I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Twenty-four: Marsh Beings

Hermione was no stranger to a library but despite her usual breadth of reading, she had never gone quite so deep into the magical creature's section as she had now, researching for their newest assignment. Hermione and Draco's newest job request had come in via Owl early in the morning, interrupting the final evaluation they had been giving Artie before he left for his new team. In the last two days, more than fifteen people in the small town of Hullyton had gotten ill after seeing something… something the villagers claimed was a magical creature called the "Marsh Being", and with its arrival, a terrible smell permeated through the village. As far as their preliminary research in the P&P databases were concerned no creature could smell so terrible and make people ill. Hence, the two of them had split the task of identifying this creature. Hermione would go to research to see if something like this had ever been reported in other locations, and Draco would visit Hullyton to gather more information and scope out the town himself.

Hermione peered through the narrow opening between two bookshelves – no one ventured in this section. Thin grey dust clung to the top of the books like a sheer blanket. Most of the light streamed from a small colour-stained window at the top of the ceiling, casting that entire section of the library in a dreary green. Aside from that, everything else was as to be expected in a slightly older library. Books of varied widths and sizes stuffed the bookshelves. A small trolley stood at the end of the row with an assorted pile of documents no bothered to put back into place. In the centre of all this mess, Hermione was at home, and to what she considered her natural habitat, she began to hum.

"Do you need any help?" A librarian sidled past her, tapping her on the shoulder to draw her attention.

"Yes please," Hermione said, nodding her head. She liked books, but the project had been marked multiple times with the "URGENT" stamp. So, as much as she liked digging through volumes of books for research, she had no time to waste. "I would like to know everything and anything related to Marsh Beings."

"Marsh Beings," the librarian repeated. "Never heard of them. Might I suggest going to the Reported Sightings of Potentially Imaginary Creatures? If a researcher 'discovers' a mythical beast and there has been no sighting of such a creature within ten years by another party, the sightings are stored in those collections."

After three hours in the library and searching through boxes and boxes of archives, Hermione had come up with nothing. Aside from a casual mention here and there – and Hermione wasn't sure the reported sightings were Marsh Beings (and there were no reports of smells) –an idea possessed her: "If there is no research to be done out here," she said to herself, drawing her wand out her pocket. "Then it's time meet up with Draco."

A wide expanse of untamed wilderness laid before Draco's eyes and he would have enjoyed the experience so much more if it were not for the bumpy cart ride.

For Draco, who preferred to not be magically broken up into atomic pieces and put back together again as a form of travel, travelling to a far-distant village was a nightmare; it meant no Floo or port-key connections. Hearing Draco's sigh, Toots, the village guide, turned his head back, his face obscured by his giant-brimmed hat.

"Not many people want to visit little ol' Hullyton. And indeed, there is no reason to," he said, bouncing in his front seat as the wheels of the carriage hit large rocks on the unused path. "Unless you're one of those historians. Hullyton is one of the last towns to still be completely technology-free."

Toots seemed rather proud of that fact. However, to Draco, whose bottom was getting more and more sore from the bumpy ride, he was starting to feel resentful. "My colleague did preliminary research and historians call Hullyton a living museum from back in the 1840s," Draco replied. He sniffed twice and wrinkled his nose. "We're getting close, aren't we?"

"One more mile!" The guide pointed to the dark line on the horizon. "Mind you, the smell only gets worse as we draw nearer. No freshening charm can fix the problem."

Draco pinched his nose between two fingers and stood up from his spot. His task was to survey the actual site to see if he could pick up any clues: the short straw. "The village folk think it's because the Marsh Being's haunting your village?"

"We all think so," Toots said solemnly. "Unlike other towns around, many of our grandparents have seen Marsh Beings roaming in the back of our town. Though there had been no sightings for over a century, just yesterday, three members of our village have fallen when they caught sight of this mysterious dripping silhouette."

They didn't talk much after that, and soon they pulled towards the thatched fences of the small village upwind of the marshlands. Draco stretched his legs out of the carriage, and the guide helped him out of his seat. Draco took Toot's hand and stepped out of the carriage delicately, trying to avoid getting any mud on his shoes. Such an endeavour proved futile, as muddy specks flew onto his Italian loafers when a man with dark hair and spectacles, dressed in a long black cloak rushed forward to greet him.

"Thank you for coming here, Mr Malfoy. We are thankful you have accepted our request," he said, giving him a tip of his top hat and extending a hand for a handshake. "I am Joe Procter, the village leader."

This visit, Draco could see, had the potential to be incredibly strange. Draco was no stranger to traditional attire. After all, Pucey had a rather conservative wardrobe barring his brightly coloured floral shirts whenever he travelled to the tropics. Joe's attired could have been something Pucey's father wore. It felt as though Draco had dived headfirst into one of his family portraits that were once displayed on the walls of the Malfoy ancestral abode. Joe's clothes were not the only thing that was dated. Somehow, Hullyton had kept even the roads and the architecture completely frozen in the 1840s. It wasn't that Draco had never seen antiquated things – in his childhood home there was plenty of that – he'd never seen such a complete ensemble, and though there were things here and there that had been around since his great- great- great- great- great-father, sitting beside those antiques would be an equally expensive, but modern ornament. Being in such a historic setting reminded him of someone who refused to adopt technology because it would dilute the pure magical world… it reminded Draco of another time and place, not so long ago, when he too thought anything that tainted the magical world was bad.

That memory was a muffled one. Though it no longer made his nauseous the way it used to a few years back, subconsciously or not, Draco filled with dread and he couldn't quite rid himself of the sinister feeling around this place, nor Joe Procter. "We're glad to be of service." Draco granted the man a business-like smile but did not receive Joe's outstretched hand. Instead, he turned away, surveying his immediate surroundings. "Could you please tell me what happened?"

"This smell," Joe said, waving his hand around him. "The stink of foul and death swept over the town a couple of days ago like an early morning fog. When people started to fall ill, that was when we commissioned the Pucey and Prewett company. An hour later, Miss Caplin, a sweet dear who got in nobody's business, never complained about a single soul who continued her work despite the smell… in the morning at the crack of dawn, she screamed so loud, she woke half the village up. She saw a phantom, an Apparition. Everyone thought she might've been overworked until Tom and Jack fell ill too!"

"He's right," Toots nodded. "I wasn't there at the time, but I heard from Mr Berrner that he saw Miss Caplin screaming."

"So, from what I gather, I'm to investigate a smelly beast that causes a mysterious illness?" Draco asked. He looked up and saw villagers crowding around him and whispering to one another. He tried not to frown. Joe gave him a weak smile and could only explain that he was the first outsider for years.

"Mrs Baudry!" Joe rushed to assist the old woman who was shuffling closer to them.

Age sketched lines across Mrs Baudry's face and bent her bones until she could no longer walk without a cane. She eyed Draco up and down before and said: "I remember many, many years ago when I was a little girl, the smell, oh the smell and the death that followed. It's the Marsh Being, it's come to take revenge again! This has happened once before, and too many had died. This time we have to get rid of the Marsh Being!"

"Poor Miss Caplin!" someone in the crowd called out.

"Jack cannot be saved!"

"The villagers are getting riled up," Joe said to Draco. "Please excuse me for a moment." He took his wand out of his robes and said in his amplified voice. "Everyone, please keep calm. We are going to sort this as soon as possible, head home and carry on your daily activities."

"Wait, I would like to speak to Mrs Baudry," Draco said, searching for the old woman who had disappeared in the crowd. "Or anyone her age who has encountered this beast before."

"Certainly," Joe said, "we will round up the village elders immediately. There are three of them. If you please, come to my office and—"

Joe's sentence was cut off by a piercing scream that came from a small child clutching at his mother's skirts. A young boy of no more than four continued to screech even as his mother picked him up in her arms. She hugged him tightly, rocking him to and fro, trying to calm him down.

"Are you afraid of all the yelling?" She smoothed the brown curls on his head and held him close to her chest. "I just wanted to see what the newcomer would look like, let's head back home."

"Feeling vomity," he pressed his small fists over his eyes. "Bru-cey is feeling vomity."

Bruce's mom quickly put him down and he emptied his breakfast onto the ground. "Oh, baby…" Then, a fear gripped her heart and constricted her throat. "Brucey, t-this morning, did you see anyone—anything strange? Did you see anyone? Did you see the black lady who waved through the window?"

"Y-yes."

Draco crouched down by the boy. "You saw a lady?"

"Yes."

"What kind of lady? A black-shadowy lady?" Joe prompted.

"Yes," Bruce wailed.

"That's impossible!" the woman exclaimed. "I was with Bruce the entire time this morning. He never left my sight…" But now that Bruce mentioned it, I also saw a shadow at breakfast, she thought and she emptied her breakfast onto the ground too.

"Ms Marlliac's fallen ill! Fetch the doctor!" Joe grabbed Draco's hand. "Please, I will take you back to my office. This needs to be solved as soon as possible." He led the blond through the village square, following a cobblestone path that raised half an inch or so above the dusty ground. The village was small; the population of it was probably the same as the number of students in Hogwarts. The grey path led him across a multitude of houses built with a mixture of wood and thatch. Draco saw goats and chickens in the residents' backyards and came across a well. He guessed they must be close to the village centre since they had been walking for a few minutes.

Inside the town hall and in Joe's office, Draco took a seat on a chair beside the window. "It's not much, but please sit. I'll answer anything you need," Joe hung his cloak and top-hat on a hanger. "Would you like a cup of tea? You must be thirsty from your long trip here."

"That'd be lovely, thank you," Draco said, clearing his throat and casting a discrete cleaning charm on his body, hoping any contaminants he had picked up on the cart ride here and his meeting with various villagers had not made him ill. He had learnt that noses would get insensitive to smells, but this proved to be an exception. That certainly pointed to the strange character of the smell. He took a seat on the chair and pulled out the grey folder which held the list of questions he wanted to ask.

"I have sent the message. With luck, Ms Baudry will be here in about ten minutes' time," said Joe, he walked back into the room, balancing the tray of tea in his hands. He set it onto the table and took a seat on the other side of the table, folded his hands together and gestured to the cup of tea. "Please help yourself."

Draco nodded and pulled the teacup closer to him. "Let's start off with some history first, what was Mrs Baudry talking about, revenge?"

"The Marsh Being is something like a legend in our village. Of course, only Mrs Baudry has encountered such a thing in this lifetime; but everyone knows the story and why they want revenge."

"You hunted the Marsh Beings?" Draco guessed, taking a sip from the cup. He watched a stray tea leaf swirl in his cup as he added an extra spoon of sugar into his drink. Another ominous sign.

"No… the revenge comes from us being unkind with its name… when we discipline our children—when we try to scare them, we would say the Marsh Being would take them away. We didn't know they would take offence. The Marsh Beings were a legend and a figment of our imaginations. Like the boogeyman. Who knew they actually existed?"

"So you're saying the Marsh Being is cursing people, making them fatally ill because you're using its name to scare children?" Draco said, playing with his teacup.

"That is our leading theory. We rarely venture outside our village. There is nothing we can reap from the marshlands, so we have left the Marsh Beings' habitat undisturbed. There is no reason for them to come after us, save for us using its name in vain."

Draco nodded and raised the teacup to his lips again, taking a sip of the steaming hot tea to fight off the chills that ran through his body. He stared through the large window behind Joe as he considered what he had just heard. The sky turned into a dull-grey and a sick light lingered over the town. Then, Draco became distinctly aware of a person on the other side of the window. She pressed her face close to the glass, peering straight in, before fleeing immediately when she realised he had caught sight of her. Not another nosy villager, he sighed, tilting the teacup before taking a sip. He drained his teacup and poured himself another. And something primaeval, instinctive, tingled his magical senses.

In that moment it occurred to him with an utter certainty the woman had not come to satisfy her curiosity for the outside world. She'd come for a different reason entirely. "Can you tell me what happens when the person becomes cursed?" Draco asked, shaking whatever came over him and concentrated on his task at hand. "What are the symptoms? If what you are saying is true, and the Marsh Beings are cursing the town, we can break the casted curse if we can figure out what happens in each three stages of it."

Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. "Miss Caplin and Tom passed through the three phases, there have only been two cases, so we can't completely trust..."

"Just give me a run-down," he urged.

"The first phase, well they start noticing they're ill. A simple stomach-ache, chills, a headache. Nothing uncommon at this time of the year. Miss Caplin and Tom said it was mild enough for them to stay at home. Our villagers are good at taking care of themselves. They know to take it easy, eat simple fluids, drink plenty of water and so forth. If we count Ms Marlliac and her son, Bruce, as victims of the curse, then the second stage is nausea."

Draco nodded, drumming his fingers on his tables. He could name several mythical curses that could produce this effect. He jotted down: Find out Marsh Being's magical capabilities with curses onto his parchment as Joe continued.

"Tom and Jack hit the second phase yesterday morning hours before Miss Caplin. Of course, this struck the doctors as odd. Doctor Moore confirmed this had to be a curse, as Mrs Baudry suggested when she saw the victims. No one believed her at first. But everything happening confirms what she has told us. In the second phase, they were shivering; they lost control of their bowels and their ability to walk. By this time, we moved them out of their homes and into the infirmary."

"And in the third phase… well, you must know what the last phase of killing curses do."

"Excruciating pain and the loss of magic," Draco finished for him.

"Mr Procter!" A woman rushed burst into the office, hair in disarray, her bonnet hung askew on the side of her head. "The Marsh Being's on a rampage! It's awful; fifteen more people have been cursed as of this morning!"

"What?" Joe's knocked over his cup, now full of cold tea, and it splashed all across the table. "What do we do, Mr Malfoy?"

"First, we must calm down," Draco replied. As he sat up, his stomach felt heavy and his head felt light—he must've gotten up too quickly. "Then I suppose, we go to the marshlands and try talk to the Marsh Being. See what it wants, try reason with them. If anything, we can gather some clues on how they behave and that might help break the curse."

"Of course, Mr Malfoy," Joe said in a rush and fear filled his eyes at the thought of confronting the star of his childhood nightmares. "Just let me collect my things…"

Draco got out of his chair and turned to the window, looking out of it. Perplexed, he climbed out of it, so that he was now outside, and he was facing the inside of the room. He stepped in the same spot and positioned himself as she did and looked into the room, where the woman must have stood, just to see what she might've been looking at.

At that moment, Joe re-entered the meeting room and just as Draco had done moments before, caught sight of a figure peering from the window. "AH!" He turned white and came out around the back with his briefcase in his hand. "Mr Malfoy, what are you doing there?"

"Nothing," Draco replied, his stomach feeling heavier and heavier.