I woke up with my face smeared across my desk. I didn’t know it was my desk at first, mind, but recognized the clutter soon enough, so I pulled out my flask and had a snort. Firewhiskey always hits the spot. That’s when I noticed the smell. It was something like barnyard combined with mortuary, and I couldn’t quite place the source at first. After a moment or two, or maybe more, I spotted the open transom over the door. Right, something stinks out in the corridor. No surprise there, since outside the corridor is Knockturn Alley.
Giving myself a shove against the desktop, I managed to stand and bump the chair out of my way. Stumping around the desk and kicking the wastepaper bin out of my way (again), I got to the door and pushed, but the door resisted me. I spun my eye in that direction to see what was out there. Whatever – or whoever – it was was crumpled a bit and I couldn’t make out much more. Nothing for it, I reckoned, and I apparated to the corridor. When I got there I was glad most of my nose was long gone, because what was left of the man lying there would have had a vile scent without his having died from receiving an a hefty dose of viceribus expellam.
I drew my wand and cast a patronus, telling it, “Potter, bring yer crew to my office. I got what’s left of Lucius Malfoy lying in the corridor outside my door with his guts hanging out his arse. Thought ya might want to investigate. Ya might want to cast a Bubblehead charm before ya get here.” Then I got to stand around and wait.
# # #
“What in the hell did you do now, Mad-Eye?” Potter grumbled as he appeared a few feet away.
“I woke up and my office smelled bad, that’s what,” I replied. “What the hell does it look like, sonny boy?”
“It looks like Lucy got what he’d been begging for the past twenty years or so.”
I snorted. “More like forty years, at least. Who can ya assign to investigate it, though? Yer related to most of the likely suspects and a friend to all the rest,” I chuckled.
Potter combed his fingers through his hair while he frowned at me. “Thanks for the reminder. You’re always such a ray of sunshine.”
A couple of Aurors were examining the body – not getting very close, though, I noticed – and a third was crawling along the corridor toward the exit as if he thought there might be something to find along the way.
“Do you have any idea what Malfoy was doing here when he was cursed?” Potter asked me.
“I’m not sure he was here when he was cursed. I didn’t see anything to show there was a struggle. No gouges or burn marks I can see, so where’s the evidence of any spellwork?” I replied.
“You think he was dumped here already dead?”
I just nodded.
Potter nodded vaguely and signaled to his Aurors to move the body to the morgue and package any evidence they’d collected. He turned back to me, “I’ll want you to provide a statement later today so we can account for you before and after. You’ll come by, won’t you?”
“Ya think I’ll run off, do ya?” I laughed.
“I think you might conveniently forget to show,” he responded with a half-hearted grin.
“I’ll be there, Potter. Don’t know that I’ll be any help except to fatten the file with more paper, though.”
# # #
The Ministry of Magic hasn’t changed much since my first days as a cadet Auror. Ya don’t need to know when that was. You weren’t born then, that’s all. One thing that really hasn’t changed is that retired Aurors don’t get much of a welcome back. The so-called security force gives me a hard time about my wand every bloody time I show up, even when I’m invited. It’s been the same wand since before the first war. What do they think, I added chrome to it? I get a hello from the ones that are still working – most that know me are retired as well, of course, except for Potter and his crew. They got to know me a bit as kids, even if part of that was an imposter. Most of ’em even seem glad to see me for a minute or two.
I got into the Auror section of the DMLE and some snot-nosed cadet tried to make me wait in the lobby. I didn’t hurt him much, and Potter was annoyed, but I answered their questions and signed the parchment with all my evidence recorded on it so I reckoned I’d done what was left of my duty. Potter and Weasley wanted to disagree, though, so I had to sit back down and palaver a while.
“What else do ya want me to tell ya, boys?” I asked after checking my flask to make sure it wasn’t getting too empty.
“Have you been working on anything that Malfoy might have been interested in?” Weasley asked me.
“Haven’t had a sniff of Malfoy stink before this morning for a couple of years, at least,” I belched agreeably.
“Fagh! Mad-Eye, this is important!”
“Did your crew have something active on him?” I asked.
“Of course. We’ve had eyes on him constantly,” Potter said. “You know that well enough.”
“Sure ya did. He never would put his own hands on anything you could catch him doing, though, would he?” I chuckled. “So what did he do, and to who’d he do it? Sure looks like he did something to get his guts extracted.”
“We think he was up to his old tricks, trafficking muggle kids to muggle criminals,” Weasley said. “That doesn’t make much motive for most wizards to take revenge.”
“Only your crowd, don’t ya mean?” I asked without a smile.
“Told you he’d be a smart arse, Harry,” Weasley grumbled as I laughed at him.
“Ya think none of you lot has ever snapped, boys? Ya know you both have done.”
The both of them looked put out at that, then sheepish, so I pressed on. “Did your lot find anything besides a dead Lucius in the corridor outside my office?” Grumbles but no words from either of them. “Nor did I. What about outside?” More blank looks. “So together we have not one damn thing, right?”
“Are you having fun?” Potter asked me with less than his usual jocular tone.
“Of course not, ya prat! Tell me what else you’ve got on Malfoy – is it just the trafficking? Because if it is you might have to look for a muggleborn with a sister or niece or whatever who’s gone missing.”
Weasley raised an eyebrow to Potter and both of them looked thoughtful.
“I know you don’t want to chase anyone like that, but unless you have something that shows his game was played with underage witches and not just muggle girls, I don’t know where you’d look,” I said slowly.
“You may be onto something, Mad-Eye, but I think we might need to include half-bloods as well,” Potter said. “It gives us something to start anyway. We’ll get some people looking for connections to missing persons reports. Probably a needle in a haystack but someone might pop.”
“Humph. Yer right, Potter. It could even be someone with a more distant connection, I reckon, like Purebloods with muggleborn spouses or partners, eh? Anyone else involved with Malfoy in this rotten business of his?”
“We aren’t sure,” Potter answered. “There’s the usual gang of idiots, of course, but so far they’ve covered their tracks better than we usually see from them. Maybe without their lord and master giving orders they’re more interested in keeping themselves out of prison?”
“Might be so, sonny, just might be so,” I chuckled at the thought of a careful Death Eater. “Do ya want me to nose around the places your Aurors stick out like sore thumbs?”
“Like you’re such a low-profiled individual?” Weasley howled with laughter.
“I’m practically invisible compared to the likes of you children.”
“Don’t get yourself hexed into the next world, will you Mad-Eye? There are people who still like having you around,” Potter said.
“At least three of them,” Weasley added with a snort, before I gave him a good thump with my walking stick. “Oi! I’m an officer of the law, Mad-Eye!” I laughed on my way out of the office.
# # #
It wasn’t easy to make out anyone in the pub from the doorway. The only light was from four candles in separate wall sconces – one on each wall – and a small fire in the fireplace along the far wall. With my replacement eye, that was enough to see who I needed to see, though. He was slouched at the far corner of the bar over his empty glass. I guessed he’d cadged more than one drink off everyone left in the place already and had given up on them all.
“Well now, Dung, yer lookin’ more sober than ya like to be,” I told him by way of greeting.
“Ah, Mad-Eye, ye can spare me a drink, can ya?” Mundungus Fletcher asked without fanfare.
“Nothin’s free, Dung. What can ya tell me ’bout Malfoy, eh?”
“Malfoy? Ye think I run in society circles now? I don’t know anythin’ bout Malfoy.”
“Yer a walkin’ mound o’niffler shite, too.”
“Ye wound me, Mad-Eye,” he said without a bit of shame.
“If Potter’s boys catch up with ya they’ll do more’n wound your sorry excuse for humanity. What have ya heard about Malfoy losin’ his guts last night?”
“Don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout it. I’m a businessman, Mad-Eye, ya know that well enough. On’y buy ’n sell’n me wares an’ bein’ a good citizen.”
“Sounds like a good way to stay a sober citizen, Dung,” I chuckled.
“Ah, Mad-Eye, ye can’t be leavin’ me dry an’ all.”
“Sure an’ I can do just that, ya meat head. Who was it got fed up with Malfoy?”
Mundugus stared at his empty glass morosely, grumbling to himself enough so I knew I had him. I leaned against the bar and waited for the grumbling to peter out. Finally, he fell silent and looked up at me. “I heard he mighta been doin’ some business with that foreign bloke.”
“Which one?”
“Dolohov – but that’s just what I heard. Don’t be spreadin’ around I said nothin’ ’bout that bastard, specially not ta the aurors. I din’t say nothin’, ye hear?”
“Course ya didn’t, Dung,” I said as I dropped five Sickles on the bar next to his elbow and started for the door.
“Don’t ye forget it, neither, ye cheap barstard!” he yelled at my back.
# # #
Crawling through all the sleazy pubs of Knockturn Alley and its ilk around London didn’t turn up any more about Dolohov or anyone else who’d been rumored mixed up in trafficking sex workers with Malfoy. Didn’t even have any luck eavesdropping on the junior Aurors when they got loose tongues after a few drinks in the Leakey, and that surprised the hell out of me. Potter must have finally managed to teach those punks a few things. After that, I figured my next move had to be some of the abandoned estates of purebloods who’d died out during the war for one side or the other. That made for time consuming business, apparating around the countryside hunting for active wards in places they had no business to be.
After five days of gut strangling apparation from Cornwall to the Highlands to Ireland and back, I was knackered good and proper. That made the smell greeting me when I arrived in the Alley outside my office painfully familiar. At least this time whoever dumped him decided to leave him out in the Alley and not in the building.
I lighted my wand and examined the body, then sent off another message to the Auror office letting Potter know somebody had taken care of Dolohov, too. Then I pulled out my pipe and tried to cover up the smell with smoke; didn’t have any luck with that, more’s the pity.
Potter showed up with a couple of youngsters who must have been in their first week of training, cause they both promptly honked all over the cobblestones, not to mention their shoes. Dolohov was pretty ripe, I reckon, and his guts had burst when the expelling curse hit him so I reckon the smell was worse than usual. Potter looked relieved to see Dolohov dead, meaning he wouldn’t lose any more Aurors trying to catch him, but he gave me a bit of the stink eye anyway.
“What do ya think, boy? I been out hunting the bastard all day every day for a week. I just found him five minutes ago when I got here,” I said, blowing a nice cloud of smoke in the direction of the trainees just to make sure they’d emptied themselves.
“Why were you looking for Dolohov?” he asked. “Got a death wish?”
“He was the only lead I had. Heard in a pub he’d been working with Malfoy on the trafficking racket and wanted to find out if Malfoy might have been killed over business.”
Potter smirked but said nothing more on the subject.
“Who is it paying you to investigate Malfoy’s murder, Mad-Eye?” he asked instead.
“Who says anybody’s paying me for that?”
“You’re just investigating out of the goodness of your heart, is it?” he snapped back, giving me considerable side-eye as he did so.
“Just needed something to do, Potter. Retirement gets boring, ya know.”
He nodded. “Just let us know if you find anything we can use, will you?” He hit his trainees with Scourgify and started giving them instructions. I decided I didn’t need to be smelling Dolohov’s guts any longer and apparated for home.
# # #
Days went by and I found no new leads to help identify the killer. I was sure at this point that whoever it was had killed both Malfoy and Dolohov, and I had a gut feeling (yes, I know it’s obnoxious) that the killer was leaving them at my doorstep like a tomcat with a bird. Might be I’d been thinking about this wrong from the start. Might be this was revenge and I should be looking for someone who’d lost someone to the Death Eaters or to their criminal activity since the war. Too bad that made for a mighty large suspect pool.
The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to follow up on the investigation. These started to look like public service killings to me, and since I wasn’t obliged to arrest people for breaking the law since I retired, I figured it was time to let go of this nugget.
That was why I found myself sitting in Aberforth’s dive up in Hogsmeade several weeks later. I was a loose ends with no client and no interest in drumming up business, so I had my flask and a dark corner and an afternoon to kill watching the local miscreants for entertainment. That’s where Potter and Weasley found me.
“Still won’t drink Aberforth’s liquor, will you?” Weasley asked with a snort.
“Why should I do that?”
“No reason at all,” Potter said. “What have you been getting up to, Mad-Eye?”
“Yeah, we’ve heard nothing from you since Dolohov showed up dead,” Weasley continued.
“I decided whoever did the two of ’em performed a public service an’ I was tired of huntin’ for whoever it was,” I growled, maybe not convincingly enough.
“So you don’t think it was another criminal or Death Eater, eh?” Potter said.
“No more than you do, Sonny,” I replied, and he nodded. “So you have a notion who might have done it?”
“Nobody specific, but I’m thinking it was someone we know – someone who was probably at school when Ron and I were there, and probably was on our side in the war.”
“I reckon you’re right about that,” I agreed. “It’s most of why I stopped looking.”
“Do you know anyone who’d have a particular reason for revenge on Malfoy and Dolohov in particular?” he asked me.
“Just those two? Not really. Do you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. And I hate it.”
“Sounds to me like you need to forget it then, Potter,” I said quietly.
“See? I told you that already,” Weasley chimed in.
“You know I can’t do that.”
I took a short pull from my flask, belched, and looked him over. “Sounds like you need a vacation, then.”
“Will you talk to her, Mad-Eye? Just get a feel for how she reacts?”
“Harry, you’re not serious about this are you?” Weasley exploded. Potter flicked his wand and cast silencing charms around us, glaring at his partner.
“Bit late for that,” I chuckled. “Why would I want to talk to her? Are you seriously going to arrest her if she’s involved?”
“I have no idea,” Potter admitted. “I’ll probably have to turn it over to the Director. Anybody can see I’m not the one to make the decision.”
“Then there’s no reason for me or anyone else to speak to her. The Ministry doesn’t arrest people with an Order of Merlin.”
“Someone has to talk to her,” Potter insisted.
“You can talk to her. You already said you can’t be the one to arrest her, but you can lean on her.”
Potter leaned on the table, his free hand making an even bigger mess of his always scruffy hair. “I can’t know. I can’t be a witness.”
I looked at him closely, almost feeling pity for the lad. Being who I am, though, I said, “You’re a bloody great coward, Potter. All right, I’ll do your dirty work. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.”
# # #
Actually making my way inside the Ministry had become painful in my retirement. It hadn’t been a particular joy even when it was my place of employment, but when I had no good reason to be there, well, it was far from pleasant. I navigated my way past the security checkpoint and the lifts, and found my way to the offices for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The reception desk was equipped with the usual empty-headed pureblood bird looking for a rich husband, who had trouble noticing my arrival because, well, I’m me.
“Alistor Moody to see Ms. Grainger if ya please,” I said. “Or if ya don’t please – no matter to me.” That got me a frosty glare until she took a good look at me. Then she looked a bit startled and ran for the door to Grainger’s office. A moment later she was back to tell me, “You may go right in, sir.” I had a good laugh that scared her a bit more and strolled into the office. Well, as close as I can come to strolling, given how my legs are rigged up these days.
“Mad-Eye!” Grainger jumped up to hug me as I tried to close the door. She got me well and truly off balance in no time, but I managed to recover and fend her off before we wound up in a heap on the floor. “Hello, lass,” I said. “You’re lookin’ prosperous.” She laughed and waved be to a chair before seating herself at her desk.
“I haven’t seen you in ages! What brings you around today?” she asked with her usual enthusiasm.
“It isn’t a social call, sorry to tell you,” I replied. “I’ve been helping Potter on an investigation that dropped in my lap. Lucius Malfoy and Anton Dolohov were both murdered and dumped near my office in Knockturn Alley.”
She looked at me curiously. “I’d heard about the killings, but I wasn’t interested enough to read all the details. I didn’t know they’d been found near your office.”
“At first, we thought it was someone involved in their criminal business – DMLE thinks Malfoy was trafficking sex workers and my sources told me Dolohov was in on it with him,” I told her, watching for her reaction. She had developed a much better poker face over her time in the Ministry, though; I reckon working with Purebloods had rubbed off on her.
“Why does that investigation bring you to see me?” she asked innocently.
“Because none of the initial leads paid off, so we had to reevaluate what evidence we had. One thing we hadn’t considered at first was the coincidence of the body-dumps. I think now that the killer may have been leaving them for me as tribute, and that leads me to think someone I had a hand in training might be the killer. Then there’s the poetic element – they were both killed with the entrail expelling curse,” I finished with a smile.
Grainger’s eyes got wider as I finished speaking. “You think it’s me?” she asked. When I didn’t react her face became more thoughtful. “Harry thinks it me?” I nodded. She covered her face with her hands and leaned over her desk.
“You think you didn’t?” I asked her.
“I know I didn’t!” she replied emphatically.
“Reckon that’ll make Potter happy,” I said. “You have any idea of someone besides you with a reason to take revenge on those two pillocks?”
“Most of Magical Britain who weren’t Death Eaters and all the Muggles,” she replied testily.
“Come on, Lass, you know I have to ask.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Moody,” she said with a huff. “Good day, sir.”
I stood up, shaking my head, and started for the door. “I’ll give Potter your best, then.” I closed the door behind me.
# # #
I took to spending nights in shadowy spots within sight of my office, thinking that my visit to Grainger might stir up another body dump. I didn’t quite believe she was the killer, but I didn’t quite think she wasn’t, either. I had a notion that stirring up Grainger might cause some ripples in fate that would reach the right person. Go ahead, call me a divination nutter. Magic is what magic is. Sometimes we spend too much effort trying to figure out the fusty dregs and don’t just let it flow like it should.
My fourth night of hiding out, an hour or so past midnight as best I could tell, I noticed that smell again. The smell that, once you’ve experienced it, you never forget. My new eye was spinning like a niffler in a galleon dump, and I heard a thump from across the alley. I locked in on a shape turning to run and fired off a stunner. The shape returned a hex of some sort that missed me, and I sent a fresh stunner at the wand-flash. I heard a very satisfactory thud and limped over to have a better look.
I turned the unconscious form onto its back and had a look at a youngish face I didn’t know, so I fired Incarcerous to wrap him in magical ropes and sent off my patronus to the Aurors. Then I thumped over to the other mound of flesh to see if I could identify the so-called victim, who as usual had his guts spewed out his arse and tangled in his legs. It was a Lestrange, and looked like Rabastan. Both of them were ugly bastards, though, so it might have been Rodolphus. I didn’t much care.
Aurors appeared around me in short order. Weasley was in charge this time, which was all right since this was one of those straight ahead missions where he excelled. I pointed him to the man I’d stunned. “Do ya recognize this man?” I asked.
“I do. It’s Blaise Zabini. Why’d you stun him?” Weasley asked me.
“Why d’ya think? He dumped what’s left of one of the Lestrange brothers right over there. That nose hanging halfway to the ground doesn’t smell it?”
Weasley growled at me for a second, then remembered who it was and shut up. Instead, he aimed his wand at Zabini and cast Enervate. Zabini opened his eyes and tried to move, but recognized he’d been restrained and quickly relaxed.
“Hello, Zabini. What brings you to Knockturn Alley?” Weasley asked by way of greeting.
“I’d rather not say, Weasley,” Zabini responded. “I don’t suppose you could relieve me of these ropes, could you?”
“Can’t for now,” was the reply. “Can’t tell me anything about that pile of Lestrange-shaped goo over next to the kerb, either, I suppose?”
“Sorry, I have nothing to say about that.”
“And you don’t have a sister or cousin or whatnot who might have come to grief thanks to Malfoy, Dolohov, and Lestrange?”
“Sorry, I have nothing to say about that, either. Perhaps you could arrange to have me moved to a holding cell at the Ministry? It’s a bit messy here on the cobblestones.”
Weasley sighed and shook his head, then waved over a team of four Aurors and instructed them to transfer Zabini back to DMLE. He turned back to me and offered his hand, so I shook it.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“I didn’t. I hoped my visit to Grainger would get a reaction, but Zabini wasn’t who I expected. I just staked out the alley the past few nights, ever since the meeting at the Ministry, and tonight he showed up and dumped Lestrange.”
“I wonder why he was dumping them here,” Weasley said.
“I don’t know. I never met the man, don’t recall ever training him, either. He may not have acted alone, though I don’t expect he was working with Grainger – she’d have warned him off dropping another one here.”
“He might talk. A Slytherin usually would, unless he had some binding reason to protect whoever it is.”
“Doubt it, Lad. He had as much incentive to talk as ever he would while he was hog-tied on the cobblestones. I reckon I’ll go home and get some proper sleep,” I said.
“Thanks, Mad-Eye. You’re still the man,” he chuckled. I snorted and left.