Gryffindor Investigations

Miss Catherine Cryne turned out to be twenty-three years old. She had obviously not been eating or sleeping well for some time. Her eyes, though a startling blue, had dark circles underneath them, and were red from recently shed tears. Her hair, a delicate shade of auburn, was weeks overdue for a trim. Her clothes were a plain gray blouse and green skirt that had apparently been chosen at random without any thought to how well or poorly they went together; neither had been pressed since she last wore them. Her entire manner betrayed her anxiety; anything placed in her hands, from a Kleenex to one of Harry and Ron’s business cards, didn’t survive long.

Harry desperately wished Hermione had taken him up on his offer to join the business. As an Auror, he had never been very good at putting a witness at ease, and Ron had about as much sympathy to his nature as a block of wood. The three of them were sitting in the upstairs library; Harry had chosen it as the room that commanded the best view of the garden; the library’s windows were open, and a gentle breeze, aided slightly by a hastily-muttered Weather Charm from Ron, blew past the curtains.

Firmly ensconced in the most comfortable chair in the room and with a hot cup of tea in her hands, Catherine Cryne told her story.

“My parents have……had……a country estate near Shropshire,” she began, her eyes welling with the tears that threatened to burst free at any moment. Harry had wisely provided a box of tissues within reach; he unobtrusively moved them a little closer to the young woman.

“Thank you, Mr. Potter. As I say, my parents had a country place. We were all there two weeks ago—me, my parents, my two brothers, and my sister. My father, my brother Michael and I were having lunch, when Dad………spat out his salad, saying that his mouth was burning.” Catherine paused, shuddering. “Then he grabbed his stomach, yelling……he said that was burning, too. Neither of us knew what to do! He started throwing up and slapping at his arms, he turned a horrible shade of blue………and then he was dead……”

She trailed off, seemingly uncertain of how to proceed. “So you called the Aurors,” Harry prompted.

“Yes. They took what was left of lunch away to be analyzed—and they found that someone had put wolfsbane in Dad’s lemonade.”

“What made them go for Michael and not you?” Ron asked.

“The Aurors thought that the poison must have been put into Dad’s glass while we were at the table,” Catherine explained, dabbing at her eyes. “When they learned that I was never at the table alone, and that Michael was for a few moments, they arrested him at once. He’s in Azkaban now!”

And at that, the tears did come. Harry, who knew full well what a horrible place the wizards’ prison was, couldn’t really blame her.

“Why don’t you think he did it?” Ron’s blunt tone made Harry wince. He silently willed Ron to remember that this was a potential client……

But if Catherine took offense, she gave no outward sign of it. “My family……none of us have ever gotten along very well. Michael and I are the only ones who talk to each other unless we have to. I know him, Mr. Weasley. And I know he’d never do anything like this.”

“But the rest of your family didn’t like your father?” Harry prodded.

Catherine shook her head. “My parents haven’t slept in the same bedroom for years, and if you knew Clarice and Joshua……well, they’re not the kind of people one likes very much, and I think they like it that way. And neither of my parents like them; Dad used to call them his little vipers.”

“Slytherin?” Ron asked.

“No. None of us went to Hogwarts.” Her tone turned bitter and her face hardened. “Dad wouldn’t let us—we had to learn what magic we could on our own.”

“I was going to ask why it was just the three of you at lunch,” Harry said, “but now I think I should ask why any of you were there at all.”

Catherine blushed slightly, and for the first time avoided Harry’s gaze. “Dad was getting on in years. None of us wanted to take the chance that he’d write us out of the will. He wouldn’t have left his money to charity—that wasn’t like him at all—but he could have decided to leave us all a pound each, and spend the rest while he was alive.”

“So you and Michael were having lunch with him,” Harry said. “Where was the rest of the family?”

“Mum was upstairs lying down—she’s been sick, lately, and she said she wasn’t feeling up to conversation. Clarice had gone to Wolverhampton—she has a chain of women’s stores there. I don’t know where Joshua was; there’d been a place set for him, but he never showed up.”

She looked at them both, one after the other, with a desperate look in her eyes. “Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, you have to help me. I know my brother did not kill our father. I don’t really care who did—I just want you to prove that he didn’t.

“Please.”

“We’ll take the case,” Harry assured her, ignoring Ron’s completely incredulous look. “We’ll send you a formal contract to sign tomorrow,”--*just as soon as we come up with one*, he thought—“and then we can discuss how you can help us with the initial stages of the investigation.”

And at that, Catherine started crying again, though this time they were tears of relief. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Potter!!!!! Thank you so much!!!”

Ron escorted her to the door, and returned to Harry with a face like a thundercloud. “‘I just want you to prove my brother didn’t kill my father,’” he quoted. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

“I don’t really know,” Harry admitted. “We’ll talk to the mother and to the other children, and see where we come from there.” He stood up. “First things first, though—we need to put together something legal-looking for clients—fees, terms of engagement, that sort of thing.”

“Already taken care of,” Ron told him.

“It……is?” Harry said, surprised.

“Yep. I talked to your solicitor about it while you were visiting Luna. She should have something ready this afternoon.”

Harry kissed him on the cheek. “Brilliant, mate.” An idea occurred to him. “One other thing we should do is talk to Neville. I don’t know the first thing about wolfsbane, and he does—and a lot more than that, too, I expect.”