The Song of the Trees

Chapter Eleven: All Those Who Knew

"Did you hear the howling last night, Professor?"

Professor McGonagall started as a familiar voice, young and clear, unceremoniously broke the silence that lay over the empty Great Hall, on the early hours of the particularly grim Saturday morning. She turned to face the young man who had so thoughtlessly disrupted her train of thoughts, trying her best not to glare at him; she had decided she ought to be more patient with her new Transfiguration teacher.

"Good morning to you too, John," she said rather stiffly.

"Morning, Professor, morning," the young teacher answered in a cheery tone.

He drew back the chair next to hers and sat down, apparently oblivious of the fact that he was now occupying Professor Severus Snape's chair. Minerva McGonagall pursed her lips; she knew perfectly well that, should Severus choose that moment to enter the Great Hall for some breakfast, she would have to solve yet another diplomatic crisis between the two teachers. A fresh member of the staff should never rob the seat of an older one. Those were Hogwarts' unspoken rules.

"So, you heard the howling, didn't you?" John repeated, casually slumped in his chair, as he plunged a fork in his bacon and eggs.

"I doubt anyone could avoid hearing it," she said shortly.

"You're right," acquiesced the young man with a thoughtful nod. "They sounded even crazier than usual last night. I wonder why I've never heard any student mention the noise, that's three full moons in a row that those bloody beasts keep me awa--"

"The students don't hear them," Professor McGonagall interrupted coolly. "Their dormitories are protected with Calfeutre Curses; the walls and windows are soundproof. They are not supposed to know."

She lifted her cup of steaming tea to her lips and sipped a little of the fragrant liquid.

"That actually sounds like a good idea," said Jon, lost in the contemplation of his scrambled eggs. "I should do that, too. I would sleep, at least... Or I would finally be able to correct my essays in due time, without being interrupted! I wonder if I should ask that old Flitwick--"

"Please do, John."

Professor McGonagall's crisp voice cut short the young man's monologue, and in the blessed silence that followed, she gladly dove back into a deep musing.

Minerva McGonagall had certainly heard the howling. All night she had stayed awake, almost shaking with rage at her own powerlessness in front of the tragedy Hogsmeade had to go through, month after month. Her last shouting match against Scrimgeour on the subject had ended on a bitter note, with him threatening to demote her of the position of Headmistress if she refused to keep her mouth shut. The wariness and mild distaste she had developed towards the Ministry in Dumbledore's days had quickly turned into a visceral hatred. What were they thinking, leaving a whole village at the mercy of a pack of werewolves? What kind of sick, twisted experiment were they having? For that was the feeling she got every time she tried to bring up the subject at the Ministry: they were not indifferent, far from it. They were expectant, as if busy studying the phenomenon rather than trying to put an end to it.

Granted, it was something she had never heard of before, a pack of werewolves coming back again and again at the same place, no longer caring about infecting human beings but driven on by a terrifying bloodlust. All right, that was odd. Interesting, even, on some morbid level. However, people were dying. It was not a time for pulling out clipboards and taking notes on what was happening, it was time for some action, for goodness's sake!

Action. Miraculously, an opportunity had arisen for her to take some action without compromising her or her students' safety, or anyone's for that matter; and she had seized it. Earlier that week, she had received an owl from Harry Potter, asking for her permission to spend the full moon in the Hogwarts grounds. His request had nothing surprising about it, she knew how much he loved Hogwarts and she thought natural that he would like to wander in the grounds during his transformation. However, her instructions were strict: she should not let anyone know about the pack of werewolves. But halfway through her polite letter of refusal, her quill had slowed down and come to a stop.

She would not tell him anything. He would hear by himself, while he safely remained within the shield of Hogwarts grounds. And knowing him, he would not let things be. He would find a way to put a stop to it. It was her hope, her only hope to save the stubborn inhabitants of Hogsmeade still clinging to their beloved village.

And so she had written back, giving him the spell that would grant him access to the grounds.

Now she was waiting for him to join her for breakfast.

"Pretty silent, huh?" the Transfiguration teacher cleverly pointed out, disturbing her yet again. "Everyone's having a nice lie-in?"

"It's Saturday morning," she replied testily. Her expectation was bordering anxiety; and she couldn't help glancing every few seconds towards the doors of the Great Hall, each time expecting to see Harry Potter's tall and lean figure walking through them.

"Well, yeah. I was thinking about that. What would you think of adding classes for the students on Saturday mornings? I'm a little behind in the Transfiguration curriculum, especially with my fifth-years, and I thought--"

"Then stop having them think and practice only during lessons, and give them more homework," Professor McGonagall said through clenched teeth. He was not up to date with the OWL curriculum. Well that certainly did nothing to improve her opinion of him.

"You can't be serious, Professor!" the young teacher protested. "I already have four essays to hand back and I can't see how I'm going to manage it! You don't expect me to correct papers on Sundays, I hope!"

Professor McGonagall's dry, long-fingered hands tightened their hold around the porcelain cup, and for a couple of seconds she toyed with the idea of throwing its boiling-hot contents at the boy's face. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to bring her temper back under control.

"I see you have finished your breakfast," she said loudly, feeling that a change of subject was in order. "Maybe you should consider giving his chair back to Professor Snape."

John's boyish features took an expression of immense surprise, then he threw his head back and laughed heartily, the clear sound shattering in oddly lugubre echos on the stone walls of the empty Hall.

"Come on, Minerva!" he chuckled, missing the Headmistress's grimace at being called by her first name -- something Snape himself would not do. "The old bat isn't even here yet, and if he does come in, he can take any other chair!"

"You know that's not how it works, John," she snapped. "And I'd advise you against angering Professor Snape."

John snorted with such disdain that Professor McGonagall finally had to put down her cup of tea, for fear her hands would betray her and fling it to the teacher's face of their own volition.

"I'm not scared of him," John said scornfully. "I'm a teacher here, as much as he is. I'm not scared of anybody. Except you, maybe, Minerva," he added with a smile and a wink.

The look Professor McGonagall gave him would have made Voldemort himself recoil with fright, but John, who was now busy examining his nails, missed that too.

"That old bat..." he started nonchalantly, but his sentence was cut short by the sound of the Great Hall doors being pushed open.

McGonagall's head snapped up -- she had been eyeing the wand lying on her lap with a sort of guilty longing a few seconds before -- and she experienced a wave of intense relief at seeing Harry Potter walking across the Great Hall towards the staff table. His clothes were in an appalling state, but thank goodness, he looked unharmed.

"Who is that?" John asked in a bewildered whisper, on her left.

She didn't bother to answer, rising from the vast throne-like chair instead to greet her former student.

Harry's black robes were in tatters and covered in a mixture of mud and blood. His face and hands were badly scratched, and the ripped material of his robes revealed the fresh, bright red scar of a magically healed wound at the base of his neck. McGonagall expected to see him pale and seething with a barely controlled fury, and she was startled, almost frightened, to note that his features were set in a sort of cold, deadly calmness.

"Harry," she said in a concerned voice. "How are you?"

Harry's voice sounded as hard and clear as crystal when he answered.

"I am fine, thank you, Professor. You had invited me over for breakfast?"

She nodded absent-mindedly, taken aback by his lack of reaction. He couldn't not have heard the howling... And why had he been wounded? Was it possible that he had found himself locked out of the grounds under his wolf form, and that he had tried to fight a whole pack of mad werewolves? A cold shiver ran up her spine at the thought. She was responsible for all that had happened to him last night...

Professor McGonagall led him to the staff table, where a plate had been prepared for him on the right side of the Headmistress's chair. The Transfiguration teacher's suspicious gaze was following their every move, hands shoved defiantly in the pockets of his impeccable robes and his chair tilted back on two legs.

"And who would that be?" John asked, failing to conceal the contempt in his voice as he looked over Harry's outfit, his lip curled. McGonagall bit back a frustrated exclamation and Harry raised his eyebrows.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said coldly. "Who would you be?"

The chair fell back on all four legs with a sharp clatter. John paled a little as he detached his eyes from the torn up, dirty robes and paid more attention to Harry's stony face. There was no indulgence in Harry's eyes as he eyed him, and anyone could have told that the man had seen things and gone through trials that made a conversation with the young teacher seem like a ludicrous waste of time.

"Oh -- ah, I thought... Well, what do I owe the pleasure -- I mean, aren't you an Auror?" John stammered, his confidence fraying under McGonagall's furious glare and Harry's icy cold stare.

A slight smirk crept up Harry's face, and an odd gleam came to light up his dull eyes.

"I am, during the week. But on weekends I usually take a break to do some slaughtering, here and there," Harry nastily answered. "I heard there was a preserve of werewolves near Hogwarts so I took the opportunity. Best night of hunting I had in ages."

John, from pale, went grey. Harry's ferocious smirk would have worried McGonagall herself if she hadn't been busy trying to keep from smiling from ear to ear. Dear Lord -- he looked positively mischievous.

Still grinning, Harry pulled back a chair.

"Are you willing to keep me company?" he asked cordially at the petrified teacher. "I'll try to eat a regular breakfast, if raw meat and blood make you uncomfortable."

John looked as if he was about to be sick; he covered his mouth with his serviette and abruptly rose, involuntarily sending Professor Snape's chair falling backward.

"Actually my breakfast is over," he managed to utter, his voice strained. "I have essays to correct, so I'll -- I'll see you later today, maybe..."

"What a shame," Harry idly commented. "I had so many funny anecdotes to tell about last night. Can you imagine that--"

But John was already hurrying away, looking as if he was trying very hard not to break into a run. Harry snickered and let himself drop in his chair. To Professor McGonagall's great satisfaction, the chilling calmness had vanished from his features and a youthful sparkle was back in his eyes. For a fleeting instant, he looked exactly like the teenager he used to be.

They ate in silence for a few minutes that felt terribly long to the Headmistress. A thousands questions were burning her lips, and although she knew that trying to force answers out of Harry was the last thing to do, she started to fear that he would not tackle the subject at all. If he left the Great Hall without saying a word, as she knew he was capable of doing, she would be left with nothing but a deceived hope.

But she should not have worried. Harry had barely eaten two mouthfuls of scrambled eggs when he abruptly put his fork down and turned to her.

"Did you intend me to meet the werewolf pack, Professor?" he asked bluntly. "Is that why you allowed me to spend the night here?"

McGonagall set down her half full cup of tea and rested her forearms on the table, hands clasped together in front of her.

"I wanted you to hear them," she answered just as brusquely. She could feel his eyes fixed on her, but she kept hers resolutely attached to her own hands, strikingly white against the dark wood, polished by time and use, of the staff table. "I wasn't allowed to tell you anything about them, but I wanted you to know."

Another long minute of pregnant silence followed her words. She glanced sideways and saw that he was no longer staring at her; he looked lost in his own world, his eyes misted up, shadows of memories she feared to think about stirring inside of them.

"Well now I know," he said slowly at last. "I've heard and seen them. I doubt they will come back next month... Maybe the month after..."

"What do you mean?" she inquired at once, her eagerness causing her voice to be sharper than what she intended it to be.

His eyes finally focused back on hers.

"I killed their leader," he said with the same odd calmness that he had had earlier. "The pack can't go back in hunting before they've found themselves a new leader. And by that time..."

His voice trailed away again, as if he was not sure how to express his thoughts. Professor McGonagall refrained from drumming her fingers on the table in impatience. Whether it was purposeful or not, the boy was toying with her nerves.

However, what he said next only served to confuse her further.

"Everything's coming back to that Forest..."

Professor McGonagall quirked an eyebrow, but before she had the time to ask him what on earth he was talking about, Harry snapped out of the sombre reverie he had fallen into.

"Would you allow me to shower and change into clean clothes?" he suddenly asked. "I need to go back to Hogsmeade as soon as possible. They'll need an Auror there. Someone got killed."

Her throat constricted at his words, and there was an ashen taste in her mouth when she noticed the lack of emotions on his face as he mentioned the victim of the werewolves' fury, but she could only nod in answer.

"You're at home here, Harry," she reminded him in a low voice.

He thanked her, got to his feet and crossed the Great Hall before disappearing again through the tall doors. Professor McGonagall sighed and briefly covered her face with her hands, knowing that no one was there to witness that single gesture of weakness.

***

Harry threw his head back, exposing his face to the spurt of water. It was one of those moments when he missed the most the years before Voldemort's downfall. He had the faint, almost ghostly sensation of something trailing down his temples and cheeks, sliding past his slightly parted lips and filling his mouth, making his hair stick to the back of his neck and washing dirt and blood off his body. But those impossibly vague sensations could not compare to the light, soft and refreshing touch of water as he remembered it. He could not even tell if it was cold or hot.

He lowered his head again and spat out a mouthful. The water around his feet was black with grime and coagulated blood, and it stank. The stench filled his nostrils at the slightest inspiration, even if it probably wasn't that strong and would have gone unnoticed from anybody else. As his sense of touch disappeared, his sight and hearing, as well as his sense of smell, had developed to a near prodigious extent. Indeed, what most people thought were another strange power of his was merely his body compensating for the loss of one of its senses.

He never was cold, he never was warm. The rain, the wind, clothes or feminine hands, nothing that brushed against his bare skin ever felt soft or hard, smooth or rough. He was cut off from the world, isolated inside his own skin as if he was wearing a thick armour.

He thought he had got used to it. He thought it no longer mattered. He was convinced that he had adapted to that new world where there was nothing to feel. As long as anger, sorrow, joy, regret or satisfaction still made his spirit tingle, just as his skin used to react to unusual contacts; as long as betrayal and loneliness could still open deep, bleeding and painful wounds inside his soul, since his flesh no longer was affected by physical injury; as long as all that lasted, he could still call himself a man.

But now... Now, the bloodied picture of a black-haired, maimed body haunted his thoughts, lurking on the edges of his vision and invading his mind every time he shut his eyes; and it was as if he had received a terrible blow on the head. His soul and spirit had gone numb. Unfeeling, uncaring. He struggled to find again in the depths of his being the fury, the rage and the thirst for blood that had run through him the previous night; anything but that cold emptiness within him, that was so horribly reminiscent of the darkest time of his life. But no. Nothing. Just a black hollow.

Oh yes, it was at times like these that Harry wished he could still feel the burn of hot water on his skin.

It was well over eight in the morning when Harry finally left the bathroom, dressed in the plain black robes a house-elf had brought him. It was time to go back to Hogsmeade, where he would be able to help the inhabitants deal with the events of the night of hunting -- and most importantly, to gather clues and information about the pack of werewolves. If he was going to risk having his head ripped off for yelling at Robards, he wanted his arguments to be as solid as possible. He was certainly not forgetting the mystery of his identity, but if there was any way he could help the inhabitants of Hogsmeade out, he was willing to postpone his visit to the Forest.

Besides, he had the nagging feeling that the Forest had something to do with the werewolves' odd behaviour; everything always came back to that Forest, didn't it? And there also were those wolves, those silvery creatures oddly similar to his wolf form, and whose eyes held too much wisdom to belong to beasts... Last night hadn't been a parenthesis in his relentless search of who he was; it had been full of new clues. He was sure of it.

Harry met few people on his way down: pale-faced students heading for the Great Hall or the library, a group of Quidditch players -- Ravenclaw, if he was to guess from their blue robes -- obviously having a practice session, and a few tired-looking teachers, most of whom gave him a surprised "Morning, Mr. Potter," to which he responded with a nod of his head and a vague mumble. Once in the Entrance Hall, he shot a glance inside the Great Hall where were now gathered several students and teachers. Professor McGonagall was no longer in there.

The walk to Hogsmeade wasn't a pleasant one. The wind was stronger than ever, ruffling up trees and bushes, wrinkling the surface of the lake, hissing and wailing against the walls of the castle. The air was full of the sickly sweet odour of mud and rotting wood, and there was no sun. The pale grey clouds overhead reluctantly let through a wan, weak light that only made the grounds look greyer and grimmer.

"Perfect day for brooding," Harry muttered. He turned up the collar of his cloak against the assaults of the wind and hastened his pace, the hems of the cloak fluttering wildly around his legs.

When he arrived at Hogsmeade, he found the village in turmoil; carriages were stationed along the sides of the Main Street and sounds like gunshots echoed from every direction, announcing the return of all the inhabitants who had fled from their houses right before the full moon, and were now Apparating back with the intention to fix the damage as well as they could. Fences were being mended, ravaged gardens were being tended to, security wards were being put back into place. People were pale and looked weary and discouraged. A couple -- a tall and lanky man in his late twenties and a woman, about the same age, who was visibly expecting -- was apparently moving out, hastily piling furniture into a carriage under the envious stares of their neighbours.

"They were finally allowed to move out?" asked a round, red-faced man who stood at a respectable distance and eyed the young couple with his thumbs tucked in his belt.

"They just got the papers," acquiesced the middle-aged woman that clung to his arm. "And about time, too. This is no longer a place for a pregnant woman..."

Harry's throat tightened uncomfortably. Finally allowed? Papers?

A suspicion wormed its way into his mind, so sickening that it chilled his blood. He detached his eyes from the pregnant woman's exhausted face, and in doing so he caught a glimpse of Professor Flitwick: the minuscule Charms Master was precariously perched on an upturned barrel, in front of a house, and he waved his wand in complicated patterns as he muttered under his breath. Ribbons of colourful smoke erupted from his wand and came to circle the doors and windows of the house. Security wards, Harry thought. Probably strong enough to hold back a dozen werewolves, and I doubt any Ministry specialist would be able to do as much; but there were over thirty werewolves last night...

A man walked up to Professor Flitwick and started talking to him in urgent whispers. Harry edged closer to the tiny old man and caught a few words.

"...need you to come over to my house and reinforce the spells, Professor," said the man. Sweat was running down his pallid forehead. "Please."

"I can't shield two houses at the same time," squeaked Flitwick, in a testy tone Harry had never heard him use before. "You can wait until I've done this part of the village, can't you?"

"You don't understand! My... my house is right next to--"

"May I offer my services?" Harry said loudly, interrupting the man's frantic whispers.

Flitwick didn't even turn to look in his direction. "Morning, Potter," he said as he moved his wand in narrow circles.

"Morning, Professor," Harry answered distractedly. Then, addressing the man, "Look, I can take a look at your house and help you fix the damage. Even put up a ward or two. What do you think?"

His interlocutor shot at him an hesitant glance, his eyes resting for the briefest moment on Harry's forehead.

"I... hum, I suppose so," he mumbled at last. "Thank you. It's -- it's this way."

The man led Harry to the centre of the village. At one point, they had to walk round what looked like a corpse covered with a bloodied sheet, lying in the middle of the Main Street.

"One of yesterday's werewolves," the villager informed Harry. "A woman. She had her throat cut, probably by another of her kind."

"Why did you leave her here?" asked Harry, trying to ignore the icy feeling that had settled in the pit of his stomach at the man's words. A woman. The first werewolf he had killed had been a woman...

"We aren't allowed to move corpses around," the man answered in a detached kind of tone. "That guy from the Ministry is supposed to do it, and he hasn't arrived yet."

Harry was then guided to a house standing nearby, on one side of the dark alleyway he had followed the werewolves in the previous night.

"There," the villager said, coming to a halt. "See the house across the street? That's the one they broke into. They killed the occupant. When I learned about it this morning I damn nearly died of fright. When you think they were so close... I could've been their next victim..."

Harry's face twisted in a grimace of disgust at those words, but he chose not to make any comment and started his inspection of the man's house. He soon found out, however, that the werewolves had made no further damage than break a few boards of the fence and ravage a rose bush, and his mild annoyance quickly grew into exasperation.

"...and you understand that a man like me--"

"What I understand," Harry snapped, "is that I'd be wasting my time if I stayed here any longer. I've just put back into place your security ward. As for the fence, you can mend it without my help. On the other hand, you do have my condolences for the destruction of your rose bush."

The man flushed red.

"It's obvious you weren't here last night," he retorted with a kind of stiff dignity. "You don't understand what it feels like..."

If only you knew, Harry thought as he turned his back on the man and crossed the street, walking up to the backyard of the house that had been devastated by the pack.

A dozen curious onlookers had gathered in the alleyway, and tried to peer inside the backyard. But the entrance seemed to be blocked.

"We can't get in?" a woman asked her friend.

"No, apparently, that's where the poor girl was killed," the friend answered in a hushed voice. "The Mayor and the Headmistress of Hogwarts are guarding the backyard until the Ministry envoy arrives..."

They caught sight of Harry and fell silent at once. Another onlooker glanced back and, upon seeing Harry, let out a low whistle that caused several heads to turn in his direction.

"They sent Harry Potter," he muttered. "Maybe they're taking this seriously at last..."

The group turned to look at Harry and instantly broke into whispers, some sounding eager, others worried; but they all parted to let Harry through. Harry had been about to deny being sent by the Ministry, but he thought better of it and walked through them with a murmured thanks. The wall of villagers closed again behind him.

The backyard was exactly how he had left it a few hours ago, except the two corpses had been covered with sheets that may have been originally white -- it was hard to tell now that they were soaked-through with blood. McGonagall was pacing, her dark robes billowing around her heels in an almost Snape-like fashion, and she waved her wand around in sharp gestures accompanied by muttered incantations. Harry recognised at least half a dozen different detection spells; she was checking for remains of magical presences. The Mayor of Hogsmeade was sitting on a half-destroyed bench and watched Professor McGonagall bustle about without moving a muscle. He was bleary-eyed and looked thoroughly discouraged.

Harry cleared his throat, causing McGonagall to interrupt her spell casting. She turned to him with a glare.

"Yes?... Oh, Potter." An expression of surprise mixed with intense relief went over her sharp features when she recognised him. "Good. I can use an Auror here. There's something in the air I have never felt before."

"Like werewolves?" suggested the Mayor, his tired voice laced with bitter, disillusioned sarcasm. His immensely tall and skinny frame was slumped forward, giving him the look of a great, pale and bearded spider curled around itself.

Professor McGonagall ignored him and raised her wand again. A wisp of blue smoke erupted from it and lazily curled into a spiral, parallel with the ground, that started expanding in all directions, promising to grow as wide as the whole backyard itself. Harry watched attentively the blue rings, that he knew were meant to detect traces left by creatures other than wizards; in two areas of a middle-sized ring, the smoke began to glow red, indicating remains of Muggle presence -- it seemed that at least two werewolves had been Muggles. It was rare, but not unheard of, and it certainly indicated that werewolves were growing much bolder; bold enough to dare venture into Muggle areas and bite Muggles, at any rate.

Harry's attention was then caught by a snapping sound.

The most external ring was disappearing. It was as if something huge and invisible was eating it, tearing off big chunks of smoke at each bite with that weird snapping noise. His eyes grew wide: he had never seen the detecting spell being affected in such a way. It usually would just change colours -- red for Muggles, black for vampires, brown for Goblins etc. But disappearing?

The outer ring was now almost completely gone. Harry looked down at the ground it had been hovering over; unknown creatures had most likely stood there, and had left traces that were responsible for the spell's unusual reaction. Understanding then dawned upon him: the remains of the ring were just above the ground on which had gathered the huge grey wolves. It was the ghost of their presence that the spell was detecting.

"And that's not the end of it," whispered McGonagall, who had been observing him closely. "Look at the centre of the spiral."

Harry did as he was told. McGonagall stood at a short distance from Greyback's covered corpse, and the smallest ring of the spiral hovered directly above it. It looked perfectly normal for a few moments -- but then, as Harry looked, the smoky ring quivered before vanishing abruptly, the snapping sound much louder than what it had been for the outer ring. Then, to Harry's stupefaction, the other rings started vanishing as well, as if caught in a wave of energy that spread from the centre of the spiral in widening circles. Soon there was no smoke left in the backyard.

A stunned silence followed the display of Detection magic.

"See?" said Professor McGonagall at last, her eyes glinting. "There was something in that courtyard that was neither magical nor Muggle, nor anything known as of today in the magical world, and that left traces strong enough to not only affect the spell but destroy it."

"But why would the entire spiral be wiped out?" Harry asked with a frown. "The first marks were very precisely located, all around the yard..."

"Well, one of those creatures probably had an exceptionally strong aura," McGonagall replied as she gazed thoughtfully at Greyback's corpse. "An aura strong enough for the Detection Spell to be literally overwhelmed by it. My guess is--"

She stopped talking mid-sentence, as if a sudden thought had occurred to her. Her eyes, still fixed on Greyback's maimed body, widened in something that looked like horror. All colour was drained from her cheeks and the hand holding the wand started trembling.

"Professor?" Harry tentatively called out.

Professor McGonagall raised on him a hollow, almost haunted gaze. Harry swallowed with some difficulty; he had never seen her in such a state.

"The creature's aura," she said in a hushed voice, so that he would be the only one to hear, "is the strongest around the corpse. My guess is that this -- this being, this powerful, unknown creature, was the one that killed Greyback."

Harry pensively nodded. She was probably right. The logical conclusion was that this powerful aura was his... And it was of the same nature as the grey wolves'. He somehow had been expecting it. He had suspected that he and the mysterious wolves were of the same kind.

Neither Muggle nor Wizard.

The Third Kind.

It all made sense: the trees recognising him as one of theirs, his feeling of being completely disconnected from the Wizarding World, his unusual powers, and now grey wolves that, instead of trying to take him down, put the werewolf pack to flight and watched him struggle against Greyback... as if testing him. And he had passed the test.

On the other hand, he was clueless -- and more than a little surprised -- as to why his aura would be so much stronger than theirs; but he would worry about that later. Professor McGonagall's reaction to the revelation of the Third Kind's existence was bothering him more: he had somehow hoped that she, at least, would be too sensible to yield to the terror that they seemed to inspire.

But when he looked up and met her eyes again, he realised with a thrill of horror that it wasn't the Third Kind she was concerned about.

"I doubt they will come back next month."

"What do you mean?"

"I killed their leader..."

She knew. She knew it was him who had killed Greyback, leaving this alien aura around his mutilated body. He had told her so himself.

What a fool.

"POTTER!"

The furious bark startled him so badly that he instinctively whipped out his wand as he spun on his heels. A beam of scarlet light shot from his wand before he had the time to think, only to collide half a second later against an invisible shield that made it instantly explode in a shower of harmless red sparks. Harry sucked in a sharp breath: the shield had to be an extremely powerful one if it was able to completely annihilate a Stunner as strong as his.

All considerations on spells and shields promptly flew from Harry's head, however, when he recognised the red, round and angry face of Gawain Robards, emerging from behind the curtain of scarlet sparks. He had to refrain from taking a step backward.

"What the blast was that, Potter?" the Head Auror ground out, a blue vein pulsating quite nastily on his temple.

Harry closed his eyes in despair for a brief second. Good job, Potter. Cursing your own Head of office. Way to start arguing in favour of Hogsmeade.

"A Stunner, sir," he answered dully.

His -- admittedly rather stupid -- reply elicited a kind of frustrated bellow from Robards.

"Goddamned useless excuse for an Auror," he spat. "What the bleeding hell are you doing here?"

Harry hesitated, his eyes flickering to the Mayor of Hogsmeade, who had finally unfolded his lanky body and now stood close-by. He had better be careful with what he was going to say.

"Last night... was full moon, sir," he said in a low voice, hoping he wouldn't have to be more explicit.

Robards blinked slowly. "And you had no better place to go than in Hogwarts valley, I presume," he said gruffly as he took a few steps towards Harry, sliding his wand back into the holster hanging from his waist as he went.

Harry shook his head. "I can't see how I could've guessed that this place was out of bounds," he pointed out. "Anyway, I wasn't in the village. I stayed on the other side of the valley. But I couldn't miss the howling."

Somewhere on his right, he felt, rather than saw, McGonagall eyeing him sharply. He refused to look her way, clinging to the hope that she would not contradict him -- he didn't want to be dragged too deeply into an investigation on the murders of Greyback and the she-werewolf.

"I see," said Robards slowly, and he edged closer still; his next words were spoken in a very low voice, so that no one but Harry was able to catch them. "Well, it couldn't be helped I suppose; someone was bound to find out about this whole mess sooner or later. I'll let this slide, as long as you keep your big mouth shut, Potter. Some bloke from the Department of Mysteries is to arrive shortly and make all kinds of experiments. I'd rather he would not find you here."

"I understand, sir," Harry said, though he didn't really.

"I'm going to take you back to the Ministry," Robards went on. "Now. I'll come back later if need be -- the priority is to get you out of here, and keep you out of the Department of Mysteries' sight. Follow me, we can't Disapparate in that courtyard."

"Mr. Robards," called the Mayor. "What's going on? Have you come to a decision yet? I can't let the inhabitants of my village die..."

"Holy fucking hell," Robards burst out, the explosion so sudden that Harry, McGonagall and the Mayor all flinched. "How many times do I have to bloody repeat it before it can get under your thick skull? I'm doing my best to organise the evacuation of Hogsmeade, and that's all I can do! You are the ones clinging to your goddamned village as if it was--"

"Our home," the Mayor sadly finished. His face was pale but determined. "I can't force the villagers to leave. It's their home. They fought to rebuild it. I won't leave, either."

Robards glowered at him for a few seconds, apparently unable or unwilling to come up with an answer, before brusquely turning around; he walked decidedly towards the alleyway, beckoning Harry as he went. Harry hastily said his good-byes to McGonagall and the Mayor of Hogsmeade and followed his Head of Department.

"Lunatics," Robards spat once Harry had fallen into step with him. "Won't budge. And McGonagall still comes here after every attack, repairing the damage and having her own little investigation. Bitch will get in trouble faster than you can say, 'I fucking told you so.'"

"How so?" Harry asked with a frown.

"Why do you think Scrimgeour keeps it so secret?" Robards snarled in answer. "There's some nasty stuff going on here. The ninth-floor is all over it. Last thing they need is some righteous Hogwarts teacher poking into their business."

"Someone has to help," Harry muttered defensively.

Robards snorted.

"Yeah, someone has to," he growled. "She's a decent woman, no wonder she can't sit back twiddling her thumbs while people are getting killed. I would be doing the same in her position. Doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do; she'll get demoted if she keeps coming here. That half-witted gargoyle of Umbridge--" He spat out the name as if it left a nauseating taste in his mouth, "--keeps trying to get her in trouble. Whore hates McGonagall even more than she hates you, Potter."

"Sir, why--"

"Enough talking," Robards interrupted. "Atrium. Now."

And without another word Robards Disapparated. Harry heaved an exasperated sigh and, after taking care to step in a dark corner where he would go unnoticed, followed suit.

He materialised again in the Atrium, which was completely empty -- as it often happened on weekends. Robards was standing close-by, near the huge fountain that stood in the middle of the gigantic room, and was busy discussing with an old wizard Harry had never seen before. He was a small, scrawny and white-haired wizard dressed in dusty black robes, and looked as if Robards would have sent him flying twenty feet away with one slap across the face. In such conditions, it was all the more unnerving to see the worried, almost intimated look on the Auror's red and strong-jawed face, while his frail interlocutor was sporting the calm and self-satisfied smile of a predator cornering its prey.

"...I do not see any hurry, dear Gawain; would you be trying to avoid me for some reason?" the small wizard was saying. His voice was thin, slightly quavering, and he spoke with a light accent that Harry couldn't quite place.

Harry shifted his weight from one leg to the other, unsure if he should make his presence known. An obscure instinct made him more inclined to attempt a discreet retreat, but at this instant the matter was taken out of his hands as the old wizard suddenly turned towards him two grey, oddly luminous eyes.

"Ah, Mr. Potter," he greeted in a warm voice; and his polite smile widened into one evoking an old man greeting his favourite grandson. "Good day to you. I am very pleased to meet you at last, very pleased indeed. My dear Gawain, I will only borrow the boy for maybe half an hour. Surely you can go without him for the time being?"

"Listen here, Martin," Robards snapped. "Potter is not in your department, he doesn't have to answer any of your questions--"

"Who said anything about questions?" Martin gently said. "I just want to have a nice little talk with him. I can go and ask for Mr. Scrimgeour's permission, if you like."

Robards' features darkened even more at those words.

"Won't be necessary," he grunted at last. The words seemed painful to utter. "Don't keep him too long."

Robards didn't seem enthusiastic at all at the idea of leaving Harry alone with Martin. He stood there for a few seconds, nervously tapping his wand against the palm of his right hand; and in his frustration, he rapped the wand so vigorously that a few white sparks accidentally shot from the tip of it and bounced off his red calloused skin. Martin stared inquiringly at the Head Auror, an eyebrow raised, and at last Robards seemed to make up his mind and reluctantly held out a hand for Martin to shake.

The hand he had been tapping with his wand seconds before, in fact.

And was it Harry's imagination, or was the handshake a lot stronger and longer than what Robards usually thought necessary?

Unless of course he was trying to crush Martin's fingers, which was a very likely alternative.

"Potter, be careful with what you're telling this man, and get your ass back to work as soon as possible," Robards shot at Harry with a last sombre look, finally breaking the handshake. Then he turned his back on the pair of them and irritably strode to the golden doors leading to the Lift Room. Eric, the security wizard, shrank in his chair as the furious Auror walked past him without sparing him a glance -- for which Eric looked extremely grateful.

"Trust reigns," Martin softly commented as he carefully folded and unfolded his bruised fingers, his eyes fixed on Robards' retreating back. "Come with me, Mr. Potter. It will not be long, I promised."

All Harry could do was nod and follow.

The old wizard led Harry in Robards' wake, through the golden grilles and into the waiting room where half a dozen lifts were waiting for them. Robards had already vanished, having probably retreated to the second floor, when they entered an empty lift. Harry was not altogether surprised when Martin lifted a long and pale finger to press the 'Nine' button, but he grew considerably more wary. Unspeakables weren't people you wanted to socialise with; they were smooth liars, deceiving and even backstabbing opponents, and slippery friends -- the sort who put their ultimate goals before trifles such as friendship or love. The Department of Mysteries was at their image: an eerie, unfriendly, always changing place. There was nothing frank and reliable about it, and it was, from an Auror's perspective, the worst ground for duelling ever.

Unless you were an Unspeakable yourself, of course. Then you'd be granted such an advantage over a foe that didn't know the Department, that the victory was practically certain.

Martin led him down a long corridor, the very same Harry had dreamt about so many nights in his fifth year, then through a series of doors inside of the Department itself. They finally emerged in a tiny office, cluttered with hundreds upon hundreds of parchments and books of all sizes and shapes, most of which were buried under a thick layer of dust. A desk stood on three legs in the corner of the office, two equally wobbly-looking chairs on either side of it. Martin sat gingerly on one of them and gestured towards the other, an apologetic smile on his face.

"I am afraid we cannot afford luxurious offices, Mr. Potter," he said softly. Harry noted that his accent was more pronounced -- it now sounded very similar to Fleur's, actually -- and that he seemed to make a point in avoiding common contractions, as if he had such trouble with English that he compelled himself to pick his words very carefully. Harry got the distinct feeling that it was all an act, and he experienced a stab of annoyance.

"No worries," he said stiffly while sitting down.

The old man's smile grew wider still.

"So, Mr. Potter," he said as he rested his elbows on the desk, hands clasped together. "I have heard that you were in Hogsmeade village this morning--"

"Who told you that?" Harry interrupted. It wasn't the most polite thing to do, but he hardly cared. Aurors and Unspeakables hated each other on principle; for once, he, an Auror, had a very good reason to be rude to a most likely high-placed Unspeakable -- maybe even the Head of Department, nobody knew for sure who was whom on the famed ninth floor -- and he was certainly not going to miss the opportunity.

"I have well-placed informers all over the country, and even beyond," Martin answered without letting his smile falter. "My question was, what do you think of what you saw over there?"

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets, purposefully taking a childishly defiant attitude.

"Why do you care?" he lazily shot back. "That's no ninth-floor business. That's our problem. Aurors handle that kind of stuff."

"Oh, this particular matter does fall within our competences, I am afraid," Martin unctuously replied. "This is such a strange phenomenon that it requires full investigation."

"Aurors can do that," Harry stubbornly said.

Martin's smile grew less formal and somewhat fonder, as if he was dealing with a boisterous but beloved child. It made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand on ends.

"Aurors cannot do everything, Harry," he gently pointed out. "This is abnormal. Even for wizards. We need to research the causes of such a disturbance in werewolves' usual behaviour, and that is why the case was taken out of the Aurors' hands. The reason I am taking the liberty of questioning you, is precisely that we need all the help we can get. I value a lot the thoughts of a brilliant and experienced Auror such as yourself; for in spite of your young age, you know a lot more than dear Gawain Robards himself. I completely trust your judgement."

Harry watched Martin through half-closed eyes.

"You do?" he said.

Martin nodded.

"What I saw," Harry said in a quiet voice, "was three corpses with their throats cut, lying in the middle of the village and only covered with blood-stained sheets. No one was allowed to move them, apparently. I saw people tired and discouraged, trying to fix as well as possible their damaged houses. I saw a pregnant woman finally allowed to move out of her house--"

"Harry--"

"Potter to you, Martin," Harry spat out, so venomously that the Unspeakable slightly recoiled behind his desk.

Harry had now dropped the casual, childish posture that had been his; he was on his feet, although he couldn't quite recall ever standing, and he towered over the desk and the frail little man sitting behind it. He leant forward and rested his closed fists on the dust-covered surface, his eyes boring into Martin's.

"You're experimenting," he said in a voice that shook with anger. "On some sick level, you're using the Hogsmeade inhabitants as guinea pigs. They can't leave until they are granted permission. And you don't do a fucking thing. You just sit on your ass and watch as they get killed!"

Martin's face changed, so suddenly and so completely that Harry was reminded of the effects of Polyjuice Potion. The concerned, slightly alarmed expression vanished; his iron-grey eyes burned with an anger as cold and sharp as a naked blade, and his smile abruptly vanished, along with all the familiar-looking, grandfatherly wrinkles lining his eyes and cheeks. He rose to his feet as well, and though he was shorter than Harry by a head and a half at least, there was something terrifyingly sinister about that frail old man with his slouched shoulders, glaring up at the Auror in front of him.

"You have seen a lot, Mr. Potter," he hissed, and suddenly the French accent was barely noticeable in his low, icy cold voice. "And knowing the rashness and arrogance that usually comes with your profession, and which you especially are known for, I do not expect you to understand our reasons."

"Your reasons," Harry furiously interrupted, "aren't worth innocent lives, you pathetic--"

"Be careful," Martin said in a very quiet voice. "Be very careful. You have no idea how much power the Department of Mysteries holds. You are standing on the edge of a knife."

Harry straightened up, letting out a bark of laughter.

"Tough luck, Frenchie. Death threats have little to no effect on me; I've been getting two or three a month on average since I'm eleven. Try again."

Martin's eyes flashed again in barely controlled fury. "Are you questioning my power? It is unwise, Mr. Potter. Extremely unwise indeed."

"Are you questioning mine?" Harry shot back, a feral grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "That would be unwise from you, Martin. Voldemort questioned it once. He's been lying six feet under ever since."

Both men stared at each other over the small desk, mocking green eyes confronting blazing iron ones. Harry was enjoying the fight; fights were something he was good at. He had always taken pleasure in a direct, brutal, frank attack, like the one he was leading now -- as opposed to the honeyed speech peppered with flatteries that Martin had given him, at the beginning of their conversation: a steel trap coated in sugar. It was all the difference between killing an opponent in a duel and slipping a poison in their drink. The first method was more direct, more honest, and infinitely more satisfying.

That was probably why Harry was completely thrown off-balance when the old Unspeakable abruptly switched attitude once again. Barely five seconds had passed since Harry had tossed Voldemort's name in his interlocutor's face, and he suddenly found himself glaring at a weak, quavering-voiced old man sitting on the wobbly chair, the accent audible again in his speech, his expression sad and weary.

"Mr. Potter, let us not fight," Martin pleaded in that feeble voice of his. "We are allies. We are on the same side. You, as an Auror, and one of great merit too, are of course entitled to give your opinion on this case. I will take it into consideration and ask my team to work harder for the villagers' safety. You have my word."

Harry hastily applied himself to force a blank, neutral look upon his features. Showing vindictiveness in the face of that harmless-looking old man somehow sounded as if he was running headfirst into another trap.

"Fine," he said in a voice as void of emotions as he could make it. "I should head back to work then."

He spun on his heel and took a couple of steps towards the door, eager to be rid of Martin's unsettling and dangerous presence.

"One last word, though," Martin called back.

The young Auror shot at him an inquiring glance over his shoulder.

"Let my Department handle this, Mr. Potter," the old man softly said. "The Minister has given us the case. You standing in our way will probably not please him... And as for your friend, Minerva McGonagall, you might want to tell her that she would be well inspired to mind her own business."

And on the last words, Martin's voice grew lower, colder and sharper, leaving the unspoken threat vibrating in the still air of the underground office. Harry suppressed a shiver and hastily exited the room, without saying good-bye.

He managed to find his way out of the Department of Mysteries again and literally flung himself inside a lift, hammering at once on the Atrium button. As the lift started to rise, he took the time to wipe the sweat off his brow and take deep, steadying breaths.

There were a couple of people he needed to talk to.

"Atrium."

Harry stepped out of the lift and immediately turned right, striding to the wall opposite the golden grilles. Three portraits hung there, at eye level, their occupants fast asleep.

"Everard," Harry called, halting in front of the portrait on the left.

The sallow-faced wizard jerked awake and raised his head, using the tip of his wand to push his black fringe out of his eyes as he blinked in Harry's direction.

"Potter," he said, his eyebrows raised.

"I've got a message for Professor McGonagall," Harry said in an urgent whisper.

"All right..." the portrait replied uncertainly.

"Tell her to drop it."

Everard blinked again.

"Beg your pardon?"

"She must drop it," Harry repeated through clenched teeth, his hands propped against the wall on either side of the richly ornamented frame. "Or she'll get in trouble. She shouldn't worry about Hogsmeade anymore. I'm taking care of it."

Everard looked thoroughly confused. "You're taking care of..."

"Of everything. I'll figure it out and I'll put an end to it. I swear I will. Tell her that."

Everard nodded, though he still looked hesitant. "Will do."

"Thank you," Harry briskly said. Then he wheeled around and rushed back inside of the lift, this time pressing the "Two" button.

The Auror Headquarters were much quieter than usual, in the absence of youngest Aurors and apprentices who were mainly responsible for the noise and movement during the week. Only remained the old crowd of Aurors who knew of no such things as weekends, and certainly knew better than to ask Harry questions when he was walking so quickly and purposefully. Harry had worked with most of them during the last year of the war. They were allies, if not friends.

Harry crossed the quiet Headquarters, then the tiny office occupied by Robards' secretary without pausing to glance at her. He didn't bother knocking before he opened the door to the Head Auror's office. Robards was sitting behind his desk, his thick features barely distinguishable behind the usual haze of cigar smoke hanging in the air -- but Harry heard the grin in his voice when he spoke up.

"Potter. Have a seat."

For the second time in twenty minutes, Harry was completely destabilised. He had expected another outburst at his rude entry, or urgent questions about his meeting with Martin, or even more threats, veiled or not; certainly not a smile and a calm invitation for him to sit down. Hell, Robards didn't smile at his Aurors. It was against his nature.

Robards insistingly gestured towards a straight-backed chair with the hand that wasn't holding the cigar, and Harry closed the door behind him and went to sit down. The Head Auror remained silent for a few seconds, his small piggish eyes fixed on him, all the while drawing long puffs from his cigar in a self-satisfied sort of way.

"Nice job, Potter," he idly commented.

Harry's puzzlement increased considerably, to the point when he could not even pretend that he understood what was going on.

"Thank you...?" he said uncertainly.

"Martin," Robards said as way of explanation, puffing out a bluish cloud of fragrant smoke. "You nailed the damn Frog's ass."

Harry took the time to take off his glasses and tiredly rub his eyes with the heel of his hand. "Okay, you'll need to explain that one to me," he said at last. "How could you know if I nailed Martin's ass or not while sitting seven floors above us?"

Robards stuck his cigar in the corner of his lips and reached out towards a small box sitting on his desk, in front of him. It was a round box, made of a dark wood devoid of any ornaments; the lid, however, was carved with all sorts of ancient and modern runes. Robards turned the lid three times clockwise without lifting it, then bent over his desk to held the box out to a mystified Harry.

"C'mon, open it."

Harry warily glanced up at the Head Auror, then brought a hesitant hand down to the box and lifted the lid. The box was empty.

"Are you questioning my power? It is unwise, Mr. Potter. Extremely unwise indeed."

Harry almost dropped the box in shock as Martin's voice sounded in the room, as loud and clear as if he had been standing right behind him. It was even more unnerving to hear his own voice answering, the words dripping with sarcasm and more than a healthy dose of arrogance.

"Are you questioning mine? That would be unwise from you, Martin. Voldemort questioned it once. He's been lying six feet under ever since."

"...Mr. Potter, let us not fight. We are allies. We are on the same side. You, as an Auror, and one of great merit too, are entitled to give your opinion. I will take it into consideration and ask my team to work harder for the villagers' safety. You have my word."

"Fine. I should head back to work then."

"One last word, though. Let my Department handle this, Mr. Potter. The Minister has given us the case. You standing in our way will probably not please him... And as for your friend, Minerva McGonagall, you might want to tell her that she would be well inspired to mind her own business."

There was a short silence, during which Harry perceived the faint sound of footsteps edging away and the occasional rustling of papers. He raised his head and opened his mouth to speak, but Robards silenced him with a rather aggressive gesture of his hand, quietly enjoining him to keep listening.

Then another voice spoke up, also coming from the box; a female voice. An achingly, painfully familiar voice.

"That was stupid from you, sir. Harry doesn't react too well to threats."

"I saw that," retorted Martin, sounding quite vexed. "He was bluffing."

"He was most certainly not," the woman snapped. "He's got the skill and power to make you wish you had never dared speak to him. The only thing you've accomplished with this ridiculous conversation is raising his suspicions."

"Do not lecture me," Martin spat irritably.

A few silent seconds came and went before the old Frenchman's voice rose again from the box, low and worried.

"He's suspicious," he sighed. "In this you're right. This could really complicate our work."

"Quite the contrary," the woman coolly contradicted. "Although I wish he'd never come to suspect that our Department is mingled into this, doubtless he will lead us precisely to the answers we're looking for. He has a sharp mind when he thinks things through. Plus, he's a key element to our research. Everything comes back to him in some way or another."

"True," Martin agreed pensively. "All the strange things happening around him... You'd be tempted to think he was one of them."

"Don't be a fool," the woman's voice lashed out with unexpected violence. "We have evidence of the contrary. Nothing allows you to make such disgusting assumptions--"

"Calm down," Martin dryly said, cutting across her. "And please remember that, even if you are the head investigator on this case, I am still your superior. Speaking of which, I'd like to hear the report of your visit to Hogsmeade."

"Mister Martin--"

"Now."

There was an exasperated sigh, then the screeching of wood being dragged across a hard surface -- the woman had pulled back the wobbly chair Harry had sat upon while he was in Martin's office, and she had settled in it.

"Several things out of the usual," she said in snappish tones; it was clear she was furious at being ordered around. "I ran several Detection spells. Unknown creatures were there last night, among the werewolves. They aren't wizards, or Muggles, or anything known as of today in the magical world. I'm pretty sure one of them killed the werewolf leader, who was no other than an old acquaintance of mine, a Death Eater known as Fenrir Greyback. Good riddance."

"Indeed," Martin said. "I won't waste any time mourning him either. So these creatures show up precisely on the night Potter finds out about the village..."

"That could still be a coincidence, but--"

"I don't believe in coincidences."

Silence fell once more. Then Martin's voice rose again, but the words were oddly distorted, unintelligible, as if they were coming from a dying radio; there was a sizzling sound that covered every other noise coming from the box, and then nothing.

"The spell died then," Robards explained. "One or two minutes before you barged in my office."

Harry carefully put the lid back on top of the box, where it slid into place with a slight ticking sound, then wordlessly handed it over to the Head Auror. Robards dropped it into a drawer of his desk.

"The handshake," Harry suddenly whispered, his eyes widening in comprehension.

Robards smirked and nodded in approval.

"Very good, Potter."

"You stuck a tracking spell into Martin's hand... then linked it to this box?"

Robards nodded again.

"Is that legal?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

Robards snorted.

"Not exactly. Neither is taking an Auror down to the ninth-floor in order to threaten him. My conscience is clear, Potter, thanks for worrying... Anyway, that was an interesting conversation, wasn't it?" Robards added, leaning forward to tap the extremity of his cigar against the edge of a glass ashtray. "I suppose you've recognised the woman's voice?"

Harry nodded, his mouth dry.

"Hermione Granger," he answered in a toneless voice.

"Precisely. Seems she's been doing a nice little bit of research recently."

"Seems like it."

"What is she to you again?" Robards gruffly asked. "Ex-girlfriend?"

Harry pressed his lips together into a thin line. "Ex-best friend," he corrected shortly.

Robards didn't insist. He leant back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, continuously sending rings of smoke dancing in the already barely breathable air of his office. Harry dropped his eyes to the floor, gladly taking on the opportunity to think quietly while his Head of Department seemed lost in his own musings.

The morning had been eventful, to put it mildly. The day before, he had been absolutely convinced that he was the only one to know or care about the eerie mysteries surrounding the Forest, the long-forgotten Third Kind and himself. No one else was aware that the world had a strange, hidden, and quite frightening third dimension; and if he was honest with himself, he had to admit being quite happy with the way things were. Or rather, the way he thought things were.

How wrong he had been.

It would be a really strange concurrence that those werewolves would happen to wander every full moon so close to the Forbidden Forest -- or rather, as close to it as they could get. According to Romilda, they had come there regularly since the end of the war; in other words, ever since Harry had broken into the old core of the Forest, thus waking up the ancient trees. They probably heard a kind of call, so imperious that they had to come back every month in the valley... And of course they would wreak havoc in the only inhabited area they could get into -- Hogsmeade.

Also, as Romilda had told him, the Ministry had known about it for months: ever since the attacks had started getting more daring and more lethal. The Minister had undoubtedly promised to help them, but then the Department of Mysteries had got their hands on the case and taken the sickening decision of not doing anything, so that they could observe, undisturbed, the unusual phenomenon.

They had detected the presence of the Third Kind. They had identified them as "neither Muggles, nor wizards." And if there was one place in the world where lost information about the Third Kind would be kept, that was the Department of Mysteries.

In other words, it was highly probable that they knew as much as Harry did. Or even more.

As for Hermione... She was in charge for the case. That could mean only one thing: contrary to what he had thought, she had not tried to push Harry out of her life. She had merely taken the matters into her own hands. In order to heal Ron, Luna and Healer Parletoo, she first had to understand what had hit them; and so, for months, she had been investigating about what Harry had revealed to her -- without ever referring to him about it.

That, strangely enough, hurt him. If truth be told, that hurt a lot. He had honestly thought he didn't care much about Hermione anymore; and he hardly ever thought of her, actually. However, knowing that all this time, she had used the information he had naïvely given her in order to find out what he was, never feeling necessary to consult him in the meantime, or even ask for his bloody permission -- that was surprisingly painful. And he had every intention to make Hermione understand just how much it was.

Hermione. The Department of Mysteries. Professor McGonagall, too, who now had guessed that Harry was no longer a wizard -- if he ever had been. Robards, who probably had learnt a lot by illegally spying on the Department of Mysteries... Harry became suddenly aware that he was sitting in the middle of an intricate network of people surveying his every gesture and trying to figure out what he was.

That changed everything...

Harry suddenly started coughing uncontrollably, his whole body shaking as his lungs attempted to forcibly get out of his chest, his throat raw with all the cigar smoke he had inhaled.

"Smoke's bothering you?" Robards distractedly asked without putting out his cigar.

"I'm fine," Harry managed to croak out, gasping for breath.

He took off his glasses again and wiped his watering eyes with his sleeve. When he had placed his glasses back on his nose, blinking rapidly as to get rid of the last tears clinging to his lashes, he found Robards staring intently at him.

"There's one thing the old Frenchie and I agree on, Potter," the Head Auror said grimly. "I don't believe in coincidences. There are too many weird things happening around you."

Harry had a tired grin. "With all due respect, sir, I wouldn't call that the scoop of the century. That's basically the description of my life from age one."

Robards snorted, although Harry thought he saw the corners of his mouth twitch. It was hard to tell through the smoky mist.

"Good point," the Head Auror grumbled. "But that tops the cake. The Unspeakables are beside themselves with excitement, and that means something really huge is going on. They weren't half as agitated in the Dark Lord's time. He was probably too mundane for those tight-assed mystical apes, come to think of it."

He crushed what was left of his cigar into the ashtray, and immediately lit another that he drew from an open box, with curt and precise gestures.

"You're trouble, Potter," he said in a muffled voice through a fresh cloud of bluish smoke. "Must be in your freaking genes. You're attracting problems. I usually wouldn't give a damn, but this problem is a nasty business. And I don't want the ninth-floor to handle this on its own. They would wait till critical moment before they intervene, and that's usually too damn late. I don't need more corpses; that young woman--" He checked a report written on yellowish parchment, lying on his desk next to his cigar box, "--Lucy Bay, is enough."

Something clicked in Harry's mind.

"Lucy who?" he asked sharply. "Who's that?"

Robards froze in surprise, forgetting to blow out the smoke he had just inhaled, and stared enquiringly at Harry.

"Bay," he answered warily. "Lucy Bay. That woman who got killed by the werewolves last night."

"With black hair?" Harry all but demanded. He dimly registered that he was perched on the very edge of his chair, his hands gripping tightly the sides of the seat.

"What's wrong with you, Potter?" Robards blurted out. "Yeah, black hair. Only thing that was still recognisable after they were done with her. Why the hell is that important?"

Harry sagged back in his chair, feeling strangely drained out as a huge wave of relief broke over him. Romilda Vane was alive. He knew his reaction was hardly rational -- after all she wasn't much more to him than poor Lucy Bay had been; but Lucy Bay hadn't been the one he had promised his help to.

"Nothing," Harry finally replied, his face breaking into a wide grin in spite of himself. "Just thought it was... someone else. Never mind."

Robards eyed his suspiciously for a few seconds, then seemed to decide against asking further questions and took a thoughtful puff from his cigar.

"What I was saying," he resumed, "is that I can't possibly get a decent night's sleep as long as I know that the ninth-floor is alone on this case. They'll screw up. They always do. I need someone from my Department on the case, and since you're already knee-deep into this whole mess, I didn't have much choice but choose you..."

"I thought Scrimgeour had given the case to the Unspeakables?"

"He has," Robards confirmed without blinking. "But even if Rufus has always been a pain in my ass, he's still an Auror at heart, and as such he hates the ninth-floor. He wants an Auror on the case. Off the record, though, so the mission is twice as dangerous... You can still back out. Just remember that you'll be Obliviated if you do."

"No," Harry said immediately. "I want to take care of it. I mean, first, that's my job, and second, I promised someone I would help them."

Robards studied Harry's face for a few seconds. "You want to?"

"Yes sir." The words were determined. He couldn't afford to let anyone else take that case, and find out the truth about him before he did.

The Head Auror stared at Harry right in the eyes, his gaze suddenly as piercing as Dumbledore's once was.

"I suppose that's why you came in here?" he asked sharply. "Ask me permission to take over the case?"

"Well... close enough, I guess," Harry answered, his determination wavering as he squirmed a little in his chair.

Robards' face broke into a grin.

"Or rather, ask me for a vacation so that you could discreetly investigate on your own?"

"Yeah, that'd be more like it," Harry muttered.

Robards coughed out another cloud of smoke as he let out a roar of laughter.

"Fine, I see you don't need persuading, that will save us time," Robards concluded, almost jovially. "Tell you what, Potter -- it's better that I'd be the one to give you the job. You will be brought to bend quite a few laws while snooping about; don't let that stop you."

His grin faded and he stared very seriously at Harry, his face set into a sinister, coldly implacable expression. He suddenly looked more like the deadly fighter he was known to be, than the irascible and insufferable Head of Department Harry had thought he was.

"Do whatever you feel necessary. Kill if you have to. Break into the Department of Mysteries if you have to. Try not to get caught, because if you do, I'm not sure I can get you out of there. This is some ugly Dark Arts we're dealing with, Potter. Some ancient black power as old as the world... Something that would make the Dark Lord sound like a brat having fun with a matchbox. We have to crush it."

Harry's insides painfully twisted with unease at Robards' words, as if an icy cold hand had grabbed his gut and held it tightly. Apparently it showed on his face, despite his best effort, for Robards looked suddenly more solemn -- he had probably interpreted it as a flicker of fear.

"I trust you enough, Potter," Robards said gravely. "Your friend got it mostly right, you have power and skill, although your self-control is something you really need to work more on. Be careful. I won't be able to do a lot to help you. You'd better remember you're alone on this one; don't drag anyone else into this."

"It wasn't my intention," Harry said in a low voice. Too many people knew already.

Robards gave him a curt nod, then reached out and grabbed on his desk a slim folder of greenish cardboard, with the words 'MAGICAL BEASTS IN FROG END' inscribed in black ink with a thick-pointed quill on the front cover; right under that title, thin and spidery black letters drew the names 'Potter and Colman'. Harry needed a good thirty seconds before he recognised the file he and Lance had been working on the previous day, right before he had stormed out of the Ministry. Or rather, the file Lance had worked on while he stared into space.

Robards opened the cardboard cover and started to leaf through the sheets with quick and efficient gestures, the parchment rustling faintly at the touch of the thick, calloused fingers. The folder didn't contain many sheets of parchment, and after a few seconds he snapped it shut.

"There you go," Robards said, lightly tapping the greenish cardboard with his wand. "That's your cover. Officially you're going to Frog End to continue the investigation."

Both men rose to their feet and Robards held out the folder to Harry; the young Auror took it and, after a brief glance at the cover, where now only the name 'Potter' appeared, tucked it under one arm.

"You'll work out the details with my secretary," Robards added as he sat back heavily into his wide chair. "She's no genius but she's trustworthy. She knows your mission is more special than what it seems."

"What about Colman?" Harry asked.

"For Merlin's sake, do I have to do your job for you?" Robards grumbled out, suddenly back to his usually impatient self. "Tell him you're alone on the case now. And tell him I want to see him."

"Fine... sir?"

Robards grunted in answer.

"Aren't you worried that... someone might have used on your office the same sort of Listening spell you used on Martin's?" Harry slowly asked.

Robards raised an eyebrow in his direction. "Let me worry about that, Potter," he said coolly. "No one has heard our conversation, you can be sure of that. You don't need to know anything else. Now off you go."

Harry nodded and stepped behind the chair that he carefully put back into place, ready to leave. Robards didn't walk him to the door, nor did he hold out his hand for Harry to shake. The message could not have been any clearer: Robards trusted him with a mission because he had to, but Harry was still his subordinate, and certainly not his favourite one. The ghost of a smirk came to graze Harry's lips, and he wheeled about without saying a word of good-bye to his superior. He could almost feel the Head Auror's irritated glare planted between his shoulder blades as he pulled the door opened and gladly stepped out into the secretary's wonderfully smoke-free room.

"Potter," he announced distractedly, dropping the folder on her desk. She started and her cheeks flushed red.

"Oh -- oh yes of course. Mr. Potter."

She glanced up at him, and he noticed that she tried, without much of a success, to look coldly indifferent. The brief relationship she had had with Lance the previous year had, of course, spectacularly failed, and it had led her to behave very peculiarly whenever she was around him or Harry; said peculiar behaviour involved a lot of stiff backs, red faces and clumsy gestures. Harry couldn't suppress a half-smile, just as he felt a stab of pity for her. He didn't even remember her name. He doubted Lance did.

"Here's some money for your mission," she said stiffly, heaving from under her desk a leather bag of respectable size, and by the sound of it, full of gold. "You won't need to stay at the hotel. I have a couple of connections in Frog End, and you can stay at this address." And she gave him a small white card, bearing a name and an address. "That will be all. Good luck."

Although her dismissal could hardly have been colder and less inviting, Harry lingered, staring in wonderment at the rectangle of white cardboard the secretary had handed him.

"Daphne Greengrass?" he murmured, reading the name aloud.

"Do you have a problem with it?"

He raised his head again to meet the secretary's cold and resentful eyes.

"No," he said politely. "Not at all. Thank you for your trouble."

"Welcome. Good luck, Mr. Potter."

He nodded distractedly and left her office, pocketing the card as he went. The leather bag went to hang from his belt, solidly attached to it by the thin threads maintaining it closed, and after shrinking the folder he slid it in an inside pocket of his heavy travelling cloak.

Saturdays were good days for working at the Ministry, Harry mused as he crossed again the Headquarters and found himself a mercifully empty lift. If the reflection he could see in the mirror sealed into the wall was accurate -- one can never be too careful with wizards' mirrors -- he was lucky the building had been near deserted. Unshaven, his eyes bloodshot from being exposed for so long to smoke, his clothes stained with the mud from his trip to Hogsmeade and smelling strongly of Robards' cigars, he would probably have attracted more stares than what was good for an Auror with a confidential mission...

"Shower is in order," he muttered aloud, in the silence filled with the rattling and grating noises that the lift made as it took him down to the Atrium. "Then I can go looking for more trouble."

***

The last visit Harry had to make before he could begin his investigation, wasn't one he was really looking forward to.

First, because Harry's last meeting with Lance Colman had not exactly ended on a friendly note.

Second, because said Lance Colman lived in a kind of cesspit Harry had always been keen on avoiding visiting.

Harry grimaced as he stood on Lance's doorstep and peered inside the flat, through the door he had effortlessly opened. Lance's place consisted in the basement of a sinister building, without air nor light. Lance never bothered to keep his flat clean: the floor was littered with rumpled clothes and bits of old food, and the greying walls reeked with a mixture of cold tobacco and alcohol that never seemed to fade, no matter how many underpaid housekeepers tried to scrub them clean. A single inspiration instantly brought to Harry's nostrils the faint scent of cigarette lingering in the air; it was a sourish, somewhat cold and sickly smell, something that made him nearly long for the strong, rich and vigorous odour of cigar that had been filling Robards' office.

"And people say I'm not tidy," Harry muttered, his tone mildly puzzled as he stepped over what looked like balled dirty robes, dropped inside an old pizza box that had apparently not been completely emptied of its original contents. "Jeez, this place has gotten worse since last time I've been in here."

"You've not been here in ages, Potter," drawled Lance's familiar voice from a dark corner of the room.

Harry whirled about, facing the direction Lance's voice had come from, and squinted in an attempt to distinguish his team mate amidst the confused mess of vague shapes, drowned in semi-darkness, that filled the vast room.

"Don't lit anything up. You never know what can happen here with fire," Lance's voice said again. He sounded almost like his lazy, cynical self, but some syllables came out as much harsher than the slight slur Harry was accustomed to hear, betraying Lance's tension behind the nonchalant act.

Harry nodded, acknowledging Lance's words. He didn't really need any light anyway; his eyes had quickly got used to the obscurity, and he could now see Lance. His team mate sat, bare-chested, in an old armchair covered with a faded velvet eaten by moth in places. Although his posture was slumped, Harry was pretty sure he had his wand within reach and was ready to use it.

"Your Locking Spell sucks," he said bluntly, while he took one or two steps in Lance's direction before halting again.

"I'm watching the door anyway," Lance calmly replied. "And as I said, if you try to use any magic at all in here, you'll be surprised at the results. I'm practically living like a Muggle."

He leant forward and picked up a cigarette from the small rectangular packet that stood out, white, on top of a dark shapeless bundle -- more dirty clothes, probably. Harry caught a glimpse of the white stick that Lance brought to his lips, then there was the dry, sharp noise of a lighter; a small flame broke the obscurity, throwing a sporadic light onto Lance's strained features for a few fleeting seconds. He looked more nervous than Harry had ever seen him.

"So," Lance said after exhaling a puff of smoke. "What brings you here?"

"Do you absolutely have to smoke?" Harry asked with genuine irritation. "I've already sat in Robards' office for longer than what's humanly endurable. If I take more tobacco today, I might just as well get myself transplanted cancerous lungs."

"Cry me a river," Lance drawled, but he put out his cigarette nonetheless, crushing the end of it against the armrest of his seat. "So the boss called you?"

"Yeah. He wanted to give me to case on unknown magical beasts."

Lance shifted slightly, his stance expressing an increased attention.

"We both work on that case," he slowly pointed out.

Harry shook his head. "Not anymore. Robards gave it to me, as a kind of personal mission of some sort. You've got to pay the boss a visit before tonight, by the way. He'll probably give you the same sort of dumb assignment."

Lance slumped back in his armchair, his head tilted back so that he was staring at the ceiling. "That all?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Harry answered shortly. "Got to go now."

And without waiting for a response from Lance, he wheeled about and made his way through the rubbish covering the floor and towards the door.

"Harry."

Harry froze, his hand already on the doorknob. Lance had dropped his blasé attitude, and he now sounded tired and even a little depressed.

"I wanted to say... that I don't know what the fuck happened yesterday," Lance said in a low voice. "Just before you stormed out. One minute we're talking, the next you're strangling me and telling me never to threaten you again. I don't fucking get it."

Harry finally turned around, facing again the lonely shadow that was Lance, lost in the middle of his cluttered flat. The white-hot rage he had experienced the previous day partly came back, under the form of a cold kind of resentment.

"Don't you?" he snapped. "Let me put it that way. One minute you tell me that you won't spill my secrets, and the next, you're telling me that I misplace my trust, that I should be more careful... and that one revelation would be enough to break me... And now you have the nerve to tell me you don't fucking get it?"

A heavy silence met his words, and Harry let out a humourless chuckle. "Thought so," he muttered in bitter satisfaction. He turned again to leave.

"And where did I threaten you?"

There was not an ounce of defiance in Lance's voice. If anything, he sounded puzzled.

Harry blinked.

"When you hinted that you were in a good position to blackmail me?" he suggested, his eyebrows raised.

"Is that how you've -- my God, Harry!" Lance exclaimed, sounding astounded and even indignant. Harry was fairly sure he had stood up, though his voice didn't sound any closer than before. "How could that be -- Okay, I probably sounded like an ass, but -- I never wanted to -- I never -- Merlin..."

Harry released the doorknob again and leant his back against the door, his gestures slow and hesitant from the various emotions swirling madly inside of him, and among which dominated bemusement and wariness.

"What did you mean then?" he said slowly.

"Exactly what I said! Don't go trusting anyone with your secrets--"

"Gee, thanks, I had never thought of that. Actually I was thinking about giving an interview to the Daily Prophet," Harry snapped.

There was a short pause.

"Well... at any rate I never meant to threaten you," Lance said more calmly. "So if that's how it came out, I'm sorry... I wouldn't threaten you. You go down, I go down too. We've been working together for years, and the Ministry wouldn't leave a potential witness behind..."

Harry rubbed his forehead tiredly. Lance had a good point. And he sounded genuinely puzzled by Harry's interpretation of his words... Harry was sorely tempted to believe him -- it was not as if he was snowed under with friends, after all. He replayed in his head the conversation he had had with Lance the day before, trying to find where exactly he had seen a threat in his words.

There could well have been none, now he thought of it. Or if there was, it wasn't so evident that it required immediate death by strangulation.

"Oh," he mumbled.

Lance chuckled feebly. "Yeah. Oh."

Both Aurors remained silent for a couple of minutes, each trying to process the new information they had both received.

"Must've been particularly tense that day," Harry said at last. "That, and I heard Malfoy say basically the same things once. And I'm dead certain that it was a threat then."

"Explains it," Lance quietly agreed. "Although I still think that, threat or not, strangling me in the middle of--"

"I know," Harry quickly said. "I'm sorry."

No answer came, and Harry wasn't really expecting one. The exchange had fast grown a little too uncomfortable for his liking, and he figured it was now high time for him to leave. Lance didn't stop him.

Harry had reached the top of the stairs leading up to the surface when a last call caused him to come to another halt.

"Hey, Harry!"

He heaved a sigh, then wearily turned around once more. Lance was at the bottom of the stairs, a bare-chested, tousle-haired, blinking silhouette in faded jeans, and his eyes were raised to meet his.

"How did you do it?" Lance asked, without a trace of hostility in his voice.

"Do what?"

"How did you strangle me?" Lance insisted with actual interest. "I mean, you didn't use a spell, or your hands, or anything... It was more as if you and my windpipe had plotted my death together behind my back. Which, you'll admit, isn't a very comfortable notion."

Harry laughed this time, but as he did he realised that he would have a hard time finding an answer to Lance's question. How had he done it? It had seemed like a natural reaction at the moment, he had never thought it through, nor had he ever wondered how he would achieve wandless magic -- especially one of such nature...

Lance was still watching him inquiringly. Harry firmly pushed this new mystery to the back of his mind; it would always be time to think about it...

"You don't really expect me to answer that, do you?" he replied with a half grin. "If I did, you'd be able to plot my death with my windpipe in retaliation."

Lance smiled back, and wordlessly stepped back in the shadows of his threshold.

Harry was the one to call out, this time.

"Oi, Colman!"

Lance appeared at the bottom of the stairs again, the old nonchalant grin firmly back into place. "This constant waltzing is getting slightly wearing, Potter," he drawled out. "If you don't want to get out of here, we might have to consider moving in together or--"

"I was going to say precisely the contrary," Harry cut in matter-of-factly. "I'll be out of town for some time. Get out of that hole you call a flat, hire someone to disinfect it, and stay at my place in the meantime."

Harry's keys were already in his hand. He tossed them at Lance, who caught them in a clear jingle of metal, a slightly perplexed look on his face and a question on his lips -- but Harry had already Disapparated.