Rose blinked as Albus just suddenly grabbed that strange woman and walked away. What had that been about?
"Aren't you going to follow him?" Scorpius asked, still holding the stack of papers the woman had given them.
"You know as well as I do that no one can follow Albus if he wants to hide from you. Besides, he has already Disapparated."
"I wonder who that girl is."
"Well, she was kind enough to give us her name. I'm going to look her up when we get back."
"If the name she gave was accurate. Anyway, you need to see this," Scorpius said. He wondered where on earth Albus had found that. It was definitely a Muggle print, probably from the internet. He knew very little about that, but the words were unmistakable. Someone advertised for the sale of an Auror. That alone proved that it was the Knocker, there weren't any other Aurors missing. Not in Britain at least.
Rose read what it said and made an angry sound.
"We need to get this to Harry. But how did we get it? I don't want to break my word to Harry, but I don't want to expose Albus either." Scorpius said.
"Just say you got it from an informant. Chances are, once he realises the content, he won't dwell too long on exactly who we got it from."
Rose and Scorpius hurried back to the Ministry to find Harry. Luckily, he was just coming out of a strategy meeting.
"You need to see this," Scorpius said as he handed him the piece of paper. Harry read it. Then he read it again. His hands started to tremble.
"How certain are you of this?" he asked.
"The papers are legit, if that's what you're asking. Whether it really is talking about Yang, there is no way to know. But I trust the source."
That was all Harry needed to hear. He went to his desk and took out his master device for the Trackers. He studied it in great detail, moving the map many times, then lowered the device with a defeated look.
"The Tracker is active but still doesn't show. There is no way to know whether the sale has already happened, but I will have someone monitoring his Tracker all the time from now on. If he is moved, we need to know about it."
"At least that means he is still alive." Rose pointed out. "Did you see the other papers in there?"
Harry quickly rifles through the other papers. He didn't understand what it meant.
"What's all this?"
"According to my source, it is most likely the Knocker trying to sell his creatures on the internet. Unfortunately, he seems to have stopped doing that after we started hunting him, though it looks like the Wampus Cat is sold afterwards. Did we even know about online sales? The location marked is the place where the ads were created. They didn't know whether that was the man himself, but either way, it is a clue to follow."
Harry looked confused.
"Muggles are buying things over the internet?"
"Yes. That's been a standard for years, haven't you kept up with the times?"
Harry didn't reply. Scorpius thought he still didn't understand what they had found.
"I'm going to take this up with the Department of Technology," Harry said at last. "It's not good that they haven't been able to find stuff like this. Even if it turns out not to be the Knocker, it is most likely wizards selling things to Muggles. A Wampus Cat in the wrong hands is also troubling, even more so if a Muggle bought it not knowing how dangerous it is. Can your source give us more concrete proof other than the printouts? Who is the source anyway? Who knows we're searching for this?"
"By this point, everyone knows we're searching for him," Scorpius answered. He tried to not sound accusatory, but the way Harry had behaved since Yang was taken had made his job basically impossible. Everyone had gone underground, in fear of being taken in the next raid. Not to mention what had happened with Albus. "With all the raids, it's impossible for people not to notice. I'm lucky some people are still talking to me at all. This person is someone who actually wants to help. Most of my other sources are dry."
Harry sighed. "I know the raids are not working as intended, but up until now, I didn't know what else to do. With this evidence, I agree we might as well stop doing them. Though we did find many other things we might otherwise have missed."
"And in the process, dislike of the Ministry has reached an all-time high since the war." Hermione said from behind them. Harry and Scorpius jumped, but Rose was used to her mother suddenly appearing like that.
"Let me see that," she said, holding out her hand for the papers Harry still held. He gave it to her without a word. She speedread through most of them with increased worry. Finally, she saw the one regarding Yang. A low growl escaped from her throat. Scorpius had never heard her make such a sound, but it was close to the one Rose had made reading the same document.
"We need to find them." she said. "Both Yang and the blasted man that wants to sell him. Start with that warehouse, though I find it unlikely that he has remained there for this long."
Harry just nodded. He supposed Hermione knew more about this Muggle technology stuff than he did. He hadn't really kept up with it since he left that world behind at 17. And he didn't have a better idea anyway.
***
Rose didn't know what she expected when she finally stormed the warehouse that Albus had said was most likely where the Knocker was, but it hadn't been this. The stench of animals was horrible, but the filth that came from one corner was definitely the worst. It had a rather large cage, and Rose didn't want to know what the mixed liquids in that corner contained.
Even as the Aurors searched the whole warehouse, they knew that they were too late. But by the smell, they also knew they couldn't be too far behind. Had the Knocker been tipped off by how Albus had managed to track him? This place had indeed been Unplottable, but when they arrived here, it hadn't been hard to see which of the warehouses had traces of magic around it.
Scorpius had gone over to what was the most normal-looking part of the warehouse, a small desk. There wasn't much on it, and the drawers looked empty. However, when he groped into the back of one of the drawers, a hidden compartment materialised, and a small book popped out. Flipping through it, he quickly realised that he had found what they were looking for.
"Rose, look at this!"
Rose ran over to him and looked at the notebook as well. It appears to be a book where the Knocker kept record of his sales. The bottom line said what they really wanted to know.
"1 Auror- Sold to the Order of the Hidden Dragon. And beneath it: 1 Wampus Cat- Sold to the Order of the Hidden Dragon."
There were no prices listed, which sort of defeated the purpose of keeping records. Rose knew what this was at once.
"He hopes that we will pursue this and leave him be," she said.
"Yes, that's what I thought as well. But there is no reason we can't do both."
"If we don't find any technology, maybe we can try and see if our source can do another search." She didn't want to name Albus when others could overhear.
Harry came over and saw the notebook as well. His eyes darkened.
"We need to locate the Order of the Hidden Dragon at once. I think we have some information about them back at the office."
"And we need to find out where the Knocker has gone. He probably left us this book on purpose."
"Yes, most likely. Can your source try the same locating trick again?"
"Possibly. If I can get in touch with them."
"Do that at the earliest convenience. But let's find Yang first."
One of the other Aurors came over to them as well.
"The liquid is a mix of human, and creature excrement," he said without preamble. "I think it's safe to assume that Yang has been held here, though the human excrement was buried beneath layers of other creatures."
"That goes well with what we see here that Yang has been sold." Harry said. "Keep searching this place for clues, he might have left some less obvious traces for us as well."
"So, you agree that he probably wanted us to find this?" Scorpius asked.
"Yes, but I can't ignore what it says. Most likely, it is the truth, he wouldn't care to protect a buyer. Not to his own detriment anyway."
"I feel that by taking this seriously, we do exactly what he wants us to do," Rose said. "But I agree, we can't ignore it."
"Let's get back and see what intel we have on this Order," Harry said.