The Mystery of the Frozen Heart

Chapter 11: The Art of the Possible

1925

1 "I still don't think you should be coming along. You are not an Auror," Tina was telling her sister as they both walked at a brisk pace through the corridor that lead to the Wand Permit Office.

"You won't be for much longer either if you go through with this," Queenie retorted, sounding as concerned as ever. Since she was wearing pumps, she was having some difficulty keeping up with Tina.

Tina had always been the more practical dresser of the two. "I have to do this. I won't argue with you any longer about any of it." Abruptly, she stopped walking, so that Queenie nearly crashed into her. "Look," Tina said, raising her hands in a typical and obvious imploring gesture. "I know that you're right to worry. I know that" - She hesitated and lowered her voice - "I'm disobeying orders. But this is, I think, more important than my job. There is something fishy going on. I need to get to the truth of it."

"Are you sure this isn't just your wounded pride talking?"

"I don't know. You tell me." Without waiting for a response, Tina spun around and marched off again.

She knew that she needed to find a way to track Celestia Prewett other than asking Graves, who'd only order her to back off again. She couldn't back off, though. Too much misery had already been caused by those darned Grindelwald supporters - too much death and destruction. If they got their hands on a mystical weapon of mass destruction, then there'd be no-one left to stop them. Needless to say, that would mean bad news for everyone, No-Majs in particular. Why was Graves so unconcerned? Why was he willing to trust Prewett at all? Okay, yes, he knew more than Tina did about the whole situation - granted. Still, there were too many questions his conduct raised in her mind, too many doubts. Besides, orders or no, if she could prove Celestia Prewett's duplicity and prevent her from getting her hands on that horrible frozen heart thing, then Graves wouldn't have any reason to admonish her. She was, after all, only doing her duty to the wizarding world. That outweighed protocol.

Since Celestia Prewett had been briefly arrested and her wand registered, authorised MACUSA personnel could track her wand. Prewett probably didn't know that, which was what Tina was counting on. Tracking spells could be countered by illegal magic, which was something Prewett and her ilk probably had zero qualms about. As she walked into the office in question, Tina dearly hoped that no-one would question her request, since she was an Auror and they had their own fish to fry.

From behind her, Queenie said, "That's a lot of hope you're pinning this on."

"Sh," Tina made, annoyed, as she approached the desk of the witch in charge of the early shift.

Being notoriously horrible at memorising names, she of course for the life of her couldn't recall the austere, middle-aged, good-looking woman. Mostly, Tina relied on Queenie for that kind of irrelevant trivia. Hoping her expression was casual, she planted herself in front of the desk and waited. The woman didn't look up. Trampling down her growing irritation, Tina cleared her throat. Still, nothing happened. The witch in charge was scribbling something on a parchment. At other desks, several people were also absorbed in their work.

Tina, however, had no time or patience for such nonsense. She said, "Excuse me, but I need access to the tracking-"

"Authorisation."

"What?" Tina furrowed her brows. There was a pang in her stomach. Darn it.

This time, the witch did look up, albeit for only a second. "Do you have an authorisation slip? New directive says I can't grant any Auror access to wand tracking unless they have a parchment signed by Mister Graves, himself, or someone who's his superior."