Without Remorse

Chapter One

Disclaimer: The rights to the HP universe belong to JKR and Warner Bros. I make no money from writing and posting this.

Summary: After several years as a successful Auror, a dark secret in Harry's past lands him in a high security cell in Azkaban. However, his penchant for observation and deductive reasoning make him valuable in catching a misogynistic killer. See how Harry's dark past influences his life, and the life of those around him as he fights to make his mark despite being confined in the walls of Azkaban…

Warnings: Violence (I won't make it too graphic though). Character Death. Mentions of Abuse. All sorts of other potential nasty bits. Oh, and swears, gotta have the swears =).

…~oOo~…

27/08/1996. Diagon Alley.

All it had cost him was the price of a train ride to London and the small amount of time it took for him to pickpocket a wand from an unsuspecting passer-by. That was the trace sorted out. His silent protectors hadn't noticed as he took the wand, the crowds of Diagon Alley had ensured they kept their distance. His primary mission accomplished, he continued with the ruse and spent the rest of the day shopping for inconsequential things, all the while trying to piece together which of his protectors was following him today.

Keeping an eye on the reflective surface of the window of Florean Fortescue's he easily picked up who was following him. It was rather simple really. All he had to do was look for the one person who didn't shoot him glances every few seconds. As it happened, the old women sitting at the table on the other side of the ice cream shop didn't even look at him once. Tonks.

So far he had identified four protectors, all of which he knew to some level. First, there was Mad-Eye; he seemed to prefer taking watch on Friday night through Saturday. He probably didn't enjoy the thought of Vernon coming home drunk after a night out and taking out his anger on Harry. Too bad he hadn't been there in Harry's formative years.

Dung seemed to only ever guard him during the day; come evening the little crook would vanish off faster than you could say "unscrupulous." That was good for Harry though, he could always rely on Dung to be unreliable, which had paved the way for many trips away from Privet Drive without having someone tail him.

Hestia Jones, on the other hand, was a creature of the night. He had never found her watching him under the sun. He found it rather amusing that she would sacrifice her nightlife for him; she was probably dry as a desert down there, probably had a worse love life than him, and that's saying something!

That left Tonks, she was completely unpredictable; she didn't mind watching Harry all day and night, sometimes for two days straight. It was most annoying. It was probably a ploy of Dumbledore's to keep him from using a schedule to his advantage.

The strange thing about his protectors was that they never stopped him going anywhere. The first few times he had gone off to Diagon Alley he had received letters from Dumbledore telling him how foolish he was being. Those had stopped once it became apparent that he wasn't going to pay any attention to the old man's warnings. But if they weren't there to keep him in place, why did Dumbledore put them there? To observe him, maybe? To find out if he'd become unstable after Sirius' death?

But enough of that; such speculation gets one nowhere. It's best to be on the lookout and keep focus on things within one's own sphere of influence rather than worry about Dumbledore's agenda. As such, manipulating things to suit one's needs shouldn't be too hard. All it needed was timing…

…~oOo~…

25/07/2004. Azkaban.

"Auror Lupin, please stand still and hold your arms out," The security wizard instructed as his counterpart pulled out a probity probe.

"Tonks is fine," she responded with a cheeky grin.

"All clear," said the man holding the probity probe as he stepped away.

"Looks like your good to go, Auror Lupin," the first security wizard scowled at her as she interrupted him by saying 'Tonks.' "We'll just need you to relinquish your wand and you can pass."

"Always with the wand taking," she said with mock exasperation as she handed it over.

"Can't risk a prisoner getting their hands on one," he replied, "you know how it is."

"Yeah, I saw what happened to Dawlish in the Ministry holding cells," the smile slipped from her face. "None of us were expecting him to just flip like that. He'd not gone for any of the other Aurors since he was captured."

"Dawlish fit the profile," the security wizard said as he led her through the guard station towards the prison proper. "If he'd cut of that moustache then he'd still be here."

"We didn't know he would react like that," she snapped back, not liking the implied victim blaming. "Who attacks people because of their choice in moustache anyway?"

"Crazy people."

"You don't say," she shot back sardonically. "Besides, I think it was more because Dawlish called him a freak. He really doesn't like that word."

"Noted," the security wizard responded uncaringly.

The two of them took the corridors that wouldn't pass any prisoners. Since the fall of Voldemort the Dementors had been removed from Azkaban, the unintended result was that prisoners were now much more vocal. When an attractive woman like Tonks was seen, it became almost impossible to hear oneself think over the noise of wolf whistles, unabashed propositions, and the occasional threat.

"Here we are; the high security wing. Just give me a minute to unlock the doors," the security wizard said as he started running his wand over the door in swift patterns.

"Just how 'high security' is this place?" Tonks asked, genuinely curious.

"A guard is stationed at the end of each corridor, all the wards, and the barrier door. Never visited a HDK before, Auror Lupin?"

"Tonks. What do you mean, HDK?" she responded.

"Highly Dangerous Killer. I guess it's a kind of Azkaban slang," he responded with a shrug.

"Ahhh. No, I've never visited one. This is actually my first interview in Azkaban."

"Seriously?" He over from his task, "I thought it was mandatory for all senior Aurors to have experience with these guys."

"I'm not a senior Auror," she replied, feeling somewhat self-conscious. "I have personal experience of dealing with the subject."

The man snorted. "I don't want to know."

Tonks scowled.

"Alright we're in," he said. "Now, I need to go over a few rules before you can go in. First, you must stay with your chaperone, in this case me, at all times. Second, you do not go within arm's reach of any cell at any time. Third, you must keep privacy wards up at all times; your conversation should be kept from the other prisoners and the guards. Finally, if you need to give anything to the inmate, raise your hand and your chaperone will levitate it into the cell. You got it?"

"Understood."

The two of them headed in, both of them making sure that they stayed to the side of the corridor that wasn't lined with cells. As they walked along they were taunted by the inmates, most of them Death Eaters caught at the end of the last war. Tonks ignored all the noise, shrugging off their words as the inconsequential ramblings of the utterly deranged.

At the very end, of the corridor there was a simple wooden chair set up several feet back from the bars. Reaching it, she sat down and settled into the privacy ward that had been set up for her earlier.

"Good morning, Harry," she said to the inmate, trying to smile but not quite managing to make it appear sincere.

"Tonks," he said with a beaming smile. It was rather disconcerting how much he had changed from the sullen, moody teenager she had once known. "I'm so glad to see you. Tell me, how have you been?"

"I'm fine, Harry, thanks for asking; and yourself?" she replied not wanting to upset him by appearing rude. It struck her as strange how differently she interacted with him now that he inhabited a prison cell. Then again, he is criminally insane.

"I've been better," he answered with a shrug. "Prison life doesn't agree with me. Far too tedious. But at least I get plenty of visitors to keep me occupied."

"You get a lot of visitors?"

"Oh yes," he replied with a somewhat smug grin. "I'm something of a hero, don't you know? It's a shame they don't allow conjugal visits..."

"Oh I know," she responded dropping an air of solemnness into her voice and refusing to comment on the latter part of what Harry had said. She needed to bring him to the topic at hand before he tried to take control of the conversation. "But your admirers aren't what brought me here today."

"I should say not," he interrupted with a snort, "Kingsley isn't the type to revoke my right to have visitors."

"Minister Shacklebolt," Tonks corrected (she didn't feel that Harry deserved to use Kingsley's given name since he'd gotten locked up in Azkaban), "is a good and fair man. He wouldn't do something like that; no matter how much you deserve it."

"A little judgemental today aren't you, Tonks?" Harry feigned hurt, clutching his hand to his heart melodramatically.

"I'm here because I need your help," she ignored Harry's toying.

The man in the cell across from her immediately dropped the act. He leant forwards, resting one arm on the bars of his cell, and gazed intently at Tonks.

"Do you now?"

"Yes."

He pushed off from the bars, wondering further back into his cell, apparently having seen whatever he was looking for in the way she answered. This annoyed her somewhat, as she had been trying to keep her face and voice as impassive as possible at that point.

"I take it you have pictures for me to look at," he asked after a while.

Tonks pulled a folder from out of her bag (items with undetectable extension charms were forbidden within Azkaban, so Tonks had needed to bring a bag big enough for her case files) and raised her hand.

"Don't forget to remove any paperclips," Harry warned her seriously, "who knows what I could do with them."

Blushing embarrassedly, she quickly removed any paperclips from the folder and raised her hand again for the document to be levitated over to the cell.

"Interesting," Harry muttered as he looked at the photos of the crime scene. The pictures were all of women in their late thirties to early forties and all of them had the same slender body type, blonde hair, and roughly the same height.

"Seems they were beaten to death," Harry said after he had looked through the folder, skim reading the notes that accompanied each picture. "How did the Auror office pick this up? I don't see any evidence of magic involved."

"Pot luck," Tonks admitted. "Turned out there was an underage wizard within range for the trace to pick up the nearby magic. When we registered the use of the Stunning Spell in an area that only has one muggleborn second year nearby we sent a squad in to find out what was going on.

Whoever it was that did the casting managed to Portkey away before we caught sight of them."

"Must have had detection wards up over the kill site," Harry mused to himself. "Was the last one killed with an AK?"

"Yeah, she had pretty severe injuries, but no sign of anything that could have caused her death."

"Interesting," Harry murmured as he sat down on the bed in his cell.

"So, what are your thoughts?" Tonks pressed.

"I think this is just the sort of thing Hermione would be interested in," Harry replied. "Is she still the only one in the Non-Magical Analysis Office?"

"Not even that," Tonks said, having to force herself to keep calm despite Harry's messing around; she needed his insight on the case, and getting angry at him wouldn't help matters. "The NMA was disbanded shortly after you were put away. Hermione's moved onto full time creature rights lobbying."

"Good for her. I'm sure she'll enjoy moving from second least cared about person in the ministry to the least cared about," Harry chuckled. "Magical folk really couldn't care less about muggles and creatures. I really don't see why she bothers with it all. As for that psychobabble she uses to tout… let's just say good riddance."

"She said that you used a surprisingly large amount of psychological profiling techniques for a psychology illiterate during your time as an Auror," Tonks pointed out.

"She also thinks it's a good idea to free House Elves and give Goblins equal rights with the Ministry," he retorted. "I have good instincts; I don't need Hermione putting her spin on everything."

"Her techniques seemed good enough at helping us ID criminals."

"Then why don't you learn some of it instead of asking me?" Harry snapped.

"Because I'm an Auror, Harry!" Tonks snapped back (keeping him happy be damned!). "I don't use muggle techniques to catch killers. I analyse magical signatures and investigate the suspects style of casting, the spell choices. Hell, I even see what their wand says about them! What I don't do is look at people who are killed by muggle means. That's what the muggle police do. Not me."

"And that sort of lazy Auror work is why so many of Voldemort's followers were such experienced killers! All they had to do was target muggles and the Aurors wouldn't even notice," Harry shot back as he rose from his bed in anger.

"But you did, Harry!" She jumped from her chair too, only just mindful of the rule not to approach the cell bars. "While you were in our Office we managed to close more muggle killing cases than in the past twenty years combined!"

"Well I'm not in the department any more, Tonks!" He screamed at her. "So you'll just have to fucking work it out by yourself!"

"Fine, I will!" she screeched back before about facing and marching off down the corridor.

"Wait!" Harry called after her, just as she was about to pass through the privacy ward. She stopped and grinned to herself for a moment, glad that her last ploy had paid off; Harry always had to have the last word. His (now somewhat questionable) hero complex didn't hurt things either. She turned back to see Harry pacing, once again looking through the case files as he figured out what the pictures were telling him.

"Whoever the suspect is, they are highly intelligent. Making an unauthorised Portkey without being found out requires a high degree of skill and knowledge about secrecy warding, not to mention an understanding of how to circumventing the Ministry's observation procedures. The level of planning it would take to set up a warded room for killing as well as the abducting of the victims also indicates that your suspect is both intelligent and is doing this because they want too, not because they've gone crazy.

"The way in which the suspect kills the victims is very telling as well," Harry continued, still pacing, pictures in hand. "The victim is beaten to death, with bare hands no less. The suspect is making it personal to them, hence the hands on approach. Pardon the pun."

"So they knew the victims beforehand?" Tonks asked, somewhat shocked.

"No. The victims are all physically rather similar. That looks to me like the suspect is using them as a representation for somebody else. Someone that they desperately wish to lash out at, but are too afraid to do so for whatever reason," Harry corrected her, "maybe even takes pleasure in seeing the women's fear and pain as they die."

"Interesting," Tonks mused, "Anything else?"

"Your suspect is a man."

"Knew that already, hand prints kind of gave it away," she deigned a slight smile at having beaten Harry to that.

"All right then," Harry took up the challenge, "he's arrogant, extremely full of himself. The file says these women were all abducted in broad daylight, often in crowded areas. Although the muggle authorities have so far been stumped as to how exactly that happens. He doesn't disguise himself once he's in the kill room, he lets them see his face as he beats them, and hence why he had to AK the last victim when the Aurors arrived on scene. He couldn't let her give them a description."

Tonks waited for a few moments, hoping that Harry would continue. Instead of speaking, he simply stopped his pacing and looked up at her with a raised eyebrow.

"That's all you've got?" she asked.

"For now," he replied with a smirk. "I'll keep the files and look over them some more. Come back this time next week, I may have something for you."

"Isn't it your birthday next week?"

"Yes," he smiled. "Apparently I'm allowed to have cake."

"Hurray for you," Tonks said sarcastically. "Well based on what you've said, we're looking for a Ministry employee who is high up enough to know about how to know how to make Portkeys without being detected. He's frustrated because of whoever this woman is, but is too afraid of her to act on his impulses. He's also smart and arrogant."

"Yeah, I know it describes just about every pureblood who managed to buy their way out of Azkaban after I took down Voldemort," Harry laughed. "But at least it's somewhere to start."

"I'll leave you to those files then," she nodded at him by way of farewell.

"Say hi to Teddy for me," Harry called after her as she walked away. Tonks felt an uncontrollable shiver run down her spine at his words.

…~oOo~…

A.N. There you have it. I hope that has sparked your interest for now.

Please don't forget to leave a REVIEW telling me what you liked/disliked as well as who you think the killer is. Also speculation on to Harry's dark secret in his past would be interesting to read.

Thanks again for reading,

blddmn