Gryffindor Investigations

“Well, I do,” Ron said. “Even if we can’t question Joshua, we can search his room. Or one of us could, while the other kept a lookout.”

Harry shook his head in disbelief at his own thickness. “I must have spent too much time as an Auror,” he muttered. “There was a time when I wouldn’t have needed that pointed out to me.”

“Don’t worry, you’re just getting old. I won’t tell,” Ron smirked. “Shoot you for who gets to look.”

“Done. On three.”

Ron threw “rock”, but Harry threw “paper”. Harry tried his best not to look too smug as Ron, with a sour expression on his face, grumbled, “Have fun. I’ll act like I’m looking through the hallway and whistle ‘Weasley Is Our King’ if anyone comes.”

“Done.”

Catherine Cryne had given them a floor plan of the house when she’d hired them, and Harry and Ron had studied it extensively. Thus, it was no trouble at all for them to find Joshua’s room. It was unlocked, and Harry slipped inside, while Ron pretended to be fascinated with the upstairs hall and its decorations.

It didn’t take Harry long to realize that Clarice Cryne had been understating the case when she had described her brother. Joshua Cryne was a man of many perversions, some of which Harry still couldn’t imagine when he saw their implements. He went through the room quickly, using both his hands and his wand, trying to find anything that might help their case.

And he found it.

Rooting through a box on the floor of the closet, Harry found what he’d been looking for: latex gloves, and a powder that brought tears to his eyes when he got too close. Pointing his wand at it, Harry muttered, “Composit.”

Information flooded his brain. This was wolfsbane, ground to a powder.

Not conclusive proof, but it gave Harry a lead.

And then a loud CRACK! told him he was no longer alone in the room.

He started to whirl, but stars exploded behind his eyes as something impacted with the side of his skull, and he knew nothing more.

*****

Harry came to slowly, his head throbbing in time with his heartbeat. His body ached, badly; his arms were tied at the wrist behind his back, and tied again to his ankles. The resulting arch in his back was horribly uncomfortable.

His glasses were missing, and he couldn’t see very well, even though the room was fairly well lit. Unfortunately, one of the things he could see all too clearly was a huddled form next to him, one with red hair.

“Ron?” he croaked. “Ron!”

Ron stirred, feebly lifting his head to look at Harry. “Hey, mate,” he said weakly. “I heard you get hit, ran in—and Clarice was waiting for me.”

“Clarice?????”

“Yeah—but Joshua was there, too—or at least she had a man with her, and I’m assuming it’s Joshua.”

Harry squinted, trying to see around the room. Both he and Ron were tied up, and, on a table across the room, he saw what looked like their wands. “You think you can crawl over there?” he asked, motioning with his chin.

“I think I can do better than that,” Ron said. “Let me just clear my head for a second.” He rolled back and forth, clearly trying to get his body upright. Finally, he managed to get onto his knees, and shook his head a couple of times to clear it. He took a deep breath—and then, with a loud crack!, Disapparated.

Leaving his bonds behind.

A split second later, Ron reappeared, a scant yard away from his previous position, but free. He scrambled to his feet, then strode across the room and collected their wands. He pointed his at Harry said, “Libero,” and the knots in Harry’s bonds came undone as easily as breathing.

“How did you do that?” Harry demanded. “How did you Apparate without the ropes?”

“I’ve been practicing,” Ron said loftily. “What now?”

Harry never got a chance to answer, because at that moment, the only door in the room opened, and Clarice Cryne came into the room, followed by a man. Clearly expecting to see two helpless prisoners, she stopped short, shocked, and gasped, “Jo—“

Harry and Ron moved explosively. Harry seized Clarice by the wrist and yanked her into the room; as soon as she was out of the way, Ron tackled the man behind her. With him pinned, Ron yelled over his shoulder, “This is the guy who I saw before, Harry!”

Harry had Clarice in a tight hammerlock. “Your brother, right?” he said, gesturing with his head.

“Yes,” Clarice spat, “and you’re making a big mistake, Potter!”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Harry said. “We’ve got you two dead to rights for assault and kidnapping, and as soon as Ron lets your brother up, we’re taking your wands and taking you in. I have a good enough reputation with the Aurors that they won’t shrug this off.”

Ron, still on top of Joshua, had managed to get out his wand. Joshua thrashed and raged under him, with sounds coming out of his mouth that seemed barely human. Ron, however, pointed his wand directly between Joshua’s eyes, and the other man ceased his struggling. Ron slowly got to his feet. “Get your hands where I can seem them,” he ordered sharply.

Joshua complied. As soon as he was up, Harry shoved Clarice to join them, then snapped, “Up against the wall, both of you.” As soon as they were, Harry frisked them with brisk efficiency, producing a wand from each.

“Can you guard these two?” he asked Ron. “I want to talk to Mrs. Cryne.”

“No problem,” Ron assured him. He turned to the Crynes. “Right…both of you on the floor, hands on your heads. NOW.”

Harry quickly found the stairs—the basement wasn’t that large, for all that it was subdivided into smaller rooms—and was soon on the second floor, outside Mrs. Cryne’s bedroom. He took a deep breath, and entered.

Mrs. Cryne, still in her bed, looked up at his entrance. She did not look particularly surprised to see him. “Well, Mr. Potter,” she said in a resigned tone, “I suppose my children managed to fail miserably at the task I set them.”

“If you mean putting me and Ron out of the way,” Harry said coldly, “then yes, they did. I’m guessing that you didn’t have us killed right off while we were unconscious because you needed time to think of a way to explain our disappearance, right?”

“Of course, Mr. Potter. You are, after all, a celebrity in the Wizarding world; if you were to drop out of sight suddenly, people would notice. I did not want that to happen until I was certain that nothing could be traced back to us.”

“The three of you killed your husband, didn’t you? You, Clarice, and Joshua.”

Mrs. Cryne hung her head, looking very tired. “Yes, Mr. Potter, we did. Joshua actually did the deed, but Clarice and I assisted him—Clarice by making sure my husband’s glass was in exactly the right spot for Joshua’s spell to introduce the wolfsbane into it, I by transferring the spell residue from Joshua’s wand to Michael’s.”

“And you feigned illness beforehand, so that no one would think you had the stamina to cast the transfer spell.”

“Exactly.”

“Why?” Harry burst out. “What possible reason could you have to do something like this?”

“The simplest, Mr. Potter. I wanted my husband dead. I knew that Clarice and Joshua would miss him as little as I, and I also knew that neither Catherine nor Michael would have the fortitude for the task. Transferring the blame to Michael was Clarice’s idea, but a good one for all that. I never expected, of course, that Catherine would have the spine to take any action but incessant weeping, and I certainly never expected you to get involved.”

She reached for a glass of water on the table beside her. Harry watched dispassionately as she took a long drink from it, then laid it back down, gingerly. “How long?” he asked.

“Until the poison takes effect, you mean?”

Harry nodded.

“About five minutes, I believe. I had it ready, just in case. I try to prepare for everything, Mr. Potter—but there’s no way to prepare oneself for Azkaban.”

They continued to talk, about trivial, unimportant things. Slowly, Mrs. Cryne’s lids became heavy, her speech slurred and uncertain. And finally, the eyelids closed, and she was gone.

* * *

It was four hours later. Clarice and Joshua Cryne were in custody, and the release of Michael Cryne had already been set in motion. Harry and Ron were on the train back to London. Ron stared out the window at the countryside, lost in thought. Harry, who knew him so well, knew that Ron would speak when he was ready, and not before.

Then, abruptly, Ron stood up. “Let’s go to the Burrow.”

His voice held a note of command in it that Harry had never heard before. “You mean Apparate? Off the train?” he asked.

“Right. The Muggles won’t think twice about it. Let’s go.”

“All right.”

There were two loud CRACK!s, and the two wizards were gone.

* * *

They reappeared in front of a house Harry knew as well as his own and loved infinitely more. It looked as crooked as ever, and the boots and cauldron were still “decorating” the front porch.

Ron didn’t say a word to Harry; he simply marched up the walkway to the front door. Halfway there, Mrs. Weasley opened the door, clearly surprised to see her son.

“Ronald?” she asked uncertainly. “What…?”

Ron didn’t give her a chance to answer. He simply threw his arms around her as soon as he reached her, and began to sob into her shoulder.

Mrs. Weasley was clearly taken aback, but she hadn’t been a mother for over thirty years for nothing. She simply patted her weeping son on the back, murmuring, “There, there……there, there, my baby boy.”

She glanced over Ron’s shoulder at Harry, who merely shrugged. Keeping an arm around her son, she opened the door with her free hand and led them inside.