A lazy breeze came in through the parted window and hit Draco right in the face. He woke with a whine, literally. 'Who left the bloody window open?' he groaned as he sat up and walked over to the window to close it, having not been able to find his wand and then continued his trek to the restroom, stretching as he went.
It wasn't until he was taking a really, really long piss that he noticed what was wrong. "Who the bloody fuck to my wand?" he demanded to no one in particular. He went back to his bedroom and rummaged everywhere for it. He found it under the bed and when he reached for it he pulled back instantly with a hiss.
The wand was scorching hot. Using one of his sheets he reached for the wand once more and wrapped it in the sheet, the heart spreading quickly through the fabric. After about a minute or two the wand cooled down gradually, and Draco wondered what all that could have been about.
He went about his whole routine for the day with the unbearable nagging feeling at the back of his head that something wasn't right. It wasn't the first time his wand had acted up on him, when he had gone to the old wand maker, he had been told that it was normal for a new wand to misbehave on occasion with its new owner, many wands that re-sired themselves or were replaced wands tended to be quite… temperamental with their users on occasion.
"Draco, have you seen you father?" Narcissa asked him, a slight scowl on her otherwise stern face.
Draco raised a brow at his mother. "Mother, I avoid that man as much as possible, of course I haven't." he reminded. "Why, is something the matter?" he wondered, for some reason he had a bad feeling about this.
Narcissa only smiled at her son. "I'm sure it's nothing." She said and ran her slim fingers though her son's hair, tucking a stray lock behind his ear only to have it fall back into his face. "I think it's about time you got yourself a haircut." She said before taking her hand back and then walking down the hall.
Draco furrowed his brow, and though he dismissed his mother's strange behavior, he made sure to catalogue it in the back of his mind so he could pond over it later. Right now he had important places to be at right now.
Heading out the door of the Malfoy Manor and past the Gates he turned on his heel and apparated to Hermione's apartment with a muted pop. When he appeared in the middle of her living room something didn't feel right, the flat was silent. But it wasn't the usual silence that came with the regular calm that the flat usually provided, if he thought about it, this silence was almost eerie. "Evangeline?" he called as he walked into the kitchen, where she normally was at this time of day. But Draco found it empty. "Hermione?" he called again as he headed over to the room.
"Hermione?" he asked worriedly as he knocked on the door before attempting to push it open. The door was unlocked but appeared to be stuck. Giving it a hard shove the door opened and he heard something snap. Grate if I broke her door, she'll have my bloody head. He thought bitterly as he entered the room.
"Oh fuck me." He said as he noticed what he had broken. It wasn't the bloody door, it was her goddamn wand. His self inflicted frustration with himself lasted all of a few brief seconds. After the war, no one went without their wands anymore, not even to the loo. Hermione was no different, so seeing her wand on her bedroom floor, snapped in half while she is nowhere in sight, sent off the alarm bells in his head.
"Homenum Revelio!" he waved his wand and nothing came up, meaning the flat was completely empty save for himself. "Hermione!" he yelled desperately. "I swear on Salazar's grave, I'm going to kill the bastard who dared lay a hand on her." He swore as he bent down and grabbed Hermione's wand pieces from the floor and tucked them away in the pockets of his inner robes.
He rushed out the room, and just to be sure he checked every single room, every single corner not a single space was left unchecked, but Draco finally came to the conclusion that Hermione had indeed be taken from the flat. Cursing himself and every god out there he gripped his wand and disapparated.
"Where the fuck are you Potter?!" Draco demanded once more. It had taken all of his pride, and if anyone were to ask him he would not hesitate to hex the bloke who even had such a thought cross his mind, for Draco Bloody Malfoy to admit that he needed help from the Boy-Who-Just-Would-Not-Die-And-Lived-For-The-Sole-Purpose-To-Be-A-Pain-In-His-Arse if he was to have any chance in finding Hermione alive and well.
"Potter! Are you deaf or do I need to-"
"I'm right here you home invading ferret." Harry snapped irritably from behind Draco. "Now give me one good reason as to why I should not have you in a body bind and alert the authorities of your trespassing?" he demanded his wand raised.
Harry had been in the midst of a very important meeting with the head of Aurors when his alarming system on his home had been activated, signaling that someone had broken in. And considering he had a wide variety of charms placed on the place, he wanted to know who it was. He wasn't expecting Draco Sodding Malfoy to be the one in his living room calling for him at the top of his lungs.
"Hermione's missing, and she might be in a life threatening situation." He informed, and he was unable to admire the look of utter shock and panic that crossed the raven haired man. Harry's arms went limp to his sides; he almost dropped his wand if he wasn't suddenly very pissed off.
"Tell me what happened." He demanded.
"First of all let me tell you shouldn't have an open Floo Network else what's the point of the anti-apparation wards." He said before he went onto a full on scale description of what had occurred from last night he took her home, he mentioned how they had arrived the flat and everything was fine, save for the freezing temperature, how he had stayed there talking with her for a few hours till she looked too tired and how he had left before she was in her room and how this morning he didn't visit her till a few hours prior and how everything was.
"I need to see the flat, I'll also need to have a couple of Aurors take a look around to-"
"Absolutely not." Draco interrupted, continuing before Potter could protest. "Hermione Granger is supposed to be dead, and Evangeline Twinstar is a Squib that was killed by her parents when it was learned she was unable to use magic, why do you think those two are in Azkaban, surely not just for serving the Dark Lord." He snapped.
"If you get Aurors involved, how exactly do you plan on explaining to your team of Aurors all of that while still keeping Hermione's identity intact?" he questioned arching a brow at the now sulking man. "I thought so." He said feeling slightly smug about being able to make Saint Potter brood over his own stupidity and thoughtlessness.
"Well what do you suggest then?" Harry asked on the very verge of just hexing the man.
"If I had a plan I wouldn't be here asking you for help now wouldn't I Potter." He snapped. How Hermione managed to be best of friends with such an imbecile never seized to amaze Draco. He, along with half of Wizarding Britain, was sure that if not for Granger, the Great Harry Potter would have perished on his very first year of Hogwarts.
"You know something, why don't the two of us head over to her flat and figure things out from there." Harry suggested with a grim look on his face as he stood up and walked over to his fireplace. Draco gave him a firm nod before he stood up as well.
"I already look there Potter, I used all the spells you are using and then some." Draco said annoyingly as he lounged in the couch, if only so that he wouldn't find the potter brat and strangle him to death, the bloody oaf was of absolutely no use, how he managed to save Wizarding London was a mystery to the blonde.
"Well excuse me for wanting to double check everything Malfoy, if you are such a resourceful person why don't you try finding Hermione without my help." Harry snapped from the bathroom.
Before Draco could voice his response the Weasley girl flood in. "Hey there Ferret, Have you seen Hermione, I have news for her." She said brightly, not minding at all that Draco had been the first person greeting her.
Draco looked intensely at the very pregnant Ginny Weasley. He might be a right arse to her at times and didn't favor the weasel girl that much, but he was sure that delivering the news that Hermione was missing, possibly kidnapped, isn't something he should go about doing. So he did the next best (worst) thing. He called for Potter.
"Potter! You're bloody wife is here! Get rid of her!" he called and missed the paling of the young witch.
Harry stepped out of a room and froze. "Hello Harry, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here, I should get going, and I'll visit some other time." Ginny said quickly stepping back to the fireplace. Ginny Weasley was a brave stubborn girl, but even she couldn't be in the same room as her ex husband who she had cheated on for over a year.
Draco rose a brow and held up his hands questioningly at Potter. "Not Now Malfoy, we need to worry about Hermione right now." He almost snapped, this caught Ginny's attention and she stood inside the fireplace for a whole 10 seconds before she stomped back out.
"What happened to Hermione, is she alright?" she asked worriedly. "Where is she, did something happen to her, to the baby? Is –"
Draco slapped his forehead hard at the same time Harry spoke up again. "Wait what?" he almost demanded.
"Oh Bloody Fucking hell." Draco cursed. "Weaslette go away before you make things worse, Potter I'll tell you later, we have more pressing matters to attend to at the moment." He snapped.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me where Hermione is." Ginny said with a determination that left it clear to Draco that there was no arguing with her.
"Yeah, and I won't continue to help you until you give me a full story, Malfoy." Harry said crossly.
"Well Hermione is utterly screwed if those are my two options." He muttered, but it appeared he had no choice in the matter, he didn't believe he could do this on his own.
"Alright, just let me make sure I got this." Draco said, not mocking but he too wanted to get all of this before Potter snapped his neck. "You broke things off with Saint Potter here, because my best mate got you pregnant, you live together and he hasn't asked you to marry him." He said.
Ginny grimaced. "I know that when you put it that way it sounds awful, but I asked him if we could-"
"I'm going to kill him." Draco suddenly spoke, and Ginny's eyes widened. "What? No, why? You can't!" she shouted standing up.
"Hold on, if anyone should be killing anyone it should be me!" Harry shouted over both of them. "Blaise for sleeping around and impregnating my wife, and you for putting my best friend in danger repeatedly and getting her knocked up!" he snapped pulling out his wand.
"Go ahead and try it potter, I'll let you give me your best shot, but only I get to shoot any sort of spell against my best mate." Draco snapped.
"Could be please focus on the more pressing matter at hand here?!" Ginny snapped. "We need to put things aside and focus on finding Hermione. And while I know I might make things worse and uncomfortable by suggesting this, but we need more help, and it appears the more Slytherins here the better, they don't think like you and I Harry, and like it or not, we need to make good use of that if we're ever going to find Hermione alive and well." She said as she made her way to the fireplace.
"Where do you think you're going, or calling for that matter?" Draco demanded, but he figured he could guess.
"Pansy, if anyone could help unplot a kidnapping it's her." Ginny said grimly.
"Oh you have got to be- Fuck my life." Draco huffed groaned and slumped back against his seat on the couch.
Harry frowned, because for once he was noticing just how smart his ex-wife had been, and he never once noticed. He was so busy trying to shy her away from any possibility of danger that he never once thought that she could be just fine on her own. The fact that she had gotten on first name basis with most Slytherins bothered him, and let him know just how tactful she could be if she wanted.
Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley (Or is she still addressed as Potter?) and Draco Malfoy all crowded Hermione Granger's living room. Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin must be rolling around in their graves at this implausible team.
"Alright, tell me how things were before you left," she told Ginny and Blaise, "and how things were when you got back." She told Draco.
Doing as she requested each went about of giving details of how things looked like and what they did before they left and all that happened when Draco and Hermione had returned.
"Wait, that window, it's been broken since Hermione moved in." Ginny interrupted Draco. "She told me so, it's supposed to be stuck she couldn't get it to budge, it should not have been open when you got back." She explained.
"Then we have a starting point." Pansy said as she pulled out her wand and headed to said window, she cast a spell, one of which none recognized and her face scrunched up in disappointment. "Oh bollocks." She sighed and then crossed her arms and they all remained watching her for a brief minute before she stomped over to the main bedroom and looked around and then began following a trail, making the strangest of faces every so often.
"Well who ever took her got in through the window with a some sort of muggle appliance, hid in the bedroom till you got here and then left her alone, waited for her to go in and then with the help of someone flooed her the fuck out of here." She informed as she slumped back against the sofa.
Harry scoffed. "Yeah, right and how do you know all of this, did the spell you cast earlier tell you all of that." He asked.
"Nope, but that's what I would do if I ever wanted to kidnap anyone." She informed with a roll of her eyes before she turned to look at Ginny. "I can see why you left him, he underestimates women far too much, and he's an idiot."
Ginny blushed and tried to speak but Harry cut her off. "So are you trying to say that whoever took her did all that and had help, now, what would be their reasons behind it?" he asked.
"That's simple, Draco, you should tell them." Pansy said.
"Tell us what?"
"Yeah, what aren't you telling us Ferret?" Ginny added crossly.
"It's a stupid old tale all of the originating Pure-Blooded Families of England." He rolled his eyes. "I don't see how any of this can have anything to do with this." He snapped at Pansy. "We should focus on finding Hermione, not retelling tales for superstitious old wives."
"I don't think it would hurt to listen to the tales, from school experiences, if Pansy says something is of relevance it normally is." Blaise defended his friend.
"It's just this stupid tale claiming that the most powerful wizard known to all of wizard kind will be born to a Pureblood and a Muggleborn, but it would also mean the end of pureblood society as we know it, a crap load of things went missing in translation but that's the jest of the whole thing." He huffed annoyingly.
"But hasn't that already been done? You know, with Lord Voldemort and Harry?" Ginny asked slightly confused.
"Voldemort had a muggle father, not a muggleborn one." Harry corrected rapidly close to her ear, causing Blaise to glare at him some, at the same time that Pansy went about to correct her.
"As much as they would love to take the spot, no, since they were not from the original Pureblood wizard lines, These Families were here a couple hundred years before they were even born." Pansy explained. "I'm talking about the Twinstar's, The Malfoy's, the Blakior's, Parkinson's, Umbridge's, Doyle's, Goyle's, Crabbe's, Nott's, and nineteen other families." She began.
"According to our mothers, who are mainly in charge of passing on the tale, these original Wizarding families were nomads, all looking for a safe place to settle from their village. They came across this Muggle Gypsy Seer who told them she would lead them to their destined to live peacefully till the end of their lines, in exchange for a magical remedy for an illness she had that was making her go blind, and for food and shelter while she became better.
"They agreed without a moment's hesitation, because even know we have to admit that Seers don't necessarily need to be witches or wizards, but some of the best we have had through history have been mere muggles. They tended and cared for her for weeks till she was back to health, and she drew them a map of Europe and lead them to a small unknown and remote Wizarding village near what we now know as London, and gave each family a prophesy.
"But just as they were parting ways the old gypsy broke down crying, claiming that one of them could carry the end of their race, but that one of them would do so thanks to all of them. Panicked they questioned what she meant by that and she explained that one of their line would bear a child with a muggleborn and that on that child the fate of wizard kind as it is know will come to an end.
And back in those times, Blood Purity was not their main focus, only finding a place to live, but even then, muggle-borns were tabooed, they only brought misfortunes and deaths and all sorts of bad things tended to happen when they were involved, and that's basically how maintaining a pure-blooded society began, and why pure-blooded families in today's society are so against muggle-borns and half-blood's." She finished explaining.
"So you're telling me, all of the blood racism in today's society is thanks to a bunch of superstitious old witches and wizards?" Harry asked disgusted.
"Watch it Potter, those are our families you're talking about, perhaps even your own." Draco snapped.
"Whatever, I still don't see where Hermione could fit into all of this, sure she's muggle born and Draco's the son of one of those families, but so what?" he asked getting frustrated.
"That's what you don't get, Potter, I'm the son out of all their families, the Malfoy's have bred themselves with every single one of those families. My family is the only one who has done so; this makes me one of the most possible, if not the only one who could be under direct influence of this." He explained.
"That and that they have gotten back to each other against everything they've been through, that against all odds clause, something about the more got in between the fates the more they tried to speed the process up or something like that?" Pansy looked up at Draco.
"Fuck!" Draco cursed dejectedly, his fist clenching at his sides before he abruptly stood up. "We need to find her, before they put an end to it."
Pansy's eyes went wide. "They wouldn't." she gasped. "Come on, I know someone who won't be afraid to aid us in helping us out, and we might just have to get a few more comrades if we want to get her back safely." Pansy said.
"So, we were wondering… which one of us do you think is prettier?" Pansy asked in a soft flirtatious purr as she twirled the poor wizard at the desk in the registry.
"Oh yes! Please you must tell us, you've had us here for much time and you have not told us which of us you choose." Melodey whined in fake hurt, which if anyone knew any better – and boy were they thankful that the guy was thicker than Crabbe and Goyle together- they would have noticed that the blonde witch was about this close to using an unforgivable on herself.
"Are you almost done in there, how long can it take you to find the floo registry for today at Hermione's?!" Harry hissed as he rested his back against the cracked open office door, pretending to wait for the chief of records.
"Longer than you think Potter, not stop whining and keep a lookout and keep Carter from hurting someone, and keep a look out!" Draco snapped back as he continued to look around for the file that he needed within the archives.
Not long afterwards Pansy stomped towards them just as Draco and Blaise emerged from inside the office, Draco was slipping the file into his pockets. "What is it?" he asked her.
"Annoying little chit, that's what it is." She huffed.
"Who, the secretary?" Blaise asked confused.
"No! Carter! She kept making me unbutton my blouse when all she could have done to entertain the prick was to throw down her glamour and dance!" she fumed.
Draco and Blaise laughed. "She's part Veela, what do you expect, did you seriously expect her to continue flirting with him knowing that?" Draco asked.
"Well yes, she could have saved me the trouble."
"Alright enough, he's out, we have to get back before my boss comes up to check on his son." Melodey snapped at all of them. "Should have checked for his last name before anything, did you get it?" she asked the Slytherin duo, who in return nodded.
"Let's go then." She said gripping their arms and turning on the spot taking them back to Hermione's flat.
Pansy frowned and Harry noticed. "What is it?" he asked. "Nothing, I'll meet see you back at the flat." She said Harry nodded and both turned on the spot at the same time, only Harry apparated, Pansy made her way to the floo and went back to the flat.
"Why'd you floo in?" Ginny asked Pansy when she arrived, giving her a suspicious look. "The wards don't allow me in." she stated, that only being part of the truth.
"Gin, love, let it be." Blaise told Ginny who nodded. "So did you get it?" she asked and Draco nodded and set the stack he had engrorio'd back into its original size on the coffee table and each dug in to find what they needed.
"I think I found this week's file!" Melodey announced and then handed a sheet to each of them after they all dropped the stack they were looking at.
"I think I found something we could use!" George added a few seconds later as he slammed the sheet on the table and showed everyone.
"One from Registered Muggle Establishment – DESTINATION – Registered Wizarding Flat, Central London(Twinstar, Evangeline) – TIME OF OCCURRENCE – 12:42 (Twelve with forty two minutes) AM." he read.
"That was half an hour before Hermione and I arrived!" Draco claimed.
"Look under it!" Neville pointed. "Two from Registered Wizarding Flat, Central London(Twinstar, Evangeline) – DESTINATION– Unknown Registered Cabin in Amsterdam -TIME OF OCCURRENCE – 4:26 (Four with twenty-six minutes) AM."
"And that was nearly an hour and a half after I left," Draco said tightly. "This is definitely the one." He said taking it from the table and reading those two lines over and over.
"Alright, now all we need is a plan of action, luckily Pansy, Ginny, George and I are the best schemers here, so listen up." Melodey said, a determined look on her face. "Because no one else here is loosing someone they care about on my account."
"What she said, now if you would so kindly pay attention." George said as Pansy began to clear the table of the papers scattered across it.
Figures the only time Slytherins and Gryffindors work together is when someone is close to dying, Draco, along with everyone else, tho hoped this wasn't the case.