Harry Potter and the Necklace of Menat 12

Chapter 12

A black cat sat on the shingled roof of an establishment in Knockturn Alley. From its perch, it could see into the streets below, watching unobtrusively the people walking about, unseen.

Or so it thought.

Out of nowhere, there was a flash of red light and the cat dropped, insensate, on the pavement below, crashing with a loud clatter as it hit several garbage bins. A hag came shuffling forward, a huge, hairy mole prominent on her long, beaked nose, sagging with age. She was about to stoop and pick up the cat when a huge black dog suddenly appeared in front of her, a low growl rumbling deep in its throat as it stood between her and the cat.

"Git out of my way, ye mangy cur, if ye don' wanta join 'lil kitty hir as my dinner," she shouted at first, startled, but when the dog continued to growl, she leaned back and then cackled as if at a private joke, showing several of her teeth missing. The dog's hackles grew even higher, snarling and baring its fangs fully.

The hag pulled out her wand, crooked and filthy like her, and pointed it at the snarling dog. She lifted her wand arm and was about to bring it down to cast a spell against the dog when….

"If I were you I'd put that wand down."

She wheeled around and saw a tall, gaunt warlock standing off to the side, dark of skin and dark of eyes. She had been certain she was alone in this part of Knockturn Alley minutes before.

"Who ar' ye?" she demanded.


"Nobody. But I know you, hag," the man spoke, rooting her to the spot with his intense gaze. His eyes strayed down to the black dog and the cat that was still unconscious. He turned back to the hag. "What? Meat not good enough for you?"

"What d'yah care? They're jus' mongrels."

The gaunt man smiled humorlessly. "What's wrong? Running out of places to steal children? I heard they ran you off from Smethwick some weeks back." He looked her up and down. "I see you're losing weight."

"Who ar' ye?" She looked at him suspiciously now.

"As I've said, I'm just a nobody. But that's my dog and cat you're planning to cook for dinner tonight. So run along now, before Ministry people arrive and find you skulking hereabouts."

For some time she stood there, the hand holding her wand twitching tensely, but the gaunt man's eyes narrowed into slits and his arm dropped to his side where he would have quick access to his wand – on this she could bet what few remaining teeth she had left. "Lousy ratter!" she spat, reconsidering her chances, and shuffled away, her progress weighted down with her bags that seemed to be all her possessions in the world.

The warlock followed her with his intense eyes. Only when he was satisfied that she would not turn around to fire back a parting shot did he walk over to the cat, moving a bit stiffly with his right foot dragging slightly behind him. He bent down and checked the animal for vital signs, then picked it up gently and carefully hid it inside his robes. Then he walked out of the alley, the dog following at his heels. They threaded slowly through the maze of Knockturn Alley, the man scanning people's faces as he limped along. The denizens of that grubby street averted their faces as he drew near, for they recognized him, though nobody really knew who he was. Some say he traded in exotic plants and animals, just a hairbreadth's shy of illegal. He was obviously a foreigner judging by his looks, but one could never tell. Though his accent was decidedly British, it was hard to pin down to a particular region.

At last, the warlock and his dog left the shady street of Knockturn Alley and out into the main streets of the Wizarding Market. Still they wended their way forward, the tall man with his dark eyes, black dog trotting beside him. Then they slipped into a side street, though nobody seemed to notice them do so as they entered the alley so narrow no three men could walk through it abreast. Halfway through the alley they stopped. The man then turned to the wall and started running his hands over the rough concrete. A faint blue glow of light started to appear, and he concentrated upon it, running his long, dark fingers along the wall until the light became a door. He tapped the door thrice, murmuring words under his breath, and then the door opened.

It was but a small, dark space, not more than nine meters square. It looked to be some sort of storage, with cases and wooden boxes stocked helter-skelter inside the small space. The tall gaunt man and his dog went inside, the door closing immediately behind them, shutting out the daylight. But just as soon, pockets of light flared to life inside the dim room. The tall man then carefully extricated the still limp cat from inside his robes and gently laid it on the floor. He pulled out his wand and waved it over the cat, Tranfiguring it back into its human form, the Auror Ray. Meanwhile, beside him the black dog had himself Transformed back to another Auror, Gavin.
"Thanks, Harry. I wasn't sure what to do," Gavin said to the warlock who had Transfigured himself as well. "I didn't want anybody to know we've been casing the joint. Not until we've found the suspect."

"It's okay. I didn't want any incidents either," Harry replied.

Ray began to stir and both Harry and Gavin looked anxiously at him. He sat for a time, massaging his neck.

"Are you okay? How do you feel?" Harry asked him solicitously.

Ray shook his head ruefully. "Feels like I've been hit by a dozen Bludgers."
"Hags' spells are a lot coarser than ours – less focused – and so they put more power in their spells."

"She looks very hungry, too," Gavin noted drily. Ray snorted, but weakly.
"I imagine it would be quite painful. Here, drink this," Harry said, offering Ray a flask of Pepper-Up potion he always carried around.

Ray looked up at Harry, shamed for being caught unawares. "I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't even see her."

"You wouldn't. She'd transfigured herself as one of the bins." Harry was flying low as a common house sparrow over the rooftops, keeping an eye over Knockturn Alley and his men. He'd already detected her magic, but couldn't identify what it was at first. "I suspect she's weak from malnutrition, her magic might not have registered even if you tried to check for it."

"So, the curse the Ministry placed against her works well, then?" Gavin asked. He now remembered the hag as the primary suspect in a series of missing Muggle children in the West Midlands. The numbers had grown so alarmingly high and the disappearances so bizarre that the Ministry had suspected magic was involved, stepped in, and zeroed in on her as the most likely suspect. On the days in which the children went missing, she could not give verifiable accounts of her whereabouts and had refused to give Veritaserum testimony to support her statements. Not having any proof, the Ministry was forced to let her go, but placed a Trace on the hag nevertheless. What she didn't know was that on the Trace was piggybacked another spell that prevented her from performing magic on and around Muggles and children in general. Gavin heard it was Hermione Granger's work, and he suspected Harry had a hand in it as well, though technically it wasn't an Auror case. Piggybacking and Paired Spells was something Gavin had seen Harry perform often enough (and secretly hoped to be able to do someday).

"Good thing hags like their meat freshly-butchered or I would have been a goner," Ray said, still shaking his head.

"So what do we do now, Harry?" Gavin asked. "Do we go back to Knockturn Alley?" He looked unenthusiastic at the prospect. They had been casing the street for three weeks now and seen neither hide nor hair of the Wanderers' Potions runner.

Harry himself was increasingly frustrated with the futile results of their casing; he was starting to feel that they were wasting time. If the suspect were somehow responsible for the Harpies, then he would go underground. "We go back to the Ministry and think of something else to do," Harry decided.

And so the three Aurors left with Harry Portkeying them back to the Ministry since Ray still felt a bit woozy from the curse.

Harry was surprised though to walk into the second level of the Ministry and find it teeming with people, most of whom looked up hopefully the moment he stepped out of the lifts. He walked over to Liede's desk and found her bent under her table, extricating yet another folder to be placed on her desk already half-buried with stacks of parchments.


"Liede, what's going on?" Harry asked the secretary.

"Oh, Mr. Potter, good afternoon," she said, straightening up. "Well, since you're back, these people," and she gestured towards the queue of people snaking round the floor – "came to follow up their cases against the Rosier brothers."

Harry glanced towards the line of complainants. There was still a long list of unresolved cases involving Death Eaters – the missing and illegal confiscation of properties of Muggle-borns and 'undesirables'. The Rosier brothers had been frequently cited as suspects in most of these cases. Harry only escaped the loss of his own fortune because the Gringotts goblins refused to cede control of his account, and because old-world money like the Potter-Black fortune had built-in protection against just such illegal seizures.

"Did you tell them that I'm working on another case right now? A priority one?"

"Oh yes. Still, they're here," she said, looking resignedly at the crowd of people, then turned back to Harry. "So Mr. Pendrill ordered Mr. Weasley to process the claims while you're still working on the other one – just the papers," she added hurriedly as an angry frown started to crease Harry's forehead. "Mr. Weasley's not allowed to do field work, unless you're with him. The Minister's orders."

Harry nodded and strode towards his office with a slight twinge of guilt. He and Ron were supposed to be working on the Galina case. Given Galina's history, he simply could not entrust the case to anyone. But now it seemed Ron would have to carry most of the workload on his own, at least after he, Harry, had closed the Harpies case.

Harry opened the door to his office and strode in only to stop short. Ron was talking to one of the complainants –who happened to be the garish lipstick woman. He glanced at Ron, a question in his eyes. Ron answered in his own mind. Tiggy Wiggins. Her name is Tiggy Wiggins. Harry nodded. He only knew that she had lost a child, but not the particulars.

Seeing who walked in, Wiggins smiled timidly, a greeting that Harry acknowledged a bit stiffly. He imagined his cheeks slightly burning for knowing something intimate of her. Wiggins reminded him, as well, of what he had done to Ginny – thinking the worst when Ginny did not do anything wrong and had suffered grievously for it – and Harry's insides squirmed even tighter. Thankfully, Ron didn't notice anything. He was all business and direct this morning. He would be, given the long line outside.

"Don't mind him," Ron said to the woman as he waved a dismissive hand in Harry's direction. "He's only Harry Potter. Go on, as you were saying," he prompted the witch.

She looked apprehensively at Harry at first, who nodded his encouragement as well. Then she turned back to Ron.

"As I've said, the Rosiers have always been after my husband's family's piece of land on the northeast border of their lands. It's the only piece of land the Rosiers haven't acquired yet; all the land surrounding their property they've already taken, one way or the other. But of course, they can't steal it from us like the way they did the poor Muggles in the area."

Harry walked over to his desk and sat down, his discomfort vanishing as he listened to her speak.

"When the Ministry announced that You-Know-Who's back," Wiggins continued, "my husband began making plans to transfer all our properties to our only son as his sole nominee. My husband thought that the Rosiers – once the Death Eaters are in full power – would surely go after our property, which has been in my husband's family for generations. It was the only way my husband knew how to keep his land out of the Rosiers' hands. As you know, a child who owns property cannot transfer or sell it to anyone until he's reached maturity. And when Dumbledore died, my husband pushed through with the transfers, hoping that, by the time our son becomes of age, You-Know-Who will have been defeated for good," she said, casting a glance at Harry.

"And he was right," Wiggins continued. "You–Know–Who is gone. Mr. Potter defeated him, as we well knew he would," she said, looking at Harry with a fierce, proud expression on her face. But then her face clouded, suddenly struck with grief. "Except – except – we didn't anticipate what the Rosiers were going to do, we didn't realize what they were capable of doing." She began wringing her hands, her voice starting to break. "My husband thought that they were surely going to punish us, that he would be kidnapped, or killed, even. But we've discussed that. He's already prepared himself for that, even though I tried to convince him that we should just leave the country and lay low and be safe. But my husband – he's too stubborn. He did mean for me and David to leave Britain. But he was going to stay behind. He has even already said his goodbyes to us – "

"But you know, it's just land." Harry couldn't help himself from speaking, extremely disappointed that people were willing to risk their lives for a mere piece of land.

"Not with my husband's family, it's not. The Rosiers had been trying to steal that land away from my husband's family for generations. But my husband vowed it would never happen – not in his watch. But we never imagined the Rosiers would go after our son, our David."

"That Christmas, the year the Ministry fell, my son didn't come home for the holidays. We knew he went home on the train. He would never stay at Hogwarts with Death Eaters running the place. My husband and I waited at Platform 9 ¾, waiting for him to step off the train, but he never did. We asked some of his classmates, the few who remained at the station, and they confirmed to us that our son came home with them on the train. But they didn't know where he's gone off to. We climbed aboard and searched the whole train but we never found him. We had no recourse but to file up a missing case here at the Ministry. And it was then that Garrick Rosier cornered my husband and said, 'You think you'll be clever with me? You'll never see your son again.' And that's the last we've heard of our son. We pleaded with them. My husband gave all the deeds and titles of our land to the Rosiers. They took it, but of course, it was already in my son's name. It would be totally useless to them. Still, they refused to tell us what happened to our son." She looked at Ron. "David was only eleven."

Harry and Ron continued to stay silent, letting her speak uninterrupted, letting her extract her grievances and painful memories. He couldn't say anything either, even if he wanted to.

"After the war, we've looked for our son everywhere," she said, staring into her hands. Tears had started to fall from her eyes, "but we never saw a trace of him. We've never learned where he was taken, or where he was buried or if they buried him at all. And when we've heard the rumors that You-Know-Who used to feed his snake with his victims, I – I – I almost lost my mind."

"We tried having another child. I insisted," she said, brushing her tears angrily away. "Even though my husband doesn't want one anymore. He blames himself for what happened to our child, see. But I can't, I just couldn't have any more kids. It was lucky enough that we even had the one. So I told my husband that maybe he should have another child by another woman. I won't mind. But he won't do it. He refused to disrespect me that way, he says. And it would be like we're forgetting David. He doesn't want to replace our son with another child."

"But it's not as if I want to replace my son. There's not a single day that I don't think about him. How can I forget my only son?" she cried, looking at Harry, willing him to understand. "Yet at the back of my mind, I knew we could not let our lives end there. So, every day I try to conceive, even though I knew I could never have another child again. Still, I try. We couldn't stop trying, for it would be like we've become victims all over again. It would be as if the Death Eaters have never been defeated, that the Rosiers had won." Wiggins looked out at the window, her gaze somewhere far off. "Perhaps, they have," she said in broken whisper. She turned an anguished face up to Ron and Harry, who normally were uncomfortable with a woman crying, but they couldn't be immune to her pain. "So now, I just wanted to know – if there's a chance at all – that David could be found, if he was buried somewhere. He deserves to come home. That's all I ever hope for, now."

She left with both Ron and Harry promising to do everything they could to find out what happened to her son, even though they knew that it was likely an empty promise. And Harry couldn't stop thinking how he was such a poor, sorry arse. He should have known – there were very few people unaffected by the last wizarding war. Behind the many faces he encountered every day in the wizarding world was a broken heart.

"I hate giving people false hopes." Ron's voice broke into Harry's guilt–tripping. "If there's a clue as to what happened to these missing people, or to the properties the Rosiers stole, it would be at her house. How are we going to find it? If she died without telling anyone her address, then it would be impossible to find."

"There are ways around a Fidelius Charm," Harry said quietly.

"There are?" Ron asked, his eyebrows disappearing beneath his hair. "I'm certain there's none or Voldemort would have known about it. He wouldn't need Wormtail to betray your parents, would he?"

But Harry did not answer, deep in his thoughts. Ron eyed him in that shrewd way he had, familiar as he was with Harry's moods.

"Or perhaps it's just you," he said, just as quietly. Oh, why should it even surprise him? He watched Harry now as the latter continued to mull things over.

For Harry did have an idea. He had been thinking about it, even when he was abroad. He hated leaving a case unclosed, felt that Galina's house held more secrets, answers to who knew what questions. He'd asked Fr. Lockefeer about it. And the old priest confirmed to him that, technically, an intact Fidelius Charm could be broken. But it would take a lot of power, a lot of skill, and perhaps, a bit of uncommon magic – requisites that Harry thought he had.

He turned his body to face Ron fully. "Do you remember your conversation with Galina?"

"Yes. But I can't remember going to her house, Harry. I tried to remember earlier, back in the cemetery and then at the office. Some parts I remember, some are just blanks. I couldn't even remember searching Rosier's records for his home address and emergency contact information. And then the next thing I remember was talking to her inside her house. I tried to picture her house in my mind, but I can't."

"But you do remember being at her house?" Harry clarified. Ron nodded. "Then just try to remember your conversations inside her house. As much as you can."

Harry then retrieved the Pensieve and set it up in the middle of the room, while Ron notified Liede to cancel all pending interviews for the rest of the day. Then Ron locked the office so no one could just walk in while the two of them were inside the Pensieve. Finally, Harry turned to Ron. "Ready?"
Ron nodded. Ron pointed his wand to his temple and extracted the memory, carefully pulling a long, single, insubstantial strand of thought. Harry readily saw that the strand was not as smooth as extracted thoughts normally were; it seemed to be missing parts of it as if something had bitten into it in places. Then Ron placed the thought into the basin. Harry then prodded the thoughts with his wand and he and Ron then dove into the swirling pool of silvery thought clouds.

They landed right in the middle of Galina's living room. From the internal structure, it seemed to be an old farmhouse. It was dark, dingy inside, and very unkempt. There were stains on the rug under the center table. The furniture too was old, like the black leather sofa, which was frayed and very lumpy, its stuffing showing in places. The dark wooden bookshelf on one side of the wall was full of old, dilapidated books, the leather spine covers torn loose from most of them. Harry was standing near enough the shelf to read some of the titles and saw they were mostly about the Dark Arts.

The Memory–Ron and Memory–Galina were in the middle of the room, talking. Ron was standing, whether by choice or out of Galina's rudeness, Harry could not tell. At certain moments, the memory would flicker into white nothingness but would resolve back to Ron's visit almost at once.

The interview was straightforward enough: Ron merely informing Galina of the disappearance of Garick Rosier's remains. Galina looked appropriately grieved and offended, but now, with the knowledge of hindsight or perhaps it was just his imagination, Harry thought that there was an angry glint to her eye when Ron was not looking that disappears the moment Ron looked her way.

"This is the only memory I could remember of that night," Ron said. "You couldn't smell it. But I remembered it smelled real bad in here."


Harry nodded, the skin at the back of his neck prickling from the knowledge that Ron could've died in here and nobody would've known. It would be too late before anyone found out.

They walked around the room, trying to explore as much as they could inside the house. Despite knowing the physical limitations of viewing Pensieve memories, Harry still tried to open doors to no avail. He could not physically go out nor go beyond the space Ron himself had been to. He could only see what Ron himself had seen and heard. He tried to climb up the stairs but when he reached the third rise in the steps, the wood suddenly became insubstantial.

Harry walked directly to the window. There was nothing to be seen outside, nothing but insubstantial wisps of nothingness. If he could just have any idea at all of what part of England her house was in then it would be a good enough start. At least, it would be better than nothing.

Harry tilted his head sideways and pressed his ears to the window. He tried to listen to the outside noises. They were very faint, but there nonetheless. Perhaps there was something about the subconscious mind that recorded these outside noises. But he could only hear them at the times when the memory was clear. At the intervals when the scene flickered away, the noises would disappear as well. Then he turned back towards the room and waved his wand. He had erected a sound barrier, insulating himself to the part of Ron's memory closest to the window, separate from the voices inside the house.

Ron noticed what he was doing and opened his mouth to speak but Harry held his hand up: Wait. 

When the memory was about to end, Harry made a circular motion with his finger and Ron understood, waved his wand, and the memory started over again from the beginning. Harry listened again, and again, and again, trying to identify each and every noise he could hear from the outside. No trains. No human voices. No noise of distant cars. As a Death Eater, Rosier would have picked out a house as far away from Muggles as possible.

Then he heard it. Faint, but Harry thought he recognized it. He knew birds. It was his favorite animal to Transfigure into. One might even hazard to say that Harry's familiarity and knowledge with the creatures was unparalleled in the wizarding world and not be incorrect.

Harry knelt down on one knee and pressed his left ear to the window closer now. He glanced at Ron, who was still standing outside the sound barrier Harry had erected, waiting for further instructions. Harry motioned again: Replay the memory.

Ron immediately complied.

There. Crek–crek. Crek–crek. The rasping, double call of the corncrake, a bird just recently reintroduced to England, three years prior, to be exact. Sure, the sound could have travelled a long distance. But there were very few places in Britain now where the bird's call could be heard. Harry listened again, making sure. Affirmative. Harry straightened up, then removed the barrier from Ron.

"Well?" Ron asked, an eyebrow raised expectantly.

"Let's go," Harry simply replied and they left the memory.



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