Clues in the Present

Maxwell Sebastian smiled slightly to himself as he Apparated to The Burrow. After successfully disentangling Mr. Weasley from the clutches of that Muggle-born witch, the young man had been so impressed that he'd offered him the position of family solicitor. Maxwell was pleased to accept; most newly rich families didn't think to take the long view and protect their assets. In the last three years, careful management had almost trebled the galleons in the Weasley family vault.

The first thing he'd managed was the situation with the Ryans. Installing Miss Maureen Ryan as Mrs. Weasley had defused the anger of that wealthy and powerful clan. In fact, they'd been so pleased that they'd paid the traditional dowry. And they'd made no trouble about the marriage contract either. Mr. Weasley, for his part, was simply relieved to have to problem so simply settled.

Then there was that debacle with the Daily Prophet. Maxwell still shook his head over that one. He'd tried to warn his client. That dreadful Skeeter witch had interviewed Mr. Weasley, and the resulting article had been full of insinuations about corrupt Quidditch team owners and managers lining their pockets while the real heroes, the players, lived in hovels. Pictures of The Burrow had lent credence to the story. The Cannons had been furious at this tarnishing of their image, threatening to bench Mr. Weasley for the rest of the season. Maxwell had acted swiftly.

The Ryan clan, outraged at something touching their family honour, brought him a rumor. An hour of research proved it. Within three days, Miss Skeeter was in Azkaban for failing to register as an Animagus. The Prophet was forced to print a retraction and a handsome apology. As a side benefit, the Quick Quotes Quill company was forced to pay damages to anyone adversely affected by anything written with one of its products. More galleons flowed into the Weasley family vault.

To prevent any further unpleasantness of that nature, Maxwell had suggested that Mr. Weasley might wish to remodel his home. This brought squeals of delight from Mrs. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley had finally agreed. Now The Burrow – for Mr. Weasley insisted on keeping the name – was a proper manor house designed and built by the noted architect firm of Tesser & Ract. Every possible comfort and convenience spell was woven into its fabric, from self-sweeping floors to adjustable temperature charms in each room. It was a marvel of modern construction techniques.

It hadn't taken Maxwell long to realize that Mr. Weasley was lacking in many of the more refined social graces. The young man had simply not been brought up in affluence, and was prone to committing one solecism after another, without realizing it – much to the embarrassment of his wife and her family. Mrs. Weasley was distraught. The solicitor had finally resolved the problem by suggesting that Mrs. Weasley host her parties while Mr. Weasley was away at Quidditch matches. This had pleased them both.

Mrs. Weasley's owl asking him to stop by this evening had been an unexpected pleasure. A deferential house-elf waited to take his cloak and another showed him into the parlour. His hostess was sitting on a small settee. Beside her was a roll of parchment.

“Maxwell, my dear. Thank you for coming to see me. Please, sit down.” She indicated the chair next to her.

“A pleasure as always, Mrs. Weasley. How are the children?”

“They're all in bed, and should be asleep shortly. How have you been?”

“Well enough. Now what may I do for you this evening?”

Maureen set down her teacup. “I've received an owl from Tesser & Ract. They wish to use photographs of The Burrow in their advertisements. They also want to do interviews with us – how do we like the house, what features we find most useful, that sort of thing.” She handed him the roll of parchment. “Here's what they sent.”

He scanned it quickly. “They're offering a handsome sum, I see. Yes, photographs would not be a problem. The interviews though...”

“Exactly. They want to talk to all of us.” She sighed. “Ronnie... he's great when he's talking about Quidditch, but if they ask him about anything else, it'll be a disaster.”

Maxwell considered the problem absently nodding a thanks at the house-elf who brought him a cup of tea. “So we can't simply set this up while he's out of the country.”

“And if he gets the idea that we're trying to hush him up, he'll get all indignant, and it'll be twice as bad.”

“Yes, I remember.” He paused as a thought struck him. “Didn't Mr. Weasley mention a few weeks ago that it would be convenient if there was a nearby Quidditch pitch that he could use for practice during the off season?”

“Yes. He's been on about that for a while now.”

“Then he should have one built for him.” The solicitor leaned forward. “There's quite a bit of undeveloped property that adjoins yours. Buy it, and hire Tesser & Ract to put in a pitch – but have them work solely with Mr. Weasley on the specifications. They'll jump at it.”

Maureen mulled the idea over and smiled. “Yes, having Ronnie fussing about every detail of his own personal pitch will delight them. Pardon me a moment.” She turned to accept the roll of parchment that one of the elves held out to her. It was from the Potters, addressed to Ronnie. She opened it, and read the scribbled lines then dropped it in horror. “Maxwell!” she wailed, “that horrible woman has come back!”

“This could not have been attached to Lupin's water-supply by accident,” Snape said slowly, looking at the contraption of jar, hose, and valve. “I have to agree with you, Poppy. This was murder.”

Hermione picked it up and examined it for herself. “It looks Muggle,” she began, “but there's a spell on the valve to keep it from jamming. And another to retard corrosion.”

“And one on the jar to prevent breakage,” Poppy pointed out.

“It's not a very big jar, is it?” Hermione asked, looking at the item in question.

“A few ounces,” Snape replied. “What are you thinking?”

“It would take a long time to kill a werewolf this way. Whoever did this would have to keep coming back to keep the jar filled with silver nitrate. They wouldn't be able to Accio it without risking breaking the jar. I think we should go back to Remus' house during daylight hours and see if we can find any more clues.”

“Us? Once this is declared a murder, it will be up to the Aurors to investigate.”

Poppy nodded. “And they won't thank us for meddling in their business. Think how annoyed you'd be if an Auror tried to tell you how to brew Skele-gro.”

Hermione bit her lip. “I don't believe that the authorities will have much interest in determining who offed an impoverished wizard – especially a werewolf.”

Snape sighed. “You're probably right. But we can't assume that. And as Poppy says, they won't want our assistance.”

“Once Harry finds out Remus was murdered, he'll stop at nothing to find out who and why.”

“Why would Mr. Potter do that?” Poppy asked a bit waspishly. “He certainly did nothing to assist Remus for the last several years.”

“Guilt,” Hermione answered succinctly. “Harry will think that if he'd helped Remus out, he would not have been murdered – which is almost certainly nonsense, but that's what he'll believe.”

Snape nodded slowly. “Guilt is a great motivator, true. I could almost wish that Mr. Potter had fulfilled his desire to become an Auror. It would have been useful.”

“Harry isn't an Auror? He didn't tell me that!”

“He dropped out of the program some time ago, from what I gather. While his wand work was impressive, he lacked the temperament for the job. He was too hot-headed.”

“Impulsive, you mean.” She sighed. “Yes, Harry – and Ron – are both prone to go haring off without thinking. That would be a liability for an Auror.”

“We need to report this to Minerva,” the mediwitch reminded them. “But once we do, the Aurors will take that contraption with them. If there's any more investigating to be done, we'd best do it now.”

“The components are all of Muggle origin,” Snape said slowly, examining the jar carefully. “So whoever did this is comfortable in the Muggle world or has a confederate who is. The spells are very basic Charms – Unbreakable Glass is in the third-year curriculum as I recall. The others are of similar level. They're not taught here at Hogwarts, but could easily be found in any of a dozen books.” He set it back down. “That doesn't tell us much.”

“What about someone who sympathized with the Death Eaters, but only covertly? If they identified Remus as part of the opposition...” Poppy shook her head at herself. “It's been a long time for that sort of revenge though. Four, almost five years.”

“Revenge is best served cold,” Snape quoted. “We have to consider it. He pointed to the device on his desk. “What can this tell us about our murderer?”

“How did you put it?” Poppy asked. “Comfortable in the Muggle world, or with friends who are.”

“He's cruel,” Hermione added. “He wanted to make sure Remus took a long time to die. And despite the low-level Charms he used on that thing, he paid attention in Charms class during his seventh year, assuming he went to Hogwarts.”

“Why do you say that?” Snape asked curiously.

“The Charms aren't intertangled. Each one only affects one component of this device. I'd say that the Charms were cast before it was assembled. Spell interactions and intertangling are, or were, a fairly significant part of the seventh year Charms curriculum.”

“Interesting. I hadn't noticed that. To continue, though, our murderer is also rather clever to have come up with this method. Clever and subtle – the most dangerous kind of foe. A Slytherin or Ravenclaw would be my guess. I can't see a Hufflepuff resorting to poison, and subtle Gryffindor is quite the oxymoron.”

“Don't be so quick to discount my House,” Poppy protested. “We Hufflepuffs don't go bad often, but when we do we abandon almost all our usual traits. All that loyalty and hard-work ethic gets redirected. An angry Hufflepuff can be a dangerous foe.”

“I take your point,” Snape replied. “Can we tell when this device was put together? Or installed? A time-frame would help in eliminating any possible suspects.”

“Our murderer had to keep coming back to refill the jar. I'd estimate at least twice a week, maybe more often. Why wouldn't the murderer use a larger jar to reduce the risk to himself?”

“Poisoners are usually planners. They don't like variables.” The Mediwitch thought about it. “If the jar were too large, it might be difficult to conceal.”

“He's cruel,” Snape reminded them. “Perhaps he enjoyed checking on Remus and watching him die a little each day.”

The mediwitch flipped through one of her books, landing at last on a particular page. “If we could identify the concentration of silver to water, we could possibly calculate the minimum amount of time it would have to have been in place in order to kill a werewolf. Of course, Remus wasn't in the best of health, so that may have hastened things. But at any rate, it would have taken a long time. Months, if not years.”

“Remus looked like he was sick the day he told me that the boys were Squibs,” Hermione mused. “I put it down to him being a werewolf – all the stress of changing every month, plus having to deliver bad news.”

“The last time I saw him was as a patient,” Poppy contributed. “That was, oh let me think. Just after the war, while the Order and Auror Corps were working together to track down the remaining Death Eaters. He was in excellent health at that time.”

There was a long silence. Snape finally broke it. “I think we need to speak with Minerva now.”

It was fairly late when Hermione finally made her way back to her rooms. The meeting with the Headmistress had been emotionally draining, and she wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and cry herself to sleep. But she had responsibilities. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and tried to put on a pleasant expression. “I'm back, Skelly,” she called softly.

The house-elf dashed around the corner. “Misters Tom and Art are asleep now,” he reported solemnly. “They has learned how to play Gobstones and is wanting to learn chess. They has each read a story to Skelly and had bath before bed.” He nodded happily. “They is good wizards.” Then, “Is Miss all right?”

She nodded wearily. “I'm just tired.” She walked slowly down the hall, not forgetting to crack the doors to her sons' rooms and check on them. Both were, as faithfully reported, sound asleep. By the time she got to her room, she found her blankets turned down with a warming Charm on them. On the bedside table was a vial containing a yellowish potion and a note.

Ms. Granger,

This evening's events were quite distressing, and you may find another dose of Heliax beneficial in allowing you to sleep through the night. I recommend half of this vial before retiring, and the remainder in the morning. I will be indulging myself in this manner as well.

S.S.

“That was thoughtful,” Hermione muttered to herself, picking up the vial and draining half of it in one gulp. “I wonder if this is how Snape managed to succeed as a spy for all those years.” She began to feel better as the potion took effect. “I need to get some sort of calendar to keep track of everything. I could Charm a journal to write down everything, but those are hard to change if something gets rescheduled.

I wonder if they sell anything at Flourish & Blott's. I'll ask Minerva tomorrow. No, not tomorrow. She'll be busy with the Aurors.” She thought about it. “I'll see the Athelstans at breakfast. I can ask them if they know any better Charms. If they don't, I can ask them about how they keep schedules. They've got to have some way to remember who is supposed to do what.”

Now her brain was too active to sleep. Summoning a quill and parchment, she began making a list of things she wanted to do. “Calendar – ask Athelstans. Make sure office is ready. Snape: what does he need me to do. Aurors? Oh damn. I'm sure they'll want to talk to me sometime but that will be on their schedule, not mine.” She remembered a fragment of conversation from earlier in the day. “Ask Argus about Remus – old enemies, etc.” Then a completely Muggle memory from one of the old murder mysteries she used to read jumped into her head. “Oh, no! We've been making a terrible assumption!”