"What were you thinking?" Harry hissed.

Harry was standing in the Whitford Manor's large living room, feet apart, wand clutched in his hand, inches from where Malfoy was standing, leaning against the wall, wand in one hand, the other casually in his pants pocket.

Malfoy looked superbly bored as he eyed Harry with an inscrutable look.

"This was supposed to be a covert mission. Why were you there? You could have blown everything. The French minister is breathing down our necks already". Harry had spun around now and was pacing the floor. "What if you had been seen? Identified?"

"As much as it may surprise you Potter, I actually travel to France quite often for work. The French ministry knows this so my presence in France is not a big deal. I also doubt they know that I'm part of your little group. Besides, I was not idling. I knew these two would be there" he indicated Hermione.

Ernie had gone to lie down before the team had to analyse the muggles memories in a pensieve.

Hermione was sitting on the couch, leaning against one side with her feet stretched out in front of her. She had changed into a muggle t-shirt and jeans, her wound healed and dressed. She was tired, and the earlier adrenaline rush had given way to fatigue she always felt after expending large amounts of magic. Unfortunately, the fatigue was also causing her a considerable amount of irritation.

It was late evening and she and Ernie had discovered that Malfoy had also apparated directly to Whitford Manor as soon as they arrived. They had both however, been whisked away immediately; Hermione to have her shoulder healed, and Ernie to take a strong calming drought.

She had trudged over for briefing as soon as she was released only to see Harry seething, Malfoy ignoring him, and the rest of the team haphazardly scattered all over the room.

"We're just waiting for Harry to run out of steam" Mandy had whispered to her as she had walked in.

Malfoy hadn't even spared her a glance.

Theo had been on the couch earlier but had gotten up as soon as Hermione had walked in, indicating that she should sit down. She had shot him a grateful smile and lowered herself into it.

"How did you know Malfoy?" Harry sounded frustrated now.

"That would be my fault". Nott spoke up. "I briefed him of our plan, I did not ask him to join them though" he rushed on apologetically.

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Why were you there?" This time, Harry sounded a little calmer.

"I've been doing my own research into Granger's muggle murder mystery. Let's just say my methods of obtaining information are a little more comprehensive than the ministries. I discovered some things that could fill in some gaps for you, although I feel that the muggles memories will eventually do that as well." Malfoy walked as he spoke and lowered himself into an arm chair, crossing one ankle over the other leg as he spoke.

"You mean illegal methods." Ron's accusation was more of a statement than a question.

"Methods Weasley, that the ministry would shy away from using. Plus, my informants are much more pliable than yours I imagine". Malfoy drawled with a slight smirk.

"What did you find Malfoy?" Ordinarily, Hermione would have doggedly pursued the question of what Malfoy's 'methods' were but today, she was driven by two things only; one was her desire to solve the case and the other was her desire to fall in to bed and sleep. Her irritation was also climbing steadily the longer it took for her to fulfil either of those desires.

Malfoy leaned forward at that and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

"I've been doing some digging into Pandora Aesalon and her evil creations. You were right by the way" he nodded towards her, "she did invent the crutiatus, apparently she used it to keep her minions in line".

"Minions?" Harry asked.

"Yes. This was the part I discovered that was not in Grangers research". Malfoy paused here leaning back again. Hermione rather suspected that he was enjoying this, having information that they did not, making them all listen to him.

"There's a tradition that some old wizarding families upheld centuries ago, to keep a written record of the major magical achievements of people in the same bloodline. This was of course at a time when wizards were just beginning to test the limits of their magical powers, so each new discovery was worth recording for posterity. As time went by this tradition died out. There were too many wizards from one bloodline to keep track of and magic that was once thought of as ground-breaking became all too common. So, the practice died out. I felt however, that the Aesalon book was worth looking into. So, I sent my team to find it". He paused here again and looked at his hands.

"So, did they find it?" Hermione asked, fighting to keep the impatience out of her voice. Merlin, he was dragging this.

"Yes, they did. In Egypt actually. Have any of you heard of an Arabic magical historian called Azzalaudin?"

Malfoy rushed on before anyone answered although Hermione had in fact heard about him and was about to say so.

"Azzalaudin travelled all over the world recording magical discoveries. He was also a bit of a kleptomaniac apparently because, a lot of these family books ended up in his possession somehow. I tracked the Aesalon book to Azzalaudin and found it in one of his vaults. Took me quite a bit of galleons to manage that" he finished quietly.

"Is this where you get to the useful stuff Malfoy? because I'm bloody starving mate" Seamus looked about as disgruntled as Hermione felt.

Entitled prick; she thought to herself. She herself had been trying to get an audience to Azzalaudin's museum of artefacts for years but kept being denied. Money will get you anything and anywhere apparently, she gnawed irritably at her fingernails.

"Well" Malfoy glared at Seamus, grey eyes flashing. "There's entire chapters on Falcon and how he managed to turn himself into an Animagus. The bit about Pandora was towards the end and some of the pages were missing and I feel that it was probably written by someone outside the family. Like a scribe maybe. But this is what I found; apparently, she was quite the evil lady even before she married Falcon. It says she experimented a lot with dark magic, eventually creating and perfecting the crutiatus as I said. Although many people were afraid of her, she had managed to gather a small following of people who did her bidding. Now, her bidding was mostly gathering material for her greatest invention, but the book does not say what this invention is, just that everyone was afraid of it".

Hermione grunted. How was this helpful?

"Her followers were called The Masters, I don't know what that name would mean but I suspect they were like the Death Eaters. The book doesn't really describe them much except to say that their main purpose was to secure raw material, protect Pandora and find suitable offerings. Although what those offerings are I cannot say".

The hall was silent for a few moments.

"This is my assessment. If someone found out about this hypothetical box or device or whatever, maybe they're looking for it and maybe there's a team of people murdering muggles for information about it. The wizarding world never really paid much attention to these sorts of rumours; not many wizards go looking for ancient dark artefacts that are only rumoured to be true. But if a group of wizards did find out about a powerful dark artefact and decided that they wanted to use it, then muggle research may have been their best bet. I'm assuming here that some of the muggle research is accurate".

Malfoy continued. "My men have been following the muggle whose memory you took, since the day of the council meeting. They knew that he was being watched, most probably by wizards. Also, they discovered that the woman who was murdered, the sister; when she died she was writing a paper on possible interpretations of Pandora's box, what the box could really be. It might be why she was murdered.".

"Wait a minute. How did they know what she was working on? Such a paper has not been published. I checked all her publications". Hermione cocked her head again and narrowed her eyes at Malfoy.

Malfoy shrugged. "The paper was on an electronic device that muggles use, a computer?" He paused unsure of himself.

"I have a guy who knows how to look into one of those" he finished still a little uncertain.

"You hacked into her computer?" Hermione's voice fell low. "Malfoy that's illegal".

He stared at her for several minutes as if he was trying to figure out what her problem was. His eyes narrowed slightly before he turned back to Harry.

Before he could get his words out however, Ron interrupted.

"If you knew he was being followed by wizards, why the hell didn't you tell us?"

"When Nott told me that two of you were going after the muggle, I thought I should warn you about the wizards who were following him. I hardly had any time before that. Nott's owl came to me late however and when I flooed here, there was no one. So, I went to Nice. Good thing too apparently". He gave Hermione another strange look.

"Why didn't you attack?" He asked her.

"My job was to protect Ernie and the muggle until the extraction was complete. We hadn't planned on being attacked anyway. If I had joined the fight, Ernie would have been exposed". Hermione's eyes bore holes through Malfoy's skill. She was truly irritated now. Who the hell did he think he was questioning her actions?

Malfoy shrugged.

"So, you think someone's trying to find Pandora's box?" Nott spoke up.

"Not just someone, a group of someone's" Malfoy replied.

"The Masters"? Ron asked with a little snort.

"It's quite probable actually" Tracey Davies spoke up from the near the door, where she had been leaning. "Wizards are known for their theatrics. I mean look at He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Dark Marks, the Death Eaters, we're all about the pomp and ceremony. There's probably a group of misguided ancient history freaks somewhere calling themselves the Masters and trying to find this box".

I like this girl. Hermione thought to herself. Plus, she agreed about the whole pomp and ceremony business. Wizards could be ridiculous like that sometimes.

Harry stood up again, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Ok, so we got some information. Let's look at the pensieve and then decide what we're going to do next. In the meantime, I think it might be good if we can perhaps find someone with connections in Greece. Didn't you say 'mione that the American muggles paper said the location of the box was probably in Greece? Might be worth checking it out" Harry turned to look at Hermione.

"Yes". She said distractedly. How had she missed all of this? This was her area of expertise. Research was her thing. Her magnum opus. She always had all the information.

Azzalaudin.

Why didn't she think of him? He had records of almost all ancient magical beings. She hadn't even thought of going to his museum for this case.

"I can do that" Malfoy said getting up as well. "The Greengrasses have family in Greece. I'll ask Astoria for an address and introductions".

"Astoria? Wasn't she a few years behind us at Hogwarts?" Ron asked narrowing his eyes.

"Yes, she was". Blaise said from his place near the floo.

"Will she help us?" Ron asked again.

Blaise shrugged. "She'll help Malfoy, she's his fiancé."

A few heads snapped up at that. Hermione realised that none of the others gathered there were engaged or even in serious relationships except for Harry. The thought of one of them being engaged to be married was certainly strange.

"You're engaged to Astoria Greengrass? Merlin Malfoy, why?" It was Seamus this time. He continued, "I had to sit next to her at some fundraiser for St. Mungo's once and bloody hell she was a nightmare".

Malfoy's back had stiffened slightly but he made no reply.

"Remember her Mandy?" Seamus was still talking. "She was wearing some green gown like thing with her hair piled up on her head. She couldn't stop talking mate. She criticised almost every single person there. She had something bad to say about everything". Seamus shook his head at the memory.

"Yeah I remember her. She was pretty annoying. But she can't be all that bad if he's marrying her." Mandy nodded her head towards Malfoy.

"Not that it's any of your business, but Astoria comes from an extremely respectable family and she is my fiancé. I would request that you stop speaking ill of her" Malfoy bit out, his voice low, back still turned.

"She's from a pureblood family you mean" Seamus chuckled out. "Same old Malfoy" he said in a much quieter voice shaking his head.

Hermione thought that Malfoy would not have even heard that last part, Seamus had been so quiet, but apparently, he had.

"Yes, Finnegan I am the same old Malfoy and I am marrying into one of the oldest pure-blooded families in Britain and happily so. Don't stand there and act all shocked as if there was ever a chance I would marry from a lesser kind of family. Can we end this pointless discussion now?" Malfoy turned around finally.

"You're only marrying her because she's a pure blood?" Seamus was on a role tonight.

Malfoy merely stared back in response.

"Bloody hell" Seamus breathed out.

In his defence, Hermione knew that Seamus was truly curious about the situation and not purposely trying to be insulting or provoking although, at the moment Malfoy's eyes had turned into grey daggers and if looks could kill, Seamus would be dead.

"Preserving the purity of your line Malfoy?" The conversation had become so tense that Hermione hadn't even seen Ernie sidle in through the door, a mug of something in his hand.

"And what do you mean a lesser kind of family?" The words were out of her mouth as soon as it had registered in her mind what exactly he had said.

In hindsight, she would attribute the entire mess that followed her words, to her fatigue induced irritation. At the moment however, she was truly miffed.

"Merlin's balls" Malfoy gritted. "Can we please stop talking about my marital plans and do something productive? Don't you have a pensieve to fall into?"

"Actually no. What did you mean by lesser family Malfoy?" Hermione narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

Malfoy sighed.

"I didn't mean anything. All I meant was that as the only remaining Malfoy heir, it is my duty to marry someone of a suitable family to mine".

Hermione noticed that his eyes darted around the room as he spoke, presumably noting that everyone gathered there, with the possible exception of Nott, Davies and Zabini were most probably not very friendly towards him.

"So, suitable as in not half-blood or muggle born" Seamus said flatly.

"Yes" Malfoy replied tersely.

There was silence in the room as Malfoy's 'yes' sunk in.

"You know" Ernie began conversationally, "there is growing medical research that shows that more and more wizards are showing signs of magical anomaly because of all the inbreeding that takes place between pure bloods. In some countries there's actually a push towards having wizards marry and have kids with muggles or muggle borns to counter that" Ernie took a sip of his drink while speaking.

Malfoy scoffed.

"That's nonsense. Pure blooded wizards carry magic in its purest form. It's only strengthened through procreation with other pure bloods". Malfoy seemed to relax fractionally as the conversation had seemingly steered towards a more general direction.

Well well well. Who was a know-it-all now?

"That's absolute rubbish Malfoy. There's no evidence to support that. Besides, there so few pure-blooded wizarding families in the world now that it would be practically impossible for them to marry without marrying each other. That's not good for genetics in any form, leave aside magic".

Hermione could hear her voice becoming shrill and she didn't like it. She had spent years training herself to not give into her shrillness when she was upset or worked up. She tried to fight it down.

"Wizard genetics are not like muggle genetics Granger, even you should know that that. Our magic changes our genetic makeup from muggles. Although maybe it doesn't change much for muggle borns". Malfoy was trying hard to keep his voice level.

"There is no difference Malfoy, between the magic in a muggle borns blood and in a pure-blooded wizards blood. You know, I thought we had sorted out that confusion during the last war we had". Hermione said pouring as much sarcasm as she could into her voice.

"Of course, there's a difference Granger. Do you mean to tell me that you honestly believe that the magic built up in over centuries of pure wizarding blood amounts to the same thing as the magic in a muggle borns blood?"

"Look" he said eyes darting around again, "I'm not saying there's anything wrong or inferior about muggle born magic it's just that the magic practiced by pure blooded wizards has been honed and perfected for ages".

"If you honestly believe that then how can you explain how muggle borns even have magic"?

Hermione realised that everyone had fallen silent around them and that even Harry had pulled his head out of a file and was watching warily.

"No one can really explain how muggle borns have magic. It's like a blip in nature or- or a mutation of sorts". As soon as those words came out however, Malfoy seemed to have realised his misstep and raised his hands.

"A mutation? A blip in nature? What? Are you calling me some kind of freak?" Hermione's voice was fast reaching maximum shrillness and she saw Ron wince out of the corner of her eye, but right now she didn't care a wit.

"No. Merlin no. Granger calm yourself. Theories about how muggle borns get their magic have been floated around for years. But even you have to admit that it stands to reason that if the line of magical blood is pure, then that magic is more powerful. That magical ability is more concentrated, if you will". Malfoy sounded like he was trying to placate her with logic while also pointing out that she was an idiot.

"oh, please Malfoy, we all know I could dance circles around you with my magic" Hermione scoffed.

"Well even a monkey can be taught to do tricks" Malfoy muttered.

Hermione was out of her seat, wand in hand in an instant.

She vaguely realised that others had also risen from their seats.

"Monkey? Are you calling me a monkey ferret?" Her words were clipped, voice low. Her grip on her wand was so tight, her knuckles had drained of all blood.

"You're a trained auror Granger, obviously your magical ability is high. You train, you practice. It has nothing to do with the magic in your blood. Again, all of this is theoretical. It just stands to reason that when the blood is pure, the magic is untainted, it's virtually limitless what we can do. The limits of our magical abilities haven't even been tested properly. Pure blood magic is a force of nature, with muggle borns, you never know what to expect".

Malfoy looked as if he hadn't noticed the others standing around him. He just sounded so sure of himself and the drivel he was spouting, Hermione wanted to slap the smirk right off his face.

"I can tell you what to expect. You can expect witches and wizards who are grateful for the gift of magic and are not full of themselves. You can expect ordinary magical folk who have no stupid notions of superiority. Muggle borns are not freaks Malfoy, they're magical just like you are. And they have magic just like you have. There is no difference.

Hermione was rather proud of how level her voice was. Inside she was a raging mess of anger.

"Fine. Believe what you want. But that doesn't mean you can cast judgements on whom I choose to marry and my reasons for doing so. Marriage is personal and if I wish to marry a pure-blooded witch over any other kind then that's my business".

"Fine" Hermione countered. "It just shows that you're still a prejudiced, entitled prat is all".

"Hey" Seamus cut in, with an obvious effort to cut the tension, "Astoria's a prejudiced entitled prat too, so they fit". He turned around to go.

"Better prejudiced and entitled than a mud – muggle born" Malfoy muttered.

Hermione's shoulder twitched.

She knew he had meant it to be quiet, but everyone had heard his misstep on the word.

"Hermione…" Harry said warningly.

"At least I'm not a fucking Death Eater" Hermione said with barely controlled rage.

"And at least I'm not a bleeding mudblood" Malfoy threw out.

Hermione saw red.

She barely knew what she did next. Everything was covered in a hazy fog of anger. She just knew she had to get at him, make him pay, make him eat his words somehow.

She vaguely remembered storming towards the blond head.

Gradually, sounds of shouting came to her through the fog.

When the fog dissipated, she saw that she was standing oh so close to Malfoy, her wand pushed into the lower right-hand side of his jaw. Malfoy's face was twisted away from her at a painful angle, pushing away from the heat emanating from the end of her wand.

As she came more to, she realised that a wand was also pushing into her left side. With a start she realised that Malfoy was holding his wand at her from below her elbow.

Grey eyes were staring down at her with pure undiluted anger which she was sure was mirrored in her own.

"Malfoy. Put the wand down. Now" Harry's voice came from behind Malfoy.

Harry had his wand trained at the back of Malfoy's head as he spoke.

For the first time, Hermione realised that with the exception of Nott, Davies and Blaise, everyone else had their wands trained at Malfoy.

Those three had their wands out but hanging down by their sides.

"Put the wand down and step back" Harry's voice was calm but there was so much authority in it that Malfoy instinctively backed up, dropping his wand from Hermione's side.

"Hermione…" Harry's eyes moved from the back of Malfoy's head to meet hers.

She took one step back, spun around and stalked out.