A/N: Finally, the worthless git of an author decides that she wants to write a chapter on this story! Yay! There's a party and everyone's invited to...Review!

Chapter Nine:

Hermione and Sirius walked slowly and hesitantly into the kitchen. They weren't very excited to speak to Dumbledore, for each knew that any information he might care to tell them would most likely be bad information. Not bad as in not reliable, but bad as in horrible news.

Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she walked into the kitchen. Ginny and Harry had, of course, stopped snogging and were now starring at Dumbledore apprehensively. They knew the possibilities as well.

Dumbledore looked at her with an odd expression when he saw her enter holding Sirius' hand, but then shook his head, seemingly to tell himself that this did not matter, that he was here for more pressing reasons.

"Ah, Hermione, Sirius. Just the people we were waiting for," he said, motioning to a seat at the table. "Please, sit down. We may all need to."

Sirius walked over to the table and held out a chair for Hermione, who obediently took it, concentrating not on her pride, but at the information that Dumbledore knew. Once she and Sirius were seated, Dumbledore took the seat at the head of the table for himself. He was silent for a minute, staring pensively at the group of young people before him, wondering why it was he who had to bare the tale of bad news to them all yet again.

He had had the false impression that this was all going to end when the war with Voldemort ended. He had even planned on going on a little reprieve away from London for a while to enjoy himself. Maybe to America, the Bahamas, he wasn't sure. But, now that plan was well out of the window, so he decided that he'd better buck up and just tell them already. Besides, that look he was getting from Ms. Granger for delaying the inevitable was probably fit to kill...

"As you may well have thought, I have some news. But," he said, noticing the look of terror that was forming on Hermione's face, "before you get entirely bent out of shape, please, take a minute to calm yourselves. There have been two more attacks."

At this, Hermione lost control. "Your telling us to calm down! Take a minute to relax? How in the world do you expect anything along those lines to occur when there are two more dead, and I am presuming that they were young girls, out there?"

"Ms. Granger, if you would have heeded my advice, you would have had time to hear me say that there were two attacks. Not two murders. The girls in question were not murdered, that we know of. As of now, they are simply missing and we do have some leads to find them."

Sirius put his hand on Hermione's arm to soothe her. She gave him a sad look before looking back towards the Professor. "What are these leads?" she asked softly, not wanting to put too much hope into her words. She wasn't quite sure that she wanted to have a lead to the sicko that was after her and these other girls. But, she knew that she had to. It would save the lives of many and she wouldn't be the one to refuse that.

Dumbledore continued. "We have found some blood at the scene of the abduction. Some of it, and not a lot, mind you, was from the girls' themselves. But there was something else we found at the scene that appears to have not come from one of the girls, but someone else. Someone else was in their apartment that night, and I am guessing that they weren't exactly friendly."

Sirius couldn't help but smirk at this. This guy, this crazy bastard that was after his Hermione and a bunch of other innocents, had made a huge mistake. Maybe catching him and killing him wouldn't be as impossible as it seemed before. Then again, it could be a trap. One just never knew.

Hermione was staring at Dumbledore with a look of indignation. She knew that the old Headmaster had been planning on taking some well deserved time off after the war with Voldemort had been won, but this was beginning to be ridiculous. She hardly believed that this was anytime for him to begin slacking off in his duties as the head of the Order.

"They've been kidnapped and taken only Merlin knows where, to deal with Merlin knows what, and you don't think that that's worse than murder? Or at least cause for a little more alarm?" she said, going from scared to angry almost instantly. "They could be enduring monstrous amounts of torture and abuse, if they aren't already dead. Who's to say that those creatures that have been killing them haven't decided to…to…quit leaving behind their evidence?" she had been going to suggest that maybe the creatures were eating the girls now, but was scared to say it aloud. Silently, she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. "I'll kindly ask you to inform me if anything else is discovered, thank you." she said, leaving the room and everyone in it staring in her wake.

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"How could you have been so careless! What possessed you to bring them back here? I said for you to take care of them in a different way this time so as to catch their attention, not lead them right to us!" Tyler yelled at his, as of now, very incompetent creatures.

"Master," one of them began, speaking to him in, of course, parseltongue. "We thought you'd be pleased. We had to have the stupid one to scare them out of their apartment. We didn't catch them while they were outside," it explained, already cowering for its' explanation sounded feeble, even to itself. And he was right in his instinct, for Tyler didn't hesitate in firing a very loud, and very painful 'crucio' in his direction.

"You had that imbecile help you? Well, at least he wore some sort of disguise, didn't he? I mean surely he's not stupid enough to…" And he stopped. The look on the faces of his pet's was enough to tell him what he feared.

"Kill the girls. Bring Wyatt to me, now!" he yelled angrily, before summoning Spencer to him.

"Yes, my lord?" Spencer asked, trying to hide his amusement at the failure of Tyler's plan.

"You must go to their apartment. Make sure that there was no evidence left behind. If we fail now, it's all over." Tyler told him, pausing for a minute at the end. "Oh, and try out our new Dark Mark, while your at it," he finished.

Spencer almost snorted out loud. The new Dark Mark was the same thing his father had used, minus the snake and with the Serpantitheus in it's place, flying around the skull instead of into the mouth.

"Yes, sir." he said, leaving the room and heading off rather unwillingly to the flat in London.

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Sirius, after leaving Dumbledore in the kitchen with Harry and Ginny, went to find Hermione. He knew she needed him, whatever was wrong with her, and he wasn't about to desert her now. After a brief search, he found her in one of the studies up stairs, a book open in her lap although he knew she wasn't reading it. Not only did he know this because she was clearly upset, but because the name of the said book was: House Elves: The Most Useful Slaves Since Humans. How much clearer could that be? She looked up at him as he entered.

"Is he gone?" she asked, closing the book and setting her hands across it in her lap.

Sirius had begun to shake his head, but upon hearing a loud crack from below them, nodded it quickly.

"Yep. It appears so." he said, making his way over to the chair next to hers. He sat down in it and placed a comforting arm on hers, looking at her square in the eye and giving her a soft smile. "Care to talk about it?"

She tried, and failed, to give him an innocent look. "Talk about what?" she smiled crookedly.

"Oh, I don't know, the weather, or maybe your position on House Elf Liberation?" he said, shooting her a significant look. "You know what I want to talk about, Hermione. Don't play dumb with me, it doesn't suite you."

She grimaced. Somehow she had known that it wasn't going to work very well. "Fine, what is it you want to know exactly?" she asked, annoyed that he brought up the topic.

He smiled, clearly happy that he got his way. "Well, for starters, how about telling me why you blew up at Albus Dumbledore? Are you insane! You could be kicked out of the Order!"

At this, she laughed. "Yeah. I really see them doing that. Come on, be logical. I am one of the ones who helped Harry defeat Voldemort. I don't exactly see them chucking me anytime soon, do you? Besides, even if I didn't help them, Dumbledore's one of the nicest guys I know. He wouldn't do that."

Sirius smirked. "If he's so nice, why did you yell at him?"

She frowned. It was so obvious. But, then again, this was a male she was talking to, so it was clear why he wouldn't have understood. And if she didn't tell him, he may never know.

"Because." she replied, somewhat childishly.

"Oh, that was intelligent. It explained everything in one word! How simply brilliant!" he said sarcastically.

"Because he's not worried about them, that's why. Just because they weren't found at the scene dead, he assumes that they are alive and safe, when they could well be dead still! Or worse, Merlin forbid it! I don't think they are safe, and he shouldn't be taking this so lightly!" she yelled, somewhat louder than she'd originally meant to.

"Taking it so lightly? What on earth are you talking about? He's got the entire Order on this case! All of them!"

"Well, if they're so good, why haven't they found any leads? What would be so different about the girls being taken?" she fired back, eyes blazing with her passion of the subject.

Sirius ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "It's not that easy. And if you'd been listening downstairs instead of storming up here in a tirade, you might have heard the part where he said that the guy left behind a large and important piece of evidence."

Hermione was still staring at him stubbornly, although she did look nervous now, as though she'd realized she was partly wrong. "But why isn't it that easy? The damn order fought and defeated Voldemort. Why is this one so much harder?"

Sirius got up from his chair and walked over to her. He gently pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms. The house elf book fell to the floor with a clatter as he brought his mouth to hers and kissed her softly.

"It was never that easy, Hermione. It's just harder for you this time because the creep's lashed out at you personally. But have some faith. We will stop him, just like we did Voldemort." he whispered into her hair after he had finished kissing her.

She nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry." she said, then, "Oh no. I've made a fool of myself tonight, haven't I?"

Sirius couldn't help but smile. "Well, fool isn't quite the strongest word to use…" he began, but she playfully smacked him on the arm. He grabbed her by the waste and started tickling her, but she soon became distracted by the book that had fallen on the floor. She picked it up and examined the title with a stricken expression.

"I was…this….how…oh no…." she began, "Get this thing out of my sight! Now! I can't believe I had it open and ….Burn it, Sirius, please?" she practically begged.

Sirius, being the obedient boyfriend that he was, complied, but he laughed his arse off whilst he did so.

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