Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of its lovely characters.

-Interlude-

DUAL WITNESS TESTIMONY RECORD UNDER VERITASERUM

CASE: DIVORCE

SUBJECTS: DRACO and ASTORIA MALFOY

D. MALFOY: I filed for divorce because she asked me to.

A. MALFOY: I did not ask him to. I loved my husband. He's making up stories because he never listens to me.

D. MALFOY: She approached me two months ago telling me that she wanted a divorce because she had fallen in love with someone else. Why else would I file for divorce?

A. MALFOY: He filed because he never loved me in the first place. Our marriage was a sham of a pureblood arranged union.

D. MALFOY: Don't try to tell me I didn't love you. You're the one who carried on an affair for so long. I trusted and loved you enough to marry you, and you (expletive) another man while I'm away on business.

A. MALFOY: You were always away on business! You can't expect me to-

D. MALFOY: To wait around for me? Of course I thought I could expect you to wait around for me! You were my wife! And it's not like you were around any more than I was. You worked in the business world under Briggs.

A MALFOY: Well, clearly you don't think much of me, considering you're accusing me of having an affair!

D. MALFOY: You admitted you were having an affair. You told me you'd fallen for someone else. I found your notes that you wrote to him.

A. MALFOY: You're lying. Why are you lying about this?

D. MALFOY: I'm not lying. I can't be lying. We're under Veritaserum, for (expletive) sake!

I promised myself I would check to see how Alex was doing in the morning, but I simply didn't have time. Narcissa was having one of her episodes early in the morning-screaming, crying, and clawing at her own skin-and Draco had called me frantically, asking what to do. I ended up having to sedate her when she wouldn't let go of the knife she'd found in the kitchen; she insisted that Draco was Voldemort, and she wasn't giving up her family without a fight.

It saddened me that she couldn't recognize us anymore. I knew this day was going to come, but the time limit had caught me off guard. Really, we only had a week left to save her. And the clock was ticking away.

Draco, who'd gotten no sleep, insisted we keep working. We had our suspects laid out on the table in front of us, their faces turning to the side, smiling, and then dropping the grin rapidly as if it was an effort to seem happy.

We began with Beatrix Crim. We had enlisted Harry's help in order to question them; having an auror's badge made it much easier to force people to answer your questions. We showed up to Briggs and Associates first with Harry in tow, who offered to just leave and let us question the people who were on our suspect list, but I insisted he stay. It seemed wrong that we should get to question whoever we wanted because we were friends with an auror; however, it was a bureaucracy, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.

Beatrix and Lucius had been business partners ten years ago. Lucius had decided that he wanted to quit and go to Hanover. He had promised Beatrix that he would get her a position as well, but it hadn't worked out.

Luckily, she consented to taking Veritaserum after Harry calmly told her that she was going to be taken into custody if she didn't cooperate. We only had to ask her a few questions before it was clear that she hadn't thought of Lucius in years.

By the time we were nearing the end of our list of suspects, we were sick to death of questioning people. Harry looked just as exhausted, his eyes falling shut as if it was an effort to stay awake. I couldn't entirely blame him, though; he had gone through a twenty-hour straight case at the Ministry before coming here.

We called in our last suspect at Briggs and Associates: a woman named Paige Vallis, who immediately said "I already know you're going to threaten me into taking Veritaserum, so you might as well give it to me now."

We did, and we began with simply asking her why she hated Lucius so much.

Paige raised her eyebrows. "The man was a selfish, slimy prat."

The response stooped me for a moment; this was the first person that hadn't pretended to praise the ground Lucius had walked on in order to avoid suspicion. "In what way?"

"He tried to get my co-worker, Pansy, and I fired when we refused to come and work at his investment firm. And he was almost successful." Paige brushed her long blonde hair out of her face, rolling her eyes as if she found this whole process tedious.

"You knew Pansy?" Draco asked.

"Of course I knew Pansy. Her office was right next to mine. We went out for coffee all the time." She shrugged. "Ever since she left for your firm, we haven't spoken much."

"Do you know why she left?" he questioned curiously, leaning forward. I wondered why he didn't know the answer himself; after all, Pansy was supposed to be his best friend.

She shook her head. "I don't have to answer that."

"I don't think…" he started, but I put my hand on his arm. Paige was right; she was under no obligation to answer those questions.

"Thank you, Miss Vallis," I said, pulling Draco with me. "Sorry for using your time."

When we got back to the manor, I had crossed off all of the suspects, including Paige Vallis. When I looked at the remaining suspects, I couldn't help but ask, "Why did you ask her why Pansy left Briggs?"

"She never told me," he said, frowning. "She appeared in my office one day, asking for a job. I was only too happy to give it to her."

"Did you offer her a relatively high position?"

"No, I couldn't. There were no openings. She had to work her way up from an entry-level job."

I couldn't help but wonder why Pansy would leave her position as a director of commerce at Briggs to work an entry-level position at Draco's company. But it was simply none of my concern; finding Lucius's murderer was.

When I got home, I was surprised to find three people lounging on my couch. Alex, Ginny, and Pansy were all dressed casually, holding glasses of wine and laughing leisurely.

"You know," I told them, dropping my bag on the coffee table, "it's customary to invite the host to a party."

Ginny waved her hand. "We knew you were coming back to your flat soon, anyway."

"I have a suggestion," Pansy said, smiling wryly. "Let's get knackered on firewhiskey."

"Pansy!" Ginny scolded her, trying and failing to keep a straight face. "That is not a very ladylike thing to do."

"Just because you insist on acting like a pureblood doesn't mean I have to."

After a few minutes, I decided to give into peer pressure and pour myself a glass of wine.

Once we were all sufficiently knackered, we started gossiping like we were in school again, finding any and all reason to laugh.

"I remember my days with Draco," Pansy eventually sighed. "We were each other's first kisses, you know."

"So you did date Draco!" Ginny exclaimed. "I thought you always knew you were gay."

Pansy shook her head, a drop of wine sloshing out of the glass. "I figured that if I couldn't fall for Draco-the most handsome boy in school-then I couldn't fall for any boy."

"I disagree," Ginny insisted. "I believe Blaise always gave Draco a run for his money."

"Oh, Blaise would have been my second choice." She sighed dreamily. "But Draco and I were such good friends, and he was the only person I knew who I could be willing to tell my secret."

"That's so sweet," Ginny said. "I always wanted a gay best friend."

She snickered. "Oh, Draco is far from being gay. Isn't that right, Hermione?"

I blushed furiously, hiding behind my wine glass. It wasn't as if she was suggesting that I would know, right?

"Anyway," she said, waving her hand, "I broke up with him once I got my first girlfriend."

"Really?" Ginny asked. "In Hogwarts, you mean?"

"The lovely Astoria Greengrass," Pansy sighed. "I had no idea she was interested in me until she pulled me into a broom closet before Charms."

"A quick fling?" I asked.

"No." Her face suddenly darkened. "We broke it off years later, when she informed me that she was marrying Draco Malfoy."

"Oh, dear," Ginny whispered, and reached out to grasp Pansy's hand gently. "I'm so sorry, love."

She shrugged. "It's over between us, anyway."

"Did he know?" I asked her, noticing my words were starting to slur together the tiniest bit. Wine was just as effective in getting people drunk as firewhiskey, it seemed, because everything seemed a little hazy. Alex was only watching silently. I couldn't help but notice her hands shaking slightly as she held her glass.

"Of course he didn't know. He wouldn't have married her if he had known. But I couldn't help but hate him all the same." All the humor had been lost from her face, and she suddenly downed the rest of the wine in her glass in one gulp.

"Hate him?" Ginny prodded. "It wasn't as if it was his fault."

"No," she agreed. "But there was never a time in my entire life where I wanted someone to suffer more than that moment."

I cringed. I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to seriously hurt Draco. He was obnoxious at times, but how could anyone wish him harm?

"Excuse me," Alex whispered. I watched her stand up and then stumble and fall to the ground.

"Alex, are you okay?" I asked, going to see if it was something serious or if she was just incredibly drunk. She lifted her head and opened her mouth to speak, but she was interrupted by a violent cough.

"Alex…" I said, grabbing her hand. The blood dripped off her palm onto my carpet as her eyes slid shut. "Alex, wake up." I grabbed under her arms, pulling her up and grabbing my wand. It was an enormously bad idea to apparate drunk, but I was sure that Alex's health was too precarious for me to worry about it.

Arriving at the hospital, I caught up with another Healer and informed her that she had been coughing up blood and fainted in my apartment. Watching my friend on a hospital bed had been incredibly sobering; I didn't feel an ounce of the alcohol I had consumed.

I waited in the hospital waiting room for two hours with only my thoughts to keep me company. Harry had arrived a few minutes after the hospital called, and he quickly begged me to stop pacing.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," I whispered after a long period of oppressive silence. "I thought… I thought she was fine. She told me she was fine."

He didn't answer; he only moved his hands to rub his temples. We were the only two left in the waiting room when my colleague, February Boeuf, came to tell us what was going on.

"She has internal bleeding," she said, and I bit my tongue to keep from snidely replying how incredibly obvious that was due to the coughing up blood. "But other than that, we have no idea what is wrong with her."

"You're joking," I said incredulously. "Are you incompetent?"

"Hermione," Harry told me sharply. "Don't insult the Healers."

I was struck by the irony of the situation briefly before February continued. "Something is very wrong with her, and we believe it is a muggle affliction. We have absolutely no way to counteract it. Until we figure out exactly what is happening to her that makes it impossible to use the standard Healing spells, we can't do anything for her."

"So," Harry said flatly, "what, exactly, are you going to do to make her better?"

"We can't do anything," she repeated. "We can keep her in the hospital and try harder to figure out what's happening to her body, but frankly, that's all."

"That's all?" he repeated, quiet, cold fury plain in his voice. "That's all? She's my fiancée and you can't even tell me what's wrong with her?"

February only looked down at her chart to avoid his eyes.

"You know what?" he said after a beat of silence. "Fuck this. I'm going to find someone who can do something." And then he disapparated in the middle of the hospital.

I followed his lead and went back to my flat. I figured that sleeping at St. Mungo's would do neither she nor me any good.

Clearly none of those Healers were going to be any help. Which meant I would have to figure out how to save her and Narcissa.

And I had a feeling that, along with Narcissa's, Alex's life had a time limit.