A/N: Hello, lovely readers! I'm sorry it has been such a long time, but this chapter was... tricky, and so is life. I hope you all enjoy it, and I hope you're all staying safe and healthy through these uncertain, difficult times! I'm technically an essential worker so finding time to write will continue to be the worst, but I'll try, for you guys.

Enjoy!

Eliza x

Disclaimer: I do not own the works made use of herein, none of the Harry Potter features or characters belong to me. I make no money from this work. (Basically, if you recognise it, it's not mine.)

Warnings: Rated M for situations, LOTS OF swearing, violence, sexual scenes, minor character death, graphic descriptions of murder victims, references to cannibalism, torture...


Apples and Oranges

Chapter Sixteen


Hermione retreated to her room when they returned, leaving Fenrir to seek out Mrs. Quinn, but only to regroup before heading out again. Meeting Matthew Turner's widow only reinforced her wish to find his killer, and soon. She'd been pratting about with the Pack because she was curious at heart and completely fascinated by their lifestyle, but that wasn't her job, and she needed to get back to it before she lost the trail completely.

That meant going to see Lavender, and even the thought put a lump of ice in her stomach that she just couldn't shift.

Luckily, Luna had left a spare wand on her bed - a helpful reminder to ward her room, too - and while it wasn't a perfect fit, or even a good one, it worked better than the Snatcher's wand had. She practiced with it for a while, never one to go into battle unprepared, and when she was happy, threw up some rudimentary wards before striding back downstairs.

The square was quiet as she crossed it, with the stalls shrouded in their covers and a sense of solemnity lying over the village as a whole. Doors were closed, but many had hung wreaths over their windows - candles lit in baskets woven with reeds and aconite, various berries and, in some places, little bells, the sweet smell of melting wax pressing in from every side. Hermione paused to examine one, gently touching the mistletoe in awe. It was out of season, and had clearly been magically created. She adored it, her breath catching in her throat as she considered this subdued show of mourning, clearly a tradition they held close to their hearts.

"We always 'ave 'em on hand," Jon said from behind her, his voice uncharacteristically low. Hermione swiped frantically at her cheeks, not wanting to intrude on his own mourning - she had no right to share in their collective sorrow; she was an outsider, here to do a job, and she had to remember that. Jon, however, simply nodded in approval when he spotted the smears beneath her eyes. "Y'never know what's gonna 'appen, especially 'ere." He reached up himself, tapping one of the bells, the resounding chime a despondent note.

"I can't imagine what it's like," Hermione admitted, her eyes following it's gentle sway. "I've lost people before, of course, but never… they were friends?"

"Simidh is torn up about it," Jon answered her silent question. "They always are."

They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the last of the bell's rings drifting away on the breeze. Jon let out a sigh, and then turned back towards the gate. "Foller me," he said, quietly, leading the way. "I've a message for you."

"Oh?" Hermione was reluctant to follow; her mind was already at Lavender's, prepared for the confrontation in a way she didn't think she'd ever be able to replicate. The Pack's mourning, however, had thrown her for a loop - and Lavender, she realised, would be part of this. She was Pack. For some reason, that hadn't truly clicked for her until right then - and the shock of her own ignorance gave Jon the opening he needed.

"Ma'am - I don' mean t'be rude, but we can't loiter out 'ere. S'not done."

"Right, sorry. Who-?"

"Some mad-haired lad." Jon seemed preoccupied, like he wanted nothing more than to be indoors, himself. "I'll have to ask you to stay outside, this time. We can't have strangers here right now."

"I'm a stranger," Hermione pointed out, gently. Jon looked at her queerly.

"You're not wrong. But you're also home, and that counts for something."

Molly was at the window to the final house, draping a dark fabric patterned with foxglove over the gap. She nodded at the two of them before disappearing behind it, and Jon stared after her, his yearning palpable even as he climbed into his little hut. Hermione lingered awkwardly by the window, watching his back as he rooted around, muttering under his breath in a subdued parody of his usual energy. Eventually, he straightened out, narrowly missing smacking his head against a beam. "Gotcha," he murmured, smoothing the paper against a wall and holding it out for Hermione to take. "Village is a couple'a miles south-west o' here. Could probably find you a map if y'want to apparate…"

"I'll be fine, thank-you, Jon." Hermione turned to leave, then glanced back at his hang-dog expression. "Jon…"

"Yes, ma'am?" He blinked at her warily.

"Why don't you go - not home, I suppose, but to Molly's? It's close enough by that you can keep an eye on the gate and…" Hermione struggled to find a way to phrase it that wouldn't offend his sense of duty. "She's friends with the Quinns, isn't she? She might appreciate some solace."

Jon frowned, staring over her shoulder. "Couldn't do that, ma'am. Leave this place unprotected? Alpha'd have my head."

She sighed, reaching out to pat his hand, but withdrawing at the last second. "Of course. You're very committed, Jon."

"This is my home. Nothin' to it."


Hermione opted to walk into town, with the help of a warming charm and a point-me. It took her an hour, but when the first house came into view she almost wished it would have taken her longer. She wasn't ready to rejoin society, even if that society was one neat row of houses and a Co-Op.

In familiar, scrawled handwriting, the note directed Hermione to the Apothacarist's Arms, which, despite its name being wrong in every sense, apparently made a smashing chippy supper and rented beds in the rooms above on a nightly basis. This, too, was noted down, as if it were of importance to Hermione. She wasn't sure what the lads thought - that the Pack was feeding her nought but raw meat? Perhaps. Harry had never been interested in werewolves any further than standing up for Hermione's Werewolf Rights Bill in the Wizengamot, and Harry the Second had no experience with the beings themselves (on a side note, one of the greatest victories Hermione had managed in her first year at the Ministry was having Werewolves reclassified from 'Beasts' to 'Beings'. That they had been Beasts in the first place was, quite frankly, disgusting).

The Apothacarist's Arms' front door was propped open, the sound of light chatter serving as a welcome mat. Hermione paused on the threshold, the distinctive smell of a pub - the meaty smell of beer, to be specific - propelling her violently back to a few nights ago-

She dragged herself back firmly, refusing to allow her discipline to slip for a second, and forged onwards. A pock-marked teenager at the bar directed her to the snug, through a panelled hallway and down a short staircase, and there she found Tonks, Luna, and both Harrys, sharing a few pints and laughing at some joke or another. Hermione paused on the stairs, attempting to dispell the sudden feeling of wrongness that washed over her, her own feeling of offense to see them sitting there happily as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.

"Hermione!" Harry called, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He made an aborted movement, as if he would have hugged her but her expression had stalled it. "Are you alright, love?"

Even his cut-glass southern accent seemed wrong, she realised. Pack life had clearly been more insulated than she'd thought.

"I'm fine," she reassured him, finally approaching their table. "It has just - I've had a long day."

"I wouldn't press it, Harry," Luna said, patting his hand with a smile. "I ordered you a salad."

Hermione forced a smile. "Just what I fancied. It's all meat, meat, meat up there, you know."

"Better you than I, then," Harold sniffed, shoving his way around the booth to make room for Hermione. "Sounds like a recipe for gout."

Tonks tossed her hair as Hermione took her seat, looking up from a pile of paper stacked in front of her. She was wearing glasses, which was new - wide-framed ones she perched on the top of her head as she pushed the stack across the table, which then promptly fell off the other side and down the back of the booth. "Bollocks," she swore, tiredly. "Wotcher, 'Mione. You'll want to look at that. Good lad, Harold, a bloody good spot."

"What's a good spot?" Hermione asked, leaning out of Tonks' way as she jumped up onto the bench and fished around behind it. "Did you find something for me?"

"Oh, loads," Harry grinned, winking at Harold, who scowled. "Harold's been on top of everything since you've been gone - made a good choice there, 'Mione. Even I couldn't come up with some of that."

"Did you manage to get some of the interviews done, then?" Luna chimed in as Hermione began to sort through pages of hastily scrawled backstory. Each one was titled in capital letters with a name, and a list of sources formed a footnote. Between these lay all of the facts Hermione could have asked Harold to find, and more.

"This is wonderful, Harry," Hermione murmured, flipping through and wrinkling her brow. "Though I think some of it is missing…"

"Not missing," Harold sniffed, clearly offended. "Purposefully removed. We couldn't find any information at all on one of your names."

"Neither of you could?" Impossible. There was no such thing as a nobody - everyone had a history, it was simply a matter of finding it.

Harry took a swig of his ale, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a gesture that made Hermione faintly nostalgic. "Nuthin'," he gargled. "And I tried everything, see. Scoured all of Europe for it. Closest I got was from - well, Viktor, actually. Remember Viktor?"

Rolling her eyes felt childish, but satisfying. She was not used to being drip-fed the information she required. "Why on earth were you talking to Viktor?"

"As a last resort. He happened to be in the Ministry yesterday to talk to Percy, and I bumped into him. Since we'd had no luck with the Veela and the International Federation-"

"You called the International Federation?!"

"He called his ex-girlfriend," Harold corrected her in a tight voice. "Ambassador Chang. Hardly noteworthy."

"Yeah, thanks, Harry," Harry scoffed. "Clearly you've never had to ask a favour of a girl you once broke up with because she 'cries too much'."

"She did cry rather a lot," Luna said, absently. "When she wasn't sticking my shoes to the ceiling."

Hermione rested her hand atop Luna's for a moment, then withdrew it. Her empathy reserves were drained, and she really did need this information - especially now that the boys had decided to make it as difficult as drawing blood from a stone. "I'm well aware of your disastrous dating history, Harry Potter. Tell me what I need to know."

Harry pouted for a moment, but quickly continued when Hermione snarled. "Bloody hell, woman, those wolves are getting to you. It's not much, anyway - an old folk tale, but it's all we've got."

"Anything can be something with the right information," Tonks said, re-surfacing with dust-covered glasses in her hands. "Gods, I hate glasses." Both Harrys looked at her drolly.

"Viktor said he'd heard about this lass, a couple of years back, who went missing. She was from a small village in Bulgaria, but she made the national news because of what happened around the same time. Apparently, she just up and walked out of the village. Everyone thought she'd eloped, because she'd had a suitor - that's the word Viktor used, not me, so don't give me that face, 'Mione. He'd been hanging around for a couple of months, on and off, and he'd bring her gifts; food and jewels and clothes from Sofia where he worked. He asked her parents if he could marry her, but they said no - she was only sixteen, and still in school.

"Her parents must have been concerned about her, because they started to drop her off and pick her up from school every day, instead of letting her walk alone - or so they said in their statement. One day, however, she wasn't there when they came to pick her up, and nobody saw her since."

Hermione blinked when she realised that was the end of the story. "You're joking."

"No?"

"No, I mean - what does this have to do with my case?" Hermione cocked an eyebrow. "You said something else happened around this time?"

Harold had clearly gotten fed up with Harry's story telling, for he butted in before the other man could continue. "I brought the story, in case you wanted it," he said, rifling through his briefcase. "Long story short," he sniffed, with a pointed look at Harry, "two days later a travelling pastor stumbled upon a neighbouring village. It was a bloodbath - everyone there was dead; man, woman, child. They'd been there a few days, the coroner determined, because animals had been at their corpses, but the time of death was put around midnight on the same day the girl disappeared."

He pulled a sheet of worn paper from the case and passed it over the table. "They started calling her Little Red," he added, clearly referring to the picture staring up at Hermione. Her brain froze. "On account of the wolf attack that tore up that village. The authorities reckoned she was one of the victims - there was an unidentified corpse that didn't belong. Harry, however, thinks she might be your man."

Hermione broke her paralysis all at once, blinking hard. "Right. Thank you, boys. That's - more helpful than you think."

"Wait!" Tonks shouted as she stood to leave. "There's more. That's why I'm here - Harold brought it to me and I thought you should hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak." She wrinkled her nose with a sly wink, but Luna plugged it firmly before her teeth could so much as grow an inch. "You're no fun," Tonks whined, but settled down.

"What is it?" Hermione demanded, not bothering to sit back down. Her body was alive with energy, zipping through her veins like wildfire. If she sat down, she might explode.

"It's about your Beta up there - Simidh, and how he responded to me. You remember? He knew that I was mated, right?"

"I remember."

"But he didn't say anything about Remus, did he? And don't you think he should have, given that he knows him, and very well? Remus fought him several times when he was with them in the seventies, 'cos Greyback was trying to train him as a Beta. It was bothering me, so I asked Remus about it. Back then, Simidh could smell Remus coming from a mile away. It's why he got in so many fights. Every time Remus dropped slightly behind to send a message, Simidh would be right there, waiting. And I'm his Mate - I ought to stink of him. In fact, I know I do, because he scent-marks the shit outta me whenever I leave the house for more than a day."

"I don't see where you're going with this," Hermione nearly whined, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose in an effort to stave off a migraine.

"Nowhere, really, except I asked my mum about it, too. She knows everyone, does my mum, and she has never heard of an Isbeil-"

"Isbeil is a Muggle from the far north of Scotland, I highly doubt-"

"But, she did know a girl around the same age, from Wick. Her name was Isabella Markham, a Slytherin from Mum's year. Apparently she was vicious as anything and came from a troubled household. Mum looked after her for her first year there, but by second year, Isabella had formed her own little cult and didn't need mum anymore. She tried to push her off the stairs while they were moving from one floor to the next. Of course, it didn't work, mum being mum, and Isabella got expelled."

"How horrible," Hermione murmured. Tonks shrugged.

"Mum never forgot about Isabella, because Cygnus Black set his sights on her. Mum remembers hearing that the whole family was found dead in their home - the Killing Curse, and one of the Shafiq boys got sent to Azkaban. Not Isabella, though. Apparently, she never made it home."

Hermione considered this for a moment. She'd seen no hint that Isbeil was magical, but if she'd been expelled… And that accent. Upper-middle class, for all that everyone around her was broad Scots. Even her name didn't suit. But then again, it wouldn't do to jump to conclusions, not without firmer proof. "Let me guess," she sighed. "You couldn't find proof of Isbeil Allaidh anywhere, either."

"Only the marriage license," Harold said, quirking a slight, mildly sympathetic smile. "And even that had been misfiled."

"I ask again," Luna muttered. "Did you finish your interviews, yet?"


To go in one day from having a dearth of suspects to suspecting everyone around her was jarring for Hermione. Not only did she now have to take care around someone she thought she had known very well, but also be on guard against new threats from those she had thought she'd… if not neutralised, then at least delayed. And with her emotional stability in tatters after the day she'd had, she wasn't sure quite how she'd find the fortitude to begin her investigation all over again.

Barricaded in her room and ignoring Molly's insistent taps on the door, Hermione checked over her list in the candlelight. How strange, she remembered making the list, but couldn't pinpoint when, exactly, she'd chosen to stray so far from what was on the page. It was so unlike her, to allow herself to be so thoroughly swept away by events and forget her priorities. And a man - two men - were dead.

She blew out the candle and pushed her way under the covers, impatiently kicking away the battered paperback that had somehow made its way back into her bed. Tomorrow was another day. No distractions, no messing around - she would find her way to the bottom of this, once and for all.

What would happen after that was anyone's guess.