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Magic was wonderful. It let you conceal, suppress or dissemble your presence, obscure, veil or shield yourself from the senses, and all with just a few words and a bit of wandwork. Wizards and Witches had, over the centuries, become exceedingly good at hiding.

Almost everyone learned at least a couple of disguising or cloaking spells – to be able to apparate without too many worries if nothing else: many a time, hiding yourself very, very quickly was enough to convince an unexpected Muggle that they'd imagined it all, saving yourself the hassle of a Ministry intervention (and subsequent fine). Anyone who worked, lived or interacted with Muggles generally built up a decent repertoire of camouflage spells pretty soon and would not easily give themselves away. Of course, this also tended to apply to less savory types. If anyone wanted to lie low, magic was the way to go.

Harry's generation, for obvious reasons, had gone above and beyond this standard, basic set of hiding spells.

When a scent-masking charm or an obfuscation spell meant life over death, you found yourself uniquely motivated to learn – and learn well. For the once-kids who'd fought in the War, disillusionment, concealing and sound-deadening charms were as familiar as scouring and cooking charms. For Harry, who'd kept his war-gained skills up to par because of dark wizards, paparazzi and assorted fanatics, they were practically second nature.

Of course, he had very little time to cast right now (though this part of Milano was obligingly rich of arched front doors, perfect for ducking into and throwing up a bunch of concealment spells in a hurry) but that's where his natural talent came in: he had the power to chain his spells for quick-casting and the long practice to do it without losing precision.

And his ancestors' Invisibility Cloak, which was still as perfect as always and much better than any disillusionment (and not at all cheating, whatever Ron said).

He spared a quick laugh at the irony of using Death's Cloak to track down Death's Chess Pieces…

Of course, in most if not all cases, the other side had magic too. That was why for every disguising spell there was a revealing one, most often with variants that could be included in a warding scheme, be it runic or wanded, embedded or flighty. And for every revealing ward, there was a detecting spell allowing the disguised wizard to dispel it if he could catch it in time…

It was like a game – a game Harry excelled at.

Which was why he was rather disappointed that his opponents didn't seem to be playing.

He ran through the whole set of detection spells he knew, while he quickly but cautiously made his way back to the building the two men had entered, without triggering a single response. With every step he expected to trip a ward or set off an alarm or something, but no- nothing. Nothing at all.

Between the excitement running through his veins and the wish to feel some satisfaction for his own skill, Harry found it a bit of a letdown.

It was like they hadn't bothered with putting up any magical protections around the place at all! Granted, there weren't many Wizards around – Milano wasn't well-liked by their kind – and perhaps they hadn't thought it necessary... but still: it was shoddy.

The door of the B&B opened easily with a silent Alohomora and he went in with less care than his usual, too busy frowning at his targets' sloppiness to worry about staying hidden, at this point.

He froze when a strange sound surprised him.

It was a soft buzz with perhaps a slightly mechanical tinge to it, now and then interspersed with a soft squeaky grating. Harry had absolutely no idea what could be making it. A ward he'd missed? A creature? Something muggle?

...It was probably something muggle. Made the most sense, really.

Grateful that he was still under the Cloak, he scanned his surrounding warily. Of course it was a muggle gizmo of some sort, what else could it be? This was a muggle dwelling – the buzz was probably just electrical… stuff.

After a moment, he located the likely source: a longish rectangular white box with a sort of plastic hat, mounted on a white arm that grew out of the wall. It had a thick black cable running from its back like an unending tail, fixed to the wall and disappearing somewhere into the ceiling, and a black eye on the other end.

A creepy moving box with an eye? It took him far too long to realize what it was. A camera! A security camera, CCTV most likely. Relief swept through him – and irritation, at himself mostly. How many times had seen something like this while growing up? And now he could barely recognise it!… Oh, dear Merlin, he was turning into a Pureblood idiot.

He made a face at the thing: it moved unnervingly in a swiping pattern, as if it was sentient and looking for him. Harry shuddered. He was reasonably sure Muggles hadn't figured out how to give inanimate objects brains, but he stood frozen just in case.

It panned slowly, occasionally tilting, and gave Harry the unpleasant sensation that it was busily recording everything its eye was catching. It reminded him unsettlingly of the custodia circumdatus, a surveillance spell much liked by all law enforcement Wizards because it produced a log of anything living and/or magical that crossed into its area of application, helping with paperwork immensely – though Harry had always found it a pain, because unless you tied it into an alert of some sort, you had to monitor it continuously for it to be useful.

...He was really in a bad way if he had to cast muggle gizmos in terms of spells to understand them. He was muggle-raised for Merline sake. How had he come to this point? ...Was he going to start shouting at telephones next?

Right, no. He wouldn't let it happen! He was going on an all-muggle retreat soon, and catching up on all the technology he was out of the loop of. Hermione would probably keep him company, if he asked nicely.

After a moment the camera completed its swipe of the room and stilled. Harry breathed out. At least his Cloak fooled mechanical eyes as easily as biological ones. Not that he imagined the thing could be any danger to him. It almost certainly had nothing to do with his targets. He'd been spooked without reason.

He made his way upstairs hurriedly – but cautious again – but when he heard a muffled sound of shouting from above him, he chanced a Supersensory Charm.

Luckily so! The first thing he heard was a string of loud cursing from the incensed buyer ("...Maledetto fedifrago figlio di un cane!...") that made him wince a little because if his translation charm didn't kick in then the insults had to be… creative; but then it morphed into understandable outrage: "...sucker! You trying to swindle me? These are fake!"

Harry stumbled on the last steps of the stairs.

What?

"What?" Foscarini echoed him with a squeak and the genuine and horrified shock in his voice gave Harry some dark satisfaction, even as his mind whirled.

Fakes? Fakes? Where were the real ones, then? Who had them? If Foscarini hadn't stolen them... but he thought he had...

"Oh," breathed the buyer, his tone going from enraged to nastily amused. "Oh, oh, oh! You got swindled yourself! Ha ha ha ha! Couldn't happen to a more deserving bastard!"

"Shut up, brutto pezzo di merda. Shut up!"

"Who was it? That piece of tail you dragged off with you? Ha ha ha!"

"She couldn't have."

"Ha ha ha ha! It was her, I just bet! Where did you say you left her? Bet she ain't there no more!"

"Treviso- and will you shut up?! I'm telling you she wouldn't!"

"She worked you over properly, didn't she! Thought you were so special, seducing that stupid child – and all the time she was playing you! Oh, this is rich!"

"Shut up!" yelled Foscarini. "One more word and I'll curse you so badly your bastards will feel it…!"

Harry retreated. He'd heard more than enough.

Well, well.

Back to the Mercato dei Navigli, he got himself an ice-cream, sat down at yet another small table under a colourful beach umbrella and pondered.

What the hell was going on?

Clearly Milano was a red herring (had the Vampire Lady deliberately misled him or was she just as taken it? No matter) but whatever those two said, he couldn't really believe that such a young girl was a criminal mastermind of the caliber they were implying. She was what, seventeen?

As soon as he thought this, he kicked himself. What was he saying? At her age, Voldemort had already murdered Myrtle and his father's family and framed two others for it! At her age, Malfoy had managed to let a bunch of terrorists inside Hogwards and come close to murder Dumbledore! At her age, Harry himself had already… his own thoughts trailed off.

Yeah, ok, no need to get into details on that.

Point was, the girl was totally old enough for such a scheme.

She was also missing. Along with the Rooks she'd stolen. And he didn't have a clue of where to start looking for her. And Foscarini, by the looks of it, wasn't going to be much help...

What to do?

Nino was the first to find him, swinging himself up his table with an acrobatic jump that wasn't any less impressive for going through the upper pole of the beach umbrella. He looked awfully excited and Fumagalli, who followed him a bit more sedately, was terribly smug.

"You'll never believe it!" crowed the diminutive ghost. "We have such news!"

Campari showed up not a minute later with lazy nonchalance and leaned on a chair without properly sitting down. Harry noted that every Muggle in the vicinity, despite not seeing the ghosts, obviously, started looking around uneasily and rubbing goosebumps off their bare arms. Within minutes they had all moved away.

He didn't pay too much attention to their discomfort, however, because Fumagalli did, indeed, have news.

"The Certami Family Rooks will be available in Venice tonight, for a private sale," he told Harry, smug as you please. "Two potential buyers have already signalled their interest with appropriate offers and a suitable down payment. I have taken the liberty of doing the same on behalf of Robert Grant, adding him to the short list," he said primly.

"Brilliant!" Harry enthused.

"You will, of course, reimburse me," the spectre added off-handedly.

"What? Oh, yeah, don't worry," Harry waved this off easily. "This is great! You were great!" he went on in high spirits.

Fumagalli demurred praise daintily, but was clearly pleased with himself. He stretched with satisfaction, making his knife wound gape unattractively and ooze something silvery. Nino, who was taking his share of the compliments without anyone needing to offer it, settled comfortably on an inexistent hammock between the table and the beach umbrella over it, looking as satisfied as a well-fed cat.

"Strange that they would be sold in Venice, when our friend's information led him here," commented Campari. "Are you sure your contacts are trustworthy on this?"

"Absolutely!" cried Fumagalli, offended. He collapsed onto himself at once, crossing his arms defensively.

"Pretty sure, yes," confirmed Nino more calmly. "No idea how the trinkets ended up in Venice, but it's confirmed that they're there. Word of mouth is pretty fanciful, let me tell you – seems like it was a kid who brought them there, if you'll believe it!"

"Oh, I just might," said Harry darkly and recounted what he'd overheard.

Nino laughed so hard he almost choked – which, considering he didn't need to breathe, was rather impressive.

Fumagalli unwound again and chuckled: "I might just have to toast that girl. Such precocious conning talent! Wish I could meet her. Shall we find ourselves some booze?"

"It's not even midday!" chided Campari.

"And I have to pack," added Harry. "Robert Grant must be in Venice tonight, after all."