I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Twenty-nine: A litany of incompetence and recklessness

"Please sign here and here, once your names are on the file, you will be able to read the documents within it."

Hermione nodded and picked the quill with trembling fingers. Draco signed his name with a long and loopy strokes. She scrawled hers in and picked up the file.

"I wish you the best of luck," said Ignatius.

As they made their way back down to their office—following their reinstatement, they got their office back—they sat adjacent to each other.

Hermione placed the red file on top of the desk and it was the sole angry beacon of the silent trouble of the Wizarding world. "Ready?" Hermione asked. Her eyes ablaze like a pyre; she would be lying if she said she hadn't chosen this job because she was attracted to the element of danger—the adrenaline rush which precluded life-threatening situations, a raw desire to fight which never left her after the war.

"Been ready." He smiled back of her and they both drew their wands and chanted a spell to unseal the file. In a stage production, there would have been more theatrics. Sparks might flicker as the gear inside the file whined and disassembled itself, or perhaps smoke would unfurl onto their faces in delicate tendrils as Draco flicked the cover of the folder open.

Instead, they were greeted with a no-nonsense cover sheet…

MINISTRY CLASSIFIED FILES:

Progress Report for Project 5509009

Dr Koon Hwang's team consisting of himself, Adrian Pucey, Phillip White had previously developed the Faraday Cage and supplementary charms: GB16, Q07 to allow magic to be comply with Muggle technologies.

14th July 2003: the team began to refine model #2 prescribed in their paper: "The Muggle Revolution: Effective Solutions to Electromagnetic Interference".

As discussed in the paper, model #2 was to create a device which transmitted EMF waves to allow compatibility between magic and MT without added shielding around devices.

19th December 2004: model #2 enhanced to range of 2 km, success rate of 65%.

20th March 2005: model #2 gained range of 5km.

27th March 2005: Dr. Hwang's team has discovered, having increased the frequency and amplitude, a type of EMF wave transmission which negates magic.

1st April 2005: Reported to Ministry as sensitive information.

Ministry Response
10th April 2005: Classified as high red-alert. The developed transmitting device (DTD #4573) classified a Grade 6 weapon and has the potential to be used to terrorise and threaten the Magical Community.

12th April 2005:

1447h: Phillip White found dead in the laboratory. Suspected cause of death: choking on his meal. No signs of breaking and entering. Transmitting device has disappeared as with the blueprints to the machine. No signs of struggle.

1500h: Adrian Pucey fails to show at a meeting.

1535h: Evidence of abrupt departure in Dr Hwang's home and office.

Dr Hwang is profiled as prime suspect to Phillip White's death and Adrian Pucey's kidnapping.

13th April 2005: Granted emergency powers to Pucey and Prewett Consulting Firm.

14th April 2005: 0914h, case officially accepted by Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy Pucey.

ASSIGNMENT STATEMENT

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are to use all necessary means to:

1. Recover the developed transmitting device (DTD #4573); and

2. Locate Dr Koon Hwang to extract information from him.

Draco gasped. Adrian Pucey had been missing since two days ago…? Sure he had been caught up with other things to hang out with his friends, but he should have noticed—"Shit, I should have suspected something last night when Pansy said she was stood up!" said Draco. His heart thundered and his thoughts were scrambled like eggs for breakfast. "We've got to find him."

Hermione pulled out a pad of paper from her drawer and she rapped on her table top. "Calm down, Draco. We need to think about this clearly."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said in a rush. "I am calm. As calm as someone can be when their sort-of brother has been taken by a mad scientist who's just stolen a weapon of mass destruction!"

"Something's not sitting well with me with these facts. Think about it. Something doesn't add up, I can feel it in my gut." Hermione began speed-reading the rest of the file containing more details of the element of the case. "I can't point it out right now, but don't you think it is strange? Surely this job is for the Aurors… if we find him shouldn't we call the Aurors so they can detain him?"

"If it were a simple manhunt, they wouldn't need to assign us to do it. I'm sure Potter hand handled more sensitive threats than this…" said Draco. His mind was still spinning in circles and if it weren't for Hermione's vice-like grip on his arm, he would have flown out of his chair, down the road and to Adrian's house just to confirm that he was no longer there.

"So concentrate and help me figure out what it is."

He pressed his forehead into his palms and shook his head. "I—I can't think of anything."

"Whoever stole their work was known by them. Or at least managed to get in without any trouble," she began, studying the apartment Dr Hwang had abandoned. She pointed to the desk and the wardrobe. "Completely ordered. This is why they were presuming it was an inside job. And they are assuming Adrian's disappearance and White's death is linked to the stealing of the machine. Of course, we would have to wait until the autopsy, but that is not your conventional way of homicide."

"If a mad scientist is crazy, we can't question what is conventional, be it the way the decides to murder people or the way he chooses to make lunch," he answered.

"If you think about it, if they were ruthless enough to kill Phillip White from the outset, why did they bother kidnapping Adrian?"

Draco's heart dropped to the bottom floor of the firm. "He's dead. Not kidnapped, he's been killed off. Merlin, what do I tell Pucey? Dr. Hwang's off-ed Adrian before he ran away. If I find that man, I'm going to…"

"I'm sure Adrian wasn't kidnapped. I mean, no one we know reported him," Hermione said. She stared at Draco with worry. "I think he ran away."

"Who from?"

"Let's assume it's Dr. Hwang for now." She took a deep breath, knowing she had to be the rational voice in this case. "Let's go to Dr. Hwang's house and see what clues he might have left."

It seemed as the people in the apartment held no affection for elevators and never bothered to repair it. That wasn't the only malfunction in the building complex; in fact, it was only part of the many things that lay derelict in this place. Condensation dripped from the ceilings and collected into little pools of water on the grey-tiled floors. Rusty old security-screen doors stood in front of each apartment door. It appeared only Dr Hwang lived in the complex.

"This one, right?" They arrived in front of apartment no. 48 in the Kennedy Complex and climbed the three storeys with Draco taking the lead. When they reached the third floor, he stood in front of the apartment where the security door was half-open and he tried the door, Hermione a few steps behind. The door held fast, which was surprising, given that two of its three panes was slick mould and the handle itself was stained in a bright green and brown plumes of oxidized copper and rust. "It's locked. Guess we'll have to open it."

"Wait—"

"Alohomora."

It happened so quickly a light—like that of a camera only with intensity of the sun, flashed in arc towards him. Draco was blown backwards and he crawled into a foetal position.

"It's the highest honour to serve our Master," his aunt hissed at him and gave him a deranged grin. "Come now, nephew. Take his mark! All hail the Dark Lord!"

"Are you willing?" Voldemort hissed at him.

"I am."

His curse mark burned excruciatingly, the pain raced up from his right arm—the fire licked up through his elbow and his hand involuntarily opened. His wand rolled out of his hand and the pain raced up his neck, down his spine until every cell of his body screamed. With each heartbeat, it felt as though someone was punching his lungs, and he realised his body was going into shock, and he couldn't even manage to scream.

She didn't even have time to draw her wand from her pocket before she was blown backwards. She landed on her back and her head snapped backwards, and it smacked the floor with a sharp crack. Windows shattered above her and she lifted her arms just in time to cover her face as the glass shards rained down on her. She groped for her wand, still half-blind. She saw Draco lying on the ground, unmoving and she summoned all the energy within her to go to him. The glass on the floor crunched as she pressed her palms on the floor to push herself up and pain numbed her body. "Draco," she whimpered. She didn't need to ask whether he was all right, to her left, he was heaving, crunched up in a ball. When Draco cast the spell to open the door, something, some curse, had been activated… She had to figure out where and how much he was hurt. "Can you hear me? T-Tell me, where it hurts. I need to know which curse was used."

He gave no reply, making guttural sounds against his knees. She her body up towards him. She'd taken a crash-course in counter-curses, (calm down, Hermione, or you're not helping anyone) she couldn't remember anything and he was there, broken in front of her, needing his help.

"My arm," he managed to rasp.

"That's where the pain started?" she asked, glad that he was coherent enough to speak.

"Cut it off," he rasped, pushing his shirt up his arms, revealing a raw, red mark burn where his Dark Mark was imprinted. He had shown it to her once, in the height of summer when she had asked why he was sweating buckets but still refused to wear a short-sleeved shirt… "the mark," he pointed to the now faded smudge on his arm, "it will always be a part of me, it seems. No matter how long it's been, no matter how much it fades."

"It burns, cut it off!"

Hermione saw the veins in his neck bulged as he let loose a silent scream. "Just hold on—" she said, holding up her wand desperately running through her stores of information. It reacted with the Dark mark; it's targeting those with Dark Magic… that's why aside from the blast, I wasn't affected by it. "Soul's light, fool's flight, makes this object full of light!" Hermione waved her wand and pointed it at Draco's arm and for a split second, the Dark mark disappeared under her purification charm. But that all it was needed for Dr Hwang's barrier spell to stop attacking Draco.

The pain receded like a nightmare and Draco unfurled from his foetal position, panting. Upon seeing Draco recovered, Hermione burst into tears and threw her arms around him. He buried herself in his arms and shook silently.

They sat there until Draco cleared his throat. "We need to go in."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"I was stupid," he said, hating himself for acting so reckless. Of course a mad scientist would have put a barrier on the door. "But we need to get into the apartment. The fact that he put some kind of barrier around his door proves that there is definitely something there we can use as a clue. We can't show up with nothing. And that curse, it'll take a while before it'd reactivate again. This is our chance."

"You need to go to hospital," Hermione said in a rush. "I don't even know if I got rid of the curse, what if it's a temporary countermeasure?"

"No," he said standing up. "I'm not leaving here until I find some clue to where he took Adrian." Draco stepped into the room and Hermione gritted her teeth but nonetheless followed him in. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of bleach around his house. Though the smell of disinfectant and whatever chemicals seared her nostrils, the house looked the same way as the rest of the building.

Sprung up in random locations in the living room, Chinese takeaway box towers as tall as her hip stood in the mess of dirty laundry, paper and blankets.

"Why bother putting things on the table when you can just throw it on the floor?" Draco said, eyeing the interior with disgust.

Hermione supposed, coming from someone who made sure all the pens on his desk were parallel to one another, this was a nightmare. This however, did make her nostalgic of the time when she first entered The Nest… "I think he took something with him." She looked around the room and she frowned at the duct tape lined across the crevices of the room. "What's that doing there?"

"He's crazy," Draco said flippantly, kicking a Chinese takeaway food tower. "Maybe he doesn't believe in ventilation." He wheezed as he struggled to breathe and he staggered, falling against the wall.

"Draco, I think… we're…" The world was spinning and she clawed at her throat, feeling as though acid tore through her lungs and it hurt to open her eyes.

He clutched his head and saw Hermione fall onto the ground and saw what was behind her. There was a large plastic tub and four bottles floated on its surface, bobbing up and down, each labelled CLOROX. Bleach! When they had opened the door, they had pulled the bottles into the tub. He would bet his non-existing Malfoy money inside the tub was ammonia.

"Shit, shit!" He rushed over to her, stumbling with each step. Now that he saw the bottles, the smell was obvious! He reached over to Hermione and picked her up in his arms as he stumbled to the door. He tried not to breathe, he was losing his strength… he put her down as gently as possible before flinging the door open. With the last of his strength he pulled Hermione out with him and wheezed, still completely overwhelmed by the fumes.

Barely registering anything, Draco saw the light coming from the shattered window and knew what to do. If he enjoyed the taste of bitter irony and circularity he would have laughed at his stupid situation. Hermione was barely conscious. With each breath feeling like daggers inside his lungs, he dragged her by the arms and climbed onto window ledge. Crushed glass pierced into his legs. He placed her onto his lap, and cradled her in his arms. Took a deep breath. Then...

jumped from the third storeys, feet first so he would absorb most of the impact.

When he landed on the ground, with the last of his energy he started casting a Healing Charm over them, hoping that one of them would be conscious enough to complete the process.

Hermione must have woken first because when he woke up, he was at home in bed and she was sitting beside him. He blinked his eyes slowly twice and gave her a grim smile.

"Hey," he said, and his lungs burned, telling him he wasn't ready for speaking yet.

"You broke both of your legs. No," she corrected herself, "You shattered your legs into about a million pieces. If you didn't cast the Healing Charm on yourself before you blacked out… I couldn't even call for help. I don't even think we could explain what we were doing…"

"What?"

"You broke both your legs jumping out of the window!" she yelled, her hands were in his and she squeezed his fingers so hard, she might as well have broken them too. "What were you thinking? Did you enjoy jumping from the third storey the first time so much you wanted to do it again?"

"We were going to die," he said, wondering why he was defending his actions. "Would you have rather be dead? Because I sure as hell don't want to be."

"Really?" she said.

A silence passed between them and the tension was thick, and it only grew worse as he became more acutely aware of the busy sounds of the hospital. "What do you mean by that?" he said, his head still ached and he didn't want to be questioned like a criminal.

"What's going on with you?" she asked in a low whisper. You're acting like I did during the Mar debacle. Desperation drove me to do stupid and reckless things. Now we're both acting stupid and incompetent and it really has got to stop."

"No, I'm not," he said with a frown.

"The normal, rational Draco would have never tried to open Dr. Hwang's door without testing for wards and curses," she pointed out. "Wouldn't have barreled into the room after suffering the after-effects of the curse. I shouldn't have followed you in, but…"

"Hermione…"

"I know Adrian's missing, but you can't go acting like this." She stood up. "You're not allowed out of this room until tomorrow. And stay where you are and drink all the Skele-Gro no matter how bad it tastes or you're not going anywhere. Good thing the Nest still has a steady supply for all accidents from the weekend Quidditch games."

"But," protested Draco, trying to sit up and found that he couldn't.

"Here's a set of files to read through if you're bored," Hermione said, pointing to the stack of papers beside him. "Relevant information about what they were studying on, profiling reports from friends and colleagues of Dr. Hwang. You can help find Adrian and finish this case faster by doing just that. And if you finish, you can always read the book I lent you."

"Wait," he said and grabbed her arm when she got up to leave. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go interview someone," she said testily, pulling her arm away. She glared at him just to show how unimpressed she was with him right now and grabbed her pouch from his bedside table.

"Hey!" he called out as she was just about to leave the room. "You're not mad at me, right?"

She rolled her eyes and gave him the best charade of WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK face and she sighed, looking down. "Draco. I'm mad at you. I'm also mad at me too. We could have died there. And it was so totally preventable! But…"—and she looked at the ground when she said this—"I don't think I can stay mad at someone who jumped us out of a three-storey building and cushioned my fall."

"Hermione…" A smile began to form on his lips and she snapped her head up a fierce expression scrawled across her face again.

"I am going to go plan out our next steps. The next time I see you, I want the two things achieved," she said in a brisk business-like manner. "One: stay put so your bones are grown properly. Two: read all the files and come up with new insights."

"Do you want an assignment cover sheet with this, Miss?" Draco rolled his eyes and she made a face at him.

"But seriously, do it." And with those parting words, she shut the door behind her.

She knew better than anyone, Draco and she could skirt and dance and avoid their issues for the rest of their lives, tip-toeing over the matter carefully as a child would avoid the cracks in the pavement on their way home. But as Draco once described Hermione, she was a shark. She refused to let an unanswered question hang over their heads and so resolved to charge. When Draco had been hit by the curse, he had briefly shared his memories of the scene when he received the Dark Mark. Through the midst of Draco screaming and her panic, she couldn't see properly whether he was Imperious'ed or not. However, in the background, she was someone someone there who could tell her the details. Someone who, in the room full of now-deceased people, was still alive.

Having the red-file clearance from the Ministry meant granting access to places instantly, to what otherwise be a long and arduous process which may have ended in futility. When she exited the hospital grounds, she cast a Patronus message to the wardens, as a manner of courtesy but she saw no reason and no authority for her request to be denied. It gave her an hour, to take shower, fix her hair and change her clothes.

A non-contact visitation between Hermione Granger and Narcissa Malfoy will take place at 2pm today. Please arrange the necessary persons and venue.