Aurors: The Fist of Mars

An Unfortunate Discovery

Savage arrived after nine on Monday morning with a paper bag full of breakfast sandwiches. She dropped two on Harry's desk and sat down on the edge of her own messy desk to consume three herself. It wasn't that her desk was really sloppy-she didn't leave food containers laying around. It was just cluttered.

"So," she said after swallowing a large bite of egg and sausage. "That list. What do you say we visit the first name on it. What was it?"

"Ansley Ashford," Harry said. He had clearly looked at the list quite a few times since Friday as he was very familiar with it.

"Hmm, wonder if she's related to that Ballycastle bloke."

Harry admitted that he didn't know the names of very many professional Quidditch players.

"Oh he was way back when I was a little girl," Savage said. She remembered rooting for him mostly because she liked their black and red uniforms with the bats. "Warbeck's second husband. Nice hair."

"How exactly do we go about tracking someone down?" Harry asked.

It was easy to forget with all the glorious tales of heroism that Harry Potter was a rookie and an eighteen-year-old kid. "Ministry makes all wizards register their locations with the proper authorities. You know... in case muggles report hearing loud bangs or seeing fireworks in October. We can hop down, grab some files for the first few people on our list, and then go pay Miss Ashford a visit."

Harry and Savage did just that. They headed out into the lobby and took one of the crowded elevators to the ground floor. The first floor of the Ministry of Magic was often crowded with visitors there on various business. Some were paying fines, others were registering magical pets, and a few were there to face the Wizengamot, the judicial branch of the wizarding justice system. Savage was used to testifying in court often. She imagined that once the trials for all of the death eaters got started, she'd never get a moment to actually do some investigative work. She was just glad that Dolores Umbridge, one of the least pleasant fixtures of that system (even by Death Eater standards), was behind bars in Azkaban. The woman had never aproned of Alauna Savage's braided mohawk nor her perpetual tardiness.

The records office was a large room filled with rows upon rows of wooden filing cabinets. Savage showed her ministry identification badge and signed a book to access the room. "Only certain people are allowed in here. Privacy, you know," she said. "And we have to sign a log, so you know, in case someone tries to use it for personal reasons..."

"Personal reasons?" Harry asked.

"Stalking an ex. Vigilante justice. People will find all sorts of ways to abuse their privileges."

"I wish I'd had this room back when I was at Hogwarts. It would have made things much easier on countless occasions."

Savage laughed. She had been a fresh face in the office when Harry Potter had found the Chamber of Secrets and stopped the basilisk. Dawlish had grumbled a lot about their whole department getting showed up by a kid because Fudge was more worried about covering the problem (once he'd stopped dismissing it) than solving it. She supposed Harry wouldn't be who he was today (and they'd all be in a much darker place) without that rebel attitude. She respected that.

"Records are all buggered, though, since the Death Eaters ran things. The ministry kept family records, sure, but Voldemort's followers actually went through files and stamped them with blood purity ratings. And clerks had to refile the muggleborns because they put those in a separate place. And the little ones? Well... a whole generation of muggleborns won't see their Hogwarts letter. Every one identified that wasn't already part of our society had their file burned."