“You're giving me a murderer?” I squeaked, wide-eyed, as Lydia fished around in her in-box. I'd never gone after a real murderer before. I'd met a few, but I hadn't been attempting to capture them at the time. Normally I run the other way from murderers. That one time with the serial killers had totally not been my fault.

“I'm, um, a private investigator,” I told her. It sounded good. And telling old ladies one is a bounty hunter pretty much inevitably winds up with a door in the face. Might as well find out how being a P.I. compares.

She looked mildly impressed. “Cor. Like Sherlock Holmes?”

Victoire's kids lived in fear of St. Mungo's. I had no idea why. It wasn't as if anything bad had ever happened to them there. The Healers had removed Remus's extra arms in a trice that one time he'd gotten a hold of Victoire's wand.

“You're no fun, Rose. You used to be fun.” James sighed dramatically, putting his hand to his chest.

“Yeah, Rose,” put in Fred. “You suck royal hippogriff.” The two of them exchanged a complicated hand slap in front of me and then left.

They both sucked royal hippogriff.

The officer on duty was my friend Jack Upchurch, which would have been a relief the day I'd brought in Parmenter. He grinned when he saw me and crowed with delight.

“Yes! I was hoping I'd draw the night you brought someone in. What happened? Honey? Bees? Killer bees? Ice lollies again? Another rain of condiments? I was quite sad to miss that one. Wait, let me get my camera-”

“I can tell a Weasley when I see one. Are you going to be trouble, too?” He stopped wiping the bar and threw the rag on the floor next to him, giving me a threatening look.

Oh, great. I was sure I knew what this was about. “You've met my cousin Louis, haven't you,” I said with a bit of annoyance but no real surprise. Louis had been thrown out of any number of pubs all over England.

“Well, we sent the MLEs after him yesterday, but no one knew where he was. Funny thing, though, when we got up to the Auror department today, we found Andrew on our doorstep, trussed up like a suckling pig and covered in green tentacles."

“Who is your boss? What is it you've been doing that you didn't want me messing up? How is McBride involved? Was Annable involved too? Are you part of The Organization?”

Ambrosia chuckled. “Which do you want to know about first?”

“I don't know about Miss Weasley,” came a new voice in ringing tones from behind me, “but I'd like to know what you've been up to with Joseph McBride.”