If You Have Ghosts [Holmes]

[Deleted]

@stephen

Being able to work together with the hitwizard department was one of Blaise’s most sought after event at the start of each work day. He had given up that life a long time ago, much to his dismay, but he still yearned to help out as much as possible. Lately he had been pressing his wife to let him take it back up again, but apparently it was ‘too dangerous with a young family’. Her definition of young family was until their children were married and had kids of their own. At that point in time, Blaise would be looking at a rather comfy retirement fund courtesy of his lovely mother and her seven ex-husbands’ bank accounts. He never asked questions about that, since it was quite obvious that Ms. Zabini was a black-widow of only the most pure sense. Blaise had managed to follow down that path because she had done it for him over his first twenty years of life, and quite the cushy lifestyle that was.

Today though he had different business with the hitwizard department, and as much as he wanted to turn in transfer papers to get placed back under their control, he knew his wife was right in the end. He was significantly older than most of them and had a family, which was something the rest usually didn’t have. For good reason of course. Manila folder in hand, Blaise blazed into the department’s main offices and quickly motioned to the secretary there that he had business to attend to. They were usually pretty quick about the check-in process, but this girl must have been new because it took forty-five seconds longer than usual. He wasn’t really counting, but it helped get the annoyances out of his head instead of speaking his mind like he had when he was younger. How his school-age self would scoff at what he had become, despite being far more successful than he had ever anticipated.

Thanking the girl, he pushed the next door and headed straight for the office that his business was to be conducted in; it belonged to Stephen Holmes. They had been in school for a few years together, but nothing more had come from that other than a few intellectual conversations and that they had somehow managed to flip-flop jobs in the Ministry. When Blaise gave up his position in the hitwizard department to become an Obliviator, Holmes had given up his Obliviator to become a hitwizard. Quite the strange phenomenon. He tended to think that the two of them working together meant something quite nasty had happened and only they could figure out how to proceed forward. Even if that wasn’t Blaise’s job description anymore. Rapping the back of his hand on the closed door, he waited for his colleague to answer.

[OOC: go ahead an powerplay him into a chair or something haha I'm perfectly fine with that]

[Deleted]

Stephen was going over one of the new cases his Inspector squib friend had passed along to him two days ago; a rather gruesome murder in the form of stabbing and dismemberment. The victim, an opera singer who was even more famous for her string of lovers than her voice, was found in her home on the sitting room sofa. Or at least, her torso was; the rest of her body had been strung about the two story townhome. Immediately the police suspected one of her jilted lovers, but they kept on dying too. Poison, and a magical one at least to Stephens’ mind. The Muggle police over at Scotland Yard hadn’t been able to figure things out, so he had called Stephen for assistance. He had a tube of the stomach contents of the fourth victim who had been found last night, and was mindlessly swirling it about, staring at the different colors and textures he could see through the glass vial.

As he heard the knock on his door, Stephen placed the vial gently in a box and into one of desk drawers, closing the drawer, he called “enter!” As the door opened he stood up, raising a brow as Blaise Zabini came through the door. “Zabini,” he said with a small inclination of his head as he sat back down. His and Blaises’ careers had intertwined in an interesting way; Stephen had started off as an Obliviator and moved over to the Hitwizard Department for more of a challenge, while Blaise had reversed directions. He supposed that had something to do with the fact that Blaise had a family, children, and being a Hitwizard meant your life was on the line every day. He supposed leaving his children fatherless would be a rather depressing option for his wife; this was why he had no family of his own. Well, there was more to it than that, but Stephen didn’t really reflect on it much. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, his fingers steepled in front of him as he leaned forward. The only explanation Stephen came to for why Blaise was here was he had a case he had to hand off to him; he wondered what it could be for.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

Stepping into the office as he heard the call to enter, Blaise was immediately greeted with Stephen Holmes, standing behind his desk. “Holmes.” Some things never changed. Taking very few steps to cross the room, Blaise sat down in one of the chairs situated there. Rotating the folder in his hand around a little, he gave it one last look before handing it over to his coworker. “Business as usual, unfortunately.” Blaise didn’t particularly like handing over his cases, but when things got out of hand and it involved the enforcement agencies to step in, it was beyond him. Only another of the many reasons he so desperately wanted to switch back to being a hitwizard.

This case, as most were when he had to come over here, involved muggles being injured by a magical person. Typically his job consisted of memory wipes and covering up things, like cauldron explosions as a gas line gone awry, but every so often it got to the point where muggles witnessed or were harmed by a witch or wizard. This one was exactly that. “Thirty-five year old wizard, found out he had kidnapped quite a few muggle women over the years. Usually he killed them, since that was easier than keeping them around for a while, but one got out and went to the muggle police. We’re pretty sure they chalked up the magic bit to being held captive for so long and that they were delusions caused by that, but we still wiped the woman and everyone that she talked to there. Luckily the media didn’t get a hold of the story yet.” That was the last thing they needed. Things never got that far this time, so his office wasn’t too worried. Yet. “I’m sure you have a note about him somewhere, but we did manage to pull some information on where he is from the woman. Everything in there,” he pointed at the folder, “is new as of ten minutes ago.” At this point, all that was left was capturing and bringing the guy in.

[Deleted]

Stephens long fingers reached out and enclosed around the manila folder, taking the file away from Blaise. He could sense the reluctance from his coworker to hand it over to him. Blaise had been quite a good hitwizard from Stephens’ knowledge, but with a family to think of, he had made the career switch. Though now it was rather glaringly obvious that it was not entirely Blaises’ idea. As he read through the case file, he could see why; Blaise could easily handle a case like this but protocol dictated that this caliber case be handed off to a hitwizard, namely himself. His eyebrows raised as he read the case file; likely wizard causing delusions to women he kidnapped. If he didn’t kill this one, then something about her was different. She was either a big fighter or something special had allured the killer to her. Of course, it wasn’t like he could question the woman since her memory had been wiped.

“Were you able to extract anything from her before her memory was wiped? Anything useful in a physical description sort of way?” he asked the other man, perusing the file. Delusions caused by captivity were relatively understandable, but he’d heard about a type of torture that used the root of a mandrake to instill terrifying visions in the victims mind. He wondered if this man was skilled enough to even try this. He obviously could kidnap Muggle women, but he had not moved onto anyone in the magical community from how it seemed. “Anything else I should know that….has escaped the file?” he asked, finally looking back up at Blaise. People were supposed to put every single detail in reports of course, but there were some things that were...off the record, as he called it.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

Blaise watched Stephen as he examined the file. There wasn’t too much in there, because the woman had barely given them anything to go on. Once the muggle authorities were involved it was so difficult to sneak in and get the information they needed. In a way, he hated that part of the job the most. What would normally be a simple few questions, pull some memories from her, and then wipe her clean ended up becoming an ordeal with more people involved. Making copies of the muggle files was important as well, because sometimes they were more perceptive than he was when it came to crime scenes and the likes. All of that was in the folder though, at least everything they had managed to grab in the mere twenty minutes that they had been in the police department. “Nothing exceptional,” Blaise commented on what they had extracted from the woman. “Managed to knock her out with a spell, and then her next memory was being tied up and blindfolded. He has quite the deep, booming voice though, not that he couldn’t manipulate somehow.” That had been the frustrating part so far. She had eventually managed to escape her restraints and get out of the building he was holding her in, but it had all seemed so easy.

“I do have the memories for her escape here,” Blaise reached into his pocket and dropped two vials on the desk in front of him. For as much as he wiped memories, he wasn’t a fan of delving into them. That was a job for other people. Stephen then asked if there was anything else that he should know that wasn’t in the file. Everything was though, and Blaise had a hard time thinking of anything that could possibly be added. “Personally,” he started up, “I think he let her out on purpose. Giving her these ideas of magic and then allowing her to simply leave to blab it off to the muggle world. Not the first time it’s happened, and definitely not the last.” Blaise shrugged. “Good thing muggles have active imaginations. If it weren’t for that, the cat would have been out of the bag years ago.”

[Deleted]

Stephen nodded, mildly annoyed that the Muggle police had not allowed more information to be distracted. “Deep booming voice. So really that eliminates…..no one, because wizards can manipulate their vocal cords if they have a wand and half a brain,” he said, scoffing. Stephen himself had a deep booming voice when he wanted to, but he usually spoke with such a fast pace that it was less booming and more quiet. Someone once said he sounded a bit like Severus Snape; he took that as a compliment.

He was pleasantly surprised when Blaise handed over the vials filled with silvery thoughts; memories from her escape. “Excellent,” he breathed, allowing himself to look excited. He rolled over and opened up an armoire with a series of taps from his wand. A Penseive floated out and steadied in front of him; he had had to fight with several members of his department to get the Penseive into his private office, but his success rate and track record had beaten them down eventually. That and they simply grew tired of trying to argue against him, as people were wont to do. Stephen raised a brow though before he uncorked the memories to pour in. Blaise believed the man let her out on purpose; but why? There were plenty of people out there in the Muggle world who believed in magic, and they were usually dismissed as lunatics. This man though, he would have known that releasing this particular woman would eventually lead to his capture. “Are you thinking Elaine Dupree sunk her venomous claws into him?” he asked casually. Without waiting for an answer, he tipped the first memory into the Penseive. “Coming?” he added to Blaise as he prepared to stick his head in the bowl.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

“With the manner in which we catch some of these fools, half a brain is being nice.” Blaise added. The smarter ones usually got away with things for a little longer than others, but there were so many protections and parameters placed down to prevent magic from spilling out into the muggle world, it was amazing that anyone even thought it was a good idea to cast spells in broad daylight or brew highly explosive potions in muggle neighborhoods. There were plenty of safe places to do that within the magical walls, being stupid about it like these ones were was extremely hard to pull off, and yet so many still managed to do it.

Stephen took the vials from him and Blaise watched the Penseive appear from within a cabinet of sorts. He had already delved into the memories quite a bit; that had been the only way he had managed to have as much information as he did. “Possibly. Though I don’t think it would be strange for him to be working on his own.” Blaise watched as Stephen dropped one of the memories in. “Some people simply enjoy watching the world burn. Wouldn’t doubt it if that was his angle in all of this.”

Standing up from his chair, Blaise approached the Penseive as well. For as often as he had to use one in his line of work, he hated the feeling of being sucked into the memories. Most had trouble with the invasiveness of it, not that the host knew when it was happening, but the mere fact that they were seeing intimate details of other people’s lives was apparently a huge turn off. Blaise didn’t mind that part, actually finding it quite intriguing to dip into memories and get to the root of the problem. “Don’t mind if I do.” Blaise followed Stephen’s lead, and also dipped his face into the bowl. There was that awful feeling again, but in a second he was back in the room where the woman had been held. She couldn’t recall anything from before that, and the complete and utter darkness they were experiencing was caused by her not being able to see through the blindfold. Eventually that disappeared, and the room was full revealed, the woman moving to find the door, and then her escape to the muggle police. The second vial was what contained her testimony and the other details, but Blaise wanted to let it all sink in with Stephen first, to see what he thought about all of it.

[Deleted]

Stephen looked to his side as Blaise appeared next to him in the girl's memory, then looked around. He began to stroll around the scene, quiet and observing. Stephens’ senses were heightened as the blindfold came off, revealing the room. Dismal and sparsely furnished, upon first glance this sort of room could be any part of any sort of dwelling - house, apartment, townhome. But Stephen was quick to spot things the girl did not in her haste to leave; a small crack in the window that let in a whoosh of air. He stepped forward quickly and peered out the crack before the girl left and he was able to see a large hill with a vast oak tree with the remnants of a tree swing in the yard in front of her, before the scene swirled and they were following the girl down the street. Stephen took note of her demeanor; she was thin and seemed to be fit and obviously had run all the way from where she was taken. She seemed tired but likely from her ordeal and less the stress of her run. Stephen made a mental calculation of the possible distances as the girl arrived at the Muggle police station and the two of them were brought back up into his office.

Never one to lose his train of thought, Stephen magicked out a map of London and began writing down coordinates that were being calculated from his observations. After noting the hill with the oak tree and other possible traits of the house (it was a house, Stephen had decided), he rolled it up and stuck his head out of the office. “Oi!” he called out to a passerby, and tossed the rolled up map at him. “You, take this down to the grunts and tell them to start searching the area for this criminal. We may be close to him yet.” Rubbing his hands together, Stephen poured the second vial of memories into the bowl, and assuming Blaise would be following, stuck his head in, being sucked in once more.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

Intriguing. That was the only word that could explain how Holmes went about everything. While Blaise continued to watch the girl move out of the room, it seemed like Holmes had other ideas on what to be looking for. Was he really this much out of practice? Or was Holmes that much better at the job than he had ever been. Probably a little bit of both. From what Blaise remembered of him in school, and their brief encounters since, the other man was beyond being a genius. Anything and everything that was typically missed by an ordinary person was what Holmes picked up on. Right now, it seemed like that was exactly what was happening in this memory. Blaise couldn’t really say that he would have missed the window and the other small details in the room, because that really wasn’t in his job description anymore. He didn’t want to go and do someone else’s work for them, after all.

Just as fast as they had dipped into the Penseive, back out of it they came. At least the return journey wasn’t nearly as bad, though it still caused him to gasp for a few breaths of air. It was that last second pull that always got him holding his breath, not that he really needed to. Normalizing oneself to these kinds of thing was quite difficult sometimes. While Blaise prepared himself for the next vial, Holmes was fast at work with a map. Surely he hadn’t figured out where the man was hiding out from just by looking out that window. Except with how he called for a coworker and handed over the paper, it looked like he had. Absolutely brilliant.

As he watched the employee run off to turn the paper over, Holmes was back at the Penseive and already sticking his head in. Blaise followed quickly, getting prepared to see the interview and questions again. This one he had watched at least a dozen times in the short span that he had his hands on it. “This was the interview we had transcribed in the file, but I’m sure it’s easier to watch facial expressions over reading it.” Who knew what Holmes would notice, considering he had probably already cracked the case.

[Deleted]

Stephen had noticed Blaises' reaction as he had gone in and out of the Penseive of course, who could not notice that sort of thing?  Then again Stephen was incredibly perceptive of everyone around him, much to the annoyance of said people.  Still, it made Stephen good at his job, and at his little hobby of solving Muggle murder sprees that may or may not have magical background.  Honestly, Stephen didn't much care if it was magic-related or not; sometimes it was more thrilling than solving magical crimes.  The things these murderers did, the animalistic nature which they committed their crimes....  They always seemed to come up with something new.  

"Close your eyes and hold your breath as we go into this one," Stephen instructed flatly as he tipped the second memory vial into the basin.  He stuck  his face and watched the world tilt in front of him as they came to in a small room with a single table with a light.  The girl was rapidly telling the police officer everything she could.  Stephen listened partly to the girl, but mainly took in the demeanor of the officer.  He was bored, that could be evident to anyone with eyes.  The tapping of the pencil in between writing down the womans' statement, the stolen glances at the clock, the glazed look that formed by the end of the interview.  No wonder they were chasing their own tails in the investigation.  "Did you Obliviate this imbecile as well Zabini?" he asked the other man sharply.


blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

The second memory was into the Penseive and Blaise was mentally preparing him for the journey inside. This had been the most he had ever traveled in one day. As of this memory, it was easily the tenth time he had dropped his face in, only to see the exact same thing each and every time. Maybe that had something to do with the dizziness and almost nausea inducing feeling he had whenever he was pulled back out of it. He would have figured he’d be normalized to it at this point in the day. Blaise simply nodded his head as Stephen stated that he should close his eyes and hold his breath as they went in. Wasn’t that what he had been doing? At least the holding the breath part, but not the eyes bit. The initial journey wasn’t a problem at all, yet the return certainly was. Dipping his face into the Penseive, Blaise did as instructed to see if it would make any difference. The real trick was to see if the same trick would work on the way out.

The same scene he had already witnessed numerous times appeared before him. As far as he could tell, he had seen every single angle of it, the same being said with his coworkers. Unless there was a facial tick they missed, there couldn’t really be that much else in here. Then again, this was Holmes, and he had already figured out a possible location in a matter of mere seconds inside the other memory. Blaise chuckled to himself as he was asked if the police officer was memory wiped. “Honestly, I don’t think there was much there to begin with, but yes, he was Obliviated.” Muggle officers always presented a wall when it came to memory wipes because they wrote everything down, both on paper and digitally. Blaise was awful with their tech, but he had people that could get the job done. At the end of the day, that wall of law enforcement was just as easy to break down as it was for them to put up. “So?” He asked, turning towards Holmes. “Get anything else out of this one?”

[Deleted]

Stephen was silent, as he was wont to do whenever he was inside anothers memory. His brain was firing a thousand times a minute, encompassing every minute detail that normal people wouldn’t pick up on; facial tics, rapid eye movement, excessive swallowing. He watched carefully as the girl recounted her story and it was then that he realized the tiniest of discrepancies. To most people it wouldn’t really matter so much, but to Stephen everything mattered. She described carpet in the room instead of hardwood floors. Carpet over hardwood was incredibly different in texture and look; only an idiot would not be able to differentiate between the two. Moreso, Stephen noticed her eyes had begun to flicker towards the door as she spoke about her captivity. Just twice, but it was more than one time and it was all that he needed to realize there was more to this girl than first met the eye. Whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or something far bigger than that, the girl was lying.

Stephen gripped onto Blaise’s arm as they left the memory, and immediately strode over to his desk. “Liar, the girl was a liar,” he said, sounding slightly distracted as he scribbled a few things down. “I need her address, both home and work. She may have had her memories wiped but that won’t erase the emotions she felt during her captivity. And if the captor was more than just her captor, he’ll be back for her.” Stephen finally looked back at Blaise. “The addresses? Unless you want to hinder this investigation,” he asked, sounding impatient. “If you do not think she’ll recognize you then get your coat,” he called after an awkward moment. He knew that Harry hated when he went alone headfirst into potentially dangerous situations, and after Jacob’s death the department was on a higher alert than normal. Blaise seemed capable enough and was a former hitwizard; he’d do as a partner for this case.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

And with that, the memory was over and back out they went. Holmes had a tight grip on his arm as they were pulled back out, though that was just their ethereal bodies inside the memory. Upon pulling his face back out of the Penseive, Blaise noticed that his colleague was already over at his desk again, writing things down and blabbering away about what he had witnessed inside the memory. The girl was lying? Blaise had thought about it at first, since that was always a potential problem with kidnapping victims, but he was pretty sure this one hadn’t been gone long enough to be swayed over to her captor’s side. Everyone was different though, and Holmes was apparently swayed to think she wasn’t on their side in this. If that was the case, then there were much larger problems that could arise from this. He was right; even if the memories were erased, there would still be something there should the captor return for her. Besides, it wasn’t like memories were ever truly gone. From what Blaise understood of it, things simply seemed off, or different from what actually happened. It was better that way for muggles.

“Those should be in her file. Front page in the folder,” Blaise pointed out in regards to the girl’s addresses. He had just pulled one of his people from her detail that morning, so if she or her captor decided to pull a fast one on them, now was the time to do it. Blaise groaned at the idea of having to deal with this one again, since he was positive that it had been a clear cut case. Apparently not. But that was why he brought it to Holmes in the first place. “I’m fine as I am. Can’t wait to do the extra paperwork when we get back.”

[Deleted]

Stephens head jerked up when Blaise groaned. “Please do not tell me that the security on the victim was taken off already?” he asked sharply, and when he did not receive an immediate answer, he let out a frustrated sigh. “Very well, we’ll have to go there ourselves to ensure the girl hasn’t left to meet up with her captor,” he determined, not exactly giving Blaise much of a choice. He knew that his senses were far more attuned to human emotional depths than any other living person was, but to him the fact that she had lied a few times during her questioning had been rather obvious. Perhaps he was just getting too good at this, though he didn’t see this as a bad thing. If anything, had he not noticed the tics the girl had whenever she lied, the Obliviation squad might not have ever noticed it, and this kidnapper would have been free to reign over his victims, twisting their minds into a form of Stockholm Syndrome, and always evading capture. It was a good choice then, for Blaise to have given this to Stephen.

Stephen shrugged on his coat and beckoned Blaise to follow him. He opened up the folder and scanned down the lines, reading off her address. It was close by, but it was obviously easier to Apparate there than to walk, as time was money, so the saying goes. He grabbed Blaise by the arm as they left the Ministry and in the safety of an alley they apparated to a few yards away from the girls house. Stephen looked around; nobody had seen the two wizards simply appear out of nowhere, so they were in the clear. He marched purposefully towards the girls house, and rapped on the door twice. “Miss? It’s the police,” he called, using the name of the Muggle law enforcement as to not set off warning bells. He felt his wand in his pocket, ready to use if anything happened. After two more knocks and no answer, Stephen looked back towards Blaise. “Well, we announced ourselves, so-” he started casually, before unlocking the door and flinging it open with a bang. “You search the first floor, I’ll head up to the second floor,” he instructed as he began to creep up the stairs to the darkened landing.

blaise leo zabini

[Deleted]

@stephen

“Of course it bloody was,” Blaise countered back as Holmes stated that they were going to have to go there and check on her themselves. That was the whole reason he had groaned in the first place. Having to deal with this one was like working with a brick wall. The more he thought about that though, the clearer it became that her demeanor towards their questioning was probably all a ruse to through them off her tracks. Then proceeding to act as if everything was normal again at her home resulted in Blaise withdrawing his people. Sneaky little broad. She was in for it now, if she was even there still. That was the million Galleon question though, wasn’t it? She had already slipped through their lie detections, and had managed to fool everyone under him, himself included. If she was caught, then he was going to get a little revenge on her memories because of it. She had clearly been trained to safeguard some things, since muggles weren’t exactly prone to preventing memory diving. Unless she wasn’t a muggle. There was a possibility she was a squib, though whether she was a latent one or simply good at hiding that too, he was unsure. Holmes would probably know.

Off they went, popping out of the office and to the woman’s house. Holmes took the lead, which Blaise was thankful for, and knocked on the door. At this point he was perfectly content with playing the subservient role. Being back-up was never a bad thing, especially after that embarrassment in the memories. He should have known better than to let the woman go without more questioning. Apparently thinking it was an easy case to close was relatively amateur of him. Blaise returned to the situation at hand as Holmes opened the door. He pulled his wand out as well, fully knowing that if the captor was here they would be having a nice little skirmish. Nodding his head that he would search the first floor as Holmes went to the second, Blaise raised his wand. There was no telling what could have been placed over this house, and they had just forced their way in. It was too easy, in his opinion. “Specialis Revelio,” he whispered. Nothing moved or signaled that there were charms or hexes lying in wait. Then again, the spell had been known to fail often, which made it surprisingly ineffective in the most inopportune times.

Moving down a hallway slowly, Blaise ended up in the kitchen. While he had expected a mess, based on his initial deductions about the woman, he was greeted by a spotless room. He eased up slightly, looking around to see if there was anything that seemed out of place. It was scarily clean, like it had been wiped clean to look perfect. Like a model home almost. Deciding that he wasn’t going to leave anything unturned, Blaise started to root through drawers and cupboards. If he came up empty handed down here, hopefully Holmes would pull through once again upstairs.