June 12th

Draco's head was pounding and his arm was burning but he knew he didn't have any other recourse than to push through it. His physical discomfort meant very little compared to the discomfort he felt with Scorpius missing. It had been four days since Astoria's scheduled time with Scorpius had been done and the tiny bit of hope he had that Astoria wouldn't stoop so low, was completely gone. There was nothing but silence, she hadn't contacted him at all. He had even wondered if it was a ransom situation but there was nothing there. She hadn't even attempted to contact him.

He had five different bounty hunters and investigators searching America for Scorpius and Astoria. They were tracking all over the place and what Draco knew now was that Scorpius had been layered with anti-tracking and location revealing spells, that they had been to a few different locations but the investigators had always arrived a day too late and Astoria and Scorpius were gone. He had also learned that Astoria had done something to make sure Sox wasn't able to get through, nor could patronuses, which had concerned Potter.

Hermione staying in England had helped him so much. He had wondered about that move quite often but she had told him that he would need someone in England to take care of the logistics there and he had to agree. She was the one who worked with his lawyers and Cara to file an injunction against Astoria with Judge Billintons, who had apparently been pissed that Astoria had kidnapped Scorpius. In the past four days he had issued two separate summons for her but she had apparently ignored every single one, which in turn pissed the judge off even more according to Hermione.

Then she had quietly cancelled their reservations for Scorpius's birthday when it became clear that they weren't going to be able to bring him back home before the tenth. Draco wasn't one for tears but when Hermione had quietly told him she had to do it and they weren't getting their deposit back, he had nearly broke down. Scorpius was his baby. It tore his heart in two to realize that the surprise that he had diligently worked out for his birthday had to be cancelled.

However Hermione had also gotten Harry onto the case and he had used the angle that Astoria using a potion on Narcissa for the purpose of kidnapping Scorpius was egregious and criminal to get the permits so he could get the MACUSA to help out with some of their resources to try and track Astoria down. Harry was also trying to get the appropriate documentation to have the Ministry Aurors to be able to come to America to help search. It was slow going and Harry told him to not hold his breath and to keep looking.

So Draco had. His private investigators had gone to Boston, to New York, to San Francisco, and many more in their search. They were all highly rated and Draco was impressed with their ability to work together, making Draco their home base for information and sharing resources and leads between each other when one was closer to a lead than the rest. It was just... it ha been less than a week but it felt like forever and the investigators had told him again and again that it would take time but they were making progress, no matter how small. They also said that with how high profile the case was, there wasn't much time before Astoria or her fiance, Mangus slipped up.

Out side of all of that, his mother was overly apologetic about the entire situation and getting drugged. She repeatedly apologized about trusting Astoria with having a drink and how she should have just gone back to the apartment and it took all Draco had to not snap at her for it. He knew it wasn't her fault. Astoria was at fault for it all and Draco knew he was partially at fault for letting Scorpius go at all. He had known the entire situation was off and yet he let Scorpius go into the situation anyway. He hated that but his mother's constant apologies about it were grating on him just as much. He didn't want her to constantly bring it up, he knew that she felt the need too, but he didn't want her to constantly remind him of what was essentially his own failing as a father.

"Are you going to call Hermione?" Narcissa called it out from the small kitchen in the apartment. They had decided to stay there as a home base as it had a floo access back to England. They did travel around when leads came up but they always came back to the apartment, it was just easier.

"Yes." It was difficult keeping contact with the large time difference but they had worked out a schedule to make it easier. It was roughly around the time he usually called her and honestly he needed to see her face and hear her voice. She always calmed him down and he needed that more than ever as he crouched in front of the fireplace.

"It's the twelfth today, you need to figure out what you are doing, Draco." Narcissa said it as she moved passed the door to the living room where Draco was in front of the fireplace, her look meaningful as she passed by.

Draco opened his mouth to respond, wanting to ask her why she was bringing it up when it slammed into him. Their marriage contract was done on the fifteenth, after that he was pretty sure it would simply disappear. But that didn't stop the fact that they were three days away from the time for their divorce. He bit off a nasty curse at it. That was all he needed to be thinking about at the moment. He hissed as he grabbed the dark mark as it ripple with fire on his arm, a fine punishment for the stress.

After a few moments of the tight pressure lessening the burning just a touch, Draco let out a heavy sigh, rubbing at his face. "Any owls?" He called it out as he grabbed some floo powder.

"Nothing, Draco. I'm sure we will hear something soon."

"Alright, mother." Draco tossed the floo powder in the fireplace, opening the floo to the manor. "Hermione?"

"Sorry, Master. Magi is gettins the Mistress." Dipsy said it as she wrung her tiny apron in her hands.

That was surprising, Hermione was rarely late for their calls. "What is she doing?" He was a little concerned about it, usually Hermione was right there when he called.

"She's researchings lots of things for the Master." Teeny called it out from somewhere else in the dining room and Dipsy nodded rapidly.

"Lots and lots. She's busy busy." Dipsy looked less stressed about it and Draco nodded.

"She sleeping?" After that first night, he had made a point to tell the elves to make sure Hermione was sleeping properly.

"Oh yes! We makes sure she goes to sleeps." Dipsy nodded rapidly, her ears flopping slightly.

That had Draco giing a slight sigh of relief. "Good. That's good."

"We also tries to track the young Master, we haven't been ables to gets to him but we try!" Dipsy wrung her apron again and Draco held up a hand, halting the anxious ramble.

"I appreciate it, Dipsy. Just keep trying." That was all they could do. Everyone was currently tossing magic towards Scorpius to see if it would get through, just in case there was a break in the spells or they came off for some reason. "What is she researching?"

"Lots of things. Magics, lots of magics. She pulled apart lots of shelves in the librarys, Master." Dipsy nodded quickly.

"That seems like my wife." He could imagine she was researching some sort of obscure laws that could help them leverage more support from the MACUSA. She had been doing a lot of it and he truly appreciated it. However all he wanted to do was have her there so he could hold her to his chest and just breathe her in. He needed the brief moment of peace that being around her gave him.

After a few more moments of silence, Hermione's face appeared. "Hello, Draco. Sorry about the wait." She sounded a bit absent minded and he gave her a rather affectionate smile.

"It's alright, darling." It was, he knew how she got. "There are rumors that they could be making their way to South America." There had been but there had been no definitive proof about it however several of the investigators and bounty hunters that had worked together had decided to have someone go down there just a preemptive.

"Harry mentioned that." She nodded before giving him a slight smile. "I was thinking about a way to figure it out."

"What's that, darling?" Draco was open to anything at the moment.

"You have to aim for the weakest link. Astoria's fiance is a professional Quidditch player, right?" At the question Draco nodded. "So aim for him. He would probably fold fast with being arrested for kidnapping and have it potentially ruin his up and coming career." That actually made a lot of sense and Draco gave another nod.

"Thanks, Hermione. I'll definitely look into that aspect of it." It made a lot more sense. He had been trying so hard on focusing on trying to find sightings of Astoria and Scorpius that he hadn't thought about aiming all his significant power at Astoria's fiance Mangus. Hermione was more than likely correct, he was the weakest link in the equation. "About the fifteenth." He swallowed hard before taking a deep breath. "Nothing is going to happen. We put the divorce or discussions about it on the back burner until Scorpius is home again." He didn't want to deal with any of that until Scorpius was back and they could actually sit down together and talk things through.

Hermione jolted slightly at that before smiling. "That's perfectly okay with me. Scorpius comes first and everything else can be put to the side. I agree there a hundred percent." She nodded firmly at that, looking almost pleased and that heartened Draco. He knew he was fairly sure she wanted to stay but that little pleased look all but confirmed it for him. "How's your arm?" She tilted her head as she looked at him and he grimaced slightly.

"Still burns." He appreciated the fact she always asked. She always asked and gave him little ideas to try. "I tried the baking powder and it took care of the itching but not the burning."

"How did the icing work?" She tilted her head the other way and Draco resisted the urge to tell her she looked adorable.

"Not well. Just makes it cold and burns it at the same time." It hadn't been pleasant and Draco had resorted to simply wrapping his arm up tightly, using the pressure to relieve some of the burning.

"I see, working on two different levels. Like eating spicy foods and mint, they don't cancel each other out, they overlap instead." She looked intrigued by that and blinked. "I still have a bit of research to do." She almost trailed off, glancing to the side and Draco cleared his throat quickly.

"Of course, you go ahead and continue your research. I'll look into getting Mangus to crack." He would and he would make sure the wizard cracked hard. "Take care of yourself, darling." He needed to ensure she was taking care of herself, he had even had the elves checking in on her for him because he needed her to stay healthy. He couldn't afford to be worried about her as well, he truly couldn't. Not now anyway.

She gave him another absentminded smile that made him ache to pull her close and kiss her. "You too. Bye, Draco." With that the flames dies down and Draco was left staring at the dull coals before he grabbed a handful of floo powder. He had some pressure to put on a Quidditch star.

"What's up, boss?" Franz's face popped up int eh fireplace and Draco gave him a tight smile.

"What are the odds of success if we put pressure on Magnus through the Quidditch associations?" He watched as Franz's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Well there's an idea and a half." The wizard looked impressed and Draco silently thanked Hermione for the genius lead. "Honestly, if Greengrass kept him appraised of it and you put the squeeze on him between his career and jail time, he might roll over on her. She doesn't seem like the lasting loyalty type."

The wording had Draco raising ad eyebrow. "What does that mean?" He honestly didn't really understand what Franz was saying about her.

"She's pretty and high maintenance, a status symbol. Based on our profile we've built of her, her relationships are mainly superficial and once that starts to get a bit tarnished, she drops them or they drop her. She's skin deep in forming emotional connections so if we put pressure on Mangus the Dingus, he would probably crack and drop her for his prior status." Franz nodded, looking thoughtful. "It's a good avenue. I'll run that by Kurnsy, Beck, and Jim. Jonah is off in South America at the moment following up with that lead so we will let him know but his participation isn't needed at the moment."

"Okay, good." Draco nodded and then pinched his lips together. "What else do you have in her profile? Would she hurt Scorpius?" He asked it almost hesitantly, he wondered if he wanted to know the answer at all but he had to ask.

Franz looked slightly indecisive and that made Draco's stomach roll, "Not actively hurt him, she's not the type to get her hands dirty. Emotional abuse is a high possibility and so is neglect but physical violence is not her style. From what we've seen, she's likely a classic narcissist, her image means everything to her. She would more than likely attempt to keep herself in higher standings to those around her by putting on the front of being a great mother so she wouldn't ruin that by actively hurting young Scorpius."

"But she could verbally hurt him?" That had Draco's heart twisted. He couldn't imagine Astoria doing that to Scorpius, verbally tearing him down like she had done to Draco for their marriage.

Franz made a slight face, "She did it to you, boss. The entire time you were married. She's more than capable of it."

"But he's her son!" It burst out from Draco, filled with pain. He couldn't imagine she would do that, that she could do that.

"Yes but narcissists don't value those connections like normal people do. You see your son as someone who needs to be protected and loved, she sees him as an extension of herself in the manner of an object she can control. As we said, her emotional connections are all skin deep. Blood doesn't change that." Franz shrugged and Draco had the sudden urge to shout at the wizard but he held back.

"How did you even find all that out?" He asked it slowly and from between gritted teeth.

"Because a good mother, a great mother, doesn't ignore their child for a year, then do an immediate one eighty, and then manipulate the good will of others to kidnap the child they previously ignored. She was an absent parent for most of young Scorpius' life, you said this. The entire reason your marriage broke down was because you, according to her, tarnished her reputation with the wizarding world." Franz gave a small gesture with his hand. "She meets all the hallmarks of it. This is what we do, boss. We make profiles and we use them to help find people. That's it. You can believe us if you want but it's how we work."

Draco scrubbed a this face with his hands. "It's fine. I'm just-" He cut himself off.

"I get it, boss. This is your kid. There's a lot of emotions in this situation but don't worry. We'll get him back. I'll get the others to discuss the idea of pushing against Magnus to get him to crack. It'll work out." Franz sounded sympathetic and Draco just nodded as he let his hands fall from his face.

"I hope we can get it started soon." Draco wanted it done and over with, he wanted Scorpius in his arms and he wanted him back in England.

"We will, boss. We will contact you with specifics after our meet up." With that Franz left and Draco fell backwards, sitting on the floor as he stared at his hands.

He never hated anyone more in his life than he currently hated Astoria. He never thought she would stoop so low and he had no clue how he would react if he got his hands on her now. She kidnapped their son.

There was no coming back from that.

Ever.