I do have a certain sympathy for her point of view, but she is truly annoying. I just wish she'd be a bit more responsible about it. I mean, think of customers like Alexander Burke - he's probably picking up quite a few items from her that he can put in his private collection, or turn a nice profit with if he feels so inclined."

"Like you with your Quidditch yearbooks, you mean?" said Tonks, grinning.

"That's not the same thing," he said, with a dignified air.

"If you say so. Can we get the Patrol to watch the place?"

He shook his head. "They haven't got enough people. Same old story. Even at the best of times I doubt they would want to spend much effort doing that, and with all the calls on them since this World Cup furore ... The best we can do is watch for those alarm spells, and check back every now and again to see what else has been sold. Can you do that on your way in occasionally?"

"Will do, mate. What have you been doing while I was away, anyway?"

That rated a resigned shrug. "I went to have another talk with Mrs Easton - while she was on her lunch break, of course, I didn't want to draw attention to her. I just wanted to make sure she hadn't had any further contact with our seller - and frankly, to warn her that it would be extremely dangerous for her if she did, now he knows we've used her name and appearance as bait."

"Oh yeah." That's just going to keep haunting me unless we can catch him, isn't it? "He must know it wasn't her, mustn't he? I did" - she paused to marvel once again at her own idiocy and overconfidence that night - "I did tell him my name when I was pretending to be under the influence of that stuff, just in case he happened to know who I was. I didn't expect it to matter once we arrested him."

"I realised that." He smiled cautiously, and then obviously decided to drop the subject. "I also had another word with Finley McAllister - you remember, the landlord of the Transfigured Toad? I paid an official visit this time and asked him if our friend with the scarf had been seen there again in the last couple of weeks, but he was quite insistent that he hadn't. I wouldn't expect him automatically to give an honest answer on the point, of course, but I got the distinct impression that he actually was telling me the truth, and getting quite a lot of smug enjoyment from being able to do so."

"Damn."

"I'm afraid so ..."

At that point, the main doors to Auror Headquarters were thrown open with what practically amounted to a flourish. Most of the Aurors present looked up, and either smiled or scowled as a grinning O'Gregan made a grand entrance, with Cornworthy following more sedately after him.

Tonks and Cassius exchanged looks. This seemed promising. "What's up, Don?" she said. "Find a bag of Galleons on the way in or something?"

"Better than that, my girl," he said, the grin on his face seeming practically fixed in place. He threw a roll of parchment onto the desk. "Take a look."

Tonks picked the scroll up and unfurled it; it appeared to be the contents of several pages copy-charmed from a book. A light began to dawn as she started to read; the pages listed the ingredients and method needed for making a number of unpleasant-sounding concoctions, including (to her complete lack of surprise) the Heart-Enfeebling Potion.

Cassius looked over her shoulder, ran his eyes down the page, and whistled softly. "Where did you find this, Donnacha?"

"In little Miss Perks' house," he said jubilantly. "Am I not right, Arnie?"

Cornworthy actually grinned. "You are. And that's not all, Cassius. We found a small enchanted cubby-hole under the kitchen floor with a cache of most of the ingredients you see listed there, some of which had obviously been used."

Tonks joined in the grinning. So did Cassius. "That's excellent, chaps," he said. "What did she say when you arrested her?"

"Nothing much," said O'Gregan. "Pulled the usual routine" - here he put on a high-pitched voice - "'oh no, I've never seen those before, I don't know how they got there!'. Of course not, dear. No-one ever does."

"There wasn't a bottle of Liquor of Jacmel, was there?" asked Tonks hopefully.

"Not a full one, no." O'Gregan's grin became, if possible, even wider. "But there was an unlabelled bottle with a few drops of some pale yellowish liquid left in the bottom. Magical Analysis are working on it now. What odds will you give me that it came from Haiti originally?"

"No takers," said Cassius, smiling. "You know, I think we ought to apply for a warrant to give our prisoner a dose of another potion, don't you? Just a little one - three drops worth. I'm sure they'll sign off on this one." He sat back, his grin slowly spreading to take on the same proportions as O'Gregan's. "It looks like we may have the answer to one of our little mysteries, doesn't it? And with any luck, once we actually interrogate her we'll get a pointer to the rest of them. Well done, everybody."

***

The rest of the day felt a little anticlimactic after O'Gregan's revelation, but nobody seemed to mind. Tonks, O'Gregan and Cornworthy spent the rest of the afternoon writing up accounts of their activities; Cassius disappeared for a while, and on his return reported that Claymore had grunted and nodded when told about the discovery (he interpreted this as approval), and that the Wizengamot representative on duty had promised to organise the Veritaserum warrant as quickly as reasonably possible given the large backlog of requests from World Cup-related investigations. His grin was still fixed in place.

"Has anyone told Ashford about this?" Tonks asked as she packed up her things at five o'clock. "Or her cousins?"

O'Gregan looked up. "Now that is a good point, it is. I'm afraid to say I forgot about that. I'll go and tell them on my way home."

"He's not going to be happy that it was his family, is he?"

Her colleague shrugged. "Ah well. Into each life some rain must fall and all that. It's never easy for the families finding out that one of their own is a crimin ... oh. Sorry." He coloured slightly.

Tonks sighed. "Never mind, Don. See you tomorrow."

As she left, she found herself unconsciously glancing over to Kingsley Shacklebolt's cubicle. She was in luck, he was sitting at his desk and appeared to be alone. She hesitated; although she really wanted to find out what he had to say about cousin Sirius, she wasn't at all sure it was something he would want to discuss in the office. Or that she would, for that matter. She caught his eye when he looked up, and walked over.

"Hi there!" she said brightly (and loudly, for the benefit of any other Aurors who might be listening). "Look, Kingsley, we didn't get off to a good start, did we, but can we let bygones be bygones?"

"Er - yes, I'm happy to do that, Tonks." He shook her offered hand with a curious look.

"Perhaps you could let me buy you a drink tonight to bury the hatchet?" She winked.

His expression cleared as he caught on. "Great idea. Ah, I've just got to finish a few things off ... can I meet you at the Leaky Cauldron at six, say?"

"No problem, mate." She smiled once and walked out without a backward glance.