"Dudley! You were brilliant! You're a natural player! That shot completely stunned Boris!"
As the sun dipped low, casting an orange glow across half the sky like a veil of twilight, the children of Badminton Estate wrapped up their football match.
The youngest son of the estate's owner, Mr. Somerset, Septimus, who is only 10 years old, couldn't stop praising Harry's performance on the field.
Harry took the water Septimus handed him, his face lit up with genuine joy.
At the Dursley's, he'd never had the chance to participate in any sports, let alone discover such a natural talent for them.
That afternoon, as if touched by the sunlight itself, Harry had smiled more than he had in the past month combined.
By the time the match ended and most of the children had left the field to rejoin their families, Harry finally remembered the important task Severus had entrusted to him and a pang of guilt struck him, 'How could I have lost myself in enjoyment and forgotten Professor's instructions?'
But it's not too late now. The person next to him, Septimus, is Mr. Somerset's youngest son, and the younger brother of the victim, Patty. There was no better person to gather information from.
"Septimus, what happened to your sister? How did she suddenly end up like this?" Harry asked casually as he drank his water.
The boy, who had worked so well with him on the field, answered without hesitation, "It's all my dad's fault!"
Harry perked up when he heard this. Without him having to ask further, Septimus, who seemed quite talkative, continued on his own.
"He never liked Patty. She barely even left her room most of the time. But I know her. She really wanted to see the outside world. Whenever she told me stories, she'd always talk about her grandfather's farm in the Cotswolds, that's where she lived when she was little."
"Her grandfather?" Harry caught the detail.
"Yeah. We have the same dad, but my mum isn't her mum."
"Where's her mum?"
"Her mum died when she was only 7 years old, along with her legs, in a car accident. My dad was driving. I heard he was drunk at the time."
Septimus, like all children, did not yet understand the principle of not talking about deep things with people you just met. He leaned close to Harry's ear and whispered as if he was sharing a secret.
"Dad always dodges responsibility. He blames Patty for the accident. Every time he drinks, he would bring it up and yells at her."
Hearing this, Harry felt a pang of sympathy for the girl lying in bed.
"You and Patty were close?"
Septimus thumped his chest proudly, "Patty's a good person! She was the one who looked after me when I was little. I promised her that once I grew up, I'd take her away from here so she wouldn't have to live with Dad anymore! "
But at this moment, his mood suddenly darkened.
"But now this happened… I don't get it. Patty was so kind and beautiful. Why would anyone in the family hate her? Why would someone want to kill her."
Harry was stunned.
In fact, he never understood it either… why the Dursleys had despised him so much when he'd done nothing wrong.
'If they didn't like me, why had they taken me in at all?'
'And if they had taken me in, why treat me like that?'
But he quickly shook off the thought and continued to chat with Septimus about various things about his sister in a relaxed manner.
…
While his student was busy on the field, Severus hadn't been idle either.
He'd made a trip to Diagon Alley, gathered all the ingredients for the enhanced Wiggenweld Potion, and set up a cauldron in his Gringotts vault, completing all the preparatory work. Now, all that remained was to let the potion simmer for five days.
Just before nightfall, he returned to Badminton Estate but didn't rest. Instead, he took advantage of the time before dinner to stroll around the estate, chatting with the servants.
The estate housed a large family… not just Mr. Somerset and his immediate family but also his two younger brothers' families and old Mr. Somerset.
As a result, the vast estate didn't feel desolate.
"Miss Patty?" A gardener, who was maintaining the lawn, raised his head and looked at Severus suspiciously, "Are you someone sent by the government to investigate? Weren't these questions already asked earlier?"
Severus smiled faintly.
"We're looking to delve deeper into the matter, to see if there were any oversights. Is this inconveniencing you, sir?"
Seeing how polite this 'government official' was, the gardener's initial resistance melted away.
"It's no trouble at all, sir. We all want the culprit caught as soon as possible."
Wiping the sweat from his brow, he leaned on his shovel and began recounting the events to Severus.
"Miss Patty's incident was sudden, and no one knew what really happened. Four days ago, in the morning, the maid went to wake her as usual and found her seemingly dead!"
"The estate was in chaos. The police came, the doctors came, and after confirming the situation, everyone assumed she was truly gone."
"Mr. Somerset locked himself in his room… he was utterly devastated. Only then did we realize how much he truly cared for his daughter."
"That whole day, it was Mrs. Somerset who handled everything. It's strange, considering she never seemed to like Miss Patty much. Even then, she made all the arrangements for the funeral herself."
"Then the Prime Minister arrived. He and Mr. Somerset are close friends and have collaborated on business ventures at the stables before. When he heard about the tragedy, he made time to visit that very evening."
"It just so happened that the doctor who was in charge of examining Miss Patty's 'corpse' discovered something strange. If Miss Patty was really dead, she had been dead for almost 24 hours, but her body showed no signs of rigor mortis, her body temperature hadn't dropped, and there were none of the usual indicators of death!"
"Some people began to suspect that Miss Patty was not actually dead, but no one could explain what had happened to her if she wasn't."
"And after the Prime Minister personally visited Miss Patty's condition, he called you guys here."
At this point, the gardener began to look at Severus curiously.
"What branch of the government do you belong to? Why are you wearing such strange uniforms? Is that a robe?"
Severus stroked his chin, and instead of satisfying his curiosity, he continued to ask.
"In the days leading up to Miss Patty's incident, were there any unusual occurrences in the household?"
The gardener shook his head.
"You've asked this many times already. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, except for Mrs. Somerset arguing with Miss Patty again. But that's normal, as they fought almost every week."
From others, Severus had already learned that the current Mrs. Somerset was Patty's stepmother, and their relationship is very bad, so bad that they didn't even bother hiding it and everyone knew it.
Initially, the Aurors had focused their investigation on Mrs. Somerset, suspecting she might have conspired with some lowlife wizard.
But no matter what methods they used, they found nothing. Eventually, they had no choice but to temporarily rule out the stepmother's involvement.
"Come to think of it, there is one thing… It's not exactly strange, but I mentioned it to your colleagues before."
The gardener's sudden remark snapped Severus out of his thoughts.
"Could you repeat it for me?"
"It was about a month ago. The lawnmower in the estate broke down, and the usual repairman had gone off to London to seek his fortune, so we had to hire a new worker."
"He was a young man with poor skills. He didn't even know lawnmowers ran on diesel! He was also sneaking around the manor like he wanted to steal something. This made the butler very angry. And he called the police to scare him off."
At this point, the gardener stared at Severus and looked at him closely.
"I thought you'd ask me that weird question too?"
Severus, who was originally frowning in thought, couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
"What weird question?"
"When I told your colleague about this, do you know what he asked me? He actually asked, 'So why does a lawnmower need diesel?'!"
The gardener raised his voice, and it was obvious that even now, he still found it hard to believe when he recalled the incident.
"I said, 'How else is it supposed to run?' And then he asked, 'Can't it move on its own?' How absurd is that? If you want to talk about strange things, you people are the strangest!"
Hearing this, Severus was momentarily speechless.
This was typical of wizards. Someone like Arthur Weasley was a rare exception.
Aside from those raised by Muggles, most wizards knew next to nothing about Muggles, let alone such modern machinery.
This can be seen from the fact that most wizards, when disguising themselves as Muggles, will wear what they assumed were 'normal' outfits, only to end up in bizarre combinations like suits paired with beach shorts.
Even Aurors were no exception.
At its core, this stemmed from the International Statute of Secrecy, which segregated wizarding and Muggle societies. Many wizards carried a sense of superiority and couldn't be bothered to learn about Muggles.
Just as this thought crossed his mind, something clicked for Severus!
"You mean, the police came to the scene immediately after Patty's accident, right?"
"Of course, they were in that room for several hours."
Severus stared at him intently.
"Have my colleagues communicated and coordinated with the police since they arrived here?"
The gardener looked utterly bewildered. He was starting to think this man was just as odd as the others.
"How would a gardener like me know that? And aren't you all government officials? Shouldn't you have coordinated before taking over the case?"
A faint, knowing smile curled on Severus's lips as he murmured, "They probably genuinely never thought to consult the Muggle police."