Hermione just about ran up to the girl and asked her everthing she could think
of, but she stopped herself before she could scare the girl out of her mind. She nodded to the girl, then said loudly, "Thank you everyone for coming, this should help me find your son," she pointed to the boy's father," and the man who might have taken him. If I need to arrange another meeting, I'll talk the the sherriff, and im sure he'll tell everyone. Thank you again." She turned to the sherriff and told him to arrange another search party for the afternoon and even into the night if needed.
"Sure thing, Detective. And, thank you, as well."
Hermione smiled and nodded to him, then walked over to the little girl. She kneeled down beside her. "Hello," she said gently," I'm Detective Johnson, and I'm looking for your brother, as I'm sure a smart young lady like yourself would know." Herms stood up, then asked her father, "Do you mind if I ask her a few questions?"
He told her no, to go right ahead. She took the little girls hand, and they walked across the road to the playground. They got up in the jungle gym, then they started talking.
"So," Hermoine began," what's your name?"
"Amy Hotchkins," the girl replied.
"Thats a nice name, Amy. So, tell me, how old are you?"
"I turn eleven in three weeks," Amy said proudly.
"Well, good for you," Hermione said with a smile. "Now, about this man-"
"He didn't take my brother, he was our freind,"Amy said defensivly.
"Its ok, I didn't really think he had anyway."
"You didn't? Everyone else does though."
"Well, I'm different from everyone else, now aren't I?" The girl nodded. She had no idea how different Hermione actually was from everyone else in the town. "Now, your friend, did he tell you his name?"
Very hesitantly, the girl nodded. "He- he said it was," but she stopped.
"Its ok, Amy, I'm not going to tell anyone."
"He said it was Draco," she said quickly, "But I always called him Drake, I liked it better."
Hermione had to work hard to keep from jumping up in excitement. 'I'm finally going to catch him!' she thought. Hermoine pulled out a pad and wrote this down. "Don't worry, this is just so I will remember, I can't remember somethings well, especially names. Can you tell me what he looked like?"
"Well, he was really tall, and his hair was really blonde, and his eyes were grey. I liked his eyes. They remind me of winter, and I love the winter cause it snows in the winter. And, ohh, he was pretty too."
"Thank you, I think I have what I need to remember him. How close are you and your brother?"
"We're really close. We tell each other everything. That was how I met Drake. Tommy brought me to him. We would usually talk over there." She pointed to a bench on the edge of the playground, near the woods. "Sometimes, we would walk around in the woods too. He made us a really cool treehouse one day, but I don't know how he did it."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it was just before lunch, and so we had to go home to eat, and when we came back out into the woods, where he was, he had made the treehouse. It is soooo cool, it was almost like magic. You won't tell anyone about it, will you?"
'And she has no clue how right she is' Hermione thought as she made a mental note to look over that way in the woods. "No, of course not, it will be our secret."
"Umm, Detective Miss? Can I go get something to eat? I haven't had lunch yet."
"Yes, Amy, go right ahead. I'll see you around some time."
"OK!" Amy yelled over her shoulder as she ran across the playground back over to the general store.
Everyone had dismissed from the meeting hall, and some men had been sent into the woods. There was a little cloud cover, so Hermione dicided to not risk getting caught in the rain, so she went to the hotel. Getting out of the car, she looked up at the hotel. It was two stories high, with three windows along the front of the first floor, and four along the front on the second floor. The door took the place of the extra window on the first floor. She stepped inside the door.
"Oh, hello Detective, I had a feeling I'd be seeing you in here soon. How can help you?"
"A couple things actually. One, I came to see the man's room, and two, I'm going to need a room for the night. I'd actually like to stay in the man's room, if I can knock down two birds with the same stone."
The hotel owner smiled. "I think that can be arranged." She handed Hermione the key to 201, which she presumed was the first room on the second floor.
There were 10 rooms in the hotel, four on the first floor and six upstairs. She went to her room, which had police tape on the door, stepped in, and pulled the tape off at the same time. Balling the tape up in her hand, she looked into the room. There was a queen sized bed on the right side of the room, with a closet on her left as she stepped into the room. The small bathroom was to her right, behind a door. There was a tv on the dresser across from the foot of the bed, up against the opposite wall. The room was very neat, surprisingly enough. She walked over the the desk that was under one of the two windows in her room, which overlooked the main road of the town. Yep, Draco was definatly the one who came here. The tip off was the word Galleon on a map that layed out on the desk. 'That was too easy. Something is up.'she thought. But even still, she literally jumped with joy at her realization. She found a pad that had some clean sheets of paper on it, then quickly wrote Harry a note. At the end she told him not to tell anyone yet, it was a personal thing between them for now. She folded it up, then put the exact address of the destination on the outside: British Ministry of Magic, Level 2, Aurors' Headquaters, Harry Potter. She pulled out her wand, then muttered 'Teleportus', a simple yet useful spell she had devised. It would teleport the letter to the exact location written on the outside of the folded letter. Only a few people used it, namely her fellow undercover aurors and close freinds to protect from a muggle seeing a random owl go swooping through the usually small town they were in, and plus it provides for quicker communication. She saw a wastebasket beside the desk and dropped the police tape into it, but not before noticing something. There was a peice of paper half burned in the basket. She pulled it out, then read what was left
'...got... to a gree to kill C.........dge because of what he did to....... Owl me back to tell me when and where, and I will tell him.
your bud,
......."
Most of it was burned, but what she could guess who has a long enough name to fill that blank, and did something to piss someone off. Piss a lot of people off, actually.
It was dark out, and Hermione looked at her watch. 8:13, it said. Even though it was early, she decided to turn in. It had been a long day, and tomrrow would be too.
Hope I didn't leave you with too much of a cliffhanger this time. I write in class and that was what I had written so far. Hope I didn't do too bad.
Oh, and the origonal disclaimer still standes : Don't own the chars, do own the plot, steal, and I'll sue.
