The Revenant (Part 8)
Hermione stood for a long time at the door to her flat, debating. She wondered if she should even give Pansy Parkinson the time of day. The last time she had seen the woman, she had been in a fairly compromising position with her husband, and even if the act had been innocent enough on Draco's end, she knew she couldn't say the same for Pansy. Pansy had wanted Draco for as long as Hermione could remember, and she had a feeling that that desire hadn't waned after he married her. If anything, it had probably grown even stronger. Pansy was the sort of woman who wanted something, even more, when she thought it was unattainable. Hermione knew the feeling. She was often the same way.
"Granger, are you going to make me stand out here all day, or what?"
Hermione couldn't help grinning at Pansy's predictably rude behavior, and the fact that she had fallen back on addressing her by her maiden name.
"What do you want, Pansy?"
"I…I need your help. I'm in really big trouble. Please, you have to let me in."
Hermione stared more carefully through the peephole in her door and gasped. One side of Pansy's face was severely bruised, and she had a cut on her lip that was still seeping blood. She looked as if she had been beaten…badly. Despite her attempts to force it down, a rush of sympathy rose in her chest, and she found herself lowering the wards, unlocking the door, and swinging it open to grant the woman admittance. Pansy nearly collapsed inside.
"My God, Pansy, what the hell happened to you?" Hermione exclaimed. She dropped her wand on the end table next to the door so that she could catch Pansy before she fell.
"It's a bit of a long story," Pansy mumbled. "Is Draco here?"
"No, he went in to work today."
"Good." When Hermione arched one eyebrow, Pansy rushed to explain, "I just don't want him to see me like this."
"I think Draco would be too concerned about your well-being to criticize your appearance," Hermione said as she kicked the door shut, locked it, and wrapped an arm around Pansy's skinny waist. The woman felt frail and bony, and so underweight that Hermione was practically able to carry her to the kitchen. She tried to get her to sit at the table, but her legs gave out before she could reach it, and she slid to the floor with her head propped up against the back of one of the chairs.
"What happened?" Hermione pressed. She squatted down in front of her so that she could meet her eyes. "Pansy, who did this to you?"
"I'm so sorry," Pansy murmured weakly. "I had no choice."
At these words, Hermione felt as if a ball of ice was forming in the base of her stomach.
"Pansy, what do you mean you had no choice?"
Before Pansy could respond, there came a faint popping sound from the direction of the living room. It sounded disconcertingly like someone had Apparated into the flat, and at that moment, Hermione realized that in her haste to care for Pansy, she had forgotten to reactivate the wards. She turned her attention back to the woman in question, who was staring back at her with wide eyes.
It was a trap.
Whether she was in on the plot, or forced to be a pawn, Pansy had acted as a decoy to get Hermione to lower the wards, just long enough for the intruder to enter her flat. Hermione inwardly cursed her own stupidity. She had come close to death many times in her life, but who knew that it would be her compassionate nature that would finally do her in?
Suddenly, the lights flickered and went out, plunging the entire flat into darkness. Hermione shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts. She needed to think fast. Her first order of business was to arm herself. At that thought, she nearly groaned aloud as she realized that the intruder was now standing in between her and her wand, which was still on the table by the front door.
Never allow yourself to be separated from your wand. It was a lesson that had been drilled into her early on in Auror training, but apparently, she had forgotten it over time. Draco had been right, after all. She had been out of the field for too long. She had made a novice mistake and allowed herself to be caught defenseless.
Hermione heard footsteps moving around the flat, searching the bedrooms, and without further thought, she crawled across the kitchen floor and ducked behind one end of the counter. Slowly, and with as little noise as possible, she reached up, slid open the cutlery drawer, and withdrew a sharp butcher's knife. She considered her options.
Screaming for help would be futile, as Draco had long ago placed Silencing Charms on the entire perimeter of the flat. She briefly considered trying to make a run for the door, but then realized that this, too, was a bad idea. Most likely, the intruder was waiting for her to make a run for it, and to do so would place her right within his grasp.
No, it was better to stay put and wait for him to come to her. Besides, the flat was pitch dark, and she knew its interior better than anyone, save Draco.
When your enemy has every possible advantage over you, use the only advantage you have left at your disposal: the element of surprise. That was one lesson Hermione had not forgotten. So she hefted the knife in her hand and waited.
She did not have to wait long.
The footsteps entered the kitchen – Hermione could tell when the shoes first struck the ceramic tiles. She heard Pansy let out a small whimper, and couldn't help experiencing a brief moment of concern on her behalf. However, there was no further sound, and it became obvious that the intruder had no intentions of attacking the other woman. Clearly, Hermione was his only prey.
"I know you're in here, Hermione," a voice said softly. "There's nowhere left for you to hide."
Hermione froze. There was something oddly familiar about that voice, but she couldn't place where she had heard it before…Then the footsteps drew closer, and she focused on the task at hand, holding her knife in attack position. She would only get one chance for this. To squander it would mean certain death.
"Hermione," the voice called out once more, "I'm done playing games with you."
And then he was upon her, and from her vantage point, she could see a pair of legs, clad in black trousers and black boots, as they made their way around the corner of the counter. She saw him before he saw her, and thus she was able to roll easily to the side to dodge the curse he sent in her direction. Then, in one fluid motion, she lashed out with her knife, slicing the Achilles' tendon in his right heel. The man howled in pain as his injured leg gave out and he tumbled to floor beside her.
Hermione tried to take advantage of her attacker's momentary surprise in order to make a mad dash for the front door, but he recovered more quickly than she had expected. As she prepared to lunge to her feet, the man caught her around the ankles and dragged her back down to the floor. She fought him with all of her strength, trying to claw at his face, but her hands contacted with smooth metal rather than flesh. Finally, after a brief tussle, he managed to pin her to the ground beneath him, but not for long.
Struggling to remain calm and use every ounce of her combat training, Hermione drew back her leg and kneed her attacker in the groin…hard. The man grunted with pain and crumpled to the floor beside her, allowing her to spring free and make a mad dash towards the living room. If only she could get to her wand…
But as Hermione ran across the slippery kitchen floor, she felt as if she was moving in slow motion; as if the air itself was thick glue holding her back. She knew this was just her adrenaline playing tricks on her mind. She had experienced the effect several times in her days as an Auror, but it was no less disconcerting now. She dashed past Pansy, who was still hunched on the floor, her hands covering her face as she sobbed. But Hermione did not pause in her desperate attempt to put more distance between her and her attacker.
Almost there, she thought to herself, but just as she was about to round the corner out of the kitchen…
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Hermione's body immediately froze into place, and she found herself pitching helplessly forward. She could hear a sickening crunch as her nose struck the hard tiles, breaking the bone. Then she lay there, trapped in her own body, listening to the sound of her attacker's limping footsteps as he approached. One black-booted foot slid under her hip and rolled her over onto her back, and Hermione could feel warm, wet blood trickling from her nose and covering her lips. She stared up into a silver mask, the likes of which she had never seen before. It was fearsome and haunting at the same time, resembling a face that was contorted in a silent scream.
"You had to make this difficult, didn't you, Hermione?" the man said with apparent disappointment. She was once more struck with the familiarity of the voice. "I didn't want to have to hurt you. But I suppose that's inevitable at this point, isn't it?"
Hermione lay immobile, her heart racing wildly as if it knew that its days of beating were about to come to an end.
Too soon, she thought to herself. There was so much more she wanted to do. She wanted to have children, to celebrate her golden anniversary with Draco, and now none of that would ever happen. She had just found him again, and now, after one brief night of impossible bliss, it was all over. She consoled herself with the fact that it wouldn't hurt. Harry had told her it didn't. The time that Voldemort had struck him down with the Killing Curse in the Forbidden Forest, there had been no pain – just a flash of green, and then darkness.
Suddenly, inexplicably, her fear and grief melted away, only to be replaced with an emotion that she did not expect to have at a moment like this: acceptance.
"I'm sorry about this, Hermione," the man said. But the words she was expecting never came. Instead, he raised his wand with a steady, gloved hand and whispered, "Imperio!"
Draco nearly toppled over when he Apparated into the living room of his flat. His head was spinning and his stomach was churning, and for a few seconds, he couldn't tell up from down. Finally, he gathered his senses and looked around the room, holding his wand ready for any sudden attacks. But none came. The living room looked just as it should be, with nothing out of place, and no sign of a struggle. But he didn't allow himself to feel relief just yet.
With slow, cautious steps, he moved down the hallway in the direction of the bedroom. When he nudged open the door, he almost dropped his wand in surprise.
The room was full of the glow of flickering candles, and there was the musky fragrance of incense in the air. He swiveled his gaze to take in the sight of the king-sized bed, which was currently strewn with red rose petals.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
"Draco?"
He spun around, holding his wand aloft, but then lowered it once he recognized his wife standing behind him, closing the bedroom door with a soft click. She was clad in an emerald green teddy, which accentuated her luscious curves, and exposed just the right amount of cleavage. Her legs were covered with sheer black stockings, and garter belts traversed her thighs, fastening onto a pair of lacy panties.
"You're back early," she said, giving him a winsome smile.
"Hermione, thank Merlin!" He crossed the room in two strides and folded her into his arms. "I thought I'd lost you again." He drew back and peered down into her face, which was creased with concern.
"Draco, what's wrong? What happened?"
"There was a letter from Seamus on your desk. Hermione, you were right. He was innocent. The killer is still out there, and now we're all in danger – you, me, and my parents. We need to go somewhere safe, as soon as possible."
"But Draco, I've been planning this for hours," she said, and her concern was replaced by a crestfallen expression. She waved one hand in the direction of the bed, and then pointed to her green lingerie. "I bought this today, just for you. It's your favorite color."
Draco blinked in confusion. It was very unlike Hermione to behave this way, especially when he had just said they were in danger.
"Look, love, there will be plenty of time for things like this later. But right now, we need to –"
"Please, Draco," she pleaded. And before he could stop her, she had slipped her hands around the back of his head and tugged his lips down to meet hers. She kissed him desperately, hungrily, and as she did, Draco's shock was replaced with dread. He knew Hermione's kiss by heart – had memorized the taste of her mouth, the sensuous movements of her lips – and this was not her kiss. Which could only mean one thing: the woman in his arms was not his wife. He stiffened as he realized that the person who was kissing him could be a man – or even the killer himself.
But Draco forced himself to relax and return the kiss. For now, it would be best to play along, and not let the imposter know he had figured out the truth. It would give him the upper hand.
Finally, the imposter extricated herself (or himself) from their kiss, and with a smile of anticipation, she took his hand and led him to the bed. Draco allowed her to pull him along, dragging him down on top of the thick layer of rose petals.
"Draco," she whispered, running her hands through his hair, "make love to me."
"As you wish, my dear," he said silkily, crouching over her. He forced himself to plant kisses along her neck, in order to put her even more at ease. "You did a beautiful job setting the mood. The rose petals are a nice touch."
"Hmm, you think so?" The imposter closed her eyes, her facial features suffused with pleasure.
"I know roses are your favorite flower."
"Oh yes, they've always been my favorite."
Draco drew back in triumph.
"Daisies are Hermione's favorite flower," he said coldly. "She always found roses too pretentious."
The imposter's eyes snapped open, but before she had time to react, Draco pinned her to the bed with one hand on her throat and the other on his wand, pointing it at her face.
"Who are you?" he growled. "And what the hell have you done with my wife?"
"I – I didn't do anything to her."
"Lies!" he hissed, pushing harder on her windpipe. "Where is she? Tell me now, or so help me –"
"Draco, please!" she choked. "Please don't hurt me!"
Draco blinked in surprise, loosening his grip just enough to allow the woman to speak normally.
"Pansy!?"
"Draco, I'm so sorry, but I didn't have a choice. He made me do it and I –"
"He? Who's he?"
"I don't know! I've never seen his face! Draco, you have to believe me."
"I believe you're a filthy rotten traitor," he bit back. "If you were involved against your will, then why were you trying to seduce me?"
"Draco, you have to understand," she said, as tears began spilling onto her cheeks. "I've wanted you for so long…and when he gave me the opportunity, I-I couldn't refuse. He was going to take her anyway. He said he would take her somewhere far away, where she couldn't wield her influence on you anymore. Then I could c-comfort you. Help you get over the loss."
"You stupid bint!" Draco shouted. "He's not going to take her anywhere. He's going to kill her!"
She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could get the words out, she was interrupted by the bedroom door bursting open.
"Malfoy, get your slimy hands off of her!" Ron shouted as he lunged across the room in his direction. Harry was not far behind him.
"Weasley, wait! You don't understand!"
But Ron ignored him and drew back his hand to punch Draco solidly in the face. The force of the blow sent him reeling, knocking him over the edge of the bed so that Pansy was free to leap to her feet. Draco scrambled frantically into a sitting position, gripping the bed covers to hold himself upright. Then Ron was on him again, using one large hand to clamp down on his windpipe.
Pansy slunk towards the door, and Draco knew that if she escaped, his one chance of finding Hermione again would be lost forever. He turned to Harry beseechingly, trying to speak in spite of Ron's death-grip on his throat.
"Pansy," he wheezed. "Polyjuice."
To his relief, realization dawned in Harry's eyes. The Head Auror spun around and tackled Pansy to the ground before she had a chance to flee the room. She tried to struggle, but it was useless. Harry Potter was no longer the scrawny boy he had once been. With surprising strength, he pinned her to the ground, pulled a vial of potion out of his pocket, and forced the liquid down her throat.
"Harry, what the hell?" Ron squeaked, watching as Harry brutally wrestled with what appeared to be their best friend. Then, the potion kicked in, and the effects of the Polyjuice Potion began to fade. Brown curls were replaced with a sleek black bob, a curvy figure replaced with an emaciated one, and where Hermione Granger Malfoy had once been, there was now a shaking, sobbing Pansy Parkinson in her place.
Ron's mouth formed into an astonished "oh", as he finally relinquished his grip on Draco's neck.
"Get the fuck off me!" Draco snarled, shoving the redhead aside. He pushed himself to his feet and stalked across the room to hover over the two people still struggling on the floor. But Pansy rapidly gave in, realizing there was no escape as Harry hauled her to her feet and clamped a pair of magical handcuffs on her frail wrists.
"I'm sorry about punching you, mate," Ron said, as he came to join them.
"It doesn't matter," Draco said. Nothing mattered to him excepting finding Hermione before it was too late. He turned to Harry once more, and his voice was hoarse and broken when he spoke. "He took her. He took Hermione."
"I know, Malfoy," Harry said grimly. "I know." He shared a significant look with Ron, and an ominous chill wended its way down Draco's spine.
"Potter, what else do you know?"
"Harry, we might as well tell him," Ron said, when his friend hesitated to speak. Harry sighed, resigning himself to explain.
"Malfoy, as soon as Ron showed me Seamus's letter, we did exactly like you said and went to the Manor. The…the two Aurors I had stationed outside were dead. It didn't look like any magic was used to force the gate open."
"Hermione," Malfoy whispered. "Hermione's a Malfoy. The killer must have used her to get past the gate's magic."
Harry nodded.
"That would explain it, then. Ron and I went inside. All the House-Elves were dead…"
"And my parents?" Draco asked in a weak voice, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
"They weren't there," said Ron. "From the look of things, we arrived a few minutes too late. Whoever kidnapped Hermione, he has your parents, too."
When Hermione regained consciousness, her head was throbbing, and muscles she didn't even know she had were aching painfully. She slowly opened her eyes and pulled herself up into a sitting position as she tried to take in her surroundings. The floor beneath her was rough-hewn stone, and the air was cold and damp. The faint glow of moonlight suffused the space, lighting up a set of sturdy iron bars. She realized that she was in a prison cell of some sort.
"You're awake," said that familiar voice. She turned to see a dark-robed figure standing outside her cell. The strange, silver mask was still in place.
"What do you want?" she croaked. When the man did not respond, she cleared her throat and asked it again in a stronger voice. "What do you want?"
"You, Hermione. Or at least I thought I did. Now I'm not so sure. Now I don't think I want a woman who would lower herself to the point of marrying a Malfoy, and then taking him back, even when he'd wronged her."
"Why do you care?" she snapped. "Why do you give a shit if I took Draco back?"
"Oh, I care, Hermione. I care a great deal. I've cared about you for a long time, ever since our school days. But you had to choose him. Twice, you had to choose that arrogant, two-faced bastard…instead of me."
"Wh-what are you talking about?" she stammered, her mind spinning. "Who are you? Show me your face, you bloody coward."
The man stood silently for a few moments, as if contemplating her request. Then he seemed to come to a decision. With slow, deliberate motions, he reached up to remove the mask from his face.
"You shouldn't call me a coward, Hermione," he said softly. "After all, I was a Gryffindor."
The mask fell away, and Hermione let out an involuntary gasp as she recognized the face of the man behind it.
It was Dennis Creevey.
Draco stared through the two-way mirror, watching Pansy as she sat trembling in her seat, waiting to be interrogated. He noticed the left side of her face was covered with bruises, and he felt the smallest twinge of sympathy for the woman, and everything she had been through. But he forced the emotion down the moment he recognized it. He refused to feel sympathy for the person who had betrayed his family and handed his wife over to a cold-blooded killer.
"They may still be alive, Malfoy," said Harry, who had just entered the room with Ron.
"Yes, but for how long?" Draco murmured.
"There were signs of a struggle at the Manor. Whatever happened, your parents didn't go down without a fight. And we both know how tough Hermione is."
Draco hung his head and nodded, but he didn't want to waste any more time being comforted.
"Let's get started," he said. "The sooner we get some information out of Pansy, the sooner we find my family."
Harry nodded in agreement, and the three Aurors made their way into the interrogation room. Ron and Harry sat across the table from Pansy, but Draco hung in the back of the room, not trusting himself to be too close to the situation without losing his temper. Pansy eyed Ron and Harry warily, and then her gaze shifted to Draco. Her dark eyes were pleading, but Draco forced himself to look away.
"Pansy, I'm going to cut right to the chase," said Harry. "How much do you know about what happened to Hermione, Narcissa, and Lucius Malfoy earlier this evening?"
"N-not much," Pansy stammered. "I had no idea my master was going to attack Lucius and Narcissa."
"But you knew about his plan to take Hermione."
"Yes," she whispered, biting her lip and staring down at the table. "You have to understand, Potter. Ever since the war ended, well…my family's never recovered. My father's business was falling apart, and I-I had to do something to help,"
"So, you started dealing Morpheum."
Pansy nodded mutely, and her eyes filled with tears.
"A man approached me in the Leaky Cauldron several months ago. His name was Lenny Meachim. He was the one who introduced me to that line of work. At first, it was just a job here and there. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, and the pay was good. I started renting a flat in Knockturn Alley so that I would be closer to my clients. But then…I-I started using the Morpheum too. When I drank the potion, it seemed to make all my problems disappear. So I used it more and more, until…"
"You became addicted," Harry finished for her. Pansy nodded again.
"Because of my…addiction, I started owing my master more money than I could make from dealing the Morpheum. So he began to demand other things in return. Whenever we met, he would transport me there by Portkey, so I never knew where the location would be in advance. It was somewhere different every time. And he always wore a mask so that I couldn't see his face. He would ask me to do…favors for him." She paused, and an expression of disgust passed over her features. Once again, Draco had to steel himself not to feel any compassion for her. "Yesterday, he asked me to get a sample of Draco's hair. But I have no idea why. He never tells me about his plans."
"He used my hair in a Polyjuice Potion to disguise himself as me and try to break into the Manor," Draco growled, and Pansy's eyes widened with horror.
"Draco, I'm so sorry. I had no idea –"
"Let's get back to the discussion at hand, shall we?" asked Harry, shooting a glare in Draco's direction to silence him. "Tell us what happened today, Pansy."
"Today, I-I was supposed to help my master get into Hermione's flat. He hit me, so that my face would be bruised. It was supposed to convince her that I was in trouble, so she'd lower the wards and let me inside. I didn't think it would work, but my master was certain it would." Pansy hesitated to continue, and her face took on an expression that Draco had rarely seen on it before: guilt. "I…I think my master knows Hermione somehow. He seemed to know she would take pity on me, and let her guard down long enough to help me."
Draco's eyes fell closed, and he could taste bile in the back of his throat. Her kindness and compassion were things he had always admired about Hermione, even when he had been too young and indoctrinated with his father's beliefs to fully appreciate those traits. Now, it appeared that the things he loved most about her were the very things that had led to her capture. He opened his eyes and walked closer to the table, bending over it so that he could get in Pansy's face. She tried to back away from him, but he grabbed her by the shoulders to hold her in place.
"You have to know something about where he would have taken them," he insisted. "There had to have been a time when he slipped up and gave you a hint or a clue…"
"Nothing," Pansy said with a shake of her head. "He's smart, Draco. He was always so careful not to mention any details about his plans. There's nothing I can think of…"
"Think harder!" Draco said angrily. Harry put a restraining hand on his arm, but he shrugged him off.
"I'm thinking as hard as I can!" Pansy sobbed. "Everything's a blur."
"Do you have any idea what your stupidity may have cost me?" Draco hissed, shaking her by shoulders. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Draco, I –"
"Don't say you're sorry again!" Draco was yelling now, and Pansy was quickly approaching the point of hysteria. "'Sorry' isn't going to cut it this time. If anything happens to Hermione – or my parents – I promise you'll regret it."
"Malfoy, this isn't helping!" said Harry. When Draco continued to ignore him, he said, "Ron, take him out of here until he calms down. I'll finish questioning Pansy."
Draco could feel himself being bodily hauled away from Pansy and toward the door leading out of the interrogation room. He tried to throw off Ron's grip, but his thoughts were too scattered for his struggles to be very effective. Besides, while his fighting skills were slightly more honed than Ron's, the redhead had a larger, stockier build than Draco, and he was using it to his full advantage. Draco finally gave up and allowed himself to be dragged down the corridor into a nearby office.
"Sit," Ron ordered, pushing him down into a chair. Draco glanced around at his surroundings, noting the Chudley Cannons' Quidditch posters on the wall and the empty takeout boxes strewn across the desk. Clearly, they were in Ron's office.
"Let me go," he demanded. "I need to hear what else Pansy has to say."
"You're not going anywhere, Malfoy, until you get a grip. Look, I know you're worried about Hermione, but you're not going to be any help to her if you lose your marbles like that."
"You don't understand, Weasley. If anything happens to her, it'll kill me, I know it will. I just got her back. I-I can't lose her again." Draco's voice broke, and he could feel uncharacteristic tears pricking his eyes, but at that moment, he didn't care that he was practically crying in front of Ron Weasley.
Surprisingly, even Ron didn't seem surprised or appalled by Draco's tears. Instead, he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle of Firewhiskey and a shot glass. He wiped the shot glass clean on the hem of his Auror robes, poured a generous shot of liquor, and handed it to Draco.
"Drink this," he said. "It'll help."
Draco swallowed the whiskey in one gulp, wincing as it burned his throat on the way down. It didn't take long for him to feel the tingling, numbing sensation of the alcohol working its way through his veins. He didn't feel any less anxious or terrified for his family's well-being, but his nerves were a bit steadier.
"Thanks," he said hoarsely. Ron nodded.
"Malfoy, I know you and I have had our differences, but if there's one thing we do have in common, it's that we both love Hermione." When Draco gave him a suspicious look, Ron rolled his eyes. "Not like that, you idiot. I'm a happily married man, and I haven't thought of Hermione as anything but a friend since we were eighteen. I love her like a sister, and so does Harry. And we're going to do everything we possibly can to get her back, okay?"
Draco nodded.
"All right," said Ron, "I'm going back to help Harry finish up with Pansy. In the meantime, you stay here and pull yourself together. Don't do anything rash. Understood?"
Under any other circumstances, Draco would have found the stern look on Ron's face amusing. Instead, he simply nodded once more. The redhead started in the direction of the door, but then, to Draco's amazement, he paused to clamp one hand reassuringly on Draco's shoulder before leaving the room.
Once he was alone, Draco considered downing the rest of Ron's Firewhiskey and drinking himself into a stupor, but then decided against it. He wanted his mind sharp and ready to do whatever was necessary to find Hermione, in the event that Harry managed to get more information out of Pansy. But he was not hopeful. The killer had been one step ahead of them the entire time, and he covered his tracks well. The trail would be long cold by the time they found it - if they ever did - and by then his family would probably be…
Draco shook his head. He couldn't think about that now. If he did, he would lose whatever sanity he still had remaining.
At that moment, there was a tentative knock on the door, and Draco stood up to open it. A young man, wearing a badge that identified him as one of the department's interns, was standing there with an envelope in his hand.
"Mr. Malfoy?" the boy squeaked, clearly intimidated by the grim-looking Auror. "I've been looking everywhere for you."
"What do you want?" Draco snapped, and the intern gulped, looking even more nervous than before.
"Th-this came for you, sir," he stammered, holding the envelope out to Draco. "It came via outside mail. It's marked 'urgent'."
Draco's eyes widened as he snatched the envelope out of the boy's hand, muttered a quick "thanks", and slammed the door in his face. He retreated back into Ron's office, sat down, and opened the envelope. A small object and a square of parchment fell out. Once he recognized the object as Hermione's wedding ring, his heart rate sped up. Clearly, this was a message from her captor, but there was no note enclosed; the parchment was completely blank. He stared at it, dumbfounded. Then he read the inscription on the envelope again: "Urgent: For Draco Malfoy's eyes only."
Draco suddenly knew what he had to do. Frantically, he opened the top drawer of Ron's desk and fished around for a letter opener. In one swift movement, he used the blade to cut his finger, and let a few drops of his blood spill onto the blank parchment. It was a complex spell that combined blood magic and Transfiguration. The letter was written in invisible ink, which would only be Transfigured into visible ink upon receiving proof that it had reached its intended recipient. The moment Draco's blood touched the page, bold, block-lettered text began to appear:
IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR WIFE ALIVE AGAIN, YOU WILL FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER. THE RING IS A PORTKEY. AT EXACTLY SEVEN O'CLOCK, IT WILL BE ACTIVATED. YOU ARE TO TAKE THE PORTKEY TO THE LOCATION IT IS SET TO. IF YOU DO NOT ARRIVE AT THE APPOINTED TIME, SHE DIES. IF YOU DO NOT COME ALONE, SHE DIES.
Draco stared down at the wedding ring that still lay in the palm of his hand. He knew he should tell Harry about this new development, but his instincts told him not to. Harry would want to find a way to come along, and Draco couldn't risk disobeying the captor's demands. He read the note again: If you do not come alone, she dies.
No, he couldn't tell Harry. He would have to do this on his own.
Draco's hand shook as he crumpled the paper into a ball and set it on fire with his wand. The parchment blackened and burned into a small pile of ash on Ron's desktop. He glanced up at the clock mounted on the office wall. It was ten minutes until seven. He didn't have much time. With steely determination, he stood up and exited the room, storming out into the hallway beyond. There was not much time to develop a plan, but he would use every minute, and every resource, he had available to him.
Failure was not an option.
Harry Potter wondered if it would be frowned upon for him to retire at the ripe old age of twenty-six. He sighed and rubbed wearily at his temples as he walked down the corridor in the direction of Ron's office. He had just finished questioning Pansy Parkinson, and he sincerely hoped that Draco had calmed down in the intervening time. Interrogating Pansy had proved to be a fruitless endeavor. She had little in the way of useful information, which meant that they were still in the dark when it came to finding Hermione.
Harry's heart clenched painfully at the thought of something happening to his best friend. But he shook his head, forcing himself to quell any feelings of despair. He wouldn't give up until he had found her…one way or another.
Once they were done questioning Pansy, a janitor had run up to Harry and Ron, saying there was some sort of "emergency" in the lower levels of the Ministry, and Harry had sent Ron to investigate while he looked in on Draco. Before he knew it, he had arrived outside Ron's office.
"Malfoy?" he called out, as he entered the office. There was no response. The room was unoccupied, and nothing looked out of place, except…
Harry hurried across the room, and bent to investigate the pile of black ash on Ron's desk. He withdrew his wand and made a series of complex movements, muttering an incantation as he did so. After a few minutes, the spell succeeded, and the ash materialized into a piece of parchment. He picked it up and scanned the text, his eyes widening with horror as the meaning of the note sank in.
"Shit!" he growled. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, which showed that it was a quarter after seven, and cursed again. Then he made a mad dash out the door, down the hallway, and into the nearest available lift.
He found Ron on the lowest level of the Ministry, in the courtroom where he had once been on trial at the age of fifteen for using magic to save his cousin from a Dementor. Ron was listening to one of the Ministry janitors, who was talking fast and making wild gestures with his hands. They both looked up when they saw Harry approaching.
"Ron, we've got a problem," said Harry, holding up the note he had found in Ron's office. "Malfoy's gone."
"Forget Malfoy. We've got bigger things to worry about." Ron pointed to something in the seats where the Wizengamot usually sat during trials. Harry stared at it for several moments, hardly daring to believe his eyes.
It was a pile of plastic explosives, with a tangle of blue and red wires, and a clock with digital numbers. Harry watched as the numbers passed the twenty-minute mark and continued dropping.
"I found it when I came in to clean the room, just a few minutes ago," the janitor explained in a shaky voice.
"Harry, please tell me that's not what I think it is," said Ron.
"It is. That's enough C-4 to take down the entire building, I imagine."
Harry thought of the thousands of witches and wizards who worked on the floors above, not to mention the many people who visited the Ministry on a daily basis. They would never be able to evacuate all of them in time, especially without creating mass panic. He entertained the concept of simply Vanishing the bomb, but decided against it. He had no idea how magic interacted with Muggle explosives, and didn't want to risk detonating them in the process. His mind ran through a list of other options, but he came up with no safe or suitable methods of disposing of the device.
"Bloody hell," Ron muttered. "Why does Hermione always have to be right?"
Harry just shook his head, unable to find the words to respond, as he watched the numbers on the timer tick inexorably closer to zero.
A/N: "To be or not to be? That is the question." - William Shakespeare (Hamlet)