{ Chapter 4 }

One year later

Draco was home, sitting at his desk in his study. In front of him were two stacks of parchment. The first stack was the copy of Hermione's journal. The papers were worn from the countless days and hours he had spent studying them. The second stack was the translations that he had spent every spare minute of the last year working on.

Finally the translations were complete.

It had been a long and tedious process. He wasn't fluent in runes the way Hermione was. He had to look up each symbol, most of which had more than one meaning, then try to piece together which meaning was needed. Finally, though, it was finished.

True to her word, the translation contained directions. More specifically, book titles, chapters, subsections, right down to paragraph numbers. The next step was to follow the directions, find the books she referred to, and figure out what it all meant.

She had been missing for well over a year. The flowers that she sent to Weasley on their third anniversary had been the only communication from her since her disappearance. They had looked for her everywhere with no luck. Her picture still hung in many wizarding communities, and even some of the larger muggle cities. Not one sighting had been reported.

Tensions throughout the MLE were high whenever the subject of Hermione Weasley was brought up. Ron had not given up hope of finding her. The rest of the squad was less sure. Half of the team thought she was in hiding for some reason and simply did not want to be found. The other half thought she was being held captive by whomever attacked her three months prior to her disappearance.

Draco and Harry had both been leaning towards the theory that she was in hiding, but as the days, weeks, and months wore on with no further communication from her, they weren't so sure. A sign from her would have been nice. Any sign that she was still alive, that she was okay.

Today had been their fourth anniversary. Harry and Draco had both waited impatiently at the office long after working hours, hoping for another delivery. Another message. Another sign.

There was nothing.

"Where the hell are you, Granger?" Draco mumbled to himself as he stared at the translated papers in front of him. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, wondering, not for the first time, if he should have asked Potter for help. With two of them working on it, they would certainly figure it out faster.

Two things were stopping him. First, he wasn't sure he could trust Potter not to say anything to Weasley. One thing he knew without a doubt was that Granger did not want Weasley to know the contents of her journal, so he couldn't take the risk of handing it over via the Boy Wonder.

The other reason was, well, call it pride. Hermione was challenging him. She had challenged him since they were eleven years old, always pushing him to be better, to go further, to push harder. She was counting on him to figure it out, and he wasn't going to let her down. He owed it to her.

The next day Draco went to the Wizarding Library of London to find the first entry on the list. Ancient and Obscure Marriage Rites, Fifth Edition, Volume three, Chapter seven, Subsection two.

It took him most of the morning, but he finally located it in a section on the third floor deep into the stacks. He pulled the heavy book off the shelf and made his way to a table in the corner. Flipping to the section she had indicated, he took a deep breath and started reading.

The Perfect Wife

The perfect wife must follow the following guidelines:

She keeps a clean house.

She maintains her figure.

She is always faithful.

She does not speak ill of her husband.

She does not speak back to her husband.

She does not speak to others of her marriage.

She does not intentionally harm herself.

She does not harm her husband.

She respects her husband's wishes.

She follows her husband into death.

This rite is often referred to as a curse, as it basically removes all of the wife's free will in the marriage. The rite must be performed during the consummation of the wedding vows, on the day of the wedding, under a full moon. The wife must be a virgin at the time of the consummation.

This rite was employed often among arranged pure-blood marriages in the eighteenth century, but is unheard of today.

It went on to describe how the rite was performed, but Draco had read enough. He felt sick to his stomach.

Why would this be the first passage that she had sent him to? He checked the book again, making sure it was the same as her list. He double checked the section, the subsection, all of it, hoping he had mistakenly read the wrong passage.

Surely the Weasel hadn't...

He couldn't have.

It wasn't possible.

Why else would Hermione have sent him to this passage, though?

He thought back to his interactions with her, limited as they were. At the ball that night, she had had a dull, lifeless look in her eyes. Harry had stated that Ron was yelling at her during the ball, but she wasn't yelling at him or defending herself. In the hospital room several days later she had told him that she couldn't say who had attacked her. She couldn't say. Not because she didn't know, but because she had been cursed not to.

Four years.

Draco closed his eyes as his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides.

She had been married to this man for four years.

On the night of their wedding, probably the happiest day of her life, he had not only taken away her innocence, he had also taken away her free will.

He just couldn't wrap his mind around it.

Hermione was the strongest, bravest, smartest witch that he knew. She was passionate and outspoken. She was strong-willed and driven. Taking away her free will would break her.

Why would anyone want to do that?

Especially when that person had been her best friend for years and was supposedly in love with her?

His mind reeled as it processed the information and all of the implications. He truly did feel like he might be sick. Taking in a few deep breaths, he copied the passage from the book and disapperated from the library. He went home, dropping all of his papers on his desk before going straight to the gym. He really felt the need to beat the shit out of something.

For the next two hours he punched, he kicked and he ran out his frustrations. By the time he stopped, his lean body was covered in sweat, his blonde hair dripping with moisture. It still didn't seem like enough, though.

No, something told him that until he had Ron Weasley's scrawny neck crushed between his bare hands, it would never be enough to quell the rage that was burning throughout his body.

After a long, hot shower he dressed in blue jeans and a green Slytherin t-shirt and made his way back to his study. As he opened the door, though, he was surprised to find someone else already there, sitting at his desk, looking through his notes.

"Zabini. Find anything interesting over there?" His voice was cold as ice, clearly impressing his displeasure at finding the dark-skinned wizard snooping through his notes.

Blaise seemed to be completely disinterested in him, his eyes still scanning the parchment in his hand. Several seconds later, he dropped the parchment on the desk and met Draco's eyes. A smile formed across his face and he leaned back in the chair, lifting his feet to rest on top of the desk.

"Well, well, well. You are still alive. We've all been wondering."

"Of course I'm still alive. If I were dead, you all would have been partying in my honor by now." He poured himself a glass of firewhiskey.

"Come on, Draco. We haven't seen you in months. You've cancelled on Daphne like five times now, you've stood her up at least twice. I don't know why she's still bothering to hope that you two will ever be together. What the hell are you working on that has you ignoring all of your friends?"

Draco ran his hands through his hair. With the exception of Harry knowing that he was translating the journal, no one else had any idea what he was working on. He thought it better that way, safer for Hermione. He was starting to think that he was going to need to bring someone else in on it. There was a sense of urgency in his heart that wasn't there the day before.

Blaise was not a member of the MLE. Instead, he owned and operated a small bar and tavern on the outskirts of Diagon Alley.

"Alright. I'll tell you, but only under an oath. You cannot speak to anyone else about this. Lives could be in danger."

Blaise held his eyes for a long moment, contemplating his options. Find out what is going on with his friend, but be sworn to secrecy, or walk away without knowing any more than he did now. Honestly, his friend's behavior intrigued him. He had never seen Draco so dedicated to a project before, and he itched to know why.

"Not a word, Draco." They pulled their wands and muttered the incantation that would make their conversation confidential.

"Alright, lay it on me."

Draco considered him for a moment, trying to think how best to describe the events of the last year and a half. Finally he inhaled deeply and blew it out slowly.

"You read the passage about 'The Perfect Wife', right?" He spit out the title of the marriage rite as though it were poison on his tongue.

"Yeah. I was reading it when you came in. Don't tell me, you're planning on seducing some poor, sweet virgin into a lifetime of slavery?" The bitterness in his tone told Draco that he was being sarcastic, and in reality Blaise was as repulsed by this curse as Draco was.

"No. Not me." He drained his glass of firewhiskey and poured another. He swirled the amber liquid around the bottom of the glass and cleared his throat. "When Granger disappeared, she left a journal behind. It was written in ancient runes, in a type of secret code."

He crossed the room to stand behind his desk, shoving Blaise out of his way. With a wave of his wand, his desk drawer unlocked and opened. He retrieved the original journal from inside and handed it to Blaise.

"So you've spent the last year decoding her journal?" Blaise flipped through the pages of the journal, then looked at him like he was crazy.

Hell, maybe he was crazy after all.

"She was attacked at the ball about three months before she disappeared. Do you remember that?" He didn't even wait for a response before he continued. "A few nights later I was on guard duty and she woke up. She told me she couldn't help identify her attacker. Right? Okay, so I just let it drop. After a little while she starts telling me about her work, decoding ancient runes at the library. I went back and reviewed the memory after I had her journal. She was giving me instructions, Blaise. She was telling me how to decode that book."

Blaise had always been better at ancient runes than Draco was, but as he flipped through the book in his hands, there were very few symbols that he actually recognized. He could only imagine how long it had taken to decode.

"So what does it say?"

Draco took the book from him, putting it back in his desk drawer immediately, then handed him his stack of translations. He read through the list in front of him, his brows furrowing deeper with every line.

"This isn't a journal, Draco. It's a bibliography. Some kind of research she was working on, maybe?"

"The first entry on the list took me right to this page." He handed the copy of The Perfect Wife to Blaise, and waited.

"Why would she be researching something as vile as this?"

He raised an eyebrow at his friend. Leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, he drawled. "Yes. Why indeed. And more to the point, why did she want me, specifically, to know what she was researching?"

"And where the hell has she been for the last year and half? Doing more research?"

"I seriously doubt that." He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath before voicing his suspicion for the first time. "He put her under that curse, Blaise. There's no doubt in my mind."

Both men sat on the couch, staring at the flickering flames dance around the hearth. Draco put his head in his hands and heaved a deep sigh. Blaise watched his friend curiously. He had never seen Draco so affected by a case before. He could tell that it was more than a case, more than a missing witch. It was this particular witch. Hermione Granger had a habit of capturing Draco's attention. She always had, and Blaise suspected that she always would.

If Draco was right, if the Weasel had cursed her in such a heinous manner, then he had the feeling that once this came to light there would be a long line of people waiting to rip the redhead to shreds.

"If that's true, then the Weasel fucked with the wrong witch. If anyone could figure it out, it's her, right?" He grabbed the translated list off the desk where Draco had discarded it. He gave a resigned sigh, well aware that whether he liked it or not, he had just become Draco's research assistant and confidant on the case of one missing Hermione Weasley. That's what he gets for seeking out his friend, he supposed. His goal had been to get Draco out of the house and away from work for awhile. Instead, he had allowed himself to get sucked in right next to him.

"So what's the second book on the list?"