Chapter 3
Chapter 3
“And,” huff “these?” huff, Anne’s arm trembled as she levitated yet another box of files sent over from St. Mungo’s.
“With the rest of the class of 1998,” said Ron, pointing towards the corner furthest from the door. He stood beside a sizeable, unstable stack of boxes in the opposite corner; there were three total in the room.
It had been over a week since their dinner with Hermione, but this morning, freshly printed on Anne’s desk was her finished report. Unrolled the parchment was nearly the length of the room, with the first couple feet summarizing the nature of memory charms, how they worked on the mind, and the importance of waiting until near certainty to reveal the nature of the investigation to any of the potential parties involved.
Another couple feet provided an overview of the side-effects of childhood sexual abuse - that the majority of long-term effects were psychological and behavioural, and that, given that these effects are the result of the physical memory (which the body should still have) as well as the emotional response (again, in the moment a physical reaction that the body should retain even without a conscious component), there was no reason to believe - in her expert opinion - that these responses should not stand.
The final two segments were dedicated to not only the effects but potential evidence that may suggest that these side-effects are present. They were skipping over the short-term effects for now, moving ahead with the long-term effects. While Hermione’s exhaustive reporting was appreciated, for the sake of not needing to drag along 7 feet of parchment paper they had had Anne type up a summary of what they were looking for.
Long-term effects:
Trust issues, difficulties coping with stress, self-esteem issues, Mental illness (see: PTSD, depression, eating disorders, personality disorders, dissociative disorders, anxiety disorders), substance use problems, parenting difficulties, relationship problems/inability to form lasting relationships,anger issues/violent behaviour, criminal behaviour, revictimization, suicide ideation.
Many of these were abstract, trust issues weren’t exactly provable or disprovable with one piece of evidence. At this early stage they would need to look for a reason to pursue further investigation, if presented with none they would remove them from the list.
Once the report had been read and summarized Harry and Ron began writing every record holding department they could think of to get everything they had on everyone that had been a Hogwarts student in their first to third year during 1992. After amassing this first list, or more accurately eliminated a chunk of possibilities, they would then proceed to looking at the Hogwarts archives for evidence of short-term effects and move into interviewing those close to the victims - the victims themselves of course would need to be last to retain the integrity of their memories and the investigation.
Even by looking at everything, there was a chance that they missed someone. There was always that chance.
The box dropped with a loud thud, as Anne’s spell wavered towards the end. “An-anything else?” She huffed, forcing an eager smile. Thankfully, Anne hadn’t started at Hogwarts until 1993, the year after Lockhart’s tenure as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, Harry wasn’t sure what he and Ron would do without her.
“Yeah, we need you to go to St. Mungo’s and bring back everything there from the list of names we gave you,” said Harry. The office was already filled to bursting and this was only what was available in the Ministry archives. “And I mean everything, from birth certificates onwards.”
Anne, nodding, takes a moment to catch her breath, her radio is on as always.
“You’re listening to WWN, your Wizarding Wireless Network - Happy Monday! As we love to say here on muggle Monday the best day of your week. Before you turn that dial, if you like the Weird Sister you might want to give this next song a chance, this is “Where is my Mind?” by the Pixies.”
Heavy opening chords shook the speakers as Anne righted her collar before heading out of the office into the larger shared Auror space, off to the lifts and then the bay of fireplaces to floo over to St. Mungos. Curious eyes take this opportunity to peek inside Harry and Ron’s office, with all of the boxes coming in they can tell it’s a big case.
With a wave of his wand Harry closes the door.
“So, how do you want to do this?” Ron asked, pushing up his sleeves to reveal his forearms. All of the new clutter wasn’t helping with the summer heat.
Harry scratched the back of his neck, “It’ll be better for our notes if we go by name.”
“But more complicated for our search since we’ll have to go searching through a million different boxes, different files…” Ron sighs, always ready to point out the negative. “Okay so by name it is,” he agreed.
“We should each start with different classes then, so we’re not digging over top of each other,” files at the Ministry were sorted alphabetically by birth year, making it easier to organize the documents pulled already by graduating classes.
“Great I’ve got 1999,” Ron declared, heading over to his designated pile, snatching the corresponding class list from Harry.
Being married to Ginny, Harry was fairly familiar with Ron’s big brother instincts and knew better then to get between him and ascertaining if he needed to kill Lockhart personally or not - besides Ginny would hate it if she found out her husband had been rooting through her personal business, digging into her past. “I’ll do 1998.”
Progress is slow, by the time they had finished pulling all of the files from each department, it was already lunch. With half the day wasted the remaining hours didn’t yield much, both he and Ron reading through two suspected victims' worth of documents at best.
A week later and they had yet to reach the half-way mark, with each and every entry requiring 25 years worth of reading. They had only just finished the G’s today; Granger, Hermione - no further consideration.
The no further consideration list was at the very least longer than the confirmed suspect list - but not by much. The trauma of the war left a lot of trauma responses to wade through.
***
Stepping out of the fireplace, Harry removes his cloak, shaking the soot onto the grate, careful of the carpet. They had bought the house in Godric's Hollow shortly after Ginny had left the Holyhead Harpies, when they had decided they wanted to have a family. It was a red brick semi built sometime in the 1930’s, the bay window faced a lovely front garden, where children, both muggle and wizard often could be seen running by playing in the summer sun.
Folding his cloak over his arm Harry moves to hang it on the coat stand by the front door, maneuvering around the low wooden coffee table and cushy couch and armchairs. They could afford something fancier, what with Ginny’s Quidditch earnings, and Harry’s inheritance from his parents and Sirius, but he couldn’t imagine trading in their two-story for any mansion; it was as cozy and homey as the Gryffindor common room had been - it was a home.
A high-pitched child's laugh breaks Harry’s reverie as James comes running out of the kitchen to greet him. With a large 3 toothed grin James looks at Harry expectantly stomping his feet before darting across the room, waiting for his father to catch him. After two large steps Harry scoops James up and hoists the giggling squirming child up into the air.
“Who’s at the fireplace James?” Ginny calls from the kitchen in her mum voice.
“Da, da, da!” James laughs as Harry sets him back onto the ground, keeping hold of him until he gets his balance and is off running again.
“Hi,” she greets Harry, returning to her usual lower register, before giving Harry a quick peck on the cheek. “Now, hurry up and help me before this becomes a disaster.”
Ginny was an alright cook, having received plenty of training from Molly, but Harry was better. Potatoes, peeled and cut sit in a boiling pot of water, beside them a saucepan with sauteing carrots and onions. Removing the carrots and onions from the heat to keep them from burning, saving the juices for the mince. Taking a fork from the cutlery drawer, Harry checks the potatoes progress.
While Harry cooked Ginny wrestled James into his high chair, tiding him over with some crackers as they waited for dinner. “Make sure to save some of that before you put it all together,” Ginny reminded Harry, chopping some banana at the kitchen table to add to James crackers.
Harry nods, stirring the mince with beef broth, tomato paste, and Worcestershire.
As Harry cooks, assembling a plate of the unmixed components of the cottage pie onto a separate plate to cool for James, Ginny recounts the day's events; all of the new places James had managed to sneak into or climb onto, scaring his mother half to death.
“I’m telling you, the name was a curse, he’s a right trouble maker. Hmm? Aren’t you??” She coos.
“Well, we’ll pick a better behaved namesake for the next one,” joked Harry, depositing the finished cottage pie onto a trivet.
Steam rolled off of the pie as Ginny dished Harry, and then herself, a serving. “Hm, any ideas?”
Harry shrugged taking his first bite. “I don’t know, haven’t really thought of it.”
“Maybe you should start,” Ginny remarked coyly, taking a bite of her dinner.
Harry looked at her quizzically, as Ginny’s impish grin broke out into a huge smile.
“Wait….really?” Harry can feel he is grinning just as large back.
Ginny nods.
They plan to tell everyone at Sunday dinner, the name can wait until they know the sex. For the rest of the evening, as they give James his bath, fight to get him into his pajamas, and then read him to sleep, Harry can’t keep from smiling.
…. and Morag Smith has the quaffle, heading straight down the pitch for the Harpies goal post.
With her arm tucked up under her head, Ginny is asleep over the covers, the live broadcast of the Holyhead Harpies versus the Chudley Cannons game having lulled her to sleep. Watching her chest rise and fall evenly with her breath Harry’s excitement at her announcement is tampered by dread, they’re nowhere near the W’s yet.
Leaving the radio on, Harry slowly gets up from the bed, quietly dressing to return to the Ministry. Exiting the master bedroom, careful to close the door with a soft click, Harry pauses outside of James door.
Opening the door a crack James, his son, sleeps soundly; arms stretched out over his head, his left foot extending out to give a small kick - even sleep can’t keep him still. Harry was proud to be a father, he had been thrilled when Ginny had agreed that she was ready to have children. With all of the post war trials complete the timing seemed perfect, he’d done his duty and created a safe world, now he worried there may be no such thing. Watching James chest rise and fall, his joy was twisting into a knot of worry.
Ginny’s arms wrap around him, “tough case then,” she murmurs into his back, voice low from sleep. “Come back to bed, you need your rest.”
Lightly taking her wrists, Harry removes Ginny’s arms, “I won’t be too late.”
Sighing Ginny takes a step back, he’s keeping a secret from her and she knows it. Rubbing the corner of her eye Harry can see her decide to let it go - she still dislikes being kept out just as much as she had during their school days, but now she drops it much quicker. The end of the war was meant to be the end of secrets, but as an Auror his entire job was secrets. The ones dangerous, criminal wizards kept, the ones the Ministry kept from its citizens, and the ones husbands kept from their wives.
He waits to hear the click of their bedroom door before heading down the stairs and towards the fireplace; moving quietly careful not to wake James.
Dipping his quill into his black inkwell, Harry crosses Ernie MacMillan from his list. He had finally made it to the M’s, the last half of the alphabet.
This far into the process he and Ron had a fairly good system in place, and were on pace to finish this first round of inspection before summer was out. Dumping Ernie’s files into an outgoing box for Anne to sort and return, Harry moved to the next name on his list: Draco Malfoy.
Harry swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. He hadn’t seen Malfoy since the trials had ended, as Draco had appeared not just at his own but he had testified as a witness to countless others. Outside of the Aurors Draco had probably attended the most Death Eater trials of anyone. The trails were hard on everyone, Draco had always looked worn thin, his skin so white it was near translucent with his blue/grey veins underneath. The last time Harry saw Malfoy was four years ago.
He could feel his old obsession taking hold, proving it had merely been dormant and not, in fact, gone as he had assumed. Fingers flying across the tabs of the file folders, Harry makes record time identifying and pulling all of the Malfoy, Draco documents, eager for this chance to look into Malfoy’s business.
Dropping the stack with a heavy thud Harry tucks into his desk to read. Looking up from his own reading Ron can already guess who it is that has Harry all worked up. Rolling his eyes Ron returns his gaze to his own work. “Made it to the git have you.”
Harry doesn’t answer, beginning with the medical files from St. Mungo’s, deciding to work his way up to the most current documents- Malfoys last parole meeting.
Most of the documents from St. Mungo’s were the usual medical reports, some scripts for dreamless sleep, but that was fairly common after the war. There were no flags on his report to suggest potion abuse, but then again a potioneer of Malfoy’s skill didn’t need to go through a healer. Malfoy was also on a mailing list for pamphlets on how to quit smoking. He had never replied, probably immediately tossing the flier in the bin as most wizards did, not seeing the danger in a muggle habit.
Substance use. Check.
Further back into his files Harry finds a series of notes on visits in the summer of 1993 for stomach aches. The initial visit didn’t turn up anything, it was no flu, cold, or stomach bug the healer could find. It was noted that the parent present had requested a second opinion. A second opinion and allergy test also turned up nothing, the suggested cause was nerves.
Referring back to Hermione’s original report, Harry scans for anything on stomach aches. As detailed as her report is, every effect comes with its own extensive paragraph detailing how these effects may present themselves. While a mental disorder, anxiety can present with a multitude of physical symptoms - in some cases patients unaware that they have the disorder have believed themselves to be experiencing a heart attack only to be sent home. Physical symptoms include: stomach pain, nausea, or digestive trouble; headache; insomnia or other sleep issues (waking up frequently for example); weakness or fatigue; rapid breathing or shortness of breath; pounding heart or increased heart rate; sweating; trembling or shaking; muscle tension or pain.
Anxiety issues. Check.
Of everyone so far, Draco had the largest criminal file. Criminal behaviour. Check.
The hearings themselves didn’t reveal anything - at least, nothing Harry didn’t already know. Moving past the criminal reports and court transcripts Harry moved on to the parole meeting reports. These were fairly sparse, perhaps officer Walker was a concise and direct person, or maybe they never got particularly close.
As part of his parole, Draco is required to update his officer of any changes of address. For the past 3 years he has maintained the same address in Manchester, prior to this he had moved, a lot, between an address in London and the Manor. Referencing the tenancy agreement the flat was, and still is, home to Pansy Parkinson.
Relationship problems. Check.
“Anne,” Harry waits for Anne to poke her head out from behind the stack of copies she had just returned with. “I need copies of these.”
Harry dropped Malfoy’s stack of files onto her desk.