Crack.
Severus heard a gunshot.
He looked up at the sky. Without realizing it, it had turned red, and one cloud looked like a phoenix.
"Since we're talking about the Order of the Phoenix, you still claim you can't reveal where their headquarters are, do you?" Bellatrix asked inside the house at Spinner's End.
"I'm not the Secret Keeper. I can't say the name of that place. I assume you understand how that magic works?" Severus said with a hint of smugness. "The Dark Lord was pleased with the information I passed on about the Order of the Phoenix. You've probably guessed that my intelligence led to Emmeline Vance's recent capture and death, and undoubtedly helped dispose of Sirius Black as well. But the credit for ending his life belongs to you."
He tilted his head and raised his glass to Bellatrix. Her expression did not soften in the slightest.
"The shell missed. We hit a mound instead," a "sailor" of the "Captain of the Land" had told Severus while drinking with him. "He and Edward Jenner were in a luxurious carriage. John anticipated Napoleon would personally go to meet her, so he set up an ambush along the road... But I have to say, that mound appeared out of nowhere. I saw it with my own eyes."
Severus recalled a news report he had seen in a Muggle newspaper: a woman's body had been found near Downing Street, and a criminal had brazenly tested the law in the Prime Minister's own backyard.
In the few points of contact between the Wizarding World and the Muggle world, protecting political leaders was also one of the Aurors' duties. This mainly meant preventing the Muggle Prime Minister from being attacked by Dark wizards.
Emmeline Vance had been a female agent, but Pomona