Authors note: So another update in less than 24 hours! This is to make up for the delay on the second chapter. Initially, I intended on this story to be quite short; maybe10-12 chapters, but it could go for longer… Still not sure, but we'll see! This chapter is a little more exciting, although the next chapter will definitely have more dramione moments. I think I'm still setting the story up a bit. You'll get an interlude into the baddies in the next chapter too, so be prepared! Anyway, onwards with the story! x
Chapter 3: Seek and you shall find
As guilty as Hermione felt for sticking Katie Bell and Roger Davis together to do research, she felt it necessary to be out in the field, even if it was with Malfoy. Currently, they were back in Anthony's apartment, which hadn't been touched since they first discovered that he was missing. Looking around, she felt a sudden urge to clean up, until she saw the bloody handprints on the kitchen walls. She suppressed the urged to gag, but clearly Malfoy had seen her reaction, judging by the way he was sneering at her as he walked past.
"You shouldn't be here." He drawled as he crouched down and waved his wand slowly over the prints.
Huffing, she made her way over to him, kicking his left shoe. "You shouldn't even be on this case." She replied with disdain.
He looked over his left shoulder up at her and glared. "I could say the same for you. Look at you; this is your fiancé's blood and you look like you're about to pass out. How you survived the War, I have no clue—"
"It's because it's my fiancé's blood that I feel uneasy—"
"So you admit it; you can't handle this case?" He interjected, smirking at her.
Glaring back down at him, she shot, "I never said that."
"Your words, not mine." He got back up and conjured a piece of parchment. Holding his wand to it, the tip began to glow and words began to appear on the parchment. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "According to the age of the blood, this happened around 8pm on the Friday. Where were you then?" he asked her without really looking at her.
"I was having dinner with Ginny."
He nodded, and looked back at the wall. "Did he mention whether he was going to have visitors? A meeting, perhaps?"
She shook her head slowly, trying to remember if he had mentioned anything. "No… I don't think so. In fact, the only thing he did mention was that he was going to be working late."
"Later than 8pm?"
"Yeah. I was supposed to come back to here after dinner, but he'd owled me and told me that he wasn't going to be home until much later and told he just to head back to mine. We rescheduled."
"Does he normally reschedule?"
That seemed like a stupid question. "If needed," she replied with a tone that meant 'obviously, "but I suppose… this one seemed out of the blue…"
He turned his head back to her with a questioning look. She spoke before he did. "You think he rescheduled because the kidnapper told him to."
He nodded gravely. "It's a possibility. He most likely knew who his kidnapper was."
"Maybe he came with him through the Floo network."
"There'd be a record of it."
"So… this person definitely Apparated in. But no one else is supposed to have access through the ward but me."
"Unless there was something Goldstein wasn't telling you."
"…What do you mean, Malfoy."
He shrugged, looking away from her. "Well, I'm just saying; Goldstein is a very sought-after man, in and out of the Ministry."
The audacity this man has! "If you're insinuating that he's been cheating on me—"
"I'm just scoping the possibilities. Perhaps it was a jealous lover who wasn't happy with your engagement," he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, "its quite possible. He's rather friendly with the women around the office—"
"Draco, honestly, I don't think this is the time to rile Granger up." A low and steady voice rounded the corner of the kitchen. Hermione jumped slightly. Blaise Zabini rarely ever said a word; he was very much the dark and silent type. He was leaning on frame of the doorway, watching them with a hint of amusement touching his golden-caramel eyes. He exuded sexual confidence, like a deadly but graceful panther. He was a around the same height as Malfoy (which meant they towered over Hermione's petite frame) but Malfoy was slightly leaner than him.
Malfoy scoffed. "I'm not trying to. I'm merely being logical."
"You mean you're being an asshole." Hermione shot back, scowling.
Malfoy glared back as Zabini made his way into the kitchen with a dark chuckle. "Some things never change. Granger, Davis has put together some information on Goldstein from the Friday he went missing. Seems as though he hadn't been in his office since 3pm that same day."
"What?" But he'd told her… No, there had to be some other explanation. "Maybe he took a longer lunch—"
"Zabini just said—"
"I know what he said, Malfoy. It just doesn't make sense!" She let out a frustrated cry as she buried her face into her hands. She could feel the tears threatening to spill over. Great, now I feel like crying?! She thought ruefully. She wouldn't let these two Slytherins see her at her weakest. But there was just no way Anthony couldn't have been having an affair.
Could he have…?
"Okay so, what we do know is that Goldstein left the office at 3pm, and was attacked at 8pm. We need to figure out where he was in between those hours."
Hermione's head began whirling around again, and she felt herself sway. Before she knew it, she was in the arms of someone else. Someone familiar…
"'Mione! Are you okay?" Ron Weasley's concerned voice sounded distant, but she could feel his breathe puncturing the air around her face. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear Malfoy's annoyed growl.
"Ron… What in the world—"
"I'm Zabini's partner, remember? Lucky I came into the kitchen on time; highly doubt any one of these Slytherin bastards would have helped you."
"I'm wounded, Weasley."
"Fuck off, Zabini."
Ron helped her to her feet, still unsure of whether it was okay to let go of her. She gave him a gracious smile, hopefully letting him know that she was going to be fine. After a few moments, he hesitantly let her go.
"I don't know if you should be on this case, Hermione—"
"Oh, not you too, Ron."
His face reddened. "Look at you! You look so pale and you clearly can't keep it together. I'll tell Harry that—"
"There's no need to tell Harry anything." Hermione warned, finally feeling like herself. That was one of the good qualities about Ron; her being frustrated with him always put her in a position where she had to constantly be thinking, even if it brought out an ugly side of her. It was also one of the reasons why it didn't work out when they dated. They were never on the same page.
She looked to her right to see Malfoy smirking down at her. "I'll hear none of it from you either—or you, for that matter," she looked pointedly at Zabini, who suddenly looked surprised, "I'm here and that's final."
She looked away from the three men and waved her wand in the air. Suddenly faint glowing lines appeared in the air, leading out the doorway and into the living room, all in different colours of red, yellow and blue. The glowing lines had a black aura around them, and as Hermione followed them out into the living room, they felt cold to work through. She shivered, feeling the goosebumps rise on her arms as she found remnants of the Death Eaters mark still plastered on the glass door of the balcony.
But it wasn't the Death Eater mark that made her blood roar in her ears. It was the message underneath.
"How did you miss this when you came here the first time, Draco?" Zabini asked from behind her. Of course, Malfoy had the answer.
"It was meant for her. Obviously the only one who could activate it would be Granger."
Hermione felt a hand makes its way around her (no doubt, it was Ron), but she underneath the same hand that was supposed to be comforting her, she could feel the words that were scarred into her flesh burning under the touch.
It did nothing but make her feel even more helpless as she muttered the message out loud, barely any louder than a whisper.
"We're coming for you, Mud…Mudbl—" she couldn't finish the sentence; she'd finally let the tears fall.
"Derrick."
"Malfoy."
The former Slytherins stared at each other from opposite sides of the jail cell, one grinning maniacally and the other with a hard line set on his mouth. Peregrine Derrick had been captured along with three other Death Eaters on the outskirts of Muggle London, torturing Muggleborn families who had decided to stay away from Wizarding Society after The War. It had happened three days after their investigation at Goldstein's apartment, leaving Harry group of Aurors with even more work.
Hermione, Harry and Ron watched Malfoy and Zabini from a corner further away from the cell Peregrine was in. It was certainly interesting to see all three men in the same room, once comrades in the house of Slytherin, turned enemies.
Hermione vaguely wondered how Malfoy and Zabini felt about it.
Peregrine's eyes flickered towards her, and his grin widened. "How can you both stand it?" he asked, sounding amused.
Malfoy's eyes narrowed, but he refused to respond. Zabini continued to stare on, but his normally bored expression seemed somewhat more intense than usual. Peregrine took this as a sign to reiterate what he had asked.
"How can you stand to be breathing the same air as that—" he cocked his head to Hermione, and spat with more malice, "Mudblood?"
She firmly stood her ground, not wanting to let the Death Eater see that his jab had affected her. But Ron was not in the same mind frame. "You filthy Death Eater piece of shit, I'll kill you—!"
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, reaching over to restrain him, but Harry had already beaten her to it.
"What do you know about the Goldstein kidnapping?" Malfoy's voice cut into the tension, creating a new, intimidating aura in the holding room. Harry went back to writing his notes once Ron seemed 'calmer'.
Peregrine went back to grinning at Draco. His left eye was twitching slightly and his clammy hands were gripping the bars of his cell so tightly that the whites of knuckles were showing. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, Malfoy. We're bringing him back, we are! Yes, we are—and when he comes back, we'll have done all the work for him! He'll be so proud of us—so proud of us, he'll be—" abruptly, he began laughing madly, throwing his head back. The decay of his teeth was clearly visible by the way his mouth had stretched open.
He settled back down, then eyes each and every one of them. "We'll have wiped out the earth of all this filth; Mudbloods, Muggles and Blood Traitors alike. You'll all be dead. Filthy, the lot of you. Malfoy, Zabini," he shot the two men a menacing look, "Your parents would be rolling around in their graves. A couple of fucking blood traitors," he tutted, then his gaze slowly made its way back to Hermione, leering at her in a very inappropriate way. "Then again, if all Mudbloods looked like she does, perhaps they would be turned into sex slaves in the new world—"
It was then that Ron sent a Stinging Jinx at Peregrine's hands. "You're fucking disgusting. If you ever lay a hand on Hermione—"
"Weasley, calm the fuck down." Malfoy barked, only slightly moving his head in Ron's direction. Hermione could almost see the frustration breaking out of Malfoy's otherwise cool demeanor. He turned back to Peregrine, who had let go of the bars and back away into the corner of his cell, glaring at them all and clutching his swelling hands.
"Voldemort—"
"Do not speak his name, you filthy blood traitor!"
"—is not coming back. It's not possible. Potter took care of that."
"He promised us he would be! You know nothing of the Dark Lord's power!"
Pause. "Is this the same person who kidnapped Goldstein?"
Peregrine clearly had spoken too much. So he refused to speak, and instead chose to glare at his former housemate.
"We found a message meant for Granger at Goldstein's apartment. What do you intend on doing with her?"
Still nothing.
"What does capturing Granger mean to you?"
Absolute silence.
Malfoy began tugging at his sleeves absentmindedly, as if trying to fix the kinks that clearly weren't there. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Derrick, for the sake of being acquaintances back at Hogwarts, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either give us the information that we want and serve your sentence in a rehabilitation center, or… you can go straight to Azkaban and the Dementors can have their way with you."
This seemed to have surprised Peregrine for a split second before his face turned back into the malicious glare. "I care not for comforts; send me to Azkaban. You'll all soon meet your fate." He spat as he scratched at his swelling hands.
Hermione noticed this to be a sign of anxiety, and had only noticed that he was scratching because he had broken the skin of his knuckles and made them bleed. Like a bloody drug addict. She thought. Addicted to the high of using Dark Magic…
"Azkaban it is." Malfoy muttered as he made his way towards the exit, but stopped at the sound of Peregrine's voice.
"He feels betrayed, Malfoy. He's very angry with you."
The blond turned around. "Who is?"
The same creepy smile that had been on Peregrine' s face reappeared. "No fun in spoiling the surprise! Especially when the Mudblood over there is going to be the guest of honor," he jerked his head over to Hermione, "once we kill her, the whole world will understand that Muggles and Mudbloods alike are only good for two things: serving Purebloods and dying."
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