As the lift slid to a stop, Harry and Ron moved in unison, holding up their wands. "Department of Mysteries," the overhead voice said coolly, but as the gates opened, the Aurors, did not budge.

"I could be wrong," Ron said slowly. "It's been a while. But this floor isn't supposed to look like that, is it?"
Harry swallowed. "No."

The marble of the ninth floor's hallway had turned void-black, no longer glossy, perhaps because there was no light to reflect, save for the dim lantern hanging in the lift. An inky, smoky darkness loomed beyond the Aurors' wands. The darkness seethed silently, as if it was a living thing. Black, translucent tendrils, began to inch their way past the threshold of the lift, and Ron leapt backward.

Harry stayed put. Gently, he poked at one of the tendrils with his wand. He felt no resistance, as if his wand had passed through air. The tendril retreated, slowly, almost sheepishly.

"Doesn't it…" Ron began, and Harry could tell by the tightness in his voice that his mouth was dry. Ron wet his lips and tried again. "Doesn't it remind you a bit of dementors?"

"What?" Harry cocked his head, listening for voices, attuning his senses to whatever aura the darkness was giving off. If it was an enchantment or a curse, he would feel something. But he did not. "I don't feel any despair. Do you?"

Ron's brow furrowed. "No. It just reminds me of that trail they leave off. You know, like… ashy."

"I see what you mean." Harry hesitated to step into the corridor and meet - whatever this was. It didn't seem Dark to him. But it was unsafe to make assumptions.

"Hello?" Ron called. The sound of his voice was sucked in by the darkness. There was no echo.

"It's always something, Ron, I swear," Harry said with a resigned sigh. He raised both hands and inhaled. "Fin-"

A warm mass barreled into Harry, knocking the wind out of him. Harry stumbled back, his torso crashing sharply against the support bar at the back of the lift. Hands scrabbled at his robes - the mass was a person, Harry realized, a boy with curly blond hair who hurriedly righted himself and mouthed, sorry.

"Chintz," Ron said, breathless with shock.

The wizard didn't acknowledge him. He spun, slammed the lift grate shut, and desperately banged on random buttons. The lift groaned and began to move upwards.

Harry smoothed his robes and rubbed at the sore spot on his back - that was going to bruise, for sure. He took a long, hard look at the person that had billowed into the lift.

Chintz, as Ron had addressed him, looked to be a few years younger than them both. His robes, midnight blue, were torn and tattered at the hem, slashed as if… As if something had clawed at them. Chintz turned, his chest heaving, and Harry saw that blood was trickling down the side of his face. He weakly raised a hand, made a fist, and tugged it downwards - WSL for help.

Harry and Ron caught Chintz before he fully slumped to the floor. The lift came to a stop at floor nine, the main atrium. Per usual, a crowd was waiting to take the lift. Harry, kneeling, held the grate closed with both hands.

"Take the next one!" He said forcefully. "Are there any-"

"Healer!" Ron boomed; his voice was louder than Harry's. He had begun dabbing at Chintz's head wound with his red junior sash. "Is there a Healer around?"

A purple-haired witch in lime green robes pushed to the front. "I'm a Healer."

"Step aside," Harry told the crowd, and opened the gates to let the witch in. As the lift continued its ascent, dozens of pairs of eyes watched it go. One old wizard, in Magical Creatures brown, craned his neck so far back that his hat fell off. Harry groaned inwardly. The last thing he needed was the Ministry gossip machine processing the sight of two Aurors hovering over an injured junior Unspeakeable and spitting out… Nothing good, Harry thought.

The Healer knelt, hair spilling over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark and kind. "Can you hear me?" She asked clearly. Chintz nodded, gaze unfocused. "I need a verbal response, please." Chintz shook his head.

"He's mute," Ron explained. The lift began to slow as it neared the next floor. Harry flicked his wand and all the buttons went dark. The lift squealed to a stop, blocked on all sides. Ron looked askance at Harry.

"Could use some privacy for now," he said.

Chintz began to sign, woozily. Harry caught only a few words: head - run - see… He waved his hands about vaguely, but the Healer still seemed to be following. The last sign, Harry observed with a slight twitch of amusement, was stupid.

"He'd been running from something," the Healer translated. "But it was dark; he couldn't see a thing and hit his head on the wall."

Ron and Harry flinched in unison, imagining the impact on marble.

Chintz continued to sign, and as the Healer translated, she ran the tip of her wand over his scalp. "He can't remember how long he'd been in the Department of Mysteries. Maybe since last night? He got lost and felt something chasing him, and then felt…" Chintz's hands paused. "Two spots of warmth, at the end of the corridor. He followed them and ended up in here."

Chintz's eyes, a bright, startling blue, rolled over to stare at Harry, who stared right back, thinking.

Two spots of warmth. Me and Ron?

"What was chasing you?" Harry asked.

Chintz shrugged helplessly, then gritted his teeth in a silent wince, suddenly closing his hand over the Healer's.

"Not a good spot, huh?" She tutted sympathetically, squeezing his hand. Chintz's face flushed, and he signed, sorry. The Healer didn't seem to notice his mawkish expression - or pretended not to - and hovered her wand over the length of his body. "No more physical damage. Do you need to go to St. Mungo's?" Chintz shook his head. "What's your name, love?"

Chintz's face turned even redder, but he obligingly finger-spelled: F-E-R-R-I-S C-H-I-N-T-Z. Then, your name?

"Heidi Morales," the Healer replied with a smile. "You can just call me Heidi."

Harry loudly cleared his throat, feeling embarrassed for everyone in the lift. "Was anyone else in Mysteries?" Harry asked. Chintz shook his head. His signing was now slow and clear enough for even Harry, with his rusty knowledge of WSL, to understand. Not that I remember.

"That's unusual," Ron said, echoing Harry's thoughts. "Most of the department is always working down there."

Not this past week, Chintz signed. Not with the incident.

"What incident?" Harry asked.

Chintz shook his head again, then spelled, I-N-C-I-D-E-N-T-S.

"There's no plural for that noun in WSL," Heidi offered helpfully.

"Okay," Harry said, more dismissively than he meant to. "What incidents?"

Chintz raised his hands, then shuddered. His skin had suddenly taken on a clammy sheen.

"The damn Mystical Secrets Charm," Ron muttered. "Merlin's sweaty bollocks. Sorry," he said, for Heidi's benefit. She shrugged.

"I'm taking him to St. Mungo's," she said decisively as Chintz's eyes fluttered closed.

"Go with them," Harry told Ron. "Come back when he's settled. I'll let Buttersworth know." He wasn't sure where to find the Mysteries head, but by Merlin, he would.

Ron nodded, resting a hand on Heidi's shoulder, and all three colors: gray, green, blue - swirled together and disappeared.

Harry stood in the silent lift. The morning had not gone at all how he thought it would. "Fuck," he grumbled, and pressed the button for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

-.-.-.-

Cobblestones became reassuringly solid beneath Draco's feet. He lurched slightly, still not used to Apparating after all those years of being restricted. Charlemagne Wells kept a firm grip on his arm to keep him from falling over.

They had landed right in front of an eclectic group of people: three wizards and witches in the same soft gray robes Granger wore, an Auror with feathery brown hair and a pensive expression, two Unspeakables - one much taller than the other - and a stooped witch in patched-up black robes, who had tears dribbling down her lined face.

The people in gray, members of the Defense Bureau, Draco guessed, stood stoically silent, as did the taller Unspeakeable, whose pale-colored eyes peered curiously from a shiny, bald brown head. The Auror and the shorter Unspeakeable were locked in conversation with the witch - rather unsuccessfully, Draco observed, as the witch was speaking in French, and the other two in English.

"Vous comprenez pas," the witch sniffled, "J'ai fait rien, rien, s'il vous plaît…"

She continued bawling, but Draco could barely understand what she said next. It had been a long time since his father had made him take French lessons.

"Madame," said Wells soothingly, "Tout va bien. Nous allons vous aider." Xer French was crisp and slow, and Draco could translate:

All will be well. We're going to help you.

Gently, Wells took the witch's arm and led her to a bench in front of a clothing store. Xey looked over xer shoulder and nodded to the rest of the Ministry employees, as if to say: Let me handle it.

Granger turned to the shorter Unspeakeable. "Buttersworth, sir-"

"Why is he here?" The wizard said gruffly, mustached upper lip curling.

Draco stiffened as he realized that the wizard, who hadn't even looked at him, was referring to him. Draco could not tamp down his irritation. "Look, Wells brought-"

"Malfoy, take care," Granger said warningly. "This is Killian Buttersworth, the Head of the Department of Mysteries."

Draco could hardly fathom why he should give a damn, but the look Granger shot him was quelling. He said nothing.

"My apprentice, sir," Granger said to Buttersworth, "Draco Malfoy."

"Yeah, I know who he is. That's not what I asked," Buttersworth grumbled, and Draco noted, despite the grizzled wizard's British-sounding name, his accent was distinctly American. "Whatever. That's on the bottom of my list of things I'm trying to figure out right now. Item one being: Why the hell have I been called in, and why?"

"I was the one who did the calling in," the Auror chimed in; he'd left Wells to deal with the French woman on xer own. "Sorry, sir. Not much time to explain, 'til now." The state of chaos the gathered party had been in when Draco and Granger arrived had soothed - likely not their doing, but Wells's. "Fletcher Kosfeld, sir. Senior Auror."

"I know who you are," Buttersworth said irritably. Or perhaps that was just his normal way of speaking.

"Just doing introductions for Malfoy's sake." It was a surprise to Draco, being addressed so politely by a strange Auror. The bigger surprise was when Fletcher Kosfeld extended a hand. "Can't quite say I'm pleased to meet you," said Fletcher. His hand was wand-calloused and his eyes the same grayish green as the water beneath the bridge at Bath's center. Draco found that handshakes still felt alien, after years of isolation, and wondered if Fletcher noticed his awkwardness. "A bit like meeting a reverse celebrity."

Instead of expounding on this odd statement, Fletcher let go of Draco's hand and said to Buttersworth, "I'm afraid I asked for you on nothing but a hunch, but by now, I hope you've come to trust my hunches. That old bird, she kept pointing to the sky. Thought it might be connected to the storm cloud Potter reported yesterday. She kept saying, uh, garçon."

"Boy," Draco said aloud.

Fletcher inclined his head. "Well, let's not bother with piecing it together ourselves," he said, and, on cue, Wells returned to the cluster of wizards xer grim expression at odds with the bright yellow of xer robes.

"It's one of those clouds again," Wells said, and Fletcher's nose wrinkled with a bastard fortune proved right. "Says it took her boy. Her younger sister's son that she's watching for the weekend."

"'Took?'" Granger repeated. "What did she see, exactly?"

Wells gestured to the old witch, inviting her into the fold. Wells said a few words to her, and she began to gesticulate, stammering her sentences. After a minute or so, Wells gave a paraphrased translation. "She saw and felt her nephew one moment… he was gone the next. Had her hand on his shoulder and then on empty space. The cloud was gone, too. She described it like Potter, Weasley, and the others did. Stormy, but definitely magical."

"Tu sais qui," the witch blubbered despairingly, over and over, almost under her breath, and it took a few harried renditions for Draco to realize it was a name. "Tu-Sais-Qui."

You-Know-Who.

Draco's left forearm was covered by his robe sleeve, but he drew it behind his back anyway. Wells murmured to the witch comfortingly in French.

"Okay, well, this is gonna take more'n a minute to solve," Buttersworth said, his tone of voice making it clear he was putting himself in charge of the whole situation. "First off, you all," he jutted a thumb to the three Defense Bureau wizards, "Why are you here?"

"I'm Natasha Draper, sir," said the eldest, a witch with grey-streaked, red curls. "With Suarez and Childs. We saw the cloud, too, and came over."

"They're with me," Granger chimed in. "Setting up a post in Bath."

"What the hell for?"

Granger thought for a second, then said, "Frankly, it's too complicated and unnecessary to explain right now," she said patiently, like someone who'd had years to get used to Buttersworth's attitude. "Draper, Suarez, Childs, change of plans. Apparate back to London and tell Fraycliff we're dealing with more pressing matters at the moment."

Draper's face took on a look of apprehension, but she nodded, and together with her associates, Disapparated.

"Defense was who called me in," Fletcher offered. "And you, Buttersworth, called in Wells, who went to fetch Granger and her, ah, helper. What a lovely, efficient chain of communication we have in our good ol' British Ministry." Both Buttersworth and Granger frowned at him, but other than that, no one acknowledged him. Fletcher threw Draco a furtive wink, as if letting him in on the joke. Draco could not remember ever being on the receiving end of a wink. He looked away, embarrassed.

"The cloud was sighted back that way," Wells nodded down one end of the street, which turned sharply past an ice cream shop. Its customers, despite the lingering chill, milled below the mint-striped awning. Draco, momentarily distracted, watched the Muggles perform their inane but happy little behaviors, realizing that in the coming months, he would experience his first real, free summer. Freer, anyhow. "In the park."

"We'll take a look," Buttersworth said, drawing his wand. It was the motion, mimicked by his partner, that made Draco remember the existence of said partner. He had stayed so silent and still Draco had forgotten him, despite his towering height. "Charlemagne, you take care of her, eh? Get her to the French embassy or something?"

"I think that would be best."

"In the meantime, Suleman," Buttersworth addressed his partner first, "Kosfeld, Granger, and you, I guess," and here Draco bit back a sharp comment, "Let's check out that park."

-.-.-.-

At first glance, nothing was amiss. The wind, mild and apt for May, rustled the willows and pines. Ducks quacked and splashed on a pond to the wizards' left. From behind came the delighted shouts and wood-to-stone crashes of Muggle teens at a skatepark. Even at proverbial second glance, nothing struck Hermione as out of the ordinary. She tilted her head, as was her wont, even though it wasn't necessary, as she quieted the outside world and attuned her senses to magical signatures. Nothing Dark or malicious stood out to her.

Roanoke Suleman, Killian Buttersworth, and Fletcher Kosfeld had all spread out on the tract of grass that Charli had described to them, between the duck pond and the skatepark. Malfoy, however, stuck to Hermione like a shadow, and even though she knew it was what he was technically supposed to be doing, it annoyed her.

At one point, she stopped suddenly to avoid tripping a neatly hidden oak root, and Malfoy ran right into her.

"Back up, for Merlin's sake," she hissed. "I'm working."

"Aren't I supposed to be learning from you?" Malfoy muttered back. "You're not saying anything."

"This is half the job, believe it or not," Hermione replied. "For any Ministry position that works in the field. Just listening and watching. And feeling."

The silence remained unbroken for about ten seconds. "Feeling how?"

"Deeply, I suppose. For magic. I can't quite describe it. Harry could tell you better than I."

"Yes, he and I are known for having constructive conversations," Draco quipped.

Hermione turned and faced him with her full height, which was still a fair foot from his, and said, "Can you be anything more than sarcastic and biting for two sentences?"

Unperturbed, Draco glared. "I tried. On the bridge." He squinted. "And I know how to be quiet, too; not many people to talk to when you're holed up for seven years."

And there it was, the elephant in the room that they had only brushed against earlier, the one that was now poised to smush Hermione beneath its massive, pachyderm foot. How do you treat an ex-Death Eater? and How do you treat an ex-con? were questions that had been tumbling about in Hermione's mind for the past week. Questions that she was sure Ron and Harry had been thinking about, too. Ron's answer seemed to be, treat Malfoy, at best, like entertainment, and at worst, like furniture. Harry's answer was, to Hermione's chagrin, pretend like nothing had happened, like no time had passed, like no letters had been sent.

Hermione didn't have an answer yet. She'd been deferring to respect, to what little of it she could possibly gather for one Draco Malfoy.

"Look, you've made your apologies, all right?" Hermione said, keeping her voice low, even though her colleagues were much too far to hear. "And I've accepted them. I'm sorry for what you went through," she said, sincerely, and Malfoy's pale eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Obviously, I don't think you deserved to be let off scot-free, but I have many issues with the bloody prison system, and Azkaban, and that's partially why I took this job, but…" Hermione inhaled deeply, then let it out. "We are both here now, and we may as well make the best of what we've got. Move forward." It was a trite phrase, Hermione knew, but she didn't know if she had any better ones.

Malfoy nodded, slowly. "Easier said than done. Moving forward." He met her gaze with a soft, almost unidentifiable pain. A familiar pain, one that marked people who could easily mistake steam for battle-smoke.

"I know." Hermione wasn't really comfortable being this vulnerable with him, of all people. She folded her arms. "Merlin, you should be having conversations like this with Harry, not me."

Malfoy's mouth quirked. "Constructive conversations?"

"Constructive conversations. Let's get back to work." Hermione extended her wand, and her senses, once more. Something bothered her about the exchange she'd just had. Something about Malfoy's reaction to Harry's name.

Harry had been acting like no letters had been sent. But so had Malfoy. Hermione recalled one particular letter, one that Harry hadn't even let Ron read, but lent her, in confidence, to proofread. A rambling, kind letter, sealed in gold. A question began to form, but before Hermione could even say it to herself, a deep voice shouted.

"There is nothing here!"

Suleman's statement jolted Hermione to stillness. "I could have told you that," Malfoy grumbled.

"No. He means…" Hermione's stomach turned. Of course, she hadn't noticed it right away, but she was embarrassed it had taken her this long. A city as old as Bath, even in the less habited parts, would have dozens, if not hundreds, of magical signatures, overlapping each other, some duller than others, the freshest gleaming against her senses.

There is nothing here.

Hermione was afraid, then, and the fear did not take on the sharpness of panic, but rather the slow ooze of dread. Fear of the unknown. She had never been in a place, not in all her life, that was completely devoid of magic. She had never believed there was such a thing.

"Malfoy," She said firmly, turning to her apprentice, "If you closed your eyes, you'd still feel me here, right?"

Malfoy shrugged. "Yes."

"Try it."

Malfoy looked puzzled, but he did as he was told, and after a few seconds, with a wrinkled brow, he made a small sound of disbelief. Raised pureblood, exposed to magic and magic theory at a young age, even if not by the same terms, Malfoy would be familiar with the presence of magical signatures.

"Something's not right," he said.

"Yes." Something was very, very wrong.

-.-.-.-

When he left Ferris Chintz's medical ward, Ron finally had time to himself to think. It was a relief to stop bearing witness to Chintz's emerging puppy love with the Healer Heidi Morales (really, how did Harry put up with his and Hermione's early stages?) but if he was being honest with himself, Ron had been avoiding having time to think all morning.

He took the lift to the ground floor, with a witch and her daughter whose shamrock-shaped scars seemed to be well on their way to fading, and avoided thinking about Spencer Zhou by thinking about Estelle MacInnes.

Ron thought of how poorly the questioning went, mostly since Estelle seemed mostly unresponsive to his questions, jerking her head now and then as if listening to someone else, someone outside of the room. When she did speak, it was nearly incomprehensible, and when it was comprehensible, it was ranting and raving about You-Know-Who, and his deeds, or sobbing about her dead children.

Ron thought of the questioning, and how he'd done the best he could, with Darla and Chintz looking on with a mix of sympathy and pity. He'd tried to be gentle and coaxing, to no avail. Ron had used the techniques that Spencer had taught him.

And now, he was back to thinking about Spencer.

Ron held the door open for the witch and her daughter as the three of them spilled onto the street. The witch thanked him, but the kid was either too young or too shy to manage more than a mumble. Both moved in the direction of downtown; Ron began to stride the other way.

He knew, superficially, that the Ministry had many resources at its disposal, and that Spencer's disappearance was not necessarily an unsolvable mystery. Ron knew that he would do all he could to find his mentor, and the thirteen others who had vanished - children, spouses, parents, and friends. A couple of years ago, Ron had worked in a different sub-department of Aurors, those who spent considerably more time speaking to the loved ones of those who had been kidnapped, killed, simply wiped from the face of the earth, or happily found alive. It was an important job. He hadn't much enjoyed it, because often, he would be the one delivering bad news.

A breeze ruffled through the crowd on the street - ruffled through their loose-fitting jumpers, sundresses, skirts and trousers, bleached and layered hair. Ron stopped just short of a café, enveloped in the smell of coffee wafting from the open door. He was surrounded, too, by a sudden and overwhelming sadness, coupled with the feeling that summer was very far away.

It was the end of May, and summer wasn't on its way at all.

Ron buttoned the top of his collar to ward off an imaginary chill, and in doing so, realized that there were tiny splotches of blood on his white shirt. It was a busy street, so he kept on for a few more paces and ducked into a wide, deserted alley to charm off the stains.

As he was doing so, a large, silver shower of light sprinkled into the alley, taking the shape of a buck. It shook its branches of antlers once, to command attention, then spoke in Harry's voice.

"Tracked down Buttersworth in Bath, of all places. Hermione was still there, too. Lots to discuss. Over dinner?"

"Tell him that sounds fine," Ron said to the deer, who bowed and vanished in a shimmer of light.

Ron scuffed the pavement with his boot, and after a minute's deliberation, decided to search for an entrance to the Tube. He could take the long way back to work. Who would stop him?