The Interruption
Harry and Neville arrived at the house of the fifth set of murders, it was an unassuming house, in an unassuming neighbourhood, much like the other crime scenes so far. Only, there was one key difference this time; the muggle-born was still alive.
Allow me to clarify, the poor girl was by no-means unharmed however, she did in fact still have a pulse. The aforementioned girl, by the name of Zoe Murray, was very clever. She had heard about the other killings, and subsequently set up a ward around the family home; if it was breached by any magical being other than Zoe herself, MACUSA would instantly be alerted. This is exactly what happened that fateful evening, and whilst she still endured torture, and watched the merciless deaths of her parents and little sister, two British Aurors arrived in time to prevent them from killing her.
The Squib looked up, as the door was opened, and poked his partner hard on the shoulder. The cruciatus curse ended as its caster's attention was drawn away, and upon seeing the scarlet robes, the pair turned and ran. Harry looked between the only living victim and her fleeing torturers, undecided as whether to pursue the attackers or to help the unconscious female. He glanced at Neville in question, who instantly understood his dilemma.
"You go" he urged gently, yet firmly "I'll stay here, the girl's still alive but she needs a healer now"
Harry's only response was a decisive nod, before he dashed out of the back door in pursuit of two killers. The men had a head start, and they were fast, but Harry was faster. He silently thanked the lord for this, and for the first time in his life, he was actually glad he'd spent his youth fighting evil wizards, defeating basilisks and helping a convicted murderer to get away, even if he did happen to be innocent. He allowed himself a small smile as he noticed he was rapidly closing distance to them, when a cutting curse was hurled his way. He dodged easily, and began to fire stunners, one of which hit the man that was presumably the squib of the arrangement, and thought he'd succeeded at stopping the escape of at least one of the two of them, when the other man unexpectedly grabbed his unconscious friend, turned on the spot, and apparated them both away.
"Darn it!" he yelled, his exclamation lost into the black abyss that was the Washington nighttime. He cursed the Dark Lord's damned soul and turned around in a huff and stalked back to the house, where healer's were now levitating Zoe's limp form towards the fireplace, and then flooed back to whatever hospital they came from. Neville watched on in concern, a haunted look in his eyes.
"They killed her really, you know" he said, his voice barely above a whisper "She's still breathing, but she'll never be the same"
Harry was at a loss for how to answer, so he settled with hugging his friend lightly, and muttering words of consolation to him.
"You go to the hospital and wait for news, and interview her when, and if, she is able. You will be far better at judging how hard to push than I would be. I'll finish up here" Harry decided. Neville nodded once before smiling sadly at him
"See you at the hotel" he added, before stepping into the fireplace and disappearing in a burst of green flames.
Harry extinguished the fire and set about examining the bodies of the dead; he had been very lucky with the healers; they had respected their need to look for clues, and had assisted their patient while causing as little damage to the scene as they could get away with. Harry examined the bodies of the parents first, no evidence other than the signature Dark Mark drawn on a slip of parchment, pinned to their clothes. He moved over to the third body and his heart sank further than he had previously thought possible. She was just a little girl, no older than 9 if her appearance was anything to go by. He felt tears prickle at the edges of his eyes, death was always upsetting, but a child this young was truly something else.
"I'm sorry" he whispered, as he carefully examined her body for evidence. He thought about his two sons back home, and his pregnant wife. Doubt began to creep into his thought patterns, should he have left the three (four?) of them alone whilst he travelled to America? Are they safe? Of course they were, he eventually thought, Ron would stop by every so often anyway. With a final sad thought, he decided to send a letter to them all once he got back to the hotel, and then he forced himself to return to the matter at hand.
He went back to scouring the bodies with a detached professionalism he felt wrong to employ, however necessary it may be. The youngest girl, Evie if the sign on the bedroom door was to be believed, also had the ghastly Dark Mark tacked to her dress, the ink on the parchment hadn't even dried. Harry then peered over to the mantelpiece, and saw a photo that stopped his thought in its tracks; it was a family photo with both parents, and not two but three daughters! The other one, looking to be about thirteen in the photo, was nowhere to be found. Then it clicked in his head, of course! The killers wanted to make sure the bodies would be found sooner rather than later, these poor victims had been stalked. They may not have been terrorists per se, however that did not stop them from having the urge to cause as much large scale fear, whilst carrying out their sadistic vengeance. Vengeance, that certainly seemed the motive. Not actual vengeance, but it was in the minds of the deranged couple killing and torturing on the daily. They were angry about something, and they wanted everyone to know about it.
They certainly were succeeding on that front; every newspaper in the country, both magical and muggle, had covered the story at great lengths. It started with Virginia and Maryland news, then magical, and finally the rest of the USA. Yes, there were other serial killers out there, but none in such rapid succession, at least at first, and there was a disturbing level of curiosity stirred within the general public when reading about dead people remaining seemingly undamaged from the ordeal.
Auror Potter was ripped from his musings once more as a loud bang exploded from the door. He turned in shock only to see no less than four muggles all with their guns drawn. Harry looked down at how he was sat, knelt beside the smallest body, a hand still over the Dark Mark replica. He was a trained Auror, but he didn't need that to work out that this really does not look good.
"FBI, put your hands where I can see them and step away from the girl!" the dark man that had chased them earlier bellowed. Harry did as asked, as whilst he was fairly certain he could magically dodge a hail of bullets, he thought it best not to chance it. Or break the Statute of Secrecy to such an extent that two different governments were after him.
"Uhm, hello agent, I … am not sure if I can explain"