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‘What’re you doing, mate?’ Proudfoot asked him quietly. ‘They’ve not got an N.E.W.T between them.’
‘I’m not hiring them for essay writing,’ said Kingsley lightly, as they watched the newly appointed Head of the Department, Robards, and the rest of the senior leadership team walk away, muttering. ‘You agree with them, then? You think I’m letting them jump the queue? A PR exercise?’
‘No, I trust your judgment,’ said Proudfoot.
‘Good - and when Harry starts, you should trust his, too. He has good instincts - Ron and Neville I know less about, but their experience speaks for itself. A shame Hermione did not wish to-’
‘Is it fair on them?’ Proudfoot demanded. ‘They have more experience than most, yes, but is that enough?’
‘Yes,’ said Kingsley simply. ‘My old friend, please don’t be so cynical - we’re in a new era.’
‘You don’t think it’s too much change all at once?’ Proudfoot asked. ‘I agree, in principle, that it’s all needed, but perhaps Dawlish is right, perhaps incremental change would be more-’
‘Revolution is needed, and it’s needed swiftly,’ said Kingsley, clapping him on the back. ‘The parties continue, but we have much work to do. I understand Harry is giving an interview on the wireless this evening - you should listen to it, I’m sure it will reassure you that he and his friends are ready to join us.’
‘They’re a bunch of teenagers,’ Proudfoot said quietly.
‘You’ll like them very much - I do,’ said Kingsley, smiling warmly. ‘Piran-’
‘Don’t call me that,’ said Proudfoot swiftly, the habit of a lifetime coming easily to his lips. ‘You know I hate that.’
Kingsley chuckled. ‘Yes, the infliction of names bestowed upon you by naming seers, I have always loved how you and Tonks-’
He stopped abruptly, and the pair of them were frozen in the moment, thinking of this funny little thing that had so bonded he and the bright haired witch that seemed, to Proudfoot, to simply be on holiday, to burst back into the office with a new photo to stick to her cubical wall and some inappropriate anecdote to loudly yell across the office.
‘I suppose I shall see you at the funeral,’ said Kingsley. ‘On Saturday.’
‘Yes,’ said Proudfoot, his mouth dry. ‘Yes, I will… see you there.’
That evening, he did listen to the wireless, stretched out on the sofa with a glass of firewhiskey in one hand, and Mikey’s foot in the other, rubbing it absently as they listened.
‘He’s dodging stuff,’ said Proudfoot, though he did not feel he was being accusatory. ‘There’s something darker about it all.’
‘All sounds dark enough to me,’ said Mikey. ‘Surprised the kid’s still alive.’
‘Sounds like he would agree with you.’
‘Has the new Minister really offered him a job with you lot? That’s what it said in the newspaper.’
‘Yeah,’ said Proudfoot, looking at his face carefully. ‘He confirmed it this morning.’
‘Wow,’ said Mikey. ‘Bloody hell. That’ll be something, won’t it? Working alongside the Chosen One.’
‘Mmm.’
‘You not excited?’ spluttered Mikey.
‘I met him before, you know. Thought he was a bit of a little shit to be honest. I was assigned to be his bodyguard, but he just pulled his arm out of my grip and was like “I can walk, thanks”, cheeky little shit,’ said Proudfoot, and he put on a high pitched, whiney voice to impersonate Potter, even though from the wireless they could plainly hear that Potter had a deeper, more adult voice.
‘That doesn’t mean anything, he probably didn’t want some big oaf like you babysitting him,’ said Mikey. ‘I can’t believe you’re not excited,’ he added, when Proudfoot grunted again.
‘Believe me, my reaction is one of the better ones - John Dawlish is in a rage-’
‘Probably because he thought he’d get to be Head of Department, not Robards-’
‘Cotton’s furious too-’
‘’Cos he’s dodgy as fuck, he knows he’ll go to prison-’
‘Williamson and Savage think it’s indulgent PR-’
‘I mean yeah, it might be.’ Mikey shrugged. ‘Does that matter?’
‘What?’
‘Does it matter if it’s indulgent PR? If they bend the rules for some war heroes?’
‘Well it’s a bit annoying that the rest of us jumped through all these hoops-’
‘Yeah, but you didn’t go through all that other shit, did you? You ended up coming into hiding with me.’ A sly grin crossed his face. ‘As wars go, I think ours was probably quite a lot of fun.’
‘Ssh - don’t say stuff like that, not while the country’s grieving.’
‘Yeah, so much grieving at that Diagon Alley street party,’ said Mikey sarcastically. ‘Cheer up, will you? I’m dead jealous - working alongside the Boy-Who-Lived. Amazing.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered, rolling his eyes.
But Proudfoot found that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom were quite pleasant coworkers, if a little aloof. Dawlish, Cotton and Savage still weren’t particularly keen, seething with rage when useful tools like Veritaserum, fast-track sentencing and imprisonment, Dementors, and removal of Unforgivable privileges were removed, especially when word slipped out that it had been on Harry Potter’s insistence, as a condition of his employment.
‘Who does he think he is?’ Dawlish muttered mutinously. ‘If Death Eaters wriggle out of prison because we weren’t allowed to use truth potion, we’ll only have him to blame.’
‘Idealistic little shit,’ Cotton agreed, though privately Proudfoot thought he should count himself lucky Veritaserum wasn’t being used on him.
‘He’s probably got a point,’ said Williamson. ‘I always found that stuff just confused things - anyone properly dangerous can throw it off, can’t they? So you’re left wondering if you have the real answers or whether it’s someone more powerful than you realised hiding something else. Unreliable.’
‘He still shouldn’t be able to swan in with no qualifications, no experience, and a handful of hairs on his chest and make sweeping changes,’ said Savage sourly.
‘He’s got experience, Savage,’ laughed Proudfoot. ‘How many times did you see You-Know-Who?’
‘Just the once,’ admitted Savage.
They paused, all of them looking across the office at Potter, his scarlet robes still smart and new, his arms full of files. His shift, Proudfoot remembered, ought to have ended an hour ago, but here he was fetching more work.
‘I quite like him,’ he told them. ‘He’s got the right attitude.’
Dawlish snorted scathingly. ‘If he had the right attitude, he’d have done things the proper way.’
The truth was, Proudfoot was quite pleased that they had people in here that really cared - that had a bit of drive about them. People for whom finding Death Eaters wasn’t just a job, but something personal. He had been tired, so tired, for years before, of seeing the same nasty villains rotate easily though the system, their pockets clinking with gold or their sneers full of sordid secrets about the senior figures who dared to suggest they go to prison for the crimes they had committed. Some Aurors, like Cotton, were downright bent in Proudfoot’s opinion, and their corruption had been settled in even as far back as Fudge’s early days. Potter, Weasley and Longbottom all seemed very principled, very determined, and Proudfoot liked that, even if he was a little annoyed that the three of them had got to bypass some of the rules.
In mid-June, Robards asked Proudfoot to supervise Potter and Weasley. ‘It’s their case,’ he told them sternly, ‘but just keep an eye on them. This one might need a more experienced hand to gently guide.’
So that was how Proudfoot found himself escorting the two teenagers to the morgue to view one of the unidentified bodies that had been found in the latest mass grave that had been discovered.
‘How long have you been an auror?’ Potter asked him mildly. Proudfoot could tell he was just trying to break the awkward silence as the elevator rattled.
‘Erm… pfft,’ said Proudfoot, wincing as he tried to work it out. ‘I reckon I… yeah, I started training in the autumn of… 1982, qualified in ‘85… I think. Something like that. Just post first war anyway.’
‘Long time,’ remarked Weasley.
‘Yeah, the pair of you are doing a good job of making me feel old.’ He eyed them. ‘How old are you both, actually? The papers said you should have still been at Hogwarts - but you know what they’re like - exaggerating, I expect?’ He was not sure what made him say it - they all knew that he knew exactly how old they were, and that he was aware they hadn’t done their N.E.W.Ts.
There was another slightly awkward silence. ‘Well I’m eighteen,’ said Weasley. ‘Harry’s not far off.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered. ‘Didn’t either of you want to wait a bit? Go and have a normal time at school? Go on holiday?’
The elevator shuddered and came to a stop. ‘Got unfinished business,’ said Potter quietly, pulling back the golden grate.
He escorted them down the long white corridor, and into the chill of the morgue, where he introduced them formally to Bessie and her team.
‘We’ve met before,’ said Potter, smiling mildly at her. ‘You very kindly let me keep back a friend’s watch for his son.’
‘Well, I’m looking forward to working with you, pet,’ she replied. ‘I’m not one for chit-chat, so we’ll get on with it, shall we? Number 114, was it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’ll want these,’ she said grimly, handing them little masks to go over their nose and mouth. ‘And brace yourselves.’
She pulled out a drawer, and all three of them visibly recoiled.
The stench was the worst part, because objectively looking at the corpse didn’t feel real. It no longer particularly resembled a person, the rotting flesh discoloured and sunken, yellowish-white bone showing through, the faded tatters of robes still clinging. Where a face had once been was little more than a skull, the jaw loose as though in an eternal scream, the eyes gone.
Proudfoot could hear Weasley swearing, the blue eyes over the mask watering, not from emotion but from the strength of the smell, his arm raising to cover his mouth in a futile attempt to block it. Potter briefly looked away too, but then returned a hard gaze to the remains.
‘A male,’ Bessie said briskly. ‘Based on the cranium and the hips, though, as you can see, most soft tissue is gone. Somewhere between thirty and fifty.’
‘Any idea if he was a wizard or muggle?’ Potter asked.
‘I think wizard - the clothes, you see?’ Bessie lifted some of the mud-matted fabric that seemed to have fused into the body; a fresh wave of putrid scent hit them, and Proudfoot swallowed down an unexpected surge of vomit in his throat. ‘They look like robes to me.’
She talked them through it all, running her wand over the revolting remains, explaining the traces of the cruciatus curse, the remnants of magic that revealed the killing curse. ‘Some of the other bodies in the grave had associated items - photos or personal effects that we’ve been able to use to identify them, but I think this man may have been a prisoner - he en’t even gorra watch on, poor-’
‘Shit,’ said Potter suddenly, and from across the rotting corpse, Proudfoot saw his eyes close.
‘What?’ asked Bessie irritably.
‘This is Florean Fortescue,’ Potter muttered.
‘How d’you know?’ asked Weasley, with a tone that suggested he had accepted this statement without consideration.
‘The socks,’ said Potter, nodding towards what little remained of the feet. ‘There’s little ice cream cones stitched into them.’ Indeed, when one looked closely, very closely, through the grime and the decay, the cotton socks were blue, with tiny little pictures of ice creams cheerily visible.
‘Now hang on,’ said Proudfoot patiently, ‘don’t base it on that, people wear all sorts of socks, that’s not much to base it on-’
‘No, it is,’ said Potter heavily. ‘I - I remember him wearing them, I’ve seen them before, I had an entire conversation with him about his bloody socks when I was thirteen. It’s him. And he went missing, didn’t he? In ‘96?’
‘He did,’ confirmed Proudfoot. ‘No body found.’
‘He’s found,’ said Potter flatly. He looked back up from the corpse to Bessie’s face. ‘Is there a way to confirm it’s him? Anything to… compare it to? Muggles have tests-’
‘Well, I dunno about Muggle tests, pet, but yes, now I have a possible name there are spells I can do to confirm if it’s him or not. They take some time though - I’ll send up a memo.’
Potter’s wild leap turned out to be entirely accurate, confirmed by Bessie’s memo the very next morning. ‘Based on socks, of all bloody things,’ Proudfoot told Williamson quietly. ‘Who’d have thought? Who remembers socks people were wearing years ago?’
Williamson’s eyes were still raised high on his head as he shook it, and shrugged helplessly. ‘I s’pose old Kingsley was right. He’s got good instincts. Well - now we know. Some closure for Mrs Fortescue at last.’
Proudfoot nodded grimly. ‘I’m doing it this afternoon. Potter’s coming with me.’ He winced. ‘Would you want someone famous giving you that news?’
‘Dunno,’ said Williamson blankly. ‘Good luck.’
‘Mmm.’
They walked to Diagon Alley from the Ministry, and Proudfoot realised it was his first one on one conversation with Potter, despite him having worked there (albeit part time) for a few weeks. He was quiet, and stoic - hard to read. Quite different from the surly schoolboy he’d had to escort through Kings Cross. He thought about bringing it up, but decided that would be a dick move - Mikey was probably right. He’d probably felt embarrassed in front of his friends.
‘This is an area I don’t have experience in,’ Potter blurted out suddenly as they waited to cross the road at Trafalgar Square. ‘Giving someone news like this.’
He was nervous, Proudfoot realised with astonishment. ‘Well,’ he said uneasily, ‘there’s no easy way to do it. Always a horrible part of the job. I’ll take the lead for you.’
‘Thanks,’ he said gratefully.
‘Erm…’ He felt like an arsehole for voicing it, but he had to ask. ‘Surely you… I mean people must have given you that sort of news before? I understand from Kingsley you lost a lot of people you knew.’
Potter gave an odd jerk of the head. ‘Yes,’ he said stiffly. ‘But I usually knew about it pretty quickly.’
‘Right,’ said Proudfoot swiftly. ‘Of course.’ He paused, and then, entirely sure that he was saying the wrong thing but finding himself saying it anyway, spoke once more. ‘I suppose it’s about… how you would have preferred to find out. Given the choice.’
He was quite sure that Potter would snap - would say something like, ‘well, obviously I wouldn’t have wanted to find out at all!’ but he simply nodded, and followed him across the road as the lights bleeped green.
Mrs Fortescue knew the moment she opened the door. People usually did. Their faces would freeze as they took them in, as their eyes traced over the robes. Perhaps they would continue to smile unsteadily, say, ‘yes?’ in a questioning, polite sort of voice, as though they might be there for directions or a survey. But then, as always, Proudfoot found his voice speaking gently. ‘Mrs Fortescue, may we come in?’
And then, as always, he found himself sitting on a sofa, watching a woman weep inconsolably as he calmly and carefully explained what had been discovered.
‘At least I know now,’ she sobbed, wiping her eyes and gasping helplessly as she looked over at a picture. In it, she stood arm in arm, dressed in white, with a cheerful looking man, his brown hair neatly coiffed, his eyes crinkling as he laughed at the camera.
‘Mrs Fortescue,’ said Potter suddenly, leaning forward. ‘I… I don’t know if your husband ever mentioned, but he was very kind to me - when I was thirteen.’
She looked at him, as though seeing him for the first time, her weeping eyes fixed on his recognisable face. ‘Yes, of course he did,’ she said thickly, still dabbing at her eyes. ‘You… you were quite famous even then. He was very excited to meet you.’
‘Yes,’ said Harry simply. ‘I’d just… run away from home and I was staying in the Leaky Cauldron. Mr Fortescue gave me free ice creams and helped me with my homework and just generally kept me company when I loitered around his parlour all day hogging a table. It was very kind of him and I’ve never forgotten.’
Mrs Fortescue sobbed harder, her head bowing as her shoulders shook. ‘That’s… who he was,’ she squeaked. ‘He - was - always so kind. Always. It’s - why - I l-loved him - so much.’
‘I promise I’ll find who did this, Mrs Fortescue,’ said Potter. ‘I’ll find the individual who did it, and bring them to justice. I know it doesn’t help, I can’t imagine what you’re going through. But I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. And that I won’t give up on it.’
‘You shouldn’t have promised that,’ Proudfoot told him as they walked back to the Ministry.
‘What?’ asked Potter, looking up at him with a bewildered sort of expression.
‘That you’ll find who did it.’
‘But I am going to find who did it,’ said Potter simply.
‘Cold cases like this,’ Proudfoot explained patiently, ‘they often don’t get solved. We can assume it was a Death Eater, we can look into why specifically he was targeted and what information they might have been trying to get out of him, if any, but you can’t promise to bring a specific individual-’
‘But I am going to find out who did it,’ said Potter firmly. ‘I’m not going to make that promise to everyone I come across, but I am going to find out for the Fortescues.’
‘Right,’ said Proudfoot awkwardly. ‘OK.’
They walked in silence for a few moments, before he cast around for something else to say. ‘You ran away from home?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ said Potter. ‘It was good fun. Less fun going back the next year.’
He did not know how to respond to this, so he followed Potter’s lead by smiling weakly, and returning to silence.
***
‘Can you get me his autograph?’ Mikey asked while they were lazily lying in bed discussing it all. ‘I kind of fancy him.’
‘Pervert,’ Proudfoot muttered back, his eyes still closed. ‘He’s barely of age.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yeah, he’s not even eighteen yet.’
‘Christ, I thought he was in his twenties. Maybe the others have got a point, maybe he shouldn’t be able to just swan in and make changes. Not until he can grow a proper beard.’
‘I dunno,’ he mumbled, thinking about Mr Fortescue. ‘I think he’s just trying to do the right thing. Works like a dog too. He probably will manage to find the exact Death Eater that did it, you know. He’s probably in the office right now, figuring it out.’
***
Potter and Weasley did figure it out, just a few weeks later. Through the interrogation of Selwyn, they had gathered an eye witness testimony that Travers, infuriated that Fortescue had barred them from the ice cream parlour for using the word mudblood in his presence, had returned later that night to drag him away and put him through a slow and painful death.
‘Fantastic, boys,’ Proudfoot said. ‘What a result.’
‘Wouldn’t have got it without Ron prying,’ said Potter, grinning. ‘Very sly.’
‘Shouldn’t have started using that word, should he?’ said Weasley casually. ‘Always gets my hackles up, I just wanted a detailed account of every single time they’d used it.’
‘He’s in holding cell three,’ said Proudfoot. ‘We can have him transferred to Azkaban within the hour - Potter, do you want me to come with you to tell Mrs Fortescue.’
‘Er, no, not yet - don’t do that,’ said Potter distractedly. ‘Leave him in the holding cell. I’ll tell Mrs Fortescue once charges are brought.’
‘Why haven’t you brought charges yet?’
‘I will - I’m adding them to his others, it can be a part of his trial. Plus I want to get a bit more evidence. He might still have some of Fortescue’s possessions in his home - sounds like the watch was expensive - and I want to find eye witnesses from him being barred-’
‘You have an eye witness testimony,’ Proudfoot pointed out.
‘Yeah, from another Death Eater though,’ said Weasley flippantly. ‘They’re not the most credible of folks.’
‘What, so you think Selwyn was lying?’
‘No, not at all. He doesn’t seem to be aware of how much shit he’s just got his friend in.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘I just want to gather more evidence for the trial first,’ said Potter. ‘Build up the case for the prosecution-’
‘Fucks sake, a trial - he’s already getting a general war crimes trial that he’s going down for-’ said Proudfoot, utterly exasperated. The others had been right. Idealistic little shits.
‘Yes, but this is something different, this is a specific murder, not part of his-’
‘All the better - we can keep him in Azkaban while he awaits his proper trial, and in the meantime fast-track him-’
‘I had the fast-track system revoked,’ said Potter coldly.
‘Ah, of course,’ said Proudfoot irritably, shoving his hands into his pockets. ‘How could I forget? We’re not allowed to use our own judgement anymore, we have to go through a huge song and dance.’
‘What can I say? I’m not a huge fan of tossing people in prison based on the judgment of individuals,’ said Potter. ‘I prefer there to be a fair trial, so that innocent people don’t-’
‘He’s obviously guilty!’ growled Proudfoot.
‘I know,’ said Potter wearily, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. ‘So it won’t be a problem gathering the evidence-’
‘Or we could do the right thing and-’
‘Sending people to prison with no trial is not the right thing!’ Potter burst out, his hand leaping up to rub frustratedly against his scar.
‘Harry,’ said Weasley quickly, his tone placating and calm.
‘How can you defend him?’ Proudfoot demanded, ‘after everything he did? What was all that shit about free ice cream-’
‘I’m not defending him!’ snarled Potter. ‘I’m prosecuting him! Properly!’
‘And what if he manages to put up a really good defence?’ he asked. ‘He’s a rich bloke - money talks-’
‘Not any more, not with-’
‘It does - always has, always will. Money talks, people get off on technicalities, convenient alibies get made. How’re you going to tell Mrs Fortescue that you know the guy that did it, you had your chance to put him in prison, but you faffed around letting him have a legal defence he doesn’t deserve?’
‘I’m going to send him to prison,’ Potter insisted, his voice quivering with rage, ‘I’m gathering evidence to send him to prison, as it is my job, as is yours!’
Proudfoot pressed his lips together, breathed hard out of his nose and looked down at the floor to try and calm himself. ‘Don’t tell me what my job is, Potter, I’ve been doing it since you were on your mother’s lap-’
‘No you haven’t, you started in ‘82,’ said Potter brusquely. ‘I know you think it’s wasting time, but he’s not going anywhere, is he? We have time to do things properly, and that’s what I’m going to do. This case belongs to me and Ron - thank you for your help so far, we can take it from here.’
And he turned back to the folder like it was the end of the conversation.
‘You’re not what I thought you were going to be, Potter.’
‘Yeah, I tend to let people down that way.’
Proudfoot stormed away, and spent the rest of the evening ranting to Mikey about how he had been right in his first assumption, that Potter was a cocky little shit who thought he didn’t need anyone’s help, and because of him, really fucking evil people were just going to end up with short sentences or getting away with it entirely, just like last time.
Except he didn’t. It was not the turning point - by the time Travers trial came about a year later, Proudfoot had almost entirely forgotten the argument, and had grown more used to Potter, endlessly impressed by his gut instinct, by his resilience and tenaciousness, by his sheer willingness to get rather horribly injured in the field and just keep going without much fuss. Yet even so, he slipped into Courtroom One on the day, and remembered the argument with a sharp sting of regret.
After a long list of war crimes and murders, each one adding yet more years to Travers’s sentence to an incomprehensible number that could not ever be completed, Kingsley Shacklebolt spoke again. ‘…On the torture and murder of Florean Fortescue, the Wizengamot finds you guilty, and sentences you to a further twenty one years in prison for this sadistic, cruel, and needless crime - one which you commited with thin motive and extreme enthusiasm.’
Proudfoot had slipped in at the back, rather than watch the whole trial, but several rows below in the public gallery, he saw Mrs Fortescue give a shuddering squeak, turn and hug Harry Potter who was sitting beside her.
‘Well done,’ he told Potter that evening in the pub, where they celebrated the sentencing, the culmination of so many different cases they had been working on. ‘You were right - to do things properly.’
‘Oh,’ said Potter, after blinking in confusion. He was a little pink in the cheeks - Proudfoot thought he might be a little drunk. ‘Yeah. Erm - thanks. I’m sorry if I was a bit - it’s a personal issue for me.’
‘Right, yeah,’ said Proudfoot. ‘I remembered later - that dodgy trial you had when you were fifteen that Umbridge set up. I remember us all saying that was weird. Fair enough you want to-’
‘Oh, no, not that,’ said Potter carelessly. ‘At least I got a trial. No - something else - it doesn’t matter. Thanks a lot anyway. We got him, eh?’
‘We did,’ said Proudfoot, and he clinked his glass against Harry’s.