Happy New Year! Hope everyone's not too hungover this morning/afternoon/evening... :)

Hermione pulled out the chair, metal legs dragging against the stone floor. The interrogation room was small, just two chairs and a table in a black-tiled room and the air heavy with the metal stink of cleaning spells. Her gaze flicked to the side. And old habit. The walls were charmed to record and display to watching aurors every moment of the interrogation within.

"Good evening, Auror Carrasco."

Nicholas Carrasco was a blond hulk of a wizard. He lounged back in his chair, relaxing to deny the pinch of the securing shield. There was a hatefully smug expression tightening his features as a thick finger tapped his smirking mouth. "So eager to see me today, Granger you had to drag me from my bed? You should've said. Every auror agrees you're in need of...loosening up."

Ice blue eyes flicked over her and the familiar knot of tension in her flesh flared. She shoved it back. Harry himself had dragged the unrepentant wizard from his bed. Carrasco hadn't even tried to hide. He obviously saw it as Abernathy's word against his, and as a Senior Auror, he believed his view of events would be taken as truth.

The bastard didn't know about Severus' new serum. And that thought ticked a smile up at the corner of her mouth.

She had him.

Something flickered in Carrasco's eyes. Had her smile unsettled him? Good. Fucker.

Hermione sat and smoothed a hand over her robes. A swirl of magic opened her file. "You are charged with cursing and attacking Apprentice Auror, Hortensia Abernathy." She looked up. "For using a Tactus curse, the minimum mandatory sentence is ten years." Her smile was sure and cool. "You won't escape this charge."

The auror huffed a laugh. "You're scraping the bottom of the cauldron, Granger. Hortensia is a sweet little tease. She's been caught fooling around with a Senior Auror and has panicked." He shook his head. "And trying to pin a tactus on me? Please…"

Hermione ignored his attempts to explain his crime away as a lover's tiff. "In a case of alleged assault, the use of veritaserum is mandated."

Carrasco's eyes gleamed. "I understand."

A door melted into the flatness of the tiled wall behind the auror. It opened on a slow creak and Severus Snape flowed into the room. Warmth bloomed through Hermione's chest, the sharp edge of her headache easing back. "Master Snape, please administer the correct dose."

His face impassive, Severus tilted the auror's head back with long, pale fingers. The tiny ampule of enhanced serum gleamed in the magical light of the interrogation room. Hermione's heart thudded. She would finally get the monster thrown out of the Auror Department. Finally.

Carrasco opened his mouth without prompting, sure that he would escape the effects of the potion as he had many times before. A single, fat drop landed on his tongue and Severus tapped the other wizard's jaw up. The auror swallowed in reflex.

A cold smile touched Severus' mouth and he stepped back. But he didn't leave.

Hermione sat forward. "Please state your full name."

"Nicholas Pluvius Carrasco."

There was still that smug turn to his voice. He didn't know his world was about to end.

"Did you curse Apprentice Hortensia Abernathy?"

"Yes."

Shock smashed across the auror's face and he jerked against the shield. It flared and cut hard into his flesh, reacting to his sudden movement. Severus dropped a heavy hand on the wizard's shoulder and shoved him back into his seat. Hard.

Hermione looked to him, and Severus stepped away again with a polite nod. She kept her own smug smile from her face. "Why did you curse her?"

Carrasco's mouth thinned, straining white as he battled the power of the potion demanding the truth from him. "I wanted her." He slapped a hand to his mouth, but it jerked away. He had to reveal all. Clearly and succinctly. "Wanted to fuck her. Wanted her for myself. Just me."

His neck bulged, skin mottling as he fought to rail against Hermione. But he could only answer her questions…and offer nothing else. Severus' changes to the potion were pure genius. But then that should be a given.

"Which curse did you use?"

The auror squirmed in his chair, the metal legs grinding against the floor. He knew this would seal his fate and he fought it. "Ig…Ignis Tactus."

Hermione frowned. She'd never heard of such a curse. It translated as Burning Touch. She looked to Severus and there was a hard light in his eyes. So he knew of it… Still, she needed the confession from the wizard before her. "And what does this curse do?"

Carrasco slumped in his seat, the fight running from him. He'd bought himself ten years in Azkaban with his use of a tactus curse. There was little point in tearing himself up in denying the truth now. "It's dark magic. Cast, it marks the witch or wizard as bound to the flesh of their soul-mate. Only their soul-mate can ease the fire in their blood."

Hermione stared at him in disbelief. "And you believed that you –you?— were Apprentice Abernathy's soul-mate?"

He glared at her. "Yes."

"Have you used it on anyone else?"

Something slid through his eyes. A cold derision. "No."

Did he think he deserved someone as bright and beautiful as Abernathy? With his sense of superiority, of privilege and entitlement, there was little doubt he did. And now all that privilege could keep him warm in a nice little Azkaban cell.

But this spell wasn't widely known. He hadn't used it more than once, but had others? Hermione had to pin that down and make certain no other witch or wizard had fallen before it.

"Where did you learn of this spell?"

Carrasco's head snapped up. Something flared in his eyes then, a bright wickedness, something so quick that Hermione wasn't prepared as he declared with a sharp grin, "Ronald Bilius Weasley."

Let me know what you think! :)

And I know, Ron bashing... But I'm simply starting the year as I mean to go on... *mwahaha*