What Happened to Us?
The sound of trees rustling filled the room, as well as some distant shouting, a mix of Bulgarian and English, but too far away from the recording device to decipher.
“Auror Howell, are you sure you would like to do your debriefing now? We can wait until after the healers are done with you...” Senior Auror Chase’s gravelly voice began the recording as he started off the debrief.
Amelia’s voice pierced through the room next, “I’d rather just get it over with; to be honest, the stitching is keeping me awake. In fact, they can put a hold on my standing order of Draught of Dreamless Sleep’s after this one.”
Amelia groaned internally. What seemed like just a simple sarcastic comment at the time was now the direct cause of a small vein popping out of Ominis’ forehead where he was trying to look professional. The worst part? They hadn’t even gotten to the bad part yet.
“Let’s start by recounting when you were brought on the case” Chase continued, ignoring her jokes.
“Well, let’s see. I was put on the Carrow case, sorry, Eldridge Carrow’s case, about a fortnight ago. My usual partner, Senior Auror Harold Pitch, was called to Bulgaria to investigate a series of deaths in a Muggle village that were similar to the ones that we had investigated two months ago in Scotland. As it was just a routine investigation, the Ministry sent Auror Pitch alone with the intent for me to join the case in a few weeks’ time. When we didn’t hear back from him during the last two check ins, the timeline was sped up and I was deployed earlier than expected.”
Ominis paused the recording and looked over at Amelia, “You went in alone?”
“With the intention that I would be joining Auror Pitch. We figured that he was just in hiding or caught up in his investigation. It wasn’t the first time that communication was cut during a case.” Amelia responded, letting silver whisps of ancient magic erupt from her fingertips again as she fidgeted. “There was no indication that Carrow was still at large. We figured with no more deaths being reported that the killer had moved on… not that there wasn’t anyone left to report them.”
The room had grown quiet as Ominis processed the information. He tried to ignore the goosebumps that appeared as he felt a shiver as Amelia played with her magic again. Everyone could sense the all-around discomfort in the room. Trying not to show his own concern on his face, Ominis resumed the recording.
“It took a few days to arrange the Floos, but by the time I crossed over from North Macedonia, it was clear that something was wrong. Auror Pitch, even when undercover, rarely missed more than two check ins. By then, he had missed five. When I arrived at the village, it was like a ghost town. Auror Harold Pitch’s body was hanging by the church.”
The recording crackled as if it were paused for a moment, before resuming.
“Upon investigation, Carrow had razed the village of Novo Gega. There was only a population of about forty people, mostly Muggles but around a third of the population were Muggleborn wizards. It was clear that whoever had attacked them had targeted them based on blood status. The only signs of life were from a few fires just north of the hamlet, in some older ruins where Carrow had taken up residence.
After discovering and... taking care of Auror Pitch’s body, I sent word to the Ministry about the state of village. According to my Auror training, I continued to investigate, finally encountering Carrow the next day in the ruins where he made his base camp.”
Ominis paused the recording again, “Why was there a gap, Auror Howell?” he asked professionally, his quill quietly scratching on the parchment.
“Head Auror Chase wanted to make sure I was going to be okay talking about… finding Auror Pitch. He had been my partner for about two years at that point.” Amelia said, looking awkwardly up at Ominis, “There’s nothing too important that was missed, but I’m sure Auror Chase has it recorded on his side if you wish to cross reference the written records.”
Ominis nodded, choosing not the respond. It made sense now, why Amelia was the one who would be in court. He had been familiar with Auror Harold Pitch. The man was stern and commanding, a perfect partner for Amelia’s aloof and reckless personality. He regularly came across Harold Pitch’s name when he clipped the newspaper articles about Amelia, usually as the lead on their cases. With him gone, she would have to take the lead with the proceedings. Including meeting and working with the Prosecutors as they put the case together for court… which could take many, many meetings over the course of the upcoming month.
“How was Carrow when you encountered him? Was he in hiding?” Auror Chase’s voice once again filled the room.
Amelia laughed on the recording, “If he was hiding, he wasn’t doing a good job of it. That man had no trouble welcoming me with an unforgivable or two once he realized I tracked him up there.”
Amelia looked over at Ominis, watching his arms flex slightly to betray his fidgeting hands hiding under the table.
“I was still in contact with the Ministry at this point, and relaying what I discovered… About that, how much detail do you need me to go into exactly, Chase?” Amelia questioned.
“You can give a quick summary of what you found there. I can fill in the reports with your earlier correspondence afterwards,” Auror Chase replied on the tape as the sounds of his notetaking filled the subsequent silence.
“Okay. When I entered the ruins, there were… more victims. In varies states of distress. Almost as if they were frozen, petrified but... not quite. He made it out like a trophy room, mainly filled with Muggles, barely clinging on. I… after what I discovered in the village, I had requested and received permission from my superiors to… end the suffering of those remaining due to the state they were in.” Amelia let out a sigh, “Carrow kept them alive like a cat playing with his meals. There was no saving them and it was agreed that was the more… altruistic option.”
Ominis reached out to pause the tape, his hand hitting Amelia’s as she was trying to stop him from doing so.
“Auror Howell... I’m so s-,” Ominis started before she interrupted him.
“It’s all in the report and it’s part of the job.” Amelia said sharply, pushing play again.
“When Carrow realized I infiltrated his torture castle, he proceeded to take care of cleaning it like he had his previous crime scenes, by casting a Fiendfyre. Auror Pitch and I had to put one out earlier that year when we were investigating the village in Scotland. We now presume that scene was also cause by Carrow.”
Amelia on the tape let out a wincing noise, followed by a quiet “sorry,” presumably from one of the healers treating her.
“We exchanged spells, which was the first instance of Carrow trying to use an Unforgivable, the Cruciatus Curse, towards me. Unfortunately, between dispelling the Fiendfyre and dodging Carrow’s spells, he was able to escape my sight. That started the multi-day chase through the Bulgarian Wilderness. Unfortunately, it was also the last time I was able to communicate with the Ministry before I caught him.
Neither of us got much rest, but that was an advantage for me, as I did not know the land as well as he did. After about two days of playing cat and mouse, Carrow was able to land one of his Cruciatus Curses, but he was unable to sustain it for long due to his fatigue.”
Amelia looked up at Ominis, watching his already pale face grow paler. One of his hands had stopped fidgeting in his lap and now clutched the side of the conference table they sat at.
She longed to go over and confront her old friend, remind him that she was okay, she was sitting right in front of him, but she couldn’t. Amelia had to remind herself that they hadn’t spoken in years, he might as well be as much of a stranger to her as the scribe writing quietly in the corner. Even if Ominis did welcome her comfort, she didn’t know if she knew him well enough anymore to do it properly.
“I was lucky he was more interested in playing with me than outright killing me, at first at least. We fought through the night, Carrow trying to burn the forest down in the process of course. I had landed a few spells, but Carrow got me with a Diffindo and gave me this nasty cut on my thigh.
I…. I feared I would bleed out as I didn’t get much of a chance to close the wound. Carrow then decided to attempt a Killing Curse in my direction” Amelia’s voice shook slightly on the recording, “We were on a small ridge, and I was able to dodge by throwing myself into the river below and letting it take me downstream.
Carrow tracked me, following the river to the bank where I crawled out, but I was able to apprehend him with a petrification spell, keeping him restrained until the Bulgarian Ministry was able to arrive on the scene as my first backup, restraining Carrow properly and beginning my treatments. The British Ministry arrived next, a few hours afterwards.”
The recording crackled again for a moment before Auror Chase’s voice took over.
“Auror Amelia Howell is currently at a nearby Bulgaria Wizarding Hospital, we were advised to let her heal there for at least a week before attempting to bring her back to England. Physically, we are optimistic for her to make a full recovery. Auror Harold Pitch’s remains will be transported back to his family when the first round of Ministry workers head back. Eldridge Carrow will be held at Azkaban Prison until his trial.”
The room was deathly quiet as Ominis reached over to turn the tape off, finished with holding his tongue.
“What in Merlin’s name were you thinking, going off into the wilderness with a murderous wizard, alone?” Ominis started, his hand threading through his hair as if he wanted to pull it all out, “Why do you always have to try too hard?”
“If I had waited, Carrow would have gotten away and even more would be dead. I stopped him.” Amelia countered, “It’s my job to try too hard, if you haven’t forgotten.”
Ominis let out a laugh, reaching out for his cane before remembering that Amelia made him give it up before listening to the debriefing. His pale eyes blindly moved around in frustration, as if he was trying to find her. “Did you not think for a moment that, Godric forbid, you would’ve been just like those villagers? Tortured and left to die?”
He swept the papers off the table in frustration, standing up as he felt the need to pace, his voice raising to a shout now, “Did you even think, for five seconds, of the consequences that your actions could have?”
Amelia found herself standing as well, placing her hands on top of the table as Ominis paced back and forth across the room from her. “Do you think I don’t know the dangers of my job? I signed up for this! If that’s how I went out, then I would’ve gone out doing my job!” She shouted back. Ominis’ assistant, Oliver, and the court scribe were also standing at this point, but with the intent to make their way over to the door, out of the line of fire.
“Oh yes, you knew the dangers, yet you still went ahead and waltzed right into his lap.” Ominis whipped his head around at Amelia, trying to glare daggers in her direction, “You were alone, against someone who was obviously skilled at using unforgiveable curses and perfectly happy about using them towards you, I might add. He killed an Auror! Did it ever occur to you that you could’ve easily shared the same fate as your colleague?”
The two glared at each other as Oliver and the scribe practically ran out of the room, but not before Amelia spied what looked to be the entire floor staring in their direction through the open door.
“Well, what was I supposed to do then? Tell them I can’t do my job?” Amelia shouted back, “Tell them better luck next time and to wait for someone else to swoop in and save them?”
“Yes!” Ominis yelled, “That’s exactly what you should’ve done! There’s no reason for you to put yourself at risk like that! You should’ve waited for back up, more Aurors, Hit Wizards, the Bulgarian Ministry even!”
“I’m sorry my job isn’t cooped up in an office like yours, but in mine, if we can do something, we do it!” She shouted back, feeling the frustration inside her start to well up in her eyes. “Damned if something happened to me, I had to do something!”
Ominis practically clutched at his head, his own frustrations turning his usual headache into a jackhammer thudding in his brain, “But... at least some form of back up! Someone, anyone to watch over you! Instead, you just decided to run headfirst into a pit of death and torture...” He trailed off, his face looking less angry and more desperate.
“I was the backup!” Amelia replied, her voice cracking, “Auror Pitch was my partner, I should’ve known something was wrong and shown up sooner! And I had to tell his wife and, Godric’s heart, his children that their father was dead. I was not planning to go in there and tell them that Carrow was still loose, not after that.”
As she wiped away tears, it was one of the few times Amelia was grateful that Ominis was blind. She wondered how it came to this. Before, she was only grateful when she had to change quickly in his presence or steal a chip off his plate. Now she was hiding frustrated tears, hoping Ominis wouldn’t be able to hear them in her voice.
“It had to be me. It should’ve been me instead of Harold… I don’t have anyone to hurt. I’m going to survive as long as I can, but I’m not going to hold back if I know I can save more.” Amelia cried out. She had spent the last few years dedicated to her job. Her friendships were few and far between. Other than a few exchanged owls here and there, and the occasional lunch, even her school friends didn’t talk to her as much as she wished them did. In a way, it made her job easier, facing death almost every day didn’t seem to carry too much baggage.
“You don’t have anyone?” Ominis said, finally lowering his voice back down to a conversational level. He placed his hand back on the table, grounding himself as he breathed, “What about me? I would have mourned.”
At that, Amelia stopped wiping her face and looked at Ominis like he sprouted another head, “How am I supposed to know what you would’ve done? You haven’t spoken to me in years. Do you know how many owls I sent after graduation?” She sat back down in her chair, feeling deflated, “The only notice you would’ve gotten would be my name thrown in a report like the one you just heard.”
Ominis stood still, trying to process how they were acknowledging the elephant in the room, “You think the only notice I would’ve gotten would be in a report?” He also found his chair, falling back into it. “After all we had been through together, I never stopped caring about your well-being. You really, truly believe that I stopped caring about you?”
They sat in silence, both trying to calm themselves down. The same thoughts were going through their heads. They used to be joined at the hip, every day at Hogwarts spent together. They explored the castle; sat with each other every time they ate meals. Amelia even got a spare pair of robes from Imelda Reyes to try and sit with Slytherin during the more formal school meetings. Ominis would drag her around the castle grounds, leaning back on her lap as Amelia would describe the stars to him. It was the only way he passed his Astronomy O.W.L.. They would drink at the Three Broomsticks with Sebastian, celebrating every chance they could. Ominis and Amelia even shared their first legal drink together. He waited a month after his birthday so they could have that moment together on Amelia’s 17th birthday. They spent the holidays at Hogwarts curled up by the fireplace in the Slytherin dorm, both of them not having a true home they wanted to return to. There wasn’t a way to look back on their time at Hogwarts without every memory being a shared one.
“What happened to us?” Amelia finally said quietly, looking over as Ominis leaned his face on his hands to calm down.
“Life happened” he whispered back.