Chapter Five: Dark Deeds, Darker Places
Harry had insisted that they rested before they returned to his office to continue discussing the case. Both Hermione and Draco had protested profusely, but it was clear from their ashen complexions that neither was fit for much more than sitting down.
It had taken a great deal of careful verbal manoeuvring on his part before Harry managed to convince them to have an early second breakfast at the little vendor type café in the department under the pretence that he himself had missed his own breakfast. The food had done them a power of good, steadying the slight residual tremor in their limbs, and bringing the colour back into their wan cheeks.
Neither Hermione nor Draco met one another's eyes after they had broken that initial contact. Mind sharing was either a deeply invasive or intimate act, and both could feel that their experience had started on the edge of the former and at some point veered towards the latter. Usually it was deeply unpleasant for both parties involved, especially in cases where it was non-voluntary, but something about their minds had allowed them to flow together with minimum friction. In people who were vastly mentally incompatible it was sometimes impossible for Legilimency occur, even if the practitioner was a professional in the art. Only in the cases where the Legilimens was both talented and intent on extracting the information they sought, regardless of the damage it might do to the invaded individual, could it happen, and that would leave the victim a gibbering excuse of a human, their mind ruined permanently. In voluntary cases however, it was inevitable that a bond of some sort would be created – it was simply too intimate for there not to be, especially for an extended session as theirs had been – and neither of them were quite sure what that was, or how they felt about it.
Truth be told, Draco had not considered the consequences of such an outcome. He hadn't even contemplated the consequences of letting her into his mind – he hadn't allowed himself to, knowing that if he thought about the notion seriously for even a moment he wouldn't be able to go through with it. He hadn't even known whether Granger knew Legilimency when he had first suggested the idea, and even when she'd agreed, he'd expected her to either shy away or be brutally efficient. A bond of any sort hadn't seemed likely in the first place, and even if he had given thought to it, he would have expected her resentment to deepen, which wouldn't have mattered on the proviso that she trusted him. He had never believed half of the stuff bandied about regarding the mental connections involved in mind sharing in any case. Most of the tales about extremely compatible minds were attached to ridiculous stories of true love, and he had been too frustrated the previous day to give it serious consideration before the morning, and too flustered now to want to do anything more than forget the whole experience.
Hermione, however, fully aware of the theory behind all forms of Legilimency, had never expected the outcome they achieved. There was something about the feel of Malfoy's mind she hadn't anticipated. She'd thought he would be prickly, for the contact to jar and the process to be forced, but he'd moved against her like their minds had been oiled, despite his evident discomfort with allowing her in. It had been sinuous.
She'd had to use Legilimency on recalcitrant individuals for cases before – very rarely – and each time the experience had been abrasive and painful, leaving her with incredible headaches that not even potions could cure. This, perhaps because Malfoy had invited it, although not easy, had not hurt. Their minds had gelled, fitting together like very slightly misaligned puzzle pieces – not perfect, but certainly comfortable.
She had been surprised at her own reaction to the fit. Her gentleness was not planned. She had been determined not to worry about how she handled Malfoy and his memories, sure there would be many unsavoury ones about her, and determined not to show that she cared or was weak. She was going to be a professional about it. But somehow all of that had gone out the window the moment she reached out and their minds met. The first touch had been oddly calming, which in and of itself was strange. Even more shocking was the realisation that she'd forgiven him. She had felt his genuine remorse, she knew it to be the absolute truth, and that, it seemed, had been what she had needed to at last let go of her rancour, but idea of it still left her reeling.
Both came to the separate conclusion that the best course of action was to ignore it.
Harry watched them carefully as they ate, and again as they went to his office. He had expected there to be some kind of fallout from the Legilimency, not this weighty silence. He had expected shouting, accusations, fury – he had thought that he would have to convince at least one, if not both, to stay on the case and work together like professional adults, perhaps even to have to confiscate their wands until they calmed down. Sober reflection and introspection had not even crossed his mind as potential outcomes.
He cleared his throat as they milled about in front of his desk. "Ahem. So, the Squad have gotten back to me and said that thus far, they can identify no cause of death, so until further notice we're assuming it was the Killing Curse."
Everyone's hearts dropped a little at the news.
Harry soldiered on. "The fact that their Dark Marks are genuine and fresh would seem to indicate that they are wizards – until such a time as it is proven that Muggles are able to withstand the curse – and that we are dealing with an exceptionally powerful Dark witch or wizard. Why they are branding them is something we must establish."
Hermione closed her eyes, her expression pained for a brief moment.
"Because the case involves extreme Dark activity, Kingsley will now be informed of updates and our movements. However, we won't inform the Muggle Prime Minister or put out an international warning until we have firm evidence that this person or persons are a serious threat. If this is confirmed, Kingsley will liaise with the Prime Minister and we will issue an international warning to the other Ministries – especially those nearest – at which point we shall liaise with the Department of Magical Transportation and tighten monitoring on international Floo connections, Apparition, and Portkeys." Harry turned to Hermione. "As we're having no luck with our records or the Muggles', I want you to get in contact with the Bulgarian Ministry and ask them for missing persons lists. The Squad are still running the victims' DNA, so it's probably a shot in the dark, but given Durmstrang's past with Dark wizards, I think it's the best thing we can do until we have more information, and some of Voldemort's followers were known to be Bulgarians.
"We know next to nothing about anyone or anything involved in this, so we are keeping our minds open for any possible explanation or leads. We need to systematically eliminate the options and narrow down the field – every possibility must be given its chance, no matter how ridiculous; if it fits the evidence, we see where it goes. Understood?"
Hermione nodded, her expression pale and grim. "'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…'" she murmured, the Sherlock Holmes quote going completely over Draco's head. Harry nodded however. Hermione looked up. "Even if that means–?"
"Yes, Hermione." Harry replied curtly, both of their minds flying to the idea of an unknown horcrux. No matter how determined Harry was that Voldemort couldn't possibly have returned, it would be unprofessional to discount it until they had evidence to the contrary. "Even that is an option until eliminated."
Hermione's inward breath shook a bit, but she nodded and left the room for her own office, her face set with determination.
Harry turned to Draco. "Malfoy – you're with me for the morning. You still need to learn the ropes, so I hope you are good at learning on the fly."
Draco nodded, smirking very faintly. "What's first?"
"Kingsley."
"ARGH!" Hermione swiped a file off Harry's cluttered desk in her frustration, papers flying into the air as the rest slammed to the ground.
It was pushing on towards three in the morning, and they were still at the office. Draco had been catching a quick nap in the corner, an open file loosely clutched in his hands, and Harry had fallen asleep hunched over his desk while trying to read the progress report from the forensics wizards. It had been a hectic day for the pair of them. After their meeting with Kingsley, in which the Minister had dispatched them with fervent good wishes, Harry had set to deploying his Aurors about the other cases the department was running, before Apparating with Draco through the list of locations for all the previous murders, examining each minutely for any residual clues.
Though there were only eight locations to visit, it took several hours. Most of the locations were in Muggle areas, and they had to Apparate to places where the Muggles wouldn't see them and then walk to the crime scenes. Despite their efforts, however, they returned to the Ministry with their observations but few deductions. By that time, Hermione had tied up most of the loose ends of her own work, delegating matters to others in her department until she was able to return, Kingsley having impressed the importance of all their efforts being focused on solving the case as soon as possible.
She had been waiting for them in Harry's office where all the case files for the previous seven murders had been delivered at Harry's request, already engaged in making a list of areas they should research and investigate. She had added a handy little spell to Harry's pin board which allowed them to swipe it left and right to reveal an endless expanse that would cater to their needs, and had begun to cover it with relevant pieces of information.
Draco had eyed the stacks of paperwork with an expression of distaste, but he and Potter had settled down to go through them, familiarising themselves with the details of each victim, the circumstances of their murder, and how they had been discovered. At times Hermione came to read a page over their shoulders before returning to her own line of investigation, or borrowed one of them for an opinion as she attempted to establish connections between the previous seven and the new group murder. Draco had pointed out the oddness of the murderer leaving a message – intentionally leaving clues in the form of the letters and the Marks, but astute as the observation was it did little to further the investigation beyond the fact that the murderer was insane, bored, trying to scare people, or trying to distract them.
Hermione had brought along the notes she had made during her involvement on the Bloodless Seven, and tacked them up to Harry's pin board. Blundle had done his best to keep her out of the case, so she didn't have much for them beyond confirming the lack of an Egyptian connection, but she had also noted the fact that the locations of the murders had often been in Muggle areas, despite the fact that the victims were all witches or wizards. If the murders hadn't been patently magical, then it might have pointed towards a possible Muggle or Squib murderer, but instead she had scribbled in a note that the benefit of murdering in Muggle locations was the lack of magical interference. Passing witches and wizards were far more likely to register the presence of magical activity than Muggles, who could be warded off with a Repelling Charm unlike magical folk, and all the locations had been dark places – alleys, cul-de-sacs, and even beneath a bridge, where the minimal amount of traffic would occur, and fewer concealment charms would be required.
At Hermione's exclamation and the thud both wizards jumped in their seats, pages fluttering to the ground and wands flying to their hands before they realised where they were.
"Wh-what is it, Granger?" Draco yawned, stretching.
"I can't find any good information on Dark Marks," she complained, slamming the book in her lap down on Harry's desk with enough force to make his quills jump. The groggy men winced at the noise.
By lunch Harry and Draco had managed to get up to date on the old case details, but Hermione had not been able to find much to tie the two cases together. When they reconvened afterwards – Hermione now with the preliminary information that her Bulgarian contact had been able to provide her with – they had decided instead to uncover all they could about the Dark Mark. Draco had flooed to Malfoy Manor and his own apartment to collect relevant books and scrolls on the subject, gathering all he could think might be of use, while Hermione sourced texts from the Ministry archives and the Auror library, going so far as to harass some Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries for some of the more obscure and dangerous texts.
Draco and Hermione had spent the most of the rest of the day trying to search for anything that might indicate it was a spell only Voldemort could cast, very much hoping it wouldn't be. They noted down anything else of use while Harry dashed in and out of his office between helping them research, rushing off to meetings with people from the various departments he had mobilised, and meeting the Aurors he had dispatched to hear their reports. Draco and Hermione had glossed over their awkwardness by taking their professionalism to the extreme, but as they had become more immersed in the work, and dwelt less on their embarrassment and the odd bond that had been formed between them without their knowing or consent, they had relaxed enough to be almost comfortable sharing the same space as one another, if a little snappish at times.
"They all just say the same sort of thing – The Dark Mark is both a symbol of the Death Eater's loyalty to You-Know-Who, as well as the Dark Lord's preferred method of summoning his followers – it's useless! We already know that! Everyone knows that! And still calling him 'You-Know-Who' – honestly!" she snorted with disgust.
The men watched as Hermione leapt to her feet, pacing back and forth. Harry's office was fairly spacious as Ministry offices went, but with the three of them in there, plus the stacks of books and boxes of scrolls they'd source, it was becoming quite cramped, and Hermione only had a few feet of empty space in which to march. It was clear she wasn't handling the lack of information in the books well.
She pulled out her wand, tapping it against her palm as she paced, frowning and muttering softly to herself as the men watched.
Even in this short time working with her, Draco had very quickly learnt when not to interrupt her.
She stopped, nodding grimly to herself, her arms straight by her sides and her expression set as though she was about to do something she'd really rather not.
"Hermione? What are you doing?" Harry asked warily as she turned towards Malfoy.
Hermione made no reply, only flicked her wand at Malfoy, unceremoniously shifting him and the chair he still slumped in away from the filing cabinets, and opening one of the drawers with the victims in it.
Draco glanced with curious anxiety at Potter, levering himself away from the wall where Granger had left him with his legs folded up into his lap, concerned enough about what she was going to do that he didn't object to the ignominious position she had left him in. "Potter…?"
"Shush, you two," she admonished, peering down at the corpse intently for a moment. Then she levelled her wand at the bare arm. "Morsmordre!"
The office flashed green, and Harry's heart leapt into his mouth at the spell.
Draco tensed, expecting the unpleasant wave of dark magic to roll over him as it had when he'd been branded.
Nothing happened however.
Hermione frowned down at the corpse.
"Morsmordre!" she repeated angrily.
The light flashed from her wand once more, but again, nothing happened.
"You're not evil enough, Granger," Draco explained dully.
She whipped around to glare at him, cross that her experiment hadn't worked. "Well why don't you try then?"
Harry winced.
Draco knew Granger didn't truly think he was evil anymore and that it was simply her desperate frustration to achieve something productive that had spurred the words, but he could help the frown that came to his face at them.
Wordlessly, he pulled out his wand and rose, moving to the corpse's side as Granger shuffled back to give him room. Repressing a shudder, Draco pushed out a strained breath, pointing his wand at the man's arm. "Morsmordre!"
Green light filled the office a third time, and this time there was a faint sizzle in the air like a burnt aftertaste in the mouth, but when the three peered at the man's arm again it was still blank.
Draco let out the breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. He didn't care if it made him look weak – he didn't have it in him to cast a Dark Mark, and that made him inexplicably happy. He'd loathed the things ever since he'd received his own. He had been excited and proud to receive the honour – right from the moment he'd heard the news until the moment before the Dark Lord turned his wand on him, his red, snake-like eyes glittering with malevolent condescension upon his soon-to-be newest servant. That moment was the start of when things had begun to change for Draco. Those eyes were pitiless, and while pity was not something any Malfoy had ever or would ever desire, Draco had seen something in Voldemort's eyes that he knew he could never accept into his own heart.
But then it had been too late.
His Mark had taken longer to heal than others. It had remained welted and red for weeks, nearly months, and simply being in the Dark Lord's presence had aggravated the swelling. It had been a relief to get away from the Manor and back to Hogwarts. The inflammation had eased up then, but it had always seemed a little redder than his father's or aunt's. Probably because they'd had theirs for years. It wasn't something he'd wanted to ask them about.
"So what did that achieve, then?" Harry asked, tired and exasperated. The spell was technically illegal, and he hated the uncomfortable prickle it gave him down the back of his neck. There was no doubt who had created it.
"Well, apart from establishing that neither of us are apparently evil enough," Hermione replied scathingly, "very little." She flopped back into her chair. "We can hardly test whether just any powerful Dark wizard can cast the Mark – we don't have any!" She frowned irritably.
Draco frowned. "Not necessarily," he murmured.
Harry raised an eyebrow at him, inviting him to continue.
"Well," Draco shrugged, "there's always Azkaban."
oOo
"So…just how often do you walk around with a corpse following you, then?" Draco asked. It was a poor attempt to make conversation, but at that moment anything was good as a distraction as he and Potter marched through the main doors of the wizard prison. The sealed black body bag floated behind them, but even without their peculiar entourage, it felt like they were walking into a tomb.
Harry gave Malfoy an odd look. "I think you're getting the wrong impression about my job. This isn't exactly the bread and butter of my work."
Draco raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but settled for a glance back at the body bag and let the matter drop.
He let Potter deal with the Aurors guarding the prison, flashing a badge as they gained entry, and repressed a shudder. The Dementors might no longer guard Azkaban, but there was something of their essence left in the building. Its dank walls were permeated with the suffering of the countless individuals that had spent their last years tormented within its confines, and there was something of the Dementor's soul-draining aura that still hung in the air, clinging to the thick cold stone like ghosts. Going inside was like being underground – a heavy, clammy weight pressing slowly harder on his shoulders the further in Draco went, while something of the Dementor's residual essence plucked at him as though to tear little pieces off, his mind gravitating to his worst memories. His skin crawled.
Draco hated the creatures. When he had been on the side of the Dark Lord he and all the other Death Eaters had been protected from them, but that did not halt their effects, and he always found his mind revolving on the darkest and bitterest moments of his life when he neared them. He had longed for the ability to produce a Patronus since the first moment he'd encountered the Dementors on the train to Hogwarts, having rushed to the library to search for some sort of protection from the clammy worthlessness and despair, and found it was the only protection from them. But the magic was too advanced, and too light for any of the Death Eaters to have ever learnt the spell, and he had not harboured high hopes of his ever attaining the ability. Nor did he have any wish to be attacked by projectile maggots as the books speculated might happen if a Dark wizard attempted the spell. So instead he had languished in their presence, and he did so now, entering the cold walls of Azkaban. He could quite understand how it would make his father begrudge the Ministry every matter they asked of him.
"Granger's not here?" he asked thickly, trying not to give in to the sensation of hopelessness radiating from the walls and determined to distract himself, unsure why his mind had gone to her, but not caring so long as the diversion worked.
Harry shook his head. "Hermione wants to test your theory about Muggles not being able to withstand the branding, just in case those men were Muggles."
Draco snorted. "They're wizards; I'd stake my magic on it."
Harry raised an eyebrow, but it was a half-hearted gesture. They were of the same mind on this matter. He shrugged. "She doesn't want to leave any stone unturned, was how she put it. And I suppose that's fair enough – I did say I'd keep an open mind about the whole case."
Draco merely grunted. Granger was wasting her time. "How does she intend to test this then, supposing we actually find out that just any powerful Dark witch or wizard can create Dark Marks? I don't really see Muggles queueing up to be blasted – they're not that thick."
Harry sighed. "She would use corpses from Muggle morgues. But there's the rub. Kingsley refuses to let us put the Mark on any other corpses unless there's a way of removing it from them afterwards – supposing our experiment here works. So she's trying to find a way of reversing them. He says it's disrespectful to the person whose body we use – which I agree with – not to mention problematic when they're Muggles." Harry sighed. "But it does make our job more difficult." Ethics and morals made many things infinitely more complex in his line of work, but if they didn't adhere to their principles then there really was little point in the establishment existing at all.
"It makes it impossible," spat Draco bitterly. "There is no way of removing the Mark. I should know – I've been trying to remove mine for six years now and nothing has worked. I can only hope that eventually it will just fade away. I wouldn't put it past the Dark Lord to have burned it right through into my bones though."
Harry shot him a look that came as close to sympathetic as was possible without antagonising Malfoy, then he frowned. "We'd better hope you missed something then, because the Marks are the only lead we've got at the moment, and if Hermione can't find a way of reversing the curse then we're back to square one. Can you give her a list of what you've tried? It might speed things up for her."
Draco grunted and nodded. He held no hope whatsoever of Granger finding a cure, but there was no point in trying to tell Potter – the man just couldn't give up on hope. He was addicted to it. Draco knew better: it just wasn't possible. Better to be a pessimistic realist than a disappointed optimist. "Who're we seeing then?" he muttered, chiefly to change the subject.
"McNair. He testified last time Voldemort fell and did it again, although Kingsley was less lenient than the previous Ministers to his dismay, so we're hoping he'll cave with fairly little pressure. If he thinks a deal might be struck, he'll probably cooperate."
"And will you strike a deal?" Draco enquired, curious in spite of himself.
Harry shrugged. "Not unless I absolutely need to."
"You better hope he or one of the others is able to cast the Mark, Potter," Draco replied darkly. "If they can't, either they're too weak or…"
"Or we have a strong Dark witch or wizard on the rise trying to replace Voldemort," Harry finished grimly.
Draco raised an eyebrow. That wasn't what he'd been going to say, and Potter knew it, but neither of them truly wanted to voice what both of them were thinking. It couldn't be possible.
"How'd it go?" Hermione looked up hopefully from the books she was studying at Harry's desk to meet the dejected countenances of Harry and Malfoy. Her own expression fell. "Not good, I take it?"
Harry shook his head, sending the floating body bag back to his filing cabinet with more force than was necessary. The drawer crashed shut, the noise ringing in their ears. "McNair's either not evil enough, not powerful enough, or –"
"Or we're in deeper shit than we thought," Malfoy finished crudely.
Harry nodded. It was as good a way of phrasing things as any. He ran his hand through his hair for the umpteenth time. "Please tell me you've found something encouraging, Hermione," he pleaded wearily, collapsing into a chair. Draco remained standing.
Hermione's mouth twisted.
Draco watched her, knowing that what Potter asked of her was the impossible. It would be interesting to see how Granger handled failure – because failure was the only option in this matter.
"Well…I haven't found anything discouraging…yet." It was a pathetic answer, and all three of them knew it. She gave Harry a sympathetic look. "But even I have to admit that if Malfoy hasn't found anything in six years the chances of me stumbling across a cure are extremely slim. It would be sheer dumb luck at this point."
Draco blinked. Granger, admitting she was stumped? He glanced around, hoping some sort of magical scribe might pop out of thin air to record the moment for posterity.
Harry nodded wearily. Truth be told he hadn't expected much more than that, whatever he might say. "Well, keep trying, Hermione. Please."
Hermione nodded, turning to fish out a couple of files from Harry's in-tray. "This might cheer you up, though." She opened the topmost one, which was marked with the crest of the Magical Forensics Squad, and pointed to the writing in the middle of the first page. The two men leaned in. "Those men weren't killed with the Killing Curse."
"What?!" Harry seized the folder, crumpling it with his urgency, staring down at the words as though expecting them to reform into a sentence telling him he'd been duped.
"I went down to the morgue and double checked their spellwork myself, Harry," Hermione confirmed patiently as Harry scanned the report, Malfoy reading it over his shoulder. "Both bodies show signs of torture – the Cruciatus Curse mainly, but there was no trace of the Killing Curse." She paused, her mouth twisted with an expression of discomfort and disgust. "They think they were tortured to death…and I'm inclined to agree."
The two men exchanged identical frowning expressions.
"But that doesn't make sense," Harry muttered, almost to himself. "If the murderer put the Mark on them, why go to the trouble of it only to torture them to death? Unless the Marks really are decoys? But even then, why not use the Killing Curse? It's faster – and if they hung around too long someone would be bound to see them, or hear. But if this really is the Death Eaters, why brand someone who's not on your side? And if they were on their side, why kill one of their own?" He screwed his hair up with his hands. "This makes no sense!"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't like it either, Harry. Putting the question of the Marks to one side, there are only three reasons to torture someone: answers, punishment, or fun. And to torture someone to death? It's like something Bellatrix would do." She shivered, feeling a phantom imprint of the witch's fingers biting into her arm as the point of her knife carved into her skin.
Draco shifted uncomfortably.
"It's weird," Harry let go of his hair only to put a hand back to his head as he thought. "Someone must be emulating her and Voldemort. He was too calm to do anything this stupid – he didn't get off on torture like her, but this is too clever for her kind of viciousness. I think we can say it's almost certainly not a vigilante though. There's too much Dark magic involved for that."
The others nodded. It was extremely uncommon for vigilantes – who were most often the families of those who had been killed or tortured by Death Eaters – to turn to Dark magic in their crusades for justice.
"So it's either returned Death Eaters with serious internal issues, or a decoy done by a new Dark witch or wizard." Draco summarised, frowning.
Harry nodded, sighing. "We've got to narrow it down. I have people on the lookout for any whisper of a new Dark Lord, but there's not much else we can do about that side of things."
"Focus on the Death Eaters," Hermione said, waving her wand at an empty page tacked to the pin board so that a neat script of their latest developments filled it. "It'll be easier to track them down than some speculative new Dark Lord, and if it is a new Dark witch or wizard, once we find out we can eliminate anything related to free Death Eaters."
Harry nodded. "We'll need to get the latest list on who's still at large amongst the Death Eaters from the Investigation Department – Hawker's heading the effort."
Hermione nodded, summoning a blank memo and scribbling out the request, the page folding itself up at a tap from her wand, and flying out the door.
Draco was frowning, still thinking. "Don't underestimate people like Bellatrix, Potter. My aunt was vicious, cruel, sadistic, but she wasn't a fool either. She was as cunning as any of them – if not more. If this killer is half what she was we've still got an incredibly dangerous person on our hands."
Harry nodded soberly, frowning as he returned to the report. The crease between his brows deepened. "I don't know these spells," he murmured, then glanced up at Hermione in question.
Her expression hardened. "They're very old magic. Ancient magic, really. And Dark – very Dark. They're on a similar level to horcruxes, but older."
Draco had peered over Potter's shoulder again, and his mouth tightened. "I know some of these."
Harry and Hermione turned to look at him, and his mouth was a hard line, his tone brittle.
"Some of them were favourites of Bellatrix's – and Rodolphus too. I think it was probably the only thing they had in common; they were both sadistic to their marrow – Dolohov too. I heard them sharing stories at the Manor one day, about the 'good old days' when the Dark Lord was in power. The Cruciatus Curse was too efficient for them – too humane, if it can be called that. They used to use these on Muggles, witches, wizards – anyone who went against Him. Anyone who got on the wrong side of them or displeased them. They fancied themselves kings and queens back then." A muscle flickered in his clenched jaw. "They used some on Ollivander when they had him at the Manor. Not too many – the Dark Lord wanted him alive – but the screams…" Draco's expression went suddenly blank, the unreadable shutter falling automatically down as he began to lose control over his emotions, unwilling to let Potter or Granger see his moment of weakness and discomposure. His eyes remained haunted, however.
Hermione stared into them, gaining for the first time the faintest inkling of what it was to have Death Eaters for parents but not be truly of that persuasion yourself. A surge of largely irrational anger rose up within her, focused on his parents. She knew Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater, she had seen him in action and knew he had definitely believed in the cause, but she also knew that it wasn't possible to get out of Voldemort's service without being either very lucky, very clever, or dying horribly. But Mrs Malfoy wasn't. She'd managed to be part of the inner circle without taking the Mark. She could've protected her son from it if she had tried hard enough. Surely in a family as resourceful and cunning as theirs they would have stood a far greater chance of going into hiding than most. She frowned.
"They're mostly medieval in origin," she continued, keeping her voice as steady and neutral as possible to help Malfoy over the awkward break in the conversation. "The Dark Ages, to be precise – between the fifth and tenth centuries. And they're…quite creative."
Harry pursed his lips, and nodded. "So I imagine. Being civilised wasn't much in vogue at the time."
Draco snorted at Potter's comment, having returned to himself, surprised at Granger's tactfulness. But then she had come into his mind only yesterday, it was entirely possible that she had seen something of his past that made her feel sorry for him. Ridiculous woman. To go from hate to empathy in one swoop? A Malfoy would never do such a thing. Gryffindors.
"And the Squad can't find anything that might tie it to or cut it off from the previous murders?" Harry clarified, ignoring Malfoy's tired amusement.
Hermione shifted, sighing. "The problem is that the other corpses are so old most of the magical data has been lost. We're lucky they were still in storage – another week and the Ministry's entitlement to hold them as evidence would have ended and they'd have been returned to the families for burial. If that idiotic fool Blundle hadn't had his department off on a wild goose chase after vampires and damn Pogrebins – which, might I add, don't even drink blood – he might have actually had Forensics look at them for traces of magic. He didn't take kindly to my involvement on the case, so I never got a chance to check the bodies over myself." Her mouth tightened with frustration. "We're down to the very faintest trace elements left on the most recent body – and even that's pushing five weeks old." She rolled her eyes at her former colleague's ineptitude. "But, what they are finding does seem to be evidence of more old magic. Like these torture curses. It would make sense given the state the bodies ended up in."
"So there could be a connection," Harry breathed.
Hermione's mouth twisted. "Maybe. They were checking ancient Egyptian curses when I left. It doesn't exactly fit with the origins or time period of the torture curses on our two, but they're going through every civilisation's torture methods trying to find a match. Egyptian curses won't turn up though – I had Bill look at the bodies last time, and he said they didn't resemble anything he'd ever encountered in the pyramids. But they're still going to check through, just to be thorough. If what was used is similar to the torture curses we have…there is a possibility of a connection. I don't know whether that makes it better or worse."
"Could go either way," Harry sighed tiredly, dropping the files back onto his desk. "Thanks though, Hermione."
She smiled faintly, her eyes drifting to settle on Malfoy. His gaze was at its default unfathomable setting as their eyes met but didn't lock, steely grey lightly assessing the warm brown. "I was thinking I might give you a proper combat assessment later – if you're not too tired, Malfoy. We need you cleared for fieldwork as soon as possible, just to be on the safe side."
Draco searched for a challenge in the words, for that antagonistic spark to return to her eyes, but they regarded him kindly, patiently waiting for his reply. She probably thought he was in a state and needed delicate handling. He shrugged. "If you want, Granger."
Hermione rolled her eyes as Malfoy turned away to hang his cloak on the hat stand. What was with having to appear put-together and impassive all the damn time? Normal people were allowed to feel emotions and have off days and just be, well, human. He seemed to think he had to appear untouchable. He could never be ruffled. He had to be, well, Malfoy. A slight smirk lifted the corner of her mouth. Perhaps she might ruffle those sleek white-blond feathers later.
So this chapter is incredibly dense in terms of the information dump. Hopefully I managed to spread it out so it wasn't too confusing and remained interesting though!
Things are starting to get more serious with the case, but don't worry - the humour is going to keep coming through. :)
Hope you enjoyed it! :D
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