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"Kate? Kate! What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be in Scotland today?" The wizard called out to the young witch who had passed him in Diagon Alley as if she didn't recognize him.
But she didn't even respond to his call until he took a few quick steps after her and grabbed her elbow. "Kate! Are you deaf or something?" he chuckled amusedly.
But when she turned to him with an angry expression, he paused in surprise. "Leave me alone, sir. I don't know you!"
He blinked in surprise. "Are you kidding, Kate?"
The woman in front of him looked frightened. "You've got me mistaken for someone else!"
By then Harold Axton's auror’s instincts had awakened and he grabbed the woman firmly by both arms. She tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but to his surprise she didn't scream for help. He could tell something was wrong.
"Kate, look at me, you know me, I'm Harold, we work together. Who did this to you? Did they obliviated you? Or the Imperius curse? Confundus charm?" He listed the possibilities aloud, more to himself than to expect an answer from her.
"Sir, please let me go, I'm not who you think I am," the woman pleaded desperately.
"No? Then who are you?" He wondered.
The woman in front of him sighed in a clear sign of surrender. "You know a woman who looks like this, but that's not me. This… this is a Polyjuice potion."
Shock played on Harold's face for a moment before he quickly looked around and pulled the unknown woman into a side alley. He cast a silencing spell around them so no one could eavesdrop and showed her his Auror’s badge.
"I'm Auror Harold Axton. Now, kindly explain who are you and why you have taken the appearance of my fellow Auror."
The woman covered her face with her hand for a moment before answering. "An Auror, wonderful! Just my dumb luck… I'm a hooker. My name is Mary Berrow."
"And why does a prostitute use the Polyjuice potion to make herself look like an Auror?"
"Because that's what the customer wanted."
Harold stared at her, frowning. "The customer wanted you to turn into Kate to do what?"
"Nothing. He wanted me to transform so he could fuck me... well, her, that Kate of yours.”
Harold stared at her in shock. "Wait a minute, you're saying a customer came in, gave you a Polyjuice potion with a hair or something from my colleague so he could have sex with 'her'?"
Mary nodded. "Yep."
"Dear Merlin!" Harold grunted in disbelief.
"Look, I don't want any trouble. I haven't done anything wrong, have I? Nothing illegal, right?" The woman asked, horrified.
He sighed heavily. "No, you didn't, Mary. But I need you to give me a thorough description of your customer."
Mary shook her head. "That won't help you."
"How so?" Auror frowned.
"I've talked to the other girls and he looks differently every time, probably drinks the Polyjuice potion himself. And when he doesn't, he's blindfolding the girls," she explained.
Harold's eyes widened in shock and disgust. "He's... for God's sake... he's done it repeatedly?"
The prostitute nodded. "Yep, it's been going on for months. He comes about every week."
Harold ran a hand over his face. "Heavens! Okay... Mary, I'm going to need everything you can think of and the names of the other girls so I can get information from them."
"I don't want any trouble!" Mary exclaimed.
He gently put his hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "You won't get in any trouble, you or the other girls. Like I said, you haven't done anything wrong. He's going to be in trouble."
Mary looked embarrassed. "But I... we... don't want him to get in trouble either."
Harold looked at her in shock.
The prostitute in front of him sighed in defeat. "Look he... pays well. He's never rude, never violent, never wants anything kinky. He's... courteous and thoughtful. Sometimes he's gentle, sometimes he's rough, but when I say rough, I mean rough in a good way. He... I'll bet my life that he loves that woman. We really don't want him to get in trouble. He's the best customer we have, he's just a little weird with the blindfold and the Polyjuice potion, but that's not really a big thing in our line of work," she explained.
Harold shook his head in disbelief. "Mary, I understand that you don't want to lose a good and secure income, but think about it from my colleague's point of view. Somewhere there's a pervert running around stealing her hair or some other body part and satiating his needs by having sex with prostitutes who are taking shape of her body. This wizard is not of sound mind. It's only a matter of time before he becomes dangerous to Kate or someone else," he warned her.
"He loves her," Mary contradicted with absolute conviction.
"Maybe. But I don't even want to describe the atrocities I've seen committed in the name of love. Please, I need your help. Did he give you his name? At least his first name?"
She shook her head. "No, no names. But he wants us to call him ‘sir’ or ‘professor’ while we are fucking."
Harold froze as if struck by lightning. "Professor? Does he have a scar on his face?"
Mary looked at him for a moment, completely uncomprehending how he had come to that conclusion. Then she shrugged. "Not the faces I've seen. Maybe the girls he was using the blindfold on will know more."
Harold nodded. "Okay, I'll write down a list of them, but first show me where you've been together just now."
"He left before I did. He always leaves early. And we're forbidden to leave until the Polyjuice potion wears off..." she uttered, then covered her mouth with her hand in shock. "Please don't tell him I disobeyed him!"
"Don't worry, Mary. I won't tell him anything. Please, lead the way."
***
Harold carefully scanned the room. It had been cleaned with magic, the man was careful and apparently knew what he was doing. After all, if he was who Harold thought he was, he couldn't expect anything else. Mary, while he searched the room, changed back into her own form. Which Harold was glad for, because at least he would be able to recognize her if he needed to talk to her again.
Finding no clue at all, he sighed wearily and walked out of the room. Mary, meanwhile, wrote him a list of her colleagues whom she knew had had the same experience with the mystery customer. Harold bid her farewell, but on his way to the exit, he noticed a nearly empty trash can in the hallway. But a single piece of paper lying in it caught his attention. He swallowed dryly and levitated it out of the bin with his wand. He mentally prayed it wasn't a Treacle fudge wrapper.
It was a Treacle fudge wrapper.
***
During the afternoon Harold managed to talk to five other prostitutes who had the same customer. He mainly questioned the ones who were blindfolded, because he assumed they'd had experience with a real perpetrator, not a perpetrator disguised in another body.
Harold didn't find out much. Perpetrator was tall. He had longer hair. Short beard. A deep voice, though they had all agreed he spoke so little they wouldn't recognize him by his voice. The only interesting thing was that he supposedly didn't let any of them touch his face. He asked if he let them touch his left thigh or his knee. They frowned at him in incomprehension, not understanding why they should try to touch his legs. Their work, in the vast majority of cases, did not take place lower or higher than at the crotch.
Harold thanked them and sat aside on the bench to write down what he had learned. The perpetrator was male, tall, longer hair, beard, deep voice, had some sort of identifying mark on his face, probably a scar, liked treacle fudge, must have had access to Kate at least occasionally, and must have been able to brew a Polyjuice potion. If he'd been buying it in such quantity, he'd have drawn the attention of the Auror’s office long time ago. And he had 'Kate' call him 'sir' or 'professor'.
And Harold knew a man who fit all of those requirements. He knew him very well. Or so he thought.
He ran one hand over his face in dismay. Surely, he wouldn't do something like that. Surely his colleague wouldn't do something like that. Surely Aesop fucking Sharp wouldn't do something like that!
***
All the evidence Harold gathered was circumstantial so far. They'd never convict anyone based on them. So, the next day, he went back to the office and decided to observe Sharp. See if he could catch him stealing Kate's hair or something.
But the whole day he'd been watching Sharp, he couldn't accuse him of anything other than occasionally staring at Kate longer than was appropriate. But that wasn't a crime. If it was, he would have had to lock up more than one of his colleagues.
Harold felt guilty for not telling Kate right away. He didn't even have to accuse Sharp, just tell her that someone had done something like that in the first place. But he wanted to be sure.
And the other thing was that he and Kate had been assigned to the same case earlier for a few months, so they knew each other pretty well, and while Kate had never explicitly said so, she definitely had a soft spot for Sharp. She couldn't keep from blushing every time Sharp complimented her on something, or stood too close to her. And if Harold could guess, Kate had carried a torch for Sharp ever since he had taught her at Hogwarts, before he finally managed to heal his leg and return to Auror’s office.
As the Auror’s office began to clear out, Harold noticed that Sharp didn't seem to be preparing to leave as well. Kate had left half an hour ago. Harold stayed a while longer, but when he was in risk of being left alone in the office with Sharp, he pretended to go home as well. But he hid himself using the Disillusionment Charm and watched his colleague, to find out what he would do.
To his surprise, though, Sharp simply got up after an hour and left the office too.
***
The following week, Harold was the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave. He kept a close eye on all the auror's schedules and was sure that Sharp and Kate hadn't met on any investigations or raids. He regularly sent owls to the prostitutes, but they confirmed, that their customer had not returned yet. Harold knew that if it was really Sharp, he had to get another hair or some other part of Kate's body soon. And that he wouldn’t be able to acquire it elsewhere but in the office.
Fortune smiled on Harold at lunch. The Auror’s office had cleared out, as it always did, and only Sharp remained. So, Harold hid himself with a spell and waited, as he had so many times before. After a few minutes, Sharp rose from his desk, looked around carefully, and threw an invisibility cloak over himself. Where he got something so valuable was a mystery to Harold. But the Sharps were an ancient wizarding family. Such an artifact could be passed down for generations among them.
Harold had a good view of Kate's desk, so he didn't move. After a few seconds, he noticed her chair move an inch, and then a drawer at her desk opened slowly and silently. A comb lifted out of the drawer and after a moment it returned to the drawer, the chair moved again, and Aesop Sharp reappeared back at his desk shortly after.
Harold watched him closely. Sharp stared thoughtfully at something on the palm of his hand. Sharp took a deep breath and sighed absently. He tilted his head backwards and remained motionlessly staring at the ceiling for several seconds. Then he extended his palm over the trash can and tilted it slightly.
He wrestled internally with himself for a few seconds before he snorted contemptuously and wrapped his fingers tightly around Kate's hair.
Harold discreetly sneaked out of the office so he could safely call off his concealment spell, and figure out what he was going to do with his creepy colleague.
***
Harold decided to confront Sharp that very day. Because he would be probably heading to Diagon Alley right after working hours. But Harold wasn't sure how Sharp would react, so he decided to wait until at least some of their colleagues returned to the office. He was confident that Sharp wouldn't attack him in front of other Aurors.
"Hey Aesop, you got a few minutes?" He walked up to his desk.
Sharp looked up to him. "Harold, of course. How can I be of service?"
"I was in Diagon Alley a couple of weeks ago and I saw Kate Conner there, although she was supposed to be on a raid somewhere in Scotland or Wales or wherever that day," Harold began at length, deliberately giving a vague date to not reveal to Aesop that it was Mary he'd caught with the Polyjuice potion still active.
Sharp was as calm as an iceberg. "Yes? Have you asked her why she was in London instead?"
Harold nodded. "Yes, I did ask her. And she said she wasn't in London, and Burns confirmed that they were on a mission together at the time."
"So, you mistook her for someone else?" Sharp asked dispassionately. He was perfectly calm and sounded unamused that Harold had even bothered him with such a thing.
"No, I didn't mistake her for anyone, Aesop. She was as close as you are now. So, like a proper nosy Auror, I started poking around. And it turned out that the woman in the Diagon Alley was a prostitute, who had been asked to drink a Polyjuice potion by a customer to make her look like Kate. And then he had his whole paid hour with her afterwards," Harold uttered in a low voice so that none of their colleagues could hear him.
Sharp frowned at him and took a breath to surely say that they needed to check it out thoroughly, but Harold's expression, which was daring him to try and say something like that, made Sharp’s mouth shut up again. Sharp ran a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair, miserably.
"How much did you manage to find out?" He asked after a moment in a guilty tone.
Harold shook his head at him in disbelief. "I know everything, Aesop. And I have the evidence. The most important one is in your pocket right now."
Sharp grinned wryly. "And why are you telling me this, Harold? Why isn’t a group of Hit Wizards here with you, taking me to Azkaban?"
Harold suppressed the urge to shake his head in disbelief at himself. "Because of one thing all those prostitutes told me."
"Which was?" Sharp asked, but he didn't have the nerve to look him in the eye.
Harold glanced across the office, where Kate was currently making tea and talking to a colleague. "They all claimed one thing unanimously. They said, that it's absolutely beyond doubt that you love Kate."
"I do," Sharp nodded in agreement, watching Kate as well. He was very well aware that it might be the last time he saw her.
"And because of that, Aesop, I'm giving you a second chance. Go to her, talk to her. Ask her out. But if I hear about one more prostitute sipping on a Polyjuice potion, you're going to Azkaban," Harold growled angrily, and there was no doubt that he was dead serious about his threat.
Sharp shook his head. "She's my subordinate, I can't..."
"Says someone who steals her hair to brew a Polyjuice potion to pound her imposters into mattress!" The other Auror snapped scathingly.
"She isn’t interested in me," Sharp protested further. "Just look at her. Why would she?"
Harold chuckled in amusement. "For how smart you are, you can be quite an idiot, Aesop. A blind one at that. That girl's had a crush on you since the first day you came back to the Aurors from Hogwarts. She probably had a crush on you even back at Hogwarts."
Sharp tore his gaze away from her and looked at his colleague in surprise. "Are you serious?"
"Yes. So now give me the hair and deal with this like a decent person," Harold ordered, holding out his hand.
Sharp hesitated only for a second before handing him the handkerchief in which Kate's hair was carefully wrapped.
"I'm watching you, Aesop," Harold growled at him and left.
***
Harold watched Sharp for the rest of the day, but he never came within five feet of Kate. It wasn't until evening, when the office began to clear out and Harold was getting ready to go home as well, that he noticed them standing together in the kitchen, Sharp handing her a mug of coffee.
Harold's first thought was whether there was the Amortentia in the mug or not. And he had an impulse to go and find out. But he decided to give Sharp the benefit of the doubt, even though he certainly didn't deserve that.
Taking a deep breath, Harold deliberately called out goodbye to them, and when he met Sharp's gaze, he sent him a brief, threatening frown. Sharp gave him a grateful nod in return.
Harold headed home, praying to all the gods that he didn’t make a mistake. It wasn't until he reached the Floo fireplaces in the Atrium that his conscience caught up with him and he decided to go back and make sure Kate was okay.
When he returned, the office was empty. Well, almost empty. His attention was drawn to a sound from the kitchen. Sharp had Kate perched on the kitchen counter. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his hips, pressing him close. She had both hands on his cheeks and was kissing him hungrily. Sharp had one hand under her shirt, which wasS carelessly tugged out of her pants. And Sharp’s other hand had slipped into said pants, clutching her ass firmly against him.
Then, when Harold saw Sharp buck his hips against her shamelessly, and Kate's moan echoed through the empty office, Harold decided it was really time to go home.
***
The next morning, Harold was not at all surprised that Kate was wearing the same clothes she had worn the day before. Nor was he surprised to see Aesop Sharp stop by his desk after few minutes.
"I'm in your debt, Harold. Thank you," Sharp uttered with a genuine and satisfied smile.
"Better than the substitutes?" asked Harold slyly.
"Oh, you have no idea."