The atmosphere in the BAU was tense when Gideon, Hermione and Spencer arrived. Clearly they all felt guilty that they couldn't avoid bringing their other members in from their vacation time. As they were walking, Hermione noticed the questioning looks being thrown her way by a tall half cast male in his late twenties to early thirties and a colourful blonde roughly the same age. Spencer squeezed her hand reassuringly using their connection to tell her that they were Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia.
The trio stopped in front of a tall dark haired man in a grey suit whose whole demeanor screamed law enforcement agent. "Agent Hotchner, a pleasure to meet you were it under better circumstances. Uncle Gid speaks incredibly fondly of you and your team. I'm Hermione Granger."
Despite Reid's usual desire for privacy, hearing his soul mate introduce herself without his last name on the end didn't sit right with him. "Hermione Granger-Reid, or it will be once we finish sorting the legal documentation." Hermione couldn't help the small sigh of pleasure at hearing him say it out loud and similarly failed to hide her slight smirk when she witnessed the gob smacked looks on the faces of her husband's co-workers.
"Should we go to the round table room and brief on the case then?" Gideon's question coming out more a request than the question it probably should have been. "Hermione needs to be with either myself or Spencer for the next week so she will be coming with us on this. She can be in on the briefing."
At that Gideon practically marched into the room followed swiftly by Hotch and the two geniuses. Morgan and Garcia weren't far behind and JJ was in the room waiting and ready.
"Two weeks ago, two NYPD officers responded to a domestic disturbance only to be killed on site; a gunshot wound each to the back of the head. Each had their badge next to them covered in feces which CSU identified as belonging to a dog. Four days later the same thing happened, but this one left a message." JJ zoomed in on an image to show a piece of parchment containing the phrase 'Toujours Purs' repeatedly.
Hermione struggled to fight an involuntary shudder at the phrase, her arm prickling; Spencer noticed her struggle and pulled her into his lap, ignoring the questioning glances from the rest of his team at his initiation of physical contact.
With a shaky voice Hermione began explaining what the phrase meant to the confused members of the team. "Toujours Purs is Latin and means forever pure. I have had some rather unpleasant experiences with a family who used that as their motto." Her right hand subconsciously covered her left arm and Spencer placed a soft kiss at her temple before pulling her even closer to him.
"Three days after that," JJ continued, "the UNSUB killed another two cops who were walking the streets outside the Congress hotel after losing sight of a robbery suspect. This time the message was carved into the cops arms. Nothing after that until yesterday when four cops were all shot execution style with the badges also covered in feces and the message carved into their arms again."
At this Hermione did react, violently throwing herself off of Spencer's lap to empty her stomach contents into the waste basket near the door. Spencer wasn't far behind her, stroking up and down her back reassuringly. When she had regained her equilibrium the soul bound geniuses retook their seats, Hermione once again on Spencer's lap. She didn't want to give voice to the cause of her violent reaction so merely lifted the sleeve of Spencer's purple shirt to show the team her own carved arm.
The effect was instantaneous; Gideon, Hotch and Morgan began cursing whereas Garcia began crying. JJ looked horrified but also like she had just solved a great mystery.
"Just shy of three weeks ago Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black was holding myself and two friends captive. She tried to get information out of me that I couldn't give her so she tortured me. When she erm, when she realized that I wouldn't give her the information even under torture she carved into my arm. 'Mudblood' is a derogatory term for people like myself who attended my private school by invite rather than by circumstance of birth, literally meaning dirty blood. Another friend dropped the chandelier on her which is how we managed to escape. The Black family is the family who uses the motto present in those scenes."
Hermione's tone was shaky and quiet, highlighting just how badly it had affected her. Most of the team just sat there in shock as Spencer gently began rocking his wife who had continued sobbing after retelling the story. Gideon was seething, trying to maintain composure externally while contemplating the many ways he wished he could punish those who had hurt his goddaughter.
"Erm, Hermione, my cousin and her friend came to visit today; but I think you may know them. Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom?" JJ spoke quietly not wanting to further distress the distraught witch.
As if called by the mention of their names; Luna and Neville appeared in the bullpen, visible through the window of the round table room.
Hermione used the connection with Spencer to let him know that she wanted to see them. "Jayje, that would be great. Mia is friends with them and right now I think they could help more than I could."
JJ nodded to Reid before hurrying out to fetch her cousin and her companion. The rest of the team were left feeling helpless and redundant but knew that they couldn't continue until the Hermione was calm again. It went without saying that she had already been adopted into the BAU family, so they wanted to make sure that she was okay. Hotch was about to offer to fetch some water for the crying girl when the blonde media liaison reentered the room followed by a thin, willowy teenage girl with long dirty blonde hair and the same piercing blue eyes, and a tall, dark haired boy whose posture suggested a new found ease in his own skin.
"Oh Mione!" the two teens sighed before rushing to envelope the crying witch in a hug, carefully ensuring to include her soul mate to avoid any displays of accidental magic as a result of the new bond.
"When we couldn't find you at home, we knew you'd come to be with your family." Neville addressed Hermione while Luna as was her wont, addressed Spencer.
"You must be Hermione's husband, my name is Luna and this is Neville. I'm really glad that you can fill the hole in Mione's soul, because unfortunately no one back home was able to do that." Despite the fact that the rest of the BAU team were practically being ignored, they had their own concerns that they felt could no longer wait to be voiced.
"Random question, but where did you get those?" Garcia gestured to Luna's radish earrings, deciding that she would prefer to comment on the interesting outfit than get too deep into the upsetting stuff that her colleagues were bound to focus on.
"What the hell, kind of private school doesn't kick out the students that are crazy enough to carve into someone?" This was asked by Morgan who felt that someone who upset someone that Reid clearly loved, had also managed to upset him.
"Gideon, will you help me talk to Strauss, I think we need all three of these helping on the case, so you and JJ will need to vouch for them. After that you can fill me in." Gideon merely nodded to Hotch before kissing his pseudo-niece on the forehead and following the other profiler and the media liaison out of the room.
Both Reids were left to wonder at how many more strange occurrences they would encounter before they could sign any papers to be recognized as man and wife in the muggle world.
Seriously hoping you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed planning it in my head. It was mostly written earlier this week but the final tweaks were done today.Comments help me know that the ideas come across correctly so at the risk of sounding desperate, please let me know what you think.