Hermione grabbed her keys as she headed out the door to work. Yeah, she could use magic to get places, she would tell wizards when they asked why she drove, but she preferred the relaxing drive over instantly arriving. She made a fair amount of money as an auror, as was shown by her rather large house out on the country side and the fine clothes she wore, and especially the car she drove. It was a Porche 911 Turbo GT Roadster (sorry, couldn't resist, what else would a car fanatic author give to a hot rich chick?). She had most of her salary converted to pounds at Gringotts, so she would have money to spend in both worlds. She arrived at the ministry parking lot around 45 minutes later, having to wind through the streets to get to the right side alley. She had arranged to be able to park her car with the ministy's so she wouldn't have to leave it in the visior entrance side alley every day.
After walking through the vast foyer of the ministry and taking a lift, she arrived at her office. Harry had been promoted to head of office after capturing more than half of the Ex-Death Eaters. Fudge, of course, had been kicked out of office for not listening to Dumbledore's advice about Lord Voldemort when it could have really counted. He had been replaced by none other than one of Barty Crouch's understudies. Hermoione arrived at her desk and found three files that lay open on it. Two were bios of some more Ex-Death Eaters that had been sighted recently, but one was new. It was a clipping from a muggle newspaper about the mysterious disappearance of a boy that was supposably linked with the appearnce and disappearnce of a strange man that did not say a word to anyone for the week he was there. She was busy reading the article when a voice whispered her name into her ear.
"Hermione..."
"Harry! Don't do that, you know how much it creeps me out!" She said over Harry's laughter.
"Wow, I didn't know you could jump that high without moving your legs."
"God Harry.... Now what do you want?"
"Hey, now, thats no way to treat your head of department you know."
"Well then," she said sexily as she slowly moved toward him,"do you want me to try something else?" She pushed him back into the chair behind him as he said,
"Yeah, sure, just pick a time and date and I'll be in -" SLAP.
"You know I'm not going to do that, as much as you want me, I don't think so. Now, why is this article on my desk? Isn't this more of Hibbins' kind of thing?"
"Well, I started to put it on his desk, but then I actually read the article. It mentions later that the man was wearing a black leather trench coat, with what looked like a green shirt and black pants underneath. It also gave his description: 'The man was said to have very whitish-blonde hair, and had very pale skin...'. Sound familiar to you?"
With that, she took the article out of his hands and started to read it completly. She searched for clues in the article, which direction he was headed and who had seen him during the weeklong stay.
"Yes, haha, we finally got him, we may even be able to arest him for this!"
"Not quite, Herms. Several things: One, we have no evidence of what he did to Ron, and two, this might not even be him. I just need you to go up to the town and check around, but dont get to people too worked up about it. Here," He gave her a faux poiceman's badge," Use this if you need to, no doubt people will want to know who you are. And as a personal note from me, if you find him, kick his ass for me. Literally."
"Sure thing Harry." With that, she picked up the badge, pulled on a coat, and promptly got a lift to the foyer. She looked once more at her destination, then aparated into thin air.
After waiting for about 10 minutes, a valet popped out of thin air with her car. She thanked him, then got in. 'God, I hate when they turn my car into a portkey,' she thought. She drove to a small town about 20 minutes away.
As she pulled up, an authorative looking man stepped out of the building to her left. She pulled over and stopped in front of the building. She stepped out of the car and offered her hand to the man.
"Hello, I'm Detective Johnson, I was sent over because of the report of a small child that went missing. I read the article in the local paper about it, it was given to me before the case." She showed him the article, and leaned up against the car, waiting for him to speak. He took the article, then showed her inside.
He offered her a chair, which she took, and then sat down behind his desk. "Detective Johnson, I'm the local sheriff, Nathanial Pace. What do you need to know? This article covers most of the aparrent story, and we haven't found out much more. We've sent out two search parties, but we only found the boy's shoe print and a small pice of his shirt that was caught on a thorn bush."
"Hmmm," Hermione thought for a minute, then asked a question on a different note. "The man that you said disappeared around the same time, have you found any clues that he is with the boy?"
"Not as of yet, be we do belive them to be together."
"Not necesarily. Now tell me, who's child was this?"
"The boy? He was the son of the General store owner. What difference does that make?"
"Well, it makes a good bit of difference. Why didn't the man allegedly kidnap the mayor's child, for example? If he was after money or information, he might be able to get what little there is out of the mayor, who would have more money and more acess to information than the Gerneral store owner. No, I think the child just happened to wander off the same night he left. Even though, we can't rule out kidnap. How old was the boy?"
"He is about 12, and yes, he likes being outdoors."
"Good, you're starting to think along my lines. Can you arrange a meeting later for all the people, or as many as you can get?"
"I'll do it."
"Thank you, Sherriff." She stood up to leave.
"And thank you, detective." He stood up and shook her hand again. "I should have them all notified and I'll arrenge the meeting for, in say, two hours?"
"Sounds good. Goodby!" She turned and welked out of his office, and got back into her car. Now what was she going to do for the next two hours? Well that was esay enough to answer. Get some coffee. She searched around for a little while, then found a coffee shop. She went inside and ordered some coffee, then grabbed a paper off the table. Her coffee arrived, and she continued reading the paper for the next hour or so until she thought of something. What if the boy had talked to the alleged Draco, and Draco encouraged him to run off into the woods and stay for a while until after he got away? But what would he have talked to the boy for? And why would he have encouraged his leaving? She heard the door open, and looked up to see who it was. It was the sherriff. He walked over to her.
"Ahh, there you are, detective. The meetings going to start half an hour early, and I wanted you to be there beforehand so we can get started immediatly."
"Sounds like a plan to me." She stood up, paid for her coffee, then got back into her car, following Pace to the meeting hall. They arrived about 15 minutes early, and people were already starting to arrive. I guess they like this kid, she thought.
Fifteen minutes later, when it looked like noone else was coming, the sherriff started the meeting.
"Ok, everyone, thanks for coming. This is Detective Johnson, she's here to investigate the strange man that showed up and the disapperance of Tommy. Detective," he motioned for her to begin.
"Hello everyone. There are somethings I need to know. First of all, where did he stay?"
A woman spoke up in the crowd. "He stayed in one of the rooms in my inn. He never said anything, just paid for his room and food, and stayed out of the inn most of the time."
"Thank you ma'am. Have you been in the room to clean up?"
"No, Detective, I left it like it was. The sherriff roped it off for an investigation."
"Great. Now, did anyone, I mean anyone, talk to the man while he was here?"
A small girl, whom Hermione had been told was the girls sister stepped forward slowly.
"I did..."
