Chapter Seven: Gathering Evidence

"Auror Brown to see you, Madam Weasley," Hermione looked up.

"Thank you, Steven," she said to her secretary. "Come in, Auror Brown. I'm just finishing off these notes for Head Auror Potter.

"Of course, Madam Weasley," Lavender replied, mimicking Hermione's professional tone. "Take your time." The door closed behind Steven, and Lavender rushed over to Hermione. "Well?" she asked hurriedly, perching on the edge of the desk.

"I've got news," Hermione said, casting a Muffliato charm on the door just to be safe. They had agreed yesterday to keep their discoveries to themselves – they both understood that they couldn't make this an official investigation using the Auror Office until they had more proof of their suspicions. In the meantime, whilst they were still searching for news, they had agreed to keep their discoveries strictly between themselves, in case there was someone behind it all, and that person got wind that they were on to them.

"Me, too," said Lavender. "You first."

"I went to see Angelina last night—just a personal visit and nothing to do with this whole thing—but just as I was arriving, Katie was leaving. She'd brought her son, Evan, to visit Angelina and George and their daughter," began Hermione. "You know that Katie married—"

"Oliver Wood, everyone knows that," Lavender nodded.

"Right, well, when she gave birth to their first child, something went wrong and, to cut a long story short, Angelina told me that due to the complications, Katie won't be able to have any more children," said Hermione.

"Which means that we can effectively cross her off our list, because she's considered infertile," Lavender said, quickly picking up on what Hermione was insinuating. "If that potion is involved in this—"

"It can't override any existing infertility issues," Hermione finished. "So Katie fits our pattern."

"And so does Dean," Lavender said. "You know he's been seeing Sally-Anne for a couple of years now? He came round last night, coincidentally, and told us that they're expecting their first child. He seems quite surprised by it all; they weren't planning on having a baby quite this early. I mean, it's a happy surprise, but..."

"But still a surprise," Hermione nodded. "It seems a few people who we know who are pregnant are saying that. Did Dean say when Sally-Anne was due?"

"Early January ish," Lavender replied. Hermione's face lit up. "Is that when everyone else is due?" she asked.

"Everyone else that I know of, yes," Hermione said. "It was when I did the conception calculations that first made me suspicious. Everyone who we know is—or was—pregnant seems to have conceived at about the same time. Probably around..." She did some quick mental maths in her head. "Probably around early April ish, I think, give or take two weeks either side. Actually – they were able to give Ginny an exact conception date at one of her appointments, she told me. April the eighth. I'd put money on everyone else who is pregnant conceiving within a month either side of that date."

"Shit," Lavender breathed.

"What?!" Hermione looked up, alarmed. "What is it?"

"Friday the eighth of April," Lavender said. "Ring a bell?" Hermione frowned. "It was the date of the ball!"

"Oh, Merlin," said Hermione.

"Yes," Lavender said significantly. "The ball thrown for all ex-DA and Order members. Merlin's arse!"

"Is there a list of attendees anywhere?" Hermione asked.

"In the Auror Office, for security purposes," Lavender replied. "I'll pick it up in a moment – but I can bet you anything it'll tie in with the list I made yesterday." Hermione nodded.

The younger members of the DA and Order had become sick of the attention they received from the press very quickly. Though Hermione, Ron and Harry bore the brunt of it, everyone else who had fought at the Battle of Hogwarts—and formed part of the resistance at Hogwarts during the year the Carrows had been in charge—had become famous in the wizarding world. About a year after the Battle, in order to combat everyone's annoyance with the press's intrusions, Hermione had come up with an idea: every year, a Ball would be held for the surviving members of the DA and the Order.

They would dress up and pose for photographs, give statements to reporters and generally get together and have a good time in front of the cameras. In return, the press (mostly) left them alone, and didn't intrude on their private lives. She, Harry and Ron proved a bit of an exception, but for all the other so-called "Hogwarts Heroes", this worked quite well. Best of all, all the money that was raised at the function went straight to charities which benefitted people who had been injured in the war, or families of people who had been killed. It had proved very successful, even if she did say so herself.

That year, the Ball had been held at the Ministry—hence the Auror Office providing security—on the eighth of April. "So if someone was to somehow try to use the potion to impregnate all of Dumbledore's Army and the Order," Hermione began.

"That would pretty much be the place to do it," Lavender finished. "All of the Order and DA and Hogwarts Heroes and whatever other rubbish they're calling us in one place at one time...it'd be easy!"

Hermione frowned. "But how? And, more importantly, why?"

Lavender shook her head. "We can worry about that later," she said. "What we need now is that it's affected all the women who attended the Ball."

"We should also find out if the potion has any effect on men, too," Hermione said. "If a man drinks it, but his partner doesn't, then they have sex—does it have the same effect that it would if the woman drank it?"

"Good point," Lavender said. "Right. The Auror Office owes me some time off—it was my intelligence that led them to Yaxley a few weeks ago, so I'm in their good books at the moment."

"And I can persuade Hestia that I should take a half day," Hermione said. "She owes me for the overtime the other day. Is Ron in the office?"

Lavender shook her head. "No—he and Harry have gone to question Yaxley again, poor loves," she replied.

"Good," Hermione said. "I don't have to lie to them."

"They don't know about your suspicions?"

"They know I think it's a weird coincidence that everyone's pregnant at once, but they don't know about the potion and they don't suspect Dark Magic's involved. I mean, I really hope they're right, and we don't get any conclusive results from our investigations, but until we do, I'd like to keep it between us. We don't know what's going on, and all of Ron's family are expecting babies," Hermione said. "It's too personal. And you know what Harry's like with Ginny."

"He'd wrap her in cotton wool if he could," Lavender nodded.

"If she'd let him."

"Yes," chuckled Lavender. "Right. I'll find a copy of the Ball's guest list, you go talk to Hestia. Meet me in the Atrium in ten?"


Professor McGonagall surveyed them at length, then sighed. "Go ahead then, you know where the Hospital Wing is," she said.

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione said politely. "We'll let you know before we leave."

"Very good," said the Headmistress, and the two witches made their way across the Entrance Hall.

"I'm surprised she let us," Hermione muttered to Lavender, once they'd rounded a corner.

"Pfft," said Lavender. "We're her Gryffindor girls. Of course she'd let us!"

"Her Gryffindor girls?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Well, no, to be honest, it's just you," Lavender grinned. "You always were a teacher's pet!" Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but realised Lavender was joking and closed it again, settling for a glare. Lavender looked supremely unthreatened.

They had decided that their first visit should be to Alicia Spinnet. Not only was Alicia an ex-DA member, and had therefore been at the Ball, she was also Hogwarts' new school nurse, having taken over from Madam Pomfrey when she retired a couple of years ago. The two of them had apparated to Hogsmeade, where Hermione had sent a Patronus to Professor McGonagall who had let them in Hogwarts' School Gates.

They wanted to keep their visit as secret and under the radar as possible, and, after giving out the barest details of their problem, the Headmistress had allowed them access to Alicia. They trusted her to understand when things needed to be kept secret, and she hadn't pressed them for details.

It didn't take the two of them long to arrive at the Hospital Wing, where they quickly found Alicia. Fortunately, the Hospital Wing was empty of pupils, and Alicia took them inside the private consulting room. "How can I help?" she asked, a quizzical look on her face.

"Okay, so you know how as a Healer, you have to keep your patients' details a secret?" Lavender began. Alicia nodded. "We need to you keep this even more of a secret."

"O-kay," she said slowly.

Hermione briefly outlined their suspicions, keeping the information as vague as possible. Whilst she trusted Alicia, until they had a concrete case before them, it was best that they kept as few people in the know as possible. Alicia picked up on their urgency, and answered the questions they had as well as she could.

"From what I remember from Healer training, the potion only interacts with female hormones. So men are not going to be affected by the potion at all—at least, not in terms of fertility—unless, for whatever reason, they have a large amount of female hormones in their body, which is very rare," Alicia said. "Having said that, I wouldn't advise men start swilling it down like its pumpkin juice..."

"What are the side effects?" Hermione asked.

"Difficult to say," responded Alicia. "Some women will react very badly to it—but then, some people will react badly to Essence of Dittany or Pepper-Up Potion. You can be allergic to it, same as you can be allergic to anything. However, it does contain quite a potent hormone mix, as well as various other ingredients which, if ingested regularly, can cause permanent damage. It's one of the reasons its use is so tightly controlled."

"Right, thank you for that," Lavender nodded, jotting a few things down. "And now—sorry for the personal nature of this, but you understand why we've got to ask it—the DA Ball, on the eighth of April. Did you go with anyone, or did you have sex with anyone around that date?"

"You think someone's spiked the drinks or something with the pregnancy potion?" Alicia asked. The two other women nodded, and she whistled through her teeth. "Merlin. Sorry to disappoint though—I haven't, ah, been with anyone since I split up with my boyfriend in February. That was a nice Valentine's gift..."

Hermione winced sympathetically, but got to her feet. "Thanks for telling us that, Alicia," she said. "It actually aids our investigation: if you're not with anyone—or weren't at the time—you shouldn't be pregnant, and you fit that pattern. So you've helped us. Thanks."

"Wait," Alicia said, and Lavender, who was also making to leave, paused. "There's...there is one thing." Both witches took one look at her serious expression and sat down again.

"Hermione," she said, turning towards her. "I haven't forgotten the help you gave me when I applied for this job." Hermione inclined her head. The other reason she and Lavender had gone to Alicia first was because Alicia had been attacked by Greyback during the Battle of Hogwarts.

After the Battle, she had been like Lavender—not a full Werewolf, but Werewolf enough that several members of the wizarding world, who had not learned from Voldemort's reign, spoke out against her appointment as Hogwarts' new school nurse, despite the fact that she had completed her Healer apprenticeship with outstanding grades, and came highly recommended by the leading Healers at St. Mungo's. Hermione had been the one to fight her case, one of her first as a member of the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and had succeeded in both allowing Alicia to keep her job, and allowing any part-werewolf to sue for discrimination if they were denied a job.

There was still the odd letter in the Prophet from old fashioned Pureblood maniacs about so-called 'half-breeds', but they were very much in the minority. Hermione winning Alicia's case had ensured that, legally, they didn't have a leg to stand on. Her next step was to extend that protection for full Werewolves—but that was not today's issue.

Today's issue was getting to the bottom of this mystery, and she had been prepared to remind Alicia of the debt she owed her if she had to. But it had been Alicia who brought that up, not her, and so Hermione listened intently as the other woman explained her situation.

"My aunt and uncle were killed in the war, but my cousin—Isobel, their daughter—was very young then. My family adopted her, after they died, and we all became her guardians," began Alicia. "What I'm telling you know, I'm telling you as her guardian, and not as a Healer, and it's important that you remember that." Both Hermione and Lavender nodded.

"Isobel is in her final year of school, and she wants to join the Obliviation squad when she leaves school next month," she said. "I was, as I've already told you, single on the night of the Ball, so I effectively had a free plus one. I took Isobel with me, because I knew that Pavarti would be there. I wanted her to have connections in the field she wants to work in—I know it's not entirely ethical, but she's my cousin, we're the only family she has, and I want the best for her, you understand?"

"Of course," Hermione said.

"So Isobel was at the Ball?" Lavender asked.

"She was," replied Alicia. "I cleared it with Professor McGonagall, who gave us the okay as long as she was back in school before midnight. I mean, she's a seventh year; the school's okay with that sort of thing as long as it's career building, right? I got her back in time, we thought everything was okay. But a few weeks later, she came to me in floods of tears."

"She was pregnant?" guessed Lavender.

Alicia hesitated for the briefest of moments before nodding. "She couldn't understand what had gone wrong. She's has a boyfriend—John—they're both seventh years, and...well, I didn't know they'd been sleeping together, but she's of age and she swore up and down they'd been using contraception."

"But the potion would have overridden her contraceptives," Hermione said. "I see."

"Look, the reason I'm telling you this is because I think it will help your investigation," Alicia said. "My cousin had a horrible time of it and ended up having an abortion. What else could she do? She's an eighteen year old schoolgirl with a seventeen year old boyfriend. There is no way they could have a baby. I supported her as best I could as a cousin and guardian—I took her to St. Mungo's, let her make her own choices about what she wanted to do..."

"You did the right thing," Lavender said immediately. "It's not your fault—and it looks like it wasn't her fault either. She's certainly not the first eighteen year old to have sex, and it sounds like she was taking all the right precautions. There's no way anyone could have foreseen this situation."

"I know," sighed Alicia. "But Izzy...she's really upset about the whole thing. Seriously upset. I'm worried about it affecting her NEWTs, I'm...well, put it this way. I told you this because I want to help your investigation. But please, please keep her out of it. Don't mention her name to anyone, just...please keep it quiet. I trust you, Hermione, after everything you've done for me, and I'll do anything to help, but please don't tell Isobel what's going on."

"We won't," Hermione assured her. "We're keeping everything private, and your cousin's details certainly won't be shown to anyone who could identify them as belonging to her."

"Seriously," added Lavender, "if there's one thing the Auror Office is good at, it's protecting people. We won't even call her as a witness if we can possibly help it. By the looks of things, we've got plenty of other witnesses as it is..."

"Thank you," Alicia said. "If it's all the same to you, I don't think I'll tell her about your suspicions. She just needs to move on, and that's probably the best way to do that."

"Of course," nodded Hermione. "And like we said before, we don't want anyone finding out about our investigations. So we'll keep your—or Isobel's—secrets, and you can keep ours."

They rounded up their conversation and left, seeing Professor McGonagall on their way out. "I trust your interview was productive?" she asked, seeing them to the gate.

"It was certainly informative," Hermione said grimly.

"Do let the school know if there is anything we can do to assist with whatever it is you're up to now," said the Headmistress. "And pass on my congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Potter when you see them," she added. "I was very pleased to read of their news in The Quibbler!"

"Professor McGonagall reads The Quibbler?!" hissed Lavender, once they'd left the school grounds.

Hermione shook her head. "This is the thing, though, isn't it?" she asked. "Pregnancy is supposed to be a happy time. Harry and Ginny—and all the other couples—should just be worrying about baby names, or...or what colour to paint the nursery! They don't need to be stressing over potential potions forcing them into having children, or who might be behind that!"

"You definitely think it's something sinister then?" asked Lavender.

Hermione nodded. "After what Alicia told us about her cousin? Definitely. We still need to double check with the records of who was and wasn't at the Ball, but from what she told us about Isobel...I can't even imagine having to go through that at her age. And it sounds like Isobel didn't either—if she was using protection, and being sensible...well, it's not her fault that someone gave her that potion."

"There's definitely something odd about it all," Lavender said. "I mean, it really seems like a prank, even a Wheezes' product! You know, drink this, and you'll turn bright green for a day, oh, what a big joke! But being pregnant? That's not a joke, or a prank! But it's not Dark Magic either—it's not like anyone's being poisoned or anything. They're just being made to have a child—and if you don't count people like poor Isobel, then that's basically a happy occasion."

"I don't understand either," Hermione said. "But the important thing is to get those records cross-checked. Who else was at the Ball? And are they pregnant?"

"Okay, of the boys, we need to talk to: Lee Jordan, Dennis Creevey, Anthony Goldstein and Michael Corner," Lavender said, pulling her list out of her pocket. "See if they brought girlfriends, and what sort of state their uterus is in now. For the girls, it's Morag MacDougal, Lisa Turpin, Mandy Brockelhurst and Minnie herself."

Hermione looked at her. "Let's get going."


Britain is currently having something of a heatwave. If you can't think of anything else to say in a review, leave me a message telling me how to keep cool. I cannot cope with this "summer" thing at all *sadface* (Nb: that is probably the strangest way I've plugged for reviews ever...)

Much love to the reviewers of last chapter: finchelromionelover; I'm In Love WithThe Phantom; ChizomenoHime (thanks for the champagne!); Anubis08; wizard of night; Zalini; The Golden Marauder; nerdyninjaunicorn; LeviosaLove; yellow 14; Spinning Round on a Carousel; NoTagBacks (loved the alternate title suggestion!); Magdylena Black; Pink mockingjay; whenarewe (pleased to make you flail a la Matt Smith!) and HogwartsDreamer113 :)