Clueless By Night 2 : Bedlam's Hunt

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. In addition, this particular fic is inspired by multitudes of modern fantasy fiction and games, but without a direct cross-over or direct use of material from any of them. The planned sequels are not cross-overs to any particular TV show or game, but I won't completely rule them out for the far future.

A/N: If you haven't already read Clueless By Night, available from , please do! This will make even less sense if you haven't read it.

Prologue

Tuireann stood on a ledge, high above London. He was tall, his frame as muscled as a weight-lifter, made all the more impressive by his more than two meters of height. His skin was a mottled gray which matched both the stone behind him and the neutral color of his boots, trousers, and shirt. As he walked partly in front of the large clock face that towered above him, his skin shifted slightly, and his clothes turned white to match the face. Passers-by beneath would have trouble seeing anything but a faint blur, something easily dismissed as a figment of their own imagination. Some would still look up, though, and shiver, sensing that there was a hunter among them.

Tuireann couldn't see his quarry from here, but he could smell her. She was one of the last of those that he had been set to kill, one of the few that hadn't just left the United Kingdom altogether. Her smell was sickly sweet to him, which stood out starkly against the dark industrial smell of the city. She was not far, perhaps a few miles from him. He wouldn't have any trouble tracking her.

He could probably bring her to his master tonight, but that would show a certain lack of style. It was only a few days before the Great Hunt, after all, and she would make an ideal quarry then. Perhaps he should just spend the next few days making sure that she knew that she was prey.

Harry walked Hermione back to her flat. The doctors had taken almost a week to release her, and he'd stayed by her bed most of the time, despite her insistence that he should go home and get some rest.

"Harry, I'll be fine from here," she said, as they left Diagon Alley. "Really. The elves will go bonkers if you show up, and I don't have the energy to deal with them."

"I'll settle them down, Hermione. Or I won't come in. Just let me walk you to your door."

She bit her lip, and played with her hair, but she didn't protest anymore.

They walked together, mostly in silence. Harry's hands were by his side, hers were in the pocket of the parka that she was wearing in the late London fall. She seemed to be looking down or away.

"Is something bothering you?" Harry asked.

"It's nothing," she said, but her tone wasn't convincing. "I just think you're making too much of a fuss over me."

"Hermione, I couldn't make too much of a fuss." He saw her face turning red.

Harry hadn't told her how he felt in words, but he thought it was probably obvious from the way that he was hanging on her every word, meeting her eyes at every opportunity, and otherwise making a fool of himself. Unfortunately, she was staying mostly quiet, avoiding his eyes, and generally acting very sober. He didn't think that was a good sign.

"So," he said, more to break the silence than anything else, "have you heard from Viktor lately?"

She nodded, "Yes, he wrote me last week. He was really shaken up after the battle at Hogwarts, you know, and he'd withdrawn from the whole Wizarding World. The last I heard, he'd changed his name to Robert and moved to the states."

"Robert, eh? So what's he doing if he isn't playing Quidditch?"

"Apparently, he's some sort of physical trainer. I hear he's even dyeing his hair."

"Really," Harry responded. There was silence again, but Hermione's flat was up ahead.

She looked at it, and then back at Harry. "Really, Harry, I can take it from here." She looked almost alarmed.

"Nonsense," he said, puzzled, "I can't just leave you. You were almost killed." Some sixth sense was warning him. There was something close by, something that was bothering him.

She sounded panicked, "Really, Harry, you aren't going to stay here with me forever."

"No, but I need to talk to you about..." Something was coming, he could hear it.

"About what, Harry?"

A car whipped up from behind him, and pulled into a parking spot on the side of the road. It was a lime green European car, a little three wheeler that he thought could possibly fit two people if they were very, very friendly house elves. A man jumped out of the car. He was wearing a navy blue peacoat over Muggle clothes, khakis and a blue shirt. He was looking straight at Hermione.

"Look out!" Harry snapped, and he reached for his wand, but Hermione clamped down on his hand.

"No, it's okay, Harry. He's a friend of mine."

The man called to her "Hermy!" He ran up to her, wrapping her in his arms, and twirled her around. "I was so worried about you. Your cousin Potsy, answered the phone when I called to confirm our date last week, and told me you'd been hurt, but she wouldn't tell me which Hospital you were in." He finally seemed to notice that Harry was there. "Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting anything?"

"No, Jack," Hermione replied, "this is my friend Harry, from school. He was just making sure that I got back home from the Hospital alright." She turned to Harry. "Thank you, Harry. I think I'll be okay from here."

Stunned, Harry stammered his reply, "Fine, of course, Hermione. I'm sure I'll see you again." He turned, and started to walk the other way, swiftly. He didn't look back once. He was afraid that she'd see the stricken look on his face.

"It's about time you got here," Draco said to Ron, the annoyance in his voice not quite masking his relief at seeing his schoolmate. He was seated at his desk, trying to look composed, despite the slightly charred corpse on the floor. His wand was in the pocket of one of the other investigating Aurors. A breeze wafted through the empty window frames behind him, which had been criss-crossed with Spellotape to keep anyone from walking out of them.

"What, you couldn't handle things without me?" Ron joked back, but he looked concerned. "Look, I only just heard. I haven't even gotten the word from the office yet -- someone called Luna's father while we were at his house for high tea. They told him to get a photographer over here fast, and I thought you could use a hand."

"Excellent. It's been almost a year since I've been in the Quiddler, and it will be great to be in there for something other than my alleged intimate relationship with Vincent Crabbe."

"You're not still mad about that, are you? Fred and George had no reason to think that Luna's dad would take them seriously."

"No, I think I've gotten over it. I think today's guest put things in better perspective," Draco said dryly.

"I suppose that's true, although it's hardly news that people are trying to kill you. I certainly tried often enough," Ron admitted earnestly.

"That's probably true, but I never had to resort to the Killing Curse to stop you."

"So, you admit it!" A young Auror spoke up from nearby. Ron recognized him as a recent graduate of Auror training, although Draco couldn't think of his name.

Draco sighed, "I admit that I used a Killing Curse on that... that thing. But it wasn't a human. Check it yourself. Look at its face."

Ron walked over to the corpse, and flipped it over with his boot, ignoring the protests of the crime scene investigations unit. Looking back up at him was a shining metal skull with small glass orbs in its eye sockets. False skin still clung to the skull around the edges, as did hair, but it was obvious that whatever it had been, it wasn't human.

Ron gestured at the corpse. "I think we can rule out charging Malfoy with homicide this time, unless there's some crime in stopping a machine."

The younger Auror looked at the body in disbelief. Apparently, he had just assumed that Malfoy had been in the wrong, and hadn't even looked at the body before Ron got there. "Surely that thing can't have moved on its own."

Draco nodded. "Moved, and damn near wiped me out. It had a pair of those Muggle guns, and it tried to use them on me. Fortunately, my shield charm seemed to do the trick."

Ron bent on his knees, and reached into the machine's pockets, pulling out a wallet. "Elrond Smith," he read aloud, "of Newark, New Jersey."

The young Auror responded, "New Jersey? As in the States?"

Ron nodded his head. "So, Draco, what have you done to get an American robot on your bad side?"

Draco shrugged, "I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with my f--" He stopped, unsure if he should share what the machine had said with the audience of Aurors.

Ron asked, "Yes?"

Draco smiled weakly, "With my fabulous face, of course. Probably jealous. He's not much of a looker, is he?"

Ron raised an eyebrow at Draco, a gesture honed by months of training and practice. It was obvious that Malfoy wasn't saying everything.

Draco looked at him sharply, and then flicked his eyes to the eager young Auror, who was standing nearby, listening.

"You're probably right," Ron replied, "it's a good thing you got him before he got around to hunting me." His eyes, intently focused on Draco, made the message clear -- Draco might not tell him everything now, but he couldn't get away with keeping him in the dark forever.