𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄

Part 3

1.

It takes a week before the healers at St. Mungo’s give him his discharge papers and another solid week of long evenings spent in the file room before Harry finds a list of every single landlord in Diagon Alley and the surrounding ten blocks, every direction, in London. Of course, most of these landlords are sketchy, shady creatures with too many cats and too much time; and only some of them disclose the names of tenants when Harry shows them his Auror papers.

If ever he could use a Marauder’s Map of Diagon Alley, now would be it.

There is simply no record of Draco Malfoy, not past 1998, when he was spotted in Lincolnshire in the company of a sallow, dark-haired man Harry knows was Snape. Beyond that, absolutely nothing. The Ministry has vague warrants and proclamations for him to appear before a Wizengamot tribunal, but seeing as no one knows where he is or if he is dead or not, nothing has been done.

Harry is doing something about it now. The Niffler pulls on its leash, making a sort of snorting whine at him. He sighs and tugs it, saying quietly, “I hope this is it”. He had to go through papers for another week before the Department of Alternate Uses of Magical Creatures for the Purposes of Good (a whole of one aging witch) allowed him to borrow the tracker Niffler.

There is no door here. The last three places in this derelict building were useless. A hag who threatened to hex his balls off, an old man who asked how much the chocolate bars were (Harry isn’t selling any that he knows of) and a girl with a baby on her hip and a toddler on her apron strings who strongly reminded him of Daphne Greengrass from Hogwarts and he hopes it wasn’t her, but somehow, he thinks it was.

“I don’t know about this,” he whispers to the Niffler, which looks up at him, eyes shining. He cuts a square in the air with his wand and murmurs the incantation. It bounces back behind his ear, buzzing down the stairwell with a crash.

“Well,” he says, “I see there’s a ward here.” He hands the Niffler a small gold ring from his pocket. The Niffler jumps up and catches it in its jaws, crunching like a dog on its bone. “I suppose you were right.”

He uses a welding spell on his wand and cuts through the wall, jagged edges and dust flying up. It’s a rough job and lengthy and he sweats enough to burn his eyes with salt, but he forces his way through into a room.

This is a good sign.

However, hearing the wail of a baby, Harry realizes that this is not a good sign. At all. His heart plummets. He’s awful at putting his auror skills into real-life situations. He’s sliced his way into a poor witch’s flat all because he thought-

There is blood, everywhere. All over the cheap carpets. Strands and streaks across the flooring, dried brown and dark. Everything in this flat smells of blood, and shit, too. Harry breathes in and it almost overwhelms him.

The tracking Niffler sits on its hinds legs and whimpers. It starts to wiggle its rump, as though it’s backing up, away and out of this…this murder scene.

He goes cold inside. He draws his wand and lets the leash drop. He casts a quick shielding spell on the flat and patches up the hole in the middle of the flat wall. He suspects there is a door there of sorts, but that it’s hidden under magic. By the looks of things, it could be quite dark.

There are always wizarding criminals out there and there are still a couple Death Eaters on the loose. Amycus Carrows. Rabastan Lestrange. And now, Harry has seen the reports, quite possibly Draco Malfoy.

He tiptoes around the flat, following the blood smears. A body has been dragged at some point. From the smell, Harry suspects it was recently. His eyes shift continuously as he moves, sweeping back and forth before he makes his silent steps, just as in training. His pulse races and his heart pounds. There is no rush like the first field job, they say, and this is near as close as he’s been to that yet.