*Thanks for the recommendation! I should back to be posting. I have a few issues going on which caused me to forget to post(I also accidentally deleted my outline and got frustrated), but I should be back to posting regularly*
Latest Update:October 31, 2021
Summary: Harry Potter never went to Hogwarts. In fact, he had only been back in England for a few months. An auror now, he's got a new partner named Weasley and they've just caught a case that will eventually change... everything. AU, inspired by season 1 of True Detective.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13897332/2/
Word Count:54k
Chapters:9
"She articulated a personal vision."
January 17th, 2003
Harry sat at his desk and frowned as he waited for his new partner. Deep down, he had already known that he shouldn't have gotten involved with a coworker, but he didn't expect to have to be moved to a different office, far away from his now ex. The danger of dating the boss's niece, he supposed.
He took another sip of tea and glanced at the clock again. Twenty minutes late today. It looked like Weasley was going to break his record, although that was only from what Harry had so far experienced over the course of four days. There was a good chance Ron had done something even worse to get this assignment.
Most of the aurors worked the usual cases, but Harry's new job was as a sort of muggle-liason. Whenever some weird case got caught by the regular world's law enforcement, it was up to them to swoop in, obliviate where necessary, and transfer everything over to the magical world's control.
It sounded interesting, but to his dismay, the Ministry of Magic had a number of sensors that were finely tuned to catch pretty much anything related to the darker side of magic. Weasley apparently hadn't had any cases more serious than a couple of enchanted items that had fallen into muggle hands over the last year, as he had happily told Harry on their first day of working together. The fact that his father worked in the department that usually handled that sort of thing meant that he got to work with family.
Harry only sighed when he heard that word now. Last he'd heard from Sirius, he was back in Vegas again. Shacked up with floozy number five. He wasn't even going to bother learning this one's name unless they managed to stay together for more than a year.
Knowing Sirius, he strongly doubted it.
That was the only family Harry had anymore. The one he had lost was locked away in the darkest corner of his mind.
"Hey, Harry!"
"Ronald," he nodded as his partner finally arrived, carrying a sack lunch.
"Sorry I'm late," he replied as he sat down. "Did I miss anything?"
"Yeah, there were a dozen murders, a couple of rapes, and a case of arson. I solved them all though, no worries."
"You know, when I heard I was going to get to work with the famous boy who lived, I never imagined he'd be such a sarcastic git." Weasley opened his desk and pulled out a book. "And it's Ron, okay? Only my mum and my girlfriend call me Ronald, and when they do it, it's always because they're nagging at me about something."
Harry mumbled in return and went back to looking over the case files he had pulled. He'd been back in England for almost three months now, but he still felt like he needed to catch up on a few things.
"What're you looking at?" Ron wondered.
"Just a few old cases."
"Anything I need to know about?"
"No."
"Great," Ron replied as he turned back to his old book about quidditch. Harry didn't understand why he was so fixated on that sport, but from the condition of the book, Weasley must have read it multiple times before.
Harry went back to reading as well. He had names and faces to learn, so many people that he would have met if he had gone to Hogwarts. But all those years ago, Sirius had chosen to run instead. He took his injured godson and got the hell out of England. From everything Harry had learned over the years, he owed him for that more than he'd probably ever admit.
Sirius wouldn't want the thanks anyway- not unless it was in the form of a bottle of something expensive. It was no wonder that Harry could hold his liquor better than most after being raised by the old lush. That fact had helped him a few times over the years, a couple of them even related to work.
He scanned the photographs and looked over an impressively large mansion that just screamed arrogance. Malfoy Manor. Harry had seen the patriarch around the ministry a time or two and considered not only what he knew, but all that he suspected. Sirius had been a good source for once. He'd never trusted Lucius Malfoy, and the fact that he was missing most of his left arm raised plenty of suspicion about what might have once adorned that arm.
Harry had long ago stopped believing in coincidence. The Death Eaters had been wiped out, but the Malfoys still sat atop magical society, due to their wealth as much as their political maneuvers. More than a few people, like Weasley, claimed they were all evil and wouldn't be caught dead trusting a word from any of them.
Not everyone though, and Harry was considering everything that might mean for the future.
Almost two hours passed that way, Harry and Ron practically ignoring each other before they were disturbed.
"Potter! Weasley! Boss has something for you!"
Harry looked up at the pink-haired veteran, his distant cousin Tonks. She worked directly under Amelia Bones, and if she was there summoning them, it meant there had to be something serious going on. He closed the file, shoved it into a desk drawer, and followed after her.
"What's up, Tonks?"
"Not in the halls," she replied and Harry nodded. Ron was still trying to catch up, slamming the office door shut with his wand as they waited by the elevator. He huffed for a moment once he ran over to them and grimaced at Harry.
"You're not a very good partner, did you know that?"
Harry ignored him once the door finally opened and they stepped inside. With no other passengers, he turned to Tonks. "Anything you can say now?"
"A murder the muggles found up in Cumbria. There was something odd about it, I expect, if you two are being called in. Weasley, follow Harry's lead."
"But I've got seniority!" Ron argued. "He hasn't even been here six months."
"Yeah, but he's also a much better auror than you ever were, and he's worked plenty of homicide cases before. So shut it."
"Fine."
Harry snorted at the sulking pout of his partner. Yeah, he definitely shouldn't have slept with Susan.
The elevator doors opened and Tonks led them through the auror department as eyes turned to stare at them. His view quickly passed over the buxom redhead who saw him and then pulled a book up in front of her. At least there weren't any tears this time.
Tonks knocked at the door and Amelia barked out for them to enter.
"Potter," she grumbled. "You need to take Weasley with you for this one. You'll both be needed."
A newspaper flew over to them. Harry caught it, glanced once, and then handed it to Ron. "We're already a day behind then?"
"Yes. You'll need to get in and use the old 'higher department called in' cover. The locals wouldn't be able to handle something like this anyway."
"Why not?" Ron asked.
Tonks answered him. "There's a ritualistic nature to this. Likely a serial killer, but there was also some minor ambient magic still in the area when I scouted it out this morning."
"Any questions?" Amelia asked.
"I can handle it," Harry replied.
"I'm not so confident in the way you handle things anymore, Potter."
"It was for the best."
"Just don't do anything to get her hopes back up, or I'll kick your arse out of the ministry. Are we clear?"
"Crystal, madam Bones."
She gave him one last glare and nodded at the door. "Then get out of here and get to work."
Ron was quiet before they made it out of the office and then went to the garage, one of the few levels of the ministry near to the surface. Harry got in the car and frowned as he once again had to remind himself that he was driving on the wrong side of the road today. That was one of the worst parts of leaving behind the States. He missed the Plymouth Barracuda he and Sirius had restored and enchanted to hell and back.
But there was no way he was going to let Weasley try to drive again. Once had been more than enough. Useless damn purebloods.
"I guess she was worth it, eh mate?"
"What?"
"Susan," Ron answered with a grin. "Man, what I wouldn't have given for a chance at her. She was the first girl to really develop, you know what I mean? Back at Hogwarts. I still remember the first lesson in Herbology in second year when..."
Harry looked over at his partner who had trailed off. For what a talker Weasley could be, it was pretty surprising, but the pale look on his face was even more so. "You alright?"
"Huh?" Ron shook himself and turned to look out his window for a moment. "Yeah. You really missed out, not going to Hogwarts, you know? You ever think about what house you would have been in? I bet you would have been in Gryffindor, with me."
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? We're bloody aurors! Bravely protecting the world from dark wizards, and all that. That's courageous and noble and honorable, just like Gryffindors. Where else would you have been?"
"Well, Tonks, Amelia, and Susan were all in Hufflepuff, so I hardly think Gryffindors have called 'dibs' on the auror department."
"Yeah, I suppose. As much as you read, I guess you could have been in Ravenclaw."
Harry was content to let Ron think that, knowing that there was no fourth option as far as he was concerned. He hadn't really put much thought into it, no matter how often a few of his British acquaintances had mentioned the famous houses of Hogwarts. He had much bigger things on his mind.
They blasted through the countryside faster than should have been possible, but one of the few perks of this assignment was the car. It had been kitted out with an enchantment like the Knight Bus that magically traveled beyond anything the muggles could come up with, outside of science fiction anyway.
"Badges," Harry said as they pulled up in front of a small building labeling it as the local police station. Ron nodded and reached into the glove box and handed one over. They each tapped them and clipped them onto their shirts as they got out of the car.
Harry pulled a briefcase out of the trunk while Ron waited with an annoyed look on his face. He was still trying to convince Harry to call it a boot.
"Alright, let's go."
"You know, people might expect the one of us that doesn't have an accent that marks him as a Yank to be the one in charge," Ron said.
"As much time as I spent in the South, being called a Yank by you Brits is pretty strange."
"You're British too, Harry."
"Considering I've spent less than two years here in total, it hardly feels like it," he replied as they opened the doors and went inside.
"Who're you?" a middle aged woman asked from behind a desk.
"We've been called in about your murder case," Harry said as he stepped forward and motioned down to his badge. He saw the blank look on her face for a second as the magic convinced her of how important they were. "Can you contact whoever we need to talk to?"
"One moment please."
"Let me do the talking," Harry said without turning, as he knew Ron was still scowling at not being in charge.
"At least you know how to throw your weight around," Ron muttered as they got back in the car and headed for the crime scene. Harry had handed him the briefcase with the preliminary case file they'd taken from the muggles, so Ron started flipping it open. "Why a snake?"
"A snake?"
"Yeah, the girl had a snake next to her."
"Are there many photos?" Harry asked.
"Oh yeah, a bunch of them."
"Was the snake dead too?"
"Yeah," Ron answered. "And what's the deal with the apple?"
"Apple?"
"Yeah, it was like someone had taken a bite out of an apple before leaving her body there." Ron kept looking at the pictures of the dead girl while Harry scowled and stepped on the gas pedal. "She looks familiar for some reason."
"Have you seen her before?"
"I don't know- maybe," Ron muttered.
"We're almost there."
"That was fast."
"You gave me a good reason not to screw around," Harry replied.
"Huh?"
Harry turned off the country lane and onto an unpaved stretch that led to the crime scene- or as he now was almost certain, the place where the body had been staged. Without knowing for certain the cause of death, he couldn't be sure that the girl had been moved, but he was leaning towards yes. Less than a minute later, he slowed the car and parked where the police had cordoned off the area.
There were a few trees where the body had been found, and the ground was plenty muddy. It also had a slight incline, falling off towards the east.
"You know, you keep telling me about how I should have come around for the Christmas holidays," Harry said as they got out. "Meet the family and all that. Do you even know what Christmas is all about?"
"Yeah, presents, food, and stuff," Ron answered with a grin. "Oh, and family of course."
"What about the Christ part?"
"We never went to church, mate."
"I guess not," Harry snorted. "You didn't recognize the iconography from the photos either."
"Huh?"
"What do they teach you people up at that school?" Harry shook his head. "Sirius was never religious either, but I assumed that practically everyone had at least heard the story of the Garden of Eden."
"Oh yeah, Hermione mentioned something about that once." Ron looked like he was thinking hard as Harry walked past him- either that or he was about to break wind, and there was no reason to stand behind him in either case. "That's the one with the evil snake, right? I could've told you that. Everyone knows snakes are evil."
"And where do you think that stereotype comes from?" Harry said as he crouched down with the case file in one hand as he tapped at his glasses. He'd had them enchanted a dozen different ways, and he now used the one that he thought of as 'investigative mode.' He aligned the best photo that showed a wide shot of the crime scene with where he was so as to properly orient himself. "From the Bible, mostly. Although to be fair, the Egyptians also had Set as an evil snake. But for Western civilization, it's mostly the Bible that spread the idea of snakes being evil."
"The Bible? Why do you know so much about that?"
"I take it you never dated a religious girl, then?" Harry asked, turning to look at Ron with a grin.
"Uh, not really," Ron shrugged. "I mean, Hermione's parents went to church a little bit, but she rejected it."
"You don't know what you're missing."
"Really?"
"I had this girlfriend when I was fifteen." Harry's voice carried on auto-pilot even as he went through the photos from the day before. He'd learned to multi-task from Sirius, even if the old man hadn't meant to teach him that lesson necessarily. But Harry had to do something to keep from groaning about the bad jokes and tales of one night stands.
"Yeah?"
"She was a good Southern Baptist girl," Harry chuckled. "Blonde hair, long legs, and amazing tits."
"What about her arse?" Ron asked.
"Are you an ass man?"
"Um, maybe?" Ron hedged.
"Sirius is too," Harry said. "Anyway, it was pretty nice, but I've seen better. The thing with this girl was that I learned a lot about religion, and more importantly, how to fake it. Preachers might say one thing on Sundays, but people only hear the bits they want to. As for their behavior? Well, in my experience, most good Christians see the whole 'forgiveness' angle as a reason for them to not have to do much in the way of self-reflection- that, or an easy way for them to assuage their guilt.
"But with dating a religious girl, I had to know what the limits were, and how to get her to remove those limits."
"Soooo..." Ron scratched his head for a moment. "Meaning you had to talk your way into getting into her robes?"
"She wasn't a witch, so she didn't wear robes," Harry scoffed. "Seriously, what is it with you Brits and robes? They're comfy to slip on if you're just sitting around the house, but have you ever tried to actually do something in them? Or, god forbid, have you ever tried to fight wearing those silly ass things? They're fucking ridiculous."
"Yeah, well, it's just an expression, mate."
"To answer your question, yes I had to learn how to talk to her in order to get her to be more physical. But once I did, it was more than worth it." Harry smiled fondly for a moment before turning back to the pictures of the dead girl. "I even started getting up on Sunday mornings to go to church with her. Ha! Sirius thought I was crazy, at first."
"Yeah, I bloody wouldn't do that," Ron said.
"It was worth it- for the rest of the day, after church, she was in a really good mood. She thought I was becoming a true believer, just for her- and she showed me many, many reasons to keep the faith."
"Oh."
Harry stood back up and flipped back to the top of the case file.
"So, what we've got here is a young black woman, teens to early twenties at most."
"She looks a bit younger than us," Ron said.
"Maybe," Harry nodded. "Cause of death still to be determined. They're still waiting for tox screens to come back."
"What's a tox screen?"
"They check her body to see if she has anything toxic in her system. Drugs, alcohol, possibly venom in this case- from the snake. We've got some magical residue left in the area, so Amelia was right to send us out here."
"How did you spot that already? I haven't even done any of the charms."
"Well, you do them and tell me what you come up with."
"Fine," Ron grumbled even as he pulled his wand.
"Don't forget the one to check for portkey travel," Harry said.
"Why?"
"I believe she may have been killed somewhere else and moved here later."
"Why wouldn't the killer just apparate with her then?" Ron asked.
"That's possible," Harry allowed. "However, the killer might not have wanted to touch her after she was dead. He might not have wanted to touch her at all, in fact. You've had plenty of Death Eaters here in the past. Do you really think they would be the sort to want to touch a muggle? Can't you just imagine them turning up their noses at that sort of thing?"
"Unless it were a pretty girl," Ron growled. "There were plenty of stories I heard that maybe some of them would find a pretty muggle girl to play with before erasing her memory or getting rid of her more permanently. Is that what you think happened here?"
"It was a young woman," Harry agreed. "Death makes everything uglier, but she was probably fairly good looking in life. With luck, the medical examiner will check and let us know if she was raped before she was killed."
"I'd think she was," Ron said with a frown. "Why else was she naked?"
"Because originally Adam and Eve were naked, just like all the other animals."
"So, you really think this is some reference to Christianity?"
"If you weren't such a sheltered wizard, you would see how obvious it is," Harry replied. "But it looks like that time I spent with Lisa might be paying off."
"What do you mean?"
Harry walked past the crime scene, following the sound of running water just around a few trees off to the east and no more than twenty yards away. He pointed down at the water. "Do you know what that is?"
"A stream," Ron shrugged.
"That stream leads back to a river," Harry answered. "Specifically, the River Eden."
"Another Christian reference?" Ron guessed.
"A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden," Harry replied somberly. "The girl was posed to show us that she had sinned and therefore had to be punished. She had taken a bite out of the apple, so she had learned of good and evil. I'm willing to bet that 'learning of evil' has something to do with the reason she was killed."
"Well, the killer would count as evil, right? Maybe that's the evil she learned about," Ron suggested.
"I don't think so," Harry said. "The killer probably picked her for a reason. I would guess that was before she learned anything about the killer's evil. Figuring out why he picked this girl in particular though, that might be more of a challenge."
Harry started trudging down the slope towards the stream of water.
"Do you see something?" Ron asked. Harry waved for him to follow, so he did, although not without frowning about it. It was going to be murder to try to get the mud off his shoes before he got home. "Do you think the killer meant for her to not be found until after it rained? The place where she was found was all muddy. That could have washed away evidence."
"Not bad, Weasley," Harry said as he came to a stop at the water's edge. "That is possible, but the rain came after she was found, so he might have failed on that account. Either that or it was just random weather. Rain in England is hardly unusual."
"Right," Ron huffed as he walked over next to Harry. "So, what are we looking for?"
"That," Harry said as he pointed off to something floating on the other side of the water.
"Looks like something dark- black maybe? Why do you think it has to do with our case?"
"Give me a moment, and we'll find out," Harry answered as waved his wand downwards, his shoes and socks disappearing from his feet. "If you weren't a wizard, you'd find this next trick really impressive."
He cast another spell and stepped onto the surface of the water, slowly walking across it with ease.
"My brothers Fred and George showed me that when I was about fourteen," Ron chuckled. "It is a pretty neat charm, I'll admit. Be careful though, we don't want any muggles spotting you."
"Relax, we're in the middle of nowhere," Harry replied as he neared the other side. He stepped onto the shore before turning and kneeling down. Without looking up, he called over to his partner. "Get over here, Weasley!"
Ron apparated over to his side. "What is it?"
Harry reached down into the water and pulled a large piece of black cloth out.
"It looks like a black robe," Ron said. "Too big for when we were at Hogwarts, unless it was one of the seventh years, maybe."
Harry stood up and stretched his arms out, showing off just how large it was. Ron was right, definitely too big for a child.
"You know what that reminds me of?" Ron said with a glare at the wet fabric. "The robes the Death Eaters used to wear. I saw them in person once, did I ever tell you that? It was at the Quidditch World Cup about ten years ago."
"I heard about that," Harry nodded.
"It was bloody terrifying, mate," Ron shook his head. "Did you ever play quidditch?"
"No, it wasn't a big sport in the states. Besides, Sirius and I lived in the normal world, so magical sports weren't really on my radar. I did play little league for a couple of years."
"What's little league?"
"Baseball," Harry grinned. "The national pastime. Sirius used to give me so much crap for being too American. But he liked it there so much that he's never wanted to move back here."
"I guess he didn't have much family to come back to," Ron added. "There are hardly any Blacks left."
"He prefers it that way." Harry levitated the black robe back to the crime scene- or the staged crime scene as he was coming to think of it- and set about the task of seeing whatever the killer saw. It was not an easy mind set to get in, but he did have a couple of ideas about what to do next. "Alright, so we've got a dead girl, some Christian iconography, and a black robe that was specifically left behind."
"What do you mean?"
"If this was a wizard, there wouldn't have been any reason not to take the robe with him," Harry answered.
"Or just vanish it," Ron shrugged.
"Yeah. So why leave it behind?"
"Maybe he wanted us to think of the Death Eaters? But, there haven't been any cases related to them ever since the fall of you-know-who." Ron frowned. "Er, I mean the second fall."
"I'm going to need to requisition a second vehicle," Harry said.
"Why?"
"If we leave the body with the muggles for another day, we'll be able to get a lot more out of them. That could do half our work for us, depending on what they come up with. Besides, we can't very easily smuggle a corpse out in the backseat."
"Well, we could just confound them all," Ron suggested.
"I'd rather not, especially when they have security cameras up," Harry replied. "That requires another layer of spell casting to screw up their records, and if you want to do it right, you need to be thorough to make sure there aren't any backups. Or internet records."
"I've heard Hermione talk about that internet thing," Ron chuckled. "It still doesn't make sense to me though. Where do all the wires go?"
Harry snorted. "Regardless, the better path is to come back with a van to take the body away. We'll do that tomorrow."
"So, we're done here?"
"For now," Harry agreed.
"Great. I'm starving. What say we grab a bite to eat before we head back to the ministry?"
At night, a shadowy figure appears under a tree. He kneels down in the mud and pulls a ring out of his pocket.
But no one answers his call, and moments later, he vanishes.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13897332/2/