Neville's bail hearing had at least been short; Harry didn't go himself, as he thought it best to not appear before the press in Azkaban prisoners' robes, but Altair reported the proceedings in his usual efficient manner. "I didn't get a chance to speak with Longbottom, but he looked relieved, if not actually happy," he finished. "I also wasn't able to tell him the purpose of the three Lieutenant Aurors that will be guarding his house. I thought that would be best left to you."

"That's assuming I'm not left here to cool my heels for too much longer," Harry replied dryly. He looked at his wrist out of habit, even though his watch had been taken from him during processing. "Rothchild did say she would push the paperwork through, right?"

Altair opened his mouth to reply, but just then, the door to the visitation chamber opened, admitting a very puzzled-looking gaoler with his ring of keys.

"Finally," Harry said impatiently, but the gaoler shook his head.

"Not yet, sir. Your wife is here to see you."

"Oh." Harry winced. "I was actually hoping she wouldn't get wind of this until I got home tonight."

The gaoler shrugged and opened the door further to let Ginny through. Harry arranged his face into a self-mocking grin that fell immediately as soon as he saw her.

As a rule, nearly as a law of nature, Ginny did not cry. Harry had seen her grit her teeth through broken femurs, the deaths of her parents, and even childbirth with hardly a tear shed. The last time he had seen her eyes swollen and rimmed with red like this had been when -

Harry's stomach plummeted as he rose from his chair. The last time had been when Fred had been killed.

"I tried to send you an owl, but when it came back - and you weren't in your office - I finally got wind that you were here." The characteristic steel in her voice now sounded almost tinny and hollow.

"Not for long," Harry said hurriedly. "It was a mistake. What happened?"

"Ron and Hermione. They're - Hermione might make it, but Ron..."

Harry's tailbone hurt, and it was only then that he realised he had sat back down very hard in his chair. "How?"

"A gas leak," Ginny spat. "A gas leak in that stupid Muggle house of theirs, while they were sleeping - for some reason, Enforcers were told to go and check on them, and that's when they - they found..." She trailed off again, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand almost angrily.

"I wasn't fast enough." The words were soft, and Harry wasn't even sure if he'd actually spoken them aloud. "If I'd connected it all earlier - but I didn't -"

"You knew?" Ginny sounded incredulous. "You knew this would happen?"

"I worked it out not three hours ago, and I tried to set things in motion to protect them - but -" ignoring the smudges he made on his glasses, Harry lowered his face into his hands.

"What are you talking about?" Ginny demanded, but Harry shook his head.

"It's an open case. I can't - but you're a target too. That means you have a right to know." It was a very small token of relief, but it gave him something to focus on while he desperately tried to process the terrible news she had brought. "Someone is targeting D.A. members. I don't know who, or why, but they've brought down me and Neville and Justin and Parvati and Cho... and now Ron and Hermione..."

Altair cleared his throat, and Harry jumped. He had quite forgotten his assistant was even in the room. "I don't want to intrude, but if you'll excuse me - I'd like to see if the Enforcers will extend their jurisdiction to allow some of our people to investigate."

"Of course," Harry replied blankly. "Ask for Rochelle. She'll get them to cooperate."Despite his best efforts to stay focussed on the job at hand, Harry's thoughts snapped back inwards on themselves. Ron. Harry couldn't even remember the last words he'd spoken to his best friend; it had been some inane farewell after Christmas, routine words that had blurred into obscurity with the assumption that they'd have plenty of other opportunities to exchange the same trite goodbyes.

"And bring McKinnon in on this," he added suddenly. "Bite him if he whines that he's on a murder case. I need him - I need everyone on this. I want to know who's trying to take down Dumbledore's Army and the Order; I want to know how he's doing it, and I want to know what he has in his diary for tomorrow. Whatever he's planning, he that he has to have us out of the way so badly that he's killing innocent people in their sleep." He was startled to find that he'd raised his voice and was nearly shouting. UnflinchingUnruffled, Altair nodded and slipped from the room without further comment.

"It wasn't an accident, then," Ginny said softly.

"Please. There are alarms for gas leaks, and their home is one of the most efficient blends of magic and Muggle technology I've ever seen. You know Hermione; she'd have known within seconds if something was malfunctioning, even if she was asleep." His mind lit on something Ginny had said before. "You said she might make it?"

Ginny nodded, her eyes still hollow but now narrowed slightly in anger. "She's at St Rooney's in Melbourne. I was going to go - but -"

"Do that," Harry said forcefully. "I'll follow when I can. I'm going to send an Auror with you; you're not to leave her sight unless you're with an Enforcer - they're the Magical Law Enforcement in Australia. Do you understand?"

Ginny looked as though she dearly wanted to argue, but she just didn't seem to have the energy. "And what will you be doing?"

"Making absolutely certain this doesn't happen again." The clock read nearly half five. "Assuming they ever let me out of here."

With no other split-second decisions taking up his thought processes, they naturally settled back to Ron and Hermione. A hand seemed to clench itself around his throat, the tip of his nose stinging in a precursor to actual tears, but Harry shook his head roughly. He couldn't afford to fall apart right now. It would be a poor memorial to Ron if Harry let others die because he couldn't get a grip on himself.

And those were the stakes. If he hadn't been convinced before, he was now: this was a game of life or death.

 

 

"I don't believe it." Neville shook his head. "Why would anyone want me dead?"

"You're a catalyst," Harry replied bluntly. "And you're cleverer than you let on. I'm not even talking about these - these attacks and deaths. This is just paving the way for something that this psychopath doesn't want us getting in the way of. Which means it's something that you or I wouldn't take lying down. Forget modesty for now; if either of us took a stand against some evil force, we could start a very large movement. We could practically raise an army. Hell, you have done."

"Then why frame me for murder?" Neville sounded utterly bemused.

"You weren't meant to be framed. Marcus was an innocent bystander. If you'd been peckish and had those sweets like you were meant to, we'd all be standing round your grave right now, wishing we'd seen the signs of your impending suicide sooner."

After a moment of studying his hands, Neville looked up. "I don't suppose you could prove all this and get me off these charges?"

Shaking his head bitterly, Harry crossed his arms. "McKinnon agrees that something is odd, but the man's like a bulldog: he's not going to let you go until he's bloody well ready."

"So someone is still trying to kill me, and nobody wants to do anything about it because I'm a suspected murderer. Lovely." Reaching up, Neville began to massage one temple.

"Not quite. That's where Cho comes in." Harry sat back; he was rather proud of himself for this. "The minute I told her what I suspected, she agreed to take on your case. I believe her exact words were 'if you're right, we're going to need him'. So you're going to have the best defence counsellor in the business advocating for you, and I'll have Aurors watching this house night and day to keep you and Hannah both safe."

Eyes darting in the direction of the kitchen where Hannah was preparing dinner, Neville sighed. "You really think something is building out there?"

"I really hope that I'm wrong and that this is all some giant coincidence. But I don't think that's the case. And even if something isn't building - someone wants you either dead or in prison, and right now, you're neither."

Neville shook his head slowly, more in disbelief than in any attempt to deny what Harry was saying. "I've been spending the last day trying to think of who would want to do this to me. Who could have got into my greenhouse without me knowing? Or my office - I spend several hours a day in my office, you'd think I'd have been able to tell if someone was there -"

Harry froze.

The expression on his face must have been startling, because Neville's brows drew together in concern. "Harry? Are you all right?"

"Quiet," Harry snapped. "Something you said just knocked something loose..."

It was, painfully enough, in Ron's voice, dredging up through decades of other remembered conversations...

That's the mark of a good house-elf, isn't it, that you don't know it's there?

 

 

The Hogwarts kitchens had not changed at all. The four long tables still ran the length of the room, with house-elves ducking and bowing as they passed him in their usual bustle despite the late hour. Many of them were scurrying about with scrub brushes and tiny mops, ostensibly on their way to clean hallways and classrooms for the next day.

Finally, the house-elf he had come to see appeared before him, bowing very low. "Mister Harry Potter," he squeaked, "Bobbin is happy to be of service!"

"It's been a while, Bobbin," Harry said and he crouched down to rest on his heels. "I was surprised when they told me you were Head House-Elf now. Congratulations."

Bobbin beamed, puffing out his chest where the bright gold badge gleamed against his tea towel. "Bobbin is working hard for many years for this. Bobbin never properly thanked Harry Potter for placing him here."

"It was nothing." It really had been nothing; Bobbin had been bereft of masters after a particularly nasty triple homicide some years back, and Hogwarts had been the first place Harry had thought of. "Listen, I have a few questions about how things work around here. Are you in charge of assigning who cleans which dormitory every night?" Bobbin's ears flapped as he nodded enthusiastically. "Who is in charge of the Gryffindor common room? Why didn't he or she notice that there was a dead body there two nights ago?"

At this, Bobbin's face darkened. "Tansy is ill, very ill," he intoned in a lower register than Harry was used to hearing from a house-elf. "She fell ill that night and had to go home to her mistress."

Harry blinked. "Her mistress?"

Nodding solemnly, Bobbin adjusted the badge on his chest. "Tansy's mistress is new, sir, and she is the mother of some of the students. She sends Tansy here when Tansy isn't needed at home." The house-elf looked around and then whispered, "Tansy is a little odd, sir, but always eager and pleasant."

"Odd?" Harry was not sure why his heart skipped a beat. "Odd how?"

"Tansy has a mistress, but her mistress pays her." Bobbin shuddered as though he'd just found a spider on him. "Some house-elves is asking for wages now, Bobbin hears this, but Bobbin was raised to know that to work is an honour and privilege."

"Bobbin," Harry said, a dreadful suspicion building in the base of his brain, "who are the students that Tansy comes to Hogwarts with?"

It was a moment before Bobbin's eyes lit up with recollection. "The Weasleys! Rose and Hugo Weasley!"

FACT: The house-elf known as Tansy was employed by Hermione and Ron Weasley as well as having access to Hogwarts.

 

 

This was not the right floor.

Or, rather, it was the right floor to find Tansy the house-elf; this was indeed the non-human ward at St Rooney's Teaching Hospital of the Healing Arts in Melbourne. But Harry really should have gone to the ward Hermione was in first. Time-sensitive as his discoveries were - not to mention vital to preventing any further deaths - if Harry was half the man he was supposed to be, he would have gone to visit Hermione. And yet the idea of her being awake and trying very hard not to blame Harry for what had happened (she'd never blame him, but the thought would be there behind her eyes nonetheless) was only slightly less terrifying than the prospect of seeing her comatose or, worse, lifeless.

Instead, he was here. And though it had taken nearly fifteen minutes of asking, wheedling, and finally bullying, so was McKinnon.

"This is useless," McKinnon murmured to Harry now as the Healer led them down a row of tiny curtained beds. "We can't use a house-elf's testimony even if it sings and dances it in front of the full Wizengamot."

"Here she is," the Healer said in a low voice as he drew back a curtain. "Came in a few hours ago. We've been trying to make her breathing easier, but it's not working nearly as well as it is on her mistress."

A tiny idea took root in Harry's mind. "You're treating her for carbon monoxide poisoning, yes?" At the Healer's nod, Harry decided to throw all caution to the wind. "Try the antidote for Dragonbane."

"Dragonbane?" The Healer looked startled.

"We have reason to believe she was in contact with Dragonbane within the last few days. I doubt she wore gloves. House-elves have different physiology, so what might have killed a human could just have made her very ill."

The Healer knelt down to take Tansy's hand and examine the nail beds. "I do think you might be right. We assumed she was hypoxic from the gas, but if she's been in Dragonbane..."

The antidote was delivered in less than five minutes, and the Healer carefully administered it with a dropper into Tansy's slightly open mouth. The effect was immediate; her eyelids fluttered and then opened to reveal large, watery blue irises and pupils that focussed on the Healer immediately.

"You're in hospital, Tansy," the Healer said with a very calm voice. "I'm Healer Meredith. You're going to be all right."

"Master," Tansy said sluggishly, trying to sit up, "Master needs his Tansy -"

The Healer looked up at Harry and McKinnon sorrowfully before going back to the house-elf. "Tansy, I'm very sorry to tell you - your master is dead."

Tansy's already pale face went completely colourless. "No," she whispered hoarsely, "Master can't be - Master had things for Tansy to do, things to keep him from dying -"

"Your mistress is still alive," Healer Meredith said, laying a gentle hand on the sheets to keep Tansy lying down. "She's all right."

Tansy gasped, her eyes going even rounder. Harry was not an expert on house-elf body language, but facial expressions were close enough to human ones that he could take a fairly good guess that Tansy had just realised she had said something she was not supposed to.

"The Weasleys aren't your true masters, are they, Tansy?" he asked softly, kneeling down next to the low bed. "You have another master who sent you to the Weasleys."

Tansy began to tremble, her eyes darting between Healer Meredith, Harry, and McKinnon, who loomed very impressively at the foot of her bed. "I is - I is not knowing - Tansy is tired, sir -"

"You didn't know what that plant would do to Professor Longbottom, did you? That's why you didn't wear gloves." It was perhaps cruel to continue questioning the house-elf, especially given her state of terror and exhaustion, but Harry had no doubt that as soon as she was well enough, she would Apparate back to her real master and he'd never find her again. "But when you got sick, you went to Hermione, not your master. I get the feeling you knew your master wouldn't be as kind to you as Hermione was."

"Do not speak against Master! Sir doesn't know Master!" Tansy again struggled to sit up, pushing feebly at the Healer's pressure on her chest.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Healer Meredith began angrily, but Harry held up a hand.

"Tansy, my name is Harry Potter. But you already know that. Ron and Hermione Weasley were my best friends. I don't think you knew what your master was asking you to do. He sent you to the Weasleys and told you to turn a certain knob on a furnace when he gave you a signal. When he found out you were at Hogwarts sometimes, he had you put a leaf into Professor Longbottom's sweets. He's been using you, Tansy, using you to hurt people. To kill people. I'm trying to find out why."

"You'll kill Master!" Great tears were rolling down Tansy's face to soak into the pillowcase. "Master is scared - Master knows bad people are after him, and Master asked Tansy to help him and keep him safe..."

McKinnon had knelt down now, and the space around the bed was very cramped. "Tansy, your master is sick," he said in a surprisingly gentle tone. "He thinks that hurting people is okay, and it's not. If he doesn't stop, he is going to get hurt. We need to find him so that we can put him where no one will hurt him, and he won't hurt anyone else."

"You'll kill Master; you'll take him away and you'll kill him, Master told Tansy..."

"We will take him away," Harry said honestly. "But we don't want to kill him. He needs help so he stops wanting to hurt people." He hated himself for what he was going to say next, but he had not got to be Head of the DMLE without being able to manipulate a witness. "Don't you want to help your master?"

"No, Harry Potter is a bad man - Master said -"

"You're done," Healer Meredith said firmly. "I'll give her something so she sleeps, and I'll keep her here for you, but I'll have no more interference with my patient until this afternoon."

"Healer, more people could be killed if I don't learn who her true master is," Harry replied in a low, dangerous voice. "Two of them are upstairs right now, and I don't think her master cares that much about collateral damage. How many patients do you have in this hospital?"

If Healer Meredith had been able to glare daggers, Harry would have needed a Blood-Replenishing Potion. "I will give her something that will make her sleepy. She'll be talkative for a few minutes before she drifts off. Once she's asleep, you're to leave this ward. Do I make myself clear?"

Meeting her gaze was difficult, but Harry didn't even flinch. "Crystal."

"Tansy does not want to say, Tansy cannot say," the house-elf sobbed, but she made no effort to get up even as the Healer went to a cabinet in the corner, and when she returned with a cup of what looked like weak tea, Tansy did not fight as the Healer gave it to her in tiny sips. Her large eyelids began to droop as her sobs quieted, and Healer Meredith glanced at Harry venomously.

Harry ignored the malice in her eyes and looked back to the house-elf. "Tansy," he said softly, "I know you didn't know you were doing bad things."

"Tansy didn't want the boy to die," the house-elf said groggily. "Tansy was cleaning the grate - the boy was eating sweets - and then the boy fell over and Tansy saw the sweets and Tansy - Tansy knew he ate the sweets Tansy made -"

FACT: Tansy the house-elf was ordered by her master to poison Neville Longbottom.

"Did your master tell you what that plant would do?" McKinnon asked.

"Master never said. Master has been so busy, Master doesn't sleep or eat as he should, Master is getting so old..." Tansy began to cry weakly again.

"Tansy," Harry said intently, "who is your master?"

"Master is from an old family," Tansy said, pride winning through the drowsiness in her voice. "Master is the last one left. Oh, there will be no more Macnairs left when Master dies..." The house-elf gave a little sigh, and then she was asleep.

FACT: Tansy was the house-elf of the Macnair family.

FACT: Walden Macnair, the last living member of the Macnair family line, had been a Death Eater at both Battles of Hogwarts and had disappeared soon after the defeat of Voldemort.

Harry looked across the bed at McKinnon. "That good enough for you?"