The Mysterious Department

Arc Four: The Mystery Unravels

Chapter Nineteen: Justice is Writ

A/N: This is arc four, where things start to pick up for our detectives, in all the ways.

After this case, Hermione noticed a change in how Bellatrix treated her. It was more like they were equals. No longer did she snort or roll her eyes in derision of what Hermione offered to do on the cases. She instead respected her, let her do the work on the cases, and even fight the battles there. Finally, Bellatrix was letting Hermione properly do her job.

It must have been because Hermione had saved Bellatrix's ass at that pureblood case. Hermione was sorry Bellatrix had to go through it but she wasn't sorry that they were now on equal footing because of it.

The same couldn't be said for Bellatrix and Blaise. The woman seemed to hate him- which to be fair, Hermione had been annoyed with him at first, but he was helpful and not half as cocky as he looked- and despite his best efforts to charm the pants off of Bellatrix, she literally charmed his off of him. It was a routine each day. He'd come in, with a grin and greeting for everyone, and when he'd approach her for it, she'd wave her wand lazily and make his pants drop.

It didn't stop being funny any of the times it happened, and even when he thought he'd outsmarted her by using a sticking charm to stick his pants to his bottoms, she'd find some other way to annoy him. She'd make his shirt fly off, or his shoes quack each time he walked, or even make his chair turn into a squealing pig right under him.

Hermione felt bad for Blaise but she couldn't stop laughing the whole time. And though it was clear he was annoyed, he didn't stop trying to be friendly to Bellatrix. Which definitely did not score points with him in any way with the acerbic older woman. But while it was amusing in the office to see Bellatrix and Blaise bantering, on the field, it could be quite annoying. Especially if they were trying to find the damned artifact before it destroyed one thing or another.

"Could the two of you shut up and concentrate!" Hermione hissed, at a wit's end by their childish behavior.

"I would if someone here hadn't turned my shoes into beavers!" Blaise cried out in frustration as the furry animals ran around his socked feet.

"It's not a hard spell to reverse," Bellatrix rolled her eyes at him.

"Bellatrix and Blaise will the two of you cut it out! We have a case to solve, if either of you bloody noticed!" Hermione chided angrily from where she was crouched behind a car, Bellatrix and Blaise next to her. Not far from them, at the end of the block ran around several cartoonish looking monsters. Monsters that looked like they'd been scribbled into creation by some child.

Currently they were smashing things apart left and right.

Bellatrix looked at the scene with insouciance. "Those aren't even a real threat. Don't lose your head over it."

"Then if it's not a bloody big deal, help me fix it!" Hermione exclaimed too loudly, drawing the attention of the drawn monsters towards them on the otherwise, smartly vacated street. With unearthly screams they launched forwards. Hermione fumbled with her wand, cursing under her breath because she was a quick draw with the gun, not with the wand. It still felt a tad bit unnatural in high strung situations.

She zapped one of the beasts with a quick bombarda and it screeched terribly but did not dissolve, merely smoking. "Huh, is that not supposed to work?" she questioned.

Bellatrix grabbed Hermione by the back of her collar and yanked her into a new position. Blaise followed after in his socked feet. Bellatrix magicked a house's door open and they rushed in, interrupting a family who had been hiding inside. "Hi," Hermione awkwardly waved at them as they stumbled by.

"Where's your child," Bellatrix barked at them as a tremendous crash came at the front of the house. The monsters were trying to force their way in. "Blaise, go guard the door," she threw off hand at him.

His face blanched. "But spells won't hurt them. What is the point?"

"The point is you hold them back by becoming bait while we neutralize the artifact," Bellatrix ordered. He huffed, clearly not happy at this, but he knew he had to buy them time. He rushed off to fortify the door and front of the house with some spells to prevent the beasts from coming in.

"Bellatrix, how is a child going to help us-" Hermione started only to be cut off.

"It's in the notes Luna sent us."

"I didn't get to read them because you hogged all of them!" Hermione protested.

"Um, excuse me, but who are you two?" asked the woman who must be the mother.

"We're here to get rid of those monsters for you. And your child has something to do with them," Bellatrix said. "I would appreciate if I could talk to them."

"My son couldn't do something like this-"

"And just like that I've lost patience for this conversation," Bellatrix shouldered past, running up the stairs.

"Hey, you stay away from my child!" the father roared out protectively. He rushed after Bellatrix's form. Hermione couldn't let him get in the way so she cast a quick jelly leg jinks on him. He went crashing down into the ground just as a groaning sound came from out front followed by Blaise cursing.

They were running out of time.

The mother ran over to check on her husband, allowing Hermione to step over them and go upstairs to aid Bellatrix. The dark haired witch had already blown down the door to the child's bedroom and found him hiding under the bed. "Where is the book!" she screamed at them, frantically tossing all the books off his shelf.

She was scaring the poor child. Hermione knelt down in front of him, finding he had been crying. "I didn't mean to do it," he whispered in a tear filled voice. "I only wanted to have them fight my bullies for me."

"It's okay. You're not in trouble," Hermione assured. "We're here to stop them. We just need you to give us the book."

"But the book made this all happen. It's bad," he stressed.

"We're going to destroy it. Can you show us where it is? And then this can all be over," Hermione implored the child, trying to remain calm even as impatience burned in her veins. The child nodded his head in agreement and reached under his shirt where he had hid the book. "I didn't want it to hurt anyone else. I tried erasing the things I drew from the book but they wouldn't erase and I didn't know how to stop it."

"I can erase them for you," Hermione said, taking the book.

"Good, you've got it," Bellatrix commented, stopping in her rampaging of looking for the book. It was a plain little black thing, leather bound. It didn't look powerful in the least. Hermione took out her wand and completed the neutralizing spell. The book shone purple for a bit and then stopped. And not a moment too soon, the mother coming up the stairs holding a knife in her hands in order to protect her son. But it wasn't needed.

"Mom!" the boy ran and hugged her. "They said they would stop the monsters."

"Did they-" before the woman could even complete her sentence, Bellatrix had oblivated her and the boy in one go. Hermione tsked, because she still didn't like the memory erasing part even if she knew it was vital. She pocketed the book while the woman and son blinked blankly. "Why am I holding a knife? And who are you?" she asked the two women.

"Exterminators," Bellatrix breezily answered. "You had a bit of a pest problem." And then she walked off, humming as she went to oblivate the father and then deal with the rest of the town. Hermione followed after her.

They went downstairs and saw that Blaise was coming back. He was a bit sweaty, no doubt from having to hold back the drawn monsters. "You sure took your sweet time," he grumbled.

"Wouldn't feel that way if you knew how to actually use your wand," Bellatrix retorted, clearing the father and undoing the jelly leg jinx before going through the door.

"I know how to use my wand. Both of them," he assured with a flirty wink, directed at Hermione. The brunette flushed as his brazen behavior.

Bellatrix made a noise of disbelief and disgust. "Keep it in your pants."


"You and Bellatrix are going to babysit the department while Dora and I go get a missing part for it."

"I'm what?" Hermione blinked as she watched Luna carefully shelve the book between two spines of other books. "Babysitting the department?"

"Yes," Luna nodded her head. "The department is in need of magical repairs but sole magic can't fix it. We need to get parts for it. Thus, you and Bellatrix are going to look after things for us while we're gone. Shelve some things, dust some dust. Make sure everything is alright."

"Why can't Steve do it?"

"He's away on vampiric business. And Blaise can't do it either because Kingsley is meeting with him today. So, it's up to you two."

"Well..." Hermione didn't mind but she wasn't sure how Bellatrix would feel about dusting old artifacts. "Sure, I guess."

"I left you a manual on things you should do and shouldn't do," Luna continued. "It's only a thousand pages long so you shouldn't have too much trouble getting through it."

"Only a thousand!?" Hermione choked out.

Luna didn't see the problem with it. She had a merry smile on her face. "Perfect. I can trust that everything will be fine in your hands. Dora and I shouldn't be out long."


"This blows," Bellatrix grumbled out, her teenage like vernacular throwing Hermione off a bit.

"It's not that bad," Hermione stated as she shelved an artifact. Bellatrix was milling around by her, grumpy and of no use.

"I should be out on the field, fighting, instead of being stuck here putting dusty things on even dustier shelves."

"They wouldn't be dusty if you started dusting them off," Hermione pointed out, a bit sharply because she was in no mood to deal with a whiny Bellatrix.

But it was true. The whole place could use a good dusting off. "Do you know any spells to clean this place up more quickly?" Hermione asked she stepped off the ladder, wiping her grimy hands on her robes.

"A few. I'll teach them to you," Bellatrix offered.

"Or, you could use them to help me instead of just teaching them to me," Hermione said. Bellatrix rolled her eyes at this.

"I never agreed to this," Bellatrix replied.

"It's part of your job."

"My job is to be on the field. Not held indoors."

Hermione was getting fed up with all the whining. "if you're just going to bitch and moan then leave me alone. That way I can get actually work done."

This must have been the outing Bellatrix was looking for. "I'll be in the training room." As Bellatrix brushed by, she nudged a heavy cloak of sorts that dropped to the floor and released a huge cloud of dust. Hermione took one inhale of it, and sneezed loudly and hard. So hard she bumped into a shelf behind her, accidentally triggering one of the artifacts. The lantern tipped over and opened up, and with little shrieks of delight, a bunch of small winged creatures flew out. They buzzed around Hermione's head once and then were gone.

Bellatrix, who had not yet left, sent a glare Hermione's way. "You just let the pixies out!"

"It wasn't my fault. You made the cloak fall and all this dust-"

"We don't have time for your excuses, we need to go collect them and now. Those things are vicious and mischievous. There's no telling what kind of trouble they'll cook up," Bellatrix said hurriedly. That did not sound promising. Hermione pulled out her own wand and followed Bellatrix, the woman booking it down the aisles, looking up for them. But the pixies were small and hard to find. Hermione considered using the tracking spell, but realized it wouldn't be of much use considering the fact that this room was filled with artifacts and it would likely confuse the spell.

They eventually slowed down and took three left turns and then a right, Hermione not daring to speak in this tense situation.

"Oh no!" Hermione gasped out when the two of them walked down another aisle. There was a singular dodge ball bouncing up and down ominously like it had been waiting on them. "I swear that was put away."

"Damned pixies. They're undoing all the work you just did! Of course they would. We can't let them keep getting their hands on all the artifacts you put up today," Bellatrix growled out, brandishing her wand. She cast a quick spell at the ball before it dropped and stopped bouncing on it's own. Hermione let out a sigh of relief. She didn't want to say anything, but the sound of the rubber smacking off the floor reminded her all too much of how during elementary school games, she'd be picked on and pelted with those balls.

Bad memories.

Overheard came a tittering sound and when Hermione looked up, all she managed to see was a large heavy net being thrown over them. She let out a gasp as the net fell on her and immediately began to ravel inwards, drawing her and Bellatrix closer together.

"Those slimy bastards!" Bellatrix complained as she was pushed into Hermione, the net cutting into their skin now. They were nose to nose and Hermione was mildly torn on being flustered at how close she was to Bellatrix or panicking on how this net was probably going to strangle them to death.

With the tight angle of this all, Bellatrix had trouble extending her arm and doing the wand motions for the spell. She tried it three times, only to get sparks. "Shite!" she cursed out, shooting a look at Hermione. The brunette's arm was in a better position to cast the spell. "Well, don't just stand there, do something!"

Hermione shook to action, trying to draw back a little because their faces were so close to each other now that when they talked their lips almost brushed. Hermione swallowed dryly and almost stuttering, uttered the spell. Immediately the net slackened and Bellatrix jumped back. Hermione was left gasping for air, still feeling the pain of where the rope had cut through cloth and into her skin. Her heart was pounding in her chest from that experience and from being so close to her partner. It hadn't been an appropriate moment or time to be acting so weird about it, but Hermione couldn't stop thinking about how close they had been.

"I'm going to kill those bloody pixies!" Bellatrix swore and then raced off in the direction of a loud crash. This could not be good. Hermione was meant to look over the warehouse and here it was, being destroyed. Luna would never trust her again.

Which was why she had to clean up this mess as quickly as possible, and with less involvement from Bellatrix. Something told her the woman would only cause more messes to occur. "Bellatrix!" she called out when she saw that Bellatrix had knocked down some paint cans onto the floor. Not just any paint cans. These were shaking, looking like they were about to explode like grenades.

And there was Bellatrix, zapping at the pixies swarming her head. She was getting dangerously close to a huge bust of some roman emperor. "Great," Hermione mumbled under her breath. Maybe she really should have read the manual.


As soon as Luna came back into the department, she asked, "okay, what happened here?" hands on her hips.

Hermione and Bellatrix, who were both sitting at their desks, affecting nonchalance, looked at her. A silent three way stare off commenced. Dora did not know what to make of it.

"It was her fault," Bellatrix pointed at Hermione.

"You snitch!" Hermione gasped out, mad at her partner for giving her up so easily.