Mortem . Sirius Black

chapter forty

April 13th - Headmasters' office 

Albus Dumbledore was perplexed when it came to Nephera Winchester. He had always prided himself in being in charge, in control. He had painted himself as a guardian, a father figure to every student at Hogwarts for that exact reason, gaining their trust almost instantly, with no questions asked. 

Yet, the seventeen-year-old girl was resistant to that. She was smart beyond her years, and her instincts when it came to understanding human behavior were rarely wrong. She could see right through him, and that troubled him. 

She was needed in the Order, that much was for certain, but she could also be a huge obstacle in the future. He needed to find some way to control her, limit her, but there didn't seem to be any. 

The girl always seemed to see ten steps ahead before she actually took one forward. She was right, that day in St. Mungos', she did remind him too much of Tom, and that scared him. 

She did have one weakness though, her friends, and the old wizard was prepared to use them if it meant being able to reign in Nephera. 

"Headmaster," said the girl, walking in the room, "You asked to see me?" 

The way she phrased her words was innocent, as though she was just another mundane girl walking into her headmasters' office, but the way she walked betrayed her intentions. The girl stepped into the large room with an air of confidence, but even more than that, an air of superiority. She knew how necessary she was to the Order, how much they needed her on their side, and she relished in it. 

"Yes, Mrs. Winchester" nodded the older wizard "Your input is needed," he motioned for her to come closer 

Nephera looked at what was on top of his desk. A map, of what appeared to be Albania, with three villages circled. They were in the middle of a forest, and so Nephera concluded that they were muggle villages since wizards, except a number of select covens, had abandoned the woods long ago. 

"Muggle villages?" she asked 

"Indeed. These two," he pointed towards two of them, "were attacked a month ago by Death Eaters, although the third one was left untouched. Most of their attacks on muggles have been focused on Britain, as you already know," he trailed off, waiting for her to catch up 

"So you can't understand why Albania all of a sudden?" she asked, even though she knew it was the correct answer

Taking the map, she spun it around so she was looking at it the right way. Her first thought was that maybe there was something there he wanted, although she doubted that random muggle villages in the middle of the mountains could be hiding anything of importance. 

"What did the Albanian minister say?" 

"They got an alert that Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange entered the country. They didn't know that they were suspected Death Eaters, so they did nothing about it. One week later, the first village caught on fire, but. by that time enough time had passed and the Aurors didn't make the connection. Two weeks after that, the second village also caught on fire, no survivors in either case," 

The brunette nodded and went back to observing the map in front of her. The timing of the attacks was certainly peculiar, it seemed random, but nothing Tom Riddle ever did was random. She turned her attention towards what surrounded the villages. Mountains covered by rocks and thick vegetation. 

An idea popped into her head, and she flicked her wrist, a book from the library appearing. 

The older wizard raised his eyebrows at the spell, it wasn't one he had ever seen before, calling on objects and having them appear from nowhere, and it certainly called for his attention.