A/N: Mallorca is hot! My freckles are starting to eat up my nose (you can barely see any skin there! Okay yes you can, I'm exaggerating) and I think I may have slightly burned myself in some places, but what don't you do for the perfect tan? Don't worry though, I use sunscreen so I won't get cancer and be unable to write the rest of this story, I'm as healthy as ever!
Slytherins
"It feels like we have written down every Slytherin in our age!" Blaise exclaimed frustrated after fifteen minutes of furious brainstorming for possible accomplices.
"I know but at the same time, it's Astoria we're talking about. And Merlin knows she was never the one for house unity." Draco said equally frustrated. This list was all about finding out the younger Greengrass's accomplice and they were almost positive that it was a former Slytherin. But that didn't take away the feeling that they were hunting a former brother or sister.
"Okay... which of these would Astoria have any possible contact with, and more importantly which would be dumb enough to follow her?" Blaise continued as he stood up from the kitchen table.
"Where are you going?"
"Making coffee, got the feeling like we'll need it tonight. Continue, I will help from over here." He said as he made the way towards Hermione's coffee pot.
"Smart," Draco said nodding approvingly at his friend before diving once again into the seemingly impossible task of figuring this whole mess out. "Well we have Theo, who if I remember correctly had a thing with Astoria a while ago."
"Yes, but Theo's not stupid. And he would never follow Astoria during a crazy streak like this. Didn't he end things because he thought she got too clingy, anyway? Shouldn't that mean that he would be very unlikely to follow her now?"
"Yeah, I think you're right. I haven't met him in quite a while but still he's Theo, I don't know what I would do if it turned out to be him." Draco said turning to see Blaise nodding as he searched the cupboards after two cups. "Second cupboard on the left." He told him before turning back to the list. It was close to fifty names there, girls – boys, old – young.
"Thanks, who's next?"
"The next most obvious would have been Goyle, he's dumb enough and always liked Astoria for some unknown reason, but he's in Azkaban so we can rule him out immediately."
"The dumb fuck... How one could be so stupid is beyond me."
"Me too, but he and Crabbe did have their uses back in school. Anyway another one who has been trapped in Astoria's net over the years is Flint. I never liked him, he completely lacked sense in Quidditch strategy and how he became captain of the Slytherin team I can't even begin to understand. The whole school noticed the change in the team after I took over, and I don't say that to brag!"
Blaise raised a quizzical eyebrow at the blonde.
"Well maybe a little." Draco admitted.
"That's what I thought." Blaise mumbled as he turned back to the now done coffee and began to pour it into the cups, before bringing them to the table.
Then a pop was heard from the living room indicating that Potter was back from the ministry. A couple of seconds later he came banging into the kitchen with a bunch of papers in his arms.
"Great, coffee!" Potter said and snatched Blaise's cup from his hands, and took a hefty sip. "I really needed that."
Blaise and Draco stared from the scarred faced man in front of them to each other. "Okay then... I will make another batch." Blaise said and tentatively backed away from the clearly flustered man who just stole his drink.
"So what did you find?" Draco asked after he recovered from the slight shock he got by Potters forwardness. They were not enemies anymore with Hermione in the picture but they were certainly not friends and the way Potter acted was not normal. But he guessed that abnormal circumstances called for abnormal actions, even if it creeped him out.
"The list of Death Eaters weren't so hard to find, especially if you work in the Auror department, but the blueprints weren't so easy. Apparently not many purebloods want to give blueprints of their estate to the ministry."
"Wonder why." Came a sarcastic response from the dark skinned man in the kitchen, and Draco couldn't do anything other than agree. Leaving out estate blueprints would give the ministry control over large part of the family's business as a large part of everything they did was connected to the house in some way. A way for pure-blooded families to ensure that their winnings would be kept inside the family.
"I did however," Potter continued ignoring the comment. "Find a few prints, about a century old, from when they wanted to expand the estate with its west wing, and had to seek permission to import a special stone from the Ural-mountains they wanted to build the facade with. Apparently the wizarding world can't ship that large amounts of stone and they had to contact the muggle authorities."
"Oka… well at least there's something. I've been there a couple of times so I'll probably recognize some of it, as for the list we have come up with nearly fifty names. We can still rule out some more but let's crosscheck first so we don't have to do any unnecessary work."
Merlin knew the time rolled away without them doing unnecessary things.
Blaise returned to the table with a new cup of coffee and took the list from Potters pile. "I'll read the names aloud and you'll mark them if they match."
"Or we can do this." Draco said and grabbed the paper from Blaise's hands and piled it on top of the other list. Then the he pointed his wand at the stack of paper and mumbled an incantation. Shortly after he was done some names that appeared on both sheets began to glow.
"That's a neat little trick, where did you learn that?" Blaise said in amazement as he grabbed the paper and checked which names were listed on both of them.
"Did you really think I read all those books I was looking through before a big assignment at Hogwarts?"
"Well, yeah. I thought you had lost it completely by sixth year, so in reality you were just scanning a paper on top of those books and, what? Found the right pages to read without having to read though every chapter?"
"Yup, that's about it, Salazar knew I had enough on my mind that year to even think about focusing on a book."
Somewhere along the conversation Potter had snatched the other sheet and looked at the glowing names. "There's Nott, Montague, Flint, Pucey, Bole and Tracey Davis." He said making the other two focus once again at the task at hand.
"We were discussing Theo before you came back and we don't think he would help Astoria. As for Tracey she goes no longer after the name Davis. She married Montague and they live together in France now, with some relatives of his." Blaise said and as a way of explaining he added, "She and Pansy writes sometimes."
"So that leaves Flint, Pucey and Bole." Potter declared. "I say we go now, we have reduced the number drastically so we won't be that surprised for what's coming. I'll call for back-up and we can be ready to leave within the hour."
Potter had started to pack the blueprints and hadn't noticed the lack of response from the other two who bluntly stared at him.
Was he suicidal?
"What?" he said after about a minute and he still hadn't got any response.
"We're Slytherins," Blaise said slowly as if talking to a child.
"We value self-preservation." Draco filled in, talking in an equally slow voice. He was ecstatic that they had come this close to figuring everything out, but he would not throw himself into something he wasn't completely sure of. They didn't have room for mistakes and there for therefore they needed a waterproof plan. This, whatever Potter was planning, was not it.
"We only have one chance of success and I will not throw that away by some rushed attempt at rescue." Draco said to Potter holding the other mans gaze to make him see that he was serious. "If Astoria was clever enough to break in to into Hermione's flat, I'll be sure that she won't just let us stomp into her home. She must had have placed some serious wards and traps for just such actions you were about to throw yourself in.
"She's a Slytherin, remember that. She was sorted into that house for a reason. And to beat a Slytherin you'll have think like one."