The Wizards
They were at the fourth murder site in as many days, and Harry was getting frustrated.
"This is just unfair, Neville, all evidence points towards this being the same killer, but they're killing on a nightly basis, and the families are clearly being stalked prior to being murdered!"
The pair of elite Aurors were not happy, they had been called to the otherside of the atlantic (and had to travel via international portkey, which would unsettle even the strongest of stomachs) by the ICW two days ago, after MACUSA had reported two killings that matched the signature of the Death Eaters. Harry Potter, as the head of the Auror office, had of course gone himself, and brought with him his current partner, Neville Longbottom. Upon their arrival, they had travelled to each site via apparition, after seeing photographs of their destination, provided to them by the local Aurors of MACUSA. At each site they confirmed the beliefs of the American Aurors: a sigil of the dark mark was left on pieces of parchment next to each of the bodies, all of the victims were killed by the killing curse, all of the victims were muggles or muggle-borns, and only the muggle-borns showed signs of Cruciatus endurance.
The tortured muggle-borns brought about the most sadness for Neville, reminding him of what his parents had been forced to bear, albeit without the sweet release of death at the end.
The pair arrived back at their hotel after examining the bodies in the morgue, and gaining entry through some slightly shady means. They had magically expanded their shared room upon arrival, to make space for a large table and an evidence board, so they could examine their findings, and throw out theories.
"MACUSA was wrong about one thing, the killer isn't an ex-Death Eater, or the Dark Mark would have been present as a cloud above the homes" began Harry, tiredly.
"Agreed" stated Neville, "Luckily for the dead, they were clearly a novice at using Unforgivables, the evidence shows that the Cruciatus can't have had much power behind it, and the hints of restarts suggests that the killer was hesitant to torture them. Then again, they managed to kill them, and Avada Kedavra is the most intent powered curse there is, and a difficult one at that"
"They failed a few times with the first muggles, they were the only ones that made a decent attempt escape, the others simply had no time: kill, kill, torture and kill" mused Harry, before finally settling down for a nap, neither of them had slept for nearly 36 hours, having nearly finished a full day of paperwork at the Ministry Office, before being deployed out to the US. Alas, their time of peaceful slumber was not to be, as three minutes later, a shimmering coyote came bounding through the wall, announcing that another set of murders had occurred. With a loud groan and the rustling of robes, Head Auror Potter climbed back out of bed, and Auror Longbottom holstered his wand with a tired sigh, and the pair of men donned their cloaks, summoned a muggle image of the neighbourhood where the bodies were found, and disapparated with a stereo 'pop'.
They marched up the steps to the house of Marvin and Dexter Slimm, and knocked on the door. It opened to reveal a teenage girl, with mouse brown hair and blue eyes, brimming with unshed tears.
"Please don't hurt me too", she whimpered, looking at her visitors in fear, as soon as she guessed they were wizards.
"Don't worry, Tina is it? We're Aurors, my name is Harry, and this is Neville, we have come to find out who hurt your family"
"You're British?" she questioned, analysing them critically. "I don't know much about your government, I'm a no-maj"
The last part of her sentence came out as barely more than a whisper, as if she was worried they'd stop caring about her.
"We were called by the magical Government of this country, as there have been many people hurt like this recently, and it's similar to the crimes of a…. Terrorist group that got brought down ten years ago, across our side of the pond" explained Neville, "May we come in?".
Tina showed them in, and Neville sat down with the young girl, whilst Harry began to examine the bodies upstairs, and look for any clues. Tina began to explain her findings, a sad state of affairs, where she had been dropped off by her friend's parents after a sleepover, only to walk into an eerily silent house, whereby she then went looking and found her fathers dead in their bed, and her brother Terry laying distorted on the ground in his bedroom doorway, his hazel eyes wide open and lifeless. She began to cry, and Neville comforted her, to no avail, and Harry came down the stairs in a hurry.
"A neighbour must have seen something," he began "the muggle authorities are down the street, I saw them through the window. I'm so sorry Tina, we have to leave, representatives from MACUSA will contact you when the person who did this has been apprehended".
With apologetic looks, the wizards bid their farewell, and slipped out the backdoor to avoid the police. Once they reached an alley a short distance away, they began to share data, and came to the same conclusion they already had, with one small addition: they knew that the families must have been stalked beforehand, so why did two of the families each have a member left alive?
"We would have benefitted from longer in there, the muggles are trampling all over the evidence, with their cars and their feet, and what's with all the ribbon?"
Despite everything, Harry began to laugh, "It's tape, not ribbon Neville, my word that sounded exactly like Ron, I can just imagine Hermione adding a remark about now, something like 'don't be rude Ronald!' "
Neville just grinned back at him, when you spend your days chasing after Britain's most depraved criminals (and apparently now America's as well) , you had to lighten the mood every so often, simply to have the willpower to continue.
Suddenly Neville's smile failed, and he pointed in the distance behind Harry.
"Uhm, those muggles are staring at us, boss, and they look like they have those metal gum things with them"
"You mean guns?" questioned Harry, turning on the spot as he did, immediately spotting the people his partner was referring to. "Shit, they're coming towards us, apparate back to the hotel as soon as you are out of sight!"
He immediately turned on his heel and ran, closely followed by Neville, as an athletic, dark skinned, gun wielding muggle chased after them, along with several other muggles, also holding guns, but luckily far less good at running. Harry was by far the greatest runner out of the entire Auror squad, which he attributed to his past experiences with 'Harry Hunting' and his time hunting horcruxes when he was seventeen. Neville was a good runner too, but he'd only ever had proper experience of that particular type of exercise on the job, barring a few escape attempts from his Uncle Algie as a young child, which ultimately hadn't helped any way, as it had ended in him being dangled by his feet out of a window, and then promptly dropped, by the aforementioned, ever so slightly deranged great uncle. They rounded the corner at the end of the alley, and turned on the spot to apparate away in succession of one another, just in time, before being caught by the muggles.
Back at the hotel, Harry rubbed his scar exasperatedly, as Neville apparated beside him clumsily, before tripping over his own feet and headbutting the bedframe.
"Well" he said, looking towards his friend sheepishly "That was certainly a close one"
Harry just sighed, removed his cloak and boots, and transfigured his regulation scarlet Auror robes into pyjamas, and collapsed heavily into bed, and finally drifted off into a well deserved snooze.