Nymphadora Tonks and the Liquor of Jacmel

30. Sources of Information

Wednesday 23^rd September 1994

"Hang on, Mum!" Tonks put her hand over the phone to cut off her mother's questioning and turned sharply to talk to the others. "Listen, everybody! We've got a bite! There's another Gringotts customer there right now who sounds like he might be under the influence of Jacmel!"

Cassius and O'Gregan glanced around the edges of their cubicles, and then at each other, with stunned expressions. "How the hell does your mother know about it?" demanded O'Gregan. "I thought you said a little pixie had a word in your ear down Knockturn Alley?"

She flapped her hands at him impatiently. "Never mind, I'll explain later! Look, hadn't somebody better get down to Gringotts before he gets away?"

"They did promise to check very carefully if anyone tried to take all their money out again," said Cassius, jumping to his feet. "And insist on a lot of signed disclaimers. Knowing the amount of paperwork the goblins can throw at you if they choose to, that should give us at least half an hour! ... Tonks, get a name and description. Donnacha, get down to Gringotts now as quick as you can and we'll send it through to you. Have you still got that Cloak of K's with you?"

"No, Arnie's got it at the moment, he's up in Birmingham ..."

Cassius clucked his tongue. "I'll call him back in. Meet him outside the bank, make good use of it. Go!"

O'Gregan sprinted out of the office towards the lifts. Cassius turned to Tonks, who was in the middle of a rapid conversation with a somewhat ruffled Andromeda. "Who is it? Do we know?"

Tonks turned to him, relaying what her mother was saying. It was rather confusing, as she seemed to be doing exactly the same thing with whatever the portrait was telling her. "Hang on. He thinks the man's called ... what was that again? Bradley Burton ... no, Barton ... About sixty maybe, greying brown hair ... overweight ... wearing ordinary dark blue robes. Never heard of him ..."

"Neither have I, but I'll stay here and look him up. Wait a minute, he thinks? ... Wasn't that ... Can your ... mother, is it?" Cassius stopped spluttering and stared at Tonks for a moment or two as if he dearly wanted to know what was going on at the other end of the mirror phone, then seemed to think better of it. "Can she put him on?" He shook his head when he saw Tonks' look of doubt at whether a portrait could communicate with an ordinary telephone handset. "Er, no, on second thoughts, I'll pass on that working description to Donnacha and Arnold. You just go over there and get more details. I'll meet you at Gringotts."

*****

Tonks Apparated into her parents' house a few minutes later, breathless from having run all the way to the foyer (once again she cursed the anti-Disapparation jinxes on most of the Ministry). Her mother looked at her reprovingly. "Nympha -"

Tonks headed her off before she could get into her stride. "Not now, Mum! Please! We'll talk later, OK? Where's this Walter Gringott bloke?"

"Here," said an amused voice from the wall. Tonks looked up to see a portrait of an elderly man, dressed in elegant robes of a style worn some centuries before. "May I assume that you are Edward's little girl?"

Little girl? Tonks made a mental note to discuss this description with her father if the opportunity ever arose, but now really wasn't the time to argue the point. "Yes. Thanks for helping, er - Mr Gringott," she said, her breath coming back to her. "What did you see?"

The main in the portrait smiled coolly at her. "Well, a customer, with the description I gave to your good lady mother here, arrived at the counter a few minutes ago and made a request to remove all of the money from his vault. Now, that would be unusual under most circumstances, but the man in question is a longstanding and valued customer, and there seems to be no reason why he should wish to do that. Also, he appeared somewhat ... distracted, shall we say, very much like the previous customer who did the same thing. Does that not sound to you as if he might be in some trouble?"

"Yes, it does," said Tonks, excited. "Will they be able to tell if anything's wrong with him? How long will it take him to get his money out? How much time have we got?"

He chuckled. "My dear young lady, the man will be subject to as many checks as my goblin ... ah, colleagues can devise. Unfortunately, the bank has limited facilities for specialised testing ..."

"Damn!"

Gringott looked mildly disconcerted, but shrugged it off. "Indeed - I always felt it would be worth while to invest in a Probity Probe or two for situations like this. But of course, he will have to physically remove the Galleons from the vault ... and the process of transferring and counting will take a hour or two. Or at least, can be made to do so. Will that be sufficient for your purposes?"

"More than enough," said Tonks with relief. "Could you keep watch for us and tip us the wink when you see him arrive back at ground level?"

He blinked. "'Tip you the' ... oh, I see what you mean. That may not be wise. If you're waiting inside the building for an hour or two, will it not look suspicious?" She could see his eyes taking in her hair, which today was a bright lime green that would have made the Minister's hat seem understated. His incipient alarm was clearly visible. "You do understand, I hope, this cannot be an official visit on your part? While we certainly don't wish to see our customers robbed, and naturally would be glad of any assistance you can offer, it would set a very bad precedent indeed for it to become known that the bank had allowed Ministry interference on the premises ..."

Tonks forced a grin, although she couldn't help thinking that years of working with goblins must have rubbed off on Gringott. "No problem. There'll be an Auror inside under an Invisibility Cloak, all you need to do is let him know when your customer gets back. We'll keep all that out of the written reports, promise. No-one but us and the boss will ever need to know he was there."

Gringott raised his eyebrows. "I see. And, my dear young lady, just how precisely will I know he was there, if the man is invisible? And for that matter, even if he made his presence known, would it not be singularly obvious that something was afoot if I made a signal to him?"

"Erm ... " said Tonks, momentarily stumped. "Well, I suppose that as long as he can see you, that's the main thing ..." As she said it, a simple solution occurred to her. "Actually, that's all he needs to see, isn't it? We've already got a rough description - thanks for that, by the way - so what if you just leave the portrait you're watching from when the man arrives? That would be good enough confirmation, and it wouldn't look at all suspicious, would it?"

Gringott blinked again, and considered the idea for a moment. "Well, no. No, I suppose that would be efficacious." He looked impressed despite himself. "Yes, I can go along with that. It seems to be a perfectly acceptable strategy."

"Excellent! We may have to send someone in to keep him informed, but I'll do that - I'll keep changing the colour of my robes and my appearance. If you see anyone striking flitting in and out you don't recognise, it'll probably be me." She quickly headed off what looked as if it was going to be a question about her ability. "I can do that quite easily. Honest. Just give me a few minutes to get there and confer with the team."

Gringott exchanged amused glances with Andromeda and shrugged. "Very well. My pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Mrs Tonks, and thank you for allowing me into your home." He gave a little bow to Tonks and her mother, and walked out of the frame.

"Nymphadora ..." Her mother seemed rather put-out by the rapid turn of events.

Tonks gave her a hug before she could get into her stride. "Thanks, Mum. You're a star. I'll explain everything to you later, all right? Well, everything I'm allowed to, anyway. But I've got to go, OK?"

Andromeda Tonks smiled weakly as she contemplated her daughter. "Of course, darling. It's just ..."

"What?"

"I've never seen you quite like this. So ... decisive. So serious about something. This truly is what you wanted, isn't it? It just hadn't hit me this strongly before."

Tonks felt an annoying prickling behind her eyelids. "Yeah, Mum. It is. Thanks for everything." She gave her a peck on the cheek, turned away quickly, then Disapparated to Diagon Alley.

***

Cassius was waiting for her when she arrived, standing near the front entrance to the bank and reading a copy of the Daily Prophet. He immediately seized her arm and steered her aside, out of earshot of the uniformed goblin standing on the front steps. It seemed to be tacitly agreed between them that their conversation should be held sotto voce.

"What's happening, Cassius?" hissed Tonks.

"Our target's gone down to the vaults, so he'll be a while yet," murmured Cassius, glancing anxiously at the bank. "Arnold's inside under that Cloak, Donnacha's waiting outside just round the corner. Now then, Tonks ..."

"Er, yes?"

"Would you care to explain to me why it was your highly respectable mother who called you with this tip-off, rather than the dubious denizen of Knockturn Alley that we'd been led to believe your contact was?" His expression wasn't quite accusing, but it was undeniably stern.

Tonks sighed. "Fair enough. But can we keep this confidential, please?"

"I'm not sure," he said, slight disapproval evident on his face. "Is there something I should know?"

"I did agree it with Claymore," she said, colouring slightly. "No-one else was really supposed to know what the link was. Especially the goblins."

"I see." He contemplated her for a few moments. "All right, Tonks, I think I can guess what's going on. Your father works for the bank, I seem to remember?"

"Um ..."

"He was to contact your mother when he saw something happening, I take it? That was rather risky for him, wasn't it?" He had an expression that she found hard to interpret; it might have been censure, it might not. Regardless, the Kneazle seemed to be well and truly out of the bag now.

"There was a ... cut-out, I suppose you'd call it," she said resignedly, and proceeded to explain about the portrait of Walter Gringott, with a quick summary what it had told her. Cassius kept the stern look on his face throughout, but she did get a hopeful sort of feeling that he was quite impressed underneath.

"I see," he said again, after she'd finished. "I see. Most ingenious. Walter Gringott's portrait, eh? Well, that explains a lot. I always heard he never quite saw eye to eye with the goblins about some things. Probably didn't like having to change his name to that of their Founder before he'd let him invest, either."

"He did what?" yelped Tonks.

Cassius shrugged. "To show solidarity. Goblins like that sort of thing from wizards. 'Paris is worth a Mass' and all that, I suppose. I think we're going to need to talk about this again later, Tonks, but first things first. So you'll be wandering in and out of the bank with different faces to contact Arnold if needed, yes? You'll start with your own face so he recognises you, I take it?"

"Ah - fair point. Unless you've got another plan?" she said, with a note of contrition. I didn't really like keeping this from you all, you know ...

Cassius gave the matter consideration for a moment, but evidently he couldn't think of one either. "No, I'm afraid that will have to do for now. Go on. Off you go."

Tonks brightened the colour of her hair still further (as far as that was possible), let it grow halfway down the back of her robes so that she stood out, and strode confidently into the bank. She was careful to talk more loudly than was strictly necessary when asking the goblin teller for their current interest rate on long-term loans (she blanched when she heard it and hoped devoutly that she never needed one); and sure enough, as she walked away she once again felt someone invisible gently take her by the elbow and lead her into a little alcove.

"Thought I recognised the barnet," said an amused, but very quiet, voice.

"Oh, I thought it was rather understated today," said Tonks, equally quietly and as deadpan as possible. She pretended to read through the sheets of parchment that outlined the conditions the goblins insisted upon for advancement of credit, while rapidly explaining everything that was going on in an undertone. Her eyes flicked upwards briefly to the portrait of Gringott on the wall; he looked away hastily, as if he couldn't quite believe her appearance and was wondering whether this was a good idea after all. She couldn't help a brief grin but quickly let it drop. (A grin was not an expression that anyone reading the goblins' list of penalties for defaulting on a loan was likely to wear.)

"Got it," murmured Cornworthy when she'd finished. "When I see this man Barton come back up, I'll make sure we can track him. Cassius has the details, we discussed it while you were at your mum's. And I'm still waiting to hear the story of that, but it'll keep." Tonks winced (this was a perfectly reasonable expression for a reader of the loan clauses), nodded briefly, and returned to where Cassius and O'Gregan were waiting.

"Arnie's got things covered, he says," she reported, with a nervous glance back towards the bank. "What's he going to do?"

"Put an Anti-Disapparation jinx on Barton, and Tracking Spells on both the man and the money," replied Cassius. "Actually, he doesn't have an Apparition licence, I checked, but it can't hurt just to be on the safe side. You never know what he might have been told to try, and without a licence at least it won't seem suspicious if he doesn't. We want to make sure he doesn't get out of our sight if at all possible."

"Can't we just take him into protective custody when he comes out?"

Both older Aurors snorted. "Don't be daft, Tonks," said O'Gregan. "We want to find out where he's going. If he is under the influence of that stuff, I don't suppose he'll remember a damn thing that would be useful to us."

"Oh yeah," said Tonks, deflated. "It's a bit of a risk, though, isn't it? What if he gets away from us? Leaves the Alley by Floo? Or Portkey?"

"He hasn't booked a Portkey," said Cassius reassuringly, "and I'd be very surprised if he knew how to make one illegally. As for the Floo, I alerted the monitoring office as soon as we knew what his name was - Mary Edgecombe will be keeping a watch for his trace, wherever he goes. And remember, we're not actually sure that he's under an enchantment of any kind. For all we know, he might just have been spooked by the Death Eater activity and be planning to take all his money and emigrate."

"You think so?

"No, but it's possible, isn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if a few people have made tentative plans, just in case."

"I see." Tonks glanced around; a nasty thought had just struck her. "What happens if he does what Scarf Boy did, goes through the Leaky Cauldron and out into Muggle London? It'll make it hard for us to use the Tracking Spell without being seen, won't it?"

Cassius raised his eyebrows. "Now that's a very good point. Well, obviously we'd have to follow, but we'd need some backup." He took out his mirror phone. "I'll arrange for a little assistance to be available if we require it. Other than that, I suppose all we can do now is wait."

*****

That proved to be a lot harder than it sounded; all three of them, and Tonks in particular, grew increasingly edgy as they waited for something to happen inside the bank. To ease the tension she wandered in and out a few times to confer, in different disguises that she knew he'd seen her use before. The goblins on duty gave her some funny looks, but apparently seemed to decide that since she wasn't doing anything that might suggest a desire to rob them or any of their customers, under the circumstances they'd rather not know what she was doing.

Eventually, a very quiet murmur on the mirror phone from Cornworthy alerted them to the fact that something was happening. Tonks slipped into the bank again just in time to see a man fitting the description they'd been given making his way across the long marbled hall, with few suspicious looking goblins in tow helping him to carry several large bags of gold. If he was planning to struggle along the Alley with them, he would be nice and easy to follow.

Unfortunately, the goblins had a solution to this problem, and she could just overhear them explaining that the terms of his account entitled him to the loan of a Shrinking Satchel to carry the money home. Tonks raised her eyebrows, impressed despite herself; she knew they were bewitched with a powerful Capacity Charm to allow many things to be stored inside, and in addition enchanted to be feather-light to carry. She'd never been offered one, but then again, her Gringotts balance had never been large enough to merit it. She scowled as she watched the bags of gold disappear into it.

As the man passed by her with the Satchel slung over his shoulder, Tonks felt a sudden thrill of excitement. Her positioning allowed her to get a good look at his eyes. They seemed slightly unfocused, exactly like the briefing notes had said, which in turn suggested that they were actually right.

She concentrated very hard to cast a Tracking Spell on him nonverbally, with her wand concealed as far up her sleeve as she could manage. She was sure that Cornworthy would have already done so, but as Cassius said, one more couldn't hurt. And the last thing I want is for another lead to get away from us, she thought uncomfortably. Once was bad enough.

They followed Barton as he walked down Diagon Alley at a brisk pace, apparently oblivious to the three visible Aurors at a discreet distance and the invisible one presumably following him under the Cloak as if attached with a Permanent Sticking Charm. They closed the gap as it became clear that he was in fact heading for the Leaky Cauldron. That earned her an approving nod from Cassius.

Their target didn't linger in the pub, but walked straight through with an air of purpose and out into the bustle of Charing Cross Road. However much under the influence of Liquor of Jacmel he was, he seemed to have a clear plan of action (or at any rate clear instructions); as soon as he was out the door, he immediately hailed a passing Muggle black cab.

Cassius jerked his head down the street in the direction of another such vehicle waiting at the kerb. Tonks stared at it for a moment, confused, until she realised that the badge fixed to the windscreen bore the Ministry of Magic crest. She smiled. "So this is what you meant by 'a little assistance', Cassius?"

He smiled, waving his Auror identification at the driver and opening the door for her. "Yes. Hop in, quick."

Tonks wasn't in the least surprised to find that once they were inside, the front passenger seat was wide enough for all three of them and the driver to sit in comfort. The back door opened and closed, apparently all by itself, then Cornworthy reappeared and threw the Cloak into a corner.

"Shall I do the honours?" asked a grinning O'Gregan as the other taxi pulled away. "You know, I always wanted to say this, so I did. Follow that car!"

The Ministry driver grinned right back at him and drove straight out into the traffic, which jumped aside to make way for them. "How close shall I get, sir?" he inquired.

"Can they see this car?" asked Cassius, with a thoughtful look towards the car up ahead.

He shrugged, twisting the wheel slightly to avoid an oncoming bus. "The Muggles mightn't, but I reckon a wizard might notice, if that's who you're following. This thing's charmed for collision avoidance, but it ain't actually invisible."

Cassius grimaced. "Hang back as far as possible, then. Tonks, Arnold, take it in turns to use those Tracking Spells. It's a good job you both did them - we can get an indication of their expected direction while checking for sudden movements." Tonks and Cornworthy both nodded, and began muttering the incantation in relay. She couldn't suppress a wince; at this close proximity to their target, the wand wasn't just warm, it was hot.

Following their instructions, the driver swung the vehicle down the streets at every turning, with complete unconcern for anything that might be in the way. Fortunately, the anti-collision charms were working perfectly. After the fourth or fifth time this happened, Tonks stopped closing her eyes and bracing herself for impact, and just sat back to enjoy the ride.

It turned out to be a surprisingly extended one. Whoever had administered the potion to Barton had evidently - and from the point of view of his followers, fortunately - chosen a more out-of-the-way spot than central London for delivery of the money. The taxi in front drove steadily right through the heart of the city, and then out towards Catford in the south-east. By this time, of course, the traffic had thinned out a great deal, which left Cassius with a slight frown.

"Won't another taxi following them look rather conspicuous?" he asked the driver quietly.

The Ministry man just chuckled, dropped back out of sight of their quarry for a moment, and tapped his wand on the dashboard. Tonks, glancing through the windscreen, saw the outer appearance of a black cab shift and change into a very ordinary-looking blue Ford.

"Nice!" she said in appreciation.

"Thanks, love," he said, grinning again. "All part of the service."

The Aurors began to tense up slightly again as the taxi in front passed through a series of quiet shopping and residential areas without stopping. They were on tenterhooks by the time it eventually pulled up next to a large open expanse of playing fields. The passenger got out quickly and muttered something to the driver who nodded and sat back. Tonks frowned as they all climbed out of the Ministry car and watched Barton make his way through the gates and onto the fields. There wasn't really any cover out there among the football pitches, other than a few sets of goalposts that even a house-elf would have had trouble hiding behind.

O'Gregan was apparently thinking along the same lines. "Lucky we brought that Cloak, then," he said. "Arnie, my lad, can you get close to him and see what he's doing? If anyone's watching us, we don't want to all tramp out there and scare them off, do we now?"

"I'm on to it, Don," muttered Cornworthy, disappearing from sight again.

Tonks waited and watched with the others; Barton was walking slowly across the field, stopping seemingly every few yards for no apparent reason. At this distance it wasn't easy to tell exactly what he was doing. "You haven't got any Omnioculars under the seat, I suppose?" O'Gregan muttered to the driver.

He shook his head and gave him a confused look. "No, but I thought you Aurors had some gadget that made things look bigger, like?"

"We do?" said O'Gregan.

Tonks suddenly clicked her fingers. "Yeah, we do! Those knife things of K's, I remember seeing it in the instruction scroll!"

"You read that?"

"Hey, I was new, it all seemed pretty cool! Hang on ..." She rummaged in her pockets, found the gadget, and slid a thin strip of transparent material out of it. "Shield me, will you?"

They moved round to either side of her to hide what she was doing as she held the strip up in front of her eyes and looked out at the field, adjusting the focus to watch Bradley Barton. With its help, she could tell that the frequent pauses were to read directions off a piece of paper in his hand. He walked around the touchlines until he reached a small open area between several pitches near the middle of the site.

"What's he doing?" said Cassius quietly.

"Still can't quite see," she said, frustrated. "Bending down over something - I think he's got his wand out. He's dumping that satchel somewhere ... Watch out, he's coming back ..." As Barton made his way back towards them, she got a better view of what he'd been bending over. "There's a small sort of metal thing in the ground where he was, any ideas?"

"Storm drain, maybe?" said O'Gregan. "Wouldn't be a bad hiding place that, you could charm it shut so you'd need magic to open it. Arnie might have got close enough to tell us what spells he was saying. What do we do now, Cassius old son?"

Cassius thought for a moment then nodded to himself, coming to a decision. "Donnacha, if he kept the taxi here he must be intending to return the same way - or at least have it take him to the nearest place with a Floo connection. You take the Ministry car and follow him, use another Tracking Spell. Get Mary to help if he Floos anywhere. If he ends up back home - you can call the office to check the address, it's somewhere down south - get over there and arrest him. Using spells in the middle of a Muggle playing field with no cover will do as an excuse. Get the curse-breakers to have a look at him, see if they can find evidence of Jacmel use again. They should know what to look for immediately this time."

"Got you." As the man passed by them O'Gregan pointed his wand at him surreptitiously, then jumped back in beside the Ministry driver. Tonks and Cassius moved away and leant against the railings, pretending to chat, as both vehicles drew away.

Cassius took out his mirror phone. "Arnold Cornworthy," he said, very quietly. "Arnold, where are you?"

"Still out on the field, Cassius," came the equally quiet reply. "I thought you'd be able to handle Barton, and I wanted a look at that drain. I heard him enchant it shut, but he didn't do anything else to it. Want me to take a look inside?"

"No. Just keep your eye on it. Donnacha's following him in the car. Stay under the Cloak, start casting anti-Disapparation jinxes on the area. I'll see if I can rustle up a couple of Patrol people to help out."

He put the phone back in his pocket and turned to Tonks. "Right," he said briskly. "you, me, and Arnold will have to keep watch here until someone arrives to pick up that satchel. Arnold's got the Cloak, and we should be safe watching from a distance. Whoever did it probably chose these wide open spaces to make it easy to see if anyone was following them, but it means we can see what they're doing just as easily too."

"Good point," said Tonks. "Do you want me to Metamorphose so it doesn't look like the same person all the time?"

Cassius shook his head. "Oh no. My guess is that whoever gave him the potion - and after seeing Barton out there I'm confident this isn't normal behaviour - will wait until it's fully dark now." He waved a hand around vaguely at the autumnal early evening light, which was just beginning to fail. "That being the case, I think we should take a suggestion from Rufus, and use a Disillusionment Charm to hide ourselves under cover of darkness. How are you with those?"

Tonks shuffled her feet. "Erm ... not that good, actually. Never quite got the hang of them, to be honest. Half the time I either end up sort of translucent, or it's just random limbs that turn transparent. Or bits of clothing sometimes, which is really embarrassing."

"Oh, I see," said Cassius, grinning. "Allow me, then." He looked around cautiously, then tapped her hard on the top of the head with his wand, and she felt a trickling sensation along her back. She glanced down and saw ... nothing much at all; actually, just a vague hint of a shape moving about.

"Nice one, Cassius," she said, with an appreciative grin that he couldn't actually see.

*****

Evening turned gradually into night as the Aurors waited, with varying degrees of patience, for whoever might turn up to collect the bag. They passed the time by making sure that their anti-Disapparation jinxes covered the entire area. Tonks, hiding in the shadows of the pavilion outside the changing rooms and scanning the area with her Magnifying Glasses, noticed a couple of vague blurs arrive at about ten o'clock and confer with the other vague blur that she knew to be Cassius; she guessed that this was the help from the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol they'd requested, as Disillusioned as she was. They moved to cover the gates as backup.

The playing fields were otherwise largely deserted. A group of teenagers held an impromptu game of football on one of the pitches while there was still some light, and a few people took short-cuts across the ground, but none of them went near enough to the hidden satchel of Galleons to excite the Aurors' interest.

By the time midnight had come and gone, Tonks was feeling extremely stiff from a mixture of tension and boredom. So when a dark figure came in through the far gate and rapidly crossed the field, it took a few seconds for it to register as anything out of the ordinary. She caught her breath once she realised that it was heading directly towards the drain. Very carefully, she slipped away from the pavilion, concentrating as hard as possible on everything she could remember from Stealth and Tracking (mostly that this was very clearly not the time to risk tripping over and alerting their suspect). She slipped into place behind the figure as it passed

The dim shape paused by the drain and bent over, making arm movements consistent with the casting of Alohomora. Tonks couldn't hear the words, and hoped fervently that Arnold Cornworthy had managed to get close under the Cloak in case they needed to give evidence on the point. The figure lifted the cover off and gently eased out the satchel; this time, Tonks, a little closer now, could hear a distinct clink of gold and a grunt of satisfaction.

He, or she, threw the satchel over their shoulder and took a long, hard look around. Then, apparently satisfied that there were no witnesses to worry about, they turned on the spot, in an obvious attempt to Disapparate. Tonks, creeping closer still, could hear a low muttering of surprise and disgust from the person with the satchel at their failure to achieve it. They shook themselves and tried again, with an equal lack of results.

Tonks had her wand ready now, and could only hope that the others had too. After this second failed attempt, their suspect paused for a moment, then, as if hoping that this was merely a bad dream, spun quickly on the spot in a third attempt. When this failed once again, the figure froze; then, clearly realising what this must mean, quickly whipped out a wand and began looking around with unmistakeable panic.

"Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!" At this point, the man - it was definitely an man's voice, and one that seemed vaguely familiar to Tonks - started firing off terrified curses randomly into the darkness. As he couldn't see what to aim at, none of them hit anything.

There was a cough from behind him; Tonks glanced over to see Cornworthy emerge from underneath the Cloak. Their target turned to face him with a hex on his lips, but the Auror was quicker; his Disarming Charm sent the wand flying out of the man's hand before he could use it.

"You're under arrest, son," said Cornworthy crisply. "Put the bag down and your hands by your sides while I Incarcerate you. It'll be less uncomfortable for you that way."

The man took no notice of this sage advice. Instead, he turned and ran blindly away from Cornworthy across the fields, perhaps hoping to lose himself in the darkness; but before he could get very far, a wand-tip flared with magical light ahead of him. Tonks thought she recognised at least the shape holding it as a Disillusioned Cassius. Both she and Cornworthy took aim as the man turned back in panic, and he crumpled to the ground as their pair of Stunners hit him at almost exactly the same moment.

The three Aurors and two Patrol officers gathered round the man, who had fallen face downwards. "Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a result," said Cassius in a pleased voice. "Let's see who our thief is, then." He bent down and gently turned the man over.

Tonks looked at the youngish face blankly for a moment, trying to remember where she'd seen it before, and then it hit her. An encounter during her first couple of weeks on duty that had now turned out to be surprisingly useful in a number of ways.

"Well, well," she said, grinning. "Looks who's gone into business on his own, then."