Hermione shivered and applied a warming charm after she, Draco, and an assigned Auror arrived on the rocky island of Azkaban. "It's bad enough on its own without the Dementor atmosphere."

"It's much worse inside," Auror Belby assured them. She stuck a repelling charm on both of them, and they immediately relaxed. "This will tell the Dementors that you are off-limits. Follow me."

"I understand that you have permission to interrogate the prisoner," the warden advised them after examining their documents, "but I'm not sure you'll get much sense from her. She wasn't the most stable even before she got here."

"We accept the possibility that this may be a futile trip, but our investigation on the missing ailuranthropes led us here."

"Good luck, then." He handed them off to a guard. "These two have ministerial permission to visit Prisoner 24601, as well as the authority to retain their wands." He glared at them, brows beetling. "I hope you do not abuse that privilege."

"We hope we do not have the need to draw them," Hermione replied firmly.

"Did you see how the old man was eyeing me?" Draco whispered. "Probably thinking that I should have been sent here in my father's stead."

"Relax. As old-fashioned as the wizarding world is, at least you can only be punished for your own crimes."

"Just as well, since I bet a lot of them would like to pin them on me, considering the oh-so-courageous Lord Malfoy did a flit once he suspected that his house arrest was going to change to a visit here."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"The day I was free to leave. I headed to Muggle London for my three months of wandless probation, and the next day the aurors hauled me back for questioning. Mother said he must have disappeared while they were busy explaining my restrictions, as he had walked out of the room with a stick up his arse, going on about 'a Malfoy without magic'. They raised a right ruckus, but she volunteered for veritaserum and proved that she hadn't any idea of what he had planned."

"How could he do it without his wand? I know his trial brought to light that it was destroyed while in the possession of Voldemort."

"Father was a Malfoy through and through, and they are known for being slippery. The magical trace in the house indicated the use of one of my ancestor's wands. It was probably disguised as a candlestick or something."

"No indication of where he went?"

"That's what was queer. There was no use of apparation, and all of our fireplaces had been locked."

"Hm? I wonder if Captain Picard ordered him transported onto the Enterprise."

"Not going to catch me asking about that one."

The guard opened a heavy door on their right. "I'm locking you in with her, although I doubt she has the strength to get down the hall. Regulations, you know."

"And how do we get out?" Draco asked as he quickly took in the gloomy and malodorous interior.

"Just stick the tip of your wand through the grate and lumos it."

"Brilliant." He turned to see Hermione eyeing the heap of rags in a corner in distaste.

"Professor Umbridge?" she queried in a small voice.

The rags moved and shifted around to face them. "That's–hem, hem–Madam Under-Secretary to you, young lady." She sniffed. "Do I smell a mudblood? Aargh!"

Draco stepped forward to stand beside Hermione and bowed low. "Madam Under-Secretary, it is I, Draco Malfoy, at your service."

"Boot-licker!" his co-visitor hissed.

"I'm getting a response," he whispered back as the squat, formerly rotund woman struggled to her feet and tottered forward.

"Malfoy! Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time!" she wheezed. "A faithful servant of our Dark Lord, even in that blight-infested school."

"As always, your perspicacity is excellent," he intoned smoothly.

"So you are here to get me out?" A glint of hope could be seen briefly in her eyes.

"All in good time, Madam. Blood notwithstanding, this young woman," he indicated Hermione, "is employed by the Ministry in trying to locate something of which you may have knowledge."

"And that will free me?"

The woman placed a dirt-encrusted hand on Draco's sleeve, and Hermione gasped at the hint of pink amid the gray tatters of her garment. How did she smuggle one of her blasted cardigans into Azkaban?

"It certainly cannot hurt," Draco lied while trying not to inhale the stench emitted by her body and breath.

"Very well, then, Mudblood, I will answer your questions."

"Madam Under-Secretary," Hermione followed Draco's mode of address, "I wonder if you have any knowledge of the whereabouts of certain magical creatures. They have a feline nature–"

"My babies!" The old woman swayed. "Has anyone hurt my babies?"

The other two exchanged glances. Nowhere in her biography had there been mention of offspring.

"They should have been taken care of, my sweet children. So soft and fluffy; they brought me such joy."

"Ah," Hermione mentally saw a flash of light, "your cats? The cats in your plates?" she amended, recalling the walls of the office in the Ministry of Magic which she had infiltrated.

"Yes, those!" she wailed. At the sound, Draco and Hermione shared a look. Banshee, indeed.

"Madam Under-Secretary, as far as I know, those...cats are safe. What I am concerned with are some missing ailuranthropes. Did you ever see any of those?"

"Monsters!" Spittle erupted from between decaying teeth. "Misbegotten demons, they are! Nothing like my precious darlings." She turned to Hermione, "Couldn't one of my little ones come to visit me?"

She blinked, thinking that any pleasure provided by the plates would quickly become a feast for the Dementors, but the woman appeared to be mad, after all. Yet, she still held out hope, due to the reaction of the prisoner to the previous question. "The ailuranthropes, Madam Under-Secretary, do you know where they are?"

Umbridge shuddered. "Those vile abominations! Poor imitations of my treasured angels. Not to be borne, not to be borne." She shook her head.

"Of course not," Draco assured her glibly. "I totally agree with you. Such ugliness should not be allowed in a world of pure magic."

"Wha–?!" Hermione's question was broken off as Draco's shoe pressed onto her boot firmly.

"It is just that we want to be certain that they are truly banished from the world, as this Muggleborn herself will be banished when our Dark Lord returns."

"My boy, my boy!" She almost wept in gratitude. "Soon may that day come!"

Draco thought the person beside him would shortly glow in frustration as he flattered the remains of a once-powerful woman. "You know that he," his voice lowered, "will reward well those who have prepared his way."

"Yes, yes," saliva dripped from her cracked lips, "I did what I knew best."

"And now, I want to ensure that your efforts have been sustained. Tell me, did you destroy them all, or did you banish them to a foreign realm?"

She drew back and looked from one visitor to the other before cackling wildly. "Oh, no, you won't fool me," she howled. "It is a mudblood trap, that's what it is!" She shuffled back to her corner, mumbling. "Not going to tell, not going to tell. My pretties will not lose their plaything. Not going to tell."

"Please, Madam!" Hermione reached an arm forward. "What has happened to them?"

The rheumy eyes turned canny, and Umbridge's chin rose. "Hem, hem. There is no reason for the Under-Secretary of the Minister of Magic to answer to a mudblood. Ptagh!" She spit saliva at her. "Leave me. My pretties!" She rocked back and forth. "My pretties! Mummy misses you so much! My pretties!"

Draco pointed his wand through the door. "Well, that was a big waste of time and brown-nosing."

"Harry, I need a favour."

"I'm doing quite well, Hermione. How about you?" He rose and walked around to give her a hug.

She flushed. "Sorry about that. I thought I had outgrown my habit of rushing."

"Come on," he grinned at her, "how would I recognize you otherwise?"

She pounded his shoulder playfully. "Enough of that." She moved a pile of Quidditch magazines off his visitor chair and sat down. "I need to see Dolores Umbridge's file."

Harry's back had barely relaxed into his chair before he leaned forward. "What? I heard about your visit to Azkaban. Wasn't that bile-producing enough for you?"

"You have no idea." She rolled her eyes. "She has totally lost the plot, and we had to almost grovel to get any sense out of her."

Her friend snorted. "Well, that would be a first, in my opinion."

"Yes, yes," she waved a hand, "the trip created more questions than it answered. But something that she let drop gave me an idea. I believe that she was involved in a situation that I'm investigating for my department."

Scratching his head, Harry asked, "Can you be specific? I mean, I need to have probable cause to release the records to you."

Hermione became interested in her hands, clasped together in her lap. "I have been compiling a census of the creatures in Great Britain."

"Yeah," her friend laughed, "I remember when you returned from Loch Ness."

Nose wrinkling, she riposted, "How could I possibly pass up the opportunity to see Nessie? But those highland merpeople kept shooting water at me so I couldn't get close... Anyway, I finished the centaurs and the werewolves but the ailuranthropes seem to have disappeared. Jacob Uley says the shifters are all accounted for in North America, Serena Cuatemoc reports that they have regular sightings of the were-jaguars, Nyoka Ubungo has been keeping close tabs on the mngwa, and the bakenekos in Japan are in good health, according to Irie Matsumoto."

"How about Europe?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I owled Viktor at the European Ministry, and he said that they all died out centuries ago and there have been no recent sightings."

Harry scratched his head. "I could've sworn that we studied those in Magical Creatures."

"That's just it! According to Hagrid, they had banded into their own communities for protection and were hiding in some of the remoter portions of Britain. But I have scoured all of the rugged areas and they are nowhere!"

"I don't see how this relates to your interest in the Umbitch."

"Harry James Potter!" Several people's heads turned at the increase in volume. Noticing this, she lowered her voice. "You spent enough time doing detention in her office. What lined her walls?"

He glanced at the faded scars on the back of his hand. "Um, plates?"

"Plates of what?" she gritted out. Morgana! There was a reason he wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw.

"Cats. Whoa, now, wait a minute. You aren't suggesting that she wiped them out?"

"She was certainly invested in wiping out muggleborns and half-bloods. And since she was abnormally fond of felines, I can see her viewing were-animals of the cat variety with hate."

Harry considered her point. "So can I, but there's no proof."

"But there's a possibility that she didn't actually kill them. I mean, I'm pretty darn sure that she is responsible for their disappearance, but they may not be dead."

"But you said that you couldn't find them."

Hermione waved her hand. "She could have moved them anywhere, not necessarily keeping them in the British Isles."

"That's still a stretch. Again, no reason to suspect her."

"But there is. Luna said she took them."

Harry heaved a great sigh. "If Luna's involved, I'm going to need something to drink."