Chapter 29

Hermione stared at the paper in front of her. She knew it was coming; she had given the interview herself. After dinner with Molly and Arthur, she had told the rest of her friends that she adopted Jamie. And when so many people knew something about her, it was only a matter of time before the press found out as well. So she had decided to beat them to the punch line and give them an interview. If there was one thing she had learned about dealing with journalists, it was that if she wanted an accurate story out, and not speculation pieces, it was easier to give them an interview. Of course she wouldn't go to journalists like Rita Skeeter, but she opted for those who actually wrote factual stories.

Golden Girl Adopts War Orphan

By Jane Martello

War Heroine Hermione Granger can do no wrong. Previously linked to Ron Weasley, Keeper of the Chudley Cannons, in recent months, she's begun a new romance with the specialized Healer, Draco Malfoy. From all the articles out about their hot relationship, I'm sure you've heard plenty about them. When asking Miss Granger about their romance, she replied that the two of them were very happy together, despite the rumours circulating that the two were taking a break.

When asking her about any new things in her life, Granger responded with something shocking; that she adopted a five year old, Jamie, who is an orphan of war. Since the devastating war came to an end, the amount of children left without parents has been at an all-time high in the wizarding world, and young Jamie is no exception. While no one knows just what happened to his parents, Hermione Granger told me that she is going to look into it, in case Jamie wishes to one day know about his parents.

When asking her what prompted her to make such a decision, she responded by saying, "When I first met Jamie, I was absolutely blown away by what an amazing child he was. I got to know him quite well before making any decisions, and it was not something done lightly. I put a great deal of thought behind adopting Jamie, and I knew it was something I wanted to do." When asking her what her boyfriend thought of the newest addition to her family, she stated that, "Draco has been extremely supportive of my decision. As a single father himself, he understands that children mean everything. It hasn't changed how we felt about each other, and if anything, it makes us stronger."

The Golden Girl definitely seems to have it all lately, and I know that quite a few witches are jealous of her success. When telling her this, Hermione simply shrugged and said that she didn't expect good things to happen to her. Hard work got her the career of her dreams, and that she felt so lucky to have a strong loving family and boyfriend.

Hermione Granger continues to be one of my favourite people due to how down to earth she is. It is so rare to see someone in the limelight be as genuine as she has been, unlike others we all know all too well. So love her or hate her, but I can't wait to see what's next for this extraordinary witch.

She smiled as she stood up to go to work. There had been no mentions of Jamie's illness, and news of that had been the last thing she wanted out. Jamie deserved his privacy as well, and the article would be enough to inform others, yet not have to invite them right into her life.

Hermione sat with her team at in their lab. Ever since the break in, they had increased security so that only certain people would be able to get into the room, including everyone in their team and Harry. They had decided that it was for the best if no one else had access. If the murder had gotten in once, then they would be able to get in again. They had also added an anti-imperius charm, so that if they tried to imperius anyone on the team to get in, the spell would be broken the moment they entered the room. Harry and Hermione had used nearly every single protection spell they could think of to protect the room, but they both knew that it might not be enough. The killer was able to break through protection charms that sheltered ancient homes for hundreds of years, so there was a large chance that they would be able to get in here as well. But at least they were far better protected now; and Hermione had an alert over the place so that if anyone else tried to get in, she would immediately be notified.

They were sitting at the meeting table, pouring over the murders as well as the break ins. At the moment the only overlap they had was that fibre. However they hadn't been looking for similarities before, and now that they were, it was only a matter of time before they found something else that tied the two together. If they were extremely lucky, they might even be able to find out how to ID the perpetrator of the crimes. But that was slightly pushing it.

Hermione was currently going over the large list of items stolen from the potions store. If she were able to find out what potions the murderer was attempting to make, then they might be able to find out why they wanted it. Whoever was stealing the items was risking a lot just to get them. It wouldn't be for something simple as needing it for daily use, or because they just felt like it. No, there was a reason that they were going through all the trouble of breaking into stores, especially since some of them were higher end and known to have increased security. However she knew it wouldn't be that easy of course. Even with a list of ingredients, there were so many different potions that the killer could make, ranging from a simple Pepperup Potion, to Draught of the Living Death. Or they could even be making a potion of their own creation. So in reality, it was a long shot to hope they could find out what the killer wanted with the potion or the ingredients.

"There's nothing here!" Zacharias said in frustration. "I don't get how this criminal could be so perfect! Seriously, in the months we've been on this case, we've only found one piece of evidence against whoever it is, and that was by pure chance! I swear we're never going to find them. Hermione, I know how much you say that there is no such thing as the perfect crime, and that the answers always lie in the details, but I think this entire case is the exception to that."

Hermione looked up from the papers she had been studying, "I know it feels like that," she said soothingly. "But we will find them. We won't let them get away."

Zacharias didn't look convinced, and she didn't blame him. She found it hard to believe what she was saying as well. But it wasn't as if she could just give up on the case and let it go cold. There was a murderer out there, and who knew who else they would be trying to kill? They would just have to keep going at it until they had a break through.

Dean looked exhausted and Patrick looked like he was about to fall asleep, so Hermione stood up and began to brew a pot of coffee. They all needed the caffeine, especially at the rate that the case was going.

After handing everyone a mug she sat back down and began to go over the ingredients again. She had a large book of potions beside her, and she had made her way through half of the four thousand paged book. She was attempting to cross list the ingredients through the volume after giving up on trying to see which ones worked well together as to make some potion.

"I don't get it!" Hermione exclaimed, earning her a worried look from her co-workers.

"What?" Dean asked cautiously. She could tell they were all concerned by her outburst, seeing how in the several years she's worked there she had never made that statement.

"These ingredients," Hermione said, gesturing with her hand at the list of stolen items. "I've gone through so many different potions trying to find out what it could be, but there is nothing. And not only that, I've tried to analyse them individually to see what would happen if someone were to create a potion with just these items. But the result wouldn't even give you a potion. All of these items are pretty volatile on their own. Individually you would get a mini explosion. But if you combine them all together-"

Her eyes widened in shock. She looked over at Dean who appeared to have reached the exact same conclusion she had.

"Together?" Patrick prompted them, demanding an answer.

"In the muggle world, there's this item of war which is extremely catastrophic. It seems as if some witch or wizard has managed to make the magical equivalent, something which would create an explosion of devastating consequences. They're making a bomb."

Hermione walked down the streets of Diagon Alley. She had already told Harry about the bomb, and he had been furious. They had immediately begun to write down possible targets. After a long morning, she had decided to run an errand at lunch.

Hermione had already been stopped several times in relationship to the article in the paper that morning. Most of the people had told her that she was beyond kind for adopting the poor boy, and that they wished for her to have the best of luck. She had smiled meekly at them, not wanting to let on her worry based on his illness. But she didn't let it show.

There was the occasional person who stopped her to let her know that it wasn't decent for an unmarried woman to have a child of her own, but she shrugged those people off politely. There would always be someone who didn't approve of her choices, but everyone who knew her agreed that she was doing the right thing; furthermore, she knew she was doing what she wanted and that was all that actually mattered.

She walked into a potions store, one that hadn't been hit yet. It was known to have several rare items, ones that were highly explosive, and if the killer combined and added them to the potion, the results would be even more disastrous. She needed to see what the security of the store was like, and even more, what the security of those ingredients were.

There weren't a lot of people in the store at the moment; there was a pregnant lady, buying a potion meant to help her with her symptoms, a man in a cloak who seemed to be giving Hermione a few extra glances when he thought she wasn't watching, an older man buying some Pepperup Potion, as well as a few interns buying ingredients, which she could tell from their name tags.

Hermione surveyed the store and from the spells preformed, she found out that there was the standard set of spells guarding it. The same spells had already been broken in other stores that the murderer had hit up. She made a mental note to tell Harry to speak to all potions stores, especially those carrying other rare items about increasing security. There were a few extra spells added to the rare items in the store, but still it was nothing that they would have difficulties breaking. She sighed and walked out of the store.

Hermione began to walk towards the Ministry to return back to work. After passing a few more stores, and talking to a few other people, she began to feel as if someone was watching her. She shrugged it off at first; people generally tended to stare when she was in public, much to her dismay.

She turned around a bit and waved to a few people, and when she did, she saw him; the man with the cloak from the potions store. The rational part of her said it was a mere coincidence. After the war she had been extremely jumpy; always expecting a Death Eater to jump out of the shadows and attack her. It had taken her months to get over it, but every now and then she felt it return. So she turned and kept walking. But no matter how fast she tried, she felt like he was following her. With everything happening in her case, she figured it was best not to take the risk; so she ducked behind a store.

When the man with cloak stopped to try and find her, she pulled him into the alleyway and held her wand up against his throat.

"Why are you following me?" she asked. "What do you want?"

The man in the cloak raised his arms in defense. He threw down his hood, and Hermione immediately recognized him as an Auror from Harry's defense team.

"Frank?" she asked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Harry asked me to follow you," Frank said. "He was worried something would happen to you and he wanted me to make sure you were safe."

Hermione nodded at him as she apparated to the area by Harry's office. She knew Frank was still following her, but she didn't stop him. Instead, she marched straight to her friend.

"Harry, why were you having me followed?" she asked as he looked up in surprise to see her. He stood and closed his door, while the Frank waited outside. "You know I can take care of myself."

"I know," Harry said, rubbing his temples. "Hermione it wasn't because I don't think you can take care of yourself. There's something I haven't told you, which I probably should have. A little while back, I got an urgent letter from Azkaban. Normally, I would have ignored it, seeing how it wasn't rare. But it was from Lucius Malfoy."

"What did he want with you?" Hermione asked in confusion as she sat down across from him.

"It turns out someone has been sending him threats; against Draco. The person wanted to make sure you and Draco were apart, and was hoping Lucius would do something to you, because otherwise his own son would be targeted. But Lucius is nearly done his sentence, and he assured me that he didn't want anything to happen to his son, yet he didn't want you hurt. So he asked me to make sure you would both be safe. I had Aurors following you and Draco in case the writer made good on their threats and came after you."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hermione asked, slumping in her chair.

"Because you had so much on your plate already. The last thing you need is this," Harry said softly. He held her hand over the table. "Hermione, you're my sister, and I will do anything I can to try and keep you safe. There's no way I'm going to let some crazy person come after you. Besides, what if it the same person attacking all the Death Eaters? We know what they are capable of; I don't want you or Draco to end up in the state that some of those bodies have been found. I would be completely devastated if I found you like that."

She got up and pulled her friend into a tight hug, "I love you, Harry," Hermione said with a smile. "But you have to promise to keep me in the loop. You know how much I appreciate you doing things to keep me safe, but I also like knowing what's happening. Now, how about you give me those letters and I'll get my team to analyze them to see if I can find anything. Who knows, maybe they left something behind on them which can lead us right to them."

Harry reached into his desk and got out a pile of letters and gave them to her. "I hope you have luck with them," Harry said. "I tried to get a few Aurors to look at them, but they are nowhere near as specialised as your team is."

She pressed a kiss to her friend's cheek, "I'll get this to them. Are we still on for dinner tonight? I haven't talked to Ginny in so long, and I want to see James so badly! Before I know it, my godson will be all grown up."

Harry laughed, "Of course; see you then."

Draco apparated to Blaise's home. Hermione was spending the night with Harry and Ginny, and Scorpius was bonding with his grandmother. Pansy and Theo were off on a date, which left the two of them all alone. He didn't quite mind it, and he had owled his friend a few hours back asking if he could come by and the two of them would go to dinner. It had been slightly last minute but Blaise gladly agreed. He looked around and saw that his friend was nowhere to be seen; not completely rare, seeing how Blaise often took a while to get ready.

He began to walk towards his friend's bedroom and was about to shout out for Blaise to hurry up when he heard the cry. He stopped cold in his tracks as he heard Blaise's agonizing yells echo throughout the hall. Draco began to run towards Blaise's room and as he got there, he pushed open the door.

Draco saw Blaise lying on the ground, several deep cuts over his body. Blaise's breathing had become faint, and Draco knew right away that the same person attacking the Death Eaters had come after his friend. He looked around and saw that the murderer was gone; probably fleeing the moment they heard the floo activate.

"Hold on, Blaise," Draco said desperately. "You're going to be okay."

He got on the ground and held on tightly to his friend as he apparated him to the hospital. Blaise was stilling and Draco knew that if he didn't heal his friend soon, then he could die.

A/N: Thank you all so much for all the reviews, favourites, and follows! I love all the feedback I'm getting from you. See you all next time.