CHAPTER TWO:
Headlong
Hermione groaned into her hands, running her fingers through her now disheveled brown curls. This gala benefit was driving her up the wall. It wasn't that she was regretting her decision to choose a new project – on the contrary, she was incredibly passionate about encouraging and fostering women in government. No. The issue was that colour schemes, floral arrangements and place settings were not amongst her diverse skill set. She was a woman of intellect and passion for pursuing justice. She was not a party planner. She had no patience for it.
She stared blankly at the menu before her. Some thirty appetizers, mains and desserts gazed back at her. She had been tasked by the caterer to select each of the courses. How was she to know whether the invitees preferred duck confit or filet mignon? She didn't want to be held accountable for an unwisely selected meal.
She shoved the menu aside impatiently. It would have to wait. At the moment, she was severely lacking in motivation. On top of deciding how to go about conducting her potential 'serial killer' murder investigation, she was also a wreck with the campaign. She had raised one-hundred and eighty thousand galleons for the scholarship fund out of a four-hundred thousand galleon goal. The future of funding a scholarship with longevity was looking grimmer and grimmer. The money she had raised would likely last her several years – a decade or so at most, she had calculated. But she had wanted something more substantial – a scholarship fund for witches pursuing politics that would continue to support women for another four decades, or however long it took to achieve the equality she was striving for.
The gala was less than three weeks away. It was highly improbable (if not completely impossible) to raise that kind of money in time. If there was one thing Hermione could not tolerate, it was failure. She had been over-ambitious with this pursuit. She had set her own bar way too high and she was going to royally flop.
"Stupid. Stupid," she muttered, lightly smacking her forehead with the heels of her palms. She checked the time on the clock sitting atop her desk. Nearly two. This was turning out to be the longest day.
She directed her attention back to the case file. Her eyes scanned the profiles of the women twice more. Pretty young women around her own age. Full of potential. Full of life. And now… She shook her head. The injustice of their senseless deaths irked her to no end. She and Harry had gone around the previous week interviewing the latest victim's family and closest friends. They hadn't turned up much. No evident enemies. No psychotic ex-boyfriends. Just a happy woman whose life was cruelly cut short.
Just then the door to her office burst open. Harry appeared, flushed and upset. He was breathing heavily, as though he had run the entire way to her office. Hermione was out of her seat a second later, crossing the room towards him.
"What is it? What's happened, Harry?"
"There's been another murder." Hermione's eyes widened. "You're going to want in on this one."
They arrived in the main lobby of the Ministry, and Hermione's heart was beating loudly and erratically in her chest, banging against her ribcage. Not another one. Resentment swelled in her heart. Resentment and anger. She had failed another woman. But it would be the last time. She would try harder. She had to. She wouldn't rest until this murderer was behind bars. She should never have waited for Kingsley's approval, she should have upped her game. Maybe if she had, this murder would have never happened.
Hermione allowed Harry to lead her to the floo stations in the lobby. She absently noted that members of the press still milled about, hoping for an interview with one of the Dream Team's members. She didn't think about them, though. Her mind had a single focus: to find a serial killer and put the bastard in a barren cell deep in the cold, dank bowels of Azkaban Prison for the rest of his miserable sodding life.
When the pair arrived at the scene, the glamour had already been cast over the site. Hermione approached the victim with slow, prudent steps. She took notes of the gruesome scene: a brunette, pale, average height; bruises and cuts visible on body; severe bruising around her throat indicating strangulation. A blanket had been laid across her naked body for the sake of decency. Another rape as well, it seemed.
Hermione looked away, rubbing her eyes wearily. It was déja vue. She had seen this all before. She refused to witness it again. If Kingsley needed more proof to indicate that they had a serial killer on the loose, then he was madder than a hatter. Hermione wouldn't stand for it.
Harry had come up beside her at some point. His strong grip on her shoulder anchored her back to earth.
"How are you holding up?" he asked quietly, with concern.
Hermione licked her lips. "Not well. I'm pissed, Harry. Beyond pissed. It's my fault."
Harry turned her around to face him. "Stop that. It's not your fault."
"It's my case. It's my responsibility."
"You haven't stopped working on this case. It's been consuming you for weeks. You've hardly slept."
"None of that matters. None of it. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't clever enough this time. I let her down." Hermione's voice cracked with emotion. She coughed quickly to cover it up.
Turning away from Harry, she scanned the children's park that they were currently standing in. There was a series of tennis courts beside them. Her body stiffened all of a sudden as a powerful memory struck her full force, surging to the forefront of her muddled brain.
There she was, as a little girl, some seven or eight years old, racing across the tennis court, eagerly swatting bright yellow balls back over the net to her attentive father. Another image flashed behind her eyes, one of her with a children's team, playing tennis against other youngsters her age as they improved their tennis-playing techniques.
Her face paled. Her body went cold all of a sudden.
"What is it? Are you okay?"
Hermione hardly registered Harry's voice.
"I've been here before."
"What?"
Hermione's eyes scanned the tennis courts, now faded from years of use. But it was the same, all right. She unconsciously began to step across the grass towards the courts, her body carrying her as if of its own volition. Something fluttered in the corner of her eye. There. A yellow ribbon tied to the barbed fence separating the tennis courts from the park. As if being reeled in by some invisible force, Hermione glided towards it, Harry close by her side.
"I used to come here as a little girl…" She reached for the ribbon, gently tugging it loose. It fell into her palms. Another flash of memory struck her, this time of her mother tying her hair up with a pretty yellow ribbon on her first day of primary school. The same ribbon that she now held in her hand, though slightly faded with age.
She began to quake inside, overcome all at once by fear, confusion, helplessness. Her gaze went unseeing as she recalled the last place she had seen the ribbon – in a box of souvenirs and sentimental items from her childhood that she had stored away in her parents' attic. Her blood ran cold.
"Hermione. Talk to me. What's going on?"
Harry's authoritative voice woke her from her increasingly terrifying thoughts.
She slowly wheeled around to face him, face pale and drawn. "This is mine. I used to wear it in my hair when I was little. It was my favourite ribbon."
Harry frowned, upset by this. "And what about this park? You said that you've been here?"
Hermione nodded. "The tennis courts. I was part of a children's team from the age of seven to ten. My parents would take me here every Saturday for practices and tournaments. We used to live in the neighbourhood." She paused, gazing down at the yellow ribbon. A particularly strong breeze caught it, sending it aflutter in her palm. She quickly closed her fingers over it, keeping it from flying away. A small section was still sticking out and flickering in the wind. It was then that she glimpsed something dark on the opposite side. Wary, she turned the ribbon over in her palm. Harry pressed in behind her, peering over her shoulder.
Words. There were words scrawled neatly across it in permanent marker.
Do you understand the game yet? Hermione's blood went ice cold.
"Do you understand the game yet?" Harry repeated. He frowned. "What does it mean?"
Hermione's trembling hand clenched into a fist around the ribbon. "It means that whoever we're dealing with knows that I'm on the case. They're trying to scare me."
Harry's face lined with worry. "That's sick."
Hermione nodded. The world seemed to blur around her as her nerves and anxiety mounted to a new high. She had to move. There was too much to do. "I need to speak with Kingsley, and then I need to check up on my folks."
Harry looked ill at ease. "Do you want me to come with you? You're not looking so well…"
"No. No. I'm fine. Just check up on my parents and tell them I'll come around later. I have to go, Harry." With that, she apparated straight to the Ministry. She bolted to the lifts, running by the press who gave the frantic woman funny looks. She reached Kingsley's office demanding entrance, but the receptionist told her the Minister didn't have any appointments scheduled. Hermione threatened to hex her something terrible and the mousy woman protested no further.
Kingsley appeared surprised at Hermione's unexpected call – more like abrupt entrance. She ran him through the murder, leaving no detail out. "Are you convinced yet?" she demanded, leaning over his desk, hands firmly planted on the cool surface. She barely managed to keep her anger in line. Her body was vibrating with fury by now.
Kingsley was silent for a thoughtful moment. "Yes. I believe I am. You are right, Miss Granger. We'll have to treat this matter with sensitivity. It is not my intent to rouse fear amidst the public, but they should know that there are dangers that threaten their safety."
Hermione nodded. "Thank you."
"I'll have the Daily Prophet publish an official notice of this in tomorrow's paper. We govern the Wizarding World with transparency. People have a right to know of the perils that exist."
"I couldn't agree more," Hermione conceded. The anger had faded now, but in the absence of the heated emotion rose ice cold terror. Someone was trying to scare her and they had succeeded. Somehow they had gotten into her parents' home and stolen that ribbon. The knowledge that some hostile stranger had gotten into her mum and dad's home left her trembling with wrath and fear.
"There's something else…" Kingsley observed.
Hermione bit her lip and passed him the ribbon. She quickly explained the situation.
"Whoever left it there is trying to scare me. They're trying to get me off their case."
"This is a personal attack, Miss Granger. If you wish to step down…" he began.
"No!" she shouted, then took a deep, calming breath. "No. I can handle this guy. It's my case and I'll see it through."
"Very well, then." Kingsley rose with finality. "I will make the appropriate arrangements."
Head high, Hermione left the Minister's office not long after. When she had stridden out of sight of the mousy receptionist, she crumpled against the wall, clinging to it for support.
Her knees were shaking beneath her, hands clammy. Her breathing was roughly expelling from her mouth, uneven and painful. Keep it together, girl, she thought sternly. Hold it together. She had to get to her parents' house. She had to see them with her own eyes and ascertain their safety. If anything had happened to them she'd surely perish from guilt.
Hermione caught her breath, legs shaking unsteadily beneath her, and dashed to the lift. It was closing as she rounded the corner.
"Hold it, please!" she called, hurrying along.
A pale hand nimbly caught the doors, leaving just enough of a gap for her to slide neatly between them. "Thanks," she said, cursing the tremor in her voice.
"You're welcome."
Her head was so full of hectic thoughts and her body was being traitorously unsteady that she hardly bothered to glance at the man who had held the lift for her. So consumed was she by the fears rolling within her head and the anxiousness twisting her stomach, that she didn't consider how terribly familiar his low, velveteen drawl was.
"You should be more attentive to your surroundings, Granger. Survival 101."
Hermione's distracted gaze shot up then, some six feet up to be exact. Her brown eyes clashed with unyielding silver. Her body instinctively tensed.
"Malfoy."
His thin lips curled into a smirk. "It's lovely to see you too, Granger. You haven't changed one bit, I see. Charming as ever."
"Piss off."
"So the cat still has claws."
Hermione glowered at him. Seeing him up close, she realized that two years abroad had changed him. He looked more rugged than she remembered, less polished, less greasy. She had never really noticed his strong, lean upper body. He wasn't as gaunt as he used to be either. He was rougher-looking, les polished, with short blond scruff lining his jaw. He had let himself go – compared to Malfoy standards, that is. She thought, rather bitterly, that the new look rather became him.
She looked away from him. Her glowering was making her light-headed. She gripped the safety bar that ran along the lift's wall, struggling to keep her balance as the precarious box twisted and turned to and fro.
"Merlin, help me," she muttered under her breath as the small lift began to swirl before her eyes. She blinked rapidly, attempting to clear her swimming vision – to no avail.
"Come again, Granger? Mumbling doesn't become you."
She ignored him. It was easier than rising to the bait of his affronts. She desperately needed to get out of there. Her body was flushing on the outside with anxiety and unease, but her insides were ice cold, numbed with fear for her parents and the situation that she had unwittingly put them in. She knew that Harry would have contacted her if anything was awry at home, but she was still sick with worry.
The lift took a particularly nasty drop just then she state went over the edge. The world was out of focus and off balance around her. She floor seemed to rise up to meet her, the safety bar slipping out of her cold, limp fingers. Her face would have become intimately acquainted with the floor had not two assured hands gripped her biceps, catching her before she could fall. Consciousness evaded her for a brief second, then her head snapped back, eyelids fluttering and just as quickly she regained her senses about her.
Awareness rushed back to her in full force. Her vision cleared and she found herself a foot away from Draco Malfoy, his silver eyes narrowed locked on her face, his hands tightly gripping her arms. The careful mask of disdain that he always wore had slipped away to reveal an expression of doubt.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, rather coarsely. He really had no bedside manner, she thought.
Hermione ran her tongue along her lips. She tried to speak words, but her mouth was suddenly dry as ash. He shook her lightly. It was enough to knock the sense back into her. She shoved his hands away, stumbled, but righted herself. She met his pointed gaze with her fierce, albeit somewhat hazy, brown orbs.
"Nothing. Just… nothing," she bit out. They were almost at the lobby. Soon she'd be free of him.
"Nothing?" he chortled. "Well, you certainly play the part of the swooning damsel convincingly."
Hermione's pride flared at that. "I am not a swooning damsel."
Malfoy shrugged, nonchalant. "Could have fooled me, princess."
She was already feeling volatile, and now, to have to listen to his snide voice and rude comments snapped the last nerve of calm she had left.
"You're a real prick, Malfoy." She rounded on him, fury unchecked. "You waltz back into the Ministry like some fallen angel redeemed, and act as if you're now somehow entitled to belittle everyone else. Well you're not. That's not how life works. One noble deed doesn't redeem a years of cruelty, and being the celebrity of the hour certainly doesn't grant you the right to talk down to everyone else. So you can just take your unwarranted invectives and shove them up your tight arse!" she snapped acerbically.
Brown clashed with silver for a long moment. The lift hit the lobby, jerking them both. Hermione turned away, but Malfoy caught her wrist, spinning her back around to face him. Her heart sped up when she beheld the livid expression on his face. He parted his lips to retaliate, or so she assumed, but the doors opened and a moment later an onslaught of shouts echoed around them.
The press, spotting the newest celebrity hero, surged towards them like a rabid pack of dogs. Malfoy appeared momentarily caught off guard. Hermione seized the opportunity to tear her arm away from him. She bolted through the crowd of reporters, determined to finally get to her parents' home and as far away from Malfoy and the Ministry as possible.
.cppw.
"And you're certain that you didn't have any strangers over?" she demanded, insistent.
Hermione sat in the cozy cottage living room with her mother, Jane Granger, and father, Peter Granger. They were a well-suited couple. They complemented each other in the best possible way. Hermione envied how well their marriage had turned out. The world was full of unhappy couples divorcing and it was nice to know that her parents had stuck it out and made it work.
"No. Your dad's sister came over last week," Jane said, her brows furrowing as she wracked her memory.
Hermione had been relieved when her parents had answered the door, assuring her that Harry had indeed come to check up on them. She had had multiple worse case scenarios running around through her head until the moment they had opened their front door to her. But those thoughts had quickly been replaced with the task at hand.
"Actually," her dad started, "we did have that plumbing issue. You remember, Jane?"
Jane's eyes widened. "Oh! Why, yes. Yes, of course." She turned back to Hermione. "The sinks in the master bathroom were clogged something terrible. When was that, darling?"
Peter paused to think. "Two weeks ago, I think."
Her parents both turned to look at her again, inquiring.
Jane patted Hermione's knee comfortingly, easily able to detect her daughter's distress. "Does that answer your question, dear?"
Hermione nodded. "Can you tell me what he looked like?"
Peter shrugged. "Couldn't really say. We left him to his own devices. An average looking fellow, I guess. I'm sorry, sweetheart, that we can't be of more help to you."
Hermione shook her head. "That's all right. Do you mind if I take a quick look around?"
Jane gestured her away. "Go ahead. I'll whip us up some dinner. Why don't you spend the night? You don't seem yourself and I'd hate for you to be on your own."
After much insistence on her parents' behalf, Hermione conceded. She apparated to her flat, filled up a grumpy Crookshanks' dish of food, and swiftly returned. She made her way upstairs, pulling down the attic stairs. She mounted them, stepping into the dusty attic. It didn't take long for her to find the small cardboard box containing her sentimental souvenirs. Her name was written neatly across it in black permanent marker.
She skimmed through its contents with deft fingers. Everything appeared to be in place – baby shoes, her favourite nursery rhyme book, a good-luck rock from her childhood, some report cards, tests, papers, family photos, a few drawings – nothing seemed amiss. The only thing missing was the yellow ribbon.
The thought that some sadistic serial killer had been in her parents' home and touched her things left her queasy. She shut the box and busied herself with reinforcing the wards around the house. She took an hour to do so, making them as professional and secure as possible.
She was quiet throughout dinner, too exhausted to really make conversation. By eight o'clock she had excused herself and promptly collapsed on her childhood bed, surrounded by pale lilac walls and a wispy canopy overhead. She felt like a child again—safe and secure. In a matter of minutes she had fallen into a deep, uninterrupted sleep; the best sleep she'd had in a month.
I know we've only glimpsed Draco in this chapter, but from here on out he'll be featuring more prominently. I also intend to slowly up the intensity of the plot. In any case, thanks to those who've been reading so far, hope you enjoyed it :)
Charley
