'Lovegood and Granger' was what the sign said. It was a polished rectangle of brass, which read in its entirety:

Lovegood and Granger

Auror Office

Investigation and Detection Subsect

Hermione Granger pushed the door open wearily. Inside, an office that would have been spacious but for the paper and paraphernalia was occupied by a blonde young woman, dreamy-eyed and reading the contents of a crisp beige folder. She was sitting on one of the straight-backed chairs behind the cluttered desk, with her feet up on the other.

Luna looked up when Hermione entered, raising an eyebrow as she took in her tired and dishevelled appearance.

'I got your note' the blonde said with the faintest trace of a smile, pulling a crumpled and folded slip of paper from one of her pockets and reading the hasty scrawl aloud. 'Have gone. Am safe, do not worry. Will be back by lunchtime. If not back by lunchtime, may not be safe, still do not worry. Do not follow.' Luna looked up. 'I swear, you're getting as bad as me.' she said, tossing the note onto the desk.

'Stow it, Lovegood' Hermione said, grinning. 'I've been trailing Mundungus Fletcher for eighteen hours straight.'

'Find anything?'

Hermione pushed Luna's feet off of her chair, muttering 'I feel missed' as she wiped footprints off the seat. She sat down, sighing in relief as the weight was taken off her feet.

'No, nothing.' she answered Luna after a moment, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. 'I'm sure he's in on it, we just need to catch him on a delivery.'

'If anyone this side of Switzerland is involved in something as underhand as this, it will be Dung.' put in Luna mildly. 'He has such a refreshing lack of morals. It makes you feel so good about yourself.'

'Hmm.' agreed Hermione. 'It used to be just minor stuff, stolen goods and petty fraud and so on, and then we could just about ignore him. But dragon-hide trafficking is serious business, with or without morals.'

Luna stood up, stretching. 'Well, I'm sure you'll get him eventually. He's certainly our best way into the group, and you know he never could refuse you. Something about your eyes, I believe.'

Hermione snorted. 'Something about my wand between his eyes, you mean.'

Luna gave a dismissive gesture and put Mundungus Fletcher's dragon-hide smuggling out of mind. 'Well, currently we have bigger Streelers to shell.' She gesticulated with the beige folder that she had been reading when Hermione arrived.

'Something came up?' asked Hermione curiously.

Luna nodded confirmation and added; 'Something big. Unexpected. Unprecedented. Inexplic-'

'Oh, just give me the file, not the thesaurus!' cried Hermione exasperatedly. She seized the folder and began to read through it. Her eyebrows rose as she progressed until they threatened to vanish into her fringe, and once she whistled in shock. She got to the bottom and looked up at Luna.

'Let me get this straight.' she said, deceptively calmly. 'Someone murdered an eleven-year-old for their Hogwarts letter?'

'Not quite' replied Luna. 'The letter itself was left charred into illegibility. The child…'

'Was left with half their head on the floor.' finished Hermione weakly. 'Family?'

'Muggles. It's possible that this is some new pure-blood extremist group, but we really don't have enough to go on yet.'

'It would take a really nasty pure-blood to try and punish muggle-borns for the act of receiving a Hogwarts letter.' Said Hermione slightly disbelievingly.

'Or they could be attempting to lower the amount of muggle-borns in society by preventing them ever reaching the magical world.' Luna pointed out.

'Only someone completely insane would try and do that' frowned Hermione. She sighed. 'Well, at any rate we should probably take a look at the scene and the victim. When did you get the folder?'

'All of ten minutes before you got here.' Replied Luna. 'So the scene should still be relatively undisturbed. We could even masquerade as muggle police if we get there quickly enough.'

Hermione nodded and groaned quietly as she stood up. 'Well, we'd best be off then'.

Luna frowned at her 'Do you want me to take this one? You have been trailing Dung for eighteen hours. You're no use to me if you're nodding off on your feet.'

'Nonsense' replied Hermione sharply, waving her hand in impatience. 'A refreshing charm and a cup of coffee and I'll be fit and ready for duty.'

They kissed, just a quick peck, and left one after the other to prepare for visiting the home of a murder.

Ω

The child, Ethan Cooper, was very dead. It would be hard to find someone more dead if you tried. Hermione and Luna, dressed in grey suits and long coats, stood in the doorway to his first-floor room, looking at the scene intently, taking in all the details. The mother had let them in, reassured by Luna's comment of 'Plainclothes police, Ma'am. Special Investigations.' She, a thin, greying woman of forty or so, hung back a few paces anxiously, watching the two detectives.

'Well, he died quickly at least.' said Hermione to Luna in an undertone. 'I can't check for magical activity with the mother peering over our shoulders, how about you take her into a different room and find out anything she knows. Try and establish a motive. I'll keep on here.'

Luna nodded. It was a common tactic between them. Luna was both very insightful and very good at hiding it. She could find out someone's life story before they realised she knew their name. She also had a special aptitude for calming and comforting people in shock. Hermione used to joke that if she ever got tired of investigating, she could get a job as a therapist. She took Mrs. Cooper by the arm, saying quiet comments in her soft, lyrical voice and led her down the stairs.

Hermione checked the coast was clear of muggles before moving further into the room. She pulled her wand out of her coat and poked at the ashes of the acceptance letter on the desk, muttering to herself. She nodded in satisfaction, carefully sweeping some of the ashes into a small envelope and sealing it before straightening up. She checked the window and the lock and handle of the door before kneeling down to examine the body.

Carefully, and with meticulous attention to detail, she studied the position he lay in, felt whether rigor mortis had set in yet, and examined the cut severing his head into two pieces. She would have looked at the expression on his face, but there wasn't much left of it. Finally, she muttered a few incantations over the body, tilted her head slightly as she considered the results, and with one last look, left down the stairs again.

I've wanted to do something with a Luna/Hermione pairing for a while now, just because they complement each other so well. And also I always thought there needed to be a part of the auror office that solved crimes, rather than just hunting known death eaters or doing police work (necessary as that is). So I combined them, and suddenly you have the best crime-solving duo since Holmes and Watson.

I'll try to update this fairly frequently, but I won't make any promises because I'm always up to my neck in work (so we'll see how well that works out).

Toodle-pip!