Chapter 25
Hermione sat in the interrogation room. She never expected to be sitting across from her lifelong friend and brother, questioning him about something crime related. Ever since they had confirmed the spell used on the victims, they had decided that they needed to look at the memories of the two original people involved in what happened during sixth year. Of course Snape knew the spell as well, but he was dead, and he never seemed keen on sharing it. A few privileged members of the Order also knew about the spell but it was always only mentioned in safe locations, and she had no reason as of yet to suspect any of them. She knew she had talked to Harry about the spell, and she assumed that Draco probably mentioned it to a few of his friends as well. Both times were at Hogwarts, in which anyone could have been listening in on the conversation. So if she could go back and look at the memory again, it could possibly show her who could have seen or heard about the spell.
"I still can't believe that whoever is doing this heard about the spell from either Draco or I," Harry said, running his hands through his hair. He looked tired, and she figured it was due to the lack of sleep from having to deal with a crying newborn. Harry was currently taking the entire week off to stay at home with Ginny and James, but he had promised to come in when she had told him what they had found.
"Me neither," Hermione admitted. "It seems so coincidental that someone heard us and is using this spell. Why this one? There are so many different torture spells out there, so why would they go out of their way to pick this one in particular? What are the chances that the killer has a connection to Hogwarts, let alone a specific even that happens to tie them to us? It just seems so surreal."
Harry nodded. "I'll get you the memory," he said softly. "I only ever mentioned it once at school, and that was right after the attack. No one else came into the boy's bathroom when it happened, other than Snape, and he definitely wouldn't have told anyone. So it could only have been that time right after when you lot all wanted to know what happened, then Ginny took away the book."
"Do you think it's possible that someone found the book after we left it there?" Hermione questioned him, as he pulled out the memory from his head and placed it into a vial.
"It's possible," Harry shrugged. "But from what I understand, the room was mainly used as a hideout place the following year, and I think the only people to have been in it that year was when we tried to find the diadem."
He handed her the vial and she poured the contents into the pensive in front of her. As the contents settled, she and Harry dipped their heads inside.
Hermione watched herself sitting on a couch in the common room from Harry's eyes as he entered the room. His face was tired and he was covered in blood. She watched as her past self immediately stood up, along with both Ron and Ginny.
"What happened?" she heard herself whisper. Past Hermione immediately whipped out her wand and began to heal and clean him up.
"Malfoy happened," Harry had said, defeatedly. "He attacked me in the bathroom. He was there crying over something, and when he saw me he tried to hex me."
"Are you okay?" Ginny had gasped. Even though she had been with Dean at the time, Hermione had always known that she cared for Harry.
"I cursed him," Harry said, as he took a seat on the couch. His face had been so pale, and he was still shaking from the incident. "It was a spell from the half-blood Prince's book, and it cut him up really bad. If Snape hadn't walked by at that moment, then he could have died."
"I won't say 'I told you so'," Hermione said with a sigh. She remembered that a lot of Gryffindors were whispering about an incident in the bathroom.
She tuned out the rest of the scene, trying to look around the room to see if she could spot anyone around the room. The common room had several people walking in and out of it. She could remember a few of them, first years, random people she had met a few times. No one they had seen had any sort of personal connection to them. But the thing was that no one was close enough for them to have heard anything properly. The spell was mentioned once in the entire scene, and at that moment no one was in visible sight. If someone had heard it, then they were somewhere in the background, listening in.
She sighed as she was pulled out of the memory suddenly.
"I'm sorry," Harry said softly as he placed his hand over hers. He had inevitably reached the same conclusion she had. "I wish it had showed someone, but no one seemed to be listening in. It's possible that I just didn't see anything though. I was so distraught and I wasn't really looking closely at those around us." Hermione had already looked at her own memory of the incident, as well as Ginny's, but they had both been a bust. She probably should have looked at Ron's memory as well, but between the three memories she had, there were so many crossovers in the scene. She had studied each and every person who entered the room carefully, but nothing had helped.
"Don't worry about it," Hermione said with a smile. She hugged her friend, "Go home to Ginny and James. I'm sure she misses you already."
Harry placed a kiss on her cheek, "Get some sleep too. I see the bags under your eyes. You're trying to balance too many things and you need some rest."
She smiled as she walked him out of the room. "Thanks. I'll try to get some later tonight. I still want to go see Jamie too before I go home."
Harry left her alone, and she stepped out of the room to see Draco sitting there on the bench waiting for her.
"Hello Hermione," Draco said. He stood up and placed a kiss on her lips. "How are you doing?"
She smiled at the site of him, "Good," she said softly. "Sorry that I have to force you in today. I know that today was your day off and you wanted to spend it with Scorpius."
He waved his hand as he walked into the room and sat in the chair opposite to hers, "I have the entire day to spend with him after this. Besides, I get to spend time with you, so I figure it's a win regardless."
She blushed, but shook her head at him as she sat down in her chair.
"First I need to know the context. How many times did you mention the spell that was used by Harry in sixth year?" she asked him carefully.
He winced and she figured he was reliving the pain he had endured at the hand of her friend.
"Only once," Draco said as he looked at her. "I was pretty preoccupied with what happened, and pretty soon after I began throwing everything into perfecting the plan to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. Besides, it was rather embarrassing at the time. I didn't want to keep mentioning it and I only ever said the name of the spell once during the entire conversation." He lifted his wand to his head just as Harry had a while back and repeated his actions.
Hermione poured the memory into the penesieve and went into the memory. Draco was sitting in a bed at the hospital, and Pansy had her arms draped right over him. She was going out of her way to appear to cuddle with Hermione's current boyfriend, while Blaise, Theo, Daphne, Crabbe, and Goyle were gathered around Draco's bed.
"What happened?" Blaise asked. His face was rigid, and she could detect a small amount of anger written on it.
"Bloody Potter," Hermione had heard Draco spit. "Stupid half blood was in the bathroom and he attacked me! I swear I'll kill him."
"What were you doing in there?" Theo had asked. "Don't you have some sort of task to work on?"
Draco hadn't met his eyes at that, and Hermione could tell that he didn't want to admit that he had been crying when Harry found him.
"I was taking a break," Draco exclaimed neutrally. "I nearly have everything in place. I just need to figure out when, where, and how to do what I'm supposed to do. Besides, you know I cannot talk about it. So don't ask. The last thing I need is for someone to overhear. Why do you think I haven't even told you guys about it? He will kill me if he finds out."
"How did he even get to you?" Pansy asked incredulously. "You should have used an Unforgivable."
"I tried," Draco said annoyed. "But he got to me first."
"With what?" Theo asked. "You looked like you've been sliced to bits."
"I don't know the name of the spell. Spetumspectra, spectrasempra? I dunno, it sounded something like that," Draco said with a shake of his head. She looked around the room at that moment to see if anyone was listening in. There were a few other students on hospital beds near them. She tried to make out any of them but their faces were blurry. She guessed that Draco didn't really care much to try and figure out who was there and who wasn't. The Draco at that time was far too preoccupied with all the things going on in his life to take notice.
She fell out of the memory a few moments later as the conversation she was viewing began to shift in a different direction.
"There was nothing useful, was there?" Draco grimaced as he looked down at the penesieve.
"Not from first glance," Hermione said softly. "I'll keep both memories and get someone to look over them a few times to see if they can find anything."
"It's weird to see a past version of yourself. So much has changed in seven years," Draco said.
"People change," Hermione said, as she took his hand. "The war was quickly approaching and it scared all of us. Things are better now, but it was a rough time."
"Yeah," Draco said slowly.
"I have a question though about what I saw. I understand Blaise and Theo; they were your friends. Crabbe and Goyle followed you around, and Pansy had feelings for you. But why was Daphne Greengrass there? She never really had much of a connection to you in school, did she?" Hermione asked.
"Not really. I think Pansy dragged her there that day. She found out, and she insisted on coming to see me, and I think she coerced Daphne into coming as well," Draco said. He looked thoughtful as he tried to figure it out, but ended up shaking his head. "We were barely friends; I knew I was betrothed to her sister, and while that engagement was respected, I rarely talked to either sister until after the war when we were forced to enact it."
Hermione nodded, "Okay," she said. "Well that's all I really need you for today. You should go see your son."
He kissed her on the lips as he stood by the door. "I'll ty to swing by and visit you and Jamie later on. If not, I'll owl you about going to dinner soon."
She smiled, "I'll see you soon, then."
Hermione watched as her boyfriend left before returning to her office and sitting down in the chair. It was going to be a long day of going over facts and evidence. Hopefully she would be able to find something soon.
Lucius Malfoy looked at the letter in front of him. He was sitting in his cell, like he did everyday.
Lucius Malfoy,
In case you are not aware, your son is dirtying himself by dating a muggleborn. Now, I am aware that of your position, but what do you think people in high society will think of your son's latest fling. I am not happy with the couple being together, so if you do not take some serious action against them, then I will.
I have owled you on several occasions, but you have yet to do something. This is your final warning. If your son is still with Hermione Granger in one week, then I will be forced to take serious action. And I am sure that you do not wish for the family line to end so soon.
R.
Lucius stood up in his cell and tried to find a nearby guard. The time for sitting idly and watching the current events pan out was in the past. He knew he would have to take some action, and he knew just the person he needed to talk to.
Hermione sat in her office, going over her notes. Hazel and pomegranate were the two ingredients that she knew were in the potion. From her research, she knew that hazel was meant to constrict the blood vessels, and it also helped return the blood to normal consistency. The pomegranate on the other hand was meant towards youthfulness and healing. She had figured that in the potion it would be used to get the body to react well when taking the potion, and remove any unwanted side effects.
She had a vial of blood in front of her. She had gotten one of Jamie's samples from the lab and created several duplicates. She didn't want to keep drawing blood from her son.
She took the vial of hazel which she had crushed thoroughly and added into the blood. She was currently testing out whether larger or smaller amounts of each ingredient tended to help the blood reach a better level. Hermione had also gotten a microscope from a muggle research facility so she could see what was happening with the blood cells. She could see that Jamie's sample of blood was very thin due to the lack of red blood cells in his blood, but highly watered down. As she added the hazel, the blood began to thicken. However she was dismayed to see just how much it did so.
From what she knew, if someone's blood became that thick, then they would die due to the blood clotting and preventing blood circulation. She sighed as she labelled the sample with the amount of hazel she added and placed it to the side. She would have to keep decreasing the amount of hazel added until it reached a healthy consistency.
She was also looking into other ingredients, such as rose oil, which was meant to create antibodies to prevent Jamie from getting the disease again. It would relieve the spasm that his lungs would give him during his attacks, and a few other things.
On top of that she had found out that Knotgrass would also help bring out some of the other properties. Hermione knew that it was hard to create a potion from scratch, but she had figured out how to do nearly everything else she had put her mind to. She would contact a potioneer at St. Mungo's, and she would work with them to make a potion that would save Jamie.
Draco had found a few potioneers that he recommended for her to work with. While he was with his son at the moment, he had promised her that he would come in and help her with the testing the next day.
Hermione looked up at the clock and saw that it was nearly dinner time. She stood up and sent all her research to the cabinet in her office, before locking the door and stepping out. She would have to pick up dinner for her dinner with Jamie, seeing as she had no time to cook again. Hermione made a mental note to herself to bring him some home cooking as she apparated out of the office.
Ron crossed his legs. He was currently in Bulgaria playing a match, but that didn't stop him from picking up the paper every now and then. He knew Hermione was still in contact with Draco. He had heard from the grapevine that the two were becoming quite serious, and he had had enough.
Hermione had her fun. She had gone out and dated someone new and tried the whole thing out, but it was time to put it all to an end. Hermione belonged with Ron, and everyone knew that. It was only a matter of time before she would get back together with Ron, and he knew just the way to do so.
He had been in contact with Lucius Malfoy, and he had the perfect plan concocted up to get them to end their so called relationship. Malfoy always had been a coward; even in their time at school it was obvious that he was terrified of his father and his opinions. All it took was one letter from Lucius to cause Draco to break up with Hermione. He didn't care what Lucius said to him. He could threaten to take away his inheritance; a rich boy like him probably cared far more about his money than he did for Hermione. If not, then he might threaten to punish Draco, just like old times. He honestly didn't quite care what method Lucius used to get Draco to end the relationship. All that he did care for was that it was over; the sooner the better.
Besides, if Malfoy didn't end the relationship, then Ron would just have to take care of it the same way he took care of everything else that got in his way.