"What the hell?"
"We'll work it out when we're safe," Hermione stated quickly, "I don't want to get us all caught in here if we can help it."
The others just nodded before disillusioning themselves once more and making their way out of the ministry. It was surprisingly easy to get out of the department of mysteries, it was as they were leaving the elevator that issues arose.
"These are Weasley products", sneered a short, toad-like woman dressed head to toe in pink. Were they not disillusioned, a sickly green hue would have been seen on the British teens' faces. "I'd recognise them anywhere, they were using them to torment me in my old ministry which is why I had to transfer here" Umbridge finished in her sickly sweet tone.
Spencer could feel the anger and hatred rolling off of his soulmate, so squeezed her hand in an attempt to bring comfort. Hermione squeezed back slightly to show her appreciation before beginning to lead them all the rest of the way out. Aware of the clinging blackness from their entrance decoy, she wandlessly and wordlessly cast notice-me-not charms on all for of them for extra protection. She then silently and wandlessly sent a slicing hex to the toad's left-hand sleeve hoping that her suspicions were correct.
They must have been because the atrium was suddenly filled with shouts and stunners being sent towards Umbridge. She must have taken the dark mark as Hermione had deduced as it was the only thing that could have caused such a reaction. Deciding to add salt to Umbridge's already sizeable political wound, Hermione cast a delayed jinx that would cause the phrase 'pureblood bigot' to appear on her forehead as soon as she was read her rights.
The other three could tell that Hermione had far overstretched herself by the time they got back to the SUV. She was dragging her feet and her eyes were drooping slightly. Luna removed the charms her friend had placed on them before sending some of her magic towards Hermione, just enough to keep her awake long enough to manually grab a healing draught from her bag and take it.
"Spencer, you need to stay with Mione and hold her in this car, Nev and I will get in the other one with Agent Morgan but your soul bond will help her to heal quicker. She did a lot of powerful magic without her wand which is draining on a fully healthy magical core, let alone Mione's which wasn't quite fully replenished. She will probably only be out for half an hour if you have more skin on skin contact. Come on Nev!"
It became clear to Spencer that Luna clearly had some idea of what she was doing with her direct leadership in the absence of his wife's, so he merely nodded his head before getting in the back of Gideon's SUV next to Hermione. He took off both of their cardigans and rolled up their sleeves as he watched Luna and Neville get in Morgan's SUV from the rear-view mirror.
Gideon was watching the same, so saw when Morgan nodded to say they were ready to go.
"Did you get it?" Gideon asked quietly not wanting to wake his sleeping goddaughter after hearing what Luna had said.
"Yeah," Spencer whispered back, "and my family tree apparently with the way it rushed towards me. Bit of a shock but it can wait until after we have solved this case and Mia is fully healed before looking at it."
Gideon inclined his head in understanding before falling in to a thoughtful silence as he drove them to the station. After just over half an hour of driving Hermione began to stir, she cuddled herself further into her husband's arms as her eyes lazily drifted open.
"Hey Uncle Gid, we got it but you will need to come up with a reason for only me to touch it so that no one gets hurt. I have absolutely no idea what crazy ass curses the Black's put on their tapestries but I don't want any unsuspecting muggles to help us find out." Turning to face Spencer a bit the brunette witch snuggled deeper into her soulmate's side before opening her mouth again, "What did you do with your tapestry Spence?"
"Put it in my pocket, why?" he replied.
"Because I wanted to make sure you still had it. Are you going to look at it now or when we close this case?" Hermione was pretty certain that she knew the answer already so wasn't surprised by his reply of after.
"When we get to the station I'll find a quiet place to read the Black tapestry without raising suspicion it will be too big to open in here."
Both of the agents saw the logic in her decision so left it there. Not two minutes later they pulled up outside the station followed by Luna, Neville and Morgan. They all knew it wouldn't be long before the case was solved, but all hoped that they would be quick enough to stop any more murders.Please let me know what you think, I am not completely happy with it but I think it has more to do with being busy and not being able to post it as close to the previous post than anything else.I promise the next chapter will show what is going on back in Britain, I know that a lot of reviews have asked about it so I feel I need to reassure you that it is half written.