11. Caius

The next morning Demelza left early for work, leaving Hermione to make polite conversation with her mother over breakfast. Hermione sat slightly slouched over the large kitchen table, making heavy work of a cup of tea and a slice of brown toast and margarine, and looking up and answering politely whenever Demelza's mother asked her a question. The pleasant domesticity of Demeza's house was a little hard to take in her present state.

After breakfast, she took a train to London and spent the day wandering through the West End, mingling with shoppers and tourists, eating a sandwich on her own in a busy café, wandering into a few shops without buying anything. The anonymity of the non-wizarding world was a comfort to her.

As evening fell, she took the tube a few stops, following the swarm of people out of the tube station and onto the busy streets above. She quickly left the crowds behind and turned onto a side street. The street was quiet, apart from the sound of muffled music coming from a pub on the corner. A bouncer was on the door, in conversation with a man in an oversized baseball cap, who was talking loudly as he gulped down his pint. Neither of the men paid any attention to her as she walked past them and disappeared through a discreet door.

She rarely frequented the Leaky Cauldron, even less so on her own. The decor seemed to have undergone some sort of refurbishment since she had last been there, and seemed to have a rather sterile, vaguely modern look about it. Small groups of largely middle-aged wizards were sitting around tables, speaking in low voices. The atmosphere seemed surprisingly hushed. On a sign above the bar someone had scrawled 'Under new management'. She didn't remember hearing about that.

Demelza was in a corner of the pub, not far from the fireplace, examining her drink, a green coloured liquid in a tall, frosted glass, with a slightly bemused air. She looked up as Hermione was crossing the pub, waving excitedly with one hand and holding her drink with the other. Hermione sat down swiftly in front of her, at first putting her bag on the table then thinking better of it and pushing it down by her feet.

'Thanks for coming to see me off,' said Hermione.

'No problem. Did Mum look after you ok?'

'Yes, she was lovely. Say thanks to her again from me when you see her.'

'Oh no problem. She said you were very nice too, but you seemed a bit stressed.'

Well I thought I did ok given how I spent the night before.

A tired looking witch came over to their table. Hermione ordered a soft drink and told her she had reserved a room for the night. The witch nodded, and returned swiftly with the drink and her room key. Hermione sipped her drink and then slid down in her seat. She slouched for a few moments, seeming unable to gather her thoughts, and looked rather vacantly at Demelza. Then she sat up a little.

'How was work today?'

'Oh not too bad. Pretty busy.'

'Did you see …err … Ron or Ginny there?'

'I caught a glimpse of Ron at one point but didn't speak to him. I'm not sure whether he saw me or not. Ginny I didn't see at all.'

Probably better for Demelza that way.

'Did anyone comment on my not being there?'

'I ran into Fuchsia, and she mentioned that she thought it wasn't like you, and asked me did I know why you'd suddenly gone on leave. I said I didn't.'

As if Fuchsia knows what I'm like.

'And if you were wondering,' Demelza continued in a more confidential tone, 'I haven't heard any rumours going round.'

She was wondering of course.

'Well that's something I suppose. Sorry for getting you involved in this.'

'What do you mean?' said Demelza. 'I sort of got you involved in it, really.'

Hermione smiled.

'Oh yes. I suppose you did, in a way.'

They sipped their drinks and Hermione went on.

'So tell me about Ilaria. Ilaria De Angelis, that's her name, isn't it?'

And what a charming name it is too.

'That's right. She was in my year at Hogwarts. She's Italian.'

She knew that of course, and also that Ilaria had been in Slytherin.

'She was chaser on the Slytherin quidditch team,' Demelza added.

'Did she play against Harry and Ron?'

'No, she didn't make the team the same year I did, but we had flying lessons together, and I could see she was a better flyer than me. I don't think she had the right connections to make the Slytherin team.'

Hermione tried to wrack her brains in an effort to picture Ilaria De Angelis in Slytherin quidditch uniform. But trying to visualise Slytherin quidditch teams of yesteryear was an almost entirely fruitless task for her. She had just never paid enough notice to them.

'She's a really good quidditch player,' added Demelza, who was no slouch herself. 'She was part of the Slytherin team that won the Quidditch Cup a couple of years ago.'

She remembered that all right, although she hadn't been at the game. Ron, Harry, Ginny and George had all gone up to Hogwarts as special guests to watch Gryffindor versus Slytherin in the final. The fact that Slytherin had won the game without even cheating had made it worse, so they told her. After the result Ron had been in a foul mood for the best part of a week. The only positive was the report that a drunken Draco Malfoy had crashed his broom into the River Avon during the revelling that followed the victory.

'Yes, I know. Did you know her well?'

'Fairly well. For someone from Slytherin, she was quite friendly. Sometimes she played a bit dirty on the quidditch field, but off the field she seemed nice. She was friendly to me because we were both into quidditch. Some of the other Slytherins tried to have a go at her for being too friendly with the other houses, but she paid no attention to them. So I heard, her mother's a Muggle and her father's a wizard, but her parents split up or something and her father wanted to take her out of Italy so he sent her to Hogwarts. For her own protection or something. Apparently they organised a witch hunt in the village she lived in.'

'A witch hunt?'

A couple of heads turned on the table nearest to them.

'It's a drinking game,' said Hermione, and the wizards turned away.

'Seems crazy, doesn't it?' Demelza continued in a lower voice. 'I don't know what actually happened, or how close she came to being… well, I don't exactly know what they do in witch hunts. Didn't think that sort of thing still went on.'

'You'd be surprised,' said Hermione. 'Not only is it still going on, it's actually on the rise.'

Demelza shuddered and fell silent. She took another sip of her green drink and went on.

'Given what happened, and what with her being in Slytherin, it's all the more surprising that she didn't hate muggles. When the troubles started, she kept pretty quiet, while others were shooting their mouths off about mudbloods this and Death Eaters that. She never supported Voldemort though.'

'That was brave of her,' said Hermione. She leaned across the table.

'Do you think she could've done it?' she asked.

'You mean confound Harry because she was in love with him?'

There was something in Demelza's expression that made Hermione think she wasn't completely insensitive to Harry's charms.

'In love with him or obsessed with him,' she replied quickly. 'It's happened before. Did you know Romilda?'

'Romilda Vane?'

'That's right.'

'She was the year above me I think. She was all right.'

'Well, she tried to do exactly that. Confound Harry, I mean. Though admittedly she didn't go so far as to try and wipe his mind.'

'Well, if you wiped Harry's mind,' replied Demelza quickly, 'he wouldn't know who he was and would stop doing the sort of things that made him famous, and so he wouldn't be as interesting any more. What's the point of being Harry Potter's girlfriend if he doesn't know he's Harry Potter?'

'That's true,' said Hermione, smiling to herself.

'On the other hand,' said Demelza, apparently still in the same train of thought, 'maybe she doesn't care about the fame. If it's just his face and his body she likes, she can wipe his memory and still get them.'

'Quite,' remarked Hermione. 'And not only that: if she wipes his memory, she gets to keep him to herself, all the time revelling in the fact that she's the only one who knows who he really is.'

She stopped there. They were getting too far from the point.

'Well, let's say for argument's sake that it is her,' she said. Demelza nodded and looked at her, her head resting on her hands. 'I wonder whether she needed accomplices.'

'You mean Caius and Henoc,' said Demelza.

'Possibly.'

'They were on the Slytherin quidditch team too.'

The names were well known to her. In the infamous match when Slytherin beat Gryffindor, Henoc Lutumba had broken the record for the most points ever scored by a beater. George Weasley had lamented over this particular statistic numerous times. And Caius Hanmer, the team's seeker in that match, had managed to win the match for Slytherin without even catching the golden snitch. Instead, he had ducked out of the way just as the Snitch was flying towards his back, making it fly straight into the hands of the unsuspecting Gryffindor seeker. Slytherin were far enough in front to win the match. Harry had been particularly impressed. He heard the Snitch behind him. He knew he didn't have time to turn around and catch it, and he must have guessed, or gambled, that it would follow the same trajectory straight into our seeker's hands and win them the match.'She could see Harry standing in the Burrow, his eyes wide and flashing as he explained it to her.

'They were different from the rest,' Demelza added. 'Like Ilaria.'

'They were also with Harry the night he disappeared,' remarked Hermione.

'So I heard,' said Demelza.

'So,' said Hermione, twirling a lock of her hair at her shoulder, 'did you manage to contact them?'

Demelza leaned in a little closer.

'Henoc's in Paris apparently. But I managed to get hold of Caius. You know Meredith Dulse?'

'I know the name,' said Hermione. 'She was in Gryffindor.'

She remembered a lithe, lively girl with unruly blonde hair in the Gryffindor dormitory.

'That's right. She's Caius Hanmer's cousin. Or second cousin, or something like that. She put me in contact with him.'

'And did he agree to …?'

'He said he'd meet us here tonight.'

Hermione glanced quickly around the bar, just in case Caius Hanmer had come in while they were talking, but she couldn't see anyone who looked like what she expected him to look like. She could only remember seeing him once in person, in the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts, being commended as one of a handful of members of Slytherin who had refused to leave the school during the battle, instead staying to help in the fight. Ilaria and Henoc had been among them too. She vaguely remembered a small, smirking boy with black hair, but he must have only been fourteen or fifteen at the time. The most recent picture of him she had seen was from the Daily Prophet report on the Gryffindor-Slytherin quidditch match. He didn't work in the Ministry. In fact she wasn't sure what he had been doing since leaving Hogwarts.

Demelza scrutinised her watch.

'I suppose he'll be here soon.'

Hermione chewed her lip, reached for her drink then pushed it away a little instead.

'Is he the sort of person who tends to be late, do you think?'

Demelza shrugged.

'I don't know him that well.'

After a few moments she added:

'Do you have some kind of tactic in mind for him?'

'Haven't really thought of one, to be honest,' Hermione replied.

'Do you think there's any chance of him admitting to being in on cursing Harry?'

'I don't know,' said Hermione rather disconsolately. 'I'm probably just grasping at straws anyway.'

Demelza's gaze flashed across the room to a point behind her, probably towards the door.

'It's him,' she said in a soft voice. She looked up and half-waved across the bar.

Hermione turned quickly in her seat and followed Demelza's gaze. She recognised him straight away. He was taller and his face was half-hidden under stubble, but the pale, laughing eyes and permanent smirk were the same as she remembered. He had on a grey woollen jacket that hung open and a black scarf was draped loosely around his neck, giving him a rather dishevelled appearance. He had a kind of youthful naivety about him. He could almost have turned up to take Demelza on a date. She turned back as he approached.

'Hi Caius,' said Demelza brightly as he reached their table.

'Demelza, good to see you again,' he said courteously, hovering behind a free chair. As he turned towards Hermione he almost seemed to take a little bow.

'Ah, Hermione Granger,' he said. 'Harry Potter's better half.'

'What on earth do you mean?' Hermione exclaimed. 'I'm nothing of the sort.'

A sort of confused silence descended on the three of them.

'Why don't you sit down,' said Hermione stiffly, nodding at the chair in front of Caius. He shot her a sheepish smile and quickly sat down.

'Sorry,' he said in a placatory tone. 'I was being facetious. What I mean is that whenever I've asked Harry about any of his famous exploits, he always said: it wasn't really me. It was Hermione who did all the hard work. I was just in the right place at the right time.'

Hermione coloured a little at this, but kept a severe expression on her face.

'It was supposed to be a compliment, but I blew it,' he concluded contritely.

'Well, thanks for the effort at least,' she replied, relaxing her scowl somewhat at the same time.

The tired witch came back to take Caius's order. He ordered something rather incomprehensible, but the witch seemed to know what he meant and went away.

'So is this one of your regular haunts?' asked Hermione drily, imagining that he had just ordered his usual.

'Oh no,' he replied quickly, seemingly aghast at the idea. 'Is it one of yours?'

'Haven't been in here for ages,' Hermione replied.

'A few of us come in here after work sometimes,' said Demelza.

'Where do you work?' asked Caius, his tone half-curious, half-suspicious.

'The Ministry,' replied Demelza with a knowing, apologetic air, as if she were admitting it was a cop-out.

'You …uh … work at the Ministry too, is that right?' he asked, looking coyly across at Hermione.

'That's right.'

'Much fun is it?'

She narrowed her eyes and scrutinised his face to look for any signs of irony. She couldn't see any.

'I'm not sure it's supposed to be fun.'.

'Probably not. But it's funny how nearly everyone ends up working there, don't you think?'

Hermione's first instinct was to dispute this, but he had a point.

'There are plenty of other places you can work if the Ministry doesn't appeal to you.'

For a moment she considered trying to list a few to him, but thought better of it.

'So where do you work?' she asked instead.

'Nowhere at the moment,' he replied. 'But I'll probably get something arranged soon.'

From what she had heard, Caius came from a well-to-do wizarding family, so he was probably under no financial pressure to find work. She decided not to quiz him any further on that point.

'So if you don't hang out at the Leaky Cauldron,' cut in Demelza, 'where do you go?'

'Oh, more out of the way places,' he replied.

'What like?' asked Demelza, who seemed genuinely interested.

'Well, my local back home above all,' he replied. 'But if I'm in London, the best place is the Clerk of Orleans.'

'Ooh I've heard it's quite cool there,' said Demelza.

'Cool, you say? I'm not sure about that,' said Caius, obviously displeased at the idea that his favourite hangout might be becoming fashionable. Hermione felt her foot start to tap under the table. This wasn't the time to be discussing the best spots in London for wizards to get drunk in.

'Anyway, Caius,' she said firmly, feeling rather awkward about using his first name, 'I'm sure you know why we wanted to speak to you.'

'I haven't seen him since he disappeared,' replied Caius flatly after little more than a moment's hesitation.

Very categorical, he is.

'You were one of the last people to see him, though,' said Hermione.

'So I was apparently.'

He paused, looking at them with interest. The smile on his face seemed to express permanent irony.

'Have you decided to start looking for him then, after all this time?'

What took me so long, do you mean?

Hermione glanced at Demelza then back at Caius.

'Uh … yes.'

'Why now?'

She didn't want to reveal the real reason yet.

'Because it's not normal that he should disappear and send no sign to anyone' she replied. 'Because someone has to find out what really happened to him.'

She swallowed hard at the end of her sentence, a little taken back by her own tone.

'You're right,' said Caius, somehow managing to adopt a serious look. 'It isn't normal.'

Hermione paused until she was sure she was going to continue in a more even tone.

'I don't suppose you noticed anything strange that night.'

A smile flickered across his lips. Is that a smile of guilt or is he just laughing because what I said sounds so clichéd and ridiculous?

'Not really. We were just having a laugh. Harry was on good form. He pretty much blasted me out of the sky.'

'You know the Ministry's aware of what you get up to,' said Hermione drily. 'I'm surprised none of you have died by now.'

Caius shrugged.

'Ah well, then the Ministry will know that our little group has ceased to exist for the best part of a year. We only met once more after Harry disappeared.'

'You, Ilaria De Angelis and Henoc Lutumba?'

He smiled.

'You're so well informed over at the Ministry.'

'I don't know about your group from the Ministry,' she retorted. 'Harry told me himself. I'm not on some Ministry mission, if that's what you're thinking. Harry was a very good friend.'

Talking about him in the past tense seemed wrong.

Caius picked up his glass, which contained a viscous black liquid, and took a mouthful.

'Too sweet,' he said, grimacing. 'I believe you. I suppose you are the most likely person to go looking for him. I don't suppose that Ginny Weasley would after … well, you know better than me.'

She certainly did.

It was Demelza who broke the silence.

'So you haven't been in touch with Henoc and Ilaria recently?'

Caius shook his head.

'Henoc's gone to Paris to study. Ilaria's got some new boyfriend and has pretty much dropped out of sight.'

'Has she?' said Hermione, trying to play down her interest. 'Do you know who this boyfriend is?'

'Never met him,' said Caius.

He drank another mouthful of the dark liquid. Then he looked at the girls with a determined air.

'So, do you have any … what do you call them … leads?'

Hermione chewed on her lower lip. Should I tell him? He had already given them quite a lot of useful information, and with very little probing at that. She glanced at Demelza, then at Caius with what felt to her like a glassy-eyed, vacant look on her face.

'I've spoken to him,' she said finally.

'Really?' Caius replied. 'That's interesting. But surely it means he isn't missing then?'

'He … doesn't know who he is.'

He looked quizzically at her. Fair enough, it does sound pretty odd.

'We think someone put a memory charm on him,' Demelza put in.

Hermione scanned his face for any kind of a tell. Nothing.

'I see now,' he said. 'But why would someone do something like that?'

'Well, don't you think Harry still has enemies?' said Hermione quickly.

'I'm sure he does,' Caius retorted. 'But why a memory charm? Why not just curse him when his back's turned?'

'I don't know,' said Hermione. 'Isn't it somehow more humiliating this way?'

'Could be.'

'He doesn't even know he's a wizard,' commented Demelza.

'What, he's playing at being a dackle?'

'A what?' Hermione and Demelza exclaimed in unison.

'Sorry, I mean a muggle.'

Hermione glanced at Caius's black drink and wondered what on earth was in the glass.

'So what are you going to do?' he asked, after taking another swig from it.

'Well … we're not exactly sure. But we think we know where he works.'

The Ministry kept a record of occult bookshops, but Hermione hadn't been in work to consult it, so she had had to fall back on checking the internet. The only occult bookshop on Exmouth Market was called Vlaminck's Esoteric and Occult. That had to be the place.

'I thought I'd go there tomorrow. What do you think, Demelza?'

'Sounds like a good idea,' said Demelza. 'I could sneak out of work if you like.' The look on her face suggested that she'd rather not.

'No, don't worry, Demelza,' Hermione replied.

Caius leaned forward a little in his seat. The smirk was back on his face.

'So what are you going to do, go over to where he works and de-jinx him under the counter?'

Hermione looked at him drily.

'Much as I appreciate the directness of your plan, I think the consequences would be dangerous. Memory charms are tricky things: they depend a lot on the intentions of the caster and on the psychological state of the recipient. And in any case, it's not just a question of flourishing your wand, saying Finite incantatem and then going home. If I just go up to him and blast him with a counter-curse, the result would either be nothing at all, or that I do serious damage to his psyche.'

'So are you just going to walk into his shop and hope that if he sees you often enough he'll remember you?'

'That would probably have about as much chance as working as de-jinxing him under the counter,' she retorted. 'But for the time being, I hadn't planned on doing much more than trying to gather a little more information about what he's been doing.'

But maybe he would start to recognise her if he saw her again. He had nearly recognised her the first time.

'Would it help if I came with you?' Caius suggested suddenly.

'Err … that's nice of you to offer, but I was thinking of going over there on my own.'

They looked at each other in silence for a few moments. Finally a smile broke out on his face.

'Ok, fair enough. But will you keep me posted? I don't like thinking of Harry out there not being … Harry.'

It was about the most earnest thing he had said all evening.

'Thanks, I will,' she replied.

'Still,' he continued, 'I have got plenty of time on my hands at the moment, so if there's something else I could help out with...'

Hermione smiled in spite of herself.

'I could try and get hold of Ilaria for instance.'

He knows that we suspect her.

'That may be necessary at some point,' she replied after a moment's hesitation. 'But not just yet.'

'As you wish,' he said quietly.

'But thanks,' said Hermione. 'We will let you know.'

He stuck his hand out across the table and she shook it. He then proceeded to do the same with Demelza.

'Should we exchange numbers or something?' Demelza suggested.

'What, mobile phone numbers, do you mean?' asked Caius with a wink. 'Got to move with the times, eh?'

It was unclear whether he was addressing this exhortation to himself or surreptitiously making fun of them.

'I'll send you an owl instead, shall I?' said Hermione in a rather withering tone.

'That'll be fine,' said Caius. 'What would all the poor owls do if all wizards started using telephones?'

'You've got a point there,' replied Hermione.

He grinned again, for what seemed to Hermione like the hundredth time that evening. After he had left to meet friends in the Clerk of Orleans, Demelza had asked her whether she intended to involve him in looking for Harry. I seriously doubt it had been her reply. But later, as she sat in her room upstairs at the Cauldron, listening to the cackling laughter of witches in the next room as they got ready for a night out, I seriously doubt it became first it's probably a bad idea before ending up as I'm almost certainly going to regret this.