Days After Death

Harry watches Vallory Civers struggle to breathe.

He leans against the wall as the Healer tells her to inhale and exhale deeply, but he can tell his words are not computing with the frightened woman. Her eyes are blown wide, the thick sheen of sweat evident on her brown skin. Her hands are twisted into fists, shaking, but Harry believes it just to be a symptom of whatever state of panic the woman finds herself to be in rather than a threat of violence. Still, it was quite common for suspects to lash out in fear.

Harry looks at Beatrice and finds her wand already out, though her body details that of someone poised and unbothered. Good, if need be she could detain Civers easily without causing more stress beforehand. Squibs were never too hard to apprehend, their lack of magical ability proved it easier to question them or have medics attend to them, for the risk of unspoken magic or accidental magic was off the table.

The interrogation room is purposefully cramped enough to evoke appropriate pressure on the subjects. The lighting is intentionally meant to give one a headache, with its glariness, although Aurors are somehow supposed to act immune to it. There is nothing but a tin table and three tin chairs, one on the left side for the suspect, and two on the right, closest to the exit door where freedom lay, for the detective and assistant Auror. Everything remains in plain sight except for the far right-side wall, which Harry and Beatrice know to be a reflective illusion where other Aurors and relegated Ministers and peoples can view the interrogation as it proceeds. Harry knows that’s where Lily is, ostensibly doing paperwork.

Either way, the interrogation room is meant for three people maximum, seated. Not for four people, two of which remain standing far from the subject who is magically bound to their seat, and the Healer who is kneeling beside them, trying to soothe the woman in a room that is literally designed to do the opposite.

Civers still resists the young Healer.

“Leave me alone!” She screams, as if she’s being threatened with an Unforgiveable rather than an offer of antibiotics. Her eyes lock on Harry’s. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

He sighs, and clears his throat at the Healer to stop. This isn’t a good state of mind to be in before an interrogation, and he doesn’t want to delay questioning any longer. It seems that with each passing day Civers remains in holding, she grows more erratic.

“Thanks for your help,” he tells the Healer quietly, whilst Beatrice moves to sit in one of the chairs facing Civers. Better one of them approach first, and not at the same time. “Sorry about all this.”

“It’s fine,” the young healer sighs. That’s when Harry realises he knows this boy, and it makes sense why he hasn’t made eye contact with him. He hadn’t realised when he had walked in, with the Healer’s back turned to him. “She’s in a real state of panic right now. Seems to be suffering from some delirium, and I don’t have the right sort of medication on me right now, nor the details to prescribe it. If it’s withdrawal that’s heightening her distress, which I suspect is a big factor, then this is inevitable, but she shouldn’t be in an environment like this if she’s in such a vulnerable state. I’ll need a full copy of her medical history.”

“It should already be at St. Mungos,” Harry sniffs, looking away now. He doesn’t need this before an interrogation. He seriously doesn’t. First Albus, now Luna.

Lysander (or Lorcan, though Harry is almost positive Ginny told him it was Lysander who went into the medical industry) nods in his peripheral vision. He feels bad for him, in all seriousness. Knowing the things he’s probably had to go through with his mother shouldn’t make this easy for him, and he resents the soul that sent him here. It was a cruel move.

“Okay,” he says, and he turns back to look at the woman once more. “Don’t put her on any potions right now. The effects it can have on non-magical people have always been risky, and coupled with the other pains she seems to be suffering, it would be dangerous to her health.”

Harry shudders. Civers has only been here for no more than 48 hours, and she’s already suffering the climax of withdrawal symptoms.

“I have an Auror outside in the mirror box,” Harry tells him. “Please relay all information you have to her.”

Lysander nods and leaves without further comment. It should’ve made it easier for Harry to push the thought of him– and by association, his mother– out of his mind. It doesn’t work, though.

He sits in the chair. Civers breathes deeply.

Her eyes are bloodshot, her pupils blown wide. There’s saliva crusted on the side of her mouth, but she seems to barely be aware of her own physicality, or be too anguished to care. She looks like she needs a good shower, and if all goes well, they could release her in the next week or so. Harry doubts that will happen.

He looks to the clipboard in his hand, basic information of her full name, age, birthplace and date and occupation and whatnot. Things he’s already poured over with Beatrice before this.

Harry never used to be great at interrogations. Especially in his younger days on the job, where his fuse was especially short, he was quick to target bait conducted by suspects, quick to ignore smaller details until his partner would mention it later on. For reasons such as that, Harry had hardly used to issue himself to such tasks. However, the older he’d gotten, the more he’d seen on and off the field, he was able to supremely mould himself. He proved an easy person to become hypervigilant. If being the Chosen One had been anything to go by, it had served to open his eyes to the clarity of human nature.

And he has seen victims such as Vallory Civers in many before, which is why it disturbs him to be the one interrogating her. What needs to be done, has to be, though.

“Vallory?” Beatrice starts, smiling warmly and openly at her. She’s taken a maternal approach, it seems, although Civers looks to be around her age. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Beatrice.”

She pauses, but Civers doesn’t say anything. At least she isn’t screaming like she was at Lysander. Her eyes flit from Beatrice to him, narrowing with suspicion or any sign of sabotage. She’s like a caged animal.

“This is Harry,” Beatrice continues when she doesn’t say anything. He stares right back at Civers, silent and watchful. “We’re just going to ask you a few questions, okay? Everything will be fine, and you can leave this place without any trouble.”

Harry knows Beatrice means the interrogation room, but her words are vague enough to mean the Ministry, the Auror department wholly. It’s a backhanded, calculating mess of words, but it serves to do the most desperate of suspects in.

“I want to go back home,” Civers snarls at her, catching on to the deliberate wordplay despite her wildness in the moment. “I want to go back to my house, the one you pigs broke into.”

“And you will,” Harry says levelly. If soft parenting isn’t going to work on her, then maybe he should press her buttons. “The quicker you tell us what we want to know, the quicker you get to go back. But that means getting through this process now.”

Civers doesn’t say anything, except shuddering violently for a moment, like her whole body had been overcome with some sort of shiver.

“C–Can I get some water?” she asks.

“Of course,” Beatrice says, and summons a glass easily. She lifts the glass up for her to drink, as Civers’ arms are bound to her sides.

When she has finished downing it, Harry asks her, “When did you start using ethromorphis?”

Her eyes snap to him, and she licks her lips at the sound of the drug’s name.

“Who said I was using?” she asks quietly. She must know it is futile to even deny it, despite her half-hearted attempt.

“We searched your house after arresting you,” Beatrice says. Harry remembers her house to be more of a ‘shack.’ Wherever Civers was staying, it definitely hadn’t been sanctioned, with its leaky wooden walls and shit-stained floors. Bugs had been eating at her carpets, and the rotting tub in her outdoor bathroom had held bags of the drug.

“I’m not selling it! Or using it… I’m just holding it… for somebody…” Civers trails off. It’s clear that the withdrawal symptoms and heightened mania are messing with her ability to configure a plausible story. It’s a bright neon fucking lie.

“We ran a diagnostic on you,” Harry says curtly. “We know you’ve been using it.”

He’s lying too, but Civers is a Squib who is unlikely to have complex understandings on medicinal spells. It works, because her face contorts, and for a moment she is enraged.

“Fuck this!” She screams at him, but she changes almost immediately again, brows drawing up in an expression almost pleading. Perhaps she had momentarily remembered who she was talking to. Perhaps this could all just be chalked up to the withdrawal intensifying her mood changes. “I told y–you. I haven’t been using.”

What follows next is every part the drag Harry expects it to be. Beatrice painstakingly tries to soothe Civers into admitting the use of ethromorphis, tries to distract her attention to other matters, such as the symptoms she’s feeling if not withdrawal. Harry wags the idea of returning home without Ministry oversight (a very highly unlikely scenario, but anyway) in front of her to bribe her into spilling it. He tires of this, and wants to get to the real part of the interrogation. But there is no way to, without first confirming use of the drug.

After a little more than an hour at this, Civers says, “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Beatrice smiles, maybe a little too eagerly.

“You won’t,” she promises. “The use of drugs itself isn’t something we can penalty you for.” She helpfully leaves out that possessing the drug is illegal, but neither of them have any interest in actually charging Civers.

“It’s not you that I’m worried about,” Civers says, the ghost of a smile on her face, as if she finds the idea amusing. “I’m not worried about you.”

“Who are you worried about?” Harry asks, and suddenly, just like that, her whole expression changes.

Civers is shaking her head, so hard Harry can almost hear the sound of her jaw moving, and her teeth grinding.

“No,” she is murmuring, tears swelling into her eyes. “No, no, no, no.”

Harry has seen the look of fear many times on the face of a contributor to a crime, but it has been awhile, years even, since. Beatrice’s apparent concern (although she masks well) rivals his quickening heartbeat. He hasn’t felt so innately focused in a long time.

“Vallory,” he repeats, “no one can hurt you here. Okay? We will ensure that. It’s our job–”

“You don’t know shit! You don’t take care of shit! You don’t know anything!”

“Please–” Beatrice tries.

“No! You lot don’t give a shit about Squibs.”

“We do,” Harry says firmly, leaning towards her. “I know you’ve been dealt a hard deck, but rest assured that this matter has been in our line of sight for a while now. We just need a break, and in doing so, we can protect more Squibs, more people like you.”

Civers laughs at him, humourlessly. Her eyes bore into his own, hateful, crying.

“Bullshit,” she says. “You think I have the privilege to give a shit about the fucking safety of Squibkind? Fucking speaks yards about how you don’t know anything. You lot never do, never even try to. Fucking pigs, the lot of you.”

Great. They’re losing her. Drool is starting to froth down her chin now, and her leg is bouncing up and down. Beatrice seems to be sharing Harry’s impatience.

“Vallory,” she says, slowly, enunciating every syllable to garner focus. “We are trying to help you. Do you think we want to be spending hours in here with you? We have no interest in pressing charges against you, none at all.” Good, point the direction back towards the leniency they’re giving her, Harry thinks. It was an easy tactic to pick through, but Civers looks to be only half here. “But by the guidelines, we should. You’ve got a pretty sketchy history that any Auror besides us would pressure you about. We’re not interested in making your life any harder, but then you have to work with us. You can’t just expect to get out of here scotch-free without giving us a little something, nor would that be even possible to happen even if we wanted to.”

Civers shuts up again, but she doesn’t seem placated. Only momentarily indecisive, as if she’s trying to decide whether to be even more outraged or try her shot at being rational (as much as she can be like this, that is) again. Harry uses that as an excuse to speak, attempting to nudge her into a direction. Somewhere she can point them to, somewhere she may see as a possible escape route.

“You mentioned someone before, when we apprehended you,” he says. “Yasmine. You were screaming her name.”

Civers’ sister’s name is Una, and her mother’s name is Lira. Both are still going no-contact with Vallory. Civers doesn’t have many friends based on the background check Harry’s team had done, but any other female names hadn’t matched up with Yasmine.

Civers’ seems to be getting more unfocused as the hours tick by, possibly from the emotional fatigue. She stares at a spot just over Harry’s shoulder, but every time she blinks, her eyes flit to another space vaguely near his gaze.

“Yasmine,” she says, as if talking to herself. “She works here.”

“She does?”

“Eighth floor of the department. Magical transportation.”

Beatrice shares a look with Harry. From what he knows of the Ministry, magical transportation centres were situated on the fourth floor.

Civers is staring at the ground. The bags under her eyes seem to have grown tenfold in the time of the interrogation. Harry wonders if he mirrors her, or if that’s a selfish thing to think.

“What is Yasmine’s full name?” Harry asks.

Civers shrugs.

“I don’t know,” and she sounds like she’s going to cry.

“What’s your relationship like with Yasmine?”

Civers takes a little longer to answer this. Her eyes are glued to the smooth panels of the floors, like she’s tracing the perimeter of each one.

“She’s my helper,” she says finally. “She said if I ever got into trouble, then I could go to her.” Tears leak down her cheek. “But she hasn’t come for me. I try to write her letters, but no one will send them. I try to tell people who walk by my cell, but no one will listen to me. I’m abandoned.”

“We can send your letters for you, Civers,” Beatrice says, as earnestly as she can. “Where do you keep them?”

Civers doesn’t answer. Her face goes slack, and she stares resolutely at the table in front of her, reflecting a distorted mirror of herself from the tin. Harry lets her sit for a bit, staring at herself, but he grows uneasy as the wildness in her eyes doesn’t dissipate, but grows to a fever.

“Vallory?” Beatrice asks, softly, calmly. Performative.

Civers laughs, a sharp, cutting thing.

“Vallory,” she mimics, mock and sarcasm dripping from her yellowing teeth. Her eyes are glassy again. “Vallory, oh no, you must tell us where your letters are. We’ll send them, we’ll send them! We only want what’s best for you, Vallory.”

She laughs again, and Harry tries not to show his irritation. They were so close.

“Oh no, you won’t!” She exclaims. “You won’t send my letters, you’ll keek on it and then on me. Know how I know?” She looks at Beatrice. Grins. “You called me Civers.”

She laughs again, and Harry withholds himself from slamming the useless clipboard he’s already completely memorised on the table.

That’s when he sees the coiling serpent tattooed on her arm, and the skull it encircles.